Healer’s Choice

Healer's Choice

Ghostland World, Book 3
Berkley (September 7, 2010)
Print Release Date: September 7, 2010
ISBN-13: 9780425236536 ♦ ISBN-10: 0425236536

Read an Excerpt | Read the Reviews

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In a post-Apocalyptic world where supernaturals have emerged from hiding, ancient, unseen enemies play a game that began at the dawn of human civilization. War is coming and neutrality isn’t an option. For Were shapeshifters, a healer’s gift holds the key to their survival…

Born into a world of violence and paid-for-sex, Rebekka longs for a family of her own and dreams of freeing those trapped in the shapeshifter brothels of the red zone. A witch’s prophecy claims she’ll one day use her gift to heal the Weres made outcast by their mixed human-animal forms. But Rebekka knows all too well that everything comes at a cost.

Made a pawn in a game she can barely glimpse, by beings whose motives she can only guess, she must navigate a dangerous course that might well cost her life. With her gift changed in terrifying ways, a plea to save five children sends her into the arms of Aryck, a Jaguar enforcer—and into territory controlled by pure Weres.

It’s a place where humans and outcasts aren’t welcomed. Where dead ancestors watch from the shadowlands and have the power to judge and punish the living. It’s a place where plague threatens and the fate of the Weres hangs in the balance. And where the choices Rebekka and Aryck make are paid for with their hearts…if not their souls.

Connected Books: Ghostland World

Set in a post-apocalyptic world where supernatural beings no longer hide their existence, and where angels and Djinn are heading for the ultimate battle over who will control Earth. While the stories in the Ghostland world can be read as stand-alones, they are best enjoyed in order.

Ghostland
Book 1
Spider-Touched
Book 2
Primal
connected

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Read an Excerpt

Healer's Choice

The demon caught Rebekka in the forest, turning day into night and nature into a seething weapon. He arrived in a tornado swirl of fury, encircling her in a wind of dirt and shattered trees and rocks from which there was no escape. Trapping her there until her heart threatened to burst and only terror filled her. And then he relented—allowing what was left of the trail she’d been running on to fall back to earth in a twisted, horrifying demonstration of his power—and that was worse.

In the unnatural calm following the violence, he took form. A creature of nightmare. A dark-skinned thing heralding damnation.

Leathery batlike wings spread out to block the sight of anything but him. Fingers ended in wicked talons and yellow eyes danced with sinister glee. His forked tongue flicked out to taste her fear while a barbed tail coiled around his thigh like a living thing.

His smile held a wealth of cruelty. His gaze held her immobile, trembling in the face of her own death.

Lightning-fast his hand wrapped around her throat, a razor-sharp claw digging into her flesh, slicing through it with ease. But instead of delivering torment and death, he released her, drawing his hand back to lap at blood-covered fingers.

“So there are other players in this game than the one I so recently encountered,” he said. “Your father’s involvement is a surprise. He had no love for humans when I was last among my kind.”

He laughed, a sharp-edged sound sending shards of ice sliding into Rebekka’s spine. And then as quickly as he appeared, the demon dissolved into nothing, leaving her shaking as she surrendered to terror and sank to her knees at the center of the destruction he’d wrought.

Rebekka pressed trembling fingers to the wound at her throat, stopped the flow of blood despite the wild pounding of her pulse beneath her fingertips. Nausea swelled in the aftermath of surviving the encounter.

The sweat from her run became a cold clamminess on her skin. Shudder after shudder racked her frame as the demon’s words played over and over in her mind.

Her features were those of her mother, as were the deep brown of her hair and the blue of her eyes. There was nothing in her looks to identify who her father had been, and she’d never asked. What child of a prostitute wanted to hear her mother admit she had no idea which man left more than his money behind?

Rebekka’s thoughts went to the place above her pubic mound where an ugly black circle with a scarlet red P in its center had been forcibly tattooed onto her skin. A terrifying memory from that day skirted at the edge of her consciousness. She reached for it but it eluded her as it always did, and she let it go, ashamed at the gratitude she felt for not having to confront whatever truth lay repressed by her mind.

A different horror had her standing, frantically looking around for the Weres who’d been somewhere on the trail ahead of her when the demon arrived. Relief came with the absence of twisted, broken bodies. It swept through her and brought with it sweet denial and a refuge in purpose. Her ability to heal using her hands and will alone was proof there was no stain on her soul, no taint of it in her blood despite the demon’s words.

Rebekka began running, scrambling and jumping over the demon-created debris. She caught up to the Weres a short time later. Of those waiting, only Levi appeared fully human, his lion form lost forever unless her gift deepened, strengthened.

The six Weres she and Levi and Tir had freed from the maze less than an hour ago were grotesque mixtures of human and animal, made that way by a man using witch-charmed silver and torture to twist them into an abomination of form.

Levi’s eyes flicked to the wound on her neck and his nostrils flared, his senses Were despite no longer having a lion form. “I smell the demon Abijah. What happened?”

Healer's Choice

“He caught up to me then left. I’m okay.”

She didn’t want to reveal what the demon said. In truth, she didn’t want to think about it at all or lose the shield of denial she’d managed to erect.

Lion-gold eyes met hers for a long moment, as if Levi sensed an evasion. He let it go, and she turned her attention to the waiting Weres.

There were five of them. Two Wolves, a Leopard, a Tiger, and Cyrin, Levi’s brother.

Pity and anger and sadness churned together inside her. Horror for what they’d endured and for what they’d lost.

“I’ve told them what their choices are and what to expect,” Levi said. “They all want you to heal them.”

She looked at the gathered Weres and asked, “Who’s first?”

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Read the Reviews

“Strong continues to build a riveting series.”

— 4 Stars, RT Book Reviews

“Urban fantasy at its best, don’t miss Jory Strong’s HEALER’S CHOICE. I would hate to be alone in my addiction of this suspenseful, sexy, and often primal series!”

— Romance Junkies

“Rebekka and Aryck’s story is compelling, fascinating, and kept me on the edge of my seat for the entire book.”

— Night Owl Reviews

“HEALER’S CHOICE had a quiet sensuality rather than the in-your-face style I’ve grown accustomed to. I loved it.”

— Bitten By Books

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