Pledged Excerpt One - Meet Seth & Erin

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Over the next week I will be posting excerpts from Pledged by Gwynneth White, which is the first book in The Soul Wars Saga. I am super excited about this book, and can't wait to read and review it in September!
Meet Seth and Erin. . .  Despite the heat, Seth felt icy.Dread could do that to him. Or so he had recently discovered. Deep breathingusually calmed him, so he sucked in a lungful of desert air and told himself torelax. It didn’t help. By the time he’d walked from the aircraft to theimmigration hall he’d ripped off a jagged piece of thumbnail, already bittenraw. He handed his US passport to the Botswanan border official, and, after afrown, and a stamp, he joined the crowd at the baggage carousel. Botswana insouthern Africa was the last place on earth he’d ever have picked for a holidaydestination. But he wasn’t here on holiday. Not even close.His backpack was slow in coming. Tiredfrom his long-haul flight from New York, he leaned against the wall and closedhis eyes. Almost as if to mock him, the hated vision that had brought him toBotswana burst into his mind. In an instant he was back in ancient times,watching a man he knew only as Gideon. As usual, Gideon was huddled on awindswept hill with his band of hopeless soldiers, waiting to be slaughtered bya huge army gathered in the valley below.Seth snapped his eyes open tostop the battle from waging in his mind. It wasn’t that he was particularlysqueamish; he’d watched enough movies to iron clad his stomach against goryvisuals. But no movie had ever left him icy with dread the way Gideon’s battledid. And the reason for that was simple. The moment the visions had started, hehad known that the war, fought so long ago in a place he’d never heard of, wasfar from over. And, as reluctant as he was, he too was being enlisted to fightin a cause he didn’t understand or want. He forced himself to focus on thepresent: Erin, who waited for him in the arrivals hall; his brother Kyle, whomhe’d come to Botswana to visit; Kyle’s expedition to find the Lost City of theKalahari . . .He ripped off another piece offingernail. Thinking about the search for the Lost City was almost as bad asthe war-vision. I hope Kyle never findsthe damned place. He slapped his hand on his thigh. Enough! Grabbing his backpack off the carousel, he set his faceinto a smile and strode into the arrivals hall.The first hurdle was findingErin. She was due to arrive an hour earlier on a flight from Cape Town in SouthAfrica, one of Botswana’s neighbours. He’d never met her, although they hadspoken over the phone once. Then she’d described herself as “a short,seventeen-year-old (a year younger than him) with a mass of ginger hair.” She’dsounded nice. Meeting her was the one ray of brightness in this otherwise darkpicture.He stopped to scan the crowd. Apetite girl with shoulder length, reddish-blonde curls, dressed in skinny jeansand a purple blouse, immediately caught his eye. It had to be Erin. Nice legs. What’s it with girls that they always under-sell themselves? Hestudied her face with his artist’s eye.Vermeer would’ve killed to paint her. Suddenly wishing he didn’t look sogrimy after his three plane-changes, he walked over to join her. “Hi, I’m Seth.You’ve got to be Erin. My brother’s just married your sister Izzy.”“And after only knowing eachother for about a week.”Her dimpled grin was infectious,making him crack his trademark crooked smile. “Madness.”“Mysterious.” Erin cocked herhead to one side, seemingly appraising him. He knew he had been accurate whenhe’d told her he was tall and dark-haired. But what he had failed to mentionwas what girls had often said they liked about him: his strong, angular face,softened by expressive brown eyes. He watched her eyes rove over his grey Muse: Resistance t-shirt, taking in his broad shoulders and chest. Fromthere they darted down his black camo-pants to his boots. Amused by her blatantassessment, he cocked his head to one side, watching her. Suddenly Erin giggled– was she embarrassed? – and picked up her bag. “We’ve yet another plane tocatch. My fourth in the last twenty-four hours,” Seth said, hoping to explainaway his rumpled appearance. “To a place called Maun.” “So we do. Let the adventurebegin.” 
I will be giving away five copies of this book this month, so look out for that very soon!