God of Summer

September 16, 2022

God of Summer

The God of Summer

by Kat Chant

GENRE: Dark fantasy / paranormal

Back in the Bronze Age, Angus McCraggan sacrificed his life to break the Celtic curse laid on his kind. He failed. Millennia later, he returns to modern Ireland to find his people have become feral, vengeful shadows. With his hollow hill now packed with tourists, he uses his power to keep his past hidden.

Until an American calls him out.

Since a banshee attacked her as a teen, Erin De Santos has been tormented by dreams of a boy she’s never met. Armed with a new identity, she returns to the Emerald Isle determined to face her nightmare. But her discovery turns fatal.

When the banshee strikes again, Angus surrenders his heart—and his hope of freeing his people—to save her. With his life now hers and his curse descending, Erin must make a terrible choice: kill her savior or share his doom.

Excerpt:

Cradled in his arms, Liz seemed as thin and brittle as a dead leaf. Would she live? Her pulse fluttered through flesh cold as a corpse. The shredded strands of her soul wafted, fainter and fainter, tickling against his skin like tentacles. He tried shoving them back into her, but every time he almost had them, he found he held nothing.

She was dying.

My fault. I told her she could find me.

Wrapped about her as he was, she bathed within his own abundant aura. That gave him time. Surely he had time? There must be something he could do to save her. He had no tools save willpower and need, and the scar on his chest weeping fluid.

It ached with each beat of his heart.

It didn’t hurt enough.

He had enough lives on his conscience. Long ago to the world, but fresh in his memory. This new life was his new start. Damned if he’d mar it with another needless loss.

Inhaling into his core, he focused on how his heart tugged against the brand on his chest. With every heartbeat, he drew power from Newgrange. Unlike his blast at the banshee, he let it seep into him, containing and building the energy like an oyster accreting a pearl. A mile away, he felt the trispiral within the inner chamber flare to match its twin on his chest.

All I can give.

The light illuminating Liz flickered one more time and died. Snuffed out.

“No, Liz, that’s not the way,” he told her in a broken whisper, playing his fingers along the length of her spine, trying to pluck up the life in her the same way he’d once

plucked his harp. “Anyone can do that. The trick is to come back.”

With reckless abandon, he focused on the greatest trispiral, the one on the Entrance Stone, and hauled. Lights popped inside his head and his heart strained with the burden. He kept going. Whatever she needed. Everything he and Caer had taken, he would return. Anything she needed, he would give. Anything and all of it.

Everything I have.

The pain grew so intense he dropped to his knees, buffering Liz by catching his fall on the doorframe. His breath rattled and his heart stuttered as if about to seize. He couldn’t manage much longer, else he’d pass out himself. If he did, she’d never heal. This would have to do.

He clamped a hand around the base of her skull and put his lips over hers. Her mouth was tainted with salt. The weight in his chest lifted. As he exhaled, it passed between them. Everything he had, he gave. Unconditionally.

He hadn’t known he had so much to give.

When he drew back to catch his breath, her shoulders shuddered in his arms and her spine arched. Tiny sparks fizzed blue-white over her body, bright and brief in the manner of flint striking iron. Deep in the center of her chest, an ember-red glow grew bigger and brighter, turning a rich gold as it expanded.

She was coming back to life.

About the Author:

Kat Chant is an award-winning writer. A bookworm who grew into a history buff, she swapped beaches for castles and moved from Australia to the UK. When studying medieval history, she fell in love with a lad from Ireland…and fell in love with his country, too.

She and her family live in the heart of Ireland, surrounded by fields in forty shades of green.

Kat is a keen cook and often experiments with traditional farmhouse foods such as making bread, cheese, jam and liqueurs. She also decorates the occasional cake.

Author Links:

Web https://www.katchant.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/KatChantAuthor

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/katchantauthor/

Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/KatrinaChantAuthor/god-of-summer

Twitter @katchantauthor / https://twitter.com/katchantauthor

TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@katchantauthor

Bookbub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kat-chant

https://www.bookbub.com/books/god-of-summer-by-kat-chant

Goodreads TBC

Amazon Author Profile: https://amazon.com/author/kat-chant

Buy Link: