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“Samir?” she whispered.
“Yes, Abby?”
“Give me your sting. I choose you. I love you and want to remain in the desert with you forever.”
A soft growl echoed from his chest, and his eyes slid shut as a tremor rushed through him. “Then forever you shall have, my mate,” he rasped. “And with it never shall my fire harm you, for you shall be of my magic for as long as I breathe, and the salamanders roam the vast deserts.”
She heard an almost musical sound of his tail whipping through the air and the painful bliss of heat that drove deep into her belly. Abby knew it was his stinger, but all she knew was pleasure as she fell into his arms, her fingers curling around the manacle still fastened around his neck. She still clung to it as he spread her beneath him, his massive body covering as he pulled free her clothes and his thick cock, already eager for her, drove between her thighs. She cried out her pleasure, her body rocking rapturously with his as the palace burned, and the columns and walls continued to crack, and stones began to fall.
They fucked to the purifying destruction of the palace, reveling in it, and screaming their release as the palace groaned with its final death knells. No one saw them leave or strike back out across the desert, heading back to their cavern, but word-of-mouth spread of a monster and his monstrous wife who lived deep in the desert. That they came to the city to topple a generational legacy of cruel kings, and who safeguarded and preserved the people yet, destroying anything that threatened them that attempted to cross the sands.
They were feared, and they were heroes, and in the desert Abby Sinclair and Samir reigned—with a supply of chocolate, coffee, and tea left regularly in offering for the people had not forgotten the manticore’s favorites. Even the merchant Samir once accosted came to believe he was their special guardian, so long as they left him offerings on top of a high rock that stood well above the sands along their trade route.
And as for Abby—she lived happily ever after giving a little death to the monster she loved at every opportunity.
* * *
Thank you for reading The Manticore’s Fire. If you want to read the rest of the series, then why not check out where it all began with Dragon Treasure!
https://books2read.com/u/mYqWyP
About the Author
S.J. Sanders is a mom of two toddlers and one adult living in Anchorage, Alaska. She has a BA degree in History, but spends most of her free time painting, sculpting, doing odd bits of historical research, and writing.
While she has more research orientated writing under another pen name, her passion is sci-fi and paranormal romance of which she is an avid reader.
After years of tinkering with the idea, and making her own stories up in her head, S.J has begun to seriously pursue writing as an author of Sci-fi Romance utilizing her interests in how cultures diversify and what they would look like on an extra-terrestrial platform with humans interacting with them and finding love.
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SECOND STEEP
VERA VALENTINE
Mat is a fox-spirit conveyor charged with relaying messages between hidden beings; the magical world’s answer to a consulate in the mortal realm. Operating out of a tea shop begrudgingly turned into a coffee house, he’s mostly left to his own devices, which suits him fine. Bailey is a disillusioned graduate with little more than a business degree and a disrupted life plan to her name. When she returns to her family’s coffee shop to regroup, the presence of the strong-but-silent man behind the counter rekindles a childhood crush. When tragedy strikes, an unconventional solution could be just what it takes to bring these twin flames together.
Content Considerations: This short story contains mature themes, including violence, dirty talk, a thoroughly upsetting waste of tea, mutilation (referenced, not described in detail), blood (from violence) and knotting.
Mat
The tails were becominga real problem.
The space behind the counter was limited as it was, and while my glamour held up fine, my appendages still took upspace. I couldn’t count the number of times I’d singed a tip on the milk steamer, or had to bite back a yip when the milk fridge door caught some invisible fur. This was exactly whyyoungerkitsunes became javamancers—they only had one tail to worry about. My own trio of furred additions did not mesh well with the tight confines of Second Steep, particularly since the business had expanded more heavily into coffee.
In a world where hidden beings often needed to pass messages, locate one another, or procure certain items and favors, well-placed conveyors like myself were crucial. When Second Steep was still just a teahouse, I had enjoyed holding court of sorts, entertaining supernatural guests and listening to their needs. I’d been able to dress impeccably, enjoy the allure of enchanting the odd intriguing human, and live a slow, thoughtful life.
This…was not that. This was hectic, frantic, and more often than not smelled like milk gone sour. The owners had introduced more coffee-centric menu items gradually while cutting back on tea, boiling my peaceful existence away one degree at a time. My service as a conveyor had many, many years to go, so I was firmly chained to this establishment—whether I wanted to be or not. I had at least had the peace of autonomy to console myself, the theoretical owners of Second Steep having long since retired from behind-the-counter duties. And yes, there might have been a not-so-small magical nudge from yours truly to lead them to that decision, but a fox had to do what a fox had to do.
Perhaps worst of all was the coffee beans’ stubborn resistance to my usual magic—the sort the propertealeaveshad readily absorbed. I’d been reduced to slipping enchantments in the milk and sugar rather than the beverages themselves, making black coffee drinkers frustratingly immune to my more subtle influential magics. When I needed to have a private word with a hidden being, the ability to chase off any lingering humans depended on their orders, more often than not. The stress of maintaining both my human persona and my celestial duties was starting to wear on me, and the scrutiny of the owners’ newly-arrived daughter wasn’t helping anything.
I’d met Bailey a few times when she was younger, however briefly. She’d attended a full-time boarding school throughout my tenure with the Browns, and headed straight to college after graduation. The little I’d heard about her visits home from university told me she was a bit of a homebody—a sentiment I could understand—and preferred to stay at her parent’s place rather than visiting Second Steep. Andrew and Dana occasionally voiced disappointment that their daughter wasn’t interested in taking over the business, but I was secretly relieved: I disliked change.
The girl—woman, really—was a curious mix of confidence and anxiety: the former from her schooling, the latter likely from the isolation that came with it. I was at ease in conversation and meeting new people, provided it happened within the confines of the store, so it was interesting observing someone less so. A few times I’d wondered if I’d have to save her from her own nervous rambling with a customer, but she always managed to catch herself and end the conversation gracefully. It was a talent I admired, her stubborn determination to socialize herself. I was content to let her have the run of the shop, but then the nosy little thing had to start poking around the finances.
The woman in question frowned at a page again, twisting and tossing her long brunette ponytail over a shoulder for the third time as she examined my meticulously-doctored binder of sums. I liked her hair, it was glossy and the same color as her lovely, soulful eyes—she’d gotten the best of both her parents, and as a kitsune, I appreciated beautiful things. I’d have called the color coffee brown if it wasn’t such an inferior drink to tea, so instead I considered her features more of a long-steeped Assam.
