Apocalypse? Wow.

Zombies. Destruction. Mayhem. Anarchy. All left in the wake of the apocalypse. (Okay, maybe not zombies all the time)

Whether caused by chemical fallout, natural disasters, or wayward comets, we love post-apocalyptic stories. What is it that drives us to them, though? Why do we love to watch the aftermath of such destruction?

I think it’s because these stories are the ultimate in do-overs. Imagine: you get to keep all your knowledge, all your skills, but none of the baggage of your past. You are no longer tied to your job, your bills, your expectations.

When the world ends, and you’re left to survive or die, you find a way to go on. The past no longer matters. The future is sketchy at best. All you have is the now. The isolation, desolation, and destruction are side effects, tools that drive our leading characters to become heroes.

The zombie chasing you, the one that was created when a virus was inadvertently let loose on society, doesn’t care how much information you have packed into your brain. It only cares about how tasty it is going to be.

The comets falling from the sky don’t care how populated a city is. It’s just heeding to gravitational laws. There is nothing that will direct its course. (except for possibly giant brain bugs living on another planet, but that’s probably another post)

The water crashing down the street taking out everything in its path doesn’t care if your car has a high-priced status symbol logo or your car rolled off the economy line of a domestic brand. It’s coming, and there’s nothing either car can do about it.

So you ride the tide, swim to shore, and begin again when the waters recede. There’s not a lot else you can do.  Sure, you can help prevent becoming a number. Stay indoors during the night. Don’t crack open the long-forgotten military waste canister. Grab a life vest. But in the end, it’s what you’re doing right now that matters.

We watch Night of the Comet, or I Am Legend, The Day After Tomorrow or 2012 (*checks calendar….uh-oh….*), and while they have horror elements, underneath it all, they’re stories of hope. Stories of the human spirit, triumphing over elements so far outside their control, they seem hopeless. But the human spirit takes over. It overrides our natural programming, leaving us a binary choice: fight or flight.

Just like Mad Max and Alice, we flee until it’s no longer feasible to fly. Then, we fight. And we will fight tooth and nail to survive. We’ll gather food, hunt for proteins, rebuild our infrastructures. We’ll cloister together, patchworking our way to a new society. We’ll have to, for our own sakes. For our own species.

So, who’s ready for a do-over? Let’s stop waiting for the zombie infestation or the alien invasion to give us permission to take charge.  Your do-over is waiting for you to take it.

Think about how you will react when the world falls apart, and you’re the only thing left to keep it together.

Now, go do it.

**Super powers not necessary

~xxx~

The Curses

Well, look at that! Today’s Friday the 13^th. Be scared, everyone. Some people may think Friday the 13^th is the most dreadful day of their life while some will think it’s the best day. For me, it normally has been a good day. There are so many different curses and I will just list a few. The information was discovered at http://squidoo.com/omens.

Breaking a mirror is probably a well known curse. I have known about it since I was little kid. My sister once broke the mirror by accident and she immediately freaked out. I remember her screaming “I’m going to have a bad luck for the next seven years!” She even wept a little. At first, I thought it was dumb to believe in something like that. Ten minutes or so later, she tripped over something and hurt her knee badly. If I remember it correctly, she kept tripping over things for the next couple days. Eventually, it stopped so…do I believe the luck will last seven years? Probably not. According to Squidoo, “Our ancestors [Romans] began this superstition, because they thought the image in a mirror, contained our actual soul. Thus, a broken mirror represented the soul being pulled from your body and being trapped in all the shattered pieces.”

To think about it, it actually does make sense to the reason why this curse exists. Want to know the reason why the bad luck lasted seven years? Well, “Romans believed after seven years, the body was physically renewed and the soul could once again return whole.”

What about the cure? Is there any way to prevent bad luck from happening? Apparently, there is one—if you accidently broke a mirror, you’ll need to wait for seven hours before you start picking the pieces up then bury them outside in the moonlight.

What does this have to do with paranormal, you wonder? I like to read things like that and start making plots inside my head. Squidoo’s website about the mirror curse only has one hundred and five words, but it was enough for me to think of a plot.

Plot Idea: A murderer follows his victim until they are inside the victim’s house. The murderer waits until a victim faces a mirror for seven minutes then the murderer grabs victim’s head and slams it against the mirror. The pieces from the mirror splatter all over the floor then murderer chants a spell. The soul that is trapped in the mirror pieces becomes bright white and floats into the air. The murderer inhales the soul through his mouth and nose. The victim lies on the floor all helpless. Without a soul, the victim is nothing but a mindless body.

The next curse is the number thirteen. Like most people, I immediately think of the movie Friday the 13^th, which was a horror film. There is more to that, though. Here are some examples from Squidoo of how the number 13 got its unlucky reputation:

-          At Valhalla, the home of Gods, if you had twelve guests at a feast, and a thirteenth, turned up uninvited, he was to be “The God of Deceit”.

-          Many Christians believed it started with witches’ covens having 12 members,  making 13 only when the devil appeared at satanic ceremonies (although, prior to Christianity, 13 was considered a sacred number, representing the 13 moons of the year.)

-          For Christians, 13 was also the number at the Last Supper, when Judas betrayed Jesus.

-          It is claimed that Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden on Friday, Noah’s flood started on Friday and Christ was crucified on Friday, so, it is likely these days and numbers combined were given the signal of the bad luck.

-          There is the belief that stems from the order given by King Phillip IV, on Friday, October 13, 1307, to round up the Knights Templar and kill or torture them.

I’ve also learned two new vocabulary words from 13^th curse section. Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13. Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday 13^th.

How does that fit in paranormal, you ask again? Like I said earlier, Friday the 13^th immediately reminded me of the horror film franchise by the same name. Jason Voorhees died as a child by drowning in the lake because the staff at the camp wasn’t paying attention to the children. All the other children thought Jason was a freak. His mother was beheaded then a curse brought his soul back to exact revenge.

People can be as creative as their imaginations allow with this kind of curse. I believe there are plenty of ways to write a story about the number thirteen as a curse involving magic or spirits.

Walking under a ladder is a curse I still avoid. I experienced it firsthand and it wasn’t fun. I fell and wound up with a sprained ankle. Since then, I make sure I didn’t walk under the ladder no matter what. I’ve often wonder why was it a curse until I found an information on Squidoo.

-          If you walk under a ladder you supposedly break a spiritual triangle (the Holy Trinity) that will leave you vulnerable to the devil.

-          In the days before the gallows, criminals were hung from the top rung of a ladder and their spirits were believed to linger underneath. Thus, to walk beneath an open ladder, was to pass through the triangle of evil ghosts and spirits.

This kind curse leads to many potentials of good paranormal story. It can be involved either devils or ghosts. For instance, a person walked under a ladder just to prove his friend that nothing would happen but all of a sudden, he disappeared. It was as if he walked into a wormhole. He fell onto the ground and found himself surrounded by fire. It was when he realized he wasn’t on Earth anymore but in hell. He had to fight his way out before a devil catches him and tortures him for the rest of his life.

I hope you learned a thing or two from this three kind of curses I like the most. The key, in my opinion, to write a paranormal story is to expand you outside the box and think of a curse that can easily lead to something supernatural. Perhaps, include a spell that makes things happen? Inviting a creature to make people scared of the curses? Be creative and you’ll be surprised.

Cheers!

Zach Sweets

The Angelics

I was asked to participate in a pole the other day. Which would I rather date – a vampire, an angel or a fallen angel. It got me to thinking. Angels get a pretty raw deal in the world of man. So what are they?

Angel – from the Greek ἄγγελος (angelos) –  messenger/announcer. Messenger of what, sent by whom? Do we include the Town Crier and the UPS guy? Are all angels the same? That’s like asking if all radios are the same, or all TV’s. 

Archangel, fallen angel, guardian angel, just plain ole angel… can a person be an angel or do they have to be disembodied? Are they sent by God/gods/goddess/et al or freelancing? Where do they live, how do they interact with humans – if they can at all? And…if an angel is fallen, where did he/she fall from? What about gender, do they have one or are they androgynous?  

I’ve read tons of information, (mostly for work *sigh) much of it contradictive. The beauty of fiction, as opposed to my day job of having to argue points of reference to back up conclusions, is that we (the writer) can make up the rules and as long as we’re consistent, we get away with it – yay. But is it still important to have some basis in the familiar concepts our readers associate with angels? 

I think it helps. It makes me smile when you see a reviewer make the comment ‘requires you to suspend belief to follow the plotline’ – um, you’re reading about paranormal creatures, suspension of belief is a given on some level. At the same time, it’s a valid point. We can only push the boundaries of our world so much before we cross the line and ask too much of the reader by carving out such a complex system or world that it becomes the story, overwhelming the characters. 

I also find that when it comes to most paradudes people are happy to chalk up myths and folklore to overexcited morphemes and phonemes or an explosion of phosphene geometries in a well poked eye. But angels…for some reason they touch people on a deeper level. Maybe you’ve had an angelic experience yourself or know someone that has.

 

 Mind you, for fifty quid, I can attend a workshop down the road that will teach me to talk to angels directly, and for a hundred they’ll throw in a tour of one of the lower heaven realms and a certificate of authenticity to prove to everyone else I’ve been. That's okay, as long as I get to go with this guy <<<<<<< You don’t get that with vampires or werewolves – not in my part of the world anyway.

In my next post, I’ll have a look at some of the angels from religion, mythology and fiction but for now, I’d like to hear about yours. How do you like your angels? Sexy for sure, but are they winged, bodied, ethereal, naughty, pure, tricksters? And what do they do – or do you prefer finding that out to be part of the story?

One of my current WIP’s has an MC, Reeve, whose role it is to guide human souls through the death threshold and into the next world.  Is he an angelic? Some would say yes, but he isn’t a messenger and he doesn’t announce anything. In Gnosticism, he is paralemptor (Greek) – receiver of souls. Have a look at this excerpt – what label would you give Reeve? 

They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before you. To this, I can attest.  What they don’t tell you is how, and maybe, more importantly why.

Years... some have less than others, some only moments, yet in a split second every one of them presents in startling clarity, existent outside of time, hanging beyond space. Magnificent.

That’s my job. I throw the mental switch that allows it to happen at just the right moment. Too soon and you risk insanity, too late and the moment is lost forever.

A review is only powerful when seen through the mind’s eye of the personality that lived it. There have been experiments to try to understand this; to understand why we can’t begin after consciousness passes the generally recognised point of no return. When the ties of the body drop so does the impact of events. In other words, it no longer hurts like a bitch or brings those sweet tears of joy.

Of course, some do return. That’s my job too, allowing the return trip. Are there rules? Of course. Do I follow them? Absolutely… apart from when I don’t.

‘Reeve, what in the blazes are you doing?’

‘Sorry sir, I didn’t see you there.’

‘You’re not supposed to. How can I check up on you if you know I’m here?’

‘Uhm.’

‘For goodness sake don’t stare at me. Put the man out of his misery.’

‘Eh? Oh…’ I flick the yellow globe hanging in the space before me and see Marcus Denby Jr go limp. It’s a shame. I liked Marcus. His review was damned good entertainment. Damning for sure – the guy had truly lived. It was like scenes from an action movie the people watch.

‘I want you in my office at the end of your shift.’

‘Yes sir, sorry sir.’

Harim wafts from the room, shaking his head. He despairs of me I know, but what can I do? I have a soft spot for these little ones in pain, the remorse that bites into their souls when they witness the hurt they’ve inflicted, often without realising. Nobody tells them that at the end they will feel every emotion they’ve elicited in another through that person’s eyes. Marcus Denby Jr has inflicted a lot of pain, a lot of anguish and a lot of downright pleasure. If only he’d known at the time maybe…

Sod it. I’m letting him go back. I want to see what he’ll do with his new insight into humanity. I look at Marcus, the empty body slumped in the chair, wrists and ankles bloody from the ropes. The song of his soul sings to me from the holding pen around the dead flesh – he’s still hurting. His review has kicked into stage two. Some people call it the Bardo – a state in between where one chooses what comes next. I only have a few more seconds before he’s seen too much to return, maybe he already has.

Steadfast. Just do it.

I flick the red globe and the body of Marcus Denby Jr gasps, drawing deep, burning breaths into his broken body. This won’t do. I reach for the blue globe and squeeze just a little. His captors, already pressed back against the walls of the iron cell at the impossibility of the dead man breathing before them, bolt for the door as a gentle blue mist caresses and heals.

‘It’s time to live again Marcus,’ I whispered. ‘This time maybe you’ll do it wisely.’

My mouth falls open as he looks right at me, his head pressing against what should be an invisible hand – my invisible hand that’s holding his face.

‘Will I though, Reeve?’ he said, choking back his tears. ‘Do I know how?’

Casey K. Cox ~ The Review

Now I couldn’t help but include this little titbit of information direct from Wikipedia. 

In the US, a 2008 survey by Baylor University's Institute for Studies of Religion, published by TIME Magazine which polled 1,700 respondents, found that 55 percent of Americans, including one in five of those who say they are not religious, believe that they have been protected by a guardian angel during their life. An August 2007 Pew poll found that 68 percent of Americans believe that "angels and demons are active in the world" and according to four different polls conducted in 2009, a greater percentage of Americans believe in angels (55%) than those who believe in global warming (36%).

Wiki goes on to say ‘Teen Belief in the Supernatural poll in 1994, 76% of 508 teenagers (aged 13–17) believe in angels, a greater percentage than those who believe in astrology, ESP, ghosts, witchcraft, clairvoyance, Bigfoot, and vampires’. Those figures may well have changed since the latest vampire/shifter craze took off. Has the interest in the paranormal taken off across the board or just in these currently popular sub-genres? Maybe as writers, our job is to mix it up a bit and bring the whole host of supernatural and preternatural creatures to bear on an unsuspecting world. 

Oh, the power… rarrrr ;)

Vampires Are Delicious

If ever I made a list of personal weaknesses in books, vampires would make the top five. As often as I have professed to hate them/be sick of them, I love me some bloodsuckers and have more vampire books to my name than I am willing to admit.

So why do they appeal so damn much? There are numerous theories discussed, and they're interesting discussions to be sure, but when it comes right down to it, I like vampires because it's really hard not to admire something that overcame death and came back stronger than ever. They aren't zombies, who lost more than a little bit in the transition. It probably doesn't hurt that "stronger than ever" also means "hotter than ever and apparently in need of lots of sex".

Whether you go with Dracula, Lord Ruthven, Carmilla, Varney, or any of the other numerous options, they are not the sorts of creatures one wants to piss off. They're as fascinating as they are bad, that red button that says "do not push" that we all push while cackling gleefully.

These days, it's the "classier" vampire that is prevalent, creatures who are ancient, powerful, but educated and usually crazy good looking (occasionally sparkly, it's impossible anymore not to mention the sparkles). They didn't start out that way, and while they were certainly more terrifying back in the days when they were beasts that people feared enough they actually made vampire hunting kits, they certainly got a lot more fun once stories like Dracula came along.

Vampires as nobles, as educated pretty boys (and women, because Carmilla could hold her own with the pretty boys) are the more popular versions today, and have been since books like The Vampyre. We still like them scary and deadly, but vampires as hideous monsters is just never as popular as vampires with a touch of pretty, a dash of angst, and the potential that they're just misunderstand bad boys rather than out and out evil.

It's also rare to have a vampire book that does not have a powerful sexual element to the hunting/feeding. This has been a trend almost since the inception of pretty vampires, and it's rare not to find it even in small measure. But that's half the fun, if not all the fun—the feeding itself is an intimate act; it's hard not to be affected in some way when you are drinking the blood of a person, whether you intend to kill them in doing so or not. Vampires aren't just predators looking for a kill. They're attached to their prey in a wholly unique way. A little bit tricky to feed on what you used to be, what you sometimes still wish to be, depending on the angst level of the vampire involved. Bad enough to need to feed, but throw in sexy times, and you've got even more complications, and everybody loves complications.

So why do vampires rock? They overcame death to come back better than ever, they're hot, hungry, horny hunters with a unique relationship to their prey that leaves them vulnerable even as they remain predator. There's a million ways to spin the concept of a vampire and no dearth of authors willing to do so, which makes this particular addict very happy indeed.

Guest Post - Gods and Heroes by Dany Sirene

I first came across a book of Greek mythology when I was seven. Thankfully, it was a “kids” version, but nonetheless, I was fascinated. Zeus, his long-suffering wife Hera, his myriad conquests and small army of illegitimate children did not resemble the kind of religion I was introduced to in Sunday school. There was Io, whom Hera, in a jealous rage, turned into a cow, Leda and the proverbial swan, Danae, who was visited by Zeus in the guise of “golden rain” (my seven-year-old self could only guess at how that worked). Not to mention all those envious and vain goddesses who punished humans who displeased them and started a war over a golden apple—not exactly what you’d call god-like behaviour.

In  a lot of ancient mythologies, like Greek, Roman and Norse, gods have their separate “domains”, the sun god, the sea god, the father of all gods, and smaller deities with narrower specializations: medicine, the arts, childbirth, dawn, and so on. Unlike monotheistic gods, they interact with humans-- often and with pleasure, if you know what I mean. That usually results in large numbers of demigod children who grow up to be heroes with unusual abilities. Not only do the gods interfere with human affairs, they have their own internal politics that put any royal court to shame. One of my favourite mythological characters of all time, Loki, did some pretty horrible stuff to his fellow Aesir, not to mention that he sired the nightmarish goddess Hel, a giant wolf and a serpent (yes, he got around). All that until the day he crossed the line, and was punished by being tied up in a cave with a snake above him dripping venom on his head.

In Asian mythology, it gets even more interesting. Try Googling, just for fun, what those pretty Chinese dragons got up to in their spare time (hint: it did not involve consent). Also, in many Hindu and Chinese myths, gender is a fluid concept, and there are all kinds of bisexual loving going on, amongst gods and humans and any combination thereof. You have your bi-gendered gods, androgynous spirits and even a god whose domain is homosexual love, Tu Er Shen. His backstory is rather tragic: he fell in unrequited love with an imperial inspector, who, when he found out, sentenced him to be beaten to death. But, since his crime was that of love, after his death Tu Er Shen was delegated as the god of homosexual affections. 

In Fire Play, I imagined my own pantheon with its own rules, even though I drew my inspiration from ancient myths and legends. Demiurges exist in a separate realm, but they can take on human form and live among us. Some are good, others... not so good, some are tricksters, none are infallible. They have flaws and screw up and face the consequences. They play with humans and sometimes fall madly in love with them. And when that happens, passions rage and entire lives are at stake. After all, who can resist the affections of a god?

You can find excerpts and other fun stuff on my blog:

http://sirenesong.blogspot.com/

I’m also on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/dany.sirene

And on Goodreads:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5107576.Dany_Sirene

Lions and Tigers and Weres! Oh MY!

Shapeshifters. Were creatures. They’re everywhere. They turn up in contemporary crime stories, in sweet coming of age books, even the old west and medieval Briton. But what makes a great shifter? And who writes the best ones? (correct answer: Why you do, of course, Xara) </shameless heavy ego petting>  And why do we love them so much?

Trying to figure that out would be an exercise in futility. Everyone has their own idea of what a shifter should look like, how they should behave, and what kind of emotions they should let show. One comment I see often is “That’s not how my shifters would behave.” So, in the end, all I can talk about is what I think they represent.

Most of the shapeshifters you’ll run across are predators. And most often, a mammal. We can’t seem to get enough of the big, bad wolf. He represents that piece of ourselves that we like to keep buried, hidden from polite society. On the surface, we’re all human, with our own feelings, reactions, and preconceptions. We know how we’re supposed to behave, and what face we’re supposed to give the world. Usually we do a pretty good job of keeping up pretenses.

But deep down, under all the “pleases” and “thank yous”, under the “you’re rights” and “yes, sirs”, there’s an animal. Snarling, snapping, wishing to get out. That’s where werecreatures come in. We all have that base desire to buck the trend, to let our hair down (or the fur fly, as the case may warrant) and howl at the moon. The freedom to run through the woods barefoot, and to snap at things that hurt us. Reading about characters who literally transform into their inner animal. We live vicariously through those creatures, relishing their exploits, and wishing we could use that excuse just once. “It wasn’t me; it was my second nature.”

The shifters that stand out most to me are the ones that never let me forget that even though they look human, and mostly act human, they are completely aware and connected to their animal. Their human habits and nervous tics belie their human facades. The big, burly man pacing the room, taking note of his surroundings, just as a wolf does in the forest. The lithe, sinuous man constantly licking his lips to taste the air, just like the snake he transforms into. The huge blonde who rubs his face against his mate, leaving his scent behind, so everyone knows which lion he belongs to.

Man and his animal. Two forms, merged into one being. All the danger lurking just below the calmly presented surface. The power to shift between the two. We all have it. It’s in there, just waiting to be unleashed. The animal instincts we repress on a day-to-day basis, never letting out lest we be labeled as something less than human.

Most of you know what I am. What's inside you, waiting to be let loose at a moment's notice? What's your animal?

Let me know in the comments. I'll give three winners a swag pack. Contest closes Sunday, 8 January 2012, at 3:00 p.m. CST.

~xxx~

Fairy Beautiful

We've all read something featuring elves, fairies, fay, and wee folk. Wikipedia defines them as supernatural or preternatural beings in legend and mythology. In popular media they are beautiful, graceful beings who have knowledge and magic which us ordinary folk could only dream of.

I distinctly recall when Fellowship of the Ring came to theaters and how many fan fictions popped up featuring Legolas and Aragorn in intimate embrace. Of course there have been stories popping up for centuries about mysterious glowing lights, garden trickery, and the lithe, beautiful deadly grace of the fae.

The legends of the fairy folk steam from ages of stories about ghosts, elementals, demons, fallen angels, and even humans. Always illusive, always filled with power, often willing to lead regular folk astray. But like any human some are good and some are bad. This is where the root of storytelling thrives. Why would m/m romance be any different?

In Tolkien's books the elves are a higher race with boundless wisdom as well as heavenly grace and beauty. They are good. They are warriors. And they are protectors of the forest. While Celtic legend speaks of will 'o wisps who seek to lead any traveler to their death; Scottish legends of banshees who suck the life out of people, and early European tales of the hounds of the hunt sent to steal a loved relative away.

One thing that most legends agree on is the fact that you leave them alone unless they so wish to be disturbed.

So how is it these mysterious creatures have taken on the living persona of lust in romance? Did Legolas change our mind after we watched him walk on snow beside Aragorn? I can hear some of you out there saying “Hell, yes!” However, like vampires I think the wee folk have grown so greatly because there are so few rules for their existence. Magical, secretive, beautiful, what's not to love?

When I recently started the fourth book of my Dominion series I knew there would be a fairy ring in it. I did not believe that I would ever write about actual fairies though. Then a new character emerged that I hadn't planned on, and in fact had to rewrite a good portion of the book for, a fairy named Bryar.

Bryar became the personification of the earth. I wrote a brief scene with him and realized I had thrown away all my years of reading about fairies and reverted to something I watched as a kid, Fern Gully. The story is about a human who helps the fairies save their forest from technologies wrath. Bryar is not fighting technology, but the idea is the same.

Is he the embodiment of sex? Yes. I got hooked on Legolas too. But as with everything I write, I take the rules I like and keep them and throw out the rest. So here's my interpretation. What's yours?

I strolled through an unfamiliar garden not remembering how I’d found my way there to begin with. Flowers bloomed, in some Wonderland mystery, towering above my head. The sound of water flowing nearby relaxed me to the very core of my being. Bugs as large as myself passed, ignoring me, in favor of their work. The ground beneath my feet shifted like freshly turned soil, yet I seemed to float over it without stumbling.

Wandering through the towering flowers, I watched the sky’s dark blue light weave between the giant blossoms and leaves. It changed to day gradually like a slow moving picture. The world spun as though it were moon free, restrictive magnetic waves gone. The change could have taken me at any moment, only I feared I’d trample some of the divine growth, so I fought it. Everything glowed with power, life, and strength. I used the light of the blooms above to guide my way, though I had no idea where I was headed.

“Lost?” A masculine voice asked me.

I jumped back a step and looked around until I found a man leaning against the large stalk of an overgrown daisy. He almost seemed to blend in with the stem, though his skin was a pale cinnamon tone, and his hair blood red. He wore only a pair of loose fitting pants of some soft material that clung in places I was sure it had to be cheating to look at. His arms, shoulders, and chest were defined like a man who worked out regularly but not obsessively. His stomach was flat, with only the faintest outline of muscles, which lead to straight hips, a nicely outlined package, and long legs.

“Like what you see, Alice?” He teased, forcing my eyes back up. His smile was bright. He shook his head, sending a cascade of his long red hair rippling down his back like some shampoo commercial.

“Alice?” I couldn’t help but study his face, triangular in shape. It bordered on beautiful with just the slight edge of handsome that saved him from really looking like a woman. His dark eyes, framed by a soft fringe of lashes, met mine without hesitation. Somehow I’d gotten closer to him, just feet away.

“Like the story. The little girl that got lost in a forest of oversized adventures.” He shifted and closed the distance between us. “I don’t think my drink me potion is going to make you bigger than the flowers, but I’m sure I can show you a good time.” He looked to my crotch, “maybe it will make you a little bigger. Temporarily, at least.”

His words hit me like a rush of lust. My body tingled and responded, cock hard enough to hurt, nipples taut and sensitive, heart pounding. He wrapped an arm around my waist and yanked me against him. His lips touched my cheek. I should have been pissed that he’d just called me a girl, but none of that seemed to matter while touching him felt like being wrapped up in the earth on a warm summer day. Nothing had ever been so perfect. ~ Seiran from Ascendance (Dominion #4)