Restive

By Jae El Foster

Passion and suspense collide in this exhilarating island adventure that will leave you demanding more. When romance author Nicola Trammel becomes stranded on a tropical paradise, she finds comfort through the kindness of the natives and through an unexpected romance that begins to blossom with the island’s handsome young king. While torn between the need to return home to her former life and the desire to remain on the island with the delicious king, Nicola soon discovers that there is a danger hidden in the dark shadows of the jungle – an evil that has latched onto her scent and threatens to expose her and the island natives to a terror unlike any they have ever known and one that they may not survive. Join Nicola on this explosive sea-fairing, saltwater-laden romance that takes both fantasy and vampires to new levels of intrigue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: DCL Publications
• Release date: Feb 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781732374294

Jae El Foster

When the muses speak, Jae El Foster writes, and he has been doing so for nearly twenty years, tackling some of the most intriguing genres out there. Delivering fresh, incomparable tales of horror, science fiction, and romance – sweet or spicy – he pens with seasoned skill the tales that his muses deliver to him. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @jaeelbooks, ‘like’ him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/authorjaeelfoster and visit his website at www.jaeelbooks.com.

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Restive

Jae El Foster

DCL Publications, LLC

www.thedarkcastlelords.com

© 2018 Jae El Foster

All rights reserved

First Edition October 2018

DCL Publications

1033 Plymouth Dr.

Grafton, OH 44044

ISBN 978-1-7323742-9-4

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Lynn Hubbard

Cover model: Vikkas Bhardwaj

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.

― George R.R. Martin

Restive: Uneasy. Nervous. Unable to remain still. Unable to remain calm or controlled.

For Cheryl Moore.

I

She was restive – nervous – as she lay in the bed. She should have been sound asleep hours ago, but there was something deep within her preventing her slumber. She could feel it inside – a pain in her gut that seemed to eat away at her with anxiousness, peril, and dread. Nicola could not explain these emotions. She had nothing to be nervous or afraid over. She had everything that she could have dreamed of – a nice house, a sexy car, and more men beckoning for her attention than she could have ever imagined before her success.

Sales from Restless had brought Nicola her first best seller in ages, and it had paved the way for five more such novels over the years. Now, she had a better grip on her literary career than ever before, and it was satisfying.

As for the men that sought her affections, Nicola had dated plenty over the years, but as nice as many of the men had seemed, none of them had held a candle to Nathanial. She could have blamed the adventure – the thrills and the fears – but it had been Nathanial’s passion that had stolen her heart and as far as she was concerned, he still possessed it.

She had tried for years now to put him behind her – to admit that he had been only a chapter in the novel of her life – but she knew that was a lie. He had been her inspiration, and without him, her current life would not have existed.

Nicola sat up on her bed and threw the covers away from her. She was sweaty, even with the air conditioning going full blast, pumping as much cool air into her room as it possibly could. Yet, she knew that this sweat had nothing to do with warmth or stuffiness. She’d had these night sweats for nearly three months now, and she did not know why. After the first week of them, she had consulted her doctor, who had run a series of tests on her. Yet, despite checking every feasible avenue, Nicole was in pristine health.

There was also a shakiness that came with the sweats. A tremble that reverberated throughout her body – only stilling when she was with other people or hectically busy… when she was otherwise distracted.

What was the cause of this nervousness? That was the question that continued to plague her, night after night and into the days. A circle of jittery anticipation that confused her as much as it shook her to the core.

Climbing from her bed and stepping onto the comfort of her carpeted floor, she walked to the bathroom for water. She took the small glass that she always kept beside the sink and filled it half way. Sipping, she wondered if her nervousness was caused by the changes happening in her surroundings. It was becoming dangerous for her to travel on book tours, and she was scheduled to begin her latest tour in two days with an appearance on a New York morning talk show. Tomorrow would be spent in airports and aboard Flight 253 from Centennial Airlines. She was well aware of the constant threat of terrorism and the idea of boarding flight after flight for this tour clawed at her with venomous nails.

The idea of her touring and the threats of terrorism shook her no more or less than any of the other possible reasons she’d come up with to explain her nervousness. But there it was – this steady, impending feeling that something terrible and of great proportions was heading her way. Whereas Nicola’s days of seeking adventure had reserved themselves to strictly remaining inside of her books, her days of fearing what the next adventure would bring resonated deep within her.

She returned the glass to its place beside the sink and shut off the bathroom light. She stepped into her bedroom and looked at her disheveled bed – a sign of her current restive state. Normally, she packed her bags on the morning of her trips, but she would do it now, she decided, and she went to her closet and took out her suitcases. She cleared her head as best she could while she packed. Sorting through clothes, picking out pantsuits and skirts and blouses… lacy underwear and silky underwear, should she meet anyone worth having them on for. A second suitcase held a selection of shoes and handbags, as well as scarves and a small jewelry box. Nicola never traveled with expensive jewelry, but she traveled with jewelry that looked expensive.

For the next two weeks, she would be promoting her latest book, Magnolias, about a southern belle in pre-Civil War era Mississippi. In it, the protagonist, named Daisy, falls in love with one of her father’s field workers. The affair brings about a pregnancy, and a lot of drama ensues. Yet, despite the subject of interracial love during a period of racial separation, Nicola had managed to give it a dignified happy ending.

The book was scheduled for release on Tuesday, the morning of her appearance on the NYC Sees You morning show. She was scheduled on two more shows in the Big Apple that day, and she hoped it would all help to launch her new book to the top spot on the best sellers list once again.

She had grown accustomed to that over the last few years.

There was, however, the chance that the book could fail. She knew it deep within. This was a strange feeling too, as she had not felt this way about a book since she released Restless. Would it bomb, she wondered as she zipped shut her second suitcase and set it on the floor. Would it end her career? Perhaps, she considered, the touchy subject would rub certain readers the wrong way, and perhaps those readers would rebel against her. She knew the damage that just a few negative reviews or a handful of bad tweets could bring. She’d watched so many otherwise talented people fall from things that were taken out of context. She reminded herself that the world had become more sensitive nowadays and that, fiction or not, she had to be cautious of what she penned. Freedom of speech had become all but a thing of the past, exercised when countering something that someone thought shouldn’t have been said or done, but frowned upon when being the one who had said or done the thing that caused the turmoil.

Perhaps her nervousness was caused by the idea of New York City itself. Where she had once been a resident of the city, she had lived in Los Angeles for the last five years. She had purchased a quaint four bedroom, three bath house just three streets down from Oprah and Ellen. Now, when she visited New York, she felt like a stranger in a strange land. It was not her home anymore, and it seemed to know that as well. Her visits there were always brief and hectic, and the city treated her like a visiting aunt who had written it into her will…overly gracious but lacking in warmth.

Nicola was forty-one now, but as she considered her nervous fears and irrational notions, she felt much older – or perhaps she felt much younger, as she believed she was behaving childishly.

She looked at the window and saw that the sun had started to rise. The sky outside, although still dark, had new hues of pink and orange.

Coffee time, she said and stepped into her house shoes. Walking to her bedroom door, she took her robe off its hook and put it on. She walked along the hallway a brief way to the staircase then downstairs and to the kitchen, where she put on a fresh pot of absurdly strong coffee.

She drank her coffee in the sun room, where her laptop resided. There, she checked emails, confirmed her arrangements online, and then searched her name on Google. It was too early for stores to be open, displaying her new book on their shelves, but it was not too early for Magnolia to be listed online. Sure enough, it was up for sale on all of the