Dukerino

Princess of the void ch 25 - killing machine

“They’re going to swarm me, Grantyde. As soon as we’re at the party.” Sykora flicks a wireframe display across the front window, which shows the skeletons of other shuttles surprisingly close to them, hidden in Ptolek’s blood-red cloud cover. “Some of these magnates have waited hectocycles for Baroness Konia and I to bury the hatchet. Everyone will want a piece. You’ll need to act the dutiful husband at first, but after everyone gets some cocktails in them, you can leave me to t...

Power Trio ePub

Hey folks! Attached is the ePub to another earlier work of mine, POWER TRIO.

It was my first ever finished novel. It's a bandmates-to-lovers punk fantasy M/F/F monstergirl romance, with sex, tusks, and rock & roll, starring a human bassist, a goblin guitarist, and an orcish drummer. Its sequel, POWER BALLAD, I have on pause right now, because my audience is mostly, I think, here for Princess of the Void. But perhaps if more people get in on the first novel I'll have more cause to pi...

Wife After Death cover art

It occurs to me that a hi-res version of Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright from Wife After Death/The Warlock could be a fun thing to share with you, my patron pals. Soooo here ya go!

The art is by David Chen, whose work can be seen over at https://www.davidchengallery.com/

Btw, for all my Sykora fans out there--I've got a commission of her in the works for our Princess of the Void cover, and I'm seeing sketches...

Princess of the Void ch 24 - Life

Home again.

Grant lies in bed. Sykora curls on his chest like a cat. He’s still in his suit, though he had to fold his jacket in front of his crotch the whole way from the shuttle to the cabin. These pants are going to need some heavy-duty laundering. The Princess is wearing her choker, her stockings, and a smug grin, and that’s it. Prismatic light from the sweep to Aodok paints her in shifting jewel-tones.

“A construction worker,” Grant says. “Or a veterinarian. Or a…...

SIDE-STORY POLL

Hey folks. So Book II of Princess of the Void is about one third over at this point.

Once I'm done with that, as a palate cleanser before I start Book III, I was thinking about taking a brief detour and writing a short story (3-4 chapters), set in the universe of Wife After Death (fka The Warlock), narrated by Bina and starring her and Inspector Jordan Darius.

Would that be of interest to you, glorious patrons? And if so, would you want it to take place parallel to t...

Wife After Death epub (fka The Warlock)

Hello folks.

We've just passed 100 bucks a month. Maybe that's paltry compared to other authors, but it is FAR, FAR more than I ever imagined I'd be getting when I started this Patreon. That's, like, gym membership money. At a NICE gym.

I want to let you all know that your support means so much to me, and I'm writing more Princess of the Void chapters as fast as I can. It's been my best-received title so far and I'm dedicated to getting more out there.

But for those of you w...

Princess of the Void ch 23 - Love

Sykora nudges the band of Grant’s boxer briefs down and sighs happily as his cock bounces free. “Hello, handsome.” She kisses the head. “Want to see another Princess trick, Maekyonite?”

He laughs. “Sure.”

She gives his cock another kiss. Her lips linger. Then she deepens, stretching wider, until she’s taken Grant’s sensitive tip into her mouth. She looks up.

She winks.

With slow, exaggerated care, her lips slide further, and further, and further. Gran...

Princess of the Void ch 22 - Dinner

“So Sykora finally buckled. Well, I can see why. You are quite beautiful.” Narika’s focus is so sharp he almost feels it pricking him. “But this is what I mean. You can profess that you don’t need it all you want, but you need a safeguard. The responsible thing is to take k-wort.”

“Responsible and humane.” One of the guys she’s talking to nods.

“No distractions, no drama, no indentured grooms. I didn’t think Sykora would—well. You look happy enough.” Nari...

Princess of the Void ch 21 - Gallery

“Governess Garuna. Two o’clock.”

“What?”

“Like the direction.”

“That’s a time, dove. Not a direction.”

Grant jerks his head. “That way.”

Sykora stands on her tiptoes and squints. “Bless you and your vantage point. Let’s buzz by, shall we?”

“Is she going to be our witness?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’d love for you to meet Paxea. But we can spook her on our way.”

Grant leads his wife through the crowd, swi...

Princess of the Void ch 20 - Idle rich

“Here’s how we’ll do it,” Grant says. “You squeeze my ring finger, and if I’m okay with the compulsion, I’ll wiggle it.”

Sykora’s raises a brow as she flips the auto-lander protocol on. “Ring finger?”

“This one.” He points to it. “Before you compel, just tug on it. And I’ll keep it still if the answer’s no.”

“Ahh. Subtle.” She clasps his finger. He wiggles it in her hand. “You trust me, though, yes? Not to abuse it?”

“I do.�...

Princess of the Void Poll for ch 20

Whoop! It's time for a quick poll.

In chapter 20 (or possibly 21, we'll see how long the party goes), the Princess and her Consort get frisky after the dinner party. I think I can make the character dynamics I'm exploring in the chapter work with either a depicted sex scene or some pillow-talk after the fact. Would you, O esteemed patrons, prefer:

Princess of the Void ch 19 - dress me

“I am going to get you on Ramex soon. I owe you a day at the sabsum springs.” Sykora taps her foot while the command deck raises out of the bridge, hissing back into its private place under the dome of stars. “But I have to debrief on the troublesome clusterfuck that just occurred, and I’d like to appear sober and not boy-crazy while I’m doing it. To appease Hyax, if nothing else.”

Grant looks over Sykora’s shoulder at the scarred Brigadier, who’s watching the f...

Princess of the Void ch 18 - Pirates

“Princess on deck.” Brigadier Hyax’s rough bark echoes across the trading-floor hubbub of the Black Pike’s bridge and brings it to a moment’s stillness as the crew unanimously turn to the opening lift and put fist to chest in salute.

Sykora returns the gesture with the hand that isn’t tight in Grant’s. “Thank you, Brigadier. Good morning, bridge crew.” They step off the lift, onto the familiar command deck where he first met Sykora’s advisors. On the edges, ...

Princess of the Void ch 17 - Empress

The shining spire of the ZKZ Black Pike, its prismatic sails wide and coruscating, soars through the sweep. It buzzes past Gileas IX close enough that the wooly alien beasts and hunter-gatherer humanoids of that moon witness its rainbow passage, like a psychedelic shooting star leaving an ocular ripple against their star-fretted night.

Aboard the vessel, the shift change has begun. Comlinks are switched on. Artificial suns rise over hydroponic farms. Towering pylon mainframes hum. Exo m...

Princess of the Void ch 16 - Lonesome

Grant freezes. His heart turns over in his chest. His wife stares up at him, red-faced and tearful, her hands twisting into the silk sheets of her bed. Their bed.

“Fine.” Sykora sounds manic. “You’re free. Fine. Take it, for all the good it’ll do. It’s nothing. I don’t care. I free you.”

He plants his knees on either side of her. His shadow engulfs her, with room to spare. “Swear to me.”

“It’s a trifle. It’s meaningless. You still serve me.” She p...

Princess of the Void ch 15 - maiden voyage

“Eeeasy does it.” Sykora’s hand clasps his as he bends the yoke up. “Check the landing gear indicator… good. And now nudge us forward… very good. And brace for zero G.”

The halfmoon interceptor slips from the Black Pike. The void embraces them. The cockpit fills with stars.

Grant looks toward Sykora. “Where do we go now?”

The starscape suffuses her with a soft glow. “Wherever you want, Grantyde.” She smiles and there’s a pang of longing in hi...

Princess of the Void ch 14 - belt

Two days pass.

The rawness hasn’t faded. The feeling of inevitability has put a lump in his throat. It must put one in hers, too, because both of them do everything they can to avoid being alone. In the moments they are, they make orthogonal small talk. There’s plenty to be done; she doesn’t need to hunt for excuses. Pirate sightings on the border-space of Tamion. The latest death on Ptolek. Exo unions and Governess Garuna pointing fingers at one another.

And the whole time ...

Princess of the Void ch 13 - touch

“I’m undressing, Grantyde. If you’d like to avert your eyes.”

Sykora strips her belt from her waist and tosses it into an open locker. She slides a cabinet door open to reveal a cream-colored padded suit, with a scarlet stripe across its chest. “Got to get into fighting trim.”

“You can just go invisible.” He turns away, toward the lockers. “It was a neat trick.”

A muted laugh as fabric crinkles behind him. “Well, I wanted to give you the option to peek....

Princess of the Void ch 12 - game

Grant’s spine straightens in shock. He sees the resemblance now, at the corners of the mouth and in the dark, full eyebrows. This is not how he expected to meet his mother-in-law.

What’s Sykora being punished for?

Being born, sire.

“I hope my repeated calls didn’t disturb you,” Inadama continues. “Sykora sometimes requires some prompting to answer hails.”

“It was no trouble, Marquess.” Grant says. “The Princess will return your cal...

Power Ballad ch 99 - Can’t be all smoked meats and blowjobs

“Heaven,” Sion Benefice declares. “Two-odd years of traveling the nine circles of the furnishings inferno and I have found my way to heaven.”

“It’s ritzy.” Evan flops onto the elephantine couch and sinks a third of the way in. “Can’t believe we get the whole place. Anise, you’re my religion.”

“Thank you, Anise,” Thekla sing-songs. “We love you.”

“Love you too,” Anise calls, from the study room of Legendary’s rented home. She’s looking th...

Power Ballad ch 98 - I want it

“I want it.”

Thekla’s taken her glasses off, a sure sign, Nick’s learned, that her mind is racing. She rubs her thumb along the hinged arm. The glasses shake in her hand. Her voice is tiny and quavering. “We have to do what she wants. I’m sorry, packmistress. I never want to argue with anyone about how to do their job. I swear to God I don’t, but—”

Her voice breaks.

“I want to have a baby,” she says. “I don’t want a donor. I thought I did and that I...

Princess of the void ch 11 - reset

The interceptor explodes. Pieces of black-and-red shrapnel spin through space, continuing their trajectory like a cloud of buckshot, trailing magma and glittering broken glass.

“How did we err, Grantyde?” Sykora taps the simulator screen.

“We exploded.”

“True. We’d prefer not to explode. How would we have survived?”

Grant exhales heavily and sits back, loosening his death grip on the yoke. “Point defense membrane ran out of juice.”

“Correct. A...

Princess of the Void ch 10 - Lonesome

Grant returns alone from the firing range. Hyax seems to think he doesn’t require an escort any longer; he isn’t sure whether that’s faith in his fealty, or she’s just not concerned he’s a threat any longer.

She wasn’t joking about taking the gun away from him. That’s all right. He doesn’t need to be carting a pistol around, anyway. He doesn’t hit the no-gravity turbo boost thing again, on the way up. He’d like to be alone for a while with his thoughts.

That sa...

The Warlock - Epilogue

Something that confused me about humans, when we first found you, is how many of your stories end with “and they lived happily ever after.” Ever after. It’s reprinted and repeated enough times that its meaning has leached away. You read those words and you don’t think of their true meanings. “Happily ever after” just means the same thing as a fancy-fonted Fin or The End.

You draw the curtain over the rest of the story when you say “happily e...

The Warlock ch 40 pt 2 - a dance

My husband’s eyes have turned gold.

The hazel never came back. The rings around the edges just leached in to fill the irises. “I hope you don’t miss it too much,” he says, when I bring it up to him. “Maybe there’s a way to get it back.”

“I think it’s dope,” Jordan says. “Like a cat-man.”

“You have a proclivity toward anthropomorphic animals,” Ganea says.

“What the hell?” Jordan gesticulates with her beer, which suds over...

Princess of the Void ch 9 - guns

(the sentence fragments in the letter are supposed to be crossed out. guess patreon doesn't have that kind of formatting. Enjoy!!)

A shift in the bed's surface awakens him, as Sykora slips out from the covers. He doesn’t open his eyes. He hears her moving around the cabin, the sound of her getting dressed and made up. As she brushes her hair, she hums quietly to herself. He recognizes the tune, a Sister Rosetta Tharpe song he played for her back on Maekyon—Earth. Back on Eart...

The Warlock ch 40 pt 1 - A Goddess

This is only about half of chapter 40, but I wanted to get it out tonight for you folks. The other half I'm working to have ready for tomorrow. Then it's the epilogue, and then we're done!

My love is forgotten. My love is gone. I will kill you all. I will spare none of this rotten world. For all the hurt you dealt my husband. For bringing him to me and taking him away. I will not stop until this civilization is scoured clean.

The first dominion I pluck apart, limb by...

The Warlock ch 39 - a servant

Deep breath. Final stretch time. Two more posts after this and The Warlock is done.

Caspar has a one-word reply to Eight’s chiefest warlock. Its echo thunders across the basilica floor, guttering the candles, clattering the burnished relics against the walls, bursting the massive tempered glass windows into a jagged multicolored hailstorm.

He goes rocketing from the Suzerain’s grip as the old man slams backward into his throne, denting its brass backing and reduc...

Princess of the Void ch 8 - sorry

“Two salt-passings,” Grant says. The shuttle anchors on a plate-glass platform emerging from a canopy of Ptolek II's blood-red trees. “Or a seasoning of your choice.”

“Let’s say… one salt-passing and one hand-feeding,” Sykora says. “What’s the going rate on those?”

“Depends on the hand food.” Grant unbuckles from the shuttle “I’d do a grape if you let me put a dartboard in the cabin.”

“Dartboard, fine. But you’ll have to do some furniture ...

Princess of the Void ch 7 - breakfast

A soft glow wakes him. A panel that last night showed the stretch of firmament in which they floated now beams the amber light of a planetside sunrise into the room like an open window.

Sykora is sprawled in her bed, the covers partway off her body. She’s naked. He looks judiciously away as he changes back into the uniform he was provided.

A rustle and a yawn as his noise wakes her. He decides to trust Sykora at her word and keep the olive branch extended. “Morning,” he says...