Gryphon's Aerie

A chance meeting on a beach. A last-minute rescue. Secret pledges and disapproving family members. These are the things that make a great love story. But this isn’t a love story — not yet. With Lilah’s life on the line, ey will take the chance that Noble Bethania offers em. But with that chance comes risk. Love may come later, but first, they will need to trust.

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Excerpt

Sherzod and Dalma were surprised when the guards all left, not one remained on watch to keep them from escaping. But Lilah understood, and ey started laughing. Laughing and laughing, hysterical now, tears seeping down eir face.

Ey could escape in an instant, release the beast, and it would snap the ropes that bound em. But only if ey was willing to kill eir siblings. The guards did not dare kill Lilah themselves, though a few days earlier ey had begged them to. Instead, they had left em to die in a prison made of love.

Dalma yelled at Lilah, begging em to settle, to explain. Sherzod tried to soothe, to calm. Both fought the ropes, hoping for enough slack, enough leverage, to fight themselves free.

It was not Lilah’s siblings but the beast within em that snapped Lilah out of eir hysteria. The beast lunged for freedom, knowing it could snap these ropes in a moment. Snap them, and then…

No. They may be doomed, and Lilah may be damned, but Lilah would hold off the beast until eir last breath. While Dalma and Sherzod lived there was a chance they could survive this.

“I’m sorry,” was all Lilah could spare a breath to say. Ey threw emself into the most important battle of eir life.

Reimund Swiđhun has it made. With the king’s blessing, he will capture Lady Mildthryth, marry her, and finally have land to call his own.

Lady Mildthryth Rúna has been fighting off would-be ‘suitors’ for months. She will marry on her terms or not at all. On their world, a noblewoman is expected to marry and accept her subordinate place.

Unfortunately for Reimund, Milthryth’s people have other traditions. She refuses give up and be a broodmare for any of the knights and lordlings the king sends after her. And before long, she has Reimund right where she wants him.

For Reimund, the only thing more shameful than being captured by a woman is bending knee to one, but he will do what he must to keep his friends and followers safe. Even if it means spending the rest of his life Bound by His Oath.

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Excerpt

“I have a proposal for you, Sir Reimund. I doubt it will be to your liking, but you might find it has its merits.”

“I am, of course, at your service, Lady Mildthryth,” he said, choosing his words like his footing over those damnable rocks.

To his surprise, she laughed again. “Yes, precisely.” She took a deep breath, and Reimund braced himself for her charge. “You will take oath as my liegeman.”

She spoke softly, so only he could hear her. But the words landed like a blade through his guts. He snarled, unable to restrain himself in that moment of shock. “You dare…”

The warrior stepped forward, but Lady Mildthryth held up her hand, stopping him.

“I suggest you control yourself, sirrah.”

Reimund forced himself to step back, to uncurl his fists. “If you were a man, I’d challenge you for such an insult.”

She looked at him for a moment as if he had two heads, then shrugged, “If I understand you Norns, if I were a man, it wouldn’t be an insult.” She gestured out to the distant woods. “You have built your ship, invader. You may live with it or die in it.

“Your man was ready to die for you. Will you have the courage to live for him?”

She waited, but he said nothing. “For the time being, I would keep this oath private. Only you and I would know of it. Once you have given your oath, I will wed you, making you lord of Oak Haven. You will rule all here. I will rule you.”

Viola is in love with Duke Orsino

Duke Orsino is in love with Countess Olivia

Countess Olivia is in love with Cesario

Cesario is really Viola in disguise…

or is he?

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a very queer play,

But what if you could make it queerer?

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Excerpt

She continued down the road but could not shake Olivia’s token from her mind. “I am the man.” And the words roused a hope in her that she dared not look at. A hope she crushed ruthlessly. “If it be so, as ’tis, poor lady, she were better love a dream.” Without conscious thought, she wrapped her arms around herself. Her own dreams made no sense to her. “Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness, wherein the pregnant enemy does much.”

She passed by a still pond, and her reflection caught her eye. The man Cesario stared back at her. “How easy is it for the proper-false in women’s waxen hearts to set their forms!” A hand raised to touch her — his! cheek. He was her; she was him. “Alas,” she murmured, “our frailty is the cause, not we! For such as we are made of, such we be.” His hands explored his face, confirming that eyes saw truth. Brushed the ends of the short hair. Hope and fear and disbelief warred in his reflected eyes. “How will this fadge?”

Viola forced herself to turn away from the pond, to closer her eyes to the image there. “My master loves her dearly; and I, poor monster,” her voice broke, and her eyes turned back to the pond, but she forced them forward, “fond as much on him.

“And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.”

She walked for a time, pausing again only when she came in sight of Orsino’s manor.

“What will become of this? As I am man,” and she bit off the words, “my state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am woman,–now alas the day!” and these words too were heartfelt, burdened with dredged up pain, “what thriftless sighs shall poor Olivia breathe!”

A deep breath, a sterning of her features, and she strode up the lane to face her master and his disappointment. “O time! thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me to untie!”