Thanks, Tonya. Ask any fantasy reader and you’ll be told that epic fantasy has been around for a long time. But thanks in large part to the popularity of George R.R. Martin’s bestselling novels from his A Song of Ice and Fire series and more importantly, its racy HBO TV series spinoff Game of Thrones based on the novels, it has taken off in an even bigger way. The television series has attracted people to fantasy who were never interested in it before. And this has been my goal with Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire, my new anthology inspired by the TV series—to attract not only fantasy readers, but readers who may never have read fantasy or, for that matter, anything remotely resembling “erotic fiction.”
As an author and creator/editor of numerous anthologies, it’s always been my goal to attract new readers and, in the process, dispel any preconceived notions they may have about genres in general. I believe that I have achieved this with Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire, providing readers with a taste of epic fantasy that’s flavored with lots of spice.
Please join us at the book’s website, where you can listen to several of the talented contributors reading from their stories. http://mitziszereto.com/thronesofdesire/author-readings/.
Thrones
of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire
edited
by Mitzi Szereto
About
the book:
Where
lust and legend abound, and adventure, passion and danger entwine...
Think
mystical lands and creatures, kings and queens, knights and renegades, heroes
and villains, warlords, maidens and princesses. Think battles and danger, honor
and dishonor, good and evil. Most of all, think hearts filled with passion and
secret desire. This is a place where romantic chivalry is alive and well, but
so too is romantic wickedness. This is a place where the good do not always
win, and the bad are often more captivating and desirable than their altruistic
counterparts. In these lush and timeless landscapes, the battle for flesh can
be as important as the battle for power.
Intrigue,
sorcery, revenge, lawlessness, dark secrets and mysterious elixirs;
entanglements with supernatural beings—everything is possible in these magical
mythical landscapes. Inspired by "Game of Thrones" these
imaginative steamy tales transport the reader to fantastical realms.
Edited
by Mitzi Szereto, Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and
Fire includes a special foreword from legendary fantasy author Piers
Anthony.
Excerpt:
From
"Hot as a Dragon's Blood" by Eric Del Carlo
“Caffax.”
Her
voice carried tranquilly. He looked up and found her in the doorway,
backlit by the candlelight. She had shed her scarlet robes and stood nude.
Her body was robust. Was she really so different from the supply clerk
with whom he had so foolishly dallied earlier today? Her breasts were
smallish but as firmly molded as the rest of her. Yet there between those
taut thighs was only the moist dark of her curls. It was an absence, or so
it seemed to Caffax.
“I
want you to take my salt dragon,” he said. “I do, but…”
She
came to him. “You are a brave man, Caffax.”
“Maybe
not brave enough.” He blinked up at her. “Is there some other way?”
She
bent and softly stroked his cheek. “In Mavvan it is taught that a
dragonmaster must give of himself completely in order to bond with his
dragon. It is the same when that bond is transferred. You must give of
yourself. To me.”
Her
mouth moved toward his.
Caffax
closed his eyes. And felt the touch of her lips. They were moist and
velvety, and they moved against his without insistence. She tasted of the
liquor they had both been drinking. He let his mouth answer back, giving
in to instinctive responses, not thinking of this person as a woman, a
female, merely as a friend, someone who had been kind to him.
Her
hands were in motion once more, tugging the shirt’s sleeve from his wrist
so that his torso was bared. He thought she would reach for his crotch
again, and tensed; but she instead set about caressing his upper arms, his
chest, even as they continued to kiss. Her fingers found his nipples and
grazed them, which sent a shiver through him.
When
those fingers caught his aroused buds and applied a mounting pressure,
Caffax groaned against her mouth. At that same moment her tongue invaded
him. Again he allowed himself to respond spontaneously. His body’s deep
instincts took over. After all, he was a human, and humans had been
designed to reproduce. Some part of him, despite his own private
proclivities, had to answer that primary urge.
◊◊◊◊◊
From
"Of High Renown" by Janine Ashbless
She
remembered how she had misused him.
It
was an unending struggle to keep him alive. The venom in his blood seemed
to have destroyed his body’s sense of equilibrium and threw him between
burning fever and frigid tremors every few hours. Emlhi cleaned and bandaged
the deep puncture wounds in his shoulder, but after that she simply tried
to keep his temperature on an even keel—stopping the fever boiling
his brains at one moment, piling blankets over him to maintain some
vestiges of warmth the next. She fed and watered him, cut fresh bracken
every morning for his mattress and, when she was not watching over him,
tried to keep up the work of her smallholding. She snatched her own sleep
during his chills, dozing in her father’s old room.
Between
fire and ice, the knight would have passages where he seemed to be lucid
but completely exhausted. Then as the fever flared up afresh he’d begin to
talk and sometimes try to rise from his bed. He stared at the ceiling and
spoke to people who weren’t there. He raved about battles and campaigns
and the horrors he’d witnessed until Emlhi wanted to stop her
ears for sorrow. Sometimes his hallucinations grew worse and in terror
or fury he would lash out at her. If he hadn’t been so weakened by his
illness, he might have been really dangerous.
It
went on for days, and there were times she couldn’t understand why he did
not die. She might have called in an older female relative to share the
labor of care, but she guarded her sole right to Gareth possessively.
Exhausted, she took strength from his stubbornness.
And
she took more than strength.
The
first time it wasn’t her doing. She was sitting on the edge of the bed,
tending him as he burned. She’d been wiping his face and chest with a damp
cloth, dipping it in fresh water every few minutes and waving it about to
cool it. He was twisting in discomfort, tossing in a delirious dream, his
hands scrabbling convulsively across his belly. When she touched his cheek
with the cloth he would turn his face toward it, like a baby
seeking the teat. She ran it down the midline of his torso and he grabbed
her hand, knotting his fingers around hers. Gently she freed the cloth with her
other hand and continued to bathe him. He kept his grip on her. His head was
thrown back, his larynx working. Then he pushed her hand into his crotch.
◊◊◊◊◊
From
"Eyekeeper" by Aurelia T. Evans
Lydia
stood in the middle of the cell. The floor under her bare feet was nothing
but dirt and hay and dust mixed with disintegrated rat droppings. She had
long since removed the cloth belt from between her legs where it held her
skirt up away from her feet like pants. It was easier to creep around
when skirts could not snag on corners, but she was not creeping
now. She had been caught, betrayed by a man who should know better,
sentenced to burn by the king whose coffers she pilfered, and shut away in
the castle dungeon to await her execution at dawn.
The
sky through the window slit revealed stars. She could not yet smell the
morning fog, and she still smelled ale and sweat on the breeze, which told
her evening was still upon the city.
There
was a moldy pallet in the corner, next to a bucket. Lydia used neither,
simply stood. Her clothing was ordinary and her face was smudged with dust. But
something was different; something was wrong. It was a feeling in the gut,
like looking into a forest and knowing there was a creature staring back,
something silent and unseen. She smiled, the curve of her lips almost
imperceptible.
The
woman whom the king called Witchthief waited.
After
the bell tower chimed ten, the warden entered. He could not look her in the
eye, but his strong, narrow jaw was set, his fists inadvertently tight. He
bore marks of distress and distraction—there were deep circles under his
eyes and his stubble smudged his cheek like charcoal.
“Good
evening, Hann,” she said.
He
bowed slightly. The gesture was automatic and somewhat mocking. “Lydia.”
“You
have had a good evening, have you not?” Lydia asked.
“Very
lucrative.”
He
shut the door behind him. His keys clinked in the lock. “Where is the
rest?”
“You
‘rescued’ the bag when Micah alerted the king I was digging through his
treasure room.” Lydia stepped forward. Her left ankle dragged behind a
bit, laden as it was with an iron shackle that attached her to the wall.
“You failed to inform me that Micah kept a Scrying Glass in there.”
“I
have been told that an artifact was also removed,” Hann interrupted. The
timbre of his voice was official now. Cloaked in his profession, he found
the fortitude to meet her eyes.
“Is
that what Micah told you?” Lydia’s expression remained placid and slightly
bemused.
“The
king ordered me to search you for any additional items stolen.”
“I
am sure it will be such a chore.” Her smile became perceptible.
“Damn
it, Lydia, where is the Oculum?” Hann shouted, grabbing her by her arms.
When he shook her, he made her chains rattle. She just laughed, the low, husky
sound vibrating over his flesh.
“Search
me.” She peered up at him through her dark eyelashes.
“Words
cannot describe how glad I am you will burn on the morrow,” Hann said. He
pulled at the ties of her bodice, spreading it open before him with
nothing but her light chemise underneath. As her skirts moved and brushed
against her legs, the clink of metal on metal was more apparent. She could
no longer cover it with the sound of her shackle. When Hann heard it,
he raised an eyebrow.
“Really,
Lydia. What did you think you were going to do with the treasure? Bribe
the ferryman to take you the other direction?” Hann asked. Slowly, he slid
the bodice down and loosened the final ties so that the material of her
dress slid down her legs. There was a heavy clink as the full pocket-lined
skirts fell to the stone floor.
Lydia
said nothing, nor did her smile falter. She could see sweat forming above
his lip as his gaze traveled from the ridge of her collarbone down to the
shapes of her breasts under the thin chemise. Her remaining clothing
was silent as he moved his hands over the full arms, down the back,
against the skirts, now pressing against her firm thighs.
◊◊◊◊◊
From
"The Widow's Man" by Nyla Nox
Our
queen was in a lighthearted mood that night.
She
joked and laughed as she asked for my help in taking off her elaborate
dress. She had sent her maids home early, “so we would have more time.”
The
dress had many layers of white and cream, decorated with stylishly
exaggerated flowers that looked a little menacing to me but that I was
told were the envy of all the ladies at court. Our queen was thinking of
taking the designer under her wing.
Perhaps,
she said, there would be a need for a larger dress, particularly in a
certain area…
I
could not help getting confused with the hooks and eyelets when I heard that.
For a moment I started to put them back together again by mistake, until my
queen turned around and playfully slapped my hand.
“What
are you doing?” she said. “Is this how you are going to serve me?”
My
turn to laugh now, lightheartedly. “Maybe I was caught up in a dream,” I
said.
I
was indeed. At this very moment the assassins were watching the shift
change of the royal guard from the vantage points I had revealed to them.
The
queen put her arms lovingly around my shoulders.
“Is
it your dream, too?” she said.
Experienced
as she was with the daily deceits of the royal court, she couldn’t hide her
sudden joy. I suppose she always felt, deep down, that something was
missing in me, in spite of my imaginative attention to the details of our
frequent celebrations in her bedchambers. I never had any trouble showing
my admiration and respect, in every way. You taught me
superb control, my Lady Widow. And I know I never said anything that
could give her the slightest clue to my real passion. I never talked about
it to anyone. Not even to you.
No
sounds from outside. Your assassins were true experts. Or else they had
been discovered and our plans destroyed. I had no way of knowing.
The
queen gripped my buttocks with her strong, workmanlike hands. She is no
ethereal beauty like you, my Lady Widow, her body bears witness to her
descent from a long line of provincial farm wives. She pulled me in as
deep as she could. Had she chosen this night of all nights to make me come
inside her?
In
all the time I served in her bedchamber, she never replaced me with
another lover, although of course, as our queen, she always had a few men
on the side, a well-designed cross section of our population who kept her
in touch with current thought and fashions as well as current lovemaking.
She had no reason to assume that I would be anything but delighted to share
even more of her life and contribute to the history of our
illustrious city. What man would not love to father the queen’s child?
Well,
perhaps the man who, while embracing her, reassuring her with soothing
words and making love to her with her precious gown still half hooked up,
flowers all crumpled and sticking out in awkward places, exposing only her
magnificent breasts and, if pushed up far enough, her smooth
strong thighs, feeling the softness of the silk against his belly and
the softness of her inner body tightly around him, knows that he has
already betrayed her to her enemy and expects the assassins to enter the
bedchambers any moment now using the key that he himself supplied.
In
spite of all that, I obeyed.
Find out more about Mitzi and her books at the following links:
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