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Awakening: Queen of Spades by EJ Dawson




Awakening 
Queen of Spades Book 1 
by EJ Dawson 
Genre: SciFi Action Romance 


Ayla is a villain. With a gift that allows her to see when anyone will die, she’s remorseless in her profession as the perfect assassin. When she wakes up in a cryo-tank three thousand years in the future, and no idea how she came to be there, all that matters is survival.

Rescued by Leith and the crew of the Nuria, Ayla discovers a far evolved world of space ships and galactic colonization. But everything comes with a price, and though Ayla is no princess locked in an icy tower, she still has to pay for the rescue she didn’t know she needed.

Given over to Leith, a darkly handsome man who reads Ayla far easier than she’d like, they must work together if Ayla is to repay her debt. As the pair come to learn how dangerous one another are, so too grows a lustful bond that comes with rules of its own. Fighting to learn why she was frozen, Ayla’s dragged into Leith’s past with a criminal organization seeking to take over this sector of the galaxy. In order to survive, Leith will need Ayla’s help, but Ayla doesn’t know if she’s willing to pay what it will cost her… 




Coming Soon 


❥☆(¸.•´ ❥**AND**❥☆(¸.•´ ❥


Sample 1:

“You asked where we were before,” Leith said, coming up to a T-intersection where, with a quick flick on his holo-arm, a panel was rising in the wall. “Look outside.”
Beyond was a lounge, but it was the floor length windows opposite that slowed her steps.
Two suns glimmered in a night sky. One a fiery orange ball; the other a somber grey. Stars stretched out into infinity. Ayla struggled not to let her legs crumple beneath her as she came closer to the glass, pressing one hand against it. Nothing now separating her from the awful truth of what had happened.
She was in a spacecraft.
Frozen in time.
Eternities had passed, and she’d missed them. Everyone from her past was dead, every place she’d ever been, any government she’d ever worked for. In the face of discovery, a part of it slipped away, failing to matter anymore. Who was she, when her entire life had been taken away? There was nothing she knew except the man standing behind her and the void beyond.
Staring into the abyss, Ayla saw her reflection’s face.
The hopelessness there.
Rising within her was the desire to hunt down whoever had done this to her.
When her expression changed, mouth tight, eyes pinched, she fought to remember every nuance of hatred she saw there.
She wanted revenge.


Sample 2:

A twilight hung over the apartments and in the eaves of their balconies. Leith headed for the one belonging to Barask.
“You ready?” he said but not to Ayla.
I’m in,” Casey said through the comms. “The dumb scuff hasn’t changed his codes for two cycles. He wrote it on an unsecured, backup data pad.
But with a biologic code tied to his office systems,” Kabe’s voice echoed, “Earlel says you’ll still be able to get access to the Aquacore database because he has a home workspace.
Leith was at the apartment door, punching in the code Casey rattled off in his ear, and after a moment, it slid open.
Inside was dark, and pale, faux wood flooring led down a narrow corridor to an open living area. A set of stairs climbed up to a partial second floor. Shades of cream and beige filled the room, soft and inviting. A single light was on, shrouding the room in a warm glow.
Barask rose from the couch at the sound of the door, but he fell back when he saw the guns in Leith’s and Ayla’s hands.
“Woah,” he said, hands in the air, “take whatever you want, but I promise you’re stealing from the wrong person.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Barask,” Leith said. “Sit back down. We just want to talk. For the time being. My associate has some questions for you.”
Barask opened his mouth to protest but sat down when Leith raised the weapon.
Barask perched on the edge of the couch, and Ayla crossed to take a footstool, placing it in front of him so they were eye level. She already had his date from the club, but she was about to do more than that.
When he flinched at her smile her toes curled in satisfaction.
She missed doing this.
Sample 3:

“You will die,” he promised. He gave her an open-handed slap. Ayla let the blood run from her busted lip, giving him a bloody smile.
“Not before you.” She reached inside him and changed his date. Her head was already throbbing, the sensation now worse, but Lisandro fell back, tripping, stunned.
Agony pulsated through her temples, but she drove onwards. The pulsing changed, echoing down through her power until it was thundering through Lisandro’s head.
He bellowed, falling toward her, meeting her foot as she kicked him hard between his legs. Lisandro fell to the floor like a rag doll, and Ayla rose while snapping the cuffs. Boot steps behind her whirled her around, and she dropped to avoid a knife that sliced through the air, Lisandro’s partner in revenge.
Dark and dangerous, he moved with the blade, no stranger to knife play. Lucky for her, Ayla was no stranger, either.
He stabbed, and she stepped inside his guard to strike but backed off when he switched the blade’s direction mid-swing. She leaned back to avoid it, and he kicked her heel. One leg buckled, dropping her to a knee, then he twisted his grip to bring it plunging toward her chest.
Ayla dropped to the floor, catching herself on her palms and bringing a free leg up to kick out his knee. The inside joint cracked. He gasped, falling to one side. As he fell, she rose to bring her boot down on his injured knee. There was another snap, and he howled.
Not down yet, he waved the blade madly until she backed off, and he dragged himself onto one leg, limping all the while. Ayla heard a door slide open and saw two figures enter.
It wasn’t who she wanted to see.
A spunky woman and slight guy.
Not Casey and Leith.
Fuck.

Sample 4:

Silence fell on the hills.
They’d landed.
Ayla needed to come up with a plan, some method of getting her and Kabe through if Skarlatos found the camp. Slinging the gun on her back, a brief throbbing in her leg warned her not to be too stupid as she crossed to the base of the tree. The thick knotholes allowed her to climb, and she hoisted herself up. The rock top was too exposed. Anyone under its large canopy would see her, but she was otherwise well hidden.
Ayla was careful to lay her bad leg out flat along one branch, her weight on her other leg crouched under her on a wide bough. She watched below for any signs of encroachment on the camp. A nearby branch offered an excellent pivot point so that if she needed to, she could swing around the trunk of the tree and use it for cover.
With only three flares, she’d need all the help she could get.
Still working through methods of defense, she caught a rustling in the trees that wasn’t the wind. Shadows threaded their way through the shrubs on the tree’s periphery. They didn’t belong to the dark of the jungle; someone had found them.
Six lines fanned out, closer to their position.
There was no sign of Leith or Casey.
“I found a tent,” One called to the others as the shadows closed in. Six men in armor, lit dimly with the link to their weapons, visors over their faces, a bulbous comm over one ear.
Ayla had to wait until they were on top of her, then. One breath, two, three . . . 






EJ Dawson was born rather tardily (a fault that was to continue throughout life) in the picture perfect spring of 1983 in Canberra, Australia. Growing up on an abandoned mine next to a huge pine forest, time turned the once lovely weatherboard house and carefully kept grounds into creaky old home with rambling gardens. A wondrous place for a child to explore, accompanied by parents devoted to books and reading aloud. 

From this her thirst for fiction was grown, nurtured, and has never ended. 

Flitting between wanting to be a vet, biologist, meteorologist, archaeologist she settled into a double degree in history and archaeologist before moving into the working world. During school and university she never stopped writing, including taking creative writing courses and starting on her own novels, the first being finished when she was eighteen. 

None of these seemed to be quite right, and so the writing never stopped. 

Losing several novels over the years, in 2014 during a spontaneous moment a book involving airship chases and things that crept in the dark leapt to mind, and the first 50 thousand words written in the course of several weeks over a hot summer. Still reeling from the initial idea, the world she had created came into bloom, one novel idea at a time, until an intricate web had formed. 

The Last Prophecy. 

A steampunk flavoured suspenseful fantasy series has been likened to the Mummy crossed with Star Trek by reviewers. 
EJ Dawson currently resides in rural Victoria with her loving husband, demanding felines, and very relaxed python. Still working full time, when she isn’t writing, she’s playing RPG games, computer games, and, of course, reading. 




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