Book Excerpt: The Warrior by Victoria Scott (Blog Tour & Giveaway)

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Welcome to The Warrior Blog Tour. This is the last book of the Dante Walker Trilogy. It has been a fun ride and I am sad to see it end. I have already read The Warrior but I am going to post my review after the tour is over. So for now enjoy the book excerpt and giveaway below.

Book Title: The Warrior
Series: Dante Walker
Author:  Victoria Scott

Release Date: 5/6/14
Genre: YA, Paranormal

Find At: Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Summary
Dante Walker is flippin’ awesome, and he knows it. His good looks, killer charm, and stellar confidence have made him one of Hell’s best—a soul collector. His job is simple: weed through humanity and label those round rears with a big red good or bad stamp. Old Saint Nick gets the good guys, and he gets the fun ones. Bag-and-tag.

Sealing souls is nothing personal. Dante’s an equal-opportunity collector and doesn’t want it any other way. But he’ll have to adjust, because Boss Man has given him a new assignment:

Collect Charlie Cooper’s soul within ten days.

Dante doesn’t know why Boss Man wants Charlie, nor does he care. This assignment means only one thing to him, and that’s a permanent ticket out of Hell. But after Dante meets the quirky Nerd Alert chick he’s come to collect, he realizes this assignment will test his abilities as a collector…and uncover emotions deeply buried.

“Dante?”

 

Spinning around, I find Charlie standing against the bathroom doorframe. Here is the girl who will save us all. The girl destined to fight in this battle alongside Aspen and whose charity will usher in Trelvator—a hundred years of peace on earth. Blond hair spills over her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face. Her skin is porcelain, her smile is bottled sunshine, and her body is sick in a good way. She is perfect.

 

She’s perfect because I made her that way, because I talked her into signing a contract in which she traded her soul for beauty. Even though I’ve fought to change the person I am, the person who did that to her, I’m still a demon at heart. Big Guy may be Lord of the Heavens, and I may have gold dragon wrapped around my ankle, marking me as a liberator, but inside, deep down, a demon growls.

 

Sometimes I still feel the old cuff around my ankle.

 

The one I wore as head collector.

 

Charlie wraps her arms around my waist, and her fingers clutch my back. My armor falls away in an instant, and I’m no longer what I was a moment before. Now I’m sharp eyes for watching her, and broad shoulders for easing her worries, and strong hands for holding her tight.

 

“Are you ready?” I whisper against the crown of her head.

 

“Yes,” she answers. “I’m excited.”

 

I doubt that’s entirely true. Cancer ate her Grams until nothing remained. Aspen, my first assignment as a liberator, gave her body and soul to Rector, to hell, so that I could escape with Charlie’s soul. Only after I surfaced from the mouth of Hades with what turned out to be my soul did we learn that Charlie and Aspen were the savior and soldier we needed to win the war. So, yeah, I think Charlie may not be as excited as she claims.

 

Then again, I’ve pulled out all the stops tonight. Dinner by candlelight, food made by my own hand, and me as company. Pow! Charlie’s mind may be filled with sorrow, but soon, it’ll be filled with the awesome that is Dante Walker planning a date. In a Hive. Of angels planning for war. But whatev. It’ll still be better than bacon, which is serious.

 

I tilt her head up and move my mouth close to hers. Then I speak so that our lips brush against each another. “I’m going to make you forget.”

 

“Forget?” she says, confusion lilting her voice.

 

“Yeah, I want you to be with me tonight. No thoughts of what lies outside these walls.”

 

Everywhere, sirens.

 

Humans who work for demons, who want to steal Charlie away.

 

“I can forget,” she answers. “If you hold onto me, I can do it.”

 

I wrap my hands around her cheeks and press my mouth to hers. Her head falls back, and she mimics the movements of my lips. The warmth of her, the feel of her tongue, washes over me. It makes my heart feel like a missile.

 

Her hands climb higher up my spine, over the dragon tattoo covering my back. Her chest grazes against me, and her hips connect with mine. For a moment, I contemplate killing the date idea and carrying her back to my bedroom. Yes, there is impending war. Yes, the girl I think of as a sister is in hell. But blood still burns through my body, and right now—always—it burns for Charlie.

 

“What are we having?” she mutters, breaking our kiss. “I guess I am hungry.”

 

“We’re about to have each other. Screw food.”

Author Bio
Victoria Scott is a teen fiction writer represented by Sara Crowe of the Harvey-Klinger Literary Agency. She’s the author of the FIRE & FLOOD series published by Scholastic, and the DANTE WALKER trilogy published by Entangled Teen. Her books have been bought and translated in eleven foreign markets including the UK, Turkey, China, Poland, Israel, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Taiwan, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.

Victoria lives in Dallas with her husband and hearts cotton candy something fierce.

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