Read an Excerpt
An excerpt from DESTINY, book 1 of the new Rogue Angel™ series.
Deep in the mountains of Lozère, France, a discovery is made that will seal Annja Creed’s destiny…
Was this a place of worship? Annja wondered. Or an altar
celebrating past triumphs?
She tried to imagine Cro-Magnon men sitting in the cave
bragging about their success as fierce hunters. Except that
the sheep’s body was anachronistic. None of the sheep’s
forebears had looked like that in Cro-Magnon times. This
sheep was small and compact, bred for meat and wool, not
far removed from the sheep Annja had seen on farms she’d
passed on her way to the mountain range.
Looking closely, she noticed that several of the skulls
were human.
Used to handling human remains on dig sites, she had no
fear of the dead. She set down the flashlight to illuminate the
scene.
Upon further inspection, she discovered that several of the
ribs, and arm and leg bones were likely human, as well.
Shreds of clothing that looked hundreds of years old clung
to some of the bones. Boots stood and lay amid the clutter.
A cold chill ran down her spine. Whatever had lived in the
cave had preyed on humans.
Shifting the light, heart beating a little faster, Annja
spotted the great body stretched out on the floor. For a very
tense moment, she’d thought the animal was lying there
waiting to pounce. She froze.
The light played over the mummified lips pulled back in
a savage snarl that exposed huge yellow teeth. The eye
sockets were hollow, long empty and dry. In that moment,
the animal musk she’d smelled seemed even more intense.
Death had stripped the fantastic creature of much of its
bulk, but it was still easy to see how huge it had been in life.
The head was as big as a buffalo’s but more bearlike in shape.
Its body was thick and broad and the limbs were huge. It was
unlike anything Annja had ever seen before.
Making herself move despite the fear and astonishment she
felt, Annja took pictures of the creature with the digital
camera.
Finished with the camera, she hurriedly took out a small
drawing pad and a mechanical pencil from her backpack.
If the camera failed to capture images, she could at least
draw them.
On closer inspection, Annja saw a broad-bladed spear
shoved through the beast’s chest. Beneath the corpse of the
impossible animal was a human corpse.
Decomposition hadn’t settled in. Locked in the steady
climate of the cave environment, kept bug-free by depth and
ecology, the dead man had mummified as the beast had. His
hands, the flesh so dehydrated it was almost like onionskin
over the bones, still held tightly to the spear. Man and beast,
locked in savage combat, had killed each other.
Kneeling beside the dead man and beast, she reached out
her empty hand.
Something gleamed at the dead man’s throat.
Taking a surgical glove from her backpack, Annja plucked
the gleaming object from the corpse. It had partially sunk into
the dead man’s chest. A leather thong tied the object around
the corpse’s neck.
After freeing the gleaming object, Annja held it up so her
flashlight beam could easily illuminate it. A jagged piece of
metal, no more than two inches to a side, dangled from the
leather thong.
The piece looked like an ill-made coin, hammered out on
some smith’s anvil in a hurry. One side held an image of a
wolf standing in front of a mountain. The wolf was disproportioned,
though the oddities seemed intentional, and it
appeared as though the wolf had been hanged. The obverse
was stamped with a symbol she couldn’t quite make out.
Annja remained kneeling. She was checking the image
when a flashlight beam whipped across her face.
Instinctively, she dodged away, remembering the motorcyclists
and the old man she’d seen outside. She tucked the
drawing pad, pencils and charm into her backpack as she
scooped up her flashlight and switched it off.
“Where the hell did she go?” someone demanded in French.
Shadows created by the glow of the flashlight trailed the
beam into the chamber.
Annja stayed low as the light sprayed around the room.
She barely escaped it before reaching the pile of skulls. Once
there, she flattened herself against the wall.
Light played over leather-clad bodies that stepped into
the chamber.
Evidently the motorcyclists had made their way down the
sinkhole. They’d come along the passage Annja had found.
She’d been so absorbed by her discoveries that she’d forgotten
all about them and hadn’t noticed them. Silently, she
cursed herself.
“She can’t have just vanished,” another man said.
In the soft glow of the reflected light from the flashlight,
all six of them stood revealed. All of them held pistols.
“If we lose her, Lesauvage is going to kill us.” The
speaker’s voice was tight with fear.
“We haven’t lost her,” someone stated calmly. “We came
in that hole after her. There’s no other way out.”
“You don’t know that, Foulard.”
Another man gave a startled curse. “What the hell’s
lying there?”
Foulard aimed his flashlight at the creature’s huge mummified
body.
“The Beast of Gévaudan!” someone said. “It must be!
Look at it! My grandfather told me stories about this thing!”
His voice dropped and took on a note of awe. “I never
believed him. Thought it was all crap old men told kids to
scare the hell out of them.”
Hidden by the shadow of the skulls, Annja’s mind raced.
They came here looking for me.
“Forget about that damned thing,” Foulard commanded.
“Spread out. Find the woman. Lesauvage wants to speak
with her. I don’t want to go back and tell him we lost her.”
He directed his flashlight at the cavern’s ceiling, providing
a weak cone of illumination from above.
Thankfully, the light didn’t quite reach the cavern floor.
Annja sank down low. Her free hand plucked up one of the
human skulls. Her fingers slipped easily through the empty
eyeholes to secure her hold. It wasn’t much as weapons
went, but she hoped to improve her standing.
Join Annja in her quest to uncover the truth behind the Beast of Gevaudan and discover how the unusual coin will seal her fate.
