Favorite Quote Friday #91

Hi, all!  Can you believe it's already Friday again?  Wow, this week passed quickly!  I hope you had a good one.  :-)  I'm very excited about the progress I'm making on Book 5.  Lots of intensity in this one.  ;-)  And I'm even more excited that I'm one week closer to the upcoming release of Darkness Rises on October 1st!  I can't wait!

Guess what finally arrived:  My Immortal Guardians swag!  Woohoo!  I'm about to get a big box together to send to my Street Team managers.  Here's what the trading cards and new bookmarks look like:

These bookmarks are bigger than the last batch.  :-)  These are 2" x 8".  Here's a comparison:

It's time once more for Favorite Quote Friday!  I'm having so much fun writing Book 5.  Bastien plays a rather interesting role in it and has become one of my favorite characters.  If you aren't familiar with my Immortal Guardians series, Bastien leapt onto the pages as the villain in Darkness Dawns, Book 1, then later became the hero of Phantom Shadows, Book 3.  :-)  Since he has been on my mind so often of late, I thought I would give you an excerpt of Darkness Dawns.  This is taken from a scene in which the heroine, Sarah, encounters Bastien for the first time:

Trees whipped by, dark unfocused giants.  Fireflies blinked and sparkled as she passed.  The only sounds that met her ears were the humming of the engine, those weird North Carolina bugs, and her rasping, gasping breaths.

In the rearview mirror, her tiny house, its porch light, and the macabre battle taking place in front of it shrank, then disappeared from view as the road curved, rose and dipped.

Sarah’s whole body was trembling.  Her thoughts were scattered.  Her actions driven solely by the need to get away.  Fast.  Too fast to navigate the bends and curves of the road safely, but she couldn’t bring herself to slow down.  She turned on the high beams, hoping it would compensate for the lack of streetlights and let her see any deer that may have ambled onto the road in time to avoid hitting them.  

Vampires, she thought hysterically.  

Vampires were real.

And Roland was one of them.

The hood of the car abruptly buckled when a man seemingly dropped out of the sky and landed on it in a crouch.

Sarah screamed as the front of the car nosedived into the pavement.  The air bag exploded into her face, slamming her head back into the head rest.  The rear end of the car kept moving forward, tires squealing as the car spun around and came to a jarring halt facing the trees on the side of the road.  

Not wearing a seat belt, Sarah was hurled like a rag doll into the driver’s side door.  Glass shattered, showered her, cut her as pain shot through her head and the left side of her face and body.

The engine sputtered, then faltered into silence.

Dazed, she grabbed the armrest to lever herself upright.  Shards of glass sliced into her forearm and through the gauze bandages on her palm.  Wincing, she yanked her hand back and sluggishly straightened in her seat.

The air bag wilted as it deflated, allowing her to peer blearily through the front windshield.

The dark figure crouched on the hood slowly rose to his full height.

 Ah, Bastien.  Such an entertaining character to write, both as a villain and as a hero.  :-)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Dianne