Writing Sample Saturday

[xakara]

They finally posted the winners for The Big Finish Contest at eHarlequin.com. I didn't win but that's to your benefit as I can now share with you a writing sample by posting my contest entry here.

Now the rules of the contest was to finish the opening scene they gave in whatever manner imagination took you. I'll post the pre-written section in red and my follow-up in whatever color strikes me by the time I'm done.

Something wasn't right. As the fog of sleep lifted,

Elizabeth realized she was not in her own bed—the rough sheets constricting her limbs felt foreign against her skin. A strong scent filled her nostrils, her head ached, and it was a struggle to lift her eyelids. Where was she?

Elizabeth instinctively reached for the ring. It was gone!

With effort, she managed to sit up. Her eyes adjusting to the semi-darkness, she could now make out billowing fabric surrounding the bed. Curtains?

Out of the shadows, a figure stumbled towards her.

"Luke, is that you?" she asked, surprised at the weakness of her own voice.

Now beside the bed, a deep male voice demanded, "What have you done?"

“Kane?” she whispered, heart pounding in disbelief.

The reply was a thick growl, clearer than Elizabeth’s own voice but still disoriented. “What have you done, Witch? How are we in this place?”

Elizabeth’s eyes fought to close, her mind wanting to sink back into the refuge of sleep. It was Kane and yet it couldn’t be. Kane was dead, Luke had sworn to it.

“I…I didn’t do this. I didn’t do anything that could cause this. I—“, she trailed off into silence as her words struck her false.

She had done something, something that as a Benandanti she should have known better than to do. But it wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t understood that it was possible. She simply hadn’t known.

“I thought you were dead. Luke said you were dead.” She cried.

With a groan that built to a roar, Kane tore aside the curtain separating them and grasped her by the arms. Her face pulled to his, he licked along her cheek, tasting the dried salt trail of her tears.

“You wept for me.” It was a deep purr that shivered through Elizabeth in low intimate places.

He crushed her to him, his anger forgotten as his nearly still heart beat anew with the truth of it. “You wept for me and you must never weep for a vampire, Elizabeth. Not even the living ones.”

The tears of a Benandanti were powerful magicks. These were made more so by the bond of life that linked them through the child in her womb. She’d been so angry when they last parted. Kane assumed such tears would never fall for him even with the depths of the lie.

Her anger was the stuff of whispered tales told with darting glances by his men. To think years would pass if not a lifetime before she forgave him enough for tears had seemed reasonable. Now thoughts of tangled webs and practices to deceive rushed through his head as he searched for a way to explain the lie of safety she’d undone by learning a dangerous truth.

“I’m sorry, Kane. I didn’t know this could happen. Luke said—“ She closed her eyes against the pain of it. The pain of the lie. The pain that had come when she thought it the truth.

Kane drew her closer in comfort. Her hand moved over the broad masculine back and her thoughts were brought again to the missing ring that had rested on that hand.

“He asked me to marry him. He said it would have to be quick before any realized the child wasn’t his. We were to be wed tomorrow.”

Luke had given her the ring that very night. She’d accepted. She’d also cried herself to sleep thinking about Kane and their wedding not three full years ago. Thirty months into her marriage bed and she was already a widow about to marry again.

All at once, Elizabeth’s chest tightened, horror-struck to realize she’d not only nearly remarried, but worse, she’d nearly married a liar.

“How could he tell me you were dead? Not just as your cousin, but as your best friend, my friend? How could he do that to us?”

A deep breath, a kiss to her temple, and a gentle squeeze of his arms were all the prep he supplied before diving in to explain.

“I’m sorry, Elizabeth. He did it for me. I told him the danger you were in, the danger that our child was in. I couldn’t let you be harmed.”

The tremble that had started as the truth overwhelmed her suddenly stilled. Shock and horror ebbed aside to be replaced with calming anger.

“You did what?” It came out a soft rush of breath as she pulled away from him.

Kane’s disorientation had bled away and her tone sent alarms off in his head.

“Elizabeth, please.”

“You. Did. What?”

She struggled out of his arms all at once nearly falling back on the bed completely. Building rage lent dignity to the movement of rising back onto her knees in the diaphanous silk gown entangling her.

“Elizabeth, wait. You have to understand.” His hands rose up in plea.

“Understand what? That my husband--MY HUSBAND--sent his best friend to lie to me and to wed me? Is that what I’m to understand, Kane Gregory?”

Kane placed a knee on the bed, drawing closer to her. Elizabeth reared up with both fist and struck him in the chest.

“Don’t you dare! How could you let me grieve like that?” She struck him again.

“How could you let weeks past without a word and then when word came let it be of your death?” A reign of blows followed the question, but Kane was unmoved, crawling onto the bed and taking her by the arms.

“I did it because I had to. I have enemies, Bethy. You know that I always have. The Bishop found out about me.”

She crawled back from him, gathering the fabric in her fist.

“Don’t you ‘Bethy’ me. I left my family for you. I stood in the abbey before my God and your Goddess and took vows. Vows,” she shouted. “sacred vows that bound us together. Honor, respect, faith, do you remember any of that?”

The curtains billowed and strands of hair began to lift from her face as she railed. Crystal blue eyes that always brought the summer sky to his mind, darkened to cobalt on their way to black, and Kane braced.

“Bethy, calm down. You can’t let your power build in this place. It was sealed when I checked. The pressure could—“

He was so focused on her eyes that even his vampire reflexes were not enough to guard him from the Benandanti’s blow. The force rocked his head to the side and the ring of the slap echoed throughout the room. The power he’d feared would spread outward and fill the sealed chamber had instead coiled inward into physical strength.

Her words came out in a tight, clipped, rage. “I could have lost our baby, Kane. What would there have been to protect then?”

He turned back to her, large, dark, predatory eyes taking her in. The silk clung to her form, outlining heavy breasts as her chest heaved. Color had spread through her cheeks and along her throat. Her scent rose thick and heady, full of anger, feminine strength and power. The same scent of power that had filled the room when he awoke.

Perhaps it was the taste of blood in his mouth. Perhaps it was the deliciousness of her anger, as dangerous an aphrodisiac as it had ever been. Most likely it was both coupled with the longing for her over the weeks he’d spent leading his enemies across an ocean and away from his beloved.

“You’re too strong to have lost our child, Bethy.”

She opened her mouth and without waiting to see if opposition or agreement poured forth, Kane captured it with his. His tongue spread his taste to her and after a moment’s struggle to hold to her anger, she surrendered to the kiss.

His hands gripped her thighs and lifted her, bringing her legs around his waist. In the same motion, he bore her back on the bed, covering her with his weight.

“I’ve missed you. Dear gods, I’ve missed you Bethy.” It was said into her mouth and she swallowed the words down as his tongue pushed them over hers.

The thin silk gave no resistance as her moved against her. Rapidly increasing heat rose from his skin and permeated the cloth sinking into her flesh. The lacings of the heavy wool breaches rasped delicate, slick folds and she felt him hot and thick behind the cloth.

Silken steel was how she always thought of him, soft to the touch but unyielding and demanding. Her knees lifted higher without permission or hesitation, opening further, bringing greater friction. When his fingers went to fumble at the lacings, she joined him, freeing him into her hands, heavy and heated.

He groaned and bucked his hips as she gripped him. She pulled the sound from him again as her hand glided along erect flesh in a testing stroke. Another jerk of his hips and he trapped her hand between them, rolling them both over.

When he lifted up, she released him, both hands coming to his chest for balance. Pelvis high and locked in place as if she weighed nothing above him, Kane stripped himself with near violent swiftness. She tried to speak as they sank back into the bed, but he retook her mouth, no ounce of desperation gone.

Short crisp hairs tickled her hand as she reached for him again. The erection throbbed like a separate heart, but she moved past it to caress the velvety skin and delicate spheres below. It still amazed her that he freely gave her access to such a vulnerable part of him while she was angry. That he trusted her despite her temper went beyond words. Of course, by the time they were naked, she always had better things than revenge on her mind.

Kane’s hands bunched in the silk and his back arched as she explored him. In an impressive move for a mortal, Elizabeth slid down and out of the flimsy sheath placing her hands back on him without losing rhythm. It brought her level with the prize in her hand and she looked down at the outline of him in the dimness.

In the light there would be a reddish tint to the slippery droplets weeping from the head and sliding down along her hand. The taste as she took him in her mouth sent a shiver through her. She’d thought it was gone forever and now here he was, warm and pulsing in her throat.

The silk stressed and groaned as Kane wrapped his hands in it to keep them from entangling in her hair. He looked down the length of his body to watch her so clearly in the darkness. The vision of it shook his entire body and he abandoned the cloth, gripping the thick spindles of the heavy wooden headboard.

It was all an exercise in patience he felt ill-equipped to complete. It took everything not to thrust up into her mouth. The bulk of his mind rebelled against the idea of holding back, of waiting. He wanted to pull her to him and explore every inch. He needed to touch and taste every little change that had happened in her body while he was fleeing to the Americas, enemies on his trail. The idea of tasting her and drinking in the sounds of her release were air and sustenance that Kane had to have.

It wasn’t about him however and he knew it.

As deeply as he’d missed her, as complete a pain as he’d endured, he still knew she was alive and well. No such luxury had been afforded Elizabeth. She’d been left with nothing but a well meant lie for which he might never be able to make amends.

The moment was hers to have. It was her time to confirm the truth of him. Her chance to make flesh of what had only been memory and dream for the last several weeks. What he wanted or needed was inconsequential.

That’s what he kept telling himself.

When he slithered free of her throat and her tongue bathed his lower belly in lazy circles, it became a mantra. After she spent an eon flowing over his body in a flood of lips, and teeth, and tongue and velvet skin, the mantra became a prayer. When her mouth clamped over the thundering pulse in his neck, the prayer birthed a roar.

“Bethy.”

Elizabeth would have smiled if the captured flesh in her mouth hadn’t prevented it. She recognized the desperation in his voice. Hearing it again after thinking him dead left her on the brink of tears even as it brought a fresh torrent of wetness between her legs.

She never saw his arm move. She only felt the whisper of his hand over her backside before his fingers delved deeper to part and probe her. It threw her head back and forced a cry from her.

“Kane.”

He growled against the side of her throat. “Home. I want to go home, Bethy.”

Home. From the first kiss, the first night spent in each others arms, he’d always called her body home. His jaw clinched and he bit sound when she reached between them and guided him to her center.

 It took a year easily before he was fully sheathed within her and he knew without doubt he’d lied to himself as well. He wouldn’t have survived the lie. He wouldn’t have stayed away. It wasn’t in him.

Elizabeth sat up and looked to the obsidian orbs that blazed up at her.

“I’m still angry.”

He gripped her hips and nodded. “I know.”

“You were wrong,” she breathed. Breath became a gasp as he thrust upward.

“Yes. I was wrong.” He thrust again. “Completely wrong.”

She took both of his wrists, pulling his hands away from her hips and placing them over her breasts.

“As long as we’re agreed.”

It was the last coherent thing either of them said as they rocked together in an ever increasing tempo. She undulated above him like rolling thunderclouds, promising rain but holding back despite the wire tight tension of the air. Just as his mind threatened to snap under the steady build and retreat of things, she cried out in release and Kane took up the storm.

Rolling them over, he held her legs high, drawing out her release with lightening-strike strokes. His mind counted the spaces between thunderclaps of pleasure until he knew the storm had found them both. His arms slid under her and he came up on his knees, his teeth sinking into her flesh, hips bucking in short mad bursts that brought them both to shuddering groans.

Her legs wrapped around him, a velvet fist gripped and milked him, her blood spilled down his throat and he spilled into her body. It was a complete circuit that let the world and any consequence it held fall away.

When some level of coherence and reality came for Kane again, they were nestled into the rough sheets side by side. He could hear rain falling outside, the scent drifting through the open window. It had been sealed and wouldn’t budge when he’d stumbled about trying to figure out where he was and how he’d gotten there. Hearing the rain, he knew the door too would now be visible when he went to look for it. They were no longer adrift in whatever non-place Elizabeth’s magicks had taken them.

“We brought a storm,” he whispered. “We haven’t done that since our wedding night.”

Her fingers played along his collarbone. “We must be back on the abbey’s land. A ley line runs through it, that’s why it happened that night in the visitor’s tower and why it happens back at the castle in Avebury.”

The abbey where they’d married, of course that was where she’d brought them. The tower and their rooms in it had been completely transformed for the special night. His elder sister had seen to it despite looking down on the human tradition of marriage and the Church’s influence on it.

“I’d have never known it looked so drab without the Clanswomen to take charge and make it suitable.” It was an absent whisper as his mind tried to figure out how to deny what came next.

Even in the dark, Elizabeth could read his face. “I’m going with you. I don’t care if it’s the Bishop or the entire Church we have to face down. You’re not leaving me again.”

He nodded, the inward gaze turning outward to stare into her eyes.

“I know. I’m trying to figure out some way to get around it, but I don’t have anything that can refute the fact you dragged me across two countries without trying.”

He traced her chin with his thumb. “With that accident borne out of grief, I’d hate to be the Bishop when you focused out of rage.”

It sounded good. It was even true. It just wasn’t the whole story. He wasn’t going to leave her because he couldn’t, plain and simple. He couldn’t lose everything again, the first time had been more than even conscience should ever ask.

“You have to do me one favor, Bethy.”

“I know, be careful, stay safe.”

Kane smiled in the dark. “I was thinking more along the lines of don’t kill Luke.”

He laughed out loud when murmured curses were all he got in answer.

“We’ll talk about it more later, for now sleep. Tomorrow we leave for Naples.”

Elizabeth’s eyes drifted close. The weight of revelation, the draw of magicks, the lovemaking and the pregnancy were enough to make sleep a real possibility. If a distant part of her was still angry it was too exhausted to say anything more, despite her question.

“Are all the men in your family as thoughtless and infuriating as you and Luke?”

With his wife safely in his arms and the knowledge he wouldn’t be without his family upon him, Kane had surrendered to satiety and struggled from its depths to answer.

“Yes.”

She settled against him and let slumber have her with a final sleepy exclamation.

“Thank goodness we’re having a girl.”

So there we have it. Tell me what you think. And let me know if you want more samples placed here as I go along. Also, please pardon the places where the blog didn't agree with MS Word formatting. I tried to clean it up. It's late, I'm tired, and I have no idea how to fix it now. 

That's all for now.

Ramble done.

~X