Novels by Monica Prelooker

The next week was some kind of oasis after my arrival in the castle.I recovered from the intoxication, the cuts in my arm and face healed, and my other arm seemed almost ready to be free from the splints.I spent the mornings with the healers, the afternoons with Aine, and the nights with the wolf. For the first time ever, I didn’t miss the quietness of the cave, and I was starting to feel that living in the castle wouldn’t be as bad as I feared over my first days.It was during those quiet days that Tilda noticed I had the wrong idea about the human women serving in the castle. I thought they were exploited by the wolves, so she took the time to explain to me how the whole thing worked.They lived in Iria, which means fruitful land, a beautiful little town three miles south of the castle, in houses they shared with two or three roommates.Nobody worked more than six hours a day, five days a week, with two full free days. It w

“It was quite a racket,” Aine said in her merry way. “The humans almost have a mass heart attack when Mom summoned them and demanded them to tell who had poisoned our food. None of them hesitated to finger that little bitch. She fell down on her knees, crying and begging for mercy. She was so shameless to admit what she’d done, but insisted she only intended to harm you, not me. Picture that!”I shook my head, scoffing. It was so like Aurora. Of course she would. After abusing me her whole life, she didn’t see anything wrong about harming me.“So Mom sent all the cooks in that shift to the cleaning area, to scrub floors until further notice. And they should be thankful, because my uncle wanted to kick them all out, from the castle and even the Dale.” Aine noticed my questioning frown. “My uncle. You know, the Alpha.”Her words reminded me of something I’d seen.“He was at Tilda&

“The other girl!” the princess growled through clenched teeth. “Aine says the girl tried to keep her from sharing your dinner.”I nodded, closing my eyes, and folded my arms against my chest, feeling cold. I heard a shuffle and something heavy covered me. The door opened again, and I recognized Tilda’s footsteps, coming up to leave something on the table. The princess pressed my hand.“You were right, child,” she said. “What’s in your leftovers is no clove. Rest now. I’ll take care of it personally. Those little bitches won’t hurt you ever again.”“Room…” I muttered.“Your guardian can’t come see you in broad daylight,” she whispered.I nodded and tried to shrugged. She scoffed.“Aye, aye. I’ll have it cleaned so they can take you back there.”I opened my eyes out of sheer surprise when she kissed my forehead.

I straightened up, a hand covering my closed eyes, as he came closer. He rested his hands on my shoulders and brushed my hair to the side with his nose to kiss my neck. I shivered with a shaky sigh.“What happened to the ribbon I sent you?” he asked in my ear, gently moving my hand away from my face.“I don’t know, my lord. I can’t remember where I left it.”I was still speaking when he covered my eyes with a ribbon wider than the white one I’d found. He tied it behind my head and his lips brushed my neck again.“Open your eyes,” he whispered.I did and saw only darkness.“Did you have another black one with you?” I asked, surprised.“It was on the mantelpiece,” he replied, amused.“Oh!”I had no chance to speak any further, because he lifted me carefully in his arms to take me back to bed.“You’re supposed to res

I spent the whole day in my room, with Aine looking after me and Tilda’s periodic visits to check on me. She agreed to let me have my arms without any dressing, only keeping the splinted one in the sling.Aine turned out to be the best company ever. She helped me wash and wear a loose sleeveless petticoat she’d brought. The fireplace kept the room temperature so well, I only needed a shawl around my shoulders.While we were having lunch, she couldn’t fight her curiosity back any longer and started asking me questions. So I ended up telling her about Lily, Selene and Aurora.“So there’s still one of them roaming free in the castle?” she cried.“Remember the girl who brought us tea the other day?”“That’s why she stared at you like that!”“I’m afraid so.”In the afternoon, she helped me sit by the window with one of the books she’d brought, and tol

As we headed to the healers’ common chamber, three human women jumped out of a small door I hadn’t noticed before. They bowed before Tilda without really stopping their trot toward my room, carrying all their cleaning elements.Marla and the other wolves convinced me to lay down in one of the small side rooms. Tilda made me drink the speedwell tea and I couldn’t help dozing off.I jolted awake in the middle of the night, still in the healers’ chambers. I ignored my aching cuts as a swung the covers away. Then I breathed deep and tried to calm down.I felt numb. My splinted arm hurt and throbbed, the shawl tied so tight I didn’t feel that hand anymore. The fingers in my other hand tingled, and the movement to grab the covers sent shocks of pain up to my elbow.I was alone in the small side room. No lights and no sounds coming from the main chamber. I waited till my eyes adjusted to the shadows. Then I got up and tiptoed across

Big Ellie checked the time on his phone and stood up, swallowing to speak. “Shit! Sorry! You leaving already?”“Yeah, I wanna be there for dinner.” The man stopped right in front of me and smiled wider, stretching out his hand. “You must be Dean. I’m Lou, nice to meet you.”I would’ve jumped past the pool and off the building when I realized he was Mr. All Fours. I shook his hand wishing I wasn’t blushing too bad. Looks like I was, because he chuckled softly and turned to Big Ellie.“What did you tell him to make him feel so embarrassed, Sal?”Big Ellie threw up his hands. “Search me. You’re taking Mark with you?”“Yeah. Don’t stay up late, ‘cause Seth’s coming in the morning, about ten.”“I know, I know.”Mr. Lou All Fours met my eyes. “Take care of him, Dean,” he said, like he was talking about his cat. “I’m taking a couple of weeks off and he’s a mess when he’s alone.”“Fuck you,” grumbled Big Ellie, sitting back down and grabbing his beer.“O-okay,” I was able to mutter.Lou chuck

He settled the pizza on a wooden plate on the table and nodded for me to sit down. I did, frowning to shield my eyes from the glare. Everything felt so utterly surreal, I couldn’t help even begin to question what the hell I was doing there. I’d never been in such a luxurious place, and I didn’t know what to do or say. He grabbed a couple of dishes and glasses from a shelf against the wall by the sliding door, opened two beers and put the rest of the six-pack in a minibar by the shelf. He was dressed pretty much like the night we’d had dinner there a week before, with his loose tee and his worn sneakers. The only difference was that he was wearing swimming trunks instead of short sweatpants. And he behaved in such an ordinary, simple way, it helped me to overcome my inhibitions.He was right, and the pizza was a finger-licking piece of culinary art. I tried a bite and realized I was starving, so I put to wolf down slice after slice, only pausing to sip my beer now and then. We didn’t t

All those weeks of questioning and torturing myself, struggling to deny that he gave me all I needed. Well, not all. I would’ve liked to have some flesh to fuck other than his hand. But all things considered, even that way I felt so much more satisfied than I’d ever been with a woman.That noon I had no idea what came next. Yeah, lunch. With him. But my mind was still too hangovered in oil to look any further. Later. There would be time to see my options and make up my mind.Coming out of the bathroom, I noticed the whole house was completely quiet. Weird. Maybe he’d gone to the West Wing to get something? I put on clean sweatpants and tee, looking out the window. It was a warm bright noon out there.I understood the silence as soon as I went downstairs: he wasn’t around. I didn’t find any trace of lunch, either. Not even the smell of food.I dialed him, checking the microwaves again. “Where the fuck’s lunch?” I grunted when he picked up.The son of a bitch laughed out loud.“What?” I

“Breakfast?”I nodded without opening my eyes and rolled over to lie flat on my back. I found his body halfway, laying on his side behind me, so I rested against his chest. His hand guided my leg up to bend over his hip, exposing my crotch, where it landed a moment later. I didn’t hold back the muffled groan he pulled out of my lips as his fingers wrapped around my morning wood, wet in oil.My head felt like filled with wet cotton, my limbs felt like sacks of rocks. I was numb and weary and I would’ve liked to go back to sleep and not wake up for a couple of weeks. Maybe by then my muscles would have some tone back and I would be able to have two straight thoughts.He didn’t take as long as the thousand times he’d edged me the night before, all night, nonstop, until the day broke. But it was anyway long for a morning wood. Later on I would pause to wonder how on earth could my spoiled cock still get hard after what it’d been put through only hours earlier. Right then, I just let him d

“Fancy a drink?” he asked, coming back to me.I nodded, hating his guts for cutting me off like that. But he wasn’t done with his joke. He put the cold bottle against the back of my shaft and moved it up and down until I wriggled to get my cock away from that freezing shit. Then, he rested the cold butt on my navel and guided it slowly up my belly to my pecs, where he made it circle them before finally taking the bottle to my lips. I’d hardly sipped the beer when his spare hand closed around my nuts again, renewing the oil covering them.I gasped at his touch and choked on the beer. He removed the bottle with another mocking chuckle and took it to his own mouth. He took a long sip while his hand fondled my nuts like they were a sleeping cat.I dropped my head back and forgot about the beer, because his fondling caught all of my attention. He’d brought me down alright, and now he would keep teasing me for as long as he felt like it, so I did the equivalent to sit back and grab the popc

It felt different. No ripples, but a warm tinkling spreading down from my nipples, that needed more rubbing as it grew stronger, reaching my navel in no time. When he pinched my nipples, it was like an electric jolt running down my body all the way to my groin. I pushed my chest up, and like replying to what I didn’t dare to ask, he replaced one of his hands with his tongue. The fingers still wet in oil brushed the tip of my cock, making me stir and groan.He took his sweet time teasing me like that, while I shivered and moaned, my hips trying to push my throbbing cock into his hand that stayed out of reach, his fingertips tight together to open over my tip every time I pushed, never going further than my head.Suddenly, he moved back to watch me like that for a moment, spread legs with my knees up, panting, blurry eyes on him, hard as a ram, at his mercy past any attempt of denying it. He bent over me and his mouth rested between my pecs, from where it slid down my belly up to my nav

Silvia woke up to Depeche Mode’s Personal Jesus.The sun was setting and she was alone in bed, tucked in soft sheets that smelled of lemon and the fat white comforter. Jim had left a few hours ago to let her rest, because after those weeks apart, it was plain to see she wouldn’t get any rest with him around.She’d fallen sound asleep, exhausted, and now she had the persistent feeling of being still lost in a dream. But she wasn’t. This was not the Black Rock. It was the Ashtray, her new home, and that music had to be a phone ringing.But not hers. She’d never used that song as a ringtone.She followed the music to the other nightstand, where she found a new phone still inside its open box with a red ribbon. And she laughed out loud when she grabbed it and saw the caller was My Personal J.“Hey, you awake?” Jim asked when she picked up, still chuckling.“Hey, you just woke me u

They staggered into the bedroom and fell on the bed as they kissed, their hands struggling to get rid of their clothes.Silvia pulled Jim to bring him on top of her, yearning to feel his weight. There was no other body to hers, no other hands to touch her, no other lips to drive her crazy, no other skin to stroke hers. She wrapped a leg around his waist, pushing him down, and moaned when she felt him inside of her, his fire sweeping it all away, and she gave in to his need and his exasperated anxiety.Because that was exactly how he was feeling. He’d never missed her body, he’d never needed her like this. Yet there he was, fighting himself back to keep from going off like a frigging teen, growing crazier with every moan he pushed out of her mouth, every move of her hips, every touch of her fingers, every brush of her lips. Like he would never have enough of her.Why was he feeling this way? Why nothing seemed enough? When had all bodies lost their ap

Silvia exited the Customs Office feeling stunned and a little dizzy. After such an emotional last week in Bariloche, she’d had to go through the long flight that had taken her to another time zone, another season, another country, another culture, another language. She looked around, feeling she was running on fumes and she was about to pass out any moment now.Jim threw the sign she hadn’t seen into a bin to come stand before her, hands in his pockets and a smile under his black cap.“Looking for somebody?”Silvia just dropped everything to fall into his arms. He held her tight, kissing her hair, and felt her shiver nonstop. She needed a whole minute to fight back her tears and get a little grip on herself. When he assessed she would be able to walk, he took her hand, grabbed the luggage cart with his other hand, and took both to the parking lot without a word.Silvia just let him lead the way. She was there, with him, finally. Sh

Silvia left before her friends and siblings even registered what she was doing. One minute they were all toasting to her for the hundredth time in the bar, and the next minute she was hugging every one of them, telling them how much she loved them. And then she was gone, all alone.She walked down the street, gazing up at the sky, admiring the colors in those minutes before the early sunrise. Her feet didn’t need to consult with her brain to head straight to the downtown beach, walk down the stone steps and take her right up to the lake shore.She sat down on the cold pebbles and lit a cigarette, face to the east. It was her last sunrise of the only life she’d ever known. The last sunrise with her lake and her mountains. Like so many times before, she wished she could capture every little detail as far as her eyes could see, carve it all in her memory and keep it inside of her, true and unchanged, forever unfading.She watched the sun come up behind

Tobias and Leandro had done their best to clean up the Black Rock before Silvia came back home. And the outcome made her smile, because the house was squeaky-clean and smelling of flowers. They were surprised to see Mika there too, but Silvia’s look kept them from asking any questions.Knowing the siblings needed time alone for their reunion, Leandro left for Beltane, to have dinner with Claudia. At the Black Rock, Mika went to the supermarket, to restock the fridge with something that wasn’t trash food and make dinner for the three of them.The moment she walked out, Tobias asked Silvia what had happened to their sister to make her lower that proud head of hers, admit her fail and come back home. It was just natural he would take mortal offense when he learned why Mika was actually back. But Silvia would have none of it.“I’m telling you the same I told your sister,” she said. “You don’t want me to keep treating you guy

It’d been six months since Silvia had last seen Mika, and one look was enough to tell her all her little sister had been keeping from her.Rob and Juan had planned a Saturday night out after dinner, but Silvia resorted to the such-a-long-flight excuse to stay behind.“Would you lend me a hand with the dishes?” she asked Mika.The others understood and took off, leaving the sisters alone.“I thought Lorena was coming too,” Silvia said as they picked up everything from the table.Mika hesitated, found her sister’s eyes and shrugged. “We broke up.”“Oh. You never mentioned it.”“It happened three days ago. I didn’t wanna write to you about it. It was your last days with Jim, and I knew we were meeting today.”They took everything to the kitchen and Silvia asked Mika to make mate while she did the dishes. The girl knew better than trying to beat

The traveling crews came back to Los Angeles for the holidays a couple of days later, and Brandon decided he felt brave enough to host a dinner for all of them at one of the restaurants they used to go to.It would be like his big comeback to society, leaving behind almost four months of reclusion and darkness. And to mark the occasion, he warned me that Cake had leaked the date and place to a few reporters.“Meaning my friends will be there?”“Guess so. The problem is that ban on you. I don’t want them to leave you out of the report. The other way around: I want everybody to know we’re together.”I looked up at him with a heartfelt sigh. But like it always happened over the last week, meeting his eyes focused on mine made me so happy, I couldn’t refuse. So I called Greta Arbosky, who said she would take care of letting them know about this one exception. I disconnected and faced him, raising my eyebrows.&

Against all odds, Brandon was the easiest, most complying patient in history. I think the scare of almost losing all his sight gave a whole new meaning to this opportunity to restore his eyes to full health. He never complained about the awful cream he had to apply directly on his eyeballs, he never missed drops or meds time, he slept on his belly, and kept his eye shields on around the clock.The first week was the hardest, of course, while he still wore the dressings. However, his determination to walk the line, no matter how hard, annoying or frustrating, helped us find our way around it faster than I’d ever expected. Just like the doctor had said, Brandon had been so stressed up over the last two or three weeks, he was plain exhausted, so he slept a lot over the first three days.My hovering tendencies kept me always within a few steps from wherever he was. At first, I thought he would soon get sick and tired of my relentless watch over him, but it was actual

I jumped to my feet when I heard Brandon move. His fingers flickered slightly and I covered his hand with mine, my heart hammering my chest. His head tilted a little toward me and his lips parted.“Hey,” I whispered. “Easy there.”He tried to speak and frowned.“It’s okay, Bran. The surgery worked alright.”He frowned deeper, trying to press my fingers. I took his hand to my lips to kiss it.“It worked, Bran,” I repeated, just in case. “You’re gonna be fine.”His shaky sigh told me he’d understood. His other hand came slowly up to brush the dressing covering his eyes.“That’s gonna stay there for a few days.”“Did it?” he mumbled, as his fingers explored the dressing further.“Yes, love. It worked. If we do what the doctor says, you’re gonna be fine in a few months. Maybe even better than before the inf

We woke up early the next morning. Brandon couldn’t have breakfast before surgery, but we were both too anxious to even feel any hunger. Cake arrived as we were coming down to the first floor, looking rested and ten years younger than the night before. On the way to the hospital, I took advantage of being alone in the backseat of the car to send a few texts. To Amy, to let her know I’d gotten to LA fine and everything was peachy. To Isaac, to let him know I was already in town, going with Brandon to the hospital, and I’d text him how the surgery had gone as soon as I found out. And finally to Harry, to ask him to remind Hugo to send all his light and all his angels to come lend a hand.“Who are you texting to?” asked the control freak from the passenger’s seat.“The press, obviously. Your NY Barbie and her gossiping friends will be waiting for us at the hospital.”He turned in his seat, frowning at me from behind h

I woke up at about three. Brandon was sound asleep, so much so that I was able to sneak between his arms without him even flinching. Back from the bathroom, I heard noises downstairs. Then I remembered the disaster zone the living area was when I’d come into the house. I got dressed and headed to the first floor, still trying to tie my hair in a ponytail.Guadalupe had arrived while we were upstairs, and her grin when she saw me threw me off. She and Cake had sort of cleaned up the living area, but the place still looked like the guys from A Clockwork Orange had dropped by to say hi. The kitchen was still a mess, with a lot of glass and smashed mugs all over the floor, wine and all kinds of things spilled on the floor. And when I say all kinds of things, I mean even mayonnaise. So I wore an apron, put on rubber gloves and set to clean up disaster zone number two.Guadalupe and Cake materialized in the kitchen, looking spooked. I faced them with

I had a glimpse of the whole living area completely trashed, like a hurricane had blasted through it, but I couldn’t care less. I rushed to the stairs and up to the second floor, to storm into the master bedroom. I froze just past the doorway. My heart, which was about to crack my chest open, suddenly stopped, and everything spun around me.Because Brandon was lying on his bed, unconscious, a bleeding cut on his forehead that had sprayed blood all over him. Cake was right by his side, lifting his limp legs up to the bed.“He tripped in the kitchen and hit his head with the isle,” Cake managed to say, panting after carrying Brandon all the way upstairs.I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.“Fran! Bring me a wet towel!”His shout made me snap out of my shock. I dropped my bag on the floor and ran around the bed to the bathroom, where I grabbed the first towel I