Chapter One I sat up and heard my stiff joints snap, crackle, and pop into place. If my injuries hurt yesterday, they were screaming this morning. Every bruise seemed to have bore deeper inside me while my injured ankle felt locked in place. I couldn’t think about any of this, of course. It was hard to focus on the pains of yesterday when your kidnapper was knelt beside your bed, tying a gag around your mouth. “Mmmmph!” I...

I woke up early the next morning to the sound of birds chirping. The sun was just beginning to rise, casting a golden light across the landscape. My dreams last night felt empty and devoid of thought, just those words resonating in my head like a frozen TV screen. Maybe I’m still in some kind of matrix, and all of this isn’t real. I stretched and yawned, watching the mist rise from the water and seeing the misty outline o...

Chapter 1 Bianca was exhausted. She stumbled through the tall grass, clutching her basket of freshly picked mushrooms in one hand and her skirt in the other, as she hastily made her way back to the familiar grounds of her cottage vicinity. It had been a long day of work for the young brunette beauty. She had set out early in the morning to the perimeter of her land in order to reinforce the magical shield that protected h...

The Queen singled me out from the rubble of girls that she had carried off from what was now a smouldering ruin, but used to be the, visually at least, resplendent city-state of Amberstrat. I didn't stand out from the rest, except perhaps in looking even more rugged. I was just the first to raise my hand when she asked if any among us knew how to read and write. I regretted my initiative as soon as my hand went up and her...

The late afternoon sun shone through the trees' leaves, basking everything in a golden hue. Wildflowers in bloom covered the grassy field in a kaleidoscope of colors as their sweet aroma filled the air with floral bliss. The picnic basket I had prepared was thoroughly picked through with only a few pieces of fruit left to spare. I watched as the celestial puffs, streaked with shades of orange and peach, lazily floated by...

A thousand years the djinn lay trapped. His anger festering until the day I pulled the stopper. His promise: three wishes, one day to enjoy them, then my death to atone for the millennium lost. "Is it true that I may wish you free? Will you let me live?" "Perhaps." "Then but one wish! A magic ring to take the form of anyone whose image I see!" A ring he surrenders. Picture of Bailey Jay in hand I don the ring, and I am he...

The grand medieval castle of a barbarian kingdom was where the world’s greatest executioners were trained. They learned how to spot and catch criminals, as well as the many methods to execute them. Executioners were held in high regard in the kingdom, and a new one showed promise. Zahurom was a handsome seventeen-year-old apprentice, who only started a year ago. He was short, brown-skinned, and had a lean body filled with...

The giant slept on her futon mattress, his feet hanging off the end onto the bamboo floor. He’d slept all through the night while Zarafa perched on a shipping crate, studying his face and body in the moonlight for hours. He had not used the blanket to cover himself. Obviously, he felt no shame about his nudity; but then, why would he? Zarafa had never seen a more beautiful male physique; it was as if some mad scientist—a...

Zarafa Rio sprawled on her belly on a futon, her Titian red hair spilling off the top of the mattress onto a woven grass tatami mat. Sunset bathed the room in a carmine glow that rouged her skin like petals of a dusky rose. A few thousand yards from her one-room bamboo-and-thatch hut, the surf crashed against white sand that powdered the islet of Aitanu like sugar on a donut. Outside the glassless window, orange-throated...