Coming Soon: NIGHTSHADE
Published March 10, 2010 | 
A civilization thrown into hell by war and pestilence cries out for salvation. A band of Champions emerges from the shadows of chaos — reincarnations of the old daemons, demigods and deities from times forgotten.
A young soldier maimed in an accident and no longer fit for the battlefield answers the call to serve. Lieutenant Daniel Willoughby is ready — if not eager — to fulfill his duties as squire to Lord Thanatos, the Champion whose gift is swift, merciful death.
Daniel is prepared to sacrifice his mind and body in service to his new lord and master. He’s about to discover Thanatos wants that…and so much more.
* * *
Excerpt from Chapter 3:
Despite the pilots’ fears, the landing of Transport #34 on the estate of Lord Thanatos — located somewhere in the hills to the west of the city, or so Daniel guessed — was uneventful. They disembarked with no fanfare, and the shuttle did a vertical lift from the elevated pad that sat fifty yards from the gates of a large, formal garden.
Daniel squinted as the glare from the rising shuttle flashed over his face. When it was gone and the deepening shadows of evening settled around him, he removed his glasses and tucked them into the breast pocket of his duty-rig.
From his position on the landing pad, he could see the garden below was dominated by what appeared to be a maze. Fashioned from massive evergreen hedges, it grew eight feet high, lush in the middle of one of the most desolate regions west of the Great Mountains. Its branches were illuminated by thousands of tiny, white lights, and at its center stood a large, bubbling fountain. Daniel didn’t bother to hide his awe.
“Welcome to Nightshade.”
Too dazed to speak, Daniel nodded. The breeze washed over him, sweet and potent, undercut with a sharp tang. He sniffed the air. “What is that?”
“Eucalyptus. Lavender. Night-blooming jasmine.”
Botanical species that hadn’t been seen outside a laboratory in at least fifty years. Yet they grew here? Daniel lifted his face to the breeze again. This time he caught a warmer fragrance — something spicy that made his nose tingle and his mouth water.
He turned to ask how Lord Thanatos managed the irrigation for such a large display of plant life and plowed directly into the Champion’s chest — which explained the new, arousing scent.
“I beg your pardon.” Daniel coughed and shifted away. “I was distracted. I’ve never known anything like this place.”
“It pleases you?” The bland tone of the Champion’s question didn’t match the sharp look he sent over his shoulder as he led Daniel down the steps of the landing pad and toward the garden gates.
Another test. “If it pleases you, of course.” Daniel struggled to keep up with the Champion’s long stride along the paved path. “Is there something the estate lacks? Repairs needed? You could make a list. I’ll start work tonight–”
Thanatos stopped short. Daniel pitched forward, nearly falling in an attempt to halt and turn at the same time.
“Do not babble. It irritates me.”
“I beg your pardon, my…” Daniel swallowed. Instinct told him that to bow his head would only compound his mistake, so he stood still and waited.
Ahead of them, the gates opened with neither a word nor a gesture from the Champion.
“Come.” Thanatos led Daniel into the garden and to a wrought iron bench that stood beneath a trio of spiky trees Daniel thought must be cypress. “We will talk.”
They sat. In the silence that followed, Daniel scanned the sky. No stars looked down. The rising half-moon was a smudge behind a thin screen of clouds. Daniel glanced at the ironwork of the seat beneath him and was startled to see the ornate design set with polished gemstones the size of human eyes.
Thanatos cleared his throat. “Do you know who I am, Daniel?”
Enough with the tests, already. “You are Thanatos, called a daemon spirit or a demigod by the ancient Greki.”
“That is what I am, not who I am.”
“I don’t–”
Thanatos held up a hand. “Ask the monks. Ask them what became of the man called Nikolos Petrakis.”
“I’m sorry. I’m not following you at all.”
Thanatos sighed, and the breeze seemed to sigh with him. “Thirteen years ago by the Brotherhood’s calendar, Nikolos Petrakis was a sheep farmer on an island called Chios, in the Aegean Sea. He had a wife, two sons and a daughter five months in the womb.”
What does that have to do with the price of unBlighted blood in St. Francis? Daniel gnawed on the inside of his cheek to stifle his impatience. “Yes? And?”
“And the Brotherhood of the Black Canna rattled their beads and swung their censers and chanted a spell as dark as any ever worked…and here I am. Thanatos, spirit of Death, in the body of Nikolos Petrakis.”
The clouds parted and the moon emerged, bone-white and cold. Daniel shivered.
Was there any correct way to respond to this information? The truth of how the Champions rose hadn’t been part of his education. So the monks had stolen the body of a living human — the bodies of five living humans — to work their magic? Daniel wished he could be surprised. Or disgusted. Anything but quietly resigned.
“It bewilders me, even now,” Thanatos murmured. “Until the day I was joined with Nikolos Petrakis, I had no needs. No wants. No…humanity. Now I have all of these and more.”
“You have a personality,” Daniel said. “The sheep farmer’s personality?”
“So it seems.” Thanatos frowned at him. “Why do you smile?”
Did he dare say something so outrageous? No Ritual of Fealty. No blind obeisance. Not yet, at least. Maybe my last chance to be myself, to speak my mind.
Daniel coughed into his fist to cover the laughter that threatened to choke him and said, “I wonder if the Brotherhood didn’t do Petrakis’ wife a favor.”
The Champion stared, his brows arched high above his black eyes. Daniel braced himself and waited for whatever came next. A bird called — some nocturnal creature with a sweet, shrill warble. A Nightingale? Not possible. They’ve been extinct for a century or more.
“I suspect,” Thanatos began, his words drenched in what Daniel now surmised to be a Greki accent, “his overbearing arrogance was redressed by the size of his cock.”
Now Daniel did choke. “You’re trying to shock me.”
“And if I am?”
“Keep trying.”
The living spirit of Death inside the body of the sheep farmer grinned at Daniel. The glow from the newly revealed moon glinted off his teeth. Somewhere overhead, the bird called again. Daniel thought back to his ornithology text — a book he hadn’t seen since his aptitude scores required him to report for military duty at the age of fifteen.
The unpaired male Nightingale sings to mark his territory, and to attract a mate.
Just as quickly, the Champion’s smile dissolved into something darker. “Ask them, Daniel. Ask the monks if the soul of the sheep farmer resides in what they call heaven or hell. Or does it wander somewhere between the two, like a poor man’s Orpheus?”
The Nightingale stilled its cry. Even the breeze fell silent. Daniel was suddenly aware of how much space Thanatos occupied, and how little lay between them on the small bench. He whispered, “Why don’t you ask them?”
“I have. Many times. They give no answers.”
Thanatos stared in the direction of the house, where someone had lit the lamps in one of the lower rooms. The sound of voices rose into the still air, followed by male laughter. “I had hoped to have this night to ourselves, but it appears we are blessed with company.”
“Company?” As Daniel listened, the laughter grew louder.
“My fellow Champions. You are familiar with them?
“Lords Kratos, Dolos, and Eros, and Lady Nemesis.”
Thanatos nodded. “They will, no doubt, be delighted to make your acquaintance.” He rose from the bench. “Come. There will be much merriment to welcome you, if I know my comrades.”
Side by side they walked the path toward the massive stone dwelling. Each time Daniel tried to drop back in deference to Thanatos, the Champion slowed his pace. Finally, he stopped and confronted Daniel. “Why do you dally?”
Daniel lowered his head. “Holy Protocol, my lord.”
Thanatos loomed over him, leaning in close till his breath rushed over Daniel’s neck. He bent and touched his lips to the stretch of skin just under Daniel’s ear. Then he bit, pinching a tiny bit of flesh between the sharp edges of his teeth.
A thrill of pain, hot and sweet, shot through Daniel and he swayed like a stripling in a stiff wind.
Thanatos released him. “In Commander Skott’s office, you begged me to test you. I warn you not to test me in return.”
“I understand,” Daniel whispered. His stubborn streak of rebelliousness — that part of him so reviled by Brother Janus — seemed to melt in the scorching heat of Thanatos’ presence.
“Call me Nikolos.”
“Nikolos.”
“Louder.”
“Nikolos.”
“Very good. I am partial to a man who is graceful in defeat.” The Champion ran his hand down Daniel’s spine, from the nape of his neck to the swell of his ass. Daniel could feel the press and drag of each finger through the fabric of his duty-rig. “I think we will make a tight fit, you and I. But do not keep me waiting, Daniel Willoughby.”
He turned away. Daniel stood on the path, fighting to regain his composure.
Overhead, the Nightingale trilled.
***
Available soon in eBook and print from Amber Allure/Amber Quill Press.
Update re: M/M Romance Goes Mainstream.
Published December 17, 2008 | Remember Running Press and their upcoming experiment with releasing m/m romance as actual romance? (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6622447.html)
Looky! Covers!
Ah, spring…when a young man’s mind turns to thoughts of BOOTAY in BREECHES…
Congratulations to Erastes and Alex. April can’t get here soon enough.
NON SEQUITUR ALERT: So am I the last one in the known world to discover Erotica Cover Watch? Why didn’t somebody TELL ME?? I mean, aside from the obvious attraction of Man Candy Monday, the posts themselves are a freakin’ HOOT. Plus, Mathilde and Kristina make several excellent points, which I shall not list here and now because I’m supposed to be writing, and I fear my brilliant and ever-stylish crit partner may break out the flogging implements if I don’t send her…let’s see…yes, the breath-play chapter is up next.
But first, an excerpt from Chapter 4 of Year of the Cat, my WIP based on Perrault’s Puss in Boots, because I can write historical-buttsexin’-boys, too…except mine’s more pseudo-historical, and includes shape-shifting and BDSM and a spot of forced seduction. Details, details…
***
All evidence to the contrary, Etienne was neither a halfwit nor a fool.
Impractical? Certainly.
Guileless? Without a doubt.
But in one particular subject, Etienne possessed no peer — the study of the supernatural. Indeed, his late and deeply lamented father had often expressed concern over the hours his youngest son spent poring over tales of the gruesome and fantastical. From children’s fairy stories to the journals of long-dead sorcerers to grim accounts of witch-hunts and burnings, Etienne’s appetite for the otherworldly was insatiable. Paradoxically, ’twas from this investigation of the inhuman that Etienne developed his most apt observations of humanity — for how better to learn the ways of good, decent men than to study the depravity of monsters?
Therefore, by the time he’d lingered three-quarters of an hour in the company of the man who called himself “Jacques,” Etienne knew his visitor to be a scoundrel, a villain…and quite possibly not a man at all.
None of this kept Etienne from accepting Jacques’ apparent generosity. For ’twould take a halfwitted fool, indeed, to reject warmth on a freezing night, meat for an empty belly or a healing touch on bloody wounds.
But the blaze in the fireplace no longer seemed to burn so brightly — not when compared to the glittering amber of Jacques’ eyes.
“Pray, tell me,” he purred, “what do you know of passion?”
Etienne could only stare. He went on staring even as Jacques loomed over him, caught his face between his large hands and growled, “Tell me, mon petit.”
Etienne struggled to find his voice. “I know nothing of passion. I am…untouched.”
Jacques’ lips quirked in a sinister smile. “So sweet, like spun sugar. I fear you’ll rot my very teeth.”
The kiss Jacques pressed upon Etienne’s mouth tasted of salt and iron, and awakened in Etienne a delirious kind of hunger. He found himself clutching at Jacques’ shoulders, tearing at the sleeves of his coat with his sore fingers. When Jacques pulled aside the collar of Etienne’s shirt and licked at the line of flesh he’d revealed, Etienne stifled a moan.
“No, mon petit, let me hear your cries,” Jacques murmured, his words setting a heated buzz against Etienne’s skin. “Let me lap them from the hollow of your throat.”
Etienne fought, at war with his traitorous body. “Monsieur, please, I do not—”
“Hush,” Jacques whispered and caught Etienne’s chin in his hand. The blacks of his eyes had taken on a strange, slitted appearance as he gazed into Etienne’s face. “You’ll only tire yourself, and gain nothing for the effort.”
“But you said you wished to be my servant in all things, Monsieur. Yet you would take me without my consent?”
“I would coax your consent from its hiding-place and make it sing out like the bells of Notre Dame on Christmas morning.”
His words sounded like nothing less than the simple truth. Etienne stilled himself against the hard cottage floor, his body not quite entirely limp with submission.
***
Refugee from Laundryland.
Published March 20, 2008 | First a note for Miss Kate, who so politely inquired about the state of my plumbing: Got the biopsy results yesterday and the trouble is entirely benign, though still in need of a spot of surgery, thank you kindly for asking. 
So it’s been raining. Maybe you’ve noticed. And while we certainly aren’t floating away like certain areas of the country, poor things, we are decidedly…damp. Moist, even. And not in the good way.
As a result, we’re filming our own version of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. It’s called FLOODED BASEMENT, BROKEN WASHER.
In other news, All Romance eBooks is offering a new Free Read program, and they’ve contracted the short novella I wrote for PBW’s Ebook Challenge, “Dark of the Day.” You can find it here — a free download in PDF and HTML.
In still other news, the sequel to SEVEN YEAR ACHE (known alternately as “Brokeback on Crack”) is proceeding nicely.
Here. Have an unedited excerpt from WILD HORSES, due out from Amber Allure/Amber Quill Press sometime in July:
* * *
“And this is our new hired hand, Kris Killborn.”
Kris stepped up, removing his hat and wiping his brow with the back of one grimy wrist. The blond guy moved first to shake his hand. Kris looked close, waiting to see if the big man would remember their earlier meeting in the diner.
“Hey, I’m Dex Egan.” Nothing. A practiced smile, a strong grip, and no recognition whatsoever.
The fat little fuck who called himself Troy Abrams shook Kris’s hand, too, without appearing to know him. But the tall, skinny one in the shirt with the letters embroidered over the left tit looked Kris square in the face. “Gaelen Ramsey, at your service.”
Yeah, this one remembered. His sneer said it all.
Kris let it slide. He couldn’t afford to make trouble no matter how bad his fingers itched to curl up into a fist.
Then the fourth member of the group stepped forward — the only one who hadn’t made an impression back at the diner — and all the prideful irritation simmering under Kris’s skin seeped away.
“Blake Talbot.” His voice was deep but smooth at the same time, with the edges worn down to nothing by a heavy drawl. The sun glinted off the silver ring on the third finger of the hand he offered Kris. “Good to meet you.”
He smiled, and it caught Kris by surprise. Like when he did the hung-over walk of shame out of some dude’s apartment on a Sunday morning and got smacked in the face by a sunrise right out of one of those paintings that sold for half a grand in a Missoula gallery. Not as pretty a Rafe — nah, nobody’s as pretty as Rafe — but there was something in how this Blake Talbot’s light brown hair fell in a wave over his forehead, and in the flicker of his lashes over his dark blue eyes. In the way his nose was a little too long and his mouth a touch too wide for his face. Something in the shape of his jaw and the curve of his smile that made Kris want to know how he’d look backed up against a wall and begging for it.
JT cleared his throat, and Kris jerked his hand away. While the others discussed plans for an afternoon trail ride, he stared out at the mountains and tried to pull his shit together. No matter what kind of signals he was picking up from this Talbot guy, the guests were off-limits — hadn’t Rafe said as much? And Kris needed this job. More than he needed to get laid, even.
Plus he was probably reading it wrong. What did some college boy from back east want with him?
But when he glanced back again, Talbot caught his eye and held it for a long count of five. Kris offered up a wink and a grin, and Talbot ducked his head and showed his dimples in a way that made something in Kris’s chest twist around and whine for mercy.
“Sandwiches in the kitchen, Killborn,” Rafe said, looking at him funny. “Go wash up. We’ve got another half-mile of fence to check before I need to start supper for the guests.”
Kris nodded, his eyes on the way Talbot’s ass filled out the dark denim of his too-new jeans as he walked away.
“Don’t even think about it,” Rafe whispered as he passed him.
Kris smirked and spit in the dust. No doubt Rafe’s advice was well meant, but it had come a wink and one slow, shy smile too late.
* * *
Move along, little doggies.
Published March 14, 2008 | Nothing to see here. Today is a writing day, and that’s stupendously boring for everybody except my two angsty cowboys who may or may not be getting busy down by the pond behind the bunkhouse.
But over HERE, you can read how my brilliant and ever-fashionable crit partner, Barb Caridad Ferrer, did a lovely thing for my upcoming b-day (which I was trying to ignore, but whatev).
And over HERE, you can read her Romancing the Blog column, which is a little sad, but not so depressing that you’ll want to crawl back into bed or add a shot of Jack to your morning decaf.
Other than that, it’s all angsty cowboys, all the time ’round these here parts, I reckon. You have yourself a nice day. *tips imaginary Stetson, looks longingly at bottle of Jack*
DAY 54: Watch her wallow.
Published February 5, 2008 | 
Can’t eat (unless you count the chocolate I’m not supposed to touch). Can’t sleep (unless you count three hours of dreams in which I’m chased through dark streets by evil monks). And the moon, she is on the wane, which means my body is deep in the Ninth Circle of Hormone Hell.
I’d go for a walk to clear my head, but it’s thundering. In the Northeast. In effing FEBRUARY. (But Global Warming is a mythical lefty construct, so I guess I’m just imagining that phenomenon, and so are my poor dogs, with the panting and the drooling and the trying to fit their big, furry butts under my chair.)
And the Book That Would Not Die? Is now, officially, UNdead. And haunting my ass (hence the dreams about evil monks). Even the kinky smut is hard going. Heh. I said “hard.”
My kingdom for a thousand decent, usable words a day. I’m lucky if I get five hundred.
My next book? Something MUCH lighter: More sexy cowboys doing each other in the hayloft. I can’t wait.
At least the cat is cute.
I saw Mommy maiming Santa Claus…
Published January 10, 2007 | Okay, this is the deal: Christmas — and, in fact, the entire 2006 Holiday Season — tried to eat my face.
It was a bloody battle. I nearly surrendered when the fully-decorated tree fell down in the middle of the living room — FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THREE DAYS — an hour before my parents were due to arrive. I completed my shopping on the 24th, and my wrapping with literally moments to spare. The ham was overcooked, as were the green beans, because I was worried about the eggnog.
And that was just Round 1. Christmas with the inlaws in the wilds of Western Pennsylvania was Round 2, and if you’ve never driven six hours through the pouring rain in weekend traffic with three bickering children, a brewing migraine, and broken windshield wipers? I recommend it as a test of a mother’s love. Mine is in damned fine shape, as proven by the fact that all three spawn continue to breathe without the assistance of a tube.
And heaven bless patient editors. If I ever again undertake to meet two deadlines within days of Christmas? Well, never mind. It’ll never happen. I think my husband will see me buried under the house first.
“I don’t know, officer. She was here last night. Telling me about her brand new story that’s due on New Year’s Eve. Seemed real excited about it. Then — poof. She was gone. Left her van, her clothes…even her purse. Don’t know where she went, but we sure will miss her. Eggnog? It’s really good. Yeah, she always did make great eggnog. Oh, mind the tree. It’s a little wobbly.”