Wounded, Volume 1

by Amy Lane

  And he had been fine, Arturo thought mournfully. Throughout the years, the number of Adrian’s saved had mounted to the hundreds. Grace had been one, although it had been cancer that almost killed her and not drugs. He had been fine, and good, and in the way we tend to minimize the qualities of our own family, Arturo had waited until the last days of his wayward brother to tell him that he was a good leader—and a good man.

  So here was Leah, Adrian’s last saved, if one didn’t count Cory, and she was stretching her werepuma muscles as bait.

  Arturo was nervous. He wished like hell for a cigarette, a habit he’d picked up when he came to this country. He was sidhe, a god, and his body didn’t form demeaning addictions—but that didn’t mean his fingers didn’t twitch inside his pockets. Leah was barely older than Cory, and he didn’t want her hurt. He took a deep breath and scanned the surrounding area one more time, thinking “hawk.” No hawk replied.

  This alone was a problem. Arturo had a thing for hawks, since he had once been the condor god, and although that was long ago, and he had given up the ability to change into a condor when he’d left his native land, he still had the ability to talk to them. As a result, they tended to populate Green’s land and the surrounds fairly heavily. If there were no hawks around, something was definitely amiss. And if things larger than hawks were swooping down on the heads of your werecreatures, events were more than amiss—they were in chaos.

  They’d fended off several attacks already—and captured the attackers—so things were most definitely in chaos.

  And he just plain missed the hawks. They had been like little cousins when they’d been allowed to thrive. In his spare time, he would sit in the sun during the spring and fall and watch the hawks play on the wind.

  Of course, he mused bitterly, he very possibly missed Grace even more.

  He was a god, he thought again irritably, but it was no use. Grace had been amusing at first—foulmouthed, quick-tempered, well-read on everything from Elizabethan poetry to how to fix a motorcycle engine. But it hadn’t been until he’d seen the way she mothered Adrian and Green that he’d really started to love her.

  The sidhe of South America tended toward brutal autonomy. No one wanted to share godhood, so a sidhe rising from obscurity had to either kill the more powerful beings around him or go find a place to rule alone. That had been Arturo’s intention when he’d come to North America. The Yunwi-Tsunsdi of the Native Americans had dwindled with the humans they’d come to depend on, and North America had been ripe for the plucking. Arturo was tired of watching his humans get massacred by the rich, or by the careless, or by themselves. North America, he’d come to believe, would be more stable, and had so few fey that he’d be able to come in and rule where he ruled.

  That had been his plan until he’d met Green.

  He’d first seen Green when he’d driven his classic baby-blue Edsel up Green’s driveway. Green had been working his garden, casually throwing out power like a father would throw a slow softball to his child, and Arturo had actually smiled at the lovely, lovingly crafted gardens that had been carved out of this inhospitable soil and climate. He’d hidden the smile as he climbed out of the car and bowed stiffly to Green, announcing his intentions to take over as the reigning sidhe of the area.

  Green had blinked, then smiled and offered a hand. “That sounds like a hard task you’ve set yourself, friend,” he’d said equably. “Why don’t you come inside, have some food and wine, and tell me why it’s my land you want, yes?”

  Arturo had gotten drunk, although any sidhe would have said arrogantly that this was impossible, and had enjoyed Green’s company very, very much, because the other elf had a dry wit and a sharp mind and a surprising fierceness when his own people were threatened—and in spite of himself, Arturo had warmed to the sidhe who was supposed to be his enemy. He’d woken up the next morning in a bed full of very satisfied wood nymphs who, they had confessed, had learned how to bed a man from Green himself, and he had asked himself if, were he in charge, he could possibly make a better, safer home than the one Green had.

  The answer had been no and Arturo had stayed on, but as Green’s lieutenant, and not once had he wished for Green’s status or his power. Twenty years later, when he saw Grace with all her surprising fierceness caring for Green and Adrian, he had found himself falling for her hard as he couldn’t fall for Green and Adrian. It didn’t matter. Grace was everything he loved about his home, and his leader, and the young man he’d thought of as a son.

  Feathers and wind interrupted his thoughts, and he nearly turned into a tree (one of his remaining powers) in his quest for instant quiet.

  Leah, whose senses were nearly as sharp as a human as they were when she wore fur and claws, heard that sound and smiled to herself, giving her long dark hair a careless flip and knowing it would come.

  A hawk larger than a hawk came shrieking out of the sky, talons extended, ready to take out Leah’s throat. Closer it came, closer, and Arturo was almost screaming with fear for the girl when, between heartbeat and breath, too late for the bird to stop its dive, she changed into a giant, black-furred snarling predator who gracefully dodged the bird’s dive and with careless ease knocked the bird to the ground with a massive paw. In a bound, Leah was on top of the hawk, her jaws locked around its throat but not penetrating feathers and skin. Arturo was by her side almost before she had stilled.

  “Nicely done,” he told her, and she wrinkled whiskers and fur around the burden in her mouth for what passed as a feline smile. In an easy hop, he straddled the bird and pinned its wings with his knees.

  “Now listen up, my friend,” he said conversationally, pretending that the bird wasn’t struggling furiously. “You have two choices here. The first is that we can keep fighting and I will have to break your neck, and that would be too bad because I like birds. The second is that you change yourself, and we go back to my basement and you join your fellows, and we give up this idea of attacking my people, because it doesn’t work.” His voice rose in exasperation, because the damnedest part of the struggle was that it wasn’t working. So far, Green’s people had sustained negligible injuries and Arturo had captured four furious Avians. Of course, that didn’t count the missing hawks that had fled the property from the larger predators, but Arturo was fairly certain they’d come back when the Avian threat had cleared.

  The Avian shrieked again, loud enough to bend metal, and Arturo remembered enough about being a bird to shout a warning to Leah. In a ten-foot standing leap, she bound upward into the air and came down hard on the soft-brown feathered mate to the hawk in his arms. The mate had been streaking toward both of them in defense of her male, claws extended and murder in her eyes, and Leah—working on adrenaline instead of planning—landed on top of her neck, which then bent sharply when the bird’s head was driven into the ground. They landed with an ominous crunch, and Arturo’s heart fell.

  “Aww… damn it…,” he said and looked over to where Leah was nosing the still body of the giant bird and emitting little growl-whines when it didn’t move. Slowly, oh so slowly, it turned, and there was the body of a brown-haired woman who had been beautiful in life but now was only pitiful, lying on her stomach with her head cocked at an unnatural angle and her eyes wide open as her body fought for and lost its last breath.

  The bird beneath him shifted and changed, and the voice that came from the fully clothed human beneath Arturo was anguished, devastated, and bereft.

  No man, vampire, or elf could have stood still and heard that cry without being moved.

  With a sigh, Arturo moved his knees from the fallen Avian’s arms and was too saddened to be pleased when he didn’t struggle to escape but stayed, face buried in the frost, and howled his grief.

  “Was it worth it, my brother?” Arturo asked softly, not expecting an answer. “Was it worth it, to follow a false promise of power?”

  The man only howled again and sat up to his haunches, then sank, weeping, into the frosty ground. His hand reache
d out and made a helpless, stroking gesture toward the dead woman, and then he sobbed again.

  Arturo sighed. Grace might know what to do, he thought, but that was probably because he missed his lover and wanted to lose himself in her and away from this sadness. The truth was that he needed Green. Goddess, did he miss his leader. They had four already, held prisoner in the basement, away from sunlight and wind and pining to death. He had a house full of weres—mostly feline—who were just dying to sink their claws into these giant nuisances and maybe munch on a little California-fried werecondor as well. And now he had this one, bereft and heartbroken, and he had no idea how to comfort him. Green could do it. Green would do it well, Arturo thought, frustrated with his own limitations. No one understood heartbreak and the will to live like Green.

  But he wouldn’t trouble his leader with this, not today. Grace called him every night, and he knew how to lead well enough on his own. But, Goddess, did he pray, every minute, for Cory to come back to Green, and Green to come back to his hill where he belonged.

  Coming in 2015

  Bound

  Vol. 1 & 2

  Little Goddess: Book Three

  By Amy Lane

  Humans have the option of separation, divorce, and heartbreak. For Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick, sorceress and queen of the vampires, the choices are limited to love or death. Now that she is back at Green’s Hill and assuming her duties as leader, her life is, at best, complicated. Bracken and Nicky are rivalling for her affections, Green is away taking care of his people, and a new supernatural enemy is threatening the sanctity of all she has come to love. Throw in a family reunion gone bad, a supernatural psychiatrist, and a killer physics class, and Cory’s life isn’t just complex, it’s psychotic.

  Cory needs to get her act and her identity together, and soon, because the enemy she and her lovers are facing is a nightmare that doesn’t just kill people, it unmakes them. If she doesn’t figure out who she is and what her place is on Green’s Hill, it’s not just her life on the line. She knows from hard experience that the only thing worse than facing death is facing the death of someone she loves.

  Loving people is easy—living with them is what takes the real work, and it’s even harder if you’re bound.

  http://www.dsppublications.com

  Coming in 2016

  Rampant

  Vol. 1 & 2

  Little Goddess: Book Four

  By Amy Lane

  Lady Cory has carved out a life for herself not just as a wife to three husbands but also as one of the rulers of the supernatural communities of Northern California—and a college student in search of that elusive degree. When a supernatural threat comes crashing into the hard-forged peace of Green's Hill, she and Green determine that they're the ones in charge of stopping the abomination that created it. To protect the people they love, Cory, Bracken, and Nicky travel to Redding to confront a tight-knit family of vampires guarding a terrible secret. It also leads them to a conflict of loyalties, as Nicky's parents threaten to tear Nicky away from the family he's come to love more than his own life.

  Cory has to work hard to hold on to her temper and her life as she tries to prove that she and Green are not only leaders who will bind people to their hearts, but also protectors who will keep danger from running rampant.

  http://www.dsppublications.com

  About the Author

  AMY LANE is a mother of four and a compulsive knitter who writes because she can’t silence the voices in her head. She adores cats, Chi-who-whats, knitting socks, and hawt menz, and she dislikes moths, cat boxes, and knuckle-headed macspazzmatrons. She is rarely found cooking, cleaning, or doing domestic chores, but she has been known to knit up an emergency hat/blanket/pair of socks for any occasion whatsoever, or sometimes for no reason at all. She writes in the shower, while at the gym, while taxiing children to soccer/dance/gymnastics/band oh my! and has learned from necessity to type like the wind. She lives in a spider-infested, crumbling house in a shoddy suburb and counts on her beloved Mate to keep her tethered to reality—which he does, while keeping her cell phone charged as a bonus. She’s been married for twenty-plus years and still believes in Twu Wuv, with a capital Twu and a capital Wuv, and she doesn’t see any reason at all for that to change.

  Website: www.greenshill.com

  Blog: www.writerslane.blogspot.com

  E-mail: amylane@greenshill.com

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/amy.lane.167

  Twitter: @amymaclane

  Also from DSP Publications

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  In a world where a werecat virus has changed society, Roan McKichan, a born infected and ex-cop, works as a private detective trying to solve crimes involving other infecteds.

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  http://www.dsppublications.com

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  Who knew that a summer thunderstorm and his lost little boy would conspire to change single dad Cayce D’Amico’s life in an instant? With Luke missing, Cayce ventures into the woods near their house to find his son, only to have lightning strike a tree near him, sending a branch down on his head. When he awakens the next day in the hospital, he discovers he has been blessed or cursed—he isn’t sure which—with psychic ability. Along with unfathomable glimpses into the lives of those around him, he’s getting visions of a missing teenage girl.

  When a second girl disappears soon after the first, Cayce realizes his visions are leading him to their grisly fates. Cayce wants to help, but no one believes him. The police are suspicious. The press wants to exploit him. And the girls’ parents have mixed feelings about the young man with the “third eye.”

  Cayce turns to local reporter Dave Newton and, while searching for clues to the string of disappearances and possible murders, a spark ignites between the two. Little do they know that nearby, another couple—dark and murderous—are plotting more crimes and wondering how to silence the man who knows too much about them.

  http://www.dsppublications.com

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  Dreamlands

  By Felicitas Ivey

  The Trust and its battle-hardened recruits are fighting a horrific war, a war between the humans of this world and the demons of the Dreamlands. In this shadowy battle, Keno Inuzaka is merely a pawn: first an innocent bystander imprisoned and abused by the Trust, then a captive of a demon oni when taken to the Dreamlands.

  But oni Samojirou Aboshi treats the human with unexpected care and respect, and the demon only just earns Keno’s trust when a team from the Trust arrives to exploit the Dreamlands’ magic.

  As the war spreads across both worlds, Keno is torn between them. If he survives, he faces a decision: go home and carve out a new life under the Trust’s thumb... or stay in the Dreamlands and find freedom in love.

  http://www.dsppublications.com

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  Back to the Dream

  By Felicitas Ivey

  Dreamlands: Book Two

  Although Inuzaka Keno has found freedom and love in the Dreamlands with oni Samojirou Aboshi, the war is still raging between The Trust's battle-hardened recruits and the demons of his new home. While cloaked in shadows and magic, powerful people are using Keno, Aboshi, and their Lord Tamazusa as pawns in
a deadly plan to rule both worlds.

  They're not alone: soldiers Mason, Wolf, and McGann—Keno's friends from The Trust—also find themselves embroiled in the battle spreading through the Dreamlands, involving its other lands and cultures. If they're to have any chance to survive, Aboshi will have to leave his love to protect him, and Keno will have to find the power within himself to live on without his heart.

  http://www.dsppublications.com

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