GtPGKogPYT4p61R1biicqBXsUzo" /> Google+ Character Confession, the Devil of the Arcana Council—Aleksander Kreios (Wilde Card by Jenn Stark) + giveaway | I Smell Sheep

Monday, November 16, 2015

Character Confession, the Devil of the Arcana Council—Aleksander Kreios (Wilde Card by Jenn Stark) + giveaway

Character Confession, the Devil of the Arcana Council—Aleksander Kreios

Jenn: Sharon, hello! I’m so happy to be here today as I have a very outspoken character who’d like to share his perspective. And, as the saying goes, it’s always good to give the Devil his due.

Aleksander Kreios is a character readers first met in Book 1 of the Immortal Vegas series, GETTING WILDE. He’s the Devil, a famous element of Tarot mythology incarnated as one of the more powerful members of the Arcana Council.

Jenn: Kreios, I understand when Sara met you, it was kind of a tight situation at first?

KREIOS: You do love to bring that up, don’t you? Is there something about me being constrained that piques your interest? Because we could arrange a full demonstration.

Jenn: Ahhh…hmm.

KREIOS: I must say I’m intrigued with your use of me so far. You introduce me as being locked in a reliquary, buried in the heart of the Vatican in Rome, and then you give me the most sumptuous description: Greek heritage but of the fairer sort, with green eyes and tawny hair, sun-bronzed skin and a body made for sin. Which, of course, it is. And then you bring me Sara Wilde, who, while lovely, is currently entangled with the Magician, the leader of the Arcana Council and, it should be said, my friend. Armaeus Bertrand hasn’t had someone perplex him as much as Sara has for centuries. There is simply no way I’m going to step between them, not when I’m having so much fun watching them try to come to terms with their unearthly attraction to each other. Unless, of course, you have plans for me and Sara?

Jenn: (Ponders) There definitely seems to be a connection between you two. But in WILDE CARD, you act more as her mentor, hinting at secrets untold.

KREIOS: I do my best work sharing the secrets of mortals. It’s always a diverting exercise.

Jenn: But not their innermost fears, make sure you mention that part.

KREIOS, purring: My dear Jenn, you should focus more on the good things in life. I deal in the province of pleasure and pain. Pain that can be a pleasure—pleasure that can intensify right to the edge of pain. My ability is that I know anyone’s deepest desires and needs instantly, the moment I meet him or her. Once such desires and needs are in the open, then I can bring their manifestation to mortals at exactly the level they crave. And I do so with great enjoyment. With Sara, for example, I knew what she most wanted, what she most needed, from the very beginning. But it’s been captivating to watch her figure those things out on her own.
(sighs with deep appreciation, then quirks a grin.)

Still, you are quite right. I do not know a person’s innermost fears—the nightmares that keep one awake at night, the thoughts that turn one’s bones to water. Those, a mortal must speak to me. But you’d be amazed how many of them do, without provocation. As an author, you should know this more than most people. You are ever quick to spill out fears on the page… and needs and desires as well. And as to your desires…

Jenn: Yeah, not going to go there. Can you tell readers what they can expect from you in WILDE CARD?

KREIOS: As you say, it is my great privilege to play the role of Sara’s mentor, educating her on some intriguing artifacts that, of course, the Council has hired her to steal. Along the way, deliciously, I get to provide her with an outfit for a gala celebration… though she opted out of the leather wrist cuffs. Curious, yes?

Jenn: Maybe she doesn’t really have a thing for being tied up.

KREIOS: And yet, the possibilities are really endless, don’t you think? Fortunately, her friend Nikki Dawes has far fewer inhibitions when it comes to experimentation. Her visit to my domain proved quite…invigorating. For all of my various selves.

Jenn: Not really fair when you can create multiple illusions of yourself, all of them seeming real.

KREIOS: Depends entirely on your definition of “fair.” Nikki appeared not to mind. (pauses) Would you have minded, I wonder? Though of course, I already know…

Jenn: Gosh, will you look at the time. I need to get working on the next book in the series, BORN TO BE WILDE. Can you share the role you’ll play in that book?

KREIOS: Sara will learn that no one on the Council is willing to give her straight information, except me. And I, of course, will only do it for a price. For there are things about Sara that I find intriguing as well—she hasn’t just perplexed the Magician. And unlike the Magician, I have no problem going after what I want…intensely and personally.

Jenn: Um… I’m not sure that’s a twist I planned for BORN TO BE WILDE.

KREIOS: Then maybe you should consider it—but, of course, you already are. The Devil really is in the details, wouldn’t you say?

Jenn: Ah, Sharon, I think it’s time for me to get back to writing, since things are quickly getting out of hand with my plot! Thank you again for inviting me! And I’ll leave Kreios behind for a bit. He’s sure to get in some trouble.

*Sharon and Katie look at each other and smile.*

Sharon: Sure, Jenn. We will show him our dungeon...
*Katie runs cackling through the dungeon door pulling Kreios.*
Kreios: Jenn! I don't think this was the best—

Wilde Card (Immortal Vegas, Book 2)
by Jenn Stark
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Release Date: November 17, 2015
Publisher: Elewyn Publishing
Format: Digital eBook
Digital ISBN: 978-1-9437-6802-8
All that glitters may not be gold.

When an antique gold show comes to Vegas, Tarot-reading magical artifacts hunter Sara Wilde’s job is simple: locate and liberate a set of relics rumored to give their bearers access to an ancient, incredible power. With whispers of a war on magic racing through the Connected community, every psychic, mystic, warlock, and witch descends on Sin City to claim the relics first. But no one wants these talismans more than Sara’s client: the insufferably arrogant, criminally sensual, absolutely untrustworthy Magician.

And what the Magician wants…

Sara’s heist takes a turn for the trickier as the smoky-eyed specter from her past, Detective Brody Rooks, is assigned to investigate a break-in at the gold show, forcing her to confront the one man in Vegas she can’t bluff. Even worse, just as she finally gets her hands on the goods, the game changes anew. The resulting chase leads her across the world to an ancient Egyptian temple filled with secrets, deception… and hints about her own abilities that could change everything. Desperate for answers, Sara is forced to turn to the one person she knows will lie, cheat, manipulate and steal to get whatever he craves. Only now, it seems, the Magician wants her.

Sometimes, when the deck is stacked against you… you’ve got to play the Wilde Card.


Praise for Getting Wilde (Immortal Vegas #1):
“Jenn Stark’s Getting Wilde kept me riveted from cover to cover. Hilarious, sexy, and thrillingly high action with a kick-ass herione and a bone-dissolving hero (AKA my new book boyfriend!). GET THIS BOOK!” - NY Bestselling Author Darynda Jones
Available at: Amazon | Nook | iTunes | Kobo | Goodreads


Excerpt:

Chapter One

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even blink. Six foot two of hard-bodied ex–Special Forces operative was snugged up against my backside, and I was totally falling for him.

For about eight thousand more feet.

My helmet crackled. “You’re doing great.”

“Unghflun.” Worse, we were still spinning. They’d told me the spinning would stop, but it didn’t feel like it was stopping. It felt like we were dying. And of all the ways to die, French-kissing a cliff at a hundred miles per hour had not made my short list. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “terminal” velocity.

“Right on target.”

Something shuddered above us, and I shifted from sprawl to nearly vertical in a sudden blur. I squinted up past the man carabinered to me in not nearly enough places, to see that our parachute had deployed.

That would be the “Low Opening” portion of this joyride into the Siberian mountain range surrounding Lake Baikal. The “High Altitude” section had been covered by our plunging six-mile drop from a souped-up jet now well on its way to Beijing.

Getting off this rock without alerting the local military would be its own special kind of crazy, but I was down for that. Pretty much any kind of crazy that got me away from Vegas and the Arcana Council for a few days worked for me.

“Drop point,” echoed in my ear.

Beside us, two other barely discernible shadows rocketed through the predawn gloom. We were aiming for a strip of gravel tucked between two sheer cliffs where, according to my client, X marked the spot for the ultimate Mongolian treasure: the crown of Genghis Khan. Rumored to give its wearer the Khan’s magical mojo for protection, abundance, and crazy long life.

Then again, said crown was apparently resting on the head of a dead guy right now. So there was that.

Another crackle in my helmet. “Bend your knees.”

“If I had a dollar…”

My guide’s laughter carried through our final several hundred feet of descent, and suddenly we were on the ground, a tumble of arms, legs, and high-tech padding. With impressive military precision, mission leader Zander “Call me Zee” James broke up with me without remorse, thrusting me aside. I lurched drunkenly to my knees as he slowed his run then turned to his parachute and punched it into submission.

The other men landed beside us, neatly outrunning their chutes, and I ducked to avoid a fine spray of rocks stirred up by the movement. Zee stripped off his HALO suit, oxygen mask and gear like he was shimmying out of swim trunks, and shoved them into a we-were-never-here-sized nylon bagel for easy transport out. He flapped his hand at me for mine and I shoved them at him in a big ball. “Report?” he snapped.

Zee’s right-hand man squinted down at a device attached to his wrist. “No heat signatures,” he said, aiming the thing at the rock wall. “Wall” was being kind. The cliff face surged up as if an angry god had punched through the earth’s crust, all crags and fissures and sharp edges. “Seismic activity currently stable.”

As if to counter his words, another crackle of falling rocks sounded high above us. “Right.” Zee squinted up. “At dawn, this place’ll light up like the surface of the sun. We don’t want to be here for that. We get in, we get out, we get gone.” His gaze shifted to me. “Ready?”

I nodded, then tugged down the zipper of my tech suit to fetch my own tools of the trade, my trusty pack of Tarot cards.

With the deck as my compass, I could find about anything—for a price. As it happened, a hundred G was a heck of a price. That kind of money translated to at least three more Connecteds hidden away from the dark practitioners who wanted to use them for spare parts. Not enough to save them all, no. But enough to count. I had to believe that.

“Sometime today, princess.”

Double-tasking one set of fingers to offer Zee my opinion of his people management skills, I used the other to pull a scatter of cards out of the deck.

Here we go.

Other Books in the IMMORTAL VEGAS Series

One Wilde Night (Book 0.5)
Amazon | iTunes | Kobo | Nook

Getting Wilde (Book 1)
Amazon | Kobo | Nook | iTunes



About the Author:
Jenn Stark is a Golden Heart award-winning author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. She lives and writes in Ohio. . . and she writes a LOT. In addition to her work in paranormal, she is also author Jennifer McGowan, whose Maids of Honor series of Young Adult Elizabethan spy romances are published by Simon & Schuster, and author Jennifer Chance, whose Rule Breakers series of New Adult contemporary romances are published by Random House/LoveSwept.

The world of her first paranormal romance, which was previously titled BLACK JACK, has now been reimagined as the setting ONE WILDE NIGHT, GETTING WILDE and WILDE CARD, all to be published in 2015, with BORN TO BE WILDE to follow in early 2016!



GIVEAWAY
One grand prize winner will receive a $25 gift card for Amazon (Open Internationally) and one grand prize winner will receive a ‘Dixie Quinn Approved “Girls Night Out” Gift Basket’ (Open to U.S. Residents Only).
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3 comments:

  1. The follow button isn't showing up on Amazon.

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  2. It must have been a glitch in my computer. I see it now.

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