New author, David Bridger’s debut novel, Beauty and the Bastard ~Available Now
Blurb:
Saul the Bastard is a fallen angel who works as a bounty hunter for powerful urban demon families. Rebecca Drake, a modern day demon princess, is being hunted by dangerous desert demons.
When Rebecca’s family hires Saul to protect her, they are both unhappy with the arrangement, but before long sparks fly as they try to resist their strong mutual attraction.
For the first time in living memory, Saul has someone to love; someone he is scared of losing; someone the desert demons have marked to be their next sacrifice.
Excerpt:
Fenner whined for mercy as he dug his own grave.
Saul’s heart remained hard. “Shut up. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“You don’t have to do this.” Tears sizzled on Fenner’s cheeks.
Temperature flaring was the first sign of genuine distress Saul had seen in the demon, after hours of tricks and feints on the way here. Doesn’t matter how long a body spends on this earth, he reflected once again. When it comes to the crunch, everyone wants longer.
“No one even knows you have me. I’ll triple your fee. Quadruple. I’ll pay whatever you want.”
Saul cocked his pistol. “Throw the spade out that side and climb out this side.”
Fenner tried to hold him in a steady gaze as he scrambled out of the hole, but Saul avoided the hypnotic stare.
“Kneel on the edge.”
“Please!” The demon’s skin glowed fiercely. Evaporating tears and snot formed a small cloud of steam on his face. “We can both walk away. I’ll disappear. I’ll never tell anyone. I don’t even know who you are. And there are no witnesses.”
“There is a witness.”
The demon glanced wildly around the dark clearing, eyes glowing like lava as he searched for someone lurking in the trees. He frowned, and peered into Saul’s face. “You don’t mean God?”
Saul said nothing.
“God is your witness?”
Saul said nothing.
“You’re an angel? A fucking angel?”
Saul motioned with the gun barrel to indicate where he should kneel.
“Bastard.”
Fenner’s voice was flat now, and Saul envisioned truth drowning his final flame of hope.
“You’re Saul the Bastard.” He turned away and sank to his knees.
Saul took a silent half-step to his right and aimed the gun. When the demon spun around and sprang snarling into the empty space he had occupied a moment earlier, Saul blew a hole in his head.
****“How was your journey?”
“Fine, thanks.” Rebecca wished Shirley would just stop the small talk and let her eavesdrop on her uncle’s conversation with the tall stranger.
“Did Carl meet your plane okay? He didn’t keep you waiting, did he?”
“He was there when I landed. No problem.”
“Those drivers get way above themselves sometimes.”
Rebecca tuned out her uncle’s personal assistant and watched the stranger through the partly open office door. He stood with his back to her, silhouetted against the rain-spattered window and glittering Manhattan nightscape that stretched into the distance.
Immobile as a statue, except for small movements of his head as he followed her uncle’s slow pacing, he dripped a circle of rainwater from the hem of his duster coat onto the crimson carpet. The only physical details Rebecca could make out were his height, with its suggestion of a lean build, and a wet mop of dark blond hair plastered to his head.
He seemed a man of few quiet words, similar to her uncle in this respect, and when he spoke his voice rang like a bronze bell in the depths of the ocean. It was a quality Rebecca felt rather than heard.
Uncle Alex opened a desk drawer and handed the stranger a plump brown envelope, which disappeared into the duster as the man turned to leave.
She stepped away from the door and to one side, intending to see without being seen. But when he walked into the reception room she couldn’t help catching her breath at the beauty of his sheer cheekbones and skin like cool marble glowing. He looked like no demon Rebecca had ever seen.
She remembered to close her mouth just before his ice-blue gaze swept across her, and then he was gone in a soft breeze of sandalwood.
Shirley tutted. “Your uncle will see you now.”
“What was that?”
“That was serious bad news.” Shirley paused her nail filing. “Saul the Bastard. Bounty hunter.” She arched a perfect eyebrow at Rebecca. “Don’t even go there.”
Trailer~Beauty and the Bastard
