Writer & Cat: Snippet Saturday: Description

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Snippet Saturday: Description

Snippet Saturday is the brainchild of author Lauren Dane, wherein a group of authors selects thematic excerpts from their work and shares them on Saturday mornings. This Saturday's snippet is description. Here's a short section in Pack and Coven that's got some scenery and some character description as seen through our shifter hero's point of view. In this scene the hero and heroine have escaped some of the bad guys by hightailing it across West Virginia's mountainous terrain...in a Smart car.

***

A sign for the visitor’s center appeared. One mile to go and no evidence of the pack. They must be spinning their wheels searching Millington, confident the barricades would trap Harry in town.

His and June’s luck wouldn’t hold forever. He should scout Cranberry Jetty before they tried to blast through it. Harry applied the brakes, and the car squealed like an airplane decelerating.

Another gravel overlook lay before the sign. The narrow highway was dotted with areas like this anywhere there was car space. For fishermen, hunters, tourists, swimmers, hikers, werewolves trying to decide how to break through a barricade, parking areas had myriad uses. Harry angled the micro onto the shoulder, and it thunked ominously when it dropped off the pavement.

Rolling down the window, he paused for a moment to listen. He sorted through June’s breathing, awakening night creatures, the rush of the river. Mice in the leaves. The whoosh of diving bats. Mosquitoes. Wind.

There. A truck coughing to life. Choppers from the…east. Pack members weren’t the only motorcycle aficionados in Mill County, but they did love their hogs. Should he turn back to Millington, into the maws of the shifters he knew were there, or wait it out?

June murmured something else and rubbed fitfully at her wound, bandaged in strips of his T-shirt. The blood on her skirt had darkened to brown. Her lashes fluttered on her cheeks.

Harry popped the automatic locks. He was about to ease the handle and step outside for a clearer listen when a small hand on his arm stopped him.

“Don’t get out,” June whispered. “Told you.”

She’d mentioned something about the spell only working if he stayed in the car, which was useful if he believed in magic. Her kind of magic. Shifting from human to wolf might be magic, but it didn’t prove the existence of other supernatural beings. Next thing, she’d try to convince him vampires and aliens were real.

He stroked her hand. Her slender fingers were coated with grease that smelled like aloe and mint. She hadn’t put her rubber gloves back on, a lost cause after what they’d been through. For a moment he had déjà vu—not from the smell, but from the shape and size of her hand.

He blinked and the recollection was gone.