Category: Short Fiction

Post-Shift Stress and You’re Not At Your Best

Stitch2 Comments

Mercy is one awkward, itchy mess of a queer werewolf. But… it’s working for her. Somehow.

Notes: This is set four months after Girl, Get Wrecked and is goopy fluff written for @zrhueiao on twitter! Thank you for your patience – as I was sick as heck and pretty much incapable of focusing for the past uh… like 10 days at least. (It was also called “Howl If You’re Happy” but uh… I’m repurposing that tile for something extra queer.)

This floof inspired about three different potential (and similarly queer) spin-offs that don’t all involve queer werewolves but do introduce you all to a new member of the Selkie Squad. (And one is a short and supremely NSFW story directly inspired by this that will be up this weekend on Dreamwidth.)

Most of the time, Mercy likes being the only werewolf on St. Thomas. There aren’t any petty pack politics or the kind of hierarchy that she’d left the States to escape – considering that she was firmly on the bottom back home. Outside of the selkie squad and the were-tiger that she’d scented on a day trip to Puerto Rico, there aren’t that many shifters on the island that Mercy has come to call home.

In essence, she’s the alpha of the island.

Wild.

But being the alpha, a lone wolf on an island where everyone is a part of one close-knit community or another –

Isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Especially after the full moon.

Read More »
Advertisement

The Trouble With Trips – Asra and Katan

Stitch

Note: This is set a few months after Breaking and Entering‘s sequel-in-progress, but the only real spoiler for what I’m writing is “blink and you’ll miss it” tiny. Unless you didn’t guess that Asra and Katan would be in a relationship the next time you saw them… This story was originally on my now-deleted Patreon page.

The Trouble With Trips - Asra and Katan

Asra and Katan share their fears. The trouble with trips is that sometimes, it’s hard to get the person you want with you the most to travel.

border

“You don’t have to come with me to the train station,” Asra says as he watches Katan tie back his silvery white hair in the mirror. “I can walk there as easy as anything and it won’t take me too long to find my train.”

Katan’s mouth twists with a frown before he arches one sleek eyebrow.

“The last time you said that, you wound up sending me a letter from the Sellsail Islands saying that you took the wrong ship and weren’t anywhere near Marran,” Katan points out with a dry note to his voice that makes a blush burn in Asra’s dark cheeks. “Forgive me for worrying that history might repeat itself again.”Read More »

Breaking and Entering – Original Fiction

Stitch1 Comment

Notes: This original fantasy (almost romance) story has been in the works for a LONG time and I’m happy that I can finally share it with you all! The gorgeous art pieces in this post are all parts of a commission that I got from my awesome friend Vi (who also did lovely concept art of my two boys) who is super sweet and talented!

 

Breaking and Entering

Asra has spent much of his life alone, traveling across Anatea in search of the home he never had. On an unplanned return trip to the capital city’s God Quarter, Asra finds himself taking shelter from the rain in a seemingly abandoned temple. When Asra meets the god whose temple sits gathering dust in a lonely part of the God Quarter, he isn’t expecting much beyond a swift kick in the rear. He certainly isn’t expecting that he might finally find the home he’s always wanted to have.

❧❧❧❧Read More »

The Bride’s Choice – Original Fiction

Stitch2 Comments

the-brides-choice-graphic

Promised to a being that lives in the waters between her village and the rest of the world, a young woman walks to what will surely be her doom.

❧❧❧❧

I walk until I see the shoreline, the hem of my white wedding dress turning darker and darker with every step that I take dragging it through the mud and silt that line the path down to the sea.

Every single step that I take reminds me that I am not doing this for myself. I am not striding towards my death and doom because I want to find myself carried away or crushed by whatever it is that lives in the murky waters between my village’s land and the outside world.Read More »

Breaking and Entering – Birthday Art and Story Snippet

Stitch1 Comment

img_20161025_132107

My darling and talented friend Vi (who I’ve commissioned to draw art for this story because she’s GREAT) surprised me with a super cute birthday sketch of Asra, one of the main characters  in my short story “Breaking and Entering”.

Not only did she give me permission to share this sketch, but also an early piece that she did of Asra and Katan when getting a feel for the characters. So now, y’all can see what my presh babies look like before the story eventually goes live! Please join me in basking in Vi’s amazing art and how beautiful she’s made my babies because WOW!

Under the cut is the aforementioned art as well as a snippet from the main story.

Enjoy!Read More »

Laundry Day – Comet City Stories

Stitch1 Comment

 

laundry-day

On her first day of actual, licensed superheroics, young speedster Pix comes to a startling realization about her chances of surviving once she goes head to head with a super-powered criminal that thinks nothing of smacking her down like a fly.

 

Pix is going to die.

It’s her first day of actual, licensed superheroics and she is going to die before she even gets a chance to use her League discount card to buy a cup of coffee at the nearest Sundollars. What freaking luck.Read More »

Supervillains (No-So) Anonymous – Comet City Stories

Stitch

Comet City Supervillains Not So Anonymous

Every single person in the room shifts their chairs to the side with a cacophony of screeching, squeaking, rubber and metal on linoleum when I walk in to this month’s Supervillains Anonymous meeting in the basement of one of Comet City’s many rec centers.

I don’t blame them. I know what I look like, who I am. Nearly six feet tall with dark brown skin and purple scales spattered like paint across it, I look just normal enough to pass as entirely human. At least until I open my mouth and people get a look at my fangs and forked tongue and remember that some snakes are poisonous.

But then, what else could anyone expect from someone that used to be Mama Mambo’s prized protégé, Viper?Read More »

Lamplickers – Original Fiction

Stitch2 Comments

Moth @ Night
Image from here on Flickr. 

Note: “Lamplickers” is a colloquial term for “moth” that I grew up hearing in the US. Virgin Islands. Additionally, this story was previously published on Patreon for my patrons.

Plink.

Plink.

The lamplickers down on the island always swarm around the house when it gets dark outside. At least, they’ve done this on some level on every night in the week since I moved into my late grandparents’ house overlooking heart-shaped Magen’s Bay.

Drawn by some unfathomable instinct, they fling themselves at the windows of my room as if their weight alone will shatter the shutters and let them in. Some of them don’t survive. They ram into the window with so much force that they leave streaks of dark fluid smeared across the glass as their tiny bodies drop to the ground.

Sometimes, early in the morning when the sun has barely peeked over the top of the walls, the neighborhood chickens and sparrows eat the half-squashed bugs before the stray cats try to rush them in turn. The gardener, when he comes by hours later, will clear up the rest.

For now though, at night, the lamplickers keep coming.Read More »

The Pup – Original Fiction

Stitch2 Comments

Killer Whale

Kabi didn’t mean to adopt a killer whale pup.

Note: A shorter version of this piece was originally hosted on Patreon!

Kabi didn’t mean to adopt a killer whale pup.

She’d been swimming several leagues from the village, chasing her own tail in lazy circles as she kept an eye out for any predators too pumped up on hunger to realize that a selkie was an entirely different creature when compared to a seal.

And then, she saw it it.

The shadow of a massive whale gliding just above her head.

At first glance, Kabi was quick to assume that it’s a narwhal, one member of the playful pod that often hung around her people. Then, she noticed the lack of a horn and, shortly after that, the rounded, black and white body that reminded her of the dolphins that the slimmer, sleeker selkies in the South Seas often played with.

At the sight of the killer whale, Kabi’s body locked up as fear sped up her spine.Read More »

Lovecraft Puncher

Stitch6 Comments

Enjoy this silly little short about an eccentric billionaire who has commissioned the development of a time machine specifically so she can go back in time and punch H.P. Lovecraft in the fricking face.

At first, when I lay out the full extent of my plan and what I want to do when we take the time machine out for its second spin, my team doesn’t know what to make of me.

You’d almost think that they hadn’t been paying attention every single time I mentioned why I needed a time machine built in the basement of my manor.

“Let me get this straight, lady,” Casey says, her dark brown eyebrows quirking upward. “You sunk billions of dollars into researching and building a time machine just so you could go back in time to punch H.P. Lovecraft in the face?”Read More »

The Kelpie in the Canal – Original Fiction

Stitch1 Comment

Note: This was first posted up on my Patreon page in December. (For folks who follow me here and subscribe to my Patreon, there are minor differences between what y’all got and this version because I went through and edited it again for this post.)

The Kelpie in the Canal

At first, when Danae sees the horse in the canal, she thinks that she’s dreaming.

The horse is huge and dark in the faint thread of light reflected on the water. When it takes a laboring step forward, vines and thick wiry ropes tug at its blue-black flesh.

Danae flinches, fingers tightening their hold on the tote bag slung over her shoulder.

The horse makes a sound like a scream, head tossing back and forth as it fights against the things binding it and threatening to haul it back into the murky depths of the canal.

At first, Danae doesn’t move.

If she’s dreaming, she’s still at her cramped desk in the back of the store and there’s nothing that she can do.

And if she’s awake, there’s a horse wading in a South Florida canal.

What can she do in that case?Read More »

Supervillains (Not-So) Anonymous – Patreon Reward

Stitch

For my darling Patrons ($5 and up) , this first short story for the month is about a (sort of) reformed supervillain who attends her first Supervillains Anonymous meeting and winds up getting in between a heavy hitter and a newbie who can’t help running off at the mouth.

Contains: mildly violent imagery, a non-binary secondary character

It’s in EPUB, MOBI, and PDF formats!

Hope y’all enjoy reading!

LINK TO PATREON REWARD POST

Snippet under the cut:Read More »

To Market, To Market

Stitch1 Comment

Market Square

— To market, to market, to buy a plum bun/ Home again, home again, market is done.

Maren walks two steps behind the governor’s wife on their way through the market near Fort Christensen, standing near enough to hear the older woman call her name, but not so near that anyone would assume them to be closer than they were. While she may only have been working for the new governor’s wife for a scattered handful of months, she already feels as if she understands the other woman.

When Regine pauses in front of a stall selling vegetables and fruits from local, small farms that used to be part of bigger plantations, Maren stops at her right elbow, head tilted as she raises the basket holding the woman’s coin purse in case there’s something there that the woman wants to purchase.  Read More »

The Kelpie in the Canal – Now Up On Patreon

Stitch

The Kelpie in the Canal.png

At first, when Danae sees the horse in the canal, she thinks that she’s dreaming.

This is one of the stories that is going to show up in my fantasy collection sometime in the early parts of next year. Set in South Florida, along the same stretch of road that I would walk along when coming home from student teaching, this story is set to be humorous with an edge of intensity.

Hope you all enjoy reading the story!

 

This story is available only to monthly Patreon subscribers at the $5 level for anyone interested in reading the story and supporting me in my endeavors as a writer. It comes in .PDF, .MOBI, and .EPUB formats so that you can read on whatever device you want!

Don’t know from nothing – Original Fiction

Stitch1 Comment

Originally posted on Tumblr on September 28, 2013.

After closing, Naeem’s bodyguard Malachi arrives at the café to deliver plenty of harsh words for Josie along with her clothes for the evening. Later, Josie gets the rug pulled from underneath her feet when Naeem introduces her to someone that truly shouldn’t exist.

Ricky’s closes at half past six.

By the time that Josie finishes stacking chairs and sweeping the floors, the sky outside is dark and everyone else has gone home except for Ricky himself who lives upstairs in a heavily warded apartment.Read More »