Life
or Death? Not many people would choose death. But what if death
chooses you? What if death doesn’t mean the end of your life, but
the beginning?
For
a Death Escort, death is
life. Death is your paycheck. Death is your job.
And
Charming is the best Escort the Grim Reaper has ever had.
But
when you piss off the Reaper, being the best doesn’t matter. So
Charming is assigned a Target who is practically impossible to kill.
He knows the Reaper hopes he fails—that he’s counting on it. So
Charming vows to prove him wrong. He vows to make the kill.
But
someone else vows to get in his way. Someone with a big mouth, a
sugar habit, and blond hair. Someone who makes his heart start
beating again.
And
so Charming is left holding more than one person’s fate in the palm
of his hand. He thought the choice would be easy, that there really
wasn’t a question at all.
Life
or Death?
ABOUT CAMBRIA HEBERT
Cambria
Hebert is the author of the young adult paranormal Heven
and Hell series,
the new adult Death
Escorts
series, and the new adult Take
it Off series.
She loves a caramel latte, hates math and is afraid of chickens (yes,
chickens). She went to college for a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t
pick a major, and ended up with a degree in cosmetology. So rest
assured her characters will always have good hair. She currently
lives in North Carolina with her husband and children (both human and
furry) where she is plotting her next book. You can find out more
about Cambria and her work by visiting http://www.cambriahebert.com
“Like”
her on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cambria-Hebert/128278117253138
Follow
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Cambria’s
website: http://www.cambriahebert.com
CHARMED
EXCERPT NUMBER ONE
Red.
It’s
all I could see. It was all around me, everywhere. At this rate I
wouldn’t have one drop of blood left in my body. How long did it
take someone to bleed out? How long until their organs, their heart
had nothing left to fuel them? A minute? Five?
What
I couldn’t understand is why I wasn’t in pain. Surely with this
much blood pouring out of my skin I would feel some kind of raw pain.
But there was nothing.
Nothing
but red.
Why
was it suddenly so quiet? I could hear nothing—not even the sound
of my own breathing. Then I realized. The hush in the air was because
everyone was watching me die. They were likely wondering the same
thing I had been moments before: How
long?
I needed to get up, to prove to them that I wasn’t going down like
this. I wasn’t going to die in a fight I should have won—a fight
that was rightfully mine.
I
stopped thinking completely when I practically flew up off the
ground. An overwhelming dizziness overcame me, so disorienting and
unsettling that my insides buzzed with discomfort.
I
was upright, my body springing up so fast that I hadn’t even
consciously tried to move it. Still, all I saw was red. How could
someone bleed so much and move so fast?
I
looked down at myself, taking stock, mentally preparing for the sight
of my blood-drenched body…
Only
I wasn’t bleeding.
And
my body… it wasn’t there.
In
the place of skin and bone was nothing but a fine red mist—a red
cloud that was shaped like a man—like
me.
Tentatively,
I reached out my arm (was it really still my arm?) and watched the
red mist dissipate like smoke from a cigar.
I
must already be dead.
This
cloud—this red—was all that was left of me, left of my life?
I
looked up, beyond myself, and saw that I wasn’t in the ring
anymore. I was in a room. An office. It was large, uncluttered and
had a huge row of floor-to-ceiling closets lining the wall behind a
massive desk.
It
was clear this wasn’t heaven. But it didn’t seem like hell
either.
I
watched as the large leather chair behind the desk began to swivel
around, slowly turning, and if I had a throat I would have swallowed
thickly.
There
was something ominous about the way that chair turned, something
final. I knew it down to my core.
A
boney man with a wide forehead and shrewd eyes appeared, steepling
his fingers beneath his chin and regarding me in a way that did
nothing to soothe my confusion.
“You’re
dead,” the man said simply. “But you don’t have to be for very
long.”
“I
don’t?” I replied, surprised when my voice echoed through the
room. How does one speak without a mouth?
He
smiled. It was the kind of smile that I’d seen before. The kind the
boxer gave me right before he killed me in that dirty fight.
“I
have a proposition for you,” he began, pulling his hands down from
under his chin and pushing out of the chair. “One that you won’t
be able to refuse.”
And
so just minutes after I lived the moment that defined my life
forever… I also lived the moment that would forever define my
death.
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