Writing Wednesday

Busy, busy days!! Only 33 days till Atlantis Unleashed is out and I'm so excited!! I'll be doing lots of guest blogging leading up to release, so I'll be sure to share where you can find me.

Today I'm hard at work rewriting a scene in Atlantis Redeemed, where Brennan first finds Tiernan again, in the heart of Yellowstone National Park, after he nearly lost his mind over her in Atlantis Unleashed (you'll see that scene soon, it's CRAZY!).

But for writing Wednesday, I'm sharing a different snippet from Atlantis Redeemed, where Tiernan first finds out that she may have more enemies than she expected at the science conference . . .

From Atlantis Redeemed:

Tiernan stilled at the mention of the Atlanteans. She’d never told Rick, or anybody else, the full story. That she’d passed out at that awful party in Boston and woken up under the dome of the lost continent itself.

Atlantis.

Brennan.

The image of his wild, almost feral, ocean blue eyes staring down at her, while his muscular arms held her to his hard, hot body, burned through her memory, making her shiver. That face that belonged on a magazine cover--beautifully sculpted masculine features framed by thick waves of long black hair. He’d been crazed, with power or passion or . . . something. He’d been crazed, and then he’d been gone.

She still wondered about that. About him.

Rick opened her car door, yanking her out of her reverie. “Now, maybe, Tracy?”

Tiernan nodded and grabbed her leather backpack and fake press credentials, put on her slightly ditzy “Tracy Baum” smile, and stepped out of the car. She took a deep breath and raised her mental shields as she straightened up to her full height, wobbling a little on the ridiculous heels.

The heels were part of her cover. The shields were part of her sanity. The last thing she needed was to be overwhelmed by crashing pain from a hotel full of lying neuroscientists. Her job was simple. All she had to do was work her way through one lying neuroscientist at a time.

All that could matter was the job. The mission. The paper that had to come out – the story that had to come out. The truth, as they said, would set her free.

Pulitzer.

Pulitzer.

Save the damn world, and get a Pulitzer.

If she repeated it often enough, like a litany, maybe the truth would be forced out. It had to come out.

As she smiled at the bellhop and pretended to listen to Rick’s conversation with the man, she tried to create a visual focus in her mind. The headline. Front page, above the fold:

SCIENTISTS’ EVIL PLOT FOILED: SHAPE-SHIFTERS AND HUMANS SAVED

But the image of her success kept fading. Wavering. Replaced by a pair of ocean blue eyes.

She teetered across the concrete drive, and then up the sidewalk alongside a row of dense hedge, following Rick and the bellman with their luggage, silently vowing that the damn shoes had to go the minute she escaped to her hotel room.

She never even saw the knife until it was taut against her throat.

Atlantis Redeemed, copyright Alesia Holliday writing as Alyssa Day