CE Savage

I just finished this chapter in my #WIP This was great fun to write. I'm on Chapter 15 now and making good progress. Check out my Kofi site for more previews, process insight, and character development notes

ko-fi.com/cesavage

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Ben blacked out for an instant as something struck him in the back and head and tumbled him off the captive.

As he struggled into consciousness he realized he was wrestling reflexively with an unknown assailant. An apparently female assailant. He could feel very long, cable-strong legs wrapped around his. Somehow he had managed to trap a slender but incredibly strong left arm under his, pulling a small soft breast tight against his upper body. He was struggling to capture the other arm before she could get a solid swipe at him when suddenly he found himself locked into her gaze. He could peripherally sense a face of surreal beauty but it was her pale, steel-gray eyes that enraptured him. They were full of pain and the cold depth of an arctic winter but there was also a complicated soul within.

A microsecond of inattention was all it took and her right arm sprung free. As time slowed for him Ben knew it was over. It had been a very good run though, much more than he expected, much more than he deserved. His last prayer was for his girls that they would continue on and know that he would always love them. He thanked the gods that in this life he had known what it was like to be loved in return. That was more than many ever knew and it was enough.

In his heightened state, the blade descended slowly. Ben’s eyes never left his killer’s though. He saw her eyes fly wide, as if in recognition and the blade halted right at his neck leaving a faint red line and a single drop of blood. Her nostrils flared sharply once, then twice, and suddenly she was gone. All that remained was a single white feather falling onto his chest.

I sometimes include elements of horror in my stories. It's sometimes too easy to think of other beings as human- but they are not. Here's an excerpt where we encounter a new type of near-human who has no concept of pity or mercy. Enjoy!

“What are you smiling at sweet tits?” growled the boss.

“I am just grateful to your associates for bringing me directly to you. I was getting weary of killing your serfs to get your attention,” she replied in classic Russian.

“Let’s see how grateful you are when we are finished taking our turns with you. Be nice and we might even consider a painless death,” said the boss as he undid his tracksuit bottoms and they dropped in a puddle to the floor. Little did he know that his rather unimpressive package would remain forever undelivered.

“Bring her to me, boys.”

As the thugs on either side reached for her, Dardenys snapped her crossed arms apart far too quickly for human eyes to follow. Foot-long blades of preternaturally sharp bone had somehow replaced her index fingers on both hands. Each blade struck with such velocity that they passed through spinal columns with barely a snick. Before greeting eternity the last thing each man experienced was watching their bodies from the outside as their heads tumbled to the hardwood floor.

Bright arterial blood gushed in hot fountains from the stumps where their heads used to be as the bodies hesitated slightly then fell much like a tree crashing to the forest floor after the final axe cut. Dardenys then leaned slightly forward across the desk and reaching a long elegant arm out in a deceptively languid motion, sliced the stunned boss man from testicles to sternum nearly splitting him in half.

For those of you that haven't read my bio or aren't familiar with me, you might be interested to know that I'm half-Cherokee and a registered member of the Cherokee tribe of Oklahoma.

I only make that point to differentiate myself from practically every other person in the U.S. who claims Native descent because of some mythic ancestor who was a 'Cherokee' princess.

It doesn't mean that is all that I am, but it does inform my writing with a unique perspective. For one thing, when I write about Native mythical characters, they aren't necessarily 'myths' to me. I believe in the unseen. I believe in deities that exist in dimensions that we can't see and sometimes interact with us.

I studied Native American anthropology at college and so I know both sides of many Native cultures and I truly hope to bring some of that insight to my writing and that it is at least sometimes a little more than just entertainment for you the reader.

I hope you enjoy my writing and I hope that some of it makes you think. Also, feel free to let me know if you have any questions or feedback about my stories. I'm really looking forward to hearing from you!

Here's a little snippet from my next book where Ben first encounters the new god in the mix. I chuckled to myself a bit as I wrote it, I hope that makes it entertaining. Ben is definitely a different sort of hero, that I think most men can relate to and even he can get on the wrong side of his women occasionally. Enjoy!

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Ben wiped the sweat from his eyes and swung the posthole digger down into the hole yet again and felt the bone-jarring ‘whack’ travel all the way up his arms as the blades smacked into still another fist-sized rock.

“Goddamnit!” he said out loud for at least the hundredth time that morning.

Why did there have to be a pile of underground rocks pretty much everywhere he had to dig a posthole for the new fence? It must be a law of nature he grumbled. The Nexus ranch had plenty of operating capital and he could have hired one of the crews to do this work for him. But he would’ve felt guilty about having them do something he could easily do himself and besides Kelly had pretty much run him out of the house, telling him to ‘go find a tool and do something with it’. This was accompanied by a look that gave him some idea about what she thought he could do with said tool. Hey- he couldn’t help it if he had no idea about weddings and was only trying to help with his suggestions.

Pretty much every female on the ranch was doing something to get ready for the wedding and pretty much every male had more sense then he did and was trying to stay the hell out of the way. So he had finally decided to get with the program. Now though he was wishing the tool he picked up was a fly rod instead of a posthole digger.

Suddenly he felt the weight of eyes on his back and whirled about abruptly, simultaneously stepping into the hole he had been digging. His arms pinwheeled briefly as he fell backward and ended up on his ass in the dirt.

“Osiyo” said an old cowboy leaning on the fence next to the road. ”Sorry about that. Dinnit mean to startle you.”

Osiyo, uncle- where the heck did you come from?” replied Ben sheepishly.

“Old Bertha got me here all the way from Idaho. She’s old but she’s still runs good!” the old cowboy said with a sly grin gesturing behind him to an immaculate turquoise and cream ‘57 short bed Chevy pickup.

“No, sorry, I mean how did you…” started Ben.

“Oh she can be pret quiet when she wants to play a trick,” said the old guy with a grin.

“Uh yeah, I guess, how can I help you Mr….?”

‘You can call me IC, if you like. Well, I’m here because I heard tell of a great warrior from around here…”

“Well I wouldn’t go that…”

“...And you obviously aren’t he,” said the old guy gesturing to where Ben sat in the loose dirt. “So I was hoping you could point me in the right direction. I’d really like to meet ‘im.”

I intended to create a world that might be combined with myths and cross-cultural themes that entertain and bring to light at least part of what it means to be human.

There is some sex but only where it advances the story and there's not a lot of it, but I like to think the erotic scenes are of high quality.

There's also plenty of action as I have a background in the Marine Corps infantry both as a grunt and as an infantry platoon commander.

I also try to inject a little humor, I'll leave it to you, good readers, to determine whether or not I've succeeded.

Many of the people, events, technology, and even science are based at least in part on reality. Interestingly some of the Quantum mechanics references are among the most accurate.

If you choose to read my stories, I would recommend that you read the books in order as many of the references won't make complete sense unless you do.

Thanks for your support and I hope to keep entertaining you for years to come!