Quinn said it was impossible, but Marley knew it wasn’t. She’d felt it happen.
She’d caused it.
Giving Anson power had damaged her vessel, her ability to channel energy through crystals. Maybe the damage would have been barely noticeable if Anson hadn’t later leeched her. But when he sucked all the capacity out of her, he’d created something new. He’d carved an emptiness into her that wasn’t static, as she’d always thought. It had a purpose. Or at least, she could give it one.
She’d have to research it, but she suspected she’d find no one else had ever been what she now was. A null. A black hole. She could remove power, energy, ability from someone who wasn’t supposed to have it.
Goddesses were safe, she was sure of it. She’d been around them nonstop for two years, running the educational and tracking programs. It was only once she touched Sam, struggling against the barbs of her orphaned power, that her ability had gone active. She’d saved him.
And in doing so had saved herself.
Acknowledgments
The Dew Drop Inn, featured briefly in chapter thirteen, was a real place in North Stonington, Connecticut. I took some artistic license, moving it to suit my heroine’s travel route and ignoring the fact that ownership and name had changed. My family often stopped at the Dew Drop on our trips to the beach in Misquamicut every summer, and my mother developed a friendship with Curtis Moussie. These memories are touchstones to the things that were most important in my childhood, and even before I learned that Curtis had passed away and the Dew Drop was demolished, I wanted to pay tribute to them in this book—and by extension, pay tribute to my mother.
Heavy Metal would not be the book it is without Kerri-Leigh Grady, Liz Pelletier, and especially Danielle Poiesz, who somehow drew out of me the story I was trying to tell in the way it really needed to be told. Huge thanks to Liz Pelletier for the amazing cover, and to all the behind the scenes folks along the production line, making sure we come as close to perfection as possible. Finally, thanks to Crystal, Jaime, and Dani—my Entangled publicity team—for their support and hard work in what is, for some of us, the most challenging aspect of being an author.
Megan Hart deserves a massive thanks for taking time out of her own insane schedule to read a draft of this book and provide the cover quote. Smith, Simon, and Bix, thank you for listening to my rants and giddiness and making this journey so much fun, even when it’s frustrating. And thank you, Lisa Mondello, for slapping me upside the head with genuine affection whenever I start spiraling.
Every book I write also owes a great deal to my family. Jim, Dakota, and McKenna, thank you so much for your unwavering support and understanding when I’m lost in my fictional worlds or crazy on deadline. Thank you for celebrating every silly little victory with me, for telling everyone with pride that I’m an author, and for helping me live my dream. I love you.
About the Author
Natalie J. Damschroder writes high-stakes romantic adventure, sometimes with a paranormal bent. Since 2000, she’s published ten novels, seven novellas, and fourteen short stories, many of them exploring magical abilities, but all with a romantic core. She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her perfect partner of a husband and two daughters who are so amazing, they’ve been dubbed “anti-teenagers.” Learn more about her at her website, www.nataliedamschroder.com, follow her on Twitter @NJDamschroder, or friend her on Facebook at /nataliedamschroder.
Turn the page for a flashback to
the first book in the Goddesses Rising series
Under the Moon by Natalie J. Damschroder
Chapter One
Society views goddesses the same way they view psychics—
most people don’t believe in us, and since there are only about a hundred goddesses in the United States, skeptics rarely have occasion to be proven wrong. Some people have open minds but still no reason to seek to use a goddess’s talents. If you choose a public career as a goddess, you join in the responsibility for image maintenance.
Help us keep public opinion positive.
—The Society for Goddess Education and Defense,
Public Relations Handbook
When Quinn Caldwell’s cell phone rang, she assumed one of her clients needed an appointment or a Society member had a question about next week’s annual meeting. It took her a second to pull her attention from the paperwork on her desk, another three to register the name on the screen.
Nick Jarrett.
Her spark of joy at seeing his name quickly changed to concern. He wouldn’t be calling for anything good. Quinn plugged her ear against the noise from the bar outside her office door, held her breath, and flipped open the phone. “Nick?”
“Quinn.” The rumble of his vintage Charger’s engine harmonized with Nick’s voice. “Service isn’t good out here so just listen.”
She knew it. “What’s wrong?”
“We have a problem. I’m coming early. I’ll explain when I get there. I won’t have a very good cell signal most of the time. I’m at least a day away, so stay close to Sam, and don’t…” His voice cut in and out before disappearing altogether.
Quinn’s skin prickled. She closed the phone, frowning. Nick never came until at least the week before new moon, when she was most vulnerable. In the fifteen years of their relationship, he’d never come a whole week early.
Something big had to be happening.
Quinn was the only goddess whose power source was the full moon, which meant she was only fully able to use her abilities for the seven days around it. As the month waned, she grew more “normal” until the new-moon period, when she had no ability to tap the power. That was when Nick appeared. Never now.
“Who was that?” Sam’s solid, warm hand landed on her shoulder, and he dropped a pile of papers on the desk in front of her. Quinn blinked at the shift from the surreal nature of the phone call to the mundane clutter of her narrow office at the back of Under the Moon, the central-Ohio bar she’d inherited from her father. It was her main business, a connection to the parents who died within months of each other twelve years ago, leaving her without any real family. It also kept her connected to the public between power cycles. The goddesses who made a living with their abilities mostly relied on word of mouth to find clients, and Quinn’s bar, centrally located for locals and travelers, had enough people channeling through it to give her customers for both businesses.
“Nobody,” she said, still lost in thought. She shook off the fog. “I mean, Nick.”
Sam’s eyebrows disappeared under his dark, shaggy bangs. He crossed to his smaller but far more organized desk near the office door. His chair squeaked when he dropped into it. “Nick called you?”
“Yeah. He’s coming early.”
“Great.” Sam glowered and mumbled something under his breath. “Why? The moon is barely waning gibbous.”
“I don’t know. The signal dropped.” She worried her lower lip. Stay close to Sam. Why? The order was protective—and after all, Nick was her protector, so that was his default mode—but what did she need protection from? She rubbed her right forearm, the phantom ache a reminder of the first time Nick had been assigned to her, that “goddess” wasn’t a synonym for “invincible.”