Saturday's Series Spotlight: Naughty in Pendleton by Brigham Vaughn Part 1

Series: Naughty in Pendleton #1-2

Author: Brigham Vaughn

Genre: M/M Romance, BDSM, Bisexual

Release Dates: Date in a Pinch - February 11, 2021

Embracing His Shame - May 21, 2021

Embracing His Shame #2
Summary:

A bad boy mechanic and a kinky accountant: can an indecent proposal lead to love?

Though Forrest Patton looks like a tweedy, uptight accountant, he’s anything but. Underneath the fussy bow ties and love of color-coded spreadsheets lies a man searching for someone to peel back the layers and fulfill his shameful fantasies. Eavesdropping at the diner in town leads him to wonder if the local mechanic might just be the man for the job.

Jarod Keener likes it rough, and he makes no secret of that. But he never expects to be approached with an offer to trade accounting advice for some dirty, risky fun. Always up for a challenge, Jarod dives in head first but Forrest doesn’t trust anyone to give him the humiliation he needs once feelings start to get in the way. 

When a secret about Jarod’s family upends everything, Forrest will have to decide if he’s willing to give Jarod a chance to show him that he can have love and the kink he longs for. 

Warning: Embracing His Shame includes: mild humiliation play, small-town gossip, and two men falling in love despite their best efforts.

Although the books follow in chronological order, each book features a different couple and can be read as a standalone.

Date in a Pinch #1

Summary:

A sweet geek and an experienced Dom: someone’s about to learn their lesson …

 

When chemistry teacher Neil Greene gets an unexpected delivery at Pendleton High, he's mortified when his fellow teacher and crush sees the contents that hint at the adventurous love life he’s dying to explore. Curious but inexperienced, Neil has no idea how to live out his fantasies until the hot lit teacher offers a helping hand.

Alexander Ford likes to be in charge in the bedroom and he’s happy to tutor Neil in all things naughty. But when Neil asks him to pretend to be his date for the Sweetheart’s Game at Pendleton Bay’s Love Fest, Neil may be the one teaching Alexander about love.

Warning: Date in a Pinch includes impact play, bondage, and a Dom who isn’t quite ready to admit he’s found the love of his life. 

Although the books follow in chronological order, each book features a different couple and can be read as a standalone.

Embracing His Shame #2

“I have a proposal for you.” Forrest squared his shoulders and fought the urge to fuss with his bow tie. He'd figured he might as well show up in Full Forrest Mode so Jarod would know what he was getting into. Forrest had tried to pretend he was someone he wasn’t in the past and that had never worked out well. He was never going to be anything but a tall, skinny cycling nut who dressed like somebody’s grandpa. He just had to hope that would do it for Jarod. 

“A proposal, huh?” Jarod smirked. 

Forrest had heard plenty of rumors about Jarod since he’d arrived in town. That he was a hell of a mechanic. That he was an unrepentant man-whore. That he was a kinky deviant. It was the last two Forrest was really, really banking on.

“Yes.” Forrest cleared his throat, the scent of grease, oil, and metal teasing at his nostrils again. “I’ve outlined a plan.” He stepped closer and thrust out his hand, papers trembling a little.

Jarrod blinked down at the slightly rustling sheets. “Why don’t ya’ spell it out for me. I don’t go much for reading.”

“Pretty sure the dog-eared Isaac Azimov book I saw you reading at The Good Yolk the other morning says otherwise,” Forrest blurted out. He’d spotted it on the table as he’d left last weekend. All part of the reconnaissance work he’d done.

“Seems like you’ve been payin’ real close attention to me,” Jarod said, raising a single eyebrow. He took a step closer and the scents of the garage were replaced with something rich and deep. Animalistic, with hints of tobacco and cinnamon, and something warm and sweet that lingered in Forrest’s nostrils. “Funny. I don’t know who you are.”

“Forrest Patton.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m an accountant in town.”

“Huh. Yeah, your name does ring a few bells. Can’t say as I’ve ever seen you before though.” Jarod’s gaze flicked up and down his body. This morning, Forrest wore dark green trousers, a gray cardigan, a white and gray check button down shirt, and a bow tie he’d had to re-tie three times before it would lay flat. He tried not to squirm as he imagined Jarod staring at him like that while he was naked. 

“Well, I’ve got work to do now,” Jarod said as he turned away and ambled toward the car, picking up a wrench of some sort along the way. At least Forrest was pretty sure it was a wrench. “I’ll work. You talk. You can read the damn paperwork aloud if you want.”

Damn it, that ruined Forrest’s whole approach of not talking about things. 

Jarod bent over the engine again, focused and intent as he reached in with the tool. His hands were already a little grimy from the work he’d been doing this morning. Shit, that was sexy too.

Forrest cleared his throat and plunged forward, trying to regroup. “I want to do the books for your business in exchange for various kinky sexual favors.”

Jarod straightened abruptly, his head smacking the hood of the car with a painful-sounding thud. A moment later the metallic clatter of the wrench hitting the concrete echoed around them. 

Jarod swore as he backed up, rubbing his head. He squinted at Forrest “What?”

“I know you’re a Dom or Top of some sort.” Forrest lifted his chin. “And I want you to dominate me.”

Jarod let out a noise of disbelief. “You do, do you?”

“Yes, I do.” 

Unlikely of a pair as they were, Forrest was dead serious about this. Most Doms took one look at him and assumed he was only the sweet, innocent accountant the world saw him as. They refused to see that underneath the sweater vests and the bow ties and the tweed was someone who longed to be treated with more than kid gloves. Forrest was tired of polite. Tired of being treated like he was made of spun glass. He wanted to feel shame crawling hot over his skin and revel in it. And he was convinced Jarod was the man to do it.

“You think you have what it takes to keep up with a guy like me?” Jarod asked. There was a dangerous glitter in his eyes that made Forrest’s breath go shallow. 

“I’m not a virgin in any sense. I’ve had sex with plenty of men. I’m not particularly submissive but I love being forced to do something. I’ve never found anyone who can handle what I want. I think some of the things I’ve fantasized about would make even you think twice,” he said defiantly. 

“Alright, I’ll admit, you have me curious.” Jarod stepped up into his space, clearly trying to intimidate him. Forrest squared his shoulders, refusing to back down. “Tell me what you want. What makes your motor rev?”

“Humiliation,” Forrest said. His heart thumped in his chest as he said the words aloud. “Degradation. The dirtier the better. I want you to use me.”

“Well, well, well,” Jarod drawled as a slow smile spread over his face. “Who’d have thought Pendleton Bay’s accountant was such a filthy fuck?”

Even those relatively tame words sent heat spiraling through Forrest. His knees went weak, his palms got sweaty, and his cock twitched in anticipation of what was to come. Oh yes, this was exactly what he’d been looking for. 

“You ready to find out just how deep that filth goes?” Forrest asked, lifting his chin.

Jarod chuckled and grabbed his hair, sending stinging pain through Forrest’s body that settled low in his groin, throbbing in time with his heartbeat. 

“Oh, I’m ready. But I think you may have bitten off more than you can chew, boy,” Jarod said and the warning in his voice sent another thrill through Forrest’s body.

Forrest titled his head defiantly. “Try me.”

Author Bio:

Brigham Vaughn is on the adventure of a lifetime as a full-time writer. She devours books at an alarming rate and hasn’t let her short arms and long torso stop her from doing yoga.  She makes a killer key lime pie, hates green peppers, and loves wine tasting tours. A collector of vintage Nancy Drew books and green glassware, she enjoys poking around in antique shops and refinishing thrift store furniture. An avid photographer, she dreams of traveling the world and she can’t wait to discover everything else life has to offer her.

Her books range from short stories to novellas. They explore gay, lesbian, and polyamorous romance in contemporary settings.

To stay up to date on her latest releases, sign up for the Coles & Vaughn Newsletter.

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Embracing His Shame #2

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Date in a Pinch #1

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📘🎥Friday's Film Adaptation🎥📘: Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

Summary:
Eight years ago Moose Malloy and cute little redhead Velma were getting married - until someone framed Malloy for armed robbery. Now his stretch is up and he wants Velma back. PI Philip Marlow meets Malloy one hot day in Hollywood and, out of the generosity of his jaded heart, agrees to help him. Dragged from one smoky bar to another, Marlowe's search for Velma turns up plenty of dangerous gangsters with a nasty habit of shooting first and talking later. And soon what started as a search for a missing person becomes a matter of life and death . . .

ONE
It was one of the mixed blocks over on Central Avenue, the blocks that are not yet all Negro. I had just come out of a three-chair barber shop where an agency thought a relief barber named Dimitrios Aleidis might be working. It was a small matter. His wife said she was willing to spend a little money to have him come home.

I never found him, but Mrs. Aleidis never paid me any money either.

It was a warm day, almost the end of March, and I stood outside the barber shop looking up at the jutting neon sign of a second floor dine and dice emporium called Florian's. A man was looking up at the sign too. He was looking up at the dusty windows with a sort of ecstatic fixity of expression, like a hunky immigrant catching his first sight of the Statue of Liberty. He was a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck. He was about ten feet away from me. His arms hung loose at his sides and a forgotten cigar smoked behind his enormous fingers.

Slim quiet Negroes passed up and down the street and stared at him with darting side glances. He was worth looking at. He wore a shaggy borsalino hat, a rough gray sports coat with white golf balls on it for buttons, a brown shirt, a yellow tie, pleated gray flannel slacks and alligator shoes with white explosions on the toes. From his outer breast pocket cascaded a show handkerchief of the same brilliant yellow as his tie. There were a couple of colored feathers tucked into the band of his hat, but he didn't really need them. Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

His skin was pale and he needed a shave. He would always need a shave. He had curly black hair and heavy eyebrows that almost met over his thick nose. His ears were small and neat for a man of that size and his eyes had a shine close to tears that gray eyes often seem to have. He stood like a statue, and after a long time he smiled.

He moved slowly across the sidewalk to the double swinging doors which shut off the stairs to the second floor. He pushed them open, cast a cool expressionless glance up and down the street, and moved inside. If he had been a smaller man and more quietly dressed, I might have thought he was going to pull a stick-up. But not in those clothes, and not with that hat, and that frame.

The doors swung back outwards and almost settled to a stop. Before they had entirely stopped moving they opened again, violently, outwards. Something sailed across the sidewalk and landed in the gutter between two parked cars. It landed on its hands and knees and made a high keening noise like a cornered rat. It got up slowly, retrieved a hat and stepped back onto the sidewalk. It was a thin, narrow-shouldered brown youth in a lilac colored suit and a carnation. It had slick black hair. It kept its mouth open and whined for a moment. People stared at it vaguely. Then it settled its hat jauntily, sidled over to the wall and walked silently splay-footed off along the block.

Silence. Traffic resumed. I walked along to the double doors and stood in front of them. They were motionless now. It wasn't any of my business. So I pushed them open and looked in.

A hand I could have sat in came out of the dimness and took hold of my shoulder and squashed it to a pulp. Then the hand moved me through the doors and casually lifted me up a step. The large face looked at me. A deep soft voice said to me, quietly:

"Smokes in here, huh? Tie that for me, pal."

It was dark in there. It was quiet. From up above came vague sounds of humanity, but we were alone on the stairs. The big man stared at me solemnly and went on wrecking my shoulder with his hand.

"A dinge," he said. "I just thrown him out. You seen me throw him out?"

He let go of my shoulder. The bone didn't seem to be broken, but the arm was numb.

"It's that kind of a place," I said, rubbing my shoulder. "What did you expect?"

"Don't say that, pal," the big man purred softly, like four tigers after dinner. "Velma used to work here. Little Velma."

He reached for my shoulder again. I tried to dodge him but he was as fast as a cat. He began to chew my muscles up some more with his iron fingers.

"Yeah," he said. "Little Velma. I ain't seen her in eight years. You say this here is a dinge joint?"

I croaked that it was.

He lifted me up two more steps. I wrenched myself loose and tried for a little elbow room. I wasn't wearing a gun. Looking for Dimitrios Aleidis hadn't seemed to require it. I doubted if it would do me any good. The big man would probably take it away from me and eat it.

"Go on up and see for yourself," I said, trying to keep the agony out of my voice.

He let go of me again. He looked at me with a sort of sadness in his gray eyes. "I'm feelin' good," he said. "I wouldn't want anybody to fuss with me. Let's you and me go on up and maybe nibble a couple."

"They won't serve you. I told you it's a colored joint."

"I ain't seen Velma in eight years," he said in his deep sad voice. "Eight long years since I said good-by. She ain't wrote to me in six. But she'll have a reason. She used to work here. Cute she was. Let's you and me go on up, huh?"

"All right," I yelled. "I'll go up with you. Just lay off carrying me. Let me walk. I'm fine. I'm all grown up. I go to the bathroom alone and everything. Just don't carry me."

"Little Velma used to work here," he said gently. He wasn't listening to me.

We went on up the stairs. He let me walk. My shoulder ached. The back of my neck was wet.

TWO
Two more swing doors closed off the head of the stairs from whatever was beyond. The big man pushed them open lightly with his thumbs and we went into the room. It was a long narrow room, not very clean, not very bright, not very cheerful. In the corner a group of Negroes chanted and chattered in the cone of light over a crap table. There was a bar against the right hand wall. The rest of the room was mostly small round tables. There were a few customers, men and women, all Negroes.

The chanting at the crap table stopped dead and the light over it jerked out. There was a sudden silence as heavy as a water-logged boat. Eyes looked at us, chestnut colored eyes, set in faces that ranged from gray to deep black. Heads turned slowly and the eyes in them glistened and stared in the dead alien silence of another race.

A large, thick-necked Negro was leaning against the end of the bar with pink garters on his shirt sleeves and pink and white suspenders crossing his broad back. He had bouncer written all over him. He put his lifted foot down slowly and turned slowly and stared at us, spreading his feet gently and moving a broad tongue along his lips. He had a battered face that looked as if it had been hit by everything but the bucket of a dragline. It was scarred, flattened, thickened, checkered, and welted. It was a face that had nothing to fear. Everything had been done to it that anybody could think of.

The short crinkled hair had a touch of gray. One ear had lost the lobe.

The Negro was heavy and wide. He had big heavy legs and they looked a little bowed, which is unusual in a Negro. He moved his tongue some more and smiled and moved his body. He came towards us in a loose fighter's crouch. The big man waited for him silently.

The Negro with the pink garters on his arms put a massive brown hand against the big man's chest. Large as it was, the hand looked like a stud. The big man didn't move. The bouncer smiled gently.

"No white folks, brother. Jes' fo' the colored people. I'se sorry."

The big man moved his small sad gray eyes and looked around the room. His cheeks flushed a little. "Shine box," he said angrily, under his breath. He raised his voice. "Where's Velma at?" he asked the bouncer.

The bouncer didn't quite laugh. He studied the big man's clothes, his brown shirt and yellow tie, his rough gray coat and the white golf balls on it. He moved his thick head around delicately and studied all this from various angles. He looked down at the alligator shoes. He chuckled lightly. He seemed amused. I felt a little sorry for him. He spoke softly again.

"Velma, you says? No Velma heah, brother. No hooch, no gals, no nothing. Jes' the scram, white boy, jes' the scram."

"Velma used to work here," the big man said. He spoke almost dreamily, as if he was all by himself, out in the woods, picking johnny-jump-ups. I got my handkerchief out and wiped the back of my neck again.

The bouncer laughed suddenly. "Shuah," he said, throwing a quick look back over his shoulder at his public. "Velma used to work heah. But Velma don't work heah no mo'. She done reti'ed. Haw, haw."

"Kind of take your goddamned mitt off my shirt," the big man said.

The bouncer frowned. He was not used to being talked to like that. He took his hand off the shirt and doubled it into a fist about the size and color of a large eggplant. He had his job, his reputation for toughness, his public esteem to consider. He considered them for a second and made a mistake. He swung the fist very hard and short with a sudden outward jerk of the elbow and hit the big man on the side of the jaw. A soft sigh went around the room.

It was a good punch. The shoulder dropped and the body swung behind it. There was a lot of weight in that punch and the man who landed it had had plenty of practice. The big man didn't move his head more than an inch. He didn't try to block the punch. He took it, shook himself lightly, made a quiet sound in his throat and took hold of the bouncer by the throat.

The bouncer tried to knee him in the groin. The big man turned him in the air and slid his gaudy shoes apart on the scaly linoleum that covered the floor. He bent the bouncer backwards and shifted his right hand to the bouncer's belt. The belt broke like a piece of butcher's string. The big man put his enormous hands flat against the bouncer's spine and heaved. He threw him clear across the room, spinning and staggering and flailing with his arms. Three men jumped out of the way. The bouncer went over with a table and smacked into the baseboard with a crash that must have been heard in Denver. His legs twitched. Then he lay still.

"Some guys," the big man said, "has got wrong ideas about when to get tough." He turned to me. "Yeah," he said. "Let's you and me nibble one."

We went over to the bar. The customers, by ones and twos and threes, became quiet shadows that drifted soundless across the floor, soundless through the doors at the head of the stairs. Soundless as shadows on the grass. They didn't even let the doors swing.

We leaned against the bar. "Whiskey sour," the big man said. "Call yours."

"Whiskey sour," I said.

We had whiskey sours.

The big man licked his whiskey sour impassively down the side of the thick squat glass. He stared solemnly at the barman, a thin, worried-looking Negro in a white coat who moved as if his feet hurt him.

"You know where Velma is?"

"Velma, you says?" the barman whined. "I ain't seen her 'round heah lately. Not right lately, nossuh."

"How long you been here?"

"Let's see," the barman put his towel down and wrinkled his forehead and started to count on his fingers. "'Bout ten months, I reckon. 'Bout a yeah. 'Bout--"

"Make your mind up," the big man said.

The barman goggled and his Adam's apple flopped around like a headless chicken.

"How long's this coop been a dinge joint?" the big man demanded gruffly.

"Says which?"

The big man made a fist into which his whiskey sour glass melted almost out of sight.

"Five years anyway," I said. "This fellow wouldn't know anything about a white girl named Velma. Nobody here would."

The big man looked at me as if I had just hatched out. His whiskey sour hadn't seemed to improve his temper.

"Who the hell asked you to stick your face in?" he asked me.

I smiled. I made it a big warm friendly smile. "I'm the fellow that came in with you. Remember?"

He grinned back then, a flat white grin without meaning. "Whiskey sour," he told the barman. "Shake them fleas outa your pants. Service."

The barman scuttled around, rolling the whites of his eyes. I put my back against the bar and looked at the room. It was now empty, save for the barman, the big man and myself, and the bouncer crushed over against the wall. The bouncer was moving. He was moving slowly as if with great pain and effort. He was crawling softly along the baseboard like a fly with one wing. He was moving behind the tables, wearily, a man suddenly old, suddenly disillusioned. I watched him move. The barman put down two more whiskey sours. I turned to the bar. The big man glanced casually over at the crawling bouncer and then paid no further attention to him.

"There ain't nothing left of the joint," he complained. "They was a little stage and band and cute little rooms where a guy could have fun. Velma did some warbling. A redhead she was. Cute as lace pants. We was to of been married when they hung the frame on me."

I took my second whiskey sour. I was beginning to have enough of the adventure. "What frame?" I asked.

A society sleuth and a lady reporter try to track down a murderous thug's lost girlfriend.

Release Date: May 29, 1942

Release Time: 65 minutes

Director: Irving Reis

Cast:

George Sanders as Gay Lawrence aka The Falcon

Lynn Bari as Ann Reardon

James Gleason as Police Inspector Mike O'Hara

Allen Jenkins as Jonathan "Goldie" Locke

Warren Jackson as Montgomery, Club manager

Helen Gilbert as Diana Kenyon, known as "Velma"

Ward Bond as Moose Malloy, an escaped convict

Edward Gargan as Bates

Anne Revere as Jessie Florian

George Cleveland as Jerry

Harry Shannon as Grimes

Hans Conried as Quincy W. Marriot

Turhan Bey as Jules Amthor

Charlie Hall as Swan Club Waiter Louie

Mickey Simpson as Bartender

Selmar Jackson as Laird Burnett

The Big Sleep  /  Farewell, My Lovely(1944)

The High Window  /  The Lady in the Lake  /  The Little Sister

Author Bio:
Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.

In 1932, at age forty-four, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in 1933 in Black Mask, a popular pulp magazine. His first novel, The Big Sleep, was published in 1939. In addition to his short stories, Chandler published just seven full novels during his lifetime (though an eighth in progress at his death was completed by Robert B. Parker). All but Playback have been realized into motion pictures, some several times. In the year before he died, he was elected president of the Mystery Writers of America. He died on March 26, 1959, in La Jolla, California.

Chandler had an immense stylistic influence on American popular literature, and is considered by many to be a founder, along with Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and other Black Mask writers, of the hard-boiled school of detective fiction. Chandler's Philip Marlowe, along with Hammett's Sam Spade, are considered by some to be synonymous with "private detective," both having been played on screen by Humphrey Bogart, whom many considered to be the quintessential Marlowe.

Some of Chandler's novels are considered to be important literary works, and three are often considered to be masterpieces: Farewell, My Lovely (1940), The Little Sister (1949), and The Long Goodbye (1953). The Long Goodbye is praised within an anthology of American crime stories as "arguably the first book since Hammett's The Glass Key, published more than twenty years earlier, to qualify as a serious and significant mainstream novel that just happened to possess elements of mystery".

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Film

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Release Blitz: Deliverance by Garrett Leigh

Title: Deliverance

Author: Garrett Leigh

Series: Darkest Skies #2

Genre: M/M Romance

Release Date: May 20, 2021

Cover Design: Black Jazz Design

⌛⏰⏳Redemption #1 - Currently only 99cents⏳⏰⌛

Summary:

Banished gangster Benito Martell is living on the edge. An explosive hook-up in a club gifts him the relief he craves, but nothing about his life is ever so simple. Complications abound, and before long, he’s falling for the only man who can save his family from eviction.

Recovering addict Mickey Larwood has worked hard to leave his past behind. He can’t look back, not even for the beautiful Benito, the last soul on earth he expected to steal his heart—a soul who’s knee-deep in the underworld Mickey has run hundreds of miles to escape.

Benito can deny it all he wants, but Mickey can smell trouble a mile off.

And Benito is trouble with a capital T. As his desperate lies unravel, so does the fledgling love that’s grown between them. If Benito wants deliverance from his old life and a future with Mickey, old ghosts need to die.

If they don’t kill him first.

Deliverance is an angsty standalone MM romance novel, with second chances, found family, friends-to-lovers, and buckets of hurt/comfort themed loveliness. Trigger warnings for addiction and childhood trauma.

Salvation #3: Pre-Order Out September 20

Author Bio:

Garrett Leigh is an award-winning British writer and book designer.

Garrett's debut novel, Slide, won Best Bisexual Debut at the 2014 Rainbow Book Awards, and her polyamorous novel, Misfits was a finalist in the 2016 LAMBDA awards.

When not writing, Garrett can generally be found procrastinating on Twitter, cooking up a storm, or sitting on her behind doing as little as possible, all the while shouting at her menagerie of children and animals and attempting to tame her unruly and wonderful FOX.

Garrett is also an award winning cover artist, taking the silver medal at the Benjamin Franklin Book Awards in 2016. She designs for various publishing houses and independent authors at Black Jazz Design, and co-owns the specialist stock site Moonstock Photography with renowned LGBTQA+ photographer Dan Burgess.

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Deliverance #2

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Release Blitz: Kraken My Heart by KL Hiers

Title: Kraken My Heart

Author: KL Hiers

Series: Sucker for Love #2

Genre: M/M Romance, Paranormal

Release Date: May 18, 2021

Publisher: Dreamspinner

Cover Design: Tiferet Design

Summary:

It’s just Ted’s luck that he meets the love of his life while covered in the blood of a murder victim.

Funeral worker Ted Sturm has a foul mouth, a big heart, and a knack for communicating with the dead. Unfortunately, the dead don’t make very good friends, and Ted’s only living pal, his roommate, just rescued a strange cat who’s determined to make his life even more miserable. This cat is more than he seems, and soon Ted finds himself in an alternate dimension… and on top of a dead body.

When Ted is accused of murder, his only ally in a strange world full of powerful magical beings calling for his head is King Grell, a sarcastic, randy, catlike immortal with impressive abilities… and anatomy. The two soon find themselves at the center of a cosmic conspiracy and surrounded by dangerous enemies. But with Ted’s special skills and Grell’s magic, they have a chance to get to the bottom of the mystery and save Ted. There’s just one problem: Ted’s got to resist Grell’s aggressive advances… and he isn’t sure he wants to.

Carefully, like Ted was navigating through a minefield, he tried to sneak back to his room. Despite his diligent and precise pace, his foot collided with a very large ball of fur just as he walked around the edge of the couch.

Mr. Twigs yowled in protest and promptly bit Ted’s ankle.

“You stupid cat!” Ted growled in pain, his leg jerking and sending the cat stumbling into the wall. His heart dropped in instant regret, and he hurried to turn on a lamp. “Shit! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to, little dude! Are you okay?”

Mr. Twigs was glaring at Ted over his sunglasses and growled loudly. A portal suddenly opened up in the living room floor with flashing bright lights and whipping winds.

Ted froze, staring stupidly at the giant black void in the apartment floor. Being able to create a portal was a very rare skill, and he’d never seen one in person before. “What the…?”

As if the swirling hole wasn’t crazy enough, Mr. Twigs transformed into a very tall, very skinny, and very naked young man. He flashed a smile full of pointed teeth, hissing, “Oh, that’s the last time you kick me, asshole.”

“I didn’t kick you!” Ted argued indignantly. “It was a fucking accidennnnnttt!” he screamed as Mr. Twigs pushed him and sent him toppling headfirst into the portal.

It was like… going down a water slide filled with pudding.

Ted didn’t feel air around him, not exactly, but it was something thick and suffocating. The light all around him was so bright that he couldn’t see, and he thought he had to be dying.

His stomach dropped as if he was falling, but he couldn’t see anything to track his descent. He grunted when he smacked into something solid and wet, the wind knocked right out of his lungs. He wheezed, trying to draw in oxygen and staring up at a high vaulted ceiling.

Ted watched the portal close above him, and he weakly lifted his head to see where he was. He was lying in a puddle of something sticky, and the room was reminiscent of an old castle throne room.

Big ceilings, lots of stained glass, fancy throne….

He was also completely surrounded by monsters.

Giant scaled things with tentacles, humanoids with spiraling horns jutting out of their foreheads, twisted feline creatures with sharp teeth, and fishlike worms were all around him.

Ted scrambled to stand up, but he slipped in the sticky mess beneath him. He could feel the goo all over his back and hands, sliding around as he struggled to get out of it. He bumped into something cold and whirled around to find a dead body.

It was one of the feline creatures, its eyes lifeless and milky, soaking in a puddle of….

Oh God.

It was blood.

“Pardon me, coming through!” a deep voice growled, echoing throughout the massive chamber. “Stand aside! This is official royal business, so move your ass!”

Ted was nauseated, staring up at a human figure pushing his way through the crowd of monsters.

He was short but broad, thick in stature, and sporting a nasty smile full of pointed teeth. Otherwise, he looked quite normal. His hair was jet black, cut close to his scalp, with a well-groomed beard streaked with silver, and his eyes were a spectacular shade of gold, looking over Ted like he was a tasty piece of meat.

He wore a three-piece suit, but it was a much flashier ensemble than Ted would have worn for his job at the funeral home. The jacket and pants were black, but the tie was an obnoxiously bright purple, and he could see a glittering watch chain hanging from the man’s matching purple brocade vest.

“Well, aren’t you just a pretty little thing?” the man greeted. “What’s your name, darling?”

“I’m, I’m…,” Ted stammered, looking around frantically as the monsters backed away. Whoever this man was, he was definitely in charge. There was something about the way he was looking at Ted that made him blush and his heart beat a little faster.

“I’m Ted…. My name is Ted,” he managed to choke out. He wondered if he was dead or if this was some sort of nightmare. His mind was having trouble processing that any of this was real. “Where am I? What is this?”

“Welcome to Xenon, darling,” the man replied. “I’m Thiazi Grell. I was voted most likely to get detained for illegal activities by my primary class, very avid Tetris player, and reigning Miss Pretty Petunia Pageant champion for the last two hundred years. Oh, and King of Xenon.

 Obviously.”

“Huh?” Ted squeaked.

“Would you like something to drink?” Grell offered. “Something strong. Help you calm down, put some more hair on that luscious chest, come to terms with the murder charges….”

“With the what?”

Author Bio:

K.L. “Kat” Hiers is an embalmer, restorative artist, and queer writer. Licensed in both funeral directing and funeral service, she’s been working in the death industry for nearly a decade. Her first love was always telling stories, and she has been writing for over twenty years, penning her very first book at just eight years old. Publishers generally do not accept manuscripts in Hello Kitty notebooks, however, but she never gave up.

Following the success of her first novel, Cold Hard Cash, she now enjoys writing professionally, focusing on spinning tales of sultry passion, exotic worlds, and emotional journeys. She loves attending horror movie conventions and indulging in cosplay of her favorite characters. She lives in Zebulon, NC, with her husband and their children, some of whom have paws and a few that only pretend to because they think it’s cute.

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