For your reading pleasure...

After working on Phoenix for a good couple hours today, I am feeling a renewed sense of excitement about the novel...and for whatever reason, I just feel like sharing a small snippet (sorry, beta readers...you've already seen this).

All I ask is that you remember I'm still working with a draft here...so it's quite possible that there are (potentially several) mistakes. Enjoy!

Silver eyes are glowing back at me, but there’s something familiar about them. I blink, taking in the light, freckled skin of his face, the sandy blonde hair that’s styled differently from the last time I saw him.
Time stops, and my heart shatters into a million pieces.
I stop fighting.
He puts a finger to his lips, asking for silence. I nod slowly, and he takes his hand away from my mouth.
I can’t stop staring at him. Tears pool in the corners of my eyes, blurring out the edges of the world around me.
“Sam?” The word falls out of my mouth, delicate and fragile and so quiet it hardly makes a sound.
The muscles in his jaw tighten as he clenches his teeth.  I know he can hear me.
“You know you’re being followed?” he asks. I narrow my eyes.
“Of course,” I tell him, keeping my voice low. “I can take care of myself.”
He frowns, but says nothing more.
“Sam, what are you doing here?”
He lets out a sigh. Without a response, he leans towards me and looks around the corner of the building.
I can’t help but notice how much he’s changed. His body, once skin and bones, is now quite substantial, well-toned muscles outlined by the blue t-shirt he’s wearing. He seems so strong now. Intimidating, almost.
“Damn,” he mutters, almost inaudibly.
“What is it?” I demand, my voice louder now, a harsh whisper that snaps his head back in my direction so quickly it startles me. He moves close, eyes bleeding an urgency that I don’t understand until I hear their footsteps, too late. Too late to run away, too late to hide.
“Don’t move,” Sam whispers.
Blood is pulsing in my ears. He is so close to me, his new scent filling my nostrils, his skin almost touching mine. We are breathing the same air and I feel broken and elated and terrified all at once.
The footsteps are getting closer. In seconds, they will round the corner and find us here. What will happen then? I look at Sam. Nerves kick in, scattering across my body like spiders on my skin. Fire surges through my veins, the imminent danger kicking my Nyiathan senses into full gear.
Sam is Siek now. How do I know he’s not the enemy?
Almost as if he sees the change in me, Sam shakes his head. His eyes search mine, silver discs shining into my flickering honey-brown irises. There is an innocence there that makes me pause.
In the last possible shred of time before the Sieks are upon us, the splinter of a second that held me there, he closes the small gap between us and kisses me, his lips touching mine at exactly the right moment.
A pit of emotion swirls inside of me, and I am falling, fast and hard and completely out of control.
I don’t know this Sam.
The footsteps behind us pause and then continue, chasing the Nyiathan who has just slipped from their grasp.