“Here
we are, two weeks before the third anniversary and it all goes down the drain,”
went through her mind.

     So much has changed during these three
years. She gave up her work in London, moved to Budapest and started to build a
new life.

     “Was it worth it?” she pondered.

     She realized that she couldn’t put off the
stock taking any longer. She knew that it was necessary to ease the pain.

     “Yes, today is the day,” she said
and took the usual motion of jumping out of bed.

     Suddenly, there was a firm grip on her
shoulders that forced her to stay put. The touch made her shiver. At first, she
could not see the energy, only smelled it. A deep, sweet, masculine, forceful
and sensational fragrance filled her nostrils, carried the promise of an
overwhelmingly satisfying sexual intercourse.

     “Oh, Sweet Creator, aahh, I need to get
up. Really, ahhmmmm.”

     A wet, warm and soft sucking took over her
left toe that spread on, taking the right toe first and finally covered the
feet under the duvet. Zeta focused and let the familiar face taking shape in
front of her eyes. The dark, bushy hair, strong straight nose, lushes, dark red
lips, fiery black eyes and this absolutely perfect, beautiful body with its
strong curves and moving muscles brought a grateful smile on her face. Closed
her eyes in comfort and enjoyed the currents pulsing through her body.

     “My darling brother, you never let me
down. Do you love me?”

     “Very much, sweetest and enjoy your body
even more,” replied the man.

     “You are only saying it because you feel
ashamed for the behaviour of your earthly soul. Why didn’t you teach him, why
didn’t you help him to remember? He is so lost!” continued the woman.

     “Hush Hera, hush…” he said and pressed his
warm lips firmly on hers. His tongue started its way, gently opened the teeth
and disappeared in the mouth. She lifted her arms and tried to caress him.  

     The hands were slowly coming up on the
firm back and dancingly lost themselves in the hair-jungle. The lips opened,
giving full access to the sucking and licking tongue.

     They seemed to forget Earth and all its
pain. The mouth released the tongue and allowed it to make its way down on her
body.

     “I should have taken a shower with a
softening lotion and put some perfume on,” ran through Zeta-Hera’s mind.

     The man noticed the apprehensive tightness
in her muscles.

     “Let it be, my sister, you are Hera now.
You do not need lotions and showers. You can change your body and be anything
you want. Do you understand?”

     “Yes, Hades, my darling brother, I
understand,” replied the woman and with a curving motion helped the tongue to
reach her nipples.

     The gentle and wet sucking made heavenly
sounds while a big warm hand travelled through the stomach and landed on the
navel. The tongue followed it shortly, licking its way deeply into Hera’s soul.
The woman cried out.

Life is an extraordinary journey. It is full of challenges
and unsolved tasks that are put in front of us on the constantly moving and
changing road towards Nirvana, the place that today we refer to as Happiness.

In my journey, I visited 103 countries, lived in 7, on 4
continents. I learned about the interrelated micro- and macrocosm. I became a
REIKI Master-Healer, an Initiated Witch, an Orixa Shamanic Master, and a
Phoenix Initiated Educator to teach the ancient wisdom of Khem, the Royal Art
of Al Khemi.

Today, I have an established philosophy – I call AKIA – that
explores the interrelations between earthlings and nature, and Earth and the
universe. I have 12 books published and many faithful students. I am an
Intimacy & Family coach and help people to find their purpose. The joy of
seeing them succeed gives me the strength to find new adventures and learn from
new experiences.

I believe that learning is the only way to understand life
and the self within. This unique knowledge makes us or breaks us in the end.

I am British and living in London.

 

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How much would you
wager to save a dragon? Your safety, your friends, your people? How about your
life?

Skye, an alitur—elf as the small-minded humans would degrade her—is a gambler
hiding in the skin of her enemy to escape capture, her past and her true
identity.

However, her fragile safety shatters when she’s caught cheating. Thrown into
the corrupt world of gambling, where animals and creatures are pitted against
one another for sport, Skye witnesses something she thought long extinct:
dragons.

Determined to save and connect with the dragons, Skye is drawn into a web of
deceit, loyalty, and love, impelling her to face her past and reclaim her
heritage.

With unlikely allies, Skye must confront the soul-devouring priestesses and
their ruthless general, One-Eye-Nic, before the last dragons—and her own
soul—are lost forever.

This is an enthralling tale of lies, rebellion, and the price of freedom…

**NEW RELEASE!**

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The girl showed up with their tankards and a jug of homebrew.
The man’s attention went straight to her cleavage. The hairy man pinched her
behind for good measure before tipping her. Skye used the distraction to nick a
card from the pack, a prince, hiding it in her coat sleeve. She waited for the
girl to leave before dealing. The cards were soft, faded, and stained from
nights of gambling.

Skye watched the three players as they scrutinized their
cards. ‘Stupid’ smiled, Sid’s left eye twitched. The hairy man downed his
tankard of homebrew.

Skye looked at her cards, she had two of pawns and a prince.
On the table were a five and a seven of shields, a castle, and a three of
pawns. Skye wasn’t sure what ‘Stupid’ thought he had, but Skye was pretty sure
Sid had a castle, giving him the highest pair from the table.

Skye’s attention turned to the hairy man. The more she
watched him, the more he seemed a ‘Stupid’ and in that case, no threat to Skye.
He was only lucky with the previous hand.

Skye had the winning hand if she switched her two of pawns
for the prince in her sleeve. ‘Stupid’ started the bets, throwing half his coin
in, four silvers. Sid saw the bet and the hairy man added a silver.

She didn’t want to chase away Sid, so she also raised with
only a silver coin. Keep it modest,
keep it moving.

As the bets evened out around the table, Skye shifted her
weight slightly and slid one hand under the edge of her sleeve. A quiet motion,
a simple flick. She switched her cards—replacing a dud with a prince. Now she
had two.

But just as her fingertips closed over the edge of the second
card, a hand clamped down on her shoulder.

Steel. Not touch. Not pressure. Just steel.

“That is enough. We know what you are,” a male voice said.
“Good call, Jim, you will get your reward. And you,” the man’s grip tightened
slightly, “Finn Skylar, just won yourself a meeting with the gambler’s guild.”

Her heart jumped. Breath caught halfway up her throat. The
hairy man had a smug cat-smile. He’d caught his mouse.

Her gut twisted. A setup. She should’ve seen it. Should’ve felt it. No wonder he was unreadable—he wasn’t here to play. He was here for her. Cold
flooded her limbs.

What did they know? That she was a
cheater? A woman? An alitur?

Or all three?

She relaxed her face into neutrality, but her mind raced.
Could she run? No. Not yet. Too many eyes, too close to the table. No one had
drawn steel, which meant they still wanted her alive—questioned, not killed.
Yet.

“What? You have nothing to say?” the hairy man–Jim–said. He
leaned over and took Skye’s tankard of homebrew and downed it. “Cheers.”

Skye didn’t answer. She reached down, slow and measured, and
picked her tricorne up off the floor. Her hat was just fabric—but it made her
feel armed. Steady. Like herself.

She rose to her feet.

“I don’t know what this guy told you,” Skye gestured towards
Jim, “but I didn’t cheat. I haven’t seen him before in my life.” She truly
hoped that was the only reason they were confronting her.

The house-muscle behind Skye chuckled, or that was what she
assumed the rumbling noise was.

“We have been watching, and you have an appointment with the
gambling guild.”

“No one told me,” Skye said with a shrug.

“I did. Just now.”

Skye looked over her shoulder at the house-muscle looming
over her. Tall. Broad shoulders. A scar cut down his right temple, hugging the
cheekbone like a crack in old stone. His stance was heavy, but not rooted. A
bit off balance. Good.

The short one would be slower, maybe better in a brawl, but
easy to outmaneuver. The tall one could be clumsy. The real problem was her
coat—it would get in the way if she had to move fast. If she had to fight.

But—

She ran through options. Surrender. Fight. Flee. None was
good. She shifted her weight, breath held shallow in her chest.

“Where is this meeting?” Skye asked.

“At the boss’s office, at the pits,” the tall one answered.

Skye scanned the room. No escape. Everyone watched. Waited.
Sid had crushed his cards in his hands. Only Jim kept drinking, he found his
entertainment for the night.

“I don’t go to the pits,” Skye said.

The tall one rumbled again from behind, “I don’t care, you
are going.”

The room inhaled.

Jim smirked at Skye and lifted his tankard off the table.
With a flick and a flash of her hand, a knife plunged into Jim’s eye.

Gasps.

The cup fell, and Jim followed. 

Fran Zuid lives in a village on the outskirts of Cape Town,
South Africa, with two dogs and four parrots (her personal dragons, without the
fire-breathing part—which is a bonus). If she is not submerged in a creative
fantasy world, or playing old games, she is fiddling in her garden, sipping
wine at a vineyard or conquering a hiking trail somewhere—that is, if her
“dragons” allow it.

Where Dragons Are
Captured is her debut novel.

 

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Prologue

Wings

In
one week Allison Anderson will commit her first felony: section 4550 of the
California Penal Code, helping someone escape from a state prison. Almost
everyone who knows her would be stunned with disbelief. For her, it’s the
ultimate realization of who she is.

One autumn evening six years ago, Allison entered San
Quentin Prison as a volunteer tutor. Walking across the prison grounds, she
gazed at the forty-foot walls, the spirals of razor-

wire,
and the imposing guard towers. She wondered how an inmate might escape. It was
her first time in a prison, and the question engaged her problem-solving mind.
She did not know

that
one day she would devise an escape plan. She did not know that she would put
that plan into action. At the time, it was just a thought experiment, a
challenge for a woman whose childhood heroine was Nancy Drew, girl sleuth.

Allison’s most vivid memory of entering the prison that
evening was the birds. When she and her group rounded the hospital building and
walked across the yard, she saw geese and gulls scratching the ground on the
baseball field. It was mere minutes before the October sun would set, and their
white feathers glowed like gold. A single goose stretched his neck, dipped his
thick body, and with a push from his feet and a flapping of his great wings, he
rose from the ground and glided across the field, then soared over the wall.
Other geese did the same, their necks piercing the air like arrows. Sea gulls
followed. The walls and guard towers were mere landmarks below them, like trees
or outcroppings of rock, obstacles they cleared with ease. They didn’t need an escape
plan. They had wings.

The
First Day and the Last

They
say that the two days of prison an inmate remembers most vividly are his first
and his last. Everything in between is a blur. James’ first day was 30 years
ago. His last—maybe—will be in one week. If Hemingway’s character could walk
away from war, James can declare his separate peace from prison. It’s time to
move on, regardless of what the parole board has ruled. It’s necessary. An
absolute must.

For society, James is a statistic, another Black man
languishing in prison, costing the state $75,000 a year. His escape—if it
succeeds—will save taxpayers money. For himself, it will be his personal
exodus, his promised land of another chance at life. If things go according to
plan, no one will know how he did it. He will just disappear, a man become a
ghost. Allison is a smart young lady, and he can’t find any flaws in her plan,
but he is haunted by that old saying: If it seems too good to be true, then it
probably is.

James is filled with yearning and fear. The greater danger
is not that he’ll get caught and have time added to his sentence—though that’s
a real possibility—but that the hope he’s allowed himself to feel will die.
That’s the greater risk. The loss of hope he could not bear.

He lies in his bunk, trying to conjure up positive images.
The thought of freedom makes his skin prickle. The shadows of the bars cross
his body, spill onto the concrete floor. He listens to the cell block tick with
sound, as if the walls are straining to breathe. He imagines a sea gull soaring
on the wind.

Bill Smoot grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, and attended
Purdue University where he was editor of the campus newspaper, The Purdue
Exponent. Fired as editor by the university president, he was reinstated after
protest from students and faculty. He went on to graduate school at
Northwestern University, where he received a PhD in philosophy. He has taught
for four decades at levels ranging from sixth grade to university students. He
currently teaches courses at Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin and the Osher
Institute for Lifelong Learning at UC-Berkeley. His essays and short stories
have such publications as Ninth Letter, Crab Creek Review. The Nation, Literary
Review, Crab Orchard Review, Western Humanities Review, Narrative, and
Salon.com. His the author of Conversations with Great Teachers and a novel,
Love: A Story. Mr. Smoot currently lives in Berkeley, California, with his dog
Artemis. His website is https://billsmoot.net

 

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