In honor of Father’s Day (USA) I’m taking a break from CAMRON and giving an excerpt from BADARI WARRIOR’S BABY: MEGAN AND MATEER (BADARI WARRIORS). We’ll get back to CAMRON and that burning shuttle next week, I promise.

Here’s the link to the Weekend Writing Warriors central page, so you can visit all the participants sharing excerpts today…a fun way to sample new books and find new authors! (Also welcome to the Sunday Snippet visitors!)

Punctuation may be wonky to comply with our guidelines here. May be edited a bit from published version.

If you haven’t read any of my Badari Warriors books, here’s the background:

Genetically engineered soldiers of the far future, the Badari were created by alien enemies to fight humans. But then the scientists kidnapped an entire human colony from the Sectors to use as subjects in twisted experiments…the Badari and the humans made common cause, rebelled and escaped the labs. Now they live side by side in a sanctuary valley protected by a powerful Artificial Intelligence, and wage unceasing war on the aliens. 

The excerpt – Megan is close to her due date for giving birth to the first ever Badari child, but things are never simple on this planet – Mateer is in a meeting and she’s seeing patients at the valley’s tiny hospital. Mateer and his unborn child share a telepathic connection.

“If we go forward with this council, I will have veto power over any candidate,” Aydarr said, voice flat, “Certain humans have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. I refuse to deal with such individuals or give them higher status.”

Mateer opened his mouth to chime in on this point, since he had definite opinions about a few names, when he was hit with a wave of green suffusing his mind’s eye and the scent of Spring flowers and new growth filled his nostrils.  Why is the baby reaching out to me? Without realizing he’d done so, he shoved back his chair and was on his feet, talons deployed.  Under the beautiful fragrance there was a sense of unease. Something was wrong in the baby’s perception of her world right now, which meant something amiss with Megan. His daughter was seeking her father as the other source of comfort in her limited awareness.

Everyone was staring at him.

“Megan needs help now,” he said with a snarl in his voice and sprinted from the room, heading for the hospital as fast as he could run.

In his head he heard Aydarr issuing an alert to the entire pack wherever they were in the valley and then the Alpha was right behind him, coming to assist. Mateer tried to send calm reassurance to the child that he was on his way. Frustration over the baby’s inability to communicate in words ate at him, even as he recognized the ridiculousness of his expecting an unborn child to parse sentences.

The blurb: Dr. Megan Garrison, mate to the Badari Warrior pack’s senior enforcer Mateer, is perilously close to the due date of their baby when she’s kidnapped by human malcontents in Sanctuary Valley. The kidnappers threaten to harm her and intend to ransom the half human-half Badari child to the evil Khagrish scientists in return for their own lives.

Mateer and his fellow Badari launch a desperate effort to save his mate and child but the situation is made more complicated as Megan goes into labor. Can they rescue her in time to save mother and child?

A 25K word novella…

Amazon     Apple Books     Nook      Kobo    Google