Aimee Easterling's Blog, page 8

Moon Stalked excerpt

Chapter 1

The branch snapped beneath my feet. The wolf pelt that had been loosely wrapped around my neck billowed out as I fell.

Grab my escaping wolfsfell or scrabble for a handhold?

I hit the ground on my back, air knocked out of my lungs but wolfsfell cradled to my chest. For one long moment, all I could do was lie there and listen to the night.

At first, the signs were good. Crickets chirped. A car honked in the distance.

Then night critters fell silent. Closer than should have been possible, a canine growled.

I winced. A full day of scouting and we’d missed a guard dog. How was that even possible?

While I struggled to pull myself together, the timbre of the growl deepened. Footsteps padded closer.

Soon the dog would see me and bark a warning to its owners. Lights would flicker on in the household I was burgling. My one shot at redeeming my name would be lost.

“Mission aborted,” I muttered to myself. “Time to regroup and try again tomorrow.”

Easing my way to my feet, I started stripping. If one of the Smythewhites looked out a window to check on Spot, I didn’t want them to see anything two-legged. Shoes, socks, pants….

Someone laughed so close by I could have reached out and touched him. “Wardrobe malfunction?”

I leapt a foot sideways, my wolfsfell slipping off my arm the way it had a habit of doing. As if my lupine nature wasn’t entirely quiescent when shed into a leathery skin. As if its wishes trumped my own.

Now, the pesky wolfsfell slid down to land on the grass between us. And before I could snatch the pelt back up, the stranger’s hand slid across my discarded fur.

A ghost caress ran up the full length of my spine. My breath caught in my throat. It had been years since anyone touched my wolfsfell.

The stranger’s voice was deep and smooth, like water against river rocks. “What’s this?”

“It’s….” I shook my head, unable to believe I’d almost answered. It’s what woelfin use for transformation. It’s the other half of my self, my most precious possession.

It’s the memory of my worst lapse of judgement. The only way to correct a decade-old mistake.

I cleared my throat and went on the offensive. “It’s mine. Give it back.”

Unfortunately, no pelt appeared in my peripheral vision. Even when I remembered my humanity and tacked on a modifier:

“Please.”

Instead, a ghost thumb blazed a semicircle behind my left earlobe. Well, behind my wolfsfell’s left earlobe. The stranger was teasing his fingers through my shed pelt. Stroking gently, curiously. Was that good news or bad?

His reply, when it came, rumbled through my belly like a drumbeat. “Look at me.”

My eyes remained riveted on the ground, fixed on the dandelion down caught in my right-most toe cleft. I’d learned the hard way that non-woelfin were spooked by amber irises. I shook my head rather than obey him.

We were at an impasse. Silence lengthened. Crickets restarted. There was no traffic.

Eventually, I rounded my shoulders and mumbled an explanation at my toenails. “I’m sorry. I thought this was a park, not private property.”

“And the ten-foot-high fence?”

I couldn’t help myself. My mouth quirked sideways. “To keep out zombie giraffes.”

***

He laughed, the sound rich and enticing. I felt rather than saw as his whole hand massaged my wolfsfell this time. My human neck turned jelly-soft beneath the caress.

His words tensed me back up in short order. “Do you need help?”

Of course I needed help. My cousin was dying. I craved a time machine. Or perhaps a way to break into the vast, dark house before me and steal back what didn’t rightfully belong to the people inside.

What I had was a man dropping down to kneel so close I was finally forced to look at him. His eyes were the stormy blue of a sunlit ocean. His dark curls had tousled free of any civilized arrangement. His shirt was misbuttoned, as if he’d seen me lurking in the shadows and half-dressed before rushing over to hunt me down.

“Is this your home?” Words tumbled out before I could stop them.

He shook his head. “Yours?”

“Heh. No.” The hem of my t-shirt was ragged and holey. The house—almost a mansion—was extravagant. The fact this stranger could even ask that question proved he was either delusional or kind.

He stared into my eyes, not flinching at their color. “Here.”

My wolfsfell lay atop his hands, halfway between us. For one insane instant, I imagined leaving it there. His touch was blissful. The unfamiliar intimacy was gut-wrenching.

Instead, I asked the most relevant question in the face of this overwhelming attraction: “Do you have a twin?”

His brows drew together, but he didn’t request further explanation. Just shook his head and dashed the hope sparking in my belly.

“No.”

“Ah, well, then.” I turned away. If he didn’t have a twin, he wasn’t for me.

Snatching my wolfsfell out of the stranger’s lax fingers, I grabbed up jeans, shoes, and socks in one hurried gesture. I was halfway to the fence, plotting my escape route when he called after me.

“My name is Luke.”

A low-hanging limb assisted my ascent. Scrambling across the scrap of carpet I’d lugged along to shield against razor wire, my bare ankle nonetheless snagged on a protruding point.

An inhaled breath from below. I glanced down in time to see the man—Luke—catch a droplet of my blood in his outstretched fingers.

“Clothes,” he suggested. “They’re for wearing.”

I shrugged, shoving off the carpet then grabbing one corner to take the square with me. Down, down, down. I landed on the sidewalk on two bent legs.

Straightening, I found myself eye to eye with Luke, nothing but air and fence between us. In the seconds I’d been busy, he’d lowered himself to perch on the edge of a concrete planter. Despite the fact I’d used perfect plummeting posture this time, my lungs felt as windstruck as when I’d landed on my back a few moments before.

Luke was tall and broad but not muscle-bound. The veins on his hands stood out even in the shadows. He was strength and power incarnate.

He was also patient. His head cocked but he didn’t request my identity a second time.

Perhaps that’s why I gave it to him.

“Honor. I’m Honor, master zombie-giraffe hunter.”

Then, without allowing myself another moment for banter, I turned to flee from the home I’d hoped to burglarize in an attempt to regain the right to use my name.

 

 

Chapter 2

“You’re blushing.”

Justice was right where I’d left him two blocks over. And still my breath caught in my throat when he stepped out of the shadows.

Because my nearly-a-lawyer cousin—double cousin, actually, the son of my father’s brother and mother’s sister—looked just like his dying twin. Both were olive-skinned with straight dark hair and eyes like wells of understanding. But only Justice peered at me as if I was dog shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

I coughed to clear my throat of the bitterness of his expression, then attempted to explain my hot cheeks away. “I ran here.”

Bastion would have known that cough was an evasion. Justice simply didn’t care.

Well, he didn’t care about my emotional volatility. He did care about the mission that had drawn us back into the close proximity we’d eschewed for years.

His eyes slid over me, ignoring my nakedness. “You don’t have it.”

I hugged my wolfsfell closer to my chest before I shook my head in deflated confirmation. I didn’t have it, so we should….

My hand went for the door of the car Justice had been leaning against, but he pushed between me and the metal. “You realize we’re on a deadline. A permanent deadline.”

I clenched my fists, then relaxed them. Reminded myself that it was Justice’s brother who lost a little more will to live with each passing hour. Plus, Justice was skipping a very important capstone seminar to help us hunt for Bastion’s wolfsfell. His surliness deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Still, his ailing brother and I were closer than siblings. We’d been a family of two for the past few years, out earning cash to pay for the others’ education. It wasn’t as if I was likely to forget that our seven-day window had already dwindled down to just a hair more than five.

Bastion’s decline was a pang in my gut that I ached to mitigate. And I had a temporary solution right there in my arms.

Lifting my wolfsfell until it nearly touched Justice’s nostrils, I raised my eyebrows at the exact same time. “We can stand here all night, or I can use my pelt to ease your brother’s pain.”

Justice’s nostrils flared. “It’s not a pelt. It’s a wolfsfell.”

This argument was cozy as a well-worn blanket. So I baited him, hoping for something lost a decade earlier. “Semantics. If you’d chosen the name ‘Fred’ instead of ‘Justice’ when you were a teenager, would you have been any less likely to study law?”

For one moment, I thought I’d hooked my cousin into his favorite pastime—arguing words and their meanings. My shoulders loosened. Maybe our relationship wasn’t irredeemably broken.

But then Justice’s eyes narrowed. “You’re talking hospice care.” He turned away from me to peer up at the Smythewhites’ rooftop, barely visible as it towered above nearby buildings. “My brother can handle a little ache here and there. What he needs is his own wolfsfell.”

I followed Justice’s gaze, wishing it had been as easy as I’d hoped to swipe back the decade-old stolen object. “I couldn’t get inside the house,” I admitted after a long moment. “There was a guard dog….”

And a man. Tall, dark, handsome….

Irrelevant, I decided, leaving the guard dog as the only road block worth mentioning aloud.

“I’ll research it.” Justice pulled out his phone as if he planned to dive into the issue here and now, after midnight, on a darkened street corner.

He still hadn’t moved out of my way or offered his car keys.

“Bastion needs….”

At his brother’s name, my cousin glanced up. For half a second he was the quarter of our wolfsrudel—pack—he’d been in our youth. The strong, silent type with an emphasis on the first adjective. The one we all sought out when we needed an ear that would never retell our secrets…even if he might pick our grammar apart.

But that familiarity must have been a trick of the light. Because I shifted to my other foot and Justice’s listening glance turned into a scowl.

“We’re low on cash,” he told me. “Make yourself useful.”

He held out his hands, waiting for me to drop my clothes into them. Then he turned resolutely away as I slung my wolfsfell across my shoulders and fell onto four paws.

***

Despite wanting to quell Bastion’s pain, it was a relief to avoid my newly reunited wolfsrudel for a short while. Among them, I was out of my element. Alone, I could spend at least a few hours returning to what I did best.

So I ran, following the thread of an online conversation struck up hours earlier. “Wife beater slipped me on Madison Ave,” a local had messaged. “Interested? 50/50 cut.”

At the time, I’d scratched my head, wondering why and how Bastion had managed to update his profile on the Bounty Hunter’s Forum in between bouts of vomiting and feverish napping. Because that was the only way our local counterpart could have guessed we were in town.

Knowing my sunny cousin, Bastion had probably thought he’d shake off his sickness then get back to work within hours. He hadn’t, of course. Instead, I’d been the one stuck answering pesky PMs from people I’d never met but who felt like they knew me. That’s what came of Bastion’s forum stories, thrusting thousands of interested readers into our day-to-day lives.

In this case, I’d messaged back a curt: “On vacation.”

“Just in case you get bored,” the local had countered, following up with his telephone number.

I wasn’t bored, but I was in need of both cash and distraction. So I turned toward Madison Avenue, allowing myself to forget both the past and the future. My claws clicked through the silence of suburban sleep as I achieved the site in question. The street was dark, residential. It was after midnight.

And the perp? Jimmy English hadn’t traveled far from the spot where he’d last been sighted. I followed the gray grunge of predator-turned-prey aroma for half a mile until it strengthened into the garlicky smugness of triumph.

The bail jumper had returned home. Of course he had. Didn’t we all crave our dens?

My local counterpart swore the wife hadn’t seen her husband in days. And she probably hadn’t. In wolf skin, I couldn’t see Jimmy either, tucked away in the kids’ treehouse.

But I could smell him. Could hear him. Knew from the scent of rage on the step closest to the bottom that the wife beater was plotting revenge.

Revenge on his spouse, who might not even know her husband had failed to show up for his court hearing yesterday. She was inside, unprotected. He was outside, sharpening his rage.

The capture couldn’t wait until morning. We needed to settle this immediately.

And…I needed backup. Without a human partner—or, you know, clothes—it would be difficult to apprehend a criminal. Apparently I’d been running on adrenaline all night long.

Luckily, suburbanites are lax with locks. I gnawed my wolfsfell off my shoulders then pried the garage door upward, cringing when wheels squeaked on their metal tracks.

But nothing came out of the darkness to check on my intrusion. And inside was just what I’d hoped I’d see.

Stairs leading into what appeared to be a man cave. Old beer. Old socks. Everything old.

Meanwhile, off in one corner, the rarest of modern utilities—a land-line telephone.

Also old. But when I lifted the receiver, I was greeted by a dial tone.

I dialed the local bounty hunter’s digits from memory. Realized too late that I was likely waking him up.

Only, I wasn’t. Slim’s voice was curt. “What?”

“This is Honor. I changed my mind. Wanna be my backup?”

“Address?”

I rattled off my current location…then froze as the point of a knife dug into the base of my skull.

***

I could hear my uncle’s voice in crisp, vivid memory. “A blade plus your wolf teeth is all you need to protect yourself and your wolfsrudel. A dagger is the weapon of the strong.”

Despite myself, I hummed satisfaction. Because the holder of this particular blade was strong, even though she likely didn’t think she was. The knife point didn’t wiggle even though the woman’s voice, when it emerged, squeaked up, up, up.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a fugitive recovery agent, ma’am. Here to pick up your husband.” I hesitated a moment, then offered further reassurance. “I’m totally unarmed.”

The knife point slid sideways. The overhead light flickered on. To my surprise, the woman behind me laughed.

“I can see that.” Her tone had turned dry.

Which is when I remembered that I was naked save for the wolfsfell wrapped around one wrist like a bracer. I turned…

…and sprinted toward the man looming in the doorway behind her. After all, Mrs. English might be strong when faced with a naked female, but she’d let herself be beaten by her husband for years before reporting him.

And that husband was the one who’d snuck up on both of us. His scent was unavailable to my human nostrils. But I’d perused his mugshot. Knew his face.

Jimmy English. Wife beater and bond jumper in the flesh.

He was furious. Our voices must have drawn him closer. Then he’d assumed—what? That his wife had seen him creeping into the treehouse and ratted him out?

Whatever the reason, it wasn’t me but rather his spouse who drew Jimmy’s ire. He charged toward her, wordless rage bellowing. I changed my trajectory to intersect his path.

As I sprinted by, his wife took in the intruder with the same recognition but much more horror than I’d felt at his presence. The barely healed wound along one side of her jaw was bright red now, her face having whitened around it. She flinched as if the two broken ribs Jimmy left her with had shattered a second ago rather than last week.

I was the naked one, but it was as if Jimmy English’s arrival had stripped his spouse of something far more valuable than mere clothes.

No wonder she cringed, seeming to lose half her height in a second. The knife she’d been holding clattered to the floor.

Scum is awfully good at taking advantage of opportunities. No wonder Jimmy dove past me, stretching for the weapon that would provide the upper hand he should have already possessed by virtue of his bulk.

I couldn’t let him have it. Mrs. English needed the strength of success, not another beating by her husband.

Jimmy’s upper lip curled into a sneer. And I took advantage of his posturing to slide my arm through the gap between his fingers and the weapon.

Too bad my wolfsfell had a mind of its own.

Wolf teeth caught on Jimmy’s elbow, and he lashed out instinctively. I don’t think he even had time to choose a target. Just got lucky when his fist connected with my breast so hard I yelped.

I expected the sound of my pain to send Mrs. English scurrying for cover. Instead, she appeared to have recovered her spine.

Or so I guessed. My eyes were watering too hard to really see her. But I felt the jolt as she kicked her husband with the full force of years of pent-up aggression.

“You bastard! You really think it’s okay to hit a woman young enough to be our daughter?”

Her heel in his groin shook both of us. I rolled sideways away from the burly monster who’d crumpled into a pile of deflated testosterone at his wife’s furious feet.

Mrs. English kept kicking while I leveraged myself upright. Headlights curved across the wall behind me…then stopped.

The timeline had moved up faster than anticipated. Slim must have been out cruising—no wonder the answer to my call had been so prompt.

I’d intended to chase Jimmy into the front yard in wolf form, leaving the capture to my partner. Teaming up with Bastion, the move would have been seamless. Even with a stranger for a partner, I should have been able to stick to the shadows and let Slim cuff our perp.

After that, I would have shifted and called out instructions. Made myself known and ensured I landed my cut of the bounty.

But now I was naked, in a lit room, watching a marital dispute that seemed destined to continue. Because with every kick, the wife appeared to be learning to inhale.

I could steal some clothes, intervene and talk Mrs. English around until she was confused about my former nakedness. Stick to the plan. Refill the wolfsrudel’s dwindling coffers.

Or I could walk away and let this wronged wife complete her retribution. Slim would find them at his leisure. Jimmy would go back to jail, so the same end would be accomplished. I’d just fail to make my own contribution clear.

“So much for cash,” I muttered, toeing the knife sideways so it wouldn’t end up part of the marital tussle. Justice would be pissed at the lack of cash flow, but I inhaled deeper than I had in hours. For the first time all day, the name “Honor” hung unwrinkled across my shoulders.

Sliding past the raging wife, I shifted in the stairwell and wriggled out beneath the raised garage door. Then I waited in the shadows until Slim disentangled himself from his seatbelt and made his way upstairs.

 

 

Chapter 3

I slunk back to the fleabag motel where my wolfsrudel camped, exhausted and craving my family. Halfway there, my head started pounding. The sensation was sharp, intense…then abruptly gone.

I shook away transient pain and kept on running. By the time I made it to the foot of the stairs leading up to the motel landing, dawn was just beginning to gray the sky.

The hour was either very late or very early, depending on your perspective. I didn’t expect anyone to have waited up for me. But as soon as I shivered out of my wolf body, the door swung open above my head.

Darkness fled. Light cupped me. My twin stepped out onto the concrete landing and leaned down over the rail.

Like Justice and Bastion, Grace and I were biologically identical…yet we’d never be mistaken for each other. Grace was well named, her body slender where mine was athletically curvy. Perfectly managed hair poured over her right shoulder in stark contrast to my endlessly tangled mop of curls.

Until recently, we hadn’t spent more than a weekend of our adulthood together. Grace had focused on finishing up her undergraduate degree at RISD before landing a sought-after fashion-design internship. I’d been hunting criminals with Bastion while attempting to redeem my sins.

No wonder we had very little to talk about.

Now, though, Grace and I were united with one purpose. “How is he?” I asked, slipping past so I could peer around the door jamb. Justice was hunched over a computer in one corner. A dark lump on the opposite bed was smaller than it should have been.

“Worse.” Grace breathed out through her nose, as frustrated as I was. We both watched as Bastion turned restlessly underneath heavy covers. It was high summer, yet our cousin could never seem to get warm.

Then he moaned, and my feet carried me closer until I could lean over where he curled beneath the bedspread. Tomorrow, we would revamp our plan for finding Bastion’s wolfsfell. We’d discuss avenues Justice might have found online while I was bounty hunting. Then the three of us would turn our strategy into fact.

Tonight, all I could do was give my favorite cousin a little fleeting comfort. My wolfsfell slid off my shoulders as if it was a living being. I shook out the pelt to its full extent, let it drift down to cover Bastion like a shroud.

No, not like a shroud. Like a blanket. A cocoon, both warm and healing.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then Bastion’s deep exhaustion bit into my bones.

He wasn’t just worse; he was floundering. There was little of my cousin left inside this body. Just fever and emptiness leading to dark, endless sleep.

His eyes had sunk into their sockets, his family resemblance to our dead parents during their last week of life starkly evident. Bastion was dying because of my mistake, just as Justice and Grace would decline if the thief started using their stolen wolfsfells.

No wonder the pair wanted nothing to do with me. Yet when my legs buckled, hands were there to catch me. Justice on one side, Grace on the other. Together, my wolfsrudel lowered me until I lay next to Bastion on the bed.

A damp cloth materialized on my forehead. Someone’s fingers twined through mine. I barely felt the contact, so intense was the agony of virtual ice picks pounding into my skull.

Beside me, Bastion stirred. Sat up. “You shouldn’t…” His hand was steady as it peeled the wolfsfell off his chest and shoulders.

As the pelt lifted, pain eased within me. The two-day-old lines bracketing Bastion’s mouth tightened at the exact same moment.

Either I bore the pain or he did. I was grateful when Grace reached over and dislodged his fingers.

“Leave it,” Grace said sternly. “She wants to.”

The pelt fell. The pain returned with a vengeance. My head now pounded like a gong being rung by a dozen drunk chimpanzees.

And for once, my twin was right. I did want this.

I nodded. Bastion hesitated, then left my wolfsfell where it had fallen across his body.

Relieved, I reached for returning agony as if it was a hand-quilted comforter, pulling it close around my sullied soul.

***

“Get up.”

Hard hands pushed me off the edge of the bed and I didn’t manage to grab onto anything solid. I hit the ground butt-first—good thing my rear end is padded.

“Whereza fire?” I slurred as I blinked open my eyes. Sun poured through the window, turning Justice into a silhouette. But I understood his head shake. As he turned away, I could imagine him rolling his eyes.

No wonder he was pissed. It felt like only a few minutes had passed since I let unconsciousness salve my agony, but the sun’s position suggested I’d slept for most of the day. Behind me, Bastion was once again hunched under the covers, my wolfsfell discarded. He must have soaked up every ounce of the energy I’d manage to store during my short time in fur the previous night.

Was it just my imagination, though, or did he seem to be sleeping more soundly than he had yesterday? That realization did more than an aspirin for melting away the pounding inside my skull.

“There is no dog.” Grace prodded me with a pointed boot toe, reminding me that I couldn’t sit on the mildewed carpet forever.

The floor slipped sideways as I tried to press myself up to standing. My hair frizzed across my face, blocking my view. I grabbed onto the side of the bed to balance myself while my balance spun like a tilt-a-whirl. “You know that how exactly?” I croaked.

“Went through their garbage.” I raised my eyebrows and Grace flushed. “Justice went through their garbage,” she corrected herself. “No Alpo cans.”

“So they feed it dry dog food.”

“…and I dropped by to see the town dog catcher. Nobody from that address has ever applied for a dog license.” This time, Grace didn’t wait for my argument. “Yes, I know that’s private information. But I dressed to impress. He looked it up for me anyway.”

I reached across the rumpled bedspread to regain my wolfsfell. The fur was cold at first, but hairs warmed as I stroked them. Alertness unfurled inside my human skin.

With returning clarity came the harsh reminder of reality. One week after each of our parents had started to decline, they’d faded away at midnight.

My stomach clenched. That wouldn’t happen to Bastion. I wouldn’t let it.

“Today’s day three,” I said aloud, running the back of my hand across Bastion’s forehead. Beads of sweat came away on my fingers, but he didn’t move beneath my ministrations.

As best we could tell, being separated from our pelts only caused harm once someone started using the missing wolfsfells. That same manipulation gave us a small window of opportunity when we could track down the stolen skin.

Unlike with our parents, this time we’d been lucky. Proximity and youth meant Bastion had been able to point us in the direction of his stolen wolfsfell before he became delirious.

Unfortunately, he was no longer strong enough to narrow down the search window. Our luck was rapidly running out.

Or maybe not. “Five hours until showtime,” Grace informed me, waving what appeared to be a newspaper clipping through the air in triumph. When I just stared in confusion, she deigned to elaborate.

“Benefit party at the Smythewhites this evening.”

It was time to create our own luck.

To keep reading, snag a copy from the retailer of your choice….

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Falling into audio

As you may have noticed, this autumn has been all about audio. Since I posted last, the Alpha Underground Trilogy has been completed in audio — a great deal for Audible subscribers since you can snag three books for one credit! I’ve also approved the audio for Shadow Wolf and Alpha Ascendant, so those titles should be on or hitting your favorite retailers within the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, I’ve teamed up with a bunch of other paranormal authors to spread the audio love with a giveaway. Despite what the graphic above says, you have until November 21 to enter for a chance to win one of dozens of audiobooks.

What’s up next? There will be a box set version of the Wolf Rampant Trilogy coming down the pike in December, and the Moon Marked series will finish up in audio likely in January.

In the meantime, of course, I’ve been writing new books to hit your ereaders if you prefer not to listen. I’m really excited about Moon Stalked, the first chapters of which will show up here within the week. So watch this space!

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Wolf’s Bane now in audio!

 

 

I am so excited to be able to share Piper Goodeve‘s amazing production of the Wolf’s Bane audiobook! She brought Mai’s world alive, and the listeners among you are bound to enjoy the result.

Want to give the audiobook a try? It’s available much wider than my other audiobooks. You should be able to find a library copy via Overdrive, Hoopla, or Cloudlibrary. You can start an Audible or Scribd free trial and nab a copy that way. Or you can buy on Nook, Kobo, Amazon (where the book is whispersynced), Apple, or Google.

You can even download a trial chapter from Bookfunnel if you’re not quite ready to take the plunge and want to sample on the go.

Happy listening!

The post Wolf’s Bane now in audio! appeared first on Aimee Easterling.

Thirteenth Werewolf

Two months ago, the conversation in my head went like this:

Me: Well, that’s great! I nailed down all of the main characters for my new book…except for one. Luke, where are you?

Luke: Here.

Me: Yikes! What?

Luke: Um, you called me. But I can fade back into your subconscious if you want me to….

Me: No…? No, no, no, no! Stay right where you’re at. Maybe…tell me a little about yourself.

Luke: ….

Me: Luke?

Luke: ….

Me: Darn it! Right back where I started. I just can’t figure this guy out.

Luke: You really want to know about me? There was this one day at Death Camp when my cousin…

Me: Death Camp? Cousin? Those aren’t in the book I’m writing.

Luke: ….

Me: Oops, I mean, yeah, that sounds great. Tell me more.

Luke:

“Welcome to Death Camp. You have a 42% chance of survival. Please take your orientation packet and head directly to your cabin.”

The kid stood in the doorway like a deer in the headlights. Tattoos marbled his skin while a deflated army-surplus duffel bag hung over one shoulder. It took a second for Becca’s words to sink in. Then—predictably—he turned on his heel to flee the premises…and crashed chest first into me.

“Perhaps you could tone down the welcome,” I suggested to my cousin.

“Just saying it the way I see it, Luke.”

“Well, start seeing it differently.”

Despite our banter, my eyes never left the kid. I did, however, take a single step backwards so I could take in the entirety of his form.

He was early twenties, I guessed. Older than usual. And…. “Where’s Mommy?”

***

Intrigued? You can keep reading in my new anthology: Thirteenth Werewolf and Other Stories, which is free on Amazon today. It will be hitting other retailers at the end of November — I apologize for those of you who are being forced to wait.

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Shapeshifters: A History

A few weeks ago, I was thrilled to notice a talk on shifters being planned at my library. It turns out that local author John B. Kachuba had researched the topic extensively while planning out his new release — Shapeshifters: A History. I took copious notes so I could share his lecture with you!

Kachuba takes a very inclusive view of shifters, starting with cave paintings from thousands of years ago that seem to represent animal-human hybrids. While we can’t know what prehistoric people were thinking, modern studies of the Yukaghir people in Siberia suggest that these cave paintings might represent ceremonies in which shamans mentally transformed into animals to assist in planning hunts.

The natural successor of this belief is the Scandinavian berserkers from the eleventh and twelve centuries AD. Fighters donned hides of bears or wolves and, like the shamans of old, believed that they became as invincible as that animal in battle.

(To me, this has clear fictional potential. Berserker werewolves, anyone?)

Next up was Egyptian therianthropy. These human-animal hybrids were believed to inhabit statues. But, except for that small fact, they could have been taken straight out of modern urban fantasy. Isn’t it Patricia Briggs’ werewolves who can take on a wolf-man hybrid form for battle?

Greek and Roman mythologies were even more full of shapeshifters, with gods taking the form of bulls, swans, and many other animals. In most cases, the gods shifted to seduce women. (Because, you know, a bird is so much sexier than a human male….) In others, gods shifted mortals into plants to help the latter escape a similar fate.

Then Kachuba went out on a bit of a limb. He argued that there were shifters in the Christian Bible, starting with Nebuchadnezzar and possibly extending to Jesus himself. Similarly, he read Buddhist texts that suggested Buddha had transfigured at least twice. At which point Kachuba jumped over to Hinduism to mention Vishnu’s many forms.

Except for Nebuchadnezzar, all of these transformations were from human to human rather than from human to animal. But the religious history does beg the question — where do you draw the line about what counts as a shifter and what does not?

Religious hair-splitting aside, there have even been near-modern accounts of shapeshifters. For example, the Beast of Gevadaun killed more than a hundred people in one year in eighteenth century France. A New York Times article suggested that a werewolf was killing children in India in 1996. And modern vampire communities still exist in New Orleans and Buffalo, New York, with volunteers donating blood to “vampires” who believe they need this fluid to keep them alive.

(Kachuba included vampires in his shapeshifter history because of their reputation of transforming into bats.)

Our lecturer was starting to run out of time when he branched out beyond Western shapeshifters. But he did mention Navajo skinwalkers, along with the vast quantity of shifters included in Japanese lore. (If you’ve read my Moon Marked series, you’ve learned about one of the most common examples of the latter — the kitsune, a fox shifter.)

To Kachuba’s list, I would add some of the other historical shifters which have caught my attention in recent months. The selkie (seal shifter) has always fascinated me, even more so when I learned that Croatian lore has a werewolf version of this tale. (You’ll find out what I made of that in December!) Kelpies are water horses that transform into women. Naga are snake shifters in India. And some Chinese stories have humans shifting into the form of dogs.

But — why? Why do shapeshifter legends span so many cultures? Kachuba suggested a few possible explanations.

In my books, I often like to play with the dual nature of shapeshifters — animal vs. civilized human — and this may be the psychological root of some legends. But shapeshifting also offers us a way to hide, to understand personal transformation, to attain new knowledge (especially in shamanic beliefs), and to excuse bad behavior (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde style). There is also a trickster side to many shapeshifter archetypes, which may be related to some or all of the above.

Which, I know, sounds pretty esoteric when written out in the form of a list. But think of it this way — how did you feel as a kid when you dressed up for Halloween? Didn’t you, in some metaphorical manner, shift your skin?

The post Shapeshifters: A History appeared first on Aimee Easterling.

Moon Dancer: Chapter 2, Scene 2

If you missed it, click here to start at the beginning….

***

Afterwards, the students mobbed me with questions and effusions. But my wolf slid past so quickly her act bordered on rudeness. What did students matter when Claw was present? Without wasting time on apologies, we took the stairs to the back of the lecture hall two at a time.

All three werewolves rose as I approached them. The gesture might have been respectful, but it felt more like intimidation. I tensed, fully expecting a mean-spirited comment from one of Claw’s companions.

After all, Theta was dour by nature and Harry hated me because I’d lost him the job of presidential protector. Both were strong, hard, and capable. No wonder they found it frustrating to cool their heels in a small college town.

Claw was their alpha, however, so where he went they followed. Now, they let their leader do the talking for the group.

“Olivia.” Claw’s voice was as sweetly seductive as the cloud of butterscotch surrounding him.

“Claw.” I breathed the word as I relived our most recent conversation. For weeks, I’d avoided this werewolf who turned my inner beast unruly. But three days ago we’d all been invited to the White House for a formal thank-you from our President.

There, Claw had finally drawn me aside and forced the conversation I’d been trying to escape.

“What you and Val want,” he growled, “is an abomination.”

“I have to do this.”

“At least hunt with the pack one more time before you make a final decision.”

“I’m trying to cut that tie, not strengthen it.”

“You think starving your wolf will make her leave you?”

“I’m not starving her. I’m segregating her.”

“That’s the exact same thing.”

His eyes had said I was an idiot, but his mouth remained silent. We’d left it at that. Or I had.

Since then, Claw kept showing up just beyond speaking distance. In the cafeteria when I met with a student interested in a career in archaeology. At the edge of my vision when I walked home on a day too warm to be stuck in a vehicle. Outside my bedroom window just before I closed the shades for the night.

His silent presence should have been creepy. But Claw met my eyes, raised his brows, accepted my silent refusal to budge on my decision.

Rather than a stalker, he was a sentinel guarding a recently Changed werewolf. He disapproved of my decision, but he wouldn’t try to force the issue. Instead, he watched, waited, expressed his willingness to help if I lost the battle with my inner beast.

Now, he took a single step forward. His lips parted—for a kiss or a comment?

I never knew, because Claw’s languid grace shifted into alertness as his eyes flicked up and over my shoulder. Behind you, my wolf warned unnecessarily.

I whirled, taking in the grandmotherly form of Dr. Inez Sanora, the new department chair. She was one inch shorter than I was, her long gray hair twisted into an unremarkable bun. But her tone reminded me less of a fairy-tale grandmother and more of the big, bad wolf.

“When you have a moment, I’d like to speak with you.”

Apparently my joke about tomato juice hadn’t hoodwinked everyone.

Do you want to know what happens next? Keep reading in Moon Dancer!

The post Moon Dancer: Chapter 2, Scene 2 appeared first on Aimee Easterling.

Moon Dancer: Chapter 2, Scene 1

If you missed it, click here to start at the beginning….

***

The wolf had drunk with wild abandon. But she was a predator. Even while reveling in cow blood, she hadn’t closed her eyes.

So I was privy to the reactions of the audience. Surprise. Disgust. Bewilderment.

The cluster of archaeology faculty two rows back vibrated with consternation. This open-to-the-public lecture was meant to draw new students into our department. My actions would surely drive our existing students away to biology or math.

The Archaeology Club was more forgiving. My former-student-turned-teaching-assistant Patricia cocked her head as if waiting for the punchline. She whispered something to the blond freshman beside her. A cascade of nods fluttered down the line, ending with a pencil-stick drumbeat from the pimply boy on the end.

Between the two extremes, audience members I was unfamiliar with exuded pheromones that tantalized my wolf-assisted senses. Confusion. Excitement. The slick sweetness of fear.

I swallowed hard. Or rather, my wolf swallowed. We licked blood off our lips, raised our hand to wipe our chin, then sucked on our fingertips.

We didn’t try to erase the streak of red across the top of our formerly pristine blouse. There was nothing to be done about that so it was better ignored.

Instead, we turned to face the audience member I’d been avoiding, the only person my wolf was interested in. Claw.

He perched at the edge of a seat at the rear of the lecture hall, flanked by familiar werewolves. The others were were overlookable, but Claw was tall, broad, glowering.

Magnificent.

No wonder my wolf advanced a single step in his direction. Our joint body vibrated with interest. She acted for all the world as if—three months after Changing—we were still very much caught in the fickle attraction of the moon blind.

If so, moon blindness had its advantages. My animal half was so intent upon Claw that she forgot to fight me for control of our shared body. She didn’t notice when I grabbed her tail with intangible fingers and yanked.

I struggled not to gag as furry feet slid down my gullet and into my stomach. My eyes bulged as her claws scraped against the underside of my skin.

But now I was in charge and she wasn’t. Time to salvage the lecture.

“Blood,” I repeated, this time speaking my own mind rather than responding to the wolf’s yearning. “Blood was one of the binders added to rock powders to help colors adhere to cave walls.”

I plugged the HDMI cable into the side of my laptop, hit a button, then relaxed as prehistoric art glowed into life on the screen behind me.

“Blood-red ochre was used ceremonially for tens of thousands of years across several continents. Also known as iron oxide, the pigment was painted onto cave walls, used in ceremonial burials, and streaked across bodies, weapons, and animal skins.”

I dipped my fingers into the blood puddling in the indentation atop my collarbone, used the drying liquid to streak quick lines across my brow and cheekbones.

Now the cascade of red around me wasn’t horrifying; it was intentional. Was this how the first shamanism had started—klutziness saved from ignominy with a little stagecraft?

Warm air swirled around my nostrils. The audience was relaxing. As my faux pas faded, I segued straight into Patricia’s promised punchline.

“For hunters, blood was instantly familiar,” I continued. “Drop a caveman in this lecture hall and he’d know I merely spilled my morning tomato juice.”

Click here to dive into the next scene!

The post Moon Dancer: Chapter 2, Scene 1 appeared first on Aimee Easterling.

Moon Dancer: Chapter 1 Scene 2

If you missed it, click here to start at the beginning….

***

The faster I tried to button my white silk blouse, the more my fingers fumbled. No wonder since my nails kept lengthening into claws.

“Cut it out,” I muttered, grabbing my keys and wallet and stealing one quick glance in the hall mirror. I needed to be on time. I needed to look professional…

…And I needed to rebutton my blouse. Because, despite my best efforts, I’d still managed to mismatch the rows.

My day. My choice, the wolf inside me grumbled. She forced me to drop the car keys back into the bowl by the door then bent our body double until clean cuffs dragged against grubby floor tiles. Run. Hunt. Come, Adena.

The raven responded to our body language with a caw and a rustle of feathers, hopping off the coat rack to land on our curved spine. Both bird and wolf were willing to blow off the most important lecture of the semester in favor of stalking rabbits in the empty lot three blocks over. Unlike me, they had no concerns about losing our job and winding up homeless when we failed to pay the bills.

Wolves don’t need houses, my inner beast scoffed. Wolves need pack.

“How about blood?”

Hmmm?

The body she commanded froze, knees pressing against unyielding floor tiles. We sank back onto our skirted bum, the welcome mat managing to scratch our skin despite the fabric in between.

My wolf was listening.

“Hot blood,” I elaborated, pressing my index fingernail against the pad of my thumb to measure sharpness. The claw had receded but my human nail was longer than it had been when we’d started our morning power struggle. Still, my nails weren’t so claw-like that I’d have to rush back to the bathroom and clip them. If the wolf accepted our humanity, we didn’t have to be late.

“Salty. Tasty,” I continued. Testing my muscles, I rose into a more human posture. “Look.”

Flicking open the drinking spout of the insulated coffee mug, at first I smelled nothing. Then, my wolf’s interest piqued.

Colors dimmed. Scents sharpened. Saliva pooled in our shared mouth.

I hurried through the locking of one door and unlocking of another. But my wolf didn’t stay distracted long.

Now, she demanded as my hand made contact with the cool metal of the car door handle.

I tried to clench my fingers sufficiently to pull up on the lever, but my left hand was the one that moved without my permission. The mug lifted to my lips. Drink, the wolf demanded.

I couldn’t bait and switch, so I swallowed the thick liquid I’d bought in the butcher’s freezer section yesterday then primed in the microwave moments earlier. The notion of what I was sucking down repulsed me. The taste was vile.

The wolf disagreed. Pleasure suffused us. Was she or I the one being strengthened by the liquid some poor cow had lost while being processed into hamburgers?

The demand that followed was most definitely lupine. More.

“Once we get there,” I countered. This time, I managed to slide into the car so we could speed toward campus. It was only a three-minute drive and my lecture wasn’t scheduled to begin for another four minutes. I wasn’t yet officially late.

More! Furry fingers clenched around the steering wheel, swerving us sideways. The car’s fender narrowly missed a pedestrian, who yelled something I was glad was blocked by the closed window. Adena responded from the passenger seat with a round of avian swearing as I turned into the closest lot.

“We’re almost there.” I needed both hands to park and grab my laptop case, but I rolled my tongue around in my mouth to capture the final molecules of blood.

The effort was a sop to my wolf and she responded with a minuscule relaxation sufficient to allow me to exit the vehicle. Our knuckles were hairless—mostly. And I found myself able to juggle the mug and the laptop once Adena abandoned me in favor of her customary tree branch.

Sunny March weather meant the raven preferred to stay outside while I lectured. My wolf had similar inclinations. But the salty liquid on my tongue soothed her. She hummed her satisfaction as I swallowed one last particle of blood.

The bell tower chimed, knocking me off my stride. Shoot. I’d forgotten that my car clock ran two minutes slow.

Sprinting, I clung to the mug while rebuttoning my blouse and trying not to let the laptop strap bounce off my shoulder. The halls were empty. Everyone must have already settled into their seats.

I burst through the door, gazing up at the packed lecture hall. My eyes slid over the back corner, hiccuped as my wolf struggled for dominance.

She wanted to greet him. She wanted to lick him. She wanted to….

Squashing her interest, I moved on to assess the room professionally.

I was late, but the turnout was excellent. I could still make this appearance work.

“Ah, here she is now.” The new department chair turned to greet me, only a faint twitching in her cheek denoting her disapproval of my tardiness. “Please give a warm welcome to Dr. Olivia Hart.”

The clapping was effusive. I smiled then leaned over the nearby table, setting down my bag in preparation for hooking my laptop up to the projector.

And my wolf pounced.

“Blood.” Her words. My mouth. A titter from the audience.

Not now! This time I was the one speaking silently. She was the one grabbing the travel mug and upending it over our tilted face.

Ruby red liquid poured out the hole in the top, glinting in reflected sunlight before gushing over our tastebuds. Most we swallowed—after all, the wolf thought this treat was delicious. But some overflowed onto our chin, the table, the neck of our blouse.

White no longer, my work attire was now streaked with crimson. I glanced down, cheeks heating at the way blood puddled between my breasts.

This wasn’t how I’d intended my lecture to start.

Click here to jump to chapter 2!

The post Moon Dancer: Chapter 1 Scene 2 appeared first on Aimee Easterling.

Moon Dancer: Chapter 1 Scene 1

Are you ready for a sneak peak into Moon Dancer? This book probably won’t make any sense if you haven’t read Wolf Dreams. But if you’ve got book one under your belt, here’s a teaser to whet your appetite for book two.

***

It came as a dream but felt like a vision. A wolf’s face in beaten copper, hollows where the eyes should have been. The hand I possessed—broad, ornamented with a ring of twisted fibers—slid the wolf mask into a tightly woven basket that bobbed along the edge of a barely illuminated stream.

“…The old ways.” A male voice rumbled out of my chest. Quiet drumbeats almost drowned out our words.

Something clenched inside me. My wolf, sleeping until then, woke and clawed at my insides.

Pack. Find him….

This was no time for lupine nonsense. I pushed the wolf down, analyzing the artifact that was being released into an underground watercourse.

It was ancient. Even in the dim light, I could tell the mask had a story and belonged in a museum. Was it…?

Before I could fully formulate the question, the artifact was lost into the wild. Like a stick dropped into a stream to race against another, the basket leapt free of our fingers and jumped forward out of reach.

We didn’t try to stop it. Instead, we stood frozen while the roar of a not-so-distant waterfall was overwhelmed by a rising melody of chants and drumbeats. Weariness of age made our body tremble as the last flicker of copper disappeared into the darkness.

“Come,” the man murmured. His voice was querulous. “We need you.”

For one moment longer, we lingered. I couldn’t tell why the man whose body I inhabited wasn’t moving or who he’d been calling, but I understood my own intentions.

It had been months since I’d visited the past in a vision. No wonder I reveled in the connection. What was this man about to reveal to me? What would…?

We turned. Hit pause on a cell phone. The soundtrack halted mid-note.

Wait, what?

This wasn’t the prehistoric past. This was the technologically overpowering present.

I woke to the blaring anger of a long-ignored alarm.

Click here to dive into scene two!

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Summer reading list

Usually, it takes me several months to come up with a list of books I love and think you will too. But this has been a good reading season. So here are three werewolf books and a steampunk selection for your enjoyment.

My number one recommendation is Maria Vale’s The Last Wolf (and the sequel, which I thought was even better). The cover looks like such a run-of-the-mill shifter romance, but the story inside is deeply engrossing and unique. It’s beautiful in a way similar to Maggie Stiefvater’s Shiver, is steeped in Scandinavian lore, and is also lushly romantic. Do not start this book if you need to go to bed on time.

Again, the cover does this book no favors. But Alpha by Audrey Faye is a deeply engrossing story about a wounded pack and the young alpha who resolves to fix them. And it’s FREE to borrow with Kindle Unlimited.

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ll know there’s a new Mercy Thompson book out. This one wasn’t my favorite, but Patricia Briggs’ worst book is better than pretty much anyone else’s best. Of course, you’ll want to start at the beginning rather than diving straight into Storm Cursed.

Finally, if you’re willing to branch out beyond werewolves, Saving Verity is a steampunk mystery with a delightful scientist heroine and Druid detective. Again, this one is FREE to borrow if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited.

And if that’s not quite enough, I’ve also marked down my Wolf Rampant Trilogy to 99 cents this week only. Snag it while it’s cheap, and happy reading!

The post Summer reading list appeared first on Aimee Easterling.