S.C. Dane's Blog, page 10

Wolf-Love, Installment #7

Wolf-Love

Installment #7

     Sofia wriggled her backside deeper into a stack of broken bales in the loft, the sweet grass smell of freshly cut hay caressing her sinuses, the heat emanating from the curing bales insulating her makeshift nest. The barn was crammed rafter to rafter, the fields shorn.

    The new guy still kicking around. 

    Yeah, there was that twin edged blade to dally with. And she ran like a kid with scissors. Against her better judgment, she’d been watching him work, throwing bales of hay onto the trailer: stacking, stacking, stacking. Every bit hard, manual labor—his straining muscles a feast for her eyes. With no side of talking. They never got the chance. Charlie sitting his wiry ass astride the tractor meant balls to the wall time, even if you weren’t packing any.

    During meals, it was the same. Shovel food into your face then hit the fields and barns. There was just too much to do before the weather stopped cooperating. How nice was that?

    Now with the fields put to bed, she let that contented feeling wrap itself around her as she snuggled deeper into her grass bed. Sol-Dog lay curled along half of her body length, and heaved a growling sigh of utter content the tighter her wriggling made them.

    Niiiice. Droopy lidded herself, Sofia rested her gaze upon the wide, aging boards of the barn’s ceiling a few feet above her face. Even in the dark, she could make out the patterns left by wood-chewing insects from years gone by, follow the whorls of knots in the planks’ grains. Her eyesight had always been good. Exceptional, actually. Another one of her odd traits she kept to herself, because her life had been bad enough, what with her knack for seeing through a person’s lies because of their body language.

    That little twist of sunshine in her character had earned her no friends. Not a one. Hell, not even the nerds or other freaks in the various schools she’d attended let her join their ostracized cliques. She fit in no where.

    Which made it hard for Child Welfare to place her in a home. She never lasted once the family realized what she was like. Sure, on paper she was the classic charity case. Parents unknown, abandoned on the sweeping granite steps of a church, to be discovered by the cleaning lady early one Sunday morning before services.

    She was plucked right out of a Charles Dickens tale. So the foster families thought when they reviewed her record. In person, she turned out to be whole other ball of wax, and they always returned her to the care of the State. With profuse apologies, of course. It was nothing she did, they’d say. She’s just, and they’d clear their throats, adjust their collars, shrug their shoulders in bewilderment, lean forward to whisper, she’s different.

    Yeah. That about summed it up.

    Except she wasn’t as different as they were if they’d really tried to get to know her. She’d wanted to be adored just like any kid, wanted to be included as a cherished member of a family.

    Hell, she’d pined for it.

    Until she’d gotten old enough to realize her wishes were fantasies. She was nobody’s beloved child, never would be. A single tear plopped out of Sofia’s upturned eyes, slipping a skinny course into the hollow of her ear. She slapped at it with the arm she’d draped over her dog. 

    Give it up, idiot.

    Right. Words to live by, those. Her life was her own now, she was the one responsible for her happiness. And so far, she hadn’t been doing half bad considering.

    Considering that her life hadn’t changed all that much. People still stiffened around her, literally sidling away if they got too close. As a preemptive strike, the adolescent Sofia had learned to repel anyone who got near her, thereby nixing any chance of having to endure the pang of constant rejection. It was a skill she used to this day.

    So, was she about to add her ability to see in the dark to her list of charming qualities? Nope. She’d keep that gift to herself, not let others ruin it by their jokes and criticisms.

    Because she loved how she could make her way around in the dead of night without bumping into anything. Plus, her night vision had gotten better lately, allowing her to view the beauty of a silvery landscape draped with shadows. It was like the earth was always aglow with the luminescence of a full moon, and sometimes she’d just sit in the shadows where no one could see her and watch the world around her.

    The sliding of the heavy wooden door across its track locked her breath in her throat, and yanked her thoughts into the here and now. The groan hadn’t lasted long, which meant whoever opened the door had slid it open just enough.

    Just enough to squeeze through.

    Sofia pulled herself out of her nest, but kept a hand on the warm slab of Sol’s side as she crouched. The big dog lifted his head, pulled his ears back and jutted his muzzle into the darkness. Then thumped his whip of a tail against their bed of hay.

    There was only one person Sol liked, aside from herself. Sofia’s stomach clamped.

    The new guy.

    What the hell was he doing coming out to the barn in the dead of night when he had a perfectly comfortable bed assigned to him in the farmhouse?

    Never mind she wasn’t taking advantage of the same comforts. That wasn’t the point. She didn’t stay in the farmhouse because it meant sharing a room with someone else, which she might have been able to deal with if Charlie and Rosie had let Sol sleep with her.

    But they hadn’t. No dogs allowed in the farmhouse. No exceptions. Sofia hadn’t bothered to explain to them she couldn’t sleep with another person around without the dog. She was too aware, too alert. Which were skills in her experience. Because when she slept, people took advantage of her, as if her being unaware rendered her harmless. Which it did, of course.

    So, she’d opted to sleep in the hay loft with her dog. Not only because she didn’t feel safe without him, but she didn’t like leaving him alone. Hell, the beast hadn’t spent one night alone. Ever. Always she’d been with him. It had been her promise to the pup: to take care of him like she’d never been taken care of herself. Unlike the people who’d taken her in, she’d stuck to her promise.

    And right then, she meant to keep up her part of their pact. If the dog didn’t sense danger where the new guy was concerned, then she’d be the one to protect them from him. Sol may not understand the duplicity of man, but she did. Only too well.

    Sofia tiptoed along the outer rim of the bales, but gave up playing commando when she realized she’d have to navigate the creaky stairs leading up to the loft. With a giant mutt on her heels. No hope of sneaking with Babar as her partner. It would be the direct route, and her pulse fluttered when her heart rate kicked it up a notch.

    Once on the main floor, Sofia cocked her head to listen down the long galley. Nothing but the random stomps of hooves on the wooden floor. Two of the horses were in their stalls, and she listened to the deep grinding of a grazer munching hay.

    But where was the intruder?

    She padded across the aisle, toward the milking station where the cows were stanchioned twice a day while they got milked. This late, the place was empty, the cows not coming down from pasture until dawn.

    Making like a cop, she stepped into the doorway, ready for the full frontal attack, minus the .38.

    ”What the hell?” Stiffening, she backpedaled one step before stopping herself. Because the guy was standing in the middle of the narrow passage. Just standing there, like he’d been waiting. Sofia knew she hadn’t been as quiet as she’d wanted to be, but how the eff did he know she was coming in this direction?

    Sol trundled over in his loose muscled way and shoved his head into the man’s hand.

    ”Great. You’re standing in the dark like a creep and my dog says hi.”

    Except it wasn’t creepy the way the guy was standing. Uh-uh. His waiting for her…warmed her skin. Which was all wrong. She was assessing him like he was some kind of objet d’art, an ice cream cone, an autumn elm. In other words, she was appreciating him, and therefore not kicking his ass.

    Then it occurred to her that, yes indeed, they were facing off in the corridor, which was dark as a damned pocket and she shouldn’t have been seeing him. Sofia retreated a few steps and placed her hand on the light switch, flicking it on so she wouldn’t give away the fact she could see in the dark.

    Never mind they had looked  each other straight in the eye.

    She dropped that line of thinking to scrunch her eyeballs shut, blocking out the glare of the overhead light until her pupils constricted enough so she wouldn’t get blinded. Cautiously, she lifted her lids to resume her verbal assault.

    Good plan, that.

    Christ, he was cute. Even if he wasn’t moving a single muscle. He was still just standing there, staring at her with what? Fear? Longing?

    That was a load of crap if she ever thought it. Nobody longed for her. Ever.

    ”Beat it, buddy, before I kick your ass.”

    So he did. He turned tail. Right back out the way he’d come in.

    ”Well, that was easy,” she admitted to Sol, who turned to look at her when she spoke. He’d still been watching the man’s retreat like he was witnessing the flight of a giant, pink rabbit: un-freaking-believable.

~S.C. Dane

Installment #8 coming Saturday, December 7, 2013.

Wolf-Love, Installment #6

Wolf-Love

Installment #6

    Man, she’d better be worth this trouble.

    German scanned the occupants of the crowded dining room without trying to match the offensive scents to the individual. Better to ignore that particular talent, he figured, as it would only heighten the innate anxiety he felt when packed in with this many people.

    Ten in all, without counting himself or the missing rogue.

    He took a chair at the back corner of the long table, as much to protect his back as to keep a wary eye on everyone. This kind of elbow to elbow love-fest he’d never gotten used to. Unlike a bar or a restaurant, this was too personal. He wasn’t anonymous here. This tricky situation had his wolf pacing too close to his skin, making him edgy, which in turn made it hard to act normal. Well, act human, anyway.

    The pixie-like woman who helped Charlie’s wife in the house sat down beside him, and hitched her chair up to the table with a few quick, screeching hops.

    ”There,” she chirruped, “that’s better.”

    German burned holes in his plate with his stare, while the woman beside him flickered, fluttered, adjusted.

    Great Luna, make her light somewhere.

    “Anybody tell Sofia it’s dinnertime?” The voice belonged to one of the men German had seen half buried in the guts of an old Army truck. The mechanic.

    ”She won’t make it,” the pixie replied. “She came in a little while ago to say she was going to tedder the hayfield while she had the tractor up there. Which was really nice of her,” she twittered on, “you know, given how, well, you know it was nice considering. I mean, I don’t want to have to set the table for…”

    The rest of her babbling went unheard by the wolf-man, who stopped listening after hearing the rogue wouldn’t be making it to the table. Confirmed. He continued to bore holes into his dinner plate, even though his eyes, as trained as they were on the decorative pattern in front of him, never missed the shadows the pixie threw every goddamned time she flitted her hands while she talked.

    A wasted excursion into the belly of the beast. He’d get no opportunity to observe his quarry in a crowd, see how she handled herself with this motley group. Because if she’d been harmed by them, if they’d beaten down, or worn down, the wolf’s spirit in her blood…

    German dropped the threat as his spine rustled heat. Instead, he recalled Sofia’s concrete stare, hoping that bit of evidence would settle him. He also found himself imagining the curl of red hair along her brow, which cooled nothing within him. It only confused him.

    She’ll live because she’s my ticket to freedom, he reminded himself, then tried to pick up the thread of what the woman beside him was saying while he poked at the food on his plate.

    The pixie had a mewling pitch to her voice, like a wounded kitten, and his body registered it with another flare of sparks up his spine. Christ. Homing in on her like she was prey certainly wasn’t helping. He narrowed his eyes as he chewed on the bloodless bird he’d stuffed in his jaws.

    ”That’s what I was saying, you know? I told Marlene if she wasn’t going to buy the red one then I would, and you know what she said to me, she goes…”

    Oh, dearest Luna, please shut her up. German pulverized the flesh in his mouth as he eyed the others, then shoved his glass of water under his nose to help diffuse the scent of the yap-trap beside him. In his peripheral vision, he could make out her skinny arms gesticulating grandly, cutting out shapes in the air in front of her, and damned if it didn’t rivet his entire attention. He swallowed what was in his mouth and trained his eyes on the girl’s flapping hands. 

    And felt the burn in the muscles along his back. 

    Aw shit.

    The girl triggered his instincts, drew him toward her like a wounded animal, and the room around him sizzled into crisp focus. He felt his top fangs slide past his bottom ones.

    German stepped back from the table so fast his chair flipped to the floor and his plate spilled peas. He bolted without so much as a thanks for the great food or an excuse to go powder his nose.

    Nope. He had no time for the pleasantries. Shifting into a wolf at the dinner table would not be considered good table manners, so he took the former option and ran out of the house without apologies.

~S.C. Dane 

Keep tuning in for the next installment of Wolf-Love.

#Paranormal romance release

Happy Thanksgiving, All! I have much to be thankful for: Kenrickey: Book Three of The Luna Chronicle” is now available at Melange Books, LLC.

Back Jacket Rumblings:

In the northern Maine woods, a wolf pack unlike any other reigns the landscape. With the ability to shift into human shape, they are the supreme rulers of their territory. Until the real humans threaten their secret realm…

Ken Rickey is one of those humans. Until he’s entrusted with the secret of the wolf-people, an honor he’ll do anything to uphold. For among the wolf-people, Ken has found loyal friends in Armand and Eaen, two of the younger wolves in Luna’s pack who share his sense of adventure.

Welcoming them to his human world and keeping them safe isn’t going to be easy, especially when there are those who suspect the truth.

An intuitive woman, Naomi Foss is quick to unearth the mystery of Ken’s two friends. Human they may seem, but there is a wildness about them which is fast consuming Ken, altering him in extraordinary ways.

But the acceptance of Naomi plunges Ken and his wolf friends into dangerous territory, where the exposure of Luna’s pack becomes a lethal reality. Can these young lovers and friends stand against the threat while keeping their secret from those who hunt them?

A Scene For Your Reading Pleasure:

            We cavorted for quite some time—chasing, snatching, biting. Armand, once he’d gotten over his initial fear, darted around just as uninhibited as the rest of us; although he and Eaen were careful about shifting in front of Naomi.

I, on the other hand, shed all of my inhibitions, and the mock hunt for Nae escalated seriously. I wanted her bouncing ass all to myself, and her playful screams were jabs of electricity to my groin.

She didn’t run very fast once she caught me ogling her like she was an entrée. Good ol’ Nae. She even feigned a limp so that I could corner her in the living room. She darted her eyes around like a trapped deer, and wedged herself into the corner by the book shelf, protecting her back. Then she lifted her upper lip in a warning snarl, even as her hazel eyes glistened and her pupils stretched to turn her eyes almost black. Her blonde hair was tousled and sweaty, and I’d never seen a creature more inviting.

My mouth found hers before I could say no guts, no glory, and sweet living jackrabbits, she opened herself to me. It was all I could do not to slide Mr. Plucky into home once the ump signaled for me to steal. Her tongue teased, tasted me, then retreated maddeningly, and I withdrew just far enough to clamp my teeth across her windpipe and cup her ass in my hands.     She gasped, and my groin ached as it grew more swollen.

The ringing of her cell phone was like the screech of a car crash, and we both flinched at the intrusion of it. Naomi groaned as she slid away toward her pile of clothes on the living room floor. Eaen and Armand stood with their legs splayed, sides heaving, and wore tendrils of frothy spit on their fur. I stood with my need so obvious my balls hurt.

            Christ, guys.

Eaen winked, the teasing turd. He saw. He’d noticed we’d all gone a bit nuts, and he loved it. Armand’s waving tail gave him away, too, but the three of us paid more attention to Nae’s cell phone call.

It was The Bear, and he wanted her and his car. She’d been gone too long already, judging by her end of the conversation. She’d promised to be back before lunch and it was past that. My, how time really does fly when you’re having fun.

She told him she’d be right there, then snapped the lid shut on her phone. And I got an unexpected explosion of jealousy in my guts.

“Don’t go, Nae. Stay with us,” I offered, and fought like hell to keep my anger from boiling over into my voice. A feat beyond me, I wasn’t exactly successful. “Tell him to fuck himself.” Oh, yeah, I was really trying.

“I can’t, Ken. Not yet, anyway, but soon,” she promised.

            Was she crying? “Aw, Christ, Nae, don’t cry.” She effing leveled me. I was a mud puddle waiting to catch her tears, and before I knew it, my feet crossed the room and my arms were wrapped around her. I’d have sacrificed daylight for her.

“Come back later, then, huh?” I pulled her away to lose myself in her shimmering eyes, which had turned green because she cried. “I’ll come get you. Just call me, and I’ll come, okay? Whenever you want.” My fingers combed her tousled bangs, tucking their length behind her seashell ear.

She nodded and sniffed, and my heart cracked. Jee-zus, how was I letting her leave?

I wiped her tears with the pad of my thumb, pulled her warm body close, then ripped myself away and edged a fair distance back to stand between Eaen and Armand while we watched her dress. Weren’t we the gentlemen? When she finished donning her clothes, the four of us huddled to say good-bye.

“We really have to talk, Nae. Soon,” I said, before she slipped out the door and into the Yeti’s car. Within moments, she was gone, but even I could still smell the snowy day in our house.

~S.C. Dane

Wolf-Love, Installment #5

Wolf-Love

Installment #5

    For the second time that day, German found himself gazing after the backside of the rogue. What the hell did he think he was doing when he’d stared at her while they’d worked? That was likely to scare her off slicker than shit, and there he was sucking in her image like his eyes were straws.

    Half the time, she was pissed. He could smell it, even though the fumes from the chicken coop nearly knocked him sideways. Damn, but those birds stank, and they were a food supply for humans. Figured. 

    Yet, despite the stench, he’d caught whiffs of the female and got that tugging in his guts he had the first time he’d smelled her. Never mind she had yet to say a single word to him. But, he liked how she was stand-offish. The fact that she didn’t warm up to people hinted at her inner wolf, which boded well for the both of them.

    Except he’d need to talk to her at some point, and soon, because he was smelling her in spite of the chicken shit. Her wolf scent was strong, and would only get stronger the closer she got to her transition.

    At the moment, though, she and her dog were trundling off toward the far fields and wouldn’t be back for a while. Which was just as well. He’d gotten his proverbial foot in the door and hoped with a little time, and some subtle pressure, she’d soften a bit in his favor. Plus, her dog liked him, and he was betting that would get him farther with the woman than anything else.

    German lifted his nose toward the farmhouse, where the odor of cooking food wafted. He’d have to go in there since Charlie had invited him to “break bread with the rest of the team.” Hooray. Just what a wolf wanted to do: sit at a crowded table surrounded by Homo sapiens.

    He consoled himself with the idea the assignment would be over soon enough, and if it meant saving his own skin, he could endure whatever he had to. But he still took a deep breath to steady himself, and rested his hand on his lower back, his fingers finding the familiar, puckered scar.

    Hemming himself into close quarters with humans was always a gamble, and despite the steadying breath he took to calm himself, he still felt the sparks in his spine tingle to life, the precursor to his transition into wolf.

    Yeah, well, dinner Gramma?

    “Your back botherin’ ya after all the shovelin’?”

    German pulled his eyes from the shrinking tractor and turned his attention to the man addressing him.

    Charlie.

    He filled his lungs with another deep breath. “Nope, the back’s fine.” He didn’t lie, either. The twinges of fire he’d felt a few moments before had cooled with his second deep breath.

    ”She’s quite something’, eh?” The farmer tossed his chin toward the hill where Sofia and her dog crested then disappeared.

    ”Yeah. A tough nut, no doubt.”

    ”Pfft, yeah. A tough nut, all right. She don’t like no one around her, don’t talk much except to her dog.” Charlie lifted and resettled his baseball cap onto his head, crushing his flattened hair. “But she’s a hard enough worker. Tougher than some of my guys I got here.” His smirk told German her boss liked Sofia’s brass.

    ”I bet. She wasn’t exactly Chatty Patty while we were cleaning the coop.”

    ”Sounds about right.” Charlie’s smirk stayed put. “Count yourself lucky she let you work beside her. Usually, she sends anyone packin’ with that weird stare of hers.”

    A satisfied grin tugged at German’s mouth. So, she didn’t send him away like she did the others. A promising development on a couple of fronts. First, because she must have liked something about him to at least tolerate his presence. Second, not socializing with the humans meant she was more in touch with who she really was than any of the other rogues he’d known.

    But just as his chest puffed with pride, another thought shuffled in to kick the air out of him.

    Was her aversion to humans earned, like maybe she’d been knocked around?

    Or worse?

    The wolf-man’s spine tingled and the fine hairs at his nape lifted.

    Shit. German pulled a third deep breath to quell his rising emotions. He couldn’t figure out what bothered him more. The fact his odds at redemption had just tumbled, or that Sofia had been violated.

    Grip it, wolf. He had to. Charlie was still standing right next to him for one thing. Second, if he was feeling some kind of sympathy for the rogue then he was losing it.

    He mustered every ounce of self-discipline he’d honed over the years, and changed tack before his body bested him. He lifted his nose again to sniff the aroma of cooking food drifting out of the farmhouse. “Dinner,” he observed aloud, because to say anything more would be too revealing. He couldn’t very well screw his face into a snarl at the smell of overcooked meat any more than he could admit it had a decidedly disgusting stink about it.

    ”Oh, yeah,” Charlie rubbed his palms together, “Rosie’s fixin’ chicken.” He clapped a calloused hand to German’s shoulder. “Still got an appetite for the bird after shovelin’ its’ shit?” Coughing a laugh, he headed for the farmhouse without waiting for German’s reply.

    ”No,” German growled anyway, shooting a frustrated glance back up to the hill where the rogue had disappeared. Resigned, he dropped his head to follow the farmer into the house for a meal that was going to be anything but appetizing. His only hope of enjoying it would be if the woman returned in time to join them. Which he highly doubted. If Sofia didn’t like the company of people, she sure as hell wouldn’t be rushing to get back to the farmhouse, where she’d be squeezing herself in with every living soul on the property.

    No, he thought with a twinge of regret, she’d avoid this situation like a plague, and wished like hell he’d done the same.

~S.C. Dane

Installment #6 coming Saturday, November 30, 2013.

Wolf-Love, Installment #4

Wolf-Love

Installment #4

    Sometimes life handed Sofia a biscuit and played nice. Rare times for which she was utterly grateful, just as she was during these hours it was taking her and the new guy to clean out the chicken coop.

    He wasn’t uttering a single word. Well, he cursed about the stench and muttered other oaths she didn’t quite hear, but not once did he try to start a conversation with her. Even though she caught him a couple of times with his eyes pinned on her. Which should have been reason enough to puncture his innards with her pitchfork.

    Except his green eyed gaze got her mind spiraling in on itself, sending it roaming down memory lane and onto side trails. By the time she realized how long she’d been traipsing through her brain, the moments were long passed. The man beside her was no longer watching her, but was diligently heaving cakes of straw-thatched chicken shit out the door.

    Then she found herself eyeing him, appreciating the long, thick muscles of his back sliding like serpents under his sweaty shirt. There was something about him, aside from the fact his voice swam through her blood like little fishes. She wasn’t put off by him, and that in itself was enough to worry her.

    She didn’t like people.

    Which was why the job on the farm was so perfect. She spent a lot of time alone, if she didn’t count the presence of the livestock as company. When the other employees tried engaging her in small talk, she sent them shuffling off with a cold, level stare. Eventually they’d learned to just leave her be with her dog. Yeah, it meant doing much of the heavy work by herself, but in her mind it was a fair trade-off.

    Because interacting with people was a real bitch, and she’d never figured out how to do it properly. It seemed every time they opened their mouths to speak, their body language defied the words passing across their lips. People constantly sent Sofia mixed signals.

    And that got her in trouble.

    Because the confused messages twisted her stomach and sent chills scurrying across her skin like a thousand mouse feet, lifting the fine hairs on her nape. Unless, of course, she challenged them. Which ended badly, too. Fighting made her feel great at the time, but the trouble it caused afterward left her feeling like a tiny, bobbing raft in an ocean of sharks.

    How many foster homes had she been in?

    ”…disgusting way to eat…”

    Sofia snipped off her lapse into the past. The new guy was bitching about something, but she didn’t catch what, just the feel of his voice in her body. She watched him stab at the floor, twist his grip on the wooden handle of his pitchfork, and toss.

    Well, there was nothing confusing about his current state. The oaths pouring out of his mouth definitely matched the intensity of his attack on the chicken coop. Even the hens sat quiet on their roosts and didn’t squabble like they usually did. Uh-uh. They were silent as nuns.

    A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. Yeah. Okay. So this guy German had something going for him she found herself liking. But it would only be a matter of time before she’d catch him acting and speaking the way everyone else did. Eventually, she’d catch him in a lie. Because people always lied.

In the meantime, she didn’t think there was anything wrong with snatching glimpses of him when his back was turned. No harm in spying while he was close. She quit shoveling to rest her chin on the handle of her pitchfork.

The guy was easing his way toward the chickens, who were lined up on their roost like suspects at an inquisition. He sidled close, like a predator sneaking up on its prey. Quiet. Utterly focused, even with his eyes averted to the ground. He was listening, his head tilted just so, his ear trained on the roost. The man moved incrementally closer, his biceps bunching as he lifted his arm ever so slowly.

Sofia watched, just as transfixed as the dumb chickens. She saw when his knees bent to the tiniest degree as he readied his body to lunge. She couldn’t drag her eyes off him. As close as he’d inched, there was no way he was going to miss nabbing a bird.

Her grip tightened around the handle hard enough she noticed herself trembling with anticipation. She wanted him to snag the chicken with an intensity that snapped her back to the situation. What the hell was she doing? Palavering after a man who got his jollies scaring the hens? Nope. Something better. She was enjoying how German’s body moved. At over six feet tall and carrying muscle that was sharply defined but not bulky, the man moved lightly. Quick, yet seemingly conscientious of his every move, as though he was hyper aware of his surroundings.

    Yet, just as she was going to turn back to her work, he caught himself. His empty hand fisted as he shot a look over his shoulder at her. As if he’d been caught red-handed. Doing what, exactly? Certainly not something that warranted the spark of worry she saw in those green eyes. As quick as it flashed, it was gone, replaced by a hard glare and subtle lift of his upper lip, like he was snarling some threat at her.

    ”Get over yourself,” she grumbled. Without waiting for some insulting retort, Sofia turned her back on him and resumed stabbing at the straw-matted chicken shit. The nerve of the guy. She’d plastered that same look on countless others, so she wasn’t cowed by his.

Still, she kept to herself while they went back to work, even as she continued to steal glances the way he did. But not once did they speak to each other. By the time the job was finished and Sofia mounted the tractor to haul off the manure spreader, that damned grin was tugging her lips again.

    Shoveling shit hadn’t turned out to be half bad. But again, she should be worried, not masking a smile that wanted to beam out of her big as day. Interactions with people usually didn’t end well, she’d do well to remember that. Pushing her lips into a hard line, Sofia scouted the way clear for Sol before putting the tractor in gear, then chugged off away from the chicken coop with her dog faithfully trotting several paces behind her. Forget about looking back.

    She knew who followed her, and she knew who watched her go.

~S.C. Dane

 Installment #5 coming next Saturday, November 30, 2013. Or sooner. So stay tuned!

Wolf-Love, Installment #3

Wolf-Love

Installment #3

    German watched Sofia’s rear-end view with an appreciative eye, inhaling measured sniffs of her scent as she strutted in front of him. Oh, she was what he’d been sent after, all right, and he wanted nothing more just then than to shut his eyes, to better savor the smell of her. Except he feared he’d wind up tripping and gutting himself on the lethal tines of the pitchfork she’d handed him. Latching onto his self-preservation, he stayed visually tuned in while he let his thoughts gambol off like a rutting deer.

    He was in luck if he could get her back to the Compound in one piece. Which wasn’t a given. She was a rogue wolf-woman who hadn’t changed yet, and therefore had no clue about the wolf blood flowing through her veins. If the strength of her scent was any indication, she was on the cusp of that self-discovery, compounding his problem. Because he didn’t have much time to convince this Sofia woman of the impossible, and German didn’t exactly have the reputation for bringing in the rogues alive.   

    The main problem with rogues is they never knew what was happening to them when they shifted, and it flipped them out. Permanently. Their brains just couldn’t stretch with the truth of what they were, and snapped and broke like hyper-extended rubber bands. One day they were human, and the next? Well, they were a completely different animal, and he’d seen too many who couldn’t cope with the sudden growth of fur, the mouthful of fangs, and the loss of thumbs.

    Drafting on the lithe form striding in front of him, German thought about the look Sofia had leveled him with. She had the wolf gaze nailed, whether she knew it or not. If he wasn’t an alpha wolf, he’d have backed off instinctively.

He didn’t want to hang his hopes on that scrap of promise, but the stare was something in her favor, at least. So were the rounded muscles of her strong shoulders, along with the sinewy curve of her spine converging like artwork at the base of her plump, tight butt.

    The stick in his Dreamsicle? She had red hair. How gorgeous was that going to be all over her?

    German licked his lips as the image of a red wolf starred front and center in his gray matter. Then he chilled as those gamboling thoughts of his tripped on their own merry feet.

     If she comes through her transformation with all of her marbles.

    Well, shit. There was the strong possibility she wouldn’t, so there wasn’t much point in fantasizing about it. He’d wind up killing her like he had all the others he’d been assigned to retrieve. Which meant the end for him, too. He’d wiped out too many rogues already, and the ruling wolves back at the Compound had given him a long enough leash for him to hang himself with. One more dead wolf-person to his tally would stamp the signature on his warrant, and once caught, he’d be done. Chained up like the animal he was.

    Double shit.

    The red-head had to come through for him, and German, who still hadn’t wrested his gaze from her rump, certainly wouldn’t mind paying the extra attention it was going to require to help her do it. Even if it meant pitchforking a ton of chicken shit into a manure spreader.

    But he’d have to hunt her with supreme caution. She was a wild one even if she didn’t understand her instincts. Translation? She could home in on him without knowing exactly why. And her reaction to him could go either way, depending on how tight a fist human society had on her. She’d either sense something was innately off about him, which most Homo sapiens did. Or, she’d feel an affinity for his wolf and open herself to him.

    German readjusted his grip on the handle of the pitchfork while he switched his gaze from the woman to her dog. Then he took a deep breath to gird himself for the tenuous trials awaiting him. Without a doubt, the shoveling of manure was going to be the easy part. 

~S.C. Dane

Wolf-Love, Installment #2

Chapter Two

    Sofia should have stayed in the hay loft, dragging the chore of rearranging bales into an all-day affair. Because now, as if the arrival of a newly hired hand on the farm wasn’t bad enough, she was having to work with him, as per Charlie’s orders. In close quarters, no less. Didn’t her boss remember she preferred working alone? Then again, maybe Charlie was testing to see what the new guy was made of. Throw him to the wolves on the first day, sort of thing. Sink or swim? Who knew.

    What she did know was this stranger was not going to drive her away from the farm. She liked the solitary work, the ache in her muscles at the end of the day. It was a nice place with acres and acres of wire fenced pastures and abundant vegetable gardens. Plenty to eat, and ample elbow room. Of course, she liked it. So did Sol. Not surprising then, that as she scanned the dirt trail snaking from the main barn to the chicken house where she was waiting, her booted feet twisted into the grass. As if they, too, intended to stay and were doing their part in making sure that happened. It was a physical declaration of her determination to stay put, especially since her new co-worker was now aiming straight toward her, the cedar shingled barn behind him playing dramatic backdrop, setting his physique off like a photo shoot for Country Playgirl.

    Dear God, he was not hard on the eyes. Just her luck, he had the body to match the penetrating voice. The man’s broad shoulders capped a wide, springy chest. Costumed, of course, in brown checkered flannel, the front unbuttoned juuust enough to flash a suggestion of roped muscle. No wonder that deep growl of his sounded like it rumbled from a barrel. And those legs striding strong beneath those narrow hips? Oh, yes, life was cruel. For Sofia, at least. She dropped her gaze so she wouldn’t visually devour six feet of centerfold.

     Because, frankly, she’d learned ages ago to repel anyone who might mean something to her. It hurt less when they later shunned her.

    Yeah, she was so not careening down that icy road. Diverting her attention to the big wolfhound-cross was a safer bet, so she focused on the one exception to her rule. Sol. Who went everywhere with her, to the extent that when he wasn’t around, she felt the silence of his absence. Like his not being near her left a gaping hole in her personal space. Plus, he was her extra set of eyes and ears. Which meant she could avoid ogling the newcomer by concentrating on the dog lying at her feet. Sol was staring off at the stranger, emitting subtle clues as to how close the guy was getting without her having to look for herself.

    The dog was her barbed wire fence with a brain. More than once his bared teeth deterred anyone from getting too close to her, had prevented thefts from homeless thieves. He was also the reason she could still lay claim to her virginity. That last vestige of her innocence would have been stolen from her long ago if it hadn’t been for Sol. That gigantic mutt’s fierce vigilance was the main reason Sofia had survived on the streets.

    So she trained her attention on her loyal partner as the man approached, with good reason. It didn’t matter if she thought the guy movable eye candy. Sol would fathom out the stranger’s true measure in the short time it would take him to approach, then rumble his warning for the man to keep a safe distance. At the same time, he was going to stiffen up and lift a ridge of hair along his back, just in case he had to get physical.

    Instead, her guardian stretched up onto his long legs and waved his tail, offering the doggie equivalent of a friendly handshake. Seriously? Her true-blue protector was going AWOL? Without her canine force field shielding her, the new guy’s purred greeting caressed every square inch of Sofia’s skin, teasing that strangeness inside her she’d been spending a lifetime screwing a very tight lid on.

    ”Traitor,” she grumbled to her dog’s backside. Although she’d be damned if she was going to let this guy get close, even if her dog was a turncoat. Sofia lifted her chin so she’d stop gaping at Sol’s wagging butt, and narrowed her lids into a concrete stare, ignoring everything about the new guy from the bridge of his nose on down. Without a word, she thrust a pitchfork at him like a stiff sentry, turned on her heels and made tracks for the chicken coop. Charlie might have given the orders that they work together, but she didn’t have to like it or make nice. She’d shovel the shit, and if Mr. Gorgeous couldn’t figure out how to do it by watching? Well, it sure as hell wasn’t rocket surgery, so if he couldn’t grasp the concept he could leave. Any idiot could do the job; which of course tickled her dark side. Because by default she was that idiot.

    Puckering her lips to squash a mutinous grin, Sofia continued marching toward the shit-caked chicken coop.

~S.C. Dane

Remember, next Saturday, November 23rd, I’ll post another installment. I might even sneak one in sooner, so keep checking. Better yet, feel free to sign up as a member of my blog to receive automatic updates.

#Wolf Love—A Serial by S.C. Dane

Okay, folks. Time to change tack and set a different course. Truly, I’ve yammered on long enough, it’s time to give you what you like best about me: my stories.

So, here’s a paranormal romance I was inspired to write shortly after finishing The Luna Chronicle series. I wrote all three of those books—Luna, Grane, and Kenrickey—in the first person point of view. I was ready to work with a different voice, one that would let the reader see more than just the one side of a first-person narrative.

So, this story was an experiment, and an unfinished one at that. Other third-person narratives competed for my attention and won. I’ve written and completed two other novels since starting Wolf Love. I don’t know where this one is going. Maybe as Wolf Love unfolds, you, my dear readers, will have some ideas. Maybe I’ll let a lucky reader finish it for me.

In the meantime, I’ll strive to post a new installment every Saturday during my lunch break.

Feel free to share a comment, or your opinion.

Happy reading!

Wolf Love

A Serial by S.C. Dane

Chapter One

   The deep-toned voice rumbling from below tickled across Sofia’s skin, elevating the fine hairs on her arms. Its rich velvet coiled a serpentine around her gut, squeezing it taut while the rest of her warmed. Clenching her jaw in defiance, she shimmied her shoulders to shake the feeling out of her body. Except that just made her skin flare; the heat crept up the base of her skull.

    Concentrating on her gloved grip and the bales of timothy in front of her, Sofia shut out that stirring voice, and certainly didn’t peer over the edge of the hay loft to see who it belonged to.

    It was a stranger, she knew, not someone already working on the farm. Because a voice like that would have sizzled in her veins long before now. Nope. That sultry silk of string was new, and it was talking with Charlie, the owner of the farm. The voice was seeking employment, so help her, at this farm. The very place she’d found sanctuary, her respite from the rest of the world. From her past.

    Sofia should’ve been pissed. Instead, her feet were slinking closer to the lip of the loft and her body was leaning downward, tipping toward the owner of that voice, as if she were a houseplant seeking the sun.

    Dammit. Her body was a traitor, and to punish it she retreated to her chore, yanking the fifty pound bales of hay and flinging them toward a darkened corner, where they skidded into haphazard piles she’d have to neaten. Which meant moving the bales yet again, so they’d be stacked tight and high, to make room for the rest of the hay laying cut in the fields. It was hard and itchy work in the hot loft, and not really a one person job. But Sofia preferred the solitude, and by now the other farmhands understood that and left her alone.

    The stranger was here to help bring the new hay in. At least, that’s what his words were saying, and she couldn’t get a good look at him from her position in the loft without giving herself away. If the owner of that sultry baritone matched the voice then he’d have enough muscle for the job.

    Crap

   Charlie was welcoming the stranger to the team and shuffling him off to check out the rest of the farm, to meet the other employees. Which meant the owner of that voice was going to be sticking around to do a lot more than gather in the hay. Mr. Baritone was going to drive her away; Sofia was as sure of that as she was of her body’s reaction to him. A voice with the power to resonate within her the way this one did meant trouble, pure and simple.

   Because it generated the same heat within her body the dreams of her past did, and those had dealt her nothing but a lifelong strand of misfortune.

   Sofia returned to the bales in front of her, letting the sweet aroma of drying grass fill her head and crowd out what the arrival of the stranger meant. She was a grown woman, after all, and it was time to quit running. Her dreams were just that—dreams.

   “What do you think, Sol? Stay put?”

   The dog she spoke to lifted his chin from his big paws, his brown-eyed gaze attentive as he cocked his broad, shaggy head.

   “Stay?”

   The wolfhound mutt dropped his muzzle back onto his paws and puffed a contented sigh.

   “Damned straight, Sol.” Sofia hurled another bale, showering itchy flecks of chaff onto her sweating skin. Determined, she toiled in the heat of the loft as she plotted ways to stymie the dreams forever looming in her conscience.

   And which were now creeping into her reality.

****

   German smelled the woman the minute he stepped into the barn, despite the overwhelming stench of domestic livestock hanging in the air around him. Wolf was here. Sublimely female, too, and he felt a tugging in his guts he’d only ever heard about.

   Ignoring it, he nursed his anticipation, and couldn’t help but bask in his good luck. He’d hit pay-dirt. Those who’d sent him on this fool’s errand had been right about the woman. And hadn’t even known it.

   German’s lips pulled back from his teeth in a lethally gleeful smile, but he promptly put his palm to his mouth to hide it before the fellow named Charlie turned to see it. Humans did not

like his smile. In fact, they instinctively backed away from it, and because the aroma of that sweet woman up in the loft promised him freedom, he couldn’t afford to offend the human who stood beside him.

   He needed to get closer to her, and showing off his pearly whites wasn’t going to earn the trust of the man who stood between his future and this woman he was scenting. He’d have to play this hot situation as cool as he could manage. Which meant not even hinting there was more to him than his bare skin and normalness. One blip on the weird detector and he’d get politely escorted off the farm and away from his quarry.

   Which was something this wolf-man couldn’t afford.

   So, he sheathed his strong teeth as he lowered his eyes and shoulders into a more submissive posture, to deflect any flash of instinctual awareness that might flare up in the human beside him.

   “Glad to have you on board,” Charlie said, sticking out a calloused mitt of a hand.

   Clasping it like the lifeline it was, German kept his lips pulled down over his teeth in his warmest semblance of a grateful grin. “I’m glad to be here,” he answered without lying. Because in spite of his subterfuge and private reasons for seeking employment at the farm, German didn’t lie, ever. A wolf never could.

~S.C. Dane

Stay tuned for installment number two of Wolf Love coming November 16, 2013.

#Rejection—boo-hiss

A horrible word, rejection. It conjures all sorts of ill feelings in our guts, demeaning us and stripping us bare, so we’re left with just our hypersensitive skin to cringe in the face of any breeze. We’re demoralized, reduced to eating worms, or bawling plaintively how we’re not good enough for anything.

For some of us authors, it transforms us into turtles, where we slip our battered heads into our shells. Some of us wait out the storm, not moving until our broken egos muster the courage to stick our faces back out into the fierce sun. Others of us rally a war cry, rebounding instantly after the shock of the hit, and rail against “the bastards!” Or yet, we console ourselves with wine (whine) or pints of chocolate ice cream.

Inevitably, we hoist up the belt on our holstered six-shooters and aim again. We writers can’t help it. An innate force compels us to continue on, dragging ourselves through the arid wasteland of Rejection Desert. We write. It’s not only what we do, but what we are. We can’t stop, even after we’ve written drivel we’ll throw into the trash.

We scrap the words into the recycle bin and start again. And again. And yet again. For in the striving, we strike a vein of gold and run our excited fingers across the keyboard as fast we can manage. We churn out some really great stuff in these moments, these hours, and days. Though at the end there is no guarantee, just an objective assayer of our hard work who may or not deem our efforts worthy.

Still, we push on. The lesson is hard and rarely does our skin grow thick. We just figure out how to cope with the devastating blows, how to ignore the sting of the lash while we press on. If we’re smart, we learn from these rejections. We sharpen our queries, rake over our manuscripts to find fresh ways to say the same thing. All in the quest to avoid another rejection.

Never happens, though. Like seeds in a watermelon, they’re always present no matter how hard we try to avoid them. But like those seeds, they can germinate bountiful fruit if we know how to sow and harvest our rejections.

Me? I’m a gardener. Are you?

~S.C. Dane

#HALLOWEEN AND TRS

Ten Reasons Grown Women Don’t Go Trick or Treating:

10. We are too mature for such crazy antics.

9. We don’t have to beg for our treats. We take from our kids’ goody bags like bears. We are entitled.

8. Nobody ever gives out Godiva chocolates.

7. Nobody ever gives out bottles of wine, either.

6. We refuse to be seen in our Wonder Woman outfits. We wear them under our regular clothes.

5. The smart women stay home to take the bags of candy from visiting kids. Did the tykes not say Trick or Treat?

4. We’d rather be home curled up with a steamy paranormal romance novel.

3. We’d actually rather be home curled up with a sexy vampire or shape-shifter hero from our favorite paranormal romance novel.

2. Call us crazy, but Halloween is the only time we can get away with screaming at our neighbors’ kids to scare them. Of course we’re staying home to dish out the payback.

And the Number One reason why grown women don’t go trick or treating: WE DON’T BEG. Well, all right. We do. But only in the bedroom.

 

What in Samhain does any of the above have to do with The Romance Studio, you wonder? #SPOOKAPALOOZA, of course! And please refer to Numbers 4 and 3 in the Ten Reasons Grown Women Don’t Go Trick or Treating. It’s romance time with your favorite shape-shifter, or vampire-slayer. Time to treat yourselves to the paranormal. ‘Tis the season for indulging your darkness.

You want a little gore with your sensuous love? Check out my three novels. Buy links and excerpts are on the right. Just click on the cover to indulge yourselves. Either story will satisfy your hungers.

~S.C. Dane