Title: Hot-Blooded (The ‘Ohana Series, book 1)
Author: Kendall Grey
Publish Date: July 14,
2014
‘Ohana is everything…
When an accident claims her mother’s life,
Keahilani Alana must take charge of her `ohana(family)
or risk losing what little they have. With an underage brother to care for and
no education, she has few options. The door to a heavenly hellish opportunity
opens when she stumbles upon a valuable secret her mother left behind on the
slopes of an extinct volcano—a legacy that tempts the family with riches beyond
their wildest dreams. But the secret is much bigger and more sinister than they
realize. As reality unravels and exposes eerie truths about the ‘ohana that should have remained deep under
the mountain, Keahilani must either resist the call of her blood or risk being
consumed by its darkness.
Blake Murphy is an assassin working to
infiltrate a new Hawaiian cartel. His investigation reveals that Keahilani, the
sexy surfing instructor he pegged as an informant, is much closer to the drug
ring than he thought. Passion ignites between them in the bedroom, but their
ironclad ties to opposing interests pit them against each other everywhere
else.
When tensions reach the breaking point and her ‘ohana is threatened, the only cure for
Keahilani’s hot-blooded fury is a loaded clip with a body bag chaser.
They don’t call her Pele for nothing
WARNING: HOT-BLOODED does NOT end with a happily ever after. It contains
drug use and graphic sex, language, and violence. The story is intended to
entertain, not to condone or glorify illegal or immoral activities. This book
is unsuitable for sensitive readers and those under the age of 18.
*Written
in 3rd person with multiple POVs.
Here are 5 fun facts
about HOT-BLOODED:
1. HOT-BLOODED is a cross
between Point Break, The Sopranos, and Twin Peaks. So, if you like surfing,
gangster-style grit with a side of psychological suspense, this one might be
right up your alley.
2. HOT-BLOODED’s heroine,
Keahilani Alana, is a Hawaiian surfer chick with skeletons (and some other
dark, bump-in-the-night baddies) in her closet. She’s strong-willed,
independent, and more than willing to use force to get her point across.
3. The tagline for
HOT-BLOODED is “‘Ohana is everything,” and boy is it EVER! ‘Ohana means
“family” in Hawaiian, and this book explores the nature of family—good, bad,
and deadly—on many levels.
4. It’s set on the lush
island of Maui where every color of the rainbow rules—and where terrifying
shadows exist in places you least expect them.
5. HOT-BLOODED is loosely
connected to Kendall’s JUST BREATHE urban fantasy series. You don’t have to
have read those books to enjoy this one, but JUST BREATHE readers who do a
little digging may notice some subtle connections. There’s a reason for that.
Stick with the ‘Ohana series to find out more! :-)
Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/hot-blooded-11
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/hot-blooded/id895963192
Paperback
from Amazon: http://bit.ly/HotBloodPB
Kendall Grey is the self-appointed past, present, and future
president of the Authors Behaving Badly Club. A whale warrior and indie freedom
fighter, she spends summers in the corner (usually with a dunce cap on her
head) and winters hunched at the peak of Mt. Trouble, fiery pens of fury
(complete with invisible ink) flying across the pages. She has a big set of cajones,
and she's not afraid to use them. In her spare time, Kendall speaks your mind
so you don't have to.
Chapter
One
Maui, 2008
“You
think Bane will win this year?” Kai asked from the backseat. It was hard to
hear him over the sputter of the coughing engine, but a tinge of uncertainty
blurred his soft voice.
From
the passenger seat, Keahilani glanced back at her twin. The wind from Mahina’s
open window in front of him blew the sun-kissed brown hair from his face. His
locks executed complicated flips like a drunk diver stumbling off the cliffs of
Black Rock on Kāʻanapali Beach.
“Maybe.”
Keahilani didn’t want to jinx their little brother’s chances, so she kept her
thoughts to herself. Kai had always been the optimistic one who searched for
the good in every situation. She considered herself practical above all else.
In short, Kai hoped. Keahilani hedged.
That
said, she had no doubt Bane would totally kill it in the surfing competition
today.
“Absolutely,”
Mahina said. Keahilani felt her mother’s smile rather than saw it. That’s how
Mahina was. Energy rather than form. Larger than life. A force to be reckoned
with. To those who didn’t know her, Mahina was intimidation made flesh. To her
family, she was the epitome of love and respect with a sharp edge.
Years
filled with alternating tragedies and triumphs had that hard-on-the-outside,
soft-on-the-inside effect on a person.
Keahilani
fumbled with her hair, wrestling the tangles from the wind’s clutches as she
squinted into the sun. Damn car’s air conditioning hadn’t worked in ages, and
Mahina probably wouldn’t have run it even if it did. She pinched pennies at the
expense of the smallest comforts. Recycled water for gardening. No lights on
during the day. Not a single bite of food wasted. Hell, the members of the
household even took timed, lukewarm showers. Five minutes was all anyone ever
got, birthdays included.
Keahilani
sighed. As soon as she landed a higher-paying job, she’d help the family move
out of government housing into something better. Her mother had given so much
of herself to keep the ‘ohana strong. She deserved some reward for her
struggles. They all did.
Mahina
shoved one hand into the hemp bag lying between the bucket seats while the
other maintained tenuous control of the steering wheel. She glanced away from
the road a couple of times.
Sitting
up, Keahilani swiped the thin sheen of sweat from her leg. God, this heat.
“What do you need? I’ll get it.”
Mahina
gently pushed her away and continued fumbling around in the bag.
“Keep
your eyes on the road,” Keahilani gibed. Her mother always said the same when
she drove.
Mahina
paused her rifling as she rounded a sharp curve. “Bane told me that rude haole
boy from Kihei—what’s his name? Josh something?—is the biggest competition this
year. That little shit needs his ass handed to him.”
True.
Josh beat Bane (barely) at their last surfing contest, and afterward he bragged
about haole surfers being better than Natives. Mahina’s lip curled, and she
bared her teeth over a growl. Keahilani had to physically restrain her from
attacking the kid. Mahina could take a lot of crap, but when you brought her or
her children’s heritage and/or wave-riding abilities into question, things were
guaranteed to get ugly.
And
they did. Josh ran to his mother and hid behind her. Keahilani was pretty sure
he peed his pants too. Served him right.
Most
people agreed religion, money, and politics were topics best avoided in social
situations. Mahina’s top three incendiary topics were Native Hawaiians,
surfing, and social justice.
“He’ll
get his.” Keahilani gazed at the ocean. “They always do.”
The
bend navigated, Mahina returned to digging through her purse. “Damn it. Where
did I put those cigarettes?” She glanced down and shoved half of the contents
aside.
Smoking
was her one vice—the single luxury she allowed herself. She only smoked two
cigarettes a day, always out of sight from Bane, so Keahilani tried not to nag
her too much about it. Mahina said she felt guilty for spending an extra seven
bucks every week and a half on cancer sticks, but Keahilani was more concerned
about her health than a few lost dollars.
Another
curve snuck up on them like a rogue wave out of nowhere, and a motorcycle
breached the double yellow lines, heading straight for them.
Fear
punched her in the gut, and Keahilani slapped a hand to the dashboard.
“Mahina!”
Kai’s shout from the backseat struck a perfect chord with Keahilani’s cry.
“Shit!”
Their mother yanked the steering wheel, avoiding the motorcycle, but the car
careened across pavement, tires screaming in protest.
Keahilani
clutched her seat, and the world slowed to a dreadful, slow-motion panorama.
Reality spun into blurred brown lines intermingled with blood-curdling,
rubber-ripping howls that danced around her head like little cartoon birds. Her
body succumbed to laws of physics she couldn’t break as it thrashed against the
belt crossing her chest. Bones protested at the impact.
Twirl. Skid. SLAM!
The
dreamlike scene ended abruptly. A bloody wake-up call infused with a double
shot of delayed reaction lit up her pain receptors. Deadly silence, save for a
hissing radiator, commanded the airwaves.
Keahilani
tried to unbuckle herself, but her arm wouldn’t cooperate. It was stuck between
the seat and the door. Dazed, she turned toward Mahina and wished she hadn’t.
Red.
Not on her lips where it should be, but trickling down her temple. Saturating
her light shirt. Pooling on the seat. The crumpled door embedded her side as if
it were made of cardboard rather than steel. Red-dipped glass fragments lay
shattered in a macabre butterfly shape on her lap.
A
chill alighted on Keahilani’s skin, soft like a blanket at first, but then it
seeped in, a sinister terror, seizing her whole body.
“Mahina?”
Keahilani whispered, afraid that if she spoke too loudly, she might somehow
break her mother further. Heart shuffling into a gallop, she couldn’t catch her
breath. Couldn’t catch her racing thoughts as they sped away, leaving her
control high and dry. Sanity whirled into a vortex, and adrenaline-powered fear
clamped around her throat. “Makuahine?” she said more forcefully.
Kai
groaned behind Mahina and lifted his head from his tipped-over position in the
seat. He’d avoided the impact when the door caved in. Thank God.
A
quiet rattle nabbed Keahilani’s attention. Dread anchored to her gut, and
gravity dragged it down. No. No. No. Mahina would be okay. She had to be.
She
wrestled the door and with great effort, wriggled her sore arm free and
scrambled for the seatbelt. Mahina’s chest crested with another rattle.
Mahina … oh God, Mahina … Her
pulse increased to an impossible speed, flooding her ears with wild thumps,
goading her into action. The belt sprung loose, and Keahilani’s hands flew to
her mother, who was such a horrific mess, she didn’t even know where to start.
Flag someone down for help. You can’t fix
this yourself.
“Makuahine?”
The high pitch of Kai’s normally low voice startled her.
Keahilani
yanked the door handle and shouldered it open. The grisly rattling spurring her
on, she stumbled out of the car. Searing pain shot down her leg. She caught
herself before face-planting on the pavement and limped into the road.
The
asshole on the bike that almost hit them was long gone, but a car headed their
way. She waved her good arm in an exaggerated arc. Eyes wide, the driver
slammed into park and pulled out a cell phone. “I’ll get help.” Keahilani
nodded her thanks. She awkwardly galloped back to her ‘ohana.
Kai
tumbled out of the backseat, wincing, eyes watering, brows knitted together in
a tight weave of physical and emotional agony. A furious bruise bloomed on his
cheek. “She’s gonna die.” His voice cracked. “Mahina’s gonna die.”
Keahilani
ignored him and rounded the car to the driver’s side. Avoiding the bloodied bag
of flesh trapped in the seat, she studied the accordion of metal and gave it a
gentle tug. Nothing happened. She grasped the panel with one hand, the handle
with the other, and put all of her might into pulling it open. Kai appeared
beside her, sniffling, shoulders heaving. Barely controlled panic rolled off
him. With his help, she managed to budge the door open. Mahina jerked as the
air hit her, and blood flooded out of her side in a rush.
Kai
tugged his shirt over his head and stuffed it into the wound. He smoothed Mahina’s
wet hair. “Makuahine. Makuahine, can you hear me?” The sudden calmness in his
tenor frightened Keahilani more than the blood did. Her brother was right.
Mahina—her mother, her sister, her best friend—was going to die.
A
lump clogged Keahilani’s throat, but the approach of a wailing siren didn’t
give her time to grieve. Kai knelt beside their mom until the paramedics
barreled up with a gurney and took over.
The
ensuing moments were yet another blur in the blizzard of unbelievable events.
Someone asked if she was okay. They helped her to the side of the road and
checked out her and Kai. Red and white lights whirred. Urgent voices chattered.
A line of cars backed up the highway. Dazed, Keahilani followed when a
paramedic guided her into the back of the ambulance with Kai and the bundle of splintered
pieces that used to be their mother.
Doors
slammed behind them, locking her into a wheeled mausoleum. She couldn’t do
this. She couldn’t be trapped in there with her mother as she died. Panic tore
through her, weakening and electrifying all at once.
The
engine roared, the siren shrieked, and tires spun.
No,
no, no. This couldn’t be happening.
“I’m
dying,” Mahina whispered on a shallow current of air. The garbled words blended
with what Keahilani feared was blood filling her mother’s punctured lung. They
were almost a plea. Whether for relief, a merciful end, or escape, Keahilani
wasn’t sure, but she felt as if she was the one who’d been crushed by the door.
Clutching
the crisp white sheet on the gurney, Mahina tensed and arched her back. More
blood seeped through the bandages the EMT slapped over her abdomen. God, so
much blood. The horrible rattling inside her chest picked up. Thick creases of
anguish and fear marred her unusually pale face, gobbling up her ha, her very breath.
“Be
still, Mahina.” Trembling hand squeezing her mother’s, Keahilani shot her gaze
out the ambulance window. Not too far from the hospital, but the way things
were going, it might not matter.
Her
mother could not die. Could not.
“Makuahine,
you gotta stay awake. Let me know you’re still with me.” Keahilani kissed her
mother’s clammy cheek. Forbidden droplets poised at the corners of her lids. A
fresh rush of adrenaline surged and prevented those damned tears from falling.
She had to be strong for Mahina. And for Kai.
She
glanced to her twin in the seat beside her, head stuffed in his tanned, shaking
hands. Damp brown waves of hair framed his thumb and fingers. The unbearable
siren stifled what must have been chokes issuing through his dry lips.
“The
doctors will help you.” Keahilani didn’t believe the words any more than her
mother or Kai did. Even if her mom had a chance, the family had no insurance.
Odds of getting quality treatment were nil. The haole doctors were interested
in paying patients, not “moochers”
off their precious system. If you couldn’t help them cover their golf expenses
at the country club or the mortgage on their multimillion-dollar suites at the
tourist-dominated condominiums, they’d provide only the most basic services
because they had to. People like Mahina were nothing more than quickly
forgotten chores marked off over-filled to-do lists.
Keahilani
clutched her mother’s hand tighter and wiped her nose on a lifted shoulder.
Another deep rumble of fluid inside Mahina’s chest fought for control of a
space designed only for air. Mahina’s body rose from the gurney again. She
emerged gasping, nails digging into Keahilani’s flesh. With a glut of super
strength, her mother commandeered Keahilani’s T-shirt, balling the thin, faded
cotton. Her bloodshot brown eyes widened, and frightening acceptance dawned
over them. She swallowed a couple times in quick succession, her gulps like
those of a fish left on a dock to die.
“My
garden. You must protect my garden. You know where it is, huh? You remember?”
Her words transformed from desperate pleas into unyielding demands.
Keahilani
nodded. “I remember. But I won’t need to tend to your plants. You’ll be here to
do it,” she lied.
Somehow
Mahina’s eyes popped even wider, and her grip became painful. Heated droplets
pooled in Keahilani’s palm. Blood.
“No.
Death hunted me for years, and now he’s found me. My secrets—our secrets—lie near Kula within the
slopes of Haleakalā.” Her brows wrenched
together. “Protect them.”
Why
would Mahina care about her stupid plants at a time like this?
“Keahilani!” She tried to sit up, but
the straps across her chest stopped her. “Promise me!”
“I
promise.” Keahilani pressed her lips together to keep the emotion at bay, but
an eruption was overdue. Boiling sorrow welled from deep within, tainted by the
injustice of her mother’s situation. Waves of regret rolled off Kai beside her,
clashing with the whiff of death surrounding Mahina. The combined stench
overwhelmed her, suffocated her, lured the burning lava higher up her gullet.
She tried bargaining with the impending explosion. Mahina needs you to remain calm. Don’t upset her. If this is her end,
honor her with your silence.
“How
much longer?” she demanded of the driver through clenched teeth.
“Three
minutes.”
Mahina
didn’t have three minutes.
Ironic
how fast life could transform into death. One moment, they’d been driving to Lāhainā
Harbor to see Bane surf in the groms competition. The next, a freak car crash
robbed her not only of her mother’s life, but her entire family’s. If Mahina
hadn’t been rifling through her bag for that damned cigarette instead of paying
attention to the road, they’d probably be sitting on the beach now, cheering
for Bane as he dominated ka po‘ina nalu
and showed the haole surfers how it was done.
Keahilani
had always feared smoking would kill her mother.
She
hated being right.
Mahina’s
breaths decreased to mere whispers of garbled air. Her dark eyes lost focus.
Her hold on Keahilani loosened.
“Stay
with me, Makuahine. Come on. Wake up.” Keahilani tapped her mother’s cheek a couple
times. Kai lifted his head, his face streaked with tears. He leaned closer.
“Makuahine.”
His voice cracked.
Their
mother latched onto Keahilani and Kai in turn. “‘Ohana is everything. The blood
is everything…” The words were barely intelligible. The ghost of a smile passed
over her parted lips. The gurgle kicked up again with her inhale.
Keahilani
held her own breath and counted the seconds.
Five … six … seven …
The
word “‘ohana” surfed on the wave of Mahina’s lengthy exhale.
The
ambulance driver slammed the brakes and took a sharp right into the emergency
entrance at the hospital, jostling the three bodies in back. Two reacted. One
didn’t.
Kai
shook their mother. Her vacant gaze remained fastened on Keahilani, her final
word forever emblazoned in Keahilani’s mind.
‘Ohana.
As
shadows converged and undiluted rage consumed her, she channeled the heavenly
fire she was named after, pushed it out from her core, and unleashed all of her
anger and frustration and sorrow into a vocal eruption. “NO!”
The
ambulance windows rattled and sent the petrified EMTs scrambling to cover their
ears.
When
the last echo of the word died on her lips, the searing heat cooled like lava
expelled from the darkest depths, forced to chill in the unyielding harshness
of reality. Left with cold blood and too many memories, Keahilani threw herself
over her mother’s lifeless body. “No …,” she cried.
Kai’s
shaky hand pressed into the small of her back. “We’re alone.” His frame
quaking, he nuzzled her shoulder.
‘Ohana
was all they had left.
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