Bleeder Blog Tour - and a chance at an awesome prize!

Welcome, I'm the 1st stop on the Bleeder blog tour!!! Keep reading for the Bleeder synopsis, a book excerpt, and to find out how you could win a $100 gift certificate!

Synopsis:

The King of Garrick wants to kill her.
The King of Allel wants to love her.
And shapeshifters stole her baby's soul!

It's been a hundred years since sea-level rise and global nuclear war wiped out most of humanity. Mallory is a chalice, one of the world's rare fertile females who contract with the kings of the Concord Cities to provide natural-born heirs.

It was supposed to be a pampered and uneventful life, but Mal becomes caught between King Garrick's scheme for world domination and the goddess Asherah's desperate plays for another god's attention.

In her struggle to survive, Mal must confront the most terrifying threat of all -- the truth of her past and the inevitability of her destiny.

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The author has provided an excerpt for you all, enjoy!

[This is the scene where representatives of Red City come to examine Mal, to see if she really is a bleeder.]

The tallest person Mal had ever seen appeared at the Blackbird’s door. She wore a hooded red mantle and the same black sunglasses, and she seemed to float down the stairs.
The shorter woman following behind wore a silver mantle over a sky-blue tunic, the color of a doctor. She carried a satchel the same color. Her hood was thrown back. She was dark-skinned like the Palas, with short brown curls and a cheerful smile. Her eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but she wiggled her fingers at Mal as if they were old chums. Mal smiled back without thinking about it.
“Emissary.” Ma bowed to the lady in red. Ma clean. Ma bowing. This was a day the settlement would long discuss. The Emissary passed her without a glance and went into the saloon followed by the friendly doctor lady and four guards.
Ma grasped Mal by the coveralls and dragged her inside, bowing all the while at the Emissary’s back. The Emissary whirled around, her mantle flaring a bit before it settled, and her hood fell back. She removed her sunglasses.
Mal froze, and Ma squeaked and jumped back a few paces.
The Emissary’s scalp was covered by a tattooed copperhead snake. For just an instant, Mal thought it was alive. It wound around her neck and up around her head like a turban. The snake’s head came from under her left ear over her jaw, and its forked tongue seemed to lick the corner of her mouth.
She had no eyelashes, but she had thick brown-black tattooed eyeliner. For eyebrows, vertical brown-black lines were tattooed in arches over her eyes. She had full dark lips, a flattish nose, and light brown skin. Her irises were red-brown and metallic-looking. Dramatically beautiful.
She glanced at Mal. A blue light shone through the red-brown and was gone so quickly Mal wasn’t sure she’d really seen it.
The Emissary surveyed the room until she came to Pala. Her eyes glowed again, this time an ember-like flare – or that’s what Mal thought she saw.
Was this what a god looked like?
“You shot the eagle,” the Emissary said.
Pala stepped forward, still holding his longbow. The guards watched him but didn’t try to take the weapon. Mal glowed with pride. Pala was the bravest person she knew. His yew longbow with horn nocks, etched with designs by Palada, was grander than anything the guards carried.
“How did you come by mechanical arrowheads?” the Emissary asked.
The short friendly woman glanced at Palada, but Pala answered. “I made them.”
“Impressive,” the Emissary said. “You appear old enough to join your city’s guard. Will you show Garrick this invention?”
“Unlikely.” That was odd. Pala and Palada never said anything bad about Garrick, but it occurred to Mal that they had never said anything good either. Garrick was the greatest city in the world. Everyone knew that. Why would Pala withhold anything from the king?
“Will you show the captain of my guard?” the Emissary said. “A weapon like that would well serve Red City, and therefore humanity.”
Pala held the Emissary’s gaze. “I’ll talk it over with my da.”
“Excellent.”
The Emissary turned to Mal. Her eyes stayed red-brown. She scanned Mal’s boots, coveralls, hat, and even the purple-black stains on Mal’s fingers. Mal had always paraded her matted hair and the dirt on her face as badges of honor. Suddenly, she didn’t see them that way.
The Emissary gestured toward the friendly lady. “This is Harriet, Red City’s Physician in Chief. She’ll speak with you privately.” It wasn’t a request, and it wasn’t an order. Just a statement of fact.
Mal shrugged and led Harriet to her room. Like the Emissary and every Red City guard, Harriet was entirely clean. Her clothes looked like they’d never been worn before. In contrast, Mal was dusty and sweaty, and maybe she didn’t smell very good. She clasped the stone god in her pocket.
“Is Asherah your personal god?”
Mal’s heart raced. How could Harriet know about the stone god? But the physician only nodded at the wood carving on the chest where Mal kept her clothes.
When Garrick converted to Samael, Mal had kept the wooden Asherah the old priest had given her. She’d made a shrine for it – a half-burned tallow candle, several treasured pomegranate seeds long dried up, a white heron’s feather. The new priest called such shrines abominations, but she didn’t think he was right about that.
“Yes. Asherah is my personal god.” A wave of well-being washed over her, as if the goddess had heard and been pleased by the declaration.
“What do you know about the gods, Mallory?”
Mal frowned. She didn’t know which god loved Red City, so she didn’t know what Harriet wanted to hear. The priest of Asherah had said the gods want the people to light holy fires and prepare to pass through the liminal gauntlet to get their souls. The priest of Samael said people were to love Samael and not make shrines to any other god.
“The gods are notoriously unpredictable.” It felt grown up and clever to use the old priest’s phrase.
Harriet smiled.
“Is that wrong?”
“In my opinion, it’s quite correct, dear. Would you lie down?”
Harriet took a white stick out of her bag. When she swept it over Mal’s belly, a picture appeared on a tablet in her other hand. “This is what you look like inside.” It was only shadows and light, but Harriet seemed pleased.
She had questions: How many days had Mal bled? How many times had it come back? How many days in between? Had Ma given her anything strange to eat before it started?
“Your mother says you’re thirteen?”
“And a half.”
“And she’s explained that you will come to Red City to live?”
“Palama said it’s wonderful there, and there’s always plenty to eat.”
“Palama?”
“My friend Pala’s ma. A raptor got her.”
“I’m sorry.” There was a catch in her voice. Mal believed she really was sorry.
“When I was little, I called Pala’s ma and da Palama and Palada. It stuck.” Funny, she didn’t even know their real names.
“You mean Gopala.” Harriet put away the instruments.
How did Harriet know that name?
Harriet snapped the blue bag shut before Mal could ask. “Palama was right.” She raised her eyebrows like she was letting Mal in on a fabulous secret. “Red City is wonderful. And there are good things to eat from all over the world.”
Oh, Palama! What would she think if she were here?
“But you’ll find something even better,” Harriet continued, “something you might not have thought about. Lots of other girls like you.”

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You can find Bleeder at the following places:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

LK Rigel lives in California with her cat, Coleridge. She was once a singing waitress, scored the independent science fantasy karate movie Lucid Dreams, and was a reporter for the Sacramento Rock 'N Roll News. Her BA is in humanities and religious studies. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama and Tattoo Highway. Her short story "Slurp" will appear in Anne Frasier's 2011 Halloween anthology Deadly Treats published by Nodin Press.

There is an amazing giveaway at the final stop of this tour - a $100 Amazon/B&N gift certificate!!! There will be a quiz question at every stop along the way. The first person to answer the question correctly at each stop will be entered in the giveaway. How exciting is that??? Ok, here's my question:

Correction - I've just been informed that EVERYONE who submits a correct answer will be entered in the drawing, not just the first person to answer correctly!

Good luck everyone! Here's the next stop on the tour:

July 10th - Book Lover & Procrastinator

For a full tour line-up, visit The Bookish Snob Promotions