Snippet Friday: Lou and Lucky #amwriting #erotic #romance

Hey y’all. I’m taking a little break from contemporary romance, to revisit another favorite – paranormal. I love world building, as my buddy Theodora Taylor once said, and this story will be my second in the demon series. You may recall the first, How to Love a Blue Demon? Anyway, in this second installment, my heroine Lou is a British writer and property owner in need of a handyman. Her friend Tommy of Paying For It and Ineffable and eventually her own book, recommends Lucky. Our hero has a big secret – he’s a demon. But never has a non human man been so fabulous. 🙂 Right now, this unedited snippet is the beginning of the story, a flashback. I hope you enjoy it. Tell me what you think! – SS

“He must go, my love.”

“No.”

“We talked about this.”

Sucire stood proud, her long legs braced, narrow bare feet gripping the earth as though she’d been planted, sprung up as straight and strong as a centuries old tree.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“You cannot, my love.”

“He’s too young. However can we consider sending him away from his home? It’s out of the question. I won’t have it. Maybe in a year or two I will consider it. For now he is much too small. He needs his mother, his family. We cannot trust his welfare to strangers, no matter how well they have been vetted. He is ours.”

“You know he is special, my heart. Brilliant though a child. Strong though he is yet tiny in stature. But his place is not here. We all love him, but he must be trained in the blue world. It was ordained. It is beyond us now.”

“No!”

“My love –”

She turned fierce gold-black eyes on him. “My love, my love! You will not get ‘round me with sweet talk. I say no! You will not send my youngest away from his home. I refuse. The seer is no doubt mistaken.”

“Of a prophecy distilled at his birth,” Sanson chided gently.

Her shoulder slumped, but it was no more than a second before they straightened again, his proud queen.

“He’ll think we don’t love him,” she whispered.

When the tears fell he took her in his arms and led her inside where she sobbed her heart out in private for some minutes.

A small hand tucked itself in hers. “Mim,” said a child’s voice. “Qi e tyr?” What’s wrong?

“Oh, my darling,” Sucire whispered, pulling her youngest into her arms. She kissed his silky black hair, stroked his deep green skin, warm and plump and soft with youth and the medicinal waters of the lock. “How I love you. Never forget that will you?”

He shook his head, then grinned at her, kissing her cheek. “No! I love you too, Mim.”

She laughed, her deep rasping chuckle making his tummy happy as it always did. “And how much do you love your Mim, my boy?”

“Forever, my Mim!” he cried, throwing his arms wide as though he would embrace the whole world, and not just his forest.

“Good,” she said. “For that is just a fraction of how much I love you, my darling Lucire.”

“Mim,” he said, hugging her neck tight. “Did say us go on trip!”

“Yes,” she whispered. But you my darling boy, will not be returning home with us. And I don’t know if I can bear it.

It was no real surprise to anyone that when the time came to say goodbye, Sucire put up an unholy fuss. Lucire, tiny and frightened by his mother’s display had to be torn from her leg, screaming, his tiny arms outstretched as he called to her and then to his father in anguish. Then he cried out to each of his brothers and sisters in turn, all of whom looked torn, tears streaming as their bodies twitched with the need to run to his aid. What would happen to him, their tiny sibling, without them to keep him safe? To love him and teach him things, and have him hang upon their every word as though it were unlim fallen from their lips?

“It’s not fair,” he cried. He hadn’t believed what they’d said. That he was to go and live in the blue world without them. That he was special, to be looked after by a creature similar but dissimilar, that his color would change, his hair too, his mother tongue would no longer leave his lips, but another speak would form the words he knew.

To not see his brothers and sisters again, to never again see his home, or climb his favorite tree, nor pet his beloved fatah. How could he have known it was true? It made no sense! In his tiny chest he felt his heart crack. The only thing that saved it from breaking in two was the look of sadness on his parents faces as they left, his beloved Mim held up by his Did, her shouted, remember! Echoing in his mind as he was carried away.

He woke with a start. Not Lucire, a small demon removed from his family and a warm, lush, tropical home, but Lucky, a white man with golden skin, hair and eyes. He did not speak a mysterious language of clicks and rolls, but English with an unidentified accent neither the authorities nor his adoptive parents knew anything about. Except his name really was Lucire. It was on his birth certificate.

He swung long legs over the edge of the bed and rose to pad naked to the window. He looked up at the moon, and for just a moment he saw a pink star, shaped oval, not round with a metallic gleam. Then he blinked and things were normal again; the moon was back, a pale cream crescent hanging bright but muted in the warm night sky.

He snorted at his own whimsy. He was no poet, this was remnants of the dream, no doubt. It clung to him, spilling over into his non sleeping life…