Of
Blood and Ashes
Of
Cinder and Bone Book 2
by
Kyoko M
Genre:
SciFi Fantasy Romance
The
world's deadliest dragon, the infamous Baba Yaga, is loose on the
streets of Tokyo.
Dr.
Rhett "Jack" Jackson and Dr. Kamala Anjali have been tasked
with helping the government take down a dragon the size of a
Tyrannosaurus Rex after it sends part of the city up in flames.
Things worsen when they lose track of dragon in none other than
Aokigahara, the Suicide Forest--a section of woods in Japan that is
rumored to be one of the most haunted places on earth. They've also
got the yakuza who cloned the dragon hellbent on getting her back,
and they don't care who they kill in order to re-capture the
dragon.
Jack
and Kamala are joined by CIA field agent William Fry and
dragon-hunting expert Juniper Snow as they infiltrate the forest to
hunt the dragon before she can hurt anyone else. Between the ruthless
yakuza hot on their trail and the growing mistrust in their small
hunting party, it will take a miracle for Jack and Kamala to make it
out alive...
Of
Blood and Ashes is the second book in the series, following the
Amazon bestselling Of Cinder and Bone.
Goodreads
* Amazon
"Snow?"
"What?"
"Mind
holding up for a second?"
"Why?"
"Nature
calls."
The
Scottish woman heaved yet another sigh. "I swear to the almighty, I'm
going to leave you here to rot."
Jack
scowled. "Do that and I'll find you and haunt the crap out of you."
He stepped
behind a tree. Pausing, he glanced around the trunk to see her aiming yet
another hateful glare in his direction. "Would you turn around, you freak
of nature?"
Snow
growled. "What are you? A three-year-old?"
"I
can't go when someone's watching."
"I
can't even bloody see you."
"Would
you just turn around, woman?"
Snow
grumbled insults under her breath and faced away from the tree. Jack pulled a
face, knowing she couldn't see it, and took care of business. "Christ,
it's like you've never been around another human being before. You're about as
warm and cuddly as one of those face-huggers from Alien."
"I
could use one of those right now," she groused. "Attach it to your
face so you'll shut the hell up."
"Oh,
I could do that. And then when I don't have a distraction and I mistake you for
a killer clown and belt you one, you can break both my arms and call it a
day."
"Legs,"
Snow corrected. "I'd break your legs, Jackson. That way you either starve
to death or are completely helpless when the yakuza show up."
"Honestly,"
Jack said, shaking his head. "No wonder your last name is Snow. I'm gonna
start singing the Cold Miser song in a minute."
She
whirled around, glaring. "Sing a single line and I'll cut your fingers
off, Jackson."
A
shit-eating grin spread across his mouth. "I'm Mister--"
He
stopped abruptly just after he'd zipped up and stepped around the tree. Without
another word, he threw himself on top of Snow just as the man who had appeared
behind her pulled the trigger.
The
gunshot nearly deafened Jack from so close. A piercing whine filled his ears,
but Jack didn't have time to notice the pain. The second after he'd tackled
Snow, he grabbed a log behind her head and swung it as hard as he could at the
man's knee as he aimed at them again. The log made a sharp cracking sound
against the man's patella, shattering it, and the shots went to the left,
missing them both. Jack lunged forward and grabbed the gun, yanking the barrel
up and away from him. Gritting his teeth, he slammed the top of his skull down
on the man's nose and the man reeled backwards, dazed. Jack jerked the gun out
of the attacker's grip and kicked him in the injured knee. The mercenary
crumpled to the ground with a scream.
Jack
pointed the rifle at his head, barking, "Stay down!"
The
merc glared at him from the ground, but remained still. Jack tried to slow his
racing heartbeat and tilted his head slightly, not taking his eyes off the man,
as Snow rose to her feet.
"You
okay?"
"Fine,"
Snow said, picking leaves out of her long tresses.
"The
word you're looking for is 'thank you.'"
"Piss
off," she snapped.
Jack
grinned, replying in a sing-song voice. "I saved your life. Ha-ha, ha-ha,
ha!"
"Go
to hell," she seethed.
"You're
welcome."
"Give
me the gun, idiot."
Jack
shot her a quick skeptical look. "Yeah, that's gonna happen."
She
rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Do you know how to use that
thing?"
Jack
adopted an accent reminiscent of Antonio Banderas. "Yes. Barrel end points
at the other man."
She
narrowed her eyes at him. "Remind me which one of us is hopped up on a
hallucinogen again?"
"Oh.
Point taken." Jack handed her the rifle. She gave it a brief glancing
over. To her surprise, it had .308 rounds rather than the .50 cal rounds that
the others had been carrying. The implication was chilling. The shooter might
have been dispatched specifically to kill them, not the dragon. Their targets
had changed. They were being hunted.
"Are
you alone?" she asked the merc.
The man
didn't say anything. "No one is going to come find you if we shoot out
your remaining kneecap and leave you to die in this forest. Answer the
question."
Snow
swung the barrel towards the leg he wasn't clutching. "Fine. Enjoy
bleeding to death."
She
fired the rifle.
"Two
men!" he blurted out before he could help himself. "Closing in from
the rear."
He
frowned, realizing she'd shot the ground a mere inch from his leg, and
muttered, "Goddammit" under his breath in resignation.
"Lovely.
Thank you for your cooperation." She slammed the butt of the gun into his
forehead and he flopped backwards unconscious. She knelt and handed the rifle
back to Jack.
"Watch
our six. I'll see if he's got anythin' useful." She checked the
mercenary's pockets, finding extra ammo, a map, and a burner phone. He had a
link in his ear as well, which she took and placed in her own. She stood and
unfolded the map, checking the marked locations on it.
"There
are two sites marked here," Snow said. "One is the campsite I saw.
The other...it's heading back towards the city."
"You
think that might be where they'd hide the dragon if they got it?"
"Possibly."
"Then
we'd better get back to the forest entrance on double-time. We have to warn our
guys."
"I'm
sure they already know," Snow said, tucking the map into her pocket and
then taking the gun back. "Fry's not stupid."
"No,"
Jack agreed, falling in step behind her once again. "Cold and calculating,
but not stupid."
"Not
everyone can be as warm and fuzzy and useless as you, Jackson."
"Yep,
the warm, fuzzy, useless man who saved your life."
Snow
ground her teeth. Jack snickered victoriously.
She
held up a fist and Jack stopped. She peered through the rifle's night-vision
scope. "There's the other two. Forty yards out straight ahead."
"What's
the plan?" Jack whispered.
"Create
a distraction and I'll take them out."
Jack
aimed an incredulous stare at the back of her head. "Seriously?"
"What?"
Snow asked, adopting a facetious innocent tone. "You don't trust me?"
"You
just told me you'd break my legs five minutes ago!"
"If
I were going to let you die, I'd have done it when I found you. Now make
yourself useful and distract them."
Jack
let out a frustrated growl. "You are the absolute worst."
Snow
smiled smugly and said nothing as he crept off in the direction of the two
approaching mercenaries.
Of
Cinder and Bone
Of
Cinder and Bone Book 1
OF
CINDER AND BONE is Ron Howard's Ransom meets Michael Crichton's
Jurassic Park!
After
centuries of being the most dangerous predators on the planet,
dragons were hunted to extinction. That is, until Dr. Rhett “Jack”
Jackson and Dr. Kamala Anjali cracked the code to bring them back.
Through their research at MIT, they resurrected the first dragon
anyone has seen alive since the 15th century. There’s just one
problem.
Someone
stole it.
Caught
between two ruthless yakuza clans who want to clone the dragon, Jack
and Kamala brave the dangerous streets of Tokyo to steal their dragon
back in a race against time before the world is taken over by
mutated, bloodthirsty monsters that will raze it to ashes.
Of
Cinder and Bone is an all-new sci-fi thriller from the author of the
Amazon bestselling Black Parade novels. Don’t miss out on this
explosive first-in-series! Fans of Westworld, I Robot, Pacific Rim,
and Reign of Fire will fall in love with this mashup novel that opens
up a whole new world of possibilities into what we know and love
about dragons.
**FREE
at Amazon and Smashwords!!**
Amazon
* Smashwords
Jack
raised his gun as a man came around the front of the truck and opened fire with
a roar, emptying the clip into the man’s chest. The yakuza crumpled to the road
in a heap. Another one stepped out from behind him and raised his AR-15, his
finger closing on the trigger.
And then the dragon dropped
out of the sky right on top of him.
Pete slammed the man to the
ground with her clawed feet and took a vicious bite out of his neck, killing
him instantly. A third man jumped on top of the truck’s hood and stopped dead
out of pure shock, as he was now level with her. The dragon snarled and slammed
her tail into his chest. It sent him cartwheeling off the edge of the road and
down into the ravine beside it, screaming the whole way.
The dragon snorted once and
then hurried over to Jack and Kamala, sniffing them briefly in confirmation,
and then nudging them towards her large, scaly torso.
“I… I think she wants us to
get on,” Kamala said, dumbfounded as Pete bumped her side up against them and
flapped her huge wings.
“That’s impossible,” Jack
sputtered. “The two of us together nearly weigh three hundred pounds. She can’t
possibly lift—holy shitbricks!”
Impatient, the dragon slid her neck through
Jack’s parted legs and stood up, barking once at Kamala. She threw her leg over
the dragon’s back. Then Pete took three mighty steps towards the edge of the
road and leapt off.
For three terrifying
seconds, they dropped through the air like a cement block.
Then, Pete’s leathery wings
spread and they flew.
Gunfire cracked behind them,
but the dragon flapped her wings to carry them higher out of harm’s way. She
wheeled to one side and they disappeared into the shadow of the mountain range,
over the forest below.
Jack dug his fingers into
the dragon’s collar and finally opened his eyes. He stared speechless at the
ground easily forty feet below them and into the cloudy horizon. Wind whistled
past his ears, interrupted only by the powerful strokes of the dragon’s wings
and the raspy clink of the chain still dragging below her body as they cut
through the crisp air. She flew smoothly, as if she’d been doing it all her
life, as if it were an effortless skill.
Behind him, Kamala had
locked her arms around his waist and buried her face between his shoulder
blades when they’d first taken off. Now, she held one hand out flat, her palm
parallel to the ground, feeling the wind rushing over it. Half-hysterical
laughter enveloped them both as the dragon carried them higher still, until
they were circling one of the mountain’s peaks.
Enormous clouds piled high
around the mountain and the air became sharply cold as they neared it. The
trees stopped halfway up its craggy face and gave way to perpetual ice created
from the height and upper atmosphere. As Pete circled for the fourth time, they
realized she was searching for shelter.
On the fifth pass, the
dragon brought her wings in close to her body in a dive as they reached a cliff
near the mouth of a cave. She fought the stiff wind and landed hard, digging
her claws into the earth. Jack helped Kamala off and the dragon shook herself
and stepped forward into the cave. The two of them called to her, but she paid
them no mind. The freezing temperature and high winds wouldn’t make it easy to
get down any time soon.
They had no choice.
So they followed the dragon
into the darkness.
Kyoko
M is a USA Today bestselling author, a fangirl, and an avid book
reader. She has a Bachelor of Arts in English Lit degree from the
University of Georgia, which gave her every valid excuse to devour
book after book with a concentration in Greek mythology and Christian
mythology. When not working feverishly on a manuscript (or two), she
can be found buried under her Dashboard on Tumblr, or chatting with
fellow nerds on Twitter, or curled up with a good Harry Dresden novel
on a warm Georgia night. Like any author, she wants nothing more than
to contribute something great to the best profession in the world, no
matter how small.
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