R. Lee Smith's Blog, page 32

Sunday Sneak Peek 7/7

Sneak Peek Sunday is a weekly blog hop in which writers are challenged to post six paragraphs, no more and no less, from a published work or work in progress and then invite other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

All this month (and maybe into next month), all of my snippets for Hump Day Hook, Sneak Peek Sundays and WeWriWa will be taken from The Last Hour of Gann, beginning with the first word on the first page, picking up right where the previous snippet leaves off, and ending only when I’m ready for the book to go live. To further motivate me, I am offering up a free Kindle copy of The Last of Gann to one lucky commenter. Just remember that all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content, so you must explicitly tell me so if you want to enter the giveaway. The winner will be drawn at random just as soon as my last edits are done (You can see my progress in the WIP widget in the sidebar there. I’m in the second of three edits. This is the beta-reading phase, which takes the longest as we only meet once a week. The third round of edits goes very, very fast).

Nicci—easily frightened under normal circumstances and utterly terrified by this slack-faced stranger who looked like their mom—started crying, and once she did, Mary Bierce burst out into huge, wet sobs also. She lay spread out over the sofa with her legs wide open and that plastic diaper showing under her skirt while her daughters hugged each other and stared, but all she seemed capable of saying was one nonsensical word.

“Spayed!” their mother wept, over and over, until she was screaming it. Screaming and digging at her stomach so hard that one of her bubblegum-pink fingernails broke right off. “Spayed me! Those motherfuckers spayed me!”

At last, in a kind of desperation to quiet everybody down before one of the neighbors had them written up again, Amber climbed up on the kitchen counter and brought down a bottle of her mom’s black label. She poured a juice glass for Mary and, after a moment’s uneasy deliberation, a sippy-cup for Nicci and made them both drink. Within an hour, they were both asleep, but her mom kept crying even then, in a breathy, wailing way she couldn’t quite wake up for, and all she could say was that word.

Spayed.

Later, of course, she had plenty to say—about Measure 34 and the Zero-Pop zealots who passed it, about the insurance company and their fine print policies, and about men. It always came back to the men.

“They’ll spay the hookers, sure they will,” she’d sneer at some point. “But do they ever talk about neutering the fucking johns? Oh no! No, they’re still selling Viagra on the fucking TV, that’s what they’re doing! Let me tell you something, babies, what I do is the most honest work in the world because all women are whores! That’s how men see it and if that’s how they see it, little girl, that’s how it is!”

Weekend Writer Warrior 7/6

The Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop is a weekly event in which writers are invited to share eight sentences from one of their works for other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment on. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

All this month (and maybe into next month), all of my snippets for Hump Day Hook, Sneak Peek Sundays and WeWriWa will be taken from The Last Hour of Gann, beginning with the first word on the first page, picking up right where the previous snippet leaves off, and ending only when I’m ready for the book to go live. To further motivate me, I am offering up a free Kindle copy of The Last of Gann to one lucky commenter. Just remember that all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content, so you must explicitly tell me so if you want to enter the giveaway. The winner will be drawn at random just as soon as my last edits are done (You can see my progress in the WIP widget in the sidebar there. I’m in the second of three edits. This is the beta-reading phase, which takes the longest as we only meet once a week. The third round of edits goes very, very fast).

There could have been a lot more than two children at the funeral if it hadn’t been for Measure 34. Mary Bierce (known to her clients as Bo Peep for her curly blonde hair, big blue eyes and child-sweet face, a name she was quick to capitalize on with frilly panties and ribbons and the intermittent plush sheep) had never been the careful sort. Amber had been putting out cigarettes, sweeping up broken bottles, and making sure the door was locked since she was six; she knew damned well that her mom wasn’t going to lose a good tip by insisting her clients wore a condom when she was working. Bo Peep had been to the aborters three times that Amber knew of and there had probably been others, but that all ended with the Zeros and Measure 34. One day, she went off for her regular monthly shots and came staggering home three hours later wearing a diaper. She sort of collapsed onto the sofa, sprawled out like she was drunk, only she wasn’t loud and laughing the way she ought to be. Her mouth had hung open slightly and there was some kind of gooey paste caked at the corners of her lips. All her makeup had been wiped away and none too gently; she looked haggard and sick and dead.

 

Hump Day Hook 7/3

Hump Day Hook is a weekly blog hop where writers are invited to hook readers with just a few paragraphs from a work in progress or published work. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

All this month (and maybe into next month), all of my snippets for Hump Day Hook, Sneak Peek Sundays and WeWriWa will be taken from The Last Hour of Gann, beginning with the first word on the first page, picking up right where the previous snippet leaves off, and ending only when I’m ready for the book to go live. To further motivate me, I am offering up a free Kindle copy of The Last of Gann to one lucky commenter. Just remember that all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content, so you must explicty tell me so if you want to enter the giveaway. The winner will be drawn at random just as soon as my last edits are done (You can see my progress in the WIP widget in the sidebar there. I’m in the second of three edits. This is the beta-reading phase, which takes the longest as we only meet once a week. The third round of edits goes very, very fast).

Good luck to all who enter and let the hour of Gann begin!

The eviction notice was hanging on the door when they got back from the hospital. The time stamp said 1:27 am, six minutes after Mary Shelley Bierce’s official time of death, an hour and twenty-eight minutes before her two daughters sitting in the waiting room had even been informed.

Amber sent Nicci in to bed while she stood out in the hall and read. The eviction gave them thirty days to either vacate or sign under the terms of the new lease, a copy of which was attached. Amber read them. Then she folded up the notice and slipped it into her pocket. She made herself a pot of coffee and sipped at it while watching the news. She thought. She said hello when Nicci woke up and that was all. She went to work.

The funeral was held three days later, a Tuesday. The insurance company covered the cost, which meant it was a group job, and although it was scheduled ‘between the hours of eight and eleven,’ the other funerals apparently dragged long and then there was lunch and so it was nearly two in the afternoon before Mary’s name was called and the cardboard case with her label pasted on the side slid by on the belt and disappeared into the oven. Nicci cried a little. Amber put her arm around her. They got a lot of dirty looks from the other mourners, even though it had only been sixteen years since Measure 34 had passed—Zero Population Growth, Zero Tolerance—and they had both been born by then.

Amber was used to getting dirty looks when she went out with Nicci. Sometimes siblings could pass themselves off as cousins or, even better, as just friends, but not the Bierce girls. Even with different fathers, they were each their mother in miniature and the three years between them had an oddly plastic quality: in the right light, they could be mistaken for twins; in the wrong light, Amber had occasionally been addressed as Nicci’s mother. Part of that was the size difference—Nicci was, as their mother used to be, fine-boned and willowy below that round, cherubic face, while Amber was pretty much round all over—but not all of it. “You were just born old, little girl,” as her mom used to say. “You were born to take care of things.”

She tried to take it as a compliment. The only part of Mary Bierce that knew how to be a mother had been cut out years ago and tossed in a baggie with a biohazard stamp on the side. The parts that were left after that didn’t give a damn about homework or lunches or scrubbing out the toilet once in a while. Someone had to be the responsible one and if Amber wasn’t actually born knowing that, she sure learned it in hurry.

The Hour of Gann Begins

June was certainly a big month for me, with three giveaways and blogging five days a week. Not sure I’ll ever do that again, but it was fun while it lasted.

Congratulations to Mary, my winner for the Sizzling Summer Reads Giveaway! Mary won a copy of The Last Hour of Gann, which means as soon as it becomes available (actually, probably a few days before it becomes available), Mary will receive a free ecopy of that book.

So now I have decided that July will be The Last Hour of Gann Month. Beginning Wednesday, with Hump Day Hook, and continuing on through every Sneak Peek Sunday and WeWriWa, I will be delivering snippets from the first chapter of Gann, each one post picking up exactly where the previous one leaves off, right up until the book goes live. So depending on how long it takes me to finish these edits, you could get quite a hefty sneak peek! And since my last giveaway was such a hit (more than one hundred entries! Wow!), I thought I’d keep it up. From now until July 31st, I will taking names for another drawing. The winner will receive a free Kindle copy (I’m supposed to be on Nook and Smashwords soon, I’m told, but I can’t guarantee it’ll happen before Gann comes out) of The Last Hour of Gann. All you have to do is leave a comment on any post I make in the month of July, but as before, because all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content and I realize not everyone is into that, if you want to win the book, YOU MUST TELL ME you want to enter.

Good luck to all of you and it’s back to work for me!

Weekend Writer Warrior 6/30

The Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop is a weekly event in which writers are invited to share eight sentences from one of their works for other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment on. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love! Today’s snippet concludes the scene and started, I think, three weeks ago and has continued pretty much ever since because I have been too busy to find something new. (It goes a little longer than eight sentences because some of them are really short and also, I wanted to finish out the scene. I broke WeWriWa’s one rule. So spank me.)  This will also be the very last post I make in June, which means that it is your very last chance to enter my Sizzling Summer Reads giveaway for a chance to win an ecopy of one of my books, including the upcoming The Last Hour of Gann, from which all these snippets have been taken. If you would like to enter, simply leave a comment on any post tagged Sizzling Summer Reads and tell me you would like to enter. It’s that easy! Just please remember that all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content, which is why you must tell me each time you want to enter. I hope you’ve enjoyed previewing Gann! Good luck to all my giveaway entrants!

Meoraq looked wearily out across the world, his eyes sweeping dully across the whole of the horizon and up, up into heaven. The rain poured down his face and across his aching throat. “Mine is the same clay as any other’s,” he said. “I do not move at Your speed, Father, but at Your direction. I cry out to You from the darkness. I cry, Father. Please. I cry. Help me.”

The wind changed, just a little. He turned his face to keep the rain in his eyes. To the east.

He started walking.

Sunday Sneak Peek 6/30

Sneak Peek Sunday is a weekly blog hop in which writers are challenged to post six paragraphs, no more and no less, from a published work or work in progress and then invite other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

Today’s Sneak Peek continues where Hump Day Hook left off and will conclude with the Weekend Writer Warrior snippet to follow. After that, the scene ends, so I really need to get organized before next weekend and find something else to show you all.

Meoraq pulled the knife across his throat slowly, bringing blood in a fall and not a spray, guiding the boy to his knees while he made his little struggles, and then letting him fall where Gann willed when it was over. He found his other honor-blade, cleaned them both, sheathed them. He took his belt back. He found the pitted toy of a knife stowed away in the dead boy’s boot and broke it. He stood and stared at the body until the rain had washed the blood away.

Sixteen spans. He didn’t think the boy had been lying about that. They had been traveling east, and he didn’t think the boy had been leading him false either. But crop? Canals? That was not a raider’s camp. That was a settlement, one that could not possibly have gone unnoticed for as many years as the boy claimed to be visiting it.

The sky flashed; a final stroke of lightning, a final snap and growl of thunder. In the back of his mind, Meoraq heard the phantom crash of shattered glass and felt Amber slamming up against his back as she’d done that long-ago night in the ruins.

Ruins. For as long as Sheul had forbidden his children to enter the ruins, those who had gone to Gann had nested in them. Yes, they might hide their crop in the roofless husks where the Ancients had made their homes and yes, they might even have canals worth restoring, but so what? Sixteen spans, generally eastward, look for ruins? Was that hope? There were ruins everywhere!

But ruins stand, he thought suddenly. After so many days, he would never catch a moving pack, but ruins were a pin to hold his Amber in place. He could have her back.

If he could find her.

Sizzling Summer Winding Down

June 1st officially kicked off the Sizzling Summer Reads Party, hosted by the good folks at theromancereviews.com. There are literally hundreds of authors participating in Sizzling Summer and they are fabulous. Every day, a handful of books are spotlighted with a quick quiz. You can find the answers by clicking on the helpful hint links, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll forget the question once you start exploring those sites. There’s fun and prizes and cake and lots of authors you can’t wait to read yet. (The cake is a lie.) So tell your friends and be sure to check back with them every day to explore some fresh sizzle and share your favorites!

In the meantime, every Monday and Thursday in June, I have been celebrating the summer of sizzle with some sizzling samples from each of my books. I warn you right now: Some of them are weirder than others. And now we have come to the last Thursday of June, which means my last sizzling snippet. Fear not, giveaway-enterers! You still have all weekend long to enter my last drawing to win your choice of the ecopy of one of my books, including the upcoming The Last Hour of Gann. As with the other two drawings (congratulations again to Misty Rios and BN100!) I will be holding the drawing the day after it officially closes, to give all my late readers and readers in other time zones a last chance to enter. Between now and then, you can probably get in three more entries. Just look for any post tagged Sizzling Summer Reads and leave a comment that includes a viable email address (so I can contact you) and words to the effect that you do want to enter. Remember that all my books contain graphic violence and strong sexual content, so you must tell me you want to enter the giveaway.

Since June has also been the month of Bad Boys and Hot and Deadly, I thought for my last sizzling snippet, I’d leave you with something on the sweeter side–maybe not as sizzly as some of the others, but still one of my favorite scenes from the Lords of Arcadia series. A love story, as it were.

He snorted, then caressed her hip with the same slow movements he’d used to pet Aisling.  His eyes were dimmed and thoughtful.  “I am no talesmith, lady, but there is one that my father’s father told me that may please you some.  He told me that all things that ever were had a will and soul of its own.  Every beast.  Every tree.  Every cloud that ever blew across the sky of every world.  Some lives are short, like those of the drops of rain that fall, they shine once in brilliance before extinguishing forever.  Some go on forever, like those of the stars that burn unending in the night.  But all see us.  All know the touch that falls on them.  All have hearts and all can lose them to another.”

Already his voice was settling into the rise and fall of story-telling, and Taryn found herself relaxing.

“He told me,” Antilles continued, “that when our clan first came to this valley, led by the great chief Cebrionus, the mountain that even now sleeps beneath us beheld him and was smitten.  She gave her bones freely to the building of the city of Dis so that she could soonest embrace him whom she loved.”

“Him and a few hundred others,” Taryn said, snuggling into the bedding a little more.

“Aye, well, love may overlook many such petty details in the pursuit of the greater goal.  But Cebrionus was the male that she longed for, though he did not know it.”

“No one ever suspects the mountain,” she said sleepily.

“True enough.  And as the years passed and life grew easier, eventually came a day that Cebrionus felt secure enough in his new holdings to cast about for a mate.  He had many to choose among, for he was chief and of a striking form, and he selected of them Persea, who was among the greatest of his warriors.  In their quiet moments together, the watching mountain oversaw their matings.”

“Uh oh.  Did she get jealous?”

“You shall not often see such a thing in Arcadian tales,” Antilles remarked.  “Nay, the mountain saw only the manner in which Cebrionus loved, and with this knowledge, took a form to empower her to approach him.  Now of the new day, through the new-set gates of Dis came this female, more pleasing to the eye than any Cerosan before her or since, and all the clan gathered in amazement, for none of them knew of whence she came.  And Cebrionus came also, and aye, found her winning indeed.”

“Naturally, since she was made for him.”

“Still, it must have proved gratifying to know her efforts had been so successful.”  Antilles shifted Aisling so that he could draw Taryn closer before continuing.  “She did not speak, for words are of another nature that mountains can never know—”

“Not like walking or falling in love.”

He chuckled and tossed his horns.  “I tell the tale only as I have been told.”

“Yes, I know.  Sorry.  Go ahead.”

“But even her quiet way seemed greatly alluring to Cebrionus, and he put Persea aside that night and brought the stranger to his bed.”

“I’ll bet the earth moved, too.”

“Aye, and that sporting well, for Cebrionus lost many days and nights to the pleasures of the coupling couch.  He called her Isaure, for she was as the gentle breeze that softly goes, and together they explored the many rooms in the temple that is love.  But the mountain could not inhabit her Cerosan form and hold her will over the mountain that was her truth.  Her soul that had lived since the world was spun began to die, and with it, the stone itself.  Though she loved him, she knew she must return to the mountain.”

“This is starting to not sound like such a happy story.”

“I suppose it depends on one’s perspective, lady.  One day, Cebrionus awoke to find his entrancing mute gone from his bed, and though he searched all the Valley, he could not find her.  But he could feel her, aye, and never more strongly than when he was alone upon the mountainside.  As the years passed and his Isaure did not return, Cebrionus took back his duties as chief and ultimately, as the first lord of Hoof and Horn.  He sired many young of many mates, Persea first among them, of whom my line is descended, but always he found a little time to sit alone upon the bare rock and remember his beautiful and silent Isaure.  And in his dreams, when he slept upon the open stone, he knew her again and held her in his arms.

“Mountains have long souls,” Antilles continued.  “Their memories reach easily through millennia of time.  But Cerosan do not live forever.  Eventually, there came a day that Cebrionus walked out alone to the mountainside and did not return.  A search was made.”

Antilles raised himself up and pulled the shutters above the wide bed open.  He beckoned, and Taryn got to her knees and leaned out the narrow opening, looking up the snowy mountainside and seeing it aglow with moonlight.

“And that is what they found,” Antilles said.  His arm enfolded Taryn’s shoulders, warm against the winter’s bite.  “No track nor trace of their aged lord, but only this peak, grown as by magic over the swell of mountain stone.  For if everything that ever was has a soul and a heart that yearns, then surely blessings can come even to a mountain and him who loved her, and they have been together ever since, joined eternally.”

Taryn smiled, leaning into his side.  He nuzzled at her neck, then drew her back down to the bed, but left the window open.  He pulled a fur over her shoulders, gathering her close onto his chest, and stroked her hair.  He said, “And that is the tale my father’s father told me, about the mountain we call Isauren and the peak called Lover’s Rest.”

“A very happy story,” Taryn said.  “And I have a feeling it’s going to last the test of time after all, because I’m going to make you tell it to me every night.”

“Aye, maiden.  As you will it.”

She closed her eyes against the sight of Lover’s Rest and, with his heart slow and even beneath her and Aisling snoring lightly at her hip, she surrendered herself to dreamless sleep.

Hump Day Hook 6/26

Hump Day Hook is a weekly blog hop where writers are invited to hook readers with just a few paragraphs from a work in progress or published work. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love! Today’s hook still comes from The Last Hour of Gann because I haven’t had time to look for anything else.  This snippet continues where the snippet from last WeWriWa left off, so feel free to go back and catch up. Odds are good that I won’t get organized between now and the weekend, so this coming Sneak Peek and Weekend Writer Warrior will probably finish out the scene between Meoraq and the boy.

 

“I probably should have waited until we were closer,” the boy mused, circling again. “Not sure how I’m going to move your body sixteen spans to the camp, but I probably don’t need the whole thing. Nothing about the head proves you’re Sheulek…and the arm doesn’t prove you’re dead…” The boy hunkered down to pick up one of Meoraq’s sabks. He admired it in the stormlight, then struck it under Meoraq’s chin and rocked his head back and forth. “What would you do if you were me?”

Meoraq took the knife and slammed it into the side of the boy’s throat.

He and the boy stared at each other. He felt no need to speak. He had no questions, really.

The storm was moving on, lightning breaking into separate sparks, thunder growing distant. The rain fell even harder, but that was all right; the rain was cool on his scraped throat and bruised ribs.

Meoraq pushed himself awkwardly to his knees and then his feet, dragging the boy up with him. “The law,” he rasped, and had to stop and cough into his palm. There was no blood on his fingers and the pain of the effort was minimal. It took strength to break a man’s ribs, and everything this scrawny youth possessed had gone into the choke. Meoraq hurt, but he thought he was all right.

“The law requires me to ask,” he said again, adjusting his grip on the knife’s hilt. “Do you wish to pray?”

“This is not supposed to happen,” the boy whispered.

Sizzling Summer Celebration

Congratulations to BN100, who won my Hot and Deadly Drawing! An ecopy of Cottonwood will be winging its way to you shortly.  If you didn’t win, fear not, there is one more chance!

June 1st officially kicked off the Sizzling Summer Reads Party, hosted by the good folks at theromancereviews.com. There are literally hundreds of authors participating in Sizzling Summer and they are fabulous. Every day, a handful of books are spotlighted with a quick quiz. You can find the answers by clicking on the helpful hint links, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll forget the question once you start exploring those sites. There’s fun and prizes and cake and lots of authors you can’t wait to read yet. (The cake is a lie.) So tell your friends and be sure to check back with them every day to explore some fresh sizzle and share your favorites!

In the meantime, I am celebrating in my own way by offering up some of the sizzling-er snippets from my books every Monday and Thursday (technically, this is Tuesday, because I wasn’t home on Monday, but it’s only been Tuesday for half an hour). Today’s snippet is once again from Heat, to honor both the Sizzling Summer Reads and Hot and Deadly hops. Although Hot and Deadly is now in the past, Sizzling Summer Sizzles onward, and until the end of the month, you can still enter to win any one of my books, including the upcoming The Last Hour of Gann, due at the end of the summer. If you wish to enter the giveaway, make sure you leave a comment on any post tagged with Sizzling Summer Reads and tell me you want to enter. Please be aware that all my books contain a certain element of sci-fi, fantasy or horror violence as well as strong sexual content! One winner will be drawn on July 1st. Until then, be sure to visit theromancereviews.com and check out all the other Sizzling authors by clicking the helpful link in the sidebar.

The room was muggy, but not too bad. The climate controls were fairly quiet and its effects nearly immediate. Kane stood before the chilly breeze it spat out, gazing through the curtains at the groundcars rushing by. Humans doing human things, busily pissing away their lives and completely unaware of how transitory it could be. He shut the curtains.

Sue-Eye had taken one of the beds and sat there looking sullen, but she was easy to ignore, especially with Raven standing beyond her. Raven’s eyes were shining with anticipation, her color was high and her breath quick. Her musk was in the air, as it had been in the groundcar, betraying her earnest arousal to him. She had wanted him all morning, but now that she had him, she was waiting for his word. She was flushed and she was eager, but always obedient to his will.

Kane strode towards her, smiling. His Raven. His fierce little fuck-mate. What he wanted now more than anything was to take her with all the vehement jubilation of a true Jotan frenzy. He wanted to take her up against the wall, not even to undress each other but just to lose one another in thrashing, eager flesh. He wanted to revel in her. He wanted to feel her teeth and give her his claws. He wanted all these things, yes, but it wasn’t what he’d promised her and there was an excitement and a power in just the thought of surrendering himself to her that made his Jotan urgings quiet. He stopped just a pace shy of her and spread his arms in invitation.

She came at once to kiss him, a human thing he had anticipated, and he lifted her so that she could more easily reach his mouth. She tasted him hungrily, invading him again and again only to draw back, sucking and biting at his lips. He mimicked her tolerantly and felt her pressing harder against him in response. There were no words between them, but communication of some kind passed anyway; he gave before her greedy assault, pursuing only when she withdrew, letting the kiss become a test of her dominance

Gradually, her kisses trailed away from just his mouth. He let her slowly back onto her feet, his head thrown back to take her teeth on his throat, on his chest, and lower still. She knelt, opening him to air, and he heard her call to Sue-Eye.

The next thing he felt he had to close his eyes to savor—his females on their knees on either side of him…

Weekend Writer Warriors 6/23

The Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop is a weekly event in which writers are invited to share eight sentences from one of their works for other writers, readers and random bloggers to read, critique and comment on. Visit their site by clicking on the button below for a list of other participating writers and share the love!

Because I am a terrible procrastinator, I am in my room packing for the trip I should have been out the door taking ten minutes ago rather than reading painstakingly through my books for just the right eight lines to use for today’s snippet. Instead, I will be posting the eight lines that immediately follow where the Sunday Sneak Peek left off (which itself immediately follows where the Hump Day Hook left off). I hope you all like it because that’s what I got for you today. If you want to tell me what a perfectly incompetent blogger I am, please leave a comment in the comment section and while you’re there, you can enter one of my giveaways! There will be a drawing on June 25th and another on July 1st to commemorate the Hot and Deadly Blog Hop and the Sizzling Summer Reads Blog Hop (check them out in my sidebar! They are awesome!), and the prize will be a free ecopy of one of my books, the title of the winner’s choice, including the book all these lazy snippets are from, The Last Hour of Gann! Just be sure to leave a viable email address so I can contact you if you win and remember that because all my books contain graphic sex and violence, you MUST TELL ME you wish to enter the giveaway. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the Weekend Writer Warriors!

* * * * *

‘I take back my thought about your perfect choke,’ he thought peevishly, and breathed again. ‘I should be unconscious now.’ He struggled to scrape up a better insult, but there was nothing in dumaqi good enough. ‘You suck,’ he thought finally, savagely. ‘Lizard.’

In the midst of the grass before him, a single gray blade began to bleed in green. Color, coming back into the world. He breathed.

“I probably should have waited until we were closer,” the boy mused, circling. “Not sure how I’m going to move your body sixteen spans to the camp, but I probably don’t need the whole thing.”