#monster boyfriends

[obsessivevoidkitten]

Building a Hornet’s Nest

Male Wasp Hybrid Harem x Feminized Male Reader (CW: Noncon, musk, pheromones, bukkake, gangbang, double penetration, wasp men, oviposition, feminized male reader, drug-like cum, wasp transformation, DNA manipulation, general yandere behavior) Word Count: 3.7k (Sorry that this took so long. Sorry that this is so weird. I hope some people can find the degeneracy within themselves to enjoy it.) 

When your distant uncle had passed away and left you a property you were surprised to say the least. You were more surprised to learn that it was on Arcadia and that your uncle had never lived long enough to go and see it as he had been ill for some time before his passing and he was not particularly old either. Years ago, unknown to most of the family, he had procured a modest plot of land on Arcadia, a distant planet on the fringes of known space. A true modern day frontier. It was known for its mega-flora. With flowers that grew to the size of trees in some cases. It was also known for its giant docile bees. They were just like bees on Earth except much much larger and they were stingless, it was very easy to domesticate them and now people used them on Arcadia to develop many rare and exotic honey types from the strange alien flowers. Your uncle had wanted to be a beekeeper, he was apparently going to invite you on the venture with him seeing as how you were both into farming and working the land and you had helped him with his beekeeping when you were younger, but he never recovered from his illness so you did not find out until his death. With only a bit of hesitance you decided to pursue your uncle’s dream. When you first got to Arcadia you were in awe by how tranquil and picturesque it was, the pictures and videos that you had seen certainly did it no justice. Unlike Earth most of the foliage was various shades of red, orange, and yellow. Giant blooms of every shape and color imaginable were everywhere, with the exception of the clearing that a small settlement had been built in. Despite being here for a few decades it was still very much a quaint little frontier town, pleasant enough people, offering just the bare essential services. Then there was your new plot of land a few miles from town. It was… run down… to say the least. But you made due, you had sold everything of significant value that you had owned back on Earth and were fully committing to this new venture. And, after a few months, your efforts finally paid off. A giant mansion sized barn for your future bees was built and your house was repaired. All that was left to do was wait for your shipment of buzzy friends to arrive. Well they wouldn’t be so busy when they arrived, as they would still be pupa, but within a week or two the pupa would be finished developing into full sized giant docile bees, they would accept the barn as their home and set up shop. The day came when your shipment finally landed and you were so thrilled, they came off the hover truck and you hurried them into their new home, carefully placing them horizontally into cells in the walls and capping them. In truth you had been more than a bit worried, you were running perilously low on funds and had to go with a discount bee supplier that seemed just a slight bit unreliable. But it seemed you had worried for nothing, here were your bee pupa, nice and healthy. Though they did seem to be a slightly different shape than they looked from the advertisements and videos, you were sure that nothing was wrong. You could barely contain your excitement, you had heard that these bees easily imprint on their humans and are very loving, soon they would establish a hive and your goals would be obtained. It would be slow at first, as you only had enough to get three pupa, but you would get there eventually. You couldn’t stop yourself from checking the barn every few hours. 9 or 10 times each and every single day. The wait was torture. But finally, after about 12 days, you heard buzzing coming from the barn when you stepped out of your house in the morning, you practically tripped over yourself running back inside to grab the collars for them and then dashed back outside and across the field of flowers you had started to grow for them. You opened the door to the barn and… it was NOT what you were expecting. The three pupa were no longer in the cells you had packed them so lovingly into, but they sure as hell were not bees either. Instead, standing before you were three wasp-men. You knew what these were, genetically engineered human-wasp hybrids, that typically had smaller genetic contributions from several ant and bee species as well, that were typically used in highly regulated projects or otherwise extremely shady sources of labor on the very unregulated frontier planets. The question was how did you get them? Did someone’s order get mixed with yours? With how much energy and enthusiasm you opened the door with, they were all now intently staring at you, and to say that they were intimidating would have been an understatement. They all looked fairly similar to one another, red and yellow plates of chitinous exoskeletons covered their feet, arms, legs, chests, and backs. The only thing lacking the exoskeletons were their faces, abs, asses, and crotches. Which were very much exposed, showing off scarily long cocks and heavy balls. They had red bug-like eyes, they had fangs but otherwise regular mouths, but they sat between a set of wicked looking mandibles. Antenna twitched on their heads, sticking out from long blood red hair. Each had a set of large wings folded behind them. Their antennas twitched in your direction as they also sniffed the air curiously. Uh-oh. They were from a shady source so who knows how unpredictably they could act towards you, so you wisely decided to make a hasty retreat, but they quickly flew over to you and pulled you back deeper into the building. “Where’s the rush?” one of them inquired in a slightly buzzing but deep voice, “Me and my friends just woke up here and need some answers.” “Uh-uh okay, sure, what do you want to know?” The one speaking put his arm roughly around your waist and pulled you closer to him. “Well, we are looking for the person meant to be our queen, do you know where they are? Your scent is the only one here. Did you put us in the wall compartments?” “There isn’t any queen, but y-yeah I was the one who bought your pupa and put them in there.” He took a moment to feel you over with his antenna, it probably would have tickled had you not been scared shitless. “Sooo… you’re the queen? Or are you under someone??” “There isn't one! And I own this land and made this building for bees…” One of the other two wasp men chimed in at this. “Ha! Bees? Those weak passive ones that have no human in em and are about as smart as a pet dog? You’re lucky you got us instead, we are far superior!” The one holding you now much too tightly replied while flexing his free arm,”He’s right, we are much better. You really lucked out little queen~ We can keep you much safer.” He licked up your neck with a long narrow tongue making you shiver. “I told you, there isn’t a queen!” You were beginning to grow annoyed with the cyclic nature of this conversation. “You bought us? You own this territory? You put us in cells so we could grow?” “W-well yeah but… I’m n-not-” “You’re our queen then~ Don’t be scared we’ll keep you all safe from the big scary world! You’re far too weak and squishy to just be left alone.” “Ha! Yeah, just a pathetic squishy little human,” the third one that had been silent up until now chuckled as he poked you hard in the stomach. The one holding you grinded gently into your ass, his cock fully erect and prodding your cheeks. “This ass is soft too~ Bet it feels great inside, doesn’t it little queen?” “S-stop, please, I’m not a w-woman!” “Awe, our queen is a bit dumb too~ Good thing we came along to take care of you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think you’re our queen yet, we’ll rape you full of our eggs. You’ll look so lovely full of our spawn~” As he said all of this he began to gently rub his hand against your crotch and the other two hybrid men stepped closer. Between the unwanted touching and the mention of the word rape you decided it may be worth the risk to try and escape anyway, but your struggles didn’t last long. The man holding you shook you a bit violently until you were unsteady and still and then held the top of his wrist to your neck. A long thick black needle protruded from his wrist and was pointed at you threateningly. You turned away, trying to put as much space between your neck and the sinister looking needle as possible. “Maybe you aren’t too dumb, you know what this does don’t you my queen? It’ll hurt terribly before paralyzing you and allowing us to play with you at our leisure and make you fulfill your royal duty~” You let out a pathetic whimper in response. “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t want to use it. How can you squirm around my dick if I did? So just relax and let this happen the easier, more fun way, okay?” He nibbled on your earlobe and you went completely limp in his grasp, signaling that you wouldn’t put up anymore of a fight. “Heh heh, excellent choice, my queen~” The other two wasps chuckled cruelly as well as one pulled your shirt off and the other wasted no time in unburdening you of your pants and boxers. They stared at you hungrily. Your nudity only fueled your fear and you had to stifle your instinct to flail, thrash, punch, and run. But doing so would surely make things much worse for you, better to just let them have their way and get it over with and hope you could sneak out after maybe when they were sleeping or otherwise distracted. You could feel the cock of the hybrid behind you gently rubbing against your hole as he licked and bit at your neck. He bent down behind you and spread your cheeks, making you shudder as an inhumanly long tongue prodded your hole before sliding in deep, stretching you out gently as it probed and making you twitch and grow hard as it found and focused on your prostate. The genetics for their tongues definitely came from long tongued bees. The wasp man behind you got up and resumed pressing his cock into your hole. “Just getting you good and ready queen~” He whispered softly into your ear. His large cock mercifully massaged copious amounts of thick precum into you to prep you for breeding. At least the entry wouldn’t be unstretched or dry, because that’s not something you would have put past them. The other two wasps were busy rubbing their hands all over your body, rubbing your belly, groping your ass cheeks, stroking your face with surprising tenderness, and contrasting that with rough greedy groping of your soft thighs and tugging at your hair. As the one behind you slipped inside your well lubed ass a second wasp enveloped your hard cock entirely within its mouth while the third kissed you passionately, its tongue fervently exploring every inch of your mouth. You couldn’t even yell in pleasure or protest the pain of having your ass invaded by a large inhuman cock as the long thin went down your throat, making you gag a bit. Finally respecting your need to breathe, the wasp removed itself from your face and began biting your sensitive neck, adding to the complete overly stimulating waves of sensation already being caused by having your dick enveloped by a hot mouth and your prostate gently kissed by the rhythmic thrusts of the other two insectoid men. The one attending your cock took his free hand to massage your balls and that led you to possibly the quickest orgasm of your life. In any other situation you would have been totally humiliated, but you were long past having any dignity today. The one behind you did not relent in his fucking of you, but instead picked up the pace a bit as he felt your body shudder, the one sucking you off hungrily swallowed your load before licking his lips and getting up. “My, you were really pent up my queen, and you produce such sweet honey for me!” He pressed his lips to yours, letting the taste of your own cum permeate your mouth. Between the kiss and the constant pounding of your ass you whimpered as you were already hard again, the wasp that had previously had its tongue down your throat now replacing the one that swallowed your cum at your cock, kissing the sensitive organ before licking it and sucking your recently emptied nuts. You whimpered as they continued to manhandle your sensitive body. The one pumping into your tight hole finally slamming in hard and cumming forcefully, depositing something round and hard into you as he did, making you flinch a bit in surprise as you remembered that they reproduced via eggs, it did not really hurt, but you felt a tingling inside where the waspoid cum touched you. The cock inside you lingered a while as it filled you but once it slid out and away from you your ass’ rest was short lived. One of the wasps laid with his back on the ground and with his cock pointing up, the other two bringing you over to him and forcing you to lower yourself onto his eager, drooling, prick. Your well stretched hole slid on him easily and he gripped you tight and forced you up and down on his length. That special spot inside you was rubbed once more, making you shudder in unwilling pleasure, your body completely betraying you. The pace was slow enough for you, and surprisingly he seemed unwilling to seriously injure his “queen”. As you were finally getting used to the motions one of the other wasps, the one that had already filled your ass, came up behind and slid his cock back inside you with his friend’s so that you were now being plowed in tandem by the both of them. As you gasped from the sudden extra intrusion abusing your insides the third wasp took advantage of your open mouth and wasted no time in putting his dick in your open mouth. You could taste his precum, oddly enough it had just a slight soothing effect and you noticed it tasted of honey. Filled to the brim with cock, you started to get a bit more relaxed as time went on, not overly so. You were still very unwilling and any pleasure was purely physical, incidental, and frustrating, but whatever was in the honey like fluid dripping from his cock was definitely making you a bit less stiff and just a tad bit less defiant. While this was happening you thought you could remember hearing something about this, that modified wasp and bee species made substances that could calm down their queens when distressed, both in fluids and via pheromones. And now that you thought about it the musk that hung heavily in the air was strangely comforting, it was like the more of the precum that dripped down your throat the more you were affected by the smell that these men were giving off. Not nearly enough to really lose yourself though, it was far more subtle than that. It was also probably why you did not feel too much pain anymore despite two dicks pistoning your ass, as one cock thrust forward the other pulled back. All the while the one occupying your mouth was happily pumping away, content with enjoying the wet warmth of your mouth as he fed you more pre. Between all the sensations overtaking your body, the cocks sliding in and out of you, the pheromones and relaxing fluid, and the hands roaming over your sides, face, and thighs, you couldn’t help but blow another load, right on the wasp that was below you. “See? It feels good to be our queen, doesn’t it,” he asked with a mocking chuckle knowing full well it was just your body’s response and it didn’t mean you were enjoying your predicament. After several minutes the one making you suck him pulled out and moaned as he came all over your face, covering you in warm slippery fluid. There were no eggs in this ejaculation, he was certainly saving all of those to be deposited deep inside you to go along with his friend’s. Your skin tingled a bit where the cum touched you and you began to feel just a bit dizzy as your inhibitions slowly lowered just a bit and you became even more relaxed. The cum was much more potent than just the precum and the load up your ass was gradually affecting you as well. Musk permeating the air was much thicker than it had been, or maybe you just noticed it more now, but it was making you drool a bit and you couldn’t help but bounce back a bit against the dicks in your suddenly hungry hole. “I feel really weird… can we stop now…” You stifled a cry, something wasn’t right, you were much more sensitive than normal to everything and you were having difficulty thinking clearly. The wasps all smirked as they ignored you, knowing that their fluid was slowly turning you into a weak little queen they could worship and fill with egg after egg. It was slowly changing your very DNA, making you receptive to hybrid pheromones, making you crave them. The one that had previously unloaded in you pulled out and came all over your back. Moments later the one below you working you on his shaft like some kind of living sex toy slammed you down to the base of his cock and filled you deeply with even more eggs and semen, causing you to spasm and moan weakly with a dry orgasm of your own. “Fuck! You’re a great incubator!” While you were panting and trying to recover the wasp previously abusing your mouth unceremoniously pulled you off the cock you were on and gripped you tight from behind, his erection easily sliding in your cum leaking entrance. “Not done yet, being queen is very busy work, you have to take my eggs too~” “P-please no more, I-I feel funny,” you pleaded desperately as your head was swimming with mixed signals. You knew you didn’t want this but you were so light headed you could barely think, and now these wasp men smelled so alluring, and wouldn’t having more eggs in you feel so nice? “I-I n-need to s-stop…” You felt an instinctual need to keep letting them fill you up, but at the same time you were burning up and truly felt feeble and sick. “Shhh, shhh, just relax, okay? You have been such a good mate for us so far~” He licked a long stripe up your neck with his thin tongue and held you tighter as he continued grinding into you. Without warning he started flying a few feet in the air while still breeding you, his insect instincts telling him to give you a proper nuptial flight. In no time the other wasps joined in as well, both of them in front of you, tending to their precious queen. Rubbing you up and down, smearing the fluid that covered you into your skin, giving little kisses and nibbles, and caresses where they saw fit. They were a bit brutish, but they knew the transition occurring in all of your cells was a rough one and they wanted to help their queen embrace his new role as easily as possible, especially since you had been such a perfect weak little mate for them. You would have continued to beg for them to stop, but it felt so nice now. And it would have been so ungrateful. These nice men were taking care of you so sweetly, giving you lots of eggs to tend to, choosing you to take care of them. It made you feel fluttery in the pit of your stomach. You were so lucky. With a shudder the final load of eggs was unloaded into you, the wasp man behind you wrapping his legs around yours as he came. They all gently lowered you to the ground, one of them keeping you in his arms with you leaning against him and burying your head in his neck before passing out from sheer exhaustion. The wasps’ fluids were still hard at work rewriting your DNA, somewhat like a virus. It was definitely taking a toll on you. Your harem of wasp-men took you to your house and had you all washed up and bundled in your bed, keeping a dedicated vigil over you as you had a deep but feverish sleep. They did not like seeing you uncomfortable, unless it was from them teasing you. But they knew it would be worth it, when you woke up in a few days you would be totally dependent on them. Your new insect DNA demanding you to always be by one of them for safety and telling you that you would constantly need to be incubating their eggs. Their pheromones would comfort, alert, or arouse you based on what they needed to communicate and you would produce some as well that allowed them to track you and be aware of your condition. You’d even grow antenna and your skin would take a reddish tone. You would technically be a wasp hybrid yourself, but that would be the extent of your transformation. Just a weak incubator hopelessly dependent on them for the rest of your life.

[harveywritings92]

{Monster au.} R/n, singing while washing the dishes: Oh, you never see a vampire with a full grown beard, But a vampire can't see his reflection! So a lack of facial hair is unbelievably weird, 'Cause you'd think shaving would be out of the question.

{König and Ghost stare at her in disbelief while Gaz and Soap laugh.}

Soap (is a Werewolf), notices the two vamps staring: What? she’s not wrong! 

Gaz (he’s half siren-half human): For all the time we’ve known you two, we have never seen either of you shave once! And yet, the brief glimpses of side-chin we’ve seen are always smoother than a baby’s arse!

König: Hey we shave. It’s uh...It’s a hassle, but we shave!

Ghost: You mean I shave. The only thing you got going for you is that tiny patch of peach-fuzz you so lovingly call chest hair.

König:....*flips Ghost off.* Fick dich (Fck you).

[monstersandmaw]

Laces for a Lady - 18th century, poly, shifters x human romance - Chapter Five (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me. 

Here's chapter five! I've been blown away by your reaction and love for this story so far, and the fact that I've got two lots of fan art out of it as well has just totally humbled me. Thank you! You can find them here and here, by the way, as well as my own doodles of Locryn and Ned.

Anyway, here we have the Harvest Festival Dance, where all bets are off, and there's some angst and a sprinkling of drama for some *spice*...

Wordcount: 4203

Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), Part Four (sfw)

The night of the Lammas Festival dance ticked around in no time, and even though the focus of the festivities was the great barn and the yard outside, the whole of Heath Top House itself came alive.

The staff spent the entire day scouring the stone floor of the barn and setting out the long tables in the barn and preparing the feast, while Winnie and Nel tried not to get in their way while weaving and hanging decorative wreaths and festoons along the walls, and tying ribbons in bows on the huge doors.

As promised, Aggie had come to the house a few days before to teach the two ladies how to weave the traditional corn dollies, or Nests as they were called in these parts, much to Nel’s confusion. Her own hadn’t turned out too bad, despite her lack of skill with an embroidery needle, while Winnie’s was decidedly lumpy and misshapen. Still, they laughed and hung them in pride of place in the drawing room window, and Aggie had even managed a kind word about their efforts while gossipping about everyone in the village.

“Little Betsie Carne is going to get a proposal from Arthur, you can count on that, and Meg has been leading poor Jack on something dreadful. If he can get a word out without turning red as an autumn apple to ask her to dance on Lammas night, I’ll eat this whole Neck with gravy and turnips!” she cackled, waving her own intricate corn dolly at them like a cook with a wooden spoon while they all laughed.

Nel refrained from asking about whether Edmund Nancarrow or Locryn Trevethan would be seen with anyone, though she was curious if the older woman had noticed their seemingly obvious adoration for one another. Perhaps it was one of those things that everyone knew about and simply didn’t mention in case it brought unwanted attention down on them, much like the smuggling and Free Trade in the area. Nel was not one to rock the proverbial boat, and kept her focus on the plaited strand of corn in her fingers, all the while remembering the way Locryn had crowded close to Edmund on the quayside and the sound of his smouldering voice as he’d growled soft endearments at him under his breath.

On the night of the dance itself, the trestle tables in the barn stretched all the way down its length, and were flanked by long benches for seating, and the stall doors of the stables along the edges of the barn each sported a different wreath and a coloured ribbon.

Blackthorn immediately ate the enormous sunflower that had been at the top of her wreath with great relish, and Nel fell about laughing while the black mare blithely scattered yellow petals all over the floor while Winnie looked honestly heartbroken. The stable hand nearby chuckled too, and Nel moved the remainder of the wreath to a spot where Blackthorn’s pincer teeth couldn't reach.

As dusk fell and the lanterns were lit around the yard and in the barn, Nel continued to help the staff where she could until Winnie emerged and called her name into the dying afternoon. It was so unlike her that Nel nearly dropped the basket of hazelnuts she’d been carrying. Liddy, a kitchen servant, gently took it from her and chirped, “Best see what she wants, Miss Nel.”

The slight glow of affection that she felt whenever the household called her ‘Miss Nel’ instead of ‘Miss Bywater’ or even ‘Miss Eleanor’ hadn’t faded since she’d first heard them start it up, and she offered Liddy a quick smile and her thanks as she handed the basket over and scuttled over to Winnie on the threshold of the manor house.

Winnie laughed and dragged her by the wrist through the house as though they were both barely fourteen, not twenty-five and thirty. “Come on! The guests will start arriving any minute and you’re still wearing that horrible brown dress! And it’ll take me at least an hour to style your hair properly…”

In the end, her hair only took twenty minutes, though that was more because Nel’s wild tresses refused to be properly curled and even Winnie simply gave up, but it was a good couple of hours before they were both fully dressed and ready, and dusk had well and truly fallen outside.

Winnie led her arm-in-arm across the hallway to the front door of the hall, where her father and mother in law were standing and smiling. “You both look beautiful,” Lady Mary said, speaking first to Winnie but surprising Nel by including the young woman in her gaze too.

“Shall we go?” Lady Mary asked her husband, who nodded and a servant opened the door for them.

Nel’s breath caught when she saw how the staff had finished off the decorations, with lamps settled on the ground all around the courtyard, candles glinting within them, and festoons of foliage and flowers around the edges of the open space. The shrill piping of a tin whistle and the steady, heartbeat rhythm of a drum kept a leaping fiddle carefully in time as the music rose above the chatter and laughter in the barn beyond, and she walked with Winnie towards the celebrations that were already kicking off by the sound of things.

Nel recognised many of the faces from the farm and estate workers, as well as a few from the village, and she caught Agatha’s eye as the old woman beamed at her while laughing with the man beside her. Nel grinned at her and slipped away from Winnie to hug the woman.

“Dearie, you look right lovely,” Agatha said as she released her and gazed up and down at her embroidered green dress. “Doesn’t she, Martin?” she asked, and her husband nodded enthusiastically.

They glanced around the great barn and smiled at the sight of all the horses poking their noses over their stall doors, clearly wondering what the fuss was all about. Blackthorn had a piece of hay in her dark forelock, and Nel had just thought about going over to pick it out for her when Lord Penrose cleared his throat and tapped a knife against the edge of his glass, calling for silence.

Although he wasn’t as popular with the local folk as Winnie herself was, people fell silent quickly to listen to him. Just as he opened his mouth to begin, however, one of the carthorses near the back of the barn broke wind and let rip an enormous noise that made everyone go completely still and then burst out laughing. Once one person started, the cacophony rose and people slapped the table and guffawed, and even Blackthorn joined in with a shrill neigh of her own before things eventually sputtered back to quiet.

Nel covered her mouth with her hand and turned her face into Agatha’s shoulder, still shaking with silent laughter, but just as she shut her eyes, she saw Edmund Nancarrow standing nearby, biting his own lips together to keep from laughing. When their gaze met, it was all over for Nel and she whickered out a shuddering breath that was just the right side of decent to escape Lord Penrose’s attention as everyone else gained control of themselves.

“Yes, well… quite,” the older man chirped around a tight smile of his own. “Well, after such a crude reminder from Old Flint there for me to keep things brief, I would just like to thank all of you for your hard work and dedication this year. I believe this was a record harvest for us, and I hope you know how valued you all are as my tenants. None of this would be possible without your daily hard work. Providing a feast like this is a truly inadequate way of thanking you, but I hope you enjoy it all the same. Please…”

And with a gesture and a wordless toast, he raised his glass and everyone cheered.

Nel glanced back at Edmund, who was then looking in the other direction and speaking to a young woman in a dark blue dress, so Nel used the brief opportunity to take in the slender lines of his body in the wine red coat he wore. Angular and handsome, he was quick to laugh, and he ducked his head shyly as he ushered his companion forward ahead of him to the trestle table to help herself before him.

The motion left him standing alone, and Nel slipped free of Agatha to join him.

He watched her approach and bowed his head as she joined him. “Miss Bywater,” he said in his quiet tenor.

“Mr. Nancarrow,” she said. “Old Flint got things off to a good start,” she giggled, and Edmund snickered like a schoolboy again.

 She could see an endless well of mirth in the depths of his brown eyes and didn’t trust herself not to laugh along with him if he started up again in earnest.

“And here I thought it was going to be my dear Blackthorn causing all the trouble,” she went on, nodding at the black mare as she popped her head curiously over her stable and sniffed curiously at the tankard of cider someone was holding in their hand while talking and facing in the opposite direction. “She’s a bit of a menace, but she’s a sweetheart too.”

Edmund looked very much as though he wanted to talk, to say something in response, but perhaps his innate shyness got in the way and he just swallowed thickly and he smiled one of those devastating, dimpled smiles instead.

“No Locryn tonight?” she asked quietly, and he smiled to show he wasn’t anxious about the topic.

“He said he might come later,” he said. “He doesn’t tend to have much to do with the village, even at big events like this one.” He finished the statement with another bashful smile that lit him up from the inside out, and she fought down a wave of selfish jealousy; she would have been lying if she’d said she didn’t want someone to smile like that at the thought of her.

“Can’t say I imagine him being overly comfortable at a gathering like this,” she ventured, and Edmund snorted.

“No. It’s a shame though,” he added with a glance at the musicians near the back of the barn. “He loves music.”

“Let’s hope he shows up then,” she said. “I’ve been to my fair share of gatherings and balls in London, but this is already ten times more fun.”

A hand at her elbow made her start and she looked round just as Winnie giggled and squeezed her arm. “There you are,” she said, and then her eyes fell on Edmund and her smile grew. “Oh.”

She clearly recognised him, but didn’t know his name, so Nel turned and said, “Winnie, this is Mr. Edmund Nancarrow. He is assistant to Mr. Fordyce.”

“Oh, a tailor!” she beamed, with a rosy flush in her cheeks. “How talented! You must never, ever be allowed to see my embroidery, Mr. Nancarrow,” she said with the perfect sincerity of the very tipsy. “Nel’s isn’t much better though. Dreadful, actually, but you didn't hear it from me.”

Nel gave a laugh through her nose and began to steer Winnie towards the table, and towards a glass of water. With a look back over her shoulder, she said to Edmund, “Will you excuse us before Winnie drops any more embarrassing truths about my shortcomings? Give her another glass of Mr. Meddlar’s cider, and she’ll be telling everyone how bad I am at the fortepiano too. At least I can speak French to a passable degree. Come on, Winnie…”

Edmund was smiling again as if she’d told him the world’s funniest secret, and when the young woman who’d been with him earlier joined and immediately led him away by the elbow with the air of a close friend who needs to know every detail of recent events, he shook his head fondly and indulged her.

Nel lost track of him after that. She and Winnie sat down together near the head of the table to enjoy the glorious roast beef and pork pie and boiled vegetables that had been prepared for the feast.

“Who was that young man you were talking to?” Winnie asked about an hour into the festivities, having soaked up a little of the cider with some supper. “He was rather handsome…”

Shaking her head, Nel reached for her own wine glass and sipped from it. “His name is Edmund Nancarrow. He’s Mr. Fordyce’s assistant.”

“You told me that,” Winnie said flatly. “That wasn’t what I meant. You seemed…”

“Don’t,” she sighed, and whatever bitter, sad undertone carried in the single word, Winnie caught it and let the matter lie.

Instead, the young widow closed her hand around Nel’s forearm and leaned in close. “Make sure you dance with whomever you like tonight, mmm? There are no rules at the Harvest Dance, and no one will think anything of whatever happens tonight.”

She didn’t reply, but she mulled her friend’s words over while they ate dessert, and when the merry drone of the bagpipes started up outside in the courtyard and the people began to line up, Nel followed Winnie and tried to take part as best she could. Nel had never danced most of the country dances they all seemed to know there though, and after embarrassing herself by stumbling through a few sets under Winnie’s rather chaotic directions on the fly, she slipped away and strolled along the barn towards Blackthorn’s stall, snagging an apple from the table on the way.

The horse whickered, low and warm when she opened the door and slipped inside the dark stall, and while the heat of the dancing faded a little from her cheeks, she stroked the mare’s velvet nose and fed her chunks of apple until it was all gone.

The mare’s ears pricked forwards suddenly and Nel turned to see Edmund slowly sinking down onto one of the long, empty benches outside the stall.

He had a tight expression of pain on his face and he seemed to be breathing carefully through the sharp discomfort in his leg with the practised pattern of someone who deals with chronic pain on a daily basis.

Aware that she was intruding on his privacy, she had just begun to turn back to the mare when she heard Edmund laugh quietly and she glanced over her shoulder again to see Locryn’s massive form sliding onto the bench beside him.

He wore an undyed linen shirt that was open a little at the neck, and simple brown trousers and boots, but somehow he had the presence of a lord in a great hall, and she found herself transfixed. He pulled Edmund against his side for a moment and then, from what she could see from her limited angle, he appeared to lay his big hand quietly on Edmund’s painful hip. After a few long, measured breaths, Edmund simply melted into his supportive touch, allowing the bulk of the bigger man to buttress him up entirely, and he half closed his eyes in the relative privacy of the shadowed barn.

The noises of dancing and merriment drifted down the empty table, over the abandoned plates and tankards, and for a time, everything stayed perfectly, timelessly still.

Nel hardly dared breathe, let alone turn around, in case her skirts dragged on the straw and disturbed the couple by alerting them to her presence.

Blackthorn scraped her hoof along the stall floor a few moments later, shattering the silence with the jarring sound, and she nudged at Nel’s hand for more apple. Using the shuffling of the horse to mask her own movements, she turned her back on the two men to breathe in the scent of the mare’s glossy coat.

She rubbed her cheek against the silky hair on Blackthorn’s neck and slowly buried her fingers in the dense, dark coat that was starting to grow as the year turned colder. Tears prickled hot around her eyes as she was struck starkly by the force of her loneliness, despite her friendship with Winnie. The sting of knowing she would probably never curl up with a man in bed, never feel his hand resting on her hip, never hear him sigh with pleasure or feel his lips brush over her neck, suddenly seemed all the sharper with the knowledge that just outside the stable were two people who meant the world to each other.

With a huge sigh, she pressed a kiss to Blackthorn’s neck and prepared to walk out with her head held at a dignified angle, politely ignoring Edmund and Locryn as she left and went back to the manor house for the night.

Instead, she turned around and found Locryn leaning his huge, bare forearms on the stable door immediately behind her, and nearly leapt out of her skin. How on earth he’d moved so silently, she couldn’t fathom.

He offered her a lopsided grin and opened the door for her as she approached. “Not hiding in there, are you, Miss?” he asked as he stepped back, and, comically, both Nel and the mare made to leave the stall together.

Nel turned around and glared pointedly at the horse, who tossed her head, snorted, and then promptly turned her quarters around and stuck her nose in the hay trough on the back wall without so much as a farewell nicker for the apple.  

“No?” Nel grimaced at Locryn, nodding her thanks as he secured the door behind her. “Truth be told, I got fed up with tripping over my own feet in dances I don’t really know, and I wanted to make sure Blackthorn didn’t feel too left out. You’re not dancing either, I take it?”

“Me?” he laughed, the oddly delighted sound carrying easily over the deserted table and echoing around the otherwise empty barn. “You think anyone wants to partner up with me?”

“Why ever wouldn't they?” she asked with a frown, stopping abruptly and staring up at him. He was nearly a foot taller than her, and so broad and muscular in the confines of the dimly-lit barn that he seemed almost like a giant out of a fairytale.

“You saying you would?” he countered, one thick, steel-grey eyebrow rising.

“I —” her gaze flickered to Edmund, who was sitting on the bench and watching the exchange with a wry twist to his lips that made his dark eyes glitter. “If I were halfway decent at dancing, and if you asked me, I might,” she told Locryn archly. “But I didn’t think you liked anyone else here enough to want to dance with them, let alone me.”

At that, a little of the playful laughter faded from his green eyes and he took half a step back. “Now why would you think I don’t like you, Miss?” he asked, arms folding across his chest. The movement pulled the fabric of his undyed shirt across his shoulders and accentuated the enormous muscles of his arms and chest, and she looked down at the ground before answering him. Some of the heat from her earlier dancing returned to her cheeks and refused to leave a second time.

“Well,” she mumbled, “For starters… you glowered at me something fierce the first time I came to Polgarrack, and you nearly knocked me flying off the cliff when you brought Mr. Nancarrow up from the sands. You didn't even check to see if you’d toppled me over the edge in your haste.”

“Forgive me for caring about —” he hissed and stopped himself from saying what Edmund truly meant to him and ground his teeth. “You weren’t in any danger,” he said with a clenched jaw.

“Perhaps not,” she conceded, “And you did redeem yourself somewhat by helping me onto Blackthorn afterwards.” The way his huge hand had lingered around her ankle joint had lived far longer in her mind than it had any right to. “Fine. Are you saying you would genuinely dance with me?”

“You saying you want to? Thought you weren’t enjoying the dancing… Two left feet and all…”

She rolled her eyes and flapped her hands a little in frustration. “Oh, you’re impossible. Forget the whole thing. I was going to call it a night anyway.” She looked over at Edmund, who was just barely holding back a laugh at his lover’s antics. “Mr. Nancarrow, I wish you good night. I hope you and Locryn enjoy the music. God knows, I think I’ve had quite enough of all of it.” Her cheeks were stinging and it had nothing to do with the exertion after dancing.

With that, she turned and walked briskly towards the open doors of the barn, her chest churning with the strange and unsettling feeling that she’d either been flirted with or made a fool of, and she couldn’t tell which it was. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

“Wait!” Locryn's bass voice was soft, and she almost missed it over the shrill piping and rapid-fire scraping of the fiddler outside, but she stopped all the same.

Slowly, she turned and found him walking towards her with a completely new expression on his face. With his green eyes wide and dark, he looked contrite and abashed, and behind him she could just make out Edmund, leaning his elbow against the table while he drank deeply from a wine goblet as if to hide a smile.

“If I asked you, would you dance with me?” Locryn asked in a low rumble.

A little suspicious, she frowned and jutted her chin back towards Edmund. “What about…?” she asked carefully.

Locryn shook his head. “He asked me to ask you. He knows I like dancing, and it’s not something he’s comfortable doing.”

“You like dancing?”

The mountain of a man just nodded.

“And you’re not making fun of me?” she asked.

“No,” he breathed. “I’m sorry if I made you think I was just now. I was just having a laugh with you. You give as good as you get, and I like that.”

She smiled and held out her hand, palm down. “Alright then. One dance. And if I tread on your feet or trip over, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I won’t let you trip over,” he said with a smile that showed his thick canines and made his eyes glint. Despite all that, she trusted him, and let him lead her out of the barn and towards the dancing.

A few people looked at them as they joined the end of the line for the next set, but true to his word, Locryn neither embarrassed her nor let her embarrass herself. His big, rough hands were gentle as he turned her under his arm, and he moved with surprising lightness of foot for someone his size. And he really did enjoy the music. She saw it in the way his eyes lit up and his lips curved into an attractive, heartfelt smile. He picked her up by the hips and floated her down to the ground again in a turn that left her dizzy, with two points of heat searing into her skin where his hands had been, if only for a second or two.

The set passed in a blur of lines weaving in and out of each other; of steel grey hair and dark green eyes and wolfish smiles that lit her up inside. From time to time, since they were on the end of the line, she caught glimpses of Edmund’s pale face watching from the shadows of the barn, and each time she saw him, he was smiling.

And then it was over almost before she’d even realised it.

They stared in breathless silence at each other for several pounding heartbeats while the rest of the dancers cheered and applauded the musicians, but Nel couldn’t tear her eyes from his. They were as green as the sea on a summer evening, and there was an otherworldly glow about him that drew her in like the promise of soothing waves after a long and thirsty day in the sun.

For some reason she could almost taste saltwater on her tongue.

There was a pounding in her ears like the thunder of distant surf and she couldn’t catch her breath.

Locryn leaned down and she watched the very tip of his tongue move to wet his upper lip. For a wild, wonderful moment, she thought he was going to kiss her.

Someone bumped into her from behind, sending her lurching a step towards him and he steadied her where he still held her hands in his rough, rope-callused fingers.

The moment vanished like sea foam and she swallowed, looking up at him. He looked as stunned as she did.

“No wonder he’s so in love with you,” she whispered, blinking back tears. She bobbed a tiny, stiff curtsy. “I thank you for the dance, Mr. Trevethan.”

Without waiting long enough for him to react, she turned and walked as quickly as she dared back to the house.

__

Uh-oh... :)

Next chapter ->

I hope you’re enjoying it and I hope you’ll consider reblogging as well as leaving a like if you enjoyed it. Take care of yourselves, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

| Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

[somuchspice]

Am I back on my coloring streak? Maaaybe... we’ll see... anyway, here’s a WIP.

Ps. If you like my ns*w stuff, you can follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/spicyprogress where posts don’t get nuked :D Or if you prefer tumblr, follow my spice headquarters where I reblog everything from the spice blogs; https://ifailedthem.tumblr.com/

[crow-jx]

Wasp boyfriends

[frankly-art]

I said to expect more of my own stuff to come soon, and I wasn’t kidding! 🕺 Here are my loverboys Vashti 🐍 & Sylbán 🐇 enjoying an intimate, moonlit moment alone together 🥂💖

In fact, this was my first draft of a piece to celebrate this year’s Pride Month! The more I worked on it, though, the more I thought a proper Pride piece ought to have a bit more iconography, so I decided to finish this as a follow-up instead. Plus, just like MerMay, around here, Pride is a year-round occasion! 🏳️‍🌈👬👭👫🏳️‍⚧️

Wanna know a little more about these two? Check under the cut for some more info—and an NSFW version! 🐍💖🐇

✨💖 BUY ME A COFFEE! 💖✨ Check me out on: Instagram | Twitter | deivantArt | ArtStation

🐇 Sylbán is an athletic and energetic young rabbit with a righteous sense of justice who hails from a city under the strict control of a tyrannical cult. Having lost much of his family to disease, Sylbán seeks a way to save what little family he has left, even if it means going against the cult’s strict doctrines against the use of medicine. His proximity to death and disease throughout his life has led Sylbán to focus greatly on his own health, even to an obsessive degree.

🐍 Vashti, a physician, operates a hospital hidden in the jungle surrounding the city, where he cares for the people who who live outside the city’s limits, as well as those spurned by the cult’s fervent adherents. Though revered by his patients and peers alike—receiving such accolades in the form gold, jewels, and fine foods and wines—Vashti is a reclusive old snake, and for years has resigned himself to a quiet life of leisure, literature, and drink.

➡️ While the two meet under less than ideal circumstances, together, they both give each other something that was missing from their lives on their own: for Sylbán, Vashti offers stability, insight, and—let’s not forget—actual healthcare; and for Vashti, Sylbán is exactly the kind of person to pull him out of his slump and get him excited about the what the world has to offer again. As their commitment to each other grows, perhaps they’ll be able to inspire others to rise against the cult that has troubled their homes for so long? 

[dobodleaday]

10.25.23 Drawtober Day 25: Werewolf ❤️ Vampire 🐺🦇

[elderidgeart]

It was mutual.

[dyrewrites]

Pale Blood - that tender moment that got away from me

Shadows devoured the room in the absence of morning’s focused gaze. But with their heat cooled to smoldering warmth in the sleeping breaths they shared, the occupants of its only bed glowed...

And, like the warmth, Delmas’ frustration smoldered in another tangle of hair in his fingers and stifled laughter from the one attached to it.

“Your hair is indignant,” he groaned, pulling the braid apart to try again—refusing to attribute the difficulty to the continued nudity of the man in his lap.

“Indignant?” Den asked, laughter bubbling beneath.

“Yes, indignant,” he said with a tug and groan, “it’s tanglin’ up to spite me.”

Bent over his own crossed legs—near as tangled as his hair—Den could hardly roll with the laughter that craved it...so he shook.

Delmas tugged harder, to the sounds of greater laughter, but smiled as he teased, “So glad my misery amuses.”

“Well,” Den said, struggling to muffle giggles in the sheets, “if it makes you feel any better you’re doing better at it than most,” and wiggling deeper into Delmas’ lap, he asked, “do you sit naked with strange men’s hair in your hands often?”

Innocuous the question, flirtatious and light, it hung heavy between them, swelling the silence as fingers worked through Den’s hair—their tugs gentle, their touch electrifying.

And, with the handfuls of another man’s hair spiking in his memories—white-gold and cinnamon spiced—Delmas had no desire to pop that silence. But he did, without answering the question, “You’re not that strange. And I’m done.”

Wincing in the uneasy tone, Den felt the offered hair, nodded his approval and untangled from Delmas’ legs to thank him with tender lips and possessive hands. A kiss returned, rougher, hungrier—as the one offering sought to drown another—and Den slid a hand down Delmas’ stomach, hunting for gasping breaths with a firm grip.

[letzoespoilyoucreates]

[obsessivevoidkitten]

What if the farmer tried to take control of the farm animals like leashing the dog men, trying to tie the centaurs and bull men up?

They would probably laugh and take control. One or two of them might indulge the reader and let the reader think they had control buuuut... Well when they get bored of that... let's just say it isn't the fields that will be getting plowed on that farm.

[duck-n-clover]

day 8 for the 13 days of Halloween!! its cute monsters Ollie and Trucks! they're on a date to Trucks' favorite hangout :) don't mind all the signs and caution tape its fine! :) anywhere they're together is exactly where they wanna be 💚💙

Trucks is @darby-draws oc ;)

find more 13 days of halloween stuff here!

[monstersandmaw]

Laces for a Lady - 18th century, poly, shifters x human romance - Chapter Four (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me. 

Well, thank you to the people who've shown enough interest not only to make my mood the best it's been in months, but who made chapter four happen tonight! As I said earlier, I can't keep this pace of posting up because it's currently only written to chapter 6, but if you keep reblogging with such sweet tags and comments, it might keep me writing like a little gremlin anyway! Who knows!?

Contents: fluff, friendship, some wistful and slightly angsty longing, Locryn and Edmund being adorably obvious, and Nel thinking about the coming harvest festival dance, to which all the locals are invited... Wordcount: 2825

I've been listening to this track on repeat while writing, if you want some appropriate ambience...

Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw)

For the following three days after leaving Locryn Trevethan’s cottage, Nel felt off-kilter and kept to Heath Top House, and every night, she dreamed of the sea.

She’d always been a vivid dreamer, but these were something else. Sometimes it was simply the rush and whisper of the tide on the sand, and the incoming gallop of endless white horses, but other times it was much more than that.

In the murky shadows beneath timeless kelp forests, something shifted, eel-like and strange. It coiled and twisted like a ribbon in the current, and she caught flashes and impressions of mottled green-brown skin, translucent fins, and a mouth full of teeth like needles, and a rolling, golden-green eye, and she surfaced from sleep gasping, with a name half remembered on her tongue.

She dreamed of Edmund Nancarrow too.

She dreamed of his pale, elegant hands and the way his smooth-shaven cheek had dimpled when he smiled up at her from Locryn’s bed. Strangely she dreamed of him wrapped in the silvery fur of that seal skin, lying on smooth sand, naked save for that pelt beneath him, looking up at her adoringly on the smooth sand of the cove while something shifted and circled in the water behind her with a covetous hunger.

As a scorching July drew to a close, the dreams faded and finally ceased, but while Nel was certainly grateful to get a full night’s sleep, she couldn’t help but miss that odd sense of connection they gave her; the feeling of belonging that she had never experienced before.

The days turned from searing to sultry, and the golden evenings stretched warm and luxurious as a cat by the hearth. Nel made a few visits into Polgarrack, but most of the time she either walked with Winnie around the gardens, or rode Blackthorn alone around the Penrose estates and read in the afternoons. Her days took on a gentle, lulling pattern that seemed to match the motion of the tide as much as the ticking of a clock.

Two weeks after the storm which had nearly claimed Edmund Nancarrow’s life, Winnie practically skipped into the library where Nel had been reading in the window seat for the past hour.

The sun cast long, languorous, red lines through the room and set the chandelier and the mirror on the wall sparkling. Winnie had shattered the still silence by exclaiming that the annual harvest festival dance was to be held in the great barn at Heath Top House on the first of August, and that all of the village was invited.

“I quite forgot to tell you about it, and I was reminded just this afternoon when I heard some of the farm hands talking about clearing the barn for the Lammas Dance. You’ll want a new dress, of course,” Winnie added matter-of-factly, as if she were simply stating that the sea was wet.

“What’s wrong with my dresses?” Nel asked with mock indigence, and Winnie cackled.

Nel’s chest lit up like the glowing sunset outside on hearing the elegant young lady laugh like that, and her blue eyes glittered with new life and vigour in a way they hadn’t when Nel had first arrived at the end of spring. Winnie had always been pretty, if pale and gaunt, but now in the glow of the rich summer light, she looked beautiful.

Her grief would always be there, hand in hand with her love for James, but Winnie had grown strong enough to bear her grief most days now, and to carry it about with her instead of letting it drag her down and swamp the joy from every moment of her life.

“Well, at least get some new trim for that light green one you haven’t worn yet,” Winnie said with one eyebrow raised.

So it was that Nel found herself being politely bullied into buying trim for the unworn dress late one afternoon. They took two horses from the stables instead of going in a carriage, and although Winnie wasn’t as good a rider as Nel after her summer of practice and her slightly wild childhood, they managed a sedate canter together along the clifftop path before slowing to a walk to descend into the cove where the buildings of Polgarrack nestled like so many barnacles on the rocky coastline.

They stabled Blackthorn and Rose at The Lantern, and walked arm in arm up the steep street away from the harbour and towards the aptly-named Clifftop Street. Ribbons and trim dangled all around them like flags at a May Day dance, and they spent longer than Nel expected in there, choosing trim for her dress.

Winnie laughed and let Nel hold up ribbons against her hair as if the two of them were frivolous children, not young ladies who should have behaved with a touch more decorum. Mrs. Gwinnel just watched them with a knowing smile on her lips from behind the counter though, and when she caught Nel’s eye, she inclined her head in a way that spoke of approval before she looked pointedly at Winnie, whose radiant happiness was obvious in such close quarters.

Something swelled in Nel’s ribcage at that simple gesture. She felt not only ‘seen’, but welcomed as one of their own. She had not been born in Polgarrack — not even in Cornwall — and while she’d hardly been treated rudely, folks other than Aggie had definitely been wary of someone who had travelled two hundred miles, alone, from where they were born, to live among strangers. Now though, they felt just a little less like strangers, and a little more like friends. Perhaps even cautiously like her people.

With their ribbons and trim purchased, they stepped outside again and walked together down the street to the harbour, discussing the Lammas Dance, and the corn dollies — or ‘Necks’ as Winnie called them according to local tradition — they would make to decorate the windowsills of the house. “I’m sure Aggie will show you how it’s done,” Winnie said as they came across the carter’s wife huffing up the hill.

“Show you how what’s done, m’lady?” she panted, putting one hand on her hip to catch her breath while the other was hefted a basket full of jars and pots.

“Show Nel here how to make a good Cornish Neck,” Winnie said, and Aggie’s eyes lit up. “I would offer but I’m sure mine would be terribly wonky.”

“Oh, of course!” Agatha beamed. “You just let me know when, and I’ll come over to Heath Top and give you a lesson. Both of you, if you wish it.”

They laughed and said they’d appreciate a visit whenever Aggie had the time, and the older woman flushed at the courtesy and nodded before excusing herself and labouring on up the hill.

“She’s kind,” Nel smiled after her.

“Most people here are,” Winnie said with a touch of wistfulness to her words. “They were very kind to me after James died. They loved him. He was a good employer to them at the mine. Not like the Cranmoore workings,” she added darkly, and then sighed and waved a hand to dismiss the matter. “But I don’t want to talk about that now. It’s such a beautiful evening.”

Nel knew that a lot of the workers who now laboured in Winnie’s — formerly James’ — mines had come from the Cranmoore works when conditions had grown especially dangerous, and the owners had done nothing to try to secure the tunnels. She reached for her friend’s elbow and gripped it gently. “They love you too, Winnie. You’re a fair employer and you look after them.”

She nodded, and they let the matter lie.

The iodine and salt tang of the harbour hit her nose above the soft wafting of Winnie’s perfume as the two of them rounded the corner, still linked arm in arm, and up ahead Nel spotted Edmund Nancarrow leaning against the low harbour wall, watching a small boat rowing in. He wore a soft smile on his pretty lips, and he looked simultaneously relaxed and excited. She was glad to see him looking hale again, given that the last time she’d seen him — outside of those strange dreams, of course — he had looked the next thing to crossing over.

Nel followed his gaze and, just where she’d half expected, she found the hulking figure of Locryn at the oars of the small skiff that ploughed through the glassy waters of the harbour. If her eyes lingered on the breadth of his shoulders and the curve of his biceps beneath the linen shirt he wore, she could hardly be blamed. She certainly wasn’t the only one. If Edmund was trying to be subtle about his infatuation, he wasn’t being successful at all. As if he felt her gaze on him though, Edmund twitched around a moment later and flushed when he discovered her watching him. He did muster a quick, shy smile for her though, and he knuckled his forehead politely.

Taking that as a sign that her presence was not entirely unwelcome, Nel slipped away from Winnie with a whispered, “Just a moment.”

Winnie arched an eyebrow but offered no comment beyond a very slight smile, and she carried on along the harbour road alone towards the sea wall that jutted out to protect the small port from the worst of the storms.

Edmund pushed himself off the wall, leaning on the cane in his left hand and carefully keeping his weight off his right leg. “Miss Bywater,” he said as she joined him.

“Mr. Nancarrow,” she smiled. “I’ve not seen you since the beach. I hope you’re well?”

“Yes, Miss Bywater,” he said, his warm eyes narrowing as he smiled. “And I must thank you again. I don’t remember very much about that day, but Lock — Locryn — told me what you did for me. I’m… I’m in your debt. I hope you’ll forgive me for not coming up to the house to thank you,” he added, looking chagrined. His pale cheeks flushed nearly scarlet, and he dropped his gaze to the cobblestones. “I wasn't sure it would be… uh… appropriate, if you follow…” And he cast half an eye towards Winnie, who was still strolling blithely along the gentle curve of the harbour in the sunshine some way away.

Where Nel’s hair was a little windswept and her riding habit somehow rumpled despite her best efforts, Winnie looked a vision in her foaming, sky blue dress with her bonnet affixed to her golden hair as if it had only just been placed there. Nel tried not to feel jealous of the woman’s delicate grace, but Edmund didn’t seem to have eyes for Winnie any more than he did for Nel. Of course, that was probably because he was only making polite conversation with Nel while waiting for Locryn to alight from his skiff and join him on the quayside.  

She shook her head to shake her thoughts into order. “I’m just glad you’re alright, and that Mr. Trevethan was nearby. I dread to think how I would have managed otherwise.”

“Indeed.” His eyes flickered down to the folded ribbon in her fingers but he didn’t say anything else.

“For the harvest festival,” she said, gesturing with it. “Winnie tells me I need to look presentable, though I can’t imagine who she’s trying to pair me off with.”

“Any man there would be lucky to dance with you, miss,” he said in his warm, slightly husky tenor, and his cheeks flushed again.

Nel gave a trill of laughter at that, and snorted indelicately, though not unkindly. “I think my chances of finding a man who thinks himself ‘lucky to dance with me’ are fast slipping away these days, but I appreciate your kindness all the same,” she said.

Edmund looked like he had been about to contradict her, but an earsplittingly shrill whistle from the water directly below them stole their attention and they turned to find Locryn tying up his skiff. “Give an old man a hand, would you?” he called to Edmund without looking up.

“You’re forty-two,” Edmund grinned without budging. “Hardly old. Get yourself out. You’d as soon pull me in as I’d pull you up.”

“If you ate more, you wouldn’t be so damned skinny,” Locryn grumbled, hauling himself up the metal ladder and onto the quayside to join them. Nel took a polite step or two back, but Locryn didn’t even seem to have noticed her standing there.

“You like me skinny,” Edmund muttered under his breath as Locryn joined him. Nel didn’t think that had been intended for her ears, and she felt her face heat this time.

“I like you however you are, selkie,” Locryn growled back under his breath, the sound just as heated and full of intent.

For a wild moment, Nel thought he was going to take Edmund’s face in his hands and kiss him where anyone could see, but he just stood there smouldering at him and looming over him until Edmund flushed and looked away.

Nel assumed that the unfamiliar word ‘selkie’ was some Cornish term of endearment and dismissed it, and it seemed all but confirmed when Edmund stiffened suddenly and glanced back at her with his dark eyes wide. Locryn’s tanned cheeks also turned a shade darker when he finally realised they were not alone, but he stared resolutely at her, as if daring her to make a comment.

She smiled to reassure them, hoping that she somehow managed to convey that whatever the nature of their relationship, it didn’t bother her, and that she wouldn’t speak of it. She inclined her head politely to Locryn, trying not to let that glaze of sadness fill her face again as she beheld two people so clearly in love with each other. Had Winnie and James been like that with each other too?

Yet again, Nel reminded herself that that chapter was fast closing to her now.

“Mr. Nancarrow, Mr. Trevethan,” she said and cursed the slight, choking tremble in her voice. “I wish you both the very best of afternoons.”

With what she thought was admirable amount of self-possession, she turned and walked along the quayside with the intention of joining Winnie where she had halted in the sunshine some way up the harbour road.

“We’ll see you at the harvest dance!” Edmund called suddenly after her, and she heard the soft sound of a jovial punch connecting some way behind her.

Glancing back, she saw that Locryn had playfully thumped Edmund in the chest, and the latter was rubbing his sternum comically while Locryn laughed loudly. The rich sound rolled up from his soft belly and he tipped his head back, looking truly delighted while Edmund flushed a very dark red and scowled petulantly at him. They caught her staring and she just offered a tiny smile. She could feel that it didn’t go all the way to her eyes, and she turned away as her vision blurred a little. It certainly had nothing to do with the salt-wind gusting in off the sea.

The memory of the two of them sat in her mind for the rest of the day, and even Winnie noted her quiet mood that night at dinner. “Did something happen in town?” she asked quietly as she set down her silver spoon after dessert.

Nel shook her head. “No.”

After a long pause, while Winnie’s father-in-law continued to bore his poor wife into a stupor at the other end of the table, Winnie reached for her hand and gripped it tightly. In a whisper, she asked, “Are you happy here, Nel?”

Nel found herself taken off-guard by the question, and by the worry in Winnie’s forget-me-not blue eyes. “Of course I am,” she replied. “How could I not be?”

Winnie shrugged one shoulder. “I’m older than you, though admittedly not by much. I’ve been married, and you never have. You never talk about engagements or young men or going to London or Bath. Have you truly given up? You know it’s not too late,” she went on in a rush when Nel half-opened her mouth to stop her. “We could go to Plymouth — they have dances and balls there all the time, especially with all the officers and the Navy. I’m conscious that…” she faltered and then swallowed a too-big sip of sweet dessert wine before continuing, “I’m conscious that you’re very isolated here, Nel.”

Nel shook her head and turned her hand over to squeeze Winnie’s fingers back. “I have everything I need, I promise you.”

Winnie nodded, but she didn’t look entirely convinced as she changed the subject. “Perhaps Aggie will come tomorrow and show us how to make Necks. I never did manage it when I was a girl…”

With talk of the upcoming Lammas Dance, Nel’s mind drifted, and she wondered if Edmund and Locryn really would be there after all.

__

Next chapter ->

Things spice up a bit (just a tad, this is a slow burn after all) next time, and we get a harvest festival dance where all bets are off...

Thank you for engaging with this story of mine. It's been in the works for a long time, and I'm only just now sharing it with you, and I'm so glad it's now.

I hope you’re enjoying it and I hope you’ll consider reblogging as well as leaving a like if you enjoyed it. Take care of yourselves, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

| Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

[monster-madame]

Another fun monster lover rec, this time a m/m/f/m/m romance!

I really loved the world building in this one!

Book link HERE (affiliate ad link)

“Born into a family of witches, Orenda has the misfortune of being the sole member of her family born without magic. The smallest bit of magic that she can claim for herself is the ability to sense out magical talismans. She is drawn to them and makes it her task to keep the most powerful of them out of the reach of her family. Yet, when she comes across an ancient talisman in an antique shop, she is swept away by its magic into the fae world, but not unchanged.

Shrunk and stranded alone in the depths of the troll kingdom, Orenda must rely on the help of a hive of male pixies. Although they say that she is their queen, and lure her with every touch, they promise to help her return home. They are nothing like she’s ever imagined a pixie to be and give her a taste of a life that she couldn’t have imagined. In a world of magic, she—a magicless witch—strangely finds her place until events provide an opportunity to return to the human world. It leaves Orenda with a choice: to go back home or remain by their side?

Among pixies, although long-lived, they only have a opening of a handful of years to find their mates before the elders determine that the hives be broken and the males stripped of their breeding and mating abilities to serve as protectors for young unmated queens. Shavish is determined that his hive, though well beyond the suitable age of mating, do not come to a similar fate. His hive brothers Orel and Gwin may have resigned themselves to being guardians and Dazi retreating to his scholarly works, but he is not willing to give up yet. Although being mated to a small wingless queen wasn’t quite what any of them imagined, they resolve to not give her up. They will court their queen and win her for their own. The Pixies Queen is a m/m/f/m/m romance and does contain m/m.”

Book link HERE (affiliate ad link)

[somuchspice]

Hurray, I actually colored this. Nice.

Ps. If you like my ns*w stuff, you can follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/spicyprogress where posts don’t get nuked :D Or if you prefer tumblr, follow my spice headquarters where I reblog everything from the spice blogs; https://ifailedthem.tumblr.com/

[crow-jx]

Some more Centaur content that no one asked for