Marco Woodruff has hit rock bottom. He drunkenly propositioned his ex-girlfriend at his own wedding rehearsal dinner just over a year ago and ended up dumped and jobless with a broken nose. He’s been the pariah of his social circle ever since. Now, he’s trying like hell to change for the better.
Morgan Paulsen loathes Marco. He’s nothing more than the douchebag who broke her best friend Lily’s heart. He’s also the last person in the world she expects to help when she finds herself in a crisis. Her ailing grandma needs a full-time caretaker, something she can’t afford. So when Marco offers to look after Gram for free, Morgan takes it as a sign from the universe and reluctantly accepts under one condition: that they never tell anyone about their arrangement.
But Morgan quickly realizes Marco has a completely different vibe these days. The sweet guy who whips up homemade meals for her Gram and happily escorts her to bridge club definitely isn’t the douchebag she remembers. She’s falling hard for the tall, dark, and handsome hottie who kisses like a demon and rocks out to BTS and Taylor Swift. Marco is equally smitten with beautiful, badass Morgan. Never in his life has he felt so content and comfortable than with her. Never did he think he was capable of feeling so much for somebody.
Soon they’re falling hard into total bliss and blazing passion. But if they make it official, Morgan will lose her best friend forever. Can she come clean to Lily? Can Marco prove that therapy and cutting out his toxic family have really changed him? Or will being open about their love ruin everything?
It doesn’t take long for us to find trouble. Morgan and I end up at a naked sushi restaurant a few blocks from my place. My dating skills are rusty as hell. And I can see how this would feel all sorts of wrong for Morgan, being on a ‘friend date’ with the reviled ex of her friends. But even so, this feels good. Damn good.
And I think she feels the same way. She’s been non-stop laughing and smiling the entire meal.
“You had to have brought dates here before,” she teases as she mixes wasabi into soy sauce with her chopsticks.
“I hate to disappoint, but no. I’ve never been here.”
“But this place seems so… you.”
I cough on my sake and peer around the dimly lit space. A dozen or so naked models, both male and female, are lying on top of the dark mahogany tables. Banana leaves cover their X-rated body parts while trays of sushi and sashimi line their torsos.
“I don’t even know how to take that. Insult or compliment?”
Her head falls back as she laughs, and I swear to god it’s the most melodic sound I’ve ever heard.
“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” she says in a softer tone, as if she can sense my doubt. “I just mean that you always came off so brazen and confident. I admire it.”
“I appreciate the confidence comment, but I assure you I have my insecurities. Like, I’d never have the guts to do what this guy does.” I point my chopsticks at the guy serving as our table, who I notice is eyeing Morgan. “I’m surprised you were open to coming here honestly.”
She shrugs. “It’s a Friday, every other restaurant in the vicinity was full, and I didn’t feel like waiting hours. I was starving. If this were only naked women, no way in hell would I have been okay with this. But there’s equal-opportunity nudity here. I’m all for it.”
I have to bite back the grin that tugs at my mouth. This day is turning into something else entirely. We’re veering dangerously close to off-the-rails territory, but I’ve never felt so comfortable, so at ease on a date. I’ve never had one as good as this—and it’s not even technically a proper date because we’re here as friends.
That thought deflates me just a bit. But then I glance up and see a gleam in her eyes as she gazes at me, the corner of her mouth hooked up in the most gorgeous half-smile I’ve ever seen. I thought I sensed it earlier at my place, but now it’s clear as crystal. And I know what it is.
Trouble.
The best kind of trouble. Trouble I wouldn’t mind getting into again and again, as long as it’s with Morgan.
She scoots closer to me. “I’m having a really nice time.”
“Same.” That single word broadcasts one-one hundredth of the excitement that I’m currently feeling, but it’s all I can say to keep my cool.
Sarah Skye is the nom de plume of romance authors Sarah Smith and Skye McDonald. Sarah and Skye met on Twitter as fledgling authors seeking critique partners. That turned into a brilliant friendship, a joint podcast (Quick & Dirty Romance Podcast), and now a novel.
Sarah Smith (Faker; If You Never Come Back; Simmer Down) is a copywriter-turned-author who wants to make the world a lovelier place, one kissing story at a time. Her love of romance began when she was eight and she discovered her auntie’s stash of romance novels. She’s been hooked ever since. When she’s not writing, you can find her hiking, eating chocolate, and perfecting her lumpia recipe. She lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband and adorable cat Salem.
Skye McDonald (The Anti-Belle Series) is an author and personal development coach. Skye’s Anti-Belle series feature sassy GRITS (Girls Raised In the South) learning to love themselves before they can claim their happily ever after. (Spoiler: they always do!) Her coaching method uses fitness and life skills to teach individuals to do the same. When not writing sexy books or cheering for you to live your best life, Skye can be found out on a new adventure, usually with her pup at her side.
Title: Up in Arms Author: Kindle Alexander Genre: M/M Contemporary Romance
Up In Arms is a heavily revised rerelease of the original story published in 2012.
Reed Kensington, self-made millionaire, ruthless attorney, and handsome playboy has the perfect
life…just ask him. Which is why he’s surprised when a chance encounter at his baby brother’s
wedding makes him cross-exam his plans for his future.
Trevor West loves his friends and his life in the military as a special ops team member. Though he longs to find a special someone, he refuses to jeopardize his career on something as elusive as love. Until he meets Reed, and the desires running through him threaten his hard-fought self-control.
When a dangerous mission blows their world apart, Reed doesn’t let anything stop him from jumping in. But can he convince Trevor that they belong together…that he deserves a chance at love?
Best Selling Author Kindle Alexander is an innovative writer, and a genre-crosser who writes classic fantasy, romance, suspense, and erotica in both the male/male and male/female genres. It’s always a surprise to see what’s coming next!
I live in the suburbs of Dallas where it’s true, the only thing bigger than an over active imagination, may be women’s hair!
Usually, I try for funny. Humor is a major part of my life – I love to laugh, and it seems to be the thing I do in most situations – regardless of the situation, but jokes are a tricky deal… I don’t want to offend anyone and jokes tend to offend. So instead I’m going to tell you about Kindle.
I tragically lost my sixteen year old daughter to a drunk driver. She had just been at home, it was early in the night and I heard the accident happen. I’ll never forget that moment. The sirens were immediate and something inside me just knew. I left my house, drove straight to the accident on nothing more than instinct. I got to be there when my little girl died – weirdly, I consider that a true gift from above. She didn’t have to be alone.
That time in my life was terrible. It’s everything you think it would be times about a billion. I love that kid. I loved being her mother and I loved watching her grow into this incredibly beautiful person, both inside and out. She was such a gift to me. To have it all ripped away so suddenly broke me.
Her name was Kindle. Honest to goodness – it was her name and she died a few weeks before Amazon released their brand new Kindle ereader. She had no idea it was coming out and she would have finally gotten her name on something! Try finding a ruler with the name Kindle on it.. It never happened.
Through the course of that crippling event I was lucky enough to begin to write with a dear friend in the fan fiction world of Facebook. She got me through those dark days with her unwavering support and friendship. There wasn’t a time she wasn’t there for me. Sometimes together and sometimes by myself, we built a world where Kindle lives and stands for peace, love and harmony. It’s its own kind of support group. I know without question I wouldn’t be here today without her.
Kyrell Knight believes life is a game to be played and thoroughly enjoyed. He rarely takes anything seriously, lives in the moment, and indulges in as much pleasure with women as possible. But the sarcasm, money, and women are an attempt to erase the memories of his past as he tries to forget what he came from. It works until his past wants to be a part of his present.
Kyrell reconnects with Quinn Halifax at their mutual best friend’s engagement party. They spark up a friendship that quickly turns to flames when it becomes a superficial, no strings attached relationship.
Kyrell is struggling with his past while Quinn is trying to secure her future. Neither is looking for more, but fate has other plans. What happens when two people collide with fate?
Content Advisory: child abuse, death, mentions of suicide
“Hm…is this right?” I mutter to myself while I check the GPS. “Damn, this is right. I thought my apartment was nice.” I mumble aloud.
When I left the city and started heading for the hills I thought he had a given me the wrong address. I even called him to double check and he assured me it was right and to just follow my GPS. Now I’m staring at a stunning mansion with black stone exterior. I park next to his Jeep and notice his garage is full of cars. No wonder he seemed so unbothered by me possibly fucking up his car the other night. It looks like he could afford to buy several if he wanted to.
As I walk towards his door it occurs to me that I really don’t know much about Kyrell. I know the basics–he’s the same age as me, owns a dispensary, invested money into a nightclub, but did he acquire all this on his own? He’s never given me the arrogant rich boy vibes you typically get with men who think they’ve made it because they own a pair of exclusive sneakers and lease a foreign car. In fact, Kyrell has never flaunted his money.
I fluff up my curls one last time as I knock on the front door. When it opens, I’m greeted by a shirtless Kyrell. He has nothing on but a towel loosely slung around his hips and beads of water are trailing down his abs. He has a few tattoos scattered across his chest and legs.
I’ve never wanted to be water so bad in my life.
“Hey, c’mon in.” He says as his eyes drink me in. “I just need to get dressed.” He waits for me to stop ogling him and walk through the door. I step inside and look around. “Or we can hang out here. Either way, I need clothes.” He says as I follow him through his house.
Does he really need clothes? I lick my lips out of fear I’m drooling. “Uh… nice house. I didn’t realize you lived in the hills.”
“You never asked.” He says with a smirk. “I bought it a few months after I moved out here.”
“How? If you were only twenty-one at that time?”
“With money, as does everyone else.” He answers vaguely.
“Did you sell your soul?” I ask half joking, half serious.
He turns around to face me but doesn’t stop walking. “Damn near.” He says with a wink.
A.E. Valdez discovered her passion for writing when she was given a journal by her 5th grade teacher and has been creating poetry, works of fiction, and gaming narratives ever since. As a child, she wanted to read more stories with people that looked like her.
She loves all things romance, from heartbreak to happily ever afters. She pours her own heart and soul into the stories she brings to life. Causing readers to fall in, and sometimes out, of love alongside her characters.
Amanda currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and their two sons. Most days you can find her sipping on an iced latte while she writes or enjoying time with her family.
When Grace Walters lands her first job as the newest case manager at Rhode Island’s Eastport General hospital, she didn’t expect her father to be appointed CEO. To her surprise, he also decides to hire her brother and his best friend Hayden, whose arrogance overshadows the fact he is one hundred percent her type. Despite her desire to focus on her career as a social worker, as she and Hayden spend more time together she feels drawn to him the same way the dragstrip and fast cars call to her. Hayden’s supposed to be off limits, and she holding onto secrets that will either destroy her relationship with her brother or her future.
For six years, “The City That Never Sleeps” has been Hayden’s home. When the opportunity to oversee his own department with his best friend at his side is offered, he returns to his hometown. His one distraction? Grace Walters. His friends’ terms were crystal clear: his sister is a hard no. But her luscious curves, enticing body, and sincere personality aren’t so easily ignored. She is no longer the kid he left behind when he went to college, but pursuing her might be the end of his longest friendship.
I was a person, and I deserved to be treated as such.
But that was a foreign concept to Dr. Elias Kupmen, so I set out to prove him wrong. I’d be the best freaking compassionate doctor ever. And I succeeded.
Then I returned to the place that started it all eight years earlier.
He wouldn’t be there after all this time, right? I wouldn’t have to face him, yeah?
The answer to those questions was a big, fat NO.
Elias was still there and still an asshole. But now, I wasn’t his patient; I was his colleague. I was the one unafraid to call him out and spar with him.
Until the tables were turned. And just like that, I got a chance to really prove him wrong. That’s all, though, nothing more…certainly not falling for the asshole…
We were two dueling doctors, but in every battle, there’s always a winner. Which one of us would it be?
Doctor Sexy, that’s what I’ve dubbed Dr. Richard Hanlon, the man who gave me not one, but two of the most earth-shattering O’s in a single night. I thought he would be another one night stand. It’s what I wanted, but he had other ideas.
Hot off a breakup, meeting someone new was the last thing I needed, but damn, one glimpse of those hazel eyes and a rush of blood shot straight below my belt. I knew in that moment I would make her mine.
One night, a baby, an appointment with the Doctor, and our lives are soon turned upside down.
Doctors of Eastport General is a brand-new Contemporary Romance series. Get ready for all the naughty nurses, dirty doctors, and patient shenanigans that take place in Eastport General.
Doctor Sexy, that’s what I’ve dubbed Dr. Richard Hanlon, the man who gave me not one, but two of the most earth-shattering O’s in a single night. I thought he would be another one night stand. It’s what I wanted, but he had other ideas.
Hot off a breakup, meeting someone new was the last thing I needed, but damn, one glimpse of those hazel eyes and a rush of blood shot straight below my belt. I knew in that moment I would make her mine.
One night, a baby, an appointment with the Doctor, and our lives are soon turned upside down.
Doctors of Eastport General is a brand-new Contemporary Romance series. Get ready for all the naughty nurses, dirty doctors, and patient shenanigans that take place in Eastport General.
Adele Fergus switched back to her maiden name with plans to never look back—never think about her naïve, short-lived marriage to James Montague. But that was before he turned up on her Wanaka doorstep with her missing diamonds, a crazy back-story, and persistent requests for visitation with his ex-stepdaughter.
Adele’s hell-bent on keeping James at arms-length, but it’s not easy with old attractions still running hot. What’s more, she’s beginning to suspect she may have left him on false information.
Divorce was never in James’ game-plan, so when his ex-wife’s jewellery comes to light, he’s drawn back to her—welcome or not—and he isn’t leaving until he has all the answers.
The more the exes re-learn to trust each other, the more they come to realise someone was intent on dragging them apart from the very beginning. Someone close.
“Don’t move,” she whispered, sure if he touched her, they’d both go up in smoke. “Not a goddamn muscle.”
Groaning at the order, clearly not within his own game-plan, James nevertheless re-laced his fingers securely out of harm’s way. The action left his arms akimbo, torso at Adele’s mercy. To make sure it stayed that way, she brought her hands up to press his tensed forearms into the cushioned leather.
Adele hadn’t meant to make a sound, but it was with a whimper her mouth touched James’. Soft and tentative—the antithesis of the last time these body parts had met.
And oh, oh, oh. The taste of him, the bittersweet memories of all they’d been, and all they’d gone through.
James remained a non-threatening participant through all of it—meeting Adele at her own pace without pushing for more. He let her pick her own way through the sadness of loss to the bliss of the physical realm, where each breath was a miracle of exquisite sensation.
Each whisper of lip against lip ignited an explosion of light against the back of her eyelids.
A.J.…Her James, and the goodbye kiss she’d never allowed herself.
Her breath hitched on a single sob, and she pulled back from him, blinking away the wetness. Realising how tightly she was gripping his arms, she released them too, noting the colour flowing back into her white fingerprints with a strange sense of detachment.
Not a good idea, after all. Not the least bit smart. Rather than smother something, that kiss had re-lit a whole bag of Tom-thumbs. Not only could Adele see it burning in the intensity of James’ eyes, she could feel it fizzing and pulsing through her own body with a heat akin to pain—like freshly warmed blood to long-cold extremities.
Award winning New Zealand contemporary romance novelist and short story writer, Stephanie Ruth lives in the South Island, Te Waipounamu, with her husband, three children, and an ever expanding array of animals. If it doesn’t have a happy ending in some form or other, Stephanie’s not writing it.
“Are you carrying any weapons, ma’am?” the rather burly security guard asked, crossing his beefy arms over his chest as if he was prepared for me to lie.
I raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow at the guard—courtesy of Sarina—and gave The Rock Part Deux a conspiratorial smile as I twirled a finger. “Would you walk into a place like this unarmed, sir?”
Rock Two blinked at me before surveying the crowd of high-powered arcaners and letting out a little huff. “No, ma’am, I can’t say I would. Though, I’m still going to have to ask that you disarm yourself and submit to a pat down.”
Sarina warned me this might happen, so I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I wasn’t happy about it either. Given the giant TSA-style metal detectors stationed at every entrance, there was no way I was getting through them without alarms going off.
Still… “Any chance of a freebie pass for being the Warden—”
Rock’s glare was glacial. “I was specifically told that everyone was to be searched regardless of status and no weapons of any kind could enter.”
“And saying the beeping was due to a zipper—”
“Would be the tenth such excuse I’ve heard tonight.” The guard sighed like this was the worst job in the world, and he’d really enjoy being anywhere else.
Annie Anderson is a military wife and United States Air Force veteran. Originally from Dallas, Texas, she is a southern girl at heart, but has lived all over the US and abroad. As soon as the military stops moving her family around, she’ll settle on a state, but for now she enjoys being a nomad with her husband, two daughters, an old man of a dog, and a young pup that makes life… interesting.
“I never believed in fairy tales…that was until I met a dark knight.”
Ryder grew up envious of the Antoni Mafia Family. Watching from the outside, he always dreamed that one day he could earn his ranks and approval in one of Savannah’s most notorious crime families. Finding himself in the Army as a sniper, he returns back to Savannah with plans to prove himself and finally become a made man in the Antoni Mafia Family.
Abbigal grew up as a Las Vegas princess. As the daughter of a wealthy casino owner, she has spent her entire life under the glamour and bright lights of big cities like Vegas and Savannah. After the death of her father, Abbigail inherits a casino in Savannah. Knowing the industry, she is prepared for this new role. However, the Savannah Mafia families want a piece of the casino and won’t go down without a fight. Abbigail is up for the fight of her life and now a cocky, suave, man has gained her attention. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Ryder finds himself intrigued by the one woman who isn’t interested in him. Trying to navigate a way into the casino and the Antoni Mafia Family, Ryder never thought he would also being finding a way into Abbigails heart, too. Find out what happens when Ryder, has to earn his way into the Antoni Mafia Family and the heart of a Las Vegas Princess.
“Are you stalking me? Let me remind you again, Ryder, that I am your boss. You should act professionally around me,” I spoke clearly.
Ryder chuckled as he ran a hand through his dark hair. “You keep reminding me that you are my boss. That you are in charge,” he said, closing the space between us. He now stood in front of me again, towering over me. “I think you get off on being in charge. You love the power; it turns you on,” he said slowly.
I drank in his words. Too shocked to speak, my mouth fell open as I glared back at this man.
A year ago, I took the opportunity to spend one night with the mysteriously sexy man I had been dreaming about for two decades. When reality beckoned the next morning, I walked away from him and resumed my life, carrying my broken heart with me.
Now, the one thing I never expected to see has happened, and I am about to reenter the timeless world of Jack Perry. Where his fame impresses no one, least of all himself. Where days and nights become blurry, and clocks cease to exist. A place where passion and lust will land me on the doorstep of an explosive confession.
Above all else, this is the moment when the door to my closure will be kicked wide open. This time, will I stay?
NT Anderson has lived in multiple countries and states and is currently hunkered down in the Endless Mountain Region of the Northeast US. Her chosen professional path was restaurant management and hospitality services until 2009 when she turned her passion for writing into a career as a content creator. In 2019, she took it several steps farther by diving into the world of fiction.
Nikki can usually be found keeping odd hours, spending time with family and friends, talking to the characters in her head via candlelight, and plotting her next adventure. Several furbabies keep her on her toes, including two spoiled dogs, a pudgy cat, and a feisty horse.
She fancies herself to be a pirate, especially on Saturday nights when she breaks out the rum.
In part two of this extraordinary love story set in the hot, humid, summer of the wide-open mid-west, egos and emotions collide. Andy and Rooster find their romance in peril when job-related stress, injuries, and extraordinary weather conditions interfere with their relationship, both at work and at home.
Andrea has come to understand working outdoors in inhospitable climates and is thriving in her role as assistant bending engineer. She and Rooster have moved in together and are starting a new job. Although exhausted, Andy is glad to be working with Grandpa Buck again, even though it limits her time with Rooster. She’s missed the other hands too, and she is very curious about the new coating foreman; an intelligent, confident, and independent young woman. So is her friend, Nick. Andy also finds herself befriending a neighbor at the RV park, the wife of a welder on the line. Seeing a girl her age as a mother has Andy wondering about her own future. Could she manage to pipeline and be wife and mother too?
As always, pipeline construction is interrupted by delays, fraught with fatigue, and contingent on the weather. Caught up in a world of egos, Andrea and Rooster struggle to maintain their workload while finding time for each other after hours. When a serious on-the-job accident tips the scale of leadership, Andy and Rooster are thrown into conflicting positions. If stress at work, little time for love, and their reputations in danger wasn’t enough, Andy’s parents show up to complicate things further. Rooster is determined to prove himself capable of his new position, and Andrea isn’t about to let Buck down; will their fledgling romance pay the price? The couple has their horns locked in battle and they can’t let go, but they need each other, especially now. Both will have to make sacrifices and take a chance on ruining their credibility in order to stay together.
One joint of pipe was now exposed, but it still lay in a soupy mess and was quickly filling up with water. Two hands slogged out to the pipe, sinking in well past their knees, in preparation to put a belt around the pipe.
“Get a pump over here!” Rooster hollered, and two hands took off at a trot to comply.
The hoe operator hooked a tooth of the bucket in the end of the pipe and lifted, but to everyone’s horror, the weight of the pipe caused the hoe to tip precariously in the mud.
“Let it go!” Rooster hollered. “You’ll have to lift it from up here on the mats.”
It was no easy feat for the hoe to get back up onto the mats. It had to use its bucket for leverage and lift itself out of the muck hole. But soon enough it was stable on the mats and everyone returned their attention to retrieving the pipe.
In the meantime, more trucks had pulled up and men from assorted crews stood watching. Everyone was curious. Included in the group of onlookers was the farmer who Rooster had talked to the morning before. The old man grinned and tipped his hat; it was his way of reminding Rooster that he’d warned him about the mud.
Rooster glanced at his watch. This was taking forever. If they had to go through this for every joint of pipe, it would take forever. Of course, he’d called for more hoes and equipment to help with the work, but by setting up the pipe where it was unstable, he had messed up, and he had no one to blame but himself.
The hoe bucket reached out and once again, down into the hole, while two hands, now almost waste deep in mud, waited with a sling. Slowly, the hoe managed to lift one end of the pipe out of the mud.
A pickup truck worked its way through the mass of workers and stopped nearby. Rooster wasn’t surprised to see Ol’ Louie climb from the driver’s seat. Of course, the boss would want to see the nightmare situation his assistant had created. But Rooster was completely caught off guard when the passenger door of Louie’s truck swung open and Janet gingerly stuck out one pink sandal clad foot to test the mud-smeared mat.
“Now what?” Rooster moaned, his eyes scanning the crowd for Andy. This was the last thing he needed. He stomped over and nudged Andy with his elbow. “Handle your mother, will you?”
Andy’s mouth fell open at his audacity.
Several of the hands turned to stare at the new arrival as she closed the truck door and brushed off her dress. Women on the right-of-way were rare, but a woman in a bright pink dress was unheard of.
One of the inspectors lowered his safety glasses for a better look.
Janet picked her way across the mats with Louie by her side, holding her elbow. The old man left her with Andy and then moved away to speak with Rooster.
Brushing at the mud on her arm, likely from Louie’s truck, Janet adjusted the borrowed hard hat that had slipped to one side. She squinted through her loaner safety glasses toward the pipe that was raising from the hole, dripping and covered in mud. “Well,” she huffed, “that seems strange.” She turned to Andy. “Why do you dip the pipe in mud?”
Kirsten is a dreamer with an eye for art and design. She worked in the engineering field, taught college, and consulted free lance. Due to health problems, she retired in 2012 to travel with her husband. They live and work full time in a 40′ travel trailer with their little dog Bingo. Besides writing romance novels, she enjoys selling art on Etsy and spoiling their three grandchildren.
As a writer, Kirsten’s goal is to create strong female characters who face challenging, painful, and sometimes comical situations. She believes that the best way to deal with struggle, is through friendship and women helping women. She knows good stories are based on interesting and relatable characters.
A tyrant occupies the Fae Palace and the only woman who could stop him is hiding in Kentucky, drinking wine with a Milton scholar. But that might be a good thing.
Sabrina, a small-town academic, spends her days teaching and hanging out with the kind but somewhat mysterious best friend she met a few years ago. Her life is steady, maybe even a little dull. Until her friend’s family arrives. Suddenly, Fae is no longer a fictional place. Magic is real. And, oddly enough, Sabrina’s knowledge of a 1634 play may hold the key to saving Nin and her realm.
Nin landed in Kentucky after escaping her captor, the tyrant she once loved. The human realm is calming for her, with moments of joy, but she hates how she hides who and what she is from Sabrina. When Nin’s family unexpectedly arrives at her greenhouse, a series of events force her to share her secrets and grapple with her place in Fae — past, present, and future.
Sabrina and Nin must trust in their friendship, themselves, and John Milton’s Comus to survive in Fae and save the realm from ruin. If they cannot, terror and destruction will reign far beyond the Fae Palace gates.
She needed a plan, but she had nothing. Nowhere to go that she could easily reach. No one was near to help. Even if they were with her in this place, or she could miraculously find The Falls where her family now hid, being around her was a danger in this moment because of her uncontrolled magic and the forces that stalked her from the Palace. She missed her old home, she missed the Palace from before, she missed her family and her Queen and her ideals of love now horrifically dashed. She had missed her magic, and now it frightened her because she knew not how to rein it in at this moment. So much to do, to think, to remember, to fear, to hate. Too much. All too much. She finally gave it voice, scrunching her tear-stained face and releasing a scream so fierce and desolate, so filled with magic and loss and pain, that when she caught her breath afterward, she saw her wail had literally ripped a hole in the night air.
Another forest poked through, wild in its own right but smelling of strange soil, utter stillness, and, oddly, a hint of humanity. She approached the split with wonder. She knew of no one who had ever torn through the veil of the realms with only a scream, no spellcraft or intention. But it was just what she needed. A spell was traceable — formal magic scented the air, lingering long after casting and making it easy to follow. Her magic in that moment seeped everywhere, pouring out of her in a continual stream without a definitive ending point or anchor. Comus could not trace this type of magic, mostly because it was something new and unknown. Wouldn’t even consider the possibility of this wild, unwieldy magic because it was something far beyond his own power and therefore inconceivable to one such as him. No one in Comus’ power could come close to figuring this out, either. None of his lackeys had even the hint of that type of power because Comus liked to always be unquestionably the best and most powerful in any room.
Gin could do it. Maybe Mother. They could possibly find her again. They would be the only ones she would want to find her, as defeated and disgraced and dangerous as she was. It was her out, her way to save herself and the rest of Fae. After making up her mind, she slipped through the tear in her reality.
From the other realm, surrounded by new trees and earth and air, she watched the hole in the night heal itself without her intention. Knowing she was in the human world, untouchable by hate or love, apart from all she knew for good and bad, she felt adrift, but also relieved. She did not know this place or the people who inhabited it, yet it did not matter. She was safely away from Comus and utterly alone for the first time in years, her only companion the dense, cold, untouched forest. She breathed a sigh before laying on the leaf-strewn ground and introducing herself to this other earth.
Sonya Lawson (she/her/they) is a recovering academic currently writing fantasy and other forms of speculative fiction. While she remains a rural Kentuckian at heart, she currently lives in the Pacific Northwest. She fills her days with writing, editing, reading, walking old forests, and watching sitcoms or horror films. You can find more information about current projects and upcoming releases at www.sonyalawson.com.
