44 Results in the "Bear House Serials" category
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Chapter
XXXVII: The Drunken Bath
Crimson rivulets swirl into the grate, drinking the ritual’s bloody remains. Aedan empties another bucket of water over his head, then upends it atop his basted rags, a lopsided pile of pale red. Cardamon oil forms prismatic clouds upon the water’s skin, its heady scent filling the humid air. Of all the luxuries imposed while living among these wolves, he most enjoys their aromatic baths. The steamy pool lures him into its satiating embrace. Ears full of warmth, he surfaces so the chill can bite…-
109.5 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
XXXVI: The Last Leaf Falls
A line of gray rises from the woods, but smokeless chimneys draw him to the village. No guard walks the wall. The smithy forge has gone cold, and courtyard braziers full of wood stand without flame. Pigs slumber in their pen, tightly packed mounds unmoved by his investigation. Knocking on doors yields no one, so he sets off for home under the fading day. Along the main road, he spots the villagers filing down the ridge. Two-wheel carts break up their procession, pulled by young men and full of…-
109.5 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
II
His life is defined by how much pain he brings his mother. Twenty-two years ago, Ciniod left her princely father’s house to live with a coastal druid named Fintan, who, for all his holistic prowess, never suspected her already caught. Her pains began on the autumnal, and her unborn babe insisted on coming out ass first. The old druidess tending the delivery cut her belly to liberate him, and she reminds her son of this trauma every time she forces a fart. Aedan the Ancalite is a bony sort with…-
109.5 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
I
His name is Lucius Scipio Servius, or Skipio to those who call him friend. His shorn head shines like ripe wheat, and he stands taller than most, with a robust frame and pleasingly deep tenor. His piercing, verdant eyes come darker than river moss, and his chiseled face boasts a captivating mouth no man can resist. Vitus Servius is his father. A patrician with a vast orchard in the Lepontine Alps, he also farms a thriving walnut grove, its crops famous throughout Rome. Unfortunately, his only son…-
109.5 K • Ongoing
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Chapter
XIII – The Ancalite Wedding
Lucius Vitus Servius once said that rivalry within ranks festers like flesh rot, and if a general ignores it, he’ll lose a man as quickly as a leg. Julius recalls his old friend’s observation as he watches the murdered man’s son glower at Kombius, a prince of the continental Atrebates. The more concerning bit of flesh rot, however, is Titus Labienus, who listens with jowls tight in resentment as the noble speaks of his time as an Ancalite prisoner. Before their first campaign on the island,…-
109.5 K • Ongoing
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- Story
Sonata 9
Andrew Celich’s education as a classical violinist is derailed by an act of violence that finds him navigating New York City alone. -
Chapter
24
When her son stepped off the bus, nothing remained of the boy who left seven months before. He smelled good but looked hungry, and she didn’t fuss, not even when she felt his bones in her embrace. After kissing his head, she shifted her eyes to the men in suits. The police had gotten their pound of flesh, but they wanted to know how it got into her son’s car. Her boy carried himself like a man, shaking their hands and agreeing to an interview without her present. She insisted it wait, and he took…-
39.7 K • Completed
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Chapter
23
Steady blows upon the door woke him. Andrew laughed into his pillow, giddy beyond measure. Sitting up, he tried fixing his bedhead in the mirror as the rapping continued. “I’m coming,” he grumbled, tearing himself from the warmth of the covers. He pulled on Sash’s undershirt, smelling the man’s soapy skin in its fabric. He stumbled to the door, tripping over two packed duffel bags. “Did you lock yourself out, Sas—” Nikola pushed his way inside when Andrew opened the door. “I…-
39.7 K • Completed
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Chapter
22
Andrew sat alone in the subway car, mindless of his blood-soaked shirt and hungering for the Pilar. No amount of trauma overcame the healing power of provoked strings. The setting sun cut an orange line down Astor Place, a radiant border between painful realities and comfortable detachment. He wandered the street in a daze, his arms colliding with pedestrians. Saint Marks housed its regulars, shiftless and waiting for anyone to liberate them from the checkerboard doldrums. The clerk called after him.…-
39.7 K • Completed
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Chapter
21
Thanksgiving thoughts bred scents of roasted turkey and baked cinnamon. The vibrations in the subway window soothed his aching head until subterranean darkness gave way to sun-soaked sprawl. Outside on the platform, a trio of Yeshiva-tailored boys tossed coins onto the tracks, a dangerous folly carried out without the supervision of the station’s usual patrolman. Andrew was four blocks down Brighton 12 when a feminine howl ripped through the air. Wailing sirens grew deafening on approach as police…-
39.7 K • Completed
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