Leah Kate Write: Get Wicked With Entangled!

Hi welcome to the Get Wicked with Entangled Blog Hop!

Hi everyone! Thanks for joining us for Entangled’s Blog Hop! We’re very excited to be joining such a large host of lovely authors and offering up some fun tricks-and-treats wink emoticon
For our blog, we thought we’d give you a deleted scene from Jane Unwrapped, our young adult mythological fantasy from Entangled Teen’s new paranormal line, Crave.
Jane Unwrapped tells the story of a teen scientist named Jane who dies and wakes up in the Egyptian underworld. She discovers the only way to move on to paradise is to steal the heart of King Tutankhamen.
In our original draft, Jane and Tut actually fell in love, and Tutankhamen was the main love interest! In this scene, Tut helps Jane overcome a fear and they finally admit their feelings for each other. Ah, it was a sweet love for Tut until another hero took over in later drafts…if you’d like to find out who, check out Jane Unwrapped here!
We’d also like to offer one free digital copy of Jane Unwrapped and one free digital copy of Brenda Drake’s Touching Fate (which you can read all about here!), both out from Entangled Teen Crave! Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway below.
Don’t forget to check out all the other blogs for more surprises and chances to win awesome goodies! Have an awesome Halloween!

Starlight Deleted Scene

When I awake, it is still dark. I have the eerie feeling someone is in the room with me. I sit up and rub my eyes.

The door creaks open and I hear someone leaving.

"Hello?"

They stop frozen.

"Who are you?" The person turns around, and the moonlight shines upon his golden skin. "Tutankhamen...what are you doing here?"

He looks down, opens his mouth to speak, then turns to leave.

"Wait!" I jump up and cross the room to him. He's standing awkwardly in the middle of the doorway. "Stay."

Tutankhamen moves inside the room. "I'm sorry...I just...I wanted to see you...I couldn't sleep, but then I thought that maybe I should go...I didn't want to wake you."

"Well, I am awake now." Strange warmth flutters in my belly as I look at him. This is my Tut, not the court’s, and I don't want to let him go. "Why are you here?”

"I wanted to make sure you were still here. You weren't just a mirage I dreamt up in the desert and then haunted me at home."

"I can't leave yet," I whisper and know it to be truth.

His eyes narrow. "Come with me."

He drags me from my chambers in nothing but my white bed linens - he's wearing the same, his face clean of makeup, his face boyish without the heavy crown. We duck behind a column, him caging me in his arms the way Anubis had at the ball. Except I don't feel helpless or small – I feel powerful.

"Shush," he says as a guard passes by us. "Ay doesn't like me out at night."

Then he grabs my wrist again and we're off dashing through the palace, hiding behind bushes and columns and walls. I don’t want to think about Ankhesenamun or Aten or Anubis or even my life at home. My only purpose is to keep up with this wild-eyed boy darting through the dark corridors of a palace in Thebes.

"Here," he says, as we face a large marble gateway. "We're almost free." The way he says the word - it has a new meaning, one I desperately want to know. Freedom. Does it mean for him what it means to me?

He snatches me around the waist and boosts me up. Awkwardly, I clamber to the top, and hold out a hand for him. Then we're jumping down and running down the hill away from the palace.

"This is so irrational," I call to him, bursting with laughter. He darts away from the path that leads to the heart of the city, and follows a grassy hill towards the Nile.

"I have to show you something!"

I hesitate, seeing he means to take me to the river. "Not there."

He’s beside me, my head is his hands, his lips on my jaw. "Remember my promise?"

"I will always protect you." I'm surprised he remembers it.

"Always." The breath of a word that lingers in my mind, as he snatches my hands and drags me forward.

We're running through rushes of papyrus now. The air is warmer than usual and I look up to see the night sky splashed with light. I can't see Sirius right now, but the flood is coming so I know he's there.

Tut pulls me in his arms as he rolls to the ground, and we tumble down the hill, through the rushes. I can't breathe but I'm laughing and gasping as I can feel his body tangle in mine.

We stop with a jolt. He's on top of me, body pressing against my own.

I swear I can feel my heart beating.

He reaches a hand down to me, and I take it. We face the Nile.

The presence of the river causes that horrible clenching in my throat, but then Tutankhamen is in front of me, hiding the view. He takes both of my hands and whispers: "Promise."

He leads me to the edge of the river. The moon shines as a giant spotlight as Tut enters the water. It's slow - barely rushing, like the soft trickle of tears down a cheek.

Tut lets go of my hand and enters until he's waist-deep, spinning in the moonlight, then comes back to me. "You chased my fears away," he whispers. "Let me banish yours."

I take his hand and trust a promise. The water welcomes me, but Tutankhamen has me fully supported. The water has been warmed by the sun: nothing like the icy waters of Skutz Falls. I imagine how much my heart would be racing right now, but I don’t have one so I close my eyes, and fall into Tut’s arms.

Tut moves his hand to my thigh, slowly wrapping it around himself. Then he does the same with the other. His hand is strong on my leg, and my hands are wrapped around his neck so tightly I can't tell where my body ends and his begins.

He pushes off from the bank, until we're in the reflection of the moon. It glitters all around us, bathing us in white-light.

“Do you feel it?” I whisper.

“Feel what?”

“Starlight.” I take my hands from his neck and lean back, resting my body on the water, gazing up at the moon. Even in this world it never changes. My legs release from his body, and I'm floating through the stars.

Tut swims up to me, on his back as well, staring up at the sky. He takes my hand, and we float through the heavens together, the stars and moon our constant companions.

I am not afraid.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and sink into the river. Opening my eyes, I see the shape of his body beside mine. The water does not fight me, or maybe I do not fight it, but I follow its lingering course as long as my lungs can hold. For once, I do not want to come up for air.

I burst through the surface of the water, scattering twinkling droplets. Tutankhamen pulls me into his arms and I'm dizzy and breathless. His face is so close, his mouth open like a question and I am the answer.

His lips touch mine, ever so gently. His mouth is wet and soft and his lips perfectly shape over mine. And it is more than a dream, more than a fact, it’s a feeling.

My body moulds to his, and his hands are everywhere, from my face, to my hair, to my back, and I can only concentrate on holding on because I feel like I'm leaving this world and becoming starlight itself.

Finally, he pulls away and all I want to do is pull him back to me.

"Jane Ezrael," he whispers, "stay with me."

"It's a promise," I reply and cannot make myself believe it is a lie.