Release Day! Winter Moon by C.D. Gorri - Excerpt - Promo- Teasers - Giveaway!

Title: Winter Moon: A Grazi Kelly Novel #4

Author: C.D. Gorri

Publication date: Feb 3rd 2016

Pages: 139 pages

Formats: eBook

"It was difficult to remember the girl I used to be when my Wolf instincts were at the forefront as they were now. I closed my eyes and counted backwards. A little calming technique Cara had told me in one of the rare moments during our training when she was not out for my blood. It was a useful tool. When I opened my eyes I could think more clearly. The footsteps were closer and any second their bearers would break from the stand of trees into the small clearing where I was being held.

I braced myself, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight that came next. Angela’s fiery red hair broke through the tree line followed by a tall mystery guy with dark hair and a limp Wolf in his arms. I knew that Wolf. It was Ronan.

It's St. Lucy's Day and the battle has begun! With her friends by her side, Maria Graziana Kelly has more than enough fire power to fight the Demon minions. But will she be able to reunite with her one true love? Will Grazi find out what it really means to be a Werewolf? Can she save her brother before it's too late? Find out in Winter Moon! 

I felt as if lead weights were sitting on top of my eyelids. Trap. It’s a trap. I realized it too late as I tried to move my arms and legs only to find them cuffed and chained.¶

My wrists and ankles were bound by some kind of metal. All I knew was that it felt heavy and strong. There was something cold and hard against my back. I inhaled deeply, hoping my supernatural senses would help me figure out where I was. The last thing I remembered was kissing my brother’s still form goodbye and leaving the Hounds’ compound on foot.¶

Ursula, the dark Witch from the Scarred Sisters Coven, had given me a deadline. The safety of my family in return for turning myself in before midnight December 12. I closed my eyes and racked my brain, but still it took me a moment to recall the significance of the date.¶

Eleven years of Catholic education had not gone amiss. Nonna would be proud. It was the eve of the feast day of St. Lucy. Santa Lucia. I remembered Ronan told me a story about the Hounds fighting evil on that particular date. It was significant. But why?¶

Ugh. The smoke was getting to me. I felt foggy and dazed. I shook my head and tried to remember what was so important about today. Think, Grazi! Think! Then it hit me. The feast of light. Saint Lucy was a martyr and even her name held significance. She was the bearer of light.¶

Her feast day was celebrated in the middle of the darkest winter months, the solstice. Regardless of the phase of the moon, Werewolves in the Hounds of God changed on such nights. I wanted to kick myself. How could I be so dumb? I allowed myself to be captured by the enemy on the eve of one of the few nights when the veil between worlds thinned. The Witches would certainly make a play for domination now that they had me.¶

I was a fool. I realized it then. And I remembered how I came to be tied. I had killed. Again. At least four of them this time. Had they deserved it? I wasn’t sure it was my place to judge them. Besides the deed was done. I had killed again and there blood was on my hands. I wasn’t sure I would ever get used to that.¶

I didn’t know if remembering why I had ended their lives would comfort me, but I tried anyway. I pushed the fog away and focused on the two dark Witches that I had killed first. I gasped in pain when I recalled what they had done. My chest hurt and my head pounded. It was a cruel spell. One I imagined was designed to keep me in some kind of peaceful dream state. I guess they hadn’t counted on me figuring it out.¶

The next two deaths were of a Witch and Hunter who tried to capture me. A growl started low in my dry throat as I tried to shake the fog from my head. The noise seemed to help. I was angry and hurting, but I knew I needed to get out of there. I looked around, but I couldn’t see far.¶

There was too much smoke. Great purple clouds of it, it wafted through the air and wriggled its way down my nostrils and into my lungs. The sickeningly sweet scent made my stomach turn. The trees were bare, but particularly dense in the immediate area. I breathed again. A short, shallow breath. But this time I recognized the scent.¶

Aconitum. The Witches were burning bushels of twigs and dried wood laced heavily with the plant more commonly known as Wolfsbane. It made my nose itch with its bitter smell, but luckily my Wolf remained at the forefront of my mind. I had some kind of supernatural ability to fight the stuff off. Nonna had once tried to keep my Wolf from



surfacing with a tea made from the tiny purple flowers of the Aconitum plant. It hadn’t worked. Then again, I wouldn’t really drink it.¶

Something inside of me recognized it and warned me to keep away. Ever since then, Uncle Sean had experimented with various dosages on me and he seemed to think I had some special immunity to it. It could still affect me, but not nearly as much as the average Werewolf.¶

I heard a noise coming from the darkness and my ears perked up. I recognized the uneven gait of Urusla. Anger coursed through me as the dark Witch shuffled on butchered feet as she approached. I closed my eyes and recalled her brutally mutilated face and body. She had revealed her true self to me at our last encounter back at my high school, Sacred Heart Prep. That was when my cousin and her zombie cheerleaders tried to kill me. Was that really only a few days ago?¶

An eerie glow surrounded Ursula as she approached me. I guess I’m superficial because I was relieved to see the Witch’s prosthetics were back in place. The last thing I wanted was to stare down at her mangled and hollowed out visage. Yuck.¶

The combination of the magic-roofied smoke and the face numbing cold was already clouding my mind. I found the image of her true face too disturbing to think about. I tried to fight through the fog, but it was strong and I felt way too weak.¶

“Smart of you to take my offer, dog. Now my master will show you just what we are made of.”¶

“My family is protected, right? You promised.”¶
“Promises are for the innocent and the ignorant. You are neither.”¶
“What do you mean? You said you wouldn’t hurt them!”¶
“Did you think you were still innocent? Haven’t you killed, little dog?”¶
“Yes, I’ve killed. You would know that surely. They were your friends.”¶
“That’s for killing my minions,” she slapped my face hard, but it only served to wake

me up a little, “But they aren’t your only kills are they? You have blood on your hands, little girl, you are stained with it!”¶

I tried to turn my head as hot tears rolled down my face. Images of Ms. Vorax and the thing she had become, the bat-like Hunter Vampire that had stalked me in my own backyard, and the four other lives I had just ended swam in my mind. They had all been human once. Like me. Or rather, like I had been, once upon a time. Before my world got bigger. Before it grew darker.¶

“You’re remembering aren’t you? Oh, poor little Grazi, can’t deal with the things you’ve done? Tell me did you like the taste of your teacher’s blood as it ran between your fangs, little dog?,” she spat at my bare feet.¶

I stilled myself against the onslaught. I didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, but I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding inside my chest. It sounded like thunder to me. She was hitting too close to home. Playing on my doubts and guilt.¶

Just keep your head, little one. Remember, I am here with you. Inside my mind’s eye I saw my Wolf. She struggled against the onslaught of Wolfsbane. Her voice comforted me some, but still I wondered. Was the Witch right?¶

“Make no mistake, you are damned as we are. Killer, murderer, liar, and fool. Sinner. So then, why not let the sinners have their cake and eat it too, hmm? It’s better not to fight us. You won’t win. You’re weak, tired. You’ve been played with and lied to and I don’t mean by us. No, your own kind has done you more harm than we have.

They aren’t coming for you, you know. Their hands are tied by petty human bureaucracy. You’re all alone here. It’s time for you to face it. You haven’t a prayer left,” she lifted my chin with her mangled hand. The prosthesis stunk of plastic, rotted flesh, and that sickeningly sweet smell that was dark magic. It scratched my chin as she held on. I wanted to pull away, but she was right. I was weak.¶

She laughed and walked away. I listened to her slow uneven gait until I couldn’t hear it anymore. Then I felt my legs give out from under me. I don’t know how long I hung there. My body felt as if I weighed a thousand pounds. I was held up from the floor by my chains and my arms were sore from the weight, but I couldn’t seem to stand.¶

Killer, murderer, sinner! I was all those things. But they had stolen my mother’s and father’s faces. They wore them like masks, tearing at my most heartfelt wish as a child. Poor Grazi, all alone in Nonna’s house with her uncle’s family. She’ll never have a family of her own. Orphan. Unwanted. Unloved.¶

No! Stop! I silenced the doubts and rose from my prone position as much as my chains would let me. Those Witches had violated my mind and my heart and for that I killed them. I was no innocent. Surely, I was a monster. Ursula was right about that. But she wasn’t right about everything. I did have a prayer left. And that’s just what I did. I prayed.¶

Dear Lord, I know I haven’t talked to You as much as usual lately, but I’ve been kinda busy. I just don’t know what’s real or not anymore. I know You’ve given me this life for a reason. Made me a Werewolf for a reason. I just wish I knew what to do. I used to pray to Mom and Dad when I talked to You, but I just found out Mom is still alive. I suppose I should thank You for that. Even though she is a shell of the mother that I remember. I have a brother now too. I never even knew he existed. So, thanks, I guess. I’m not angry, God, just tired. So tired. I just want, I mean, please keep Nonna safe. Protect Ronan, Less, and Angela. And maybe if you have time, You can show me the way through all this? The right path so to speak, please Lord. Forgive me for the things I’ve done and the lives I’ve taken. Let my enemies see the error of their ways and if they cannot then I pray for whatever souls they have left. Forgive them too. I’m afraid it won’t be the last time I have to kill, I’m sorry, please forgive me. Grant me the strength and the wisdom to get through this. Amen.¶

I supposed it was funny that I had always thought of prayer as a means to communicate myself to the God I believed in, who I still believed in, despite all that I had learned about the world. Only now I think I must have been foolish too. God is omnipotent, so that meant omniscient too, right? He knew my heart without me saying so. Well, either way, Ursula was wrong. I did have a prayer and that was it. Prayer always helped me to focus. So I concentrated through the fog around me.¶

Okay, where am I? I remembered heading out from the compound. East. I walked east. Something about being a Werewolf gave me a much better sense of direction than I had before my Change. I mean, I used to think North was up, you know like in the air. I know, duh me. Anyway, I knew I had walked East and I called out to Ursula when the forest was completely still. When I knew for sure that I was alone in the ice-cold darkness.¶

She answered. And how. She must have bespelled me as soon as I said her name. The illusion that greeted me was cruel and unjust. My parents should have been off limits, but I guess the forces of evil had no limits. And I fought back. Didn’t I? I mean, I

killed the two imposters, another Witch, and a Hunter Vamp. I defeated the spell, but I could feel the hole it had created inside of me. And I wondered if that was what it was meant to do. Maybe its real purpose was to make me feel guilty and hollow. Well that stopped now.¶

Okay. Focus, Grazi. Facts only. Right after I killed them I remembered being immediately surrounded. They seemed to come right out of the darkness or maybe they were already there, but I just didn’t realize it. I couldn’t quite recall, an after effect of being put under a dark spell. Anyway, they were chanting and some of them held sticks, wands or something like it.¶

Smoky ropes of magic wove themselves around me. They were black and purple, some of them glowed an eerie green color too. They held me down tight, I couldn’t get free, I remember feeling as though I was suffocating. Then chains, heavy metal chains joined them. They seemed to come from everywhere. I bucked and writhed, but to no avail. I was caught.¶

Ursula wasn’t alone as I had imagined when I pictured handing myself over to her. Nope. She had brought others from her coven. An entire army of them. They were cloaked in black, but I could see jeans, skirts, and even sweatpants poking out from underneath.¶

They could be anyone. People I saw every single day, casting dark spells for personal gain against an unsuspecting public. Soccer moms, grocery baggers, police officers, nursery school teachers, bank tellers, and so on. Their eyes glowed purple as they chanted in unison. I didn’t recognize the chant only the result.¶

It still gave me the creeps. I mean, they looked just like everybody else when they weren’t creeping around at night in the woods. The Witches who sacrificed the most of their body parts, like Ursula, were clearly not as good at disguising themselves. Then again I had thought she was a cleaning lady a few weeks ago.¶

I had tried to fight them off, but I hadn’t been strong enough. The knife was the first thing they took from me, then Ronan’s scythe that I had strapped to my back. She must have been very sure of the first spell to have left me with my weapons. It didn’t matter, I never had the chance to use them.¶

They took my cell phone next, and finally stripped me down to my black leggings and my Night’s Watch t-shirt. There was a crow with outstretched wings on the back. They tore it when they chained me. Damn it! I loved that shirt! I know, I know, I’m such a geek.¶

My feet were bare and my hair was undone. I might have been bleeding from a blow to my head. I mean I smelled blood, but I didn’t know where it was coming from. I shivered. The cold was almost too much for me despite the fact that I tended to run a little hotter these days.¶

The magic plumes of smoke rose all around me, but they did nothing for the cold. It offered no heat, just the poison of the Wolfsbane. Ursula stuck out in my mind more vividly than the rest of her coven. Her eyes had glowed a deeper purple than the rest. And a sick green light had circled their outer rims. She was larger and scarier than the rest. They all blended together in my mind.¶

As head of the Scarred Sisters I can only assume she was the most powerful dark Witch present. It was as if I had conjured her with my thoughts and I trembled with rage as she stalked towards me.¶

I forgot about the cold in all my anger. In my head I saw a picture of Nonna Rosa sitting at her vanity. Held there against her will. Bright red streaks of blood poured down her ashen face. The force of the brush Ursula had beWitched her to use on her tender scalp again and again proved too much for her delicate skin. Because of me. All because of me.¶

I surrendered myself to protect Nonna, my mother, and my little brother. I didn’t trust the Witch, in fact I hated her, but I had no other choice. My every instinct seemed to cry out for revenge. I growled deep in my throat as she raised a three fingered hand. My Wolf snarled in my mind as the ropes around my mouth loosened, then, before I knew what was happening she shoved her hand forward and something shot down my throat. I gagged and choked, but I couldn’t get it out.¶

It was a slimy liquid. Thick and bitter, and very, very hot. That was the first time I blacked out. Now I understood what it had been. A very strong potion with copious amounts of Wolfsbane. I recognized the bitterness. She must have used it to keep me from changing. And she must have used a lot of it because even now my Wolf seemed sluggish inside of me.¶

I trembled, but this time from fear. Since my Change, I relied strongly on my Wolf. I could only imagine what other Werewolves felt when they were practically shut off from their Wolves for the weeks leading up to the full moon. It was horrible. Like an emptiness inside of you that only grew with each passing moment.¶

I could feel her distress beneath the haze of the magic we were under and I did my best to comfort her. My metabolism was fast. Normally I would be able to shake off the potion with some rest. Ursula must have anticipated that because the Witches kept coming and adding more ingredients to the burning bundles. They were thick with the potion. It was a constant onslaught and I was having a hell of a time fighting it.¶

I tried holding my breath, but that didn’t work. I would only suck in more air when I breathed again than I would if I just breathed normally. I was frustrated and almost out of hope. The night grew darker and colder and more and more I realized how foolish I was to trust a Dark Witch.¶ .

Mrs. Gorri earned her Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Montclair State University. She attended Catholic school from grades K-12 and is the youngest of six daughters born to Italian parents. 

Mrs. Gorri currently lives in her home state of New Jersey with her husband, children, and dog. It has always been her dream to be an author and is proud to say that she is currently writing YA/NA Paranormal Fiction. 

Mrs. Gorri currently has six ebooks available at this time. Wolf Moon, Hunter Moon, Rebel Moon, Winter Moon are the first four instalments in her Grazi Kelly Novel series, featuring teen heroine Maria Graziana Kelly. 

Mrs. Gorri has also published the first novella in a spin-off series, Casting Magic, the Angela Tanner Files #1. It is available #free on Kindle Unlimited and is $0.99 to buy. She also has a adult a novella, Charley's Christmas Wolf which is  featured in Santa’s Naughty List, 25 Tales Of Paranormal Bad Boys Christmas box set. The short can now be bough as a stand along novella on amazon. 

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C.D. Gorri's Valentine's Day Giveaway!

• Reble Moon T-Shirt, $2 Amazon Gift Card and Pair of Autographed Rackcards