Author: J. Scott Coatsworth
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Cover Artist: London Burden
Length: 20,000 words
Release Date: July 29, 2015
Blurb: When his own world is destroyed, Aldiss and his crew barely manage to escape, leaving friends and lovers behind. What was meant to be an exploratory trip back to the home world turns into a mad dash for survival.
When they awaken from stasis on Earth, which was abandoned by humanity five centuries before, they must quickly learn about their new home. While exploring the region around the ship, Aldiss meets Hari, a shape-changer, whose people harbor secrets that might cost the crew their lives.
Hari reached the edge of the woods just
in time to see Neru crouching to leap at the two-legs. Young fool.
He gathered himself and jumped after
Neru, knocking him aside as his teeth reached for the two-legs' throat.
Neru turned and snarled at him, backing
away toward the woods.
Hari stood firm, ears back, hackles
raised, and drew the corners of his mouth back to reveal his teeth. Back off, Neru.
The whelp shook his head and grinned
with the brashness of youth, until Hari leaped at him and nipped his ear. With
a surprised yelp, Neru turned his head, deferring to Hari's strength. As you say, brother. There was a
cockiness to Neru's look that unsettled him.
The other wolf backed up slowly then
turned to disappear into the woods.
Hari caught a glimpse of Mavi watching
from the shadows. The old wolf snarled, and slunk off after her son.
What do you seek, old mother?
Hari wondered, watching Mavi's silver-tipped tail flicker into the darkness. It
was clear where Neru's courage and cunning had come from.
Hari turned back toward the two-legs.
He was holding a strange stick, not unlike the one that Hari's grandmother had
shown him in the wolf dream.
But it was his face that caught Hari's
eye. He knew that face. The two-legs'
eyes were white-gray, and his jet-black hair was swept to the side.
Despite the danger, he shifted in the
manner only a few of the clan are able to do in the cold. He grew quickly
taller and less hairy but no less muscled, and stood naked before the two-legs.
They stared at each other for a long
moment. Hari felt an immense attraction washing over him. He saw in his summer
form that this two-legs was beautiful. His own body responded to this… man… in
an unexpected way, seeing and feeling things his winter form could not. Hari
leaned forward and sniffed the stranger, drinking in his musk. It smelled
enticing. Strangely familiar.
He sensed the two-legs stiffen, and to
reassure, him, Hari licked the man's neck.
The two-legs was trembling now like a
young whelp, so he tried something else. He took the stranger's face in his
hands and kissed him.
The shaking slowed, and then the man
was kissing him back. Hari was hungry for him, like a starving wolf at the end
of a long, hard winter.
It is not the time for this,
the keh whispered in his ear.
He broke contact and turned away,
ashamed that he was betraying his Clan, and for lust. An emotion of his summer
form.
"I'm sorry," he said to the
two-legs, without looking back. "It won't happen again." Even he was
not sure if he meant Neru's attack, or the kiss.
He shifted back into his winter form and loped off
into the woods after his pack mates.
Scott
has been writing since elementary school, when he and won a University of
Arizona writing contest in 4th grade for his first sci-fi story (with
illustrations!). He finished his first novel in his mid-twenties, but after
seeing it rejected by ten publishers, he gave up on writing for a while.
Over
the ensuing years, he came back to it periodically, but it never stuck. Then
one day, he was complaining to Mark, his husband, early last year about how he
had been derailed yet again by the death of a family member, and Mark said to
him “the only one stopping you from writing is you.
Since
then, Scott has gone back to writing in a big way, finishing more than a dozen
short stories – some new, some that he had started years before – and seeing
his first sale. He’s embarking on a new trilogy, and also runs the Queer Sci Fi
(http://www.queerscifi.com) site, a support group for writers of gay sci fi,
fantasy, and supernatural fiction.
Winner’s
Prize: E-copy of The
Homecoming.
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This story sounds fabulous! Congratulations and much success, Scott!
ReplyDeletetaina1959 @ yahoo.com