Bouncer Round 6 #37

Title: SHADOW

Genre: YA fantasy

Word count: 97,000

Query:

When Sera is whisked away from her normal Earth life by a sexy incubus, she discovers some things about herself: she is the heiress to the throne in a different dimension. Her "parents" are really rebels who stole her when she was an infant. And the Lucifer made up a "Foretelling" giving her the power to choose the winner of the dimension’s civil war.

While she’s on this self-discovery kick, Sera also learns she has an alien guy fetish. First the incubus, then her rebel friend, Lux, who she meets in a race against the regime for an explanation of the Foretelling. Between solving riddles, facing monsters, traipsing through multiple dimensions, and surviving the attacks of the queen’s vicious incubus, Sera and Lux get pretty hot for each other.

But, that’s the other problem. The incubus. The dark, sarcastic, damn-near-invincible incubus who oozes sex appeal and never loses. His name is Lord Caden, and he has a thing for Sera.

Unwilling to walk away and let her dimension tear itself apart, Sera must choose between the rebellion and the crown. It should be obvious: monstrous regime = no go. But Sera’s still angry with the rebels who lied about her identity for eighteen years, and there’s also the Lux/Lord Caden thing—which shouldn’t be important, but it is. Her morality, her future, and the liberation of a dimension may be at stake here, but Sera doesn’t know if she can resist Lord Caden.

First 250:

Growing up in Stevensville, Montana was about as exciting as eating cardboard. Don’t get me wrong; I loved it. But nothing happened here, which was probably a good thing. My dad had a coronary pretty much every time I left the house. God forbid we lived in a big city. He’d probably die.

I think his anxiety was genetic though, because I was a bit of a novelty as far as teenagers went. I didn’t date, didn’t party, was never late for my 10:00PM curfew, and I never tried sneaking out. I didn’t want to. This way of living was all I knew, and I always stuck to the rules.

Except tonight.

I drove Eastside Highway doing seventy in a sixty-five. Kind of dumb in a blizzard at night, but I had to get home. My dad was going to kill me. I probably had forty voicemails. My phone was dead, useful as a rock sitting on the passenger seat. I glanced at the green, digital numbers on the dash and winced. 10:27.

I should’ve slowed down. We locals fondly called this stretch of highway ‘deer alley’ and I swear those dumb animals aimed for cars. At least, this one did. I jerked the wheel to avoid it and the car slid sideways.

Ice. I’d forgotten about the ice.

I slammed on the brakes and kept sliding—into the other lane. Hot adrenaline raced up my spine. Then headlights flared up out of nowhere, racing toward me.