Editing After Edits: Seizing Darkness by Mariana Thorn

With her past distant and forgotten Natalya has built herself a nice life. She has a job she finds rewarding as a special agent with the Paranormal Investigation Bureau. Her partner, Dante, isn’t too bad for a bloodsucking vampire. Val, her boss, is like a father to her. Her favorite part is that she lives near the Cascade Mountains. Whenever she needs a little vacation, she can shift into a tiger and go running in the woods. Life is good.

That is until recently. Agents are turning up dead and she can’t pin down what is going on. Little does she know that her past is about to come back and bite her in the tail. With no memories before the last year she is a little behind the curve in finding out what is going on. The investigation turns dangerous as the attack turn personal. Lives are on the line, including her own. Will Natalya find out what is going on before it’s too late?

Seizing Darkness Excerpt:

Landing hard, I heard a crunch as the bone in my left forearm snapped beneath me. I didn’t have any time to respond. The damn wolf was trying to rip out my throat with his teeth. I tried to fight back. He was strong. Normally a wolf was no big deal for me, but tonight I had a big disadvantage. I was weaker on the nights I couldn’t shift.

The smoke was filling my lungs and breathing was becoming difficult. We rolled on the ground and the wolf got me by the throat with his hands. He twisted me onto my back and his body pressed me into the cold, frozen ground. His legs pinned my arms to my sides. I couldn’t get the leverage with my feet to push him off.

His fingernails dug into the delicate skin of my neck. The scent of my blood filled my nose. I stared up at the starry sky. It’s not raining, I thought incongruously. I was barely getting any air through his hands clenched around my throat.

I managed to wrench my arms free and began digging at his hands, trying to pry them loose, but with only one working arm it was impossible. I was becoming weaker as I struggled to get air into my aching lungs. My vision started to get fuzzy around the edges.

All of a sudden, the weight of the wolf was lifted off of me. There was a crack and I heard flesh ripping. I was showered in hot, sticky liquid. As I gasped for breath, the scent of the wolf’s blood hit me.

Mariana Thorn

If you look in the local Starbuck’s or Barnes and Noble you might just find Mariana Thorn. She can usually be found with headphones in and deep into the worlds she has created. There is this thing about her pens if you touch them you might receive a smack to the hand and the well-known glare of destruction.

As a child all her stories involved horses, horses and more horses. There might have been a slight obsession. Writing became more serious in her early twenties but she never dreamed of publishing until much later. Mariana participates yearly in the international event called NANOWRIMO. She has even been known as a Municipal Liaison for that crazy event. There is nothing like the feeling of encouraging other writers, she would say.

Outside of writing one of her favorite places to sit and read are the sunny beaches of Florida. At home in Washington State her favorite activity is riding horses up on the mountain trails. She has an awesome group of family and friends that keep her in coffee and encouragement. Then there is her best buddy Tony, her little dog. She suspects he will try and take over the world someday.