Sunday, December 14, 2008

My dark and gritty side...

Being called a bitch was the least of her concerns. She had been called worse by better men than the corpses left in the alley. Snorting, she kicked dirt into their shattered, bloody faces.

Hours would be wasted identifying the Pinks’ remains. Sariah made sure of that. She’d smashed their teeth into their braincases, and chunks of their flesh soured in her stomach. Severed fingertips jostled against each other in the churning acid of her guts. Digested fingerprints were impossible to read. Dental records weren't much good on gum lines. DNA tests were costly and time consuming.

Bastards.

They hurled vulgarities on the one night she couldn’t control the beast raging in her blood. The name they threw at her did not offend--in truth, they were tragically right--she was a bitch. It was the tone of their taunts, the rude gestures, the puffed chests and bulging jeans. Her blood surged, pounding against her eardrums. And, with the full moon mocking her, Sariah could not tolerate the offensive verbal swagger, or the eager musk hanging heavy in the air.

She turned on her heel, lips parted and ready to match their sarcasm. Then, the tattooed blonde grabbed his crotch, she lost her restraint on the killer she contained. Her transformation was sudden and painful; one moment human, the next raging beast. Sariah was a werewolf, muzzle curled, teeth bared and blood pumping with rage.

She growled, low and long, her hackles up from the ridge of her skull, down her spine to her ass. Even her tail bristled. Her nostrils flared. The men, leaned up against a building, had no where to run. She launched from her bunched hindquarters and slammed into them with an audible crush of concrete and bone. Pavement churned beneath her heels as she ravaged the rudeness out of them--along with their lives.

Even in her altered state, Sariah had enough presence of mind to disguise her crime. She crushed their skulls with bashing blows of her back feet, then snapped off their fingertips. The murders were crimes of passion, desecrating the corpses was intentional.

She shook her head to clear the tainted images. High pointed ears waggled and blood flew from her snout, spattered the ragged blouse hanging from her neck. She looked down--tawny hide, curved claws, a ripped blouse, barely recognizable now, shoes gone, but the leather skirt still clung to her hips with a savage fit. A dark laugh caught in her throat.

Carnage and leather look good on me.


Copyright, AE Rought 2008

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Tuesday TIDBITS--and excerpt!

This Tidbits concept from Shell has become a weekly feature! So, here are this week's bits of randomness. :o)

1.) Did you know that basket bottoms can totally look like a character from a Tim Burton movie?? Me, neither, until I started weaving them. That one over there is destined to be a Christmas gift. Guess I better get cracking on it, eh? *sigh*

2.)Snow sucks. Yeah. I know. But AE, it's so pretty! Yes, I know, it's lovely to watch, but when it dumps heavy wet stuff in multiple inches...it just sucks.





3.)There is a big contest give-away starting next week! Included are two baskets (one hand woven by me), a custom-blended perfume oil of jasmine, lavender and sage, and a similar scented crystal shaped soap, PLUS a leather pouch, a lavender sachet and a silver ring from Cassandra Curtis, PLUS lots of bookmarks and goodies from the gals at The Midnight Moon Cafe!!

(details coming next week when Slade and Kally releases--check back here on the 16th!)

4.) A family friend is a rockstar! Seriously. Check out the band Pop Evil, the guitar player Tony Greve used to be my hubby's karate student! He was so cute in his little white uniform. Now his pierce, tattooed and in a rockband. *sigh* I wallow in a funny, displaced sense of pride. :o)

5.) Here's the official excerpt for Slade and Kally:
Goose bumps coated my skin, my breath rose in thin plumes and my feet were numb in winter’s grip. I kept looking for a house, a car, anything to show signs of life. I must have marched along the loneliest road in Wyoming, because my search proved to be more hollow than the new moon above me. Then, running on the inside of the fence and off into the property, I found a path. I took off my sweatshirt, threw it over the barbed wire and scrambled over the fence and face first into the snow.

The barbs released my shirt from their nettled grip, and I pulled the holey sweatshirt back on. The path was narrow, meandering over the uneven terrain and in-between stands of aspens and pines. Hillsides poured into little valleys dotted with scraggy bushes and full Christmas tree pines before climbing again. After the third or fourth incline and fast slide down the other side, I noticed my chills were gone. A detached feeling replaced them. I raised my hand to the cut on my head. It was dry. Either the cut had frozen, or the blood just wasn’t getting there.

Even I knew in my frozen, muddled consciousness, decreased blood flow and no more chills were dangerous.

Drowsy weight settled in my limbs. My eyes drooped, then flew open wide at the sight of a light and a low roofline. It was a small building, maybe just a barn. At least it could provide shelter. I left the path I had followed and plowed through a flat field of pristine snow. Yards from a roofed cattle pen, my left foot slipped and sank. I didn’t realize until icy water gushed over my calves and into my boots, that I’d floundered into a pond. Instinct ticked in my muscles, and I fell backward instead of face first into the frigid depths.

Mud seeped through my clothes, caked my scalp. Water dripped from my body when I crawled from the muck. I managed to collapse on the bank, where the damp mud held me in a wet embrace and fresh snow blanketed me. I panted, watching the plumes of my breath rise in the faint blue glow of the halogen lamp while the cold soaked into my bones, into my guts, which lay inert beneath my skin.

Irony struck me like an icy club. I’d left Matt because I was afraid he’d kill me. Now here I lay, dying. A sick, strangled laugh escaped me. Though a ray of light flashed across the pond, black fields encroached on my vision and a chilly invitation to a long cold sleep tempted.

“What in the world?”

A voice rang in the little snow filled dell. I lifted my head from my icy bed and saw a man in a low profile Stetson hat riding toward me on a white horse. The image of him sitting astride the horse framed in snowfall was etched like ice in my mind. He trained the beam of his flashlight on me and our gazes locked. “Gid-up!” He spurred the horse and it charged around the edge of the pond I’d stumbled into.

The man dropped from the saddle and pushed his hat from his head. He nestled his Maglite into the snow so that it shined on me. Steam rose from his dark hair, and his expression flared hope in me. His eyes were polar ice blue and angel robe soft. No matter how I wanted to look at his face forever, my eyelids sagged. His hands were clear in my hazy vision. Hands weren’t always good. Matt had hit me with his hands. A little knot of fear tightened in my gut, but this man was gentle. “Come on, girl. Stay with me.”

“Car crash.” I muttered. I couldn’t say more. Nothing came out but a shaky breath. He nodded, and a frown knit his brows together.

He pulled the gloves from his hand and patted my thighs and arms. “You’re soaked to the bone and freezing.”

I wanted to nod my head in agreement, but my fine motor skills were frozen too. His fleece-lined jacket smelled of Stetson cologne when he pulled it off, the scent of sweat sweetened with fabric softener rose from his long underwear shirt. “Let me help you.”

I couldn’t have fought him if I wanted to. I had no strength left. My field of vision narrowed when my eyelids drooped again. He wadded the shirt into a soft mass and patted my face dry. Despite the sting of his shirt against my cheek, I was grateful for his touch. My head lolled to the side while he wiped down my arms. I was less appreciative when he used the shirt to sop water from my shoulders and chest. Pain blazed from my shoulder socket and radiated through my arm and chest. A weak cry escaped my lips, but the onset of hypothermia had iced over my tear ducts.

“Hush now.” He stopped, placing a warm hand on my cheek and shushing me. “We have to get you dry you before you freeze to death.”

It might be too late.

He stood, more silhouette than man to my increasingly fuzzy vision. Putting his hat back on, he bent to wrap me in the clothing he’d removed. I couldn’t feel him touching me. I was beyond feeling, slipping into the numb, quiet dark. The pain eased. The cold eased. My vision failed. There was only me and him. His chest was the last thing I saw when he wrapped his arm around my back. The last thing I felt was the warmth of his bare skin.

Me and him.

Me.

…black…

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Tuesday TIDBITS

Well, I'm sitting here looking at a blog going stale, and I just can't have that. So, to remedy the situation I'll post a few random tidbits about me:

1.) Thank goodness this movie comes in DVD format. Between Thanksgiving and New Years, if I'm home alone, I play it at least once a day. Sad isn't it? I LOVE the Grinch. There's a large talking Grinch on my sofa right now, and a small stuffed one on my desk. I think Jim Carrey did an excellent job, and Ron Howard did a fabulous job of taking a classic and expanding it for a more modern crowd.

2.) My major pet peeve in life is being pushed, or feeling like I'm being rushed. I can get all kinds of ugly. Funny, though, because I work well under pressure.

3.) Writing under one name isn't enough for me. I have an erotica pen name where I put the really naughty stuff. I'm afraid if my mother-in-law got her hands on some of my erotic work, she'd stroke out--my mom, too, for that matter. Especially if they knew every m/f scene is rigorously field tested for accuracy. Snort.

4.) Totally random factoid here. Onions and I do NOT get along.

5.) I once met the guys from Night Ranger. They signed the inside of the jacket I wore when working at the Meat Market...er, I mean bar. The leader signer tried to drag me back on their tour bus, even. Seriously. Of course, I didn't go.