Release Week Event [Excerpt] Spirit: Book Five in the Elemental Series by Shauna Granger

Spirit: Book Five in the Elemental Series

by Shauna Granger

Publisher: Self-Published

Release date: April 30, 2013

Genre: Urban Fantasy

Age Group: Young Adult/New Adult

 

Book Description:

Always careful to watch out for others, Shayna put too much trust her abilities to keep herself safe and has been cut down by crazed man. Now she is trapped in the land of the dead, watching as her two best friends suffer the consequences of her death; their powers are fading and soon they will too. Shayna is desperate to return to the land of the living to save them from a similar, cold fate. To save her friends Shayna must turn away from the Light and, in doing so, sacrifice her wings.

But the longer Shayna stays among the dead, the further she slips from sanity. If Shayna cannot find her way back she will be condemned and lost forever among the restless souls of the dead. With nothing left to lose, she will do whatever it takes to fight her way back, with or without her wings.

Like so many other writers, Shauna grew up as an avid reader, but it was in high school that

she realized she wanted to be a writer. Five years ago, Shauna started work on her Elemental Series. She released the first installment, Earth, on May 1, 2011 and has since released four sequels, with the series coming to an end with Spirit. She is currently hard at work on a new Urban Fantasy series, staring a spunky witch with a smush-faced cat named Artemis. 

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On the night I died, when Liam had walked me away from my friends and the wreckage of the house, the tips of my wings had dragged along the ground. I thought maybe that, though dead, I was still an earthbound angel. I thought I would get to stay, and I just had to wait for someone, like my guardian angel, to show up and tell me what I was supposed to do.

But that’s not exactly what happened. My guardian angel did show, in a burst of blinding light, glorious in his power with his wings spread behind him as he floated. I felt warmth radiating from him and the tunnel of light, trust and some form of relief rushing through me, making me believe I hadn’t been abandoned while falling through the crumbling house. He held out a hand for me as he came close to the ground, his feet landing silently. I started to lift my hand to take his, I always took his hand when he reached for me, but the closer he came, the closer the Light came. I felt the pull of the Light somewhere in my center. I suddenly knew if I touched him, took his hand, let that Light envelope me, I would leave this world and my friends behind.

“Wait,” I said, snatching my hand back and taking a number of steps backward, nearly tripping over my wings.

“Shayna, what are you doing?” he asked.

“What happens now?” I curled my hands into fists and kept them close to my chest.

“What happens now?” he repeated. By the look on his face, it was obvious no one had thought to question him before. “We go into the Light, you join our ranks, and you become the guardian angel you were meant to be.”

“And Jodi and Steven?” I asked. “What happens to them?”

“They are alive and well.” He shook his head and started to take a few steps toward me. For every step he took forward, I took one backward, keeping my distance.

“No,” I said, “what’s going to happen to them? Are they going to be all right?”

“Shayna, that’s not our concern,” my angel said, making the bottom of my stomach drop out. I felt as if the world had turned on its side, and I thought I was going to fall over. “You were my charge; they are not your charges, so you cannot concern yourself with their fates.”

“But something is going to happen, isn’t it?” I pressed. “My dying, that is going to do something to them, isn’t it?”

“Shayna, just come with me.”

“Why won’t you answer me?”

“Shayna!” He rushed forward, his hands outstretched. I dodged, hitting the ground and rolling in a mass of limbs and wings. He tumbled forward, losing his balance when I suddenly wasn’t there. Getting to my feet was difficult, but when I finally did, I ran, flexing my wings behind me, working them desperately, lifting and bobbing awkwardly in the air. I heard him yelling for me, still tangled where he had fallen since he didn’t have the same desperate need fueling him. The Light sliced through the air and trees easily. My back warmed as it touched me, and the sensation to turn toward it pulled at me.

“No!” I screamed, willing myself to go faster, farther, just get the hell away from it. That’s when the burning began.