Humpday Hump--Lady of the Seals

For this Wednesday's entry, I'm offering an excerpt from Lady of the Seals, one of my favorites, an erotic selkie romance set in Scotland.

If you like what you read, you can find the book at Amazon, or check out the Smashwords edition for half off with the coupon code TW63G.

It was a dream, he thought. It had to be a dream. Or maybe it was heaven, because how else could this have come to pass? He had been halfway to death—more than halfway—and now he lay on the beach in the arms of a beautiful woman with large, brown eyes.

Barely conscious, he registered her presence as if she were a dream. But her skin against him warmed him, gave back some of the life the cold ocean had tried to take.

She was naked, he realized slowly, and so was he. They were rolled up together in a mass of heavy wool blankets, skin to skin, her breasts against his chest, her long legs scissored between his. He remembered, vaguely, the touch of her mouth on his as she put her own life’s breath into him. Now she shared her heat.

He looked at her in the darkness as she lay there against him. Her eyes were closed, and he was almost certain she slept. Gently, he drew his hands down her back, and set his lips against hers. She tasted of life, and the salty ocean. He opened her mouth with his, tasting more deeply, and she stirred against him, and opened her eyes with a smile.

His hands slid down her body, cupping the soft, warm roundness of her buttocks. Her thighs pressed against his and then opened loosely, inviting him in. Wrapped as they were in the blankets, it was difficult for him to align his body the right way, but he eased his thigh between hers as he kissed her. The wetness of her sex made hot dew on the skin of his leg.

She moved closer to him, all of her body a warm welcome to his. He hefted her breasts, bent to take one, then the other, into his mouth. Warmth and more warmth, silky and soft and beautiful.

“I’ll no’ hurt you,” he whispered, though she seemed to have no fear of him. Her hand slid between his thighs, pressing his scrotum against his body. The heat flashed through him, bringing him to life where the ocean had tried so hard to send him to death. She shifted her legs against his and the blankets eased around them. Her fingers, rising up the heavy length of his erection, eased him inside her.

He stilled there, enraptured by her heat. Everything the sea had taken from him—his breath, his warmth, his very life—she had given back. The heat radiated from his sex up through the core of his body, through his limbs, to his skin. Through his heart.

I Solemnly Swear to Continue to be Up To No Good

I've got another book reformatted and ready to go--this one's a previous Ellora's Cave title and one of my favorites, Lady of the Seals.

Please note this is an Elizabeth Jewell title, so it's an erotic romance, so if that's not your cuppa, be warned. And it's a Scottish selkie story, so if that IS your cuppa, go grab it!

Special offer for blog readers--if you go to Smashwords, you can get the story at half-price with the code TW63G.

It's also available at Amazon. 

One More Excerpt: Lord of the Screaming Tower

My third release for April is from Lord of the Screaming Tower, a fantasy novella from Etopia Press. This story has a long history. The story was inspired by the song "Wrapped Around My Finger" by the Police. I wrote a long short story originally, then later I decided it might work as a longer piece. I wrote some additional bits about the characters and the world but never quite managed to complete it as a full-length book. This time around, I took the original story and the bits and pieces and put them together and ended up with a novella.

In the world of this book, magic is performed with music, both vocal and instrumental. Sarangell, the protagonist, is a particularly talented young wizard faced with the ultimate choice--banish the older wizard he's been told is evil, or take into himself power beyond what any wizard has ever previously imagined possible.


***

Chapter One

The tower stood in a dark jumble of broken stones, ragged in the moonlight. And it was screaming.

Sarangell’s hand closed on nothing. For weeks, while he and the old wizard had planned, the screaming had haunted the edges of his dreams, howling into his heartbeat. On impulse, he touched the black rock that made up the tower’s outside wall. It lay cold and still under his fingers.

To his left a door grated open, and a boy put his head out. Sarangell jerked toward him, snatching his hand away from the stone.

“What do you want?” the boy asked. One side of his face drooped, making his words slur.

At the abrupt, disrespectful demand, Sarangell fought the urge to lash out, with magic or otherwise. This was only a boy, after all, and a broken one at that. “I wish to see your master.” His soft, careful voice moved like clean water.

The boy’s eyebrows rose at the sound of that voice, and he took a sharp step backward. “Wait here.” The door closed.

Sarangell eased his harp case off his shoulder and laid it down. The cold night air whipped through the folds of his white shirt. Sarangell shivered, then hummed warmth back into the air around him. It was a simple enough spell, one of the first the old wizard had taught him. A yellow glow rose from his feet, sending the biting wind into steam. Sarangell hummed a Sustaining pitch and smiled. With the harp, and the sixth octave the old wizard had given him last night, he could have filled the courtyard with flames.

The door grated back open, and the boy reappeared. He stared at Sarangell’s yellow aura then collected himself.

“My master will see you. Follow me.”

Sarangell had expected as much. His Natural voice had gotten him easily into other wizards’ towers. All he had to do was say “hello,” and he was ushered into the inner sanctums. It had been that way twelve years ago when he’d fallen at the old wizard’s doorstep, nearly dead from the wrath of his father. It should be no different here. Inside it was dark but warm. Sarangell hummed a Counterpitch, shedding his warmth, and sang up a light. The boy gaped at him yet again.

“Your voice… It’s Natural, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The boy shook his head, eyes still wide. Sarangell smiled.

The corridor twisted between black, broken walls. At one time, the tower had been a single piece of obsidian stone, constructed with magic no one but its lord understood. Now there were chips, holes, and cracks that ran down the walls to the floor. The damage, Sarangell knew, was the remnants of the old wizard’s last assault on the tower. Afterward the tower had been silent for years.

Then the screaming had begun.

They reached a staircase that took them to a landing lit by magical wisps and mundane torches. The boy opened a door.

“He’s waiting.”

Sarangell stepped forward, tempted to sing a note that would lead him right where he wanted to go without needing to depend upon the wavering lights and the boy’s dubious guidance. It would have been rude though, and he didn’t want to offend the master of the tower. Not yet. Certainly he’d be offended later, when Sarangell killed him.

Beyond the door, a short, dim corridor led to a large room. A desk sat in the middle, next to it a tall standing harp of honeywood. Book-laden shelves lined the walls.

He crossed the room, eyes on the harp. It was a beautiful instrument, its curves perfect, the strings fairly humming with the movement of the air in the room. Sarangell looked toward the bookshelves. They held standard wizard texts where he had hoped for rare tomes of eccentric power. His mouth twisted with disappointment.

“I’ve always thought it was a rather pleasant room.”

Sarangell spun. The voice was a wizard’s, a bit deeper than training usually aimed for, but with the clarity of Natural intonations. Its owner stood in the shadow behind the desk, where Sarangell should have seen him and yet hadn’t, his tall, slim body draped in purple. A neat beard darkened his craggy face. His eyes were pale green, and he looked thirty years younger than he should have.

“It is a pleasant room,” Sarangell said. “A bit dark though.”

The wizard stepped forward and touched the harp. The lights brightened. Sarangell’s hands shifted on his own harp case as the wizard’s eyes found the gold-rimmed insignia on Sarangell’s left breast.

“You bear the mark of Kandrell,” the wizard said.

Sarangell nodded to the wizard’s own black and purple badge. “And you bear the mark of Menesh.”

Teeth flashed ivory in the dark beard. “I am Menesh.”

“I know.”

Menesh nodded, the smile still playing across his lips. “You have a Natural voice. I didn’t believe the boy when he told me, but he was right. He’s tone deaf and simple, or I wouldn’t keep him here, but he can hear the grit in the Trained voices. How many of your octaves are natural?”

“Three. A little over.”

“Do you have the eighth octave?”

“No. Only six.”

Menesh rounded the desk and perched on the edge of it. “May I see your harp?”

Sarangell hesitated, then handed the instrument over. Menesh opened the case. The light in the room seemed to catch fire in the brilliant red wood. Menesh’s blunt hands touched the strings gently, playing harmless notes, music rather than magic. After a time, he handed it back.

“It’s a good harp. Why don’t you sit down?”

Sarangell obediently sat in the chair next to the desk. The desk had papers on it, most filled with music. Some were outlines of spells Sarangell recognized, but with minor changes here and there. Others appeared to be pieces of more complex magic, while still others Sarangell recognized as simply music. The notations ran through ten octaves, with harp augmentation up to eight. Sarangell passed a neutral glance over them.

“What’s your name?” Menesh asked.

“Sarangell.”

“You’ve been studying with Kandrell for how long?”

“Twelve years.”

“And before that?”

“My voice disappeared when I was thirteen. When it came back after two weeks, I couldn’t say hello without breaking crockery or setting the walls on fire. So my father beat me, and I found my way to Kandrell.” It wasn’t the whole story, of course, but it was more than Menesh needed to know.

Menesh nodded, eyes narrowing. It wasn’t so unusual a story, Sarangell knew. Magic was not only feared but despised in the towns, which was why the wizards congregated in towers in the rugged countryside. Which was also why Sarangell’s father had crushed his wife’s magic-laden hands into uselessness, finally managing to kill her in her thirteenth trip to childbed. These days Natural voices were practically nonexistent, with the wizards searching more and more for apprentices in the southern countries. There older gods reigned, wizardry was still considered an honored profession, and children with borderline voices were often sent to towers with their parents’ blessings to be trained.

So Sarangell understood the gleam in Menesh’s eyes as he considered Sarangell’s potential. “And you’ve augmented three times since then?”

“Yes. And I want more. I’ve been to tower after tower, and the wizards are all the same—slow and careful. They won’t teach me what I want to know. Maybe you will.”

Menesh toyed with his beard. “Kandrell tried to kill me once, you know.”

Sarangell knew perfectly well. And Sarangell’s arrival here was Kandrell’s second attempt. “No, I didn’t.”

Menesh made a wide gesture. “You’ve seen the broken walls. Kandrell did that. He destroyed a great deal of important work.”

“What has that to do with me?”

Menesh’s robe rustled as he slid down from the desk. “Possibly nothing. But if I find that you maintain loyalty to him, I’ll kill you.”

Sarangell tried to match the other wizard’s quiet gaze, but couldn’t. “My Lord,” he murmured. Menesh smiled. His hand touched the golden harpstrings, and he disappeared.

Ring of Darkness--Excerpt

Ring of Darkness is now available from Noble Romance. Check out an excerpt below.

Chapter One

It was no use. Brienda couldn’t remember the Prayer of the Sparrow. Never mind she’d said it fifty times every morning since she’d arrived here five years ago; never mind she’d said it twenty times already this morning. Her fingers rubbed the twenty-first wooden bead on her string of fifty, and her mind drew a complete blank.

"Like the sparrow . . . on the wings of the sparrow, I fly to the light of the sun—to the light of the moon?—wherein lies the spirit of the Great Mother . . . ."

Was that right? It didn’t sound right. What was wrong with her, that she suddenly couldn’t remember a prayer she’d said a thousand times? Something was wrong . . . . No, surely not. The Temple of the Mother was the safest place in all Grammale, made so by long-ago arrangements with the Lord of the Land. Arrangements that let the Mother rule here unchallenged, while men ruled the country itself. Nothing could be wrong here. Perhaps her forgetfulness was due only to excitement—anticipation of the ceremonies starting in two days, during which she would take her vows and be promoted from an Initiate to a Sparrow Mother.

"Not if you can’t remember your prayers," she muttered. She clenched the small wooden bead and squeezed her eyes shut.

"On the wings of the sparrow—"

Then it struck her.

The silence.

She should have been hearing birdsong, insects chirping, perhaps a sound from the fox’s den she knew lay hidden in the outcroppings to her right. But there was nothing.

Then, suddenly, an explosion of sound. Shouting, men’s voices, sacrilege. Brienda never saw them, even as they pushed her hard to the ground from behind. Mouth full of loam, she choked out, "On the wings of the sparrow, I fly to the light of the sun wherein lies the spirit of the Great Mother; in the breast of the wren—"

"Silence!"

Brienda hadn’t heard a man’s voice in five years, much less the voice of a soldier. Even without seeing them, she knew that was what these men were. But why were they here, and why would they dare lay hands on her in this holy place? Unless they were raiders from Callista—

This flash of thought overwhelmed her with fear; she jerked once in her captor’s arms, and he lifted her half off the ground, twisting one arm behind her.

"Be still!" His voice was loud and hot against her ear. "Don’t struggle, and perhaps it won’t be so hard for you."

"Mother protect me—" she started. Then one of the men stepped in front of her. Not a large man, but compact and built for combat. He wore a chain shirt, and the gold band around his head was nearly lost in the gold of his hair. His beard and his scarred face looked strange to her, alien after spending so much time among only women. But she knew him.

His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, and his gaze rose from Brienda’s face as he addressed the man who held her. "Hurt her, and I’ll kill you where you stand."

The hands on Brienda’s arms loosened. The man behind her spoke, his voice shaking a little. "Milord."

Brienda swallowed, staring at the all-too-familiar figure in front of her. "What are you doing here?"

The golden man regarded her coolly. "You used to have more respect for your betters."

"That was when I thought you were my better." The words leapt out before she could swallow them. But the man only smiled.

"I was afraid the Bird Mothers might turn you into a shrew. I see I was right. No matter—you’ll have to do." He jerked a thumb toward the darker woods beyond the border of the sacred grounds. "Take her. We’re wasting time."

"And you’ll waste more of it."

Brienda’s heart leapt at this voice—a woman’s voice and a familiar one. The Owl Mother stepped out from the trees. Smaller than the golden man, infinitely older, wearing homespun robes, and a crown of her own hair braided and wound about her head, she seemed nevertheless his equal.

"You’ll not take her," the Owl Mother said, matter-of-factly.

"I will," said the golden man. Brienda stared at him, her mind still unwilling to admit he was truly here.

The Owl Mother smiled. "I would think you would have learned, Baradan. It’s your choice, of course, but, if you take your daughter from this holy place, you and your men will die before you reach the borders."

Baradan swallowed, regarding the Owl Mother. Finally, he raised one hand.

"Let her go," he said. "Go with the priestess."

The hands, which had tightened at the Owl Mother’s arrival, now released her. Rubbing the bruises they left behind, Brienda went to the Owl Mother’s side.

"Make them leave," she whispered.

The Owl Mother shook her head. Her amber eyes regarded Brienda briefly. "They will speak to me," she said. "We will see."

The simple words sent a wash of fear down Brienda’s spine. She clutched her beads. For whatever good it would do her, she could remember the prayers now.

Ring of Darkness--Now Available

Ring of Darkness is now available from Noble Romance. Stop by and check it out!

Brienda's life is about to be turned upside down. After five years at the temple of the God-Mother, she is to be married to Tamalor of Callista on her father's orders in order to end aggression between their two countries.

Brienda is upset at this turn of events, but she comes to believe it is part of a larger plan and the God-Mother has put her in this place to bring not only peace but a restoration of balance to the ancient powers of her world. She is right, and, in the end, the larger plan will demand more from her than she ever thought she could give--including Tamalor.

New Short Story from KC Myers

KC Myers, my non-romantic pseudonym (don't tell her I called her that--she'll take it wrong), has just published a fantasy short story called The Dragon at the Top of the World. It's available at Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.

Here's a sneak peek:

The wind whipped down the side of the mountain like death, knifing through five layers of fur and wool to lash Fox’s skin. He lifted his hand and moved numb fingers inside his icy mitten to reset the slipped warming spell, clinging to the bow of the dogsled with one hand. The sled went on, bumping over the uneven surface, the runners shifting beneath Fox’s feet.

He had to try three times before the spell set. Stunted pine trees to the left and right told him why. He was nearing timberline. Once the trees were gone, Fox could depend on nothing.

The feel of the sled runners under his feet changed as the snowpack became icier. The vibrations shot up Fox’s legs to his knees. Ahead of him, the dark line of seventeen dogs dug in and kept going. Strands of the russet hair that had gained him his mage name escaped Fox’s hood and whipped into his face.

Fox smiled a little, adjusting his stance on the sled runners. At least the dogs were still game to run. He himself was running short on stamina, and even shorter on optimism.

Maybe it was time to turn back. He’d hoped—foolishly, perhaps—that he would find the dragon before he reached the magically debilitating timberline. He should have known better. If it were that easy, someone would have found it before him—Hopping Mouse, or the Great Gray Turtle who had lived two hundred years. Why would he succeed where these far greater wizards had failed? He was, after all, barely thirty, and only a small red Fox.

But he was a fox with a question. He wanted to know why he had been forced to trade his soul for his magic. He wanted to know what had happened to it after he’d given it up. And, most of all, he wanted to know if he could have it back.