Into the Night

This is something new I have in the works - thought I’d give it a try.  It’s a fantasy F/F romance.   

copyright 2008 by Esther Mitchell

        Anara eased slowly through the gossamer film that surrounded her, her fingers spreading as she pulled apart the strands to let the soft light of dawn into her cocoon.  A sigh of contentment wrested from her, and she stretched lightly, feeling the silken threads caress her naked skin.  Today.

       Today was her Aemeshio, the ritual that would grant her wings.  To accept them, all she must do was choose a mate.  Remolin wanted the honor. 

       Anara frowned.  She did not want Remolin.  She could not imagine herself bound to him for all eternity.  There was a restlessness inside of her, an ache that bordered on pain with its pulsing desire, when she thought of her recent dreams.  She closed her eyes, and stretched her mind out to that dreaming energy that hovered around her again.

     Long, dark hair danced on the gentle breeze, then floated down to kiss soft skin the color of burnished copper.  Slim arms stretched out toward her, and eyes of the most remarkable sky-blue begged her to put an end to the waiting.  To love and be loved, for all eternity.  Mirsheri.  Love.  The voice was soft, sweet, like a siren’s lullaby, and Anara’s womb contracted with the desire to taste that copper skin, to hear breathless murmurs and wanting cries.

    The burning of the skin at her back pulled Anara from remembered dreams, and she shivered as she arched her back.  She could feel the wings, ready to sprout.  It had been thus after every dream.  That feeling told her she dreamed true.  Her mate was out there, and it was not Remolin, with his powerful, Earthen stubborness.  The fire that burned her was deeper, more complex, than he could imagine. 

    Anara moaned as her hand accidentally brushed her breast, and the sensitive flesh warmed, her nipple hardening nearly to pain.  She wanted to brush it against soft, smooth skin, to feel it suckled by that warm, sinful mouth from her dreams.  She stirred restlessly, and brushed her fingertips across her nipples, the gentle friction igniting fire in her womb.  Her back arched again, and she sent her mind questing into dreams.  She had to know.  Before she reached her release, she would know who stirred this passion within her.

    Who are you?  She begged of her dream lover, as soft hands carressed her in her dreams, fingers sliding toward the apex of her thighs, where she burned with the fire of a thousand stars.

    Imazi.  Fingers probed, stroked, and propelled Anara into the stars.  She blinked her eyes open beneath the bright streaks of dawn, still whimpering with her release, and shivering with its aftermath.

   “Imazi.”  A Firechild.  A daughter of Izaul.  Forbidden to all Sylphaen.  If Anara chose this mate, she would be stripped of her newly budding wings.  And yet, she could not imagine life without Imazi. 

    With a sob, Anara curled into a weeping ball within her safe cocoon.  The pain in her back was nothing to the torment in her soul.  She could not have Imazi.  Yet, she could not stop herself from wanting.

copyright 2004 by Esther Mitchell

   The piercing sound of a siren yanked Jaye abruptly from the arms of sleep, and fantasies of a man she wasn’t allowed to want, in her waking hours.  Bolting upright in bed, she scrambled blindly on the nightstand for her cell phone as the siren went on and on.  That sound was her ring-tone for the hospital, guaranteed to wake her no matter how deeply she slept.

     Heart in her throat, she punched talk as she lifted the unit to her ear.  “Dr. Michaels.”

     “Ma’am, it’s Chief James, in Trauma.  Did you have your patient scheduled to be moved, tonight?”

    She didn’t have to ask which patient.  She only had one in Trauma.  Jaye’s chest constricted to the point of pain, and she couldn’t breathe for a long moment, before she managed a hoarse, “No.”

    There was a pause.  “I was afraid of that.  Commander, we’re short one patient - your Mr. Watkins.”

    Jaye bit back her first response - that he wasn’t her anything; not anymore.  But that would be unprofessional, and admit to way more than Jaye was comfortable with, at the moment.  Instead, she focused on the immediate problem.

   “He suffers from mild insomnia.  Have you checked the cafeteria or waiting rooms, yet?”

   “Yes, ma’am.  No one in the hospital’s seen him since last bed check.”

   Jaye’s heart took up residence in her throat, but she forced it back in rhythm.  She refused to panic.  Instead, she drew even breaths against the suffocating fear that closed around her.  Eyes closed, she tried to think.  Where did you go, Trevor?

    A soundless howl reverberated through her body, followed by the rustle of leaves.  Jaye froze.  She sat on the edge of her bed, and yet if she didn’t know better, she’d think she was crouched in the bushes.  She swallowed hard.  Now was the wrong time for hallucinations.

    Grimly, she snapped on the bedside lamp and rose to her feet as she addressed Lydia James over the phone.  “I’ll be there ASAP.  Just keep looking.  And, Chief…”

    “Yes, Ma’am?”

    “If you find him and he’s not fully awake, no one is to go near him until I get there.  Got that?”

    “If we find him, Commander, he’s all yours,” Chief James promised, and the relief in her voice couldn’t be more obvious.  As she hung up the phone, a new grimness tugged at Jaye.  If she was right, Trevor’s problems were far from over.  In fact, she’d wager her life that they were just beginning.

 Like what you read?  Check out these other Project Prometheus titles -

Matt Raleigh… Terrorist hunter, or Demon Slayer? 

 Find out in Project Prometheus’ explosive debut, IN HER NAME … available now at
http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/in-her-name/prod_73.html

When the hunter becomes the hunted, can love show him the way back to life?  

HOPE OF HEAVEN (Book #2 of Project Prometheus), now available at http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/hope-of-heaven/prod_128.html 

And watch for this title, SHADOW WALKER, coming soon!

For now, since I don’t have a guest (wouldn’t be fair to anyone, since May’s almost over), I thought I might talk about how I got started writing (that seems to be a popular question).

To be honest, I can’t remember a time when I WASN’T writing.  When I was about two years old, I can remember getting in trouble because I scribbled lines of loops and swirls through the pages of one of my parents’ books.  I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, at the time, because in my head, when I was making those squiggles, I was telling myself a story about fantastic creatures and great adventures. 

The hunger for written words was a big spur forward for me.  When I was three, I taught myself the alphabet, and then to read.  It was a painful process (and not just for me…lol… I bugged everyone I could find for help if I couldn’t sound out a word, or it didn’t make sense when I did), but I was determined to learn to read and write.  I had so many stories inside of me, clamoring to get out.

The first full story I ever read was a children’s version of the epic legend of Beowulf.  And I was hooked…lol.  I followed that with the story of Gawain & the Green Knight, and my love of Medieval history and Arthurian Legend took firm root.  But I wasn’t about to stop with reading.  The more I read, the more I wanted to write and create.

By the time I reached Kindergarten, at the age of five, I had a rudimentary understanding of writing (not that my penmanship was any good!).  By the end of that year, however, I’d gleaned enough to be able to string sentences together, and I was in the running.  But I had a problem.  While I had all these stories trapped in my head, I wasn’t sure how to get them out, properly.  I’d never attempted to write more than a few sentences, and none of those strung together.  I was getting frustrated, and fast.  I nearly gave up on the idea of writing after an injury to my left hand (yes, I’m left-handed) prevented me from participating fully in the lessons that would give me a place to start.

The credit for getting me to actually start writing stories goes to my third-grade teacher, to whom I will always be grateful.  He gave me a challenge - choose one inanimate object, and write a paragraph from its Point-Of-View.  *grins* By the time I was done, I had a whole story out, and suddenly, everything clicked open.  I knew exactly what to do. 

The next few years, I wrote a bunch of small, short stories for children (none have ever been published - they were very rough draft, and not great, but they were excellent teaching tools).  Then, in fifth grade, I decided what I really wanted to do was write my own interpretation of Arthurian Legend.  I’d been reading it for years, by then - everything I could get my hands on, from the Mabinogion, to Monmouth, to Mallory and beyond, and everything in between.  So I started researching.  And I started writing.

Is this interpretation complete?  No.  To this day, I’m still working on it.  I hope to someday have it completed and available for publication.  But several years into working on it, I changed gears and started writing another series (actually, it started out as a single book), based in a futuristic world, but with characters and some situations that were drawn out of my own life at the time.  These books would eventually become The Underground, a futuristic series I first had e-published in 2004 (currently, it’s looking for a new home).  And the rest, as they say, is history. 

 For anyone interested in being my Guest Author for a month, there are still a few openings for the late Fall and Winter this year left, and I’m willing to book ahead into next year, as well… please visit
http://www.esthermitchell.com/GuestAuthor.html for more information!

For anyone interested in finding out more about what I have available currently, please visit http://www.esthermitchell.com/Availabletitles.html  or, if you’re interested in buying, visit:
Project Prometheus #1: IN HER NAME
http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/in-her-name/prod_73.html