Tag Archives: dark fantasy

Snow Bite

This very first, exclusive excerpt of White Magic, a dark fairy tale, is only the beginning. Keep an eye out for more of this very special story, coming in ebook and paperback, as we approach release day: Christmas Eve!

 

Chapter One

EXCERPT

It was at the wedding that Snow White saw her stepmother for the first time, and was enchanted. Not by a spell, though the woman was a witch and the princess knew it in the first moment. No, the girl was caught by her stepmother’s presence, her brilliance, her stunning beauty.

In white and gold, her silk robes heavy with embroidery, the gleam of the new queen’s gemstones and jewelry was not what held the girl’s attention, but the woman herself.

This new mother was pale as fine ivory, her skin smooth, her eyes black as the bottom of a well. Her hair was spun copper, hot coils wound about her ears, long braids flowing into a mass of curls and every strand in motion, a thousand vermilion snakes erupting in a tangle of perfect beauty.

A sensation like hot water, or sparks flung from a fire, prickled on Snow White’s skin. She smelled something sweet and sour, a violent, violet odor of blossoms and rust. Without knowing how or why, awareness coursed through her, a living thing on its own.

Magic.

The wedding ceremony passed in a blur before the princess’s eyes, with one center, one focus, blazing bright and wild. Her stepmother was a witch. A witch! The knowledge beat in Snow White’s breast, alive, dancing, a fire with a heart of storm.

Even at the reception, she thought her stepmother spilled the secret from laughing lips with every sound, but no one else cared to hear it, or no one could. Only Snow White stared at her, enraptured. Magic. It was here – it had finally come.

She was the king’s daughter, it was true, but she wanted neither riches nor the kingdom. Only magic. To be a witch; to hold the power in her own hands.

That night, and for several days after, Snow White watched the new queen’s treasures being brought in, across the white-stoned courtyards, beneath the shadow of green leaves and up the stairs of the empty western tower, where they were hidden behind a black door, freshly painted.

Clothes and furniture, chests and cases did not much interest the girl, but there were other things. A bright steel cauldron, its bottom not black but white. Hangings for the tower walls, each one marked with strange embroideries, runes and symbols, vistas of foreign lands.  A box of dark wood, ornamented with a single seal – a potted plant with forty brilliant blossoms, yet no scent.

Last of all came a mirror, wrapped in cloth of gold. On each of those things, Snow White smelled the magic-fragrance she had encountered at the wedding and the iron tang of blood.

The girl made up her mind by the end of the fifth day. Why should she settle for a stepmother, when instead she could have a witch?

 

Want more? White Magic is here!

Eleventh Entry: Rakushinpu

 

joro

The sound of the water rushes overhead. Beside us, the great fall is a roar and in its shadow the gleam of spray and the shadow of leaves overtake the world, together with drowsy promises. 

The spirits of the mountain speak in murmuring voices, a whisper to calm the senses, a low, red sound. Of love, it speaks, with the sound of a lute  and the eager harmony of all night’s darkest passions.

Come to me.

The voice does not belong to the water.

Stay with me.

The words are a plea from which an answer will summon only regret.

Is it not quiet here? Are you not tired now? Stay a while and sleep with me…

The lady of the falls trades on her whispers, and when the sun dips past the high of noon toward the horizon, when the laziness of the afternoon is full upon us – then, at the edge of the water, climbing in silken coils, the threads come one at a time.

Each one attaches to a man. An ankle. A toe. A calf. But we are prepared, as not many before us have been. The threads are not broken, but hooked to trees, to stumps – one rooted life in exchange for each marked man. 

As the sun begins to go down, the threads are pulled, one by one, and one by one pieces of the forest crash over the cliff-side, down the mountain, into the rage of the river and the waterfall’s roar.

A woman cries with it, and the longing has not left her voice. 

Stay with me, won’t you?

There is no laughter, no speech, as we make our way down the night blackened sides of the autumn mountain. We return to our camp – to the nearest village. It is there that we count our number and find that twenty-four has been reduced to twenty-three. 

Stay with me…

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Read more in the erotic horror novella Rakushinpu, free on Amazon KDP!

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Rakushinpu/Jorogumo References
Jorōgumo Wiki
Jorōgumo Legends

Have a suggestion for a creature that belongs in the Bestiary? Leave it in the comments!

Green Iron

Since the magic of #1lineWed and Camp NanoWriMo coincide for the first time today, I am going to crawl all the way out to the end of the furthest limb and share not only a bit of context for some of those lines, but a piece from my Camp project, Earthbound!

This lovable doom of a novel has been in the making since my first November attempt at a Nanowrimo, and has grown in the telling…considerably.

Enjoy a sneak peek!

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The door closed behind the servant, and his sister’s hands pulled Lu Yin down into her bed as she slipped from his arms.
He stumbled away, tangled his legs in the sheets and fell to the floor.
Bells.
But no, there were no bells, only the sound of his sister’s laughter shattering in his ears.
“I know what you want now, Lu Yin.  Did you not want me to know? Or did you want it too much?”
He stood slowly, disentangled himself from her sheets and tossed them back on the bed. Red silk pooled around her legs, and she drew it up, up, over her knees, her thighs –
“Are you listening, elder brother?” He wet his lips. “You should be listening. You should -”
“Enough!” And then, more quietly. “Enough.” He pinned her to her pillows, and oh, those eyes.
Blue, so flashing, all the amusement in the world when she was on the verge of breaking him – could he not even have the silence to console him?
The silence and the scent of her, when that was all he had.
He held her throat in his hands, slender and bruised, white but for where she had been bitten, and squeezed for a breathless moment. He traced the dark-marked places with slender fingertips, as if they were wounds.
“Why? Who would dare to mark the Fourth Princess?”
Her dancing eyes. No promise of the truth in them – had there ever been? But now the old, dim lifelessness was laughter. Why would she still be so amused?
“I should tell father -”
“You won’t tell father.”
“I must -”
But the pressure of her mouth against his lips brings him to tingling silence. Forbidden pressure. Forbidden kiss.
“You won’t tell father. Or did you never mean it when you said you loved me?”
“I love you.” Helpless. What else to say? What lie could be enough in the face of her certain knowledge, the gleam and promise in her face?
Her kiss tasted green as the wild frontier mountains from which he had come. Her hair, too, smelled of the wild, and the iron taste of the blood on her skin was the taste of war.
There was war, too, in her hands and against his throat. Iron in her eyes, and in her hands.
The point of his own gilded dagger was sharp against his throat as she spoke.
“Did I say you could have me? Did I say, come, take, this which belongs to my lover belongs also to you?” Shadow in her eyes. Shadow in the green of her warm breath against the side of his face.
“No. I did not say that.”

 

Week Fourteen – The Other Alpha

This bit  of erotica comes from the first draft of my newest erotic short ! This time that’s The Other Alpha, scheduled for release October 1st! This is the first excerpt available anywhere, so…have fun with it! 

(And of course, remember, this sort of Friday Fun is NSFW!)

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Niketas stayed very still while Stelios hovered over him and started to wrap the ropes around his shoulders and his back. His movements were careful, slow, methodical, every knot laid precisely where he wanted it. He wrapped smooth curls of rope around his shoulders, then down over his breastbone and around his chest.

Once he got use to the slow movements, the soft rub of the rope against his skin, it was easy to fall into the rhythm of Stelios’ movements. Around his arms, left…right…left, then right again…around his chest, and he sucked in a little breath when Stelios rolled the rope over his nipples.

Down, the rope around him, around the pillar behind him, diamonds of silk separated by knots over his pecs and down his chest and across his abs. Stelios paused then and stepped back, staring at him critically. “Try to move now.”

Niketas strained, pulled forward, testing, then jerked against the ropes holding him against the pillar. He’d thought he would be able to get free, it was only ropes after all, but there were so many of them wrapped around him, and he was bound so tightly to the pillar all he could do was rock forward a half inch or so.

He struggled in vain, but the more he tried to twist his arms free the tighter the ropes around his chest held him, and when he pulled at those the ropes holding his wrists behind his back, tied to his waist, made him arch more against the pillar behind him.

He growled, tugged harder, harder, until he was panting, sweaty, aggravated and angry. “Let me go – goddamn it, I don’t want to be -”

“Really? Because your cock is dripping all over the floor, Niketas.”

He dropped his eyes, and stared at his own erection as if it was betraying him. Fucking god it was true, he was leaking all over the place. Stelios grabbed him by the jaw and forced him to look into his face.

“I don’t like you lying to me. I don’t like you telling me you don’t want this when you do. If you really want out – if you want to go back to Luka and stay on that damned mountain and never find out why you’re here, I will let you go. I’m giving you a safe word, you understand? Not stop, not ‘no more’, not please. Let’s say…umbrella.”

Niketas snorted, and Stelios shrugged. “Not something you’re likely to shout at me no matter how much I take you, is it. So? It counts now – if you really want me to stop, tell me and I’ll let you go before I really get started.”

Niketas felt his flush spreading, down, down, from his cheeks to his chest. He couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to stop. Stelios had barely started, and he thought maybe…maybe his idea of punishment would involve taking his cock. He wanted it, and if he let Stelios do what he wanted… Anyway, he didn’t think he had a choice – not between what Luka had told him and Stelios’ desire to keep him here.

“No it’s – it’s fine. For now, anyway.”

“For now, hm? Good.” Then he reached for the trailing ends of the rope, tugged the last knot into place below his navel, then started to wrap the rope around the base of his cock, down around his balls and under, up over his buttocks and back into another loop around his waist. Niketas jerked and swore, then groaned.

“’S tight – Stelios…ohhhng. Fuck.” Warm and rough, Stelios’ fingers teased the tip of his cock, smeared his slick around over the head and down as he stroked. “Oh – oh don’t stop, fuck that’s good -” There was something amused in Stelios’ expression, and Niketas didn’t understand, didn’t care.

He lay his head back, closed his eyes and thrust back as much as he could into Stelios’ hand. He’d had plenty of women touch him before, but no men, and he liked the difference more than he’d thought he would, the rough way Stelios gripped him, stroked and twisted his wrist around the tip of his cock.

He liked the ropes, the way they held him – they way they kept him still and the way they rubbed against his skin and the way Stelios had tied them. “God so good, so good, I can’t -”

“It’s supposed to be. Now…” He walked across the room to one of the bureaus but only crouched and opened a drawer. Niketas couldn’t even turn his head enough to see what was inside, but he had his suspicions.

He couldn’t tell what Stelios had brought back with him, but his fist was closed around something, and Niketas only jumped a little when Stelios came back and he felt warm, slick fingers between his buttocks, over and around his hole, barely pressing inside. Then one dipped in, pressed deeper, curled inside him as Stelios fucked him with it and Niketas bucked up, then pressed back against the penetration. He moaned, spread his legs wider, and Stelios chuckled.

“You like that? You like my fingers inside you?”

“Yes -”

“Oh? I thought I was going to get more denials.”

“No, I – I want -”

“I don’t care what you want, you’re going to take what I give you.”

 

Week Thirteen – Sophie By The Sea

This bit  of erotica comes from my newest erotic short, Sophie By The Sea, a fun little experiment with a shark shifter! Why let land predators have all the fun?

Sophie By The Sea is out now, and this is the first excerpt available anywhere, so…have fun with it! 

(And of course, remember, this sort of Friday Fun is NSFW!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are my woman. I will give you what you want, and what you need. And I will take from you, yes, but only the same for myself. Don’t you trust me, Sophie?

It felt like the most dangerous question she had ever been asked, but there was only one answer. ‘Yes. Yes! Or I wouldn’t be here, or I – but please, won’t you tell me…

What I want? You already know what I want, woman.

Sophie traced his lean muscles with her gaze and felt them as if they were beneath her fingers – shoulders, chest, abdomen, buttocks, thighs. She stared at his cock as it stiffened, reddened and drew up against his belly

Oh yes, oh yes, she knew what he wanted – or at least, she knew now, and had been hoping. She didn’t resist when pressed flush against her and kissed her again – instead, she melted into his embrace and twined her legs around his legs.

His cock pressed hard and throbbing against her, and Theron rocked against her as he slid his hands along her arms, over her shoulders and up her neck to her face. He followed her pulse down her throat with curious fingers, then stroked Sophie’s collarbone, and across the curves of it to her chest.

As if testing their weight, he lifted her breasts in his hands, then brushed his thumbs over the tips of her nipples and smiled when she sucked in a little gasp. She tasted salt – and then Theron.

He held her still while he bent his head and kissed her, and Sophie stared up into his eyes. They were even brighter underwater, the indefinable something that so attracted her was infinitely more focused. Sophie moaned against his mouth, relaxed against him and gave in completely.

Her desire and her submission were both open in her thoughts, and he must have seen them there because he pulled back from her instantly, but only enough that he could get his mouth on her nipples. He sucked at them, bit hard enough to make Sophie buck her hips against him and moan, but not hard enough to hurt.

You like the sharp edges, Sophie? Between pleasure, and pain.

Yes…

Theron slid his mouth over her skin and bit at her breasts, her nipples. He crawled his fingers down her body, over the softness below her breasts, over her belly, down to her hips. He wrapped his arms around her then and squeezed her buttocks with both hands, and though there was no moan in the underwater silence, his lust and approval slashed across her thoughts with the same piercing ease as his words.

He desired her, really, truly desired her. The more he touched her mind the more she learned the truth of it, how passion had driven him across the sea, following her. The night that was her “night of the wolves” was his “night of Sophie”, and the thought was enough to stoke the already sweltering fire burning in her blood.

Want more? Pick up Sophie By The Sea here today!

Week Ten – Earthbound

This bit  of erotica comes from Earthbound, the enormous epic novel that will probably be the death of me.  A certain individual, Codename: Twin, is responsible for me actually working on it as I should – so celebrate the joys of editing with me as I share this smutty bit of fun!

(And of course, remember, this sort of Friday Fun is NSFW!)

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Yun has wanted to love her this way from the first moment he saw her, dancing in the dangerous night. He cannot decide if he wants her so terribly because of that moment…or because his need is for someone like her, someone full of innocence and desire in tension.

He is yao-guai, after all. Lust is half his nature…but only half. The other part of him is violence, darkness and barely-leashed destruction. The two sides of his nature are one thing in this moment, pulsing and furious within him.

~ ~ * * ~ ~

The moment does not remain frozen. The pain passes from Liuxing’s face and in its place grows a hungry, lustful curiosity. She can feel the weight of him and the hard, solid thickness of his erection pressed deep into her body.

She tastes blood, scents sex and sweat and the wild musk of her lover, feels heat where his skin is pressed against her and coolness where the night air sneaks against her nerves. The muscles of her pelvis tighten reflexively and she hears Yun suck in a breath; she does it again, purposefully, and then lets out a long moan of her own.

Yun is unyielding, his arousal rigid and still within her, almost uncomfortable – but when she squeezes those muscles the discomfort is overwhelmed by new feelings. When he begins to thrust, a slow rocking of his hips, it sends a glissando of sensation across all the awakened nerves within her, thrilling and terrible and lovely.

She wants more; it is is who she is, the core of her secret self. She is a seeker after sensations, an eager connoisseur of the roughest and richest of melodies, of exquisite tastes and complex rhythms.

Yun’s hands on her skin are finer and more caressing by far than the smoothest of silks. The pleasures he has already given her have set her desires burning higher. She wants more, anything more as long as it feeds that fire.

This is love, this must be love.

The thought comes to her wild, on the edge of wordlessness. What else can it be? It is more than lust, more than the heat; it is something so great and tender growing in her that she is afraid to touch it, can only wonder at it even as it burns into every new place Yun’s hands are touching her.

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Her hips hum in his hands, responding to his thrusts, quickening them, deepening them. The thrumming of her nerves is almost visible when he pauses. He pulls on her taut nipples and waits.  Her enjoyment is pleasing to him, but he needs more from her than sounds and gasps.

He needs words. He needs submission. He needs her active participation in her own defilement; he needs her to give what he so badly wants to take.

He watches the almost invisible trembling of her eyelashes beneath the blindfold, the twitching of muscles beneath the surface of her skin, a drop of red blood rolling to her chin from where she has bitten her lip – anything that might distract him from her body’s wet heat.

He can feel the bending of her will. He tastes her need in her breath, feels it in the curve of her feet, their pointed toes – in the taut muscles of her legs, and in the quivering, clenching, tightness that begs him to give in.

He steels himself, swallows dryly. Her face is dark in the shadow of her hair as she twists beneath him, but when the moment comes that he thinks he cannot restrain himself any longer he hears her voice, soft, pleading…

So much more than he had hoped for, but for reasons he cannot possibly dream

“Yun – Yun, please, I want – please, please, I need you, you can’t stop – you – you can’t-”

Like fire on oil, his hands climb her body, find her most sensitive nerves and stroke them with dexterous fingers. He gives in to the urge that has been taunting him, even as he makes her submit.

He thrusts into her again and again, closes his eyes and drinks in the sound of her heavy, squealing breaths, the begging below her moans. Her legs tighten around his hips and pull him deep, deep, deep. Yun feels the squeezing of her body become sharp, rhythmic pulses and smiles a smile of victory for no one to see.

He no longer even needs to move. Her hips lift to him; the wet depths of her body engulf the whole of his erection and he tightens his hands on her thighs, lets the pleasure wash over him, lets the bond between them complete itself at her instigation. He lets her damn herself with her words, and her not-words, and her writhing.

“Mine, xiaofan – you are mine.”

And in her lustful madness, utterly mindless, she can say only –

“Yes, yours – yes.”

The bond between them is sealed in that moment by her words and her willingness, her intentions voiced and unvoiced.

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Liuxing runs her tongue over her lips, tightens her legs around Yun’s body and presses herself up to him, arches her back.

He gives her no warning but increases his pace. It is more than enough to send her careening wildly across the wave tied to his snarl of pleasure and release, tied to the heat inside her. The ball of furious pleasure wound up tight beneath his touch breaks and bursts.

This is all that is sacred, the unspeakable truth. This is pleasure, its most principle form. It is unlocked within her, a howling beast never again to be silent, never again to be secret.

All that is sacred.

The sacred beast within me.