Weekend Writing Warriors #14

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Welcome warriors, writers and readers!  I’m going to share one last snippet from my upcoming novel, Touch of Salar.  The almost certain release date is June 17th and I hope I’ve wet your whistle enough that you’ll check it out when it’s available.  Does time go into super slow-mo when you’re waiting for a book to launch?  It has for me. I’m already half way through the next in the series, working title Blood of Salar and I’m so excited about it I wish both books could come out at once.  Ah well, patience is a virtue, I guess.

 

Touch of Salar  (I cut a few lines to reach a nice stopping point. If you like you can read the complete scene up to this point on my Salar page.)

The major lay down on his stomach without a word, crossed his arms above his head, and rested his face on the open frame at the top. He was tall, and he reached from one end of the table to the other. M’lan moved closer, rubbing warmed zinn bark oil onto his hands.

“With your permission,” he said as was required – all he got in return was a grunt.

After warming his hands, he placed them on the small of the man’s back. Though heavily scarred in places, the skin was smooth and hot from the sulfur bath. Electric sparks trickled up M’lan’s hands, and he nearly jumped back. He closed his eyes and let out a calming breath, feeling the rhythm of the man’s pulse beneath his palms.

***

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or copy & paste this address: http://www.wewriwa.com

About Touch of Salar, soon to be released by Loose Id.

Touch of Salar is a high fantasy, m/m erotic romance. In the kingdom of Rakkan, in a culture ruled by gods, mystical orders and magic, a young monk with the ability to channel the healing powers of the god Salar falls in love with a wounded warrior he knows only as The Major. Relations between the classes are forbidden, and things become even more complicated when the monk discovers that the man he is obsessed with is a king’s assassin. If M’lan is found out, he will be put to death, possibly by the Major himself.

 

Weekend Writing Warriors #13

Hi! If you’re participating in the Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia, please scroll down to the next post to find my HAHAT post and leave a comment for a chance to win a prize!  I haven’t quite figured out yet how to update my linky-thingy on the website to go directly to the post.

Okay, back to the snippet!  Greetings Weekend Writing Warriors!  My, I’m using a lot of exclamation points today! Maybe it’s because I’ve finally reached the point where M’lan gets to interact with the major.  Be still my heart. (creative punctuation alert)

 

wewriwa

 

Touch of Salar

The major crossed the tiled floor without a sound and stepped up to the table. From behind him, M’lan watched the silk robe slide from wide shoulders and drop to the floor before he raised his eyes, ready to assess what he saw.

His breath caught. Even though he was used to seeing well-sculpted, muscular bodies, this one was exceptional. Faint scars crisscrossed the truly beautiful almond skin but were hidden among the swirls and tangled vines of an elaborate tattoo that climbed from the crease beneath the man’s left buttock to the base of his neck. His torso tapered from the broad shoulders to a slim waist, the arms and legs were lean yet muscular, and the buttocks tight and hard. He had glossy black hair that flashed red in the sunlight. M’lan glimpsed a fine high cheekbone, sculpted jawline, and aquiline nose– a true son of Rakkan.

***

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or copy & paste this address: http://www.wewriwa.com

About Touch of Salar, soon to be released by Loose Id.

Touch of Salar is a high fantasy, m/m erotic romance. In the kingdom of Rakkan, in a culture ruled by gods, mystical orders and magic, a young monk with the ability to channel the healing powers of the god Salar falls in love with a wounded warrior he knows only as The Major. Relations between the classes are forbidden, and things become even more complicated when the monk discovers that the man he is obsessed with is a king’s assassin. If M’lan is found out, he will be put to death, possibly by the Major himself.

Weekend Writing Warriors #12

Do all writers love the rain? I do.  The constant patter of sloppy drops on the window, the chilly gusts rattling the blossoms off the trees, gives me permission to ignore the weeds, the foot high grass, the  drooping limbs in need of  trim, to hole up with a cup of  tea and write, write, write.  If you’re a writer who loves the rain, nothing beats Oregon in the springtime!  Back to the snippet–at last, the warrior arrives, M’lan’s ultimate challenge.  Here’s a little eye candy to wet your whistle.

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Touch of Salar

Cobwebs clearing from his mind, M’lan hurried to wipe down the soft-padded table in the middle of the room with essential oils and snapped out a fresh cloth to smooth on top of it. Today he was to begin the healing process on a new patient. For the sake of secrecy and discretion, patients were referred to by title. Today’s client, if spoken to, was to be addressed as Major. He was male, twenty-eight passages of age, and had been in the intensive-care ward of the temple for three weeks.

The entry chimes sounded, and M’lan bowed his head, as was custom when nobility entered. The patient wore a black silk robe, head covered with a hood. He moved with an easy grace and a lightness of foot, unlike most of the warriors M’lan worked on, who tended to be heavyset and muscle-bound.

wewriwa

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click here or copy & paste this address: http://www.wewriwa.com

About Touch of Salar, soon to be released by Loose Id.

Touch of Salar is a high fantasy, m/m erotic romance. In the kingdom of Rakkan, in a culture ruled by gods, mystical orders and magic, a young monk with the ability to channel the healing powers of the god Salar falls in love with a wounded warrior he knows only as The Major. Relations between the classes are forbidden, and things become even more complicated when the monk discovers that the man he is obsessed with is a king’s assassin. If M’lan is found out, he will be put to death, possibly by the Major himself.

SFR Brigade Presents- The Adventure Begins

 

THE SFRB Presents

Hello! This is my first foray on the Science Fiction Romance Brigade website. SFR Brigade Presents is a weekly opportunity to share excerpts from published work or works in progress that fall under the wide sky dome of SF Romance.  One of my current WIPS, From Mars, With Love, fits right in.  If you’d like to check out the other fun and fabulous fiction being presented, click here.

Enjoy!

From Mars, With Love

No one believes me when I say I knew Eli Karmazin back when he was plain old Eli, but it’s true.

I’d always thought that Eli led a charmed life until the day we both got caught up in the slave sweeper. Eli’s swift feet and lucky avoidance of bad shit failed him that day, and I can’t say I’m sorry. Don’t get me wrong. We’s friends, Eli and I. I wasn’t sorry about him getting swept ‘cause I like having company in my misery and his company was better than most. And he had that luck, which faltered but didn’t fail him entirely. So I stuck to him like glue and hoped the sweepers would consider us a two-for-one deal and not pry us apart. They didn’t much care, we all being op-digs and self-propelled and oxy-huffers and so into the bin we went without so much as a hideeho and off we go, to Mars or maybe the lunar station or well, who really knew shit back then in the bin. Not me.

But I gets ahead of myself, as usual ‘cause I never told how me and Eli met, we unlikely friends, earthside.

 

From Mars, With Love is an erotic space opera. Eli and Rilke, two down-and-out earthers get picked up by a slave sweeper and find themselves on the way to Mars.  When the slavers discover that Eli is in possession of a much-desired alien artifact, their adventures become even more dangerous.

Weekend Writing Warriors #Lucky 11

Greetings fellow warriors, writers and readers.  I’m feeling lucky this week– Lucky that my novella Touch of Salar will soon be published, lucky that I’ve been assigned a great editor, lucky that I’ve finished the second round of edits with hardly any mental or emotional damage!  I feel especially lucky that my dreams of being a professional writer are on the verge of becoming real.  I much prefer my dreams to those of poor M’lan, who’s in for a rough of time of it.

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click the link above or copy & paste this address: http://www.wewriwa.com

Touch of Salar

M’lan had trained for years to calm his mind and cool his passions. While he was busy treating his patients, passion was not a problem. Despite the array of beautiful bodies he worked on, he remained as cool as a mountain lake, his mind as still as he concentrated on sinews, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. At night, though, his passions erupted in those violent dreams of war, killing, and terror.

The monks of Ka’alar Healing Temple exclusively served the noble classes of the kingdom of Rakkan. In recent years, most of their clients were soldiers, officers who’d been injured in the ongoing battle with Jirnan Province to the south. The monks also treated elite forces of no particular rank or designation—spies, assassins, sons and daughters of the nobility trained to serve the king in secret and deadly ways. The only reason M’lan knew this was because of the nightmares that showed him what his clients did, where they went, who they killed. If anyone ever found out, he’d be executed on the spot.

About Touch of Salar, soon to be released by Loose Id.

Touch of Salar is a high fantasy, m/m erotic romance. In the kingdom of Rakkan, in a culture ruled by gods, mystical orders and magic, a young monk with the ability to channel the healing powers of the god Salar falls in love with a wounded warrior he knows only as The Major. Relations between the classes are forbidden, and things become even more complicated when the monk discovers that the man he is obsessed with is a king’s assassin. If M’lan is found out, he will be put to death, possibly by the Major himself.

Weekend Writing Warriors #10

Greetings fellow readers and writers!  Well, I finished the first round of edits on Touch of Salar. The good news is that after spending an entire sunny Sunday inside hunched over the keyboard, I still love being a writer! The editing process was informative and it’s exciting work (I am such a writing geek).

This post is part of an ongoing blog hop hosted by Weekend Writing Warriors. Every Sunday, participating authors post eight sentences from their current work in progress. Then we hop to our fellow warriors’ blogs and check out all the fabulous fiction that’s happening! I heartily invite you to participate as a reader, writer, or both. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book. Click the link above or copy & paste this address: http://www.wewriwa.com

Touch of Salar

The fading aroma of night-blooming cacti still sweetened the air of the healing room. Clay ovens had been fired but a chill remained in the open-air space. M’lan was grateful, because the nightmare had left him drenched with sweat. He leaned against a marble column and basked in the rose-tinted glow of the sunrise. Morning was his favorite time of day, a fresh start, a new beginning. Every day, he channeled divine energy to mend fallen warriors. Every night in his dreams, as if he became a warrior himself, he relived the horror his patients experienced in real life.

His heartbeat slowed and he took a moment to clear his mind and prepare for the first patient of the day.

***

About Touch of Salar

Touch of Salar is a high fantasy, m/m erotic romance. In the kingdom of Rakkan, in a culture ruled by gods, mystical orders and magic, a young monk with the ability to channel the healing powers of the god Salar falls in love with a wounded warrior he knows only as The Major. Relations between the classes are forbidden, and things become even more complicated when the monk discovers that the man he is obsessed with is a king’s assassin. If M’lan is found out, he will be put to death, possibly by the Major himself.