Mom, Dad, Help! - I'm Mated to the Alien Alpha! Ziggi Moondust Collins is a manic pixie dream girl that went on a bender and never recovered. At least, that's what her bandmates think. Pink-haired with a moonbow on her butt, Ziggi is your average punk barista searching for meaning in suburbia. Too bad her artistic roommate Cyrus. He's experimenting on her, manipulating Ziggi's genome in order to accelerate humanity's evolutionary conga line. Oh yeah, and he's been at it for centuries, meddling with human biology so long the Sumerians started a religion after him. At least he makes a mean fettucine alfredo? After a concert goes sour, Ziggi and Cyrus blast off into space in Cyrus' VW Beetle when Ziggi tries to turn off the radio. Stranded on a spaceship suited for amphibians, not punks, Ziggi learns that her new tenant Cyrus, real name Lahmu, isn't remotely human! Gone are Lahmu's good looks, replaced by beautiful tentacles - he looks like a sexy sewer mutant! Lahmu is the heir to the Milky Way's dysfunctional overlords, the Anunnaki: shapeshifters who feed off information. In order to sexually mature, Lahmu has to shepherd humanity into his parent's galactic dictatorship via good old genetic manipulation - and taking Ziggi to bed! Galactic pirates, space rock bands, and tons of hot and heavy tension between an Alien Alpha and his Chosen Mate abound!
"You're full of shit, Ziggi. My new tatt doesn't look like text from a crappy printer. It's based on Otzi the Iceman's ink. This stuff has history."
I looked at the black bars on the back of Carlos Rivera's neck. All I could think was lame. "This is like a step above tribal tatts, is all I'm saying, my dude."
Carlos adjusted the volume on his bass. "Whatever. You have pink hair and a rainbow on your ass."
"Hey," I said. "My rainbow isn't a rainbow, it's a moonbow. That's why it's in black and white. Moondust is my middle name. Ziggi Moondust Collins. It has meaning, it's not a badly inked bar code!"
"Would you two shut it? I'm trying to get in the zone," Spike said. He twirled his drumsticks in the air.
I plugged my guitar into its amp. "Right." I turned to Carlos "Hotsauce" Rivera. "Forget what I said. Your new tatt is cool." (It wasn't.) "We good?"
Carlos nodded, wary. "Whatever. I guess."
On that discordant note, the Iguana Knees jammed.
Cyrus wandered in halfway through our set, smoking pungent weed in his mushroom shaped bong. This one smelled like a dank skunk. He scoured the floor of Carlos and Spike's garage. Cyrus found a rusty nail and a dented bottle cap.
"Would you guys mind if I kept these?" Cyrus yelled over the blare of my riff, pocketing his newfound treasures.
Carlos eyed Cyrus' toned arms. I wasn't exactly immune to them either.
"Sure thing, man," Spike shouted over my solo, making a V with his drumsticks. "Mi casa is your casa."
"Stop speaking Spanglish Spike, you're rage-murdering my ears," Carlos muttered, plucking at his bass.
"Shut up, Hotsauce," Spike laughed.
"Whatever, dude," Carlos sighed.
Cyrus fiddled with the bottle cap. "Thanks, most gracious of hosts. I'm just here to enjoy the ambience." Cyrus smiled his lazy smile and settled into the threadbare couch near the entrance. He closed his eyes and took a drag from his joint. Exhaling, he picked at a thread in the couch. "Music is like a flower, y'know? Petals of it unfold to engulf us, and soon, we are drowning in its liquidus, seeping nectar. The Rosarium Philosophorum of old, nigredo burnt into rubedo gold!"
Spike and I shared a look. Enamored, Carlos nodded. "Yeah, that's something like Otzi the Iceman would say. You can't tell me a bog body frozen for thousands of years wouldn't be a wise man, like a bona fide Dalai Lama or something."
"Or freezer burned," I muttered.
Carlos gave me the evil eye. I gave him the middle finger. As usual, we were fighting.
Set over, we packed up and parted ways. I ferried my stoned roommate back to our apartment, wondering the whole time if the tattoo on my ass really was just a rainbow.
At home, I floated through a sea of Cyrus' junk to my room, determined to pen the final lyrics to our new set. I was just reaching the bridge, where the suburban dad from our concept album commits suicide with a George Foreman grill in Loudoun County, one of those starched collar and chino clad multimillionaire Washingtonians in ugly outdated 90's era McMansions, when Cyrus' drilling from his makeshift studio broke my concentration yet again.
"Ugh." I crumpled up the eleventh version of my lyrics and tossed them into the wastebasket.
The drilling continued. I banged my head against the desk, wondering how I would ever sleep tonight with Cyrus working in a stoned haze on his newest art project.
I looked into the mirror hanging from my inspiration board and spoke to my baggy-eyed reflection, my bright pink bangs askew: "Get it together. You're days away from performing your new set. You're a broke musician. Do the thing broke musicians do and write a killer song."
Despite my best efforts, no inspiration came.
The drilling grew louder. The girl in the mirror was on the verge of breaking, ready to kick her roommate out, wondering why she had ever let him move in in the first place.
It began innocently enough. I was short on rent for my small two-bedroom in Bent Tree Apartments, and my old roommate had just shaved his head and joined one of those totally not legit completely white Hindu monasteries in Annandale without any ethnic people, just a bunch of kombucha drinking Hare Krishna weirdos, so I put up an ad on Craigslist for another occupant.
Cyrus was the first to respond: a tall, quiet nineteen year old prodigy with long, loose ringlets of cornsilk hair like something from a romance novel and skin like ice in shadow. I had initially liked him because he said he was an artist. It also helped that Cyrus, as I said, looked like something from a romance novel, one with like a millionaire playboy on the cover or like maybe a hot Viking warlord. Maybe that was kinda dumb, but that's what I instinctively thought when I first saw him in all his glorious hotness. Harlequin had, after all, stolen my high school years, besides the Beatniks and Edgar Allen Poe.
Cyrus had proven soft-spoken and charming when we met up in the local library. His fingers had been stained with paint and he was dressed in all white, down to his Doc Marten's. I thought his paint-spattered clothes an endearing quirk.
Things were roses for the first weeks - he kept to himself and his studio - but then I made the mistake of taking him to one of the Iguana Knees' after-parties, where Carlos, ever the Hotsauce, introduced Cyrus to weed.
From the moment Cyrus toked his first joint, he was hooked. The weed had a weird-ass manic effect: he scavenged for trash and channeled bursts of creativity into his found art. Me, it mellowed me out, but it turned Cyrus into a shinies-hoarding magpie. He would collect cast-off shoes from the gutter and cardboard from recycling bins, then go dumpster-diving for more materials. Come morning, the haphazard objects would be forged and soldered and sewn together into new creations and displayed in his studio at the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria where they would be sold for hundreds of dollars, even thousands sometimes. Somehow, even now at 19, he could afford rent at the collective art gallery. I could barely afford a hoagie at Wawa.
Katya is in love with Azovka, the Mistress of Copper Mountain. Katya's fiancee Danilo dares carve Azovka an impossible flower of stone. They witness the ruthlessness of the Romanovs and clutches of corrupt Bailiffs in the Ural Mountains, where Azovka's Copper Men have ruled since they were first mined out of Mount Azov. But when Azovka begins to turns to stone, Katya fears the worst - and that Danilo will follow Azovka to a Hell of malachite shadow. With Baba Yaga's guidance, and the magick in her veins, Katya must save them all! retelling of pavel bazhov's "the stone flower"
Three fated lovers: a shieldmaiden, a Troll Queen, and a Valkyrie. One price: the fate of all Midgard. Turiel is crown princess, but from the outlawed Northern Holds, bloodbound to Troll Queen Jarngrimr, and best friends with the stablelass Yolanda, her first love - until her poison kiss turned Yola into a Valkyrie, and whisks Yolanda from Turiel's grasp. Now, Turiel has been stolen into wily Queen Jarngrimr's realm, with only the goddess Skadhi and Yola - back from the dead! - to guide her. Lussi, the Snow King, craves a bride - and it is Dia's troth alone. Dia, the last blood mage from the line of the Isa, is all that is left of Turiel's legacy. Dia has been raised as Lussi's Magdalene - his ritual Bride - and ritual Slayer - for the past three years. Every Winter Solstice, Lussi can die, and Dia must kill him. But as Dia falls deeper into Lussi's sexy web - and in love - her heart is on the line! Other works and Ko-Fi: linktr.ee/avnelson
Death has a mate - a teenage girl, the Grim Reaper's Bride. All Callie has known is that someone watches her in the woods - Samael, the Grim Reaper. Drawn into his intoxicating web of desires, secrets, and shadows, and hating him with a burning passion - can these two unlikely heroes stop the Apocalypse? Or will Samael start it for love?
The Frost Demon Morozko, Prince of Russia's immortal land of Buyan, has waited ages for a mate. And she is Stravinksy's fabled Firebird - incarnated as an orphaned witch! Cast out by the King of the Ice Kingdom, Morozko wanders Buyan, a Miyazaki haven for cherti, nechist, and witches - but a dark curse plagues the land - Koschei the Deathless. Can this bastard prince and the young human girl Anya that conniving Baba Yaga gave Morozko to raise with his found family of cutthroat spirits stand a chance against the immortal sorcerer King Kaschei, who has trapped Anya's soul in the Deathless realms, in gardens of dead wives? Anya is burgeoning with power, living a double life between Cold War Russia and D.C., and coming into her own as a witch to rival Baba Yaga. When her newfound love for Morozko is at stake, she will risk it all to follow the darkly tempting Kaschei to the Deathless lands, face the travails that put all Russia in peril - and save Morozko, as much as he saves her. With epic love, sorcery, adventure, treachery, a Slavic inn for spirits, and plenty of blini warm by the fire, come read this daring journey, and find out if an immortal love can withstand death Himself!
He tipped his baseball cap. The stranger's grin revealed bits of crumbs. "And you are...?" I noticed the checkered scarf around his neck. "Hermes." "The brand?" "The man." He sent dancing fingers through the air in a snazzy salute. "G'morning, sweetheart. Loved the sandwich." "Apparently," I mumbled. "So, how did you get in? The doors are locked, and I didn't hear any breaking glass." I looked him up and down. "Get lost on the way to a toga party?" Maybe he was a crazy frat bro. "My life's a party - I bring it with me, or steal Dionysus' thunder." He sipped from a chipped coffee mug, then ah'ed appreciatively. "By Jove's hairy derriere, what a drink. Wine pales in comparison. To the gods of old, and young days long since gone." He wandered into my dining room. "We don't love them til they're gone." My eyes convulsed. "Sorry, but who did you say you were?" I looked at his hands. They were tapered like the fingers of an artist who smuggled on the side. His eyes bespoke whimsy. Looking at this stranger was, in fact, like taking the first, dangerous bite of a melty grilled cheese. "Hermes: the man, not the scarf," ___ My George Foreman grilled cheese was so unholily good, it summoned the Greek God Hermes! Now, I'm on an epic quest to save my father Prometheus from the clutches of Zeus, and restore Hestia's temple flame to Olympus with the fabled Prometheion flower my beloved father Prometheus spent his life hiding. But with the Titans plotting, Cronus rising, and Zeus as dastardly and cunning as ever, all enemies to Hermes and I, can the sexy Messenger God and I make it through, or will I become the ultimate Human Sacrifice?
My family was on the poverty line and had no way to support me in college. I had to work part-time every day just to make ends meet and afford to get into the university. That was when I met her—the pretty girl in my class that every boy dreamt of asking out. I was well aware she was out of my league. Nevertheless, I mustered all my courage and bravely told her that I had fallen for her. To my surprise, she agreed to be my girlfriend. With the sweetest smile I had ever seen, she told me that she wanted my first gift for her to be the latest and top-of-the-line iPhone. I worked like a dog and even did my classmates’ laundry to save up. My hard work eventually paid off after a month. I finally got to buy what she wanted. But as I was wrapping my gift, I saw her in the dressing room, making out with the captain of the basketball team. She then heartlessly made fun of my inadequacy and made a fool out of me. To make things worse, the guy whom she cheated on me with even punched me in the face. Desperation washed over me, but there was nothing I could do but lie on the floor as they trampled on my feelings. But then, my father called me out of the blue, and my life turned upside down. It turned out that I was a billionaire's son.
On her wedding night, Natalie's stepmother set her up to marry Jarvis, a disfigured and disabled man. Fortunately, she managed to escape, but little did she know that later she would fall for the man she was betrothed to.Jarvis pretended to be a poor man, but he didn't think that he'd fall head over heels for this woman.Their life went on until one day, Natalie found out her boyfriend's little secret."Huh? How could you have billions of dollars' worth of assets?" she asked in disbelief.Jarvis didn’t know how to respond.Being met with silence, she gritted her teeth angrily. "They said that you couldn't walk, but as far as I can see, you're strong enough to run a marathon."Still, he remained silent.Natalie continued, "They even said that you only have a few years to live. What about now?"Finally, Jarvis opened his mouth to explain. "Honey, this is all just a misunderstanding. Please calm down. Think about the baby.""Jarvis Braxton!"The man knelt down immediately.
After hiding her true identity throughout her three-year marriage to Colton, Allison had committed wholeheartedly, only to find herself neglected and pushed toward divorce. Disheartened, she set out to rediscover her true self-a talented perfumer, the mastermind of a famous intelligence agency, and the heir to a secret hacker network. Realizing his mistakes, Colton expressed his regret. "I know I messed up. Please, give me another chance." Yet, Kellan, a once-disabled tycoon, stood up from his wheelchair, took Allison's hand, and scoffed dismissively, "You think she'll take you back? Dream on."
Evelyn Brooks' life has been completely transformed ever since her parents died in a terrible accident. She went from grieving to being forced into an arranged marriage to a man who never gave her a second look. After his disastrous relationship, Edward Richards vowed never to trust in love again-that is, until he learned to love his arranged wife. Before it turned out to be desired, the marriage was first arranged and unwanted. But will "love" be sufficient to preserve their union?
The day Lilah found out that she was pregnant, she caught her fiancé cheating on her. Her remorseless fiancé and his mistress almost killed her. Lilah fled for her dear life. When she returned to her hometown five years later, she happened to save a little boy's life. The boy's father turned out to be the world's richest man. Everything changed for Lilah from that moment. The man didn't let her experience any inconvenience. When her ex-fiancé bullied her, he crushed the scumbag's family and also rented out an entire island just to give Lilah a break from all the drama. He also taught Lilah's hateful father a lesson. He crushed all her enemies before she even asked. When Lilah's vile sister threw herself at him, he showed her a marriage certificate and said, "I'm happily married and my wife is much more beautiful than you are!" Lilah was shocked. "When did we ever get married? Last I checked, I was still single." With a wicked smile, he said, "Honey, we've been married for five years. Isn't it about time we had another child together?" Lilah's jaw dropped to the floor. What the hell was he talking about?
It took only a second for a person's world to come crashing down. This was what happened in Hannah's case. For four years, she gave her husband her all, but one day, he said emotionlessly, "Let's get divorced." Hannah's heart broke into a million pieces as she signed the divorce papers, marking the end of her role as a devoted wife. Within Hannah, a strong woman awakened, vowing never to be beholden to any man again. Embracing her new life, she embarked on a journey to find herself and command her own destiny. By the time she returned, she had experienced so much growth and was now completely different from the docile wife everyone once knew. "Is this your latest trick to get my attention?" Hannah's ever-so-arrogant husband asked. Before she could retort, a handsome and domineering CEO pulled her into his embrace. He smiled down at her and said boldly to her ex, "Just a little heads-up, mister. This is my beloved wife. Keep off!"