Two lumbering ogres thumped through the forest. They approached Solace and the two men. Each wielded a heavy club in one hand and looked menacing beyond belief, standing two feet taller than any regular man and with faces like rotten apples.
"This her?" one of them asked the men.
"Look small," the other said, scrutinizing Solace.
"Yes," Bill said. "This is her. Solace. She's... she's the sacrifice."
"Sacrifice?" the first ogre asked, lifting a thick brow.
Stan elbowed Bill hard. "She's the bride. For the Demon King."
"Solace," the second ogre said, testing the name for himself. "Funny name."
"I happen to like it," Solace said, deciding she had a say in whether her own name was funny or not. "I think it's very nice."
The first ogre looked at the second and let out a hearty chuckle. "She tell you!"
"She do," the second said, frowning. "Sorry, Solace. Good name. Me Gronch."
The first grinned and thrust a finger at his chest. "Me Crunch."
"Why do they call you Crunch?" Bill asked.
Crunch bared his sharpened teeth. "Like to crunch." For emphasis, he licked his lips and then snapped his teeth together.
Solace flinched. The two men took more than a few steps back.
Gronch rolled his eyes. "Right, right. We go now. Keep peace. Glenwood good neighbors. Here."
The ogre reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin as big as Solace's palm. He flicked it towards the guards and it flipped through the air, catching a glint of the late afternoon sunlight as it fell towards the men. Stan caught it and almost dropped it.
"This thing's heavy," he said.
"Heavy good," Crunch said. "Bigger is better."
Stan and Bill didn't have time to discuss the formalities of largeness and goodness. Having received the peace sigil, they rushed back towards Glenwood. Crunch and Gronch stared after them as they ran away, confused.
"In hurry?" Crunch asked Solace.
"Dinner waiting, maybe?" Gronch offered.
Solace shook her head. She didn't know these two ogres, and she didn't know what was waiting for her at the end of their escort, but she needed to make the best of it. "They're scared," she said. "They hate me."
"Weird," Crunch said. "You pretty. Bastion like."
"Bastion?" Solace asked.
"Demon King," Gronch said. "He Bastion."
~*~
You can find the rest of this story here: The Monster Within: Elemental Love (The Complete Series)
Sample (Dark)
Please enjoy this sample from the dark romance novel, Master Over You, by Cerys du Lys & Ethan Winters
~*~
Warning! The full version of this book contains graphic depictions of violence that may be discomforting to some readers. This sample is much safer, but if you are sensitive to violence and abusive situations, then Master Over You is not recommended for you.
~*~
*** (Day One)
Name: Chastity White
Age: 20
Birthday: September 22nd
Height: 5' 3" / 160cm
Weight: 129 lbs / 58.5kg
*** Chastity White
Tomorrow is my birthday. I have classes in the morning, but I get out early, and then the rest of my day is free. This is exciting!
I was sitting in my US History class, doodling in my notebook. The instructor was talking about the Revolutionary War. I barely heard anything she said, because all I could think about was my birthday.
My birthdays weren't usually too exciting compared to any other day, but this one was different. I was technically already an adult, but I was becoming more of an adult. Twenty-one is a big year. I could finally drink. My friends and I had gone to dance clubs sometimes, but none of us could actually drink. There was this game we played where we tried to see if we could get guys to buy us drinks, but it almost never worked. If you weren't wearing one of those bracelets that let the bartenders know you were old enough to buy alcohol, most people weren't willing to buy for you, either.
That was fine, though. I had a lot of fun, anyways. Dancing! Swinging back and forth, hands in the air, hands on my hips, hands somewhere. Hands on someone else's hips, just dancing. Swaying. The music thumped, heavy, pounding into me and through me and the rhythm and the sound became a part of me.
Sometimes I... well, I grinded with guys. They'd come up behind me, push against me, and I'd just go with it. What was the worst that could happen? We were in the middle of the club on the dance floor and all my friends were there. We had secret codes we used now to let each other know if the guy that came up behind us was attractive or not. Not all the guys came from behind, either, but that was the easiest way for them to start dancing. Some girls hated it, but I didn't mind. It wasn't like I was going to bring them home with me, or go home with them. It was just dancing. It was kind of sexual, yeah, and sometimes really intense, but it was still just dancing.
What was the worst that could happen?
Tomorrow I could finally drink, too. My friends were coming with me. Some of them were old enough to buy alcohol, but most weren't. We were young, in the prime of our lives. This was exciting! I did well in college and this was my reward, right? I might get drunk. Haha! The thought made me giddy. Maybe being drunk wasn't that exciting, but I'd never know until I tried it. Right? My friends would be there to make sure I didn't do anything too bad. We would just dance, swing back and forth, hands in the air or on our hips or each other's hips, someone's hips. Their body. Bodies pressed together, music pounding into us, dancing.
It was just for tomorrow. Tomorrow I was going to let loose and go wild. I wasn't a party girl or anything, I just liked to have fun sometimes. Tomorrow was my twenty-first birthday, so I was at least allowed that. I'd study for all the rest of the weekend to make up for it. I wanted to visit the aquarium, too, and my dad and I had plans for lunch on Saturday. My mom couldn't make it, but she said she'd try to come up next week if she could and we'd go shopping.
Everything was going to be a lot of fun.
*** Noah
My name is Noah.
I kidnap women, I hold them against their wills, I break them down, I hurt them mentally and physically. Occasionally, I hurt them emotionally, too. I cause them pain. I give them a reason to hate me, but I force them to love me.
Their love isn't real; I know that. How do you even fucking define love in the first place? Check a dictionary and see how useless that shit is. A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person? A feeling of warm personal attachment? It's all bullshit. It's all pointless bullshit, because you don't know and you can never know.
I can pretend to love someone, sure. I can act like I want to be with them for the rest of my life. They can act the same. Maybe they really feel that way. I don't know. Regardless, it's worthless.
Tell me this? If I pretend to love someone and they start feeling profoundly tender towards me, passionately affectionate, but I don't really love them, what is their love worth? Nothing, because it's fake. It's not real. Sometimes it's fun to build someone's love up, act like you care, wait until they're really in deep, and then hit them with the news.
Sorry, love, but you don't mean a thing to me.
I have an addiction to calling women "love." I can't stop. I've never loved any of them, and I never will, but I just can't stop. It's like a joke, an insult, a little bit of hope wrapped up in one insignificant, meaningless word. It's hope for them, at least. I don't hope for anything; I get shit done. Hope and prayers are for the weak.
I should add that I don't kidnap women and break them because I like it. Yes, they might get hurt, they might feel pain, but I don't like that, either. I don't hate it, but I don't like it. It just doesn't bother me. There are more important things in the world to worry about.
It's nothing personal, love. It's just a job.
Call me what you want. I don't care. Master, Dominant, Dom, Sir, Slave trader, whatever. Some
people in the BDSM scene use Daddy and I think that's kind of fucked up, but whatever. Call me that if you want, too. I'm not into BDSM, though. What I do isn't safe. There's no consensual bargains here. We don't sign a fucking contract and discuss limits and boundaries.
I kidnap women, I hold them against their wills, I break them down, I hurt them, I bring them pain. I make them hate me and love me at the same time. Then I sell them to the men and women that come to me to procure my services. You don't want to know what happens after that.
There's a difference between hating women and just not caring about them. I do this for my own reasons, not that anyone would understand that. It's not hard to do the things I do. Any ignorant fool who takes two seconds to plan it out can kidnap someone, and it only takes a few weeks of confinement to alter someone's state of mind so deeply that they'll do anything you say.
It's not hard to do what I do. It's hard not to get caught. You need to be perfect. You need to plan out everything. You need to know exactly what to do exactly when you're going to do it, and never leave any traces behind so someone can track what you've done. It doesn't just happen when you take the girl, but when you ship them off to the buyer, too. There's a lot of shit that goes on. It's ruthless and unforgiving. I go the distance. I treat this like it's fucking art. If I don't do this, the influx of inspiration seething inside me would eat me alive and I'd die of starvation like some depraved artist drowning in a puddle of his own muddy tears in a back alley somewhere.
You don't have to know why I do what I do. You just have to know I do a good job.
They call me Noah because I herd girls for a living. I find them, whatever the specifications, and I bring them home, I dominate them until they're a perfect mold of what I want them to be, and then I sell them to the highest bidder.
Most of the time nowadays I take special orders instead of dealing with auctions. Auctions are risky. I don't like that scene. The stagnation building in the pits and the broken girls paraded onto the stage make me want to vomit out of futile depression. It's fucking sickening to watch. I don't know how anyone could enjoy that. I did it when I had to, when I was just starting to make a name for myself. It was a necessity, but it almost destroyed me.
Now, no one knows my real name. I might have forgotten it, too. I'm just really fucking good, so they started calling me Noah. For forty days and forty nights these women weather my storm and then I deliver them to a new world.
I like that. It's real fucking cute. Definitely ironic.
~*~
You can find the rest of this story here: Master Over You: A Dark Romance Novel
Other Writing by Cerys du Lys
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About the Author
Cerys is a USA Today Bestselling Author. She has charted on numerous best sellers and hot new release lists internationally and with multiple books.
Cerys lives in the Greater Boston area in a small town in New Hampshire. She spends her days writing, reading books, learning, and working. And maybe sometimes she flirts with the mailman. Some of her most favorite activities involve understanding and learning about emotions and relationships.
She adores pondering sexual sensuality, as well. Most of her writing delves into this in some way, exploring reactions and relationships between different people. While she enjoys writing steamy romance, her goal is to give you substance and intrigue with your sexy scenes. Every story she writes has a delightful plot along with the more devious and delicious scenes we all want to read.
She prefers romance stories with a little mystery and suspense and the occasional romantic thriller. While many of her novels happen in a contemporary setting, she occasionally dabbles in fantasy and paranormal romance.
Check out more from Cerys du Lys (here).
Afterwords
If you have any questions about this story, or requests for a future addition, feel free to email them to [email protected] . I can't promise a response to every single one, nor can I say that requests will be fulfilled, but everything will be read. As long as they are appropriate and respectful, at least.
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His Absolute Proposal: An Illicit Billionaire Love Story (Elise, #3) Page 22
