Darcy Branwyn

He’s thousands of years old…

Tangled Moon:

983 B.C.E. Firm hands held him back, one kilted palace guard on each arm. Re’Hotep strained against them, only to find the point of a knife under his nose as a third guard stopped him in his tracks.

“You’re the farmer. The one with the beautiful mother.”

“Let me go,” Re’Hotep said. “I’ve done nothing.”

“Nothing? Nothing yet you mean.” The guard’s weathered eyes scrutinized him.

Being a peasant, he wore only his linen kilt and leather sandals. The eyes stopped, narrowing in on his one and only adornment. A small gold ring in his ear that had belonged to his father. The guard smiled. Then a dusty hand reached up and tore it from his ear. Blood, warm even under the noon sun dripped onto his shoulder.

“Don’t need that now, do we?” the guard said while the others laughed. He sheathed his knife so he could put the ring in his own ear.

That was the only possession he had left of his father’s. But it was inconsequential, because he had something of his father’s that was more important than a gold ring.

The knife came back out. It flashed under the bright sun as the guard angled it purposefully, threatening him, uselessly since he was still held immobile by the other two guards.

“What’s the woman’s name you’re after? Amina? Aseria?”

“Aziza,” supplied one of the guards. The one on his right. He had a scar down the side of his face.

“Hard to believe she could be this ugly whelp’s mother.” He looked Re’Hotep over once more. “How’d your father get on her? I’m guessing she didn’t enjoy it very much.”

He held his temper in check.

“Well, if Amon doesn’t have her, I will.”

He strained now against the guards, managed to loosen his left arm. He was right handed, but that didn’t stop him from breaking the man’s nose.

Re’Hotep felt it shatter under the impact. Blood rolled down the guard’s face. The man roared in anger, wiping it away. All three came down on him, tackling him to the ground. They were all as heavy as him if not as tall. He tasted dust as his face was shoved into the ground. Metal studs in their belts bit into his bare back. Between the weight and the sand in his nose and mouth he couldn’t breathe. He felt consciousness slipping away, grasped harder for it.

“Let her go,” he managed.

They yanked him suddenly back to his feet. He was unsteady, nearly fell as his head whirred in the distorted line of consciousness. Black tunneled his vision.

“What did you say, whelp?” The guard with the broken nose got in his face.

“I said, let her go.”

The guard looked over his shoulder, smiling, his teeth red from his bloody nose. “Too late, I think.”

“Osiris will judge you for this.”

A fist in his gut bent his knees, the other guards laughing as they let go of him. He collapsed to the ground.

“Send him to his mother when the men are through with her. Maybe she’ll suckle him back to health.”

He felt the hands on him. Tasted the dust, parched and gritty in his mouth, the sun burning down. His ear was still dripping blood, now into the sand, soaking into the dry earth in dark splotches of deep crimson against brown. He heard the screams, but he couldn’t get to her. They wouldn’t let him. They beat him, and this time he couldn’t stop the darkness from reaching up to take him...

I, Darcy, your fierce but loving goddess, daughter of the great Aphrodite herself, hereby proclaim that you will become a member for exclusive content made just for you. In return for your adoration, I promise to keep you entertained with stories of love, epic battles, and great sex.