Halloween Read: THRESHING THE GRAIN

(This post is revised from a previous year.)
If you want a spooky dark fantasy romance with magic and kinky ancient erotic rituals that combat actual demons, Threshing the Grain might be your perfect Halloween read. It’s the autumn/harvest season installment of the Seasons of Sorania Cycle, and it riffs off my adolescent reading of The Golden Bough, which is not about happy-fluffy-modern neopaganism, but the sometimes violent original. There’s blood magic, the possibilty of human sacrifice, and a demon that gets into people’s minds and makes them act as their worst selves.

It’s definitely romance, though, not horror. It features a loving couple who risks everything to save each other and the rest of the community. And did I mention really hot sex? Male-dom sex, female-dom sex, magical sex with satyrs, and the equally magical sex between two people who love each other deeply.

Excerpt:

The sight of Miryea’s body naked and offered up before him like a feast was pretty much irresistible. Hells, her scent–and not the musk of her arousal, even, but simply the smell of her skin, permeated with sharp medicinal herbs that were as much a part of her as that sea-musk of desire–was irresistible.

But he knew what she had dreamed. Knew it in vivid, gory detail.

The blood. The gelding knife. The power rising as the victim’s life ebbed.

As his life ebbed.

No. Don’t think about it.

That particular memory, of the night in his twelfth year where the dreams had turned from frightening spectacle to something more intimately horrifying, was not one for revisiting. At least the dreams had stopped altogether after a few awful nights of experiencing his own ritual death. Shortly after that he’d started having much more pleasant dreams involving naked girls, as if his childhood terrors insisted on one last bit of fun with him before he moved toward manhood and they lost his grip on him. But he wasn’t going let slip that he’d dreamed his own death, to either of the important women in his life. It wasn’t merely that it would call forth his mother’s superstitious Kulchu side or frighten Miryea unnecessarily, although he was sure it would do both.

Talking about it would make it too real. Too much like a prophecy and not a fear born of childhood and the night, dismissible, even laughable, in the light of day and maturity.

Hells, he was thinking it about it, wasn’t he? Worse, he was thinking about it hard enough that Miryea, distracted as she was by her own concerns and his touch, sensed it. She cocked her head and stared at him, her forehead wrinkled with concern. He knew that look. She was about half a breath away from saying, “What’s wrong?”

Adimir shook his head, trying to shake off the memories like he’d shake off a persistent bug. It didn’t entirely work, but it returned his attention back to the sweet, soft feminine curves under his hands, the heat of Miryea’s skin, the way her curls tickled him when the evening breeze passing through the shutters caught them.

If he focused on her, on her pleasure, it would only do them both good.

He kissed her, and this time, after a second, her lips softened and parted for him. Her breath was sweet and spicy, from the candied fennel seeds she’d chewed after dinner, and when he slipped his tongue between her lips, hers began to dance with it.

Still gentle, almost tentative, but she was definitely relaxing and enjoying at last. So was he, for that matter.

Good.

He kissed her until they needed to pause for breath, and by then Miryea’s face was prettily flushed, her eyes less frantic than they had been. A good start, but there was still a long way to go. While patience where sex was concerned had never been Adimir’s strongest virtue, his own dark mood would make it easier to wait, to draw out her pleasure and bring her to blissful exhaustion. He kissed his way down her throat, paying special attention to the sensitive area near her ear, and from there to her collarbone. Feather light there at first, just on the border between pleasurable and tickling, until she was squirming a little and making a noise that was half gasp and half giggle.

Then he bit down, gently at first and then less so, and sucked on the tender flesh. He would mark her as his, under his protection. The spirits of the night would have him to answer to if they messed with his Miryea.

What he’d do against spirits was another question. Swords, not spells, were his weapons, and they weren’t much use against things you couldn’t see or touch. But the primitive streak that reveled in seeing his marks on Miryea’s body and crowed, “Mine, mine, mine!” whenever he looked at her didn’t worry about such niceties.

Her body arched, quivered.

Good. She was feeling it. And whether “it” was his passion, his possessiveness or his determination to protect her didn’t much matter, as long it worked. As long as it got her mind off the nightmares and into the moment.

He kissed down her breastbone and nuzzled the sweet valley between her breasts. Nipped at the ripe, creamy swells, first one and then the other. She yelped the first time and made a very different noise the second time, and put her slender, strong arms around him then, tangling her fingers in his hair.

“You want me to spend more time here?” he asked, keeping his voice nonchalant and lazy. He’d had every intention of doing so anyway, but knowing how much she wanted it increased his pleasure.

“Yes. Please.” A breath’s worth of hesitation, and then she added, “I don’t want to think tonight, Adimir. I can’t bear to think tonight. Keep me from thinking.”

“I’ll do my best, little rabbit.” And we’ll both be better off for it. Because if you’re not thinking, chances are I won’t be either, and I’m not over-fond of where my mind wanders these early autumn days when I let it out alone.

Buy at:

Phaze / Amazon US / Amazon UK /All Romance Ebooks

 

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