Morrigan
by Laura
DeLuca
YA
Fantasy Romance
Publisher: Pagan
Writers Press
Release
Date: November 9, 2012
Heat Level: Sweet
Word Count: 96,900
Available
at:
Amazon | Books A
Million | B&N
| Smashwords
Description:
Shuffled from place to place in the foster system, Morrigan
doesn't know the meaning of home. Plus, she is different. She has power over
fire, the ability to move objects with her mind, and glimpse into the future.
Just when she believes her life can't get any stranger, she discovers her true
identity.
Filtiarn, a knight with a dark past and a surprising secret,
has been tasked with guiding the heir of Tír na NÓg through countless perils to
be returned to her family. Once Morrigan has been reunited with her mother and
grandmother, their triad can save the forgotten land of magic from being
devoured by an ancient evil.
About the Author:
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Laura “Luna” DeLuca lives at the beautiful
Connect with Laura DeLuca
EXCERPT
Morrigan took
out a white candle and a stick of dragon blood incense, and set them up in the
corner of the room. She sat cross-legged, and leaned forward to light them. No
matches were necessary. No lighter either. She simply touched her finger to the
end of the wick, and with an iridescent spark, the candle flickered to life. It
shone at first with a bright blue flame that gradually settled into a more
normal orange. It was the same with the incense—another reason why she
preferred not to have an audience.
She stared into
the candle for a moment, and took a few deep breaths to clear her mind of all
thoughts but those of the magic she intended to perform. Danu and Dagda sat on
either side of her, instantly falling into silence, as though they knew she
needed her complete concentration. Their energy beside her only seemed to add
to the growing sense of power that charged the room.
Morrigan closed
her eyes and began to shuffle the cards. As she did, she allowed her breathing
to become more even. A silence filled the room as the rest of the mortal world
fell away. Soon the only sound she heard was the light thump of her own
heartbeat, echoed by the quicker, fast paced beat of the cats’ hearts. She
wasn’t sure how much time passed as the cards slipped through her fingers. It
might have been minutes. It might have been hours. When she allowed herself to
fall into a trance, time became insubstantial, irrelevant.
The tarot cards
were so old; the designs on the back were almost completely worn away. She had
to shuffle gently to keep them from crumbling to pieces in her hands. Yet they
held a power that she knew no newer cards could offer her. As she shuffled
them, she focused her energy into them, silently requesting to be given the
answers she was seeking. She allowed the
image of her mother to fill her mind. When she finally felt the cards had
fallen into the order they were meant to be in, she placed the deck face down
on the floor, and cut them with her right hand. Then, taking one last, calming
breath, she lifted the top card from the pile. With a trembling hand, she laid
it down and read it.
“Wheel of Fortune,” she said aloud.
In the center of
card was a wheel. As she stared at the picture, that wheel seemed to turn
clockwise. The movements made her feel slightly dizzy. The bedroom around her
became more and more surreal. The scene
on the card became her reality. The figure of the sphinx that sat on top of the
turning wheel looked so very real. It might have turned its head to look at
her. Its lips may or may not have moved. Morrigan swore she heard a deep,
resonating voice whispering the meaning of the card into her ear. Destiny
approaching. An unexpected and sudden change was coming—change that could lead
to good fortune.
It was the card
of fate and karma returned. It meant that she needed to be prepared—to expect
the unexpected. Morrigan knew the cards were telling her something was going to
happen—and soon. Her destiny, whatever it was, was about to be realized. Even
if it did bring fortune, it still scared her to death. She considered packing
up the cards right then and there. Her rational mind had every intention of
doing just that. Her hands didn’t get the message her brain was sending. Before
she knew what she was doing, she had already flipped over the second card.
“The Empress,”
she whispered. She exhaled deeply. “My mother.”
It was the only
interpretation imaginable. Even as she said it, the pregnant woman, crowned
with stars and adorned in a gown decorated with pomegranates, turned to her and
smiled. She was no longer a vague featureless stranger, but the same woman
Morrigan had sketched earlier that day—a face that mirrored her own. It was an
older version of herself, which she saw in the reflection in the nearby full
length mirror, had turned chalk white.
The Empress was
a symbol of maternal power—of strong feminine influence. But could it mean that
her mother was returning? She had never allowed herself to consider such a
possibility. To dwell on something so unlikely would have been too painful. But
now, with just the flip of a card, she found herself daring to dream. There was
only one way to find out for sure. She had to keep going with the reading.
“Six of Cups.”
The third card
in the spread represented her past, and even her immediate present. The six of
cups specifically symbolized childhood, and she was, technically, still a
child. But she had a feeling that her childhood was about to end quite
abruptly. The cups in the picture were lined up across a high stone wall, each
cup holding the memories of her past.
Her past. It was
nothing but a childhood filled with longing—longings which were perhaps about
to be fulfilled. She visualized herself taking each cup down from the wall, and
pouring the troubling memories away. It was time to start fresh. A new world
was about to open up for her. She had known it as soon as she had seen the
image of her mother’s face. But what would that world be like? What was waiting
for her in the future?
Morrigan turned
over the fourth card.
“The Knight of
Wands.”
The man on the
horse carrying the staff had her baffled. Not because she didn’t know its
normal meaning, but because as she stared at the card, it began to take on the
physical attributes of the knight in her drawings. He had the same long
dreadlocks, the same bewitching stare, even the same cocky smile. The
familiarity did not cancel out the meaning of the card. The knight of wands was
representative of a dark man filled with a kind of honey-tongued charm. He was
also fiery and arrogant, a man with a definite possibility of a dark side. If
the knight of wands was coming into her life, she knew she needed to proceed
with caution.
She thought she
was done with the fourth card, and was preparing to move on to the next, when
once again, she found she had lost control of her body. This time, her hands
refused to move, while her eyes forced their way back to the knight in the
card. She watched as the long haired stranger began to move forward—wandering
over various landscapes, some high mountains, some meadows and fields ripe for
the harvest. He kept looking back over his shoulder, as though he were speaking
to someone. He was on a journey, and he wasn’t alone. Morrigan didn’t need to
see his companion to know who it must be.
So, her journey
would soon begin, and she wouldn’t be traveling alone. She would have a guide.
Whether or not that would be a good thing was another question best left to the
cards to answer. The next card told her nothing she didn’t already know.
“The Moon,” she
said. “Caution.”
It was a scary
card. It warned of tricks and illusions. The two howling wolves that stood
under the moon looked back at her menacingly, growling, showing their pointed
fangs in a snarl. For the first time since she began the reading, Danu and
Dagda made their presence known by lifting their heads and hissing
threateningly in the direction of the beasts.
Even the cats
sensed it. The journey she was about to embark on wouldn’t be all fun and
family reunions. There would be obstacles and deceit, most likely from people
she thought could be trusted. The moon was a sign that danger was certainly
awaiting her. In was an ominous omen.
“Shhhh.”
She hushed the
hissing cats, and gave them each a gentle stroke to try to settle them down,
though she was far from settled herself. Again she felt the urge to stop the
spread. Her instincts were telling her that no good was going to come out of
this reading. She was only going to scare herself. She should never have done
it in the first place. When would she learn that sometimes it was best to let
life play out without interference or prophetic warnings? Then again, she knew
that to be forewarned might be her only advantage. So with more bravery than
she felt, Morrigan flipped over the final card.
“No . . . .” she gasped when she looked down
at the terrible, skeletal face. “Oh no.”
She should have
known. She thought a part of her did know even before she glanced down at the
gruesome scene—a skeleton with a scythe in a field of body parts. With the
divination going in the direction it was, what else could be the final outcome?
“Death,” she
whispered. “Death.”
She knew that in
most cases, the death card was a symbol of personal transformation rather than
literal death. But a deeper sense of understanding told her that this time the
card was meant to be taken literally. She saw only glimpses and shadows in her
mind. Brief flashes of faces, some familiar, like her mother and the
knight—some still strangers, like a beautiful, almost angelic blonde woman in a
flowing white gown. But around them all, including herself, she saw the shadows
of death.
Morrigan felt
decidedly shaky as she gathered up her tarot cards. She placed them securely in
the bottom of her bag just as she heard the door downstairs slam shut. The
reading hadn’t made everything as crystal clear as she had hoped, but one thing
was certain. Her whole life was about to change.
GIVEAWAY!!!
Prize is a Morrigan Prize Pack consisting of a wooden jewelry box,
incense set with leaf holder, three rough crystal points, smudge stick with
abalone shell, natural stone pendant, sterling silver triquetra pendant, and
Morrigan's Enchantment bath salts created by The Sisters Elemental. . Must be 18 years of age or older to enter
Loved the excerpt!!!
ReplyDeleteSydney W
Bookaddict100(AT)gmail(DOT)com