Aldrea Alien's Blog, page 8

Rainbow Snippets: Glorified bodyguard

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

Following on from last week’s snippet…

“You are not the leader here,” Authril grated. “I am.”

“If I may,” Katarina interjected from her place seated by the fire. She hesitated as both elves turned their attention to her. “There might not be a tower, but that surely can’t be enough to change how a King’s Hound has jurisdiction over any spellster caught outside its walls?”

“That’s only relevant when it involves those not in the army,” Authril replied, once more making Tracker the full focus of her sour expression. “If anything, escorting Dylan makes him a glorified bodyguard.”

“What you say about the army is true,” the hound conceded with the shrug. “Wardens have been ranked above us for many years now. But we are not currently in the army and you, my dear warrior, are no warden.”

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

Rainbow Snippets: Expecting a fight

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

Following on from last week’s snippet…

“We still live, yes?” Tracker said, his voice bordering on inaudible in comparison. “The camp is still in one piece?”

The tent entrance was shadowed by a person hunkered next to it. Definitely not either of the two elves. That left the hunter or the hedgewitch. He could think of no logical reason for either woman to be lingering there.

Dylan twitched a section of the flap to one side, crouching in the gap it gave him.

Marin’s back faced him. The woman squatted with her hand on the hilt of her massive hunting knife as though expecting a fight.

Beyond her, the two elves stood in the centre of the camp. Authril glowered up at the man, her legs planted and her hand firmly grasping her sheathed sword. The hound’s stance was far calmer, although no less ready to retaliate.

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

Rainbow Snippets: Justified outrage?

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events. The cover is now out, too. Check out the previous post for the full version.

Following on from last week’s snippet…

“You arrogant prick!” Authril bellowed.

Dylan sat upright, his shield flickering for a brief moment. He stared warily at the tent entrance, waiting for the warrior to burst in and complain how his lack of movement was holding them back.

“What if you’d fallen asleep?” she continued to roar. “What if the people who attacked the tower were still near? We could’ve all died because of your arrogance.”

Sluggishly, his mind realised he wasn’t the target of her outrage.

He crept closer to the tent flap as the warrior raved on. Tracker had taken Dylan’s own watch to let him sleep, but he’d no idea the hound would also choose to alleviate Authril of the duty, especially as they didn’t seem to harbour any sort of camaraderie towards each other.

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

Cover Reveal – In Love and Death

I’ve been sitting on the cover for In Love and Death for a short while now, and I was so excited to finally have nailed down a time that I would reveal it.

But before I do… this moment is a little bittersweet for me as Charlie, who had passed the big eighteen-year milestone two weeks back, crossed the rainbow bridge on the 4th.

When I tell you I haven’t cried this much in years. Heck, I’m crying just trying to write this.
.

.

.

Let’s move on to the cover reveal, shall we?

The artist is the wonderful Maria Arteta and those who have read the old version of In Pain and Blood might remember this scene. It’s one of my favourites and, like the first meeting scene depicted in the first book, I just knew it had to be the cover. There was literally no other choice.

And so, I present the cover for In Love and Death, the third full novel in the Spellster and the Hound series and the second instalment of the slow-burn romance between these two idiots…

In one day, Dylan’s whole life was destroyed. In one night, he may have found the beginnings of a new one.

Still grappling with the loss of his home, Dylan has no choice but to head for Wintervale. His one solace is in travelling the same direction taken by the enemy. But the truth behind the attack on the spellster tower suggests things aren’t as clear-cut and the enemy may well be closer than they thought.
Crossing the kingdom also means remaining in the presence of Tracker, the King’s Hound who Dylan’s repressed desire refuses to let out of his head. The man’s gentle protectiveness, coupled with his flirting, certainly doesn’t help. It taunts him with ideas of the night they shared in the tower becoming something more, a thought that is no less ridiculous than remaining unleashed.
After all, it’s a hound’s job to escort or kill spellsters. They do not disobey orders. They do not falter. And they do not fall. Especially not in love.

*This book contains violence, gore and explicit adult themes.*
*This second edition shares the main storyline with In Pain and Blood and has additional content from Tracker’s pov.*

Pre-order on Amazon for $2.99

And, of course, there’s a full spread…

Rainbow Snippets: Gnawing guilt

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

Following on from last week’s snippet…

It didn’t help that the days he had slept alone throughout his life were minimal. In the tower, he had spent a large portion of his childhood sleeping in the dorm with a gaggle of other boys. After that, he’d gone a grand total of a few weeks before meeting the gangly, wary elven boy who had grown into his friend, Sulin.

Gods. He flung an arm over his face, unable to do more as fresh tears flowed. I’m sorry, Su. He should’ve been faster. Should’ve—

Should’ve what? Rushed to prevent a disaster he hadn’t known about? The hound was right, there was no way any of them could’ve predicted what happened. It was a truth he unequivocally agreed with.

Knowing he’d been powerless to stop it did nothing to temper the guilt gnawing at his core.

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

Rainbow Snippets: Cold and alone

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

Following on from last week’s snippet…

None of them had been there to see him at his weakest, though. They hadn’t been the ones to hold him without judgement as he bawled like a child fresh out of the nursery, hadn’t made him feel safe enough to face his grief.

It had to be the unexpected tenderness behind the hound’s touch that he craved so much. With all the conflicting emotions flooding his thoughts—the anger, the grief, the growing numbness—his mind had taken the ache of empathy and mistaken it for his attraction to the man.

Dylan hadn’t realised he’d been missing that closeness until last night, when he’d found himself lying alone, embraced only by his cold blankets.

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

Rainbow Snippets: Companionable intimacy

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

Following on from last week’s beginning snippet of chapter one…

When it wasn’t the horror of the tower, it was the hound. Those visions he hadn’t minded as much, being less ghostly images and more a rehashing of the night they’d spent together. A night that had left him sleeping just as soundly as if he had never left home. Left him longing to have the man back in his arms, to bask in the companionable intimacy he hadn’t really felt with Authril.

Surely, he didn’t need the hound for that. Marin and Katarina were just as warm. They had sat with him easily enough, sympathetic where Authril had been dismissive. There’d been caution in their words, of course, but the softness came from a place of care rather than any fear of what he might do. Katarina had even tried to talk him through his grief as they pitched his tent last night.

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

Rainbow Snippets: Morning comes

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

With last week’s snippet being the final of the prologue (which can now be read in full), we’re moving on to chapter one…

The hearty scratching at his tent flap jolted Dylan from what his body had begrudgingly begun to accept was sleep. At first, he thought it was his turn to take over the night watch, but the gleam of light creeping through the tent was too much for a mere camp fire.

Morning had come.

He lay still, not sure if he’d the strength to haul himself out from beneath his cocoon of blankets. His gaze traversed the patchwork of leather stretched above him, following the outline of shadows created by the low sunlight shining through the trees.

Even though he had tried to follow Tracker’s instructions, he didn’t recall drifting off. He must have managed at some point in order to be waking up. How? That was a mystery he wished he’d an answer to. Every time he had closed his eyes, images of the dead invaded the darkness. He had jerked out of that state so many times with his magic flickering around him, that he was surprised the tent still stood.

I’ll be back with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!

In Love and Death: Prologue

The campsite was quiet, save for the odd rustle beneath the bushes and the faint coo of a distant owl. It wasn’t enough to ease Tracker’s mind. The enemy was out there, somewhere. Ahead of them, certainly, but they’d no reliable way of knowing precisely how far.

It was for that very reason their group had abandoned the road. They hadn’t gone too deep into the wilderness, but Talfaltaners were seafaring folk, any foray they made into the forest would be noisy. Vastly more so than having them creeping up on their group camping on the roadside.

Content that the area was safe for the moment, Tracker headed back to the middle of camp. He would check the perimeter again closer to the end of his time on watch, but it he doubted the act would be more than one of formality before he handed the task over to the next in the roster.

He frowned out into the heavy darkness lurking beneath the trees. Perhaps he should let the spellster sleep on. Being able to fully relax during the time others guarded their camp was more of a luxury for himself, whereas Dylan had spent a great deal of energy the morning gone not only setting the spellster tower ablaze, but also in healing a stab wound that should’ve killed him.

The man rarely roused unless someone actually woke him. Far different to Tracker’s own lightly sleeping state, brought on by years of travelling with only his horse for company.

Lullaby. A twinge of guilt tightened his chest, as it had done from the moment he had left the injured warhorse behind.

He had travelled far from Toptower since discovering Dylan in that border town. Every day thereafter had had taken him further still from any chance of reuniting with his horse. They hadn’t been separated this long before. Lullaby had to think himself abandoned by now. I will find a way. He just had to reach Whitemeadow first, to find a way to swallow the days stretching between him and that goal.

If we had a way to shorten the journey. That wasn’t possible. The standard trip on horseback would see them taking a week to reach the city, but their circumstance was far from typical in any sense of the word. He was on foot with a distressed spellster in tow, a belligerent mercenary in the group as well as potentially greater hostiles waiting ahead, and the possibility of other hounds being lured by the amount of magic used to set the spellster tower alight.

He took a steadying breath. Half of their concerns he had no control over. If his fellow hounds discovered them, then he would deal with it. Likewise, if they stumbled upon any flagging Talfaltaners, their only option would be to kill them. And whilst he could lament the absence of his horse for days, it wouldn’t summon Lullaby all the way from Toptower.

They might’ve been able to keep the journey to Whitemeadow to a dozen days, providing the roads remained clear and everyone didn’t dawdle, but that also wasn’t feasible. As it was, the scent of approaching rain hung thickly in the air. Bad weather alone would slow them.

As for the hostile force they travelled with…

His thoughts swung to Authril. She had conversed with the others as though her suggestion to put Dylan down like a rabid beast was in the distant past rather than a mere day ago. Even Marin’s cool responses didn’t seem to faze her.

Informing Dylan that she had requested Tracker end the man because they couldn’t leash him would definitely need to happen. Not yet. In truth, Tracker had hoped to wait until Whitemeadow, where they could also take a boat to distance themselves from Authril’s toxic influence and, maybe, even convince the man that leaving Demarn entirely was the right thing. But Marin was right. Sooner would ensure whatever sway the warrior had over Dylan was shattered.

Keeping an eye on her was all he could do for now. Fortunately, Katarina had at least removed the woman from Dylan’s side when it came to their sleeping arrangements. Tracker would’ve felt better if he had managed to convince the spellster to share his tent for the journey, but the suggestion had been met with such alarm from Dylan that he hadn’t pushed the issue any further.

He slipped through the undergrowth edging the copse they had stumbled across in the fading daylight, halting as he spied another outside of the tents. It appeared he wasn’t the only one still awake at this hour.

They sat by the fire, slowly poking the embers and feeding twigs into the meagre flames that stirred up.

“You should be asleep.”

Their head turned Tracker’s way. Dark eyes regarded him from a pale face framed by black, unkempt hair. The thrum of magic vibrated the air around him. Little more than formless whispers, there in a breath, then gone.

“Tried,” Dylan murmured. “Can’t.”

Tracker nodded solemnly. The man had been through a lot long before returning to find his home had become the site of a massacre. He would’ve been worried about any spellster who didn’t struggle to sleep so soon after witnessing such an aftermath. That Dylan was clearly a man who longed to help people, and blamed himself when he couldn’t, only made it worse.

He settled next to the man, casually propping his arms on his upraised knees. He was certain the night would remain quiet, but it didn’t hurt to keep a weapon or two close at hand. “Blanket or blade?”

Dylan’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“It is a saying amongst the hounds. To put it simply, is your preference to be comforted or do you seek for me to provide a solution?” The latter often came via violent means, but he needn’t be so literal when it came to what plagued the spellster.

The lines of confusion deepened upon the man’s face. “I don’t see how either one could help me. The only thing that really stopped my nightmares was when we…” His voice trailed off as he ducked his head, all expression vanishing behind a curtain of dark hair. “You know,” he mumbled.

“Had sex?”

Dylan’s head jerked towards the tent housing the three women. The gossamer sheen of a shield cloaked the man for an instant before fading back into his body.

Tracker doubted any one of the trio was awake at this hour, much less listening to their conversation. Marin had finished her portion of the watch some time ago and the hedgewitch had been before her. Whereas Authril would be getting what sleep she could until her turn near the end of the night.

“You still fear they will find out, yes?” Although Dylan hadn’t voiced it, the man had expressed a clear discomfort towards the idea of others knowing about the night they’d shared in the tower.

Dylan didn’t answer. His attention remained on the tent like a rabbit frozen in the middle of a clearing.

Tracker didn’t understand the panic widening the spellster’s eyes. The others had to know the man was an actively sexual being. Or maybe they didn’t hear him with the warrior as clearly as Tracker. But the woman wasn’t shy about making it known and Dylan was nowhere near as jittery when it came to her advances.

Was the man embarrassed to have engaged in such an act? He recalled Dylan admitting the tower did explain sex to them—a topic they clearly couldn’t ignore, when they’d all manner of people within their walls—whilst the overseers also stressed that it was discouraged. Surely, the tower had also taught them that any feelings they had regarding their attraction, or lack of, to another was a perfectly normal thing to occur.

The only logical conclusion Tracker could make of the truth behind the man’s panic was linked to his own hound status. Whereas Authril was a mere mercenary, no matter how much she seemed to enjoy playing the role of Dylan’s warden.

Looking at it from that point of view, he could admit that not wanting to divulge lying with a hound was understandable. They’d been used as bogeymen throughout the tower for far longer than either of them had been alive, a fact which often worked against their usual task of escorting new-found spellsters just as much as it aided in hunting down the rogue ones.

When it came down to it, Tracker supposed he would also baulk at confessing to anyone about being pleasured by the monsters of his nightmares.

Only when no one emerged from the tent did Dylan finally relax and seem to remember Tracker sat at his side. “Sorry. My nerves are a little…” He trailed off, grinning sheepishly as he rocked his hand.

“A little unsteady is quite the understatement, yes?” He shuffled closer, keeping his voice low and light. “I do not believe their opinion of you would change if they knew we had been intimate.”

“Authril’s would. She doesn’t like how close you’ve been prior to… then, and you didn’t exactly endear yourself to her at The Gilded Lily.”

Tracker grunted. The feeling was very much mutual. Not that her abrasive manner wasn’t anything he hadn’t encountered before, especially amongst those who had seen battle, but her treatment of Dylan was inexcusable. “And the thought of her ill judgment bothers you.” No matter how he tried to keep his true feelings contained, they hissed alongside the words.

By the way Dylan’s brow creased with concerned bewilderment, the man had caught the thread of hostility in Tracker’s voice.

Gritting his teeth, he breathed slowly until the urge to shed the woman’s blood had waned. “Why? You are not beholden to her. To anyone.” The warrior had outright said she didn’t consider Dylan as a lover, that she harboured some twisted logic where having sex with the spellster supposedly kept him under her control.

And worse, it seemed to work. Not for the reason she believed, but because of Dylan’s nature, that deep-rooted need to please those the man considered close to him.

Seeing her exploitation bearing fruit had him itching for his knives.

“I know,” Dylan said. “But she has the same temper as—” The man drifted into silence, staring into the fire. He stayed there for a time, his breathing growing increasingly laboured. The swell of his magic wavered with the same intensity, like a droplet not quite caught by the tide. “What I meant to say is she reminds me of…” His voice dissolved into a crackling sob.

Tracker laid a hand on Dylan’s back, barely making contact at first, then rubbing in gentle circles as the touch wasn’t rejected. Unbidden whispers of reassurance slipped out his lips. How much the man heard over his sobs was debateable, but it definitely helped still the erratic flares of magic.

Eventually, there was no sound save for the occasional sniff from the spellster and the scrape of Tracker’s hand across the man’s robe.

“This person she reminds you of,” Tracker said, mindful how Dylan’s back stiffened beneath his fingers. “You were close, yes?”

Dylan nodded. “Since we were children. A lot of us were. We…” His voice cracked. He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. “Sorry, I—”

“No.” Tracker shuffled on the spot to fully face the man. “Do not apologise for your grief.” It hadn’t even been a full day since they had left the tower behind. “No one expects you to put aside your mourning.” For someone who had lost his home only yesterday, the man was holding himself together remarkably well.

“Authril does. She says I got over the army attack quickly enough, that this shouldn’t be any different.” He bowed his head, picking at the ragged ends of his robe. “That I’m a liability if I can’t.”

Heat suffused Tracker’s body, his every muscle tightening with the call to attack. A liability? Dylan? He glared at the tent harbouring the woman in question. Authril hadn’t uttered much in his presence, certainly not something so callous. A part of him wished she had, if only to give him cause to retaliate in the moment.

“You know what the worst thing is?” Dylan asked, continuing before Tracker could compose himself enough to give anything close to a reply. “She’s right. I hadn’t seen battle, not even a skirmish, before that ambush and look how well that went.” He flung his arm in a southerly direction as though the decimated grounds of the army encampment sat mere hours away, instead of weeks. “How am I supposed to help, to fight, anyone if I fall apart after every battle?”

“That is not true.” They hadn’t encountered much resistance during their journey to the tower, a few bandits that had underestimated their prey, nothing serious. Dylan had handled each altercation well, despite using a meagre amount of his power. “Even if it was, the world needs more than warriors.”

Dylan gave a derisive snort. “I was never a warrior. None of us were. I don’t know why they trained us to think we could be when the army never saw us as anything more than weapons.”

Tracker recalled similar words from his fellow hound, Fetcher. He wished he’d believed her sooner. Wished there’d been something either of them could have done without their mistress knowing.

“And I was terrible at that, too.” The spellster laughed, the sound carrying only heartache. “Weapons aren’t supposed to feel, they’re not meant to care that the soldier fighting alongside them fell trying to keep them alive.” The campfire flared, spitting and sparking as though pig fat dripped onto the embers. “You don’t see a sword getting weepy over the dead.”

They are still meant to be cared for, though. Whether the weapon be of steel or magic, the army did a terrible job of looking after either. Nor did he believe the outcome would have changed.

“The perimeter is due to be checked again.” Tracker unhurriedly got to his feet. He looked around the camp, marking the lack of change, before offering the spellster his hand. “Come, walk with me.”

Dylan didn’t move. Nor did he utter a sound. He just stared into flames that grew bluer with heat.

“If anything, the cool air will aid in calming your feverish mind.”

Slowly, the man’s head tilted up at him. Those dark eyes reflected the firelight so perfectly, that they looked molten. “You don’t need me to help with checking anything.”

“No,” he agreed. “But I enjoy the company.”

Dylan’s gaze flicked towards the tents. He stood, slowly, as though his bones had forgotten how to move, a mirthless smile thinning his lips. “You’re trying to get me away from them. In case I do something stupid.”

“Not at all.” He didn’t believe the man would willingly bring any harm to others, but the state of his mind was tenuous and Tracker had come across a lot of accidental tragedies caused by such a combination of strong magic and high emotions. “I am simply trying to get you out of your own head.” Between their impromptu intimacy last night, setting fire to the tower and their travelling, the man hadn’t been given much space to calm his mind.

Linking their arms, Tracker casually guided Dylan away from the fire, noting how the flames shifted from a translucent blue to their original brassy hue the moment the man’s full attention turned elsewhere.

They walked beneath the trees, Dylan wordlessly uncoupling their arms along the way. The spellster’s head tipped back, his focus either on the canopy or the stars beyond, clearly having no desire to speak further.

As much as Tracker knew that talking would help the man vent some of his frustrations and guilt, he didn’t want to push. Everything was still raw. He would should it be required, if only to keep Dylan from suppressing his grief until he exploded.

The forest remained no less quiet than it had been during his last check. Cool air ghosted along his temples, absent of the smoke that had permeated much of their travels. The suggestion of it still clung to his clothes. Burning wood and parchment, overlaid by the jerkin’s natural leather smell and the musk of a day’s travel.

The owl that had made so much noise earlier had vanished. Tracker longed for its return, for anything that would break up the slow crunch of their boots or the scrabbling of little feet scampering about the undergrowth at their passage.

He hoped the silence gave the spellster some measure of peace. There wasn’t much else he could offer out here that didn’t include distracting him with sex, and Dylan had already given his opinion on that option.

Eventually, Dylan exhaled in one drawn-out breath. The rigidity of his form relaxed, lowering his shoulders and returning the litheness to his stride. “I know it’s your duty to look after my well-being, but you don’t need to be so thorough. I can handle myself well enough.”

He didn’t doubt the spellster was less emotional under normal circumstances, that didn’t mean Tracker was less inclined to offer his support. And not for the reason the man thought. “Duty,” he mused aloud. If he was to follow hound law to the letter, the only state Dylan’s head would be in was separate from his body. “Truthfully, I had considered us as travelling companions. Or maybe friends?”

“Friends?” Dylan echoed, finally lowering his face from the canopy to regard Tracker.

“Did you not say you were close to several people? I assumed that means you were allowed such relationships in the tower, yes?” They didn’t foster the idea amongst the hounds, especially when it came to the uninitiated pups, but such bonds were inevitable.

The man nodded. He bit his lip, his chin wobbling.

“I apologise,” Tracker murmured, bowing his head. He shouldn’t have mentioned the tower. “It was not my intention to further upset you.”

“I know.” The admission was thick with unshed tears. He sniffed loudly, scrubbing at his face. “I can’t stop thinking about it. How trapped everyone was. How terrified their last moments would have been. And I couldn’t even find them. Not a damn trace!” Magic flickered briefly around the man. A gust of wind Tracker couldn’t feel rustled the surrounding bushes, scattering the wildlife that hadn’t already scurried off at their passing.

“Would it have helped if you had?”

“Yes,” Dylan snapped. “No? I don’t know.” He whirled on his heel. The extra momentum stirred up another gust that neatly sliced a sapling in half. The man jumped back, his shield flickering to life. He eyed the damage as though never having witnessed his magic lash out unheeded before. “I-I didn’t mean to—”

“Steady.” Tracker reached towards the man’s shoulder, stopping before his hand touched the barrier. He could pass through it easily enough, but the last thing Dylan needed was more pain.

It was for that reason he hadn’t done any further speculations on the possibility of some having escaped. Having Dylan cling to the hope of his friends’ surviving without solid evidence would be far crueller than letting the man mourn those deaths.

“I thought I knew my role in the world,” Dylan confessed. “Thought I had survived the ambush because it was my fate to return home, but there’s nothing left. No home. No friends. No life. So… why was I spared?”

Why? Tracker knew that question well. The memory of it lay cloaked in the gloom of the Pit, where a sallow flickering light danced upon broken and battered bodies. Even after all these years, he recalled how thickly the tang of human blood sat on his tongue. How the only sounds over his ragged breath were the moans of air escaping the dead, yet the loudest stunned silence of the witnesses screamed the loudest, echoing in his mind for years after.

The knowledge that he should’ve been the one to die that day.

A surprising outcome. That was what their mistress had called his survival. Unexpected and problematic. She had him sent away. Officially, to be trained in seduction, but he knew it was to have little hopes like love and family literally screwed out of him.

He’d learnt different lessons. Seduction, yes—difficult not to when it was a requirement to remain working in the brothel’s upper tiers—but also compassion. They couldn’t replace the family he had lost to Hunk’s betrayal, but The Gilded Lily had offered a type of kinship. Without it, he wasn’t certain he would’ve survived the first year.

And if he had died? What would it have been altered? Which lives would’ve been saved or lost? The spellster protected by an entire mercenary company? The elven woman who had spent decades feeding on the nearby village? The countless young spellsters and would-be hounds he had aided in smuggling into Dvärghem?

And Dylan’s fate?

He bumped the spellster’s arm with a shoulder, hoping that gentle contact was enough to get the man’s attention without startling him. “I am no priest, but if I remember my childhood teachings correctly, the gods do not control how our lives play out, they merely offer alternative paths. Everything else is our choice.”

Dylan remained silent for some time. At first, Tracker thought he hadn’t been heard, then the man spoke.

“My choices are responsible for my friends dying?”

“I did not say that and this is the last time you will speak such a lie. No choice you could possibly make would have led to what happened. That blame lies squarely on another’s shoulders.” Who had made that decision was an answer Tracker didn’t currently possess, but he was going to find out. And once he did, not a thing would stop him from dealing out the ultimate consequence. “As for why you were spared…” He inhaled, unthinkingly breathing in the scent of magic emanating from the man. The wisps of power might have died down, but that storm-cloud aroma remained a beacon regardless. “I would say your strength played no small part there.”

Dylan’s face scrunched in confusion. “My strength? I could be the strongest spellster in the world and it wouldn’t… I couldn’t…” He ran a hand through his hair, further upsetting the already messy array. “I just feel…” His breath came out in one shuddering exhale. “I don’t know what.”

“Helpless? Hopeless?”

“Like no matter how hard I try, I’m utterly useless in keeping all the terrible things from happening.”

Tracker laid a hand on Dylan’s forearm. Even through the layers of his clothes, the man’s shaking was palpable. “There was no way you could have predicted what happened. Not the ambush, not the army, not… any other outcome.”

Dylan stared down at his hands. Unformed magic danced around his fingertips like a rolling fog. “I can’t stop thinking I should’ve done more, should’ve been more, then maybe they’d be alive.”

He drew the spellster into his arms, sensing the ghosts of pure magic crackle into something tangible as Dylan stiffened in his grasp, the flash briefer than a lightning strike.

With his ear pressed to the man’s chest, he heard the man’s heart thumping at a tempo that suggested Dylan had spent the day sprinting down the road rather than the steady pace they’d taken through the forest. “I cannot tell you it will get better, that is not something anyone can judge for you. But I am here if you need me, in whatever capacity that may be.” He didn’t know if his presence alone would be enough to help, but he hoped so.

The man’s heartbeat slowly calmed as Tracker talked. Dylan sagged into the embrace, his arms awkwardly wrapping around Tracker’s shoulders, his cheek resting atop Tracker’s head. Wetness seeped into his scalp. He ignored it and tightened his grip to match Dylan’s.

It was a while before the man unwound himself. He dried his face, giving a self-conscious little chuckle. “I really have to stop crying all over you.”

“I do not mind.”

Dylan ducked his head, the embarrassment behind his smile a little more familiar.

“But do me a favour and do not take our dear warrior’s words to heart. She may try to bury it deep within, but she still grieves for her fallen company.” Tracker had seen that look too many times to mistake the emotion behind it. “Until she acknowledges that pain, it will continue to fester. That you allow yourself to freely feel is likely what draws her scorn.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Come.” He gestured for the spellster to continue walking. “We have the rest of the perimeter to check.”

“You mean this wasn’t a ploy to get me alone and feel me up?” The light-hearted lilt in his voice and the grin he flashed—although wobbly on the edges, carried an echo of the playfulness he had displayed before reaching the tower—took the edge off the words.

Tracker answered the attempt at humour with a smile of his own. “Even if I somehow deemed the timing as appropriate, I would hardly need to bring you out here for such fun. I told you, I enjoy the company.” He took up Dylan’s hand, linking their fingers without a twitch of rejection. “But we have been gone a while, we should keep moving.”

Their journey back to the tents slipped back into silence, a lighter kind than when they’d begun. They circled the campsite until their path returned them to the tents. Nothing had changed beyond the fire having burnt itself out. That was to be expected.

Tracker’s gaze drifted to his own tent. Given that he hadn’t slept for more than a handful of hours beneath the canvas tonight, the time taken to pitch it seemed a waste. “I know you may not get any rest at all, but you should at least attempt sleep, yes? I will take your turn on watch tonight.” Doing so wouldn’t grant the man more than the scant two hours he would’ve spent alone out here, but there was nothing else to offer. Getting by on little sleep was practically a rite of passage for hounds.

He wouldn’t bother with waking Authril either. That way, he could keep an eye on both Dylan and the warrior. The last thing any of them needed was for the woman’s callous words to incense the spellster.

Dylan made for his tent, pausing at the entrance. “Thank you. For letting me vent and…” One corner of his mouth lifted in a rueful smile. “It helped.”

Tracker bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Rest, my dear man. It is a long way to Whitemeadow.” By then, he would’ve found the words to sway Dylan into leaving Demarn.

It would be dangerous. He had known that from the moment he’d made his decision. It wouldn’t be the first time he had helped spellsters escape Demarn, even if they’d been children.

Permitting a spellster to slip out of their grasp was against the hound creed. Getting caught helping one would see him put down. Dylan being an adult as well as the last known spellster alive only increased their chances of getting caught. Especially with the man still garbed in army attire.

Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to stand by and let the alternative play out. After everything Dylan had been through—the violent unleashing that had left his throat scarred, the ambush on his scouting party and the decimation of the army, the destruction of his home and everyone he knew—ensuring the man didn’t suffer further abuse had to be the right choice. The only choice.

Pre-order Today

Rainbow Snippets: Making the right choice

Rainbow Snippets is a Facebook group for LGBTQ+ authors, readers, and bloggers to gather once a week and share six sentences from a work of fiction–a WIP or a finished work or even a 6-sentence book recommendation.

Being a sequel, In Love and Death is set directly after In Pain and Blood. Some snippets will contain spoilers of those events.

Following last week’s snippet…

Permitting a spellster to slip out of their grasp was against the hound creed. Getting caught helping one would see him put down. Dylan being an adult as well as the last known spellster alive only increased their chances of getting caught. Especially with the man still garbed in army attire.

Yet, he couldn’t bring himself stand by and let the alternative play out. After everything Dylan had been through—the violent unleashing that had left his throat scarred, the ambush on his scouting party and the decimation of the army, the destruction of his home and everyone he knew—ensuring the man didn’t suffer further abuse had to be the right choice.

The only choice.

And with that, we have reached the end of the prologue.
I’ll be posting it as one entity early next week and will see you all with more from In Love and Death next weekend. In the meantime, check out these other snippets.

If you’re looking for more news of my books, be sure to “Like” my Facebook page and/or join me in my Facebook group!