Stories

The Montana sky is wide, coffee strong, and wounded souls are never turned away from Two Spirits Horse Ranch. When Jake finds a young stranger left for dead at the north gate, his promise to protect him draws the whole ranch into a fight against fear, memory, and the men who might return to finish what they started. Warm, funny, tender, and suspenseful, In the Barb is a Western romance about found family, survival, and the kind of love that begins as rescue but grows into home.

"You can never trust a Crawley." Those were Albert Cooley's words to his sons, spoken every chance he got, and August did his best to do what was expected of him after his ma passed. The Crawleys and the Cooleys were ranching families, and they didn't mix, not ever, but more and more, August had a problem with letting his father decide everything for him. Was Fletcher really his enemy? Could he trust the man he'd butted heads with over and over, one he'd known pretty much his whole life? All he knew for certain was he was tired of all the conflict, and needed his life to change before he exploded. That's where his Gran came in.

An alpha without a pack is like a house without a roof.

Theodore Pembroke has lived for years with only vengeance in his heart. As the last of his kind, he knows the dark forces that destroyed his pack will come for him one day—and when they do, he’ll be ready.

But even the best-laid plans will often go awry. The enemy he’s been preparing for turns out to be an unexpected ally, and a sudden and fragile spark of hope makes a mess of everything.

(Full summary inside)

The ambition of courtier Gesi Ajai threatens the Empire of Lyra. Skilled general Raithion Maenaer meets Azula, a blacksmith, but their connection is cut short. Years later, Basileus Dio has thwarted Gesi's ambition, but Gesi now plans to take the throne by any means. Raithion and Azula must bring Gesi down and navigate treacherous court politics. Will they succeed?

After a strange anticlimactic kidnapping, Axel Graysen is pulled into the tumultuous world of the Wook Family. Axel treats Jeha Wook’s gunshot wound and ends up treating the oddly large team of brothers who work for Jeha. The problem is that Jeha’s people seem like delinquents, and Jeha is the largest delinquent. Axel worries about keeping the man he likes from getting hurt again.

In the rain-lashed borderlands of the Vexin, Darien Haskal has carved a fragile peace with blood and steel. But when King Radoslav's royal progress arrives, it brings not celebration but a nest of vipers: a scheming duke, a fanatical nun wielding forbidden magic, and the golden knight whose smile hides a blade. As ancient curses awaken and political machinations tighten like a noose, the Vanguard's found family must protect their own—a feral heir, a dying prince, and a love that defies the Church itself. In a fortress perched between kingdoms, war is coming. But the Vanguard has survived the end of the world. They'll survive a dinner party.

Fourteen-year-old Aiden Callahan has been expelled and shipped off to rural County Sligo for the summer. He expects boredom. Instead he finds ancient passage tombs and a mysterious boy named Cianán who seems to belong to the landscape itself.

As their bond deepens into first love, Aiden discovers that Cianán may be the last living remnant of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the mythic race who once ruled Ireland and retreated into the ancient mounds. But summer doesn’t last forever, and some connections come with a cost neither boy is prepared to pay.

Reflections of the past, realities of the present, and hopes for the future. These aren't prompts, and anything could wind up here, from poetry to monologues. It's all about words, and the forms they lead us to.

A collection of poems by Wayne Gray

Charlie and the gang set out to trouble-shoot a problem for old Mr. Elias Grampet, who thinks he’s being stalked. The investigation soon leads them offworld, and into another adventure far out among the stars, where they’ll meet new friends, and an interesting new enemy!