Excerpt from Brasada

It was cooler out here on the balcony. Myrissa drew in a lungful of fresh night air. Her head felt a little clearer, but she was still angry. Still hurt and confused. She sighed gustily then let out a startled shriek when a voice addressed her from the adjoining balcony.

“Couldn’t you sleep either Donna?”

She whirled around and looked over the railing that separated their room from the one next door. Syr Cabrini lounged in a chair, his bare feet propped up on the balcony wall. As she faced him he rose to his feet, seeming to loom over her. Madre, he is tall, Myrissa thought as she looked up at him. He was also, oh Madre, Myrissa felt her cheeks flood with hot colour, scandalously underdressed. Naked in fact. She drew her eyes up his body, from his bare, muscled chest to his black eyes. It was too dark to truly make out his expression but she could see the flash of his white teeth when he grinned at her. He lifted a bottle of wine and waved it at her.

“Perhaps you’d care to join me for a drink?”

Myrissa was about to offer a curt refusal. Ross Cabrini did not seem the type of man with whom it was safe to drink. In fact, he didn’t strike Myrissa as being safe at all. She suddenly thought of old Sister Galini at the convent and felt an inappropriate urge to giggle.

“A lady never...” Sister Galini preceded every sentence with those words, or so it had seemed to Myrissa and her schoolgirl companions. She could see her now.

“A lady never accepts a drink from a naked stranger.”

Myrissa knew she had been a sore trial to Galini, taking every opportunity to defy the elderly sister. Her acts of defiance had not been great in the scheme of things but they had been the only autonomy she had at her command during the three years she had resided at San Selmo.

Myrissa hesitated. So Ross Cabrini was naked. Gloriously naked, a voice in her head chortled gleefully. There was something coiled and dangerous in the deceptively lazy way he watched her now. However, he had made her laugh and there had been moments tonight when he had appeared almost kind. The thought of returning to her room, the room where she had left Luis sleeping in the darkness he feared so much... More hesitation. It wasn’t like her to dither so. She weighed her options. She really didn’t want to return to her room just yet. Perhaps a drink was exactly what she needed right now? Deciding that she could handle Ross Cabrini if the need arose, Myrissa gave him a speculative look. Perhaps she could get him to talk about Brasada.

“Yes, alright,” she agreed. She hitched up her robe and clambered over the low railing onto the balcony next door. Syr Cabrini watched her without moving as she walked towards him, then he flashed her another smile and pulled out a chair for her. She plopped herself down and took the bottle he offered, raising an eyebrow at him.

“No glasses?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not.”

She wiped the neck of the bottle on her robe, aware of his amused regard, then tilted it to her mouth and took a long swallow. It was a Meicán red; strong and dry it slid down her throat and settled warmly in her stomach. She passed the bottle back to him.

“There’s not much left.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “There’s more in my room. I’ll fetch another bottle.”

“Perhaps you should fetch yourself some clothes as well,” Myrissa suggested. “You’re improperly dressed for company.”

He raised one dark eyebrow. “I’m devastated. Women usually prefer me naked.”

“Really?” said Myrissa coolly. She ran her eyes down his body, glad that the night hid her flaming cheeks, before shrugging. “I’ll just have to take your word on that.”

Ross’ mouth twitched. “I’ll get the wine,” he said. “And some trousers. But no shirt. It’s too hot. However, if it makes you more comfortable feel free to remove some of your own clothing. That way we’ll both be improperly dressed.” He turned and re-entered his room. Myrissa smiled to herself taking another swallow of wine. Despite her better judgement she found herself liking Rossarian Cabrini.

Almost.

When he came back out onto the balcony he hesitated, but instead of sitting in the chair beside her, he went and leaned against the wall that overlooked the street. He had pulled on a pair of loose cotton pants, holding another bottle in his hands which he raised in a salute to her before he took a drink.

Myrissa tilted her head to one side, watching him. In the moonlight his spiky, fair hair seemed almost silver, the contrast with his dark eyebrows and black eyes more pronounced than it had been in the brightly lit ballroom. His skin was pale, so different to Luis’s golden flesh or her dusky colouring. Beneath the moonlight it gleamed like marble. It seemed as though he was almost shining... Realising she was staring, Myrissa lowered her eyes and cleared her throat.

“Syr Cabrini,” she said.

“Ross.”

She looked up at him again.

He smiled. “Call me Ross, Donna Alvarez.”

“Then you must call me Myrissa,” she replied automatically.

“I’m honoured,” he said dryly.

She drank some more wine, finishing what was left in the first bottle and wondering if she could approach him about Brasada. She decided on an indirect attack; some casual conversation, a bit more wine. She’d soften him up, she could sense his interest in her and although she wouldn’t encourage him there was no reason why she couldn’t make use of it and when he was relaxed, slip under his guard. Unfortunately she was finding it difficult to focus. Ruthlessly she forced down the image of all that muscled nakedness. She was a married woman, for the Madre’s sake! And Luis Alvarez was a husband to make other women weep with envy.

Still...a cat could look at a king. There was no harm in looking. Concentrate, she chided herself, gathering her unruly thoughts.

“Did you enjoy the ball?” she asked.

He gave a soft snort of laughter. “Oh, immeasurably,” he said. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

“You seemed to enjoy the dancing,” Myrissa said slyly and he laughed again. “I don’t think Donna Sarilla has ever danced a picano quite like that before.”

He bowed.” I am famous for my picano.”

“Famous? Or infamous?”

“Oh my infamy lies in an entirely different direction from my dancing,” he murmured softly.

Myrissa swallowed another mouthful of wine. Her mouth felt dry.

He grinned at her, another flash of white teeth, shaking his head. “She’s a cold bitch, that one.” He paused, the expression in his dark eyes turning opaque and distant. A faint smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. “Well, a bitch at least. Poor Nicky.”

Myrissa started. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice sounding high and strained to her ears.

“Are you all right Donna?” Ross took a step towards her but she held up her hand.

“Nicky?” she asked.

“Dominic Santorro – Nicky. I was speaking of his wife. Are you sure you’re alright? That wine can be rather strong if you’re not used to it.”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. Reaching out she snatched the bottle of wine from his hands. Their fingers touched and she saw Cabrini’s eyes widen. He released the bottle so suddenly that she almost dropped it. For a moment he stared at her. She could see a pulse beating hard in the hollow of his throat. Then he stepped back.

Myrissa wished she could see his face more clearly. She wanted to see if he was as unsettled as she was. Chiding herself for being so foolish she took another swig of wine. What she really wanted to know was why her husband was laying in the room next door, muttering Dominic Santorro’s name in his sleep.

“You were at Brasada with Luis, weren’t you? You and Nicky.”

She sensed him stiffen and draw away from her, just as Luis always did and it infuriated her.

“Why won’t anyone talk about it?” she demanded.

Ross turned his back to gaze down at the street below.

“Why don’t you ask Luis about Brasada?”

“Because he won’t talk about it,” she ground out.

“Then why the hell should I?” Ross said coldly.

Myrissa could see the tension in his back; that invisible wall that Luis was so good at erecting was evident here as well. She was tired of trying to breach it, Luis and Syr Rossarian Cabrini could stay in their little self imposed hells and rot. She rose from her chair and went to climb back over the railing to her own balcony when Ross’ soft voice stopped her.

“Myrissa. Maybe Luis hasn’t told you anything because he doesn’t think you’ll believe him.”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened at Brasada... It’s not...” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Madre knows, I wish I could just forget it all.” He gave her a twisted smile. “Some things just can’t be explained, not without the one doing the telling looking like the madman from a mummers tale. Think on this...”

Whatever he had been about to say was cut short as Luis screamed from the room next door, a hoarse cry that shattered the night. Myrissa lunged over the railing. Ross followed her. Luis screamed again as she tore the curtains open, letting the moonlight into the darkened room. He lay curled into a ball in the centre of the bed. Myrissa ran to his side and gathered him into her arms.

“Sshh, sweetheart,” she soothed. “Sshh, it’s only a dream.”

Luis was trembling, his skin damp with sweat. Myrissa heard Ross at the table beside the bed, striking a flint. He lit the lantern and the shadows in the room receded. Luis eyes were wide and dazed.

“You left me in the dark. You left me in the dark,” he said over and over but Myrissa could see that he wasn’t speaking to her. She glanced up at Ross, who only looked down at her without expression. She continued to stroke Luis’s hair. After a few minutes she felt him relax, the confusion clearing from his face.

“Myrissa,” he whispered and laid his head in her lap like an exhausted child. In another moment he was asleep.

Myrissa looked up at Ross again. “Tell me about Brasada,” she begged him. “How can I help him if I don’t know what happened?”

He closed his eyes. Myrissa could see a muscle jumping in his jaw. Then he opened his eyes again and spoke in a hoarse voice.

“You talk about Brasada as though it’s in the past, but it’s not, don’t you see? Brasada isn’t the past. It’s now.” His voice dropped so low she could scarcely hear him. “It’s forever.”

He took a step towards her. “You stupid little girl. You’re so far out of your depth here...” He closed his eyes and drew a ragged breath. “I should tell you to pack up and run, as fast and as far as you can. Forget Luis. Forget Brasada. Forget it all before it kills you...like it’s killed all of us. I would if I could but there’d be no point. Hell is about to break loose and there’s no where on this earth that’s far enough away to run to.”

Myrissa sat staring up at him in terrified incomprehension. Drawing a finger down her cheek, he straightened up and this time when he spoke his voice had returned to the dry, mocking tone he had used earlier in the night.

“I’m sorry. I frightened you. Forgive me. Perhaps I’m the one who has found the wine too strong.” He gave a crooked smile and turned away. When he reached the door he stopped and spoke again, softly.

“It’s been ten years. I never really thought Brasada was finished with us, but I hoped. I’ve never thought of myself as a fool either. Guess I was wrong on both counts. Madre help me, I was so wrong.”

He left Myrissa with Luis’s sleeping weight in her lap, trembling in the darkness and understanding even less than she had before.

Blood Moon: Prologue

PROLOGUE

He walked through silence, but not darkness. The moon, full, pendant, stained with a kiss of red about its periphery illuminated the snow. There was no need for the lantern he carried so he left it beside a tree and walked on unencumbered. The bare branches of the forest cast grotesque shadows around his feet, conjuring images of the Nagahman and his death hounds. He shivered, but not entirely from fear. The thrill of anticipation thrummed through his veins, heating his body and pooling with heavy languor between his legs. An eerik shrieked nearby and he started, glancing around at the subtle menace of the naked trees as they pressed against him.

Would she come?

One particular tree, its trunk shattered by lightning at some distant time in the past, bent its twisted body beside a stone obelisk. The stone, lichen and moss crawling across its carved face, did not lean. It rose out of the white earth like an accusing finger, pointing to the sky. He halted, his heart beating fast in his throat, throbbing in his groin. Here. Here.

The night seemed to draw back a little, the moon dimming, as though they acknowledged the presence of a more potent power. She came, stepping lightly over the snow, her bare feet leaving no trace of her passage. Her unbound hair, eldritch black, swirled about her hips. He feasted his eyes on her face, the lips that already appeared kiss swollen, full and red. Her eyes, dark as memory, eyes that drifted over him like the touch of winter, igniting the hunger in him to a pitch of unbearable wanting.

He thought he moaned something. Her name?

Ysabara.

She smiled and held out her hand and he stumbled towards her. He took hold of it and the jolt that shot through his body caused him to gasp, to fight furiously against the urge to spend himself there on the snow. He dropped her hand and stood before her, breathing harshly, gaining control of his body. She smiled at him, knowing the effect she had on him. Raising a hand to trace the line of his jaw, the first faint evidence of approaching manhood that dusted it. He whispered her name again.

Ysabara.

“So, my Lord.” Her voice was low. “You know what you are offering? You are willing?”

He was almost beyond speech, his entire body focussed upon one desperate need. To bury himself in her body. To pound and thrust until he found the release he craved. To unleash the pleasure he knew he would find once he joined his flesh to hers. Pleasure beyond anything he had ever found from his own fumbling touch, the furtive guilty pleasures of a fifteen year old boy as he stroked and rubbed himself in the dark. He would have agreed to anything, everything, to have her.

“I am willing,” he moaned as she kissed him again. And then, because it was true and needed to be said. “I love you.”

She stood back, studying him. There was a look in her black eyes that he couldn’t understand. Another smile flickered across her narrow, pointed face. “Indeed? And I love you.”

She pressed against him and his body ignited even though he couldn’t imagine being any hotter. Any harder. He moaned again, a low keening sound and bent his head to the soft white skin of her neck, sucking desperately at the hollow of her throat. She placed her hands on either side of his face and forced his head back, holding him still as she stared deep into his dazed eyes.

“There is a promise to fulfil my Lord. Remember?”

“Yes. Yes,” he gasped. “I promise. Please…” His hands fumbled at the neck of her gown.

“You must say it, Brasis. Say it. Promise it.”

“I promise. I promise.” Was that his voice? That harsh croak?

She lifted his hand from her bodice, pushed back the sleeve of his shirt.

“Let us seal our bargain.”

She lowered her lips to the soft underskin of his forearm. Opened her mouth and kissed him there. At the searing pain that her kiss engendered he screamed and jerked in her grip. Her fingers dug into his arm, holding him still against the agony of her mouth. When she raised her head and released him he dropped to his knees, panting, his eyes streaming. Burnt into the flesh of his arm was a circle of raised flesh. Within the circle a sigil. Her fingers traced the symbol, tenderly stroking the red, scarred skin.

“This marks you as mine, Brasis. Bound to me by the promise you have made and the flesh you will share with me. When the Blood Moon rises you will come to me and my will shall be yours. No tie shall be stronger. No love deeper. When I call you, you will answer and the world will fall.”

For a moment the pain in his arm had overridden the fierce desire of his body. Now, as she knelt on the snow beside him and pulled open her gown, baring her high, firm breasts to his eyes, the pain was forgotten. All was forgotten. The warnings he had heard since he was old enough to understand. Never make a promise to the Glyhm. The price they ask is ever too high. What then the price of a promise made to the Glyhm queen?

As she untied him and freed his hot, throbbing flesh from the prison of his breeches, as she drew him down upon the snow to lie atop her body, he didn’t care. The Blood Moon was a thing of legend. It would not rise as he had risen, hard and demanding against her belly. He was fifteen years old. He loved. Nothing bad could ever come of love. She took him in her hand, guided him as he entered her. It was more than he had ever dreamed, a pleasure so intense he felt he might die from it. At the end, as his body bowed backwards and he screamed his climax to the watching forest he caught sight of her face. There was a cold calculation to her features that might have caused him unease had he the wit or the strength left to question it. Whilst he lay across her gasping and shuddering she lay still as stone beneath him. When he finally slipped free, his flesh limp and sated against his thigh, she rose and gathered her gown about her. Her hair fell around her shoulders like a mantle of black fur. He lay on his back gazing up at her in dazed adoration and even as he watched her he felt himself stir, hungry for more of her. He sat up, reaching for her but she slipped away.

“With your seed you have sealed our covenant,” she said. He studied her in confusion. Her voice was cold, her expression remote as though his existence was no longer an entity of which she was aware. His arm began to throb again. Turning away she began to glide back over the snow.

“Ysabara! Wait!” He struggled to his feet, tripping over his loosened breeches and falling to his knees. “I love you! When will I see you again? Don’t go. Don’t go.”

She halted and turned her head. Her black eyes raked him coldly. Then she smiled. Soft, tender, her smile tore his heart from his chest and cast it bloody at her feet.

“Ysabara,” he moaned.

“You will see me again.”

His pulse leapt. When? When? He must have spoken out loud for her smiled widened. She threw back her head and laughed.

“Why my lord. When the Blood Moon rises.”

The snow rose in a flurry about her body, obscuring her from his vision. He blinked, shielded his eyes from the sting of snowflakes as they blew into his face. When his vision cleared she was gone and his head and his body ached with her loss.

He staggered up, adjusting his clothing, cold now and weary and trying to make sense of why he was out here in the forest on a winter’s night. He had a vague memory of a woman, of pleasure and pain both. His cock ached as though he had immersed it in a bucket of ice water, a chill, insistent throb. His arm...He looked down at the scarred, puckered flesh on his forearm, touched it with trembling fingers. How? Something picked at the edge of his memory. A girl, beautiful beyond belief. An assignation. A promise.

He stared up at the red tinged moon. The Blood Moon. Had he been touched by the faery folk, the Glyhm? He stared back towards the dark heart of the forest, his body racked by shivers. Then shrugging deeper into his coat he turned back towards Illios, towards home. He would go to the God speaker at the temple. Cleanse himself. Absolve himself of any obligation. He was the heir of Illios and no promise made to a faery witch could bind him.

As he trudged back to the castle he was shocked to discover that he was weeping, the tears freezing on his face even as they were shed. He was fifteen years old, his whole life stretching before him.

Why then did he feel as though it was ending?

Brasada: Chapter One Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Amarrion – now

There were few sights as lovely as the city of Amarrion in the flush of summer. Myrissa was surely looking upon one now as she gazed at the naked form of her husband, sprawled on his stomach in the middle of the inns second best bed. As she viewed his muscular back, lightly sheened with sweat after a bout of lovemaking, she wondered to herself, how she had ever had the good fortune to find herself wed to Luis Alvarez.

Her father’s wealth had had much to do with it; the Alvarez family were royally impoverished and desperate to improve their own fortunes. There was also the fact of Luis’s birth – there were some in the noble families who disdained to marry with a bastard born lord despite Luis’s title.

Myrissa glanced out the window again at the balcony next door but the big fair haired man, who had been staring at her quite rudely, had disappeared into his room. She turned back into the chamber and sat down on the bed beside Luis, running her fingers up his spine and brushing aside the heavy, black hair that lay upon his shoulders. She leant forward and placed a kiss against his neck.

“Mmmm,” he murmured sleepily.

“You’ll have to get up soon lazybones,” she said. “We need to start getting ready for the reception.”

She felt him tense under her hands.

“I’ve got a headache,” he muttered.

“You seemed fine not that long ago,” Myrissa teased. “Besides, would you deny me the chance to dress up and parade through the ballroom with you on my arms?”

Luis grunted and rolled onto his back, his mouth set into a sulky line. Myrissa ran her fingers across his lips playfully, trying to coax a smile from him. Most of the time Luis treated her with a lazy tenderness which occasionally flared into a desperate passion that startled them both. Sometimes, when in the grip of the darkness that was the aftermath of Brasada, he could be terrifyingly cold and remote, and then there were the times, like now, when he behaved like a sullen child who needed to be cajoled into behaving properly. Myrissa trailed her fingers down his jaw, gently swirling them through the dark hair on his chest before running them down his abdomen. She came to a halt when she reached the terrible scar running across his flat, hard belly, a twisted rope of scar tissue. She stroked the scar softly and felt his belly clench under her fingers. Luis gripped her wrist and held her hand still. Myrissa could read the warning in his eyes. There were some things which would not be tolerated and touching his scar in any way other than in the accidental throes of passion was one of them.

Releasing her hand, Luis rolled over to the other side of the bed and stood up. He walked to the washbasin and taking a cloth began to lathe his body. Myrissa followed him. She gazed over his shoulder, grimacing at her image in the mirror that sat on the wall above the basin.

“I look a fright,” she said as she combed her hands through her dense, chestnut curls.

Luis’s blue eyes met her brown ones in the mirror and she saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

“Never,” he said.

Myrissa kissed his shoulder as she reached around him and took the cloth out of his hands.

“Let me,” she said and slowly dragged the damp cloth across Luis’s shoulders and down his back in a slow, sensual glide. He closed his dark blue eyes. Myrissa could see another faint smile playing on his lips. She knelt before him, reaching down to run the cloth up his legs. Then she replaced the cloth with her tongue and Luis shivered as she began to lick his quickening flesh.

“I thought we were in a hurry,” he gasped.

Myrissa smiled up at him. “Oh don’t worry, I’ll be ready on time.”

Luis tangled his fingers in her hair. “You are so good to me.”

Myrissa tried to reply but he held her firmly against his body preventing her from speaking.

“Sshh,” he drew in a ragged breath.” Don’t you know it’s rude to talk with your mouth full?”

***************

Finally getting started

Right. Now I have worked out exactly what it is I am suppoesed to be doing I will be posting some excerpts of my writing here. I'm working on a couple of projects. The first, Blood Moon is well under way at over 150,000 words. Brasada is still a work in progress. Both are Fantasy novels and Blood Moon looks like being a trilogy but i won't get ahead of myself. I also write a lot of short stories so I'll post a few of those here too.