LGBTQ, Dark Fantasy, Steamy
Date Published: April 18, 2025
As their need for each other grows, so does the danger.
Kailee and Tom are falling for each other, but their secrets continue to
come between them. Kailee’s afraid to show her physical scars, while
Tom dreads his lover will discover the power those he still calls Master and
Mistress hold over him.
Dragon and werewolf must join together in every way to defeat those who
would dominate Tom and kill Kailee.
EXCERPT
Kailee had been lying next to Tom for close to twenty minutes. Her new
dragon lover was fast asleep, and she knew she should be resting too.
Instead, she was filled with joy and an incautious sense of promise that she
hadn’t felt in years.
Tom rolled over, draping his arm over her waist. Kailee wriggled a little
as the urge to pee made itself known. A deeper craving drew at her
also.
“Are you okay?” Tom mumbled. Then he stiffened.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” He pulled his
arm off her.
She turned over, snuggling in close. “I like it when you touch me. I
just… I need to get up and use the bathroom.” It was true, but
her ulterior motive was to take so long that he fell back to sleep, and she
could go outside.
“I’ll wait up for you,” he said, slurring his words a
little.
Kailee kissed his temple. “Go to sleep. I’ll be back in a
moment.”
His eyes were already closed. As she watched, he lost the tension in his
limbs and the worry lines on his face smoothed out. He began to snore.
She waited another five minutes, to make sure he was well and truly under.
He’d had a sucky, hard life and she thought he hadn’t probably
slept well for large parts of it. Knowing he was safe here, that she would
protect him, made her smile.
She got up, padding to the bathroom after putting on the clothes
she’d worn before they made love. Once in the bathroom, she unzipped
her jeans. As much as she felt one hundred percent female most of the time,
she still enjoyed the simple pleasure of peeing while standing up.
When she was finished, she flushed, zipped up, and washed her hands. Then,
moving silently, not wanting to wake anyone up because this pack already
knew everyone else’s business as it was, she went to the mudroom, put
on her boots, and made her way out of the back door into the gloriously dark
night. It was a waxing crescent moon tonight, about four days from the first
quarter, and with so little light coming from that celestial orb, the
darkness was close as a passionate lover, full of kindness. Like Tom.
She wrapped her arms around her chest, which was flat without the boobs she
usually wore. That felt a little awkward but for this one moment, she was
able to dismiss the feeling. She’d needed to embrace herself for pure
joy’s sake. She’d been so very alone for damn near half her
life, relying on gentleness and understanding from those who were either
hired professionals or simply much older than she was and thus not quite as
in touch with their wolflinghood as she could have wished. Maybe it was
foolish to assume someone closer to her own age would have “gotten
it,” her experiences and suffering. Still, because Tom understood, and
only after so short a time, she thought the idea had slight merit.
Wanting to make some sort of noise to express herself, she began to sing.
It was a simple song in Werewelsh, her first language. She’d grown up
surrounded by the language developed by werewolves for their own kind, and
although other people spoke it now, it remained mostly shared among the ones
who had to change at the full moon. Werewolves largely did, though, and she
was, first and foremost, a wolf.
She translated in her head as she sang, loving the poetry even though it
didn’t rhyme in English.
Moon of darkness, moon of light,
Moon of power and strength.
Moon of my heart, full and wise,
Be with me tonight.
Probably, she thought as her joy crested but didn’t recede, I’m
being foolish. He hasn’t even said he loves me.
That was true but what made her heart sing was a simple truth, not
complicated by whether Tom wanted to be her mate or not. “In all
honesty,” she whispered to the night that seemed to be listening,
“I never thought anyone could see past my scars and love me
anyway.”
All right, so he hadn’t actually seen her physical scars, her dead
name carved into her chest with a silver knife and made to stay because of
silver powder. She hadn’t been quite that brave. Still, Tom knew she
had a reputation, that she’d killed, and he hadn’t pulled away.
Wasn’t that worthy of ecstasy?
She closed her eyes and resumed her singing. Now she sang a song of how the
sky so loved the moon that he bid her to cross from one edge to the other so
he might admire her beauty. The moon’s response Kailee sang too,
reveling in the way the moon demanded something in return: to see the stars
scattered before her like diamonds.
Once again, her joy crested until it filled her chest. She broke out in a
light sweat. That was when she became aware that the exhilaration she felt
wasn’t hers alone.
Wary because she’d been influenced by outsider forces before,
although less directly or psychically, she mounted her defenses and scanned
the area with her telepathy, seeking the source of the external, pushy
force.
At first, she felt nothing and no one. Widening her circle of ability, she
fumbled in the darkness of the in-between that existed in the psychic world.
Reaching, reaching, she felt a half-familiar mind.
About the Author
Emily Carrington is a multipublished author of male/male and transgender
women’s speculative fiction. Seeking a world made of equality, she
created SearchLight to live out her dreams. But even SearchLight has its
problems, and Emily is looking forward to working all of these out with a
host of characters from dragons and genies to psychic vampires. And in the
contemporary world she’s named “Sticks & Stones,”
Emily has vowed to create small towns where prejudice is challenged by a
passionate quest for equality. Find her on Facebook at Shapeshifter Central
or on her website.
Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok:
@changelingpress
