Rampant, Volume 1

by Amy Lane

  Rampant, Vol. 1

  By Amy Lane

  Little Goddess: Book Four

  Vol. 1

  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.

  Table of Contents

  Blurb

  About Jack & Teague & Katy—

  Acknowledgments

  Character Lexicon

  Cory: Buzzkilling

  Green: Master of Ceremonies

  Cory: The Trials of a Chess-playing Hamster

  Green: Between Winter and Spring

  Teague: Hawk and Wolf

  Cory: What in the fuck is that thing?

  Bracken: Other Things to Fear

  Cory: Queen of the Fucking Night

  Green: The Damage Done

  Cory: Midnight in a Man’s World

  Cory: Vampire Queen Dearest

  Nicky: Dark Musings

  Cory: Blood Sunrise

  Green: True Sunshine

  Cory: The Body Politic

  Bracken: The Other Side of Helpless

  Cory: Garden Pleasures

  Bracken: Knight’s Restraint

  Cory: Queen Forward

  Nicky: Grooming

  Cory: Lasting Impressions

  Bracken: Knight’s Unyielding Position

  Cory: Research

  Exclusive excerpt

  More from Amy Lane

  Readers love the Little Goddess series by Amy Lane

  About the Author

  By Amy Lane

  Visit DSP Publications

  Copyright Page

  About Jack & Teague & Katy—

  THE GREEN’S Hill Werewolves have gone through a couple of incarnations by the time this edition of Rampant goes out. They started out as short novellas on my website, and then they were later picked up by an independent publisher. When Dreamspinner Press told me that they wanted to publish my Little Goddess series, one of my first orders of business was to get the werewolves back so all of Green’s hill could be under one roof.

  That’s happened, but the timeline is just a little bit off. The Green’s Hill Werewolves will be published in two volumes in the early part of next year, before Quickening Volumes 1 and 2. So if you haven’t read about Jack and Teague and Katy yet—well, there really is a story out there. In the meantime, just know that they’re important—and their story is coming.

  Amy

  Acknowledgments

  HOW DO I love these people? Let me count the ways…

  I love everyone who has been with me from the very beginning. I love the people who edited for me when I was an independent writer, shipping my book from person to person in the hopes of feedback, any feedback at all. I love the fans who loved me through all my flaws and continue to love my writing in spite of the fact that my learning curve is as flat as day-old root beer. I love Gin and my current editing team because even though they may possibly hold small private ceremonies to burn me in effigy, they have the grace and good humor not to let me know this happens and to keep all the photographic evidence to themselves.

  I love my family, who still thinks my writing is cool, and my husband, who listens to me talk about imaginary people at inopportune times.

  I love my best friend Mary, because… like whoa. You cannot even believe what she puts up with.

  I love Damon and Tere and Rayna and Kate and everyone in my convention crew, because they listen to my bullshit when I’m at my most vulnerable.

  I love Elizabeth and Lynn, because after seven years, they still want me to write for them, and they’re still happy to hear from me when I do.

  Character Lexicon

  CHARACTERS INTRODUCED IN VULNERABLE:

  Cory. Corinne Carol-Anne Kirkpatrick op Crocken Green started this little adventure as a gas station clerk, and then she met Adrian, a vampire who loved her, and Green, who loved them both. She is now married to Green, Bracken, and Nicky, carries three of Adrian’s marks and so leads his kiss of vampires, and is still trying to get that degree.

  Green. Vernal Green, Lord of Leaves and Shadows. The leader of most of the supernatural peoples in Northern California, Green is not a warrior. Instead he leads and heals with sex and love, and people would die to protect him.

  Bracken. The youngest full-blooded sidhe on the hill, Bracken was Adrian’s lover and fell in love with Cory at first sight. He stepped away from her then, because Adrian loved her and they didn’t share well, but upon Adrian’s death, he became her full-time lover.

  Adrian. Adrian started life as the sexually abused cabin boy whom Green rescued on his way to America. Adrian became a vampire so he wouldn’t age and leave Green alone, and even after he fell in love with Cory, he couldn’t survive without his ties to Green.

  Arturo. Arturo came from the jungles of South America to the new world in the fifties, trying to find an easier life. He found Green’s hill instead, and instead of conquering, fell exquisitely in love (in a very heterosexual way) with a leader who would lead with compassion instead of violence.

  Grace. A devoted family woman, Grace was dying of untreated breast cancer in Redding when Adrian heard her yearning to see her family grow, with or without her. He granted her wish and made her a vampire, and Grace has come to love her Green’s hill family even more intensely than she loved the mortal family she left.

  Mitch. Mitch was Renny’s first lover. Renny loved him since they were kids—when Mitchell was accidentally transformed into a werekitty, Renny actually seduced him so he’d bite her and turn her too. Mitch was skittish and independent and refused to accept Green’s generosity and live in the hill, but Renny’s heart was so twined with his that she almost lost all of her humanity when he was one of Sezan’s first victims.

  Max. Max is the police officer who tried to ‘save’ Cory from Green’s hill when she first met him. In the end, Green’s hill saved him, and he ended up beguiled by a girl who was more cat than human.

  Renny. Renny became a werecat to follow her first husband, Mitch, into the life. When Mitch was killed, Renny’s cat personality became dominant and nearly feral. She’s become more human since she and Max have become a couple and gotten married… but not by much.

  Marcus. Marcus was a history teacher with a passion for snow skiing. He’s got curly brown hair, big brown eyes, and a teacher’s affection for Cory. He enjoys their project of documenting the world they’ve found themselves in as he tries to make sense of living with fangs and a taste for blood.

  Phillip. Phillip was a stockbroker with a passion for snow skiing. After Marcus found him buried in an avalanche and brought him over as a vampire, the two spent twenty years struggling with their sexuality and their boundless love for each other. What they finally decided upon was a relationship based on the sentiment “I apparently can’t live without you, asshole,” and that seems to be working for them.

  Sezan. Part sea-nymph, part human, Sezan is what happens when someone is warped from conception on. He came to NorCal to torment and kill Adrian�
��but he had help.

  Crispin. Crispin was the kiss leader of the Folsom vampires until Sezan arrived and brainwashed/drugged/threatened him to force Crispin into Sezan’s own vendetta.

  Crocken and Blissa. Bracken’s parents, Crocken and Blissa, are a study in opposites. Blissa is a flittery sex kitten of a four-foot pixie, and Crocken looks like an undusted pile of rocks. Together (and with a little bit of Green’s magic to make everything fit the way it should) they managed to produce Bracken, whom they love to distraction.

  Leah. Leah’s little brother died and Leah descended into a spiral of sex, drugs, and self-destruction. Adrian saved her from all of that, but Leah’s emotional makeup does not include any sort of monogamous relationship. Still, she misses the stability of having a small nuclear family and has spent years trying to find a balance in the hill.

  CHARACTERS INTRODUCED IN WOUNDED

  Nicky. Nicky is an Avian—a shapeshifter who turns into a bird. He met Cory while she was attending CSU San Francisco immediately after Adrian’s death, when he was working for Goshawk, the bad guy. Nicky accidentally bonded to Green and Cory in the course of saving Bracken’s life, but because he was trying to atone for his assault on Cory at the time, Green and Cory took them into their family—and their bed.

  Mario. Mario was an Avian who worked for Goshawk, the bad guy in Wounded who convinced Nicky to mind-rape Cory on their first date. Mario’s wife, Beth, was killed in an assault on Green’s hill, and Green gave Mario back his will to live. Mario is midheight, stocky, and very proud of his Mexican heritage.

  LaMark. LaMark is another sweet-tempered Avian who had the misfortune to meet up with Goshawk while struggling with his identity. Unfortunately, LaMark’s identity is not a comfortable one—a gay, black Avian is sort of doomed wherever he goes, isn’t he? In spite of that, LaMark is a nice guy with a sense of humor and a blinding smile.

  Andres. Andres is the leader of the San Francisco vampires. In Wounded, he allied his vampires with Cory’s—and passed up on an opportunity to take both Cory and Bracken into his bed.

  Orson. Orson is the leader of the San Francisco werewolves. He’s not a particularly physical fighter, but he is an aggressive advocate for his people.

  Mist. Green’s old lover, Mist betrayed Green to Titania and Oberon. When Green escaped their faerie hill, Mist watched jealously as Green fought for a place of his own. Mist was responsible for sending Sezan Adrian’s way—he couldn’t stand that Green was happy, especially with someone Mist considered inferior.

  Morana. Mist’s lover at the time of Wounded. She’s mostly just a smug, superior, elitist bitch who thought Green was a good lay. For that alone we despise her.

  Goshawk. Goshawk was the leader of the Avians in San Francisco. He was working on world domination when he convinced Nicky to mind-rape Cory in order to get her most powerful memories to drive his power. Nicky was guilt-ridden and turned against his former leader in order to help the girl he hurt.

  Timmy and Danny. Timmy and Danny were two of the Avians who were set against Green’s hill. They were captured instead and given sanctuary. Like LaMark, Mario, and Nicky, they chose to stay at the hill instead of rejoining Goshawk’s forces.

  Titania and Oberon. The traditional leaders of the sidhe in England, Titania and Oberon ruled over a court full of sexual excesses and cruelty. They held Green prisoner in their famed faerie hill because nobody could provide sexual satisfaction like Green. Green hoarded his power, though, and eventually snuck himself and his lime trees out of their garden and across the sea.

  CHARACTERS INTRODUCED IN BOUND

  Chloe. Grace’s bitter, unpleasant daughter. Chloe had to have her memories of her vampire mother and of Green’s hill wiped in Bound because she was not the kind of mortal Green allowed at the hill (i.e., she was a real bitch).

  Gavin and Graeme. Chloe’s sons, they adored Green’s hill and completely accepted all of the strangeness within. Once a year they come back to the hill—Green has arranged a sham “camp” to cover for their chance to visit with their grandmother and all the other people they have come to love.

  Sweet. Sweet is one of the more promiscuous sidhe at the hill—but also one of the most pleasant. She’s also one of the three sidhe who are known for being healers.

  Ellen Beth. Ellen Beth was brought to the hill when her lover was infected with some poisonous blood. Her lover died horribly, and Ellen Beth was turned over to Sweet for emotional healing. Sweet decided to keep her, and Ellen Beth has been happy to be kept.

  Erik. Erik is a werecoyote with a sad past and a long-ago history with Green, Bracken, and Adrian. He is content to live in Austin and run his own company, until he meets up with Green and Green introduces him to Nicky. Both of them realize that they have something in common—too low-key for the intense emotions of the hill, they both make better secondary characters… except to each other, where they are the heroes of their own story.

  Kyle. The lone survivor of the Folsom vampires, Kyle’s beloved, a girl named Davy, was killed because she and Cory vaguely resembled each other—and because they were friends. Cory took Kyle into her kiss and forced him to want to live.

  Hallow. Hallow is a sidhe and a professor at Sacramento State University, where Cory and the other students attend school. He is also—by Green’s request—a counselor for the students themselves. Although Green usually counsels his own people, he felt that he was way too close to the situation as Cory’s lover and her leader to be objective or effective, and thus his trust in Hallow.

  CHARACTERS INTRODUCED IN JACK & TEAGUE (& KATY)

  Jack. Jack is actually a nice, quiet young man. When his sister—who became a werewolf by choice—is killed, Jack asks Green for some answers to her world and the people who would kill her. Paired with Teague to be human liaisons to Green’s hill and to go out and deal with violent and legal matters outside the hill, Jack fell utterly and irrevocably in love with his damaged, noble partner. When the two of them become werewolves (Jack by accident and Teague by choice), Jack’s transition to the hill is marred by his realization that Teague really is the great man Jack has always believed—and that means that his loyalties cannot ever be exclusively Jack’s.

  Teague. Teague was brutally abused as a child and inculcated in the same ideas of hate and prejudice that killed Jack’s sister. One night while hunting a werewolf, he is injured while saving the life of a young man who looks very human—and Adrian pays him back by bringing him to Green. From that moment on, he is Green’s devoted subject. When Jack is injured and Cory comforts him while waiting for the injury to heal, Teague’s loyalty is transferred to the lady of the house, even while he pursues a relationship with Katy and Jack, whom he loves beyond reason.

  Katy. Katy has loved Teague Sullivan since she was barely old enough to talk. When she found that fate had brought him to Green’s hill too, she pursued him—and Jack—with a single-minded quest for happiness. Now that they’re a family, she wants to be a part of Teague’s adventures whenever she can be.

  Lambent. Lambent joined the hill just before Jack and Teague were bitten. He had always been semi-independent of Titania and Oberon, but until he ended up on Green’s hill, he had no idea how much he’d valued his autonomy—or how much he hated the antique laws that governed sidhe behavior in the old country.

  CHARACTERS WE MEET IN RAMPANT

  Tanya. A not-yet-mated sylph.

  Sam. Offspring of “the other” and a human.

  Walter. A sweet, young, newly made vampire.

  Rafael. The leader of the Redding vampires.

  Annette. Nicky’s unpleasant ex-girlfriend.

  John and Terry. Nicky’s parents.

  CREATURES

  Sidhe. High elves—lots of powers, humanoid attributes, and physical beauty.

  Fey. All of the underclasses of elves existing at Green’s hill—pixies, nixies, sprites, gnomes, sylphs, red-caps, trolls, fairies, etc. etc. etc.

  Weres. Shapechangers, they age at about 1/3 – 1/4 the s
peed of a human, have super strength, super speed, and whatever characteristics their creature possesses. Werecreatures reproduce by biting humans. They probably can carry young of their own species, but interspecies mating is so prevalent at Green’s hill that no one knows for sure.

  Vampires. The blood-sucking undead—but in a nice way.

  Sylphs. Sexless fey, they choose their gender when they choose their mates.

  Avians. The only shapechanger that’s born and not made by another shapechanger. The Avians are bonded for life with the person/people involved in their first sexual experience. If this mate doesn’t produce offspring within ten years, the Avian is doomed.

  Cory: Buzzkilling

  GETTING BAD news when you’re suspended fifty feet above the ground is the definition of buzzkill.

  Green and Bracken were below me, ready to catch—don’t get me wrong, I’m not stupid. But there I was, holy shit and cannyagimmehallelujah, I was flying! Suspended off the ground, hovering in the crystal-shard February blue, watching the fat-sheep clouds scudding much farther above me and shivering convulsively. Below me I could see big clumps of crocuses and pinks defiantly brightening Green’s gardens. In the foothills they were rare, but in Green’s hill, the rare was commonplace, and that crunchy sweet smell was teasing us with the promise of spring as I practiced my flying.

  Last year, I’d been put in a position where being able to fly would have been extremely handy, but my lack of control had completely biffed that opportunity, so my husbands and I—yes, husbands, no shit, we all had rings—were out here practicing my stuff. You never know when you might plummet hundreds of feet from a bad guy’s nasty, slippery, dead-fleshed grasp, and a little initiative might make hitting bottom a lot more comfortable, right?