Review Tuesday: Horrorsexual by M. Christian - #GayErotica #Horror #ReviewTuesday

Horrorsexual: The Queer Erotic Fright Fiction of M.Christian

Sizzler Editions, 2020

If anyone asked, you’d probably say that erotica has little in common with horror stories. After all, erotica is supposed to make you feel good, with steamy anticipatory tension, ecstatic crises and pleasantly sated endings. Horror, in contrast, is designed to produce discomfort. If the reader doesn’t feel queasy, unbalanced, disturbed or disgusted, the author hasn’t done his or her job.

Still, when you peer a bit closer, you’ll see the two genres share some characteristics. They both intend to excite the emotions. Both often use shock to their advantage – the most arousing sex tales are the ones that break taboos. Furthermore, sex on the edge, sex that pushes the limits of the acceptable, sex that’s so intense it breaks down barriers – the best and most memorable sex – can be truly scary. Sex strips us bare and makes us vulnerable, and being naked is dangerous.

Nobody appreciates the synergy between sex and horror better than M. Christian. He has been writing stories that are simultaneously thrilling and terrifying for decades. Horrorsexual collects some of the best of his work in the genre, focusing on tales involving gay men – or creatures that masquerade as such.

The eleven short stories in this collection are wonderfully varied. My two favorites, “That Sweet Smell” and “Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel”, illustrate the huge emotional and thematic range of this author. The former chronicles the complex relationship between JJ, a powerful columnist, king-of-the-city type, and his minion Sidney who both admires and hates him. The palpable menace in this tale made me shudder, though there’s very little overt violence and essentially no sex. That doesn’t matter; the tension between JJ and Sidney is sexual regardless. Their dominance/submissive dynamic is distilled in Sidney’s lighting of JJ’s cigarettes.

I looked at the end of the cigarette. Paper wrapped around tobacco. His strong fingers crushed the far end, making tiny flakes of brown stick out the front, towards me. My right hand was in my pants pocket, tight around my lighter. I fought the urge to pull it out, to push it towards him, to open it, flick alive a hot flame, and do it for him. I fought hard, trying to concentrate on anything except the cigarette or JJ's eyes.

I knew it, and he knew it: It wasn't just flame to tobacco. It was more than JJ's cigarette that was being pushed into my face. The place was cloudy with smoke; breathing in was like taking a drag. I could imagine the end of it in his mouth, lips around the paper, sucking in deep drags of smoke. The tip of his tongue resting on the warm end, just for a moment. Sometimes the smoke would be as warm as blood, like breathing in the essence of life. I didn't want to light it. I wanted to take it in my own mouth and draw it in deep, mix his warm smoke with my own blood, just for once taste the air that he breathed all the time.

Despite its lack of gore, this story is dark indeed.

“Friday Night at the Calvary Hotel”, in contrast, has blood and pain, death and semen, yet the tone is almost uplifting. An impoverished and desperate man answers an ad seeking an accomplice in a crucifixion scene. In return for a large amount of money, he meets his nameless employer – young, handsome, cheerful, not at all what you’d expect from a lunatic – in a run-down hotel, and literally nails the other man to the cross he has constructed.

Though the setup is creepy, the purity of the stranger’s desire shines through.

There was a long—very long—minute, as he stared at what I'd made. "Something like that," he said, finally, turning his head slowly to look back over his shoulder at me, that wry little smile back on his lips.

"Ah," was all I could say, struck more stupid than usual.

"This is wonderful," he said, stepping up and running his hands over the smooth wood. "A perfect job."

I wanted to "aw shucks" and start in about the hours of sanding, the three coats of lacquer, the buffing. But then I remembered why he’d had me build it, and what he wanted to use it for.

He rubbed it a long time, like he was communing with it. Watching him stroke it, I noticed something about his hands. I asked, "Is this your (ahem) first time? I mean … doing this kind of thing?"

It took him a long minute to pull himself away. "Oh, no, not at all. It’s just something I developed—well, I guess you could say 'a taste for'—a long time ago. Every once in awhile I like to indulge myself, you know, when I can get away from the family business."

With these two stories as psychic anchors, the book ranges widely over the landscapes of lust and fear. “Suddenly, Last Thursday” is a eloquent, slow-building tale about cannibalism and madness. “Chickenhawk” offers a kinky revenge tale in which the protagonist, a thirty year old dwarf who can pass for fifteen, entraps then punishes the pedophiles who pick him up. “Whatever Happened To...” is kinkier still, featuring a consensual but extreme D/s relationship between two aged drag queens. In “Bitch”, a paunchy, middle-aged, worn-out queer nurses his bitter envy against the beautiful young men in the building across from his – the “peacocks” as he calls them – only to have his secret wish for their destruction come true. In the psychologically potent “Echoes”, a gay man trying to escape from his guilt about murdering his partner discovers that every new lover kisses, sucks cock or screws in exactly the same way as his dead ex. “Wet” and “Empty” are both vampire stories, though the vamps don’t follow Stoker’s rules. The moods of these two pieces are quite different, though both involve some disgustingly bloody and visceral scenes.

These are not simple stories, easy to untangle and assimilate. Sometimes I’d finish one, then immediately go back to read it a second time, to clarify the author’s thoughts or my own, or simply to revel again in the dark mood and evocative language. One story, “Counting”, a scifi tale set in horrific dystopia, I never did completely figure out. Nevertheless, it impressed me with its vivid descriptions of San Francisco after a total collapse of civilization:

My first month, and my first riot in the new place. I was caught outside, unable to recognize the neighborhood's tell-tales, the rhythm of the block: when the stores would be allowed to open, when the local Militia had to make its quota, and when the insane would be released from their camps to clean and scour the streets of anything valuable or edible.

I was walking back from work, head still in the maze of junctions, cross-connectors, light-boosts and mirror-boxes, trying to deduce a ghost echo in the inner-office trunk lines. I was too full of Mr. Buckner's system to notice the closed windows or the quiet. Running people are like smoke: a city-signal. Seeing them sprint past, chests rising, breath fogging the cool evening, looking behind as they ran, I turned as well. A wave rounded Market – a panicked sea of old Militia coats flapping, feet wrapped in threadbare carpets, eyes red and desperate. A thousand, probably much more, screaming and crying as only people can when they've tasted panic. I got no more than twenty feet before the wave broke over me.

A man, black but scarred from a fire so now a ghost of himself, struck back at me as he passed. From behind, a woman, cradling a ruined arm, pushed me. I didn't have their momentum, hadn't seen what they'd seen, what had triggered their panic. I was treading water, and was doomed to drown.

A pack of wild children, a tribe drawn out of the alleys and shadows by the smell of sickness and opportunity, was suddenly around me – hungry eyes appraising my clean clothes, my worth, and the contents of my worker's bag. A cramp in my side came on so suddenly that I thought for a fraction of a scream that they'd knifed me with a piece of glass, a rusty sliver of iron or steel. Meat for the Dark Markets, old clothes for the camps. My breath was glass knives. My eyes were tiny and wind-burned from the cool night. My feet smashed, broke with each clawing stride.

They were jaguars. They were leopards. They were animals born and bred on the streets. I was the sick one in the herd that day. They sensed I was going for the alley. Stupid. I was so stupid. I moved, like drying clay, so slow, and they were there, blocking me in, forcing me towards the alley, to bring me down – and slice my throat.

The one story that didn’t really work for me was “Matches”, a fantasy about dying, leaving your worn-out body behind, and finding your perfect match in heaven. When a shabby apartment building blows up due to a gas leak, the overweight, sad, disappointed loner in Apartment 1A, who hasn’t had a lover in years, is temporarily liberated from his miserable existence. Beautiful and free, he soars skyward toward his equally exquisite and well-hung mate – until he’s resuscitated and slams back into the broken shell of his earthly form. Though the end was genuinely painful, the premise struck me as silly.

Horrorsexual also includes excerpts from M. Christian’s three gay horror novels: Me 2, Finger’s Breadth and The Very Bloody Marys. I’ve read all three (you can find my review of Finger’s Breadth here), and they fit the theme of the collection, but novels and short stories are very different sorts of beast. The excerpts leave a lot of loose ends. Of course, I’m sure the author hopes you’ll be sufficiently intrigued to buy one or more of these titles.

Horrorsexual will arouse you, challenge you, maybe scare you a bit. It will definitely raise a few questions in your mind about the nature of sex and of reality. It’s not a book for everyone, but if you’re curious, open-minded and brave, I recommend it.

Review Tuesday: Funhouse by Aurelia T. Evans -- #EroticHorror #MoralAmbiguity #ReviewTuesday

Funhouse by Aurelia T. Evans

Totally Bound, 2019

I just finished Funhouse, the seventh book in Aurelia T. Evans’ incredible Arcanium series. Arcanium is a demonic circus controlled by ancient djinn Bell Madoc, a perversely charming chameleon who gets his kicks fulfilling people’s casually expressed wishes in ways that bind them to the circus. In general, I’m not a fan of series; I find that after a few books, they become overly formulaic and lose their zest. I’m still enchanted by Arcanium, though, largely due to its moral ambiguity.

Horrible things happen in Arcanium. People are disfigured, tortured, even devoured. The demons who populate the Oddity Row and perform under the big top don’t subscribe to any sort of human moral code. They’re happy to feed their lusts on human flesh and even human life. The humans who have attacked Arcanium and are in the process of being punished can be even more reprehensible.

At the same time, Arcanium offers a sort of sanctuary for individuals who really don’t fit in the outside world, as well as a path to self-knowledge. Neve, the protagonist in Funhouse, is a fine example. A brilliant PhD biologist who happens to also be a voluptuous redhead, Neve has never felt sexual desire. She marries Joseph because they enjoy one another’s company and have similar tastes – both are fans of Rocky Horror and H.P. Lovecraft – but though she tries to satisfy her husband, she feels no physical pleasure herself. This tears their marriage apart and brings Neve into Arcanium, when she wishes, in Bell’s presence, that she could “experience sex the way her husband wants her to do”. She becomes a sexually insatiable creature, suffering constant torment from the simple sensation of clothing on her super-sensitive skin. Arcanium is drenched in sexual tension, and Neve could easily find partners among the demons or the humans, but having been objectified all her life due to her opulent body, she resists.

I liked Neve a lot, but the actual plot in Funhouse wandered a bit. In particular, I found the end a bit unsatisfying, since there’s no real resolution to Neve’s dilemma, other than her increasing acceptance of her abnormal state.

Nevertheless, I’m sure I’ll purchase Haunted, the next installment, since I gather it continues Neve’s story. 

 

Review Tuesday: Ringmaster by Aurelia T. Evans

Ringmaster by Aurelia T. Evans

Totally Bound, 2015

What is it about dark side that draws us? What is the lure of the forbidden, the attraction of the taboo, the terrible, irresistible appeal of cruel power and evil shadows? If I could answer this question, I could explain the unrelenting fascination of Aurelia T. Evans’ demon circus Arcanium.

Ringmaster is the fourth book in this erotic horror series, and, in my opinion, the best so far. This is the first novel where the focus character is one of Arcanium’s true Oddities—not a human cursed into the circus through his or her own unfortunate wishes, but someone born a freak and living with that destiny.

Kitty, a real-life bearded woman, has been part of Arcanium for nearly two decades. A victim of some genetic aberration, she has fast growing hair all over her body. After years of shaving, plucking, trying every strategy to hide her abnormality, she finally realized the futility of these endeavors. She joined the circus, where she could live comfortably among other societal outcasts.

Kitty has embraced her freakishness. She works miracles with her flowing tresses, artistically braids her beard, and shows off her voluptuous, hairy body to the astonished and embarrassed crowds who stroll along Arcanium’s Oddity Row.

Through Kitty, Ms. Evans explores society’s attitudes toward people who are obviously “different”. From little kids who stare without self-consciousness, to men attracted to the novelty of sex with a bearded woman, to violent bigots who actively attack Kitty and Arcanium’s other Oddities, the world is full of so-called “normal” people who really don’t know how to deal with “freaks”. All of the Arcanium books have considered these issues, but Ringmaster looks at them more closely. The book helps the reader understand the world from a well-adjusted freak’s point of view. Kitty doesn’t want to give up her special qualities. In fact, she has deliberately used up all her wishes, in order to avoid the temptation to wish her hair away.

As a voluntary who deliberately entered the circus, Kitty has more freedom than those whose wishes have been turned against them by the enigmatic jinn Bell Madoc, the master and creator of Arcanium. In particular, she’s free to leave the circus bounds and have sexual encounters with people from the outside world. In Ringmaster, she discovers that her long-time though occasional lover Victor is dying from a congenital disease. To save his life, she offers him the chance to join Arcanium and be cured.

Victor’s decision to become one of Bell’s Oddities in return for a second chance at life upsets the emotional balance in Arcanium. Jealousy, lust and violence flare, in some cases triggered by the denizens of the circus, in others by ignorant and biased individuals from outside the iron gates. Crimes are committed. Punishments are inflicted. Be prepared for gore and death, as well as sex so rough it feels like battle. This is Arcanium.

Kitty has appeared as a secondary character in all the previous novels of the series. One has the impression of a woman almost unbelievably healthy from an emotional perspective, mature and balanced, especially compared to most of the other circus members. She’s warm, generous, a sort of mother figure who has the informal role of helping newcomers to the circus adapt to the constraints and consolations of life in Arcanium. She’s very sure of her identity as the sexy, furry Kitty Cat. She’s honest about her desires, while never leading her lovers to expect more than she can give.

One wonders how someone so seemingly normal can survive in the twisted environment of Bell’s circus. In Ringmaster, however, we finally get to see the darkness she keeps hidden.

He slapped her ass and her thighs as he finger-fucked her, speeding up his thrusts until she was arching her back each time, the partition pressing against her pubic bone in painful but delicious pressure.

“Damn you!” he shouted. He yanked his hand out of her and shook it. A few drops of her juices hit her back. “Damn you into my hell, woman. Don’t you know that I would have you like this on my dining room table, three pairs of anguish inside you, one in your rectum, one in your cunt and the other in your pretty little mouth? I would shave every inch of you so that you couldn’t have a single pretty hair on your vain body, everything beautiful about you stripped away until you were nothing. I would flog this skin”—he smoothed his hands over her back and cupped her sides where her ribs met her breasts—“with tails that ended in glass to gouge you into a mess of bloody meat, but it wouldn’t kill you. Oh no. There’s no death where I would take you. And take you. And take you. And take you until you were raw and bleeding and too broken to scream, so I would have my other slaves scream for you, because that is music to my ears, Katharine. Do you understand?”

He grabbed her braid above her hands, which pulled on her head and neck and on her wrists. She cried out, her mouth dropping open. When he lifted her up, her breasts hung heavy beneath her, and her nipples brushed the wood in agonizing tickles. All balance and control were lost. He had her helpless in his grip.

“I’m not going to take you with the magic making it easy,” the Ringmaster said in her ear. “Tell me not to.”

“No,” she gasped.

“That’s right,” he said, jerking her braid again. “Tell me not to.”

“No,” she whispered. She turned to peer up at him. He smoldered with hellfire black not just in his eyes but everywhere on his face, in his posture, in the tension of his muscles, everywhere. “Don’t stop.”

Kitty consorts with the cruelest and most vicious demon in Arcanium. Something draws them together, into bloody, painful, violent conflagrations of lust (like the one above). Indeed, their paradoxical complementarity goes beyond mere lust. It’s deeper, darker, far more hypnotic. One hesitates to call it love, but the connection binds them to one another at least as tightly.

The scenes between Kitty and the Ringmaster eclipsed everything else in this novel, for me. (I’m a bit uncomfortable admitting this. What, after all, does that say about me?) They left me stunned, crushed, and unbelievably aroused. Although I applaud an author who can create this kind of effect, I worry about what Ms. Evans’ can do for an encore. Once you’ve gone over to the dark side, human sex, even human love, seems pale and weak by comparison.

Review Tuesday: Fortune by Aurelia T. Evans

Fortune (Arcanium Book 1) by Aurelia T. Evans

Totally Bound, 2015

Be careful what you wish for. Someone may be listening, eager to twist your words in ways you can’t begin to imagine.

A careless wish uttered by her jealous, self-centered boyfriend traps Maya DeLuca in Arcanium, a traveling circus suffused with dark, perverse magic. Psychic jinn Bell Madoc presides over Arcanium’s assorted demons and monsters, plus the humans self-condemned to servitude as freaks or entertainers because of their thoughtlessly articulated desires. Devious, manipulative and devilishly attractive, Bell makes Maya his personal plaything. He teases, tortures and tests her, inflicting pain and evoking exquisite pleasure with equal frequency.

Irrevocably bound to Arcanium and to Bell, Maya struggles against internal demons—shame, anger, guilt, self-disgust—as she tries to avoid wishing herself into more serious difficulties. Gradually, coaxed or commanded by her jinn master, she sinks deeper into the luridly carnal atmosphere of the circus. The demons and the oddities become first her friends, then her lovers. When Arcanium is threatened, Maya rises to its defense like some avenging angel. Bell rewards her with a final, extreme test of trust and endurance, one which teaches Maya what she truly wants.

I loved this book, for a dozen reasons. Rarely do I find such originality and freshness in today’s erotic romance. Aurelia Evans makes Arcanium feel real—bloody, dangerous, uncomfortable and unbearably arousing. The horror and the eroticism balance perfectly, both conveyed in vivid, visceral detail. In Arcanium, violence and fear are the flip side of sexual desire. You can scarcely tell whether your heart is racing from lust or terror.

It takes talent and courage to people a world with freaks and monsters—bearded women, quadruple amputees, conjoined twins, giants and midgets, flesh-devouring clowns—and make the reader care about them. Fortune deals with philosophical and moral issues rarely considered in erotic romance: what it means to be an outcast; the limits of rationality; the healing powers of both compassion and of anger; the nature of good and evil. Bell and his fellow immortals do horrible things, killing, maiming, disfiguring, causing unbelievable agony. With deliberate cruelty, he uses his victims’ words against them. Yet he makes the case to Maya that he’s not evil, but merely an instrument of the chaos that underlies creation. By the end of the book, one almost believes him.

The pacing of this novel particularly impressed me. The narrative tension climbs steadily to three successive peaks, each one emotionally shattering. I don’t want to spoil readers’ enjoyment by giving away details, but it’s very skillfully done.

I have one complaint about Fortune. I found some of Ms. Evan’s descriptions rather difficult to follow. For instance, there’s one scene in which Bell’s knife-wielding previous lover chases Maya into the maze of trapezes, high wires and catwalks near the top of the circus tent. No matter how many times I reread the description, I couldn’t get a clear picture of how these physical elements were laid out and thus, what exactly was going on.

This problem arises only occasionally. Other scenes—for instance, Bell’s and Maya’s frantic coupling atop a tentacled beast on the whirling carousel—paint easily imagined pictures in the mind (very dirty pictures, in this case).

Fortune is the first book in a series. Upcoming volumes, I gather, will deal with relationships among other inhabitants of Arcanium. In general, I tend not to read series. I’ll sample one book, then move on to another author or fictional world.

In the case of Arcanium, though, I’m not sure I want to leave.

Sneak Peek: Red Tide Rising by Allie Gail

[I have an amazing erotic horror tale to showcase today. Use the Rafflecopter widget at the end to enter Allie's giveaway! ~ Lisabet]

Blurb

What good is immortality when every moment is agony?

The vampire Ash has returned from his watery grave, proving that death is merely a minor inconvenience. Picking up where he left off? That might not be as easy. Because someone else is vying for Sami's attention - the last person he ever would have expected.

Fulfilling her desire for immortality seems the surest route to winning her favor. But for Sami, this gift will come at a terrible price. One simple lie of omission is all it takes to send her spiraling into a terminal state of madness. And as the last remnants of her sanity slip away, Ash can no longer deny that her maniacal behavior is putting them all at risk. His perfect angel has become a perfect liability.

But can he find it in his heart to destroy her?

Ages 18+. Contains strong language, explicit sex and elements of horror. This book is the final installment in the Immortal Touch trilogy.

Excerpt

“Trust me?” he whispered.

“I trust you.” Her eyes fluttered shut as she waited for the sharp prick of the needle, the one that would send her into her last slumber as a human.

Instead she felt herself being lifted into the air, and even before the back of her head slammed against the hard packed sand, even before the warm water of the tidepool surrounded her, she knew she’d been deceived yet again.

Ash was straddling her body, both hands wrapped around her neck in a grip of steel as he held her head just beneath the water’s surface. The briny sting of saltwater in her nostrils sent panic rushing through her, and she began to struggle like a wild animal, kicking while beating at his arms and tearing at his flesh with her fingernails. It did no good other than to exhaust all her strength. The hands around her throat were immovable. He would not be budged.

A primitive scream escaped her in a short trail of bubbles, accomplishing nothing at all but to deprive her of what little breath she had left. The sapphire eyes that were coldly fixed on her seemed to blur and waver as the rippling water obstructed her vision. She felt dizzy. Her pulse banged out a violent tempo of terror.

Air! Oh God, I need air…I can’t breathe…please, for God’s sake, let go…let go…

In a final desperate bid for oxygen she inhaled reflexively, and her starving lungs ached and burned as they sucked in the stagnant seawater that mercilessly suffocated her.

The frenzied thrashing grew weaker. Her fingers slowly released their clench on his wrists as her body became limp and still. The pale light from the full moon above her dimmed and faded away, and a sleepy blanket of darkness began to cover her with its peaceful comfort.

So this was what it was like to die.

It wasn’t so bad, really.

Blinking once, she relaxed and succumbed to the darkness.

The last sight her mortal eyes took in before the twilight of death clouded them was his broad Cheshire grin, hovering just above the water’s surface.

About Allie

Allie fell in love with books from the moment she was issued her very first Sally, Dick and Jane reader. Born and raised in Alabama, she now resides in the sunny panhandle of Florida with her own blue-eyed Prince Charming and two fat, obnoxious cats. When she’s not busy obsessing over the lexicon of her latest project, she can usually be found watching B-movie horror (the cheesier, the better!), reading or playing online computer games while indulging her unhealthy Pepsi addiction.

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Book Trailer Link:

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlDaGFtcUlo&feature=youtu.be

Book Buy Links

US: http://www.amazon.com/Tide-Rising-Immortal-Touch-Book-ebook/dp/B00VPVNTFQ

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tide-Rising-Immortal-Touch-Book-ebook/dp/B00VPVNTFQ

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Cold, But Not Heartless

By Aurelia T. Evans (Guest Blogger)

I am an overly emotional person, except when I’m not.

Sometimes my emotions get so intense that the only solution is for some enterprising up-and-coming technician in my brain to turn the switch off for a while. The technical term is ‘dissociation.’ Authors are no strangers to dissociation. It’s practically a job requirement, not a symptom. The only problem is when it extends beyond when I’m writing and into my real life. The numbness, the inability to feel anything but emptiness, disconnected—it sure beats feeling like I’m stuck in the bottom of Jame Gumb’s Silence of the Lambs pit. It lets me stay functional. But it has its own problems, as you might imagine.

Most of my characters find themselves in the grips of powerful emotions. Sex magnifies everything. From passion to anger to fear to love, romance and erotica lends itself to torrents of feeling.

Julia is different.

She’s not the first character I’ve written who’s lost her memory. Tora, from Wolf Girl (coming out at the end of the year), has her memory wiped away by an external force. She’s a creature of pure emotion, since that’s all she has. Julia, from my vampire serial Bloodbound, took quite a different turn. When awareness returns to her, she’s cold, numb, emotions as stripped away as her memory, although not stripped away because of her memory.

Writing Julia was an interesting exercise. She’s not as easy for people to identify with, harder to pin down, harder to connect with because she can’t connect with herself. She’s a cold fish, a hard woman, bleached in mind and body. The qualities that appeal to the vampire love interest in question, Nathan, aren’t her stunning good looks or sparkling personality. Yet the vampire priest and I agree—she’s fascinating, especially the things going on beneath the blank surface of her thoughts. Because she’s far from empty.

Julia is damaged as a fallen family photograph. Something in her head is splintered. Bridges were destroyed long before her memory failed her. I find Julia darkly appealing, and I relate to her damaged side more than some of the other relatively well-adjusted characters that I’ve written. If someone wants a more connected character, I have plenty of others to choose from (since I have quite a few stories coming out this year and the next). Bloodbound is Julia’s story, the story of a woman whose coldness has helped her survive. And that’s how I like it.

The serial novel Bloodbound is my first attempt at self-publishing—it only seems appropriate that I get to start the process with an atypical protagonist. I’ve been making noise about indie publishing for a while, but I’m finally forcing myself to just do it. It helps that I have a banging cover—that’s one of the main reasons I’ve pushed myself to actually do it.

I’m nervous and cautiously excited, since self-publishing means everything’s on me. But erotica is fortunately an indie-friendly genre, and I have a wonderful support system for the process.

Allow me the pleasure of introducing you to Julia and some of the other characters in the first book in the Bloodbound serial, Blood Lost.

Blurb

Bloodstains on her clothing and bloodlust between the sheets, she’s never been more lost…and that’s why he chooses her.

As if wandering the streets in bloody clothes after losing her memory isn’t bad enough, Julia’s been kidnapped by vampires, then presented to Nathan, high priest of Dominion.

Nathan’s not interested in a bleeder, perfectly content with fellow priest Lucas as his companion, lover, and willing servant. However, when Lucas offers her to him, Julia’s endearing confusion and lack of fear intrigue him.

With nowhere else to go without her memories, Julia accepts his offer and embarks on a sensual but deadly journey into the world of Dominion and its arrogant, esoteric elite…as well as the darkness of her own desires and the mystery of her past.

Excerpt

“Get the fuck off me, you fucking leech, evil prick, wannabe demon!” Monica struggled, kicking her legs back and forth, trying to scratch the priest with her good hand, but he somehow managed to evade every single attack.

“You think you’re the first fighter I’ve brought to him?” the priest said, laughing. All the kindness had drained out of his demeanor, although the warmth of his voice made his cold declarations all the chillier.

Now would be the perfect time for Julia to try to escape while the priest distracted himself with Monica, but this time there was no chance of saving Monica if Julia left now. It wasn’t that there was no point in saving herself, but there was less point. She had nowhere to go, no reason to save herself when there wasn’t a whole lot of self to save.

And even if she wanted to try just for the sake of blind hope, the dust motes in the center aisle moonbeam were coalescing as Monica fought, her jabs becoming more focused but no less futile. Julia hesitated with one foot on the stage and the other off, the younger girl trailing behind her and clinging to her shoulder to hold her back.

“I think that’s quite enough, children.”

Monica stopped fighting and instead stared, stunned, at the man coming up the center aisle.

Like the priest holding Monica, this man appeared at first glance unobtrusive, his presence quiet. Like the priest, he wore the uniform, but his clerical collar was black instead of white. His skin was naturally tan but somehow still managed to appear pale, as though the color underneath the translucent golden layer had leached out. The priest’s smile was gentle, but this new man’s smile—though following the same curve—gave the impression of a stalking cat rather than a content one. Although he didn’t appear old, his hair was prematurely silver all the way through, as though touched by frost, with lowlights of slate gray near the scalp where the hair was denser.

And whereas the priest’s eyes were nearly black, this man’s were nearly white. They pierced instead of welcomed, and although she wasn’t proud of it, Julia lowered her gaze when they attempted to bore through to the mind beneath her skull.

“My Master,” the priest breathed with religious reverence. “Kneel, woman,” he told Monica, but he truly addressed all three. “Kneel with me before your Master.”

“I kneel to no one,” Monica retorted. However, even she was shocked and awed by this unassuming man that somehow dominated the entire room just by existing, his appearance as average as it was inexplicably alien. She dropped to the floor when the priest buckled her knees with a solid kick.

The priest, too, knelt to honor the man, keeping a hold around Monica’s neck.

The younger girl collapsed not onto her knees but to the side, sobbing renewed as though she did not know how to stop. Julia forgot about her as soon as the girl released her grip on Julia and left her standing.

The white gold of the man’s skin was cool on her chin where he brushed his fingers like a frigid winter wind. Ever so gradually, he lowered his hand and she lowered herself with it. Anything to keep from looking into those eyes. He withdrew when she knelt at his feet.

“Rise.”

The priest gripping Monica stood in a single graceful motion, intimately familiar with the act. He pulled Monica up with him. The younger girl quivered as though she could feel the master’s chill from three feet away. She might not have even heard the man’s command as she proceeded to simply dissolve into a pool of exhaustion and fear.

Julia stood up and stepped back onto the stage, away from the man. She kept her eyes downcast, but not in deference.

“So these are the women you’ve chosen for me, Lucas,” the man said. He paced before the stage. Julia could hear that smile when he added, “I can tell you have reached the end of your patience with me, if these are the ones you have brought. Just picking them at random now, are we?”

“I tried picking them deliberately, but they were never what you wanted,” the priest, Lucas, replied. “I apologize if these seem like desperate selections.”

“Oh, I understand,” the man said. “It is frustrating when your Master cannot even articulate what he wants. How can you be expected to know what intangible quality might appeal to me, what a woman must have to feel right, when all you’ve ever known I liked was you?”

“Your commands have never been a chore,” Lucas protested.

“No, but you must indeed be at your wit’s end if that poor girl is any indication. Come now, Lucas, you already knew she was too young. And limp. A wisp of a thing not even fit for donation.”

The fine, shiny, black shoes paused before the despairing heap of the younger girl. That hand reached out and stroked across the girl’s forehead. Her sobs abruptly ceased, her eyelids fluttering. In a few seconds, she pitched forward. Her face almost hit the wooden stage, but the man caught and cradled it before laying her down. Her back rose and fell, which meant the girl was unconscious once more, not dead.

A mercy for all, Julia thought.

Bloodbound Release Schedule:

Blood Lost (Book 1) – February 14 (FREE!)

Bleeder’s Ball (Book 2) – February 28

Blood Pool (Book 3) – March 14

Blood on the Moon (Book 4) – March 28

Bleeding Heart (Book 5) – April 11

Bloodbound, the Complete Serial Novel – May 9

Links to Bloodbound Book 1
(The ones listed as not yet free may be free by the time you check!)

Smashwords, multiple formats, including Kindle (recommended, FREE): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/519123

 

Amazon US (not yet free): http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TJ44EIC

 

Amazon UK (not free): http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00TJ44EIC?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

 

Amazon Canada (not free): http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00TJ44EIC?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

 

Apple (FREE): https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/blood-lost-bloodbound-book-1/id967111963?mt=11

 

Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1121218815?ean=2940046575934

Links

Bloodbound serial novel page:

https://aureliatevans.wordpress.com/bloodbound-serial/

Blog: https://aureliatevans.wordpress.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006673185670&fref=ts&ref=br_tf

About Aurelia

Aurelia T. Evans is an up-and-coming erotica author with a penchant for horror and the supernatural.

She's the twisted mind behind the werewolf/shifter Sanctuary trilogy, demonic circus series Arcanium (publication starts April 2015), and spiritual gothic/urban fantasy series Meridian (publication TBD). She's also had short stories featured in various erotic anthologies.

Aurelia presently lives in Dallas, Texas (although she doesn't ride horses or wear hats). She loves cats and enjoys baking as much as she dislikes cooking. She's a walker, not a runner, and she writes outside as often as possible.