Changing from the inside
Is it possible?
In modern fiction, many authors have chosen a specific genre, the shape shifter one, to describe different ways of living with the inner beast and its uncontrollable moods.
As far as the genre goes, I must confess it has never been my cup of tea. Not in reading and not in writing, considering how few stories of mine fall into this category. Then again, I don’t write about vampires or werewolves either for I like to find my own personal way of portraying dark, horribly bloody stories without necessarily using ready-made creatures.
But one positive thing about shape shifters is they’re fascinating, maybe because you never get what you see. It’s the concealment, the second nature hidden deep within, the unrestrained transformation that adds to their allure and mysterious mood. And since I love to uncover what runs deep below the surface, I couldn’t resist diving in their world and uncovering the reasons of their attractive pull on readers.
I started back in 2008 with the release of “Hunted”, a short story available in one of eXtasy’s anthologies, Sanguinary Seductions. Back then, the subject was still new to me, so my POV was in third person, like someone witnessing the phenomenon, not living it himself. I guess I needed the distance, so to speak, to figure out what escaped me, which was: discarding the fantastic—not to mention improbable—explanations, what turns someone into an animal?
The answer came to me later and it’s the foundation of my novel, Bloody Passion, written in the first person POV of the shape shifter, a perspective is closer to home that digs into what happens to someone who changes skin like others change dresses and how it affected the people around them.
Dark Fantasy, Gay, Horror, Ménage, Paranormal, Shape Shifting, Halloween, m/f, m/m, m/m/m
Available from eXtasy Books
BLURB
There’s a hidden treasure inside everyone. Some show it, but only a few can afford it. Sometimes, you only need to know how to manage other’s treasures, even if self-destructive. But in the end, it’s like seeing yourself in a mirror. So how to explain the violence?
PG EXCERPT
I looked at Rory and knew the time had come. “Relax, buck,” I said, going to a dark corner. “We’ve invited you to join us for a very special ritual.”
Newlyn relaxed altogether. “Something to fight off the demons?” he asked, relieved I’d finally do something to assuage his fear.
“Exactly,” I confirmed, grabbing my wolf skin and putting it on, the head coming down on my hair partly covering my face. With a sweeping gesture, I made the fire go cold altogether and our camp plunged into darkness. More wolf howls rose in the night and I smelled the buck’s fear, its sour scent penetrating my nostrils at the same instant I began changing into my new shape.
First, I felt my face push out, my nose growing rapidly as if it wanted to break free. The rest of my head was also mutating, every feature becoming longer until a nozzle replaced my human features. My teeth sharpened as they grew longer, their pointed tips grating on my tongue. All at once, I felt unable to stand, my legs too weak to hold the now excessive weight. I stretched out my arms to cushion the fall, but instead of hands, silvery hairy paws touched the ground. Gone were my legs, too, replaced by straight shiny furry animal feet, which sustained a long wolf’s body, complete of tail and pointed ears.
Newlyn screamed and backed away from the embers, trying to reach safety, stopping only when his back hit a tree. I had trouble seeing him properly, my vision now a bluish blur. Things suddenly lost their sharp details, even if I still perceived the separation between objects, helped mostly by their intense smell. And sound came in a different way, the rustle of a leaf reverberating like a drum in my head. Overall, I simply needed to adjust to these new sensual perceptions that made my world strikingly different from what I’d grown used to in my human form. But the change only made it easier to target the shape that stood out among everything else for it gave off a bright reddish hue, which proved his demon-like essence. I lurched forward, wanting to demand the truth from his lips, but the only sound that came out was an angry snarl. Cornering him to the tree, I raised my head and howled deeply, following a primordial instinct I had no idea I even possessed, then poised to jump at the buck’s throat.
My latest release, Visionquest, furthers my interest in the genre, though it takes a different track altogether, not concerned with the shape shifter himself, rather with his associates. Again a first person POV to follow closely how awareness progresses, from horrified revelation to acceptance, it addresses the questions and doubts that inevitably torment the non-shifters at the sight of such a radical transformation.
GLBT (m/m), Horror, Shapeshifter, Dark Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance, m/m/m, m/m/m/m
Available from eXtasy Books
BLURB
It wasn’t till he took me to his bed and made love to me, for the first time—no competition between us, no unspoken challenge, no master-slave, no blood, no death, nothing but intense emotions overwhelming me with the sheer power of his feelings, a sea so deep, a tide so strong I thought I’d drown as he took me face up, raising my legs above his shoulders and plunging deep before preying on my mouth, too, in a never-ending kiss that took my breath, not to mention my resolve, away—that in spite of everything, I gave him what he wanted most, my soul in its entirety, for I knew right there and then I was sealing my destiny forever.
PG EXCERPT
But what really blew my mind away were his incredible transformation and the connection he was strengthening every day more. The first time I saw him slowly turn into a majestic black eagle-like bird—his face elongating in a beak, his body sprouting giant claws, then long elegant wings, covered with thick luscious black feathers—it took my breath away, though not as much as when I understood that I, and I alone, had the power to control him. And it thrilled me beyond words, like an excitingly heated wave coursing my entire fiber, to think he had chosen me, out of all the people he could’ve beckoned for this special service, to share his most intimate sphere.
So he soared high above the sky while I tried to follow him on ground, soon losing sight of him until the low, deep and distinctive pitch I was learning to recognize as his essence reverberated in my head like the sound of distant thunder to steer me in the right direction without using any words or forms of verbal communication. Apparently, his beast state didn’t consent any human weakness, least of all the spoken kind, and he had to submit to the same limitations animals did except for what came from the intense sharing I was growing to depend on, both in and out of bed. And while I could simply think my questions or comments in order to receive an answer from him, he relied heavily on imagery, audible signs and sensations to make sure we never lost track of each other, flashing map-like pictures of a place, if not the actual view of it, or clogging my ears with the noise associated to it.
In any case, I didn’t need his words—enough to sense him as a presence in my head regardless of the distance between us or of his appearance, bird or human making no difference in my strong perception of him—for I knew he was trying to teach me more than a silent exchange of information. What he aimed at was for our link to move beyond the physical realm to reach the indefinable sensual one that for the time being was ours only during sex. “Because, little one, our senses won’t betray us…” To prove his point, he had grabbed it and squeezed it. “Like fragile emotions or false words.”
I had no trouble believing him, not after his many lessons were plunging me into a frenzied heat that swept away my doubts, my awareness, my breath, my very life, everything and anything that wasn’t him fading in a hazy background until nothing existed besides him. And it intoxicated my soul and altered my perceptions like living constantly on the edge of a precipice, hovering between a vertical fall without safety nets and a sense of security he was instilling slowly but surely.
That’s how it all came together—the training, the connection, the hunt, the chase, the killings, the incredible transformation and the hottest sex—coalescing into the most unusual relationship I had ever experienced. It wasn’t love, of course, though I felt closer to him than to any loved one. It wasn’t work either, although we had a definite purpose and his determination drove me beyond any feasible boundary. But whatever it was, nothing expressed it better than our bodies’ fatal attraction to one another.
But in the end, what’s shape shifting if not an excuse to show a change so profound it needs the strong imagery to support what words cannot describe properly? And writing Visionquest, I realized we’re all shape shifters in one form or another, in anxious wait of the one person who, alone, can unleash our true essence, the one we normally keep hidden out of fear or embarrassment. Now this is more my cup of tea, especially since I don’t need some supernatural effect to turn my characters into something completely different from their appearance, simply let their actions speak of how they shift from one personality to the next. Take Christopher Templeton from my Virtus Saga, for instance. He’s a man of character, beauty and prestige who lives in a world where violence is unknown. Now who would think he’s in fact a bloody monster that enjoys cutting people to bits for his fun and pleasure? And even if he has the Virt to heal them afterwards, it’s still no excuse to turn from a sophisticated nobleman to a savage blood luster.
BUY LINK
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EPIC eBook Awards Competition™ 2011
FINALIST Fantasy Erotic Romance Category
GLBT, Gay, Fantasy, Paranormal, Ménage, m/m, m/m/f, m/f
Available from eXtasy Books
BLURB
If Sendar stood a chance perhaps it would be thanks to the arbitrary twists and turns of a blind destiny. Or maybe someone would discover the truth about the ancient ways and compromise our peaceful existence forever. Either way, people needed a hero to shed new light on the age-old mysteries. And he was just about to answer their prayers.
BDSM PG EROTIC
Grinning coldly, Chris took out a pocketknife, then went to the fireplace to heat up the blade over the flames.
Obviously seeing what Chris was holding Duncan moved. “Angel, what are you doing?”
The demon shrugged nonchalantly. “Nothing, just a simple lesson.” He checked the knife, then placed it back on the fire. “Don’t worry.”
At the last words, Ylianor felt some strange energy flow from the demon to the prince, something powerful that fell on Duncan as if it were a fine web to hold him captive. She wanted to help him get out of it, but young Templeton was already on top of her, pinning her to the ground and waving the scalding blade in front of her face. “You see, dearie, my gift is to hurt people.” His voice was coldly detached as if it were another person speaking. “I get this urge to cause someone intense pain and I can’t even begin to tell you how much pleasure I get from cutting a person bit by tiny bit.” Lowering the blade, he trailed it on her flesh. “Piece by little piece.” Hypnotically, his voice abated any attempt at resistance. “Just like this.” Without further ado, he knifed her thigh.
Searing hot pain burned her, then blood spilled on her pants. As if in a drugged trance, Ylianor watched while Chris took them off, together with her shirt, to stare in rapture at the cut. Then he made another incision next to it, tracing with his finger the mingling blood from the two wounds.
“Angel…”
She heard Duncan’s voice as if it came from another world.
“I think we understand now, so you can stop—”
“No, you don’t.” Chris cut him off with one more vicious slash, this time on Ylianor’s arm. “Believe me. I’ve tried telling you countless times before.” His attention shifted all to the prince, his gaze fixed on the black eyes, pleading for something Ylianor knew Duncan must have denied in the past, while the blade kept working, slicing through her soft flesh. “You never wanted to know what I need to do in order to survive. This is what I do, what I’ve been doing ever since we started our phase, and it’s nothing over which I seem to have any choice or control. When I get this craving—and I get it a lot—I can’t rest until I carve someone to piece.”
“But then you heal them back.” Ylianor supplied, suddenly aware of what the demon’s power was all about.
“I do more than that, dearie.” Contemptuously, he sliced another straight, bloody red line down her arm. “I erase their memory, too, once I’ve healed them. The mechanism is very simple.” Again, he focused on Prince Caldwell alone, interested only to have his complete attention, as the blade seemed to move by itself on Ylianor’s battered flesh. “After I’ve selected a victim, I may or may not fuck it—that all depends on how needy I am—but for sure I cut its delicious body to a pulp and only when my bloodlust has been satisfied, do I heal them and erase the memory of what happened.” A bitter grin curved his lips. “And the fool loves it! First, he’s just a whimpering coward, begging for mercy and crying over the slightest pain.” Probably want to prove his point on Ylianor, too, he dug deeper, but she did not give him the satisfaction despite the sharp laceration penetrating her mind. “Then, after I erase his memory, he thinks it’s the best sex of his pitiful life.”
“But with Duncan, it’s different.” Ylianor wanted him to talk, hoping it would slow down his cutting.
“That’s what I thought until a smart ass tells me I just recharge my energy as if our love meant nothing.” Chris was getting angry now as he slit another piece of flesh. “You see, lover, we don’t really love each other, just use our bodies for refills. Do you like this explanation to all we shared through the years?” The biting knife tip stung Ylianor again. “Personally, it makes me furious.”
And how to explain how a world free of violence could ever produce a blood lust shape shifter like Christopher Templeton is something you will discover, like I did, only at the end of the saga, so stay tuned for the next releases, The Leader and The Pledge, scheduled for 2011.
BUY LINKS
eXtasy, Amazon, ARE, Fictionwise, Ebookwise, Mobipocket
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Thank you to Laura Tolomei for being here today! If you want to know more information on her recent and upcoming releases visit www.lallagatta.com.
XOXOXO
Nerd & Lace 