Author: J.A. Redmerski
Title: The Swan and the Jackal (In the Company of Killers #3)
Genre: Suspense/Crime/Thriller/Romantic Suspense
Synopsis:
Fredrik Gustavsson never considered the possibility of love, or that anyone could ever understand or accept his dark and bloody lifestyle—until he met Seraphina, a woman as vicious and blood-thirsty as Fredrik himself. They spent two short but unforgettable years together, full of lust and killing and the darkest kind of love that two people can share.
And then Seraphina was gone.
It’s been six years since Fredrik’s lover and sadistic partner in crime turned his world upside-down. Seraphina went into hiding and has eluded him ever since. Now, he’s getting closer to finding her, and an innocent woman named Cassia is the key to drawing Seraphina from the shadows. But Cassia—after sustaining injuries from a fire that Seraphina ignited—suffers from amnesia and can’t give Fredrik the information he desperately seeks. Having no other choice, Fredrik has been keeping Cassia locked in his basement as he not only tries to get her to recall her past—because she and Seraphina share it—but also to protect her from Seraphina, who clearly wants her dead.
But Cassia is a light in the darkness that Fredrik never believed existed. After a year subjected to her kindness and compassion, he finds himself struggling with his love for Seraphina, and his growing feelings for Cassia—because he knows that to love one, the other must die.
Will light win out over darkness, or will something more powerful than either further destroy an already tortured soul?
Exclusive Excerpt:
Cassia pushes herself closer when I thought she couldn’t get any closer and urges me to look at her. Her right hand moves toward my face to console me, but I stop it, holding it at the wrist and pushing it back down.
“The only one of us who should be talking about our past, is you,” I tell her.
Her doe-like eyes fall under a shroud of disappointment.
But she’s not going to give up so easily.
“You’ve asked so much of me, Fredrik,” she says with such kindness, “but when I ask anything of you, you turn me away. I only want to know this one thing. I don’t care anymore about Seraphina, or the history you have with her. I don’t even care what I have to do with it.” Her soft hand ends up touching the side of my face anyway, and I’m not sure how she slipped it past my barrier. “All I care about anymore is you, Fredrik.” She peers deeply into my eyes and ensnares my gaze, her face full of heartbreak and longing. “What are your demons trying so hard to kill?”
I push her hand away more forcibly this time.
“Do you remember anything?” I ask, disregarding her question altogether.
“Stop,” she says with more intensity than I expected. “You’re going to give me this. Before you leave me alone down here another night, you’re going to tell me.”
The desperation in her eyes bores into me. I look away, only to look right back at her.
“Please…,” she says.
A lump moves down my throat and settles somewhere in my chest. All ten of my fingers spear through the top of my dark, messy hair and I let out a miserable sigh of defeat.
I never talk about my past to anyone. Ever. I try not to think about it, but on some days that is as futile as trying not to breathe. It wasn’t until I met Seraphina eight years ago that I learned to control it, that I became a much different man from the one who hunted shit stains like Dante Furlong, tortured and murdered them every other night, never feeling the satisfaction that I longed to feel with every kill. I was like a drug addict, always looking for a fix but never really satisfied enough to stop. Never satisfied at all, because I only wanted to do it more and more.
Seraphina helped me control the perpetual urges. She showed me how to release the darkness within me with quieter, cleaner methods so that I didn’t leave a trail of bodies and evidence behind. But the biggest impact that Seraphina had on my life was making me feel like I had one. Because before her, I was just a speck of dust floating around in oblivion. I didn’t know the meaning of happiness, or understand the thrill of pleasure or the hunger for excitement. I was just a shell of a man who knew only darkness and death, who only felt the emotions of anger, and hatred, and rage and vengeance.
But Seraphina, she was my dark angel, who came into my life and showed me that there was so much more to living than I ever understood. Ever since she left me in that field the night she set my house ablaze, I’ve been slowly but surely succumbing to my old life again, and I need to find her before I fall too far.
If I haven’t already.
“The only one of us who should be talking about our past, is you,” I tell her.
Her doe-like eyes fall under a shroud of disappointment.
But she’s not going to give up so easily.
“You’ve asked so much of me, Fredrik,” she says with such kindness, “but when I ask anything of you, you turn me away. I only want to know this one thing. I don’t care anymore about Seraphina, or the history you have with her. I don’t even care what I have to do with it.” Her soft hand ends up touching the side of my face anyway, and I’m not sure how she slipped it past my barrier. “All I care about anymore is you, Fredrik.” She peers deeply into my eyes and ensnares my gaze, her face full of heartbreak and longing. “What are your demons trying so hard to kill?”
I push her hand away more forcibly this time.
“Do you remember anything?” I ask, disregarding her question altogether.
“Stop,” she says with more intensity than I expected. “You’re going to give me this. Before you leave me alone down here another night, you’re going to tell me.”
The desperation in her eyes bores into me. I look away, only to look right back at her.
“Please…,” she says.
A lump moves down my throat and settles somewhere in my chest. All ten of my fingers spear through the top of my dark, messy hair and I let out a miserable sigh of defeat.
I never talk about my past to anyone. Ever. I try not to think about it, but on some days that is as futile as trying not to breathe. It wasn’t until I met Seraphina eight years ago that I learned to control it, that I became a much different man from the one who hunted shit stains like Dante Furlong, tortured and murdered them every other night, never feeling the satisfaction that I longed to feel with every kill. I was like a drug addict, always looking for a fix but never really satisfied enough to stop. Never satisfied at all, because I only wanted to do it more and more.
Seraphina helped me control the perpetual urges. She showed me how to release the darkness within me with quieter, cleaner methods so that I didn’t leave a trail of bodies and evidence behind. But the biggest impact that Seraphina had on my life was making me feel like I had one. Because before her, I was just a speck of dust floating around in oblivion. I didn’t know the meaning of happiness, or understand the thrill of pleasure or the hunger for excitement. I was just a shell of a man who knew only darkness and death, who only felt the emotions of anger, and hatred, and rage and vengeance.
But Seraphina, she was my dark angel, who came into my life and showed me that there was so much more to living than I ever understood. Ever since she left me in that field the night she set my house ablaze, I’ve been slowly but surely succumbing to my old life again, and I need to find her before I fall too far.
If I haven’t already.
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About the Author:
Born November 25, 1975, J.A. (Jessica Ann) Redmerski is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. She lives in North Little Rock, Arkansas with her three children and a Maltese. She is a lover of television and books that push boundaries and is a huge fan of AMC’s The Walking Dead.
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