Hump Day Hook - Devil's Bitch

It's Hump Day again! And that means more Hump Day Hooks!

Once again, I'm featuring my so-close-to-being-finished-I-can-taste-it WIP, Devil's Bitch.

-=[~]=-

In the makeshift ring, Otheus hefted his spear and shield, and Norelia unsheathed her other xiphos. She didn't spare breath to curse Reoth for knocking away her other one. She was best fighting dual-handed, but she could do with one. She removed a knife from a sheath strapped to her thigh. The kopis was as long as her forearm, single-edged and curved. It would serve as a makeshift shield as long as she was damn careful.

It was just like in the ring with Reoth, in the coliseum. Neither of them moved. They crouched on the balls of their feet and waited for the other to make a move.

-=[~]=-

Thanks for visiting! Check out more authors' works by visiting the Hump DayHook Group on Facebook, or visit Kerrianne Coombe's website for a full list of participants. Happy Hump Day!

Candy Cane Kink Bloghop and Giveaway

Welcome to the Close Encounters With the Night Kind and Natasha Blackthorne Candy Cane Kink Bloghop!

Who wants some awesomely delicious Christmas Kink? 

 

Christmas is fast approaching, and Yule even faster. We celebrate Yule and Twelfth Night. It's so much fun, giving presents and celebrating with my family for thirteen days instead of just one. I wanted to share a little of that with everyone!

My giveaway for this bloghop is a $10 gift certificate to the Naughty Nights Press e-store! Naughty books galore! All you have to do is leave a comment sharing what it is about the excerpt to my book Of Hallowed Fiends and Darkest Fortune that makes you want to read it! One winner will be chosen at random and contacted by email. I use CommentLuv as my comment system, so leaving an email should be really easy!

The winner will be chosen on Monday December 17 and contacted via email. I'll also announce the winner here, on Facebook, and Twitter.

And don't forget to check out these other great blogs with fantastic and fun, kinky giveaways! 

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Gentle hands pushed up her skirts, worked her bloomers down around her knees. Those same gentle hands smoothed across the soft roundness of her buttocks. Not even her doctor had touched her so intimately. Despite what everyone else gossiped, Anya was a virgin. Sneaking out of her bedchambers to gamble and drink barley beer was different than sneaking out for a tumble in the haystacks!

That warm hand continued to caress her smooth skin, and then that voice like seductive sin pierced through her wails. "Now, you know this must be done, my dove. Crying will only delay it, which will displease me. Had you not struggled, I would not have to add to your punishment." He stroked her cheeks and sounded truly sorry.

How his voice could be so gentle when his treatment had been so cruel, Anya could not fathom.

"Your first crime was being insolent in our bedchamber. Then you tried to escape your fate. Thirdly, you struggled and tried to strike at me. And lastly. . ." He tsked sadly. "You should not have bitten me, sweetling. At least," he chuckled darkly, "not without my permission."

The warm hand was replaced with the brush of the cold wooden paddle and the difference in sensation made her go perfectly still. He wouldn't paddle her.

Not really? He couldn't!

"Forty paddles seems fair." He chuckled. "For your first time."

This was madness! Her heart lodged in her throat.

She heard the swish of the paddle fly up through the air --she tensed-- then the Duke brought his arm down and the paddle landed across her buttocks with a solid crack!

Stinging fire blossomed across her cheeks. The sting seemed to grow in the aftermath. Anya wailed and squirmed, trying to escape the fire to no avail.

The Duke sighed, content. "One. . ."

Hello again! Happy Hump Day Hook! This excerpt is from my nearly-complete WIP Devil's Bitch. The way I describe this work to people is, "Think Taming of the Shrew meets 300."

The heroine, Norelia, is conversing with her (distant) cousin Valia about the circus the Summer Games have become since announcing her wager with her father, the Emperor, that she will wed the winner if she loses, but can remain unwed if she wins as long as she agrees to at least birth an heir.

-=[~]=-

"It's a damned pile of horse shit," she muttered. 

"Oh, Noria." Her cousin sighed behind her. "Let them have their fun. The Games come but once a year, and it's a holiday for everyone. You know the capitol is awake for nigh a week during."

Norelia gripped the wide windowsill until her knuckles were white. "That's during the festival, you oblivious ass," she growled. "And that is ten days away! This--" she gestured to the streamers, garlands, and throngs of people choking the streets below, "--is his fault."

Of course, by "him," she meant her father, who sent an Imperial decree announcing their wager as a contest. Men who had never set foot in the capitol before were now flooding its gates. They had erected tents outside the city walls to house them all, and it seemed the great city of Lomyr had very nearly doubled in size. 

"As if I were some godsdamned prize."

Valia laughed. "But you are! You are the prize, Noria." Valia made a delicate vexed sound in response to Norelia's glare, and fluttered into a chaise across the room. "You're a legend in the empire, darling, and the people love you. You stand undefeated. You never married, and it's rumored you have never taken a lover--"

"Because I haven't," she shot, recoiling at the very thought. 

"And now they have a chance to touch that. Let them have their dreams of glory, Cousin. You will defeat the greatest of them. You always do." She laughed again, as if at some private joke. "And even if by the grace of the gods you do not, is it really so bad?" She got a disgusting twinkle in her eye. "Marriage has so many perks, after all."

Norelia felt naked in the silks she'd been stuffed into, at her father's orders. "I have only to think of my soldiers and the camp followers, rutting in the dirt at night, whores hopping from man to man with sticky thighs and fistfuls of copper coins." She had to suppress a shudder. "It's disgusting, and messy. And the noises...!"

Valia giggled and clapped her hands. "That's the best part! Oh, the noises..." She somehow managed to invest the word with a quality that made it seem as if she found it delicious. It was the way Norelia would speak of a steak dinner after a good fight. 

She shook her head. "Nothing's better than a hot bath and a good, fresh steak after sticking my enemy general's head on a pike."

Valia just wnked at her. "Well, it's not steak, but it's still a fine cut of meat."

Norelia grimaced. "You're revolting."

Thanks for visiting! Check out more authors' works by visiting the Hump Day Hook Group on Facebook,  or visit Kerrianne Coombe's website for a full list of participants. Happy Hump Day!

Hump Day Hook - Duchess of War (Sequel to "Of Hallowed Fiends")

Hello, everyone! This week's Hump Day Hook is from my WIP of Duchess of War, the sequel to Of Hallowed Fiends and Darkest Fortune. This is unedited, so please, have mercy.

-=[~]=-

She was awake all at once, but she didn't dare move.

Her eyes were wide open, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings with growing trepidation. She still did not move.

What was wrong here?

The deep red of the velvet bed curtains above her was disconcerting. She was warm and deep in plush softness. Where was the dank cold of her cell? She strained, but there was only a deep silence to hear.

Where was the lonely drip of stale water into a small puddle echoing down the stone corridor?

Her limbs were frozen in place, strewn about her as they had been in sleep. Only now she was awake, and she dared not move.

Where was she?

A sound beside her made her throat clench tight. She held her breath.

It had sounded like a deep sigh. She strained her eyes as far to the side as possible without moving her head. She could barely make out a lump beside her, a little bit away from her. The lump sighed again and shifted.

A slight snore.

Her stomach dropped through the bed and hit the floor.

The Duke!

Her stomach shot back into her body and dislodged her heart thudding frantically in her chest. She felt bile burning in the back of her throat.

Her husband.

In an instant, the previous night came back to her and she shut her eyes against the onslaught of images. It was no use, though. They were even more vivid against the backs of her eyelids, so she opened them wide again.

With the memories came the lingering soreness. She ached from head to toe. Her backside burned. She suddenly could not quite catch her breath but didn't dare so much as gasp.

She didn't want to wake him.

Let him sleep, she thought. Let him sleep and never wake. Like Brennan von Aikken when he slept a hundred years upon the knoll. Let him sleep a hundred years and wake to find me dead.

Fate would not be so kind, she knew. 

Thanks for visiting! Check out more authors' works by visiting the Hump Day Hook Group on Facebook,  or visit Kerrianne Coombe's website for a full list of participants. Happy Hump Day!