Tag Archives: Excerpt

From the Secret Files...

A Risky Conversation

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This week for #SaitoSaturday I decided to give a little bit more of a clue than usual, because while Kagami gets a lot of love (he’s the namesake of the book, poor dear, and thus doomed), Akira gets…much less. Therefore, it’s back to chapter three, draft two, for a bit of a snippet that expands on an excerpt from a few weeks ago. Akira enters the fray via Taira Arashi, he-who-is-a-dragon-bastard, and one Watanabe Sakiko, she-who-is-a-pain-in-the-ass. Of course, he doesn’t know this yet, but he will…

The low, black throbbing of Taira Arashi’s laughter followed Akira out of his office and into the elevator, with the woman, Watanabe-san, right behind him. As they stepped out onto gold-veined marble of the first floor foyer, she smiled at him, almost a grin. “You did well, Saito-san. I’ve seen very few men hold their ground against Taira-sama.”
“And this amuses you.” It did not amuse him.
“Oh, yes.” If she was aware of Akira’s irritation, Watanabe-san didn’t show it. “What is that old saying, laughter or tears? Perhaps you should keep it in mind, Saito-san.”
Shaking his head, Akira tugged at the hem of his jacket and scanned the foyer. The two of them seemed to be the only humans, at least judging by the breadth of the smiles aimed in his direction, their fanged promises. No one approached them, and yet he felt the weight of many eyes, much attention, and shuddered. “How do you work with him, Watanabe-san?”
She did not meet his eyes, scanned the room for a moment then slanted her gaze into the shadow of her own hair. “How? I wonder. Perhaps, as he said, it is just because this is a different time. Another era.”
Akira snorted, then cleared his throat . “Apologies, Watanabe-san. I… Having heard the stories of my parents and grandparents, I can’t see how anything is changed. ”
Widening her eyes at him, she leaned closer. “No? Your job exists, doesn’t it? A hundred years ago there were no human police.”
“And what good does it do?” He kept his voice quiet, but Akira couldn’t let her statement go without challenge. “Eight out of ten cases reported are dropped, because in eight out of ten cases, the perpetrators are yokai. And that line? That’s where we lose all jurisdiction.”
There was something blase in her shrug, and she sashayed away from him, catching up with her gaze over her shoulder, pulling him along behind her with it. He followed because he had to, but she seemed to think it was her due. “Don’t such things make you eager to follow Taira-sama’s instructions? To make a place for yourself here in Asakusa, to expand your sphere of influence?” Watanabe-san settled herself on a soft couch and gestured at the chair across from her. “The lines one cannot cross, one must patrol…or at least observe carefully, even from a distance. Is that not so?”
This woman. There was something strange in her smile, in her sudden sadness. Akira settled himself gingerly, trusting not even in the furniture in this place, and nodded slowly as he contemplated the woman and her words. Even her name was suggestive. “Perhaps we will be so lucky. Watanabe-san, I hope you don’t mind the question, but are you of any relation to Watanabe Jiro, head of the Relations commission?”
“The judge of YAMA?” Her laughter was very soft. “You could say that. He’s my husband.”
“Your – husband.” Akira blinked at her in confusion, then leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You’re married to the head of YAMA, and you work with Taira-sama?”
She hummed her affirmation, tapping her fingers on the arm of the couch, tilting her head as she smiled at him. “This surprises you? But my husband also works with yokai.”
Shrugging, Akira narrowed his gaze at her. As if the two were the same thing. “Of course, but -”
“And it is you and your work we should be discussing, Saito-san.”
The sharpness of her words stopped Akira short. Again, something…off stuck out to him, as if the edges of his woman’s presence were prickly, too hot, thorn-studded…something. “Ah…” Was there a flame in the flicker of her eyes, a glow burning brighter? No, couldn’t be. Just the florescence of the overhead lights. “Right. I apologize.”

*Interested in where this all begins? Check out the first KAGAMI post, which starts at the beginning of the book!

From the Secret Files...

That Shower Scene

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This week for #TeaserTuesday I decided…to expand on last week’s excerpt! Remember this hint of a scene? Have some more – but not too much! (And it’s still a wee bit NSFW, so read carefully.) As Kagami can attest, Akira is a distracting bathing companion…

The walls and floor of the ofuraba were both tiled with raw, grey stone – everywhere but a little window set in the wall above the ofuro. Mesmerized, Kagami stared while Akira turned on the tap, and the deep, square tub started to fill with steaming water. There was a drain set into the floor, with a short wooden stool above it and a wide, flat bucket with a washcloth in it set to one side, but Kagami had no idea what all this stuff was for.* Before he could ask, he was distracted from his perusal.
kagami sees an akira     Akira stripped off his shirt, was suddenly half-naked, and the shifting muscles under the skin of his bare back incited a need Kagami had never experienced before. Was this desire? This feeling, tight in his belly, hot in his chest, a startled ember rolling down his spine. His heartbeat – that he had a heartbeat – Kagami grew aware of its pulsing in his fingertips, the trapped, rigid length of his sudden erection, his lips, his tongue… Warmth fled his fingertips for his cheeks and the tops of his ears.
     With one hand, Akira tossed his bloody shirt in the trash, then seemed to hesitate for an instant before he stuck his thumbs into the waistband of his pants and boxers and shoved them down. Kagami licked up the man’s body with his glance, then lowered his eyes, unable to keep the smile from his face as he stripped off his own borrowed clothes. His policeman was good to look at all over. The thick muscles of his thighs, his taut, dimpled buttocks – the angles of his shoulders, his hips…
wet abs (akira)     A rough rush of something like summer lightning spurred Kagami forward a step, had him reaching out, but he jerked his hand back as Akira doused himself with spray. It came from a shower head outside the ofuro, and Kagami regarded it with interest…but not as much as Akira. Wasn’t the bath already full of water? Why would he need to get wide outside of it? But when he was wet all over, the man sat on the stool, took a washcloth and soap and started to scrub himself around blossoming purple bruises. “If you’re gonna stand there and stare, you wanna wash my back?”
     The words jerked Kagami’s attention up to Akira’s face. “Saito…san?”
     He was looking at Kagami with eyes gone dark and heated, and his gaze flickered down over Kagami’s naked body, then up again more slowly. “Well?”
SONY DSC     Kagami gloried in being looked at, being seen, as much as in the fact that Akira seemed to return his desire. “I can…I can do that.” It was only as he took the cloth from Akira’s hands and started to rub it against his shoulder that Kagami realized this gave him permission to touch without misgivings or embarrassment. He stopped moving the washcloth to follow the lines of the policeman’s back with the tips of his fingers instead,  tracing lines beneath the suds. Thin, pale ridges of scar tissue came under his hands, and he frowned, staring. An old wound?
     Akira twisted around then, eyeing him with heated amusement. “You can actually scrub, y’know. I’m not gonna break.”
     Yes, there was that about humans, wasn’t there? They had their frailties, but to shatter at a touch wasn’t one of them. Even if those scars were proof of mortal vulnerability… Shuddering at just the thought, Kagami pressed closer to Akira’s back as he scrubbed up the man’s spine.

*Interested in what makes this scene different from how you might take a bath? Check out the first Sugoi! post, Secrets of the Soak, about the customs and history of bathing in Japan!

From the Secret Files...

Kagami

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It’s time for another dip into…the Secret Files! Have a peek at Kagami, the character who gave his name to the first book of the upcoming Yokai Chronicles!
Kagami is a type of tsukumogami (pronounced soo-koo-mo-gah-me), mythological creatures in Japanese folklore. His true form is a mirrored piece of glass, but he’s eager to escape the restraints of being a mirror. Mischievous, dedicated, and just a little bit of an oddball, Kagami escapes his mirror with an eye on Akira, a Tokyo police inspector who reminds him of the one he must avenge: his Maker. In search of the one who slew the glassmaker who created him, and the full experience of life in the real world, Kagami…begins!
Take a peek at some inspirational images (yes, that means gorgeous Japanese men), and a special sneak-peek of Kagami’s first scene below!

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Ka-ga-mi.
Kagami.
Are you awake? Awake…
Wake!
Ka
Ga
Mi.
From the depths of his own reflection, he surfaced with the sound of that name. Am I Kagami? The world around him, outside him, was a red-hot blur of indistinct intentions, full of the wild pounding of drumbeats, the ritual smoke of incense, sand burning, charcoal, fire. Most of all, the mirror was aware of the flames that kept his molten surface in motion, but his consciousness was scattered. Piecemeal. His perceptions gained meaning only as he grew aware of them.
To see. To feel – and again, to see. And then: to hear.
“No, no. There’s no point complaining, and I don’t want to hear you scream.”
A voice engaged the mirror’s whole attention as his surface smoothed into stillness and reflected more of the world than fire. Thinner than that boisterous voice, muffled noises hummed at the edge of his consciousness.
Ka.
Ga.
Mi.
Are you awake, awake, awake – ?
The echo was distorted, a shallow vibration that twisted slowly through the molten depths of the mirror. Then, more strongly, he heard a single voice from outside, though it was not speaking to him but someone out of his sight. “You did this to yourself, yes, you did. Oh, I know all the excuses, all the reasons you could list. I have heard them all before – yokai, human, it makes no difference.”
A clatter of shining sound sprang to life all around the mirror. Metal? But no, it was too clear, too starry, too bright. The roar of the fire intensified in response to a bellows’ gust, and the mirror realized it was the sound of other glass, tingling voices shouting, laughing, agreeing with their Maker.
There was only a single muffled tremor of denial, and then the Maker’s voice again. “Yes, I know. You think yourself special. But it has been more than eight hundred years since I took this work on myself, and criminals are all the same. Now, wait just there while I make this beautiful baby ready.” A pair of gleaming eyes appeared suddenly above the mirror’s glowing surface, set in a soft, furry face. The dark eyes were black-ringed, tanuki eyes, and the whole of his body, nose to tail-tip, fangs to claws, glowed with a soft haze of yokai energies. The Maker leaned back and changed, his body flowing like the glass he worked, and the mirror observed with interest the way he traded his tanuki shape for one more human. Only the dark, soft eyes with their kind satisfaction, their encouraging expression, stayed the same.
Restless, the mirror shifted, bubbling with focus but not purpose, need but not understanding of it. He was, but who was he? Who was he to be? What was being?
Beautiful baby, the soft-eyed one had said, his Maker. Beautiful baby. Was that his name? Or was it ka–ga–mi, as the shining echo still insisted? The question vibrated through him, coalesced in sparks on his molten surface, and the Maker’s voice was tender when he answered.
“You are awake, Kagami? Yes, that is your name, though I will call you many other things in love. It is almost time to give you your heart. Pay attention, now. This is your sacrifice, your beginning. You will cleanse his soul in the fire, and in one hundred years you will take it for your own.”
Ka.
Ga.
Mi.
This time the pieces of echo, this new label for his being, came with laughter and a feeling of welcome, but Kagami, newly named, was still only a questioning awareness, perceiving and not understanding. A heart? What was a heart? What was a soul? Whose were the voices that laughed at him, reached out for him, not his Maker but shadows in the dimness with him, behind the surface of still-boiling glass?
Kin.
Your.
Kin. Ka-ga-mi.
Kagami!
The heart is –
The soul is –
The sacrifice!
The…sacrifice?
As if in answer to his questioning, a boy was lowered toward Kagami’s surface. The ripples of heat rising from him brewed drops of sweat that sizzled as they fell. The boy’s eyes were hard and cold and horrible, but Kagami perceived without knowing how that the fire still within him, his own molten being, would cleanse the grime from the soul that had been chosen for him, the heart that would beat inside him.
Yes.
Kagami!
A heart, a soul, a face, a name.
To be born.
With us!
Among us.
One of –
Us.
Kagami.
More and more voices, more and more entreaties called out to him, demanding, amusing themselves with his emptiness, the things he did not know or comprehend. The truth came in softer, firmer words from outside the mirror-world, beyond the inner reflections and their echoing glass voices. “You become, Kagami. My finest work, the most beautiful mirror, one pane of glass, never to be broken, never to forget your name. My masterpiece. You become, and you are tsukumogami. Do you understand? That is to be yokai, but born of man and not of nature. Tsukumogami: a living thing, an embryo one hundred years in the birthing. Behold your sacrifice, Kagami. Behold your heart, and the face you will possess.”
The face…he would possess? The Maker gestured, and the muffled source of the room’s discontent was revealed. A boy, hanging above him, bound and gagged and struggling vain and furiously. Sluggish, learning more of motion than he had in his first moment, Kagami rose up, pressing against his own red-hot surface to peer closely.
Oh. Pretty. As the sacrifice was lowered closer to his molten glass, Kagami could see the boy more clearly, the rippling muscles of a youth in his prime, soft, bronze curves of body, narrow nose, slender face, elfin chin…they were not quite human, those features. More than mortal. An interesting face. -a yokai face?
This one…he would be a powerful sacrifice.
Tendrils of bitter yoki embraced his Maker once more, embraced the boy as he pulled at his bonds, and rained onto Kagami’s surface.
“You can’t do this! I’m not human, you can’t just snatch up yokai and use them as you please! Don’t you know whose son I am? What right do you -” The Maker made a slashing gesture with one hand, and though the boy’s mouth kept moving, the hollow of his throat vibrated only with silence.
It appeared the Maker knew everything that mattered – even to this boy. “Quiet now. Enough struggling. This is the end of your world, you should know that. What does your father matter, compared to your crimes? What would the Fujiwara say to your excuses?”
The boy bucked harder, bent nearly in half, then screamed as his toes came too close to the searing glass beneath him. He jerked back as far as he could in the other direction.
“Was that a name you didn’t expect to hear? But that is why you are here, boy. The life you stole is the reason your life was given to me.” The glassmaker spoke in a conspiratorial tone, but with sad, sad eyes. “It troubles me to no end that I never have any trouble finding a sacrifice. Ah, well. You’re a beautiful boy, you will give my masterpiece a lovely face. And one hundred years from now, when the grief of your evil has faded, I am sure your soul will serve him better than it has served you.”
Dark hair flailed as the boy was dropped the last few feet, free-falling, the strands dancing like silk thread in a high wind. His face was a scattering of regrets-rage-hate, a distortion of his general, fleshly beauty. Then he hit the surface of the glass, and Kagami bubbled eagerly out of his frame, up around the boy then down to embrace him. He became more as he consumed this sacrifice. More aware. More shining. Brighter.
Blood and skin and bone melted away, eaten in an instant, devoured to the last particle, leaving behind only the diamond heart of a soul, and a realization. To be was… To be was to be Kagami.

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

From the Secret Files...

Icarus

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It’s #1lineWed again! Meet Icarus, one of the main characters in The Wrong Things, a book series I shouldn’t be writing! He starts out homeless and alone, an Ara (submissive vampire) with a fear of Ada (dominant vampires) and a desperate need for one all the same. The one he ends up with is Raven – black, beautiful, and old as the desert… But Raven is for later.

For now, wave as he passes: sharp-tongued, snarky, still soft as a sigh, the redhead with bedhead, Icarus!

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

Icarus swallowed thickly, touched his tongue to his teeth, sucking on one fang, then chewed his lip. This Ada – he would never say it, but this Ada was tempting him, too. And more than just with his taboo offer of the richest blood in the world.

“Do you really mean it? I’m so -” He closed his eyes, felt the heat rising in his cheeks and couldn’t deny it. “I’m just so hungry.” And then he snapped them open again, shook his head and inched a little farther back. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t even -”

“I made the offer. I mean it. Come here.” And, more softly than he’d spoken yet, Raven said, “I have no idea why you are so terrified, but I will not hurt you.”

It was unbelievable. Icarus believed him anyway. Why not? This was already insane. An Ada in the room with him, ignoring his heat, sitting on his own hands – another hysterical flip of laughter popped out of him, and he crawled up the bed, put his hands on smooth, dark shoulders and sucked his lip between his teeth before he could moan just from the heat of Raven’s skin.  “Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you being so good to me?”

“That frightens you?”

Shaking his head, Icarus slid one of his hands up into the Ada’s thin, tight braids, and then other down his arm, over the swell of one huge bicep to the bend of his elbow. “You scare me. Ada scare me. Or maybe you don’t scare me, but you’re still an Ada and you should.”

Raven was frowning at him now, but he still tilted his head to the side, the curve of his scalp against the curve of Icarus’ fingers. “I will ask questions later. For now, if you are going to drink, then do so. It is not easy for me to have you in my lap like this.”

“Where…” The word was hushed.

“Were you not going for my throat?” There was so much amusement in Raven’s voice Icarus huffed, then realized he really wasn’t afraid, and was almost scared by that. Was it this Ada’s attitude, his gentleness? His self-control? His humor? Was it Icarus’ heat, the drive he could sense even now, encouraging him to –

“Icarus.”

He sucked in a breath, then leaned up on his knees and sank his teeth into the Ada’s throat.

Licks

Harvest Lick

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Welcome to the second taste of A Harvest of Dreams & Embers, in celebration of its full release this week! 

Remember, Licks are NSFW excerpts, so read carefully – and look forward to another erotic excerpt from my next new release, Wolf Bite, on Valentine’s Day!

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

“This someone who is calling for you, you really must listen?” Kas’ words flowed warm across his shoulders. Myrddin turned and found himself caught in his lover’s arms.

“Yes. This time it’s my turn to go.” He paused, confused by the humor he found in the moment even now. “My turn to be summoned away.”

“I hear it. Did I not say? But I am surprised to find you giving such power to a mortal.”

“No lesser man than the High King of Britain.” He grinned as he said it, but the smile faded quickly as Kas stroked his hair.

“Why?”

“For the sake of peace, and my own conscience, and maybe…”

Kas gave a little tug to the strands still in his grasp. “You cannot stop what is coming. Not even you.”

Myrddin scowled and pressed his face against his lover’s chest. “Don’t pull my hair.”

“No? But that is not what you say when I take you.” And he stopped, ran his hands over the curve of Myrddin’s buttocks. “You have time before you leave me, do you not?”

“Always time for you.” He slipped out of Kas’ grasp and dropped onto his hands and knees. “Do what you want with me.”

Kas took Myrddin’s hips in his hands, bent over him and kissed the ridges of his spine. “What I want? That could take a while. This mortal king, he will have to wait his turn.”

Wait his—? Myrddin made a face. “No, thank you. I’ll have only you.”

“What a fool, to think that was what I meant. Even in jest, you would say that? As if I would let you, as if I would share you ever again.” The words were scalding, almost angry, but Kas’ hands were gentle, easy and eager both as he slipped them down to open him up.

“Kas. I don’t deserve—oh!” his fingers inside, stroked just the right spot, and Myrddin gasped out the rest of his words. “I don’t deserve you. I don’t—deserve—ohhh.”

Kas slid one hand up Myrddin’s spine and into his hair again, tugged his head back and bent by his ear. “No. You probably do not. No more than I deserve you.”

There was a hint of subtle humor in his voice, the suggestion that he meant his words both ways that they could be taken. Myrddin opened his mouth to protest, but Kas kissed him and suddenly he was groaning instead. “It does not mean anything, Merlin. Deserve. You should know that better than I.”

“Ka-a-ahhh-ahh—” Slow, deep penetration. Cock, not fingers. Then slower. Deeper. Each thrust dragged out almost past bearing. But the sensation was intertwined irresistibly with Myrddin’s memories of every other time Kas had touched him, and with the fear of the future that went on compelling him.

 

Want more? Pick up your copy of A Harvest of Dreams & Embers here!

 

 

Bites

Harvest Bite

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To celebrate its full release,  today I’m sharing an excerpt from chapter one of A Harvest of Dreams & Embers, Eight Kingdoms book five! The second half of the saga begins with Merlin…and mayhem.

 

Chapter One

Sleep had come to Spring, though it did not belong there.

Myrddin advanced alone through the stillness of the Wyrdwood and found even the birds sunk into slumber. Drowsiness had descended, and with it a sacred silence that brought disharmony, reducing the promise of the branches to the ghost of leaves. There had never been such lethargy in immortal Spring before, but the season had traded away its show of splendor for somnolence.

King though he was, even Myrddin was tangled in threads of torpor and his own sudden awareness of the presence that incited them. Why here, why now? Father?

Yes.

With the feeling of acknowledgment came a summons Myrddin could not deny, though he wanted to. No other being was so perilous to him, had ever cost him so much, as his own father. And now, now that he finally had Kas for his own…

Neither the time nor the place of the visit pleased him, but Myrddin could no more deny the summons of the one who had sired him than the buds could refuse the spring.

His heart clenched. Had he regained what he’d lost only to have it taken away? Kas. All his desires were bound up in the single syllable of that name. He would not give his lover up again, no matter what demand the god of the wild had for him.

Myrddin found his father at the heart of the forest, wrapped around its most ancient oak. He knew it was his father, but Myrddin had never seen him like this. As the Stag of the wood, yes, carrying the moon in the spaces between his antlers. As a mist, or in a man’s shape, but like this?

The god of the wood had come to him as a dragon. His father was a moss-backed beast with leafed and feathered wings whose span stretched beyond Myrddin’s sight. He was the wildest and most beautiful of his kind Myrddin had ever seen, but he was a dragon all the same.

Did that mean…he was no longer a god?

There was a shiver in the branching pinions, a sibilant trembling of feathers. A sound like silk being stretched too tight and too quickly snapped through the air as the great wings beat once then settled.

“Father…” The dragon opened his mouth and breathed out the scent of somnolent blossoms, but not a single word in answer. “Father?”

He resisted the urge to go to one knee as he resisted the drowsy pressure of the air, a sudden urge to yawn. Silence greeted him. More than before, stronger the closer he came to the unsteady orb of his father’s eye. He recognized the source of the unnatural sleep with a familiarity that reminded him of his own long-vanished past.

‘My little shoot.’

Not his father’s voice, but the memory of his mother’s, brushed Myrddin with a faint prickling of dread. This sleep was akin to his own lost winter slumber. The sleep that had taken him at Samhain each year, before Spring had had a rite, or a kingdom… When winter had come to him as to the blossoms and dropped him down the well of the sleeping season.

His father blinked one enormous eye, and the flickering facets drew Myrddin in. The eye became a world, a universe in the shape of an ochre orb. “I forget who I was before the birth of this moment.”

 

Want more? A Harvest of Dreams & Embers is currently available at Pride Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers. Grab your copy today!

Bites

Christmas Bite

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It’s the tenth day of Christmas! Stelios and Niketas, everyone’s favorite pair of werewolves, is back for a very were-y holiday season…and one more special excerpt! Luka’s pack has come to visit their Alpha’s twin for Christmas – bringing along Luka’s year-old pups, of course!

Enjoy, glorious beings!

~ ~ * * ~ ~

They finished breakfast a little after ten. Stelios had just sat down with his second cup of coffee and Niketas in his arms, when the buzzer went off and the Alpha was forced to get up again and let his brother and the rest of his pack in.

Before either of their parents, Luka’s pups came racing out of the elevator, the twins Markos and Marius first, a pair of gray blurs. They were followed by the black, trotting body of their omega brother, Nyctimus. He went straight for Niketas, climbed up the edge of the couch and into the older omega’s lap.

A soft serenade of yips came from his twin brothers as they escaped their mother’s belated attempt to hold them, sniffing at everything in their path with eager, twitching noses. Stelios watched as they circled the room, paused at the hearth, and finally settled at the Christmas tree, dazzled by the blinking lights and their reflections in the wrapping paper on the packages beneath.

Anna grinned her apology at Stelios for a moment, before she shucked her clothes, shifted to wolf shape and slipped across the room to chastise her offspring while Luka shook his head. “Trouble, as always. They’re impossible, unless they’re watching their brother—Merry Christmas, Stelios.”

Stelios grinned at his twin, brushed cheeks with him and embraced him with one arm. “Like us, then—”

“When we were pups.” Luka slung himself onto the couch, nudged Niketas with his shoulder and got a yawn in return. “Why so lazy, omega?”

“Ask your brother, Alpha.” But he grinned, nudged Luka back and let the pup in his lap worry one of his fingers with blunt milk teeth. “Looks like family life agrees with you. How’re things on the mountain?”

Stelios turned his attention away from their low conversation as the elevator came back up and spilled the rest of Luka’s pack into his entryway. Ares and Alexandre were indeed followed by Leon and Dmitri, but Leon greeted him while blushing and avoiding his gaze.

It had been more than a year since the day Stelios had confronted the blond on the mountain, but ever since then a single look had been enough to make Leon redden and look away. It might have been cute, except that Stelios didn’t think he was ever going to forgive Leon for taking Niketas that one time—even at Luka’s order.

The fact that Leon now seemed interested in him changed nothing. Stelios had no interest in the blond’s crush, and only nodded at him curtly while he slapped Alexandre on the back, shook Ares’ hand and closed the door behind Dmitri. Still, when he turned back to face the sofa, he relaxed. There was such an increase of warmth in the room.

Luka sat with an arm along the back of the couch, behind Niketas’ shoulders, and his hand resting on Anna’s back as she lay curled up beside him, tugging the twins back under control when they tried to wander. Stelios didn’t go to his chair, but let Alexandre take it. Instead he bent by the couch and picked Niketas up, pup and all.

“Ah—hey! Sir—”

“You’re in my spot. Don’t worry, I have another one for you.” He settled himself next to his brother, and Niketas in his lap, draping the omega’s legs across Luka’s knees. Niketas let out an apologetic whine, but Luka only shifted and sprawled a little more, stuck his arm back behind Stelios instead, and sighed as he stared into the fire.

Apparently pleased by the new arrangement of adult bodies on the sofa, one of the twins escaped Anna’s grip and climbed his way across his father to get his paws on Stelios’ side and nuzzle at him, then pulled himself up Niketas’ thigh to press his nose against his brother’s.

The Alpha allowed it, then scruffed the pup gently, shaking him a little. “Are you going to stay like this the whole visit? I was going to play a movie for you, but you won’t be able to see as wolves.”

Luka caught his gaze, grinning. “Christmas Carol? Which one?”

Stelios leaned forward, pressed his lips against Niketas’ throat, breathed in the scent of his hair, then let his eyes drift closed. “You pick. I’m not sure which one you want to show the pups. If they’ll be boys for a bit…”

Wiggling, a little more active now, it was Nyctimus who responded first, shifting in Niketas lap from black-furred pup to plump, black-haired toddler. “Gon’ watch? Plee?”

Niketas ruffled his hair. “Yeah, pup. C’mon, shift over if you wanna stay up here.” The little omega obeyed obligingly, and beside him, Marius shifted too, nestling between Stelios and his father, sitting half on each of them.

“C’mon, Markos, don’t you wanna see?” Clearer, more forceful than his brother’s, the words finally compelled his twin to obey, and Anna slipped away with a last nip of reprimand to shift and get dressed again herself.

Luka watched her go, then hefted Niketas’ legs out of the way and got up to go look at Stelios’ collection of videos. Niketas growled low in his throat as the riled, squirming pair of Alpha toddlers tried to climb him the moment their father was out of the way. Stelios watched them trying to orient themselves, while their brother submitted, wiggling out of their way, but the adult omega wasn’t having it.

Niketas brushed them aside, then scruffed them when they bared their teeth, pressing at him with tiny sparks of Alpha aura. He tossed them down to the end of the couch, then turned a little, tucked his face into the side of Stelios’ neck and closed his eyes. “Brats. But this is nice. Missed my pack…and you’re warm.”

The omega let out a long sigh as Stelios squeezed him with the arm around his back and nuzzled him. “That why you’re falling asleep on me?”

But Niketas lifted a lip, nipped at the side of his throat, then yawned again. “You know why.” He closed his eyes as a low swell of music rose from the TV, and the pups immediately turned their attention to it, going still as Luka came back to his spot.

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Want more? Until the end of December, Another Christmas is only 99 cents!

Licks

Christmas Lick

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It’s the seventh day of Christmas, and while I have no swimming swans (sorry, darlings), I have got a sexy snippet from this year’s Alpha & Omega Christmas special! Stelios and Niketas, everyone’s favorite pair of werewolves, is back for a very were-y holiday season…though they aren’t sure they’ll survive the impending visit from Luka’s pack – and Luka’s pups!

Luka and Stelios might be twin brothers, but it’s times like these that Niketas likes to stand back and watch the carnage. Without further ado…an Another Christmas excerpt. Enjoy…and remember! Licks are NSFW!

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Niketas flushed, obviously remembering something embarrassing.

Stelios grinned. “Cute. I love when you blush for me. Just because you’re adorable, I’ll let you pick the first part of your punishment. Paddle, or spanking?”

The flush intensified. “Sir, I—”

“Paddle or spanking?”

Niketas bit his lip, but the answer was quick. “Spanking, Sir.”

“Good. Knees.” The omega scrambled to obey, got on his knees and leaned forward so his ass was in the air, his thighs parted just enough to give the Alpha access to his hole if he wanted it, to his balls and swiftly hardening cock.

“How—how many, Sir?”

“As many as I think you need.” He got up on his own knees and gave Niketas one quick, hard smack across both buttocks. “Telling your Alpha to beg for your cock.” Again, and again, alternating which side he struck, Stelios warmed Niketas’ ass, admiring the way his skin pinked, then reddened. “Did you like hearing it, mate? Like hearing how good it felt having you in my ass?”

“Ye-Yes, Sir—ah! Ah—Sir!”

The crack of his hand hitting the omega’s buttocks was sharp, intoxicating, the sound almost as good as the way the strikes heated his palm. “Liked making me moan for you? Liked stretching me for your cock, knotting me—I can still feel your come dripping out of me, mate.”

“Sir!”

He slid his hand down to caress Niketas’ cock as it thickened, rigid now and sensitive all over. “Thinking about it got you that hard that fast? Even after you tied me, filled me up so much?”

The omega’s erection twitched in his fist. “Sir. Yes.”

“Good.” He ran his hands over the warmth of Niketas’ buttocks, then gave him a half dozen blows that rocked him forward onto his hands. Another, and another, until the omega was groaning, making soft wolf noises whenever Stelios paused long enough for him to have enough breath.

This time when he stopped to caress Niketas’ ass, his skin radiated heat against the Alpha’s palms, and he smirked in satisfaction. “That’s better. But I think you need a few more, don’t you?”

Shivering, the omega still gave the required response. “Yes, Sir.”

“How many, do you think?”

There was a pause as Stelios ran his hands over the vulnerable curve of his mate’s buttocks, before the omega offered a careful suggestion. “Ten, Sir?”

It was a good try, but whatever he’d said, Stelios had intended on doubling it. “Oh, no. Twenty at least.” Then he got up, crossed to his chair and tossed the towels on the floor. He sat with his head on his hand, waiting for the omega to look at him.

“Sir?” Niketas turned with confusion on his face. “I thought…you were gonna spank me.”

After more than a year together, he still flushed when he said it, and Stelios crooked a finger at him. “I am. Up, get over here. I want you across my lap.”

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Want more? Until the end of December, Another Christmas is only 99 cents!

Bites

The Garden

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Well! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But this week, there’s a tiny bite to feed your soul…from The Garden, an upcoming Beauty and the Beast story, set in a strange, new world.

Enjoy!

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Chapter One

Excerpt

 “He did not know she was a fairy – so the story goes. The young prince saw an old woman, and he liked to surround himself only with beautiful things. He was aware that not all were created equal – like the rose beside the dandelion. Yes, one a lovely blossom, the other considered no more than a weed. Both were flowers, but a rose…

“A single petal, a breath of fragrance, could put a garden full of other blossoms to shame.

“So it was that it exceptionally pained him to be made ugly; to be made into a beast. So it was that it was agony to sustain this new, cursed life, an agony of existence for which there was no relief.

“‘Devour the roses’, she had said to him. ‘Devour the most beautiful rose, again and again, since you care for what is beautiful more than for human life!’

“Because he did not know she was a fairy, only thought her an old woman – and he had turned her away, and it was a cold and rainy night.”

Want more? The Garden is coming soon!  

From the Secret Files...

Green Iron

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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.”