Tag: free stories (Page 2 of 3)

Huntress Unleashed, Chapter 1 Scene 1

March 5, 2018 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

The grand finale of the Wolf Legacy series is now available and I’m about to regale you with the beginning below. But this has spoilers for the entire rest of the series! So if you haven’t read the other three books, I highly recommend you start with Huntress Born and work your way through in order. Enjoy!

***

“I can’t, Dad.”

“You can, Buttercup.”

Across the gleaming conference table, the room’s third occupant cleared this throat, the electricity of an annoyed and extremely powerful shifter permeating the air. But Wolfie and I both ignored our audience, leaning closer in a father-daughter noggin knock we’d perfected when I was a mere pup.

“I’m not saying I won’t try,” I elaborated for both of their sakes. “I will, of course. But Dakota will never let me onto her property, let alone into her pack.”

After all, the female in question was my precise opposite. Left to my own devices, I spent most of my time baking goodies to cheer up friends and family. In contrast, Dakota had been responsible for my cousin’s death, had slaughtered an entire compound of humans, and had taken my only brother into custody where he disappeared without a trace…all within the same week.

Unbeknownst to me, she’d also started selling large quantities of never-before-seen pharmaceuticals to dozens of innocent shifters around the same time period. As the region’s enforcer—the one in charge of making the rules, not breaking them—she might have gotten away with the trick, too…if she hadn’t spread out her net to include the clan I used to call my own.

For an alpha like Wolfie who lived by his duty to protect, finding out that two of his pack mates had become hooked on empathy-squashing medications must have been a punch to the gut. For the other male in the room, who was legally responsible for Dakota’s actions, the female’s power-hungry manipulations came as an even more personal affront.

So this time, it wasn’t just our obliviousness to his presence that brought our companion’s wolf into existence as a shadow beneath his human skin. Instinctively, I ducked my chin down tighter to keep my jugular inside my throat where it belonged. Only then did I close my eyes in total submission, hoping that what I couldn’t see wouldn’t kill me.

Dad wasn’t oblivious to the danger. Still, the entirety of his interest remained fixated upon his only daughter—which is to say, me. “You’ve been through enough already, Ember,” he said, offering me a way out while ignoring the quivering ball of rage at his elbow. “I know this. You know this. If you want to come home and let someone else solve this problem, no one will think any worse of you….”

Wolfie’s voice trailed off hopefully, but I merely pursed my lips and shook my head. No, I couldn’t leave Sebastien’s side, even if the professor didn’t want me present. And I also couldn’t let someone with fewer connections infiltrate Dakota’s pack, only to sit back and watch as the luckless spy failed at her unenviable mission.

The fact that I’d be forced to deal with overbearing alphas like the third inhabitant of the room during the course of my spying was irrelevant.

“I’ll do it,” I repeated when both males seemed to be waiting for a verbal reply. “The only problem is—Dakota and I have history. If I apply for a job with her pack, she’ll laugh in my face then boot me out the door.”

True or not, my words were apparently not what Albert Chamberlain wanted to hear. I’d learned the Tribunal member’s name when Dad introduced us at the beginning of this negotiation, but as the pall of dominance that had been pressing against my cheeks for the last several minutes darkened and deepened, I stuck to the initial assessment I’d made when meeting the older male via video chat two weeks earlier.

His name might be Chamberlain, but to me he would always be Scary Guy.

Now, my shoulders creaked beneath overwhelming pressure as the male spat out words intended to bring our discussion to an abrupt close. “Dakota will welcome you if I tell her to,” Scary Guy retorted. And that, he figured was that.

Want to keep reading? You can move on to scene 2 here, or download your own copy on the retailer of your choice.

In the meantime, maybe you’d like to spread the love with a share?

Macaroni Dreams

February 28, 2018 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

Having trouble waiting for Huntress Unleashed? I promise to regale you with the first few chapters next week. But in the interim, perhaps you’d like to learn a bit more about Sebastien?

Spoiler alert! This is set between books three and four, so probably best to read the first three books in the series first.

***

The Neighborhood.

As a child, Sebastien had always thought of the word as a proper noun. Capitalized. Unique. Unalterable.

Now, as his slick new vehicle cruised down grungy city streets, he realized this wasn’t “The Neighborhood.” It was merely “a neighborhood.” A place where hundreds of children lived the exact same lives of squalid desperation he’d extricated himself from eleven years earlier. All it had taken was calling in a hard-earned debt and faking his own death to claw free of a chrysalis that had nearly strangled him alive.

“So this is it?”

Glancing sideways at the speaker, Sebastien couldn’t help smiling despite the dark thoughts catalyzed by this return to old stomping grounds. Before Ember had insinuated herself into his life, he’d never seen a reason to return to the pit of drugs, guns, and treachery that had spawned him. But his partner believed in family and heritage. She’d asked endless questions about the Neighborhood, had begged to be shown around his childhood home and introduced to his estranged mother.

Little did this sleek, well-brought-up woman know what a mother from the Neighborhood was really like.

“Yep. We’re here,” Sebastien answered, pulling up to the curb and securing the parking brake with more force than was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t as if he didn’t trust the transmission to keep his car in place. Nor did he think the boys lounging on the corner would go after his ride—not after he’d flashed a gun and a curled-lip glare upon arrival.

Some survival instincts never grew stale.

No, he’d simply yanked up on the handle and listened to the creak of protesting gears to remind himself of the past. This was where he’d lost his childhood. From ages 0 to 18, this was where Sebastien had been parked.

***

There was no lock to stop residents, visitors, or random strangers from walking up the dark stairs of the tenement building. Which wasn’t to say the path was entirely hazard-free. A crunch of plastic splintered beneath Sebastien’s heel on step three and his hand jerked away from the railing further up after coming in contact with a slick stream of liquid. He’d promised not to kid himself about the reality of his former habitation, but he still chose to believe the slime was merely air-conditioner condensation rather than bodily fluids related to the used condom kicked against one wall.

Meanwhile, his unsullied hand tightened around Ember’s fingers. It was too much to hope that his girlfriend would overlook these signs of hard living. After all, she was a werewolf possessing stronger than average eyes and nose.

But she didn’t comment as they neared the third floor. Just asked: “Did you live here when you were a pup?”

“This very place,” Sebastien answered, trying not to remember the past as he led the woman he hoped would be his future down a narrow hallway toward his mother’s door. And, strangely, good memories bubbled up out of his cortex while feet traversed worn carpet. How had he forgotten dozens of sunlit afternoons spent stacking blocks by the window with the Hailey twins, how much fun they’d had rolling found marbles down the stairs onto the heads of unsuspecting passersby?

Adult memory had focused only on the twins’ unsavory reason for being ejected from their mother’s apartment in the first place. But now Sebastien recalled his childish envy of the next-door matriarch, who was industriously prostituting herself for the sake of her family rather than thrusting her offspring onto the landing so she could nurse a hangover in silence. His young friends had never gone to bed with faces bruised and bellies grumbling. Their mother welcomed them home at the end of her irregular shifts with open arms.

Now, as Sebastien paused in front of number 46, he heard where that love had taken his compatriots. A groan, a murmur, a forced giggle that didn’t really ring true. The happy Hailey twins had chosen to continue the family tradition, two smart and kind women stuck here in the Neighborhood while children of their own likely angled toward the same trajectory within the next few years.

In contrast, his own mother’s hatefulness had been the impetus Sebastien needed to flee his birthplace with no more than a college scholarship and an uncertain future to fall back upon. So maybe, in the long run, he hadn’t been so unlucky in being raised by Linda. Perhaps he’d won the parental lottery after all.

“Here?” Ember asked, brows rising as she interrupted his analysis of destiny past. Shifter senses would magnify the tiny gasps and vague tang of sex emanating from the other side of the thin wall, and Sebastien could only guess at the result. Could guess that Ember would catch every murmur of feigned passion, would smell the sweat and semen oozing onto dirty sheets….

Cheeks heating, he pulled the best thing that had ever happened to him a little further down the hall. Number 44—the spot where internet research suggested his mother still lived.

“No, here,” he answered. Then, forcing his hand to rise before he lost the last of his courage, he pounded loudly on the door.

***

“Who are you?”

Even at twenty, his mother had been no beauty. Now, having crested the hill of forty and started coasting down the opposite side, Sebastien barely recognized his sole parent behind the wrinkles and bloodshot eyes.

She, apparently, didn’t recognize him at all.

“The sluts are next door,” Linda continued, apparently having missed Ember’s presence in the patch of darkness where the hall light had burned out. Why exactly had he thought it was a good idea to put on a new suit and polished shoes for this first meeting with his mother in over a decade? To don clothes no one in the Neighborhood would have been caught dead in…unless, of course, they were strangers literally caught dead in a darkened alley after losing both wallet and life to thieving teenage riffraff.

Oh, right. Because he’d harbored some childish illusion that Linda would welcome him with open arms and be proud of how far he’d come. That she might take his picture and slip it into her wallet or paste it onto the fridge.

Knowing the joke was on him, Sebastien barely managed to slip his foot into the crack before the door could slam shut in his face. “Just a minute,” he told her, wincing as he recalled using those exact same words many years earlier in previous bouts of dewy-eyed optimism. It was understandable that his kindergarten self had hoped his mother would be proud of his hand-print turkey or macaroni collage. Less understandable why he was once again waiting for a different reaction than he’d gotten two decades before.

“What?” Linda demanded, her slurred reaction exactly the same as it had been when he begged for her attention as a child. But she didn’t struggle to press the door the rest of the way closed when he failed to respond verbally. Instead, his mother paused and leaned in closer until the scent of cheap booze made Sebastien’s breath catch in protest.

“Do I know you?” his mother demanded when Sebastien failed to elaborate upon his request. Her eyes were clearer than they’d been a moment earlier. And this time she did reach out, fingering the rich fabric of his bespoke suit.

“I’m so proud of you,” she could have said. “The clothes make the man.”

Only, the words that actually came out of her mouth were very different. “You can come in here if they’re busy next door.” And she rubbed up against his taller body with curves that still had the potential to sway a male libido…or would have, if the mark in question hadn’t been her son.

So that’s where I got it from. As Sebastien watched himself turn into a dollar sign in Linda’s eyes, he realized that his youthful ability to con soccer moms out of lunch money and sway teachers into failing to report unexcused absences had been a trait learned at his mother’s knee.

Was his adult job as a research psychologist merely Sebastien’s own way of carrying on the family tradition? Not so different from the Hailey twins after all….

If Linda had been lucid enough to understand the story, she might have found the comparison ironic. Or she might just pretend to find it ironic while bilking me of everything I own, Sebastien thought wryly as he pulled his foot out of the now wide-open door.

Coming here had been a mistake, and there was no reason to compound that error by stating his name and purpose. Sliding one arm around Ember’s shoulder to pull her in for a protective squeeze, Sebastien walked back down the hallway in the direction from which he’d come.

“Wrong door,” he called back without bothering to turn and watch the greed in his mother’s eyes fade into disappointment. “My mistake.”

***

“I’m sorry I asked,” Ember murmured as they reached the bottom of the stairwell. She’d been unaccountably silent ever since entering the Neighborhood, which Sebastien had initially taken for shock at surroundings that would have been anathema to someone raised in a nurturing werewolf pack. Only now did he realize that his soft-hearted girlfriend was beating herself up for suggesting such an ill-fated outing in the first place.

Little did Ember realize how freeing it was to relinquish a macaroni dream that never had a chance in hell of working out.

“I’m not sorry,” Sebastien countered, reaching forward to open the front door so Ember could precede him into the outdoors. And as she slipped into light and out of darkness, he realized that he’d been shockingly, abysmally wrong when he’d claimed that he had no family worth speaking of.

Because family was what you made of it. And if this pastry-baking werewolf held his hand, fought at his back, and laughed at his foibles, she was his family in every way that counted.

How could he have missed how wealthy he’d recently become?

***

Be the first to read Ember and Sebastien’s final adventure by preordering on any of the retailers below:

Rogue Huntress: Chapter 3

December 2, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

If you missed the first two chapters, please start here.

Unfortunately, our mate bond returned to its former state of noncompliance within the hour. I’d shifted back into human form as soon as we lost sight of the police barricade, but furless lips proved far less capable than lupine skin at bridging the chasm I’d recently created between myself and my mate.

“Can you tell me about Dakota? Is she a criminal, a loose cannon, or someone with full blessing of the shifter government?” Sebastien asked, his words more tentative than they had any right to be. Because he was my mate. He shouldn’t have had to nibble around the edges of these enigmas like a lone wolf seeking a hole in a clan’s defensive perimeter.

Still…. “I can’t,” I told him honestly, knowing even as I spoke that my companion would instead hear: “I won’t.”

The trouble was—the shifters hunting us would execute Sebastien if they thought he possessed even a fraction of the information I’d already let slip. Tonight, we were heading toward a safe house where we could rest and lick our wounds for the foreseeable future. But we could only hide out there for so long. Eventually, I’d need to reenter shifter society and Sebastien would go back to his ordinary life…at which point the professor’s remaining naivety might be the only armor protecting his tender human skin.

I couldn’t say any of that, though, without risking the precise ignorance I was trying to nurture. So we drove in silence for another endless hour, the sweetness of cake donuts gradually disappearing beneath the scent of my mate’s bitter frustration. And then, finally, Sebastien proved his tenacity by opening his mouth yet again.

“Ember, I know you’re tired,” the professor murmured even as he skillfully followed the GPS’s directions and turned onto the tree-lined driveway leading toward our final destination. “But sometime soon, we need to talk….”

Meanwhile, his hand drifted down to settle upon my bare knee, ruining any impulse I might have harbored to keep him safely at arm’s length. Warmth, contact, precious unity. When we were physically touching, I could almost believe that Sebastien and I might find a way to make this unconventional relationship work against all odds. Could almost believe that the professor’s lack of an inner wolf wasn’t an impassable hurdle too tall for me to overcome. Almost….

But then the SUV ground to a halt in front of a large white porch and my mate’s calloused fingers slipped aside so he could shift the vehicle into park. Reality asserted itself like a slap in the face and I peered down at my burner phone in an unlikely attempt to change the subject.

Not that I expected rescue from that direction. After all, Sebastien and I had ditched our own personal devices hours ago in an attempt to prevent both sets of pursuers from tracing us to our current lair. The only person I’d contacted using this replacement phone had been my father…

…Who, true to form, had performed the hazardous errand I’d requested of him with ruthless alacrity. “Dad found it,” I breathed, excitement revving up blood that had slowed to near hibernation levels as we approached a safe place to spend the night.

“Found your brother?” Sebastien demanded, interest in our previous line of discussion fading as he leaned forward to read over my shoulder.

“The key was under the egg compartment as expected,” Dad informed us. “Decoding Derek’s message now. More information to follow.”

Wolfie’s message was terse yet welcome. And, in response to the good news, the mate tether that had hung lax and ungainly between me and Sebastien only a moment earlier tightened up, relaying similar emotions emanating from the other end of the bond.

My mate was exhausted after spending more than twenty-four hours avoiding guns and bombs and dangerous enemies. He was understandably wary of the secrets I continued hugging to my chest like a miser. But Sebastien was also committed to finding and protecting my kid brother while keeping me close by his side.

So I hadn’t blown it after all.

Breathing easily for the first time in hours, I pushed open the car door even as the professor accepted our truce with equal willingness. He hefted our stolen rifle onto his shoulder and slipped out the opposite side of the SUV, mouth remaining blissfully shut in the process.

Sebastien was ready for anything and was willing to follow my lead even when lacking the explanations he so roundly deserved. Perhaps that meant I should trust him with information about our mate bond, if nothing else. After all, how could the Tribunal possibly expect me to keep secret a physical connection Sebastien and I already shared, one that impacted every step we took and every thought that filtered through our brains?

Later, I decided, acknowledging my own cowardice even as I succumbed to it. Then I led my mate out of the darkness and into the light, entering a building where the nation’s strongest werewolves forged deals and stabbed each other in the backs.

Our safe haven was, perhaps, not so entirely safe after all.

Don’t miss the rest of the story in Rogue Huntress!

Rogue Huntress: Chapter 2

December 1, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

If you missed chapter 1, please start here. Otherwise, keep reading to see how Ember and Sebastien deal with their police roadblock….

***

But we were given little leeway to worry about that worst-case scenario. Because the vehicle three cars in front of us pulled away with a grind of unhappy gears, leaving the uniformed female free to leapfrog her compatriots and stalk toward our waiting SUV. “Driver’s license and registration,” she demanded, eyes narrowing as she took in Sebastien’s nearly imperceptible hesitation to obey.

So Sebastien was aware of our current danger despite the dulling effects of hours of driving combined with a severe deficit of sleep. I relaxed back onto my haunches even as my mate hastened to fumble through paperwork in the glove compartment, giving the officer no further reason to doubt his good intent. “It’s right here,” he murmured. “I just need a minute to get it out….”

Meanwhile, a wordless plan filtered from my companion down our mate bond so clearly it might as well have been a movie playing in my mind. Sebastien planned to charm the cop, to charm her then to sidetrack her with…donuts?

I glanced down at the floorboards between us where a half-empty box of pastries lay tucked nearly out of view. Sebastien must have stopped to load up on sugar as I dozed away the journey. And while I appreciated his selection—all chocolate all the way—I didn’t see how rings of fried dough were going to get us out of this roadblock without relinquishing more information than we cared to divulge. Only in cartoons could cops be lured away from the scene of a crime with a donut dangling from the end of a homemade fishing pole….

I couldn’t guess at Sebastien’s end game, but the first stages were clear in my mind. My lap, he murmured silently, actual words coming down the tether this time around. And I obeyed without question. Wriggling between the steering wheel and the professor’s rock-hard chest, I stretched upwards to lick sloppily at my human partner’s stubbled chin.

To my surprise, the cop’s professional mask broke into a girlish smile at the display. “She’s a handful, isn’t she?” the female asked as Sebastien pretended to wrestle me aside in an attempt to reach the wallet sticking halfway out of his back pocket. I expected the policewoman to succumb to impatience as the two of us engaged in a dance so intricately intertwined that it might as well have been choreographed. But instead, the woman merely added: “How old is she?”

“Old enough to know better,” my mate grumbled, his feigned embarrassment enough to force a real whine from my lupine lips. But while my animal half cringed at the counterfeit reproof, my rational human side was beginning to get an inkling of Sebastien’s plan at long last.

Because there was a hint of canine tang to the officer’s nearby clothing. She owned pets—a neutered male and a spayed female dog if I had to guess. Which meant….

“How about we just start with your name?” the policewoman prodded, pulling out the computer I’d hoped would somehow manage to slip from her fingers and shatter onto the pavement before she got ahold of our registration. Half of me thought that a cute and cuddly “dog” could perhaps be forgiven for lunging forward and prompting precisely that chain of events, but…

…Donut, the professor repeated for the second time that evening. And now I understood what Sebastien wanted with sublime clarity. His plan was not only brilliant, it was also tasty. Given that perfect combination of metaphorical and literal good taste, I gladly moved to oblige.

Down onto the floor mat went my two front paws, up into the air went the top of the cardboard box, sliding into my mouth went the first donut out of six. Yum, chocolaty goodness, I thought, barking out a yip of crumbs and excitement even as I swallowed the sweet concoction in one great gulp. Donut, my wolf agreed, her voice silent yet smug.

And as my psychology-professor mate had predicted, the female cop was far less sanguine about the encounter than I was. Losing track of words, job, and even that dratted computer, the female nearly fell through the window in an effort to snag a collar that wasn’t actually present around my furry throat.

“A dog can’t eat chocolate!” the cop roared as she landed half in and half out of the vehicle.

The struggle that ensued was as amusing as it was edifying. Sebastien twisted and turned so artfully that he managed to come up with no more than a handful of fur despite the fact I hadn’t moved out of his way quickly enough to prevent being caught. Then I was scampering in seamless synchrony, scarfing down donuts until a mere dog would have required the fast action of a vet.

With every bite on my part, the female cop’s eyes grew rounder and her efforts to halt my feasting increased in intensity. “We have to stop her! Now!” the woman gasped.

Her elbow came in contact with Sebastien’s jaw as she struggled to catch the tip of my tail. And pain ricocheted down the mate bond so severely I froze for a split second to ensure Sebastien hadn’t been seriously harmed.

Luckily, the accidental contact had produced only a glancing blow…which hadn’t, I now noticed, prevented my mate from assembling an impressive array of props to finish setting the scene for our deception. Insurance and registration papers lay face up on the dashboard while a driver’s license had slid halfway out of the open wallet on the professor’s left knee. Together, the lineup of documentation proved we weren’t breaking any laws…but at the same time, Sebastien had made it abundantly clear that typing our data into one of those portable computers wasn’t going to be worthy of anyone’s time and attention.

To ensure the law-enforcement officer got the message, Sebastien cleared his throat and looked the policewoman directly in the eyes. “I just need to start driving,” he explained breathlessly. “Ember knows to settle down once I get the SUV into gear….”

For my part, I continued to wreak as much havoc as possible. Tearing into the cardboard box the donuts had come in, I chewed up a piece that did taste significantly better than it looked due to the saturation of sweets and oil. So that’s why the average dog continued consuming wrappings after running out of the food inside….

And maybe it was the cardboard that did it. Whatever the reason, our ploy worked at last. “Go,” the lady cop told us, stepping backwards without another glance at papers that would have blown our cover wide open. She waved us onto the shoulder so we could bypass the pickup truck parked in front of us, then called out a final word of advice as we rolled away. “The vet on Third Street is open until seven….”

“Thank you!” Sebastien answered, reaching over to settle his warm hand atop my furry forehead. True to the image filtering down the bond toward me, I’d settled obediently into the passenger seat as soon as the vehicle slipped into gear. Now, I smeared the passenger window with my nose as I barked a farewell to the trio of watching cops.

And that’s how my mate and I circumvented a police roadblock armed with nothing more than a boxful of chocolate cake donuts. Our weapon of choice—and ability to work in tandem—were almost unbearably sweet.

Click here to dive straight into chapter 3….

Rogue Huntress: Chapter 1

November 30, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

If you’ve been reading along with Ember’s adventures, I hope you’re as excited as I am to see what she gets up to in book three. But if you’re new, these chapters will definitely contain spoilers. So you’ll want to start your adventure with Huntress Born. Enjoy!

***

Shifter teeth, human blood, glints of ivory against ravaged skin. I woke, gasping against the restraints that snugged limbs tight against my body, only to find my lupine form swaddled by ungainly human clothing. The pants and shirt had fit perfectly when I first fell asleep and would again as soon as I….

“Ember, don’t shift back!”

My mate’s voice cut through the haze of returning reality, his deep tones underlain by the sweet scents of chocolate cake donuts combined with his personal bouquet of books, sandalwood, and wolfless man. Blinking watery eyes against the soft light of evening, I wriggled out of no-longer-useful clothing and came erect on all four paws in the passenger seat of my deceased cousin’s SUV.

Before us, three cops walked down a line of stopped vehicles toward us. A tough-looking woman, a guy so skinny he verged on emaciated, and the stereotypical donut eater. They didn’t look particularly menacing, but….

“Wolves or humans?” Sebastien asked, his voice filling with grim urgency. And despite the necessity to focus on current danger, the question sent me spinning backwards into a memory so vivid it might as well have been a continuation of my recent dream.

Blood sprayed across my body like the fine mist from a malfunctioning juicer, my cousin’s form disappearing within a maelstrom of spinning stones and chunks of ripped-apart asphalt. Sebastien slammed me into the ground to protect my fragile body. But my companion couldn’t block the sight of an exploding bomb taking out both a government compound and a family member I’d known for my entire life.

Meanwhile, on the other side of a thin line of night-darkened trees, Dakota’s pack howled a promise that no innocent bystanders would survive the ordeal. None except me and my not-quite-mate….

Not that Sebastien and I had been entirely innocent by the time we fled the scene of the crime. We’d slain four werewolves during the course of our own escape, and now both angry government agents and surly shifters were hot on our trail.

These advancing officers could be either or neither, another danger to overcome or merely one final roadblock on our path to a safe spot to spend the night. It was impossible to tell which while the SUV’s encircling metal cut off all outside air….

I whined and pawed at the side window, hoping Sebastien would understand my wordless plea. All day long I’d dodged his questions, this most recent descent into lupine form a symptom of my subconscious desire to shut out the relentless, if polite, interrogation that had flowed from the professor’s lips for hours on end. Going to sleep then donning fur had solved that problem at last. But now my lupine form meant I couldn’t communicate using much-needed human words. All I had was wolf skin and wide eyes that failed to convey the intensity of my distress.

Only, the fickle bond that had proven no more than a liability for most of the preceding day must have clicked into gear while I slept. Because glass slid down without the necessity of words and air whooshed in to fill the space around me. I inhaled deeply then sighed out my relief. Humans. Dakota’s lackeys hadn’t found us quite yet.

Unfortunately, my relief was short-lived. Even though no werewolves waited in the wings, these cops each wielded a hand-held computer into which they were keying other drivers’ identifying information. Unconsciously, my ears pinned back while a whimper emerged from my furry throat.

SHRITA can’t find out we’re here.

If given a choice between SHRITA and shifters, I have to admit that I would have chosen the wolves. Because government agents were remarkably effective despite lacking claws and fangs. They’d kidnapped my mate yesterday, had been implicated in the disappearance of my brother weeks before that, and might even now be hunting Sebastien if anyone managed to survive last night’s bloodbath.

SHRITA also possessed full access to police databases. As a result, I couldn’t let the professor’s driver’s license fall into these police officers’ waiting hands.

I tried sending that knowledge down the tether that tied me and Sebastien together. Tried…and failed as the phantom thread slipped away from my searching muzzle and disappeared into the void that kept us resolutely apart.

Sebastien might have been able to guess that I wanted the window rolled down seconds earlier, but he wasn’t receiving my far more important transmission now. And how could I expect him to when our mate bond hung as loosey-goosey between us as a pan of uncooked custard?

Want to keep reading? Click here for chapter 2.

Or maybe you’d like to help out by spreading the word on Facebook? Thanks in advance for your vote of confidence!

Incendiary Magic is now FREE!

November 5, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

Did you miss Incendiary Magic when the novella was in the limited-edition Fire Kissed box set? If so, you’re in luck! Fire Kissed is no longer available, but this intro to my Dragon Mage universe is now free on all retailers:

Happy reading! And if you enjoy what you read, I hope you’ll consider writing a review or telling a friend. Thanks in advance for your help!

Rogue Huntress: Cut scene

October 22, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

I’ve been doing a bit of slicing and dicing this week as I smooth my current work in progress into a more streamlined form. Usually, excised portions of a novel aren’t worth sharing because they were cut for a reason — boring! But this small flashback merely marred the flow, and I thought you might enjoy seeing it here since it won’t show up in the final book. Don’t worry if you haven’t read the rest of the series yet. Ember is looking back to a time before Huntress Born begins, so you won’t spoil anything with the read. Enjoy!

***

Sunlight streamed in large windows while my bare feet relaxed against the supportive chill of a well-maintained tile floor. When last I’d entered the Pinnacle kitchen, I’d been playing hide and seek with my now-deceased cousin, trespassing where I didn’t belong. The resident chef’s brows had risen as a much younger me slid into the cavity beneath the sink, and the long knife in his dominant hand waved like the swaying hood of a cobra.

“What is a pup doing here?” the shifter had demanded, a hint of alpha bite invading his tone. And even though no one else had initially noticed my approach, chopping and chattering now ceased throughout the kitchen as every gaze arrowed in on my huddled form.

“Hiding,” I whispered, less concerned about the chef’s thinly veiled threat than about my cousin’s imminent approach. Malachi had found me the last four times I’d been the pretend prey and he’d teased me mercilessly as a result. This time, I resolved to beat him at his favorite game no matter what it took. Which meant the chef needed to get off his high horse and quiet down.

“As well you should be,” the chef answered, misunderstanding my one-word reply. “Every alpha in the Pinnacle would eat you for breakfast then use your finger bones as toothpicks if they found you here. Skedaddle, pup. Go home to your mommy.”

The male finished off his speech with a broad smile, exposing teeth that had sharpened ever so slightly with the rise of his inner wolf. Both animal and man were enjoying this showdown, were looking forward to the first whiff of urine as I peed my pants in terror.

But I was the beloved child of Wolfie Young. There was nothing for me to fear even when surrounded by the strongest alphas the country had to offer. One high-handed chef definitely wasn’t going to get a rise out of me.

So I merely rolled my eyes as I spat out a reply intended to annoy. “Are you really such a bad cook that your customers have to eat little children instead? Maybe you should use a recipe next time.”

Triumphantly, I curled my lips back off teeth just as sharp as those of my opponent. And as undercooks and dishwashers gasped in surprise, Malachi ruined my moment of triumph. Slipping in the door, my cousin murmured, “Gotcha,” and watched me wilt back down to the pup I really was.

Now, my adult self shook off the haze of memory and pondered the irony of the now-empty kitchen before me. I was back in the Alphas’ Pinnacle, hiding away in the massive retreat complex’s kitchen once again. Only this time around, the alphas who had fondly overlooked my childhood games were hunting me with blood in their eyes.

Time, I decided, for cake.

First Blood

August 14, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

In fall 2017, I launched a new series that returns to a character from the Wolf Rampant series…twenty-four years later than when you saw her last. Ember is now all grown up and facing new challenges. But before you learn more about those trials and tribulations, I thought you might enjoy a story from the middle of the intervening period, when Ember is twelve years old and Wolfie, for the first time, flubs the job of fatherhood…

The door slamming, the disgruntled looks, the surly responses. Wolf Young — aka Wolfie, biggest baddest werewolf in the middle Appalachians — had known accepting the job of pack leader would be difficult. He just hadn’t realized his archnemesis would be his own daughter.

“I don’t see why you can’t just leave me alone!” Ember emoted. The preteen’s scent exuded pain, confusion, and sadness as she slipped out from under her father’s arm and rushed away into the night. What the heck? He’d only asked her if she needed any help with her homework.

“I think she needs a little time,” Terra — his mate — explained gently. “You know she can’t get into any trouble here in Haven. Come back to bed.”

So Wolfie obeyed…but he didn’t have to like it.

***

The next morning, the big, bad, overworked alpha blew off the pile of paperwork demanding his immediate attention and slipped outside in lupine form. Ember was only twelve years old, far too young to be drawn into a shifter mating dance. But if she was sneaking out to see boys, Wolfie intended to do something about it…something that involved ripping off arms and ensuring that certain males never touched his innocent offspring ever again.

Except his only child’s scent trail didn’t lead in any such direction. Instead, Ember’s mossy aroma drew the pack leader across the village green and around a corner until he stopped in front of the community dining hall. His daughter had snuck away at midnight…to eat scrambled eggs?

“Seen Ember around?” he asked the pack member in charge as he stalked in the open front door. Wolfie’s voice was scratchy from his recent shift back to human form but his eyes didn’t miss a single detail as he scanned the shifters cooking, eating, and having an all-around good time. Nope, no daughter here.

Acacia — an old friend and a loyal pack mate — ignored her alpha’s nudity and stopped swiping at a table top so she could join him at the door. “Your daughter’s been helping out here every day this week, but she left fifteen minutes ago.” The female paused, raised one eyebrow. “You know Ember’s virtually living in our guest room, right?”

Wolfie knew nothing of the sort. His twelve-year-old daughter had moved out…and he hadn’t even gotten a memo?

Sure, he’d been traveling a lot lately, trying to keep the neighboring packs from going crazy as they divided up formerly neutral territory among themselves. Meanwhile, his mate had been keeping the home fires burning in his absence…not so easy when Haven welcomed every lone werewolf who nosed around their borders despite the unfortunate tendency of the packless to rebel against even the slightest show of authority.

So he and his spouse had both been distracted. But how could they have missed Ember getting so upset she willingly chose to abandon their loving home?

“She’s an excellent baker and a good kid,” Acacia continued, placing a soothing hand on his shoulder. “She’s just figuring out who she is right now, and that means rebelling against her parents. Give her a little time and she’ll come home.”

A little time. Wolfie tried to accept the well-meant advice and put it to good use. But now that he’d noticed the chink in his family’s armor, that particular crack yawned wider by the moment until it turned into a gaping canyon separating him from the child who held his heart. He couldn’t let Ember slink off into the distance like a packless loner. He simply couldn’t.

***

So the big, bad, worried alpha continued tracking his daughter through their vibrant village. At the community garden, Wolfie was informed that Ember had been helping weed and harvest for the last three weeks…and that he’d just missed her today. A trio of boys playing basketball barely escaped Wolfie’s wrath when they explained that the mossy scent coating one male’s arm emanated from Ember’s competitive streak rather than from any amorous advances. His daughter had won the game of Horse…and despite that athletic side trip she was still ten minutes ahead of her doting father.

Wolfie wanted to be impressed by his daughter’s abilities for stealth when he lost her trail briefly in the woods. But, mostly, he was just growing more and more worried that the small splinter in his family’s happiness might actually turn out to be the source of an infected, gangrenous wound.

Plus, there was a scent of blood on the air now. Just the barest hint, as if his daughter had scratched her arm up against a sharp stick and ignored the wound. Still, the aroma was enough to raise Wolfie’s ruff and bring a growl up his furry throat. No way was his daughter going to be wandering around injured on his watch.

So he cheated. Pulling up the pack bond that provided information on every member of his clan, Wolfie tugged on his daughter’s thread…and soon ended up tracing her right back to his own front door.

Ember was home. Wolfie slammed inside without worrying about scratched paint or bent hinges. It was past time to put this silliness to bed.

***

“She’s in her room,” Terra greeted her mate as he walked inside. Then, glancing down at Wolfie’s dirt-streaked but otherwise naked skin, his mate added, “You might want to put on some clothing before you talk to her.”

Probably a good idea. Wolfie accepted a shirt and pants from his life partner, managing to drag on both while bounding toward his daughter’s room without pause. Opening her door without knocking, the placating words he’d managed to pull together on his descent from the mountain slipped right out of his mind as he was hit by a sensation that stopped him in his track — the overwhelming odor of large quantities of spilled blood.

“Buttercup, where are you hurt?” Wolfie demanded, pulling his daughter off her bed and patting her down with terrified hands. During his long, useless chase through pack lands, how had he managed to miss the magnitude of Ember’s injury? How could he have thought this death wound was merely a scratch? Some alpha werewolf he was.

“Ow, Dad, stop it!” the girl grumbled, wriggling out of his grasp. She moved easily, no signs of broken bones. And yet…was his daughter hunching over more than usual? Was she guarding an injured stomach from further attack?

A gut wound was seriously bad news, and Wolfie found himself falling to his knees at his daughter’s feet. “Ember, please. We’ll bring you to your Uncle Dale and he can fix whatever’s broken….”

Instead of answering him directly, his daughter merely rolled her eyes and raised her voice. “Mom!” she demanded. “Will you get Dad out of my room? And explain to him why I don’t need a doctor?”

But no one answered. Father and daughter paused, cocked their heads in mirrored synchrony, then together lifted their chins to sniff at the air. Terra had left the building. Wolfie was on his own.

***

Sighing, Ember squared her shoulders and opened her mouth. “You’re just going to nag at me until I talk, aren’t you?”

Nag? Big, bad alpha werewolves didn’t nag. But, at the moment, Wolfie would have agreed to anything coming out of his daughter’s mouth. So he nodded slowly and reached forward to take one of her hands between both of his own. Thankfully, she allowed the touch.

Still, Ember hesitated, turned her face away, shuffled her feet. The problem was evidently worse than he’d imagined. Could a twelve-year-old become pregnant? Had his usually pacific daughter started a war with another clan? Did she possess a gambling addiction that would draw mobsters to their door seeking immediate retribution?

Not a problem, Wolfie decided. He’d simply unleash his inner wolf and tear into the opposition until they left his family alone. Easy peasy.

Okay, so maybe he should try words first. So, gathering his courage around him, Wolfie tipped up his daughter’s chin until their eyes met. “Tell me.”

And then the words came gushing out. “I’m starting my period, okay? It hurts, and it’s yucky, and the boys can all smell it, which is so embarrassing I think I’m gonna die.” She sniffed, a lone tear rolling down one cheek and dripping off her chin. And for one split second, she was his little girl again, waiting to be drawn into loving arms that could heal all ills.

But then Ember’s eyes flashed in a way that was all woman, and she pushed Wolfie so hard he rocked back onto his heels. “Do you know what it’s like having hormones trick my wolf into thinking there’s danger around every bend? To have no control over my own shifts? It’s so, totally unfair that you don’t have to deal with this. I hate you!”

Then, rising, his daughter prepared to restart their earlier chase.

***

“Wait.”

Wolfie didn’t think the angry almost-woman would obey him, but she did. Pausing in the doorway, his little girl looked back with a scared, confused wolf barely hidden behind human eyes.

“You can’t fix it, Dad,” she told him, angrily, coldly. But she wanted him to. Ember so badly wanted her father to snap his fingers and change things back to the way they’d always been that her body leaned subtly forward, her fingers moving through the air in search of a thread that would pull them bodily into their shared past.

Well, that wasn’t happening. But Wolfie could instead propel them toward an even better future.

“I hear you’ve been in charge of the pastries in the dining hall lately,” he told her, rising to his feet more gracefully than he’d descended. “Care to show me how it’s done?”

Ember hesitated, weight shifting from foot to foot. He could tell she thought that he was scared of a little girl blood. She was pissed at him for changing the subject. But a chance to show off newfound skills — what competitive werewolf wouldn’t fall for such a trap?

For a second, though, Wolfie imagined he’d lost the gamble. Anger filled the air, along with the scent of fur that suggested an impending shift. But then Ember pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “What do you want to make?”

“Cupcakes,” Wolfie answered quickly. Then, remembering what his mate had told him about the cure to feminine ills, he added, “Chocolate cupcakes.”

Which is how a big, bad alpha werewolf came to be covered in flour and cocoa when a delegation from the least friendly neighboring pack arrived for an unscheduled meet and greet. But Wolfie wasn’t worried. Male tempers he could handle. As long as Ember was smiling, all was right in his world.

Want to see more of Ember and Wolfie? Keep reading with the Wolf Legacy series.

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Verdant Magic: Chapter 1

February 25, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

Verdant Magic is almost here! I know I’ve been teasing you for weeks. But how about one last preview — the entirety of chapter 1? (Unedited, so please excuse any typos that might have slid past my radar.)

***

Partly cloudy with chance of dragons….

The chime on her enchanted weather vane gradually pulled Amber out of her intense gardening trance. She absently brushed a strand of mousy hair away from her face with the least grimy part of her palm, then jolted alert as she took in the forecast.

Momma’s weather vane has been wrong before, she wavered. At her feet, fifteenth generation experimental seedlings were just beginning to grow, plantlets sprouting quickly as filaments of magic streamed from fingertips into the dark, moist loam. The babies were doing great…for the moment.

On the other hand, if left alone in this condition, half would be dead by morning. Pointy cotyledons would dessicate in hours beneath the pounding summer sun and hungry slugs would move in to chew up sensitive stalks as soon as evening dew fell.

But furthering her dead parents’ experiments didn’t hold a candle to protecting present human life. Ten years earlier, the weather vane had been horrifyingly, life-alteringly right and Amber wasn’t willing to risk a repeat. After all, it was her job as Watcher to make sure the village continued to slide beneath dragons’ fire-spewing radar.

“Jasmine!” she called, jumping to her feet. Fingertips left inch-deep imprints in the earth, the brief touch sufficient to recharge her mild use of borrowed life force. But the energetic boost was momentary, her elevated mood quickly overshadowed by the first sign that her weather vane knew what it was talking about.

Because as she turned to take in the view, every tree ringing the garden began swaying gently to the tune of a sudden breeze. In any other location, the influx of cool air would have come as a welcome relief, too. After all, helpful tendrils of wind sipped sweat off the back of Amber’s neck and soothed her parched throat.

Still, she ignored momentary pleasure and broke into a run. “Jasmine!” she called again, trying not to think about the way encircling hillsides prevented even the mildest air flow from dipping down into her protected hollow.

Even the mildest natural air flow, that was. Dragons, on the other hand, flew where they willed.

The rustle of dancing leaves above her head built into a thrashing chatter of branches, prompting Amber to give up on catching the teenager’s attention the easy way. Jasmine’s tie to the earth tended to make her absent-minded when surrounded by the Green. And here in Amber’s garden, the wild magic of growing things thrummed through the air and tapped them both relentlessly on the shoulder. Her young apprentice’s walls wouldn’t have stood long against such a sustained assault.

So her third shout wasn’t for the girl. Instead, she shrieked the name of her goat at the top of her lungs. “Thea!” she hollered, barely able to make out her own words over the ever nearing roar of wings.

The blood-curdling scream of a terrified mini-Nubian pulled Amber up short and turned her in the opposite direction from the way she’d originally been traveling. Thea wouldn’t have strayed far from the girl’s side, which meant Jasmine was no longer potting up seedlings out of battered plastic flats back at her cabin. Instead, the goat’s voice pinpointed the duo’s location off to the southeast, where one tiny tributary of the River Wend stroked its path through the center of her hollow’s hunched shoulders. There, the encircling canopy opened up to expose objects on the ground to the eye of every passing bird…or to the much more dangerous eye of passing dragons.

“Jasmine!” she called again, hoping the goat’s cry had been sufficient to wake the girl out of whatever earthen daze he’d fallen into. And, to her relief, the teen replied at last, her shrill tones carrying easily above the throbbing beat of the dragon’s thunderous wings.

“Amber!”

“Go home!” the latter ordered, stopping in her tracks so she’d possess sufficient air to broadcast her words a quarter of a mile mile to the girl’s youthful ears. The Green would help, she knew, vines twisting aside to let an earth witch’s orders carry. Still, she needed to holler and she couldn’t do that while running. “Tell your father to get everyone into the tunnels and to lie low until I call them.”

“But Thea won’t follow!”

Despite the danger that approached on massive wings, Amber couldn’t resist smiling at the girl’s care for her cherished goat. Of course Thea wouldn’t leave her mistress, even in the face of dragon fire. “She’ll come to me,” Amber yelled back. “Leave her and run like a rabbit. Go now.“

The girl would appear as a tiny spark of green to the dragon’s searching eyes, Amber knew. A largely untrained earth witch, Jasmine wouldn’t be able to shield her powers from aerial predators. She’d be easy pickings for anyone hunting magical prey.

Time to make a bigger spark so that little spark will have time to go to ground.

Abruptly, Amber sank down onto her haunches, pressing fingers into the leaf mold to join grubby toes that had long since burrowed into the musty, decomposing remnants of plant matter past. Immediately, microscopic fungal filaments latched onto her skin, the mycorrhizal hyphae slipping between cells of her cuticles to sip from her bloodstream.

The first invasion felt like the pinpricks of a thousand tiny needles. But then her flesh warmed and the pain faded.

When she’d been Jasmine’s age and first coming into her powers, Amber had deemed the symbiosis “gross.” Now, though, tapping into the underground network that connected trees and vines and toadstools felt like waking up from a long, deep sleep. After hours spent walking on two feet with only her human senses to guide her, she abruptly became the Green, thousands of miles long and aware of every fox and vole and turtle passing through her forest’s sheltered expanse.

As a result, she could sense the ache as dragon wings shook a faltering tree branch loose from the tall elm up on top of Cemetery Hill. And her teeth chattered at the crash of the sundered limb plummeting to land on a bed of clover inches away from her parents’ grave.

“You got them, but you won’t get Jasmine,” Amber muttered aloud. She’d thought she was talking to herself, but soft nostrils nuzzled at the scruff of her neck as Thea made her presence known. Crazy goat. Trust the food-obsessed ruminant to ignore dragons and instead search for treats down the back of her mistress’s shirt.

There wasn’t time to send Thea to safety, though. Not when Amber’s magical billboard was attracting the dragon like soft baby flesh drew mosquitoes.

Sure enough, the beast soared into view directly above their heads at that very moment. And for an instant, Amber forgot that dragons were terrible, the born enemies of earth witches. Instead, she momentarily lost her train of thought in breathless wonder.

This specimen was beautiful. Gleaming ebony in the sunlight, each scale was as large as the palm of her hand. A twenty-foot tail whipped through the air like a rudder, slicing leaves from the crown of a towering sycamore as he relentlessly honed in on his prey. Meanwhile, his slitted eyes gleamed with intelligence.

“Come and get me, you bastard,” Amber muttered under her breath. Not that she thought her words would carry above the roar of manufactured wind, but she had a hard time keeping the sentiment to herself.

Then, to her dismay, a second dragon appeared, golden-scaled and even more awe-inspiring than the first. This beast was nearly twice as large as the leader, and he seemed to vibrate with a barely repressed power that clutched at Amber’s chest with fiery claws.

Shaking her head to dismiss the strange sensation, Amber reminded herself that she had a job to do. She was the Watcher. And whether the invaders consisted of one dragon or a dozen, she was bound and determined to keep the predators away from Greenwich. Like her parents, she would protect the hidden village until her dying breath.

***

Zane had never felt so constrained by the shape of a dragon. Held aloft on fiery wings, he could chase and hunt the lost twin who stubbornly refused to recognize their bond. But his lungs could only roar wordless complaints as he flew. His usual weapon of choice — a silver tongue — was grounded by the same shape that carried him so effortlessly on his way.

All told, the golden dragon felt like he’d spent an eon tracking this brother who thought him an enemy rather than a friend. Years ago, he’d hunted lackadaisically, flying out on short jaunts that never turned up a sign of his absent twin….

Well, that wasn’t quite true. Once, Zane thought he saw a black speck of fleeing dragon off in the distance. But warm bed and welcoming foster family had beckoned after he swooped up over the top of the mountain and found nothing but blue sky waiting on the other side. He’d chosen to assume that his twin, if living, didn’t want to be found.

Then, last winter, everything had changed.

“Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.”

Jerking away from the painful memory, Zane eyed the snake-like body of the beast cutting through the air before him. His twin’s scales were rough around the edges, the ebony coloration a bit dusky and dingy with wear. Was scuffing a normal reaction to substandard food and shelter, or was his brother already succumbing to the first symptoms of the much-feared Fade?

“Dragons rise from ashes. And unto ash they all return.” Sarah’s voice quavered in Zane’s memory, his foster mother’s grief painfully apparent as she stepped across the gray line that marked the passing of a twinless dragon very much like Zane himself.

Then, later: “Promise me you won’t sit idly by, waiting for the Fade to hit.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” Zane had protested.

“Promise me.”

I promise, Zane repeated now, pushing an extra iota of fire out of his belly and into his wings. The warmth flooded through his system, expanding his torso and broadening the sail-like membranes that stretched out on either side of his sinuous length. Above his head, sun struck the larger surface, replacing the fire he’d consumed and providing an extra burst of solar-powered speed. Then, taking full advantage of the boost, Zane soared above his brother’s head and swiped one long-clawed hand toward his sibling’s throat.

It could have been a killing stroke. But the gesture was only intended to delay his twin’s headlong flight, not to end his life. Well, that…and to give the golden dragon a chance to deploy the ace in the hole clenched in his other draconic fist.

Unfortunately, his twin’s reaction times were better than his own. Twisting almost faster than the eye could follow, the black dragon turned belly-up, claws raking across Zane’s scaly skin until the golden dragon heard himself roar out a protest.

Icy agony ran down Zane’s neck as life-giving fire oozed out of the open wound. But for a dragon, no injury lasted long. Now, as always, magical fire healed as it fled.

Skin melded back onto skin and scales popped forth to replace the ones so recently sent plummeting to the ground. Within seconds the heartening burn of inner fire had replaced the searing agony of claw tracks.

Zane was now a few inches shorter than he had been a moment before, his body contracting as energy was lost through the rent of the open wound. But he was still more than a match for his scrawny sibling, who’d likely grown up eating rabbits and field mice instead of the five-course dinners that Sarah liked to whip up for her six little dragonets.

Well, four dragonets now. And we’re certainly no longer little.

Once again, ashes floated out of recent memories, clogging Zane’s nostrils and making it difficult to breathe. His quest had begun with ashes. And if he didn’t pick up the pace, it would end with ashes as well…for him and his brother both.

Worse, if the Fade struck many more times, the Green would overcome the towers that he and his foster siblings — and hundreds of defenseless humans — called home. I won’t let the Aerie succumb, Zane resolved. I’ll find a way to beat this disease if it’s the last thing I do.

No, he couldn’t risk falling to the Fade. And that meant his blood brother was going to have to toe the line and bloody well listen to what he had to say.

Still, it was hard to even consider shifting and speaking when locked into a twisting, plummeting mass of fire, scales, and claws with his brother. They were falling quickly now, neither able to beat his wings properly while latched onto his opponent’s skin. Soon, the grasping trees would stretch up onto their tiptoes and reach for the most hated enemy most of all — dragons, the sworn adversary of the Green.

But despite the approaching danger, Zane wasn’t willing to relinquish his grip. He had to force his brother to shift. He had to make him listen. There were hundreds of people depending on dragon-kind back at the Aerie. And without his twin, Zane would Fade away until he was no use to anyone.

Like his recently Faded foster brother, Zane might soon become nothing more than a puddle of ash.

Want to keep reading? Download a copy of Verdant Magic on Amazon today!

Dragon Mage flash fiction: Biological Clock

February 11, 2017 / Aimee Easterling / 0 Comments

Those of you on my email list may have already read this ultra-short introduction to the Change that spurred on the events of my Dragon Mage Chronicles. If not, I hope you’ll enjoy this peek through Sarah’s eyes…and will come back to visit with her and her dragonets in the subsequent novels.

I was selling clocks door to door when the vines appeared out of nowhere, rolling down the street like a crowd of kindergartners streaming out of school after the final bell tolls. I’ve lost my mind, I thought, squinching eyes shut and smoothing down my pencil skirt.

Perhaps it was hitting forty while lacking all potential reproductive outlets, but everything had started looking like babies lately. So when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t surprised to see that something else had materialized in front of the approaching tide of green.

Yep, that really was an egg approximately the size of my overweight tom cat.

I took a tentative step closer, ignoring the screams that emanated from the other end of the block. A vine crept up the closest telephone pole, ripped wires free to spark against the ground.

I jumped, but stood my ground, staring fixedly at the tiny hole in the side of the golden orb. A beak pushed flakes of metallic shell aside one by one until a line of darkness nearly encircled the blunt end of the egg.

Then a beady eye peered out at me, watery with effort and hope.

My gut cramped with the realization that this was my baby. Okay, sure, so there were scales covering that emerging snout. Claws on the tiny feet scrabbling against the opening. And wings tucked tight against the being’s sodden back.

But, species aside, I was cradling the infant in my arms before I fully realized what I was doing. I was cupping it against my breast, not caring in the least that birth goo was ruining the breast of my favorite blouse.

I expected the dragon to struggle. After all, it was a wild animal…or a wild something. But there was intelligence in the tilt of its head. And as its chilled limbs warmed against mine, I could have sworn an emotion passed between us.

Understanding. Fellowship. Love.

Then fire streaked past my neck, singeing a vine that had crept upward while I was otherwise occupied. Ten more seconds and that plant would have strangled both me and my baby alive.

They were everywhere. Covering the pavement. Latching into my pantyhose. Standing up under their own volition and swaying like cobras as they attempted to reach the dragon in my arms.

I was no botanist, but I could clearly identify mean plants, ugly plants, and homicidal plants. Worse — every single one of those suckers wanted my baby dead.

“How about a little more flame?” I coaxed the dragonet. But safe in my embrace, it had already fallen sound asleep.

An overgrown rosebush took advantage of my distraction to reach for my wristwatch. I was almost out of time.

Time. Wait a minute. The floral invaders weren’t growing randomly. They were fixating on electricity.

Ignoring the grasping tendrils, I knelt and opened the case in which I kept my wares. Simple clocks, fancy clocks…ah, there we go.

Pulling out the device parents loved to hate, I powered it up. Flashing lights and whirling colors promised to teach infants about clockwork. As best I could tell, it mostly mesmerized the young and terrified the old.

Like babies, the vines were stupefied. Taking advantage of their distraction, I cupped my baby closer to my chest.

Then, leaving the destruction behind us, I ran.

Not ready to leave Sarah’s world? Meet her dragonet Zane, all grown up, in Verdant Magic.

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