Edited Nov. 25, 2014: Gentle Burn has been removed and is now only an excerpt. To read the entire Dark Phoenix novella, you can go to the Books page for retailer links.

The story Gentle Burn (Dark Phoenix 4) has been published. It is a 5900 word story featuring the same M/M pair from Phoenix Fire (Dark Phoenix 1) and Heated Invasion (Dark Phoenix 2) and Searing Betrayal (Dark Phoenix 3).

Ugh, it’s hard to comment this far into the series because really anything I say can be technically spoilerific. This is the fourth of five stories featuring Landon and Jak. The average word count was longer in these last three than in the first two, mostly because there’s always more to say about an ongoing or long-term relationship than there is at the beginning of one. More baggage, more knowledge, more conflicts–some resolved and some needing resolution.

Part of the issue I ran into working on these stories was that I had to keep the main “reveal” (if you can call it that) for the last story, which meant I had to come up with stepping-stones in the course of the relationship.

Gentle Burn is more about the growth of equality in a relationship and the need to be transparent about personal wants with your partner. People tend to let these things slide in the beginning of relationships, out of embarrassment or fear or simple ignorance of what might be important, but the reality is there comes a time when those things need to be addressed. And when that happens…either you discover they outweigh whatever linked the two of you together or you find yourself in a much more satisfying relationship.

That’s pretty much exactly what I said last week as a hint for this story, but I can’t say anything more without giving things away.

Next Sunday, Nov. 9: Violet Flames – Dark Phoenix 5 (fantasy, short story, M/M) – It’s time for Landon to make a choice, a choice with dire consequences.

Violet Flames will be the conclusion to the Dark Phoenix story.

Edited Nov. 25, 2014: Searing Betrayal has been removed and is now only an excerpt. To read the entire Dark Phoenix novella, you can go to the Books page for retailer links.

The story Searing Betrayal (Dark Phoenix 3) has been published. It is a 7300 word story featuring the same M/M pair from Phoenix Fire (Dark Phoenix 1) and Heated Invasion (Dark Phoenix 2).

Without saying too much I wanted to point out that this middle story (of the five) became sort of the turning point between Landon and Jak. It’s also the piece that delves the deepest into the minimal world building I did for the entire story. There’s a lot more to be discovered, obviously, but given the fact that dark phoenixes are solitary creatures, there just wasn’t any need to do anything expansive.

This piece did let me play with the syrens a little–which actually reminds me to tell you why I choose such a weird spelling when a normal spelling and a million other names for mermaids abound across a great many cultures. Well…the real reason was because I already had another story with sirens (Like Dark Algae) and they were inherently different in that their voices were automatically powerful sexual attractors without their explicit consent in the deal.

I wanted a mer-creature who could still manipulate people using their voices, thus needing sirens because that name gave the automatic assumption of the ability, but I also wanted to make it clear that they were of a different breed altogether than my original creation. Probably unnecessary considering these stories are contemporary based and the other had a secondary world setting, but those were my reasons for using syren vs. siren/mermaid/naiad/merrow/nixies, etc.

Next Sunday, Nov. 2: Gentle Burn – Dark Phoenix 4 (fantasy, short story, M/M) – There’s a point in every relationship where it either becomes more intimate…or completely fizzles.

Edited Nov. 25, 2014: Heated Invasion has been removed and is now only an excerpt. To read the entire Dark Phoenix novella, you can go to the Books page for retailer links.

The story Heated Invasion (Dark Phoenix 2) has been published. It is a 4200 word story featuring the same M/M pair from Phoenix Fire (Dark Phoenix 1).

When I first wrote Phoenix Fire I hadn’t intended on doing anything else with it. The story was supposed to be just a couple thousand word solitary piece. Then I went to bed and fell asleep with Jak irritated with me because I’d turned him into some sort of user who had a sincere lack of feelings. It was almost a sob story, Jak style, with lots of threatening glances in his (inept) way to prove to me he wasn’t the person Landon thought he was.

I admit I was a little surprised because the entire pieced-together story is written from Landon’s perspective so I would have assumed it was him who would be annoyed at being left without any sort of romantic happily ever after. Nope. Not the case.

I probably could have written the story from Jak’s point-of-view, but then it would have been an entirely different type of story. A lot less mysterious and a lot more boring (in my own opinion, that is).

Next Sunday, Oct. 26: Searing Betrayal – Dark Phoenix 3 (fantasy, short story, M/M) – There’s a reason the dark phoenix keeps his visits short and Landon is about to find out why.

Edited May 12th, 2015: Heat of the Moment has been removed. It will be republished on Amazon on May 22nd, 2015.

Heat of the Moment (Part 2 of 2) has been published. This story is a fantasy M/F of about 7500 words total. Part 1 can be found here.

During the first part of this story I did a POV jump from the female protag to the male. I don’t normally do more than one POV in short work because keeping to one tends to keep the story more contained with less possibility of it exploding into epically-lengthed proportions. In this case it didn’t change the story much and I wanted to see the heat occurring in Reach’s point of view since he would be the one who had to be in need of all his facilities during that time.

I think it’s worth mentioning that this is the third type of shapeshifter that has put in an appearance in my stories. Both Marks of the Protector and Wounds of the Warrior had bear shifters–growlers–and For Want of a Man had a car shifter–yes, you read that right and no, she’s not a transformer.

No wolves though. Strange. It’ll happen.

Next Sunday, Oct 12th: Phoenix Fire (fantasy, short story, M/M) – Can he withstand the heat?