How fitting that my darkest book is coming out during the season of literal night. This book was born from a flash fiction piece I wrote one Sunday here at SExpressions, and that piece was in turn inspired by the cover art of Dara Joy’s Mine to Take. Apparently, I have a thing for guys in chains.

He hung from thick chains against the cold stones. His fists balled white in fury, every muscle in his body shook with strain. Sweat made his skin gleam in the torchlight. The wide v of his arms kept only the tips of his toes grounded. His head was bowed, trails of hair painting his upper chest like strands of darkness creeping down his body. Like this place was already infecting him, breaking him. She was breathless as she stood from the tiny tunnel, but that head lifted and orange eyes pinned her. No. He wasn’t even close to broken. Yet.

Like all of my stories, this journey is about trust, and people redefining themselves. Ty and Sunny take you from twisted torture to healing sex in a mountain meadow. They take you through the guilt of dark actions chosen in the name of survival, and the guilt of dark sex chosen through a survivor’s craving. The story begins and ends in barren round stone rooms, but the couple who battles point to point has survived evil and forged a bright future together. I hope you’re able to travel along with them and see what I do: how devotion overcomes anger.

Even in chains, hope can fly free.

Advisory: this story contains violence, menage, and dark sex.

Burying her face in her knees, Slave wrapped her arms over her head. She’d done it. She’d gotten Ty out. Her life was already over, gone, so the actions she’d taken to free him shouldn’t matter. But somewhere inside, she screamed as wildly as the brunette with the broken hand. She almost envied the woman her ability to just disappear into hysteria.
She tried to get control of her breathing. Her throat hurt. After a few minutes, more warriors came, if that was even possible. They strode back and forth, carrying people away in pairs. She knew her turn was coming. Would they take her to a torture cell like the hawks had suffered? Would they kill her where she sat? Would she have a trial, or was her guilt in her eyes?
A man in a leather skirt knelt near her. “Lady.”
The first thing she noticed besides his kind, low voice, was the hand that gripped his knee was tipped with cat claws. If she looked at his face, would he have whiskers?
“Lady.”
The third thing she noticed was he smelled wonderful. Of pine and sun and fresh, clean man.
“Lady, we are going to move from here. Walk with us, or I can carry you.”
Then she noticed the second set of bare, muscular calves standing at the crouching man’s shoulders.
“I am so ashamed.” Her trembling voice was hoarse, scratchy. Guilt poured through her words. It was hard to die. She wanted a good death, quick and clean. She shook.
His hand reached toward her and she cringed before she could stop it. The reaching hand checked, retreated.
His voice was calm, not like he was about to deal death at all. “You are safe here. We’ll need you to share what happened shortly, but first, let’s check you, clean you.”
She said nothing. Ty. Eyes of gold, lifting his head to smile at her with a face covered in his own gore.
“Come now. Let me help you.” He reached for her again and she threw herself away, scrambling desperately when her legs didn’t quite respond. It was ugly and awful and she didn’t care. He mustn’t touch her. Her heart thundered, and she was foul.
In the end, she pressed tight to the wall, arms braced, legs shaking, and stared at his triangular face and brown searching gaze before she remembered not to show him her eyes. He was a powerful man, more slender than Ty, but still harder than most human men. His chest, and that of the man standing behind him, was bare. Both men had shuttered, cautious eyes and tight lips.
He rose in a controlled lift, then surprised her by taking a step back until he stood side by side with the bushy-haired man next to him. “I’m Fynn, a mountaincat firemage. This is Odan, a groundbear skymage. We are going to be your guards while you stay here. We will not harm you.”
He paused, but when she just stared from one to the other, he sighed. “What is your name, Lady?”
Slave. It’s what she was, what she’d become, what they’d made her. Ty had refused that name. But she couldn’t return to her old one. That woman was dead in spirit, and would likely soon be dead in the flesh as well. Where had Ty gone? Why had he run? Had he run from her, and the evil she’d done? “Sunny.” The name popped out of nowhere in her brain.

Read another excerpt at www.mimawithin.com.