Title: Waking Up the Sun

Author: Laura Bailo

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: July 15, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 31400

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT, legends, entrapment, bullying, goddess, enchanted forest, young adult, healer, romance

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Synopsis

When Lander accepts a dare to go into the forest at night, he thinks it’ll be easy. He just needs to walk in and then come out, right? But that’s easier said than done. It’s like the trees have a mind of their own, and they are stopping him from finding his way back. There were always stories of people getting lost forever in the forest, but Lander had never considered they might be true. Yban has been in the forest a long time and he knows it like no other—but he comes with his own secrets. He disappears every day, and he won’t tell Lander where he goes. But during the dark hours, Lander gets to know him and starts unwrapping the layers that surround him. The fire that keeps them warm in the forest isn’t the only spark between them; will their growing relationship survive Lander’s determination to find the way out, or will Yban’s past mistakes keep them hidden in the forest forever?

Excerpt

Waking Up the Sun Laura Bailo © 2019 All Rights Reserved “He won’t come.” “He’ll be hiding under his bed, the coward.” “Did you see his face when you dared him? I’m sure he peed his pants just thinking about it.” The men standing on the road—a few feet away from where Lander stood—started laughing and clapping one another on the back. He was sure they didn’t know he was there, not that it would have mattered to them. He was familiar enough with the things they were saying about him. Earlier that afternoon, they’d seen him studying and started on their usual abuse. Lander could generally tune them out easily enough, but he’d had an argument with his parents that morning and he’d already been on edge. So when they’d told him he wouldn’t dare to go into the forest alone, his stubborn streak had shown up, and he’d set out to prove them wrong. Of course, then they’d changed their terms and dared him to go into the forest at night. Lander was determined to prove to them he could do it. All his life, he had only wanted to fit in with the other kids, but he had always been the outsider, the weird kid no one wanted to play with, the one always left alone. He’d longed for company, for someone to share his time with, and instead he’d encountered barbs and jabs directed his way just because he was a bit different. In the end, being alone was safer, and he’d grown used to it. But there was still a small part of him that wanted to belong to a group, and it was that part that had risen to the bait when they’d made their way towards him, so confident in their abuse that he couldn’t help but take them up on it, even though he knew it would be a mistake. He took a deep breath and stepped out of the shadows, feeling a vindictive pleasure at seeing the surprise on their faces. They truly hadn’t expected him to come. “Well, well, well… Look who decided to show up after all. Have you come to tell us to stop wasting our time and just go home?” One of them sneered at Lander, and his resolve doubled. Lander made sure to keep his head high and not to let his voice tremble when he answered. “I’m here to go into the forest. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” They shared a few confused looks, probably not knowing what to make of this version of Lander, the one who was actually standing up to them. After a moment, the leader just shrugged and started walking. He was used to his little band following him without question and clearly expected Lander to do the same. Lander wanted to get this over with, so this time he did what the leader wanted without complaint. They walked like soldiers, the blustering young men from before he’d made his appearance all but gone. Lander guessed it was probably a habit they had picked up from their training—they’d all shown an affinity for offensive magic and had started training with the guards the year before. Lander had an affinity for healing magic, but his talent was not important enough that any of the village healers wanted to take him on as an apprentice, so he’d been studying and trying to learn everything he could on his own. Not that he would ever be a doctor, but he wanted to help, and healing magic could be useful in a lot of different ways people didn’t often think about. He’d had many arguments with his parents about that very topic, including the one that led to him following this group to the edge of the forest. He’d never been so close to this place. He’d seen it, even studied it from afar, but he’d never stepped a foot into the tree line. As far as he knew, no one in the village had. Ever since he was little, he’d listened to people telling stories about the forest, stories designed to scare little kids. And as he grew up, he could tell that the kids weren’t the only ones afraid of the forest. Everyone feared the darkness. No one dared go into it, not even during the day. He had always wondered why because he didn’t think the stories about ghosts and the forest making people disappear were true. But apparently he was about to find out if there was any truth to them. The four trainees were looking at him with smug smiles, and he would have liked nothing better than to wipe them off their faces. But he was not stupid enough to go against four men, especially not trained ones. However, there was another way for him to stop them from smiling; it just involved him going somewhere no one had ventured in ages, a place he had been taught to fear since he was old enough to sleep in a bed instead of a cot. Lander refused to let them see his fear, so he steeled himself and walked to the edge of the forest, looking in. He could see only the trees, since the world between them was made of shadows. “Step in and then come out, right?” The four of them looked at him expectantly, probably waiting for him to turn around and run back to the city. There was no chance of that happening now. As always, it was their leader who spoke. “Yes. But not just stepping into the edge. You need to go far enough that we don’t see you anymore. We’ll tell you when that is. And then you can come back, and we’ll never call you a coward again.” Lander nodded and approached the edge of the tree line slowly. With a small step, he was inside the forest. He breathed in the smell of the trees, the wildlife, and the darkness, getting overwhelmed with so many new scents. He didn’t look back but, instead, kept walking until the darkness surrounded him. There must have been noises in the forest, but his heart was beating so hard that the only thing he could hear was the sound of it drumming inside his chest. He looked back then, intending to ask if this was far enough—he should have known they wouldn’t say anything—but the tree line had disappeared.

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Meet the Author

Laura Bailo is an asexual Spanish author of queer romance. She’s an anxiety-ridden writer who, when not writing or reading, loves exploring the narrow streets of Pamplona and thinking about all the stories she wants to write in the future. She has a penchant for writing sweet stories with a Spanish flavor, be it fantasy or contemporary, and she’s still dreaming about writing her first historical.

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Title: Through the Tears

Series: Torn Between Worlds, Book One

Author: Leigh M. Lorien

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: July 8, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 56600

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT, fantasy, gray-ace/gray-aro, transgender, bonded, monsters, violence, anxiety attacks

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Synopsis

Huge, horrid creatures with a taste for human flesh have been invading Seacliff Manor and its surrounding lands for years. Ghouls are coming from another world through portals made of magic. No one knows why or how, but nothing good ever comes with them. During a hunting trip, Eamon encounters one such monster and falls through a portal into the ghoul’s hellacious desert home world. Separated from his home, his friends, and his lover, with no magic of his own and no sign of other life, Eamon expects to die there…until an encounter with a lone stranger gives him hope. There is a way home. But can Eamon survive alone in ghoul-infested terrain long enough to get there? Worlds away, the Lord of Seacliff Manor is determined to bring Eamon home. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Rafe knows his human lover is alive. It’s just a matter of finding out where. To that end, Rafe has a plan. It’s dangerous, perhaps even suicidal, but he’ll do anything to save the man he loves. From different sides of the galaxy, the lovers fight monsters and seek magic with one goal in mind: reunion. Monsters aren’t the only things they’ll have to defeat to find their way back to each other, and the horrors uncovered along the way may be more than they can handle.

Excerpt

Through the Tears Leigh M. Lorien © 2019 All Rights Reserved Chapter One Rafe The body lay at the base of a maple tree in a crumpled heap of leathery gray flesh and black blood. Rafe studied it for a long time. Its fanged mouth hung open, eyes like black marbles gazing lifelessly at him, hands with hawk-like talons curled into loose fists in the grass. It was more than capable of killing a human—gods, it was probably capable of killing him. He turned away, forcing down the momentary surge of fear as he took in the scene, playing through the information he had. Eamon, Lionel, Rose, and Tuomas had been hunting that morning, as Eamon had said they planned to do. Lionel was training a new bird. They were well armed. No one left the stronghold unarmed these days. Ghoul incursions were growing more frequent, and the filthy things were getting bolder by the day. Rafe had wanted to send an escort with them but let his lover talk him out of it. We’ll be fine. We’re barely going past the village. But they weren’t fine. Lionel’s bird didn’t return when it should have. The ghoul had crept up on them while they were distracted. Signs of the struggle were obvious all around the body. Broken twigs, displaced leaves, mud spatters up the trunks of the trees. The humans had come out victorious. Three of them had, anyway. Thirty or so feet beyond the ghoul’s body, a cliff dropped into the sea. Ignoring his audience—the three humans who’d returned, as well as two of his rin retainers—Rafe walked past the ghoul’s corpse, inspecting the grass between the site of the attack and the edge of the cliff. Clods of soil lay in heaps where massive claws had raked it up. He wished there was some indication of Eamon’s movements, but the ghoul’s weight and erratic assault covered all sign of his human lover. Blood spatters painted the grass black. Rafe didn’t need to touch or taste the drying liquid to know it was not human. Not Eamon’s. The rotten stench of ghoul blood was as foul as raw sewage and, for once, he envied the humans their inferior senses. Someone had hurt it, and badly, right here. Eamon was not a close-quarters fighter. He was barely a fighter at all. If Rafe were a gambler, he’d put his money on Lionel and the longsword he wore. “You say he fell,” Rafe stated. It wasn’t a question. Rose had spoken for the group, told their story in a quavering voice. If the two men were hoping Rafe would show mercy to a teary-eyed woman and thus to them as well, they were all mistaken. “Yes, Lord,” Rose said. “Th-the ghoul tackled him, and they rolled, and…I’m not certain, I mean I-I didn’t see it myself, Lord, but…Eamon was gone when…” Rafe walked to the very edge of the cliff and leaned forward to look down, grateful for an excuse to breathe air untainted by blood. The tension level behind him rose tangibly, but no one rushed forward to drag him back. He was their lord, not a child to be scolded for putting himself in danger. Hundreds of feet below, waves crashed and roared over a beach of jagged stone. Even with his sensitive rin hearing, little more than the faintest whisper reached Rafe’s ears from this distance. There was no question that a fall from this height meant no survival for a human. No matter what awaited at the end of the fall, no matter how strong the human. And yet… He had not felt Eamon die. Rafe had never had a bound companion die, so, he didn’t know from experience what it would feel like, but he’d heard others speak of it. He’d expected something…worse. He should have experienced fear as Eamon fell, pain as he crashed to the ground and his body shattered against the rocks below. It would have dropped him to his knees, put him in a state of shock. Instead, there was a sharp surprise, fear, and then…an absence. Eamon simply was not there. He wasn’t alive, but neither was he dead. “You are aware Eamon is bound to me?” Rafe turned to the humans, and they all bowed their heads, nodding and avoiding his eyes. “You should have protected him.” The wind off the sea howled and whipped his dark hair around his head. Everything was cast in a dusky gray—the winter sun had not shown its face for days, and the choppy sea below was the color of cold steel. Standing at least a head taller than the tallest of the three humans, Rafe was no stranger to intimidation tactics. It wasn’t his preferred modus operandi—physical threats were so pedestrian—but it was easy, and with the gaping absence of Eamon distracting him, it was all he managed. “I’m sure they did their best, my lord,” Kiran, his retainer, said softly. Rafe continued to aim a cold gaze at the humans. “I’m sure. Have search parties organized. Comb the beach and the forest in this area. I did not feel him die.” And if he was mistaken and Eamon was dead…The words hurt as they formed in his mind, but he forced them out. “If you find him, or his body, bring him home.” Kiran bowed his head and rushed toward the manor to find willing and able individuals to carry out the command. Wind continued to buffet Rafe’s side and face, tangling his hair as it whipped around. In his imagination, Eamon was scolding him as he worked a brush through Rafe’s hair as he did every night. Would it kill you to tie your hair back once in a while? It’s like you tangle it on purpose. If it weren’t tangled, I wouldn’t need you to brush it, would I? Rafe would reply and grin in the mirror at his lover. The thought of the familiar teasing almost made him smile. Almost. “M-my lord,” Tuomas ventured, stepping forward as Rafe returned to the ghoul’s body. “We would like to join the search parties, if we may.” Rafe shook his head. “No. Take this body to the manor. Have it burned.” The three humans exchanged wide-eyed glances. The ghoul was larger than all three of them combined. Heavy as it was, it would take them hours to drag it to the manor. It seemed a mild punishment in Rafe’s eyes, for letting his lover fall over a cliff. Tuomas and Lionel were unbound and had been for as long as Rafe had known them. Rose was bound to Elena, the manor’s doctor, and lived in the manor with her, while the two human men lived in the village outside the manor walls—together, if Rafe was not mistaken. Eamon had lived with Tuomas for some time, until he came to Rafe’s attention, and still spent the night in Tuomas’s village home on occasion. Perhaps it was cruel to punish the three of them in any way for what had happened. They were likely hurting as much as Rafe, but they were not bound to Eamon. They could not feel his absence, like the loss of a limb or an eye or an ear, like a crushing emptiness where, until mere hours ago, there had been a warm, bright presence every day for the past ten years. “Stay with them,” Rafe instructed his second retainer, Orienna. “See that we lose no one else to rogue ghouls today.” The woman bowed. “What of you, my lord?” “I’m in a mood to rip something’s throat out,” he said coldly. “Let the filth try.”

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Meet the Author

Leigh M. Lorien is a queer author who got her start at the tender age of five, writing and illustrating her own Sonic the Hedgehog stories. Fortunately, her writing has improved in the subsequent decades. Nowadays, Leigh’s stories primarily lean toward science fiction, fantasy, and urban fantasy, but she has had some contemporary pieces sneak out of her head. Regardless of genre, her books will usually include sarcasm, strong relationships (romantic and platonic), polyamory/non-monogamy, magic, music, animals, mental illness, and less-frequently-represented queer identities. When she’s not writing, Leigh enjoys gardening, photography, travel, music, Renaissance festivals, doing hair-color experiments in her bathroom, and going on any kind of adventure involving the outdoors (unless it’s cold, screw that). If you want to know her better or see pictures of her many fur-children, she’s most active on Twitter and Instagram.

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Title: The Dragon's Rebel

Author: Jacqueline Rohrbach

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: June 24, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 62100

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT, magic, slavery, dark, gods, enemies to lovers, royalty, dragons, shifters

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Synopsis

Cheron, former rebel leader and newly crowned king, comes to Wren Gardens on a holy mission to free his goddess from exile and bring peace to his kingdom, but he’s distracted by an unholy and very beautiful concubine, Ekos. Ekos may be more than a simple love slave, though. The King of Wren Gardens seems afraid of the strange and often blasphemous concubine and swears the man is cursed. Cheron agrees, especially when Ekos mocks and taunts Cheron’s sense of honor. But the urge to distance himself from Ekos can’t compete with the desire to remain close. Nor is it as strong as the urges in his body—urges he hasn’t felt in years. As Cheron tries to refocus on his mission, Ekos throws him off again—this time by offering to help him in his holy quest. Cheron knows he shouldn’t trust a man who’s in the employ of a rival king, particularly not one who seems to know all Cheron’s deepest secrets. But he can’t ignore the signs from the goddess telling him to entwine his fate with this tricky, captivating man. He prays the signs aren’t simply wishful thinking, manifestations of his very unholy desires. Time is running out, and Cheron is falling deeper for Ekos—and deeper into danger of another betrayal. One that could cost him his life.

Excerpt

The Dragon’s Rebel Jacqueline Rohrbach © 2019 All Rights Reserved Chapter One Half parted in invitation, the concubine’s painted red lips teased the possibilities for Cheron’s sole benefit, for his sole pleasure, for his sole use. At least that was the intended impression, but who knew the actual number of men the concubine had truly pleasured? Many, Cheron assumed. Undeniably gorgeous, the pampered little house pet had all the markings of a palace favorite. Jewels hung from his earlobes, fine silks concealed his thin but muscular frame, and his body had been rubbed down with musky oils. Minus the golden, diamond-studded collar at his throat, he appeared to be a member of court. “Is Ekos not to your taste, Majesty? He is personal stock, in case you are worried. No low-born has touched him.” The emphasis had Cheron grinding his teeth. While Sinnac politely used the proper title while addressing him, there was always a lilt to his pronunciation, a gentle reminder that Cheron had only recently became a king. Before, he’d been a lowly soldier—a servant. To men like Sinnac, men who’d been born into power, he would never be anything other than a lucky usurper playacting at greatness. Sinnac continued, “Perhaps His Majesty would like to see him from a different angle?” King Sinnac tilted the concubine’s face upward to give Cheron a better look. Ekos lowered his crystal-blue eyes demurely, as was proper, but Cheron swore he saw a flash of mocking defiance in the depths before his lashes lowered. In a second, the brazen glare vanished. Ekos bowed his head, allowing his golden-yellow hair to fall over his shoulders. The posture gave Cheron a clear view of the concubine’s long back and the enticing dip of his ass. Suppressing his disgust, Cheron kept his response to King Sinnac formal. “He is most pleasing. I am recently sated and do not require sexual services just now, Your Excellence. Perhaps later.” “I heard you Northern men needed no pause between sessions. That you were an insatiable lot.” Sinnac, a severe man who resembled a long tendril of smoke with his long white body, steel-gray hair, and gray eyes, raised his bushy eyebrows and took a drag from his hookah. Foul-smelling mist coiled around his head, momentarily canceling out the masculine, sweet smell of the concubine’s body oils. Cheron gave the characterization a breathy laugh. “I’m afraid all men must submit to biology.” “Of course. Of course.” Truthfully, Cheron’s carnal needs hadn’t been satisfied recently or even in the past year. His aversion to touching Ekos had nothing to do with lack of desire. Perhaps the young concubine served freely now, but at some point in his life, he’d been brought here in chains and trained in the arts of pleasure. The very thought made Cheron’s skin crawl. Not too long ago, he’d been enslaved under the reign of a cruel king who raped and tortured to stay in power. He had no intentions of following the same path. After he took control of Broken Maw, servants continued to exist, but they were compensated for their work. No one was compelled to offer sexual services. Those who sold themselves demanded money, certainly, but also equal pleasure. Ekos’s circumstances were much different. Sinnac, as if stressing those differences, commanded the concubine to attend to Cheron’s needs. “Show our guest your skills, my pet. Seduce him.” The concubine pouted. In a spoiled voice, he said, “My treasure, I do not believe he wants me.” A hard glint in his eye, Sinnac returned, “Nonsense. Help him settle in to Wren Gardens. I’ll not have my guests frustrated. And if the rumors I hear are true, he is quite congested with lust.” Gossip between courts wasn’t uncommon. Certainly, Cheron heard his fair share of stories from Sinnac’s lands, especially tales of the financial troubles of Wren Gardens. It didn’t upset Cheron to learn he was the subject of discussion among Sinnac’s people, but his temperature rose at being so directly contradicted by another monarch. “What do you know of my frustration, Excellency?” His laughter croaked as he took another puff from the hookah. “I hear you haven’t had any pleasure since Aethel. His betrayal must still sting, yes?” Honesty roughened his voice to an almost inaudible, harsh whisper. “Betrayal burns more than it stings, Excellency. Afterward, the smoke blinds us.” Sinnac raised an eyebrow. “Dramatic. Betrayal also chokes us, apparently, though I heard your lover made good kindling for fire.” Cheron swallowed down the memory before it overwhelmed him. Sometimes, in the dead of night, he still woke to the sound of his lover’s screams as he twisted on the pyre and the king’s executioner’s grim pronouncement that justice had been done. Now that Cheron had overthrown the king in a successful rebellion, there would be no such burnings. Never again. Cheron kept his voice level. “His crime was nowhere near as severe as the punishment.” “Hm,” Sinnac responded. Supposedly, the price for his displeasure ran higher. This marked Cheron’s first time visiting Wren Gardens, but his father told tales of a ruler obsessed with revenge to the point of madness. If the stories were true, Sinnac’s gardens grew on human blood. Cheron tried to smile. “At any rate, that is in the past.” “Well, then. My pet can make you forget the traitor existed. Perhaps he can make you forget your own treason.” It would be unwise to answer the bait, so Cheron kept quiet on the matter. “I have no doubt of Ekos’s skills, but they are wasted on me at the present.” “We’ll see.” Sinnac waved his graceful fingers, an order for Ekos to proceed. The concubine’s crystal-blue eyes lowered again. Looking into their depths was akin to jumping into ice-cold water. One could drown, but he’d feel the sting of cold as he sank. Just the same, Cheron barely kept from gasping out loud as Ekos’s long fingers stroked the outer folds of the long robe he wore. Beneath the clothes, his body was taut, ready for a lover’s touch. “Majesty,” Ekos simpered, his full, round mouth set in a pout. “I can’t please you through so many layers of clothing.” In Wren Gardens, sex servants weren’t allowed to remove the clothing of nobility. Such a task was reserved for only the most trusted of servants, those who’d been with households for generations. Poisons that seeped through the skin were common here; the precaution made sense. Ekos’s own dress confused Cheron. Station required servants to wear only thin scraps of fabric that advertised their wares and marked them as slaves. The concubine was swathed nearly head to toe in a loose-fitting, semitransparent silken frock that was embroidered along the hem by a skilled hand. Somehow, this enticed Cheron’s interests far better than any scant loincloth. As if sensing his increasing desires, the concubine formed his full mouth into an aware smirk. The arrogance took Cheron aback and made him worry for the concubine’s safety. The man’s voice was strong and confident when he said, “Perhaps His Majesty would like to undress me first?” Sinnac guffawed at Cheron’s horrified expression. “Forgive Ekos, my royal brother. He is overeager to prove his affections.” Once again, Cheron ignored the overt slight. For now, Cheron had to be content another monarch had even stooped to meet with him. Smiling, he said, “He hasn’t been tested already?” Sinnac’s countenance darkened. Without thinking, Cheron had insulted the other man’s virility, which he touted with great pride. In the short time Cheron had been a guest at Wren Gardens, Sinnac boasted as many as fifty lovers, all of whom couldn’t get enough of their lord and master. “My apologies, Excellency.” Cheron spread his hands in contrition. “I understand your prowess is legendary.” Sniffing, Sinnac got to his knees and began undoing the knot keeping his robe together. Seconds later, he was nearly naked except for his white linen undergarments. Covered in a network of impressive scars, his body flaunted a lifetime of war. “Turn around,” he commanded Ekos. Immediately, Ekos obeyed. Cheron swore he saw a flash of disgust in the man’s crystal-blue eyes. Soon enough, the meaningless and practiced smile fell back into place. The young man dipped forward, raising his hips. “Enter if you dare,” he mocked. Sinnac growled at the challenge. Stomach lurching, Cheron realized the other monarch’s intent. Baring witness to rape immediately quashed his previous desires. He knew it was a typical practice in Wren Gardens, but Cheron failed to control a wave of pity. This was no way to treat another human being. “Excellency,” Cheron said, interrupting the looming sexual encounter. “I have been an ungracious guest. I would love to indulge in Ekos’s sweet attentions privately. But how can I enjoy him if you put me to shame? Will he even consider me adequate after you?” “I’m sure I would, Majesty,” Ekos softly assured him. “A man as magnificent as you must be bliss to touch.” Sinnac ran his hands up and down the length of the concubine’s body, slapping and prodding as he went, but eventually sat back against the cushions without penetrating, much to Cheron’s relief. His gaze hooded, almost fully concealed, Sinnac said, “Please retire to your quarters, Majesty. We’ll attend to matters of state after dinner. I will have Ekos sent to your rooms. Treat him gently. I paid a high price for him.” As equals, they stood and formally bowed. The concubine, head still bent toward the ground, his expression concealed by a long flow of honey hair, remained prostrated. His fists clenched and unclenched. When he lifted his head, he smiled serenely and said, “You have yet to pay the full price for me, Excellency.”

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Meet the Author

Jacqueline Rohrbach is a 36-year-old creative writer living in windy central Washington. When she isn’t writing strange books about bloodsucking magical werewolves, she’s baking sweets, or walking her two dogs, Nibbler and Mulder. She also loves cheesy ghost shows, especially when the hosts call out the ghost out like he wants to brawl with it in a bar. You know, “Come out here, you coward! You like to haunt little kids. Haunt me!” Jackee laughs at this EVERY time. She’s also a hopeless World of Warcraft addict. In her heyday, she was a top parsing disc priest. She became a paladin to fight Deathwing, she went back to a priest to cuddle pandas, and then she went to a shaman because I guess she thought it would be fun to spend an entire expansion underpowered and frustrated. Boomchicken for Legion!

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Title: Tales from Ardulum

Series: Ardulum. Book Four

Author: J.S. Fields

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: June 10, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 57800

Genre: Science Fiction, LGBT, aliens, bonded, criminals, religion, science, smugglers, space, spaceships, telekinesis, telepathy

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Synopsis

One year after saving the Neek homeworld and redefining the people’s religion, the crew of the Scarlet Lucidity returns to the Charted Systems for a much-needed break. For Nicholas and Yorden, the Systems will always be home, but for Emn and Atalant, too many memories compound with Emn’s strange new illness to provide much relaxation. TALES FROM ARDULUM continues the journey of Atalant, Emn, Yorden, Nicholas, and Salice as they try to define their place in a galaxy that no longer needs them while battling the artifacts of Ardulan colonization. Other stories include Yorden’s acquisition of the Mercy’s Pledge (and his grudge against the galaxy), Atalant’s exile from her homeworld, Ekimet and Savath’s romance, and many others.

Excerpt

Tales from Ardulum J.S. Fields © 2019 All Rights Reserved Mercy’s Pledge 2030 CE “Scrub it down. Start with the cockpit, then work your way back. No toilets on this thing, of course, because the astronauts used diapers way back when and most of these old models were just for animals, so that’s a bright side.” The museum curator—a short, thin woman with wavy, brown hair and pinkish skin—produced a half-hearted smile. She tapped a white panel on the starboard flank of the old decommissioned Soviet shuttle. Housed in the warehouse section of some museum in Kaluga, the ship was a Buran model, although it’d been modded so many times since its initial flight that Yorden Kuebrich doubted its insides looked anything like the historic photos. “Yeah, I got it. No worries.” Yorden ran his fingers through his beard in what he hoped was an endearing gesture rather than a creepy one, smoothed out the wrinkles on his too-tight coveralls, grabbed his cleaning kit, and walked up the shaky platform steps to the entrance of the shuttle. Cleaning the inside was going to take days, which was just fine. After the year he’d had in the Gaza Strip, not to mention the little heist he was planning, a bit of mindless cleaning while he worked out the details was exactly what he needed. He grimaced at the rank smell of old oil and deteriorating plastic as he squeezed through the narrow walkways of the shuttle. Either the Soviets had been a lot smaller back then or Yorden had put on more weight in the past decade than he’d realized. Didn’t matter. Muscle, fat, facial hair…it was all the same when you woke up every morning from nightmares of a friend killed, a family home destroyed, or a passive-aggressive act of one angry government against another. Who was right, who was wrong—it didn’t matter then, and it didn’t fucking matter now. The world was full of old decay. Religious cousins were still at each other’s throats, although now they used words instead of bombs. And it was all stupid because there were actual aliens, turns out, flying around in space. Aliens! Yorden snorted as he entered the tiny cockpit and set his cleaning kit down on a metal case. For ten years now, Earth had been part of the Charted Systems. For ten years, fucking aliens had been showing them how to use wormholes and cellulose tech and weird biometals, and here Yorden was, standing in a metal bucket containing a throttle-lever thing and analog controls after having fled yet another country he’d wanted to call home. His first home, Poland, he’d left because fuck communism and fuck his early memories of the exorbitant price of meat and his family never getting a condo because the lottery was never in their favor. And fuck the lines. He was glad he’d never had kids, never needed to wait in line for twenty-four-plus hours just to buy a damn doll. Anyway, toilet paper was a goddamned miracle he never wanted to live without again. Things got better in the nineties—but he’d been done. Naturally, Yorden had just managed to trade one tortured ideology for another. Israel. Gaza. He was Jewish, in that ham-eating, post-Soviet way. Still, birthright. Homecoming, sort of. It was enough to pull him in. Enough to convince him to try out settling there. That had failed miserably. It was just a different kind of death out there: a faster one, from bullets and bombs. That was all over now, though, because of Charted-fucking-Systems-mandated peace, but nothing could erase his memories. Thus, Yorden was back in Eastern Europe, on a dilapidated shuttle, preparing to install the Cell-Tal components hidden under his cleaning kit and in his bag, so he could fly this hunk of metal off Earth and get into the Systems proper. Yorden grinned. Off Earth, out of this solar system, and away from the crush of history. Away from his history. Away from the politics and the false smiles and the lovey-dovey crap everyone spewed now instead of the thinly veiled racist ideology of the past. People didn’t change—Yorden didn’t believe they could, not for a hot minute. Humans sure as hell didn’t change. Aliens might have brought technology based on turning trees into spacefaring biometals, and they might have brought peace, but neither of those came without a price. If he was going to live a lie, then better if he did it on his terms, in space, where it was a hell of a lot easier to avoid everyone. So, forget Earth. Forget Mars, even. He’d take “diaspora” to a whole new level. “You doing okay, then?” The curator’s voice reverberated within the metal, making Yorden wince. “Some of that stuff up in there is pretty delicate.” “Yeah, I got it! I’ll do the gun turret last since it’s not part of the original structure and looks like it wasn’t put on well to begin with. I don’t know what you guys thought you’d need to shoot with this, other than the peace-toting Risalians that came knocking at our solar door ten years ago.” He paused and considered the walls and his very heavy gear bag stuffed with Cell-Tal tech. “I’m going to have to take the wall panels off, too, to clean. I think you’ve got mice.” An expletive came from the curator, although Yorden wasn’t certain what language it was in. Not Russian or Polish—he was sure of that. Definitely not Yiddish. Since she was already upset but clearly not willing to come in and inspect the “damage,” Yorden added, “Probably best to strip her down to the floor and walls anywhere I can. If you’ve got one nest, you’ve got ten, and I don’t think you want to pay a guy to redo wiring, right?” “Do what you can and just…make it look right on the outside, okay? No one is ever going to look under the panels. It’s not like this Buran is ever going to fly again. That laser was never even fired, from what I know. It was attached quickly. Apparently, humans didn’t want to give up their guns when the peace treaty was signed. Not that it does any good on a ship that can’t fly.” “Oh, she’ll fly,” Yorden muttered. He waited until he heard the door to the hangar slam shut, followed by the screeching of the wide bay doors to the warehouse closing, and then peeled a clump of old metal and coated wires from the wall. He would put it all back together again, snug as a bug. He just needed to make a few modifications of his own first.

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Meet the Author

J.S. Fields is a scientist who has perhaps spent too much time around organic solvents. They enjoy roller derby, woodturning, making chain mail by hand, and cultivating fungi in the backs of minivans. Nonbinary, and always up for a Twitter chat.

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Title: The Life Siphon

Series: The Life Siphon, Book One

Author: Kathryn Sommerlot

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: May 20, 2019

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 85500

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT, fantasy, royalty, magic users, mage battles, action/adventure, family drama, kidnapping, HFN

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Synopsis

A magical energy drain is siphoning life from the land and leaving a twisted, decaying wasteland in its wake. Safely isolated in his forest home, Tatsu wants nothing to do with the drain or the other citizens in the kingdom of Chayd. The only people he cares about are his childhood friend and her strangely prophetic sister, but there’s no avoiding the threat once Tatsu is arrested and taken to the capital. The Queen of Chayd offers Tatsu his freedom—but only in exchange for sneaking into the neighboring kingdom of Runon and stealing whatever is powering the siphon. Ravenous trees and corrupted predators lie between Tatsu’s team and their prize, but the drain’s destruction is nothing compared to Runon’s high mages, determined to protect their weapon. As the truth of the siphon’s power reveals itself, Tatsu faces an impossible question: how much is he willing to sacrifice to save one man’s life? What if that one man could destroy everything?

Excerpt

The Life Siphon Kathryn Sommerlot © 2019 All Rights Reserved The knock on the door came just as he finished refilling his quiver. Tatsu froze, blood running cold. He put his hand on the leather pack for stability before he was able to oust the lump in his throat. His house was too remote for anyone to simply stumble across it, so whoever it was had meant to arrive. As the air in the small house hung still and heavy, his hand slid to the uneven table with the broken leg he’d never gotten around to fixing, fingers finding the familiar and well-worn hilt of his skinning knife. It was sharp enough to take apart a jack hare. He hoped it was also keen enough to defend himself. He took a few steps toward the noise, his feet unconsciously finding their way around the long, loose floorboards. He was almost to the door when the knocking came again, impatient. The new round of knocking was paired with a female voice. “Tatsu?” The anxiety left his body in a rush that felt like the hot sting of Chayd’s summer against his skin, months too early. “Alesh?” he replied and opened the creaking wooden door. “What are you doing here?” His first thought was that she had to be injured, sick, or something worse. After all, it had been a long time since she’d last bothered to travel all the way to his hut in the inner woods. But she appeared to be in one piece, her hair worked back into three simple plaits, and she seemed no worse for the wear. Irritation surged through his chest. Knowing she’d been fine but not taking the time to visit made her sudden reappearance cut deeper. “Please,” she said and, at once, he knew. Alesh wouldn’t journey to his doorstep for any other reason. She needed a favor. He had half a mind to shut the door right in her face, his insides still untangling themselves from tight knots, but movement flashed behind Alesh’s shoulder. Ral lingered behind her, digging in the constant scourge of weeds growing in front of the house without any care to the dirt embedding itself under her nails. The young woman was laughing at Tatsu’s wildflowers. Her light-brown dress fabric, marking her as enol, or baseborn, was already streaked with smears of mud. He didn’t close the door, but he didn’t edge it open any further either. “Hear me out.” Alesh had the good grace to flinch when Tatsu snorted. “Isn’t that all I’ve ever done?” he asked. “I need your help.” Help was not a word that came easily from her, though Tatsu guessed they had wildly different definitions of it. Help to him meant aid and a friendly ear and someone present, offering suggestions and finding solutions. Help was nothing Alesh had ever allowed him to do. “The last time I tried to help you…” he warned. She slammed the door so forcefully the ripples shook Tatsu’s arm. “Listen, this isn’t for me, you know. I can’t leave her alone, and I don’t have anyone else.” Tatsu peered over Alesh’s shoulder again. Ral had gotten a handful of the reedy flowers and pulled them up by the roots, laughing with delight at the white tendrils she’d exposed. When Tatsu’s gaze flickered back to Alesh, her dark eyes were focused on him, narrow and unflinching. “Please.” The second time sounded much less like a request. She knew she’d already won him over. Tatsu sighed and called out, “Ral, would you like to come in?” Ral complied, though she left a trail of dirt behind her as her movement loosened the clumps that clung to her skirt. She might have gotten taller. She was taller than Tatsu, at least. She seemed happy in the house, and Tatsu tried to keep half his attention on her as she moved around, in case she got her hands on the extra snares in the corners. If he had known a houseguest would show up, he might’ve done something with the place. “It’s only for a few days,” Alesh promised. “This is the safest place I could think of. I mean, who’s going to come way out here? I have some business I need to attend to—” “Other people’s possessions, you mean? Or is there a new line of criminal mischief you’ve found that pays better?” She frowned. “That’s not fair at all, and you know it.” “Do I?” Tatsu asked. “How could I know it, when the last time you bothered to show up here and tell me you were still alive, the first snow had just fallen?” Her face pinched tight, mouth hard, before it slackened again in defeat. She sighed, equal parts exasperation and resignation, and ran a hand through the few dark strands of hair hanging wild and wavy around her face, too short to plait back. “Look, can you…spare me the whole spiel?” Her gaze sank and stayed on a spot near the entrance where the beams of the house were embedded deep in the dirt. “I promise you can lecture me all you want when I come back to pick her up. But for now, I really need to go, and I don’t have time for this.” Tatsu leaned against the door. Behind him, Ral had discovered the utensils for cooking and was excitedly going through them all, copper spoons and mugs clanging against one another. Alesh stood slumped on his doorstep as if the weight of the world hung on her shoulders, hobbling her. She seemed smaller than the last time he’d seen her, under the same sky and a moon tinged with red. He thought about saying something, something like stay, but the times they’d shared had long since passed between them. There had been too many winters and too many summers. The word died on his tongue. Instead, he nodded. “Fine. But only for a few days.” “Thank you.” Alesh’s mouth twisted up into a rueful smile. “She’s learned to count to a hundred—you should ask her to demonstrate for you. She loves showing it off.” Behind them, as if in agreement, Ral banged Tatsu’s ladle against his big iron pot, the sharp crash echoing. “I will,” Tatsu replied. Alesh tucked a bit of unruly hair behind one ear. “It won’t be long.” “No,” Tatsu agreed. “It never is.”

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Meet the Author

Kathryn Sommerlot is a coffee addict and craft beer enthusiast with a detailed zombie apocalypse plan. Originally from the cornfields of the American Midwest, she got her master’s degree and moved across the ocean to become a high school teacher in Japan. When she isn’t wrangling teenage brains into critical thinking, she spends her time writing, crocheting, and hiking with her husband. She enjoys LGBTQ fiction, but she is particularly interested in genre fiction that just happens to have LGBTQ protagonists. Find out more on her Website.

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Title: At the Trough

Author: Adam Knight

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: May 13, 2019

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: Female/Female

Length: 107200

Genre: Science Fiction, LGBT, lesbian sci-fi, futuristic, dystopia, education, conformity, teacher, student, secret meetings, forbidden book, mental illness

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Synopsis

In a future where schools have no teachers and no classrooms, Jennifer Calderon is the perfect student. Every day she watches her video modules, plays her edu games, and never misses an answer. Life is comfortable in the Plex, a mile-wide apartment building. Corporations and brand names surround her and satisfy her every want and need. Then one day, her foul-mouthed, free-spirited, 90’s-kitsch-wearing girlfriend Melody disrupts everything. She introduces her to a cynical, burned-out former teacher, who teaches them the things no longer taught in school. Poetry. Critical thinking. Human connection. But these lessons draw the attention of EduForce, the massive corporation with a stranglehold on education. When they show how far they are willing to go keep their customers obedient, Jennifer has to decide what is most important to her and how much she is willing to sacrifice for it.

Excerpt

At the Trough Adam Knight © 2019 All Rights Reserved One: Learning if Fun “The brain releases the neurotransmitter dopamine in response to certain stimuli. Eating candy, having sex, consuming drugs, even petting a dog can trigger a pleasure response. Video games, especially ones with bright lights, upbeat music, and facile accomplishments are especially potent, flooding the brain with a sense of reward. As such, they were the bane of teachers for many years. That is, until EduForce began to use these games in their products. The scourge of learning was being disguised as learning itself.” —Charles Winston, The Trough, p. 114 Jennifer Calderón stared into the screen, slack-jawed and passive as the bright colors and shapes burst before her eyes. Her pupils traced letters and blocks as they bounced from one end of the sixty-inch screen to the next. She reached out and touched a word before it hit the bottom–GAMBOLED. The white letters lit up, neon-green, and the word whooshed across the screen to smash into another word—GAMBLED—and shatter into a shower of sparkles. “Same-sounder found!” a chirpy electronic voice declared. Dopamine squirted into Jennifer’s brain in happy little jets. A smile traced the corners of her lips. Learning was fun. Jennifer flicked her eyes to the upper right-hand corner of the screen. The figure 23/25 quickened her pulse. Two more. Two more word pairs and she would earn the Same-Sounder Achievement. A new word appeared at the bottom of her screen. ASCENT, it read. The friendly female voice read the word and definition. Bubbles with other vocabulary terms floated around the screen. Colors whirled before her eyes and electronic dance beats filled her ears as she searched for Same-Sounders. Then she saw it. The word, in white letters on a floating bubble, drifted toward the bottom. Jennifer’s finger jabbed at the screen. Pop! The word ASSENT exploded in fireworks. More music and chirpy voices. “Same-sounder found,” the voice said. More dopamine gushed into Jennifer’s brain. Her eyes flicked up to the corner. 24/25. CYMBAL. Once more, Jennifer scanned the bubbles and blobs and cubes and tetrahedrons swirling in her vision. Her breath was shallow. More and more words poured onto the screen. In one moment after another, tiny subdivided fractions of seconds, Jennifer saw and rejected words she did not think made the same sound as “cymbal.” Her eyes, her brain, and her hands all had to work in unison. Each level of Same-Sounder Finder was faster, more complex, and more stimulating than the last. Then she saw it. SYMBOL. She thrust her finger out to the screen. The little magenta gem in which the word sat was zigzagging down the screen, and she almost missed it and pressed the word TUMBLE crossing its path. But the SYMBOL illuminated, exploded, and a fireworks finale showed on the screen. 25/25. “Same-sounder found,” the voice declared, then louder and triumphantly, “Same-sounder achievement unlocked!” Jennifer leaped and thrust her fists in the air as a fanfare of electronic tones rang through her bedroom. Not many students earned perfect scores on Same-Sounder Finder, but Jennifer did. She earned perfect scores on everything. She was twenty-three years old and finishing her last year of schooling, a year ahead of the usual schedule. Because of all the hours she put into learning, and because she never had to redo any of her modules, she had raced ahead of her peers, many of whom were still on Achievement Level 13 or 14. She was working on 15. After the music died down, the screen went still. Jennifer’s head was still pounding. A headache was setting in, as was a twinge of crankiness. She left her bedroom and went to the kitchen where she poured herself a cup of coffee. Her mother always had a pot brewing, anything to keep her beloved daughter focused on school. Jennifer clogged the coffee with sugar and milk, stirred it, and took a gulp. Better. She freed a couple of aspirins from their foil pouches and swallowed them with the next mouthful of coffee. She returned to her room. Jennifer slid her finger along the screen and opened it to a new frame, one summarizing her academic progress. Current Achievement Level: 14. 12 percent of the way to 15. 106 of 880 modules completed. Achievement Level Grade Point Average: 5.0/5.0. Total Progress to Completion of all Achievement Levels: 97 percent. 12,845 of 13,215 modules completed. And then there was the final number. The prized number, the number she had worked for since age three. Aggregate Grade Point Average: 5.0/5.0 Every assignment Jennifer had ever done, from toddlerhood into now her mid-twenties, had been flawless. Missing just one question on one task would eradicate her record—The Perfect Five. There had been students with 5.0 GPAs before, but their scores came with asterisks. Usually the student had missed a smattering of questions throughout their education, resulting in a score that would round up to 5.0 in the ten-thousandths place. But Jennifer Calderón began each module on a knife’s edge, knowing one slip up would end her lunge at history. Each completed question nudged her progress toward earning Achievement Level 15, the equivalent of what was once her high school diploma. Thus far, however, all she had was poor digestion, headaches, sleep deprivation, and occasional interviews for the NewsFeed as her accomplishment became more improbable. Jennifer left the score screen and opened a new frame to continue with a new module. She had done three Grammar Modules in a row and wished for a change, so she opened a Chemistry Module. It made no difference to her. She never understood students who had favorite subjects, who would put off Math or Writing as long as possible. She never understood procrastination. She simply worked until she was exhausted, every day, with no heed to the subject area. It was all the same to her. To unlock the next series of edugames, she needed to watch the Chemistry vidlesson. At the opening screen, she was given a choice of several hundred different teachers to choose from. Each teacher had his or her own style. Some were brusque and businesslike, while others joked and kept the lesson light. Some had an air of wisdom and experience, while others were young and attractive. Some explained topics deliberately, but Jennifer returned to the same half-dozen teachers who explained briskly. Unlike many students, Jennifer always watched the vidlesson before the edugame. It was true “Learning Was Fun” but it was also true that “Hard Work Pays Off.” It’s so easy, she thought. They give you all of the answers right in the lesson. Too easy. But the thought was fleeting, and she brushed it away. Jennifer selected Mr. 85. She was not sure why the teachers did not have real names, but she did not dwell on it long. Mr. 85 was a favorite of hers because he spoke a little faster than other teachers. The content of what he said was the same—it had to be; the teachers were scripted—but he lingered a few seconds less on the examples and generally made his points and moved on. She wondered how many minutes of her educational life had been saved by Mr. 85’s expediency. Her stomach rumbled. I should eat, she thought, but instead she touched the icon for the Chemistry video and sat on the edge of her bed. The video opened. It was six minutes. Damn. A long one. The introduction music came up, a familiar, infectious jingle followed by a voiceover. “Chemistry—All You Need to Know. A lesson by the EduForce Corporation.” Then the camera fixed on Mr. 85. Mr. 85 was a middle-aged black man with graying hair. He never smiled. Jennifer kind of liked that. He stood in front of a display showing an elaborate chart with boxes. Each box had one or two letters inside. “Good day, I am Mr. 85. Today we are going to learn all about Chemistry. As you remember from the Introduction to Chemistry lesson, Chemistry is the part of science that is chemicals. The chemicals have names and symbols. Today I will teach them to you.” He stepped to the right and indicated the chart. Jennifer already knew she would have to rewatch this segment of the video. Maybe the whole thing. All those boxes and letters would be difficult to remember. “This is called the Chemical Chart. It used to be called the ‘Periodic Table of the Elements,’ but let’s keep it simple. The Chemical Chart shows you a list of all the chemicals, called ‘elements,’ in the world. Little ones are on the top and big ones are on the bottom. “Let’s look at some of them. The very top one is called ‘hydrogen.’ Its symbol is H. The next one is Helium. Its symbol is He.” Mr. 85 pointed out about a dozen of the most common elements and their symbols. Aluminum. Carbon. Oxygen. Phosphorous. Jennifer repeated to herself everything Mr. 85 said. “Next, we are going to look at what the elements do together,” he went on. “But first, you may be getting tired. Do you find your energy dragging after all this learning? If so, why not order a box of Perk-Eez? It’s the little yellow pill that keeps you shining bright!” The video of Mr. 85 paused and was replaced with a new screen offering Jennifer the opportunity to order a box of Perk-Eez. She touched the “Yes, please!” button on the screen, and a message immediately appeared. “Thank you! Your delivery will arrive at your unit shortly. Your household account will be debited.” Perk-Eez were another reason Jennifer was on track to graduate two years early. Mr. 85 returned. “Now that you know some of the chemicals’ names, let’s look at what chemicals do. They like to be together. Sometimes the same kinds of chemicals get together. One oxygen and another oxygen will get together, and they make up the oxygen we breathe. If you have taken the Human Biology module, you know we breathe oxygen.” The Chemical Chart was replaced with a graphic of two blue blobs with the letter “O” on them smooshing together. “Sometimes different chemicals get together. A carbon and two oxygens get together and make up something called carbon dioxide. Yes, that’s right, carbon dioxide, the bad thing your grandparents put into the air that almost killed Earth!” A new graphic with two blue blobs and a red blob with a “C” all clinging together replaced the old one. “All kinds of chemicals get together. Let’s look at some combinations.” The screen showed a series of different colored balls, all with different letters, making different combinations. Jennifer shook her head, trying to maintain focus. It was a lot of new information. As the video neared completion, Mr. 85 folded his hands and stepped to the center of the screen again. Jennifer thought she almost detected a smile. “I hope you have enjoyed this lesson on Chemistry. Please rewatch this video as many times as you like before going onto the edugames. My name is Mr. 85 and it has been a pleasure teaching you today. This has been an EduForce vidlesson. EduForce, making learning easy and fun since 2034.” The video closed. Jennifer watched it again three times. After the second time, the doorbell rang. She accepted the delivery from SentiAid, the pharmacy delivery service. She tore open a foil packet and gobbled a couple of Perk-Eez. Almost instantly, even faster than after a cup of coffee, her brain and body were buzzy and alive. All right, she thought. Let’s play some more edugames. The Chemistry edugame was called “Elementastic!!!” She read the instruction screen, then the game began. After a countdown, two words appeared on the screen: Iron Argon Jennifer typed in FEAR. The letters Fe and Ar zoomed in from the left and right of the screen, collided in a burst of color, and formed the word “fear,” which dissolved into sparkles that floated up to the top of the screen. Carbon Oxygen Oxygen Phosphorous Easy, Jennifer thought. She typed COOP. More collisions and explosions. Tin Iodine Phosphorous SNIP Helium Aluminum Sulfur HEALS Jennifer fell into a rhythm, working faster and faster on each round. Her breathing became shallow. Her pulse quickened and her pupils dilated as the words came faster, exploded bigger and more colorfully, until finally a computerized voice—male this time—announced, “Activity Complete. Chemistry Achievement Unlocked!” and Jennifer lowered her hands, panting. The voice continued, “To celebrate your achievement, how about downloading the new song from Tuliphead? The infectious single ‘Plex Lovin’’ is already breaking new—” “Sure,” Jennifer said, and the advertisement stopped. Buying was the easiest way to make the ads go away. Even as a small child, edugames had come easily to her. She watched the vidlessons, played the edugames, and thought little of it. She learned with carefree abandon. But when she reached the age of twelve or thirteen, she became aware she was doing something unusual. Of course, she did not have classmates to compare herself to, and she had few friends to ask, but she understood she was different. Other children made mistakes, even had to redo modules they had not mastered. She had wondered what mistakes were, to have the certainty of rightness yanked out from under you. As she grew older, she became acutely aware of her achievement. At age fifteen, she received a request for a vid interview with a reporter. She had sheepishly declined, unsure of what to say and certain her mother would not have allowed it. But over the subsequent years, several more interview requests came to her, and she began to accept them. Each time she said the same things, that she was proud and studied a lot to do the best she could. That answer was only half true. She was proud of her grade but never had to study. She watched a vidlesson, played the edugame, then moved on to the next.

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Meet the Author

Born in upstate New York, Adam now lives in northern New Jersey with his wife, son, a neurotic dog and two cats. He teaches middle school English and writes science fiction, fantasy, and history, often in strange combinations. His stories and essays have been published in several anthologies and online magazines. Beyond writing and teaching, his interests include running and making improvements on his creaky old house.

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Title: Breaking His Spell

Author: Foster Bridget Cassidy

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: May 6, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 38800

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT, mages, magic, fantasy, match making, romance, Familiars, dragon, assassination attempt, magicians, royalty, spells, gay, immortal, true love

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Synopsis

Klint doesn’t believe in true love. As an Alma, an immortal magician, he knows such feelings can’t last forever. The death of his mortal lover almost a hundred years ago proved it. But Klint’s resolve gets put to the test when he’s tasked with saving a prince from a dark spell. With Carishina, his friend and fellow Alma, in tow, he sets off for Terius. Carishina’s ideas for breaking spells differ greatly from Klint’s. While he tries potions, Carishina tries kisses. Only one of them will succeed.

Excerpt

Breaking His Spell Foster Bridget Cassidy © 2019 All Rights Reserved Chapter One True love. There were no other words in all the world as deceitful as those. In my youth, I had believed. I sought to find that one person to complete me. As a newly trained magician, the Alsa Alma sent me to tutor the third youngest prince of the Farlerotna Kingdom. In the palace, I watched Prince Vulten grow. I was his constant companion in study and in play. The prince had a devious mind, and we spent hours thinking of ways to trick his older siblings. And on the day he turned eighteen he’d confessed his love for me. Shocking, to say the least, because I’d come to love him too. True love. Or so I thought. Except, how could anyone truly, irrevocably love an immortal? For the early years, we were happy. We took trips to foreign nations. We hosted lords and ladies. We played tricks on his siblings, even Rillik, who had taken the crown by then. But as the years stretched and Vulten began to age, the love in his eyes lessened and faded, replaced by envy and jealousy. As an immortal Alma, my magic kept my body youthful. He’d died, cursing my name. For decades, I mourned. Not just the loss of his life, but the loss of his love. “That,” Alma Carishina said at the end of my monologue, “is why you don’t have relations with mortals.” She leaned forward, her chin resting on her palm. She’d magicked her hair green, and the curls appeared serpentine, a gorgon with her snakes. “No,” I countered, “that’s why you don’t have any relationships with anyone. If love could not last for eighty years with a mortal, how could it last forever with an immortal? It’s not possible.” “And so,” Alma Franik added with a toothy grin, “you’ve turned into a grumpy old man at the tender age of two hundred.” “I’m a hundred and ninety-five,” I fumed. “And I’m not grumpy. I don’t see the point in romance. There’s no such thing as true love.” “I heard,” Franik stage whispered to Carishina, “he moped in the Farlerotna Palace for a hundred years before they asked for him to be taken away.” Carishina laughed and the red in my cheeks was not all anger. Maybe I had moped, but my broken heart was understandable. I’d lost my lover, and at the same time, my childish ideas of the world. It had wounded me. I needed to reflect and get a grip on my life. Had I really been there a hundred years? Rillik’s granddaughter—Simmone—had assumed the throne. How long had I wandered those halls, haunting them like a ghost? It couldn’t have been more than forty or fifty. “The Alsa Alma had to fetch Klint himself,” Franik concluded with a smug smile. “Ha-ha,” I told him sourly. “I’m not sure you have room to talk, Franik, as you’ve never even been sent outside these walls. What was it the Alsa Alma said? You ‘lacked any and all ambition’?” Carishina snorted and Franik glowered. “As if I wanted to mingle with the mortals,” he said, drawing himself up. “I don’t ever want to get mixed up in their insignificant affairs.” I allowed myself a small grin as Franik directed the conversation onto a new topic. At times, I still missed Vulten. Our connection had been the one real thing in my life. As a wizard, I used unexplained solutions, backward thinking, magicking anything into reality. But with Vulten, the emotions had seemed more than magic. Better than magic. At least I’d learned my lesson young. The pain prepared me for my lonely future. The afternoon light shone in through the stained-glass windows, throwing splashes of color around the room. I adored the place, my favorite in the Alma Palace, a mixture of library and meditation room. Most of the time, no occupants filled the tables. Or on the occasions when they did, other magicians knew enough to leave you to your thoughts. Well, not today. Franik and Carishina had bombarded me with questions the moment I walked in. They were young—Franik just turned ninety, and Carishina was a mere forty-six. Of course, they were curious about the gossip around the palace, and my experience in Farlerotna continuously made the rounds. Plus, many of the older practitioners didn’t have the time or inclination for dealing with the young ones. Apparently my years in the mortal world had tempered my patience. “I hope I get an assignment soon,” Carishina said. “I’m ready to travel and see something besides these Mylforsaken windows.” The curse using the goddess’s name sounded odd in her cheerful voice. “They won’t let you out for a least another twenty years,” I told her. “Why not? I heard you were sent out at forty-five. I’m older now.” I shrugged. “The world’s a much more dangerous place now, even to a trained Alma. Dark wizards are the least of our concerns.” Her lips puckered in displeasure. “I heard there’s a prince in Terius who’s fallen under an evil spell. I want to be the one to rescue him.” “What did I say about mixing with royalty?” I asked, exasperated. What was the point in telling them my tragic past if they didn’t heed my warnings? “Oh, Klint,” she said fondly, reaching out to grip my hand. “Just because a relationship didn’t work for you doesn’t mean it won’t work for everybody. Or, maybe your prince was an ass who really didn’t love you at all.” My mouth fell open. So did Franik’s. Carishina casually went on smiling at me, unaware of how tactless her words had been. “Klint,” called a voice from behind me. I turned in my seat. Alma Peter leaned through the doorway. “The Alsa Alma would like to speak to you.” I wrinkled my nose. It’d been awhile since I’d been summoned by the old man. After he’d come to Farlerotna and informed me I was creeping out the current royals, I’d kept my distance. Now, I hoped he had good news for me.

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Meet the Author

Foster Bridget Cassidy is a rare, native Phoenician who enjoys hot desert air and likes to wear jackets in summer. She has wanted to be a fiction writer since becoming addicted to epic fantasy during high school. Since then, she’s studied the craft academically—at Arizona State University—and as a hobby—attending conventions and workshops around the country. A million ideas float in her head, but it seems like there’s never enough time to get them all down on paper. For fun, Foster likes to take pictures of her dachshunds, sew costumes for her dachshunds, snuggle her dachshunds, and bake treats for her dachshunds. In exchange for so much love and devotion, they pee vast amounts on the floor, click their nails loudly on the tile, and bark wildly at anything that moves outside. Somehow, this relationship works for all involved. While not writing, Foster can usually be found playing a video game or watching a movie with her husband. While not doing any of those things, Foster can usually be found in bed, asleep.

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Title: Fruits of the Gods

Author: William C. Tracy

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: April 22, 2019

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: No Romance

Length: 110200

Genre: Fantasy, LGBT, Fantasy, other-world, family-drama, magic users, elements, slave, lesbian, trans, sisters, ghosts, spirits

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Synopsis

Sisters Kisare and Belili uproot an ancient box in their owner’s orchard and find a miracle inside: a fifth godfruit in a society that knows only four. It is punishable by death for non-nobles to eat godfruit, so the sisters hide the discovery and plot to escape servitude for good. With the power represented in the box, they could live as nobles themselves. But Kisare finds her new freedom more difficult than she imagined, and Belili has many secrets she strives to keep hidden. With the help of a people slowly losing their culture and technology to the powerful nobles, the sisters lead an infiltration of the highest levels of noble society. While Kisare finds she cares for the captured leader of the people helping them, Belili comes to love her noble suitor’s guard—a fierce woman with a similar past to her own. In the end, the fifth godfruit may bring harmony to the world, but the sisters’ only hope of succeeding lies in deciphering ancient mythologies surrounding the gods’ original plan for their people.

Excerpt

Fruits of the Gods William C. Tracy © 2019 All Rights Reserved The gods made mortals as their servants but freed them when they became troublesome to keep. When, against all odds, the mortals prospered on their own, the gods thought to bribe them with gifts to gain their worship. It was the mistress’s third miscarriage. Kisare knelt beside Bel, both sisters digging the hole to accept the little bundle. The solitary malus tree above them would take the grim fertilizer for its magical harvest. She could feel the master’s eyes on her back, and Shuma’s, the guard captain. The mistress in her litter, two guards, and three slaves holding torches filled out their party. The flickering glow guttered over the little hole. The ground resisted Kisare’s chipped spade, and her breath misted as she dug. Moonlight shone on her and Bel through new leaves of the malus tree, standing alone between rows of grapevines. She brushed back long hair, bleached somewhere between silver and white, taking only a second to eye the bundle at the mistress’s feet. The noble blood the child would add to the malus’s harvest did nothing to offset Aricaba-Ata’s frustration. The master doted on his new young wife. Bel’s spade landed with a hollow thunk. Curious, Kisare dug next to her sister. Something was buried here. She could see no detail in the dark but knew better than to alert their master. It might be valuable. Kisare saw Bel’s eyes locked on the dark corner of the grave. Her spade stabbed underneath, prying the thing up. Kisare knocked her sister’s arm away, then dug at the opposite end of the hole. Bel took the hint and, frowning, plunged her spade in with too much force. It bounced off a rock, throwing dirt in Kisare’s face. She spit out grit tasting of iron and fertilizer. Aricaba-Ata, next to his grieving wife, pointed one finger. Torchlight highlighted the parted lock of red in his white-blond hair. Shuma stepped forward at the gesture. The freeman guard captain was a natural blond, no streaks of magical color in his tight curls. Nor was his hair bleached, as Kisare’s and Bel’s was. “What was that sound? What did you hit?” Shuma towered above them, the biggest man Kisare had ever seen, rumored to be the disowned son of a neighboring noble. “It was nothing,” Kisare answered, thinking furiously. “It was something, blond,” he answered, unlimbering the whip at his side. Kisare’s back tensed, her shirt scratching against the raised scars. She had to answer. Mortal hands had buried something here. What could she get from offering up the prize? Not as much as keeping the knowledge from the master. Bel was watching her face, spade poised. “It was a wood—” “Root,” Kisare finished for her. She pointed at her last mistake, rather than the treasure. It would give meaning to her hesitation. “See,” she said. “I nicked a root.” It was visible as a glistening wet spot in the moonlight. The master came forward and peered into the small hole. It wouldn’t harm the tree in the long run, but it was still a slave’s error. Kisare kept the scream in as the whip drew a line of fire across her back. “Keep digging,” Aricaba-Ata said. “Do not injure my tree further. It is worth far more than your life, blond. I do not need added trouble.” He stepped back to his wife in her litter, his face blending into shadow. Kisare put her head down and dug, her back burning. Cold air washed down her spine through a rent in her thin shirt, stark against the hot wetness. Bel followed, digging deliberately. Kisare shifted to a more comfortable position, hoping to keep her shirt from touching the bleeding wound. She didn’t wish her sister to feel the whip but wondered if Aricaba-Ata would have punished Bel the same way. Her sister’s gift for pruning godfruit trees excused her from all but the worst transgressions. Almost all. Kisare glanced down to Bel’s incomplete left hand, resting by the grave. They finished the hole well enough to please the master, keeping away from where the object was buried. They placed the small bundle by the guard’s torchlight and filled in the dirt. Kisare took a moment to breathe—not long enough to bring Shuma’s whip down, but enough to pull a ragged shawl around her shoulders. She sucked in a breath as it brushed her wounded back. Bel could look at it later. Kisare shivered into the shawl, sweat from digging chilling her. The malus tree was past harvest, and the season was on the cusp of spring. It was the in-between time when even citrons were scarce, and everyone scrimped on godfruit. Bel helped her to her feet, and Kisare and her sister placed the name-rail in the fence around the tree, under the master’s watchful eye. There were five other name-rails already inscribed, two from the previous miscarriages, and one from Aricaba-Ata’s first wife, Tiamai. The fever had taken her three years ago. Stumps of long-dead malus trees stood nearby, breaking rows of leafless grapevines with their own rotting name-rails. The grapes—normal fruit—were sold to market or made into wine. “Girl,” Aricaba-Ata directed her, “clean the birthing room before you sleep.” He put an arm around his trembling wife in her litter and kissed her forehead. “Take her back,” he directed the three slaves holding the litter. The other guard left with them, leaving a torch with Shuma. Aricaba-Ata came forward, taking a slightly wrinkled malus slice from his tunic. Kisare watched, slowly cleaning the dirt from her and Bel’s spades, making time. Aricaba-Ata pushed one red lock—magic gifted from the four gods of the seasons—behind his ear, as he popped the malus in his mouth. Kisare saw the shudder that took his body as he bit down, traces of lightning coursing down his arms, illuminating the darkness. She drank in the display. Aricaba-Ata stepped close to the new-cut naming rail and lifted his right forefinger. Orange light bloomed in the night; a single pillar of flame. He drew a line of fire across the rail, charring in the name given his stillborn son: Aricaba-Tir. By the time he finished marking the rail, Kisare could see his jaw moving in the few last flickers of lightning as he tried to draw the last bit of juice from the godfruit’s flesh. This far up in the mountains, away from the capital city of Karduniash, and near the ring of devastation the nobles called the Blasted Lands, her master would waste none of the magical juice. Kisare spun at her sister’s cough, but not fast enough. She had forgotten to clean the spade while watching. Aricaba-Ata’s backhanded swipe caught her across the face and she fell to the ground, her head bouncing. “Be on your way, girl,” he huffed. Kisare put a finger to her split lip and made the mistake of raising her eyes. This time the blow laid her flat out, darkening her vision. She scrambled to her knees, slightly dizzy, but kept her gaze down. She probed a loose tooth with her tongue. What had he said? His blow had knocked the sense from her. “I’ll—I’ll clean the birthing room now, by your leave, master.” Bel’s hand gripped her sleeve, supporting. Aricaba-Ata’s cold eyes were still on her, she knew. “You can take Tashi’s place filling the latrines tomorrow before your other duties, to remind you not to get ideas above your place.” She bolted, Bel close behind. The blood in her mouth and on her back were worth the secret buried under the malus tree.

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Meet the Author

William C. Tracy is a North Carolina native and a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy. He has a master’s in mechanical engineering, and has both designed and operated heavy construction machinery. He has also trained in Wado-Ryu karate since 2003, and runs his own dojo. He is an avid video and board gamer, a reader, and of course, a writer. In his spare time, he wrangles three cats. He and his wife enjoy putting their pets in cute little costumes and making them cosplay for the annual Christmas card. He is the author of the Dissolutionverse, about a series of homeworlds connected by music-based magic instead of space flight.

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Title: SIO

Author: C.A. Blocke

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: April 22, 2019

Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 6360

Genre: Science Fiction, LGBT, humor, space pirates, scavengers, scientist, tech nerd, hurt-comfort, disabilities, abduction, captivity, tech nerd

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Synopsis

Set in a near-future environment, mega-corporations have taken over the most habitable of planets, creating domed utopias for their devoted employees. Everyone else has been shunted off to a multitude of mostly habitable planets and moons where they scrape by as farmers and tradesfolk, miners and merchants, bounty hunters and scavengers. James Marks and his crew of scav trash operate their ship, SIO, on a mission to obtain a mysterious piece of new tech. It changes everything and leaves him stranded somewhere he doesn’t recognize with a cute, if not a bit annoying, tech scientist. James doesn’t know, when he first meets Michael, but his life is about to change in a very surprising way.

Excerpt

SIO C.A. Blocke © 2019 All Rights Reserved One: The Job “You’re really going in alone?” Edge asked, leaning heavily against the console as James plugged in the coordinates. “I thought you promised Lyra you weren’t doing jobs alone anymore after that last big fuckup.” James rolled his eyes and sighed. “What Lyra don’t know won’t hurt her. You and your sister are wanted on every planet in Corporate Space, and I’m not about to lose the only good pilot we’ve got by taking Corin along for the ride. Besides, I’m fluent in bullshit. I’ll be fine.” Edge laughed and drew his oversized ElectroPistol before shoving it toward James’s chest. “You’re gonna need this. They set up scanners every few kilometers to catch travelers with old-school bullets.” “You know I’ve got one.” James smirked, opening his dark-brown duster to show off his special design. “And mine’s overclocked.” “Show-off.” Edge and his sister, Razor, had been on the ship’s crew since day one, and far too many crew members had been lost one way or another since. To be fair, James knew Edge had a point. The duster was a bit of a showpiece, but even in Corporate Space, they could appreciate fine leatherwork. Quietly, Razor added, “Careful where you’re scanning with that eye, boss. Peach detection is sensitive to all TechEyes.” James blinked several times, self-conscious at the reminder of his less-than-human status. After fifteen years on the outer ring, he was starting to feel less man than machine. An eye, a leg, and a full neural interface later, who really could say he wasn’t? “Yes, mother.” James sighed, offering another fond roll of the eyes. “Believe me, I’m in and out. The last place I want to hang out is a Peach Corp research and development office.” “Eye on the prize.” Edge nodded, clapping a meaty hand on James’s back. “Corin’ll leave the engines running for ya.” Getting in wasn’t hard; a flash of the badge the client had provided and a few sideways glances at James’s generally unkempt appearance, and he was walking the halls toward the mark’s office. Thankfully, R&D didn’t have half the security protocol most Corporate offices had, and as far as they cared, the dark-haired man in a duster and pressed shirt was Mr. Marquis Benton, in the flesh. However, the short middle manager staring him down didn’t exactly seem convinced. “So, Mr. Benton, is it?” he asked, stroking his fingers through professionally cropped blond hair before taking off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “And you are here for?” “I was told the communique was sent days ago,” James bluffed, crossing his arms and giving the manager, Michael, a critical look. “The Rose prototype. It’s being called up for Corporate preview.” “Well, as much as I’d love to have one less piece of useless technology to deal with, it’s not ready. I never received this…communique…you’re talking about.” Michael’s brow furrowed as he slipped his glasses back on; the frustration apparent on his face was adorable at the very least. “Fine. Fine.” James leaned in, glancing over the man’s badge to grab a name, only to feel his TechEye activate to read it through the soft fold of his worn blazer. “It’s all right, Michael. I’ll deal with your supervisor.” “I am the supervisor at this facility.” Michael frowned, shaking his head. “And if that crappy old TechEye wasn’t such a piece of outdated shit running firmware from ten years ago, you would have been able to pull up my personnel file and would know that.” It wasn’t quite the same as being caught red-handed, and security wasn’t swarming the office yet, so there was that much hope. “Hey, you know how crappy the pay is for runners. I haven’t exactly been able to keep up on the latest and greatest.” James shrugged, and then stepped closer, ready to make a move, if justified. “Besides, I don’t like all that clutter in my HUD. All I need is to get this prototype to my boss.” It was a fair enough statement; the heads-up display on the older chip software was much less cluttered with information of various levels of situational importance. In the long run, it made it difficult to parse the large amount of information that wasn’t actually in front of his eyes but tended to render him at least distracted when it came up. Michael stood, one hand on his black leather belt and the other casually planted against his desk. “The new heads-up display is actually quite streamlined by comparison, especially if you have the visual upgrade.” He shifted on his feet and, after a moment’s pause, dropped his gaze down to the litter of papers and scraps on his desk. “Look, okay… I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, but contrary to popular belief, just because I’m in R&D, I’m not a fucking idiot. The Rose is classified, and you’ve done absolutely nothing to make me believe you should even be here.” James had been in worse situations, which really said quite a lot about his chosen profession. He put on his best smile and leaned across Michael’s desk, drawing eyes back up to him. “I’ll level with you, Michael. There was no communique, okay? I know I’m sort of jumping the gun here, but bringing back the Rose and blowing the bigwigs’ minds with it pretty much guarantees a promotion that…uh…well, I need. And I know you’ve got zero reason to believe a word I’m saying, but I can definitely put in a good word for the new head of R&D.” Michael’s eyes narrowed behind his thin spectacles, and James felt his heart rate raise enough to hear the blood pounding in his ears. Lying was no big thing, but pulling shit in a Peach facility was a damn bold move for someone not looking to end up in a prison colony for the rest of their short, crappy life. Finally, Michael said, “Head of R&D? You have that kind of power? I thought you said you were a runner.” “A runner for someone with more power than both of us combined. With the right offering, I could do quite a lot”—James whispered, licking his lower lip for dramatic effect, if not sheer nerves—“with a little help from a certain smart and handsome developer.” A long moment passed, and James realized exactly how that statement had come off. Fortunately, Michael seemed to buy it, and James wasn’t really lying—for everything his bookish appearance gave off, Michael was handsome in a sort of cute tech-nerd kind of way. Michael sighed and shook his head, drawing back. “You’ve got a silver tongue, Marquis. And, I guess I’m just sick of looking at the stupid thing,” he muttered under his breath, heading toward the door James had come in. “I have to get it from the lab; they’re working on it today.” “Of course, of course.” James feigned a laugh while following him back into the corridor and through the honeycomb of hallways and nondescript rooms toward the lab. Michael scanned his card and then turned back to face him. “Wait here.” There was a delicate dance—James couldn’t wait too long out in the open without being checked by security, who would likely figure out his papers were fake, within a few seconds, but he also had to offer Michael the benefit of the doubt, lest his true intention be made even clearer. He nodded and casually folded his arms over his chest, gently patting the pistol concealed within his coat. Beyond the door, he couldn’t see much more than several bodies in white suits with blank faces moving quietly around, and then he was alone in the corridor. Ten minutes and one close call with security passed, and James couldn’t stop himself from attempting to listen at the door, to no avail. Daring the chance of getting caught, he fumbled out the jack in his coat pocket, connecting it to the keypad first and then directly to the port behind his left ear. Hacking was dangerous in the best possible circumstances. Getting caught was almost a certainty, but the cybernetic jack made it a little simpler to do something as innocuous as jimmying a lock—hell, James had practically grown up forcing locks with or without technological assistance. Unfortunately, Razor wasn’t wrong about Peach Corp being on top of outside tech in their systems. The lock gave, after only a few moments of forcing the code, the door opened, and the first thing James saw after pulling the jack free at both ends in one yank was security coming right for him. “What are you doing in here?” Michael shouted as James rushed into the room, slamming the door behind him. A steel case was open on a large table, a small purple rose made of circuits and glass seated in a holding point fixed inside the case. “Okay, so here’s the thing…” James stammered, letting the words come as his most useful form of self-preservation. “There are at least three guys with ElectroPistols on the other side of that door, and I really need to leave with this prototype, so if you could close that case, I’ll be heading out now.” “It’s not ready!” Michael answered, lifting the safety goggles from around his glasses and tossing them on the floor with an angry sigh. “Do you even know anything about the Rose? You have got to be the most ignorant—” James cut him off for lack of time more than anything, snapping the case closed. “I may have to use you as a human shield…no worries; ElectroPistols don’t hurt nearly as bad as the real thing.” He was well aware it sounded bad, but to the best of his knowledge, as long as the person being shot didn’t have too many cybernetic parts, the blasts weren’t usually deadly. James grabbed Michael’s elbow, thankful he was a little lighter and a good deal shorter than most. They made it two steps to the door, and when James touched the latch, a loud popping noise was accompanied by a rush of heat, and everything went black.

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Meet the Author

C.A. Blocke is a thirty-something writer who’s been captivated by the magic of how people relate to each other for as long as she can remember. Far more than overarching drawn-out plots, she prefers to focus heavily on relationships in various situations that feel like real life—even when at its most surreal. Real Life, she feels, is messy and complicated, and that shines through in her fiction where the road to a happy ending frequently isn’t just a straight line. A long-time reader and writer of fluffy character-driven pieces, her style tends to highlight small slices of life that come together to form a whole picture of the plot. She is a gender nonconforming, demisexual-identified female who feels most comfortable writing unconventional relationships involving non-heterosexual couplings. Sexual identity often colors her works and features heavily in finding the comfortable place where identities can collide with minimal friction. She enjoys exploring different takes on ‘acceptable’ sexuality and blurring the lines between what is expected and what really happens. A small-town Arizona native, the Southwest and its rural communities fascinate her—particularly the rigid-identity politics and the ramifications of breaking the social norm. Of course, that’s not to say that she doesn’t also enjoy writing about urban life and the various challenges present in the big city. While most at home writing contemporary romance with a warm little erotica twist, she’s very prone to following her muse down the dark alleys and open valleys it drags her through—making it nearly impossible to know just what genre will take her interest next.

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Title: Royal Rescue

Author: A. Alex Logan

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: April 8, 2019

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: No Romance, Male/Male

Length: 111500

Genre: New Adult Fantasy, LGBT, asexual, high fantasy, dragons, royalty, magic, young adult, gay, family drama, hurt/comfort

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Synopsis

At age eighteen, when they become marriageable, all royal children in the Thousand Kingdoms must either go questing to rescue another royal or be hidden away to await rescue themselves. Some go the traditional route of princes rescuing princesses, but not all princes want to be rescuers…and some would rather rescue other princes. Then there’s Prince Gerald, who has no interest in getting married at all. When he refuses to choose a role as either rescuer or rescuee, his royal parents choose for him and have him magicked away to a distant tower to await a spouse. Gerald, however, is having none of it. He recruits his guardian dragon and a would-be rescuer and soon the trio is dashing to all corners of the united kingdoms on a quest to overturn the entire system.

Excerpt

Gerald followed the steward to the study wearing an expression that would have been more appropriate if he were being led to the dungeon. The steward rapped on the door twice before opening it and stepping aside for Gerald. She gave the young man an encouraging wink, but he was too intent on bracing himself for the upcoming confrontation to notice. He took a deep breath, visibly set his shoulders and stepped through the doorway. The steward closed the door behind him, and Gerald fought back the feeling of being trapped. “Don’t lurk in the doorway,” an imposing voice scolded. “Come in where I can see you.” Gerald did as he was told, stopping and giving a shallow bow when the woman came into view. She nodded, acknowledging the courtesy, which caused the sunlight streaming in through the window to catch and reflect off her golden crown. Gerald resisted the urge to reach up and touch his own circlet—silver—which he too late realized was probably once again askew. “Well?” the Queen asked. “Have you made your decision?” Another deep breath, another forceful straightening of his shoulders, and Gerald said, a hint of defiance in his tone, “I have.” The Queen’s harsh expression broke into a smile. “Oh, Gerald, thank goodness. Your mum and I were about at our wits’ end! There’s barely enough time left to make all the arrangements. So, what will it be? Rescuer or rescuee?” “Neither.” The smile melted off the Queen’s face. “Neither! Don’t be ridiculous, Gerald. You said you had made your decision.” “I have,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “I’ve decided not to participate.” “That is not an option,” she said coldly, the warmth in her voice gone the same way as the smile. “As you are well aware.” “I don’t wish to marry,” Gerald replied, trying to match her tone but not quite managing it. “As you are well aware.” The Queen waved her hand dismissively. “This is merely the first step. It may take a year or even two for you to rescue—or be rescued by—someone who appeals. Then there’s the courtship, the inter-kingdom negotiations, planning the festivities…why, unless it’s True Love and you two want to rush things, I doubt the wedding will happen before you turn twenty-one.” “I didn’t say ‘I don’t wish to marry in the next three years’,” Gerald said, forcing himself to keep his voice level even as he balled his hands into fists. “I said, ‘I don’t wish to marry.’ As in, ever.” But the Queen was no longer listening. “I really don’t know where we went wrong with you,” she said. “We never had this sort of problem with your older siblings or even your twinling…” “Don’t call her that,” Gerald snapped. “You know how much I hate that—we’re not twins, we’re not even sort-of twins. We’re half-siblings at best and maybe not even related at all.” The Queen looked up at the ceiling as if imploring it to give her strength. “Now you’re being deliberately obtuse,” she snapped back. “You know very well that the term ‘twinling’ has been in use for at least a century throughout every single one of the Thousand Kingdoms, and it’s a perfectly apt word. You’re acting like your mum and I made it up to irritate you. You’re acting like a child, Gerald.” “Isn’t the point of all this that I am a child?” he responded. “Isn’t the entire purpose of this whole charade of rescue and marriage to make me into an adult?” “It’s hardly a charade. It’s—” “—a well-respected, long-established tradition to encourage young royals to broaden their horizons, explore more of the Thousand Kingdoms, find love, and forge stronger connections among the Kingdoms, yes, yes, I know,” Gerald interrupted. “I still say it’s a charade. It’s perfectly possible to accomplish all of those goals without forcing every royal into a ridiculous marriage quest the moment they turn eighteen.” “You seem to be forgetting something very important here, Gerald,” the Queen said calmly. “What’s that?” “This isn’t optional.” “You can’t force me to choose,” Gerald said. “Why can’t you leave me be and let Lila broaden her horizons, explore the Kingdoms, forge alliances, and all that rot? She wants to.” “You have ten days,” the Queen continued, as if Gerald hadn’t spoken. She turned away without even bothering to dismiss him.

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Meet the Author

Alex Logan is an asexual, agender librarian from New York state. Always an avid reader, Alex has branched out from reading books to writing them. Alex’s other main interest is soccer, which they enjoy watching, playing, and (of course) reading about.

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