An Excerpt From: WARRIOR’S APPRENTICE

Copyright © ALYSHA ELLIS, 2012

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

Tybor folded his arms across his heavily muscled chest, spread his legs wide and ran his gaze over the slender young man in front of him. He let his lip curl into a sneer and turned to speak over his shoulder to the captain of the guard.

“I work with Dvalinn warriors, not weakling schoolboys.”

The captain stepped forward to stand next to the young man he’d brought down to Tybor’s rooms.

“Huon’s an adult, Tybor, and he’s passed every assessment with flying colors.”

Tybor snorted and his voice, already deep, dropped even lower. “You called me away from a training session to discuss this? Look at him,” he scoffed. “He’s as lily-white and green as a snowdrop. A strong breeze would break him.”

The boy—Tybor refused to call him a man—lifted his head and their gazes met.

“I don’t have to be three feet wide across the shoulders to be strong. I can do anything you need me to do.”

Eyes narrowed, hands on hips, Tybor glared at the boy. Generations of hardened soldiers had quailed under that fierce look. The boy stared right back, blue eyes wide, his gaze open, hands clenched lightly by his sides.

“You’re supposed to be the best,” he said.

The captain nodded at Huon. “He is.” Then he turned back to Tybor. “Huon is unique among the Dvalinn. We need him and we need him battle ready.” He lifted one brow and asked, “Are you telling me you can’t do it?”

Dust and sweat stained Tybor’s combat pants. “I can train him. Whether he can handle it is a different matter.” He returned his attention to the boy. “If you work with me you will work harder than you ever have before. You will do whatever I tell you, whenever and however I tell you. No arguments, no questions, no rest. If you so much as falter, you’re done. Do you understand?”

The boy didn’t blink. “Yes.”

“Yes, sir,” Tybor snapped.

The boy hesitated.

“At once.”

”Yes, sir.” Although the words were correct, the edge of defiance the boy used robbed them of any deference or subservience. His shoulders remained square, firm and unmoving.

The captain touched his cap in a silent salute and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him.

Tybor took a step forward. He picked up the boy’s arm, pushed his baggy shirt up, wrapped his fingers around his forearm and squeezed. Silken ivory skin covered a layer of surprisingly firm muscle. The boy’s smooth flesh burned against Tybor’s hand. He released him and stepped back, resisting the urge to clutch his tingling palm to his chest.

“Do you understand what we do? What I do?”

The boy’s gaze sharpened and his eyes glittered. “You train Dvalinn warriors to go into the humans’ world, to destroy those who seek to obliterate our kind.”

Tybor nodded. “We are at war. And humans have weapons the Dvalinn cannot and will not use.”

For the first time uncertainty and confusion clouded the boy’s blue eyes. “Humans and the Dvalinn are from the same stock. How did we come to be at war?”

Tybor’s lips tightened. “Ask a historian. My job is to train warriors.”

The boy’s brows lifted. “Warriors who kill humans?”

Tybor shook his head. “We don’t kill all humans. Only Gatekeepers. Most surface dwellers don’t know we exist. But the Gatekeepers know. Know us and hate us and have sworn to kill as many of our kind as they can. Dvalinn warriors,” Tybor laced the word with the scorn he felt for the boy in front of him, “come here to learn the skills they need to stop them.”

“Have you trained many of them personally…sir?” This time the tacked-on word sounded more respectful, less of a challenge.

“Too many.” Pain he refused to give in to gripped Tybor. “Men—stronger, older, wiser than you will ever be. Each one trains for as long as it takes to perfect his abilities and send him out into the world to do battle.” Tybor poked a finger toward Huon’s narrow chest. “Most of them never return. This is not a job for the weak, when even the strong do not survive.”

“But you survived, sir. Your battles are legendary.” Color rose in Huon’s cheeks, flushing the ivory a delicate rose-pink.

Tybor’s breath stilled and he looked over the boy’s head. “Legendary because they happened so long ago. For almost five hundred years I have trained young men to do what I’m no longer permitted to.” He turned his back on Huon and picked up the envelope the captain had left on the bench seat of a weight-training machine. “I need to know your assignment, to see if it’s possible to get you even halfway ready.” He ran a finger under the flap of the envelope.

Huon stepped forward and stretched to look over Tybor’s shoulder.

Tybor spun around. His hand shot out, slamming the boy to the ground before he knew what was coming. Tybor hit hard, not caring if he hurt him. If he couldn’t cut it, better to know it now before he made a pretty, pale, useless corpse.

“You only move if and when I tell you to,” he growled. “Drag your ass back up and stand at attention.”

He glanced at the kid. Blood ran down his cheek from a cut over his forehead but he didn’t wipe it away or show any sign he’d noticed. This one might be worth the trouble of training.

“From this moment on, you don’t walk, eat, take a piss or breathe unless I give you the fucking order. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tybor pulled out the papers and read. The printed words, clear and unambiguous, felt like lead weights on his shoulders.

The boy remained at attention, showing no sign of submission or fear. Maybe it would be better if he had. A coward wouldn’t last through Tybor’s harsh training regime, and if he couldn’t finish the training, he couldn’t be sent on the mission described in the papers Tybor clutched in his hand. He raised his eyes and studied the young man in front of him. From the moment the chief of staff had signed these orders, Huon—beautiful, reed-slender, confident Huon—had joined the ranks of the dead.

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Alysha

Fear and Loathing and Erotic Romance

We human beings are a strange bunch. Over the centuries we have seen those who are different and instead of embracing those differences, as a group, we feel threatened. It is a primitive, protective response, stemming from the most basic primal urge to ensure the survival of our genetic material, which of course means the survival of our offspring.
Of course we want our children to live long and prosper...oh wait...that’s Star Trek! But you know what I mean. The only problem with this is that sometimes that desire gets confused and we act inappropriately maybe because our knowledge and command of the world has grown at a faster pace than our limbic brains can keep up with.
It would have made sense, way back at the dawn of human civilization to be very wary of strangers approaching you. In a violent age, where the strong overwhelmed the weak, outsiders could attack you or your extended family.
Our ancestors knew if someone looked different, then they had a different set of genes, genes that would compete for dominance. In the fight for survival, fear was a useful factor because it primed us for the fight or flight reaction. And we all know that fear can become linked to hatred and disgust...just ask me about how I react to snakes and spiders!
Like so many of our primitive responses, this fear of the unknown can be pretty out of place in the modern world. I could cite some of the more serious social issues, but for I think I can make my point better by looking at just two.
The first group comprise ten percent of the population by most counts. Throughout history they have been shunned and reviled in spite of there being strong evidence to suggest that those who belong to this ten per cent are born that way. The French, Dutch, Portuguese, Arabic and English languages all contain derogatory terms that indicate members of this group are inspired by the devil. They have been described as sinful, burned at the stake and subject to cruel processes to turn them from their evil ways and restore them to normality.
Yep! I am talking about left-handers. Sinister, gauche, having two left feet, all derogatory terms for left handedness. It is no coincidence that right means correct. Lefties weren’t like the rest of us so we attacked them.
Another example of fear and loathing that I have only encountered in recent years is the vilification of red-heads. Suddenly it is so bad to be a ginger that people feel free to abuse them in the street.
So what has this to do with today’s blog, you may ask. Like many writers of fantasy and science-fiction, I am fascinated by the way we marginalize some groups. We writers get to explore the idea in abstract, creating a class of beings which we then torture for your entertainment. We create shape-shifters, vampires, aliens and otherkin. Then, nasty, manipulative things that we are, we make you sympathise with them, show you their basic goodness and proceed to give them a very, very hard time. If we’re doing our job right, readers see the injustice.
In my newest book, Warrior’s Apprentice, I have created a human-like race who dwell in the Underworld of Earth. Naturally, I have also created an enemy. What is a story without conflict, after all? In the book I explore the ways we are driven by fear--fear of sexuality, fear of strangers and fear of one’s own nature and fear of emotional intensity.
Combat-hardened Dvallin warrior Tybor has no room in his life for softness or sentiment. His job is to train the soldiers who stand between his people and destruction. He instantly despises Huon, his newest recruit, dismissing him as weak.
But Huon is determined to prove his worth. He accepts all the challenges Tybor throws at him, passing every test, until Tybor finds himself waging his own battle against his growing attraction to his apprentice warrior.
When Tybor discovers Huon is to be sent on a suicide mission to the human world, to infiltrate and destroy enemy headquarters by seducing Judie, the enemy’s weapons expert, he cannot let him go alone.
The ménage-a-trois seduction works as planned but Tybor is threatened by the emotions their passionate relationship triggers. He tries to deny the feelings Judie and Huon arouse in him while they flee their pursuers in a deadly race for survival.
To have a hope for the future, the master must bury his old prejudices and let himself learn from the warrior’s apprentice. Only when we see our fears for what they are can we rise to our true greatness.

Warrior’s Apprentice Alysha Ellis May 23rd Ellora’s Cave

Objects Of Lust

Lust is a funny emotion. It is different to love. Love implies constancy over the passing of time. Lust doesn’t give a damn about time… lust wants pleasure and gratification and it wants it NOW! Love sees the flaws in the beloved… and loves them too. Lust doesn’t want to know about imperfections, lust is only interested in the good bits… the more superficial the better. With lust, what you see is what you want.

Lust can lead you down some funny pathways. The gorgeous hunk from the night before, all rolling six-pack and blond spiky hair, in the harsh light of morning suddenly looks a bit been there, done that. When he gets up to go to the bathroom and looks down fondly at his willy and says proudly to it, “You da MAN.” you know the haze of lust induced blindness has gone. The only thing you can do is hope he takes da man and gets to hell out of your apartment.

Fortunately not all objects of lust turn out to be such a disappointment. There are shoes. I had thought that this was an exclusively female lust, but my good friend J Morgan assures me some men also share this craving. For a brief time in his life Jmo pretended to be a woman, so I’m not sure how much this influenced his perceptions, People confide in him so I’m going to take his word for it, even though he fails at best friendom because he NEVER shares other people’s secrets with me.

I lust after boots. The ones at the top of the page are calling out to me. I want them, I need them, oh baby, oh baby. And I want them now. Do I care that in Australia we are heading into summer and the temperature will hover around the 95 degree mark for six months? No. I want those boots right now.

Have you ever watched little kids in a playground? No? I don’t blame you. A totally boring waste of time. There is however one thing to learn from them. They see something they want, they take it. No thought for public expectations or future consequences. That’s lust. The thing is kids grow out of it. I don’t think we ever grow out of wanting – we just learn, some of us slower than others, that there is always a morning after.

It is with great regret that I have to announce I think I am growing up. Those boots cost $1,800. I have to leave them where they are. It is summer and the lazy, strappy sandalled days will give me plenty of time to work those boots out of my system.

Yes, I have six months. If my desire for those warrior woman boots stands the test of time I’ll know it’s true love. We were meant to be together. I’m a romantic. I’m willing to sacrifice anything for love.

Surviving the man in your life.

You want sex. You want pleasure. You want to come screaming your brains out. When you come (if you’ll pardon the pun) to examine it, your options are fairly limited.

You could use a vibrator - most of us do at one time or another.

This isn’t a bad option. A jackrabbit is always erect, needs no special treatment, will never ask for a blow job and doesn’t give a damn how much your love of chocolate is making your backside spread. It stores neatly away when you don’t want to be bothered with it, doesn’t expect you to feed it or do its laundry. It never hogs the bedcovers. It never sticks its head in the fridge and yells out “Honey! Do I have any beer left?”

You could decide to pursue the idea of another woman. There are lots of advantages to this one. A woman understands why you need five pairs of black shoes, knows what a clitoris is and where to find it, doesn’t lift the seat on the toilet and never leaves wet towels on the floor. Given that another woman in your life means the chores actually would be divided fifty/fifty it is surprising this option isn’t taken up more frequently.

Unfortunately, for some of us, only a man will do. This is not as strange as you may think...look at the increasing popularity of BDSM. Having a man about the house is pretty much the same thing. The pain is there but we keep going hoping to get to the reward.

You can opt for the casual approach, working your way through a variety of men who are never allowed to stick around for more than a week or two. This certainly means you won’t have to move your clothes, crushing them into one side of the closet so he can have space to hang his clothes if he ever decides to pick them up off the floor. However you have to be prepared to have your razor borrowed on Monday mornings, and it has to be admitted in the throes of passion it can be damn hard to keep track of the name you should be screaming this week.

There is the problem of availability. A good lover is in demand. If you are going to go this way, beware the man who is ready, willing and eager to come on over any time day or night. Chances are you’re looking at someone who has been rejected by many other women, probably because he thinks being a World of Warcraft level seventy Nightelf Druid makes him irresistible. If you are in fact a virtual person this isn’t bad; not so good if you are a flesh and blood woman who wants foreplay that is not on line.

So, this leaves us with the live-in man. The partner. The love of your life. If you have decided, for reasons that continue to defy the rational, to let a man move into your life, you are going to need a detailed survival guide. A list of instructions and tips to allow you to rise above the temptation to scream every time he picks up the remote and just flick, flick, flicks from channel to channel; to wait patiently for the game to end so he remembers you exist; to explain why he cannot go more than ten minutes without checking that his equipment is all there and in working order; to tell you why he thinks farting under the sheets is hilarious.

I have really bad news. There are no instructions. There is no list. Nothing I can say or do will get you any closer to understanding the alien you have invited into your life. The only consolation is this. God made women incredibly strong ...Because we need to be.

Life's Sugarfree Instructions

I got an email this week. The heading was Life’s Little Instructions. You know the kind. Pictures of nauseatingly cute puppies and kittens with sickening captions like, Be Kind. Take time to wonder at the beauty of the sky. Yeah right. If I’m looking at the sky, I’m on my back, and the closest I’m going to get to appreciating the heavens in that position is to scream out oh god.

So I decided to make my own set of Life’s Little Instructions, complete with the kind of picture I prefer (I stole it from the cover of one of my books). I am not emailing it to anybody. You won’t get 20 years bad luck if you don’t pass it on. No-one is going to send you a million dollars if you send it to 200 other victims, no kid in Lithuania is going to get a wheelchair if you click on it 1000 times. I don’t actually care if no one reads it. This is me. You make your own.

Life’s Real Instructions.

1. In a crisis - Eat chocolate. There is no problem that cannot be eased by eating chocolate.

2. When things are going fine – Eat chocolate

3. In moments of passion – Lick chocolate from the skin of the one who pleasures you (Note: In spite of what your mother said, it is okay to lick your fingers)

4. Never learn to program or adjust televisions, remotes, DVD players, or cable.

5. Make sure the cable guy is hot. Don’t be afraid to ring around until you find the right one.

6. Don’t sweat the small stuff. If the tax man wants to know what you’ve earned…let him come to you and ask. The cute nerd thing works with accountants too.

7. God made Adam first - so a man would be there ready to do the stuff women don’t want to do... and the things we do want to do.

8. Money spent on shoes is an investment. Money spent on boots is a necessary cost of living.

9. Too many and shoes do not belong in the same sentence.

10. Grab all the pleasure you can whenever you can.

11. Ignore the bad stuff. It will probably go away. If it doesn’t - keep ignoring it.

12. Never do anything because someone says it is good for you. This usually means you will hate it.

13. Try being bad. It won’t be good for you – just good.

14. Do not be nice to children and small animals. Why bother? They won’t care.

15. The exception to this is if the leash of either of the former is held by a hot guy.

16. Drink champagne only on special occasions.

17. Every breath you take is a special occasion.

18. Do not undertake self improvement courses. Every day, in every way, you are perfectly fine as you are.

19. Love yourself. (But be careful of the chocolate stains - see point 3)

20. Never read any stupid instruction lists - including this one.