by So Vong | Jul 28, 2025 | Blooded Oath, Crowned Flesh
The sword left Ilyan’s hand with a clatter of steel on sand.
Kael had disarmed him for the third time in less than five minutes, each movement colder, cleaner, more precise. A twist, a pivot, a step inside the boy’s stance, and the prince’s weapon went flying like it never belonged there in the first place.
“You’re dead,” Kael said simply.
His voice was flat. Not cruel. Not mocking.
Just true.
Ilyan spit in the dirt, chest heaving. “You touched my sword wrong.”
Kael blinked. “Did I?”
“You twisted your wrist before I stepped.”
“You’re too slow to matter.”
Kael turned his back.
That was the mistake.
Ilyan lunged for the discarded blade, grit slipping under his boots. He swept it up in one motion and charged. Not clean. Not practiced. But angry.
Kael didn’t even flinch.
He turned and caught the blow mid-swing, arms locking, weight shifting. He stepped inside the prince’s guard and drove the hilt of his training blade into Ilyan’s stomach—once, hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
The boy crumpled to one knee.
Kael pressed the edge of his wooden blade against Ilyan’s neck.
“You’re dead again,” he said.
Ilyan didn’t look up. “Only because you cheat.”
Kael’s lips twitched. Not a smile. Just tension. “Only because you think this is a game.”
Ilyan finally looked at him—eyes sharp beneath sweat-damp curls, mouth twitching with defiance.
“You stare at me too much for someone pretending you don’t want to be beneath me.”
Kael stepped back slowly, blade lowering.
“I don’t kneel for kings.”
“You’ll kneel for me.”
Kael turned. “Not in this life.”
But he didn’t leave.
Not far.
He walked to the edge of the yard, took a waterskin from the post, drank without looking back.
Ilyan followed.
Breathing hard.
Shirt sticking to his back, sweat darkening the linen. He stopped three steps behind Kael, close enough that the heat off his body brushed against the older man’s spine.
“Try again,” Ilyan said.
Kael wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why?”
“Because I’m not done fighting you.”
Kael turned. “Then fight like someone who wants to win.”
He struck first this time. No warning. Just steel flashing as he stepped into Ilyan’s space, blade up, driving the younger man back with every motion—hard, fast, close.
Ilyan gasped. Parried once. Twice.
The third blow knocked the sword from his hand again.
Kael didn’t stop.
He pinned him—body to body, back to the practice post, breath hot between them. His blade angled across Ilyan’s chest, holding him there with nothing but pressure and presence.
Ilyan’s chest rose and fell.
Kael didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
His body pressed too close to pretend it was just a lesson.
“You’re trembling,” Ilyan whispered.
Kael leaned in, voice like gravel.
“So are you.”
They stood locked like that—breath to breath, steel to skin, lust vibrating just beneath control.
Kael’s voice dropped.
“Next time you lift your sword, mean it. Or I’ll do worse than pin you.”
Ilyan’s smirk twisted, even as his thighs pressed closer.
“Promise?”
Kael shoved off him.
And left without looking back.
But his cock was half-hard in his trousers.
And he didn’t train with anyone else for the rest of the week.
by admin | Jul 23, 2025 | The Biologist’s Bride
They married beneath a veil of spores.
The ceremony unfolded in the dimming light of a marsh-bound village, where every house leaned like it had once tried to drown. Mist laced the air—tasting of salt, peat, and bone. She stood beside him: still, silent, and veiled, the long mesh of her shroud spun from lichen-thread and silk scraped from fungus caps.
He, Dr. Ilyas Thornbridge, held his journal tighter than her hand.
The villagers did not cheer. They watched from behind shutters carved like ribcages, breath held. The officiant, a priest robed in bark and velvet mold, spoke vows older than language. His words cracked like dried petals pressed between ancient pages.
She never spoke.
But when she turned toward Ilyas, he felt her breath—cool, vegetal, laced with something spiced and feral. It slipped beneath his collar. Stirred the hairs at the back of his neck. Slowed his pulse.
Her shadow flickered unnaturally in the last of the light—arms where there should be none. Fins, maybe. Petals. Echoes. Something that had never needed to be human.
He had studied the marsh for years. Catalogued fungal hierarchies, mapped the breath of lichen colonies. But she was beyond the taxonomy.
At the end of the rite, there was no kiss. The priest placed a thin piece of bark between their palms—etched in breath marks. Her fingers, longer than his, cold and pliant, wrapped around his own.
She exhaled.
The bark glowed faintly.
That was enough.
He walked her home through the reed-thick path, by a lantern that pulsed in sync with his heart. She never let go of his hand.
by admin | Jul 23, 2025 | My Monster Roommate Works at the DMV
The man who opens the door isn’t a man.
Not really.
He’s tall, yes. Broad, yes. Shirt tight across his chest like a costume that barely fits. But something about the way he moves—shoulders too still, head tilting before his feet adjust—makes Juno go cold. Or hot. She can’t tell the difference.
“You’re early,” he says.
Flat. Not annoyed. Not curious.
Just… observing.
She adjusts her backpack. “You’re not what I expected.”
“Neither are you.”
His voice is deep enough to echo in her ribs. Not gravel. Not warmth. Just depth. Like sound traveling down a well.
“I’m Juno,” she says, stepping into the entryway like she’s not already regretting everything.
He doesn’t offer his name. Just closes the door behind her with a click that sounds like a lock sliding into place.
It’s not subtle.
The apartment smells like clean dust and pine cleaner. Sparse furniture. No clutter. One blanket folded with geometric precision across the back of the couch.
He watches her take it in.
Not like a roommate. Like a witness.
“Rent’s posted on the fridge,” he says. “Rules are underneath it.”
Juno raises an eyebrow. “You laminated them?”
“Had to. The last one liked to spill.”
Her mouth twitches. “Blood or beer?”
He doesn’t answer.
Her room is small. Clean. Too cold.
The windows don’t open.
She sets her things down and breathes through her pulse. It’s doing that thing again—racing even though she hasn’t moved. Like her body knows something her brain won’t admit yet.
The guy—her roommate—is still out in the living room. She can hear him breathing.
Slow. Measured.
She opens the closet to distract herself.
Finds a DMV uniform hanging inside.
Dark polo. Stiff collar. No name tag.
It smells like him.
And underneath it—folded too neatly to be normal—is a second shirt. Smaller. Soft.
Her size.
That night, she doesn’t sleep.
She hears him pacing at exactly 3:08am. The step-thump pattern of someone used to patrolling. Someone who doesn’t need rest but moves anyway.
Juno turns over in bed, stares at the blank ceiling, and whispers to herself:
“This is fine.”
But the heat between her legs says otherwise.
