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"
"Yekaterina, work at your needlework!" Teacher Alina snapped. I was gazing out the window onto the bustling town of Podentsky, a mining metropolis in the thick of the Urals fifty miles from Yekaterinburg, my namesake. I watched copper-tinged snow fall. It was winter, 1910, and I was seventeen years old. The Popovas, our regents – we knew no tsar in the Copper Lands save Tsar Nikolai's despicable Bailiff – graced our mountains with mineral and vegetative bounty, but everything here was tinged green as crabapple ice. Even the emerald snow.
I giggled, braiding Azovka's black hair. It had streaks of green and cinnamon striated like veins of ore throughout. She was my dearest friend.
"What a vision you are!" I crooned, ignoring Teacher Alina. I tugged lightly at Azovka's hair and twirled it round my thumb. Azovka smiled, her malachite eyes and scaled legs shining in the oil lamplight. Teacher Alina trimmed the wick as Azovka practiced her algebra.
"Use the malachite hair tie," Azovka whispered, smiling secretly. She drew a band of copper from her purse and enchanted it to be a ribbon as fine as the tsarina's silk. You could find malachite like that – a gown – in sheets at Snake Hill. Azovka, the Mistress of Copper Mountain, liked to grow it like Japanese bonsai trees. She had whole gardens of gems, below the Urals in her Copper Mountain.
I ooohed and ahed as my classmates looked on in fear. The townsfolk treated the Popovas with awe and superstition. But Azovka was my friend – though immortal. I trusted the Copper Men in a way Prokovitch the Stonecutter did not. I confided in Azovka like our Landlord Peter swallowing dirt from Mokosh before striking a rent deal – a holy bond. The mining men, they said the Copper Women were their deaths. But to me, Azovka was life.
"Okay, Azovkalisha," I cooed, my blonde hair and ruddy fat cheeks – I was plump as a partridge, with muscles from hunting and lifting heavy stones for father – shining in contrast to Azovka's slim elegance. I tied the living stone around her hair. It was any day in Podentsky. It was all there would ever be.
We played P'yanitsa, what Americans called War, and our old playing cards had green crowned lizards on them with maiden's faces and brown braids – the Popova family crest.
"Ha!" I said, triumphing over Azovka's queen with my king of hearts. "I've stolen your heart, Azovkalisha."
"It has always belonged to you, my bosom friend." She said, then winked. "I'm hungry, Katya," Azovka whispered, fingering her freshly plaited braid. The malachite ribbon snaked like her lizards around her copper-black tresses. We bundled up in our dresses, malachite belts, kerchiefs, elk boots and white fur coats and ate lunch down by the stone works. The grain mill churned in the river'd distance, and horses and buggies rode through the crossway, carrying iron, copper, malachite, semiprecious stones, and even the rare diamond or sapphire – all guarded by vila militias. Dedushka always warned me to stay away from the vila – the storm spirits would suck you dry.
Azovka's nanny Rubenya, a crinkly Copper Woman, had made us white borscht. We ate it with some ham sandwiches Azovka had fixed. Azovka had spent all night with the dough – she really liked to bake. We dipped the rye bread in the soup from the thermos. Our mothers had both died in childbirth, and my father, Stepan Petrovich, was the captain of the Copper Guard, an ancient order of warrior miners that served the Popovas.
Alina and her father Alexei Popova needed minerals to survive – the finest Yakutian diamonds, jade from China, topaz from Brazil. The Copper Guard ran a vast network exporting the Ural Mountain's riches past the Malachite Gates and importing minerals from abroad. They let the rest of the world in past their diamond swords. My dedushka was a quiet man, a man of action – I was the only talker.
"Here, Azovkalisha – I picked this one from the river," I smiled, handing Azovka a tumbled moissanite.
Azovka's eyes brimmed with tears. "Why are you so kind to me, my Katy?" she said fondly, taking a bite with her pearly teeth. They cut the gem like butter, and the lizards that always thronged by her feet thrummed with excitement. Azovka's scales foiled. Her eyes turned black as she absorbed the mineral's essence.
"Because, Prokovitch the Stonecutter said that someday, you will be my dearest treasure – more precious than malachite to the Copper Kingdom. And I always liked pretty girls – I am ugly, dearest Azovka! I need a polished best friend to harp up my strengths when it comes time for us to wed some awful, belching husband. Ah, dedushka has his eyes on the Landlord's son: stinky, ugly Mikha. Blech!"
We skipped around her lizards, hand in hand, then fell down into the snow, laughing, and made green angels out of the cloudy powder. It cushioned our fur jackets. Azovka stuck out her tongue. "Not the pimply, doughy landlord's son. I think you'd do well with a stonecutter like old Prokovitch."
"Hey!" I smiled, pulling at her embroidered mittens. "He is 53!"
"A joke," Azovka said, her peacock eyes brimming with mirth. "Promise me you will never leave me for a boy, Yekaterina."
"I do."
We swore on Mother Mokosh, the earth goddess', skin, swallowing and spitting out some red clay, crossing our arms, and throwing her lizards into the air.
"May I have some food?" a willowy voice came. Azovka and I froze, caught in the act of sisterhood. It was a tall, gaunt boy, with a mop of dusty blonde hair – a beggar in tattered clothes. But he had soft blue eyes, and he reminded me of Ivan Tsarevich chasing a Firebird.
My heart dropped. He was the most beautiful creature, save Azovka, I had ever seen. "Sure," I said, offering the beggar the rest of my rye and borscht.
Azovka smiled. "What is your name, stranger? I am princess of this town. Someday, I will become Queen of the Copper Mountain."
The beggar hungrily tore into the bread. "That's nice I guess."
Azovka folded in on herself, blushing.
I tapped the boy gently on his elbow. "You should bow down, fool."
"I am older than you. You look like childish maidens. I'm eighteen. Girls are the foolish ones."
"You don't look old," I said.
"Whatever," Azovka sighed. She made the lizards crawl up his legs. The boy just smiled and kissed one. "Weirdo," Azovka replied.
"What's your name, beggar?" I asked. I wanted to clip this stranger's wings and keep him. Fatten him up with my blinis. Make him pierogis and borscht. Ask him to stay. Just like I had Azovka. They were both horribly broken. I wanted to fix them.
All I could do, though, was ask the wanderer's name.
"Danilo," he said. "Someday, I will be famous."
Azovka smiled. "For what? Begging? I am already famous."
"Spoiled, maybe," Danilo said obtusely. "Look at the malachite on you."
"I am the princess, I told you!"
He winked. "Titles don't churn butter." Danilo toyed with a lizard. "Things are changing beyond the Malachite Walls. Rasputin rides. I fled St. Petersburg to find a better life – rode the rails to here, last stop past Yekaterinburg. Outside the Malachite Walls, beyond the reach of the Copper Guard – no one even dares think what kind of magick lives in the Copper Kingdom, with the Copper Men. May I meet you two here for lunch tomorrow?"
Azovka and I shared a look and smiled. "Sure," we said in unison.
He smiled back, a bright wound of red.
"Ask Prokovitch on Georgin Street for a place to stay. He's in need of a shepherd. You look fit for that, beggar boy," I said with all the love a seventeen-year-old girl could tease the object of her desires with. I liked the dirt on Danilo. I liked his dreaminess and odd charm.
Azovka just stared at her lizards. I liked that about her too.
And thus began the winter of our lives.
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!
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!
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?
Rosalynn's marriage to Brian wasn't what she envisioned it to be. Her husband, Brian, barely came home. He avoided her like a plague. Worse still, he was always in the news for dating numerous celebrities. Rosalynn persevered until she couldn't take it anymore. She upped and left after filing for a divorce. Everything changed days later. Brian took interest in a designer that worked for his company anonymously. From her profile, he could tell that she was brilliant and dazzling. He pulled the stops to find out her true identity. Little did he know that he was going to receive the greatest shocker of his life. Brian bit his finger with regret when he recalled his past actions and the woman he foolishly let go.
After a passionate night, Verena left some money and wanted to leave, but was held by her companion. "Isn't it your turn to make me happy?" Verena, always disguising herself as ugly, slept with her fiance's uncle, Darren, in order to escape her engagement with her unfaithful fiance. Darren had respect and admiration. Word of his romantic escapades circulated, some saying they saw him kissing a lady against a wall and others calling it gossip. Who could ever tame Darren's heart? Then, shockingly, Darren was caught bending down to help Verena with her shoes, all to score a kiss from her!
"Sign the divorce papers and get out!" Leanna got married to pay a debt, but she was betrayed by her husband and shunned by her in-laws. Seeing that her efforts were in vain, she agreed to divorce and claimed her half of the properties. With her purse plump from the settlement, Leanna enjoyed her newfound freedom. The constant harassment from her ex's mistress never fazed her. She took back her identities as top hacker, champion racer, medical professor, and renowned jewelry designer. Then someone discovered her secret. Matthew smiled. "Will you have me as your next husband?"
Andrea Deciding that I was going to skip a day at work so I could have first time sex with my boyfriend seemed like the most absurd decision I could ever make. Or at least that was what I'd thought. Until I'd walked in on my said boyfriend cheating on me with some redhead and decided to get my revenge by losing my virginity to his wealthy billionaire father instead. Crazy, right? Trust me, I know. Like that's not enough, things take a drastic turn for the worst after I realized I was in love with him and pregnant with his child. Before I could get the chance to come clean about every including my feelings formhim and the pregnancy, he finds out about my trickery. Alejandro's not one to condone being lied to and deceived so he immediately tells me he doesn't want to see me again. So what do I do? I pack up and leave the country. But it seems like the universe isn't done with us just yet. . . Alejandro I should have known better than to get involved with someone way younger than me. It was something I've never done before. But like the saying goes, there's a first time for everything. The first time I met Andrea I was captivated by her beauty. More than that there was this innocence in her that called out to me like a moth to a flame. I ignored all the warnings in my head and went after what I wanted. And what I wanted was her. Unfortunately what she wanted was revenge against my son. I told myself that it had to be some kind of mistake. There was no way she had been playing with my feelings and planning some silly revenge this whole time. But she had. It had taken a surprise visit from my son for me to find out her true intentions. Even then it had been hard to believe it. But I couldn't deny that she'd fooled me real good alright. So naturally I cut ties with her. And that's supposed to be the end, right? Wrong. Turns out that our story was never destined to end just there. . .
Everyone was shocked to the bones when the news of Rupert Benton's engagement broke out. It was surprising because the lucky girl was said to be a plain Jane, who grew up in the countryside and had nothing to her name. One evening, she showed up at a banquet, stunning everyone present. "Wow, she's so beautiful!" All the men drooled, and the women got so jealous. What they didn't know was that this so-called country girl was actually an heiress to a billion-dollar empire. It wasn't long before her secrets came to light one after the other. The elites couldn't stop talking about her. "Holy smokes! So, her father is the richest man in the world?" "She's also that excellent, but mysterious designer who many people adore! Who would have guessed?" Nonetheless, people thought that Rupert didn't love her. But they were in for another surprise. Rupert released a statement, silencing all the naysayers. "I'm very much in love with my beautiful fiancee. We will be getting married soon." Two questions were on everyone's minds: "Why did she hide her identity? And why was Rupert in love with her all of a sudden?"
Sheila had her back against the wall when her family tried to force her to marry an awful old man. In a fit of rage, she hired a gigolo to act as her husband. She thought the gigolo needed money and did this for a living. Little did she know that he was nothing like that. One day, he pulled off his mask and revealed himself to be the world's top magnate. This marked the beginning of their love. He showered her with everything she could ever want. They were happy. However, unexpected circumstances soon posed a threat to their love. Would Sheila and her husband make it through the storm? Find out!