Bouncer Post #90

Title: EMBROL

Genre: YA Light Sci-fi
Word Count: 75,000

Query:

Eighteen-year-old Olivia Ryan has been dreaming of Jack Ellis for three years. She’s lost count of how many times he’s woken her with a kiss. Problem is she’s never actually met him. Not in the real world, anyway.

So when Jack shows up at her mother’s funeral, Olivia’s sure she’s lost it. Not that she cares. Real or imagined, the gorgeous boy from her dreams is the perfect distraction from her grief. At least until she learns Jack is responsible for her mother’s death. Then she just wants to forget he ever walked out of her dreams. Especially after he makes the insane claim that, like him, she's a member of a powerful race of aliens, the antecedents to humans.

But Olivia has nightmares too, and Kole, the alien who haunts them, is also real. He believes she’s the reincarnated daughter of their creator. He’ll do anything, including kill her, to obtain her dormant power and use it to take control of the universe. Olivia’s certain he has the wrong girl (an alien goddess, really?), but when Kole attacks, endangering her friends, she has no choice but to turn to Jack, the only one she knows with the ability to fight him off. Alone, Jack's power isn't enough. With their powers combined they have a chance, but for Olivia, that means forgiving him, and that might be more than even her advanced alien heart is capable of.

First 250:

“Is this Heaven?” I asked.

My angel laughed, his eyes sparkling in the light from the two moons overhead. “Heaven? You’re messing with me, right?” A warm breeze rustled the field of glowing blossoms surrounding us and tousled his curls. He slipped his arms around my waist. “Okay. I’ll play. No, it’s not Heaven, but sometimes, it feels that way. Especially with you here.”

He leaned in, his scent filling the air. His lips brushed mine—

“Livy?” Patty’s quiet voice jerked me back to reality, from my attempt to escape to a happier place. Even if that world—and the boy I’d come to call my angel—existed only in my dreams. She laid her wrinkled hand over mine. “It’s almost time.”

I glanced across the room at the casket—shiny black with silver handles. Elegant, according to Patty. Like that mattered. It would be buried underground, never to be seen again after today. And that wasn’t my mother in there. Not anymore.

Patty settled down on the arm of the loveseat and tucked my long bangs behind my ear. I resisted the urge to release them, so I could go back to hiding behind their auburn curtain.

“You sure you don’t want to see her?” she asked. “This is the last chance you’ll get.” She meant well. Just doing her job as my pseudo-grandmother and legal guardian. Well, that was what she would’ve been, if I hadn’t turned eighteen on the day my mother was killed.