His Grace

by Aya DeAniege

  We remained like that for some time as I heard a bird call or something. That fiery electricity arced across my nerves, racing straight toward my heart.

  Suddenly water hit us.

  Grace squealed and rushed away as the hose turned from her and hit me square in the chest as I turned on Michael. The water stopped, he cocked his head at me, then raised it again and aimed it at my head.

  “Are you trying to give the plants the wrong idea?” Michael asked. “This is a garden for families and people of all ages, not a pot for you to sin in.”

  “Michael, we were just—”

  He sprayed me in the face. The blast lasted about ten seconds, then stopped. Michael’s eyebrows rose, and the nozzle shifted in a threatening manner toward me.

  “Don’t make me do it again. And don’t do it again.”

  “Fine,” I snarled. “Just don’t spray my girlfriend with that thing.”

  “Girlfriend?” Michael asked.

  “Yes, girlfriend,” I said.

  “Congratulations, man. Now take your smut out of my garden.”

  Preview of:

  “Who thought this was a good idea?” Lilly demanded as Sam laughed at her, picked up his drink and walked off.

  She scowled at his back the whole way, as he left and found one of the dancers, beginning to move with the half-naked woman. Lilly was not impressed, not in the least. She looked like she was about to start throwing the furniture.

  Which was the only reason that I wasn’t about to threaten to do the same.

  Looking around the strip club, I grimaced in disgust, sneering into my drink as I brought it to my lips. Lilly made a very similar motion and picked up her drink.

  “This is your fault, Michael,” she said.

  “How is it my fault?” I protested. “I don’t want to be here either!”

  “The accent doesn’t turn me on, drop it,” she snapped.

  I sighed and clenched my teeth. I had used that accent for forty years. It didn’t always work great, but darn it, when I turned it on thick, the women responded very well. I struggled for a moment, then slipped it out and sighed again.

  “It’s not my fault.”

  “Holy… holy shit, you can drop your accent?” she demanded.

  “It’s not a part of the body, it’s a part of the mind and vocal cords,” I said with a shrug. “Actors do it all the time, why not us at the drop of a hat?”

  “I never thought of it like that.”

  Satisfied that I had diffused the situation, I relaxed and looked out over the club.

  We were there for Sam’s bachelor party. Lilly was there as a good friend of his. She and Raphael would be heading out the next night for Grace’s bachelorette party, which would likely have a similar theme. The difference being that Lilly liked looking at half-naked men.

  Her idea of a good time did not involve watching her own gender prance about and get naked while being used and manipulated by men. I saw her eyes flit from one stripper to another, head shaking just a little as the small, unpleasant events that happened in most strip clubs were unfolding.

  Sam, Gabe, and Ralph ignored those signs. They either chose not to see them or didn’t realize they were there. But they were also hot-blooded males, as Sam put it. They enjoyed the female form in all its states of undress.

  I did not much enjoy watching women dance with that distant look in their eyes as if they wished to be somewhere else. My brothers could enjoy it all they pleased and tell themselves what they wanted, but I didn’t believe it.

  How can he just sit there with her in his lap?

  Ralph already had a dancer in his lap, straddling him as she giggled and he smiled up at her. One of his hands was on her hip, the other firmly on the seat he had claimed, giving her a clear route of escape if she so desired. He seemed enamoured with the woman, his entire focus on her.

  “If only he’d make up his mind,” Lilly said with a sigh.

  I looked at her and found her watching Ralph. One of her eyebrows quirked upward, she turned to me and gave me a look that dared me to deny that I had just been looking at Ralph.

  “I thought he was gay,” I responded.

  “As an angel, it’s not exactly possible for any of you to be any sexuality,” she said. “Your bodies are gender fluid.”

  “That’s not what gender fluid means,” I countered.

  “Not in this day and age,” she said. “But if you wanted to, you could become a woman, march on over there and crawl into his lap.”

  “Shut up, Lilly.”

  “I’m not saying you would, just that you could,” she said. “That’s pretty gender fluid to me. You all have just been male for so long that you’ve forgotten. I’ve seen you all in skirts before. Best month of my life.”

  “You forced us into female skins.”

  “And? What’s wrong with that?”

  “My breasts got in the way.”

  “Welcome to being a woman,” she said. “Being a man has always been easier, that’s why you’ve mainly only been men. Humans relate manliness to strength, which I think has also contributed to you remaining men.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Gender and fluid together says that you can slip easily between the genders,” she said. “Humans are now exploring the notion that there are not binary genders in their world. That’s, I mean, come on. I know for a fact that in Heaven, you and Samael—”

  “Stop!” I snarled at her. “We have no bodies in Heaven. It’s certainly not the same damned thing. We carried on no relationships either. Don’t you dare try to tell me that this all started because I was the jealous ex. I was following my orders. And I certainly am not hung up on Samael. He talks a big game, but let’s face it, his spear is not all reaching.”

  Lilly giggled.

  At least I had that going for me. Better a giggle than that scowl pointed in my direction again.

  One of the conditions of Grace and Sam staying together meant that Lilly and I had to work out our differences. I had no problem with the woman, it was all far in the past, but she still didn’t trust me, which I was told was completely understandable given our history.

  I didn’t push the matter. I wouldn’t have even been sitting beside her if we hadn’t had to make a point of playing nicely together. The wedding wouldn’t happen if we were fighting. Or more of, if Lilly was yelling at me. It made me uncomfortable, to throw us together like that, but I understood that Grace didn’t want to leave Lilly behind, and refused to make Sam leave me behind.

  In a way, it was kind of adorable.

  Which was probably what Lilly also said about the situation and why she was sitting with me in a strip club.

  “Look, he dropped the pornography, right? That’s a start.”

  “Pornography, if one enjoys being filmed while having sex, is nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “My problem was that we were supposed to keep a low profile and he was a star. People still recognize him in the street, for crying out loud.”

  “True.”

  “And he only gave it up because he thought that someone like Grace was out there for all of us. He didn’t do it because he realized being a public figure was a bad idea,” I added.

  Lilly was quiet a long moment, then said, “Also true.”

  We sat in silence for a time, as our drinks were replaced with new ones. The girls tried to get my attention, but that’s what I saw them as, girls. They were barely legal.

  “That one’s not even legal,” Lilly said in disgust.

  I followed her gaze, then turned very quickly toward the stage. After a moment, I cast Gabe a desperate look and he looked up and followed my gaze. Then I refocused on the stage once more.

  Just because we were out enjoying a show, didn’t mean our duties were left behind.

  Gabe was the only one who could deal with underage humans. He didn’t even have to touch them, just slip into their dreams and plant one little suggestion, then get out of there before they fell asleep. Demo
ns didn’t often possess those who were underage because they didn’t like not being taken seriously. In the modern time, a demon was more likely to find themselves drugged up with antipsychotics than they were to have free reign in the body of a child.

  Who knew, she might not have even been possessed. In which case, Gabe would make a phone call the next day, and if it still didn’t get sorted out, he’d report it to Sam after the wedding, and we’d do what we did best.

  Clean up the mess.

  “And now, welcome to the stage, Seraphina!”

  Those gathered went quiet. They focused on the stage as the woman walked out in a military-style uniform. It was one of those shortened ones that was made to be obviously not the real thing. No one would have looked at her and thought that she had served in the military, they would have known that she was a stripper, or thought that they had just walked into a pornographic movie.

  Her hair was up under the cap. Her skin was slightly darker that Sam’s, just a shade beyond olive. Her eyes were almond shaped, and as she scanned the crowd, my pants tightened. I whimpered and adjusted as her gaze slipped past me and around.

  “Well, now,” Lilly said as she sat forward in her seat, “there’s a woman who likes taking her clothes off.”

  And why not? Her body wasn’t built to be hidden. She was long in the leg and muscled. She obviously worked out, walked, biked, ran, something. A backside like that on any other body and I would have suspected that surgery had been involved. Not on her, though. Her breasts were perky, but not obscenely large.

  Unlike many of the dancers in the club, she was clearly a natural woman.

  Not, uh, no, I don’t mean that there were transgendered women dancing, or that if there were, I had a problem with that. I meant that she hadn’t had any work done. There was no silicone or implant in her.

  Her face was overly done in a gaudy sort of way. The look likely helped her get through her day-to-day life without being harassed by men.

  The way she moved was so fluid. It reminded me of how we once moved with the flow of Heaven. Of how our wings would shift with that multidimensional existence, always knowing which way to turn and move. She went through her dance routine as almost everyone in the club watched her. Some were focused on the dancers in their laps, like my brothers and a few others.

  It must have been the regulars who were watching her. A strip club was nothing without the regulars.

  She was stripped down to a bra and underwear quickly, her smooth skin unadulterated, unscarred.

  Until she turned around.

  Are those…

  “Wings?” Lilly gasped out.

  Coming Soon:

  Helen’s published interview caused a ripple effect through the modern culture. As her first book was prepared for publication, mortals took up recording devices around those they suspected to be vampires. A few foolish mortals even went looking for vampires, to capture that unique story and become just like Helen.

  When Ashley introduces herself to Kazimir at his favourite haunt, he assumes she’s one of those mortals.

  Stupid, vain, and nothing more than walking, talking food.

  It doesn’t take long for Ashley to stir his interest. The more she talks, the crazier she sounds, but Kazimir can’t shake that feeling that kept him alive and one step ahead of the Council for three thousand years.

  Ashley doesn’t know enough to lie that awkwardly. Things she says, the way she relates to things, are too vampiric to ignore.

  Except, Ashley is mortal. Her mother is mortal, and she has a picture of her father, which she presents to Kazimir and demands help in finding the man.

  A man who was kidnapped off the street by an unmarked van days before Kazimir’s matriarch, Elysia, was targeted by the same humans. Humans who chose to attack the night that Ashley approached Kazimir.

  One event is a coincidence. Two is bad luck. But three? Kazimir knows too much about the powers of other vampires to dismiss it as merely random events.

  Someone is hunting vampires in Kazimir’s territory, and that just won’t stand.

  Fragments*

  Working title

  Daughters of the Alphas

  My name is Rebecca, you may know of my sister, Rachel? I’ve been told her story, how she ran around claiming to be a faerie, beat up a bunch of Alphas and then broke the man who had broken me. Several days after those events, I woke whole, beside a man I had never met, with no memories of what happened.

  None.

  They tell me that I agreed to it, that there was no other way. They even had video to show me, but that doesn’t make a body feel any better.

  I lost two years of my life. Like coming out of a coma, I woke to a changed view. Children I didn’t want, a changed family, I don’t even recall my father’s death. How does one even begin to pick up the pieces from that?

  Rachel and I are back together, she promised never to leave me again. The Alphas have already begun circling like sharks, wanting to draw her blood but unable to tell us apart. Only two of them can look at us and know which is which.

  Morgan and Gerrid. Rachel says Morgan is unavailable. Not that I’m interested in him as more than a passing interest.

  Pretty well everyone is interested in me, but I’m a genetic oddity, and am available as far as they are concerned. I could have my choice of any Alpha in the world, if only I could swallow my pride and become a ‘good’ obedient woman.

  I say I want freedom, they scream louder, I stomp my feet, they threaten to rape my family…

  Alphas, you know?

  Prototype

  An Aurora Novel

  (Working Title)

  My name is Maggy Doyle. I have a three-year-old daughter, a husband, a home, and an extended family. I work a secretary job for a lawyer’s office and spend my days just trying to fly under the radar of pretty well everyone.

  See, five years ago, I was found wandering around a field. I don’t recall anything before that moment. I had no idea who I was. If it weren’t for Harry, if not for how much he loved me before the incident, I would have probably been lost forever.

  Imagine my surprise when I opened my front door one day to find men standing there, demanding my daughter and I go with them. They wouldn’t answer my questions or tell me where they were taking us.

  There’s this nagging at the back of my mind telling me that it has to do with Aurora. The still new, third world we were linked to, ruled by a woman who is said to have not only created the world, but also animals, and who knew what else.

  What could she possibly want with twenty people ranging from late teens to middle-aged? The only thing we have in common is amnesia. Our lives before a certain point were erased. We didn’t do anything wrong, none of us know each other and our incidents were months or even years apart.

  We’re completely harmless.

  I think.

  My name is Nathaniel Edwards, I am just over forty years old as I write this introduction. I’ve chosen to write this of my own volition, I was not pressured into it, nor was I commanded by my wife and Mistress, Isabella. Today she may be Mistress, but tomorrow she will be my sub once more. Most likely you are reading this because you read Isabella’s books and were curious about my part of the story.

  Or you whined about how you didn’t get all the details in the middle portion of her books and now you’re hoping my absolutely detailed account with her will rectify the situation.

  I’m not the least bit sorry to say, you will be disappointed. This is not a detailed account of my time with Isabella Domme. You already know what happened when she was around me. I lost my mind, my lust got the better of me.

  No, this account covers before I met Isabella, how I became the man that I was when she met me. Yes, I will cover—however briefly—my time with her during the contract but it will be focused on after she was removed from my home. While my journals from our time together are being collected, and edited slightly for inclusion in the national archives, I don’t much feel lik
e sharing that with you.

  My story does not begin and end with Isabella. Just as hers did not end with marrying me. Well, her written story did, but she went on to bigger and better things in the real world. My story doesn’t even begin when I met Him.

  Master.

  About the Author

  Aya DeAniege is a Canadian author who wrote for years, first to please herself then writing stories for free—believing no one would ever pay to read her stuff—before pursuing indie publishing. She still writes mainly for personal pleasure, with topics ranging from romance, fantasy, science fiction, on to whatever takes her fancy in the future. World creation fascinates her, and when she finds one she likes, she dabbles endlessly.

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