Excerpts paranormal romance Read an Excerpt From Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi A journey of magic and fantasy, from the whispering creeks outside the city of Salvation to the very depths of Hell itself. By Akwaeke Emezi | Published on November 18, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi, a steamy paranormal romance set in the Black South, available now from Avon Books. Tenderhearted Galilee was raised by the Kincaids, a formidable clan of Black women sequestered deep in the weeping willows and dark rushing creeks of their land. Galilee has always known that she’s different—that there is an old and unknowable secret around her very existence. It has been a hollow ache inside her since her childhood, something she assumes she will always have to live with.Until she meets Lucifer Helel. He’s fronting as the head of security for her wealthy friend Oriaku’s family, protecting a mysterious, ancient artifact, but from the moment she lays eyes on him, Gali knows he’s not human. From her first incendiary touch, Lucifer knows something even Gali herself doesn’t—that she isn’t human either. Enter: Leviathan. As Lucifer’s most trusted prince of Hell, Levi is ruthless and determined to eliminate the intolerable danger that is Galilee before she brings death and disaster to those he loves. While unseen battles rage between Hell, Heaven, and earth, Lucifer and Galilee’s attraction threatens to bring all the structures of their existence crashing down around them.Soon, loyalties will be shattered and reformed as Kincaid secrets clash with the princes of Hell, driving even the most powerful to their knees. Galilee Kincaid must decide if she will step into herself and embrace the consequences of power. Oriakụ was about to snap out another order when someone melted out of the shadows on their right, startling them all. Bonbon squeaked, and Gali did a double take because she could have sworn there was nothing there—no door, no hallway—just pools of darkness splashed on the walls and floor. She looked up at the stranger, and her brain nearly short-circuited. Her migraine squeezed at her skull. God, he was beautiful. His skin was a pristine dark walnut that seemed to almost glow, and when he turned his head to glance at the guards, Gali saw the hooked jut of his nose in profile. The stranger lifted a hand to brush a shadow off his black shirt, and he had those damn piano hands that were always Gali’s weakness, with the long, articulated fingers and singing tendons right under the skin. Coarse dark curls fell into his face and around his ears, kissing the collar of his black shirt, and his mouth was unforgivably wide and lush. He wasn’t visibly armed, but there was something about him that seemed intrinsically wrong, like he wasn’t really supposed to be here, like he was one step sideways out of this reality. Gali knew that feeling quite well. Her entire family had that strangeness to them, but it was much louder in this man and much, much more dangerous. He was displaced and he wasn’t happy about it. Gali knew she was staring, soaking him up with her eyes, but she didn’t care. Bonbon leaned in. “Who the hell is that?” she whispered. “He’s fucking delectable.” Oriakụ glanced over at her friends. “This is Helel,” she said. “He’s the head of the artifact security team.” The stranger’s eyes flicked in Gali’s direction, and her knees almost gave out. He had the longest lashes she’d ever seen, and his eyes were so dark they seemed black. Shards of gold splintered in his irises, shifting in the light, and she thought she saw a glimpse of violent power before it was shuttered away. Her skin skittered over her body. He really did seem illuminated from within, radiating a light that animated the dim hallway they stood in. It wasn’t something Gali could ask the others to confirm, because she would sound crazy and she was trying very hard not to be that, not in Salvation, not this far from the Kincaid house. “Can I help you with anything, Ms. Onyearugbulem?” the stranger asked Oriakụ. “Have your companions been cleared for this wing?” Gali exhaled as the rolling heat of his voice curled around them. He sounded like a herald—the kind who sang down falling civilizations, who stood mad on a mountain as children burned. That voice… it scorched like both magma and a cold that could sear flesh off the bone, iron bleached soft at an unfathomable temperature. It licked against her like a spell. “They don’t need clearances,” Oriakụ snapped. “They’re with me.” The stranger’s face didn’t change in the slightest, but a haze of contempt oozed out from him. A faint smile curved Gali’s lips, and she couldn’t help herself. “You’d like us to get on out of here, wouldn’t you?” she said, amused. She wanted him to hear her voice, to look at her. She was Galilee Kincaid, and he was some kind of creature, and she wasn’t afraid. Her head was splitting apart, but she felt reckless and close to laughter. Gali gave in to it—“normal” was going to have to hold on for a second. The stranger’s gaze swung to her and he narrowed his eyes, angling his body slightly in Gali’s direction. The stinging ache inside her made a leap for her bones and clawed through her marrow as it bloomed into wanting. Gali cursed silently, biting down on her lip. No, no, no, not now! She didn’t want her worlds to overlap, not like this. Her foreboding yelled that something heavy hung behind those carved wooden doors, and the damn migraine in her head wouldn’t stop. Gali took a step backward, clenching her hands to will them dark. The stranger’s eyes tracked to her mouth, and far away in the Kincaid forest, Celestial Kincaid giggled, standing shin-deep in water. Did you find a toy to play with, Galilee? This was what Nana Darling had warned her about, this treacherous amplification of her wanting, and if Gali had any sense, she would run far and fast away from anyone who could set this cascade off within her. She’d done it once before, years ago, when a girl with silver eyes had visited the Kincaid house from another powerful family and touched Gali so tenderly that Gali had wept from the force of the ache inside her. She’d avoided the girl for the rest of her visit and Celestial had scolded her for it, but then again, Celestial had no problem living madly with overlapped worlds. Gali wasn’t like her cousin. Gali could be exactly like her cousin. Possibilities swung in front of her like falling blades as she looked into the stranger’s fractured eyes. “I don’t want you here,” he confirmed, his voice clipped. “The artifact is not on exhibition—” “The artifact,” Oriakụ interrupted, a beatific smile on her face, “is not yours. I will show it to whomever I please, and if you have any issues with that, Helel, I suggest you take it up with my father. Are we clear?” Everyone fell silent as the man turned his gaze toward Oriakụ. Gali flinched at the way the air changed, at the unexpected malevolence that suddenly swarmed around them, thick enough to block her throat and lungs. “I don’t work for you,” he snarled. “Unless your father stands before me himself, the decision is mine. The artifact is not a toy you can show off to impress your entourage. If you have a problem with how I do my job, I suggest—as you recommend—that you take it up with your father.” Buy the Book Son of the Morning Akwaeke Emezi Buy Book Son of the Morning Akwaeke Emezi Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget His lips were curled to bare his sharp white teeth and his eyes were glittering. Gali impulsively pulled her arm away from Bonbon. Oriakụ was bluffing; like she said, her father would never give them permission to see the artifact, but Gali could help. Pain sang under the skin of her face as the migraine coated her skull. This man reminded her of things outside the city, things she never wanted her friends to find out about, secrets that needed to be kept secret. Gali had been raised in the work, but there was so much more that was just her, humming in her blood like her swarm. Her family would never recommend what she was about to do. The girls would be surprised, but they wouldn’t actually see anything, just like they couldn’t see the light stored inside him. It would be safe. She could pull it off. Gali stepped between Oriakụ and the suddenly lethal stranger, placing her hand on his chest. She wanted to touch him, and the contact rocked her even through the crisp cotton of his shirt. Gali hissed in a breath and raised her head to meet his gaze. Oriakụ and Bonbon were staring at her in shock, and the stranger was just a breath away from her now. He smelled of live ash and bitter spices. The gold in his eyes was flaring, but the malevolence in the air had drained away. Gali took a deep breath. When she was a child, the Kincaids had taught her not to gamble with certain things and especially not to take chances in the woods. Her cousin Celestial, on the other hand, taught her that sometimes you didn’t need dice to roll. Sometimes other things were enough, like rocks or small bones. Maybe if she was a better or more obedient Kincaid, she would starve her ache instead of feeding it, or walk away instead of looking for trouble, but the stinging was in her bones, her head hurt, and her ears rang. Maybe the panting mouth of danger had been her all along. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was this moment when she touched him for the first time and watched his eyes blow wide. Gali couldn’t feel his heartbeat under her hand, and that was a sure sign of nothing good. “I’ll barter with you,” she said. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Celestial snapped her neck up from the bank of a creek and searched the wind with wild eyes. Kincaids did not make barters like other people, but in that moment, Gali didn’t care. “If I give you a dance back at the gala, you’re gonna let us see the artifact.” Oriakụ made a sound of protest, but Gali barely heard it. He was looking at her now, really looking at her, and she found herself desperately wishing to be seen. She was so many things and not even sure of all of them. She was wild and barefoot under old trees; she was painted and polished in a mansion; she was nothing decided and everything desired. She wanted to be seized, and he had so many teeth. His mouth softened from its disapproving lines, and the weight of his attention felt like a thousand touches on her skin. Gali tried to smile, and he dropped his gaze to her feet in the crystal stilettos, then worked his way up her oiled legs, her wide hips and soft belly, her breasts under the soft singing glass and the column of her neck. By the time his eyes stopped and stayed at her mouth, he might as well have stripped her bare, and Gali knew for a certainty that he wanted her. Unfortunately, thanks to the blatant hunger in his face, everyone else around them knew it as well. The man with the gray eyes frowned and took a half step forward. “Boss…?” The stranger’s eyes didn’t move from Gali’s. She held her breath, and it felt like the hallway had vanished into the shadows, along with the people in it. Say yes, she willed him with all her want. Say yes. A corner of his mouth curled up. “Yes,” he said. “A dance for a viewing, but I’ll take the dance right now.” Relief washed through Gali that he’d agreed, but she pouted at the condition. “Damn, I don’t get to see the artifact with my friends?” “I’ll show it to you later myself.” “Hold the fuck up—” Oriakụ started, but Bonbon elbowed her sharply in the ribs. “Y’all go on ahead,” she said, grinning at Gali with pure evil delight. “We’ll catch up.” The rest of the security team looked uncertain, and the one who had spoken up before tried again. “Boss. What do you want us to do?” “Show them the artifact. Show them out afterward.” He was still staring at Gali, and the tension between them threatened to incinerate the air. “I’m going to take my dance.” He slid his hand over Gali’s, and her breath gave out at the hot touch of his skin, air escaping her lungs in a soft gasp. It felt like a world was closing in on her, the jaws of a trap encircling gently, enough to coax her into letting it hold her in place. Her wanting laughed and shouted inside her as he tugged at her hand, leading them away from the others and the carved door with expensive secrets behind it. Gali didn’t look back. Excerpt from Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi. Copyright © 2025 by Akwaeke Emezi. Used with permission by Avon Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>Son of the Morning</i> by Akwaeke Emezi appeared first on Reactor.