Sunday, April 29, 2012

Six Sentence Sunday - Unholy Union



            Ash’s cool hands traveled up her thighs, rumpling her skirt and the concealing tablecloth ever higher until they gathered at her waist.  The white fabric of the tablecloth draped in heavy folds on either side of her hips, keeping her bared skin hidden.  Ash tugged at her, encouraging her to slide to the edge of her chair.  She felt him snuggle in close, pushing her legs wide apart to accommodate his shoulders.  Her sex clenched as his breath puffed high against her inner thighs.
            Elaine swallowed hard as one of Ash’s fingers hooked the crotch of her panties, shoving the fabric aside. 

Available from Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, and New Concepts Publishing

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Countdown: Prelude to Redemption...and the Book is on Sale!




Alien Interludes is up early.  Now available for sale at Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Smashwords!  Here's one last little excerpt to celebrate.

Before the events of Alien Redemption (Clans of Kalquor 6) unfold, I thought you'd like to meet its heroine and the man who pulled her from the ruins of Earth.   

            Sojan had expected to feel heroic, coming to an Earther’s rescue.  Instead he felt like a frightened child looking at the female.  This poor, destroyed wretch with a face of unsurpassed beauty.  He didn’t know if he wanted to weep more over her face’s unmarked perfection or the massive damage done to her body.
            Her skin was richer, browner, darker than his.  Where the tattered gray rags of her clothing showed her flesh, she was marked worse than any old battle-scarred Nobek.  She hadn’t been just beaten at some point in the past; she’d been tortured.  Some of the scars were raised black lumps on her mahogany skin.  Others were nearly white; slender stripes as if she’d been cut with a razor-sharp blade.  She was incredibly thin too.  Her ribs jutted plainly where her blouse rode up.  The tiny spokes of her fingers had disappeared in his hands.  He was average sized for a Kalquorian, but next to the Matara he felt like a giant.
            It was agony to look upon her starved and battered body.  He moved his gaze back to her unmarked visage.  Her black curls were clumsily shorn close to her skull, leaving her heart-shaped face bare.  Her lips were full, her cheeks rounded, her eyes large and liquid brown so deep they were almost black.  Sojan could have looked at this part of her for hours.
            It hurt to see such a lovely woman so badly harmed, so obviously terrified.  Her breath heaved in and out, a hurricane of emotion as her eyes strained to see him in dark.  Sojan was overwhelmed.  He was prepared for finding someone scared.  He would have been fine if he’d faced an Earther determined to fight him.  But this
            “You will be made better.  Your hurts will heal,” he babbled stupidly, hoping it was true.  “Good Kalquorian medicine will fix.  I swear it, Matara.”
He was no medic, but by the ancestors, he had to do something for her.  Right now.  He looked again at the prominent ladder of her ribs, pressing hard against scarred flesh.  “I have food.  You will eat.”
            At his last words, the woman made a dry, raspy sound, her mouth gaping wide.  She stopped trying to pull away, moving towards him instead with a kind of desperation. 
            Sojan pushed her blaster out of her reach with one foot before releasing her hands to pull an emergency ration bar out of the pouch on his belt.  She didn’t try to find her weapon.  Her freed hands waved, clawing at his chest as he peeled the protective sleeve off the bar.  He pressed it into her palm.
            She shoved the food into her mouth, tears pouring down her sweet, pretty face as she ate.  Sojan had a second bar ready for her when she finished the first.  And a third after that.
            As she ate the third ration, one of those claw hands patted its way up his chest, to his throat, his chin, and finally rested on his cheek.  Sojan blinked.  This was the traditional greeting from a daughter to a father on his world.  Then he figured out she was thanking him.  That brought another realization.
            The woman had not spoken a single word since he’d found her.
            “Matara?” he said.  “Earther?  You speak English?”
            She nodded, paused a moment as if confused, then shook her head.  She took her hand from his face to point to one ear, a tiny cup flat against her round skull.  She nodded.  Then those stick fingers went to her lips, tapped twice.  She shook her head.
            “You understand.  You do not speak.”
            Nod.
            “You speak no language?  You are mute?”
            Nod.
            Sojan swallowed.  “Because they hurt you?”
            Nod.
            It was too much.  His arms went around her, pulled the tiny, underfed, scarred body to his as if he would hide her forever, protect her from all further pain.  She stiffened for an instant then sagged against him.
            “I am sorry for your hurt, Matara.  No more.  You safe now.  Kalquor keep safe.”

Countdown to Alien Interludes: Sins of the Past


One more day!

This particular story featuring the characters from Alien Slave doesn't focus as much on the heroine as the rest do.  I was more interested in resolving the issues from the other damaged character in that story:  Imdiko Krijero.  When the Dramok who rejected him suddenly re-appears in his life, it happens at a most inopportune time.  Krijero is now forced to cope with losses from the past and present.

            Wynhod halted almost a mile down the road, his nostrils flaring as he stared at the ground.  A few of the rainbow-hued Joshadans were outside now, watching the goings on with polite curiosity.  For once, none of the three Kalquorians paused to offer respectful bows to the indigenous residents.  They were too focused on their missing Matara.
            “He carried her,” Wynhod growled, staring at the single set of footprints that led away from the road.  He began tracking, leaving the dirt street to jog between two residences towards the high grasses of the woods-pocked Joshadan plain.  Gelan had his handheld out, simultaneously following the Nobek while muttering urgently to his portable computer.
            “What is he doing with that handheld?  Shouldn’t he concentrate on tracking?” a rumbling voice said in Krijero’s ear.
            The Imdiko was so startled by Pertak’s voice that he stumbled and nearly fell.  Pertak’s hand caught him by the arm, steadying him.
            “Why are you following us?” Krijero snarled at him.  He jerked away as if the Dramok’s touch might burn him.
            “I thought I might be able to help.”
            Gelan paused speaking into his handheld long enough to show Pertak his fangs.  “We don’t need your help.  Wynhod and I are expert trackers.  Get the hell away from my Imdiko.”
            He turned away and resumed following the trail as if that settled it.  Krijero hurried to catch up.  Heavy footsteps behind him told him of Pertak’s determined pursuit.
            After all these years, why had the man turned up now?  And who had his sweet, beautiful Dani?
            A loud curse from Gelan made his heart speed up.  Then the Dramok halted and called, “Wait, Wynhod.  You need to see this.”
            Wynhod stopped and trotted back to his clan leader, and Krijero joined them too.  “What have you found?”
            “Big trouble.”  Gelan’s gaze looked behind Krijero, and he turned to see Pertak standing a few feet away.  “Come here, Dramok, and tell me if this is the man who took Dani.”
            Pertak lumbered close, keeping an eye on Wynhod, who was growling low and continuously at him.  Gelan pressed a button on his handheld, and a free-floating vid picture of a badly scarred and scowling Nobek floated in the air.  Wynhod’s growl cut off, and Krijero was amazed to see his fierce clanmate’s face pale. 
            When Pertak confirmed, “That’s him.  That’s the man I saw grab your Matara,” Wynhod roared, his usually attractive features twisted with fury and fear.
            “He’s supposed to be serving a life sentence!”
            Gelan’s hand shook only minutely, but enough to make Krijero’s anxiety edge towards panic.  “He was.  He escaped the Uswat Internment Camp six months ago.”
            “And no one warned me?”  Wynhod had gone from pale to purple in his rage.
            “I guess not.”  As hot with anger as the Nobek’s voice was, Gelan’s was brittle with ice.
            Krijero wrung his hands with mounting concern.  “Will someone tell me what we’re dealing with here?”
            “Wynhod’s encounter with this monster happened before we clanned.  Before we even met, in fact.”  Gelan put his handheld back in its pouch on his belt.  Wynhod was already tracking Dani’s kidnapper’s trail again.  “Nobek Hetra had always been an outsider, unable to function well with others.  He’d failed at one career after another.”
            “That happens with far too many Nobeks,” Krijero muttered.  A full eighty-five percent of Kalquorian violent felons were Nobeks, most of which were the loner variety.  Being a criminal psychologist, he was familiar with the issue. 
            “He kept getting into trouble.  Assaults, battery, that kind of thing.  His parents, one of which was an area governor, staged an intervention.  He killed them all in a rage.”
            Krijero’s stomach turned over.  Dani was in the hands of a madman.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Countdown to Alien Interludes: An Improper Proposal



The biggest complaint I heard about Alien Salvation was that readers wanted it to keep going.  In particular, they wanted to see sisters Lindsey and Jessica reunited.  You can all stop being cranky with me now.  It happens in this story.

However, I'm saving the reunion for the book release.  Allow me to introduce you to three special ladies instead.  As you'll soon find out, these are women you'd want in your corner (and heaven help you if you cross their sons).

            The greetings went on with people she’d already met via frequent communications, first during the year her clan had been on assignment on Earth then during the nine month trip to Kalquor.  Lindsey greeted her clan’s parents, all eleven of them.  Bacoj’s Dramok father had died when he was still young, so his was the only incomplete parent clan.  She found it amusing how much Vax and Japohn were like their mothers in looks and temperaments.  Vax’s mother Udi was as sweet natured and gentle as her Imdiko son, with soft waves of hair and finer features than most Kalquorians.  Japohn’s handsome mother Nenap, all six feet seven inches of Amazonian muscle with a head full of long, spiraling curls, seemed to glower suspiciously at everyone.  Had Lindsey not gotten to know Nenap over the long-distance coms, discovering she was just as fair minded and loyal as Lindsey’s Nobek mate, she would have been terribly intimidated by the Matara.  However it was Nenap who eschewed the Kalquorian mother-daughter greeting of pressing cheek to cheek.  Instead, she swept Lindsey off her feet for a delighted hug.  To the amused group she loud proclaimed, “Forget Kalquorian custom!  My daughter is finally home!”
            Bacoj’s mother Felac, whom Lindsey suspected was of the jealous mom type, was more reserved.  Her expression was friendly enough, but she lacked not only Nenap’s unbridled enthusiasm but also Udi’s quiet warmth.  Attractive with almond-shaped eyes and generous lips, her long black hair arranged in a tidy updo, she gave Lindsey a sedate greeting, briefly pressing cheeks on one side then the other. 
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Felac said.  Then she turned back to Bacoj, stroking his hair and clinging tight to her only child.  He looked a little embarrassed, but he put up with it with the patience Lindsey had grown used to.