No harm done. The spectators hadn’t found it odd or suspicious, which meant it was a normal human activity. Pleased with her deduction, she settled back, ready to relax and enjoy the scenery.
Tali rapped on the thin glass window. “Do I hear music?”
Jake clicked a button on the shelf between the seats, and the window sank into the door with a whir. Strains of instrumental music accompanied by a man’s rich vibrato drifted through the opening. The fountains soared higher into the air, mirroring the music, and crested above the lake. The humans standing on the sidewalk applauded.
The air breezing in smelled of metal and smoke and grease. She inhaled, exhaled. The music sounded like the symphony at home, but larger. Not many fairies were musically talented, but the ones who were received much acclaim. “That’s a fine tune. I can see why they like it.”
She leaned her chin on her hands and stared at the water arcing over the heads of the crowd. Perfectly lovely! She wished she could admire it more closely, but dawdling wasn’t a good idea at the present time.
She knew her punishment would be intense, but she had no intention of returning until her time was up. Her jig was jagged, so she might as well enjoy it. This would be her only chance to explore humanspace and advance her knowledge of blending fun firsthand. The game of cat-and-mouse with the Elder might even make things more exciting.
Speaking of exciting, she peeked at Jake under her lashes and thought about the kiss. The electric exchange of tongues and heat. The silken feel of his hair under her fingers. She was here to learn new things, right? To blend? A conversation with her sister about the sexual prowess of human males echoed in her mind.
It wasn’t as if Tali never planned to have sex, but it was difficult to relax when one’s partners all had political ambitions. Wedding a twosie guaranteed a higher position in Realm society. Even wooing a twin could boost status. Desire for advancement drove her suitors, not desire for her. Ani enjoyed the attention, enjoyed working through The Thousand Kisses, a series of mating rituals designed to enhance one’s chances of bonding, but the posturing, and the lack of actual affection, bored Tali to tears.
Fairies never knew whom they’d bond with, or if they’d bond with anyone. It was so...arbitrary. What if she ended up with a fellow she didn’t even like? Casual sex that could result in permanent bonding wasn’t something Tali had been inclined to try.
Jake, on the other hand, didn’t care about the status involved in courting a twosie. Didn’t hope they’d join forever and ever. Had no idea she was anything besides a tourist and a woman.
She was fairly certain he was aware of her as a woman.
“How much further is it, Jake?” Maybe she’d ask him to stay in her hotel room tonight.
Jake glanced at her. His hair gleamed in the low lights of the car’s interior. Their car idled behind others in front of the waterworks. His dark clothes blended with the seat that cupped him, and the half-smile at the corner of his mouth fascinated her. No men she knew had that twinkle in their eyes or those perfect laugh lines. Drakhmore clan members were dark like him, a little scary, but Jake Story didn’t scare her. Exactly.
“A couple miles, but this traffic’s pretty bad. So what are your plans? What else do you want to do while you’re here?” he asked.
She hid a smirk and wriggled deeper into her cushioned seat. “I want to attend a water park, look through a humble teley-scope, surf on the Internet, visit the White House, shop at a supermall and see baseball.” She wanted to do the things normal humans were lucky enough to do every single day. She wanted to know how human technology had replaced magic and what it would be like to live here permanently. She wanted to know more about Jake Story and why he made her tingle.
“There’s a water park at the end of the strip called Wet ‘N Wild. I take my cousins’ kids when they visit. Malls are everywhere. The White House is across the country.”
“I was testing you.” Tali could never remember how far things were in humanspace. The land the fairies inhabited in the Realm didn’t correspond to the continent here. “What about a humble teley-scope to see the stars? I read about it in HumanWa…”—oops!—“a science magazine.” Tali waited to see if Jake would catch her slip.
He didn’t. “There’s a planetarium at a community college nearby. Their telescope is nice, though. I wouldn’t call it humble.”
“Baseball and surfing?”
“No baseball, but we have an arena football team called the Gladiators. As for the Internet, you can check it out with any computer. That’s not very exciting when you have a whole city to explore.”
What else did she want, besides to kiss Jake again and run her fingers through that silky hair? “Oh, I want to see Chip and Dale.”
“The cartoon?” The traffic around them moved. Jake edged the car forward, and the bag around the mirror swayed. The music from the dancing waters faded into a babble of pedestrians and car horns. Humans young and old milled on the sidewalks.
What was a cartoon? She’d overheard the ballet praised by two female researchers. “They’re dancers. The Chip and Dale ballet.”
Jake pinched his lips together. “I see. Those Chip and Dales.”
Born to protect women’s hearts, her own beats longingly for a mortal. Oops…
Oh Goddess
© 2009 Gwen Hayes
Ondina, one thousand years a goddess, doesn’t think much of mortal men. Probably because her sole purpose in life is to protect the hearts of women who don’t want to fall in love. And now one of those blasted men—Jack—has shattered her sacred chalice, trapping her in a mortal body.
Jackson Nichols, on the partner track at his law firm, is the first to admit he always follows his head. Never his heart. Dina is infuriating, messy, condescending, sexy, beautiful and…well, just about everything that doesn’t fit into his meticulously planned life.
Neither expects to find many redeeming qualities in the other. But when push comes to love, which will Dina choose? Her newly human heart…or one thousand years of duty?
Enjoy the following excerpt for Oh Goddess:
“In you go, Goddess.”
The mortal held open the front door to his home and gestured her in. Ondina sauntered through the threshold, but not before glaring at him. She also held back the great desire to stick out her tongue at him.
Humans were strange creatures, especially the male ones. She did not much care for being thrust into his caretaking, though she saw the wisdom of it. Until she was able to return to her own realm, she needed a guide for this one. Males had their uses. Or so she hoped.
She appraised his living area—black and steel, sleek lines and little color but for a few pieces on the walls. She ran her finger over the divan made from the skin of an animal. She doubted he had killed it himself. He was more a scholar than a hunter, yet he seemed to maintain strong masculinity. She had no doubt he attracted a fair amount of female admirers. Once again, humans were strange creatures, after all.
Ondina wandered to the wall at which he had set up an altar consisting of a large screen and several lit up boxes. Apparently, he prayed to the Gods of Technology. She faulted him not, for she also very much liked the noises and pictures from those boxes. She surveyed the devices with keen interest. Perhaps he would instruct her on their use.
Just thinking of asking him for assistance made her snarl. He had barely spoken to her on their journey here; his jaw had been set as if cast in iron. She rolled her eyes. Obstinate male. And every time he called her “Dina” her fingers clenched like bird feet on a branch. It was worse when he called her “Goddess” though. No reverence in his voice—in fact, the opposite. He may as well have been calling her “Nuisance”.
She opened her mouth to say something demeaning to him, just for fun, when a hideous noise emanated from her middle and she felt a sharp, gnawing pain. “Mortal! Quickly! There is something wrong.”
He looked unamused. “Yes, Your Highness?”
She shook her head and grabbed his hand
, bringing it to her own middle. “Something growls. It hurts here.”
He laid his hand flat on her belly. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I have not. Are you insinuating that I ate a small, growling animal?”
He chuckled. “No. I am insinuating that you are hungry. What do goddesses like to eat? I’m afraid I’m all out of fresh peeled grapes.”
“So, the growling signals hunger?” She would remember that for next time. Besides, to eat would be such an adventure. She’d wanted to try flapjacks since she had saved a young woman’s heart on the Oregon Trail.
He led her to the kitchen and motioned for her to sit. “When you win the Oscar someday, I guess I will be glad I played along with this. You must be very popular with the drama club.”
She sat on a stool while he began meal preparations, accepting a goblet of what he told her was wine, but not before she smelled it for poison. She swirled it, enjoying the look of it in the glass.
Ondina studied him closely. His hair was black as night, but his eyes as blue as cornflowers. He moved about the kitchen with lazy grace, not lumbering like some fool men she had seen. She supposed he was handsome, therefore dangerous. She wondered why she had never been invoked by a woman wanting to protect herself from him. It would certainly necessitate a strong magic.
They didn’t speak while he cracked eggs into a bowl. He wasn’t snipping at her anymore, but it unsettled her more that he did not. She did not like to be ignored. She watched him a few minutes more.
“Tell me, mortal…” She stared at him thoughtfully. “If you do not believe I am here by way of magic, why are you preparing a meal for me? Why am I not on the grass of your lawn with a bruised tailbone for my troubles?”
He was stirring the mixture over the heat. “I suppose I’m wondering what you’re really about. My sister certainly believes you, and she is generally trustworthy.” He plated the eggs and set one plate in front of her as he came around to take the stool next to hers. “I just don’t believe in conjuring and goddesses and magic bottles.”
She regarded her eggs carefully and then took a bite. “I am enjoying the eating. I should like to try a bubble bath next. Do you possess the potions to make it bubbular?”
“Bubbular?” he repeated, and then shook his head. “I suppose I could make your bathwater bubbular.”
They ate the rest of the meal in silence.
He poured them more wine and gestured to the living room. “Ondina?”
“Yes, mortal?”
He sighed. “I have a name you know.”
“How pleasant for you.”
She shrieked a bit when the goblet he thrust at her dribbled onto her hand.
He sat next to her. “Tell me why Rachel turned to spells and witchcraft.”
He looked perplexed, and her heart pinged. Just a little. It would take some getting used to, this human heart.
“Rachel is very intelligent. She is also very dedicated to her studies. She will be a fine healer someday.”
“I know that. Tell me the part I’m missing.”
Ondina sighed. “Men. Boys. Neanderthals.” His face was not yet registering understanding, so she gulped the rest of her wine and stood. “Love.” She paced the room. The subject always agitated her. “She was falling in love. She was falling hopelessly in love with one of your kind.”
“Is he a bad guy or something?”
“He is a he.” Imbecile. What more was necessary to make him a “bad guy”?
Jack stood up and blocked her path. “I’m all for Rachel finishing school before rushing into any serious relationships, but being male doesn’t equate him with being evil.”
“Does it not? Are you so sure?” She folded her arms and looked him square in the eye.
“Dina, it sounds to me like you had a really bad relationship, and you’re trying to scare my sister off men.” A subtle change came over his face as an epiphany dawned across his features. “You’re an angry lesbian, aren’t you?”
She shoved him out of her way. “Do you even know what eviscerate means?”
Ondina stomped back into the kitchen, poured the last two drops of wine into the glass and growled with frustration. She opened the door of the cold storage and removed another bottle. She stared at its closure while eyeing the opener on the counter. How in the worlds would that open this? It made no sense, surely they could have come up with an easier way to open a bottle. Maybe she should throw his chalice into a wall and see how well he liked it.
The mortal followed her into the kitchen and held out his hand for the bottle. She snorted and handed it to him. Condescending ingrate. How frustrating. Especially when he opened the bottle with ease and poured them each another glass.
“Sorry about the whole lesbian thing.” He handed her a glass. “It was very tactless of me. You seem to bring that out in me for some reason. Why don’t you tell me why you hate men.”
She pursed her lips and cocked her head. “I do not hate men. Why ever would you think that?”
Jack blinked at her. “Just a hunch. The word eviscerate comes to mind.”
“My purpose is to protect the heart of a woman, not to hate men.” She wrinkled her nose. “I just happen to find most of them to be daft.”
“You have a point. I must be daft. I just made scrambled eggs for a crazy woman who thinks she is a goddess, I’m getting ready to run her a bubbular bath, and it looks as though I’ll be putting her up for the night.” He shook his head. “Until a few short hours ago I led a very well-ordered life, you know.”
She holds the key to unlock his past—or unleash hell.
Love’s Alchemy
© 2009 Ciar Cullen
Sidra Patmos has the ability to see the real underbelly of lower Manhattan—a horrifying world where wraiths, demons and a few quirky mortals battle for supremacy. Desperate, she seeks out a paranormal researcher to tell her why her life is a waking nightmare.
Instead of answers, her meeting with the dark and irresistible Van Barlowe unleashes a chain of events far more dangerous than her blackest visions. And a desire she can barely manage to hold at arm’s length.
After three desperate centuries, Van has finally found the Alchemist. Sidra. Somewhere locked deep inside her lies the knowledge that will rescue his family from ruin. The only way to reawaken her abilities is to hold his enemies at bay long enough to convince her to step through the mists of time.
Redemption waits there, and a timeless bond ignited by the undeniable pull between them. The missing ingredient: Sidra’s willingness to risk that Van’s attraction runs deeper than sexual chemistry…
Enjoy the following excerpt for Love’s Alchemy:
Sidra sat on the bed and thought about the intense longing for Van that pulled at her, longing older and deeper than possible in the few days she’d known him. She rubbed her palm across the shades of brown silk artfully covering the enormous bed.
“I think he’s still in love with you, Van. I think part of me feels his pain, his fear, his excruciating need for you. I don’t think it died with his body.”
“You finally believe, then?”
Sidra nodded. Since her vision of the past, the evening before, tiny flickers of memory beckoned to her, but she’d been pushing them down. She lay back on the bed, closed her eyes, and with a quick prayer for protection, opened herself to the realization that she was really remembering another person’s life.
“Do you remember any more?”
“Bits and pieces. Nothing important, I’m afraid. The smell of wood burning, the sound of heavy glassware, the laughter of men. Utter exhaustion. The feel of a pen in my hand, my arm shaking from tiredness, my eyes burning from sleeplessness. I feel pangs of unfamiliar pain, emotional pain, as if life itself had become such a burden as to be intolerable. Right before I woke this morning I thought I saw men and women gathered around me as I lay in bed. They were crying.”
“That all makes sense to me.” His eyes looked strained, and Sidra wanted to
ease his troubled heart.
“Do you want me to try to understand him, to reach out to him for you?”
Van sat by her side and squeezed her hand. “No, not now. I want you, Sidra. Whatever you might feel for me.”
Sidra opened her eyes. “You only have feelings for your Maker. This has nothing to do with me.”
“I can’t separate the two, love, I’m sorry. I only know that I haven’t felt this way before in my life, and that this is not what I felt for Isaac. I’m desperate for you, Sidra. I know I come with a heavy price tag for a woman who’s lost too much already. Maybe it’s not worth it to you? I can’t promise I won’t die, that we’ll figure this out.”
“We’ll figure it out. We have to.”
“Why?” Van leaned in and kissed her on the lips, moved to her neck, nibbling his way down her cleavage. “Tell me. Say it, Sidra.”
“Let this be enough, Van.”
“I need to hear it from you.”
Sidra fought to keep the last thread of resistance alive. “I’m sure enough women have told you they were in love with you.”
“Many. I wasn’t in love with them.”
“You’re not in love with me. You’re all caught up in your past.”
“Don’t deny me my own thoughts, Sidra. Isaac gave me life, but he also gave me free will. I’m asking for both from you. Tell me you love me back.”
“I love you back,” she muttered.
“You’re really annoying.”
Sidra pulled off her shirt and bra and stepped out of her shoes and jeans.
“Get back here,” he gasped through clenched teeth.
“You’re pretty impatient for a guy who’s been around a couple hundred years.”
“I feel like I’ve had this hard-on for a couple hundred years.”
“Let’s see what we can do about that, impatient one.” Sidra helped him out of his slacks and boxer shorts. Sidra ran her palm along the taut length of his shaft, tracing her fingers over the large veins pulsing with his life’s blood.
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