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“For Want of Treasure” Excerpt from the Farther Reefs Anthology

Happy release day! The Farther Reefs anthology is finally here. Just to whet your appetites, here is an excerpt from my story, “For Want of Treasure.”

So a treasure hunter, a hardened sea captain, and a merman walk into a bar.

Isn’t that how all good tall tales begin?

The Jolly Roger wasn’t even a nice bar, but that was the point. It was a seedy, scurvy hole-in-the-wall with cheap alcohol, easy access to whores, and plenty of the worst scum imaginable.

You know, my kind of people.

I strolled in first. I usually did—I was the muscle of the outfit, being 5’11’ with a stocky build and piercing russet eyes. People knew to stay out of my way. Nevermind that I was a woman; by now, my reputation preceded me and only fools were stupid enough to have something to say about my gender. I’d blackened enough eyes and broken enough limbs to get the point across, so no one paid me any attention as I strode over the creaky floorboards towards the corner table.

Same as me, no one really noticed when Kida walked in. She was the shortest of our trio at 5’6’’ and slender of frame but with plenty of lithe muscle to back up the scowl on her face. She hated criminals. Which, of course, was hilarious, since I was one. And technically, so was she, but that was a long ongoing argument that no one wanted to hear. Like me, she wore fitted pants, boots, and a blouse. She had a cutlass on her hip and her long, brown hair trailed over one shoulder in a tidy ponytail. If one looked close enough, they’d see the freckles dusting her light brown cheeks, but calling her cute would get you a broken nose. She kept a hand on the hilt of her weapon as she walked, fully expecting a confrontation as she always did when it was time to talk to vagabonds. And she had enviable perfect posture—but that was no surprise. Most ship captains that were ex-Navy did.

However, people did look up when Thomas brought up the rear.

For one, Thomas was pale. That didn’t happen a lot in ports and places where people sailed the seas for a living. I was fortunate with my dark brown skin and thick shoulder length curls to not have to worry as much about burning under the sun. He didn’t get sunburn, either, but only because he wasn’t completely human. Aside from the paleness, he had delicate features that were a mix between handsome and pretty, with his waist-length inky hair and blue eyes. He was taller than me at 6’0’’ and he too was relatively lithe with muscle. He also looked the friendliest of the three of us, glancing around curiously to survey his new surroundings. Men and women alike stared at him in wonder, for he always had this air of being from somewhere exotic and strange, not like the seamen nor the landlubbers.

And they were right. After all, he hailed from Atlantis—the lost city beneath the sea.

Arty was at the corner table drinking with three of his crew members, laughing into his beer. As soon as he spotted me, he sat up straight and wiped the suds off his beard and pot belly. The other crew members noticed me and Kida and grabbed their drinks, hustling off to another part of the bar without being told.

“Arty,” I said as I slouched into one of the empty chairs. “You look well.”

“Ehehe, well, I try,” he said, nervously glancing at Kida before nodding to her respectfully. “I see your troupe is out in force today.”

“Thomas was getting stir crazy,” I said. “So I thought I’d bring him along to have a look at the locals.”

“He’ll find plenty of entertainment if he wants it,” Arty said, gesturing towards the whores now abandoning their clients to flock to his side. I sent a withering glare over my shoulder. The four women stopped dead and then whispered to each other before adopting sullen looks and returning to their posts. Typical.

“The map,” Kida demanded, narrowing her eyes at Arty.

“Ah, yes’m, one second.” Arty reached into his boot and withdrew a rolled-up map. “Them’s the coordinates. Lots of men have tried to get at, but between the cliff and the reef, no one can dive far enough down to get to the contents of the sunken ship.”

“Which are?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Rumor is it’s stolen sterling pounds from Scotland. Last I heard was two-to-three thousand, but you know how it goes in our line of work.”

I snorted. “Damn right I do.”

I glanced at Kida. “If you would, love.”

Kida glared at me, but sighed and withdrew her change purse. She counted out Arty’s cut and left it on the table, understandably not wanting to touch the filthy sailor. He scooped up what he was owed and tucked it into his waistband, lifting his mug. “Much obliged. When can I expect my share of what you find?”

“If we find anything,” I said curtly, standing up. “I’ll call on you within three days to pay you. If you hear anything good in the meantime, don’t be a stranger.”

Arty winked. “Never to you, Lila. You keep me wallet fat as me stomach.”

He broke into chortles and I rolled my eyes before turning to leave.

We were almost to the door when trouble came a-knocking.

A dark-haired man with a goatee stuck his leg out, blocking my path about four tables away from the door. He tipped his wide hat up and smiled at me. “Sorry to interrupt, but you wouldn’t happen to be the same Lila who’s wanted by the British for crippling the son of the commander’s fleet after having an eye on your girl here?”

He lazily pointed at Kida. I smiled. “He didn’t have ‘an eye on her.’ He had a hand on her. A hand that I kept.”

I leaned in towards him. “And I’ll do the same to you if you don’t move your smelly ass away from me.”

“Well,” he said, clapping his hands together. “That’s admission by your own will, isn’t it? You are the infamous Lila—feared from Tibet to Timbuktu!”

His beady eyes gleamed with greed. “And worth about fifty-thousand pounds. British sterling, of course.”

“Of course,” I said sweetly. “And, what? You’re gonna bring me in all by your lonesome?”

He laughed. “I’m a fool, not suicidal.”

Seven men in the bar stood up and locked their eyes on me. “They are.”

TO BE CONTINUED

Get your copy today!

Farther Reefs Anthology

Cover designed by Moor Books

Pirates and kraken, boats and submarines, deadly sirens, mermaids, and the women who face them all. These are our heroes.

High seas adventure, fantasy, and magic weave together in this sapphic anthology focusing on the joy of the unbounded oceans.

If you like diverse stories with lesbian and sapphic heroines exploring oceans, battling sea monsters, and seducing pirates, buy Farther Reefs today!

Pre-order a copy today! Release date is October 18th, 2022.

Excerpt from “Hunted” in the Terminus II Anthology

Cover Art by James Mason and Uraeus

Ready for a brand new preview from the sequel to Terminus? Get ready to catch up with Cassandra the werewolf and Vladmir Tepes, the Father of All Vampires in “Hunted”: an excerpt from Terminus II.

Someone was stalking me.

And anyone stalking a werewolf was either batshit crazy or had balls of titanium.

Don’t get me wrong–I’ve been stalked before, for serious and for playtime. The latter I honestly found a bit of a turn on if done properly by a fellow wolf of the opposite sex. Still, the few times it had happened had been playful, flirtatious, and reciprocated. A game of wits.

This was an entirely different game.

To his credit, the stalker was quite good. He stayed downwind of me so I couldn’t smell him. He kept out of my peripherals. He moved slowly, gradually, his paws light on the grass and the leaves of the forest. It was late, past any good girl’s bedtime, but I hadn’t been a good girl since I was probably about fourteen years old. Bad girls stayed out late and played in the moonlight. I’d been a bit restless lately, so I’d gone out for a midnight run through Fernbank Forest to clear my head. Sometimes I’d play tag with any local wildlife I could find. Deer were excellent sport, but rabbits were even better–they were faster and harder to catch. Still, in the city of Atlanta, deer weren’t exactly in massive supply, especially the closer you got to downtown. You had to go to the peripheral suburbs for proper fauna.

“Well,” you ask. “If you didn’t see him and didn’t smell him, Cassandra, how did you know he was there in the first place?”

Instinct.

Werewolves are sort of odd. A lot of folks think we’re wolves in human form or humans in wolf form, but it’s honestly both. When I changed into my wolf form, part of my human brain rested and the wolf stepped into the control room. All animals had a sense of when they were being watched. It was a survival tactic. Humans have it too, but it’s just not as acutely as animals, and especially apex predators. Wolves were at the top of their food chains wherever they were that didn’t have men with guns. Wolves knew their surroundings as if it was a part of them, and in some ways, it was. Nature breathed life into us, supernatural as it was, and so we always knew on a subconscious level what was around us, in the wind, in the trees, in the sky.

So what did my stalker want?

I had a few theories as I merrily strolled through the woods, pretending like I didn’t know better. I was trotting down a hill with a sharp decline, and I’d done it on purpose. He couldn’t stay low if he had to cross the hill at some point to keep tailing me.

Theories formed in my head. I was third in line for pack leadership here in the southeast. My father was the original Wolfman. My mother was the lupa, his mate. We had a pack of seventy or so raggedy miscreants who took care of each other and made nice with other packs who came through town for a good time. Every so often, I’d get some admirer trying to suck up to me with the scheme to be next in line for the throne. If he married me, he’d become royalty, effectively. Not that my family flaunted anything. We were well off, not rich, and most of what we made went back into the pack anyhow. Foolish men had tried and failed one by one over the last decade. If they stepped up, I swatted them down. However, none of them ever stalked me beforehand. Typically, they’d show up to pack meetings and introduce themselves, flirt with me, butter up my folks, only to be told a very firm no. So theory one was out the window.

I reached about ten yards from the top of the hill and then dug myself a nice shallow ditch before flumping down into it. My fur was a rich medium brown with black streaks over my spine and at the tuft of my tail, which effectively made me invisible in the dark of the forest. I shut my eyes and considered Theory Two: a rogue werewolf. They were rare, but they happened sometimes. Every so often, someone who had never had a pack, usually the survivor of an attack, traveled around making trouble for others to prove themselves. That wouldn’t go well for him. I’d killed before in self-defense, and as much as I didn’t like it, I could do it again.

I concentrated. A few minutes into my wait, I felt him. I waited until clouds slid over the full moon and took a peek.

He was all black. Rare. He kept as low to the ground as possible, but I could see him from here since I’d forced him over the hill. The forest cast shadows over him. He was a big fella, bigger than me, probably a good bit stronger too. He sniffed the air, hoping to catch my scent, but I was downwind this time. The clouds shifted again and just before I shut my eyes, I saw the color of his: bright, arctic blue, like a sparkling iceberg floating through the ocean at night. Interesting. Where had I seen eyes like that before?

The stalker determined that I was nowhere in the vicinity and eased his way down the hill, still soundless as a shadow. He was an impressive predator. He’d done this before. Maybe he was just curious. Theory Number Three was simple enough: some wolves were simply lonely and looking for connection, even if they knew they could have that if they joined the pack. I could sympathize. I was basically an introvert who could fake being an extrovert when needed. I valued my time alone. But even I got lonely.

The black wolf still hadn’t spotted me. By the time he did, it was too late.

I pounced up from my hidden spot and slammed all four of my paws into his side. Not hard enough to crack any ribs, but he’d damn well know he was in a fight. He yelped and hit the bottom of a thick oak tree beside us, landing in a heap at the roots. I planted my paws as I landed neatly in front of him and bared my fangs in my meanest, scariest growl.

“Why are you following me?”

The wolf shook his mane and then glanced up at me in surprise. He didn’t snap at me. He didn’t try to fight me.

Then I heard a familiar deep, baritone voice with just a hint of a Transylvanian accent in my head.

“My, my, Cassandra, dear. Are you always so rough on old men?”

I didn’t hesitate. I shifted back into my human form.

It always felt a little odd–not painful, but disorienting as the world shrank away from my ears and nose and my sense of sight and taste became the most prominent. I was tall for a girl, about 5’9’’, and I was built like a heavyweight female boxer–long, sturdy legs, wide hips, strong biceps. I’d let my hair get longer than I usually kept it simply because being a werewolf meant I was getting weekly cuts and I’d gotten tired of it. My bouncy brown curls hit the middle of my back and frankly, I sort of liked it. It reminded me of having fur.

“Fangface!” I cried, and I flung myself at him in the mother of all bear hugs.

Vladmir Tepes, the father of all vampires, Dracula, He Who Conquers, wrapped his own now-human arms around me as well and squeezed me to him just as tightly. “I’ve missed you, my dear.”

Hungry for more? Pick up this story and several other amazing ones written by black science fiction/fantasy authors in ebook and paperback from MV Media Publishing or from Amazon.