Moonlight Mist: A Limited Edition Collection of Fantasy & Paranormal)

by Nicole Morgan

  Earth realm: Home

  I land, hard, in my own physical shell. I have no interest in being here either. A hero wouldn’t have run through the portal. I am a coward. If I truly cared for him, I would have stayed and found ways to help out. Instead, I took the first opportunity I could to get out.

  It takes three days of feeling like a Judas and calling in sick before I’m finally able to show my face at work. When I get there, I refuse to make eye contact. He doesn’t try either. And again, it’s as if he knows. After a week or so of this new dance of avoidance, I determine there is one way to help out. I can conjure his mother and talk to her myself. Will it work? I don’t know. But it will be worth a shot to see that sparkle once again in that one blue eye.

  It takes three weeks more for me to get the courage to call to her. After as much study as I can do on the subject, I sit cross-legged upon my bed surrounded by altars of spell books, candles, gems, crystals, and herbs. Eyes closed and head tilted toward the ceiling, I begin the chant:

  “I summon thys soul from This Lady Gwendolyn Annette Iris. May we converse in amity for reconciliation…

  I summon thys soul from This Lady Gwendolyn Annette Iris. May we converse in peace for the sake of thy son…

  I summon thys soul from This Lady Gwendolyn Annette Iris. May we converse in harmony for good deeds done…”

  I can see the allure. A calm comes over me like I’ve never known. It intensifies as she joins me. I can hear her, but not the way one might think who is only of the earthly realm. Instead, she speaks inside of me – like she’s entered the portal to my own soul. As if she’s inside of me. No different than me in her son.

  Her tone is different than I’d anticipated. She’s soft spoken and more calming than I’d witnessed in Master’s memory. As much as I want to be angry with her, the peace of her presence overrides me. She holds the key not only to his happiness, but also to my understanding of my own abilities.

  “Forgive me.”

  “I have no reason to be angry with you. I am not Bobby.”

  “You are his one true love.”

  It’s not something I hadn’t known. But love is a strong word. Too strong for my own liking. I’d prefer she used destiny. And, as if she can read my thoughts, she speaks again.

  “You are the one he was meant to be with.”

  “I know.”

  “I set a spell long ago that his one true love, and only she, could enter through his portal. For years, he’s known. He just hasn’t quite believed. One woman after another – always looking for something different than the path fate carved for him. Bobby is a challenge.”

  I laugh. “Yes. He is.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” she says, as if I have any right to an opinion on the matter. Or, like she believes I’m secretly judging her now. But I am. She knows.

  “You treated him like a dog.”

  “I was wrong.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “I was afraid. I was a coward. The monster had control of me. Of us.”

  “He got away from it. From you and the monster. Why does it still control him? How can I help?”

  “Patience.”

  “I have been patient.”

  “You have.”

  “He treats me like a pet.”

  “It’s the only way he knows to love. It’s what he was taught.”

  With her words, so simple, everything makes sense. For Master, the fear of loving comes from losing his loyal friend. He can’t have that happen again. For me, the need to be kept comes from a fear so deep of abandonment – one born on my father leaving me before the ink on my birth certificate was dry. We need each other for different reasons. But the same.

  Need. Not love.

  “Yes. It is the same. You will see.”

  I shake my head, wishing she’d go away. I need time to think this out.

  “Give it time, and don’t go back inside. You have the tools you need. Patience and you will acquire the one thing you truly need.”

  “But what about him?”

  “Love, when it’s true, is one. Souls merge, not divide.”

  I want to scream at her and ask her why it’s my job to be patient while he figures things out. I have no interest in playing nursemaid to his emotional wounds – the very hurts she caused. But it’d be a lie. For Master, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do. And, whether he’d admit it or not, the feeling is mutual. I know this. I can feel this even from the outside. Together, we are a potion so thick on toxins, most would rather run the other way. But without him, I’m really not alive. I never have been. Master gives me my high.

  I squeeze my eyes shut tighter as she floats away, leaving me to the important task ahead:

  “I summon thys soul from This Sir Robert Iris. May we converse in amity for understanding…

  I summon thys soul from This Sir Robert Iris. May we converse in peace for the sake of thy affection…

  I summon thys soul from This Sir Robert Iris. May we converse in harmony for healing misdeeds done…”

  Present day

  It took four years for me to understand the drug, to reach the full submissive utopia I’d been chasing. And once I got it, I was hooked. Like a junkie out of cash, I chased that high through a broken collar bone, risky behaviors, and anything that would take me to the one place no one in my vanilla life could possibly understand. It wasn’t always with Master. For our first few years, after he finally left that wife of his and understood my ability to read him, we weren’t committed to monogamy. He said my gift threatened him. He told me he refused to love me. He wasn’t going to lose another Rocky.

  Without secrets, he could not fully ever be in charge, he said. The dance was off kilter because he, like me, couldn’t be sure who was leading. Was it him, as he hoped it would be? Was it me, which would be opposite of what we dreamed? Or, worse, was it his mother? “I just need time to make sense of this,” he said, closing the discussion. “Do. Not. Enter. The. Portal.” It was then I promised him I’d never enter the threshold of that beautiful dark eye again. It was a small price to pay for a real chance at him. While his mother had hurt him deeply with the curse she left on him, she’d also given us the verification we needed: I was the only one to enter him, meaning I was his one true love. No other possessed my magical ability to fully see him. It was intended this way as the one gift she could truly give him in spite of his horrible upbringing. For that, I am thankful. I know who I am. I will not leave. Of course, I never pointed his mother’s curse out to him. I couldn’t. It would have only driven him further away. That was the last thing either of us could take.

  The lack of monogamy bothered me to the point of getting sick. In my heart, he owned me fully. He always had. I’d studied him and done whatever I could to make him understand I was the one and only woman for him. Yet, even after he knew, he never really saw the power he had over me too. He was my dealer and my pimp. He held the key to my only safe release. He could solve any problem with the sound of his voice or the crack of his whip. I yearned for him, dreamt of him, begged for him. I didn’t need a contract. He owned all that was mine to give: Full submission. “Never will I enter the portal again,” I promised over and over and managed to keep it, wondering how he’d ever get over the way he’d been treated without my help. Just be there.

  For half a decade, I barely voiced a word or need. I just took it. All of it. In the early years, I didn’t even fully love him. I couldn’t when he wouldn’t allow me fully back in. It didn’t matter. The deal was never about love. It was about trust. Trust was the only thing we both needed to heal for very different reasons.

  To this day, he still has my loyalty. I am the faithful companion eternally – like the dog who walked three miles each day to visit his master’s grave. I won’t say Master’s full or first names out loud. I don’t speak ill of him. I keep his secrets safe. I protect his memory. He’ll forever be mine and I, his. And every day, I try not to think about how I’ll never be able to get
inside him again. When they closed his eyes the final time, they closed the door to what had become my heaven on earth – a utopian place other people could never begin to understand. Still, we had our adventures. And no one can take them away.

  Our weeks together in the earthy realm lasted for ten years. Over that time, I don’t think there was a food I do not hate that Master didn’t feed me. Eventually, he became ‘Master’ in the earth realm and very much out loud. In all that time, Master never said he loved me. After a decade together and a recreated night in the fancy restaurant where I never did get a drink but did get the corset, the closest he got was “Olive Juice.” When you say it, your lips look like they’re saying “I love you.” At the time, it was everything to me. I understood, but better, he did too.

  Looking back, I still don’t know if I loved him. I think I loved what he did for me. I would imagine it was the same for him. I can’t imagine he loves me now, wherever he is. I’m the girl who convinced him to take out the motorcycles again. I called him old. I told him to dust them off and ride. Master fought me, but finally agreed. He said it was too dangerous. He reminded me of the close call he’d never fully told me about. But I pushed, and pushed, and pushed. Until, finally, he did. “Just a quick ride around the block,” he said. “I’ll meet you at seven. Don’t wear panties, Pet. I have big plans for you, bitch.” It was the last order he ever gave me. The night before it was the last I’d have to look in his mismatched eyes and watch him.

  Days later, I attended his funeral without underwear under a skin tight black dress, the purple corset binding me. People stared at me, with my collar on among professionals like his dentist friend and the friend’s snooty wife, but I did not leave. I kept my eyes forward and didn’t make eye contact as I said my goodbyes and paid respects on my knees. Of that, Master would have approved. Master, Olive Juice. Please forgive me.

  To this day, I sleep with a collar on, chained to my bed on the leash I was able to swipe from his place. In fact, it’s the only way I can sleep. In my closet, on the top shelf, are the wisdom teeth he made his friend pull for me for free. They don’t have fillings and I’d never melt them down anyway. I simply hang on to them because they remind me of him. I never want to forget a single thing he taught me: Safe, Sane, and Consensual. (Or close enough, anyway). My Master taught me patience, loyalty, humor, and trust. Better? He taught me to tolerate olives, and all things unsaid. And to me? That was love or the acquisition of it. Maybe it was more like the procurement of two souls merged as one. Whatever it was, it was magical – portal or not.

  It was real too, even if it wasn’t all of this earthly realm. Because earthly things aren’t always the most important. Human error leaves too much space for flaw. The medical examiner listed Master as having two bright blue eyes. Whether the right one changed back or not at his passing, or the ultimate reversal of his mother’s curse, I’ll never be sure. When Master expired, the entryways to our souls slammed shut. Deadbolts locked and eternity was sealed to destiny, like a bride to her forbidden groom. Yet, somehow, this does not worry me. Master has seen. And someday, in an afterlife, he’ll watch me—wide-eyed black—hoping I still have the code, as if I haven’t burnt it into memory. Until then, beloved Sir. Olive Juice.

  About the Author

  Erin Lee is a multi-genre dark fiction author and therapist chasing a crazy dream one crazy story at a time. She is the author of books published by Savant Books and Publications, Limitless Publishing, Black Rose Writing, Zombie Cupcake Press, Bella Tulip Press, and Crazy Ink.

  Her Diary of a Serial Killer Series is an international bestselling series as is the Ranch Series, which she co-wrote with Chelsi Davis. Upcoming titles include Pawn Takes All and Scary Mary. She is a co-founder of the Escape from Reality Series and author of several books in that series.

  Lee holds a master’s degree in psychology and works with at-risk families and as a court appointed special advocate. For her true life stories, she writes under the pen name EL George. When she isn’t busy dissecting the human experience, she enjoys escaping from reality through reading and spending time with her muses and canine companions and therapy dogs—Thomas the Terrier and Milo Muse.

  Connect with her here:

  Website: authorerinlee.com

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gonecrazytalksoon/

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/CrazyLikeMe2015

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_erin_lee/

  Fan Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CrazyInklings/

  Unexpected Trajectory

  Terri Bruce

  About the Story

  Two Lonely Souls, Lost Among the Cosmos…

  Born in space. Die in space. That’s life for men like Derrick, a contracted hand on the interstellar transport ship Mercy. Then he meets Kyra, a passenger unlike any other. She’s funny, sweet, and one exasperatingly klutzy accident away from catastrophe. He’s not quite sure if he wants to kiss her or shove her out an airlock, but he’s fast finding it hard to envision a future without her in it. The problem, however, is that Kyra has her heart set on starting a new life on a prosperous planet, while Derrick is bound to the Mercy.

  Born into poverty in an outer colony, Kyra has grown up knowing only want. With grit and hard work, she’s managed to earn a ticket on the Mercy, which, in five short weeks, will take her to the opulent world of New Dominica, where a new job—and a new life—awaits. Aboard the Mercy, however, Kyra finds the unexpected: love. Derrick makes her knees weak and heart melt with his gruff demeanor that hides a soft, protective side, but she’s determined to leave the hand-to-mouth existence of the frontier behind. Getting side-tracked by a shipboard romance is not part of her plans.

  When they cross paths, life takes an unexpected turn for them both. But love won’t be enough to keep them together unless a man bound to the stars and a woman with her heart set on the ground can find a place to meet in the middle.

  Chapter One

  Derrick crossed his arms over his broad chest and frowned at the straggle of passengers boarding the Mercy through the airlock from New Mustique station. What a sorry-looking lot. Rag-tag refugees from failed colonies carrying everything they owned on their backs. Roughnecks looking for work. A few terraforming techs moving on to their next planetary assignment. Not a lucrative fare—a dignitary or tourist—among them.

  A young woman—early- to mid-twenties by the look of her—with long, curling honey-brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail looked oddly out of place among the group. She was too well-dressed to be a refugee and too soft-looking—and too petite—to be a roughneck. And she didn’t appear to be with the techs—they stuck close to each other and pompously made sure their badges were conspicuously displayed for all to see.

  The young woman tripped over her own feet and went sprawling face-first on the cargo hold’s rough, grated floor. Derrick bit back a guffaw. Damn yokels.

  Ivy, the ship’s engineer, swatted his shoulder—the highest part of him she could reach. “Don’t be mean.”

  Derrick shook his head. “Some folks shouldn’t bother leaving solid rock.”

  Ivy’s expression changed from mischievous to confused as a furrow marred the bridge of her pert pug nose. “How do you know she’s from a rock? She could be off an Ark.”

  Derrick narrowed his eyes as he studied the young woman. It was rare but not unheard of for second-, third-, or later-generation colonists on the long-range “generation ships” to jump ship during a stopover at spaceport. Damned fools didn’t know how good they had it on those self-contained flying cities where they didn’t have to contend with the crowding and over-population of First Worlds or the hard-scrabble struggle of building a civilization from scratch of colonies.

  Derrick shook his head, dismissing the idea that the girl had jumped off an Ark. “She don’t have the look.” Ark jumpers tended to be a little dazed and lost; leaving the cushy confines of a tightly controlled system where everyone’s place was engineered from birth and
resources were distributed equitably for the uncontrolled chaos of the frontier tended to be a mite jarring. As was the initial adjustment period of dealing with a society whose social mores and technology were at least fifty years ahead of the one you’d just left. While the girl looked like a backwater rube, she didn’t look out of her depth.

  “Go help her,” Ivy scolded.

  Derrick grunted. Ivy and her damn bleeding heart. “You help her. I ain’t no porter. They paid for rough transport—room and board is all they get.”

  Now it was Ivy’s turn to shake her head, and she rolled her eyes as she did so. Derrick didn’t know why she was surprised; they’d been crewmates for two years. She should know him better than that by now.

  Ivy cast him a look that was equal parts disappointment and exasperation and hurried forward to help the young woman who had picked herself up and was dusting herself off.

  Derrick sighed scornfully as he looked around the Mercy’s modest cargo bay. The Company subsidized the interplanetary transports and paid a flat rate per person for Company personnel to be carried back and forth between the settled worlds of the New Victoria territory—which meant the Mercy’s crew could afford the basic necessities. Private, higher paying fares, such as tourists and merchants, meant luxuries, like fresh food. Without them, the passengers—and the crew—would be eating protein bars and pre-packaged, dehydrated meal kits for the entire journey. And there’d be no pocket change to blow on shore leave when they reached New Dominica.