Bobby’s always had a thing for silver foxes. Still has. Just never expected to find the ultimate one is his fated mate.
Bobby Kirkland leads a simple life — mostly simple, considering his budding romance with the esteemed Deacon Saridan, head vamp of House Saridan.
Amid the romance and Bobby’s exploration of the BDSM lifestyle with his new mate, a string of murders leads Deacon to believe that a familiar, though certainly not kind, face has shown itself in the lands of House Saridan… and this threat proves to be an even bigger challenge than first thought.
WARNING: Adult language and situations, including BDSM
The dock foreman, Toryn, leaned against the frame of the plate-glass window we stood at as we watched the workers in the shipping area below. “Seems to be. He gets along with the guys pretty well.”
I glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. “But…”
He sighed. “He struggles to stay on task sometimes, and he tends to daydream a good bit. Not a bad thing inherently, but not great when working around forklifts and eighteen-wheelers.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. The young man who’d captured my attention weeks ago was indeed a bit flighty at times. According to Cam, Bobby Kirkland had always been that way, and a diagnosis of ADHD as a pre-teen had answered a lot of questions. He needed structure and routine, in my opinion. I’d hoped working here would give him that, but he still seemed to have trouble staying focused on occasion.
The bell signaling the end of the workday rang out in the warehouse. I spotted Bobby going toward the door that led into the large breakroom where the lockers were. Beside me, Toryn snickered softly.
“I’m surprised you haven’t claimed him yet.”
I turned away from the window. “Soon.”
I followed him out of my office and downstairs. Most of the workers were already heading home, but a few — including Bobby — remained in the breakroom. Toryn patted my shoulder and went to his own locker. The others glanced over at me, and a couple of them shot Bobby teasing smirks. Even from the doorway, I saw him blush. There wasn’t any hint of jealousy with this group, thankfully. When Bobby met my gaze, I discreetly gestured for him to join me upstairs. He nodded, and I headed back up. Once I claimed him, we’d be able to speak telepathically and not worry about coworker issues. Then again, he also wouldn’t be working either, but that was a discussion for another day.
A few minutes after I sat down on the small couch in my office, the door opened. Bobby smiled, though there was a good bit of nervousness behind it. He shut the door and sat a couple of feet beside me at my urging. I twisted a little to face him and got comfortable.
“How was work?”
“Good,” he said, fidgeting a bit with his hands, like he didn’t know what to do with them. One leg bounced a little.
“Have you had any problems with your coworkers?”
Bobby didn’t answer right away, which told me everything I needed to know. I reached over and put my hand on his knee, stilling the movement almost immediately. His eyes widened for a moment, making him seem far younger than thirty-one. Of course, at my age, he was young.
“What is it? You can tell me anything, Bobby.”
He swallowed and tore his gaze from mine. I waited while he thought about whatever he wanted to say. Finally, he spoke. “Just a couple of guys who seem to think I’m an idiot.” He looked back up at me. “I’m not. I just get… distracted sometimes, hyper focused at others.”
“No, you’re definitely not an idiot. You wouldn’t be working here if so,” I said. “Have they done or said anything directly to you?”
“No, but I’ve caught a few whispers here and there,” he replied. “Not to mention the weird glances.” He shrugged and sighed. “I feel like I’m back in fucking high school, to be honest. It’s ridiculous.”
I chuckled softly and gave his knee a gentle squeeze. “I have a potential solution then, but I think we need to have a good, long talk before we go any further.”
Bobby nodded and stared down at my hand. “I honestly started to worry that this was a one-sided thing,” he muttered.
Unable to resist, I lifted my hand to cup his chin, tilting his head until I was looking into those soulful brown eyes. I stroked my thumb across his lower lip, and he let out a soft gasp. “I assure you, this is very much mutual. That said, there are details we must go over first.”
“Those details have anything to do with your necklace?”
I smiled and lifted the thin chain from under my shirt. Light reflected off the tiny handcuff pendant accented with garnets. “Indeed. How about we have dinner, and we can chat?”
“Sounds good to me. I need to let Dad and Cam know where I’ll be. I don’t have to, but it’s an old habit.”
“Absolutely, and a good one to have. Do you have any food preferences or sensitivities I need to know about?”
“I’m lactose intolerant, but that’s it.”
“Understood. Let Beau and Cam know what’s going on and then meet me in my chambers upstairs. Normally, I’d take you out, but the things we need to discuss are not for anyone else’s ears.”
His gaze shifted a bit, and I couldn’t ignore the urge any longer. Fingers gripping his chin, I tipped his head and leaned close. Bobby’s soft moan the moment our lips touched sent almost overwhelming need rushing through me. His scent — a decadent mix of soap, shampoo, and something woodsy yet sweet — filled every part of my psyche. The urge to bite flitted through my mind, but I shoved it away for now. I knew he was mine; I didn’t need to taste his blood to confirm it.
Bobby opened for me, pliant, eager, and so insanely delicious. I released his chin and cupped the back of his head, pushing the kiss into hungrier territory for both of us. Before I could lose control and take him right here, though, I made myself pull back. He grumbled, and I nipped his lower lip before soothing it with my tongue.
“Dinner,” I murmured. “I need to taste every inch of you but not before we talk.”
Mychael Black has been writing professionally since 2005. He writes gay romance and erotica, but also het romance as Carys Seraphine and queer fantasy as Katherine Cook.
He’s an avid PC gamer with a love for RPGs, a horror fanatic, and a fantasy nut. He also has a weakness for anything relating to skulls, dogs, and Spongebob Squarepants.
Mychael lives on the Eastern Shore of the US with his family. He loves to hear from readers, be it via email or Facebook.
A gangster’s life is hard. As the youngest son of a Chicago mobster lord, Fionn O’Grady is no stranger to crime, even though he’s clean and renowned for kissing rather than fighting. It’s a lonely life for a pizza-loving redhead. All he’s ever wanted is an easy-going boyfriend who doesn’t take life too seriously. It’s too bad that no man will date him because of his family.
Trouble comes when a UK undercover cop infiltrates the O’Grady mansion. According to the family, it’s up to Fionn to gain revenge by kidnapping the cop’s kid brother. Kidnap? Fionn couldn’t hurt anyone, certainly not a handsome young man needing a caring boyfriend.
As the chaotic brother of an undercover cop, Oli Green is endlessly fascinated by gangsters, particularly pizza-loving redheads. At twenty, Oli’s no kid—he fantasises about being kidnapped by a gentle gangster to guide him through his first time. Bonus points for emo villains! Above all, Oli wants an easy-going boyfriend who doesn’t take life too seriously…
Fionn and Oli fall together as the gangster lord tightens his net around them. Is Fionn strong enough to decide what matters most—family honour or the tug of his heart?
Fionn O’Grady was working at a figurine factory in Boston when the boss yelled him into the office.
“Miller. In here now.”
The other workers nudged one another knowingly. “Told you,” one of them muttered, evading Fionn’s questioning, startled gaze.
A familiar shiver traversed Fionn’s spine. It was the end of an eight-hour shift, and he was exhausted. Still, he liked to finish his art before knocking off for the day. Carefully, almost lovingly, he placed his paintbrush across the soldier figurine’s feet with a “Back soon” before scurrying into the office. He silently prayed he wasn’t facing unemployment again.
Inside the office, the boss loomed, disgust plastered across his face. He threw rather than handed Fionn a paper wallet. “Here are your documents, Tom Miller. Now scram, O’Grady scum. Did you think I wouldn’t find out who you are? I don’t hire gangsters, even ones with your painting skills. Scram.”
Fionn didn’t ask how the boss had discovered his identity. Nor did he challenge Mr Moss’s choice of words—‘scram’—for a worker who’d single-handedly painted a battalion of figurine soldiers in one day. There’d be no point now that Mr Moss knew who Fionn was.
“All right, then. The final soldier needs a varnish.”
Fionn grabbed his coat and exited the factory with a sickening sensation; the concrete beneath his feet tried to suck him into the bowels of the earth, down, down, down. He wished there were someone he might call, a friend to share the load, maybe even a boyfriend. But there was nobody.
At the bus stop, he waited in line behind two jostling teenage boys. Their youthful skirmish soon turned into passionate necking. Maybe the hormonal steam rising from the boys caused Fionn’s invisible armour to buckle and fall away one plate at a time.
Or maybe the breathlessness tearing suddenly at his throat was born not of longing but loss. Whatever the cause, the boys’ frantic energy caused an ache to spread, searing Fionn’s muscles and nerves and settling inside his chest. A catastrophic influx of emotion shattered his habitual numbness, rendering him vulnerable against a flood of memories and cravings he couldn’t name. Could it be nostalgia squeezing his lungs for the hopeful teen he’d once been, craving a kiss from the neighbour? Or was it something else?
In his head, the words, “You’re lonely,” shouted in his sister’s voice.
Fionn baulked. The reminder of his sister, followed by some talented graffiti that had been sprayed on a wall, snapped at his energy and will. One word in particular reminded him of the many countries he’d lived in without ever finding a home or an accent that felt right.
Outsider.
Maybe his changeable accent explained why he never fitted, no matter what. He’d been told at various times that he sounded Irish, Welsh, British, or American.
Lonely, his sister whispered again.
Fionn walked away from the graffiti, muttering to himself. Ach, sure, it’d been months since his boyfriend had left without a backwards glance, throwing cruel words impossible to forget. You’re related to the O’Grady scum? Don’t contact me again. Same old, same old. But it wasn’t as if Fionn was a stranger to hardship. On the contrary, he was well used to fleeing at midnight with two carrier bags. Therefore, the unexpected churning in his stomach and head made no sense at all.
Still, it took a grave effort to return to his customary state of numbness, to push aside the memory of his sister, Sinéad. The teenage boys now had their hands down each other’s jeans, not that Fionn cared, because he didn’t.
When it was his turn to board the bus, Fionn grabbed the handle to jump on.
The driver held up a hand, shouting, “No O’Gradys. You’re banned. This city has had enough.” Then he pointed at a poster on the window bearing the faces of Fionn’s family, his mugshot in the middle. As if the poster weren’t condemning enough, the passengers joined in the tirade of hatred by shouting and making rude gestures.
The bus driver sped away, leaving Fionn stranded. He stumbled backwards into a low wall, cheeks blazing, shame burning every inch of his freckled skin. Although he didn’t wish to know what his family had been up to now, he wouldn’t have minded knowing why the whole city had turned against him. In twenty-five years, Fionn had never been involved in crime, and he never would be.
Despair gripped his heart. How could one live without a job or money? The rent was due. He’d been relying on the wage from the figurine factory to tide him over until he made his fortune painting landscapes. Dad wouldn’t allow his youngest son back into the O’Grady home until Fionn agreed to work for the ‘business’. Mum was as bad as Dad, and his other siblings were older, each deeply immersed in the gangster underworld. The O’Gradys genuinely saw nothing wrong with their way of life. To them, he was the problem.
Despite the apocalypse gathering in his chest, it was a pleasant, warm evening. Spring wafted from hanging baskets and potted flowers: lavender, rose, lemon. Along with the scents, a heavy bout of sadness settled on Fionn. His beloved twin sister’s name was in his mouth before he could stop it. How could he help it? Though Sinéad had left years ago, Fionn still recognised a geranium from a petunia. His sister had loved floral scents, spending hours among flowers in the fields surrounding the family mansion. Her passion had naturally passed to her brother, who’d adored her.
Sinéad had been the clever one, running from the family at fifteen, never to return. If only the twins had saved enough money for two air tickets to England, Fionn would have fled with her, but they hadn’t managed it. By the time he’d earned enough to buy a flight from two paper rounds and night shifts at a paint factory, Fionn had forgotten the mobile number Sinéad forced him to memorise before she left. The numbers had jumbled in his anxious, ADHD brain alongside the fear of what Dad would do if he discovered the plan. For years, Fionn waited for Sinéad’s call. It never came. Ten years later, every pretty redhead resembled her.
He’d made many attempts over the years to locate his sis on social media, to no avail. She’d undoubtedly found a safer life under a new name. A nasty inner voice insisted she was better off without her brother anyway, since he was as chaotic as a giraffe on skates, fuelled by impulsivity and paper art.
Fortunately, Fionn kept an emergency packet of tissues in his pocket. Without it, he wouldn’t have survived the despair threatening to undo the façade of normality in which he survived.
He produced a tissue, ripped it into bits, and crafted a tiny bus. When he’d finished it, he felt immeasurably better. For Fionn, art represented a safety jacket when the storms appeared.
He propped up the paper bus on the wall where he’d collapsed, figuring someone else might need it. The panic faded, leaving a familiar determination to survive no matter the odds.
When he was able to breathe calmly, Fionn began the ten-mile walk home, expecting every tree to turn into a cop or, worse, a knife-wielding gangster. He was useless in a fight, yet beneath the anxiety, he yearned for a scrap like those he’d had with Sinéad as a child, fights that ended in laughter and a glass of fizzy pop. Since she’d left, life had become a pursuit of rent and bills rather than what it should have been: laughter, love, fun, fun, fun.
After miles of trudging, Fionn paused at a shop to buy a water bottle. The shopkeeper immediately slammed the door shut, pointing at a poster identical to the one on the bus. “Get lost, O’Grady!”
It was the final straw. Fionn sank onto a patch of grass, head in hands. His messy red hair falling into his eyes reminded him of his sister, whose long locks had once reached her bottom. Man, he missed her and the safety of family members he could trust.
Not even emergency tissues saved him from the brink of hopelessness. He hit rock bottom on the grass amidst the scent of summer flowers. Moments passed into hours.
Fortunately, the mental darkness never lasted long. Finally, a tiny light appeared, growing brighter every second.
Fionn recognised the light as a need for action, which, in turn, would shatter the awful greyness threatening to undo him. The urge to move, to fill the empty void, wasn’t new or without risk. He’d always been impulsive, even reckless. Mostly, he recognised the craving for what it was—part of his ADHD—but sometimes, he trusted his instincts despite the consequences.
A risky idea danced into his mind provocatively. Instead of heading to his apartment, he could walk to the family mansion, which was nearby, and confront his parents. After all, there was nothing left to lose. The visage of a repentant scene, where Dad begged for forgiveness, teased Fionn mercilessly: I missed you, son.
The temptation to return home quickly became too great to ignore. Fionn told himself he only wanted to see the family one last time. Yeah, it was time to confront them and then leave the city to start anew elsewhere. He should’ve done so ages ago. Surely Dad wouldn’t deny his youngest child a second chance? The great gang lord might offer to help contact Sinéad, wherever she was. Dad was a stubborn ass, but he’d always loved the twins—up until they’d begun saying no, anyway.
Fionn walked quickly towards his childhood home. By nature, he was cheerful and optimistic. The city had got him down, but things would improve once he got away. A long time ago, he’d forgiven his parents for throwing him out and his siblings for shunning him. Fionn had been born with a generous nature not even the O’Gradys had quenched.
Thirst and a wave of panic at the far end of the O’Grady driveway forced Fionn to a halt. It had been a year since the Sunday dinner when Dad offered him a job hacking into a bank.
“Easy work, son,” Dad had said. “Time you settled down and moved back with the family instead of slumming it in the seedy shithole you call home. My son working in a paint factory? No. You make me a laughing stock.”
Fionn had tried hard to stay calm, to stick to his guns. “Dad, no. I don’t want anything to do with crime, remember? I’m happy where I am in life. Okay? I’m different from you, but it doesn’t mean we can’t still get along. We’re family—right?” Fionn had laughed. Most people experienced the same conversation with their parents, albeit with different issues. Whereas school friends had negotiated bedtime, Sinéad and Fionn had argued about firearms.
His father had turned his back, beefy arms crossed, neck rigid with anger. “You break my heart. Get out of here. Don’t come back.”
Fionn had stupidly tried to reason with him, tugging at Dad’s arm, trying to make peace as always. “Dad? Can’t we talk about it?”
The awful scene ended abruptly when the family security guard, a tall woman with tattoos, dragged Fionn across the room before hurling him outside into the rain. She turned once before locking the family home.
“You heard the boss,” she’d said. “You’re rubbish.”
Fionn was left homeless, bitter jealousy souring his heart. What kind of father preferred a security guard to his own son?
“No, you’re rubbish,” he’d shouted futilely. But it was too late. The guard had already locked the door and drawn the blinds. Nobody wanted to hear what Fionn had to say, never mind act upon his wishes.
With hindsight, Fionn wished he could’ve accepted the job and made his father happy; he really did. He loved his dad and still craved the gang lord’s approval and love. But crime? Fionn couldn’t partake then or now. One hacking job would lead to another. Anyway, he was pants at anything like that. All Fionn had ever been good at was art and snuggles.
The painful memory of being thrown out of the family home immobilised him. It took a while before Fionn could wipe his face and walk down the driveway towards the family mansion, so thirsty not even the memory of Dad’s final haunting words slowed his progress. You’re an embarrassment.
It was a surprise to find the front door wide open. Mum never left the door open. Instinctively, Fionn knew something was very wrong. A black, ragged hole opened up within his chest. As children, he and Sinéad had always feared retribution, stabbings, and worse.
He rushed forward despite the danger, expecting to find the bodies of his family strewn across the living room.
Instead, the security guard who’d thrown him out months ago appeared and rugby-tackled him to the ground with a snarl.
Grass cuttings, earth, and flowers smacked Fionn in the face. He soon stopped fighting back. “For fuck’s sake. What is it with you and beating me up? Get off me,” he gasped.
The guard straddled him, holding his hands above his head, intent on winning. “Fionn O’Grady, at last. We’ve been waiting for you. As with the rest of the O’Grady scum, you’re under arrest. Time to pay for your crimes, rubbish. This town has had enough.”
With a quick flick of her wrist, she held up a police identity card bearing her photo and name. Charlie Green.
Eule Grey has settled, for now, in the north UK. She’s worked in education, justice, youth work, and even tried her hand at butter-spreading in a sandwich factory. Sadly, she wasn’t much good at any of them!
She writes novels, novellas, poetry, and a messy combination of all three. Nothing about Eule is tidy but she rocks a boogie on a Saturday night!
For now, Eule is she/her or they/them. Eule has not yet arrived at a pronoun that feels right.
Rollo Duchamps-Avery, the high-spirited second son of the eleventh Earl of Rossingley, is not in his father’s best books. After one misdemeanour too many, the earl ruins Rollo’s idyllic summer by packing him off to the wilds of rural Norfolk, arranging for him to stay with the Duke of Ashington’s loathsome brother.
Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons has an aversion to houseguests. Shunned by polite society for crimes far wickeder than anything Rollo could dream up, all Fitzsimmons wants is to drink himself into a stupor, tend his beloved hydrangeas, and take potshots at tin soldiers.
If only his inquisitive young visitor, with his pretty little head of wispy blond hair, his stupidly coltish legs, and his knack of always being where Fitzsimmons would rather him not, would leave him in peace.
This third book in the Rossingley Regency romance series features the fourteenth Earl of Rossingley’s lively second son, Rollo, and the Duke of Ashington’s disgraced brother, Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons. This book can be read as a standalone.
“Crocodile tears won’t save you this time, Master Rollo.”
Pritchard’s lisping note of triumph was unmistakeable. “No matter how prettily you shed them, you’ve pushed your papa too far. He is provoked beyond measure.”
“He’d be his usual fine and dandy self if you hadn’t gone running to inform him.”
“My primary role in the Rossingley household is to serve the earl,” answered Pritchard, as prissy and prim as ever. “Not his licentious offspring.”
Rollo harboured an ugly notion that his father’s valet had been waiting a long time for this moment, possibly since when Rollo, at age four, had sprinkled rich, resinous lily pollen amongst Papa’s meticulously folded white linens. It had been the opening salvo of a rather jolly dislike of each other.
“You’re relishing this, aren’t you, Pritchard?”
“Tremendously,” Pritchard confirmed.
Escape flitted across Rollo’s mind, but only for a second. One step ahead, and perhaps recalling the time Rollo had feinted past him and sprinted away across the lawns, Pritchard had brought along reinforcements in the form of two burly footmen stationed on either side of the library door. The window, alas, was closed.
Rollo shot a pleading look towards Kit Angel—Papa’s divine and terribly understanding paramour—currently decorating the settee, who shook his head. Everybody was loyal to Papa to a fault, and it was damned annoying.
“Sorry, old chap.” At least Kit sounded genuine. “For what it’s worth, I tried to talk your father out of it. Some of us enjoy having you around.”
What did he mean by having you around? Rollo wasn’t planning on going anywhere, unless swallow diving headfirst out of the nearest window and running for the hills until Papa had calmed down counted. And talk him out of what?
Before Rollo could further parse Kit’s words, Papa himself swept into the library, dressed in his favourite chartreuse silk banyan and pearls. Rollo coveted both immensely. As always, the eleventh earl was impeccably turned out, though this morning, his flamboyant attire sat at odds with the discomfiting, frigid set of his mouth. Rollo barely dared meet his pale eyes; when his mouth looked as grim as that, his gaze could freeze a lake.
“Rollo, my darling.”
Rollo winced. Only a fool would mistake the endearment for anything other than an affectation.
“Yes, Papa.”
The ice-chip eyes glittered. “You know why you’re here, I assume?”
“Yes, Papa.”
Experience taught Rollo that short answers tended to be met more favourably. Unfortunately, his smart mouth had a lamentable tendency to act independently of his mind. “Writing out I must not swive the stable boy one hundred times was a significant clue. The lack of hot water in my room this morning more subtle. But no less vexing.”
The faintest ghost of a smile twitched his father’s lips, gone in an instant. Even in the midst of a scolding, Rollo still appreciated he had the best of fathers. Most would have introduced his arse to the switch long ago.
“Do you have anything to say for yourself, Rollo?”
Rollo straightened his shoulders. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb and all that. The importance of standing up for himself had been instilled in him from a young age; Papa could hardly complain now he was reaping what he’d sown.
“Yes, Papa. Several things, actually.”
Papa sighed. “I’d expect nothing less.”
“Firstly, my wrist aches.” Rollo waggled it to demonstrate. “I have indelible green ink stains on my second-favourite blush waistcoat, and I’m still frightfully chilly. And, for the record, Ellis was an able, willing, practiced, and—dare I say—extremely encouraging participant.”
“Naturally, he was; you paid him two pounds!”
“And it was very well deserved.”
“And then a further crown, on account, for future favours!”
Goodness, Pritchard had been busy. Rollo shot him an evil look, though in having his financial transactions laid out so bluntly, his bravura hung by a thread.
“At risk of repeating myself,” Rollo ploughed on, “I considered it money well spent. Ellis has several strings to his bow.”
“Evidently.”
His father’s fine blond brows knit together. The line between standing up for himself and cheeking Papa was a fine one; Rollo had a sneaking suspicion he might have tiptoed across it.
“Darling Rollo,” began his father, a layer of frost coating each syllable. “For all I care, our stable boy could have the whole string section of London’s prestigious Philharmonic Society tucked behind the fall of his breeches. And you could have twanged every single instrument.”
Rollo had been on his knees attempting exactly that until he’d been discovered by the second groom, who’d blabbed to the head groom, who’d gone tittle-tattling to Pritchard.
“Nevertheless, as you are well aware, there is nothing I detest more than fortunate, well-heeled members of society taking advantage of those in their employ.” With an irritable flick of his hand, Papa waved away Rollo’s attempt to defend his actions. “That Ellis was willing is an irrelevance. You placed the man in a devilishly awkward position, and I simply will not tolerate it. Have I made myself crystal clear?”
“Yes, Papa,” he replied meekly. “Sorry, Papa.”
“And so you should be.”
Yet to be mollified, his father folded his arms and began pacing in front of the fireplace. “The simple truth remains. Our loyal servants are out of bounds. I distinctly recall this being made perfectly clear to you when you returned from Eton last year. Did I not?”
Rollo hung his head. “Yes, Papa.”
“If it had been your first demeanour and you had been totally in the dark, then, of course, I would instruct you on how a Duchamps-Avery should behave. It would be remiss of me not to. But, as it is, the fact that you stand here, arguing the point after all I’ve…”
Ahhh, to begin the day with one of Papa’s sweet lectures. Rollo didn’t need to tune in for the rest. He knew how things ran. Their disputes were well rehearsed operatic duets, composed of increasing exasperation on Papa’s part, Rollo feigning abject apology, a discourse on how a Duchamps-Avery should conduct themselves, ending with a loving embrace and a promise to do better. As usual, Pritchard and Kit had been making a fuss over nothing. Rollo would bow his head a few times, continue to appear suitably repentant, and ride this one out.
Content in the sure knowledge he was loved, Rollo’s thoughts drifted. In a few moments, Papa would fizzle out and decree his penance. Idly, Rollo wondered what it might be. Papa was nothing if not creative. Over the years, Rollo’s punishments had ranged from counting all the earwigs in the orangery (aged five, he was discovered hiding in the coal cellar after two hours of searching) to scrubbing the scullery steps with a toothbrush (for convincing his twin brother, Willoughby, that eating crushed pinecones would allow him to see better in the dark). Willoughby casting up his accounts the next morning during the church sermon aside, some of Rollo’s so-called punishments had turned into rather good fun. Like the time he was consigned to digging over the vegetable patch and unearthed an adder, which had slithered over Pritchard’s foot.
“To that end, Rollo, it is high time you had a firmer hand. My own father, rest his soul, oft quoted that a rose bush must be heavily pruned in order to produce the best blooms. And, on this occasion, I believe he was speaking with the weight of wisdom. Don’t you agree?”
Papa’s lecture appeared to have taken a horticultural detour. “Er…yes?”
“Excellent.” His father clapped his hands. “Therefore, Dobson will accompany you when you depart for your trip to Norfolk this afternoon, see you safely settled in, and return to collect you in three months’ time.”
“D-Dobson will…what?” Rollo’s happy flights of reminiscence screeched to a halt. Did…did he…did…? “Sorry, Papa, I must have misheard. Did you just say Dobson’s accompanying me to Norfolk?”
“Got it in one, darling. You are clever. To Goule Hall, to be precise. On the edge of the Broads, between some hellish backwater named Stokesby and another provincial bog going by the name of Wroxham, I believe. A delightful, if not a tad isolated, property belonging to the Ashington estate. The duke’s twin brother, Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons, remains in residence after spending an enforced period of seclusion there a couple of years ago, whilst he…ah…reflected on several episodes of…ah…poor behaviour in and around the ton. I shall spare you the details. Suffice to say that in comparison, dear boy, your antics are those of a rank amateur.”
This Lord Lyndon Fitz-something-or-other could have kidnapped the moon from under the noses of the sun and the stars for all that Rollo cared. “And this…this Goule Hall is in Norfolk?” he clarified, aghast. Perhaps, somehow, his father was confusing Norfolk with Mayfair.
Alas, no.
“Unless the hall has been excavated and deposited elsewhere since the duke and I corresponded less than a week ago, then yes.”
“And Willoughby is coming too,” Rollo decreed, praying if he said it with enough confidence, that would somehow make it true.
His father shook his head. “On the contrary. Willoughby will be travelling to London with me. I plan to use the time you are apart to begin schooling your brother in the rudiments of my business affairs.” He flashed Rollo an evil little smile very much like Rollo’s own, displaying all of his sharp pointed teeth. “And perhaps take the opportunity to do some shopping, pay a visit to my tailor, and so forth.”
Ugh. That was a low blow. Rollo didn’t give two hoots for learning about business. Willoughby would inherit the title and all that nonsense, anyhow. But how he adored their family shopping expeditions! Much more than Willoughby ever did.
Pritchard made an odd noise, quickly covering his mouth with his hand. Knowing the blasted valet, the whole thing had been his bloody idea. He’d always enjoyed having the earl to himself. Rollo would have said so, too, if every ounce of his not inconsiderable intelligence wasn’t fixated on desperately seeking a way out of the barren wasteland now known as his immediate future. Because, from where he was sitting, Norfolk already seemed horribly like a fait accompli. Three months. Three summer months. Stuck with a dull, ancient lord, in a draughty old hall in the middle of effing nowhere. They might as well just shoot him with a musket ball now and be done with it.
He tried one last time. “Ha ha, very funny. But…really, Papa? Norfolk? Cold, flat, windy Norfolk? Even Bonaparte wasn’t exiled to Norfolk!”
“No.” The earl tilted his white-blond head, so like Rollo’s own, in gentle acknowledgement. “But then, my dear, Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t a spoiled second son of an earl, caught swiving one of my stable boys when he’d been given explicit instructions not to manhandle the servants. Pritchard? Ring for Dobson, if you would be so kind. I do believe Rollo’s valises are already packed.”
Fearne Hill is a British writer of queer romance and the winner of the 2025 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Romance. When she’s not crafting characters who fall hard and kiss slowly, she works as an anaesthesiologist. She lives in the deepest Dorset countryside with her beloved spaniels.
Humans and vamps were never meant to be mates, but an accidental meeting changes everything.
Cam Sharpe is just trying to make ends meet. Living in the city can easily break the bank, but that’s where the jobs are. It’s also where crime runs rampant. One night, he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, putting him in the crosshairs of the city’s ruling vampire coven.
Nikolai Hart loves his job — maybe a little too much. When hunting a rogue proves to be a pain in the ass, he’s the one House Saridan brings in to find the unfortunate soul. The latest job, however, has hit a snag: a mortal has witnessed everything.
I hated living in the city. There were too many people, most of whom couldn’t drive worth a damn. I barely managed to dodge a car that threatened to sideswipe me. I thought the asshole driver shouted something, but I just tossed the man a one-fingered salute. Rain pelted the city, which made deliveries a bit more complicated, especially on a bicycle. Still, the bike afforded me the chance to make it into tight spots a car could not. Traffic was a bitch, but that was city life. I’d been here for three years now and had managed to escape the need for a car. The exercise was good, at any rate.
I reached the towering apartment building and secured my bike to a lamppost. The expressionless doorman stood at the front. Dressed in a black tux, complete with white gloves, he fit right in with the building’s occupants.
Once inside, I flashed my badge hanging on its lanyard to the guard behind the desk and continued toward the elevators. A few well-dressed residents gave me a bit of the good ol’ side-eye, but I ignored them. Hell, I’d probably delivered dinner to them half a million times.
The elevator doors opened, and I held it for the others. When they didn’t move to enter, I shrugged and stepped inside, letting the doors close before they could change their haughty minds. I watched the display tick through the floor numbers until it reached the seventh floor. As soon as I exited, I heard music.
Down the hall, an apartment door opened, and a half-naked man waved. I met him and handed over the food.
“Wanna join?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Thanks, man, but I can’t. Still a few more hours before I can officially ‘clock out’ for the night.”
“You clock out?”
“Not really. I set my own hours, but this pays the bills, so, yeah, set times and all.”
“Ah.”
Shouts from inside cut the chat short. “Well, thanks!” the guy said, holding up the bag.
“No problem.”
Alone in the hall, I went back to the elevators. Thank the gods the tips were included in the app when ordering.
Back down on the street, I sighed. I wished I could stop for the night. I was tired, utterly sick of the damn rain, and hadn’t eaten in several hours. The sun had already set enough to make the streetlights come on along the sidewalks. I rolled the bike a few feet away from the lingering crowd and headed off to my next pick-up.
People swarmed the streets, most of them club hoppers. I’d done that years ago but had outgrown it. Random hook-ups in dark corners no longer satisfied me, but in a city this big, I wasn’t sure I’d ever find anyone who would. Most of the people I’d met so far were superficial and vain, perfectly content to spend a night getting laid by one person before moving on to the next.
An order came in, and the GPS piped up to let me know there was a shortcut to the restaurant. Happy to avoid the crowd, I turned down the alley the GPS designated. I ignored the few slumped figures along both sides. I’d learned the hard way a couple of years ago after a mugging not to carry cash. Now I only carried my ID, keys, phone, and a trusty can of mace.
The end of the alley branched left and right. The GPS told me to go left. Just as I started that way, commotion to the right startled me.
A tall, black-clad figure landed feet-first onto the wet pavement and grabbed a man from the ground. The man choked and struggled as the stranger spoke, voice low enough that I couldn’t hear what was said. Whatever it was, though, seemed to terrify the man he held captive.
The stranger growled — literally growled — and tore the man’s throat wide open with his fucking teeth.
I nearly wrecked the bike trying to get away. I pedaled as fast as my legs could, and the burn was almost too much. I reached the Chinese restaurant and stuck as close to the building as possible. After a few seconds of struggling to catch my breath, I locked my bike to a lamppost before heading inside.
I had zero doubt that I’d just seen a vampire executing someone. Vamps weren’t unknown, but they tended to keep to themselves. They also weren’t anything like what stories and movies portrayed them to be. Real vampires weren’t undead; they were an entirely different species. Stronger, faster, and far more deadly than any human could ever dream of being.
Safe in the restaurant, I shot a quick glance back out the door. Whatever I’d just witnessed wasn’t my business. Not like cops would do shit anyway. Vamps governed themselves, and the police were scared shitless of them.
Pushing it out of my mind for now, I shuddered and headed to the counter. Ten minutes later, I was on my way to the drop-off point. Despite needing the money, I ended my shift after handing over the food. Just before I left the area, though, I caught sight of the stranger from the alley. Those eyes locked onto mine.
Hopping onto the bike, I made a beeline for my tiny efficiency apartment. It wasn’t much, but it had a wonderfully huge deadbolt on the door.
I leaned back against the door as soon as I locked it. Eyes closed, I tried to get rid of the images from the alley. It wasn’t the first crime I’d seen in this damned city, but it was definitely the first time a vampire had been involved. At least that I knew of, at any rate.
“Get a grip, Cam,” I muttered. “Not the first, won’t be the last.”
I pushed off the door and tossed my keys onto the narrow bar separating the kitchenette from the living area. I couldn’t even call it an actual room, really. The only true room was the bathroom, and even that was about the size of a small walk-in closet. Overall, the place wasn’t much, but it was home and, to be honest, all I could afford.
Before I could contemplate dinner or a shower, my grumbling stomach made up its own mind. A quick glance in the fridge, and then the freezer, reminded me that I needed to hit the store down the block sooner rather than later. I didn’t cook, despite knowing how to, since it was just me here. Most of my meals tended to be sandwiches or frozen dinners, or, if money allowed, something quick while I was working. Tonight, though, peanut butter and jelly would have to do.
A few minutes later, I settled onto the futon that doubled as my bed and watched the news on my only splurge: a smart TV. I nibbled on my meager dinner as one report after another went on. I popped the last bite into my mouth, only to nearly choke on it.
The same dark-clad figure I’d seen in the alley was positioned behind one of the head vamps in the city during a news conference that, according to the info at the bottom of the screen, occurred earlier today. The muscle-bound watchdog stood ready to spring to action at the slightest hint of trouble.
Pitch black hair hung over broad shoulders, and the man’s five-o’clock shadow covered a stern, tight jawline. Eyes that looked almost as black as his hair seemed to scan the entire room. Though he kept his hands behind him, I could imagine those strong arms tensing. And he was tall. Jesus, he was fucking tall. Even more than the vampire in front of him. A morbid desire to stare up into those insanely dark eyes swept through me.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. Vamps are fucking trouble.”
I changed the channel and found a nature documentary instead. Maybe watching meerkats would cleanse my brain of insane ideas like wanting to unwrap all those muscles.
Mychael Black has been writing professionally since 2005. He writes gay romance and erotica, but also het romance as Carys Seraphine and queer fantasy as Katherine Cook.
He’s an avid PC gamer with a love for RPGs, a horror fanatic, and a fantasy nut. He also has a weakness for anything relating to skulls, dogs, and Spongebob Squarepants.
Mychael lives on the Eastern Shore of the US with his family. He loves to hear from readers, be it via email or Facebook.
After spending two years away at culinary school, learning the arts of baking and magic, all Karl wants to do after graduation is return home to the kitchen where he grew up. However, when Karl’s adoptive uncle asks him to do a little favor for him along his journey, of course Karl says yes. He needs to find a missing person, one who may have been captured somewhere in Yaroi, a neighboring country to Karl’s home in Toval.
Finding the missing person is hard enough. Add in each of their secretive pasts, and the implications and dangers inherent with being a Prince of Toval, and a simple rescue turns into a deadly adventure. Especially once Karl learns just why Ama was arrested in the first place. Karl’s chances of returning home to use his newly honed baking skills dwindle as escaping the situation with their heads still attached is proving to be almost impossible.
Prologue
Ama knew how he had gotten into this situation. The Yarokai had excellent noses, so sniffing him out, tracking him down, and capturing him had been far easier than in most of the places Ama went to sneak around. Even his magic hadn’t been enough to prevent his capture, warning him too late that he should have taken his chances heading for the border rather than holing up and trying to hide.
What Ama didn’t know was how he was going to get out of this with his head still attached to the rest of his body. The Yarokai were, in general, a suspicious bunch, insular, and parochial. Any strangers in the cities within the country of Yaroi received extra scrutiny. Tracking them all had to be difficult, since the majority of Yaroi’s cities were coastal trade cities along the Eiroi Strait with merchants, sailors, and travelers from other countries coming and going constantly. They were the main entry port to the rest of the continent for land-based travel too, so Yaroi always had caravans of foreigners crossing through.
Ama had planned to blend in. He arrived at Yaroi’s capital city of Yari with a merchant caravan, acting as a guard to deter thieves, and then spent plenty of time each day visibly working to negotiate a contract to leave Yaroi with a different caravan. Only in the quiet hours around noon, when any good Yarokian was meditating and business was never conducted, or in the dark of night, had Ama tried sneaking around.
He had never failed so miserably.
Sensory deprivation was the worst sort of punishment for a Yarokai, so Ama’s cell didn’t have any windows to allow light or air in. The door was thick wood with only a small flap at the bottom to push meals through. While depriving sight, sound, and smell might be particularly terrible for the Yarokai, it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for Ama either, especially since he was basically convicted before they could put him on stage for a sham trial.
At least Ama would go to his execution knowing his last mission had been successful. Queen Trina would be relieved to know that much. Aunt Millie would be sad to know he was gone, although given her abilities, she probably already knew he was in trouble. She was too far away to help, though, so Ama wasn’t counting on that. Aunt Millie knew better too. In her four years since taking the throne in Namin, she had become a good and trustworthy ruler, and Namin was beginning to return to prosperity. She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that, including engaging with Yaroi on his behalf, particularly after what he had just done. Even if Yaroi didn’t use military assets to attack Namin, they controlled the trade from the Eiroi Strait. If they leveled extra tariffs on Namese goods or simply refused to allow Namese goods to be traded through Yaroi ports, Namin’s economy would backslide. No, Ama was definitely on his own there.
At least Ama had visited home recently, to see all his aunts, uncles, and cousins, and had visited Namin too. Seeing Aunt Millie was always fun. She had been too busy at the time to really talk though. The last time Ama had actually sat down with her alone for more than a hurried lunch, before she went on to her next meeting and Ama returned to work, had been four years ago, right after her coronation. Ama had hoped her words at the time meant he had a happy future in front of him, but now he knew better. She had meant he shouldn’t worry about his future because he would be executed before he had a chance to actually achieve his dreams.
“If you want my advice, I think you should continue adventuring on Prince Braxton’s behalf. Have some fun for a few more years, and maybe someday you’ll find whatever it is you’re actually searching for.”
Even Toval, who had assigned him this delicate mission, wouldn’t be able to save him. They couldn’t admit they had sent him to Yaroi, that they were involved at all, nor that they knew Ama even existed—all for the same reasons Namin wouldn’t dare help Ama. No, Ama had to take complete responsibility for this fiasco. That was the only way to save Toval and Namin, as well as to ensure the last parts of this mission were successful.
Ama shifted on the hard stone bench, the only furniture in his cell, and leaned against the rock wall, attempting to get as comfortable as possible. He tried to focus on happier memories as he waited to die.
The first time he had seen Prince Braxton, looking so strong and powerful on a horse as he rode through Ama’s home village. Ama making the decision to help Prince Braxton any way he could and going about gathering information so he could convince Braxton to hire him. The second time he had seen Braxton, he had snuck into Braxton’s camp and startled him. Once Braxton calmed down, Ama had managed to convince Braxton Ama was only there to share information. That memory made him smile.
Another of his favorite memories was more recent. Namin’s aggressions against Toval had grown too much, so Toval had decided to intervene by sending troops to support a coup. Braxton had asked if Ama might be able to find someone suitable to sit on the Namin throne after they removed the king of the time, which meant finding someone capable of wielding Namin’s royal magic. Ama had traveled only a few hours before finding Aunt Millie, who had chosen to come to him, to support Ama in Ama’s quest to help Braxton in any way the Tovalians needed. Now Aunt Millie was Queen Carmillian of Namin.
Ama couldn’t say how much time passed as he sat in the tiny prison cell, inwardly focused on his memories —a couple days, at least, but he couldn’t be sure. Food came, but not at regular intervals, so Ama couldn’t use that to gauge time. After what felt like a very, very long time, he finally heard the scrape as the lock was turned. The door opened with a slow groan, the light beyond almost blinding Ama. He blinked, trying to clear the spots from his vision, and a grinning guard eventually came into view. A pair of manacles in his hands were held out in Ama’s direction.
“Your punishment has been decided,” the guard stated as Ama stood and walked over to the door, arms outheld for the guard to place the manacles around Ama’s wrists. He didn’t say anything more, instead, shoving Ama forward so he stood in the middle of a circle of guards. They walked for a while, the floor sloping slowly upward, only the torches set into the walls at intervals supplying any light. The group paused when they reached a door, then waited for the guard in front to unlock it and pull the door open. He stepped aside and waved for Ama to go through first.
The guards and the excited crowd surrounding the perimeter of the stone-flagged amphitheater just outside the door let Ama get a good look at his punishment for a few long moments. Eager anticipation emanated from the crowd as they let him take it all in. Ama swallowed hard, but his resolve was firm. He would complete his mission no matter what they did to him.
“Anytime you want to tell us everything, this will stop,” the guard growled in Ama’s ear.
“There’s nothing to tell. I didn’t do anything wrong,” Ama replied. He tried to sound unconcerned, but his throat was dry and stomach clenched. He had hoped for a quick hanging or beheading, not a slow death like this, but either way, he would endure–for the sake of everyone he had to protect.
When Mell Eight was in high school, she discovered dragons. Beautiful, wondrous creatures that took her on epic adventures both to faraway lands and on journeys of the heart. Mell wanted to create dragons of her own, so she put pen to paper. Mell Eight is now known for her own soaring dragons, as well as for other wonderful characters dancing across the pages of her books. While she mostly writes paranormal or fantasy stories, she has been seen exploring the real world once or twice.
Twenty-two-year-old Simon White begs for a place on Captain Dinesh Martin’s pirate ship, the Arrow. When he proves hilariously inadequate at most tasks, he finds himself in the captain’s quarters as cabin boy, housekeeper, and bed warmer.
Captain Martin used to be a British naval officer, until he became disenchanted with the hypocrisy, racism, and classism of the institution and embarked on a life of piracy. He runs an organized and efficient vessel and prides himself on the men with whom he surrounds himself. He is esteemed and admired, and he gives them as good a life as they’ve ever known.
But Simon has more than a few surprises up his sleeve, including some frightening powers, and Dinesh learns that sometimes a pretty appearance and amenable disposition can fool even an experienced man of the seas.
The bustling port city on the southern shores of Jamaica ran with booty and blood. The Brethren of the Coast or, more familiarly, men of dubious employ, otherwise known as pirates, came to the city to trade the goods they had amassed at sea in questionable circumstances. Of course, there was honour among thieves and all of that, but there were also short tempers and ravenous appetites for more than food and good ale.
Food and ale…
I licked my cracked lips and huddled deeper into the threadbare jacket I’d pulled off a washing line an hour earlier. It was the only clean thing on me, in fact. My other garments were stained and filthy, like my frigid skin.
So far, this coastal town hadn’t fulfilled its imaginary promise of a fresh and welcome start. I’d left the town of my birth to embark on a new life, thinking that my luck might be better in Port Royal.
Born in Spanish Town to missionary parents, I had been orphaned at twelve, following a calamity that had left them dead, and I was lucky enough to have been taken in by a friend of my mother’s, who saw to it to educate and care for me as best he could. My life was decent, though dull, until the age of twenty-one when he died of yellow fever, and I was forced to look to my own means for survival. I should have found my own way before that advanced age, but Carago had enjoyed looking out for me, since his wife had died in birthing his only son, who had lived for three days before following her.
Perhaps my childlike attitude and spoilt sense of entitlement were due to Carago’s fatherly indulgences, although innocence had flown from me long before his passing.
So far, in Port Royal, I’d been attacked at knifepoint by a fearsome fellow the night after I’d arrived and also robbed of all my belongings but for a meagre allotment of coin that I’d hidden in my boot. He’d left me with a sore shoulder, a black eye, and a newfound respect for, and fear of, strange men.
In Spanish Town, my encounters with strange men had been more cordial, although nothing I would ever have described to Carago, who, to my bad luck, had held a similar attitude to those of my father and wider society. An unruly mop of red hair and a face full of freckles had ensured me a boyish countenance that I’d likely retain into middle age—God willing I got there to enjoy the benefit. Men liked the look of me, to be frank, and I hadn’t lacked for companionship, although only in brief, physical bursts that had still proved rewarding.
I’d heard of the Brethren of the Coast—supposedly a breed of men who’d taken to a life of piracy with a different kind of philosophy, holding themselves to a higher standard than the average swashbuckling vagabond. If these visionaries did, in fact, exist, and if I could find one of them and beg for a place aboard his ship, perhaps I could prove my worth and gain passage off this pisspot of an island. A life at sea was a much better prospect than one on land at this point, and I was ready for an adventure.
I ducked into a tavern called The Penny Whistle to get out of the rain that now came in torrents, but not before I became soaked to the skin and chilled further. Quite a sorry thing to be so adrift at twenty-two, bedraggled and wet and without prospects.
The tavern was warm, at least, and nobody turned me out. A fire roared and crackled in a large hearth, in front of which a motley group of strangely attired men were seated at tables, their attention captured by an imposing figure who stood with his elbow on the mantle as he regaled them with animated voice and gestures.
I slunk to a stool by the bar and sat, my stomach cramping as the scent of cooking food filled my nostrils. I soon found myself as transfixed as the others.
The man was everything a pirate captain ought to be.
He was of indefinable race—likely a mixture of at least two. He was exceptionally handsome in a way far beyond his physical appearance, which was unique and appealing. And he was an excellent orator, regaling his audience with honeyed words and dramatic cadence.
He wore the jacket of a British officer, although the item had seen years of wear, and the badges had been removed, or torn from the cloth. The garment looked fine on him and gave him a ruffled distinction. His shirt and breeches were navy issue as well. He looked more put together than his crew, who sported the mismatched garb of unaligned men of the sea. He had the accent of a British officer and the elocution of a magistrate.
The serving wench made her presence known, approaching the captain, laughing in the way women do when they want a man to think of them fondly. But as far as I could tell, her charms weren’t working upon him.
The crew was another matter.
“Oy, my darling, come here and perch on me knee awhile,” a heavyset fellow suggested, leering at the young woman and waggling his eyebrows.
“Now, now, Mister Denbrooke. What would your wife think?” the captain said with an indulgent smile.
“My wife, Captain Martin,” Mr Denbrooke said, “is probably spreading her ample thighs for the butcher and the baker at the moment. So she wouldn’t care a damn.”
Captain Martin. I’d been right in my supposition.
“Oh, go on,” the girl said and flounced to the bar where she frowned and pretended to be unaffected by the captain’s disinterest.
Everyone laughed and the captain grinned wider.
“Never was able to keep her satisfied,” Mr Denbrooke continued. “I’ve only got one cock, and she likes to have three at once.”
The men laughed and Captain Martin nodded.
“Hmm. Well, I can’t fault your wife for that,” he said.
The men laughed harder and some even hooted, and my foggy brain couldn’t keep up.
I concentrated on dealing with the hunger pangs that assailed me and rehearsed ways I could approach this formidable man who took up space with such entitled ease.
“Hello, my name is Simon White. I’d like a position on your ship.” Or, perhaps I should say, “Simon White here. You gotta place for me on board?” or “I’m strong and quick—when I’m fed, at least—Are you taking on crew?”
None of these were likely to get me what I needed, so I sat there, suffering, whilst they shoveled beef stew into their gobs and tore up whole loaves of bread to devour amongst themselves. My mouth became dry as I watched. What I wouldn’t do for an ale or even a paltry glass of water.
There were things I’d thought about doing. Things that men paid dearly for in the back alleys and the whorehouses. But I couldn’t bear the thought of trading an activity I enjoyed so much for food and drink or coin. I hadn’t gotten to a point so desperate to fall into that. If I could only get onto Captain Martin’s ship, I wouldn’t have to contemplate a life of whoredom.
AE Lister is a Canadian non-binary author with a vivid imagination and a head full of unique and interesting characters. They write explicit, adult LGBTQ+ romance. They also write much less graphic Young Adult LGBTQ+ romance under Alison Lister.
Can love be shield, sword, and healing balm for this troubled couple?
White Oak (Heartwood 1): Mike Delaney, a sheltered nineteen year old, is hired to assist Aidan Kelly, a blind high school senior with a rainbow for every occasion. But the man who tormented Mike will stop at nothing, including murder, to ensure his silence.
Black Mahogany (Heartwood 2): When Rick Hanlon, the man who molested Mike as a teenager, escapes justice, Aidan will stop at nothing to keep his lover safe, but Mike can’t let go of his self-recriminations or share his nightmares with Aidan.
Yew (Heartwood 3): Mike and Aidan have raised a daughter together. Now they’re looking to foster a second child. But fear and prejudice are even more dangerous enemies than Hanlon, the man who molested Mike when he was a teenager.
Thorn (Heartwood 4): Hanlon is not the only threat to Mike and Aidan’s happiness. From within their marriage, old arguments and insecurities rear their ugly heads. Can Mike and Aidan’s marriage survive?
Mike gulped at his third cup of coffee. He fidgeted with the folder that held his résumé. “They’re paying nineteen thousand for the entire school year.”
His mother, over at the sink, asked, “Are you going to tell us what this interview’s for finally, Mr. I Don’t Want To Jinx It?”
“An aide position at Marisburg High.” He grabbed his cup again as another yawn threatened. God, but he needed to get more sleep.
His mother stalked to the table and grabbed both his cup and the nearly empty carafe from its place in the middle of the table. “Your hands are already shaking. You don’t need any more of this.”
Mike scratched at the narrow space between his neck and the collar of his dress shirt. He adjusted his tie. “I’m fine.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you go in there looking like a tweaker, no one will take you seriously.”
“A what?” Mike laughed. “Where’d you hear that word? They’re not called tweakers anymore. That must be a word you used back in the sixties.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Were you a tweaker, Mom?”
“Getting back to this teaching position…”
“What?” his father grunted from the depths of the mudroom. “You’re not qualified for that, are you, Mike? You’ve only been at the community college for the summer, and you’re taking different language classes, not how-to-teach classes.”
“Foreign language classes, John,” Mike’s mother murmured.
The older Delaney laughed. “Listen to the woman, would you? She takes one college course herself, and now she’s the professor.” He clomped two steps into the kitchen, took off his hat, and bowed to his wife. “Thank you, Molly. I appreciate the correction.” Then he turned his attention back to Mike. “Well?”
“I’d be assisting a blind student with his class work.” His jittery fingers danced on the table, and he worked to pass it off as impatient tapping on the cover of a second copy of his résumé. “My interview’s in half an hour.”
“So get going,” his father said. “You planned to take night classes this semester anyway. Make the most of this opportunity.”
Mike got up, clutching the folder. Maybe I can take a nap when I get home. He rushed out the door. Assuming I can sleep.
* * *
Ninety minutes later Mr. Callahan, superintendent of schools, Mr. Connolly, the principal, and Ms. O’Carolyn, the guidance counselor, took turns shaking his hand. Their grips were a bit awkward, Mike being left-handed, but he’d given up trying to shake the normal way. Even if that would have further dispelled the stereotypes.
“Congratulations,” Mr. Callahan said. “We don’t usually make a decision this fast, but with teacher in-services starting next week, it’s important. You’ll be expected to participate in those, of course. I’ll e-mail you a schedule.”
Mike swallowed. “Yes, sir. I’ll be there.” He almost asked when he would meet Aidan Kelly, the blind student, but that would probably be on the schedule. For now he needed to worry about teacher in-services. Whatever those were.
“If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact any of us. We’re at your disposal. But be patient. This is a busy time of year.” The superintendent ushered Mike toward the office door. “Good luck. I hear Mr. Kelly is intelligence personified, but a little… quirky.” He chuckled. “Have a great day, Mike, and again, congratulations.”
The carpet scraped the bottoms of Mike’s shoes as he made good his escape. Other administrative offices surrounded the superintendent’s enclosed haven like deficient, two-walled boxes. Mike headed back the way he’d come, unable to take a straight path because of the random assignment of desks and file cabinets.
His heart jackhammered in his throat. He slowed his feet and flexed his hands to keep his fingers relaxed. I got the job? Really? He felt a five year old’s irrepressible grin starting and forced himself to hold his bland, polite expression.
I’ll be reporting to Marisburg High every day. Just like when I was in high school.
That thought squashed any and all urges to grin, and he rushed past the final desk, anxious to be alone in his car.
He saw the wavering shadow of a person on the other side of the outer door. He had barely enough time to get out of the way as the door flew open.
“They promised to wait.” The man, resplendent in a black suit and dark, subdued tie, shoved his way past Mike as if he didn’t see him. Despite the overcast skies, he wore dark sunglasses. “They promised to get our input,” he went on muttering, his words barely audible. He swung a long stick out in front of him like a pendulum, tapping the floor rhythmically. “Now I hear they’re holding interviews for my aide without consulting me?”
Mike escaped out the door before it closed. And before too many people could catch him staring. Not that any of the office staff seemed to be watching him. Through the door’s window, Mike watched a woman intercepting the blind man, taking his arm.
The red-haired man tore his wrist out of her grasp.
That’s a white cane, Mike thought as his logic caught up with his shock. And that must be Aidan Kelly. He’s a high school senior, which means he’s probably sixteen or seventeen, but he looks like an Irish god.
Quirky wasn’t exactly the word for him. Arrogant, maybe, or rude.
A woman brushed by Mike, opening the office door and rushing in, but he scarcely noticed.
Or hot. His gaze lingered on the man’s mildly curly locks. And if he’s got an ounce of fat along with all that muscle, I’m a — He froze. A what? What was he exactly, staring at another man?
I’m straight. End of discussion.
“At least I got the job,” he told the empty foyer.
Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender women’s speculative fiction. Seeking a world made of equality, she created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a host of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires. And in the contemporary world she’s named “Sticks & Stones,” Emily has vowed to create small towns where prejudice is challenged by a passionate quest for equality. Find her on Facebook at Shapeshifter Central or on her website.
Genre: Science Fiction, time travel, time portal, time jump, time slot, rescue, revenge, romance, lesbian romance, friends to lovers, paradox, disabilities, found family, interracial/intercultural, university, computers, hacker, temporal engineer
Empowering time travelers to communicate across decades, an eager and gifted temporal engineer develops a secret mail drop, hidden in plain sight on a university campus. Codename: the Timeslot.
A charismatic physicist and a focused, revenge-driven hacker go to daring lengths to escape the man who murdered their best friend and fiancé—his boss.
A grieving musician in search of closure uncovers her late father’s notebook, written before she was born but, impossibly, dated twenty-five years in the future.
Generations later, another engineer, brilliant but disorganized, struggles to repair the abandoned Timeslot equipment after years of disuse. Her unexpected discovery draws this disparate group of men and women into a cascade of events which echo across a century of recent-past and near-future history.
Journals from five intertwining lives, Black, White, Asian, queer, straight, disabled, and not, blend time travel with mystery, revenge, found family, vintage music, sci-fi references, and even a little romance.
I spent weeks cleaning out the house before I discovered the secret compartment.
Unexpectedly, the lowest dresser drawer was crammed full of socks, far more colorful than I would ever wear. I slid the whole thing out to tilt them into the donation box. Shaking the drawer to free the last pair, I felt something shift, just before a false bottom hinged open, and a book fell out among the clothes.
The unmarked tan cover had no title, no call number, nothing.
Three months before, Mom had…faded to silence like the final song on an album. After the funeral, when the flow of her friends bringing food over eventually slowed and stopped, I slipped into a deep funk. No desire to move on, I’d just spun in place, the crackle of static at the center of a record repeating over and over.
My counselor suggested that the grief process could be helped by changing how I thought about the house. Even though I lived there alone, it still felt like Mom’s. So, I cleaned and sorted absolutely everything. Like learning to play an instrument, the only way to improve was practice. So, I practiced. I practiced being a self-sufficient adult, one shelf, one box, one drawer at a time.
Sorting and cleaning became the therapy that finally lifted my needle out of that endless groove.
Slowly, I’d worked my way through the entire basement, most of the garage, the kitchen, nearly everything except Mom’s bedroom. I knew I needed to build up to it, so I left her room to last. That morning, I’d stood in her doorway, debating between the dresser and the closet. It didn’t matter much. Since I was several inches taller, most of her clothes would be donated anyway.
Gently lifting the book out of the box, I opened it to the first page, where handwritten text began. “James was my best friend, and now he’s dead.” The date didn’t make any sense though: July 2018.
An unpublished novel set in the future? As a librarian, Mom lived her entire life around books. So maybe? Except this wasn’t her familiar handwriting. It was far too messy. Why go to such trouble to hide it?
Sitting on the floor, the socks forgotten, a story unfolded, page by page: time travelers, friendship, loss, escape, revenge, and even a little romance.
I read until my legs fell asleep. Standing unsteadily, a folded bundle of paper covered with undecipherable math calculations slipped out from between the pages onto the floor. Tucked inside, I found two white rectangles. I used the smaller, a worn piece of unlabeled plastic to mark my place in the book. The larger showed writing in one corner that I recognized was Mom’s. “Charles and me, 1968.” I flipped it over to see an old black-and-white photo of a smiling couple posing on a stair landing. An Asian man in shirt and tie had his arm around the waist of a White woman in a floral dress. She had straight dark hair parted in the middle.
Mom only had a few photos of my dad. Her favorite hung in the hall, the rest stayed in an album. I’d seen them all many times, but never this one. Dad looked the same as in all his other photos, but Mom was so young, her hair longer than I remembered and years before any gray crept in.
On the wall behind them, the bottom corner of an antique picture frame showed. I leaned close and noticed a dog in the painting. Gasping, I sat up straight. I knew that painting! I knew exactly where they stood.
I headed out the door so fast I barely remembered to lock up. Parking always sucked near the student union, so I paid for the parking garage. Through hallways, past meeting rooms, the main lobby, and then halfway up the atrium stairs brought me to a landing with a painting of the first dean of the university…and his dog.
I stepped back and held out the photo. It lined up perfectly: the corner of the painting with the brass plaque underneath, the curving handrail to the stairs, all of it. The only things missing were my parents.
The only things missing were my parents.
That hit me hard. My counselor said grief was a road that winds back on itself. On a stair landing, empty except for me and a century-old dog, I didn’t even realize I was crying until an older woman passed by and asked if I was okay. I wiped my cheeks, told her I was fine, and walked away, back toward my car, my house, and the book my dad had left behind.
Jeff is an architect, archer, author, costumer, hiker, home-brewer, re-enactor, woodworker, etc. etc. etc. He lives in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado, with his family.
Three months ago, Rex discovered a world-shattering truth about what it means to be a Liquid Onyx survivor and experienced devastating losses in the process.
Rex, momentarily gripped by raw fury and freshly torn grief, committed an act of shocking violence and was reforged by it.
Unable to face his new, fractured reality, he ran away from everyone who loved him and threw himself into the life of a morally grey vigilante.
Every choice Rex makes pushes him one step closer to embracing his father’s legacy. But there are other legacies who won’t let Rex fall into that darkness without a fight.
At his lowest point, will Rex find the strength and courage to step out of Alex Nova’s shadow and finally become the man—and the hero—everyone needs him to be?
I was six the first time I broke into my mum’s lab.
Even at that age, I knew I wasn’t allowed in there because it was full of dangerous and fascinating things.
I had to break into the lab at least two dozen times before Mum gave in and simply took me down there with her.
She would sit me up at a table and give me work to do. Just simple things at first, calculating equations and mixing low-risk substances as required.
When I watched my mum move through her lab, I marvelled at her intellect. She knew so much, understood so much of the world that I did not.
It seemed to me she was one of the most brilliant people alive, and I wanted to be exactly like her.
Then there was my dad, a man like a natural disaster, unrelenting and inexplicably dangerous, his unique genius as captivating and destructive to watch as a tornado tearing across continents. His mind was unrivalled, a man destined to change the world.
And he did. With my mum’s help. My parents were the creators of Liquid Onyx, the gods of superheroes, the killers of children.
But, in most ways, Alex Nova was the man who taught me how to swim at our local pool and how to do a cartwheel, who took me out for ice cream when I did well on a test in school. He was the man who tickled me until I cried with laughter and dried my tears away when I got hurt falling off my skateboard. He was the man who told me I could do anything I wanted with my life because I was brave and clever, when all anyone else did was call me pretty.
My dad was my hero, not because of his extraordinary mind or the things he could do with it, but because he was my dad, and I loved him desperately.
When he died, my world crumbled and my heart broke. A piece of my childhood was set ablaze, never to be recovered from the ashes.
From then, it was just Mum and me. Mum became my everything; there was no one else, really. She didn’t want me to have any contact with my dad’s side of the family, and her side didn’t want anything to do with either of us.
Mum tried to make up for it by always being there when I needed her, by being my best friend. She came to all my science competitions and supported my academic dreams with all the attention, energy, and money she could spare. She bought me enough books to sink a ship and took me to museums all over the world, encouraging me to seek knowledge wherever I could find it.
I came out at fifteen and Mum made me a cake with the pansexual flag colours, which we ate together in front of the TV, watching our favourite 80s eighties films, quoting lines from Top Gun and Back to the Future in terrible American accents.
For a very long time, all I had in my life was my mum and my work.
Then there was Dru, who was too easy to love, and through her I met my little brother for the first time. Rex. A boy I’d been thinking about for too many years, imagining what he would be like and all the things we might have in common. Shared DNA doesn’t have to mean much, I know that, but it still felt like a connection I couldn’t pass on the potential of. I was too curious, have always been too curious by nature. Mum used to say that was how she knew I’d grow up to be a scientist like her and Dad.
Now, Mum is dead, and it was Rex who murdered her, and all I could do was scream for him to stop. Useless. Fucking stupid. As if my pleading would mean anything to him at that moment, after what I saw in that factory, what happened to Damon North. After what happened to our uncle Roux.
Thing is, I was right about how it would feel to meet Rex. There was a connection, instant and visceral. I felt it wind around my heart like barbed wire the moment our eyes met across the university lawn. Eyes the exact replica of our dad’s. He looked so much like Alex Nova, my breath had caught in my throat, threatening to choke me up. It had been a long time since I saw our dad’s face, and seeing it reflected back at me, albeit in an undeniably younger and angrier iteration, was bizarre. It’s like there was an edge there in the cut of my brother’s cheekbones, in the sardonic twist to his mouth that I can’t remember our dad ever possessing. Almost too much to deal with. But when he looked at me, I felt something, a tether pulling taut between us, and I’m certain, even now, that Rex felt it, too.
BL Jones is a twentysomething British author who spends all her free time reading and writing and taming her three much younger brothers. She works as a BSL interpreter in Bristol and lives with a temperamental bunny named Pepsi. She’s been writing stories since she was five, rarely sharing them with anyone except her numerous stuffed animals. BL has had a difficult journey into discovering and accepting her own queerness, and therefore believes that positive, honest, and authentic stories about queer people are very important. She hopes to contribute her own stories for people to have fun with and enjoy.
Catkind — they’re rough, they’re tough and they don’t take no for an answer. But who’d want to say no? Not Gabriella, a barmaid in a tiny roadhouse named Gatos near the Mexican border. Nor her sister Marnie. With his sisters carried off by the Catkind, Tony’s left to run Gatos, but he won’t be alone — a couple of misfit “alley cats” have joined forces with Tony.
Lucia’s a party girl with two hot, hunky Catkind on her trail. Orion, a white Tiger, and Jomei, a Bengal, are royalty among the Catkind. They’re about to learn Lucia’s much more than a pretty face. When the four Gatos siblings return with their Catkind mates for a final showdown against their nemesis, Anuetta thinks she’s got these tigers by their tails, but she doesn’t count on the mighty strength of the Gatos family. The line’s been drawn in the ashes, and the claws are out!
This collection contains the previously released novellas in the Cat O’Nines collection: Cat’s Claws, Cat’s Eye, Cat’s Cradle, Cat’s Meow, and Cat’s Paw.
“So there I am, standing in the middle of the street, screaming at him en Espanol. I’m calling him things our abuela would turn over in her grave to hear me say. And then she’d wash my mouth out with soap.”
“Lucia, when are you going to learn?” Gabriella unlocked the door to Gatos’ cold storage unit. “You stay away from men like him. They’re trouble.”
Lucia, her sister, had the fire of a Roman candle and a temper to match. She jammed her hands on her hips in indignation. “Like you have room to talk,” she shot back.
“I do. Do you see me getting tangled up with any troublemakers like him?” She yanked open the door, and cold air escaped with a whoosh. “Uh-uh. Oh, that’s good.” Gabriella closed her eyes and swayed in bliss. It was a gorgeous day outside in the shabby outskirts of San Miguel, the sky pure blue and the horizon clear for miles. Which meant it was hot enough to suit the devil himself, especially back in the warehouse. She let herself enjoy the cool air coming from the cold storage unit for a moment, then got back to business. She nudged the handcart. “Come on, you take one crate and I’ll take the other.”
“We shouldn’t roll out a keg?”
“If you think you can manhandle a keg in heat like this, dolly or no dolly, you’re welcome to try. Grab a case for now. Tony can get the rest later.” Gabriella sized up the hefty crate stamped with the Moctezuma Brewery logo. Nothing tasted as good or as rich as their cervesa. Moctezuma was why locals bothered traveling to her tiny, out-of-the-way bar. If the brew master hadn’t been a friend of her brother Tony, no way she’d have gotten her mitts on any of their goods. “Come on, Lucia, put your back into it.”
Lucia pouted briefly before bending and lifting the crate. Tendons stood out in her neck from the effort as she wrestled a heavy crate onto the dolly. “We need some strong young stud for this.”
“And there you go again, thinking about men,” Gabriella chided. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t like to have a strong young thing around, especially if he’s hot, eh? I’m saying we can get by fine without one. You seem to think that’s a mortal sin, which is why I’m listening to you pitch a fit in the street.” She tempered the sting of her words with the fondness of her tone.
Gabriella shut the door to the cold storage unit and clicked the padlock back in place before taking the handle of the dolly. Oof. She had to admit, the crates were terribly heavy. Together they headed back to the main room of Gatos, the tiny tumbledown bar that had been their sole legacy from their mother.
Not exactly a rich and abundant inheritance. Ah, well, Mama had tried.
Lucia was still stuck back on Gabriella’s opinions. “You’re telling me if a man like Roger came on to you, you’d say no? He looked so pretty.” She swung around to walk backwards. “Those cornflower blue eyes and his soft golden hair. Like a prince out of a fairytale.” Her pleading turned wicked. “And good in bed? He was a devil when it came to loving me.”
“And how many other women at the same time?” Gabriella bumped open the swinging kitchen door. “Would I say no to a man like Roger? Hell, no, I wouldn’t. But…”
Lucia rolled her eyes.
“But,” Gabriella went on, not letting Lucia’s scorn stop her, “I’d say yes long enough to enjoy his body. If he’s as good as you say, I’d have fun with him for a few days then send him packing. No harm, no foul, and no broken heart that needs someone to sweep up the pieces.”
Lucia scoffed. “You wouldn’t know how to let your hair down if someone gave you a hands-on demonstration.”
Gabriella’s pride was stung. “Says you!”
“You’re right, says I. You want to make a bet on this? Friday night’s tip jar says you don’t have the guts to take the next handsome guy who walks into Gatos for a test run.”
Ay, Lucia had her there. Gabriella could never back down from a challenge. “I’m listening. What are the terms?”
Lucia stretched her muscles out before unlocking the cooler. “So we have a deal?”
“Not yet.” Gabriella pulled the dolly close enough to the cooler to unload it. “Let me hear the details before I say yes or no.”
“Like you would,” Lucia smirked. “All right, here’s the deal. When we open tonight, you and I man the bar. When the first hot guy walks in, one I decide is enough of a handful for even you, I point him out and that’s when the game begins. You come on to him, you do whatever you have to do, and if he’s safe you get him into bed.”
“I’m not a slut,” Gabriella objected, all the while hoisting crates and holding them for Lucia to unpack and stow in the cooler. “And how am I supposed to know if he’s ‘safe’?” She dusted off her hands after the last bottle was stashed away. “You have to give me more than that to go on. I’m supposed to proposition a customer? That’ll give me a great reputation.”
Lia Connor lives in the South, but her job takes her almost everywhere but. Her laptop is her best friend. Lia loves stories about BBW’s, hot, hot, hot threesomes and wily shifters who get into (and out of) all kinds of trouble…
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