"Sexy paranormal tales...and tails."
Reviewed by Vicky Gilpin
Posted November 7, 2011
Romance Paranormal | Romance Erotica Sensual
This is a lush anthology of paranormal romance. Certainly
the stories within should provide varied enough content to
suit every taste. Cover Him With Darkness by Janine
Ashbless is less about the passion and more about the rich
details and exquisite emotional rendering of the
story. The Blood Moon Kiss by editor Mitzi Szereto will
enchant fans of Dark Shadows...all two (and soon to be
three!) versions. Charlotte Stein's Dolly will haunt more
than one night; I would recommend reading it after a
perusal of E.T.A. Hoffman's The Sandman. Claire
Buckingham's Tea for Two is another one that may require
a few readings. Although sometimes erotic, these stories
don't skimp on the emotional depth; to label them as
strictly erotica or for a potential reader to dismiss them
as superficially erotica does the works, the authors, and
the collection a disservice.
SUMMARY
Red Velvet and Absinthe explores love and lust with
otherworldly partners who, by their sheer fantastical
nature, evoke passion and desire far beyond that which any
normal human being can inspire. Although the greats such as
Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Daphne du Maurier are long
dead, these contemporary authors keep the Gothic spirit
alive and well by interpreting it in new and exciting ways.
Red Velvet and Absinthe offers readers a collection of
unique and original stories that conjure up the atmospheric
and romantic spirit of the Gothic masters (and mistresses)
but take things a bit further by adding to the brew a
generous dosage of eroticism. Lie back and listen to the
wind howling outside your window as you read these stories
in the flickering light of a candle, the absinthe you’re
sipping warming your body like the caressing touch of a
lover’s fingers . . .
Excerpt(from "Snowlight, Moonlight" by Rose de Fer)
She remembered the wolfsong—the heart-rending
music of unnatural hunger and need. It had filled her with
yearning even as she lay bleeding in the snow. Now she
heard it in her mind and she found herself wishing she
could join in.
The moonlight had reached the bed, where it spilled over
her splayed thighs like quicksilver. Her eyes pierced the
darkness. Every detail of the room was discernible to her.
She could see each tiny imperfection in the carved oak
dressing table, hear the brittle leaves shivering in the
trees outside. Most acute of all was her sense of smell.
She could smell the rosewater in the washing bowl, the
melted wax of the candles in a room further down the
corridor. And she could smell him—the hot musky scent
of his flesh and his spicy blood beneath.
Her own blood roared in her ears, echoing the surf from
somewhere far away. Now she could see the moon fully
through the trees—a beacon that drew strange growls
from her throat the more she gazed at it. Her fingers
clutched at the air, the nail beds burning and making her
cry out in a voice that wasn’t her own, wasn’t even
properly a voice.
"Is the pain unbearable?"
She was startled to see him beside her and she wondered
how long he’d been there, watching. Time had no meaning.
There was only the moonlight and the all-consuming hunger.
She tried to speak, but it was as though her mouth had
forgotten how to form words. She shook her head instead and
strained toward him, angling her legs as far apart as she
could to show him what was truly unbearable.
(from "Cover Him With Darkness" by Janine Ashbless)
The first time I saw him fettered there in the dark, I
wept.
I was seven years old. My father led me by the hand down
the steps behind the church altar, through a passage hewn
into the mountainside. I’d never been permitted through
that door before. Inside, there were niches cut into the
rock walls, and near the church they were filled with
painted and gilded icons of the saints and of Our Lord, but
further back those gave way to statuettes of blank-eyed
pagan gods, growing cruder in execution and less human in
appearance as we walked on. I clung to Father’s hand and
cringed from the darkness. Finally we came out into a
roofless chamber, where the walls leaned inward a hundred
feet over our heads and the floor was nothing but a mass of
loosely tumbled boulders. I looked up, blinking at the
light that seemed blinding, though in fact this was a dim
and shadowed place. I could see a wisp of cloud against the
seam of blue, and the black speck of a mountain eagle
soaring across the gap.
There he lay upon a great tilted slab of limestone, his
wrists and ankles bound by twisted leather ropes whose
further ends seemed to be set into the rock itself. It was
hard to say whether the slab had been always been
underground or had fallen long ago from the mountain above;
our country is, after all, much prone to earthquakes. Dirt
washed down with the rain had stained him gray, but I could
make out the muscled lines of his bare arms and legs and
the bars of his ribs. There was an old altar cloth draped
across his lower torso; only much later did I realize that
Father had done that, to spare his small daughter the man’s
nakedness.
"Here, Milja," said my father, pushing me forward. "It
is time you knew. This is the charge of our family. This is
what we guard day and night. It is our holy duty never to
let him be found, or to escape."
I was only little: he looked huge to me. Huge and filthy
and all but naked. I stared at the thongs, as thick as my
skinny wrist, knotted cruelly tight about his broader ones.
They stretched his arms above his head so that one hand
could not touch the other, and they held his ankles apart.
I felt a terrible ache gather in my chest. I pressed
backward, into Father’s black robes.
"Who is he?" I whispered.
"He is a very bad man."
That was when the prisoner moved for the first time. He
rolled his head and turned his face toward us. I saw the
whites of his eyes gleam in his gray face. Even at seven, I
could read the suffering and the despair burning there. I
squirmed in Father’s grip.
"I think he is hurt," I whimpered. "The ropes are
hurting him."
"Milja," said Father, dropping to his knees and putting
his arm around me. "Don’t be fooled—this is not a
human being. It just looks like one. Our family has guarded
him here since the first people came to these mountains.
Before the Communists. Before the Turks. Before the Romans,
even. He has always been here. He is a prisoner of God."
"What did he do?"
"I don’t know, little chick."
That was when I began to cry.
(from "La Belle Mort" by Zander Vyne)
"Young woman, you do realize, if you could be with
child, you may plead your belly?" The judge had tired eyes.
Eliza remained quiet, and the audience tittered.
"Very well. Lady Elizabeth Jane Morton, you are
sentenced to be taken hence to the prison in which you were
last confined where, after three Sundays have passed, you
will be hanged by the neck until dead. May the Lord God
have mercy upon your soul."
Gypsy… succubus… witch—murmurs, as she was led
away.
Had they looked beyond the snow-white skin, wild black
curls, and eerie calm, they would have seen the bones of
her knuckles shining through her skin; she held her hands
clenched painfully tight to keep from lashing out at all of
them and going absolutely mad.
****
A cell to myself at the end of a narrow, gloomy hall.
Dank, always cold. Oozing drips stain the walls rust-brown.
Insanity—cackles, moans, and screams. Fleas, mice,
and slithering sounds in the darkness. A cot and rough
blanket. A long bench to sit upon. Small comforts from
Charity Ladies, mercifully none familiar to me. They bring
gifts, the smell of perfume, and pity. I accept them all.
Today’s treasures—ink, quill pens, and paper. Solace.
Eliza fought slumber; it crawled with dark dreams and
beckoned with greedy fingers. Hours, long and black, were
spent struggling to cling to awareness, her life dwindling
away.
Regrets stung. Time was short, and peace was as elusive
as life. Insanity promised everlasting oblivion, and she
was tempted to succumb as so many had around her. Writing
gave her temporary respite. There was no one to write, so
she wrote for herself; poems, thoughts, lists and letters
she would never send.
Dear Lord Dover,
Do you sleep peacefully? Do your children fare well
without their nanny in their nursery? Despite what you have
done, my prayers are with their poor little souls.
I wonder where you hid the necklace and if it calls to
you in your dreams. Will it haunt you, as surely I will if
there is a God and he grants wishes?
My life is forfeit, and still I would rather this death
than your wrinkled hands upon me.
Lady Elizabeth Jane Morton
She folded scribbled-upon paper into tiny paper birds,
and sailed them into the courtyard. Sometimes, they landed
in the shadows of the gallows themselves, but usually the
wind caught them and carried them away to join the
plentiful refuse littering London’s streets.
****
A "new" dress—bodice too tight, tattered skirt. A
string to tie my hair off my neck—blessed relief.
Small things mean so much now.
She documented everything, writing furiously, clinging
to sanity.
A hanging—crowd swelling, sudden, and boisterous,
fathers lifting children upon their shoulders, vendors
selling meat-pies and posies. It was like a country fair,
everyone smiling, fun in the air.
Her mind screamed, "Don’t! Look away!" but she was
compelled to watch.
They led the prisoner out. His head was down, but Eliza
saw the glistening tears on his death-pale flesh. Placed
under the gallows, his feet centered atop the wooden
trapdoor, he wept openly.
His legs were pinioned, to prevent his soon-to-be
flailing feet from finding purchase on the brick-lined
walls of the famous Long-Drop below. The noose was fitted;
a large knot of rope adjusted to rest, just so, beneath his
left ear.
The hangman—cloaked in black—the very
specter of death.
The prisoner wailed—a high-pitched
whine—when the hood was placed over his head. Did he
open his eyes then, when the cloth covered his face? Did
his lashes catch on the fabric, and did he take it in his
mouth, dry and musky, as he gulped air, grunting and
snorting? Did each prisoner have a new hood, or did that
frantic man, about to die, smell the deaths that had come
before his, lingering in the cloth?
Ghastly, snapping sound ringing out of the pit.
Imagined? Surely so; the crowd had cheered when the man
fell out of sight.
Life passes too slowly, too quickly. What prayer will
save me from this fate?
****
Eliza was sleeping the first time he came, at dusk.
"Do not be afraid."
She was—trapped in here, weak from lack of real
food and sunshine; she was helpless.
The man sat on the narrow bench. He was rather fine
looking, his face somewhat stern, and his clothing somber.
A cleric, Eliza decided, calming.
"Has that much time passed? It must have, for them to
send you."
"I want to help you."
She held back a bitter reply; no one could help her. "I
do not believe in God."
"I am the only one you need believe in." He spread his
hands wide, as if to dare her to argue that he was anything
less than flesh and blood.
Eliza remained silent, and he reached into his pocket,
pulling out a square of paper. He read, "Life passes too
slowly, too quickly. What prayer will save me from this
fate?"
"That is mine!" Eliza bolted from the cot.
Too slow. He tucked the note into the folds of his
coat. "Yes, I know."
He handed her another scrap of paper, his fingertips
brushing her wrist as it changed hands.
Her cheeks flooded with color, and she escaped his gaze,
reading the words on the page.
Proud beauty, angel amidst foul circumstance.
I hear you calling, and know you weep.
Let me guide you in your dark journey,
and give you peace in this dread.
In your ruin, find faith in me.
What manner of cleric was this?
"I told you, I do not have faith."
"And I told you, have faith in me."
"I do not understand."
He lifted his hand, tracing the path a tear made down
her cheek.
Eliza held very still, quivering under his fingertips.
"You do not have to understand, Lizalamb."
She blinked. He’d called her Lizalamb, just like her
father had a lifetime ago. How odd.
"I’m afraid."
"Of course you are, but you can conquer your fears and
all will be well. This I promise. Have faith."
He freed the string she had used to tie her hair back,
and reached into his pocket once more.
Red ribbons, bows that give girlish pleasure. His voice
gruff as he gifted them. What a strange, fascinating man.
Eliza nibbled on her bottom lip, the treasures clutched
in her hand, red ends trailing from her fist. "Will they
let me keep them?"
"Yes, Liza. No one will bother you anymore."
"Thank you."
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