Like I mentioned a few months back, I signed up for the Love is Always Write event that the M/M Romance group on Goodreads hosts. ^__^ My story ended up at a little more than 20k and I really like the way it turned out. The stories are going to be posted over the course of 10 weeks, beginning in about a month, so if you're interested, check it out. You have to be a member of the group, but it's as easy as signing up for a Goodreads account and clicking join. The group
is here. I'll also be posting the story here, eventually, so if you don't want to join (or are very, very patient), you'll see it here too. :3
Prompt:
He was told that everything happened for a reason, that there were things out there that watched your every move. He just never thought that the people telling him this were telling the truth. Until he happened to glimpse something out of the corner of his eye, something that he couldn't explain.
And now there are things in the shadows, things that want him. And he's not sure if he can hold out any longer. If only he hadn't picked up that apple on that fateful day, then the ones in the shadows would not have noticed his presence. Teaser snippet:
A semi-circle of tall candelabras stood behind the podium. They'd be lit during the ceremony that opened the sermon, and the candles left to burn afterwards. The wall behind the dais was decorated with tapestries that depicted famous scenes from the priests' teachings: lightning striking out against dark clouds, a man standing tall against a shadowy monster, light wreathing a man dressed in priests' robes.
Sliding his bucket along the dais towards the nearest candelabra, Corin started washing that. He glanced back over the hall, unsurprised to see the rest of his group working as slowly as he was. They were chatting though, and Corin stifled another wave of homesickness. He wanted someone to talk to, but no one here would give him the time of day. He deserved that, he supposed, for being so dismissive of Karli.
Eight months. That wasn't too long, right? So why did it feel like he was never going to leave? Corin rolled his eyes at himself—that was about as dramatic as Karli and her shadows. Corin turned to focus his attention on the candelabra again, only to have his eye caught by a flash of red. An apple, bright and ripe, sat on the edge of one of the cubbies of the podium.
Corin swore it hadn't been there before. He'd looked in the podium—it had been all dust and nothing else. Corin glanced back out into the sermon hall, but no one was close enough to have snuck up and put it there without him noticing. He wasn't concentrating that much on cleaning. Looking back at the podium, Corin frowned pensively at the apple. His stomach flipped uneasily, and he turned back to the candelabra, focusing on running his rag through the grooves and designs decorating it.
There was something wrong, Corin decided, but he didn't know what and he didn't know what to do about it. He wasn't touching that apple, though. Nothing good could come of that. Corin turned and glanced at the podium again. The apple was still there, sitting innocuously at the edge of the shelf. He'd leave the podium to last, Corin decided, and then wash around the apple if he had to.
Maybe it had been there before? How much attention had he really been paying to the podium earlier? Maybe he'd looked at the bottom shelf and decided the top shelf was empty as well? Corin glanced at the podium again—the apple wasn't on the edge of the shelf like he'd thought, but six inches back, shadowed by the sides of the podium.
He was being as bad as Karli's dramatics again, Corin thought, rising to his knees to reach higher on the candelabra he was cleaning. The apple wasn't probably some priest's breakfast snack. Apples weren't in season, Corin's traitorous mind told him. How would a perfectly ripe apple exist, this far away from fall? Corin's stomach flipped again, and a chill raced down his spine. He stared resolutely at the candelabra, refusing to give into the urge to check if the apple was still there.
The sound of footsteps on the dais brought Corin's head around, and he stared at Rafferty for a moment, before turning to check the podium. The cubbies were completely empty again, and Corin's stomach settled, the uneasiness disappearing as suddenly as it had come. What in the world was going on?
"Come with me, please," Rafferty said, breaking into Corin's thoughts. He looked grim, and Corin wondered if he'd done something wrong. He'd been doing what he was told, cleaning the dais. Scrambling to his feet, Corin dropped his rag into his bucket and obediently headed after Rafferty, his mind racing.
Leyton lived a quiet, simple life as a prosperous, thriving merchant alongside his twin brother Liam. But that life is shattered when Liam goes missing, and Leyton is told that the only way to save his brother's life is to seduce a king. The task proves to be even more difficult than Leyton feared, and soon he is swept up in a tide of political machinations, betrayal, and a looming threat of execution once the men who blackmailed him are caught.