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Dunvegas

I managed about 4400 words yesterday, all on a new story that I’ll be giving away as a little Samhain treat for my readers. It’s a story set in the mythical casino of Dunvegas – a little collaborative creation from the authors on the Beyond The Veil blog. Each of us are writing paranormal stories set at this mythical casino and will be posting bits of them on the blog leading up to a free download of all the stories on November 1st.

My story is tentatively titled The Big Bad Wolf. Here’s a little snippet for you to enjoy…

The man reached into his pocket and flipped open a badge. “Chet Davis, head of Dunvegas Security, ma’am. Like I said, I’ve been watching you since you stopped outside the moat.”

“I didn’t see any moat.” The badge seemed legit and the man was big enough to be a professional football player, or a cop. He was tall and muscular, like many of the other men she’d seen in the casino, but he seemed a cut above the rest. A little taller, a little broader, a little sharper-eyed.

His smile almost stole her breath. “Why don’t I escort you to the front door and you can see what I mean?”

“Are you throwing me out?” Something about him riled her, though she was usually a quiet kind of person, not given to confrontation. But this man dared her to say no, just for the fun of it.

Strange, she’d never thought of confrontation as fun before, but the sparkle in his dark brown eyes made her shiver, and it wasn’t from cold. No, this was a shiver of awareness of her own fragility next to this giant man’s strength. He could crush her, or weigh her down in the most delicious way possible.

Where were these scandalous thoughts coming from? She was a librarian for goodness sake! She wasn’t one to ogle strange men, even if they did look good enough to eat. She did her best not to blush, but she could feel the heat of a flush rise to her fair cheeks. Chet smiled in a way she could only term wolfish.

“On the contrary, I wouldn’t throw out a pretty little thing like you, Red.”

Suddenly, Sherry was glad of her dark red hair that refused to be tamed. Normally it was the bane of her existence, but this man seemed to like it if the searing appreciation in his gaze was any indication.

“But we’ve got a convention going on here and you stick out like a sore thumb,” he continued. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t keep an eye on you. So tell me, why did you come in here of all the casinos on the strip?”

Something told her he really wanted to know. She shrugged. “I was walking. It got dark and I realized I was hungry, so I stopped and I was outside Dunvegas. I didn’t really look at the place before I came in. I was just seeking some warmth, a change of clothes and a meal.”

“Clothes? That’s why you were in the bondage boutique?”

She blushed again. “I didn’t realize what kind of store it was ‘til I saw what was inside.”

“But some of those outfits intrigued you.” He didn’t phrase it as a question and the dancing light in his eyes told her he really had been watching her finger a few of those outfits longingly.

A lump formed in her throat despite his warm expression. “I guess so, but I have nobody to wear them for now.”

“That sounds like a story I need to hear,” he crossed his arms, shifting his weight back to regard her. “How about you tell me over dinner?”

More of this story will be posted on the Beyond The Veil blog on the 29th. In the meantime, the other authors will be posting excerpts of their stories all this month, so check them out. This is all leading up to the unveiling of the complete stories on the 1st of November (if all goes as planned). We haven’t worked out all the details yet, but I’ll let you know when I find out, how you can get your hands on all the stories.

In the meantime, I won’t be able to do much fresh writing for the next week or so. I just got edits and they’ll require quite a bit of my attention, so I’m not sure I’ll be getting the word count moving much until I get past this. It’s still writing though, so I don’t feel so bad.