Word Count: 7700
Summary: A lion sleeps in the hearts of brave men. When Prince Theodorin refuses to wed the general's youngest son because he loves another, he is trapped on a cursed island. He spends his days trying to escape, his nights listening to his lover’s soothing voice echoing through the forest. His attempts to escape only lead back to where he started… until an encounter with a lion reveals a crack in the illusion. Theo has to believe, or he may never find his way home. Previously appeared in Wilde City Press' Bedtime Stories anthology
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: Free bird? Don't make me laugh. Mom tossed me out of the nest with five dollars and the clothes on my back. Why? I visited my snitch brother in Danvers Sanitarium. Pariah or not, I refuse to abandon my favorite sibling. Did I forget to mention mom made me homeless on the night before my first day of high school? The principal took pity, but she stuck me in the boarding house with a nosy roommate. I refuse to flunk out of high school like the rest of my family. Breaking the cycle is a tall order. Three of my classmates decide to grief me because of my shady family. The others are part of an exclusive and mysterious clique. My only friend is Ed, a scrawny medium I rescued from a gang of psychic bullies. At least he doesn’t mind my obsession with ghosts. How will I get through the first month at this rowdy school, let alone three whole years?
Word Count: Information not available
Summary: For years, the whispers and legends of a lost city hiding in the Pacific Ocean were just that; legend. On the day Kaimi discovers his parents, the Queen and King of Mu, murdered, Mu’s most powerful weapon fired, sending a pulse rushing towards the North American west coast. After the 2025 Great Pacific Pulse Event, or Pulse, vomited up much of humankind’s trash in the Pacific Ocean along the North American west coast. The mysterious occurrence causing the largest environmental disaster in human history, people are no longer certain there is nothing concealed in the depths of the ocean. Scientist Karen Linn and billionaire investor Michael Donovan want to find out what actually happened that day five years ago. Will Michael’s life in the adult entertainment industry and Karen’s moniker in pseudoscience keep them as social pariahs, or are they on the cusp of finding a civilization that has been kept out of our grasp, deep in the world’s largest ocean? How does the event from five years ago tie into the murder of the Queen and King of Mu? What lies under the sea may be bigger than anyone can imagine, and neither civilization may be ready for the truth.
Word Count: 60,000
Summary: Every story has an ending… Connor always had memories of lives not his own. Snippets of conversations and awful yearning have dogged his steps and made him question his sanity. His only anchor is his sister and her belief in his stories of a cosmic black dragon. His obsession leads him to search for answers among the sacred mountains of the world... and what he finds is almost more than he can handle. Asagoroth, the last dragon, has awakened after centuries of slumber, ready to reclaim his angel and their love. Undeterred that his angel is in the body of a human, Asagoroth embraces him as his own. But the world has changed. The children have become violent and destructive. And the former conqueror of realms has run out of patience. For the love he and Asagoroth have shared over eons, Connor must find the courage to take the final step on his quest for immortality… and through their love, he hopes to save humanity from draconic retribution.
Word Count: 49,000
Summary: “I won’t leave you alone, my dragon. Your angel will always return to you.” The Great Union. The Great Assault. The same event with different truths. For some angels, they find their perfect mates among the demons who follow Asagoroth through the heavenly gates. For others, they wish to forget and return to their blessed peace among the stars. For Trystan, he’s trying to balance building a new society alongside his sister, the angelic peers who once shunned and shamed him, and their demon mates, while being a good parent to his adopted son, Adam. Finding himself on the council and a valued member of his community has given Trystan hope and determination to make their venture succeed. However, there’s one truth that most concerns him: Asagoroth is immortal. Trystan is not. If Trystan wants to protect the children and save the cosmos from annihilation, he must discover what Roland knew. Only his love can temper Asagoroth’s wrath and thirst for vengeance... for the great dragon doesn’t forgive, and he doesn’t forget. Reader Discretion advised: This story deals with dark themes, including mentions of sexual assault and infant death.
Word Count: 150000
Summary: Free bird? Don't make me laugh. I'm Mavis Merlini and I want out. Of my shady family, this rowdy school, maybe even the world. My brother got kicked out of Gallows Hill School for inciting mermaid violence. I'm determined to cut out all distractions and be the first of my six siblings to actually graduate. Which means living on campus and ignoring my extroverted roommate. All my plans are doomed to failure when a goth lion shifter in a trench coat drops his feather. Of course I pick it up. It's shiny and I'm a raven shifter. I swear I meant to give it back. But now it's magically bonded to me and I can't. Now I've got obligations to a Faerie Monarch on top of everything else. And if I shirk them, I'll spend a hundred years in his dungeon. Can I soar through this double life, or will I end up failing to launch?
Word Count: 58841
Summary: "In range alone, Richard Thomas is boundless. He is Lovecraft. He is Bradbury. He is Gaiman." —Chuck Palahniuk With a Foreword by Brian Evenson In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.
- A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.
- A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.
- A fantasy world is filled with one man’s desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.
- A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.
- A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.
Word Count: 51,000
Summary: "Lord of the Flies" meets "The Expanse" in this harrowing tale of survival, betrayal, and the fragile line between civilization and savagery ... Inspired by the true story of a 17th-century Dutch Shipwreck … Two thousand light-years from Earth, the ultimate survival game has begun. The Dauntless was supposed to be a beacon of hope—a state-of-the-art colony ship carrying four hundred souls to a lush new world. But beneath the starched uniforms and corporate protocols of the Westmoreland Corporation, a rot is spreading. First Mate Adrian Jacobs is drowning in resentment. Chief Engineer Jeronimus Cornelis is a charismatic sociopath, with a silver tongue and a taste for power. Together, they whisper of a secret cargo—a fortune in Cortium-7—and a mutiny that will turn the ship into their private kingdom. But space has no mercy for the greedy. When a desperate gamble to seize the ship ends in a catastrophic collision, Dauntless is left a mangled wreck on a desolate, twin-asteroid system. Abandoned by their Captain in a search for rescue, the survivors are left in "The Graveyard"—a world of oppressive heat, bone-chilling shadows, and a rapidly vanishing water supply. And as the thin line between order and anarchy vanishes, Jeronimus rises not as a savior, but as a tyrant. In the cold vacuum of P-48, water is life, power is absolute, and the greatest threat may not be the environment after all—but the person standing next to you. This tale is loosely based on the true saga of the Batavia, a Dutch ship that wrecked off the coast of Australia in 1629.
