fiction

Wild Rosegarten, Chapter 1: Part 1

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

Copyright 2015 Beth Bishop. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews. This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Chapter One: Slash and Burn

I am used to the stench of burning flesh, and I am used to stains of blood spray on my clothes. Yet, no matter how many times I kill a vampire, I never get used to the screaming.

I was lucky to catch my latest victim while snoozing. Once he realized what I was about, he fought to sink his teeth into my neck. I held him off with a firm shove against his forearms and freed my right hand. Knife ready, I plunged it into the base of his throat and wrenched it in circular motions, widening the hole so that the blood flowed freely. He tried to cough and blood spurted from the wound. With a swift kick to his stomach, I sent him sailing through the open patio door and into the Florida mid-morning sun.

His flesh smoked and charred just before it caught fire. His scream pierced the silence of the day, and I flinched at the sound. As I watched from the living room, he trudged toward the door. Three paces from it, he fell to the concrete patio and roasted, his life after death finally ending.

“You got him?” Justin asked as he came into the living room from the kitchen.

I nodded. “Yeah. Quick and easy.”

“Mine, too. I didn’t even break a sweat. Small nest,” he said, looking at the smoldering pile on the patio. “Let’s see if we can find anything worth taking back.”

We kicked and scattered ashes. Justin’s vampire bit it in the grass, so we sifted fresh dirt over the charred places. A few buckets of water washed the remains of my target from the patio.

We searched the house for supplies. Since the two male vampires had no human slaves or soldiers, we found no food or weapons. There was a TV, but with no electricity, we couldn’t use it to check the news.

Justin found a closet full of clothing and linens, so I helped him load the spoils into the compact car we acquired in Virginia. After that, we stripped the vampire-safe tint off the windows and took down the blackout shades. With the nest empty and unusable, Justin drove us back to the new house. He pulled the car behind the house and parked by the back door. As we filed into the kitchen, my mother looked up from food inventory and gave us a tentative smile.

“Well?” she asked.

I gestured to my shirt. “We got ‘em.” Justin edged around me. He gave my mother a kiss on the cheek and headed toward the bathroom. I walked over to the counter and surveyed the two grocery bags sitting there. “That’s all we have left?”

“Cami, I hate to ask you to go out again so soon, but we need more food than this. It’s only noon.”

“No problem.” I kissed her cheek.

As I left the kitchen, she said, “Check in and see if your father needs anything before you go. He’s down in the basement. Oh, and bring me your dirties when you change. I’m washing today.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mom.”

As I tromped down to the basement, I saw the faint glow of the lanterns. My father set them up around the room to light the work area. Although mostly above ground, the basement had no windows, not even in the door.

From the bottom of the stairs, I said, “Hey, Dad, I’m going into town soon. Anything in particular you need me to get?”

With the blade he was cleaning, he pointed to a rag on one of the tables. “You’ve got kunai?” I took one of the beveled knives from the pouch at my waist and twirled it on my index finger to show him that I did. “Okay, but clean a hunting knife and take it with you.” I picked up a rag and began oiling one of the knives to guard it against the moisture that inevitably existed in basements and the humidity that characterized the southern United States. “If you can find it, pick up some wine. It’s almost November, and we should celebrate a little.”

I nodded to him. This autumn marked twenty years since the vampires took over and enslaved humans, twenty years since my parents took my sister and me into hiding. I had been four and Aster nine. I don’t remember much from the time before, when I wasn’t hiding in bunkers, afraid of monsters in the dark, which, it turned out were real and did want to eat you. When I finished oiling the knife, I slipped it into the mpty sheath on my belt. It rested just in front of my left hip whereas the kunai pouch stayed on the right.

“You had success?” my father asked, setting his knife down on the towel he had spread over the pool table.

“Yeah. There were only two. Justin’s unloading the loot.”

“Good. Okay, well take those bed rolls up.” He jerked his head toward them. “You, Mandy, and Patrice are taking the second bedroom.”

“Yes, sir,” I answered in military fashion, but before I left him, I gave him a quick sideways hug. We had this large, secluded house under surveillance for over a month before we cleared vampires from the surrounding area. When no one noticed that they went missing, we started moving in supplies. We holed up in the basement for a few weeks. Now that we were sure no one was watching us, we began the move upstairs.

As the three single, adult females, Mandy, Patrice, and I always shared a room. I brought the bedrolls to it and helped them organize the room. I changed from my slayer wear of dark leggings and a snug tank into the street clothes I acquired for going into the city. Today, I chose jeans and, even though there was a nip in the air, a short-sleeved T-shirt. It would show off the self-inflicted “vampire bites” on my arms. They were painful to make but necessary for me to keep up the appearance of being a slave.

Once properly dressed, I got the keys to the compact from Justin, traded my mom my dirty clothes for the grocery bags, and exited through the back door. With the goal of scoping out more neighborhoods for nests and getting as much food as I could, I set off toward the grocery store.

The morning sun had given way to clouds that warned of rain, but I rolled down my window to enjoy the fresh air. We tried to avoid colder, snowy climates in fall and winter. Even though the changing foliage that we saw while passing through the Carolinas and Georgia was beautiful, Tallahassee promised a moderate winter. After the first scouting trip, it also promised well-stocked, operational grocery stores. We wouldn’t have to settle for only canned items scrounged from gas stations. If Justin’s report was
correct, I could expect fresh meat and produce as well as dry goods from the store I planned to hit.

I looked down to check the gas needle. This little compact, according to the owner’s manual, was a 2010 Honda Civic, ran pretty well to be twenty-two years old, and it got great mileage. Although it wouldn’t be a problem in a large city like Tallahassee, gasoline was usually hard to find. The needle said I had more than half a tank, so I drove past the station and on to the store.

I pulled into the parking lot of a Human Foods store. With no other cars in the lot, it looked deserted, but after I traveled up and down a few aisles, I passed a woman only a few years older than me. The smile she sent me was brief and emotionless. My hello registered no response from her, as if I’d said nothing.

After that, I didn’t speak to the other three people—one man and two women—that I passed. I kept to myself, and my quick and efficient manner of shopping drew no attention. At least, that’s what I thought.

As I knelt down to pick up a five-pound bag of rice, a young man stooped beside me and snagged it. “Hi, I’m Mark.” He dropped the bag into my buggy. “I haven’t seen you around here before…” He gave me a leading look.

“Lily,” I lied.

“You must be one of Benoit’s new girls.”

“Who?” I asked before I thought.

He lifted his eyebrows. “Guillame Benoit.” At my blank look, he said, “The ruler of Florida?”

Slowly, I shook my head. “Uh, no, I’m just trying a different store this week.” I turned the buggy and, leaving Mark behind, headed toward the meat counter. From the butcher, I acquired several packages of pork chops, which he gladly packed in ice. My mouth watered just thinking about anything my mother might do to them.

At the bakery, I took four baguettes and a sack of dinner rolls. Fresh bread—it had been ages since I’d had any. I resisted the urge to sniff it. I wheeled over to the empty checkout lanes and transferred the items from my buggy to the grocery bags.

“No, no, here,” Mark called. He strode over to me, waving store bags. Instinct had me shifting into an offensive stance. “Whoa!” He held up his hands. “I just wanted to give you some Human Foods bags, you know.” He deliberately looked down at my bags. “We wouldn’t want you advertising the competition around our store.”

I looked down at my bags and the block letter “Consumables” stamped across them. I shook my head and relaxed. “Sure, sure. Sorry.” I ordered myself to be calm. It was no time to get sloppy or overreact to basic friendliness. Mark just behaved so differently from the robotic customers. I waved for him to give me the bags, but he joined me in bagging.

“You’re a little jumpy.” I ignored the comment. “Are you a soldier? Is that why you have all those scars?” When I looked up at him, I found him scanning my visible skin with interest.

“No, just a house servant. I’m accident prone.” I took a deep breath and struggled not to cram the groceries into the bag. I practically snatched the other bags away from him. “I have to go. I’m expected back soon.”

I kept my breathing under control and my pace slow as I passed through the automatic doors. I managed not to run to the car, and I drove from the parking lot at an acceptable speed. When I got two miles away, I went through every bag of groceries. I patted down the bags and turned over all the merchandise looking for anything that might track me. When I found nothing, I put the car back in drive and headed for the house.

* * * *

“This is excellent,” my father said. My back was to him as I helped my mother put up the groceries, but I heard his fingers drum on the table while he thought aloud. “Guillame Benoit. I’ll be damned. You know who he is, of course.”

I nodded. “He’s the one that destroyed the group that took Aster,” I answered and turned to look at him.

My father nodded solemnly. “If we take him down, it would open up northern Florida, bring about some chaos in their world. This Mark person sounds nosy, but he might be a good resource. I think it’s time we had regular grocery store runs.”

While I stacked cans in one of the cabinets, my mother spun around to look at him. “Harold,” she interrupted. “Are you sure? That’s risky, even for Camellia.”

My mother, Iris, had a thing for flower names. Although she wasn’t a fighter, she took care of the hodgepodge of people that formed our family. Overprotective mother was part of that role.

“She’ll be fine,” my father said dismissively. “I want to know as much about this vampire as possible.” He waved me off, as Robert and Justin entered the kitchen to discuss some other business that didn’t involve me.

I went to the room I shared with Mandy and Patrice and stretched out on my bedroll. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about how vampires, who didn’t even need to use beds, had as many as they wanted. This house had two—one in the room my parents were using and one in the children’s room.

One of the few memories I had of the time before we went into hiding was of a bed. It had one of those canopy things with ruffled curtains in a lily theme. Maybe that was why “Lily” popped into my mind.

I thought about Benoit and tried to imagine what it was like to rule a state. To get ahead in the vampire world, he had to have power and a serious following. He had wealth or else he had slaughtered the competition in a hostile take-over. Either way, it meant that he was ruthless.

As I wondered if vampires felt guilty about killing their own kind, a face intruded into my field of vision. I focused and found Justin smiling down at me. I smiled back.

“Time for training,” he said. “We’ll do some one-on-one with throws today.”

“Yeah, okay,” I grumbled.

He offered me a hand up, and after I took it, I followed him through the house and out the back door. We walked to the natural clearing in the pine forest that started at the back of the house. After stretching and warming up with a bit of sparring, Justin spent the next hour teaching me how to throw opponents by repeatedly flinging me to the ground. I had the breath knocked out of me so many times that my chest hurt, not to mention everything else.

“Is there any reason why you’re pounding the hell out of me?” I asked, half-jokingly.

“C’mon. I’m training you.” He smiled at me. “You need to learn these throws and how to recover and fight when you’ve had the wind knocked out of you.”

“Sure.” I jumped on his back, and he grabbed my wrists and hurled me over his head while simultaneously bending at the waist. I did a lame front flip and landed flat on my back. He still held my wrists. “I’ve had enough,” I declared. “I’m covered in dirt and pine needles.”

“We could move on to something else if you like,” Justin said, softening his voice. He kept his hold on one of my wrists and stretched out beside me.

“In the mood are you?” I asked wryly. Justin had been with our group for about five years, and not long after we found him, he and I became partners of sorts. We trained together, worked together, and a few times a month, slept together.

“It’s been a while.” He kissed my open palm.

“We’ve all been in the basement,” I reminded him.

“Well, we aren’t now. Don’t you have needs? Desires?” He released my wrist and brushed the back of his hand down my cheek.

“I can usually take care of that myself. Can’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s not nearly as fun as the real thing.” He propped up on an elbow and smiled down at me. After letting Justin hurl me through the air all afternoon, I definitely wasn’t in the mood.

“It takes less time and effort,” I said, which was true.

“It’s always about efficiency with you.” He stroked a finger down my arm. “I’d like to watch you. It’ll make my ‘alone time’ more efficient.”

“I’m sure it would.”

I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t lack of attraction. I had been slow to learn that sex, to Justin, meant attachment—something I was unwilling to allow myself. Attachment meant the vampires had yet another weapon they could use against me. It was a difficult situation because I liked sex, and I liked sex with Justin, but I didn’t want the emotional portion of it.

“It’s not going to happen today.”

Then, he said the dreaded words, “I have feelings for you.”

Needing to nip this in the bud, I chose denial. “No, you don’t. I’m just one of very  few viable females left in the world is all.”

That did the trick because he practically jumped to standing. He looked down at me much as he had in my bedroom, except now his face was pinched in anger. “I’m not just saying that so you’ll have sex with me,” he huffed out, “even though I want that.”

“If that were the reason, if it was just sex, I could buy it, even go along with it.” I sighed.

“You know very well that people can’t afford feelings these days, Justin. We have sex, good sex. You shouldn’t let your emotions get involved.” I looked up at him. “It’ll only screw you up. Besides, you don’t really know me.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and I sat up. That would be enough to send him on his way, even if he was in a stubborn mood. “You can say whatever you want, but I know what I’m feeling, and I know you. People need to feel. Sometimes, it’s all that keeps us going.”

He rushed past me but stopped and came back. He put his hand behind my head and kissed me quick and hard before he stormed off toward the house. Apparently, Justin wasn’t through trying to convince me that he had feelings, and I worried he would try to convince me that I had feelings, too. Well, I had them, but they were friendly, not mushy, lovey-dovey ones.

Suddenly, I felt exposed. I jumped to my feet, turned my back toward the path to the house, and crouched into a fighting position. The wind blew my way, and I sniffed. Something subtle was there, almost minty. Slowly, I backed into the trunk of a large tree as I scanned the woods.

Nothing. Nothing, but I could have sworn that I sensed something or someone. I shivered and fled to the house. I didn’t want to alarm anyone if it wasn’t necessary, so I kept my paranoia to myself. I decided the best way to clear my head was weapon detail.

In the basement, I positioned a whetstone in the vise clamped on the pool table. I was sharpening the hunting knives when my father came to speak with me, or rather at me, as was his usual style.

“You should let Justin do that,” he said. “He’s a trained blacksmith after all.”

“That may be, but I can sharpen a blade just as well as he can, Dad. These knives we picked up during sweeps are nicked and rusty. They need seeing to.”

“Well, then, stop whatever you’re doing to him,” he commanded. “He’s all messed up.”

“I’m not doing anything to Justin. He’s doing it to himself,” I insisted. I could probably sharpen a knife in my sleep, but I focused all of my attention on what I was doing. As I pressed and drew the blade over the whetstone, I listened to its metallic sigh.

“Do I need to explain to you how important he is to us?” I shook my head but didn’t look up at my father. “Don’t run him off. You need to get your head back in the game.” He came over and put his hand on mine, so I had to look at him.

“My head’s never been out of it.” I stopped to give my father the attention he wanted. “Justin is the one with weird ideas about our relationship.”

“You’ve been with him.” It was statement more than a question. “More than once?”

“Yeah. You know I’m twenty-four, right? It’s not serious,” I assured him.

“I know how old you are,” he snapped. He let go of me and ran his fingers through his hair. “To him, it apparently is serious.”

“Why don’t you try steering him toward Patrice? She likes him, and she isn’t a fighter. She’s quiet and really sweet, despite Mandy’s influence.”

“You’ve never been in love,” he said softly. My father looked at me, almost with pity. What he didn’t know about love and me was a lot. I had been in love and lost. I refused to put myself through that again. He knelt in front of me. “You can’t shut it off when you want to or focus it on someone else when it’s inconvenient.”

“It doesn’t matter, Dad. I can’t afford love.” I went back to honing the blade. “It’s bad enough worrying about what it would do to me if I lost you or Mom, especially after Aster.”

“It’s hard for your mom, being back here in Florida.”

“I know. I’m trying to spend more time with her.”

“You might not have a formal education, but you’re a smart one, Camellia. I know how you feel.”

Because I knew he needed to see a positive reaction to this little chat, I gave him a small smile. After that, I focused on work, an effective way to block out all thoughts. He stood looking at me for a while and then left.

END Ch1P1

What’s Next for Camellia

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

I’ve begun writing again here lately and writing in general again. Dusting off the folds of my brain to get them creating again. In the back of my mind (or in a crevice), I keep wondering what to do with my Camellia series. It was published. It’s unlikely to ever be published again unless I do it through Amazon or something similar. All the rights are mine now. I can do whatever I want with it. After thinking on it for a day, I decided to publish half chapters here.

I plan to rewrite some things, just to make them less trigger-y. I was going through some things when I wrote the first three novels, and my writing was one way to work it out. I’m not changing anything that has a trickle-down effect on the story. The events stand, just the details will be fewer. Even so, forewarned is forearmed, right? If you choose to read, there will be violence, death, foul language, drinking, gratuitous sex. It’s basically vampire porn, just so you know what you’re getting. If that’s not your thing, that’s quite alright with me. If you choose to read, thanks!

Sexy Stuff: Lavender

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In the bathroom of the restaurant, she went to the row of sinks to wash her hands.  She pressed the pump on the dispenser, and as she scrubbed her hands, the scent of the soap drifted up to her.  Lavender.  The fragrance was so similar to the body wash she used the last time they made love.  As the warm water ran over her sudsy hands, her eyes glazed.  She no longer saw the reflection of her hands or the faucet.

When he entered the kitchen, he stopped at the table.  Overnight, the lavender had dried on the paper towels.  Along with rosemary, mint, and basil, a friend had given him the lavender.  He didn’t know why he accepted it.  No, that wasn’t exactly true.  He picked up a sprig and after crushing it between his thumb and forefinger, he rolled the dried flowers, leaves, and stems, in his hands, fully releasing their aroma.  He dipped his nose into his cupped hands and inhaled.  Closing his eyes, he remembered her.

***

She was in the shower.  With her right foot wedged between the thin rim of the tub and the wall, she used the poof to soap her upper thigh and knee.  She heard the curtain open, felt the cool outside air displace the cocoon of steam so that the temperature difference sent chillbumps all the way up her back and even to her scalp.

“You’re letting the cold air in,” she said, smiling to herself.  She knew that stating the obvious amused him.  She heard the curtain shift closed, heard him hum before his hands, his always-warm hands, glided up her back.  “I’m almost done,” she said.  “Then, the water’s all yours.”

His fingers, now wet, slid over her, into her.  With the simple stroke, she was ready, but he liked to take things slow.  He liked to savor her building pleasure, hear her, smell her, taste her.  Only when he did these things did he receive complete fulfillment.

He reached forward and cupped her breast, urging her to stand up straight.  Her back pressed against his chest, and the top of her head slid neatly under his chin.  He skimmed his fingers over the top of her thigh and all the way up and between her legs.  He watched as her arm shot out – the one holding the poof – and he smiled as she tried to steady herself with one soapy hand.  He nipped at her earlobe and trailed kisses down the side of her neck as his fingers danced in and out, back and forth, round and round in a rhythm just for her and with just enough pressure to bring her to a quick climax.  He would have liked to prolong the foreplay, repeatedly bringing her up and backing off, until she quivered all over and could hardly breathe.  It teased them both, and made him hard to the point of pain, but this afternoon, he wanted to take her while the water was still hot.

He cupped her breast, felt her heart thudding against her ribs along the side of his hand and up his pinky finger.  He squeezed gently and rubbed his thumb over her nipple.  Her head slipped to the side and rolled back against his shoulder, her mouth open as she panted.  He could feel her grip his finger when it slid inside her.  She tilted her hips and spread her legs as far apart as the width of the shower.  She bucked and jerked as she grew closer and closer.

When she made the sound, somewhere between a squeal and a sigh, he knew she hit the top, and he twisted to he could capture her mouth with his.  His finger still moved in quick circles over the small knot of nerves, and she tore her mouth free of his.

“Now.”  She gave the primal demand that loosed his inner animal.

She bent forward and, reaching back between her legs, found his cock.  With one simple tug, he came forward and slid home.  She moaned with it and, dropping the poof, planted her palms against the front of the shower.

She had given, and now, gripping her hips, he took.  She could hear him, sucking air between his teeth and letting out gasps as her butt slapped wetly against him.  When she felt the hair of his legs brush against the backs of her thighs, she arched her back and lifted her chin so he could go deeper and deeper.

Water poured over her face, making her soaked hair slick over her eyes.  She smiled, but when his fingers found her swollen clit again, she cried out and moaned until he found release.

Movement…slowing…stopping.  He pulled her back up to standing.  Still inside her, he kissed her neck, wiped her hair from her face, massaged her creased wrists.  As their breathing returned to normal, he wrapped his arms around her and held her until the water ran cold.

***

Her hands were red from the heat of the water.  She slapped off the faucet and, still in the fog of memory, moved over to the paper towel dispenser.  Lavender.  She half-smiled and left the restroom.

He lowered his hands and let the crushed blooms drop back onto the paper towel.  Then, he turned to the fridge to make breakfast.

Apex

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

He considered himself no different from cats or orcas – animals that enjoy toying with their prey before delivering it unto Death. Like them, he used only the weapons nature gave him, and he didn’t always eat what he killed. He considered most of it practice, a honing of skills and body.

He watched an episode of Blue Planet that showed a pod of killer whales stalking a blue whale and its pup, taunting the mother, nipping at the babe. When the pup was exhausted, they toyed with the mother until she could no longer defend her offspring.  The orcas circled and jabbed, like a pack of boxers, and when they finally separated mother and child, they killed the pup but ate only its cheek meat – the choicest cut, so to speak. After the orcas left, the mother whale swam around the pup for hours, nudging it.

The unspoken questions were obvious. Were the orcas evil? Did the blue whale love her pup? He knew such questions had no meaning in nature. He wondered where humans got off thinking they could be evil or just or loving. Just because they believed they had souls, because they thought themselves civilized with advanced language skills, they were somehow better and accountable to the notions of morality and decency. Ants were civilized, and they sure as hell didn’t have ethics. Mounds often went to war with one another. Yes, he knew it was bullshit.

When he killed, it was because it was in his nature because he was of nature and not bound by a fabricated sense of right and wrong. When he killed his own kind, it was no different than the male dolphin, orangutan, or lion that slaughtered his competitors’ offspring and mated with as many females as possible to increase the odds of leaving a significant genetic footprint amongst the species. What he did was normal, and those who said differently were kidding themselves.

New Inkshares Project

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

I’ve queried and pitched and pitched and queried. So, I’m trying something new.

I actually love this novel I’ve written, and I think you will too. Check out the summary and partial first chapter. If you like what you read, and you’d like to read more (and preferably the whole thing), please follow and pre-order. It can happen if I get enough support from those of you who like me and/or what I write. And, if it’s not your bag, baby, that’s cool too.

Here’s the link: SOUL SEARCHING

Thanks,

Beth

Where the Wild Things Hunt

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Shadow stood on the edge where the dormant grass met the rip-rap-covered bank.  In the bay, the water gently lapped against grayish rocks.  Rusty water, made less inviting by the bright sunlight.  Through oval glasses he didn’t need, he stared at the ferry as it approached the docks.  He’d been compelled to wear them, putting on the face of an intellectual.  People stereotyped glasses-wearers as geeks, nerds, and squares long before Velma began single-handedly solving mysteries for the gang.  He could play off that for the day.

Looking to his left, Shadow recognized the teenaged boy sitting on a tripod stool in front of an easel.  He knew that the boy painted ocean scenes in watercolor, all the same shade of blue but with different concentrations of the color.  Several empty tubes of acrylic lay scattered around the boy’s feet and on the easel two cups – one for water, one for paint.

The boy moved the brush over the paper with inhuman speed, starting in the upper left and working his way to the lower right.  He didn’t wait for it to dry.  As soon as one was finished, he flipped the paper over the top of the pad to reveal a fresh, white sheet.  Always intrigued, Shadow walked over to stand behind him and watch as the boy transferred the world onto paper.

“Sea, sea, sea, sea,” the boy murmured over and over as his arm jerked and hitched.

Shadow couldn’t understand how such uncontrolled movements made something so beautiful.  The result was a surprisingly realistic rendering with exquisite detail to the tiny crests of waves.  For only a moment, he took the pad from the boy and flipped through the paintings.  As he flipped, Shadow saw the nebulous blob that marked the position of the ferry make steady progress toward the dock.

“Sea, sea, SEA, SEA.”  The boy grew increasingly agitated.

“Yes, I know,” Shadow said to him and returned the pad.  “It’s the only thing you see clearly.”

“Sea,” the boy sighed and resumed painting.

Shadow took the ferry to the island.  It was a small boat, and the waves were rough, but since the trip was uneventful, he tuned out for a while.  He never noticed the young woman, no more than twenty, staring at him with large blue eyes rimmed with black liner.  She longed for a hat as she fought to keep her pageboy-cut hair out of her eyes.  Eventually, she settled for holding each side of her hair in her fists.

Beyond the draw of a handsome face, she marveled that Shadow’s hair hardly moved.  The wind picked up only a few strands and twice saw him scratch at the stubble on his face.  Other than that, he didn’t move, and she wondered how anyone could be so still for so long.  She thought that, if he embraced her, her ear would rest just over his heart.

On the island, Shadow stared into the forest while the others set up camp.  The young woman spoke to him, and he greeted her, letting his eyes pass over her face to record it for future reference.  Her eyes, hope and good will seemed to arrow out of them, and he wondered if other things – hate, fear, lust – would also come through them, not only transparently but forcefully so.  He gave her a half-smile and a half-laugh, which she returned with a wide, guileless grin.  Clingy, he thought and walked away from her to the main tent.

Fourteen feet-by-fourteen feet, the tent stood in a patch of evergreen needles just large enough to contain it.  Two adjacent sides had both the flaps and screens unzipped and tied open to allow easy access.  A long table and several camp chairs were already set up, along with two laptops, a scanner, and a printer.  Shadow gave the equipment the same treatment he’d given the young woman.

“You can try,” he said quietly and left to set up his own tent.

He was up, sitting in a chair in the main tent and listening to the night.  A man’s scream cut off abruptly.  Snapping, snapping, rending, gurgling growls of satiation.  More screaming.  His lantern was on, and soon, the surviving five people clustered in the center of the tent, looking to him to know what to do.

“Did you see it?” one horrified man asked of Shadow.  “It was eight feet tall!”

“Furry, too?” Shadow asked, his smile haunting his face again.  He stood and turned up the lantern.  “With lower tusks, large black eyes, and a nose that’s almost comically human.”

The man poked his head out of the flap of the tent and never had the chance to scream before the snarling thing outside batted his head off his shoulders.  His body dropped to the ground, and the young woman, beyond terror, darted to Shadow’s side.  She tucked her head under his arm and dug her fingers into his shirt.

“What are they?”  Her skin was cold, and she quivered with the rush of adrenaline.

“Wild,” Shadow answered.  When the beast poked its head into the tent, the young woman looked up at him, searching for an answer, for deliverance.  Shadow passed a hand over her short, soft hair and removed his glasses.  “Hungry,” he added.  As he breathed warm air onto the lenses, the beast leapt.

In case you were wondering…

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

As it stands now, there will be nine books in the Camellia series. Book five should release October 1, 2015, and then there may be a lull. The sixth and seventh books have been accepted for publication, but they have to wait their turns through the editing process. Still, they are coming. Once I finished book nine, I will submit both it and book eight.

For those of you who read my books, I hope you enjoy them, and I would greatly appreciate any reviews you might give on your site of choice.

–Beth

All Romance eBooks recommends RAMBLIN’ ROSEGARTEN

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

and it’s half off! This is the fourth book in the Camellia series.

You can get the earlier books (and this one) from Amazon or directly from Eternal Press (use code 61NF17DV2LEX to get all books in ebook and paperback half off). I’m not sure why Barnes & Noble only offers paperback versions of my books, but you can select the epub format from All Romance or Eternal Press to get the Nookbook version and get it half off!

T-Minus Two Weeks

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

Ramblin’ Rosegarten (book 4 of the Camellia series) will be out August 1, 2015! This one was my favorite until I wrote book six. It introduces one of my two favorite characters. I can’t wait for y’all to meet him.

If you haven’t started the Camellia series or you are behind, there is time to catch up. Join Camellia’s roller coaster ride of emotions and life events!

Happy Pawn 2: The Laptop

~ bethbishopwrites ~ Leave a comment

Jerrick scrubbed his hands over his slick scalp then over his face.  He looked at the glowing screen of the laptop, the spreadsheet with its neat rows and columns.  Numbers.  Jerrick knew numbers.  Numbers were his livelihood and his love, but if he didn’t fix this…this huge screw-up, they wouldn’t be for much longer.

This is what he got for buying a second-hand laptop.  This is what he got for thinking for one second he was smarter than a djinn.  Tricky bastard, he thought.

Now, he understood the look in that girl’s eye, that skinny white girl who came charging into Happy Pawn, babbling about a microwave and wriggling anchovies.  He’d eavesdropped on that conversation enough to decide the girl was half out of her mind.  He knew better now, just like he knew that if he went back and complained to the old man that there was something not right with his laptop, the old man would give him the same speech.  Besides, he’d taken his chances on other purchases that turned out not so great, although a different kind of not so great.  The old man stuck to his policies: no returns, no refunds.  You buy it; it’s yours.

The calculator was his first purchase.  The plus sign was broken.  Jerrick didn’t have the skills to repair it, and it would’ve been almost cheaper to just buy a new one rather than pay someone to fix it.  He worked around it by subtracting negatives.  Annoying, but it worked.

The laptop…it was a completely other type of broken.

Ctrl+Shift+G. A simple typo was all it was.  Jerrick intended to use his shortcut for inserting the clip art of the company logo, but hit “G” instead of “F.”  He couldn’t even remember what he was working on when smoke spewed from the innards of the laptop.  He remembered thinking the thing was melting itself and all his data, and then suddenly he was pushing up from his desk chair, staggering back as the smoke coalesced into a heavily muscled, bluish man with small golden horns and a long black ponytail.  The man stretched out his arms and tipped his head to Jerrick.

“How may I be of service?”

A simple question really, and one that Jerrick answered in various ways.  The first was to ask for infinite wishes.  The djinn reassured Jerrick that there was no need for this wish.  “As long as you hold the vessel,” the djinn pointed at the laptop, “I am yours to command.”

Now, Jerrick scrolled down on the spreadsheet, seeing red, red, red.  He fell into the trap.  He watched those damn Wishmaster movies.  He read “The Monkey’s Paw.”  He knew there would be a catch, but he also assumed he could be smarter.  He could be careful.

Now, his superior’s secretary was dead, and he owed his accounting firm 2.6 million dollars.  He considered going to the CEO, trying to explain where the money went and promising to pay it back, but Jerrick knew he could work overtime every day for the rest of his life and not pay off that debt.  Not at his salary.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d realized where the money came from before he spent so much of it.  He hadn’t expected the djinn to be able to transfer money from one bank account to another.  What was he expecting?  That some long-lost rich relative would die and leave him a boatload of money?  Sort of.  Okay, yes.  But that didn’t happen.  And then there was Leisha.

All Jerrick wanted was for her to notice him, to notice him as a woman notices a man and not just someone she saw every day at the office and spoke to because it was polite and expected.  What she became…Jerrick blinked back tears as he remembered those first few nights together.  Those nights turned into weekends, and then suddenly Leisha wouldn’t leave.  She didn’t want Jerrick to leave, not even to go to work.  He took a few vacation days, a sort of dating honeymoon, and by the end of it, his entire body hurt from bites, bruises, and overuse.

Jerrick wiped away the tear that slipped down his cheek.  Until he made his stupid wish, she was a lovely woman.  Now, she was six feet under, after having thrown herself off the top of his condo building.

Jerrick knew better than to try to fix dead.  He couldn’t take back what happened to Leisha, and he would bear that mark on his soul for the rest of his life.  Which wouldn’t be much longer if he didn’t figure out what to do about the missing money.  He couldn’t hide that much longer, and he didn’t think he’d survive long in a federal penitentiary.

He already tried bargaining with the djinn.  “Put the money back!”  He screamed that sentence again and again, but what was spent could not be unspent.  Besides, didn’t his mother love her new house?  She deserved it, after raising five kids on her own.  Even so, Jerrick proved, once again, that you can’t get something for nothing.

He ran his damp fingers over the keys of the laptop.  With a deep frown on his face, he typed Ctrl+Shift+G.  The scent of the inferno filled his nostrils.  The smoke stung his eyes for a moment before it swirled into a column and produced the djinn.

“How may I be of service?” it asked.

“I don’t know.”  Jerrick looked into its strange black-on-black eyes.  “How do I fix this?”  He gestured at the screen then spread his arms wide.

“It is not my place to advise, only to grant what your heart desires.”

“Yeah, and how many lives have you ruined granting wishes?”

The djinn tilted its head in consideration.  “None.  No life is beyond repair.”

Jerrick laughed bitterly at that.  “Right.  I brought all this on myself.  I suppose you’re going to tell me that you have no control over how the wishes are granted.  Like there’s some sick, twisted god in control of it all, and you’re just the messenger.”  When the djinn gave no reply, Jerrick squared his shoulders.  “Well, you can tell whoever is in charge that my heart’s desire if for someone to fix this!  Fix the money.  Fix Leisha!”  Jerrick’s face crumpled, and he pressed his hands to his eyes.  “She didn’t have to die.”

“No, she didn’t,” the djinn said.  “Very well.”

****

Jerrick jerked.  The movement dragged his steering wheel sharply to the left and sent his car swerving into oncoming traffic.  Belching curses, he yanked hard in the other direction, overcorrecting, but managing to get the car going straight and in the proper lane.

How…what?  He couldn’t think.  Hadn’t he just been in his empty living room, arguing with a djinn?  He wasn’t anymore.  From the looks of things, he was on the expressway, somewhere between the exit for work and the exit for home.

He let out a breath, eased back into the seat.  Something dark in the passenger seat caught his attention, and he glanced that way.  Then, he took a longer look.  There it was: the laptop.  It sat there, the receipt taped to the case.  But that meant…that meant it was August, three months before he sat in his condo and demanded the djinn make things right.

Well, things are right now, Jerrick thought.  I can’t return it, but I won’t use it.  I won’t even turn it on.  “Yeah,” he said aloud.  He nodded in agreement with himself.  He took the exit for home with a renewed sense of hope.  He drove past the corner gas station, the old falling down houses.  Sure, he’d be back in his crappy apartment in one of the worst parts of town, but he would have his old life back.  “Yeah, you sneaky sonofabitch.  Won’t get me this time.”  He grinned down at the laptop, and the laptop was the last thing he saw.

****

When the cops interviewed Muriel Shipp, she told them it was the oddest thing.  She hadn’t heard a horn blow.  The lights hadn’t flashed, and the guardrails hadn’t come down.  But sure as there was wreckage all over her lawn, the train blew through and smashed that poor man and his car to nothing.

Long after everyone – police, media, nosy neighbors – left, Muriel went out into the yard.  There was debris everywhere, and she wondered who she was going to get to come clean up the mess.  Couldn’t count on her no-good grandkids to do it.  Well, she was old, but she could do a few things.  She went around with a garbage bag, praying to God that she didn’t find any parts of the man.  She was pretty sure the coroner took all they could of him.  What a way to go.

Muriel was at the edge of the yard when her foot rapped against something.  Begrudging her hip, she bent down and picked up a flat, black object.  She lifted a pair of half-moon readers to peer at it.  Why, it was one of those computer things.  Muriel knew this one must have come from the man’s car, but there wasn’t a scratch on it.  She had no use for it, but the things were worth a pretty penny.

Muriel made her way back inside her house and slipped the laptop into a plastic grocery bag.  She’d take the bus into the city tomorrow.  She knew just the place to take it to get the best price with no questions asked.