***

The puce-colored punch looked like poison, but she didn’t care. Grace braced herself and took a swig of it anyway because no one else had. Mabel would be devastated if she found out her punch was a bust. So what if the color was a perfect match with her psychedelic-seventies panties.

Grace shuddered and smacked her lips. “I wonder who that man is?” she asked her friend Sophia. She ladled some of the punch for Sophia.

“What man?” Sophia asked, right behind her on the would-be punch line. “Hey, isn’t this punch the same color as those panties you bought…”

“The distinguished-looking tough guy – over there.” Grace pointed as discretely as was humanly possible when one had fingernails painted in brilliant orange. “Just drink the punch. It’s not going to kill you.”

“Nice nails.” Sophia said, then sipped her punch and cringed. “You do realize that ‘distinguished-looking tough guy’ is an oxymoron.” Sophia looked up at her with a puckered expression. “Are you sure this punch isn’t lethal?”

“You’re right. I’m secretly a murderer disguised as an interior decorator and my biggest ambition is to kill my best friend at a Beacon Hill party filled with cops from the Boston Police Department.” Grace took a breath. They both looked around.

They were surrounded. It would be a great night for a murder anywhere else in the city of Boston.

“Don’t whine – the punch tastes fine. It’s mostly the food coloring,” Grace said over her shoulder to Sophia. Her ploy to make the punch look appetizing wasn’t working, Grace thought. No one was venturing even close to the punch bowl. She stole another look at the oxy-moron as she looked around the room. He stood in the middle of some stuffy older men. But then that’s the only kind of men there seemed to be at this particular party. That could be because the hostess –her friend Mabel- was old enough to be thankful for the end of prohibition.

Sophia stopped short. “What?”

***

London, 1760

She was going to die!

Searing her fingers on the door, she tested it and found it locked. Heat emanated through the solid wood. Thick billows of smoke filled the room with noxious fumes. It tasted bitter on her tongue, and she closed her lips tightly to keep it out. Shrieks and cries pierced the night. Glancing at the window, she gritted her teeth at the sight of the nails which held it closed. If not for her defiance, and if not for her nightly excursions, it would not be nailed shut. She cursed herself for the night that she had been caught sneaking in. But that still didn’t tell her why the door was locked.
She surveyed her small room. The room that her uncle had given her when she had become his ward several months before.

She shuffled around the bed, a large monstrous thing that took up most of the minimal space. In the mirror, a small pale blonde stared frightened from its depths, her face drawn with panic. Smudges of soot from the smoke that now billowed under the edge of her door covered her dress at the base of her skirt, and a large streak of it was smeared across her face.

This was without a doubt the worst spot that twenty year old Charity Delaney had ever found herself in. Though definitely not the first.

***

I didn’t notice the woman until I was right on top of her.

I bit back a startled yip. Stomach fluttering nervously, I let out a small chuckle. “Sorry about that.”

The woman mumbled something but I didn’t understand a damn word. All I could see was the wiry mass of silver curls atop her head. The sharp curve of her back forced her to stoop, making it hard to hear. Laying a steadying hand on her frail shoulder, I leaned over and listened.

A low growl sounded over her soft mutterings. I froze as my heart lurched into my throat.

No. Not here. Not now.

Straightening slowly, I peered over the woman’s shoulder. And heard another growled warning. I recoiled as the creature stepped out of her shadow.

It glared at me through narrowed yellow eyes. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to three. Swallowing the lump lodged in my windpipe, I opened them only to find the damn thing didn’t disappear like a good little hallucination.

Ah shit.

To say that it was hideous was like calling a light socket electric. Skin the same yellow as its snake eyes covered its misshapen form. Coarse dark hair sprouted from open blisters, crusting with flaky scabs and dried blood.

The nasty critter stilled, his reptilian gaze constricting. His long lizard-like snout twitched as it sniffed the air. A menacing snarl escaped his lips and he lurched forward.

I backpedaled but rather than attack me, it crowded the old woman, his sharp claws scraping the pavement as the thing hunched over her slight figure. Lips peeling back, it bared its teeth with a hiss.

An ice cold tingle ran up my spine and I knew I didn’t have long.

The irony wasn’t lost on me; didn’t my neurologist just assure me I had a healthy, happy brain? If my gray matter was so damn happy why the hell am I seeing this shit?

And this wild thing was only one of many. They didn’t all look like the walking phlegm here but they were all mighty ugly.

The sizzle turned to searing as pain shot up my spine in a frantic race to my brain. I doubled over, clutching my head and screamed as blinding heat exploded behind my eyes. I had a desperate urge to claw the offending balls out of my skull.

I could only squeeze them tighter as the pressure built.

Naturally, nausea wanted in on the fun. No party was complete without a good vomit. I stubbornly clamped my jaws shut, swallowing the bile that threatened to choke me, only to gag again.
My name is Joey Benton and I think I’m losing my mind. I’m for damn sure about to lose my breakfast.

***

The cold air wafting from the open refrigerator did little to relieve Marin Reiling’s irritation—much less her pounding headache—as she lounged on the cheap vinyl flooring of her apartment kitchen.

Did people across the country actually think global warming was a myth?

Even spending her formative years in the southern climes of Auburn, Alabama, hadn’t prepared Marin for the radiating heat of this blistering city summer in Chicago. Her poor, vintage fridge worked overtime to keep its contents from spoiling; but coupled with hundred-and-two-degree weather shimmering in the alleyways and through the streets, she didn’t expect to bask in comfort here for more than ten minutes longer before she risked the appliance shutting down permanently.

And Marin couldn’t afford fridge repairs right now. If she’d had any extra capital to her name, she’d have bought a floor fan from the hardware store thirty feet away down North Avenue. The fact that a mere twenty bucks escaped her desperate financial grasp even now made her physically squirm, her butt wriggling uncomfortably against the humidity-induced stickiness of the floor.

To distract her bitter conscience, she studied the contents of the fridge, composing a mental grocery list. Not that she could shop for anything until tomorrow’s paycheck was automatically deposited. Eight a.m., and I’ll be solid again.

She jumped, startled, as a churning, chugging noise sounded from the rear of her fridge. “No, no, no,” she muttered as she lunged forward to lovingly stroke its chilled side, wedging her hand in the dark space between the appliance and the kitchen’s battered cabinetry topped by a chipped, green laminate counter. Marin loathed those countertops with every molecule of her forcibly buried, genteelly southern soul, but as a renter (a poor one, at that) she wasn’t in any position to demand renovations of her stingy landlord.

“Come on, baby.” Her fingertips traced gentle circles (in what she hoped was a coaxing manner) as she willed the refrigerator to keep pumping blessedly cool air. “Come on, and I’ll put fresh baking soda in there tomorrow. I’ll even scrub you out this weekend.”

The fridge sputtered in seeming disbelief. “Okay, maybe not this weekend, but soon. And I’ll stop letting the milk go bad.”

Its rumbling whir slowly dropped an octave as it prepared to die, and Marin’s forehead landed with a dull thump against the white-painted fridge frame. When silence filled the thick-aired room, both woman and appliance emitted a sigh of surrender.

One final, metallic thunk had an unwilling smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “You’re right, of course—I always let the milk go bad.”

With that, she used the door to yank herself up, shutting it and rolling stiff shoulders still sore from last night’s shift. The only thing left to do—the only promise of relief—was to pull on clean clothes and go to work. At least the restaurant was air conditioned, she reasoned as she tugged her wrinkled tee shirt (a bleach-stained baby blue which proudly declared her an alumna of the “College of Hard Knocks”) over her head, using the soft hem to wipe the sweat beading against the tops of her eyebrows.

“Out of this kitchen, into another,” she murmured, wandering with heavy footsteps into her bedroom to scour her tiny closet for a clean chef’s coat.

***

Ruuk’s favorite tavern, The Crispy Knight, was a quiet place by rights, but when Gote, the Demon King’s second-in-command, came cantering inside, all the quiet chatter of conversation and the clink of glasses ceased utterly.

Gote was a chubby satyr with short curving horns and curly dark brown fur on his goat-like legs. Ruuk leaned forward. The satyr clambered onto the bar-top, his cloven hooves clicking as he stood on its lacquered surface. Raising his arms for silence, Gote said, “All right, lads, any of you looking to impress the boss, here’s your chance.”

Ruuk straightened at his lonely table and strained his ears to catch every word. His quest for employment in the city was not going well. During his first week in the underground culture of Faerie, he’d discovered there wasn’t much work going around, and even less for an overgrown ‘brute of a troll’ like him— as one shopkeeper so eloquently put it. Heh.

He’d heard the Demon King, a local philanthropist and politician of sorts, needed muscle. Ruuk had that in spades. All Ruuk needed now was an in with the Demon King.

And this might be just what he’d waited for.

Gote plucked someone else’s shot from their hand and knocked it back. Ruuk had noticed the Demon King’s men could pull off stunts like that without being squashed. “We’re looking for a girl.” Gote swallowed the alcohol with a loud glug, smacked his lips happily and smiled at the crowd before he continued. “Maybe some of you have seen her around. A human girl with dark skin and black hair. Very beautiful. She was last seen wearing a golden gown with a long skirt, but she’s probably ditched that by now. We suspect she’s stolen some powerful magic to cover her escape, so she’s probably wearing a strong glamour too. The King would take it as a special favor if any of you would help in the search for her. He will personally provide you temporary glamours to help you search among the humans. And if any of you happen to catch the little baggage and bring her back, the King will reward you handsomely.” Gote’s teeth flashed in a crooked, condescending grin, and he hopped off the bar.

Ruuk bolted from his table and elbowed through the now restive crowd clustering around Gote. Ruuk was a head taller than the tallest of the faeries, and twice as strong. He muscled his way face to face— well, chest to face— with the satyr.

Gote’s eyes languidly trailed up Ruuk’s chest to meet his eyes. “Well, troll?”

“I can help you find her.”

***

“You do realize that she will be of age in a few months?” Silas Sprackett looked at his client — or rather, at his client’s guardian — with distaste. He may have made a small fortune helping Herbert Craddock plunder the estate of the late Earl of Elsworth, but that didn’t mean he had to view him with any fondness.

Craddock regarded Sprackett with equal dislike. “What difference does that make?” he asked. “She would not be able to take over the management of her inheritance even if she knew the terms of her father’s will. She’ll do as she’s told, just as she always has.”

“Lady Anne does know that your guardianship ends when she is twenty-one,” Sprackett said. “And even if she were not aware of that fact, others are. She will no longer need your permission to marry, and I assure you any prospective husband would soon discover the fact that she inherited everything outside the entail.”

Craddock was about to dismiss the warning with a sneer, but then he paused. For years he had made sure his wife’s niece was kept isolated from friends or relations, and that included any potential suitors. However, his own daughter was now of an age to enter society, and isolation was no longer possible. So far Mrs. Craddock had been able to keep the girl at her side, hidden among the chaperones, while Corinne basked in the admiration of various young men. That had sufficed this season, but the admiration had yet to produce any offers. If this continued, sooner or later Lady Anne might attract some attention of her own. He narrowed his eyes. He had a glimpse of the future and the sight was discomfiting.

“I will have to find her a husband myself,” he thought, “someone I can control. Perhaps. . . .”

Craddock rose and stomped out, not bothering with even a nod of farewell. Sprackett had grown accustomed to the rudeness. It had been different with the earl, but then the earl had been a gentleman.

Sprackett grimaced. If only he had not been so desperate for money when Craddock appeared with his proposition. But what was done was done.

It had all been most unfortunate.

Especially for Lady Anne.

***

Prologue

1810 – Scotland

The stone was hard and cold. Light in the church came from flickering candles next to the altar and fading sunlight breaching the tiny windows and door. Dara rested her head on the rough floor, tears mixing with dirt tracked in by decades of worshippers. “Is this Your dictate? They did nothing…”

The old priest had tried to comfort her, but his words were empty platitudes, meaningless despite good intentions. Her beautiful brothers were dead, burned with their nurse. The fire, some said, had been unnatural, lighting up the sky for miles around. Father Garrick had told of wild tales of magical beasts taking flight, cackling witches and demons spreading through town.  In the end, she didn’t give a damn. Edward and Jeremiah were gone.

The comfort of her sister, Caila, was slight. Two years Dara had stayed with Anthony out of selfishness, and lost a fifth of the boys’ brief lifetime. I came back too late. I failed them when they needed me, she thought. I saved them just to let them die ten years later. Forcing herself onto her knees, she wiped grimy hands over her cheeks. The gown she’d worn, one that he’d picked out for her, was filthy after three days ride in the back of a wagon.

A sound from the entrance of the church brought her attention from sorrow. Father Garrick had gone to comfort wee Caila, letting Dara cry in solitude. They were the tears she couldn’t have freed in front of the one person who still needed her. She couldn’t let Caila down too. Brushing dark red strands of hair out of her eyes, she glanced back toward the heavy planked door and her breath caught in her throat. It was a vision, had to be. He was there. Had God sent an apology for taking the little ones by bringing him to her now?

“Your gr…Anthony…” Even after two years, she stumbled over the words. She despised herself for the misstep.

***

“Don’t move or I’ll kill you,”

This probably wasn’t the best start to a night Amicia ever had but she was pretty sure that there had been worse. She might not have been able to think of any right now but she was pretty sure that there were some somewhere back there. Of course being seated in a restaurant with a moron who doubled as her boss and having your waiter poke a gun to the back of her head had to rank pretty high up there.

“What do you want,” She asked more curious than she was afraid. After all this kind of crap doesn’t happen every day…thank the source.

“How nice of you to ask. Although it is the gentleman who usually does the ordering. And the correct phrase I believe is ‘what will you have’ not ‘what do you want’. All the same I think I’ll have the salmon. I hear they make it wonderfully here, with just of hint of lemon and-”

“Will you shut the hell up! I wasn’t talking to you I was speaking to the lovely gentleman with a gun to my head!” She snarled at Joshua, her dinner date who was either a moron or woefully unobservant. She’d bet on both.

The small restaurant was packed but dead silent. She wasn’t the only one with a gun pointed at her. There were at least four others including the proprietor. However she seemed to the only one with it pointed at her head.

“I need for you to stand up slowly and head toward the kitchen,” the waiter instructed in very low almost soothing voice.

She stood slowly and took a step away from the table. She didn’t even look to her would be date to
save her. From the time he’d seen the gun he’d gone a pasty white. She wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there was a wet spot left on the seat when he finally stood up. Helpfully Joshua scooped up her purse from the table and held it out to her. It took all the restraint she had not to snatch it and throw it back at his head.

“Nothing to say? This might be your last chance to speak with me,”

“It wouldn’t do any good. Not to mention that I brought you here to fire you. Public places are a much better place to do it. However that makes the whole comforting conversation seem insincere.”

Amicia took a deep breath before addressing her kidnapper who was at the moment looking more and more like a savior, “Before you kill me can you shoot him first?” Suddenly the lights went out. Looking out the window she could see it was at least the whole block. This wasn’t good. All that illuminated the restaurant were the small candles on each table.

***

Between one flicker of a dim street lamp and the next, a new being flashes into existence. The apparition slumps against a brick wall, cool rain dripping down the face as it stares, wide-eyed and bewildered at the unfamiliar surroundings. Of course they are unfamiliar– the buildings and streets are as new to these eyes as the watcher is to them. Even the body is a strange physical hindrance, but when it begins to move, shivering uncontrollably, the watcher realizes it is cold. This is a new sensation, and it is considered with confusion.

The possession of a body is itself new and different, though it cannot remember what it was before, if indeed it was anything at all. It is young and female, and she knows that she is a girl.

Not only has she a body, but something more as well. A second layer above the skin, artificial, and with a moment’s thought she knows the word for it: clothing. She has clothing. But the clothing is not thick. It is not meant for these conditions, for the dark of night and the water pouring from the sky.

More words come to her as she thinks, and she knows that if she only waits long enough then soon, soon she will understand what has happened, why she is here. But to wait out of the weather (rain, the word whispers through her mind) would be best. She needs to find shelter. The girl examines her long limbs closely and the words come: legs, feet, standing, walking. Walking is what she wants to do.

The girl places her hand against the rough brick behind her (building) and pushes. She comes stumbling up, just catching herself on awkward feet. She stands uncertainly, shaking, precariously balanced with only two small points of contact with the earth.

Walking involves lifting one of those points and placing it in front of the other and she is loathe to try it, but she does so. Braced carefully against the building, she takes her first step. Her second. It is familiar within seconds, and she braves taking her hand from the supporting wall. Success– she stands and walks. Her lips curve in what she realizes is a smile.

The girl’s triumph is short-lived. Now, behind her, a sound- a growl. Thick and low-voiced, an animal snarl causes her heart to leap into her throat and her breath to come short and fast. The growl repeats, sounding closer. She hears the soft pads of some nightmare creature closing in. Terror grips her.

Her new skills are all she has. She lifts one foot, sets it down, lifts the other. She does it again, faster, faster. Now she is moving, leaving the dubious shelter of her brick wall and traveling, alone, by foot, and she knows the word for this new action:

Running.

The cool evening rain makes her clothing stick to skin, and now she is running down the dim city street with no thought in her mind other than fear. She does not know where she is going. She only knows that she must keep running, she must save herself from her enemy.

***

Paris, 1890.

The important thing to remember when about to fight a duel for the honor of a beautiful woman is to wear the correct style of shoes.

Lord Lucien Severn had been most explicit with his valet as to the exact shade of dove grey suede that would complement his trousers with their cuffs carefully turned up in the most recent style, a l’Anglaise.

Unfortunately, Lucien had not anticipated the early morning dew covering the grass in the Bois de Boulogne.  This was not surprising, considering he had not been out before noon since he’d arrived in Paris.  Or rather, he’d not been in until five orout before noon.

The suede was damp with mud and he was starting to doubt his choice of white satin waistcoat.  Too formal?  If he were actually shot, the blood would be the devil to clean.  Of course, Lucien would never have the bad taste to be shot.   No, if anyone would be cleaning blood from a waistcoat, it would be Freddy, who was nervously examining the barrel of his pistol as if he had never seen one up close before.

The newsmen gathered along the edge of the meadow, frantically jotting descriptions of the cut of his coat.  Lucien wondered if his tailor would be grateful enough for the publicity to stop hounding him for that trivial matter of payment.

“My Lord,” called one from the line, “Paris Herald here! Any last words you would like us to deliver to La Belle Russe?”

Lucien paused and straightened the white orchid pinned to his lapel; the contrast was striking between the delicacy of the blossom and the strength of his long, tapered fingers.

“Any gentleman would gladly leap into the grave to defend La Belle Russe from the grievous insult dealt her by this perfidious blaggard.”

“I say!” exclaimed Freddy indignantly, blushing like a school-girl, “I only offered her the statue as a tribute.  I never meant to imply…that is, dash it, Severn, she knows I only worship her!”

“Quite. Well, Freddy, shall we get this business over with then?  I’ll buy you a stiff drink at Maxim’s once the surgeon’s patched you up.”

Lucien’s second, still dressed in tails and slightly foxed, handed him the pistol with a tipsy bow.

“All right, then, you both know the rules.  Twenty paces and one shot each. Gentleman of the press, clear the way!”

“One…”

Lucien took the fist step, deliberately placing one foot directly in front of the other as if executing the steps of a complicated dance.

“Two…”

He looked out at the leaves, just beginning to turn gold and red along the edges – everything seemed brighter, clearer, more real…

“Three…”

He could hear the slight breeze whistling and shaking the poplar leaves like tiny symbols.  In the distance, a bird trilled, calling to her children in the nest.

“Four…”

He felt the old familiar pull of oblivion, darkness….  As he stepped, his fingers gradually loosened on the pistol.

“Five…”

The forest floor rumbled with vibrations, steadily growing stronger; the poplar leaves trembled in the still morning air; the vibrations turned to the clatter of hooves.

A dark shape burst from the brush and reared up over Lucien, a dark and monstrous silhouette like the nightmares of his childhood– a confusion of rearing hooves, wild rolling eyes, and nostrils blowing smoke in the cold air.

As Lucien stared in frozen bewilderment, the shape settled and transformed into recognizable shapes – a black horse rearing and then settling and pawing at the ground, a dark figure in a billowing cloak, holding tight to the reigns and forcing the powerful beast to an abrupt stop from a mad gallop.

“Hold there – settle, you devil!” growled the figure in a deep, raspy baritone.

Lucien straightened up, caught his pistol as it slid to the tip of his fingers, and tossed it up, catching it midair.

“Why, hullo, Max, what brings you out so early in the morning?” he drawled.

It was his brother, the Duke of Warwick, and his calm expression could not mask the formidable temper that Lucien remembered all too well from boyhood.

***

I’m still in one piece…

And more importantly, still alive. Hope’s rapid breaths churned with the Yukon air, creating a steam engine effect with each exhale. She lay flat on her back, blinking past the dainty white flakes of snow falling from the midnight sky.

Beyond her fogging breaths and drifting snow, was the moon. Hanging heavy and full, beautiful yet deadly. It’s companion, the aurora borealis danced among the stars, casting a celestial glow upon the rocky, snow-covered terrain.

Running hadn’t been intentional nor had it been out of fear, but when bloodlust, a compelling force all werewolves succumbed to, took over the beast stalking her in the back drop of woods, she’d had no choice but to run, out maneuver it, and then destroy it.

After twenty years of the same old, same old, she ought to be used to the near death experiences and the overwhelming flood of adrenaline. Yet as she lay there in a mound of disturbed snow, panting and reveling in her victory, her heart was wild, drowning out the voices of her coming squadron.

Halting just at her side, a towering figure stood with his outstretched hand waiting patiently for her to take it.

“I’ve got to say boss, I’m a little offended you’re out here making snow angels without the rest of us.” Sloan said, rolling his eyes when she refused his aid. He flashed a knowing grin, the dimples bordering his cheeks deepening.

“And I’ve got to say, your aim sucks.” As she’d been out giving run for your life new meaning, he hadn’t managed to make one direct hit with his automatic. No way was she taking credit for mentoring him now.

Hope ignored his dry laugh as she forced her shaking limbs to cooperate and stand. Sloan bent at the waist and retrieved something from the snow. Her knife, she realized, as he pressed the cold metal to her palm without brushing skin.

“Babe, my aim only matters in two areas of my expertise and since you’re still alive and my female subjects aren’t complaining, then I’d say I’m good to go,” he said, moonlight catching a twinkle in his brown eyes.

“Uh huh. And I guess I never see any of the women you date because they’re just as elusive as the fiends we hunt.”

Suddenly Hope gasped and clutched her face in mock horror. “Oh No! Sloan I think you’ve been sleeping with werewolves.”

He scowled and pursed his lips. “Says the Demi Moore wanna be whose dates I never see. Tell me, what is ghost sex really like?”

Hope snorted and waved a dismissive hand as she strode to through the ankle deep snow, making her way toward the crowd of officers huddling over the disemboweled remains of her kill.

***

Dorothy McNair relished the freedom that came with not being known as the “Richest Girl in the World” (the way the phrase rolled from everyone’s tongues, it sounded like it was imprinted in capital letters). Her green eyes concealed behind a pair of silver spectacles and her irrepressible honey blonde curls in a neat chignon beneath a black hat trimmed with small black feathers and plain netting, Dorothy felt downright inconspicuous. She breathed deeply of the air of the bustling, busy Grand Central Station. Ah, it smelled alive and thriving, of people filled with purpose, simple people, whose only desire was to get to where they were going and no doubt do very important things. Things more important than signing dotted lines on papers passed to her by trustees, wilting beneath the electric lights of Sherry’s while moving through intricate dance steps, or nodding to acquaintances she barely knew and probably didn’t like every afternoon in Central Park. She didn’t mind her immense wealth, knowing how dire poverty could be, but she wanted something more from life than being rich. Even charity was less an instance of truly helping others–each charity ball or bazaar or kettledrum merely whipped the society pages into a frenzy and obscured the assistance she attempted to make.

Dorothy pushed through the crowd, actually delighted with the way people bumped into her and stepped on her toes with nary an acknowledgment of her person, as though she was just another insignificant body filling the station. In her left hand, she held exactly one suitcase–brown leather with brass clasps–filled with the same sober cotton shirtwaists and navy tailor-mades in which she was currently clothed, and in her right, the twenty-five dollars which would take her in any direction she wished. For the moment, she did not know what she wished, for she had been no further than fifty square miles from New York City over the course of her entire life. The pyramids of Egypt she knew, the Pyrenees she climbed, the Black Forest she hiked, but the great wide expanse of her native United States of America? It may as well be Siberia or the North Pole.The den of conductors shouting “All aboard” and the clanging of train bells and their piercing whistles urged her on, and she moved into the ticket line.

When the line lurched forward, she lurched with it, until she reached the ticket window, where the man behind the cage rapped a staccato: “Where to, miss?”

“Where do you think I should go?” she leaned forward. “I’ve heard so much of Buffalo at this time of the year.”

“Say, miss,” the ticket seller frowned. “If you don’t know where to, get out of the line until you do. You’re holding up a lot of busy people.” He hooked a thumb at the line behind her. “Where to, sir?”

Dorothy turned to look. Golly, the line was long, stretching to the foyer, criss-crossing other lines and dissecting others. The man directly behind her clamped his teeth on his cigar, bushy eyebrows lowering over a nose reddened by broken capillaries. “A one-way ticket to Columbus.”

“Is that a nice place to visit?” Dorothy asked as the man elbowed her out of the way in order to pay for his ticket.

“Ya, it’s nice. Got a house there and three mouths to feed,” he snorted and rolled his eyes. “Is Columbus nice. Ha!”

***

The woman in his bed looked nothing like any groupie he’d seen before. He found that kind of intriguing. After twenty-five years in the business, he didn’t get a lot of surprises anymore.

He liked surprises.

The girl didn’t stir as he fished in his pockets for his wallet, change, hotel keys and phone. He dumped them on the massive desk next to the window. Next he pulled out all the business cards and scraps of paper people had stuck in there tonight, stuff he’d never look at. He took off his suit jacket and black mesh t-shirt and tossed them on a chair, still watching the sleeping girl.

When he’d returned to the Marquis tonight, he hadn’t had to fight his way through as large a crowd of crew, friends, press and assorted hangers-on as usually thronged a hotel on a tour stop. Redneck Metal were veterans like him, guys in their forties who’d first made it twenty years ago. They’d done the Sodom and Gomorrah On A Bus dozens of times already. Recovering alcoholics and former junkies committed to sobriety didn’t need the same level of debauchery they once had, especially not with their guitarist back in rehab after a spectacular fall off the wagon. They all knew how easily it could’ve been one of them.

Hell, Marsh Galloway had brought his wife along, and it wasn’t one of those send-the-wife-shopping-while-I-bang-the-groupies setups, either. A couple of the other guys had their wives and kids joining them at different spots on the road. It was as close to family friendly as this kind of music got.

So far he’d enjoyed his last minute stint as Guest Guitar God. The whole “living legends together at last” PR had worked. Every venue had sold out weeks in advance. He’d told Marsh he thought forty-three was kind of early for legend status. The forty-six-year-old bassist had just laughed

He glanced in the mirror and then took a second look. Not too bad for an old dude, by rock n roll standards. Not nearly as many lines on the face as there should’ve been. Clean for ten years, he worked out a lot, and it showed. He slapped his flat belly, smiling with grim satisfaction, and flexed his biceps. Sooner or later, no matter how much iron he pumped, the skin would start to sag. God only knew what the tats would look like then.

He tried to imagine what Keith Richards would’ve looked like now if his arms and torso were covered in ink, and he shuddered.

Sighing, he went to sit on the edge of the bed to pull off his boots. The girl didn’t stir, but began to snore very softly. He smothered a laugh. How long had she been waiting for him? Who’d let her in here? And what the hell was up with those clothes? Tight, worn blue jeans showed off a sweet ass, but they were too long, rolled up at the ankles. And the Houston Astros jersey nearly swallowed her.

Fuck. What if she weren’t a groupie? What if she were homeless and had somehow gotten in here?

***

Kira Talbot fought the rising tide of nausea. It funneled dark fingers into her vision, shrinking her sight into jagged, unfocused spots. A cool sweat crawled down her neck and around her shoulders. Groaning, she dropped her forehead on her desk.

Dog. Everything smells like singed, wet dog.

Her stomach lurched.

“You aren’t looking well, Kira. Working late doesn’t agree with you.” Mr. Lovatt, her boss, stood in his doorway. She didn’t question how s he knew without looking. Or how she knew he wore a smirk.

Girding herself for the internal sloshing of her brain, she nonetheless lifted her head. She’d never been anything short of professional. She would not start today. Lovatt looked down his nose at her. His lips shrank back in the semblance of a secret smile.

“I’m almost done with the reports, then I’ll lock up. I just need water.”

“Unlikely.”

His eyes sharpened on her. Kira struggled to keep him in focus. The sound of her pulse filled her ears, over-laid with another, similar sound. Two pulses? Not possible. Just her throbbing head playing tricks on her.

Mr. Lovatt came into sharp zoom. Every pour became visible, each individual coal lash spiked forward over black eyes that reflected salacity for—her? Her head twinged and wet dog assaulted her nostrils. Wet, aroused, dog. She might vomit yet.

“It’s probably the flu.”

“No,” he said softly. “You need food.”

Kira clutched her stomach and shook her head.

“Meat,” he insisted.

Sizzling hamburgers and greasy fries, pepperoni pizza, crisp bacon. Oh, God. She swatted her hand out, hoping to catch the waste receptacle. Lovatt’s footsteps pounded away, echoing in her head as though each step had been taken by an elephant and not the sly steps of her boss.

She hauled the receptacle to her lap, pressing her forehead on the inner rim. Her moans echoed off utility plastic, wafting the stale air of old sandwiches and dog. Always the damn-fucking dog.

Mr. Lovatt’s steps thumped toward her. The closer he came, the more irratic her pulse grew. She could not make herself sit upright as her body shivered through another wave of drilling nausea.

Her skin felt his proximity near her like part of herself had returned. She couldn’t make sense of it. Mr. Lovatt barely noticed her on a personal level until a couple of weeks ago when he’d asked her to feed his dog over the weekend.

Damn thing bit her before she got through the front door. Nasty teeth and a hairless muzzle from the ugliest dog alive were the only things she’d seen. Mange, probably. She’d slammed the door20and left.

“Here.”

Mr. Lovatt’s voice raised goose-bumps on her arms. Her reaction confused her. He wasn’t particularly attractive. Mostly creepy. But she couldn’t shake the unnatural desire to absorb him through her pores, through whatever got him closest. She craved it.

Something sifted the air by her ear, moist and dully flapping against dust particles, as though it could make sound. In her state, did make sound. Rumbles, like hunger-become-living tumbled up her throat, dragging her from the shadowed depths of her trash bin and stupid logic one second to the teeth-sinking sex of succulent meat the next.

***

On Padua Lane, they still talk about the night that Kate Minola kicked her cheating husband to the curb—according to town lore, her shrieks could be heard as far as Verona Avenue. No one was ever exactly sure how Kate found out about the affair, and no one dared ask her. But on the night in question, the quiet of Padua Lane suddenly erupted into a domestic volcano of Vesuvian proportions. The hot orange lava of Kate’s rage seeped out their windows, flowed out the doors, and ran down the street, singeing everything in its path.

There were death threats. (From Kate) There were tears. (From the cowed husband.) The couple who lived directly across the street, Nikki and Bill, sat up half the night in their darkened living room watching out the windows in appalled amazement. The show went on so long they made popcorn. At one point, Kate chased her husband out the door, screaming and hurling objects at his back, while their dog Buddy nipped at his ankles. When Kate ran out of curses in English, she switched to Italian. They made three laps around the house before her disgraced and terrified husband finally escaped into his car and drove away.

“Yikes,” Bill said. “I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that.” He looked outside at the lawn covered in silk ties and leather shoes, the shirts that hung from the open windows like flags, and the ruined laptop, glinting silver under its shower from the lawn sprinklers.

Nikki patted her husband’s arm. “No worries on that score, darling.” She kissed his cheek. “But you may want to remember it. As an object lesson, of course.”

Missing the steely look in her eye, Bill smiled at his wife’s joke, secure in the knowledge that he had married a good-natured woman. But their neighbor was another story. He shook his head, firmly convinced that there wasn’t a guy on earth—let alone in Jersey— crazy enough to get involved with Kate Minola, aka the Shrew of Padua Lane.

Note:  This first page has graphic sexual elements.

***

The rain was always sensual to Grace Parson. It was the way it fell carelessly from the sky and caressed the earth, the way mist filled the air when cold rain collided with hot pavement.

Southern California didn’t get much rain, not like other places she lived, so this rain was unusual and welcoming. The gardens that surrounded the Parson estate were dotted with beautiful scent producing foliage which loved the moisture and showed their appreciation by filling the air with perfume. The garden also contained well manicured lawns, rose bushes and a rock garden. In the middle of the garden was the Neptune fountain and surrounding that were chiseled, well-built statues of Greek Gods.

Grace liked to walk the estate grounds when it rained. The white stone of the statues turned to pale grey. It was the smell of rain on stone that made her take her clothes off and rub her bare breasts on the rock hard cock of Apollo. She loved to watch the water settle in various crevices then lap it up with her tongue. It was especially pleasurable to lick between his toes also it was the perfect vantage point to admire the finely crafted sculpture. Up she looked past his calves and thighs, further past his penis and chiseled stomach. Then she gazed into his eyes and watched as his head bowed to lovingly look back. When the rain came at night, Apollo beckoned her to the garden.  His voice put her in a trance and he had his way with her.  His stone shell now flesh, he bent her over Neptune’s fountain and fucked her; rough, wet hands surrounded her waist as he thrust his rod in deep. The moans echoed past the rose bushes and cobbled stone paths. It snuck its way into the mansions windows and woke Grace from the dream.

The warmth from Apollo’s groin still lingered on her backside and her hair was damp.  Gasping for air she sat up in bed and turned to the window. The garden glowed and glistened under the moonlight. A cold breeze chilled the air from the partially open window. With a deep sigh she looked around the room for life, someone who would close it. One last look around and off came the blankets; it was a shame she couldn’t just call her maid or slap her husband and have him do it.

Warning: This first page contains graphic sexual situations.

***

Teddy Wilson was in Man-Heaven.

The ex-world champion boxer-turned-music mogul was enjoying the most fantastic blowjob of his entire fifty-six years. Thankful and prayerful every step of the way, he headed toward his own sensual rapture.

“Oh Jesus,” he groaned as she sucked and licked and sopped him up in a gorging of mindless pleasure. He was lost in a world of wetness and warmth — like a scorching summer day in the middle of July, and he was her favorite freezer pop.

He looked down when her palm curled around and cupped his balls, and her tongue slithered down to meet it there. Before he could grasp the touch of that tease, she was moving again back up to his head. She impishly grazed him with her sharp-edged teeth. “SSSS…sweet Lord, be careful,” he hissed out — and then his eyes rolled up into his skull when her hands joined in the rhythmic delight of her swirling, nipping, and gaining in speed.

He heard her moaning now — or maybe it was him, but coherent thought was not in this room. “Oh baby,” he hummed, slipping mindlessly away from his faith.

The end in sight, she gave him no pause, and he was helpless now to slow it down, even if he wanted to. Stroke for stroke, she nudged him forward, and he was anxious and willing to go. His voice was guttural. “Oh…man, mmm…yessss.”

He threw back his head and violently erupted as she drained him dry and left him for dead. “God,” he huffed out. “Amen.”

He sure was going to miss this girl.

***

Tarnished

Rap-tap-tapping at the chamber door is never a good thing. It usually means the failsafes have, well, failed.

The C door is made of wolfram, titanium, and silver the alloy most likely to repel and stand against any ass-hats attempting to enter the chamber without the codes. Its gleaming metallic surface was a stark contrast to the bare white walls and carpeted floors that enclosed her, completely cutting her off from the outside. The C door was a necessary evil according to the US military. How else could they control her? Study her? Imprison her?

The interior of the chamber looked benign. Like any other of a million hotel rooms across the globe, it sported a double bed in one corner butted up against a table with a light. A flat screen dominated one wall, with the entrance to the bathroom next to the bed. A bit austere but it did not appear hideous. Of course, appearances could be deceiving.

Silver backed away from the door as it began to show strain at the hinges. The bulging center section popped each pin in slow motion until the door lost its support on the right side, falling in with a booming thud.

The scent filled the room first. Meaty, piquant, the aroma filled her senses. Saliva pooled in her mouth as hunger ravaged her for the first time in months. A hand threw a small package around the partially supported door. Before she could stop herself, she was on it. The taste filled her senses with pleasure, the meat raw and full of the sweet iron reek of fresh blood.

She could hear the soft whining filling the room but it wasn’t until the room began to fill with vapor that she realized the sound was coming from her, and by then it was too late. She staggered towards the doorway, her vision blurred from the vapor and whatever had been hidden in the meat.

***

It had been two years, eight months and twenty-three days since Ella Lucas had last done the horizontal rumba. And even then it hadn’t been very good. With the powerful Harley throbbing between her legs, she was acutely aware of every minute. The vibrations pulsed against her taunting places that hadn’t seen action in a long time making her excruciatingly aware of her complete asexual existence. Was it possible to orgasm on the seat of a Harley? Alone?

She revved the engine. Lock up your husbands, Huntley, Rachel’s kid is back in town.

Her red lips twisted in a bitter smile. Nearly two decades since she’d been back in her hometown and it was still making her nuts. Seventeen years she’d spent in this speck on the map trying to do the right thing, trying to be her mother’s opposite. Playing the good girl. Until she’d cracked under the pressure and just walked away.

And still they tarred her with the same brush.

So today she was determined to give them what they’d always wanted. Proof. Real proof. Not some rumour. Something sound to gossip about once she’d hightailed it out of this one-horse town. Something to truly damn her. Something for them all to nod sagely over and say see, we were right, the apple never falls too far from the tree.

And she intended having a damn fine time doing so too.

***

‘Em? Emily, is that you?’

Emily Standish sat down hard on the little wooden chair with its faded floral needlepoint cushion. She barely registered the small cloud of dust it gave out in protest. Her heart was racing and her breath was short. It couldn’t be. It must be nearly fifteen years – and this really wasn’t the moment for that kind of complex mental arithmetic. If someone had asked her, Emily would have claimed she barely remembered him. She certainly wouldn’t have expected that she could recognise his voice on the end of a crackling phone line in just five words.

‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

She could hang up, of course. For all he knew, she was on a train heading through a tunnel at just the wrong moment. Right moment. Whichever.

Or perhaps she could pretend he’d got the wrong number. He wouldn’t be able to tell if she changed her voice a bit, would he?

‘Emily, it’s Simon.’

‘Yes.’ She knew that. She didn’t have a clue what else was going on but she did know who it was who had got her phone number from somewhere and called her out of the blue.

‘It is you! For a moment there I wondered if I’d made a terrible cock-up and phoned some other Emily Standish.’

Simon sounded just like he always had. Charming and confident with a deep humour always lurking just beneath the surface. Emily couldn’t help herself. She smiled.

‘Hello Simon.’

He laughed. ‘Hello darling! God, it’s good to hear your voice again. You don’t sound as though you’ve changed a bit. Have you? No, don’t tell me, I’m coming to see for myself.’

Emily clutched at the phone more tightly and hoped that Simon couldn’t tell she was shaking. ‘You’re coming to see me?’ Wildly, she looked around the piles of magazines, the not-quite-abandoned knitting, and the tulips that were out of water and dropping petals all over her front room. She closed her eyes and prayed that he’d at least give her time to tidy up a bit.

‘Yes. There’s something I need to talk to you about. That’s okay, isn’t it?’

‘Well, I suppose…’

‘Great. Are you free on Saturday? I’ll pick you up at seven, shall I?’

‘Simon, I…’

He paused. ‘Is something the matter?’

Emily swallowed, wondering how her mouth had suddenly got so dry. Simon Lennox had phoned her. Was talking to her now, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Wanted to come and see her. To take her out for dinner on Saturday.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening.

It wasn’t what she had planned.

She took a deep breath. Probably it was nothing. Just dinner with an old friend. ‘No. Saturday’s fine. Do you need directions?’

‘You’re still in the cottage, aren’t you? Park in the lane and come round through the back gate. I remember.’

And that, thought Emily, summed up her life over the last 15 years. Still in the same tiny village, in the same tiny cottage that her landlord had never bothered to have modernised. Still doing the same dead end job and still waiting for Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet.

‘Yes. I’m still here.’

‘Great. See you on Saturday, then.’

She listened to the empty buzz at the end of the line for a moment before replacing the phone on its base.

Simon Lennox.

Fifteen years ago, she thought she loved him.

Fifteen years ago, he had married someone else.