Please welcome author C.M Michaels

For Emily Waters, a nature-loving, small-town girl with an overprotective father, heading off to Boston University to study conservation biology is a dream come true—until a chance encounter catapults her into a mythical world she’d do anything to escape.

The latest victim in a rash of abductions near campus, Emily is brutally attacked before being rescued by a powerful new friend. She survives the ordeal, only to find herself held captive and presented with an impossible choice. While preparing for the unimaginable life she must now embrace clues soon emerge that Emily may not be entirely human, and her physical transformation awakens goddess-like powers that her new family cannot begin to explain. Dealing with her human first love, the not-so-platonic relationship with her coven “sister,” and her new vampire sort-of-boyfriend further complicates matters, not to mention being secretly hunted by the psychopaths who attacked her. And as the only known offspring of a once all-powerful race, the climactic battle is only the beginning of her journey.

Dangerous Waters: Excerpt, Rated R

Fight or flight

“Would you stop already?” Teresa grumbled, glaring at her ever-pacing brother. “No one’s following us. Relax.”

Travis finished scanning Beacon Street and ducked back into the alleyway. “God damn it! Do you ever listen? I told you we had to cool it for a while. What the hell were you thinking?”

“The bitch spilled her drink on me.”

He sighed and tiredly rubbed his eyes. Arguing with her was like trying to reason with a bratty three-year-old grabbing candy in a grocery checkout line. “So we’re homeless because someone accidentally got diet coke on your shirt?”

“Quit being such a queen,” Teresa said with a huff. “You know Stefan thinks of us as his kids, which is totally weird by the way. All he’ll do is make us listen to his rules again. If you wouldn’t have talked me into running, we’d probably be watching TV by now.”

“If Stefan and Alexander just wanted to talk, they would’ve waited until we got back, not raided our feeding room like a two-man S.W.A.T. team. This is serious, Terr. If they find us, they’re going to kill us.”

For the first time in as long as he could remember, his snarky, narcissistic sister looked vulnerable. She crossed her arms to conceal her jittery hands and looked into his eyes. “So what do we do? I’m not living on the street again, or in the skuzzy-ass hotels we used to stay in.”

Travis placed a comforting hand on his baby sister’s shoulder. “Things aren’t like they used to be, sis. Even you have to admit that Stefan taught us a hell of a lot. Once we get out of town, we can trance a bank manager and get all the money we need. I thought we’d head south—you always wanted to see Orlando.”

Acting as if he hadn’t even spoken, Teresa shrugged off his hand and headed further down the dimly lit alley, veering around overflowing dumpsters and piles of loose garbage before slumping back against the brick wall behind her. “And what about the skank who started all this? We just leave her to her fairy-tale life, sipping wine in her mansion? No fucking way.”

Anger coursed through his veins at his sister’s jealousy and unfounded arrogance. “Wake up!” Travis screamed, shaking her shoulders so violently that her teeth rattled. “You think you can take her? You don’t know jack shit. Raven’s been training for almost two hundred years, Einstein. She’d tear your ass apart like a piñata.”

Teresa rolled her eyes and pushed his hands away. “Not Raven, you douche. I’m talking about Emily.”

“Emily? What the hell did she do?”

“If she wouldn’t have wandered up to us like a lost puppy, we would never have fed with Alexander there, and Stefan would still be clueless. The bitch led Raven right to our door.”

“Oh come on. That’s a reach, even for you. Raven lied to her about our scent. You’re really going to blame her for that?”

She shot her brother a disgusted look. “I knew making her strip was a bad idea. All it takes is a flash of boobs and you turn to mush. Are you ever going to grow a pair? You’d still be Keri’s lapdog if it wasn’t for me.”

“Don’t.”

“Oooh, don’t talk about my precious Keri,” Teresa mocked. “God you’re a pussy. She was never going to turn you, and you know it.”

Travis looked away to conceal the pain on his face. Sometimes he questioned whether there was anything decent left in his sister at all. Every year she became darker and even more detached. “That doesn’t mean I wanted her to die. I loved her. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“Love shmove. You wanted to become immortal. I did you a favor when I torched her.”

“A favor? Are you serious? I asked her to marry me that night!” He caught just a hint of a smile on Teresa’s lips and froze. “You knew—that’s why you did it, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, ri—“

Like a stroke of lightning Travis smashed his fist into the brick wall just to the right of her head, opening up a gaping hole into the vacant building behind her. “Don’t you fucking lie to me! I swear to God I’ll kill you!”

Teresa calmly ducked out from under his arm and dusted the debris off her shirt. “So what if I did know about your pathetic little proposal? Did you forget your promise to our parents, dear brother? Ten years is a long time. Remember the ambulance ride? Mom coughing up blood, and dad, well, dad wasn’t doing much of anything come to think of it. Hard to blame the guy, since he had a piece of metal stuck in his head. You promised them that you’d always look out for me—swore on your life actually. Where did I fit in your little family? You really think Keri would’ve let me keep living with you? She hated me.”

Travis collapsed to the ground and clutched his knees to his chest, tears stinging at his eyes. Hearing his sister’s twisted rationale for taking away the woman who’d turned his life around was unbearable. “How can you say that? She paid for you to go back to school. She even decked out your room with all the shit on your insane ‘must-have’ list. She was going to ask you to be her maid of honor.”

“And when was she going to make me her sister? That’s right. Never. All she had to do was say yes.”

“Yes? Yes to what?” He stared at her in total confusion until it suddenly dawned on him. “Our walk in the park—you followed us.”

“Of course. I’d only been pushing you to ask her for, like, three years.”

“So when she said she’d marry me, but she would never change me—”

“I knew I had to take matters into my own hands,” Teresa finished. “I figured she’d never be more distracted than that night. Boy was I right. She didn’t even wake up until the gas splashed her face. Once I lit the match, all she could do is run around screaming. I’m glad you were at class. It was kinda gross watching her face melt away.”

Memories of that horrible night flooded his mind. The rancid stench of burnt flesh and hair when he walked through the door had made him gag. He’d raced upstairs, terrified that his sister had fallen asleep with her bong and died in the resulting fire, only to find her calmly watching TV with his fiancé’s charred corpse lying at her feet. “You are seriously messed up,” he muttered without meeting her ice cold eyes. “You know that, right?”

Teresa wrapped a strand of her curly blonde hair around her finger. “Whatever. We’re immortal now—that’s all that matters.”

They both slipped back into the shadows when two figures emerged at the end of the alley, continuing on without even a glance in their direction. He found it hard to even look at Teresa now that he understood what had truly happened that night, and how easily he’d been manipulated into playing his part, but in the end it changed nothing. He’d never go back on his vow to their parents. Protecting her was his penance. “It’s too dangerous for us to stay here,” Travis said. “Will you at least come with me to Florida?”

“Once I choke the last breath out of that little whore, you can take me wherever you want.”

Travis slicked back his long, brown hair. “Fine. But if we’re doing this, we do it my way. Agreed?”

She raised her shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “As long as she dies, I’m good with whatever.”

“Their house is only a few miles from here. It’s surrounded by woods, so there are plenty of spots where we’ll be able to hear what’s going on inside without risking being seen. As soon as she’s left alone, you can have your fun, but we’re waiting as long as it takes for that to happen. Even Sandy has had decades of training, and I’m not dying for your stupid vendetta.”

“Hi ho, hi ho, off to kill a bitch we go,” Teresa sang out, dancing down the alley ahead of him like a schoolgirl.

C.M Michaels grew up in a small town in northern Michigan as the youngest child of a close-knit family of seven. He met his wife, Teresa, while attending Saginaw Valley State University. Together they’ve provided a loving home for several four-legged “kids”, including Sophie, their eternally young at heart, hopelessly spoiled Spaniel.

He has always enjoyed writing, and still has fond memories of reading his first book, a children’s novella, to local grade schools when he was 14. Dangerous Waters, the first book in the Sisters in Blood series, is being published by Freya’s Bower on September 5^th, 2013. C.M. is currently working on the second book in the Sisters in Blood series along with a Fantasy romance.

When he’s not writing, C.M. can be found curled up with a good book, watching movies or hitting the hiking trails with his wife. An avid reader since discovering Jim Kjelgaard novels in early childhood, his favorite authors include Kelley Armstrong, Peter V. Brett, Richelle Mead, Rachel Caine, Cassandra Claire, J.R. Ward, Laini Taylor and Tessa Dawn.

C.M. currently resides in Louisville, Kentucky.

Social Media links:
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/UFAuthorCMMichaels
Twitter - https://twitter.com/UFAuthor
Blog - http://cmmichaels.blogspot.com/
Website - http://cmmichaels.com/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/authorcmmichaels
Book trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Q7m0MrwlQ

Buy links:
Print: http://www.freyasbower.com/books-c-3/dangerous-waters-p-290.html

eBook: http://www.freyasbower.com/urban-fantasy-c-46/dangerous-waters-p-289.html