Title: Spark
Series: The Fire of Felwing, Book Two
Author: Elizabeth Tybush
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 05/17/2022
Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex
Length: 107300
Genre: Fantasy, LGBTQIA+, bisexual, pansexual, magic, dragons, slow burn, magic users, friends to lovers, mythical creatures, royalty, redemption, past mistakes, portals
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Description
Immediately following the stunning Halloween reveal in Flicker…
Prince Solin Felwing’s exile on Earth went from tranquil to dangerous with a spark of magick. Now, severed from his redemption and his friends at the soup kitchen, Solin is left to sort out his unstable powers, his guilty conscience, and the realities of pursuing a relationship with a certain charming barista. At least his human friend Sam stuck around, although he’s getting tailed by his ex and his tech is going haywire, so things aren’t going great for him either.
As the holidays draw near, Solin discovers his name on someone’s Naughty List. With a protection detail of ghosts from his past, and a growing threat from the rogue humans of the Shadowfall Alliance, Solin must keep his worlds from colliding without losing what few friends he has left. Because those hunting him no longer care about collateral damage; they’ll torch everything he’s built, and anyone who gets in the their way will be consumed by the flames.
Spark
Elizabeth Tybush © 2022
All Rights Reserved
I woke up with my head beside the bottom of the bathroom sink, and my legs extended out the bathroom door. Every drop of alcohol in the apartment existed in my pathetic body.
My head pounded. My mind begged for food, but my stomach roiled at the mere thought. The room smelled acrid, and outside the door, the alarm chirped on and on. The quality of light scattered across the floor spoke of day. The alarm spoke of hours too late.
I got to my feet. All evidence of the wound on my hand had completely faded. My head pounded harder. I rinsed out my mouth and lurched to the kitchen, where I forced a glass of water down my scratchy throat. I grabbed unsalted crackers, a purchase I’d become grateful for during exile to this planet. The burden of my punishment made me prone to the physiological responses healed by boring crackers. I untwisted the half-emptied tube and forced a few of the crumbling crackers into my mouth. I let them dissolve slowly on my tongue; swallowing them in a more complete form caused my stomach to tremble.
Somewhere in between crackers, I unplugged my insufferable alarm clock.
I lay in bed, getting crumbs on my blanket, and browsed my tablet for about an hour before I started to feel better. I scrubbed my bathroom clean, washed my clothes and bedclothes, and by then, I felt even stronger than I did yesterday. My heart, however, still ached.
The curse that had shackled my magicks and ripped from me the strength and constitution granted by my Drakon blood had faded, but apparently not fast enough to cure the ill-effects of an alcohol bender. Human liquors still hit me as hard as they would hit any ordinary human. I deserved nothing less. I’d disrupted my quest for redemption and dismantled the friendship—romance?—I’d had with Brida.
I checked my phone; Victoria had left three voicemails, and Sam texted that Eleric had left the planet. I cleared all of the message notifications, then showered and dressed for work. I slumped into the kitchen at Our Lady of Sorrows without Kyle noticing.
Brida saw me first. Victoria next. Both glared at me, albeit for different, valid reasons.
“I called you, Jon,” Victoria said. Today, she kept her black curls back with a navy blue fabric headband that matched the plain blue t-shirt she wore beneath her apron. She trimmed raw chicken and discarded its slimy remnants unceremoniously into a bowl. According to the whiteboard of tasks near her office, food prep was my job.
Damn it.
“May I speak to you privately for a moment?”
“We’re understaffed.” She hardly lifted her eyes to meet mine. “This is as private as it gets.”
“Where’s Peter?”
“He wasn’t scheduled until later, and he also isn’t returning my calls.” She looked at her chicken-soaked hands and shook her head. “And this one,” she indicated Brida, “came in this morning in some kind of mood, all bleary-eyed and brooding.”
Brida scoffed and busied herself with restocking napkins. “Not because of him.”
“Oh, so you’re giving him the stink eye for no reason then?” She finished with the chicken and dumped the trimmings in the trash. “You two need to leave your baggage at home. If we’re not smiling, then they aren’t smiling, and their problems are much worse than ours.”
I stared at the counter. “This has nothing to do with Brida. I simply can’t be here anymore.”
Victoria sighed and nudged the hand sink’s warm water valve with her elbow. No water came out of the faucet. “Again?” she muttered.
I came over and jiggled the handle for her. “This started acting up last week. You’ll have to ask Peter to do whatever he did last time this happened. You just have to nudge it a bit further for a while.” Water shot down into the sink. I activated the soap dispenser for her. She obliged my offer, glowering.
“I don’t need help washing my hands, Jon. I need help with all the rest of this.”
“I can’t.”
Brida scoffed and barreled into the cafeteria with an armload of napkins.
Victoria shook her head and spoke softer. “If you’re scared of that man, then we’ll call the police. He scared some of our other guests too. You’re not the only one who didn’t want to be here.”
“It’s more complicated than—”
“Jon, are you going to help out or not?” I shook my head, then her tone flattened. “I have too much work to do right now, and no one here has time for this. I know you care about these people. You need to think about who you’re doing this for.”
“I will write you another check.”
Victoria let out a loud, abrupt laugh as she tore a paper towel from the dispenser. “You can’t throw money at this problem, Jon.” She sighed. “How about this: do me one last favor. Break down all those boxes from the morning delivery. When you’re done, you can decide if you’re going to leave for good, or write that check.”
The delivery. Right. That’s why my alarm had gone off so early.
Brida stormed back in for another load of napkins, giving me nothing but her unmoving scowl.
“One last favor,” I said to Victoria.
I broke down the boxes, which didn’t take very long, then brought them outside to the recycling dumpster, where Brida cornered me.
“You are an asshole,” she said.
“I know.”
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Liz plays way too much Minecraft and dreams about producing a television series. She loves an old-fashioned film noir and, unlike her character Solin, takes her coffee with a healthy dose of milk. Recent accomplishments include a 2019 fellowship at the Storytellers’ Institute and the book you’re about to read.
Flicker is her debut novel with NineStar Press. To learn more about The Fire of Felwing series and other upcoming stories, visit Liz at elizabethtybush.com.
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