Please
give a warm welcome to Micah Ariesis from Huntress of the Star Empire by Athena Grayson today as we sit down and see what makes him tick.
What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not saving
(the world, clients, your mate)?
First, polite protocol would have me thanking my
gracious hostess for allowing me voice on your feed. Knowledge and information
are precious commodities where I come from. In fact, when I’m not in handcuffs
or otherwise fleeing for my life, I roam the many planets of the old Star
Empire, hunting down and preserving knowledge lost to the centuries. Before my
people were lost, I was an archivist in a great library. My soul aches for its
loss.
What is it about your love interest, Treska, that makes
you crazy in a good way?
Treska. Ah, Treska. She’s an enigma to me. And for
someone of my abilities, that’s saying something. She survived a terrible
tragedy practically at Ground Zero, and even though her mind and body were
broken, she fought for life. She is fiercely loyal to those who granted her a
second chance, but I fear that allegiance will blind her to their faults. And
she’s positively unstoppable when it comes to her job. That’s how we met--she
hunted me, and blasted me right out of the sky. There is a part of her that
believes whole-heartedly in noble causes, and it reminds me of my younger days.
She reminds me of my younger days,
and my first, youthful love. What drives me the most around the bend is the
fact that my abilities can help her--if she could only stop believing that I am
a monster.
Do you sometimes want to strangle your writer? Thrash
her/him to within an inch of their life? Make them do the stupid crap they make
you do?
I wouldn’t mind a few more adventures in civilized
places. I admit to enjoying a bit of the creature comforts, and I think Treska
has had precious few of them--I would like to introduce her to the more
pleasurable aspects of existence...although I hear this mad cackling in the
back of my mind now that makes me certain I will regret getting what I wished
for...
Favorite food? Definitely NOT protein cubes! Anything
but protein cubes. The star system’s loss of Tenrayan wine is an inestimable
tragedy, but I admit I have developed a taste for Guerran street food.
Tell me a little bit about your world. What are your
greatest challenges in that world?
The old Star Empire was a loose consortium of over a
half-dozen races--none of whom originated in our system, but all of whom know
no other home. The Capitol is the innermost habitable planet and a giant city,
and the other habitable worlds and moons spread out like gems in the crown of
the Jewel, our primary star. There are thirty Orbits in our system, each
connected by a Jumpgate that allows us to travel from orbit to orbit in a very
short time. The Jumpgates run on schedules, and it’s very very dangerous to
enter a Jumpgate out of schedule, because you don’t know where you’ll end up.
The Jumpgates are fascinating--they predate our earliest history, and that of
the other races as well. In fact, we all share similar legends of our
“starfall” - emerging through the Jumpgate at the edge of the system
from...somewhere else. Everyone’s got stories of homeworlds lost in the mists of
time and space, yet we wound up here.
My greatest challenge, you ask? It’s the frustration of
not knowing. My talents allow me access to a lot of knowledge that would have
otherwise been lost. But sadly, I am not complete. I spend so much time searching
for our origins because I hope to preserve the gifts and history of my kind
because...I am the last of my kind. My people have always been misunderstood by
some due to our psionic abilities, so we’ve always kept ourselves apart,
somewhat. When the alien attacks occurred, we
were believed to be responsible. Misunderstanding turned very quickly to
fear. Never populous to begin with, my people began disappearing against our
will, rather than voluntarily retreating to our monasteries and enclaves. And
we were not the only ones. My people disappeared, the Hathori--another strain
of human-variant people with different talents--began to retreat to their
homeworld, suffered extraordinary detentions, and found themselves subject to
travel restrictions and public mistrust where they had once seen respect. My
partner and longtime friend, Xenna, did not take the change well.
Describe yourself in four words. Gentleman, scholar,
lover, rebel.
What do you do for a living?
Nowadays? Run for my life. Before the attacks, I enjoyed
a quiet life as an archivist, save for the occasions where I traveled to remote
orbits, archaeological digs, and ancient places of my people. I still cannot
resist an artifact’s gleam at a bazaar vendor’s table. It’s made me some
interesting friends...and a handful of enemies.
What do you fear the most?
I fear what fear has done to my star system. We have
given up much in the pursuit of security. Granted, some of it is gone for the
better, but much of it seems too much like setting aside one dogma for another.
I used to fear that I would finally lose the fight against being forgotten. Now
I fear that Treska will never be able to unlock what she’s forgotten.
Thank you for hosting me today. It has been a pleasure
to be permitted to tell my story.
The Chase (Huntress of the Star Empire Episodes 1-3)
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00YM71WCM
Apple:
https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/chase-huntress-star-empire/id1002289666?mt=11
B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-chase-athena-grayson/1122042451?ean=2940151535250
Kobo:
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/the-chase-huntress-of-the-star-empire-episodes-1-3
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https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thechasehuntressofthestarempireepisodes13-1866346-153.html
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/548302
Getting him in handcuffs was the easy part... Known to her
targets as the Huntress, Treska Sivekka hunts down the aliens and psypaths
whose mental talents are a threat to Union security. Now, with the last free
psypath in her crosshairs, Treska's mission is about to be fulfilled. She's not
the only one who wants a piece of Micah Ariesis, and she'll have to fight off
the scum of the star system to keep him in her handcuffs. Her only problem is
that she wants him in her arms...
The Chase contains
Episodes 1-3
--Episode 1: Hot Pursuit
--Episode 2: Captivated
--Episode 3: Tailspin
About the Huntress
Ever since she was found in the aftermath of alien attacks, Treska
Sivekka has been trained to one purpose--to hunt down threats to the security
of the Union that gave her an identity. But when the Union's biggest threat
inspires desire, and not fear, it’s going to take all her training to protect
her principles against his persuasive onslaught.
The Huntress's neuro-collar and repulsor cuffs may keep Micah
bound to her mercy, but they can't stop him from challenging her convictions,
and the lies she's been told about his people. But when the secrets surrounding
her own missing memories begin to reveal themselves, he may be the only one she
can trust.
Pursued across the star system by the Huntress, helpless as his
psionically-talented brethren were brought down one by one, Micah Ariesis must
sacrifice himself in a sketchy revolutionary plot aimed at the Union’s heart,
but the mystery surrounding his pursuer's mysterious origins puts danger to a
much closer heart—his own.
Excerpt
She turned back around
to pull his pants back up. I don’t care
if it is eight jumps. I’m getting back to Prime, collecting my bounty, and
getting the hell away from—things that
leaned to the left.
Reaching around put her
in close contact with his legs, and she couldn’t help but notice the scent of
cool, fresh water that seemed to cling to him.
“Like what you see?”
She started so
violently at the quiet words that she flew backwards, landing on her ass with a
rattle of the deckplates. A guilty glance upwards showed his eyes, bright
blue-gray and gleaming from behind the fringe of hair that hung over his
forehead. “You’re awake!” It came out like she was accusing him.
Her skin could have
been on fire for the blush that burned her from inside out, all the way from
toes to the roots of her hair. She was already warm from the cockpit—oh suns, don’t think of that!—and trying
to return his pants to their proper state. This just made things that much
worse all around.
“I usually prefer to be
conscious when a lovely woman is that close to my private parts.”
She scowled. “You have
no respect for the vice laws, do you?”
He met her glare with
one of his own. “Why should I?”
“It’s virtue that keeps
people safe,” she said, speaking along with the Voice that supplied the
immediate answer in her head. “A prudent society is a secure society. Vice and
temptation make citizens unsafe. Peace comes through restraint.” How much more
simple did it have to be?
“So I shouldn’t be at
all worried that you had something pleasurable in mind when you divested me of
my pants.”
She blushed even
harder, and fell back on her original reason for cutting his belt. “I was
checking you for weapons.”
He threw his head back
and laughed, exposing the long lines of his throat and jaw, and for one wild
moment, she wanted very badly to kiss along the line of it, and maybe nip at
the flutter where his pulse beat. He’d like that.
“I can assure you that
my fiercest weapon is only that which you see before you,” he said, glancing
down to meet her eyes. “And it brings only pleasure.” For a long moment she was
caught in the loop of thinking about the taste of his skin over and over,
seeing an afterimage of her own tongue flicking out and gliding over the salty
scratchiness of his jaw.
“You unsheath it when
you look at me like that.”
4 comments:
Thank you so much for hosting me today, Dawn! It's been a real hoot introducing my hero!
Great Interview and I think I could really crush on Micah.
Great Interview and I think I could really crush on Micah.
Thank you, Nancy! He is, indeed, a crush-worthy guy. :) He does get into a lot of trouble, though...
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