Daughters of Artemis

by Della Buckland

  Sasha hugged Aneira and smiled. "I'll love it, too."

  "So will the pack," Aneira murmured sleepily.

  True pride and excitement blossomed inside Sasha for the first time since Terfel had given her the pack. She settled with Aneira among the sheets and pillows and nodded. "So will the pack."

  It had been harder than they'd thought. Four heats later, and Sasha was finally pregnant. Not that Rhyd had minded the bouts of sex, and Sasha had to admit by the fourth round, she hadn't felt the need to beat the piss out of Rhyd before taking him into her body. Aneira had announced that development as progress, and Sasha was willing to take it as such.

  The pack had calmed. Alpha had taken a male alpha from the pack as hers, and Alpha-Mate had never been far from Alpha's side. Since the midwife had pronounced Sasha pregnant, Rhyd had even begun to take on some of the pack responsibilities Aneira herself—not alpha in nature—couldn't. It was a good situation, one of hope and promise, and as Sasha laid in bed, stared at the rain falling outside the window, she couldn't help but smile and rub absently at the small swell of her belly.

  It wasn't going to be all roses, and Sasha didn't delude herself, Aneira, or Rhyd. Their race was long-lived. Children were hard to conceive, hard to bear, hard to birth. Children were hard won, precious rewards. But, for now, Sasha refused to worry about tomorrow and, instead, reveled in today. She was pregnant. The start of family. The next step for pack.

  "You look introspective."

  Sasha's eyes moved to watch Aneira climb onto their bed, all golden flesh and predatory need. "The midwife is certain all is progressing as it should, and I must agree." She smiled, lifting her hand to cup Aneira's breast when her lover braced herself above her. Sasha rubbed the pad of her thumb over the pert nipple, exposing her throat to Aneira. "I have to agree. All is progressing just as it should be."

  Aneira leaned in and inhaled near Sasha's neck. "You smell different. It makes the wolf need you, want to protect you," she said, a slight growl in the words, teeth scraping her throat.

  A shiver trickled down Sasha's back, her voice becoming breathy. "I smell like a wolf with a cub, and my mate will protect us unto her death."

  Another growl, this one deeper, truer, rumbled near Sasha's ear. "Yes," was all Aneira said before her mouth fell on Sasha's, kissed her deeply, roughly, even as her hands moved over Sasha's body with such care, such tenderness.

  Yes, it had been hard, and it would be hard in the coming months, years, but that was as it should be. Mate, child, pack, king. It was all as it was meant to be, and Sasha couldn't have wanted more.

  Marie Carlson lives in the USA, travels far too much, and spends her nights writing about sexy monsters, watching the movement of the constellations, and searching the world for werewolf stories. She adores love stories during apocalypses and thinks for the end of the world fire or ice will suffice.

  Marie spends her days on Top Secret Missions Involving Words to pay the bills and soaking up the sun wherever she is. She hunts down news items about upcoming werewolf media in her free time, is addicted to connecting with fans and other writers on Twitter, and collects horror movie figurines, books about monsters, and tattoos. She writes best in the wee hours of the night and drinks so much flavored coffee and iced tea she might as well have caffeine in her veins.

  Marie's previous publications include the short stories Like a Thousand Miles of Fire in Torquere Press' Bite Me anthology, August 2009; Hunter, Prey in Circlet Press' Like Tooth and Claw anthology, December 2009; Blazing Star in Storm Moon Press' Cast the Cards anthology, October 2010; and the novella Beneath the Changing Moon as a part of Total E-Bound's Voracious Vamps line, October 2009.

  Upcoming projects include Hunted, a sequel to Hunter, Prey; an untitled sequel to Like a Thousand Miles of Fire; Fire & Ice, a post-apocalyptic romance novel; and an untitled Only-Slightly-Secret project with paranormal romance and erotica author Elizabeth Reeve. You can find Marie online at www.mariecarlson.com.

  K. Piet was born in California and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona, with her older sister and two cats. After studying in three different states and graduating magna cum laude from the University of Nevada – Las Vegas in Kinesiological Sciences, K. moved back to Flagstaff to pursue a career in therapeutic bodywork and massage. Her private massage business places an emphasis on sports massage for circus performers, dancers, and athletes training at high altitude.

  Throughout high school and college, writing fiction was little more than a pleasant diversion from required essays and applied science courses. After working with author S. L. Armstrong on a number of small writing projects and coming to see the act of writing as a learned skill, K. found a new zeal for the challenge and now writes as a sideline career. She is particularly fond of writing in the High Fantasy and Paranormal genres, adding her own homoerotic, and often kinky, flair to her fiction.

  K. was once locally published in Flagstaff for her poetry in high school and has been a featured artist for the convention group CirqueCon. 2010 was her debut year at Storm Moon Press, the small, independent, erotic-romance press she cofounded with S. L. Armstrong in order to self-publish their collaborative fiction.

  K. also enjoys drawing, circus arts such as flying trapeze and aerial silks, musical theater, and hoopdancing, all of which she feels balance her scientific, kinesiological side with her passion for the artistic and dramatic. Her love of the human body and its endless possibilities bleeds into nearly every facet of her life, from massage, to writing, to staring at the attractive men at the local Renaissance Fair...

  Just kidding on that last part. Really.

  Shashauna P. Thomas has always been an avid reader and writer of erotica. She is extremely proud of graduating from Cornell University with a BA in Anthropology and SUNY Stony Brook with a BA in psychology in six years. She is also a proud member of the D.I.V.A.S. of Lambda Fe Usöñ Sorority Inc. After finishing school she returned to her home in the Bronx where she was born and raised to become an erotic author. With the support of her family and friends she has dedicated herself to becoming a successful writer and having the creative sensual characters in her mind out on paper for the entire world to enjoy. Shashauna believes in using her passion for writing to hopefully inspire others to follow their own passions and wherever they may lead them. If her stories inspired one person to go out and try something he / she may have never thought to, then she feels as if she's accomplished one of her major goals. Everyone could use a bit of spice in their sex lives, but they mustn't be afraid to open their minds to new possibilities. If more people embraced their inner sexual creatures the entire world would be filled with much happier and satisfied people. So far a number of her creative works have been published both in print as well as in e-book anthologies. Her works can be found in such anthologies as Zane's Missionary No More: Purple Panties II, Xcite's Six of the Best: A collection of Spanking stories Volume I, Love on the Battlefield, and the Ultimate Uniform's collection. With more stories scheduled to be published in the future and others she's currently working on there will be plenty of her creative works to be found so be on the look out.

  Erik Moore was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. From a young age, he was an avid reader, and recalls that the first book he read on his own was Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. He was teased at school for being a geek and frequently dealt with it by retreating into the fantasy worlds of stories, other people's at first, and then those of his own creation. Though a writing enthusiast, his first love and vocation will always be computer programming and website development. He currently resides in Florida with his wife and their menagerie of dogs and cats, and wears his geek label proudly.

  Della R. Buckland originally born in New York and transplanted to Southern California, has been writing tales of her fantasy worlds since she could hold a crayon. By day, she is a mild manner freelance writer publishing over 200 articles for such websites as Ehow and Answerbag for Demand Media Studios as well as Associate
d Content. However, by night, she wanders with nothing more than pen and paper among the dragons and other denizens that roam her worlds and tales of those travels can be found with such online sites as Associated Content and Sorcerous Signals and in print with Mystic Signals.

  Della currently lives in El Cajon, California with her parents and two dogs.

  S.L. Armstrong has been writing for as long as she can remember. Art and reading have played a large part in her life since young childhood, but around fourteen, writing became her passion. Voraciously consuming every book in front of her opened up hundreds of worlds in her head, and she soon wanted to create worlds for other people as well. She has a particular fondness for gothic horror, horror, high fantasy, urban fantasy, and romance novels. The authors she turns to time and again are Stephen King, L.J. Smith, V.C. Andrews, R.L. Stine, and Anne Rice, among others. She has no shame in picking up the young adult novels she loved as a child, and she will talk your ear off about grammar and punctuation.

  After she married her husband almost thirteen years ago, she began to truly delve into the world of writing for public consumption. It was sheer chance that she stumbled on M/M fanfiction, and she's not looked back. Though fanfiction will always have a fond place in her heart, she soon grew tired of playing in other people's sandboxes. When she discovered M/M romance, and how it was now a legitimate branch of romance writing, she knew her course. S.L. plans to release F/F, M/M, M/F, and multiple partner books as she continues her writing career. M/M romance is where her heart lies, no matter what else she may write or read, and it's where she keeps returning to. There is something about two men passionately in love that just makes her heart melt, and she has no intention of giving that up anytime soon.

  S.L. Armstrong lives in Florida with her husband, two dogs, and seven cats. She hates the heat and longs for a northern, snowy climate. She writes with K. Piet on a number of projects, but she also writes her own solitary titles as well.

  She can be found at www.slarmstrong.net or contacted at slarmstrong@slarmstrong.net.