I’m sharing scenes from the first chapter of Provoking Odium as we wait for its release on June 21st.
You can read the first scene from the first chapter of Provoking Odium here:
This week I’m sharing the second scene of that first chapter.
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The Humanoid Alliance redirected some of their firepower her way. Missiles arced toward her freighter.
Alarms sounded and lights flashed. She waited, waited, waited, then veered left. Wall panels vibrated as the missiles shot past her. That was how close they’d been to the freighter, how near she’d been to death.
“Fuck. This requires music.” She smacked the button, unmuting her tunes.
Vocals blasted. The bass pounded. Adrenaline pumped through her veins.
She swerved her ship to the left, right, right, left, avoiding a barrage of projectiles. Sweat beaded on her forehead, dripped down her spine. Missiles burst into color, into vibrant bits of energy all around her vessel. Metal rattled.
Her route became narrower and narrower. Her ability to avoid the missiles decreased. But the Humanoid Alliance forces below her ship thinned also. There were fewer battle machines to target her freighter.
She pulsed her engines, flying fast, fast, slow, fast, slow, slow, and tilted her ship upward, downward. Projectiles shattered the rock walls around her.
“Come on, baby.” Tension stretched across her shoulders. “You can do this. You can—”
The missile bombardment suddenly stopped. It must’ve been deemed too dangerous for the forces positioned on the ground. The Humanoid Alliance also knew they’d have another chance to down her ship.
She’d have to exit the same way.
That would be a challenge. She’d have to fly like the wind to avoid the strikes. But she could do it. She was the best damn freighter pilot in the fuckin’ universe.
That wasn’t a boast. That was the truth.
The rock walls closed in around her. She lowered her freighter and skimmed along the ground. Pebbles sprayed against the undercarriage. The pings were almost musical.
She carefully aligned the vessel’s nose with the opening in the stone before her. Entry into the dormant volcano would be tight. A purely organic pilot couldn’t make it. The systems on her freighter didn’t have the precision to target that small of a gap.
But she wasn’t one hundred percent organic. Her processor-equipped mechanical eye had been specifically designed for tasks like the one she now faced. She enabled sightlines and data on it, focused on her target, and inputted those specs into the control panel.
Her fingers trembled. If she made a mistake, if she was even a breath’s-width out of alignment, she would crash the freighter into the stone around her or plunge her vessel into the sand below her.
Either collision would kill her.
“You have this.” She uttered that encouragement to herself and to her ship. “You’ll make it.”
Metal scraped against hard surface as her wings grazed the rock.
For a moment, she thought she was dead.
But then her ship was free. Open space was all around her.
“Fuckin’ right.” She circled her freighter once, twice around the funnel. That signaled to the locals on the ground she was an ally. An enemy would’ve shot at them.
She lowered her ship to the planet’s surface, donned her goggles, then stalked to the doors and opened them. Warm air swept inside the ship. A massive boom temporarily deafened her.
The floor gyrated under her boots.
“What the fuck?” She rushed down the not-yet-fully-extended ramp and looked around her.
A group of purple humanoids stared with wide eyes in the direction from which she came.
Dread gripped her. She followed the beings’ gazes. Her stomach twisted.
A huge cloud of brown dust concealed the only opening to and from the site.
“The entrance is now filled with rock.” That frustrating truth was relayed in musical tones. The words were spoken in the universal language. “The Humanoid Alliance blew it up. We’re trapped.”
Briella met the newcomer’s gaze.
The female had matching eyes. Both of them were organic. Her skin and hair were a lighter shade of purple than her eyes. Her form was tall and slender, and she was dressed in flowing garments.
She was stunning. The dirt and grime covering her couldn’t conceal her beauty.
No one would ever mistake her for a demon.
The female was also heavily armed. She clasped guns in both of her hands.
They would need more than those weapons to escape their current situation.
“The river once flowed into the space.” Briella turned, scanning the stone walls encircling them. “The water had to flow out somehow.”
“That exit was sealed by rock long before I was born.” The female waved one of her guns at an indention in the stone on the far side of the funnel. “We’ve searched the perimeter for another escape route.” Sadness reflected in her perfect eyes. “There isn’t one.”
They were surrounded by high rock walls. Digging through them or under them would take too long, especially as they had no equipment manufactured for that purpose.
Briella tilted her head back. The funnel was too high, too steep for the locals or for herself to climb.
Up was the only viable path, however. She studied the space. The dormant volcano was wide at the bottom, extremely narrow at the top. But the diameter of the vent was larger than her freighter. “There’s an exit directly above us.”
“Is that a viable exit?” The female gazed upward also. “You didn’t enter that way.”
“It’s the only exit we have.” Briella shrugged. “But it’ll be risky. We could all die.”
“If we stay here, we’ll all die.” The female had reached the same conclusion Briella had. There was nothing but sand and rock and echoes of ancient deaths inside the dormant volcano. “I’ll talk with the others.”
***
Read the next scene (available June 6th) here:
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Provoking Odium
A Beautiful Cyborg
While accompanying his leader on a mission, Odium, an E Model cyborg, hears a distress call over the communication lines. The voice on that message makes his circuits surge with energy and all his systems light up. He has to respond to the mysterious female, would risk his lifespan and the lifespans of everyone on board their ship to protect her.
A Human Female Others Call Beast
Briella gained her nickname due to her flying abilities, her fearlessness, and her scarred countenance. Her verbal-only relationship with the sexy cyborg who answers her distress call is a steamy yet short-lived fantasy. His kind is physically perfect, and she is…not. He will uncover that truth when…if they survive the attack upon her freighter.
Provoking Odium is a STANDALONE Cyborg SciFi Romance set in a dark, gritty, sometimes-violent universe.
It features a human female intent on remaining mysterious, a cyborg warrior determined to uncover her identity, and an enemy seeking to destroy them both before they have the opportunity to meet.
Pre-order Today:
Amazon US:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09NRXGLFW
Amazon UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B09NRXGLFW
Amazon AUS:
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B09NRXGLFW
Apple Books:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/provoking-odium/id1605490349
B&N:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/provoking-odium-cynthia-sax/1140894003
