The Troll Queen's Bride
Three fated lovers: a shieldmaiden, a Troll Queen, and a Valkyrie. One price: the fate of all Midgard. Turiel is crown princess, but from the outlawed Northern Holds, bloodbound to Troll Queen Jarngrimr, and best friends with the stablelass Yolanda, her first love - until her poison kiss turned Yola into a Valkyrie, and whisks Yolanda from Turiel's grasp. Now, Turiel has been stolen into wily Queen Jarngrimr's realm, with only the goddess Skadhi and Yola - back from the dead! - to guide her. Lussi, the Snow King, craves a bride - and it is Dia's troth alone. Dia, the last blood mage from the line of the Isa, is all that is left of Turiel's legacy. Dia has been raised as Lussi's Magdalene - his ritual Bride - and ritual Slayer - for the past three years. Every Winter Solstice, Lussi can die, and Dia must kill him. But as Dia falls deeper into Lussi's sexy web - and in love - her heart is on the line! Other works and Ko-Fi: linktr.ee/avnelson
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Chapter: Blooming ThornAsmodeus' cruel face softens. “I don't mean to pry, Janet, but don't you tire of resisting? It must be exhausting. Loving someone you despise. Let go of that hate, crown jewel. It is only keeping you from flight.”My wing stains ache. I nearly knock my tea cup over in anger. “Who said anything about love?” I demand. I have never told a single soul besides Samael that I love him. It is a secret I desperately keep. How sad, a tithe in love with her Fairy King. The Fairy King wound up being Tam Lin, trapped by his own enchantments. True, he is in ensnared by me, but our magic goes both ways.Asmodeus whistles low. “Raw nerve, eh? There's no use hiding your desire from me, Janet. You were built for him. Your very DNA has Samael etched on it. Fetal contracts and all that. Your signature is your wings.”“I was built for no one besides Proust’s vast corpus of literature,” I say haughtily.Asmodeus assumes a patronizing look, as if he is indulging a petulant child. I hate it. “Don't lie to yo
Last Updated: 2024-06-07
Chapter: Full Circle“You're the demon of lust. How can I trust you?” I challenge.Asmodeus laughs. “What? Afraid I'll light your passion afire for our dear Samael? I would never do that, crown jewel. Your will is your own, and Samael would abhor me for manipulating you. He wants to win you for himself, without outside interference.” Asmodeus strokes his chin in contemplation. “Also, I don't just preside over lust, Janet - I'm a businessman,” he adds as an afterthought. “I run Hell's casinos and gambling houses and bars and bordellos, you know. Demons are more than the classifications mortals arbitrarily assign us. You would know that if you made any effort to socialize with us. Even just a trifle of trying to be queen. Your throne grows cold in the Hellopolis, dove.”My face reddens. “I am trying,” I murmur.“No, you run away to your avant garde bohemian flat in Paris and paint the days away,” Asmodeus points out. “Is it any wonder my kind distrusts you? You haven't put forward an iota of effort to know S
Last Updated: 2022-01-30
Chapter: In the Heat of the Moment(um)“No! You are a beauty, inside and out,” Suri reassures me. “You bring out the best in Prince Samael. He is cruel - all demons are - but he has a better nature you draw out. He has changed since he has known you.”“He's turned his cruelty on me, you mean,” I lament. I take a drag from the hookah to calm my nerves, tasting the flavored serpentine vapor. This one is bottled sea foam. It tastes salty and sweet as the smoke settles in my lungs, then I exhale and try to relax.Suri looks concerned.“I'm sure he can be... trying at times. Prince Samael has always been capricious. Mercurial. But he loves you fiercely. He shows that love for his fallen brothers and sisters. Surely he has shown it to you?”“He has, yes,” I say. “But I don't know if I'd call it innocent affection. It's a dark, twisted force. I would never trust him, not really. Please don’t tell anyone that, Suri. It could cost me everything I love.”Suri steeples her fingers under her chin. “He has your best interests at heart,”
Last Updated: 2022-01-30
Chapter: Sterile as Snow“Why, of course, my little dumpling.” She fixes me a plate of sweet, wrinkled dates and a stick of roasted lamb with seared onions she grills with her own fiery hair of flames. I hand over the appropriate coins - more than necessary - and she grins. “Come, sit with me, Janet. Tell me what that strange device in your ears is. I do so love your tales”“Oh really, I couldn't bother you, you’re so busy, you’re my friend-”“No. It is no bother at all! I quite enjoy your company. Come, tell me of the human world. I have not been there for many centuries. Your stories are always so delightful.”“Alright then,” I agree. She ushers me into her tent and onto a divan. There is a hookah crafted from the fumes of dragon’s breath that she smokes, smiling lackadaisically. She encourages me to try it. I do, in between bites of kebab and dates.“This is an iPhone,” I explain, taking out my earbuds and playing music for her on the speakers. Allat and Izad are spellbound by the Runaways. Suri claps in de
Last Updated: 2022-01-30
Chapter: BeastsA breeze picks up, spreading the cherry blossom petals to the breeze like rice thrown at a wedding. Samael catches a handful idly, crushing them between his fingers. I cringe at his act of destruction. He winces at my reaction and discards the pulp.“I didn't mean...” he trails off.“I know,” I say, too quick. I chew my upper lip, my cheeks burning. I am embarrassed for my show of weakness and even more for lashing out with violence. “I- I shouldn't have hit you.”“It's nothing. I’ve withstood much worse.”Cricket chirps and the gentle buzz of cicadas stretch in the silence between us. Fireflies light the air like will-o'-the-wisps.“I - I wouldn't mind if you told me a story,” I say.Samael looks at me in confusion. “Really?”“Yes, really. Like you did when I was young.”He smiles tentatively. “If you're sure...”“I am.”He rises, coming to sit beside me. He drapes his cloak over my shoulders to keep me warm. “Thank you,” I say.“It's nothing. Shall I - do you want me to begin?”“Y
Last Updated: 2022-01-30
Chapter: Tears of LilitI choose a Stephen King paperback – Salem’s Lot - from the lower shelves and struggle to decipher the pages, my curvy body sinking into the cushy couch. I’ve always been more size 12 than two, and look like those dumb pictures of Eve – soft sloping stomach like van Eyck’s Ghent altarpiece, pert breasts, and curving hips for days. The words of my chosen book all turn up like mush. The leather smells like the cigars Samael smokes, the spice of his orange and musk cologne, and rain. It smells like him. I close my eyes, inhaling the scent. Memories of him from my childhood haunt me, the man cloaked in shadow, the owner of my soul.The trauma of his words stretch across my mind: “How I will delight in breaking you.”I let out a soft cry, tears forming in my eyes. Here, in solitude, I can give in to the empty ache within me and cry over the childhood I never had, over the life I never will possess. I blot at my tears, cursing them.“Janet?” Samael asks with concern, suddenly materializing at
Last Updated: 2022-01-30
Lesbian Aswang Queen
The carnivorous ways of the Aswang leave little room for love - much less a forbidden one between a queen and human girl.
Little did Aswang Queen Catarina know, soon, her life would be changed by a plucky American biologist. A blue eyed, blonde adventurer, Rose Smith from California, who would make Catarina question all she knew, and want to make a human
Her Aswang
Woman King.
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Catarina Rosales Marquez, 26, is the Aswang Queen of the Domminga Mountains, but she abhors eating humans. She has genetically engineered the fruits of her goddess Ikapati to produce human proteins in order to bring peace to Mindanao - but the Aswang do not trust this revolutionary, peaceful Queen - and are wary of the American biologist she has taken under her wing.
Rose Smith is a German-American biologist doing her dissertation on the elusive, endangered Phillippines Eagle. Having studied the Tarsier in her undergraduate semester abroad in Manila, she fell in love with chicken adobo, pandesal - and Filipina women. Eager to be the first American biologist to do a longitudinal study of the Phillipines Eagle, she sets out into the Domminga Mountains on a bus with a one-way ticket - not afraid of the local's warnings of the rabid Iktapati Aswang Clan that eats humans, and roving bands of Tikbalang werehorses that stampede trespassers to death.
When Catarina and Rose collide, it is oil and flame. Catarina, expected to marry a King, finds herself questioning the very cosmos of relationships - can she take a Queen, and a feisty American grad student at that? And can Rose come to terms with the elusive, seductive courts of the Vampiric Aswang?
When the Iktapati clan rebels, the Tikbalang war, and the wind spirits coquette, Rose and Catarina must team up to save the humans of Mindanao - and the Phillipines eagle!
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Chapter: Poem: Monster GirlsShe's got moonglow tits that bob in night waters, perfect round globes like curled-up white rabbits with black peaks of areola and gray nipples because she's all poison and ebony eyes and milky skin. She's curled up in my closet in a nest fit for the Zu bird and sweet seraph curses and she crows and speaks the language of birds that are girls, or girls that are monsters, with scaled legs and owl wings from ancient Sumerian carvings, but she's not perched on two lions, her thin wan legs are jumping on your bed and you're throwing pillows at each other and painting her lips and talons with a pop of cherry poison. It's all fun and games until arsenic kisses and slashed throats of words fly, it's all spin the bottle with succubi until neon lights at your favorite strip mall get busted to splinters by her rage. She's wailing, she's railing, and it's so fun to terrorize the neighborhood with your monster girl. She smells like mothball and tastes like whiskey but it's all swell, all is
Last Updated: 2021-11-29
Chapter: Sampaloc"Rose, close your eyes, and imagine your heart's desire," Catarina whispered in a voice like rustling palm leaves on a jewel-swept wind. Catarina cupped her hands in the pool at the heart of the Ikapati Peace Gardens, where fruits and forages of such grand beauty played host to monkey, tapir, and tarsier alike.Rose closed her eyes, smiling with her pink lips. Catarina wondered how they tasted.Catarina plucked a white sampaguita flower and placed it in Rose's hands, with a drop of her blood from her incisor fang at her thumb."Open."Rose's blue eyes widened at the sight of the red blood upon the sampaguita. "Arabian jasmine. Or, in the Philipines, sampaguita. It smells so sweet… why your blood?""My blood has healing properties. All royalty that are imbued with the spirit of Anagoly – her living incarnation on Earth – can reverse the effects of age or wear and tear on telomeres with our blood. Do not be shy – by mixing it
Last Updated: 2021-11-29
Chapter: RoseAfter a feast of lechon, Rose had warmed up to Catarina's icy exterior. Finishing off the last of the Napa valley wine, all they did was flirt as Ambrosio served them roast pig and sigsig, grilled pineapple and papaya skewers."So, Rose, you have the Second Sight? Are you a Babaylan shaman?" Catarina asked, her plum lipstick and pert pink cheeks like a golden China doll. Catarina's amaranth eyes sparkled secretively.Rose blushed, then finished desert – strawberry a la mode Ambrosio had specially prepared. He cleaned their places with precision. "I'm a water witch. And my Second Sight says there is a curse on Aswang Mountain."Catarina flinched, a tear in her bright purple eye. Rose reached over to squeeze her hand. "Fuck, I'm pathetic. I'm failing as a Queen if I can't at least present a façade of control. What do you make of this curse, dear Rose?"Rose interlaced her fingers with Catarina's. Catarina traced her
Last Updated: 2021-11-29
Chapter: CatarinaRose followed Ambrosio up a steep mountain pass, past lush crocodiles sunning themselves in a waterfall, and sea cows bathing in the breeze. A variety of deer – Visayan spotted deer, Chevrotain does, and a classic Philippine buck – were feasting at fallen fruit in the pool of the waterfall.The air around Rose misted. It smelled of a vast tree and vegetable terrace, and the air sparkled with mystery.Rose was right: around a bend, vast parts of Aswang Mountain had been carved into terraced paddies. An aquaponics system that harvested mountain rain had been set up to feed the most exotic of fruits – bread fruits and yuzu, durian and tamarind, beetles flying between bees as lush flowers – tropical roses – bloomed forth in a rich homage to Ikapati.Rose held her breath, the sight making her nearly weep. From the shade of the mountain, an elaborate, fantastical palace of jade and amethyst crystal, red adobe, and glass and rose wood jutt
Last Updated: 2021-11-29
Chapter: KanoRose was dropped off. She was lost.Blondes were always lost.But, buoyant, Rose wandered on, whistling a Protestant hymnal.Her father, Bill Smith, a backwoods preacher in the hills of San Jose, had come from Tennessee. He had followed the promise of California gold. He had brought with him mountain charming, snake tongues and hoodoo magick.Rose was a river walker. Rose could charm warts off a priest. Rose could sing to burns and soothe them with her mountain woman magick.And... as for Rose's cooking - why, it could make any woman fall desperately in love!"Domminga Mountains... you're like the Smokies out in Tennessee, dense, thick, juicy. Like the best of mysteries, you won't yield the Philippine eagle to me easily. But that won't stop me from trying, eh, dear Domminga? Aswang or no, I won't fear a haint. Daddy always told me to be brave."Rose fiddled with her GIS tracker. The triangulation system of
Last Updated: 2021-11-29
Chapter: HomecomingCatarina surveyed her villa, a monkey running with a mango across the bamboo fence. She smiled at the monkey's antics. The curious animal was like her - on tenterhooks:Waiting for her story to begin, after two and a half decades. When would Mindanao change? It seemed stuck in cycles. The summer of fruits and feasts.The harvest. The monsoons. Jungle heat, verdigris shade. Motorcycles, pandesal sellers, hawkers of wares and woes. Catarina sipped on coconut juice spiked with human protein. A product of her laboratory.Catarina had dug into the bones of Domminga Mountains to construct her castle of wood, clay, crystals, and stone. Her abode straddled a waterfall, glorious atop a crest in the lush mountain jungle.It was like a great earth giantess consuming the wetness of Idiyanale, the goddess of justice.The Ikapati Aswang used to be just and merciful.That was a long time ago.They were the cruel but kind
Last Updated: 2021-09-27
Chapter: RedemptionI surfaced from his memories, finding his head in my lap. He clutched at my back like Jacob's wrestling angel. “You were so- so young.” I said. He hadn't been more than eighteen in his memories. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I stole you. I thought you were mine. It is how I understood things, as toy soldiers and spoils of war. It was not until I saw my brothers die for me that I realized the gravity of what I had done. I thought I was liberating us, that I would challenge our Father and demand our freedom.” “He would not let us step a foot past the Abyss, told us that it was the end. But I hungered for knowledge, and I sought more, made a pact with it. The void showed me what was Beyond, for a price. Now, in a sense, I am it. It drove me mad, or perhaps made me insane. Just like our Father was. He thought Himself the only one. He could not bear to know there were oth
Last Updated: 2021-11-05
Chapter: Heart(less)I have loved you since conception, through the banks of time and across the waters of life.When I first saw you, Eve, you were golden. Father shepherded the twins proudly in to the court room, first-formed of humankind, made in the image of God. My brothers and I sang, welcoming you into the world. Adam gazed vacantly up at the Father, empty-headed and waiting to be crowned with His glorious Light. You were created to be his vessel as well, but your eyes stayed closed, refusing to open, and you drew soft, cool breaths, as if waiting for the moon to rise. It was not until I held you that you opened them. I still can not fathom that moment: their blue waters met my depths.My heart stopped, and I refused to part from you. God laughed and said I had the makings of a man in me. I did not know what I felt. I just stared into the question of your lips and waited, knowing in time, we would be.I held you at your christening and lowered y
Last Updated: 2021-11-05
Chapter: Blue Eyes Cryin'“You look like a rabbit when you sleep. Your nostrils flare out and you sniff things. Occasionally, you squeak.” The Angel of Death sat next to me, peering at me curiously. I shook in trepidation, draped in his robe at the corner of his bed.I hadn't managed to string a word together for over an hour. He'd hand-fed me toast and counseled me through hell and high water. One moment I raged, the next I wept like a banshee. Now, I was silent, manically pulling down from the pillow case.“I watched you all night, you know. When you cried out, I sang to you, and you drifted back to sleep. What is it, to ride dreams, I wonder? Your little body, so warm. That it could contain such wonders.” He ran his fingers through my hair, braiding it meticulously. He drew a red ribbon from the air and fixed it at the end. Sam slid his arms over my shoulders, resting his h
Last Updated: 2021-11-05
Chapter: DreamsIt was then I remembered my nightmares. What drove me from my bed and sleep. I sunk into the night with him, to the depths of Samael's mind.Long ago, it happened. A reflection in the hourglass, the lip where sand siphons into the void.He gave me the heart from his breast. His ribs grew into the Tree. It throbbed in his hand like a secret. I took it, terrified.“It is yours,” he whispered. Tears softened his stony eyes. “It always has been. Take it. It will set you free.”“But I don’t want it! All I want is to be with you-”“Eve!” he cried, clasping his hands around mine. They trembled, and that scared me more than the gaping wound on his chest. He had never been afraid. “Please. If you do not, you will die.”“But this is our home-”“You do not belong here.” He p
Last Updated: 2021-11-05
Chapter: A Coffin of a Lover“Different?” he asked, voice strained.I closed my eyes, running my tongue up his thumb, sucking. I nipped the top. He groaned.“Pyrrhic, you said?” I asked ruefully, dragging my lips up his index finger.“You're teasing me.”“Genius. Your turn-ons are weird.”“Damn your feminine wiles.”“You really like damning things, don't you?”He pulled me down into the snow with him, wrapping his wings around us so I might as well have been on a feather bed in a parka.Schubert's quartet peaked. He spooned me against his chest, arms wrapped round me like a mummy. Samael lay like a corpse for a moment, apparently getting in the zone. I grimaced as he stiffened. He laughed roughly at my unease.“That's just wrong,” I informed him.“Angel lust-”“Don
Last Updated: 2021-11-05
Chapter: Fangs FrightI crept onwards to the mansion, amazed I hadn't been caught. Then I remembered this was probably like a lobster trap. It looked like a house on the outside, but inside was a cage fitted just for me. And it wasn't like Sam- Sauron needed guards. Only Pallor would have been idiot enough to cross him, provided he was bribed by literature.Yards from the mansion, I questioned why I was here. Skeletons held a ball in the attic. The mansion's stone face was mortared with graves. I stood a yard from the entrance, an intimidating sweeping thing with a portico that bested the White House. Devils and fantastical beasts were carved into its wooden pillars. Wolves swallowed the crenelate. It was like a pipe dream from Hell.The door knocker yawned. It was a brass lion. Lionheart. Again.“Ah, a midnight snack. My master must have had surplus-”I whip
Last Updated: 2021-11-05
Jack Frost's Bride
The Frost Demon Morozko, Prince of Russia's immortal land of Buyan, has waited ages for a mate. And she is Stravinksy's fabled Firebird - incarnated as an orphaned witch!
Cast out by the King of the Ice Kingdom, Morozko wanders Buyan, a Miyazaki haven for cherti, nechist, and witches - but a dark curse plagues the land - Koschei the Deathless.
Can this bastard prince and the young human girl Anya that conniving Baba Yaga gave Morozko to raise with his found family of cutthroat spirits stand a chance against the immortal sorcerer King Kaschei, who has trapped Anya's soul in the Deathless realms, in gardens of dead wives?
Anya is burgeoning with power, living a double life between Cold War Russia and D.C., and coming into her own as a witch to rival Baba Yaga. When her newfound love for Morozko is at stake, she will risk it all to follow the darkly tempting Kaschei to the Deathless lands, face the travails that put all Russia in peril - and save Morozko, as much as he saves her.
With epic love, sorcery, adventure, treachery, a Slavic inn for spirits, and plenty of blini warm by the fire, come read this daring journey, and find out if an immortal love can withstand death Himself!
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Chapter: Chapter 48: Happy EndingThe problem with gods is that often, they like to stay hidden. And the most sacred place in all Buyan, the World Tree, where Perun nested in the branches and Veles snaked round the roots, was not really a tree, but a woman.Mother Mokosh, whose name Russian peasants centuries ago would swear on by taking dirt into their mouths – Mokosh’s body - and spitting it out, like the Greeks making an oath on the River Styx, echoed a tradition that may as well have been Neolithic.To swear on Mother Mokosh was to swear on the vitality of the land, summoning the very magic that bound Buyan together. But that magic was failing, reckless, with vines choking forests, greenery growing like mad beyond even the leshys’ control. Dmitri’s forest was nearly unnavigable, and the tsar went out each day, pruning and plucking, trying to put a stopper on the wilderness.Anya and Morozko stowed what little they had in the oversized bac
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
Chapter: Chapter 47: PromenadeThey backpacked Europe, hostel by hostel. It was Anya’s insistence that they travel simply, no planes, all train, bus and foot. Morozko mastered the art of smoking when you were a walking refrigerator. Anya learned to pack light. Both needed time to heal – one had lost his body, the other had lost her soul.Despite the marvels of the Old Word – the museums, the culture, the castles and cathedrals - Anya could not sleep. When she shut her eyes, she saw the deathless girls, each whispering silently, tears on their cheeks like pearls. Alina was always at the forefront, swirling into dust.It had been a year since they set out on their journey, though Anya’s body had stopped aging. Physically, she would always remain eighteen, perpetually frozen in time. She turned, restless, in Morozko’s arms, glamoured like him, for now light poured from her throat. It made sleeping even more diffic
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
Chapter: Chapter 46: Falcon Wild“I missed you too. You do not, um, mind that I look like this now, do you? I thought, in order to save you, that I had to become something else. Someone I am not.”Anya avoided stepping on a mushroom. “Well, your skin is cold, but you are still you. You put on Ded Moroz’s crown for me. If you can accept me as I am now, as a – as Bilobog, or whatever, then I can still love you.”Morozko stopped, taking both of her hands into his. “Anya, I would not care if you became a hag. I would still adore you. Remember? I am your sidekick. All I want is your happiness.”Anya leaned into him. “Thanks, Kolya. You mean the world to me, too.”Their lips met.Aym coughed up a hairball. It landed square on Morozko’s cheek, interrupting their kiss. Aym purred with laughter as Morozko wiped the matted fur from his f
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
Chapter: Chapter 45: Gardens To TendMorozko could barely see through the fury of the storm. Lightning split an amethyst birch in two, setting the jewel tree aflame. From behind the fallen tree slunk an orange tabby. “It is about time that you arrived,” purred Aym. Morozko stopped in his tracks. “Pus in boots? How the hell did you get here?” Aym laughed. “I have my ways. You look rather blue – sadness at my mistress’s disappearance must have taken a toll on you. I would say that you are practically frozen in sorrow.” Ivan rounded a corner on Greyback. His eyes gaped wide. “Something has changed,” he breathed. “I can feel it in my soul, now bound to another master. Actually, no – mistress? A – a goddess? But how?” Aym wove in between Greyback’s legs, purring. “You wouldn’t happen to have any cream, would you, bud? The deathless lands have lackluster food, and that’s an understatement.”
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
Chapter: Chapter 44: A Goddess Is BornMorozko and Ivan did not encounter any other ghosts. Morozko suspected Maria Morevna held her spectral sisters at bay, already having claimed Ivan as her own. He wondered if Ivan’s deaths each night at Maria’s hands was the tithe they were paying to enter the deathless lands, for everything here had a price. Food was scarce, game nearly nonexistent, and they often went hungry.The morning of the summer solstice came, and they arrived at a steep rim of mountains that ringed the deathless lands. A great lair of a cave lay atop the tallest mountains: the domain of Zmei Gorynych.Greyback made quick work of the scree with Ivan on his back, and Morozko rose as a winter storm to the mountain’s peak. Still, the summit was tall, and it took them half a day to scale it. In the interim, the sun sang her solstice song, luring Zmei out of his cave. The dragon took wing and courted his celestial love with a radiant d
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
Chapter: Chapter 43: Even Gods Can Be KilledIvan Tsarevich and Morozko trekked farther each day. Ivan told Morozko of the legions of cherti that guarded the deathless lands, of the women who had crumbled to dust upon trying to leave Kashchei’s kingdom. Their spirits haunted the thick black forests bordering the area. So many maidens that had been spirited away over the centuries now lingered there. Bodiless, they roamed the wilderness, leading travelers astray to try and suck the life out of them. There were packs of vucari, Greyback’s people, who would as likely help a traveler as eat them. Finally, there was Zmei Gorynych, the fearsome three-headed dragon who guarded the portal to the deathless lands.“Zmei leaves his cave once a year, on the summer solstice,” Ivan said as he turned hares over a spit for their dinner. “A being of fire, Zmei cannot resist the call of the sun. He flies as close as he can to her, fancying the star his lover, a
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
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