Tag: Historical

Author Spotlight: Michael G. Williams

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

Around the time I wrote the Author Spotlight on Michael G. Williams back in 2017, my publisher asked me if I knew Mr. Williams and would be interested in editing a book by him. Seems the boss had picked up the series which I discussed in the blog post, plus would be publishing the last of the series. If I was available, he would assign it to me.

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, OMG, OMG!!!! Squeal!

After I calmed down, I worded a reply – deleted that one as being way too fangirl – did another after I calmed down again. Finally I managed something along the lines of: “I have enjoyed his work and believe I can fit another book into my schedule.” Hit send on the email, then finger out and take a sip of tea. So professional. While quivering in excitement.

One book turned into two, then three, and now I am his go-to editor at Falstaff. (He does get some of his short work published elsewhere.)

My mantra when editing his work is “Don’t pull a J.K. Rowlings with Mr. Williams.” I want his work to be the best possible, which means he must get edited completely. Unlike Ms. Rowlings, whose books clearly had editing slack off as her editors changed into fans, I had to remain an editor. No matter how much of a fan I am.

And if I stay good, I get to see his work before anyone else!

That’s a big incentive to stay on the straight and narrow red editing line.

This year Falstaff Books put out three of his novels/novellas.

First one happened back in January 2019, A Fall in Autumn. In fact, it was Falstaff’s first publication of the year as well as the first book in a science fiction series about a detective. It’s amazing! The central conceit of the SF aspect is organic manipulation, not the typical military and spaceship story.

Second happened in June, Nobody Gets Out Alive, concluded the Withrow Chronicles. (I.touched.it. I.got.to.make.this.series.better.) The final cross-genre for the vampire series was War Chronicles. I had to dig deep to remember what I knew about the tropes of that genre, but I truly feel that the conclusion delivers on the promise of the series. Not an easy thing to do for a five-book opus.

Amazon Cover

Third, and last one, published this year, Through the Doors of Oblivion, the first of a new series in the Quincy Harker/Shadow Council universe. This is perhaps his best story yet, mixing in so many of his passions. Mr. Williams love of San Francisco bleeds through every page. In fact, most of my editing felt like: “Pull back. This scene doesn’t fit this story right now. I know you love it, but save it for later books.” This time the urban fantasy focuses on witches vs. a demon, with a lot of the City by the Bay history thrown in.

Each book published this year had a different focus, a different sub-genre, and yet his author’s voice dances throughout even as the series voice and character voices adjust. He is an amazing writer.

And I get to edit him! (squeal, hands clapping)

Read his stuff. Give him a reason to complete the next book of the Fall in Autumn and the Servant/Sovereign series. I can’t wait to see them.

You can follow him at: http://www.robustmcmanlypants.org/perishables/

Geeking Science: EmDrive

Erin Penn

Image (c) SPR Ltd. / www.emdrive.com

Breaking Science – EmDrive

The engineers are trying to break science again. They do this periodically just to keep scientists honest. The newest thing hairbrain idea is the EmDrive (officially a “radio frequency (RF) resonant cavity thruster”).

Engineers (practical application) have been driving Scientists (theory modelists) to distraction since the beginning of time.

 

STORYTIME: The Scientist and the Engineer

“Hey, Scientist Uke, I got fire by rubbing two sticks together,” reported Engineer Bob.

“That isn’t how fire comes.” The scientist explained the world-model everyone knew to be true. “It comes from the sky from the gods as an element. Wood is a different element from a different god that is destroyed by the fire gods. It is the way the world works.”

“Well, I rubbed two sticks together using that bow thing I put together last month, and I got fire from wood.”

The scientist scrunched his Neanderthal brow. “Prove it. Recreate your experiment.”

“Don’t know what an experiment is, Uke, but see…” Bob used the bow string to rapidly rotate a stick and create fire.

“Oh hey, guys.” Average hunter-gatherer, Ted, who brings in a lot of food and keeps everyone alive entered the clearing. “Hey, fire. I got stuff to cook!”

“No, don’t use it.” The scientist-priest-overthinker tried to stop the average guy from cooking a few roots and a squirrel. “That isn’t normal fire. The wrong god was used to create it.”

Ted took a couple of bites. “Tastes just fine.”

“You sure you are okay.” The scientist watched Ted for reactions.

“Yep. Works just like normal fire.”

Bob smiled. “We can now make fire anywhere and not wait for a god to strike.”

“Cool beans. That could be useful.” Ted wandered off leaving some of the extra food behind for the big thinkers. They do a lot to make his life easier – the engineer had invented the bow and the scientist figured out how to leave enough roots behind so they can eat them year after year.

Uke looked at Bob, frowning. “You are going to make me figure this out, aren’t you?”

“If you want.” Bob responded. “Not sure why you need to figure it out though. What good is a structure of the universe?”

“Well, if we know what wood gods can create fire and when they can create fire, we can make it in the winter and summer. We know fire likes the fall, but is really hard to make in the winter and spring.”

“You think that the fire might be different later?”

“Well, when everything has been claimed by the rain gods, fire doesn’t start.”

“True.” Bob slung his bow across his back. “Tell you what, I will see if I can make fire next time it rains.”

“Yes, that is a good experiment.” Uke watched his friend walk away before dancing. “I get to figure out something new.”

***

Thousands of years later.

“What do you think?” The engineer, Bob, pointed at the large stone cathedral with no columns holding up the ceiling.

The scientist, Uke, blinked. “That should fall. Only caves can be open. Natural openings held by god’s hands”

“Yeah, well, I had been using arches to hold open doorways and thought, why not?”

Ted and his daughter, Tish, came up with a couple loaves of bread in a basket, “Cool beans, that is a big space. Can I use it to store grain?”

“I just built you a grinding wheel, why do you need a big place for grain?” Bob looked at the farmer-food provider.

“Well, with the grinding wheel, I can grind grain a lot faster, so I need more grain. A big open area would be great.”

Ted scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, well. I got this to work some of the time, but not all of the time. A couple of them have fallen. I was hoping Uke could figure it out.”

“I told you it couldn’t be done.” The scientist scrunched his brow. “Why did you do it?”

“What did you say?” Bob studied Uke for a moment. “I think I heard something wrong.”

“I told you it couldn’t be done.”

“Yeah, that is what I thought you said. ‘See if you can do it.’ Well, I did, but it works part of the time.”

“No, I said it couldn’t be done.”

The engineer shook his head. “I see lips moving, but the words are strange. Anyway, I need to see if I can make something for Ted here. I think I will call it a silo. You figure out the arch thing, okay?” He grabbed a loaf from Ted to better think and build.

Uke took the second loaf of bread offered by Ted and asked the everyday man, “Why does he always take ‘it can’t be done’ as a challenge to do it?”

Tish, a dreamer, spoke up. “I don’t know. Mom says it to dad and he reacts the same way. Maybe you should study human actions too.”

“Humans are created in god’s image, they don’t bend to scientific study.”

“Didn’t you tell me that the world is god’s creation? If we can study the world using the scientific method, and it was made by god, we should be able to study humans, made by god, the same way, right?”

The scientist blinked at the young questioner. “You may be right.” Uke went off and studied arches and humans, breaking up science into a variety of topics including the humanities.

***

Hundreds of years later.

“So, Uke.” Bob came up behind his scientist friend. “I made something in 1989. I call it an EmDrive.”

Uke jumped out of his skin. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what?” The engineer held up a big copper engine. “It works with microwaves bouncing around and provides propulsion without propellant.”

Uke rolled his eyes. “Why are you always doing this to me? I taught you the Conservation of Momentum. To move ahead, you got to have something pushing out the back.”

“Well, you told me you wanted to go to the stars, but it took too much propellant, so I am trying to figure out a way without the stuff.” Ted shot back.

“Well, fine. Just make a unicorn while you are at it.”

“No need for a unicorn, we got horses.” The engineer pointed out logically. “Anyway, I need you to look at the engine.” He handed it to the scientist. “It works.”

“It what?” The scientist stared down at the engine. “It can’t work. That would break quantum laws, and well, everything. I would need to rework everything.” He frowned, trying to hide the giddiness bubbling inside.

“Well, near as I can tell, it works.”

“Tell you what, let run this by Dr. White. He breaks everything. If he can’t break it, you might got something.” The scientist rotated the shiny object. “We will need to test it in vacuum because that is where we want to use it. You know outer space has a vacuum, right?”

“Yeah, I know, I just didn’t have the money to make a vacuum yet.” Bob groused.

Dr. White got back to the scientific community at the 50th AIAA/ASME/SAE/ASEE Joint Propulsion Conference in 2014. “I couldn’t break it, not even with vacuum.” (See Rodal, et al. in the Bibliography)

“But!”

The engineer shook his head. There was always a catch.

“I got these eleven other possible things to look at.”

Uke, the scientist, shook his head. “I need Ted to give me money to run the tests.”

Ted, who was recovering from a long recession didn’t have much money and was getting annoyed by scientists with stuff like Climate Change, antivax  and other fake news, rocked back on his heels. “Before I give you money to figure out if it can’t work, tell me what I get out of it. Especially with you telling me it can’t work before you even begin testing.”

“Well, if it works, it will save money and effort getting to the stars. It will drop satellite weight to a third. It can make low Earth orbit stations like the International Space Station last longer as they can self-boost. If we get our act together, we can get to the moon in four days, Mars in less than four months, and Alpha Centauri in just shy of a century. It would be awesome because we wouldn’t need to calculate slingshots, and we could go anywhere in space without a lot of preplanning.”

“Yawn.” Ted waved a hand in front of his face. “You already said it can’t work. So let’s save a lot of time and money and just not worry about it, okay?”

“Hoverboards.” The engineer said.

“No, it can’t—“

Bob slapped a hand over Uke’s mouth, interrupting him.

“Hoverboards?” Ted perked up.

“Yep, hoverboards. We will need mature the technology and then miniaturize it, but hoverboards.” The engineer assured the money-man who provided food, shelter, and manufacturing to the engineer and scientist so long as the inventions were useful, or at least interesting to people.

“Cool beans, here is enough to feed about thirty people for a few years. You work on that.” Ted walked away after writing the check. “Oh, and I want to be able to get to Alpha Centauri in fifty years or less. If I send something there, I want to hear back before I die. Just saying.”

After Ted was safely out of the space exploration room, the engineer removed his hand from Uke’s face. Immediately the scientist hissed, “It can’t do hoverboards.”

“Actually I can make it work with miniaturization and maturity of technology.” Bob smiled at Uke. “Trust me.”

“But—“

“I told you I could make computers smaller than a building, right?”

“It took several decades, but yes.”

“So get me the theory to work with. Prove this actually works, and I can get us hoverboards to make Ted happy, and you and I can continue to figure out new things to keep everyone looking up and out.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“Well, we are on, what, the third round of proofs?” The engineer shrugged. “I need to know what doesn’t work before I can figure out what does. It took me a while to get the lightbulb working. I will get us profusion in a small package somehow.”

Trish ran into the room, “Lasers!”

Bob and Uke turned to the new kid who constantly shouted out crazy ideas from science fiction and fantasy. “What?”

“I can levitate stuff with LIGHT!” Trish ran in circles around the room, showing off her new trick. (See Tangermann in the Bibliography) “You know light is an energy and a MATTER, right. So cool. You can use it to shove stuff. I might be able to push things to space really, really fast.”

“Like Alpha Centauri in less than fifty years?” asked the scientist.

Trish, the dreamer where money and science meet, jumped up and down. “Twenty!” (See Shankland in the Bibliography)

Uke and Bob looked at each other.

Uke said, “The science is actually sound and proven, we just need something that works.”

“Kid, we need to talk.” Bob started taking Trish from the room.

Uke yelled after him, “Keep working on that EmDrive too. The laser will only send small things to space. I want humans to get to Alpha Centauri as well.”

END STORYTIME

 

The EmDrive is nasty in that if it works, it will break a lot of scientific theories. Which in turn is kind-of fun, because having to figure out how things work. In the meantime, scientists and engineers are enthralled with inventing tests and test machinery to figure out why it works even a little in the first place. 

If the EmDrive works, it would be totally awesome!

And the laser drive already works, which is totally awesome!

Space, here we come!

 

Bibliography

Drake, Nadia. “NASA’s ‘Impossible Space Engine Tests-Here Are the Results.” NationalGeographic.com. 2018 May 22.  (Last viewed 2019 March 24 … seems removed as of 11/17/2022.)

Hambling, David. “Why DARPA Is Betting a Million Bucks on an ‘Impossible’ Space Drive.” PopularMechanics.com. 2018 November 2. https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a24219132/darpa-emdrive/ (Last viewed 2019 March 24.)

PBS Space Time. “The EM Drive: Fact or Fantasy.” 2017 January 11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqoo_4wSkdg&t=603s (Last viewed 2019 March 24.)

Rodal, Jose, Jeremiah Mullikin and Noel Muson. Subedited by Chris Gebhardt. “Evaluating NASA’s Futuristic EM Drive. 2015 April 29. https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/ (Last viewed 2019 March 24.)

Shankland, Stephen. “Are we alone? Tiny spacescraft will head to Alpha Centauri to find out.” Cnet.com. 2018 August 27. https://www.cnet.com/news/sending-tiny-spacecraft-to-alpha-centauri/ (Last viewed 2019 March 24.)

Tangermann, Victor. “Researchers Found a Way to Levitate Objects Using Only Light.” Futurism.com. 2019 March 19. https://futurism.com/levitation-light-propulsion-spacecraft (Last viewed 2019 March 24.)

Wikipedia. “RF resonant cavity thruster.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RF_resonant_cavity_thruster (Last viewed 2019 March 24.)

Author Spotlight: AJ Hartley

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

My publisher is ecstatic – we picked up A.J. Hartley for a short series his Big Press didn’t want to keep the rights to because it couldn’t sell the 100,000 copies they need to make money. Mr. Hartness became friends with the NY-times best-selling author on the convention circuit (remember writers, networking is a thing) and when Dr. Hartley mention a pet project of his that was available, John threw himself on that grenade to keep the Shakespearean professor from trunking his Will Hawthorne stories.

For his day job, A.J. Hartley is the Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare at UNC Charlotte. Which means he doesn’t just like literature, he breathes it.  Working with David Hewson, he recreated prose versions Macbeth and Hamlet. 

Well and truly bitten by the writing bug, he puts pen to paper for a variety of genres: thriller, fantasy, the previous mentioned historical fiction, and even some middle grade and young adult. He goes as far as to write additional works under a pseudonym of Andrew Hart. But nearly everything he does, including his literary non-fiction professor publications, are doen under A.J. Hartley.

His Steeplejack series is the “new thing” and worth a read, as is nearly everything this master of the English language produces.

Flash: Fortee

Erin Penn

Image is Public Domain
Portrait of a Moorish Woman – Italy about 1550; School of Paolo Veronese (oil on canvas)
Presently in a private collection (as of 2003)

 “Do hurry up child, the painter expects us before nightfall.” Fortee’s husband barked on the way down the stairs.

The Ivory Coast immigrant bit her lip while adjusting her chemise and overgown one last time. Though married over three years, she had only been living with her merchant husband for a few months after he had made arrangements to bring her home. She still cursed her father every day for accepting the bride price from the self-absorbed money-grubbing man. The marriage contract benefited her family back in Africa as well as the Brunos here in Venice, but she paid the price. Her young soul longed for a single lingering glance or soft touch. Looking in the glass, her brown eyes questioned the servant behind her. The white maid nodded a half-hearted approval, not yet comfortable with the wife her master unloaded from the boat following his last excursion.

Enough dithering, Fortee squared her shoulders, eyed the high feather to gauge its height for ducking through doorways and followed in her husband’s wake. She found him at the front door giving orders for the evening’s meal; several guests tentative about participating financially in the next trade trip were expected. Black eyes darted, measuring her like lumber, before returning to his business, and she felt every bit of the age difference between them. None of the servants bothered turning as she approached.

“The drop pearls work well,” Johannes observed without inflection in her native tongue as they pulled on their wooden platforms before leaving the townhouse.

She muttered a “thank you” in proper Italian but didn’t believe he heard it. His mind tumbled numbers, charting the course and cities for next month’s voyage to maximize profit.

The portrait painter’s workshop neighborhood required walking deep enough into the city the last lingering scent of sea disappeared into the effluvium of humans and animals too long together in too small a space. Holding a scented cloth to her nose, Fortee stepped over horse dung to enter the artist shop. Inside linseed oil and other fumes pushed back the odors of the city.

Her husband was cornered by the oldest of the men in the open, well-lit room. Upon her arrival, the youngest of those present flocked to her. Dark skin drew them. Even in an international port like Venice, the children don’t see many Africans, at least this far into the city. At port, people from her continent sometimes were the only color seen, depending on which ships were in, but here the difference was a rare treat for the young. Fortee crouched down and shifted her shawl so they could touch the skin and hair. Well-trained, the children only patted and stroked, keeping her careful preparations for the painting unmarred.

Two of the older ones darted over to some bottles on the side. When they returned, their arms each had half a dozen lines of different browns. The boys compared it with her skin, then begged her to come over to the paint area so they could figure out exactly how to get the color right. Crowded by children, apprentices, and young journeymen, Fortee allowed herself to be dragged to the work area. Soon every child had at least one stripe somewhere on them representing their best guess at her color. She laughed alongside them until her husband demanded she join him.

There he explained the portrait would take several sittings, including a number of hours today. He verified she could find her way back to their house, checked the master would provide escort, and coins changed hands before he left to prepare for the evenings negotiations.

The master introduced himself as Paolo Caliari after Johannes left, as well as his sons Carlo and Gabriele and his nephew Luigi. All four wanted to paint her, their school priding itself on the study of color and the human body. Paolo arranged her seat and lighting best for the portrait her husband had commissioned. Once she and the master were situated, the rest took various positions around the room, including one of the scamps who had been the first to try and figure out how to paint her skin color.

Several times during the initial sketches they allowed her to get up and play with the children when the youngsters had breaks from crushing stones and mixing dirts for paints. She learned far more about stretching and preparing canvases than she ever expected existed from the excited children. Twice the artists asked her to cease moving during the “rest” breaks so they could sketch a particular position.

Until sunset, she had all the laughter, lingering looks, and soft touches she had been missing.

(words 778; first published 4/14/2018; published on blog on 4/22/2018)

Notes: Writing-in-Stone, my writing group, provided the above picture for inspiration for their April challenge.

 

Flash: Captivated

Erin Penn

Rating: Mature

Lucius twisted counter-clockwise as the cave exhaled cold air from deeper in through the torture chamber of the goblins. His cuts, bruises and burns welcomed the chill, from his bleeding wrists tied with hemp rope to the celling to the blister burns on his toes. He tried to keep his feet raised flat, away from the roasting coals he was suspended over. His calf and thigh muscles burned from the effort. 

A moment later, sweltering summer air from outside spun him clockwise, re-inflaming every branding the goblins had dug into his flesh. The vertigo cramped his stomach, but he had long vomited everything out. 

For an eternity he had twisted back and forth, ever since his captors had been called away because fairies were attacking. Lucius held hope the goblins would be slaughtered even if he died hanging over coals. While he was certain the goblins were being attacked because they dared steal a human thrall from the fairy mound, Lucius was also confident the fairies would not bother to actually rescue a human foolish enough to be caught by the dimwitted creatures. 

Leananairre and Gwendolynne would find another lover soon enough and he wished them luck. For the untold time he had spent under the hill, they had treated him fair enough since he first found his way into their stone circle. No human could ever imagine what he had experienced at their hands, both in pleasure and pain. The goblins hadn’t even scratched the surface. But he never fooled himself into thinking they had any natural feelings resembling human women. 

He hissed as feet dropped and touched the red coals. Still too warm to see if he could provide a little support through his feet, to take pressure off his dislocated shoulder joints. White dots danced as his eyes warned him of impending unconsciousness. He caught the edge of movement in the incoming chamber entrance as he spun. The Roman forced his eyes to focus as he continued the rotation, so he could see what form of doom was approaching. Mars would never welcome a soldier who faced death with his eyes closed. 

Two golden fairy warriors entered the cave. Both carried gore-caked swords; black blood splattered across the engraved chest plates. Lucius noted the metal plates were shaped to hold woman breasts without surprise. To his knowledge, fairies were not male. One of the reasons they captured the Ferrata Legio when it invaded Hibernia. Ancient treaties prevented the fairy horde from stealing natives, but no such agreements were in place for the new interlopers. 

A pair of blond braids trailed behind one warrior and a mesh of brunette braids fell as the second removed her helm. Leananairre’s blue eyes studied him as he continued to rotate. 

In perfect Latin, Gwendolynne’s clear soprano came from the fully armor woman as she turned to watch the other’s back, “Please tell me we haven’t done all this for a corpse.” 

“The human yet breathes, sister.” Leananairre sultry alto made his dick respond at full erection. After centuries, it knew it was about to get used when he heard both those voices together. The redirection of blood blacked him out a moment. 

Waking on stone, he felt new burns stinging from the icy floor. The fairies must have cut him loose and let him fall into the fire. Putrid water was being tipped slowly into his mouth. He recognized the bucket beside him for the second he was able to pry open his eyes before they reclosed, where the wooden mug against his lips no doubt had been filled, from the number of times the goblins had cooled hot pokers in it after driving them into his body. Lucius was so thirsty he swallowed the trickle until the mug was empty. 

He felt a wet cloth being run over his body. Strange. His two lovers never caressed him, they only did that with each other. Nor had they ever chosen to have a child; having seen them with the few changelings others had chosen to have with their thralls, Lucius was grateful. Neither had a maternal bone in her luscious body. Warriors and guardians of the mound, few could kill on their scale. 

Care for anyone in their own strange way but each other, unheard of. 

When the cool cloth wiped over his forehead and face gently, he opened his eyes to see two emerald eyes staring at him. Now he knew he was dreaming the rescue during his final moments before death. Gwendolynne was the dominant of the fairy dual and had never shared one kind word with him. Her two perfect lips pressed quickly against his before she dipped the cloth in the water again and continued to wipe his wounds. 

“We will need to heal you before we leave the cave.” The blonde informed him. “Every visible wound will need to be removed.” 

Lucius had long learned not to ask questions of Gwendolynne, so he looked around until he found Leananairre. She was stripping out of her plate armor. Sweat soaked her silk shift to her body, showing her nipples and breast to full advantage. Catching her eye a moment, he asked “Why?” 

The brunette unbuckled the sliver clasps of her leg armor as she responded with a smile. “Because we told no one. The queen would not permit your return.” 

“I am not going to lose you over a farce like this.” Gwendolynne declared as she dropped the cloth into the bucket and started removing her armor as well. Dropping her arm braces heedlessly, not caring if one bounced against his broken ribs, she ordered. “You are never to tell anyone.” 

Lucius watched the women prepare for the healing. It would hurt; accelerated healing did not bypass business of healing, just made it happen all at once. 

Leananairre walked over to him and then lowered herself onto his erection. He stared at her blue eyes, as she leaned forward brace herself to ride him hard. In them was an emotion he had never thought to see. Love. If this be a dream, Venus, please never let him wake. 

He grabbed her wide thighs with aching hands, as his shattered fingers reassembled, and pounded into the woman who came to rescue him. Gwendolynne moved his head into her lap as he rocked back and forth with Leananairre.Gwendolynne’s lower blonde curls were damp with sweat. The heady scent of her sweet cum started as she watched the juncture of his human body with her fairy partner. He grunted his release as the pleasure and pain of healing took him. 

When they tenderly traded positions, a second magic behind the healing magic started to build. Lucius could feel it, but they didn’t seem to notice a difference. 

Gwendolynne smoothly slid down his lubricated shaft. Her nails raked down his chest removing healing scabs, tearing at puckered scars from branding and pokers, and prodding broken ribs into place. To distract her from forcing the healing faster than he could handle the pain, the Roman reached for her full breasts. Twisting the nipples sharply, and then stroking them, Lucius applied a bit of side pressure to bring the blonde closer. After the battles she had fought today, she bent to his will easily. He suckled the tit, catching the tip between his teeth before darting his tongue over the end. 

The two magics fused with the emotion he always held back from the fairies as his second orgasm took him. The emotion and magic reflected back the emotions the women felt, the fear of loss, the protectiveness, and the love. The final solider discipline containing seven hundred years of human emotions broke free driving the sexual healing magic beyond its natural limits. A third orgasm immediately followed, ripping through him, discharging the magic in full between all three. He heard both women scream as his seed was released.

(Words 1,316 – originally appearing at Sunday Fun on Breathless Press 2/10/2013; republished new blog format 11/19/2017)

The photo provided in the prompt did not impact this story so much as the instruction “please tell in a flash the most romantic situation your hero/heroine has found themselves in. … Delicious, sexy, terrifying?” I first wrote one story, the most romantic scene I have ever had in stored in my head to be used someday. But that one didn’t gell right. So I went through all the old stories here to see if anyone wanted their most romantic moment shared. Lucius volunteered his. I am glad to know that his fae eventually came to love him.