Release Tour , Exclusive Excerpt & Giveaway:
Gothika by Eli Easton
Tales of Love & the Supernatural
Just in time for Halloween! Immerse yourself in four tales of love and gothic horror in this anthology by Eli Easton. Each story is novella length.
“The Bird”
Colin Hastings is sent to Jamaica in 1870 to save his father’s sugar cane plantation. If he succeeds, he can marry his fiancée back in London and take his place in proper English society. But Colin finds more than he bargained for on the island. His curiosity about Obeah, the native folk magic, leads him to agree to a dangerous ritual where he is offered his heart’s most secret desire—one he’s kept deeply buried all his life. What happens when a proper English gentleman has his true sensual nature revealed and freed by the Obeah spirits?
“Reparation”
On the harsh planet of Kalan, weakness is not tolerated. When young spore farmer Edward suffers a carriage accident that kills his mail-order bride and his factory manager, Edward has little chance of survival, until Knox—an enormous “reconstitute” slave—plucks him from disaster.
Recons are part machine, part human remains from executed Federation prisoners. But Knox is different from other recons. He can read and has flashes of brilliance. With no one else to rely on over the bleak winter, Edward forms an alliance with Knox, and against social taboos, they become friends. Edward struggles against his growing lust for the large humanoid, and while Knox thrives in his new life, memories of his past torment him.
A twist of fate brought Knox and Edward together, but there will be a price to pay in blood when they learn how deeply their lives truly intersect
“Among the Dead”
Ever since his accident, Neil Gaven sees dead people. He’s isolated himself, unable to bear the constant barrage of sadness and grief. But a gentle ghost grabs his attention on the bus one day. He seems to understand, to have some secret to impart. Neil works to interpret the ghost’s clues. Then they lead him to Trist, a homeless young man who is also tormented by spirits. Are they two of a kind? Maybe together they can find a way to live among the dead.
“The Black Dog”
Constable Hayden MacLairty is used to life being dull around the tiny hamlet of Laide on the north Scottish coast. They get occasional tourists, “monster hunters” interested in the local legend of the Black Dog, but Hayden thinks that’s only a myth. A rash of sheep killings, a murdered hiker, huge footprints, and sightings of the Black Dog force Hayden to rethink the matter. With the help of Simon Corto, a writer from New York doing research for a book about the Black Dog, Hayden tries to figure out why the enormous hound is reappearing. Hayden finds himself strongly attracted to another person for the first time in his life. But between the danger stalking the hills, Simon’s inevitable return to New York, and Hayden’s mother’s illness, true love may be more of a phantom than the Black Dog.
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From Reparation – by Eli Easton
Oh, Kalan. My extravagant, harsh, and wretchedly beautiful mistress. You have done me in after all. Edward pulled off the air filter and gasped in the humid air of the storm. The spores or the blood loss would kill him before the wind gained enough strength to take his body. He was not ready to die; he wanted life in this moment more than he could bear. But if he must die, he would prefer it to be quick.
The mist swirled above him, the curls made lavender by the light reflecting up from the rocks. The eddies grew like waves dashing against the cliffs as something parted them—and then he appeared, huge and looming, his shoulders massive, his face lost as he was backlit against the sky.
For one insane moment, Edward thought: It is the wind. As if his childhood fancy had come to life. The creature squatted down, his face and shoulders coming into focus, his hair wild in the storm. And Edward recognized him.
It was one of the recons. The one called Knox.
Edward stared up at the monolith, too weak to move. Knox’s eyes surveyed him head to toe as if assessing a bit of scrap metal. The recon could easily crush the remaining life out of him. He certainly looked the part. But recons were programmed against violence, Edward reminded himself. And when Knox gently took the air filter from Edward’s hands and pressed it against his face, there was tenderness and compassion in his eyes.
A trick of the light was Edward’s last conscious thought as he slipped into darkness.
Life is sacred. Life is sacred.
Knox heard the words over and over in his head as he cradled the master to his chest and stumbled through the mist toward the house. The words were not part of what he thought of as his must dos. He knew what those felt like: cold and frozen, like a knife in his mind. This, this was a deeper imperative, born of some moment of personal conviction that he no longer remembered.
Life is sacred.
The other two were dead—the mistress and the one called Signis, who ran the factory. But this one, the master, was still warm and soft. His heartbeat was thready but determined, like a mouse Knox might hold in the palm of his hand, frightened but suffused with life.
He pictured that small creature, willing its heart to beat on as his heavy boots ate up the rocky ground. The master was so very young—too young for that heart to stop beating. The wind gusted and screamed and tried to drag Knox off his feet. It would be easy to get lost in this mist, but he had an image in his mind of where the house was and he headed for it doggedly. Finally, just when he was sure he was off course, the lights of the windows appeared, playing hide-and-seek with the vaporish mist.
At the door, he shifted the master’s weight, cradling it in his left arm. It was awkward. The master was not heavy but he was tall. Knox turned the door handle. The wind screamed in the entryway and then he was through, pushing the door shut behind him. A small woman, round as a fat sausage, bustled into the room.
“Oh lords! Oh heavenly stars!” She stopped in horror, staring at Knox and the bundle in his arms. Knox was aware of the picture he must make, saw it in the terror in her one good eye—the other was shot through with mist of its own. Knox knew her, but only from a distance: she was Moll, the cook who made the pans of food Signis delivered to the recon barracks.
He forced speech. He disliked speaking and had little need for it. His tongue felt thick in his mouth and his voice sounded foreign to his ears. “Accident. The coach. Need help.”
This was sufficient to set the little woman in motion. She moved as if to take the master from his arms and then realized the futility of this. She changed direction and led Knox, with hand motions and soft words, as though he were a dangerous animal, up the stairs to a bedroom. Knox laid the master on the bed. His right pant leg was soaked through with blood. Too much blood. His face, always pale next to his brown hair, was now white.
Moll hovered over the master as if unsure what to do. “I must call the doctor.”
“Won’t come. Storm,” Knox said roughly.
Moll looked frightened. She covered her mouth with her hand as if to stifle a sound. “Where is Signis? He’ll know what to do.”
“Dead. Mistress too. Coach overturned.”
“Oh lords, no.” Moll’s one good eye glistened with moisture. “Oh, poor Edward.”
Knox could have turned around and left. He’d delivered the master to the house. Nothing compelled him to do more, nor even to have done that much. But that voice inside him spoke again. Life is sacred.
An image appeared in his mind of the master, sitting tall on his mount against the stark beauty of the purple rocks and the orange Kalan sky. That first week after Knox had arrived, the master had watched him harvest the lichen, had gotten down off his pony to show him how to marry the blade to the rock, how to carefully pry up the preternaturally green clumps so they slipped up the suction hose as intact as possible, preserving the spores. The master never raised his voice, never beat them. His face was noble, handsome, and kind. And if his eyes shied away from making contact, from really seeing Knox, it was no more than Knox deserved.
If the master died, what would become of them?
Knox stripped off his heavy coat. “Hot water, medicine, bandages. Get these things.”
Moll hesitated. She wanted to throw him out, Knox could tell. Her face held a look of disgust. But perhaps she decided he was better than nothing, for she finally nodded and left the room.
Knox stripped the master quickly, rending his clothes as if they were paper. Pale skin emerged, perfect skin, cold from the want of blood. Knox did not allow himself to dwell on it or on the uncomfortable sense of wrongness of being in the big house, of touching the master this way, as if Knox were someone, as if he were not just a slab of meat meant for labor. He ripped the bloodied pant leg carefully, pulling the fabric away and discarding it.. He averted his eyes, did not look at what lay between the legs before he gently rolled the master onto his stomach so he might see the wound.
A long gash split the skin and meat at the back of the thigh. It still oozed blood, but slowly now, the bright flow thick as syrup.
Do not die.
Knox searched his mind in frustration. Sometimes skills would come to him when he needed them, like nuts that had been squirreled away just below the surface of his consciousness. He did not remember how he knew these things. He looked at the gash now, willing himself the skill to attend to it.
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Coming from a background in computer game design, Eli has written over 35 books in m/m romance since 2013. The Mating of Michael (2014) and A Second Harvest (2016) both won The William Neale Award for Best Gay Contemporary Romance, and Eli’s books have won many awards from the Goodreads M/M Romance Group’s Reader’s Choice Awards. She is best known for her Christmas romances, the Howl at the Moon series of rom coms featuring dog shifters, and her Sex in Seattle series, which revolves around a sex clinic in Seattle.
Connect with Eli:
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Twitter: @elieaston
