Exclusive Excerpts from this Work in Progress
A Darker Hollow Reset
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I heard them outside, talking way too loud and disturbing my rest. Then footsteps stomping around upstairs and on the second floor, too, Even in the attic, and going up and down the stairs. Was it just kids again playing around in the ruins of the old manor house? Daring each other to explore? I didn’t think so. These voices sounded deeper, more like men, but I didn’t catch the smell of humans. I wasn’t exactly sure what that smell was, to tell the truth, but I wished whoever it was would go away and leave me the hell alone.
If it had been a little closer to nightfall, and if I’d had a bit more energy, I might have come out and “encouraged” them to leave, but the sun was still high in the sky. I knew this because a stray beam filtering down through a hole in one of the uncovered window slats burned my arm. It was when I pushed aside one of the old chest of drawers in front of the place where I slept each day to peer out. I had piled these discarded pieces of furniture, mildewed from the damp, in front of the corner where I hid during the day from anyone brave enough, or foolhardy enough to venture downstairs. Only the thrall boy, Liam, knew of this place, and he knew better than to wake me early. Some of the thralls used to wake me just after sunset and I thought it was probably perfectly okay to kill those people. Valerian, the leader of our coven before that terrible day a few months ago when the coven was mostly destroyed, and Tolan, my sire, disagreed with me about that, but I thought I made some valid points. Liam the thrall boy, as I called him, hunted for me most days and brought me whatever he caught. Just small game, anything he could lure into his snares. But he wasn’t very good at making snares and never caught much. Each day, close to sunset, he put his offerings out for me to find when I woke up—stretched the little corpses of rats and squirrels and sometimes rabbits out on the filthy cellar floor. After I drained the blood from them, he cooked and ate the flesh. Afterward, if he wanted to, I allowed him to drink from me a bit, though I never dared drink his. It would be too hard to stop drinking his blood, and I knew I needed Liam the thrall boy, much more than he needed me. I was slowly but surely starving to death drinking nothing but the blood of the small game he obtained for me. It simply wasn’t enough to sustain me, but I knew he was doing the best he could. He was the last one of the thralls—the only one who hadn’t abandoned me and run off. Sometimes I wished I had the courage to just go outside into the sunlight at full noon one day. I wondered if I’d have time to feel the sun kiss my skin just one more time before it incinerated me to blackened ash. I used to love the sunlight—I spent my summers at my parents’ condo, lying in the sun and getting a killer tan. God, it seemed a million years ago. ***************************************************************************************************** |
Excerpt from my newest release
Dragon's lair--Dragon Prophecies 3
“A little magic can take you a long way”
Chase
I had always known Dragons existed, of course. Everyone knew that. Those old maps that had "HC SVNT DRACONES,” or “Here be dragons,” printed at the edges of their known world hadn’t been kidding. In those early maps, you might also see images of sea monsters or stylized pictures of Dragons. I guess it was a way for those old map makers to say, “Be careful. There's bad stuff out there."
I had also heard that pure-blooded Dragons were touchy and easily offended, and that they were a surly bunch who were evil-tempered. As a general rule, they didn’t care much for humans, though they certainly liked them well enough for sex. They jealously guarded their treasures, being greedy and covetous creatures, obsessed with increasing their hoards. If you haven’t figured it out yet, Dragons were dangerous and bad to know. They were driven by their love of treasure, were motivated by it, spent their time guarding it and would literally kill to increase it.
Very much like my own father, actually, who was not a Dragon and therefore, had no excuse for his love of money and the crimes it caused him to commit.
The fact that I knew the Solokov Dragons in particular existed was due to my father’s transgressions and mine for allowing myself to be sucked into them. But I’m getting ahead of myself, and my knowledge, or the lack thereof, about Dragons is really not a part of the story. How I came to help save the world is the real story here, and it—like my relationship with the gorgeous Dragon, Alexei Solokov—was, as they say, complicated.