Teaser Tuesday

For my teaser, I am giving my pre-query for LARCH followed by a short teaser - I'm getting too close to the end and into spoiler territory.

In 2015 Nuclear Holocaust came to the world. America eventually fell into a Totalitarian Dictatorship. An active Underground group tries to usurp the beloved Dictator at every turn.

Larch is seventeen-years-old and carries a secret that even she doesn't know - she is the only successfully cloned human in the world. Her uncle, the Dictator, will keep her safe at all costs.

The Underground wants her. The failures of the cloning program live amoungst the Underground with the Scientist who created them - and Larch. Larch holds the key to the future of these clones deep in her DNA.

Stone, one of those sworn to protect her, is working for the Underground and his father - the Scientist. What began as a simple mission to help the Underground changes as Stone comes to realize the complications of Larch - she is as human as he.



Larch

I looked at Rodriguez, softly snoring and a feeling of devotion rose up in me. He was probably the only person as I was growing up who could be counted on, a surrogate father, and the only one who didn’t betray me, that is if he didn’t know I was cloned. If he did then he would have to enter the column of betrayers.

He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Morning, Larch. How are you?” he asked with concern.

“Better but I have to ask you something important.” I was scared he would not live up to my image of him.

“Okay, should I be nervous?” he asked.

“Did you know that I am not human?” I blurted.

He sat up so fast he lost his balance and had to catch himself with his arms before he fell out of the bed. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course you’re human!” he practically roared.

Teaser Tuesday

I had a hard time deciding whether I wanted to give everyone a view into my dystopian society or fluff from Stone and Larch, so I chose the latter since I am a romantic and it was kissing day yesterday. I have been filling in spots that needed relationship building and world building and finally got around to writing the first kiss, after I wrote several later kisses. I'm glad I waited because Larch surprised me.

In this scene Larch and Stone have fought with fighting sticks and she was really mad. The guards watched the entire thing. Larch's POV.

“You have literally beat the shit outta me Princess.” Stone said as he pressed my body into the wall. “Do you have any more aggression you want to take out on me, cause I can take it.”

I looked at the blood running down his face and the bruises already forming on the exposed skin of his arms. I saw the guards looking intently at us, they were no longer laughing, instead they looked scared. Stone and I were both breathing hard and at that moment, I didn’t care if he hated me, nor did I care if he would push me away because I was going to do what I wanted to do.

I let go of my stick and it clattered to the floor. My hands grabbed Stone’s shirt while his eyes narrowed in contemplation, like he was preparing to defend himself once more, but before he could move or lower the stick that anchored me to the wall, I surged forward as if I was being pushed from the wall by some unseen force, dragged him to me and kissed him.

Lips met lips and an electrical current moved from me into him or him into me, I didn’t know which but I did know that it was earth-shattering. His eyes widened and he dropped his stick, grabbed the back of my head, burying his hands in my hair and dragged me closer, until I didn’t know where I stopped and he began.

Cat-calls sounded and he broke off abruptly, but his hands were still buried in my hair.

“Wow,” he said and I thought that just about summed it up.