That can be freedom to love who you want, be who you want, live the life you want.
That sole word can mean a wide range of things to each and every individual.
I have a mile-long list of my creative and life heroes (I can’t even begin to go near politics with this one, it would take forever!) Instead I’ll just list the person who has held my imagination ever since I had scabby knees and collected tadpoles.
Houdini … yep, the world’s most famous escapologist. An escapologist. What’s not to admire?
So yes, Houdini. Freedom, escaping from knotty (literally) situations, and just a little bit of magic dust thrown in there about the whole thing. What more could you want?
I won’t go into history and his bio here. There is plenty of stuff about him on YouTube and elsewhere, and I highly recommend checking it out. He died in 1926, almost a hundred years ago, and yet in certain ways, there is something so very modern about him. He'd be headlining in Vegas now, and I know I'd pay money to see him.
WRITING times: It’s looking like the lycan story, the second of the Hellfire Bloodline Vampires series, is going to be finished before the rock star contemporary I am also working on. I have a habit of working on two things at once, it keeps things bubbling. For some months my productivity dropped right back to near zero due to a nightmare of a job. That’s done and dusted and I’m writing like a fiend. It’s lovely. (For me at least).
So yes, the next Hellfire is close to completion and that makes me very happy.
*After the jump is a snippet, not for those under eighteen, which may or may not make the cut:
***
…Easton scrambled back off the massive bed.
He stood at the foot of it, panting. “You got in my bloody head,” he spat out. “Fuck you, Grisha. You think I want to see that, feel that–”
“Feel what?”
The lycan was staring at him narrowly.
“Her–” Shaking, the rage that had been Grisha’s, in that snow covered clearing, lingered in him, mixed with his own rage now. His amber eyes glittered. “Her. Your wife. God, your child.”
Grisha flinched. “You–” He slid off the bed, all animal, powerful, predator’s grace, and prowled around the bed to Easton. “You do not mention them,” he commanded, all dominance now, the powerful lycan prince that he was. “You do not talk of–”
“You shoved them into my mind–”
“I did nothing,” the lycan snarled.
“You bloody well did,” Easton spat back, and somehow, despite the fact the guy was twice his size, and physically, way more deadly, his hand shot out and he gripped Grisha’s jaw, pale fingers spread wide, fingertips splayed over that white, jagged scar running down his cheek. The horrific images hummed into him again and he yanked away. “Every time I get too close to you I see it. Them. Their death. The kill scene. You understand? I see your fucked up life story and I don’t want it. I don’t want your fucking memories. Or your battles.”
Grisha glared back at him, ice. “I’m not giving them to you.”
“Just being in the same room with you does it. Fucking you makes it– worse.”
Hating it, hating the memories, hating the pain, determined to look after himself because no one else was bloody about to, Easton spun on his heel and went to get the hell out of there.
Before he’d gone a step, his upper arm was caught in a grip that would not be broken.
“You touch me, you fuck me, you see my life?”
Easton cut him a glance. “Yeah. Well, just that snapshot.”
He was deliberately cold. He had to be. He’d had to learn to be cold and he’d let himself forget that lesson for a few stupid moments. He wasn’t about to again.
“You could see more if you allowed yourself?”
Easton’s lashes flickered. “If I … allowed myself to slide into it.”
“Which you do not permit?”
“Why would I want to?”
Screw it, his callousness was all he had. He was holding onto it. And he wasn’t liking where this was going.
But Grisha appeared indifferent to that ice. “So you read … by touch.”
Easton watched him narrowly. He hungered for this male. It wasn’t just that raw, harsh male beauty. It was an instinctive connection, strength drawn to strength. His strength hidden, Grisha’s out there, dangerous. Which was dangerous for the man himself. It made him an obvious target. Whereas he, too pretty, not particularly tall, not particularly muscular, was always underestimated, and that made him far, far more deadly.
His body ached for more, but his brain–
***
So there you go… a taster of the next Hellfire story. Not long before it’s finished and freed!
Here’s a favorite song of mine, and goddamit, I’m pretty sure it would be on Easton’s iPod as well. It’s just too appropriate. Enjoy!
Image above: The excellent punk, mirror-gazing, as follows
photo credit: Jon Díez Supat via photopin
photo credit: Jon Díez Supat via photopin
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