Title: King of the Fire Dancers
Series: Shift Happens, Book One
Author: S.T. Sterlings
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: Aug 14, 2017
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 89700
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, abduction, captivity, shifters, slow burn, enemies to lovers
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Synopsis
When he’s propositioned by a wealthy
stranger, it seems Coy Conlin’s impoverished life is about to be upgraded. But
before he can share the news with his family, he comes home to find his
grandmother murdered and his little brother missing. To make matters worse,
he’s thrown in prison along with every other shifter under the Sovereign’s
orders.
August Seaton left his laboratory job at
the Asuda Registry to become a Registry officer. But after a mission with his
partner goes horribly wrong, August ends up with Coy’s dead grandmother on his
hands, and Coy thinks he’s the murderer. Worst of all, his partner discovers
his secret.
August is a shifter. And now he’s Coy’s
cellmate. Coy and August must survive each other, abusive guards, and a
scientist hell-bent on forcing Coy into a breeding program.
Teamed up, the pair escape prison and
journey across the country. With the Registry hot on their trail, they have
enough things to worry about. Falling for each other wasn’t supposed to be one
of them.
Excerpt
King of the Fire Dancers
S.T. Sterlings © 2017
All Rights Reserved
Chapter One
There were two things that Coy Conlin
was exceptionally skilled at. The first was dancing. The second, and more
unconventional, was turning into a dragon. Both were in his blood and took
years of trial and error to perfect, but the former wasn’t a danger to those
around him. It wasn’t easy maneuvering a dragon body, especially not one as big
as his. Dragons had claws, scales, and fangs. He even had the misfortune of
retaining his proneness to seasonal allergies, which sure as hell took
explosive sneezing to a whole new level. Still, thanks to his grandmother—a
dragon shifter like him—he’d mastered shifting and everything that it entailed
from a young age.
Like hunting.
His prey was a slender boy with white
skin and blue eyes. The boy raced past, auburn hair catching the wind and
blowing about his head. He scurried through the dried grass, his pale, gangly
legs kicking up dirt as he rushed to hide behind a large tree. Laughter
disguised as a growl escaped Coy’s mouth. As if a mere tree would provide the
boy sanctuary.
Coy hated flying. Dragon or not, he
preferred to keep his feet—and claws—securely grounded. But, humans were often
smarter than they looked, and he knew that if he continued to creep along the
ground, the boy would feel the vibrations caused by his heavy footsteps. And
so, he pushed off, sharp talons grazing earth as he hovered above the coarse
ground. His wings, as wide as sails on a cutter, pierced the air and sent
forward a powerful gust of windblown, dusty dirt. He flapped them again,
creating a mini dirt storm between himself and the tree and, most importantly, his
prey.
A shower of prickly leaves and thin,
brittle branches fell to the ground. Seconds later, the boy emerged from behind
the tree, arms up and over his head, shielding himself from the downpour.
Amidst the cascading debris, Coy caught the look of determination on the boy’s
face. Wedged tightly in the boy’s grip was a rock, jagged and angled, the tip
pointing toward the sky. A rock? Really? A puny, misshapen hunk of slate? What
good would that do against a ninety-foot-long dragon with scales as black as
onyx and five times as hard?
A rock.
The little idiot.
The boy let out a wail of a battle cry
and charged forward, gripping the rock in his hand like a warrior wielding a
sword. There were hundreds of ways Coy could have reacted, and most would have
ended with the boy dead on his feet. Instead, he stood there, a beacon of
massive power and pride, and allowed the boy to attack. He didn’t feel the
impact of the rock smashing against his leg, though he did see the resulting
blood. It wasn’t his. It would have taken much more than a rock to puncture his
scales.
It was the boy’s.
The force behind the thrust of his hand
had caused the rock to ricochet off a section of scales and created a shallow
cut in the center of his reddened palm.
Coy had been specific with the rules—no
blacking out, no crying, and no bloodletting. If any of those happened, the
game ended immediately. And, although the human tried to hide it, he was
definitely bleeding.
“No, wait. I’m okay. I swear it. I’m
fine. Look. It barely—”
The protest fell on deaf ears—literally.
Coy couldn’t hear—or see—anything during the transformation. It was as if he
were alone in a black, soundproof room, nothing but darkness and depth and the
feeling of endless falling. His heart rate quickened, slamming against his
chest like a musician’s calloused hands pounding against a hand drum. He
inhaled through his nose, focusing on the rhythm and physically and mentally
controlling the pace of his heartbeat. He calmed his mind, grasping at emotions
pulsing like lightning, smoothing them out until his vision began to return.
First, blurs of colors: reds and browns and a single blob of white standing
directly in front of him.
Then, all at once, everything returned.
“It’s barely a scratch,” the boy
muttered, folding his pale arms over his chest.
“Too bad,” Coy replied, rubbing at his
jaw. It felt good to use his vocal cords again. He was incapable of speech as a
dragon, just limited to snarls and hisses…and fire breathing. That last one
came in handy. “Rules are rules, Ari.”
Ari—Coy’s adopted brother—frowned. “You
didn’t even give me a chance.”
“A chance to what?” Coy rolled his
shoulders in an attempt to relax some of the tension in his muscles that came
from shifting. “Find another rock? What was that supposed to do?”
He trudged away from his younger
brother, crushing dead grass beneath his bare soles. He spotted his discarded
sarong lying by a fragment of slate, the latter’s golden-brown surface
highlighted with speckles of fiery red. The color was reminiscent of his own
skin, warm brown with red undertones—the exact opposite of Ari’s. Even if Ari
had somehow managed to slightly injure him with his dumb rock, the bruise would
have been difficult to see. One of the many perks of having brown skin was that
it didn’t display bruises well. Growing up, that played to his advantage with
the number of fights he got into.
Ari pouted. “It was the only thing I
could think of.”
“Yeah, well.” Nude, Coy bent down to
retrieve his sarong. “That type of thinking is going to get you killed. Or
worse, you’ll get your ass kicked.”
Ari rubbed his bloody hand against his
sweat-soaked tunic. “How can getting beat up be worse than dying?”
Coy watched as the blood stained the
faded fabric. Ari had already outgrown most of his clothes. What he had left
was either tainted or torn. Coy would have to take up private performances at
this rate just to make sure he could afford to buy Ari clothes.
“If you’re dead, you won’t have me
around to rub it in.” He grinned at Ari and then motioned toward the open wound
on his hand. “Better not let Dinina see that. You know how she gets.”
He wrapped the thin, cobalt-colored
sarong around his waist, securing the two ends into a knot. They’d spent half
the morning outside, which meant he’d spent just as long in his dragon form.
He’d be exhausted later, but it was worth it. He always had fun hanging out
with his little brother. Still, he felt like he was forgetting something.
And then he remembered.
“Shit!” he shouted, the sound so loud
and sudden that it startled an unkindness of ravens perched in a nearby tree.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Ari asked,
blue eyes wide with concern.
There were several things wrong, and all
of them could be summed up with two words.
“The Registry.”
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Exclusive Content Post
Besides writing, what are you passionate about?
Jason Momoa. I’m definitely passionate about him. Also, Ezra Miller…and Chris Hemsworth. So much passion there, folks, lol.
Okay, okay. Besides Jason Momoa, I’m also passionate about anime and certain games. I’m not much of a gamer, but I do really love Overwatch. I’ve also played Dream Daddy, which is super fun. More than playing the games, I love the lore. I adore the characters. They’re so dynamic and fun. I usually fall in love with characters rather than the premise of a game. I get bored too easily to play any game for a long time. I have to do a lot of things at once, or I’ll start to feel like I’m wasting too much time working on only one thing.
I’m also a huge advocate for letting people be who they are! I was very lucky to grow up with a family who is very accepting, and that’s the way I choose to live my life. As a pansexual, I’m an avid supporter of the LGBTQIA community, so you’ll find lots of my passion there as well.
Another one of my passions is makeup! I absolutely LOVE makeup. I have tons of it. Every time I tell myself that I’m going to stop buying it, I end up buying more. It’s an obsession! In addition to my love of makeup, is also my love of skincare (which I have not being doing my routine like I should. Oops!). I started the Korean skincare routine a few months ago, and I fell in love. Korean products are so gentle, but affective. I totally recommend giving it a try. Feel free to message me about what products I use, or to recommend others. I’m always looking for recommendations.
Oh, and rockabilly and goth aesthetic. I haven’t figured out a way to mash them up, and make it work, haha. I’ve always been a huge rockabilly fan. I’m going to blame it on how many times I watched Cry-Baby as a kid. I adore the whole pinup style as well, but I haven’t mastered that one yet! I was really into the goth look when I was younger, and it never really left me. There’s a running joke about me being a vampire that has existed throughout my years of being in various fandoms.
Speaking of vampires, I’m totally passionate about them as well. I LOVE VAMPIRES, and demons, and werewolves are okay, too. I’m a big fan of horror as well as dark themes, so these things hold my attention the longest. I actually watch horror movies while writing. Or rather, horror movies are my go to for background noise. I can’t listen to music when I write, but I can listen to people screaming for their lives, lol.
Other than those things, I’m one of those people who kind of dabbles in various things here and there to see if I’ll like it. It’s sort of like a buffet. I’ll put a few different things on my plate, but most of it is going to be covered in the stuff that I really enjoy. I’m extremely picky, so when I find something that I like, I usually stick to it. It takes me a while to branch out because I don’t like having my time wasted. I’m trying to be more open to different things. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
No, wait. I remembered one last thing. Technology. I’m a major gadget girl. If it’s shiny and can connect to the internet, chances are I want it. Unfortunately, wanting it is usually all I can do because everything is so expensive.
Meet the Author
ST Sterlings is a librarian, and a mother of two (two boys, and one exhausting female GSD). She’s an avid fan of LGBTQ romance, and also loves the horror genre. She’s from Hampton, VA, but currently lives in Lancaster, CA.
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