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"Faizel" by Harper KingsleyTitle: Faizel
Author: Harper Kinsgley
Genre: mm supernatural, vampire
Word count: 10,400
Rating: Adult

Available as KDP Select. If you’ve got an Amazon Prime membership, go read it for free.

EXCERPT:

He was a handsome stranger in painted on pants and Chuck Taylors. His dark brown hair curled around his ears in enticing tousled waves. He had rich olive skin and a straight nose with perfect nostrils. He was built in lean lines and looked like he should be an endearingly dorky guy, completely oblivious to his own good looks.

Except he walked like a predator. He tried not to, but his hips insisted on falling into their natural position when he didn’t concentrate. An arrogant, rolling walk that caught and held the eye, luring in his prey.

He’d always been so well-known that he couldn’t have pretended to be anyone other than himself. He was more easily recognizable than the Master. The name FAIZEL was synonymous with power and prestige. He was always near the top of every Most Wanted list the Resistance put out.

He’d always enjoyed playing with the Resistance. Hunting them down and spoiling their plans had been endlessly entertaining. It was why he’d never just completely exterminated them all the way the Master wanted.

The Master was talking synthetic blood and genocide. He had wanted a world completely devoid of normal human life. The Phageless would cease to exist and only the New Breed would remain. He wanted a world of rules and restrictions, a totalitarian empire with himself at the top.

Faizel enjoyed being powerful, but he wanted the thrill of the hunt. He was young and virile and he’d been Reborn without a soul. But he still remembered his human days and all that burning hate and rage was still there, bubbling under the surface of his skin.

He’d killed most of the people that had made his living life so miserable in one wild spree of blood and viscera. After that though… he’d spent enough time around the Master to realize that he didn’t want to live in that sterile, cruel world with only his own kind for company.

He hadn’t been able to stand it.

He had secretly begun to sabotage his own mission plans so there were weaknesses able to be exploited by a clever but desperate human. He’d sifted out the weakest of the Resistance to leave the best behind, separating the wheat from the chaff.

Then he had waited and enjoyed being able to toy with his new playmates. He was going to kill them, but he built them up first before he hunted them down. He loved that sweetest first sip of panicked blood, packed with all of that desperate will to survive. It made his heart sing.

 

He slid through the crowded club to one of the tables at the front. He sat down with such a charming smile that the women already there giggled and gave him flirty welcomes. He smiled but didn’t really interact, just nodding his head here and there when they spoke to him.

Faizel gazed up at the main stage and absorbed the sight of a supernatural cabaret show. It was like Rocky Horror Picture Show with even more garters and lace; there was a bit more skin showing, and both men and women wore short-shorts and a mixture of glitter and glamour.

Dancing and singing men and women, some entirely human while others stretched and bent with supernatural ease. Here and there one of the dancers would flash a mouthful of fangs as they playfully “menaced” their delighted audience. Their faces would twist and turn into a monstrous mask of bulging bone, glaring yellow eyes, and a double row of teeth that were nothing but jagged points.

Money was offered at the end of each set and a pretty girl with flaxen curls and a smattering of glitter on her cheeks went around with a cloth bag to collect the cash. She was wearing a flirty red skirt and a black crop top vest that revealed a toned stomach and a sparkling silver bead dangling at her navel. She wore high-heeled gladiator sandals that crisscrossed up her shins to just below her dimpled knees.

Faizel fumbled in his pocket for a few crumpled bills. He stuck them in the bag quickly so no one could get a good look at them in case money was different here.

Vampires sure were.

He was utterly fascinated by their monstrous faces and the claws he thought he’d spotted amongst them. They were like a mix of human and animal. Even when they weren’t trying to be frightening, their mouths easily shaped snarls.

He was utterly captivated, his eyes trailing up and down the beautiful bodies on display, but what he was really drawn to was the feral nature of them. They were apex predators, of that he had no doubt, though he had to wonder why they were so intent on living amongst the humans, working with them. The idea of it intrigued him.

Faizel had been suppressing his Allure from the minute he’d fallen out of the glowing portal and discovered that he was in a world not his own. The air had smelled different and there was the caressing vapor of distant, strange Power.

His first impulse was to ride in under the radar, to look around for himself and see what kind of world this was. And so far he had been very pleased.

There were vampires here, though a much different kind than he was used to. He could practically see the souls binding them to their bodies, and though their faces turned to those of monsters when they let their Hunger show… they were human on the inside. Beautiful, fragile humans.

He had never seen anything so entrancing. He wondered how hard it was to break them, these dancing, singing, oh-so-human vampires.

Fortress in the Eye of Time at Amazon

He had never seen anything so beautiful. He wondered what those cupid lips would taste like. How smooth would that skin be beneath his hands?

Charlemagne ghosted around the edge of the room in ever closer circles, trying to get a good look at the man he was admiring before he himself was seen. He wasn’t too worried though, as the man was staring at the stage in fascination. Charlemagne used it as an
opportunity to admire the man and subtly warn off any other vampires drawn to the man’s beauty.

A low-level growl was thrumming at the base of his throat. The lesser vampires were quick to get out of his way.

=>
It was odd to be so enamored by someone on first sight. He enjoyed the experience.

Charlemagne circled his prey several more times, before closing in. “Hello. My name is Charlemagne. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The guy gave him an “Are you for real look?” But there was a hint of laughter in his starry black eyes. Charlemagne found himself charmed.

“I suppose I should introduce myself, since you were cool enough to come all the way over here.” The man smiled with those rosy red lips. Charlemagne thought of those lips wrapped around him. “I am Faizel.”

“I guess I’m busted,” Charlemagne said. “I saw you from across the room and I had to meet you.”

“Cheesy, but charming.” Faizel kicked out the chair next to him. “Why don’t you take a seat? I’ll let you buy me a drink.”

Charlemagne laughed and sat down, tugging his chair closer to Faizel. Close enough that he could smell Faizel’s cologne and the deeper, headier scent of the man’s skin. He wanted to bury his face between the man’s legs and breathe him in.

It was a battle to keep his inappropriate thoughts off his face and out of his voice. “I suppose it was a bit cheesy. I think I’m a product of my times, which I’m sure took place long before your idea of cool was developed.”

Faizel grinned, displaying a set of pretty teeth. He really was near to physically perfect. “It’s nice to see a guy be honest about his own flaws. It’s somewhat refreshing.” He laughed. “I think I might want to keep you. What do you think of that?”

Charlemagne couldn’t help admiring the bold challenge in those dark eyes. “I might just let you keep me.”

“I’m still going to make you buy me those drinks, but how about we get out of here after?”

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Charlemagne purred. He could nearly see himself falling in love. And he never once thought to try and stop his fall.

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I guess I’m a member of the tablet family.

I just got my Kindle Fire HD 8.9 and I’ve completely fallen in love with the ease of use. The minute I took it out of the box I was incredibly happy.

Then like four hours into my having it, Amazon did an update and wow, completely changed my world.

Swype.

The new keyboard allows sweeping from one letter to another to write words with your stylus. It’s so easy to do. It’s like drawing and it bypasses the need for an external keyboard at all. And with how quickly it learns your draw patterns, you could be drawing up your novel in less than five minutes.

I can already see people unable to write or type because of disability being given a voice of their own. And it’s at an amazingly affordable price.

Don’t believe me that the new sweep writing is awesome? Well, I wrote this whole thing with ColorNote Notepad and it was shockingly easy. Even more so than regular handwriting. I didn’t even have to hit the space bar–I just flowed from one word to the next and I barely had to touch the screen. So if you have a weak grip, all you have to do is just touch the screen with your stylus in a swirling pattern and you’re writing. Just make sure you catch the first and last letters and maybe a letter in the middle.

Having a tablet is great for me and my budding writing career because I don’t let myself get as distracted as I do when I use my laptop. Switching between apps means I don’t have my browser open as a window I can jump to. I have no self control and I would immediately spend
seven hours screwing around on the internet.

With my Kindle I have done an amazing amount in a short amount of time:

I have played games — I will admit that this might be a bit of a problem for me, since I’ll probably want to play all the time.Still, great fun, lots of free games if you’re cheap (like me.)

I have read books — Okay, this is where the Kindle won me over. Not only did I load my Kindle books, I also put on a bunch of downloaded books with Calibre (you might have to update your version of Calibre.) Still, I was able to download stories from Tthfanfic and AO3, then
move them to where I wanted with ES File Manager. So I now have a portable fanfic machine. Makes me so happy.

I have Tweeted — I got the Twitter app and I’ve been sending tweets and it was pretty easy, so that’s nice. I do like keeping you apprised of my still being alive.

I have watched Netflix and Hulu movies — Netflix needs to learn how to buffer, or maybe I just need to change up my settings, but Hulu was beautiful. I also checked out Viki, which worked great, I just wish DramaFever would come out with a Kindle capable app. Still, love watching what I want when I want.

I chose the Kindle Fire HD even though my brother tried to talk me out of it because I was hoping to write with it. Since I didn’t get a separate keyboard,I was starting to think I might have made a mistake because I had to tap hard to get the stylus to work. The Swype update
is a big step forward for writers using tablets. The words just seem to flow.

My big request is for the keyboard to be moved up the screen. It’s hard trying to see what I’m doing. My hand gets in the way of seeing the Amazon keyboard.

Anyways, love the Kindle Fire HD. Does what I want and didn’t cost ridiculous amounts of money.

My advice though, if you’re going to use one to write on, you can write what you want on a free notepad app, then email your writing to yourself as a backup. Then it’s simple to select and copy from your email and paste the writing into your word processing program. Backs
everything up easily and doesn’t cost anything. And yes, I am incredibly frugal, but what I really like is being able to write in bed without the heavy weight of a laptop over-heating on my legs. Very very nice.

I totally recommend the Kindle Fire HD as a winning Christmas or birthday gift. Now that I’ve got mine I have no problem with them being sold to the point of selling out of stock. Enjoy. Happy holiday shopping.

Hogfather at Amazon

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Title: The Panic Pure
Author: Harper Kingsley
Genre: mm suspense thriller
Rating: mature

Summary: Daniel Worth, billionaire and CEO of Worth Enterprises is questioned by FBI agent Marshal Newman about the disappearance of one of his employees. They strike up a conversation and soon are regularly meeting and begin dating. However neither realizes just how close danger is lurking.

CHAPTER NINE

 Being in a relationship was actually quite a bit of work, something he hadn’t really expected. It had always seemed to him, as an outsider looking in, that relationships were something that just happened, easy as breathing. The truth was a bit harder to face.

He had to ask Sophia to make room in his schedule and basically had to rearrange his whole life to be able to fit Marshal into it. It was not something he had ever expected to have to do, and he had to see his ability to adapt and change as a sign of progress. He’d even brought it up in his last few sessions with Dr. Landry and she had told him she was very proud of him.

There were still many things that he simply could not force himself to do, but he thought that he had made great strides. He couldn’t eat in restaurants or allow himself to be trapped in the confines of a public cinema or theater, but Marshal didn’t seem to care. He just seemed happy to spend time with Danny, and that was enough.

Danny whistled soundlessly as he finished up a report on his ideas about the Kerr-Bosnan prospectus. He’d decided that most of the ideas were pretty stupid, but he still had to waste some of his precious time pointing out what exactly he had a problem with. Destroying someone’s dreams should have been a little harder.

Finally finished, he saved his work then shut down his laptop.

He stretched his arms above his head and yawned hugely. It was such a relief to finally be done. Some part of him had been sure he would be wading through hundreds of pages of mostly worthless data for the entire day and night. So to be finished so much earlier than he had expected was an alien kind of pleasure.

Before, he had never felt happiness over finishing work early because he hadn’t had anything to do with the time freed up. It was just something that happened and he would then spend the rest of his day finding more work to fill in the time before he could go home and play with his Legos.

He couldn’t help smiling as he packed away his laptop and the rest of the things he would be taking home with him for the night. Then he started pulling on his coat as he left his office.

“Can you call Arthur and tell him I’m done here?” he said.

Sophia looked surprised, but hurriedly lifted her phone to make the phone call. He never went home early. It was probably something she was going to mark down in her diary as an oddity.

Danny listened while she told Arthur to bring the car around and that he was going home early. Even from across the room, he caught the note of incredulity in Arthur’s voice when she confirmed that yes, he really was going home early.

He sighed and shifted his bag from hand to hand, waiting. “Is he going to be too long?” he asked after she’d hung up.

Sophia smiled at him. “He says he’ll be here in roughly five minutes. Traffic isn’t too bad this time of day and he’s only a few streets over. He was running some quick errands for Olivia and filing some paperwork at the County Clerk’s office.”

Danny felt a momentary flush of curiosity, but Sophia probably didn’t know what Arthur had been filing. Not that it really mattered. Arthur was the one person in his life that he trusted without question. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll start heading down there.”

“Certainly,” she said. “He’ll call your cell when he’s out front.” So don’t worry, went unsaid.

He nodded and left, walking toward the elevator.

There was something almost naughty about leaving early. He felt as though he was doing something illicit, but instead of feeling guilty, he felt a cool thrill. It was exciting to do something he didn’t usually do.

His life had been ruled by clocks and schedules for so long that he couldn’t even imagine any other way. Except now he was breaking with his regimented routine and instead of being frightened… he was excited.

Somehow, letting Marshal into his life had freed him from some of the bonds of his neuroses. It was a kind of freedom he hadn’t even realized he was missing.