March 1st

Happy first day of the new month, readers!

It has been a blurry two weeks. The wife and I got the flu. Besides managing to drag ourselves to some work shifts, we’ve mostly taken up residence on the couch and watched a number of cartoons.

Since I was last here, I finished reading Fairytale by Stephen King. After taking almost two months to read the first half, I finished the second half in a record two hours. It was a sprint to the finish. Definitely a book I’d recommend if you’re looking for witty societal commentary stuffed inside the trimmings of a hundred different fairytale tropes. It was such a fun story!

It was impossible to stare at my keyboard last week, so I took a short hiatus from writing Henri and Ashby’s stories. They’re back up and running this week. Henri is getting edited tonight and will be sharing his next episode with the prince this Friday!

Click here to catch up on his story so far: A Secret in the Thorns

Ashby is taking a little longer. We’re introducing yet another new character, spending time with his brothers, and looking for a ring to give to Lucy while slowly weaving in bigger themes for my main novel.

Catch up on Lore here for a fun vampire romance: Lore

What else, readers???

Life keeps moving. Some days it’s a hundred hours to get through a single work shift. Others, I blink and I’m back home, scrambling to not burn dinner while singing to too loud music from the kitchen speaker.

There’s plants to water and a dog to feed.

I have twenty characters vying for my attention. All have more stories. All of them think they’re the next most important project.

After putting it off since last November, I picked up my novel once again and wrote a single starting paragraph for this latest revision. Hopefully, I’ll be able to carve out time to work with Tamyra more often this coming month.

Here’s to watching some more silly television and snuggling under three blankets to stay warm. It’s a good month for being kind to myself and resting for a few minutes instead of racing from one project to the next without taking a breath.

Thank you to everyone who reads these posts. You give me the motivation to keep coming back to write again and again.

I’ll see you next week 🙂

Falling

“Why can’t you ever pick someone normal?”

Pulling my hood further over my head, I hiss my reply to Tiffany. “I fell in love with him the first time he spoke.”

Seated next to me on the church roof, she goes back to picking her fingernails with one of the twenty knives stashed on her body. “Yeah. When you thought he was a poet. You can’t be in love with the prince who just signed our death warrants.”

She’s not wrong. I’ve already gone and over thought this a hundred times since he was escorted out of the pub last night by the royal guard. My plan had been to break him out of jail. I was quite surprised to find that he knew them personally and merely got a slap on the wrist for being out past curfew. There are others who didn’t make it out of the pub with their lives. 

King Richmond decreed the curfew two months ago to keep ruffians from organizing within the city limits. Ruffians. The word always makes me snort. He seems to think that wearing a gold crown can stop the rest of us from doing what it takes to make a simple living or have a drink to take the edge off of the endless monotony of working until we die. 

From our position behind two stone gargoyles, I can just barely make out the prince’s blond hair. It looked silky in the dim glow of the stage candles last night. Today, he barely looks at the crowd formed at his feet. His voice trembles as he reads the words scrawled onto the scroll in his hands. 

His heart isn’t in it. Not in the way he proudly enunciated each syllable of his poems last night. He memorized those words. He cared to pause and let the audience drink in the meaning before continuing to the next stanza. Once, his blue eyes caught on me and he stuttered. 

He felt it, too. 

I just know it. 

There’s a thread knotted around my rib that ties me to Prince Castyl Richmond. 

“If you don’t shut your mouth, your tongue is going to dry out.”

I snap my jaw closed. Tiffany is a good friend. She’s a better bodyguard. I’m going to have to lose her if I want any chance of getting close to the prince. 

“Whatever you’re thinking is stupid. Just drop it,” she growls from her spot, those amber eyes watching me squirm. 

I gesture towards her as rudely as possible, my left hand thrown in her direction while my gaze stays pasted onto the prince. From the corner of my eye, I see her stick her tongue at me, the silver ball pierced through it catching the moonlight. Tiffany is a good person. She has her life in order, her moral code intact, and no unjustified love interests. She’s the backbone of her clan and in charge of making sure I don’t get into anything too difficult. 

Like a relationship with the son of the man who wants us dead. 

Gods. I let my temple rest on the stone gargoyle. I can’t help it. There’s…something about him. 

Those cheekbones. The way he rolls his words. That bit of electricity that restarts my heart when he looks in my direction. 

Like he is…right now. 

Tiffany grabs my arm, tugging me down at she hisses a curse. Bad. Nobody was supposed to see us. There’s a yell from the ground level. 

“We have to go now.”

I shrug out of her hold, her sharpened nails sticking to the leather of my jacket. “You have to go.”

Her teeth lengthen as she shakes her head at me. “Non-negotiable, Quinn.”

It’s really difficult being accepted into a group of werewolves. Every argument pretty much spirals into long teeth and longer claws and a lot of saliva. I know she has a job to do. I know my place in their pack as the only mage makes me important. Nobody else can replace the wards and ensure the clan’s safety. 

There’s just something that I need to do and I don’t think getting caught by the guards would be a bad thing. 

“Let me go, Tiff.” 

She’s pulling, her brute strength enough to haul me off my ass. “We’re leaving.”

There’s more yelling from down below. I think they’ve called the archers. 

I take a deep breath and pull my ring out of my pocket, the magic stone set into it glowing red as it hums to the power flowing through my veins. “I’m not going to tell you again. You go.”

Somebody demands that we put our hands up. Tiffany is growling. I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?

It’s complicated magic to create a portal. Lucky for me, I had time before the prince’s performance and I already set everything up while Tiffany scouted our spot. It’s basically the first rule of life to come to everything with a back-up plan. 

Grabbing Tiffany’s hand, I thrust her towards the circle I created in the dirt. It’s a one stop spell. Unfortunately, she’s aware of how magic works. 

The wolf grabs a handkerchief from her pocket and shoves it into my mouth while we wrestle in the circle. “You cannot be serious right now.” 

I roll my eyes at her. Oh, I’m serious. Seriously going to meet that prince. It’s my fate. I can feel it in my bones. 

Tiffany doesn’t believe in fate or love or basically anything besides what she can do with her own hands. I don’t regret it when I stomp my heel into her foot. There’s a crunch. I wore my heaviest boots on purpose. 

Cursing, she lets me go long enough for me to stagger back while I rip the fabric out of my mouth. The magic flares to life, a red light filling in the circle. I yell my spell. Tiffany is there. She’s howling and lunging at me. Then, she’s not. 

I’ll be paying for that when I make it home. 

If I get to go home.

I walk past the scorch mark left on the roof with my hands over my head. There are indeed several archers pointing very sharp arrows up towards me. The prince is looking up here, too. 

I think my heart might explode. 

“State your business, vagrant.”

Damn. I forgot how gruff the guards could be. It’s been a whole year since I last took up a cell in a dungeon.

“I just want to talk to you,” I say, clearly and calmly, my gaze never wavering from the prince. 

There’s a question on his tongue. I don’t hear it, though. An arrow whizzes through the air. I move too late. 

Fire burns through my shoulder as I topple forward. Blood drenches my coat. The gargoyle’s wing slips through my fingertips. 

The ground is coming fast. I shut my eyes. I suppose my death will at least linger in the prince’s memory for a moment. 

Something stops my fall, though. The wind. A strong gust. I open my eyes. 

Magic is very forbidden. It’s bad enough that I have magic in my veins. It’s going to be a much bigger problem that the only person here with their hand outstretched is the prince. 

Prince Castyl Richmond just saved my life. 

And put his own on the line. 

I shut my eyes again as I gently drop to the ground and the guards start to converge.

If we make it through this, we’re going to have the most epic love story.

Author’s Note

Happy Saturday! Thank you for reading this short story. I got the dialogue prompt off of Pinterest and just ran with the idea of a character falling in love with someone based off of the first words they said.

Let me know what you thought in the comments below!

A Wed. Blog

The sun is setting. There’s four different cheeses in a bowl on the kitchen counter. Pop music swells within the walls of our home.

It’s been a long day. It’s been a long week. I’m tempted to already say it’s been a long year.

Since I was last here, I made it to the craft fair on Sunday. It was a terrible experience. We did manage to make one sale amidst the chaos of a disorganized event and less than helpful weather conditions. To the lovely woman who took home one of my spooky book stacks, I hope it finds the perfect spot next to your current TBR pile.

Writing has been a haphazard event. I’m stuffing words into prompts and then trying to disentangle the mess I’ve made. Some days I question whether it’s worth it to leave my job and try to keep doing this writer thing. My wife promises it is. She reads my chaotic collection of sentences and forgives me for breaking every possible grammatical error.

I read over and over and over again that being a writer is a solitary event. You MUST lock the door to your office and stare at a bright little screen until the wee hours of the morning or you’re not doing it correctly.

That’s not it for me. Sitting in my office typically leads to spinning in my chair or doodling on a scrap of paper or staring out the window at the same damn street. So, I sit at the kitchen table and make small talk while my wife stuffs that cheese into large noodles. We discuss my characters like they’re real people just in the next room over, their fates merely common gossip to be murmured over a cup of tea. I need conversation and a break every twenty minutes to dance to the Spotify playlist.

I need my writing partner who shows up to every week and continues to encourage me while I question how I managed to write nearly thirty episodes in a fan fiction for my novel. Bridgette, you’re a constant source of support and love and I couldn’t do this without you.

I need to be prepping food at work in the morning and let my Mom ask me questions about my novels. Without even realizing, she pokes around my plots and double-checks my theories, giving me the confidence I’ll need in the future to sit on a panel and talk to people about my books.

I need to see that a couple of you, readers, have shown up to my blog or my vellas or simply liked a post on Instagram to remind me that there is a purpose in putting all of my messy thoughts onto this black and white document.

Writing isn’t a solitary event. It doesn’t only happen at a desk. It takes a community to give birth to imaginary concepts and witty characters and at least one or two people to remind the supposed writer that they should, in fact, be writing.

Thank you to everyone who continues to come here and read.

It’s time for this writer to sink into a hot bath and talk to her imaginary friends for a little bit. Have a wonderful week. I’ll see you next Wednesday!

A Wednesday Evening

Happy halfway through the week check-in, readers!

What have I been up to? Everything and nothing. A vicious cycle of work and hobbies and staring at a screen while trying to will the words I need for this week to just write themselves.

Henri’s story is done. He’s going to be edited this evening and posted in time for his weekly update on Friday. Prince Aldric plays an imposing character across from Henri in this Beauty and the Beast retelling. Check out this link if you want to catch up before the new episode drops: A Secret in the Thorns

Ashby is started. He has grand plans for his returned proposal to Lucy. There’s 1500 words already in his story, but it’ll likely be a little longer than usual to find the rest of this particular episode. I have a full cast to balance and every one of these complicated characters wants to shine their brightest. Get caught up on Lore here if you want to be ready for the eventual release of the next episode: Lore by Angelica Reece

When not writing or working or staring at that pile of laundry in the corner, I’ve been embroidering. My next craft show is this coming Sunday at the Bloom festival in Elk Grove. There are so many bright fabrics and tangled threads and obstinate hoops to wrestle through in the remaining evenings between now and then. It’s exciting and nerve wracking every time I have one of these events! I’ll let you all know next week how well it goes!

The world is chaotic. Time seems accelerated. February is as good a time as any for self-care, so don’t forget to take deep breaths and notice the buds growing on the tree in the backyard. Linger in the kitchen, so your beautiful wife will come looking for you and steal a kiss by the stove. Take an extra two minutes to pet the dog. Eat something full of sugar even as the green light on the microwave warns that one o’clock is around the corner. There’s a pile of books on the shelf waiting to be read and a mess around the house, but it can wait a moment more to do the things that matter.

Have a lovely week!

Wed. Feb 1

Oh my goodness! We made it through January.

This has been the fastest and simultaneously longest month of my life. I turned 26 and was reminded of all the amazing people who gather together to celebrate me. The wife and I ran into financial issues and had to lean on family to continue forward. A family member was hospitalized and it felt like the world stood still.

It seems there’s nothing better to do than simply hold on while the waves of this world continue to splash alongside our boat.

So, here’s some good stuff:

I wrote! This time last year I was struggling with depression and barely opening my writing apps or journals. It was hard to hear my characters. This month? They couldn’t leave me alone and we managed to add an entirely new cast for my beauty and the beast retelling.

I watched terrible horror films and threw popcorn at the woman I love in the house we own while our dog pranced the room.

We cooked in our kitchen and danced to pop music and kissed where the moon snuck a peek into the window.

Amidst the tears and the panic and the hopelessness crammed into the business of everyday jobs and routines, we laughed and held onto each other and that’s all I can ask for in this life.

Together.

If that’s a message that resonates with you, check out Ashby’s new episode coming out this Friday to see the promising proposal between him and Lucy: Lore by Angelica Reece

My editor is going over Henri’s chapter today, too, so he’ll also be available on Friday. Catch up on this awesome retelling here: A Secret in the Thorns by Angelica Reece

Here’s to the beginning of February and hoping for a stroke of good luck sprinkled into the fibers of each day.

I’ll see you next week, readers. 🙂

Three Little Words

“It happened again, Sir.”

Back to the door, I glance up from the computer screen to stare at my chief of security. “How many?”

“Just the doctor.”

Another doctor. I nod. “Where is Miles now?”

“We haven’t been able to get into the room, Sir.”

Course. I take a deep breath, careful to keep the disappointment from touching my features. These people have to trust me. They have to believe I have a plan. They can’t know I’m drowning in this predicament just as much as they are. 

“Give me a moment. I’ll be right out to deal with him.”

He shuts the door, closing me in with my thoughts. I kick the extension cord under my desk. Another doctor. Dammit. 

We’re past the stage of throwing things around the room to blow off steam, so I carefully lean back in my chair and stand, leaving my keyboards and papers alone. This was supposed to be easy. It’s the next step up the ladder to power, but I can’t get there without Miles by my side. 

My father is doing everything he can to take power from the world. He’s ready to bloody swords and let his men fall in the face of older, wiser creatures, the kind of beasts that have ruled this world since the beginning of time and aren’t prepared to pull their claws out of its crust. That’ll change soon, though. When I’m ready to step onto the throne, they will hand it to me. 

I step out from behind the desk, buttoning my jacket back in place. Calm thoughts, Matt. A sunrise across the ocean tides. Pine cones with a fine dusting of snow across the forest floor. Miles. Just him. Dressed in sweats and doing something completely domestic in our kitchen. He’d smile or make a joke and the rest of the world wouldn’t matter. 

I have to fix him. 

Out of my office, I walk through the familiar halls of my hotel. My shoes don’t make a noise across the patterned blue tiles. Gold paint covers the baseboards and leads up to light grey walls. It’s a color pattern designed to keep my customers at ease. 

It doesn’t work on Miles. Nothing seems to work on him once the virus takes hold. 

I stab a finger into the elevator button and step inside. Level thirteen is locked for all guests and staff who aren’t scanned into the biometric system. I lay my thumb on the pad and watch the lights flicker. 

I’m on my way, Miles. 

The elevator slides to a stop on his level. Chaos meets me when the doors open. Two women in lab coats pace the space in front of me, their hands full of charts and their mouths full of questions. I raise a hand up, silencing them. Not now. I don’t want to talk about this just yet. We’ve had a failure, a setback, just the like the several dozen before now and I can’t waste a moment on talking about it. 

Miles needs me. 

Breezing by the several security members who already have guns in their hands, I put my thumb on the door scanner. “Nobody enter after me. Do you understand?”

There’s a general murmur of agreement. Nobody actually wants the title of supernatural wrangler. They all would prefer I deal with him myself. 

The tension in the room behind me is nothing compared to the scene in the all white office I made for Miles’ appointments. The carpet in the center of the room is red. Not dyed. Stained. It has soaked up the life essence of the last doctor.

Pity. That one seemed competent.

The door clicks shut behind me. We’re locked in. No help is coming. 

I don’t see Miles at first. Instead, I take a few steps inside and survey the scene. There’s the body. It’s splayed between the couch and the chair. Clearly, the man was standing when my husband attacked. I don’t doubt that he acted in self-defense. The virus is hyper-sensitive, far more trigger happy than the parasite entwined with my own DNA. Someone wanted to make improvements on the vampire virus of the twentieth century and now several doctors are dead. Perhaps science and genetic modification isn’t always the answer. 

Miles is in the corner. Head in his hands, I can see that his claws are still out. He doesn’t show conscious control over the obsidian blades attached to each finger. 

I unbutton my jacket and shrug it off, folding it in half and depositing it on the one couch cushions not sprayed with the doctor’s blood. May Jupiter smile down on my courage today. New vampires are stronger and faster than older breeds. It’s always a risk that I’ll lose a fight if he’s triggered in my presence. 

One step closer. My shoe sinks into the carpet. I’ll have to take them off before I leave this room if I don’t want to trail forensic evidence through the hotel. Miles’ head snaps up. He immediately points one curved claw to the pad of paper by his feet. 

I didn’t mean for it to happen.

I keep my hands at my sides even as my chest tightens. “I know, darling. It’s okay. It was an accident.”

His pupils are too large. I can’t tell if they’re dilated from fear or the virus. I watch him as he stares at me through his curtain of black hair. I don’t know what the right words are now. 

I love you doesn’t seem right. 

I’m going to fix this seems too forward. 

“I’m here to help you,” I settle on. 

He can’t quite close his mouth around the needle-sharp fangs poking into his bottom lip. Carefully grabbing his pencil, he stabs it onto the blood speckled paper to scrawl a single word. Why

“Because I promised to take care of you,” I answer carefully, slowly bending down into a crouch in front of him. 

I watch him pull his shoulders further back into the corner, shrinking from my close proximity. His hand is moving again. Who are you?

Three words. That’s all it is. Words. 

I take a shuddering breath around the sharp pain in my chest. “I’m Matt, Miles. Your husband.”

He shakes his head, vehemently denying my statement. 

NO husband

Fuck. 

I close my fists and open them slowly. Slow and steady. I can’t move too fast or I’ll set him off. 

Someone else was in here. It wasn’t anyone on my staff. They’re all too scared of Miles. They wouldn’t want to be the next casualty. 

No. This is something else. Something insidious and political. 

Straightening, I take a step back from him. “What’s the last thing you remember, Miles?”

He doesn’t have to write anything down. Instead, he flings a hand towards the body in the middle of the room. 

Good point. Death is memorable. 

“Do you remember anyone else coming in here?”

A tear leaks down his left cheek as he shakes his head again. Nothing. They’ve scrambled his memory. He was getting better. It’s been weeks since we had an incident. He and I were sharing our apartment again. Things were looking slightly better. 

Which is bad for anybody against our cause. 

Miles is one of only two new vampires. The second is a girl that has been missing for almost two decades. If he got better, he and I could petition to join the world’s council. We would join the group of powerful couples who control the fate of the world. Old vampires have been fighting the genetically modified groups for decades now. Should Miles control his virus and learn to manage his powers, he would change the world and they couldn’t ignore us any longer. 

Which can’t happen. I know who was here. Someone came in here and altered his mind, undid the years of training and passion I’ve put into his project, and left as quietly as a shadow. 

It seems the princess is trying to regain her parents’ favor. 

I didn’t know Erisa Nabil had stepped into my territory. I hope she had her fun because she’s going to regret it. 

One question answered, I have another problem to deal with now. Miles is still curled up into the corner. He doesn’t know me. There’s blood all over his shirt and hands and smeared on his cheeks, his neck, his forearms. I have to get him out of here. 

I move my attention to the security camera in the corner and wave my hands to get their attention. “Clear the floor. I’m taking him out of here.”

This room is soundproofed, but I know chaos has broken out on the rest of the level. With only the one elevator, people are going to grab their belongings and shove inside. A few desperate individuals will push out into the stairwell to scramble to safety. 

Vampires are dangerous. Especially new ones. Especially Miles. 

I don’t blame them for their reactions. Too many of them have seen him lose control. Too many have been instructed in cleaning up the messes in here. I watch Miles sink his face into his hands again, his body shaking with a silent sob. This can’t keep happening. 

“I’ll be right back,” I tell him, not looking for a reaction or an answer as I back up towards the door and let myself out of the room. 

I can fix this. I have to help him. 

White sheets of paper spill onto the floor from several of the desks situated throughout this room. Pens are scattered among the mess. A few purses were completely abandoned. The staff understood the danger in my request and fled. Excellent. Perhaps they deserve a raise. 

With the floor clear, I carefully open the door again. “Miles, let’s go home.”

He doesn’t budge from his position in the corner, preferring to stay curled in on himself like a nervous hedgehog. It’s a good thing none of his extra properties have developed as invisibility. I’d probably never find him again. 

Okay. I’m going to have to move him myself. I can’t just leave him in here. 

Easing my way back into the room, I cross the floor and crouch down in front of him once more. “Hey, Miles. We should get you up in your room to take a shower. How does that sound?”

He doesn’t answer. Obviously. He can’t answer. 

I don’t want to reach out to touch him. I’m not in the mood to ruin a perfectly good outfit by having him claw at me. 

“I’ll get in the shower with you. We have that cherry blossom soap you like and, after, we can sit in bed and eat chocolate ice cream.”

His head snaps up from his arms. I have only a split second to register that his eyes are an unnatural shade of burgundy. This isn’t Miles. It’s the monster. 

No words can save me. I scramble back, falling on my ass into the wet carpet. Blood and fibers stick to my left hand as I hold my right up to fend him away. 

He lunges. I move. It’s a reflex more than a conscious defense. Miles crashes into the couch, shoving the thick piece of furniture several feet away. 

“I’m sorry, Miles. Please, you have to fight this. You have to be okay. I don’t know what they did to you, but we can fix it.”

There’s no rational creature in his head. He can’t hear my words. He doesn’t care. 

Red fills his gaze. Fangs dangle from his upper jaw. 

I’m going to fix him. 

I promised to fix him.

But it won’t be today. 

Fight or flee. Those are my options now. I don’t want to hurt him anymore than I already have, so I push to my feet before his dazed, emotionless eyes can focus on me again. 

“I’ll be back,” I call over my shoulder. 

The door slams shut behind me, muffling the unnatural roar that follows me from the room.

Author’s Note

This is a complimentary piece to the high school prompt a few weeks ago. Miles is my main character with memory problems, but I wanted to give a fresh look on his condition. The vampires in this series are incredibly complicated and versatile, their specific ailments differing wildly between characters, so be sure to keep checking in to see which character I highlight each week as we slowly put together this complex world of flawed and stubborn people.

As always, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to view this piece and be sure to check in with Anna and Bridgette as well!

Anna’s story: https://loscotoff.com/week25-the-factory/

Bridgette’s story: https://bridgettetales.com/2022/06/26/challenge-week25/