S.C. Stephens's THE NEXT GENERATION is available TODAY and paranormal lovers won't want to miss this one! Read an excerpt below and pick up your copy today!
About THE NEXT GENERATION
Fitting in can be hard for anyone. But for Julian and Nika Adams, it’s especially challenging. Born as partial vampires, a rare offshoot of pureblood vampires, the twins have had to deceive people their entire lives—distancing themselves from their peers.
Nika desperately wants a hero, a soulmate, someone she can trust with every fibre of her soul—someone as amazing as her father. The boys at her high school aren’t impressing, but luckily for Nika, Hunter Evans has moved into the neighborhood.
Julian desperately wishes he could sever the empathic bond he has with his sister. While it was fun to experience each other’s emotions when they were kids, now that Julian finds himself pining for a girl he can’t have, sharing his feelings is the last thing he wants to do.
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A slice
of anger ran up my spine—I shivered with the strength of it. As I closed my
eyes, intense, rolling hatred seared my body, tightened my muscles. I wasn’t
angry at Arianna’s comment; I actually found it rather amusing. No, the anger
scorching my soul wasn’t coming from me, but from Julian. And it was strong. He
was pissed.
My eyes
snapped to where I could feel him in the gym. He was moving away from the
massive room, hopefully coming out to join me. Curiosity and concern blossomed
in my chest. I really wanted to know why Julian was so angry. Although, knowing
him, I did have one guess…
“I’ll work on that…” I murmured to Arianna as
I felt Julian leave the gym and enter the boy’s locker room. Frowning, I
wondered what the heck he was doing. His anger had spiked as he’d left the gym,
not diminished. My concern heightened. I
should go see what’s wrong with him.
Knowing
Julian could feel me just as well as I could feel him, I tried to squelch the
worry bubbling inside my stomach. I even tried sending calming feelings
Julian’s way, but it wasn’t working. Whatever had him riled up wasn’t letting
go; he was getting angrier and angrier.
Arianna
laughed, then she started going into elaborate detail about all the dates she
wanted to go on, and which boy she wanted to take on them—she had about five or
six mapped out already. Tuning her out, I tried listening for my brother. I
couldn’t hear him through the people and structures in the way though. My ears
just weren’t enhanced enough. It irritated me sometimes that my family’s gifts
were weaker in Julian and me—the two of us were much more human than vampire.
But that allowed us to feel more normal than the others, and I did appreciate
that fact. The limitations were just really inconvenient at times. While any of
the other vampires in my family could have easily picked out the conversation
Julian was having, all I was getting was low, husky murmuring. But his emotions
were simmering, and that was all I needed to know.
Glancing
at Arianna, I gathered all my stuff and zipped up my bag. She raised an
eyebrow, but didn’t pause in telling me all about her imaginary date rock
climbing with Jake McKinley. Giving her a soft smile, so she didn’t get too
suspicious, I started to stand. “I’ll be right back, Arianna, I—” Dread locked
up my muscles, and I halted mid-sentence and mid-stance. Fear. Julian was
feeling fear now. His anger had been rising to a boiling point, but now it had
shifted to stark terror, and I had no idea why. Dropping my bag to the ground,
I hauled ass across the football field.
“Nika?
Where are you going? What’s wrong?”
I
ignored Arianna’s concern and kept running. I had to get to Julian. I could
have blurred to him in a split-second, but hampering my abilities had been
drilled into me since birth, and I wouldn’t go against that training unless the
situation absolutely demanded it. And
when Julian’s fear shifted to panic…I began to believe that the situation
demanded it.
But
knowing that Arianna was staring at me as I ran away curbed the desire to blur
to Julian. I wouldn’t freak out my friend if I could help it. And aside from
extreme panic and lingering fear, Julian was okay. Well, he wasn’t in pain at
any rate.
Pulling
open the doors to the gym, the metal singing in complaint at my force, I
suddenly felt a rush of agony. Gasping, I paused in my step. The zing of hurt
had exploded over me, almost like I’d felt it myself. I hadn’t, though; it was
separate from my own feelings of fearful concern. The pain had come from
Julian…and renewed anger came right behind it.
Once I
was inside the gymnasium, my hearing finally picked him up. He was cursing, and
there was a lot of scuffling. It sounded like he’d gotten himself into a fight.
Odd. Julian wasn’t one to pick on people. But then again, if what had happened
earlier in the gym to make him so happy was what I was afraid it was…then yeah,
he might have started this fight.
Cursing
under my breath as another bout of pain lashed Julian’s body, I glanced around
the empty halls. Seeing it was clear, I sped off after Julian. In mere seconds,
I was at the edge of a group of people in the boy’s locker room. They were all
cheering on a couple of guys going at it in the center. Two bodies were
sprawled on the tile floor of the open shower, wild punches being slung
everywhere.
From the
blood bond and our emotional connection, I knew Julian was amid the melee.
Silence shocked me for a second as I stood on the periphery and watched my
brother through the cracks in the teenagers surrounding him. He’d gained the
upper hand and was straddling a senior: Russell Morrison. I watched in horror
as Julian successfully landed a punch to Russell’s jaw. So many racing
heartbeats thudded in the room…it was nearly deafening. What the hell?
Knowing
that our supernatural strength was superior to every other kid at this school
made fear cut through my startled state. Julian could seriously hurt Russell if
he wasn’t careful, and with the amount of pain and anger Julian was feeling
right now, he didn’t seem to be worried about being careful anymore. He was
completely out of control.
“Julian!”
I screeched, an edge of panic to my voice. He could not get in a fight with a pure human. He’d accidentally kill him.
About S.C. Stephens
S.C. Stephens is a bestselling author who enjoys spending every free moment she has creating stories that are packed with emotion and heavy on romance.
Her debut novel, Thoughtless, an angst-filled love triangle charged with insurmountable passion and the unforgettable Kellan Kyle, took the literary world by storm. Amazed and surprised by the response to the release of Thoughtless in 2009, more stories were quick to follow. Stephens has been writing nonstop ever since.
In addition to writing, Stephens enjoys spending lazy afternoons in the sun reading fabulous novels, loading up her iPod with writer’s block reducing music, heading out the movies and spending quality time with her friends and family. She currently resides in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her two equally beautiful children.
