Happy New Year - Count down to King of the Tides Begins!

Happy New Year, readers! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays and are ready for a spectacular 2020. I've been waiting for all the festivities to die down (ahem, I mean for my kids to go back to school) to get busy on the roll out of my new book, King of the Tides. I'm sooo excited for Adam and Marlowe's story to go live on January 29th in the third book of the new fantasy romance series, Tides of Atlantis. If you haven't yet, pre order your copy today for the special limited time price of just 99 cents. Here's the link : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B082RJJGFQ

I want to share this very first scene from the book with you, right here on the blog. Just to set the stage a bit, this prologue goes back 4,ooo years from the present day Miami scene where you may have already met Adam Atlas and know him as the grim immortal Atlantean who owns Ramone's Party Cove. He battles the demons that try to slip unto his town through Poseidon's Tides portal on the tip of the Bermuda Triangle everyday, but denies the sea god the one thing he truly wants--for Adam to join him and take his place as a king of Atlantis once more.

Here is just a small insight into Mr. Atlas's past. Be ready to learn more on January 29th with your own copy of King of the Tides!

If you haven't yet, be sure to sign up for my mailing list for more free reading set in the Atlantis world.

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Rain down your fire,
Darkest love song complete.
Speak sweet to me
In the voice of the beast.

Southern Florida Coast - 4,000 years ago

The roar of a man’s scream echoed through his head. Then bone jarring impact came before darkness seeped in, deeper and more pervasive than anything even Hell had dealt him.
Much later, Atlas opened his eyes, squinting against the twinkle of starlight—something he’d thought never to see again. The constant ringing of his ears turned out not to be from the screams heard in Tartarus nor from falling through the black cliffs of the Underworld. When he turned his head and looked, he found the sea. 
He watched, still as death, he didn’t know how long as wave after wave lapped over the shore, thinning to splash against his aching body. The cadence pulled at him, lulling him back into oblivion—to the deepest depths of his insanity. Before long, ominous black spires of unbreakable stone surrounded him and he was once again in Tartarus. The heat of a thousand fires licked at his skin as creatures untold crept into his vision. Suddenly, the one that had held him prisoner for millennia filled his bleary vision. Hades, Lord of the Hell realm. The memory of their first meeting stole over Atlas’s subconscious mind.
“Son of Poseidon,” the god laughed, his voice echoing off the mountains. “You trespass the Underworld and murder my beasts.”
“No,” Atlas said, his parched throat barely able to force the word out. “Sh-she… it was a lie.”
Hades laughed again.
“‘Tis the folly of man to be ruled by the heart. Did you not think it strange that she just appeared in your kingdom one day? An’iah escaped Tartarus with the help of your fellow humans, King Atlas. All who assisted her will be punished. But you…”
Atlas remembered trying to comprehend what Hades said that day. He’d thought back. When the young orphan girl had been brought to the temple on Atlan, she’d claimed to be under an enchantment. He’d thought her possessed by a spirit. His priests had taken her in and Atlas instantly formed an attachment—she’d looked so much like Bala.
 His sister had died too young, before her fifteenth year. He carried the blame of her death like a millstone around his neck. Retribution from the gods had taken her. As the king of all Atlantis, he bore the brunt of their anger. He’d been unable to appease them when Bala had fallen ill. He’d seen An’iah as his chance at redemption. 
But it had all been a lie. The afflicted young girl turned out to be a demon, a lower goddess of Tartarus. She had a shrine of followers on Earth that no one had known about. They’d called to her through forbidden rituals, bringing her forth from the Hell Realm. They didn’t know that when their goddess came to them, she would be accompanied by pestilence. Sickness spread like wildfire throughout their tribe. They started attacking Atlas’s people, infecting them. In the melee, An’iah stole the Fire Stone crystal of Atlan then returned to the Underworld with it while the people of Atlas’s kingdom suffered in the streets. 
“The only way to kill the disease is to stop it at its source.”
Those words of Jar’rahn, Atlan’s head priest, had rung clear through the air of the ritual smoke, making Atlas’s task clear. An’iah had taken the crystal to the Hell Realm and he had to get it back. Then he had to kill her with it.
That very same day, Atlas and the priests had beseeched Poseidon in his temple to open the pathway to Tartarus. Miraculously, the sea god honored their request. Atlas descended into Hell by way of Poseidon’s enchanted Tides then searched the Underworld until he found her. An’iah wielded his Fire Stone over her slaves, more beasts of Tartarus, no longer the innocent girl that had reminded him of his sister but a demoness. Her skin had taken on a blackened cast and turned into a leathery hide. On her feet were hooves, her tail a mass of hissing serpents. She barked orders at her minions in her demon tongue as they stirred a molten liquid in a huge vat.
More poison! She would infect more—his entire kingdom, all of Atlantis even, if he didn’t stop her. He battled with her, wrestling the Fire Stone from her clawed hands then wielding it in a way he never had before, not for healing or growth the way the blessed Fire Stone had been used to build Atlantis, but for destruction.
Even he could not have foreseen what that would mean. But Hades knew. 
 The god of the Underworld’s giant fist squeezed Atlas’s throat as fire scorched his skin, bringing him back to the memory of their fateful encounter. The recollection held him in a trance no matter how hard he tried to fight it.
“We both know that even a demigod cannot open Tartarus alone.” Hades said. “Poseidon sent you.”
He squeezed Atlas’s trachea, crushing it so that he couldn’t answer the god. With his other mighty hand, Hades gave the merest pinch of his fingertips, breaking Atlas’s arm. The Fire Stone rolled from his hand to the ground as all of his muscles seized in pain. The dark god loomed above him, his shadow the only break in the heat and flames that surrounded them. Then he bent, bringing the Fire Stone up to hold it inches from Atlas’s face.
“Is this what you were looking for?”
Atlas blinked. Agony rolled through his body with every tortured breath he took.
“I know what you would like to say, King Atlas. She stole from you so you would steal from her. But did you know that in killing the demoness, you’ve ended an entire line of her descendants? Did you know that with this,” he held the Fire Stone aloft, “she sought to create a cure for their illness?”
Hades paused. He surveyed Atlas’s bedraggled body, hanging limp, torn and broken at the end of his fist.
“No?”
Another pause.
“You stole more than you know, son of Posiedon. King,” the god sneered, “of Atlantea.” Atlas remembered the next horrific sight that met his eyes. Hades’ lips pulled back, revealing the god’s fangs. “Now I would steal from Poseidon.”
With those words, Hades threw the Fire Stone aside. It never landed, but disappeared in a flash of fire and light toward the darkest pit in Tartarus. Atlas had only a moment to see it, the blink of an eye through blood streaked vision, before searing pain invaded his flesh and he was forever marked.
The sound of the sea rushed his ears once more. Atlas’s eyes flew open, shattering the memory of Hades and the place he’d escaped. The waves came closer, threatening to swallow him whole. He welcomed them for they shut out the call of the Hell Realm that would forever drag on his soul.
No. Wait…he hadn’t clawed his way out of Tartarus to drift out again, to die and become food for the gulls on some unknown beach. If that were even possible. Half god, half mortal, death had never been able to end his misery, not in seven thousand years. A soul trapped in Hell could wish for an end all it wanted, but that was the one place such things did not happen.
Rolling onto his side, the wet sand of the beach scratched his raw skin. The abrasion was mild though compared to the tortures he’d endured, the cooling sensation soothing. Something not experienced in the Underworld… ever.
A smile cracked King Atlas’s blistered lips for the first time in eons. He was out.

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The Tides of Atlantis Series
Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited

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