Re-release of Shadows and Light!

 

Hi Darlins!

Just throwing out there that I've got a new (re)-release out as of today. Shadows and Light, my high fantasy take on vampires, is back out into the world :) Some of you might remember this one--it published in 2015, I think, and I got it back last year. I edited it again, it's got a new cover, it's SO FUN and also, damn, smoking hot and full of BDSM aesthetics, yowza. I was going through an explicit phase when I wrote this one.

 

Anyway, you can find it here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3BK9VKM

And here's the blurb!

A chance for revenge turns into a fight for survival as Rafael, a former assassin, and his immortal master Xian must escape a city on the brink of chaos. But can Rafael trust the one person he thought he could count on, or will their past keep them apart?

Rafael wanted nothing more than to serve his immortal master, Xian, a High One of Clare, who taught him from an early age how to be an assassin. But after failing his final test, Rafael was turned out into the Lower City, abandoned by the one person he thought he could count on.

Years of hatred and thoughts of revenge have fueled Rafael’s quest for vengeance, but when the time comes to strike at Xian, he hesitates and is taken prisoner. Rafael expects to die, but instead Xian reveals the dark truth driving the ruthlessness of the High Ones—the source of their immortality is spent. Soon the city will devolve into chaos as High Ones battle one another and the rebellious denizens of the Lower City for power and resources. Xian wants to spare Rafael that pain, just as he spared him the pain of becoming a High One a decade earlier.

Their only chance for survival is to escape Clare before civil war breaks out. Even if they make it out of the city, though, there’s no guarantee that Xian will live through the agonizing process of becoming human again. They can only rely on each other…if Rafael can bring himself to once again trust the only man he’s ever loved.

Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Three

 Notes: On with the story! Have some retrospective and revenge.

Title: Lord of Unkindness: Chapter Three

***

Chapter Three

 

There are no buses at this time of night. Ciro walks home with his hands in his pockets. He only pulls them out once, to check his phone and make sure his videos have been delivered. Payment is speedy, and he smiles with satisfaction as he sees the money appear in his account. Fifteen thousand dollars will keep him going for a long time—it’s a pittance compared to what he used to make, but he lives more simply now.

Once I made fifty thousand dollars for proving a politician was sleeping with his opponent’s wife.

He walks for almost two hours before he finally makes it to his current slice of paradise, a third-story walk up that smells like mildew. There’s a lock on the front door of the building, but it’s just for show, and when he walks in he sees two men talking furtively in the corner. They’re doing some sort of drug deal, and one of them puts a hand on the knife at his hip as he makes eye contact with Ciro. Ciro just shakes his head and starts climbing the stairs, leaving them whispering to each other down below.

Once I made a hundred thousand dollars for proving a vegan cosmetics company was using animal products in their signature line.

Ciro’s door does have a lock, which yields quickly to his key. He tries not to use magic now when he can help it. It always leaves his fingers numb, and he’s already practically lost feeling in his hands after the stunt he pulled in the warehouse. He lets himself in, closes the door, and leans against it for a moment with a sigh. His feet hurt.

Someone taps on the window. Ciro smiles, then heads over to the single-pane glass and pushes it up. The frame screams from years of rot and swelling, but the window rises nonetheless, and then his ravens are hopping inside. One of them caws.

“Quiet,” he says. “Jesus, there’s five of you? Shut up before you draw attention to yourselves.” Five is more than he’s allowed around him at once since he first went on the run thirteen months ago, but he can’t bring himself to drive them away. Having them so close is a comfort, and his hands are already starting to tingle now that he’s surrounded with his own power.

It’s a nice feeling. Comforting. Decadent, even, after so long apart.

Once I made two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for following a man to a secret rendezvous with a foreign agent.

One of the birds pecks his hand, and Ciro waves it off. “I’m fine.”

Peck.

“Knock it off.”

Peck-peck.

“Fine. Fuck, you’re worse than Mom.” He swallows around the lump in his throat and goes to the tiny fridge in the corner—it’s a studio apartment, so no separate kitchen. He gets out the remnants of a smoothie he bought a few days ago and chugs it. Hydration and nutrition, all in one go. He throws the empty bottle in the trash, then looks at his birds. “Happy now?” There’s a mutinous light in their eyes, but no one does any more pecking. Instead, they set up a preening chain, working on each other’s feathers with a single-minded devotion that sends simple pleasure reverberating through Ciro’s body. He groans as he falls back onto his futon—ugly as sin and lumpy as hell, but it came with the place—and finally lets himself relax.

It’s hard, living on his own like this. It’s only getting harder. Not making a living so much, he’s got that handled, but even there he’s got to be careful about drawing the wrong kind of attention. But just…the solitude. The loneliness. He misses his family, even though so many of them are objectively awful. He wishes he could see his mother again, not that she’s capable of recognizing him anymore.

Once I made half a million dollars for finding a man who was looking for a new life. I found him, I gave his new identification over to the people who were searching for him, and I looked away. When I looked back, he was gone.

Ciro tries not to feel sorry for himself. He knows he doesn’t deserve it. The way he grew up, so privileged and powerful, so sure of his own superiority for so long, he knows better than anyone just how little he deserved pity, much less compassion. He was used by his family, sure, but he’s not an idiot. It took a damn long time for him to discover his own personal breaking point, and many lives were ruined by his work before that. Even knowing what he does about the last job he did, he still might not have run if it weren’t for the decision they forced on him.

“Nephele will be a perfectly acceptable match,” his father said from behind his desk, not even meeting his son’s eyes.

“She’s a psychopath!” Ciro burst out as he paced. He’s been unable to sit, and frankly couldn’t understand how his father could be so calm either. “She tried to murder Annette!”

“That was regrettable behavior,” his father allowed, “but she didn’t succeed.”

“Annette is still dead.”

“An unfortunate accident.” At least his father did look genuinely regretful about that. “She would have been the ideal partner for you, obviously, but…”

Ciro whirled so fast he dislodged his bird from his shoulder. “Nephele is my first cousin.”

“Cousin marriages were common in much of the world across most of history.”

So were fucked up babies, not that his father would care. Ciro tried a different tactic. “She hates me.”

His father had smiled. “Oh, that’s where you’re wrong. If she hated you, she’d have tried to murder you, not Annette. Nephele loves you very much, and you can turn that to your advantage.”

“I can’t.” He’d shaken his head. “I just…I can’t marry her.” When he thought about touching Nephele, about being forced into a relationship where they’d be expected to procreate, his stomach nearly turned itself inside out. “Father, please, don’t make me do this.”

Double growls started up behind him. Ciro didn’t have to look to know that his father’s Dobermans were on their feet now, ears pricked as they readied themselves to punish him. Ciro flinched. He’d been punished by his father’s dogs before, hard enough that he still had scars.

“Ciro.” His father got to his feet and came around the desk to him. He framed Ciro’s face in his hands, leaned in close, and said, “This is your only option. You need to make the best of it.”

“But—”

A sharp nip to the back of his calf almost sent him to his knees, but his father’s grip on his head was suddenly unbreakable. “There is no ‘but,’” his father had told him. “No ‘or.’ You will do this, for the sake of the family.” He’d patted Ciro’s cheek, hard, then let him go. Ciro had staggered so hard he almost fell then, and his raven cawed with concern.

“You should have chosen crows,” his father said as he went back to his desk. “They’re so much more maneuverable. Hopefully your children will do better, with someone like Nephele as a model.” He’d raised his eyes toward Ciro once last time, and they were as devoid of emotion as he’d ever seen. “Now get out.”

Ciro’s drawn out of his memories by the sound of footsteps in the hallway. He sharpens his hearing—two sets of footsteps, and a familiar whisper of voices. The idiots from downstairs. He can smell the knife—freshly oiled, well cared for. He can smell the alcohol on their breath, the liquid courage they used to come after him. All because, what, he saw them doing a drug deal? Paranoid fuckers.

They stop outside his door. Count down from three. Ciro lazily lolls his head in that direction. His ravens stop preening, going from fluffed to sleek, and—

The door slams open—slams, but makes no noise when it hits the wall. Two birds fly into their faces as they charge into the room, beaks precise, wings brutal. It takes fewer than five seconds for both of them to lose the ability to see. One of them screams something in another language—Polish, maybe? and tried to grab and slice, but the raven is like smoke, melting away the second his fingers touch it. They peck and beat until they’re half the size they were when they started and the men have dropped their weapons, hands up and quivering as they try to protect their brutalized faces.

Two more birds fly straight at them—and into them. Straight into their chests. A moment later, the men stop screaming. They stand up and lower their hands, and Ciro stares with satisfaction at the pure black of their eyes.

“Take them for a long walk,” he says, and his magic obeys him, turning the men around and sending them back the way they came. They’ll wander through the night and into the day until his magic finally runs out, and when they finally revive they won’t know where they are or how they ended up there.

They certainly won’t remember Ciro.

They leave, and the door shuts behind them. The two diminished birds merge into a single large one, and the fifth raven comes over to perch on Ciro’s shoulder and begin to preen his hair. It’s pure comfort, and he smiles even as his hands go numb once more.

Once I made fifteen thousand dollars exposing a fraud who was tormenting his brother in exchange for power.

Now that…that’s a good night’s work.

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Two, Part One

 Notes: CATIE STOP MESSING WITH THE BED!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Two, Part One

***

Chapter Two, Part One

 

Their bunks were made of reformable materials that could rise up from the floor or extend out from the wall, or some of each. Catie had complete control over the design, which meant that when they decided to snuggle up, she could create the right configuration easily.

It also made it very easy for her to mess with them.

“Catie,” Elanus sighed after she made the bed smaller for the third time in a row. “We don’t need to be squished against each other to go to sleep. It’s better if we aren’t squished together, honestly.”

“Buuut this waaaay you’ll be warrrrm!”

“You have control over the temperature,” Kieron said. “You can ensure that we’re warm.”

“Buuut this waaay—”

“Catie!” Elanus’s voice was unusually sharp. “Make the bed normal and then stop monitoring us for a while. Run some calculations on the things we might find when we get to the colony.”

“But Daddeeee!”

“Catie…”

“Fine,” she grumped. The bed expanded by another foot, but also fell two inches at the same time, nearly banging their heads together. The cabin lights dimmed, the air immediately cooled, and a blanket fell out of the ceiling—out of the ceiling, when did she move it up there?—and on top of them in such a way that it hits their heads, not their bodies.

“Great,” Elanus muttered, throwing the blanket open and covering their legs as best he could. “Now she’s pouting. Just what we need, a pouty ship.”

“A pouty daughter,” Kieron said.

“A pouty child. Honestly, what does she even want us to do?”

“Get along, of course.” What did every child want from their parents? “Didn’t you find it reassuring when your parents acted friendly toward each other?”

Elanus laughed. “My foster parents, you mean?”

Oh, right. Elanus had been given away by his parents as a child once he was diagnosed with Elfshot. “Sorry,” Kieron said awkwardly.

“It’s all right. My foster parents were actually pretty good people. They had another child with Elfshot, so they didn’t get caught up in my health complications. Their kid was great.” He sounded wistful. “He used to follow me around all the time, trying to do whatever I did. I was eight years older, so I wasn’t always nice about it, but he was so sweet. Jayse died when he was five, though. Aortic aneurism.”

Kieron swallowed the “sorry” that tried to jump out of his throat. Elanus didn’t need more apologies for the sadness of his life. He needed—well, he deserved—a happy future. Kieron wished he could give it to him. He wanted to give it to him.

He just wasn’t sure that he could yet.

“I don’t know anything about my father,” Kieron offered after a moment. “Apart from the fact that he wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t even a member of the colony. My mother was negotiating on behalf of the colony for supplies with several Central System planets, and when she came back she was pregnant.”

“I’m a little surprised that was allowed.”

“Oh, they wanted women to have babies,” Kieron said. “They actually wanted to set up a cloning facility, but they couldn’t afford the equipment for it and it’s illegal in the Alliance anyway. I think if they’d made their mark as mercenaries for hire, that was the next step.”

“A cloning facility.” There was a wealth of judgement in Elanus’s voice.

“I know, it’s a terrible idea. They didn’t care, though. All the general wanted was to be able to make as many good little soldiers as possible.”

Elanus hummed thoughtfully. “And yet the colony’s population never even rose above a thousand.”

“Right.” Kieron laughed. “He wanted a personal army, but he was also incredibly racist and didn’t want to let anyone into the colony who didn’t look like him. Not a visionary, that man. But he was a hell of a fighter…or at least that’s what they taught us growing up.” He remembered the propaganda holos they were shown every morning in class—all about how magnificent their fighting force was, the wars they’d turned the tide for, how amazing their tactics and armor and weapons were. When they all grew up—aka made it to age thirteen, which was when they could officially join a unit—they would be part of the greatest army the universe had ever seen.

The reality was a lot less grand than that. They weren’t freedom fighters, or even mercenaries—they were scavengers picking at the edge of larger conflicts or vulnerable communities like a school of sharks, nipping and biting where they could but swimming away whenever things got hot.

“It was all bullshit,” Kieron said. “All of it. I knew it when I lived there, but I really understood it once I could do research on my own. My grandfather was a complete failure on his home planet, which was a tiny place on the Fringe to start with. He couldn’t hack it in their military, but he idolized the service. He used his inheritance to buy an antique ‘fleet’ of three ships and persuaded just enough like-minded idiots to join him, then set themselves up as tyrant kings on the colony. Even then, nothing was ever good enough, until finally he pushed too far and…”

“Boom.”

“Boom,” Kieron agreed. “He pissed off the wrong senator and paid for it.”

“And so did you.”

So did we all. “Let’s talk about something else.”

“Okay,” Elanus said easily, then leaned over and cupped Kieron’s face with his broad, elegant hand. He tilted up his chin and kissed him, slow and deep and possessive, and Kieron promptly melted into a puddle.

Good thing they were lying down.

Lord of Unkindness Ch. 2

 Notes: Let's roll!

Title: Lord of Unkindness, Chapter Two

***

Chapter Two

 

It isn’t the fight itself that Ciro cares about. Sure, it ought to be interesting, but Ciro has never been into watching violence for the sake of itself. Some people are addicted to the act of bloodshed, striving for dominance, the true pain of failure, and the glory of a gory victory. Personally, he’s seen far too much of it to find any intrigue left in it.

But power, as a reflection of violence, is very interesting to him. It’s his stock in trade, so to speak—understanding power, knowing what it looks like, and knowing how to interpret it for others. And this fight isn’t a fair one.

It ought to be fair. Witchfights don’t make money from unfair matchups unless it’s a grudge match. When one practitioner is overpowered, the fight is either too short or an exercise in sadism, and this isn’t quite that kind of event. Nobody’s going to get paid more for torture here. The organizers go to considerable trouble to make sure their fighters will provide a good show. There’s a standard spell to give someone else a sense of a witch’s power, and a good caster can use that to put together a roster sure to please.

There are ways to get around that spell, though. And one of the Fraser family’s enemies suspects them of using it liberally.

“And…fight!”

Bogdanova’s bear isn’t huge, but it’s got long claws and doesn’t wait a second once the signal is given. It tears across the ring, barreling toward the terrier like it’s going to squash it into the floor. The terrier—a pit bull breed, so not exactly a tiny thing—is probably a quarter of it’s weight at best, but it stands its ground and spreads its paws wide. When the bear collides with it, it doesn’t move an inch.

Not. One. Inch.

The crowd goes “oooh” in sync, and Jackie Fraser grins as his familiar snaps its teeth at the bear’s ear, crushing the tip of it in a spray of blood. It’s a bold opener. He’s right to be proud.

Or he would be right, if this was his familiar. Which it isn’t.

The way he’s getting around the ranking spell is truly ingenious—Ciro is almost sad to be part of exposing it. The thing is, Jackie Fraser is an identical twin. Unfortunately, his brother Rory has been in a coma since their teen years, the result of a car crash. It’s garnered a lot of sympathy for the family, who are doing their damndest to elevate themselves in the local magical community.

The Fraser patriarch owns a magical security business, and Bogdanova is one of their biggest competitors in that space. If his son beats her familiar today, it’ll be a visceral sign that they have more to offer, despite their personal tragedies. Jackie Fraser is prepared to be the face of his father’s company…or would be, if he actually had the magical ability he says he does.

But he doesn’t. The truth is, Jackie Fraser has almost no magical abilities whatsoever. All he’s got is a mild psychic connection to his brother, who’s the actual owner of the pit bull familiar. Jackie, for all their similarities, was declared a late bloomer and didn’t manage to summon his own familiar until after his brother went into a coma. Except he hasn’t. He’s the face of his father’s company, but all of his power rests on his brother’s tenuous condition. Rory Fraser is, for all intents and purposes, a battery being kept alive to prop up his brother, but no one has ever been able to capture the link between them…before now.

It’s almost gratuitous to be filming this next part, but Ciro believes in going above and beyond. He switches his view to the private room where Rory is kept, life support machines beeping rhythmically. It was hard to get a raven into this room, but luckily one of Rory’s caregivers believes in giving the poor man fresh air and left a six-inch gap in the window.

Back in the ring, the bear has finally freed itself from the pit bull’s teeth. It’s rearing up on its hind legs, ready to come crushing down on the dog—but the dog darts forward and head-butts it in the stomach, and the bear is knocked onto its back a second later. Almost lazily, the dog steps forward and clamps its broad jaws around the bear’s hind foot. There’s an audible crunch, and the bear bellows with pain. Bogdanova grits her teeth, going pale as the pain radiates back at her.

It’s time to make a move. Ciro reaches out to his second familiar—the one inside Rory Fraser’s room, wearing a camera around its neck designed to capture every moment—and a second later it hops over to the ventilator, and taps the switch keeping it running with its beak. The machine shuts down.

Jackie frowns.

Rory’s breathing becomes labored.

The pit bull lets go of the bear and steps back, shaking its head. Jackie urges it back into the fight, but the pit bull begins to whine. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jackie shouts, and then his mouth drops as he realizes what’s going on.

Rory stops breathing.

The dog howls crazily and leaps out of the ring, sprinting toward the distant door.

“What the fuck is this?”

“What’s going on?”

“The fight’s not over, you can’t run!”

Content that he’s got enough proof, Ciro’s familiar taps the machine back on, then flies to the window and out just as someone bursts into the room to check on Rory, who begins breathing again.

Jackie is being confronted by the witch in charge of the fight. There’s shouting and confusion, and Bodganova looks grimly satisfied even as she heads into the ring to comfort her bear. Ciro saves both video files to the cloud; he’ll send them to his client later. Then he hops down from the barrel, almost landing on a particularly bold cockroach scuttling out from the protection of the column. He brushes it aside with his foot, then makes his way past the fight scene and heads back toward the front door.

There’s more drama going on than a fixed fight, though. As he approached the gambling, there’s a scuffle, and a second later a young woman in a long flannel shirt, jean shorts, and shitkicker boots is dragged out of the group of onlookers. Her dark hair is held back in a messy bun, and as she flails in the grip of a man at least three times bigger than her, Ciro catches sight of a familiar hoard of silver rings on her hand.

“Messin’ with our odds?” the man roars at her.

Oh, fuck. The lucky girl. She must have a hell of a luck ability to be able to influence spelled dice, but it’s clearly been going too well for her. She’s given herself away, or maybe whoever she’s working with has. She’s the only one in hand, though, and the guy holding onto her looks like he wants to tear her apart.

“Yer friend may have gotten out of this, but you’re not gonna!”

Yep, that’s the sound of a man set on vengeance. Ah, well. None of Ciro’s business. He tries to slide around the scene, but for some reason the girl twists around in his direction and zeroes in on him. She isn’t strong enough to free herself from her captor’s grip, but she’s got just enough reach to touch Ciro. She brushes her fingers against his hand as he sidles by, and…

He sees how to do it. It would be stupidly easy to help her, but… “What’s in it for me?” he asks before he can stop himself.

“A favor from my boss,” she says a second before she’s jerked off her feet and lifted into the air by just one arm. “It’ll be worth it!” she shrieks at him, genuine fear in her face.

The big man, burly and bearded and tattooed to hell and back—maybe literally—moves into Ciro’s face. Ciro’s familiar flies up into the rafters, cawing wildly. This close, Ciro can smell sulphur in the man’s breath.

“Yer gonna want to back the fuck off, punk,” the man growls at him. “Or I’ll take your hand along with hers.”

And…no. It’s one thing to get drawn into a conflict that doesn’t concern him; it’s another for this idiot to threaten him when Ciro clearly has nothing to do with it all. He tilts his head back and flicks his fingers. High above them, his familiar’s beak strikes one of the old lighting fixtures. It’s old, but it should be solid—it’s held up there with steel chains, after all.

One tap, and it falls.

Right onto this guy’s head. He drops the girl and drops to the ground. Better yet, this section of the warehouse is instantly darker, and localized pandemonium sets in.

Good job, he sends to his familiar, already turning toward the door. He makes his way through the crowd with none the wiser, ignoring the cries of “Wait!”  behind him as the girl he’s just saved tries to catch up with him.

Ciro didn’t do this for a favor. He doesn’t need favors. He doesn’t need anyone to know any more about him than a vague outline.

He gets outside and starts to walk.

A flock of ravens follows him.