this week from a WIP that is more NA than anything else.
Struan's story is the working title for the last (as far as I know) Shalean Moon story. He was the baddy in all 7 YA Books (all of which will be out by Christmas) His story brings us up to date and we can discover...has he redeemed himself or not?
Banished from Shalea, unable to shift into a leopard or project and receive thoughts, Struan Scott has to have a long hard look at himself. To continue with the evil Grey Side and Rogues, who are trying to destroy Shalea, or go away, grow up and change into a decent hardworking person, who is truly repentant.
What would he chose?
and your tease...
Every bone in his body ached. Sadly
not in the way he’d once known.
Struan Scott ran down and back
up the ninety-seven steps three times in the tunnel that led to the little
beach near his home. Sweat dripped into his eyes, even with the toweling
sweatband across his forehead and his long dark hair in a ponytail—or should
that be a leopard's tail? He hoped to hell the exercise would make him so tired
he'd sleep that night without dreams or nightmares. Not that it was very
likely. Six years on, and he'd still not managed a full nights sleep. So what
if he'd stepped out of line a little? Okay a lot. But now he was six years
older for Shalea's sake. Older, wiser, and not so much of an asshole he hoped.
But did Shalea forgive? Did they heck.
Mind
you, why should they? I was out of order, not them. How can they know I’m not
the person I was then? That I now understand evil and want nothing to do with
it? The only
answer he could give himself, was that they couldn’t know, and he had no way of
letting them.
Struan rolled his shoulders, swung
his arms and took a swig of water before stepping out once more. Why was his
mind so deeply entrenched in the past today? Strange dreams apart, every day
was similar to the last. He'd screwed up, and he was paying for it. One step,
one minute at a time. And there seemed that there was no end to it.
He knew he'd been in the
wrong. Trying to pervert the way Shalean succession worked wasn't good, and he
couldn't say he hadn't known what he was doing, or even blame the people he had
listened to. Jealously was an ugly, horrible thing, and he'd had it big time.
With the hindsight of his
twenty-three years instead of sixteen, he could see what an ass he'd been. A
self important, up his own ass, ass. But when you'd been drip fed the idea that
you should rule the Shalean Sept of Leopard Shifters ever since you were old
enough to listen, you tended to believe it. Even when everyone else disagreed,
he still clung to what he'd been told.
Oh so wrong. Now he could accept
that, but it had been a hard lesson. For his sins, Struan had been banished
from Shalea, and stripped of his ability to shift. His crime was heinous. He'd
plotted how to bring down the Sept and how to ruin the leaders and leaders to
be. By chance and, he thought ruefully, the fact they had justice on their side
he was thwarted at every turn. Defeated and banished he decided to regroup, and
he'd gone to university in England—not in Scotland as he originally anticipated.
It was probably the best move he could have made.
Catch all the other #MidWeekTease posts here
Happy reading,
love Raven x
