Mirth: Rian Callaghan

*Rian Callaghan. Wolf shifter. Horse Trainer/Breeder. Character illustration by Nicole Deal (*@nicole.deal.art).

Content Note: language.

He’s not rescuing me.

He’s protecting the horse still dancing and snorting in the ring. Protecting Perseus from me.

My energy is so volatile that a stranger thinks that I would harm —

Shifting his hands from my upper arms, he presses his forearm across my chest, leaning into me and finally switching to slightly accented English. “What the fuck were you thinking? Trying to ride him in the dark? Do you want to die? Do you want him to kill you? Do you want to be responsible for his death when he breaks a fucking leg?”

That’s too many questions to answer. Even if I had the answers.

“Look at him! The ears, the eyes!” the enraged figure spits madly. “He’s scared of whatever the fuck you’re trying to do in the middle of the fucking night.”

Realizing that my arms are free to move and that the ground is once again solid under my feet — as if my mind is still checked out, still expecting the death blow I saw coming and did nothing to thwart — I finally shove my hair out of my face.

I look at Perseus in the ring.

I look and see everything I’ve willfully ignored.

My rescuer eases back, slowly removing his arm from across my upper chest and muttering a disconcerted, “Fuck, fuck …” under his breath.

I stay pressed up against the side of the stable, knowing I’ve fucked up and not really wanting to face it. Cowardly, yes. Except …

I’m no longer coming out of my skin.

As stupid and reckless as my actions might be, I feel invigorated for the first time in months.

So I meet the stranger’s gaze.

He’s fucking gorgeous. In that way that only a pretty boy transitioning into a grown man can be.

Sharp jawed, wide green eyes, slashes of prominent cheekbones, medium-brown skin flushed with health. Full lips. Straight teeth. A shifter of some sort.

He’s holding his hands up now, his gaze flicking between my eyes and my left shoulder.

Because he can’t remember if it’s okay to look royalty in the eyes? Or because he’s noticed the purple hue to my gaze?

His palms face forward placatingly. No, pleadingly.

He’s just realized who I am.

Who he’s pinned up against the side of a stable.

Putting unwanted hands on me is technically punishable by death. As in, there’s an actual archaic law covering that, still logged in some ancient tome in my father’s study.

“Your Highness …” he murmurs, his tone gentle as if waiting for me to bite back. To lash out with whatever my purple eyes declare I can do.

I am, however, not my father’s child in essence. Not like Armin was.

“Have I …” He stammers as he continues, “I didn’t know … I would never hurt …”

A slow, wide grin spreads across my face. I’m all riled up, but invigorated rather than desperate now — and I’m not sure I’ve ever been so struck by someone in my life. Attraction is usually a slow sort of burn for me.

Confusion mars his perfect fucking brow, and he swallows hard.

Maybe he’ll be less pretty in the daylight. But as inappropriate as the impulse is, I’m moments away from asking him to press me against the side of the stable again. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere sexual, just being … dominated? No, that isn’t the right word, not the right feeling.

Just being out of control of my own body, my own choices, even for just a moment was … freeing? But not in a destructive way.

His hands and guidance are forceful, but not —

A soft smile finally overtakes his confusion, possibly because he’s noticed I’m still just staring at him and still smiling myself. As if I’m shocked dumb by his beauty, by our abrupt … introduction.

And maybe I am.

– Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

Mirth: Princess Euphrosyne

[I just realized I hadn’t shared this illustration here, and I need it for the Extras and Freebies page 😁][it is also in the limited-edition eBook of Mirth, Part One].

Her Royal Higness Princesss Euphrosyne. Aka Mirth. Awry. Heir to the United European Nation. Character illustration by Nicole Deal (@nicole.deal.art).

CONTENT NOTE: language

The door to the suite opens. Anne hustles in. She’s wearing a light-gold full-length wrap-style silk dress. She pauses just inside the door, blinking at me, then taking in Sully, then Bolan.

“Oh,” she finally says. “Good. Sully. You’ll help Mirth get into her dress? Mimi and Tavi have been roped into service by the Mertons. Apparently, our lack of ability to house all the staff they would have preferred to bring is … irksome.”

No titles in private. No formalities.

Unless I impose them.

But only after I explicitly lift those protocols in the first place.

That was Sully’s point. About protocol.

“Yes, of course.” Sully grins widely and wickedly. “Why else would I be in Her Royal Highness’s suite?”

Anne huffs, playfully pleased. “I have your father waiting to escort you,” she says to me.

“Escort me?” I echo, abruptly displeased.

“We’ll go straight through to dinner,” Anne says, ignoring my tone. “The rest of the guests will start arriving around nine for the ball.”

“Of course,” I say. I did know that already, but apparently I’m still having issues with holding everything in my head all at once. As if new information is at constant war with the continual grief and the continual state of overwhelm.

Anne casts a look over all three of us again, then smirks. “Ten minutes. Or I’ll send in the twins.”

Sully raises his hands in surrender.

Anne steps back the way she came, snagging the door closed.

“Well, this is going to be a blast,” Bolan says sarcastically.

“It will be awful to do sober,” Sully says blithely over his shoulder.

“Fuck you, asshole.”

“Not today. But I do like it when you beg.”

I huff, spinning away from them both.

Sully attempts to follow me, but stops instantly at my snapped, “No!”

Bolan’s laughter follows me back through to my bedroom, then beyond the door that I slam in my wake.

I put on the decadently voluminous silk ballgown skirt and the beaded bustier. Then I carefully slip a diamond-crusted platinum coronet into my perfectly coiffed hair.

Because if they want a fucking princess, I’ll give them a fucking princess.

– Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

Conduit Series: Reck

RECK GUERRA

Aka Carlos Guerra. Cu-sith shifter (pronunciation: coo-shee from the old Gaelic). Agent of the Authority, Major Crimes Unit, sergeant. Dark eyes and hair. Olive skin. 6’2” tall. Runner’s/swimmer’s build. Right hand crushed thirteen years before the events of Conduit 1. Bright green rims his eyes when his beast is present. DOB: April 1 (33 in book 1). Even in human form, Reck has a latent lie-detecting ability that doesn’t work on the awry. Oldest brother of Rath, Rought, and Precious. Father is the Cataclysm. Mother (currently) unknown.

Other abilities: wields ‘terror’ when in cu-sith form (also known as a grim reaper). According to legend, if the cu-sith barks three times, anyone who hears him dies from sheer terror.

Birthname and nicknames: Carlos and TBR

First appearance: Awry (Conduit 1).

Now Available: Archivist Giclee Illustrations

Three limited-edition Archivist series giclee illustrations, plus three bookplates

As promised, I’ve made 25 sets of the limited-edition Archivist giclee illustrations (autographed by the artist, Nicole Deal) available in my store. $25 CDN+ oversized lettermail. Click the previous link for more info and/or to purchase.

Note: same caveats as always: please remember I’m not a store. I’ve simplified the shipping, etc, as much as possible. For example: set shipping rates, no tracking, no extra sets, no special orders. Please remember I’m trying to write as much as possible and these are just meant to be fun extras. The prices are set in Canadian currency (which means some of you are getting a great deal!) so a different charge might show up on your credit card statement. Also, I believe there is a 5.5%+ $0.30 charge for certain payment methods.

Fun! Fun!

Archivist Series: Kellan

The second of the illustrations I’ve commissioned from Nicole Deal for the Archivist series is a bit of a spoiler, so I thought I might as well include an excerpt from the first time Dusk lays eyes on Kellan as well (see below). Working with Nicole has been amazing. I love, love her take on characters that currently only live in my head. You can find Dusk and Sisu’s illustration here.

*Kellan Conall from the Archivist Series by Meghan Ciana Doidge. Illustration by* Nicole Deal.

You will find Nicole’s ridiculously gorgeous rendering of Kellan (and the twin wolves) tucked between two scenes in chapter 2 of Invoking Infinity (Archivist 1). It will be in full colour in the eBook version (unless your eReader doesn’t do colour) and grayscale in the paperback. The book releases on May 25, 2021 (SO SOON NOW!!)

*** MILD SPOILER ALERT ***

Though he was some sort of shapeshifter, the stranger looming over a temporary workbench in the middle of what was going to be the main kitchen was definitely not Bethany. He was working with some sort of tool — sanding, maybe?

He looked up as I entered, instantly and steadily meeting my gaze. The plastic sealing the doorway fell back into place behind me.

The air was slightly dusty. Bright pockets of light from work lamps set around the large space gave the room a bright white glow. The sounds of Sisu, Neve, and Lile chattering away in the dining room filtered through more thick layers of plastic encasing a doorway on the wall to my left.

I recognized the stranger, though I’d never met him. In his late twenties, he was the spitting image of his sister, Gitta — and yet somehow looked nothing like her at all.

Kellan Conall.

Tall, broad-shouldered, and so well muscled that his T-shirt had to be cutting off his circulation at the upper biceps, he was one of the largest men I’d ever seen. And I knew plenty of warrior dragons, as well as the treasure keeper of the guardian dragons — Pulou. Though not as tall, Pulou had a body like a grizzly bear’s from the neck down — and looked the part as well, thanks to the enormous mink fur coat he always wore.

Kellan’s hair was dark brown, his skin a lighter brown. And his eyes were the same strange golden-green as the twins. Magic flared in those eyes as he took me in, staring at me as forthrightly as I was staring at him. His nostrils flared as he turned off and set down the tool he’d been wielding.

The sound in the room faded, including the chatter from the dining room. The moment seemed to physically stretch before us, as if some sort of spell had been triggered. Yet the warm but completely disconnected sensation I was feeling wasn’t magic. At least nothing remotely conventional.

“Dusk Godfrey,” I finally said. Was it possible to feel heavy, as if I was rooted to the plywood-covered floor, and yet lightheaded at the same time?

Apparently, yes.

He grinned, revealing white teeth. But the expression did nothing to soften all the hard planes of his face. He looked as though he could run through a brick wall, through multiple brick walls, without getting a scratch, let alone faltering.

That probably wasn’t a particularly attractive quality to anyone except for myself … my hormones? My magic?

And yes, I was still staring at him. And he at me.

“My employer,” he said. His accent was lilting yet still deep, as if his voice or the words themselves were pulled from the depths of his being.

There was something seriously wrong with me.

“Kellan Conall,” he said, pulling off his gloves.

– Invoking Infinity (Archivist 1), Chapter Two

***

Are you new to the Adept Universe? Click here for the reading order. Or click here for the Welcome! sequence.