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Friday, July 11, 2008

Author Spotlight: Helen Madden


Today's author in the spotlight is Helen E. H. Madden and her new e-book release, Demon By Day, with Mojocastle Press. To contact Helen email her at, helenmadden@cox.net, or visit her website, http://www.helenhmadden.com/.


Demon By Day

ISBN: 1-60180-061-4



Author Biography:


Helen E. H. Madden is a writer and graphic artist who quit her lucrative day job years ago to tell dirty stories for fun and profit. Her published works have appeared in various anthologies, including "Cream: The Best of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association" and Alessia Brio's anthology "Coming Together: With Pride." Helen also writes and produces the Heat Flash podcast, a free audio program of erotic short fiction. When not writing, Helen devotes her time to creating naughty pictures with her computer graphics and animation programs. Her “Stick Figure Porno” cartoons are currently running at AtomFilms.com.





Blurb:


Half-demon, half-mortal, all bastard...In the underground realm of Daeva Shudra, the half-demon Orziel struggles to survive the deadly schemes of his immortal kin. His vicious beauty and ruthless cunning are his only weapons, but he wields them with fatal precision. When the empress of demons steals Orziel's lover, the half-demon vows revenge. But then he seduces a beautiful mortal youth, and Orziel must decide - stand by the one who loves him, or commit the ultimate betrayal?


Excerpt #1:


"You shouldn't be here."


Orziel regarded his petulant lover with mild amusement. Asheru, a demon prince and nephew of his most hated enemy, sat at a marble dressing table running a brush through his silver hair. In the soft eldritch light emanating from a nearby lamp, the young demon's translucent skin glowed beneath his gossamer robe.


"I spent over an hour scaling the walls of your uncle's keep, and that's all you have to say to me?" Orziel replied.


Asheru sniffed. "You climbed the walls only because your sorceries are too weak to get you in here any other way."


"Or perhaps I climbed the walls to show how much I desire you. How manyother lovers would risk breaking their necks just to see you?"


Orziel reclined against the window casement and pulled a silver flutefrom the folds of his doublet. He played a soft, seductive melody,letting the delicate notes spiral into the amethyst sky behind him.There was no sun or moon in the sky. In fact, there was no heavenly light at all. The underground realm of Daeva Shudra dwelled in endless twilight. Only the cool blue flames of eldritch fire pierced the darkness.


The sorcerous light of the bedchamber lamps flickered and danced played. He basked in the glow and stretched to the full length ofhis lean, muscular body. His sole weapon was his beauty, therapier-sharp physique of a rogue sheathed in doublet and breeches of gleaming blue velvet. Black boots, fashioned from the scaled hide ofsome netherworld beast, molded to his calves. His hands and face remained uncovered, revealing flesh as pale as Asheru's though not quite so translucent. Where Asheru's hair gleamed silver-white, Orziel's brooded darker than a cloud of night upon his head.


"If my uncle finds you here, he'll kill you." Asheru spoke to his ownreflection in the silvered glass, refusing to look at his suitor.


The music stopped. Orziel pocketed the flute with a sigh as he studied the lines of the prince's willowy body, clearly visible beneath the silkrobe. "Valefar can't kill me. The empress has forbidden it. No one maykill a Daeva and live."


"You're mortal, not Daeva!" the demon prince exclaimed, haughty anger flashing in his silver eyes.


"I'm half Daeva, and that's good enough for our beloved empress. As Irecall, it was also good enough for you once."


Orziel abandoned the casement and strode across the room. Asheru jumpedup in alarm, but before he could flee, the half-demon caught him by thewrist and shoved him back against the dressing table. The hairbrush clattered to the floor as Orziel pressed his velvet-clad hips againstAsheru's.


"I'll scream!" the prince threatened in a fierce whisper.


"Yes, you will scream," Orziel purred. "You'll scream my name over andover again as I tear away your robe and throw you onto the bed. You'llscream for mercy as I spread your legs and impale you on my hardened sex, and then you'll scream for more as I ride you like a prize stallion rides a mare in heat." He pressed his mouth against the young demon's,forcing his tongue between the youth's pale, shimmering lips.


Excerpt #2:


Locked in the struggle against his memories, Jarresh almost didn't hear the first notes of music that drifted through the square. The sinuous melody wormed its way into his awareness between gulping sobs, until at last he became aware of its rise and fall, the piping sounds fluttering like a bird through the hushed evening sky. The music wrapped around him like a lover, brushing away his tears before tugging at his hands and drawing him to his feet.


Jarresh followed the sound like a dreamer, floating through the gathering crowd until he came to a torch-lit corner of the square. Hooded and cloaked in patched velvet, a minstrel sat beneath the flickering lights, playing upon a silver flute, a battered brass bowl set at his feet. Lips pressed to the mouthpiece in a gentle kiss, he breathed life into the instrument and coaxed out a rippling refrain. The bowl chimed as a bystander dropped a handful of coins into it.


Jarresh stepped into the light, compelled by the cascading notes. He hesitated at the edge of the crowd and then sighed as the stranger spotted him and nodded, welcoming him to dance. Without further thought, Jarresh slipped off his shirt and breeches and laid them on the ground next to the minstrel. Clad only in a loincloth, he stepped out into the street.


The minstrel took no further notice of him but continued to play, picking up the tempo as the crowd moved back to give Jarresh room. The cold night air caressed his bare skin as he took the first few gliding steps. He turned and dipped, following the lead of the music as it swirled around him. All thoughts of danger faded from his mind as the thrill of the dance took hold.


He had never heard such music before. Dreamlike and dissonant, the eerie rill of notes slithered from the silver pipe like a serpent over the desert sand. The melody wrapped around him and howled like a demon, urging him to spin faster and faster, to leap higher and higher into the air until he thought he would escape the earth's grasp altogether and hang like a star in the sky.


His heart pulsed in time to the drumming of his feet on the cracked stones of the pavement. A second pulsing soon followed, a strange throbbing that radiated from his groin in sultry waves of heat. Jarresh knew that feeling, had experienced it before on dark nights when he was alone, when he let his hands dance over his body the way the music danced with him now. As the music flowed faster and stroked him to a furious beat, the pulsating rhythm drove to an inexorable climax. Jarresh moaned as he spun and leapt, soaring with the music until his body convulsed with ecstatic joy.


Then the music ended and he fell back to the earth, exhausted and spent. Trembling, he crouched on the fractured pavement and gasped for breath. A collective sigh washed over him and Jarresh looked up. The surrounding throng trembled with him, eyes glassy, mouths open and gasping. Wet stains spread across the robes of every man standing there. The women flushed with a desperate heat. More than a few stood with their robes pulled open, naked skin dimpling in the frigid night air.


Jarresh stood up on shaking legs. A damp heat still spread from his groin, battling against the cold night. Blushing, Jarresh noticed his loincloth clinging wetly to the swollen cock that peeked out of hiding. He hurriedly tucked the tip of his rogue member back into the waistband before darting back to his abandoned clothes.


"You dance well," the minstrel said as Jarresh struggled into his breeches. "The crowd was pleased." He tapped the bowl at his feet. Jarresh gasped at the mound of copper coins that filled it. There were enough in the bowl to pay for several meals.


The minstrel tucked his flute into the folds of his cloak before gathering up the coins. "I hope you've got a large enough purse to carry all this in."


"I-I don't have any purse," Jarresh said as the stranger offered him a handful of the flashing coins. "I mean, I had one, but someone stole it."


"Your boots and cloak as well?" the minstrel asked.


Jarresh nodded, too embarrassed by the admission to look the other man in the eye.


The stranger reached into his cloak again and pulled out a clinking pouch. He filled it with the coins from the bowl and then handed the overflowing bag to Jarresh. "There. Now you have a new purse and enough money to buy boots and a cloak as well."


Astonished, Jarresh looked up and for the first time noticed the eyes of the stranger, dark blue like the night sky and as seductive as the music he played. "I can't take all of this! At least half of it should be yours."


The stranger shook his head and smiled. "You need it more than I do. But if it will make you feel better, you can use some of that money to buy us both dinner."


At the mention of dinner, Jarresh's stomach broke into a deep rumble. He blushed and opened his mouth to apologize, only to find himself falling forward as he spoke. He drifted like a feather and landed in the stranger's open arms.


"Steady," the minstrel said, propping Jarresh back up on his feet. "Are you all right?"


Jarresh slumped against the other man. "Hungry," he whispered. "I'm just hungry, that's all."


The stranger's face broke into a rakish grin that made Jarresh blush again in spite of his sudden weakness. "More likely you're starved. This way," the piper said, guiding the young dancer out of the main square. "We'll find you something to eat, and then get you new boots and a cloak. And just to make sure you don't freeze to death on the way..."


He opened up his mantle and drew Jarresh inside its voluminous folds. The dancer felt his heart skip a beat as the minstrel's arm wrapped around his waist. For a moment, he thought about pulling away, but the night had already descended into bitter cold and the cloak felt warm and inviting. Nodding, Jarresh huddled deeper into the sheltering garment and let the stranger sweep him away...

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Super, Helen.
Sapphire Phelan

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