Authors: Gill McKnight
The Tea Machine (31 page)
EXCERPT FROM
PARABELLUM
by Gill Mc Knight
(Book two of The Teatime Chronicles; Coming 2017)
The soft folds of material moved freely against her flesh. It was not an unpleasant feeling, and the narcotic fibres of the cloth relaxed her as she pushed tentatively through the crowd. She felt light-headed with a strange kind of euphoria, and now she understood why the robes were called Naili, after the tribe famed for its belly-dancing. Her skin felt alive, it pulsed and crawled deliciously with every movement. It made her want to move more to enhance the pleasure further.
The room was noisy, and a haze of cooling vapour hung high over the heads of the crowd, its purpose to keep the temperature at an ambient degree. It was necessary; heat pulsed off the bodies she tried to slither past with minimum contact, except she found herself attracted to the body heat. She forced herself to keep pushing onwards; she had to find a way through, a way out. Somewhere under the layers of sensation, a small, sober, inner voice, inhibited to the point of muteness, was warning that this could not, would not end well.
Strangers smiled leerily at her. Several raised their glasses in friendly salute, others reached out to gently pat her arms and shoulders in a mild greeting. She was confused. Who were these people?
The haze above her head cleared for a moment, like cloud breaking under thermal winds, and the purple blaze of a bright and brazen neon sign, several feet high, flashed down on her like an omen of ill-boding. Millicent’s small, sober, inner voice broke loose and howled in dismay. Parabellum. She was on the troop ship, Quintus Prime, in the Parabellum bar.
“Hey.” Gallo barrelled out of the crowd and grabbed her by the forearm. “There you are. Come on.” And pulled her back into the thick of it, cleaving a path towards the far corner. “Found her,” she called to a group of soldiers. They were all lean and lithe and louche, sitting around a drink-laden table in the relaxed manner of cheerful ne’er-do-wells.
“Sangfroid,” Gallo cried and drew Millicent forward amid catcalls and laughter. “Here’s your birthday present. We all chipped in, but she has to be back at the brothel before midnight or it’s extra.”
Before she could draw a breath to protest Millicent was flung onto the lap of a blonde woman soldier. She looked up into Sangfroid’s amused grey eyes and failed to see the person she knew so well. This Sangfroid laughed even as her lips found the pulse point of Millicent’s throat and sucked on it lasciviously. “You,” she murmured against Millicent’s hammering pulse, “are better than cake.”
ABOUT GILL MCKNIGHT
Gill McKnight is Irish but spends as much time as possible in Lesbos, Greece, which she considers home. She can often be found traveling back and forth between Greece and Ireland in a rusty old camper van with her rusty wee dog. Gill enjoys writing, roses, and by necessity DIY.
CONNECT WITH THIS AUTHOR:
Website
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www.gillmcknight.com
OTHER BOOKS FROM YLVA PUBLISHING
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Banshee. Oath breaker. Murderer. These are words that slip off their tongues now.
Azhani Rhu’len, once one of the greatest of Y’Dan’s warriors, is now just a common criminal, escaping the justice of the kingdom she swore to serve.
~~~
Kyrian Stardancer. Goddess’ Own. A healer and priestess, she is inviolate until one day, when her world is turned upside down and tossed over the back of a horse—literally.
Torn from all she knows, Kyrian finds her fate now rests squarely on the shoulders of the oath breaker, Azhani Rhu’len.
When signs of ancient evil appear, Azhani and Kyrian must choose whether to ignore the warnings or stand and face the terrifying menace.
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-516-8 (mobi), 978-3-95533-517-5 (epub)
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-032-3 (mobi), 978-3-95533-031-6 (epub)
Length: 146,000 words (496 pages)
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Griffin Westmore knows better—at least about one of these two things. She doesn’t believe in love either, but she’s one of the not-so-fictional shape-shifters. She’s also a Saru, an elite soldier with the mission to protect the shape-shifters’ secret existence at any cost.
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On a summer night like any other, an emergency call sounds in the quarters of Andira Tal, Lancer of Alsea. The news is shocking: not only is there other intelligent life in the universe, but it’s landing on the planet right now.
Tal leads the first responding team and ends up rescuing aliens who have a frightening story to tell. They protected Alsea from a terrible fate—but the reprieve is only temporary.
Captain Ekatya Serrado of the Fleet ship Caphenon serves the Protectorate, a confederation of worlds with a common political philosophy. She has just sacrificed her ship to save Alsea, yet political maneuvering may mean she did it all for nothing.
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COMING FROM YLVA PUBLISHING
Welcome to the Wallops
Gill McKnight
The villages of High Wallop and Lesser Wallop have graced either end of the Wallop valley since medieval times. And competition between the two has never ceased since, especially over the famous Cheese and Beer festival.
As head Judge of Show, Jane Swallow has always struggled to keep peace, friendship, and equanimity within the community she loves, but this year everything is wrong. Her father has just been released from prison and is on his way to Lesser Wallop with the rest of her travelling family and their caravans.
Her job is on the line, and her ex-girlfriend from a million years ago has just moved in next door.
Her life is going down the drain unless she can pull off some sort of miracle.
Parabellum
(Book two in The Teatime Chronicles)
Coming 2017
Gill McKnight
Married life is hard; especially on a troop ship thundering through Scorpius Major on the hunt for a squid hive. But it’s not as if Millicent Sangfroid, nee Aberly can return home. Number five Christie Mews in under attack, as is the whole of London, from the steamslave riots. Sophia has gone to join the Amazons, and Severus ex Machina knows who Millicent is and has set his Imperial guard to find her—if only she knew who
he
was. Then maybe she could stop this whole frightful mess.
The Tea Machine
© 2015 by Gill McKnight
ISBN (mobi): 978-3-95533-429-1
ISBN (epub): 978-3-95533-430-7
Also available as paperback.
Published by Ylva Publishing, legal entity of Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Ylva Verlag, e.Kfr.
Owner: Astrid Ohletz
Am Kirschgarten 2
65830 Kriftel
Germany
First edition: November 2015
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Credits
Edited by Jove Belle
Cover Concept: Louis McKnight
Cover Design & Printlayout by Streetlight Graphics