Owl Always Be Reading: Blog Tour - Ally Anna Banks Excerpt

Welcome to our tour stop on the Ally by Anna Banks' Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours! Today we are hosting Anna Bank's next installment in the Nemesis series. Make sure you check out the excerpt and enter the giveaway! Enjoy and good luck!

Title: ALLY
Author: Anna Banks
Pub. Date: October 3, 2017
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Pages: 320
Formats: Hardcover, eBook
Find it: Amazon, B&N, iBooks, TBD, Goodreads

Princess Sepora of Serubel and King Tarik of Theoria have formed an uneasy truce between their kingdoms since the deadly plague began to rip through Theoria. Since their feelings for each other are entangled in politics and power, they must use their own trusted resources to find common ground.

But when traitors with powerful allies arise from unexpected places, Tarik and Sepora face challenges that will change both of their kingdoms forever. Will they learn whom to trust—including each other—in time to save their kingdoms, their relationship and even their lives?

The woman chuckles in a way that suggests she knows exactly who I am, and exactly what the penalty will be by keeping me here, but is not concerned in the least about any of it—and is not impressed by the power I’d hoped to infuse into my tone. “You must calm down, child,” she says soothingly. “No harm will come to you here.”

“Then why am I tied up?” Not that being tied up actually hurts, but it does make one feel particularly defenseless against any such harm. And it does make one feel like a prisoner.

“The bonds are for our safety, not yours, Princess.” She tinkers around closer to me now, almost at the bedside. Her movements sweep the scent of roses into my nose. Roses, and food. She is cooking something in here. Something that smells delicious. My stomach growls in want, and the woman chuckles again. “I’m making lamb stew. It’s a special recipe handed down through generations of my family. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

While the idea of eating sounds glorious, I ignore her attempts at being kind. “You’re protecting yourself from me? Whatever for?”

She is close now. I hear her set something down upon perhaps a table next to my bed. “We understand you’ve had the benefit of training with the Majai and your ability to Forge weapons from nothing is well known. Aside from that, you tend to thrash about when you receive treatment.”

My ability to Forge weapons is not well known. Only those closest to me are privy to that information, and I do not recognize this woman’s voice from a stranger’s at the Bazaar. I feel bare and vulnerable, as though all my secrets have been uncovered. I might as well be lying here naked. I must have been at one point; the clothes I wear now cover the lengths of my legs and arms, cinching at my ankles and wrists. This is not what I wore to bed however many nights ago. Someone has changed me while I was unconscious.

“Why can’t I open my eyes?” And did she just say treatment? Have I been mortally injured? I test my jaw and find that it has mended well since I first found myself on the boat in the River Nefari. Oh yes, the boat. I’ve been taken by the Pelusians. That is where this woman’s slight accent comes from. If I put up such a fight as to be wounded, I don’t remember at all. There are no bandages on my face, no cloths wrapped tightly against my skin anywhere. Still, my eyes will not open. Somehow, though, this doesn’t seem as important as before.

The woman clicks her tongue in what she must think sounds like a comforting noise. “That’s it. Nice and relaxed you’ll be soon.”

“Why? I do not want to relax.” I’m aware that my arguments are abrupt and even childish, yet I can’t quite get my bearings enough to offer more resistance.

“Ah, but the calming serum we gave you will ensure that you are. It will help you rest during your treatments.” Calming serum.

I’ve been kidnapped, re-dressed, and drugged. This is sounding all too familiar. “I do not need to be treated. I feel fine.” If arguing is the only way I have of being difficult, so be it. Surely I should be difficult, for the principle of the thing. With or without the calming serum. I can almost hear her smile when she says, “That’s a silly thing to say. Everyone wants to be relaxed.” She is even closer now; I feel her leaning over me. She tugs at the leather strap at my left hand, and does the same to my other limbs, ensuring they are all secure. “Now, be very still, Princess. I’m going to administer a needle to your right arm.” She touches the crook of my arm then, tapping it with the pad of one finger. “This vein here is your best, I think. You’ll feel a small pinch, I’m afraid. Oh, I do wish you were still sleeping. You wouldn’t feel the pain of the cure if you were sleeping.”

Pain. The way she says it makes me wish I were sleeping, too. “Cure? What cure? Have I fallen ill? Am I wounded?” Saints of Serubel, but why won’t she answer my questions? I remember the giant man hovering over my bed in Theoria, the way his fist connected with my mouth. I don’t remember any more harm done to me during my bouts of consciousness. “If I’ve been injured, I’ve a right to know!” Not that this woman cares about my rights, obviously. But perhaps if I can appeal to her apparent caregiving nature . . .

“No!” she says, gently brushing a bit of hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear. “You’re in perfectly good health, child. That lip of yours will heal in no time. You’ll see.”

“Then what cure do you speak of?” I’ve never heard of curing someone who wasn’t ill, and it’s at this point that I begin to doubt I’m awake at all. This must be some sort of vivid dream, which is why my eyes won’t open. I’m simply not ready to wake up yet.

I’m ready to believe this, that it’s a dream, until I feel her hand at my arm and the needle when it pushes into my vein, startling me. After that I feel a liquid oozing into my bloodstream. And the burn. It makes a scalding trail through my body, and I imagine the gleaming molten liquid the silversmith in Serubel uses to shape swords, and I cry out as the intensity increases and spreads everywhere. “I do not need a cure,” I tell her, my stomach tightening with agony, “if I am not ill!”

“This is not for any ailment, child,” she says mildly. “This is the cure for Forging.” It is then that I vomit all over myself.

NYT Bestselling YA author of The Syrena Legacy series: OF POSEIDON (2012), OF TRITON (2013), OF NEPTUNE (2014)

Repped by rockstar Lucy Carson of the Friedrich Agency.

I live with my husband and daughter in the Florida Panhandle. I have a southern accent compared to New Yorkers, and I enjoy food cooked with real fat. I can’t walk in high heels, but I’m very good at holding still in them. If you put chocolate in front of me, you must not have wanted it in the first place.

Favorite Books:

Shatter Me, Cinder, Linger, Shiver, Forever, Pushing the Limits, Unravel Me,Shadow and Bone, Enclave, Divergent, Candor, Graceling, Fire, The Hunger Games Trilogy, The Host, Most of James Patterson, and Janet Evanovich makes me laugh through my nose in an unfeminine sort of way.

Visit Anna’s website, like her on Facebook, and follow her on Twitter.