Bloodlust and Mating Rituals
The Paranormal Academy For Troubled Boys
$2.99
A spark of love might burn them all.
Dorian knows the score well. He’s been at the Academy for over two years now, his existence balancing between explosive, deadly power and numb depression. Strong emotions fuel magic, and Dorian is forced to isolate, striving to be as aloof and unfeeling as possible. Things he used to find important—hot guys, wealth, magical talent—none of it matters since the accident. No, Dorian has one goal in life: to keep his magic under control.
He thought he was safe. He thought he had found a quiet spot in the world to keep his magic in check. But when Wylie Doe comes crashing into the Academy, there is no ignoring the sexy dragon shifter or his possessive hisses. Wylie is everything Dorian’s been yearning for, and his magic can’t help but respond.
If only magic didn’t always lead to death.
84,900+ wrds, Published Feb 14, 2020.
Heat level: X
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT PATB Serial #2
By Kathryn M on February 14, 2020
This series is amazing and addictive. I was drawn into this fantastic universe and taken on a wild ride of the paranormal. There are steamy moments, funny moments, scenes with action and a feeling of tension throughout. The characters are interesting and really nake you need their stories. I can not wait to devour more.
By Eric Thornton on February 16, 2020
Another exciting powerful read. I am beyond hooked. I cannot wait for the next book. Bring on more excitement!!!
By Patricia Nelson on February 16, 2020
This was one hell of a fantastic, amazing, intense, grab-you-by-the-feels, intense, fast paced, fascinating, action packed, tension filled, exciting, emotionally charged, definitely different, dark, thrilling, more twists and turns than a roller coaster, totally awesome, wild, and crazy walk on the wild side. I can’t wait to see what happens next!
Shhhnk. Shhhnk. Daggers whizzed past Theodore in the dark. Crack!
Theodore hissed as he dodged blade after blade, the last dagger biting deep into the surface of a solar panel right next to his hip. His long crimson hair looked like a waterfall of blood as it floated down his back when he straightened from his roll. Theodore held himself still, his ears open for any telltale noise. His leather despoiler coat twisted in the wind rushing across the rooftop of the Redhem police station where he was standing. At the rustle of wings behind him, Theodore slashed, the blade of his sword slicing through the body of a raven before it could sweep close. Snarling in frustration when he saw it wasn’t his target, his sword lashed out into the dark around him, just catching a shining golden lock of hair before the sorceress escaped.
While Theodore’s diamond blade sword appeared clear in the unnatural blackness of the spell the rooftop was enchanted in, the sorceress he was battling was actually invisible. Well, the pieces of her that were attached. Theodore sneered down at the fine strands of hair the skinner had left behind as he listened for her approach. The sorceress was wearing the coat of a chameleon shifter. Not the coat the shifter might have worn when it was alive—no, that would have been too sane. The sorceress was wearing the skin of a dead chameleon shifter, the poor human hunted down and killed for its scaled flesh. They had turned its skin into a coat, and used the shifter’s power to hide the treacherous skinners who killed paranormals for sport and profit.
Fssssh! Something hissed through the darkness.
“Fuck!” Theodore gasped and jerked his head to the side, just missing a dagger to his throat. He whirled, his coat whipping up around his legs. He heard a burst of wicked laughter before she was gone, swallowed up by the darkness. A bird screamed under Theodore’s blade, its scattered feathers the only proof that the sorceress had been there at all.
She was fast—unnaturally fast. Whatever spell the sorceress was using, Theodore couldn’t trace it while she was wearing the chameleon coat. He had only his ears, nose, and the sensation of the air shifting every time the sorceress appeared close.
He had hoped his night vision would be an advantage against the skinner, but it had only leveled the playing field, making them both invisible to the other instead of Theodore blind to the sorceress. But while the skinner had the advantage of years of hunting shifters, Theodore was a born hunter. The beast inside him only grew larger, darkness flickering through his vision as his dragon, Sever, laughed at the game of chase he would eventually win.
‘She fears death… It will be her undoing…’
Theodore ducked down as a blade flew out of the darkness, refusing to comment. He shot his hand up, his sword slicing through a raven, the sound of its feathers adjusting on the breeze alerting him to its presence. For each familiar he destroyed, it felt like two more were waiting to replace it, hiding their sorceress mistress.
He first thought it was an illusion, the way the sorceress’s familiars were taking on her form, then reverting to birds the moment his sword slashed true. Now, Theodore wondered. With strike after strike, she had pushed him back, found his flesh or damn near close with blades, talons, and magic, and then popped away before he could retaliate. It wasn’t an illusion; the sorceress was every bird until she wasn’t.
“What the—!” The ground beneath Theodore’s feet shifted and trembled. He snarled and quickly leaped, landing on a platform next to an array of solar panels. The roof where he had just been standing cracked, deep fissures appearing in the concrete moments before it crumbled, dissolving into a cloud of dust. Theodore strained his ears, but there were no signs of injury from below. He could only hope the personnel left in the police station had evacuated and hadn’t already been slaughtered by the skinners, or whoever else might be down there hunting for a dragon shifter.
‘Above…!’
Theodore gritted his teeth at his beast’s warning, feeling the air pressure change. What was first a medium sized raven swooping above him disappeared from view as it morphed into an invisible, full-sized woman. He slashed his free hand up, hissing in pain as his injured shoulder protested the move. It was worth it, Theodore’s talons finding flesh moments before black feathers sprayed out of his hand.
“Do you bleed bird’s blood too, sorceress!” Theodore roared and slashed behind him, anticipating the attack before the telltale shifts of air could even give it away. There was a gasp, but the crimson that splattered onto the solar panel next to him and the dead body of the raven that fell to the rooftop were not the sorceress he was chasing.
‘We will kill them all… Then there will be no confusion…’ the dragon rumbled in Theodore’s head with a determined grunt.
“Fine enough, beast, if the fucking fluttery things weren’t multiplying,” Theodore gritted out. The darkness was thick with the ravens, their eyes and talons glinting with a cold intelligence connected to the predatory mind controlling them. When he swung his sword again, two birds fell at once, their angry screams cut off as they dived toward his face. A blade hissed through the air, and Theodore leaped sideways, rolling onto the rooftop between the obstacle course of solar panels and uneven platforms.
The game would have been less annoying if his energy wasn’t so low. More so if he didn’t have a teenage shifter to keep alive. Theodore reached for a fresh vial, popping the top and downing the contents. A dark, cold numbness replaced the hot throb in his shoulder, and he sighed in relief.
His eyes searched the ground, but his blood wasn’t spilling freely just yet. He could feel the wound was deep, muscle and tissue damaged from the hatchet to his shoulder, but as long as the gloo kept the blood in his body, he had more important things to worry about. Like the way the sorceress had focused on his damaged side, hitting blow after blow around his wounded shoulder in the hopes of wearing him down. And frustrating as it was, it was working.
‘We need blood… sex… I hunger…’
“We need energy, you horny imbecile, not your insatiable hungers.” Ignoring his dragon’s disgruntled huff, Theodore slunk low to the rooftop, following along the length of the solar panels, hoping to keep at a level where the ravens would not be able to easily reach and surprise him. Theodore’s sharp, violet eyes searched through the unnatural darkness he had summoned. His beast could see in the dark, something he was certain the skinners could not even with all their stolen shifter magic.
There were two in total, at least, two of the paranormal butchers who were willing to show themselves up on the roof. Likely because of the third Theodore had already killed. From the little he had heard the two skinners talk, the dead one was their brother and he was now on their kill list. Of course, if they knew what he really was, they wouldn’t just want to kill him. They’d butcher him like that chameleon shifter and wear his scales as a coat.
‘The pattern is wrong…’ Theodore’s inner dragon rumbled when a half dozen ravens swooped in and golden hair flashed under Theodore’s blade, sliced free of the woman who slipped away just as quickly. Ravens collapsed dead on the rooftop, their blood staining the concrete while Theodore seethed, his senses straining.
“What pattern?” Theodore demanded, snarling down at the broken bodies of the birds. No matter how hard he stared at their twisted limbs and scattered feathers, he couldn’t find what the beast was talking about.
‘Not the birds, but the sorceress… She’s not attacking to kill…’
Theodore’s eyes widened minutely, and he nodded once as it clicked. The sorceress wasn’t trying to kill him, not seriously, anyways. Theodore had assumed it was fear. The sorceress had correctly noticed that physical touch could give him power over her, his allure capable of breaking through her protective wards on contact. She had kept her distance, using blades and birds to try to overwhelm him. Now Theodore could see what his dragon did in her movements. She was attacking to distract, not to kill. Whatever the sorceress’s game was, right now she was buying time.
It was as if the moment he realized it, the sorceress readily gave it away. The magical signature of the male skinner trapped in Theodore’s snare suddenly snuffed out, erased from reality in an instant.
‘Chameleon…’ the beast warned, a low growl bubbling through its chest.
“Of course, the coat!” Theodore bared his teeth, the white planes now the sharpest of daggers. The sorceress was protecting the one in the snare. Theodore knew because the moment she took off her coat to hide her kin away, her own magical signature revealed, a glowing, easy target to his beast senses after she had thrown so much of her magic around.
“The sentimental fool,” Theodore muttered, readying his sword in the direction he sensed the sorceress. He would not hesitate, would not fail. He could not allow a legacy of skinners to hunt shifters down like they were nothing more than animals—!
His dragon snarled the same moment the wind shifted. Theodore whirled when the magical signature he was focused on blipped from the roof and appeared blocks away, somewhere among the suburban streets of Redhem. “Impossible! No one can build a portal that quickly!” There were anti-teleportation wards all over the station, including the roof. If she was flyckering, there was no signs, no shifts in the air to suggest it. The ether was completely intact as well—none of it made sense!
How the fuck was she moving so quickly?
‘It doesn’t matter… She’s after the hatchling…’ Sever rumbled darkly, his presence growing greater until he was a seething heat in Theodore’s core. ‘We must go after her before she kills him…’
Theodore scowled, partly from the grimness of the situation, partly from the term his dragon insisted on using for Wylie. “The kid’s eighteen. Hardly a fucking hatchling, even if he is ignorant as fuck.”
‘His dragon has barely emerged…’ Sever muttered back defiantly. ‘We must run if he is going to survive… Now…’
“No, I have a better idea,” Theodore drawled, and a deadly smile flickered across his lips. He sheathed his sword in a practiced move, and raised arms up at his sides, ignoring the stiffness in his shoulder. “The sorceress has given us all we need. She revealed her weakness: her heart.”
Theodore turned toward the collapsed part of the roof, knowing that on the other side of the hole was where his trinity snare had been sprung. The skinner who had stumbled into the trap might be under a chameleon coat now, but invisibility did not make him immortal.
“I don’t need to see you to kill you, skinner!” Theodore shouted as he raised his magic. The dragon’s power thrummed through him and shook the air until everything around him shuddered and began to bend down toward the ground. Metal screeched in protest as the angled solar panel array twisted and bent, glass shattering and shards flying in every direction as it crashed down. The edges of the broken roof cracked, fresh pieces of concrete slamming down into the police station below with a force far greater than gravity. There was a thudding sound, smack after smack of bricks clattering down to the concrete as they were wrenched loose from the structure that made up the rooftop door and stairwell to the lower floors of the station.
Theodore gritted his teeth, his fisted hands shaking from the strain of his spell. His energy was low, stolen by the blade that had sliced deep into his shoulder, but the threat was clear. His intended result was reached, and the skinner hidden by the chameleon coat cried out as he was smashed down to the rooftop.
“Is it worth it, legacy? Is this how you Briargraves operate?” Theodore taunted, his voice full of poison and accusation. “Do you leave your family behind to die while you go off to murder children?” He took sure steps around the hole in the roof, his senses focused on the whimpering voice coming from the other side of the stairwell. “What will it be, Briargrave: a life for a life? Does that seem a fair price to you? Did you lose kin when you slaughtered the chameleon whose flesh you’re hiding in now?”
Theodore’s steps were sure, deliberate, the polish of his blood red shoes still gleaming for all the fighting he had done. He concentrated his magic on his shadowy goal and was rewarded with a fresh scream of pain. “You’re chasing a dragon, after all. The price should be higher. Maybe all three of you should die just for the privilege of stealing one dragon’s life…”
“You’re… you’re insane.”
Theodore sneered and slashed his hand down. The stairwell shuddered where bricks threatened to topple from the force of his magic striking down only feet away. The skinner screamed, the panicked noise breaking off in a low whine.
‘We’re running out of time…’
Theodore pursed his lips. He was counting the seconds in his head, adding up each moment the sorceress had free rein to attack Wylie. Michael was there and would do his best, but Theodore had seen the skinner’s tricks, her speed, her deadly accuracy even when she couldn’t see her target. She would not be easily defeated.
‘He’s not breaking…’
“He will,” Theodore spat, glaring into the empty darkness where the invisible skinner was gasping heavily as he tried to breathe around the weight crushing down his lungs. The sorceress had protected this one because he was weak, one who needed protecting. Theodore knew his real leverage was here; he just had to find a way to use it.
Hands and shoes scraped desperately at the rooftop, the skinner trying to break free of the spell from only a few feet from where Theodore was standing. Theodore drew his sword, the distinct sound of the blade pulled from its sheath slicing the quiet of the dark rooftop. Even the skinner’s gasps grew hushed as he tried to hide his every noise from Theodore’s ears.
“Is your life worth the trophy of a dragon, skinner?” Theodore demanded. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, Theodore crested his power up again and used it to crash his magic down on the part of the roof the skinner was trapped. The concrete creaked from the great pressure, and Theodore’s eyes narrowed when he heard the telltale sound of a rib snapping.
“Wait!” The skinner shouted hoarsely. “Fuck, wait!”
“No.” Theodore’s eyes gleamed with cold rage, and he pointed his sword toward the cracking of bones, moving it as he sought flesh. “You have nothing I want. I will kill you as you are. No one will be able to find your body. No one will bury you. No one will morn you. It will be a fitting death, skinner, you bleeding out in the skin of the shifter your family murdered.”
“Evelyn… Ev, he’s killing me…” a voice whispered, nearly suffocated under the weight of Theodore’s magic. “Ev…”
“She doesn’t care about you, skinner,” Theodore snarled and raised his blade. “The only thing you monsters care about are yourselves.” Pinpointing on the frightened exhale, Theodore swung his sword down.
“Ev—Evelyn!” the skinner screamed out, his voice reverberating with magic.
BOOKS AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON AND ON KU
WILD, CRAZY, PARANORMAL MM FUN
THE PARANORMAL ACADEMY FOR TROUBLED BOYS SERIAL
PARANORMAL MM NEW ADULT SERIESSHIFTERS, SORCERERS, DEMONS AND PARANORMALS STRUGGLE TO CONTROL THEIR POWERS WHILE FALLING IN LOVE AND STAYING ALIVE FROM THE MONSTERS WHO HUNT THEM
CURIOUS WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE PATB SERIAL?
YOU CAN START READING NOW!
CHECK OUT THE SERIAL WHERE WYLIE DISCOVERS HIS DEMON ARMS AREN’T THAT DEMONIC, EVERYONE WANTS HIM DEAD, AND LOVE SPARES NO ONE, NOT EVEN A SCREW UP LIKE HIM
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC ROMANCE SERIESA PRINCELY DEMON CAT SHAPESHIFTER, HUMANS TURNED SEX THRALLS/MATES, DEMONSPAWNS *cough* BABIES, KITTENS, WITCHES, DEMON HUNTERS, AND A WHOLE LOT OF OBSESSIVE LOVE AND FIGHTING TO KEEP ON TOP
CURIOUS WHAT'S HAPPENING IN HELLCAT?
YOU CAN START READING NOW!
WITCHES, DEMONS, BRATTY CATS AND ONE FRUSTRATINGLY HOT STRAIGHT BEST FRIEND CAN’T CHANGE SEAN FROM HIS ISOLATING WAYS
THE SERIES BUNDLEDKY DISCOVERS DEMONS, SORCERY AND AN UNDERGROUND SLAVE TRADE AS HE BECOMES CENTER TO A MALE HAREM
DEMON BONDED COVEN SAGA EPISODES
CURRENT DEMON BONDED EPISODESIF YOU DON’T WANT TO WAIT FOR THE NEXT SAGA TO BE BUNDLED, YOU CAN READ THE INDIVIDUAL EPISODES HERE
BUNDLE OF PARANORMAL MM EROTIC SHORT STORIESFURRY FULL MOON TRANSFORMATIONS, HORNY SORCERERS, SEXY DEMONS, A CAT SHIFTER IN DISTRESS, THE RARE MINOTAUR, A STALKING VAMPIRE, AND A PACK OF RUDE, TRASH TALKING WEREWOLVES THAT DON’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER
BULLYING TEACHER, THE COMPLETE SERIAL
TWISTED, CONTEMPORARY MM EROTIC SERIALBEAU IS FORCEFULLY INTRODUCED TO BDSM BY HIS AGGRESSIVE, RICH STUDENT
PATREON FUNDED WRITINGDEMON BONDED IS WRITTEN AND FUNDED THROUGH PATREON SUBSCRIBERS. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT AND ENJOY THE FREE READS! <3
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC SERIALKY DISCOVERS DEMONS, SORCERY AND AN UNDERGROUND SLAVE TRADE AS HE BECOMES CENTER TO A MALE HAREM
EXCLUSIVE COMPLETED READS FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYREADY TO SIN? DISCOVER SEXY, KINKY, TOO HOT FOR AMAZON, AND HARDCORE SINS RANGING FROM PARANORMAL TO CONTEMPORARY. MEMBERS GET EXCLUSIVE ACCESS TO EVERY NAUGHTY FIC.
PARANORMAL SERIESALPHA WOLVES, SHIFTERS, DEMONS AND ANGELS
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC SERIESABDUCTION THEMED EROTICA WITH ALPHA PERSONALITIES AND INTENSE RIVALRY
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC SERIALSAGE WAKES WITH AN OVERWHELMING SEX SCENT AND MUST RUN FROM GANGS OF WEREWOLVES
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC ROMANCE SERIESHAVING A DIFFICULT HOME LIFE IS EASIER THAN THE MESS ANGELS AND DEMON HALFLINGS CAN BRING WHEN THEY CAPTURE YOUR HEART
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC ROMANCE SERIESIN A WORLD OF RUTHLESS SORCERY, THESE DRAGON SHIFTERS ARE HUNTED FOR POWER WHILE THE MEN WHO LOVE THEM TRY TO KEEP THEM SAFE
PARANORMAL MM EROTIC SERIALA GLITTERING HERD OF UNICORN SHIFTERS ENDS UP ON EARTH WHERE THEY STRUGGLE WITH THE RESTRICTIVE SEXUAL CUSTOM OF MONOGAMY
CONTEMPORARY SERIESHOT AND SEXY WITHOUT THE PARANORMAL TWIST
CONTEMPORARY MM EROTIC SERIESAN INTENSE, THRILLING LUST TRIANGLE BETWEEN FATHER, SON AND THE MADMAN OBSESSED WITH BOTH
TEDDY’S NAUGHTY ADVENTURES
CONTEMPORARY MM EROTIC SERIALTEDDY, A BEAUTIFUL ORPHAN, STUMBLES INTO A PROSTITUTION RING IN THE SUBURBS
CONTEMPORARY MM EROTIC SERIAL *COMPLETE*BEAU IS FORCEFULLY INTRODUCED TO BDSM BY HIS AGGRESSIVE, RICH STUDENT
EROTIC STAND ALONESPARANORMAL AND CONTEMPORARY MM NOVELS AND NOVELLAS WITH NO SEQUELSDARK, DIRTY, AND SOMETIMES SWEET, THESE STAND ALONE STORIES ARE MADE TO SATISFY
NEWEST RELEASESQUICKEST WAY TO FIND THE MOST RECENTLY PUBLISHED SADIE SINS BOOK
Hey there. I’m Sadie, the author of this little corner of sin. *wink*
If you enjoy shamelessly perverted, sometimes sweet, sometimes nasty, and always entertaining gay, erotic fantasies, you’re in the right place. You’ll find sexy, new adult series with shifters and sorcerers finding love, side by side with taboo, hardcore fics that push so many boundaries they’ve been banned from major retail platforms. Yup, range. XD
This is a no judgement zone! If you’re nervous about what you might find, I have a rating system of X (taboo-free) XX (questionable ethics) XXX (hardcore and no boundaries.) My topics may be dark but I always have happy endings and a foundation of affection mixed in with those nasty, dripping scenes.
Indulge in the beautiful, dark corners of your mind, and keep on sinning with me.
~Sadie Sins
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Hey babes,
This week, I thought I’d try something new. I was thinking we could do some character prequels for The Paranormal Academy For Troubled Boys Serial. But… I wasn’t sure where to start. I thought since we’re in the Demon Arm Saga of everything, we might focus on either Wylie or Dorian. For Wylie, I want to start where he meets Beck, how they kinda drift towards each other when Wylie starts school after placed in the detention home. Then go into how Beck eventually gets Wylie interested in the gang because of Beck’s personal problems at home as he tries to escape a really oppressive/abusive home life. For Dorian story, I wanted to go into how he had his accident, all set within his very difficult home life of being a sorcerer expected to live up to a family name while he just wants to be a normal teen. When he rebels, and seeks hope with Alastor, that’s really when it all goes to shit for Dorian, and he ends up at the Academy a little after, where, three years later, Wylie shows up. So Wylie’s story would be much more recent to events, while Dorian’s story is a more detailed account of his power origin story.
So because I’m too close to this, I thought I’d leave it up to the fans to decide which story they would rather read. I’ll probably end up writing both eventually, but for now I just want to do one. This prequel will be 100% free, btw! So I’ve made a poll where people can click which character story they would rather read first as a prequel. Check it out and let me know what you think.
So I am in the middle of writing episode #3 of PATB serial, and it’s kind of exciting because we get a really good inside look at Academy life for the shifters. I love being able to expand on the world so much more this time around, and really start fleshing out the characters and their experiences. Wylie and Dorian are also going to have more moments as they try to figure out if what’s sparking between them is more important than the warnings the Academy Masters keep giving them. I get to start on one such scene on Monday, and I’m excited about that. <3
What I’m realizing as of late, is just how hard it is to juggle writing and having a life – still! I thought feeling better would make it easier. I made a point to take the weekend off, and that’s more of a joke to me in a lot of ways because I did so much work this weekend! I have so much work that I didn’t finish this weekend! @_@ But I did make a point to go outside both days before coming home and getting more work done. I would like to be able to pace these sorts of things during the rest of the week so I could actually have a weekend off, but that might be like trying to bend the reality of time in some ways. The truth is, there’s just a lot to do.
I wanted to let you guys know that I have been reading all the comments about what your fan fav taboo subjects are, and I am definitely looking at writing a new episode of Demon Bonded – well, at least fleshing out an episode – for March. I don’t want over promise anything right now. My main priority is the PATB serial, and I do want to get one out a month. But I know the fans of Demon Bonded have been ravenous for more, and me being sick and unable to write the last year has made the anticipation for the next episode certainly much worse. So I want to make sure I get some word count in there for you guys.
Also, I seriously have to get to emails and comments tonight. I have been ignoring my inbox outside of any website issues the last… 2 weeks? 3? It’s another thing I need to figure out how to juggle and squeeze into my day in a more effective way. I got so many ARC readers responding and sharing their reviews—you peeps are awesome and I loved every one!
I’m really not good at task switching. I definitely can’t multitask at all. My brain just will not. So I gotta figure something out because this stuff doesn’t get easier the more I write – if anything it gets more difficult as I put all my attention into writing, and fail to be able to balance with the rest of the world. But I’m enjoying my weekend off, of sorts, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to be able to have some time to think about how I’m just always rushing toward a goal instead of planning things better. Doing things doesn’t have much point if you don’t enjoy the journey. I can always get something done, but I won’t remember it as being worthwhile if I didn’t enjoy the process. It’s important. I should treat it as important as it is.
I hope you guys are having a great weekend; the weather here has been amazing. Well, as long as we don’t think of it is terrible climate change creeping up on us. @_@ I’m trying to keep the real world out of my newsletters as much as possible, because I need the escape I’m pretty sure just as much as we all do. So for today, I’m focusing on the wonderful weather and the nice, comforting cup of decaf coffee I’m drinking. Happy reading, and don’t forget to vote for your fav prequel idea!
It’s live!!!
Super quick email today. Just wanted to let you know that episode #2 of PATB Serial just went live, so for those who preordered, you can crack it open now, and anyone waiting for KU, it’s in there full of suspense, shifters, and a crazy, explosive love now that Wylie gets his first glimpse of Dorian.
Also, on a side note, Theodore has become my temperamental badass and I’m loving him for it. 😉
A spark of love might burn them all…
I’ll have a proper newsletter this weekend. Got a mini cover reveal, among other things–there are so many awesome books that dropped this week I need to share. I feel like I’m still playing catch up with everything… Actually, I feel like I’m kicking my own ass with this write a book a month pace, and I might have to slow the fuck down. I just wanted to let you all know that the book is actually out there (and I’m still alive. @_@)
Hope you’re all doing well! ^.^ I’m still completely anti Valentine’s Day. It’s a great day for self love, not going to any kind of restaurant (seriously, restaurants are the worst on Valentine’s Day,) and remembering that society can suck their expectations of what love is. XD I’m gonna go curl up with a shifter (nope, that’s a cat >_>) and wait this day out. Possibly with hot cocoa. 😉
The Paranormal Academy for Troubled Boys
Parolee
Age: 18 Height: 6’2″
Eye color: ice blue Hair color: white blond
Diagnosis: Alpha tendencies, hatchling still learning powers, can’t transform past arms, fears inner beast
Abilities: Heals with saliva, enhanced senses, razor sharp scales coated to protect against magic, super strength and defense, night vision, allure, magical ability TBD
Shifter form: type 2 shifter, talons and fangs, skin coats with oil black scales with rainbow sheen, eventually has horns, large black wings, long tail and distinguished with white fur that runs from head down to tail tip
BIO: A gang initiation leads to a second chance
Wylie didn’t go into a robbery expecting to learn the origins of his demon arms and also save a life. He’s given up, the same way everyone else has given up on him. So when he gets to the Academy, he’s not sure who he’s supposed to be anymore, just that he has a dragon inside of him in love with a guy he barely knows and that going back—to the gang, to the poverty, to fucking up his life—will be his end.
Wylie never thought of anything like a reason for all the terrible he’s been through, but he’s hoping to at least find a purpose for himself at the Academy.
Wylie’s goto move
In a pinch, Wylie’s dragon will sprout killer scales that protect his arms and turn them into a walking shredder that cuts through anything, be it flesh or metal.
Humans don’t mate, only shifter beasts. Mating is an instinct driven by the inner beast where the human counterpart doesn’t always agree.
Wylie’s healing saliva originates from his dragon making sure that its prey won’t die when it feeds on blood.
With dragon shifters practically extinct, dragons are notoriously horny, have strong allure, and produce copious amounts of cum to restore their species.
Wylie doesn’t eat huge amounts of food like other shifters to gain energy. Like many magic based shifter beasts, his dragon has another way to feed.
Wylie might have superhuman strength, but if his dragon hasn’t shifted into his bones, he can still get injured by the weight of what he’s lifting.
Wylie has never met a shifter before, and has no idea just how weird they can be.
When Wylie hisses, it means his dragon is trying to call his mate—no matter how ferocious it might sound.
Although Wylie’s scales have a built in mechanism to keep him from slicing himself, he hasn’t found a way to keep them from slashing up anyone else.
Feeling like an outsider because of being a paranormal and in the foster care system, Wylie has a hard time accepting help or money.
How does magic work in PATB?
Magic is an energy—a paranormal energy—that occurs side by side with our normal energy, very similar in every way except for a few key differences:
1) Magic is energy that can be manipulated through will.
2) Magic is solely created in the bodies of paranormals.
3) Magic, unlike energy, does not experience entropy.
4) Magic needs will and/or to be connected to a paranormal, otherwise it becomes inert.
5) Inert magic requires a lot of energy to activate, the only exception being activation through elemental magic users.
What can be done with Magic?
*Magic can interact with normal energy and matter, manipulating what’s around the user to change the world as willed. As long as a sorcerer has enough will, and enough magic, basically anything can be done with magic from changing the concrete world to creating illusions in the minds of people.
*Magic can transform like normal energy does but cannot be transformed into normal energy.
*Magic can be willed. It can be kinetic energy, willed by a sorcerer into spells/sorcery to alter the physical world. Because it doesn’t entropy once triggered, magic can be far more powerful than normal energy, a little going a long way.
*Magic can be stored. It can be potential energy, willed by a sorcerer to be stored in wards/charms without any energy loss, therefore usable once the spell is triggered.
*Magic has limits. Without a will to direct magic, it becomes inert, existing in a potential but nonreactive form, spreading out in the natural world and eventually infusing with whatever it’s around. This is how elemental magic comes to exist in the PATB world.
Magic comes from paranormals
*All active magic is connected to a paranormal or a will, that will requiring some level of paranormal origin.
*Paranormals run on magic, produce magic, or sometimes both.
*Some magic users require magic to function as a biological being, while other magic users can manipulate magic but cannot produce it.
*All magic users have some level of magic in their life force, aka, if their magic is fully drained, they will come close to or completely die.
*For magic users drained of their magic who can’t naturally restore it, they will spend the rest of their days without magic unless an energy transfer is made, be it willing or stolen magic.
Why are shifters hunted?
1) Shifters are unique, beings who can transform the normal energy they get from food into magic to fuel their inner beasts. This results in very large appetites, but also the ability to produce magic constantly and store large amounts.
2) All shifter flesh—alive or dead—will always have magic in active form.
These two key reasons are why shifters are sought after so relentlessly by the power hungry. Magical traits natural to the dead shifter can still be used, such as invisibility of a chameleon shifter or healing of a dragon’s saliva, etc, making capturing of rare shifters with special powers all the more valuable. Because the magic in a shifter’s body remains active instead of going inert like other paranormals, it also means that their remains can power spells that would otherwise be too energy extensive for most magic users to do.
Even though a shifter’s body may hold a lot of magic, that doesn’t necessarily mean they can direct that magic in spells. The magic it takes to maintain a shifter beast’s life force is usually where the bulk of most shifters’ energy is going toward, and to use it in sorcery would be to endanger their life. Sorcerers who don’t care about the well being of shifters, and have the time, are known to first harvest as much energy as they can from shifters before eventually killing them and using their flesh for spells long after.
Magic stealing and storage
Most magic users have a preset biological ability to create and control magic that can’t be surpassed, but there are plenty of power hungry people looking be more by any means necessary.
Magic can be stolen from anyone. Sorcerers are targeted for energy drains, but in less frequency as shifters, if only because a dead sorcerer is far more likely to lead to a search than a dead shifter. The magic is just as valuable no matter the source.
Holding large amounts of energy under one’s will, absorbed in the body, can lead to explosions of raw magic. Most sorcerers with extra magic will store the excess outside of themselves, useful for selling or having a backup store for later. When stored properly, the magic will remain active and there is no fear that control will be lost.
Skinners have been finding ways to be overcome nature since the moment they learned magic could be stolen and stored. Unlike hunters or the independent magic user who seeks a personal boost by utilizing stolen magic and shifter flesh, skinners have ensured their magical legacy is passed through the generations, spelling their stolen powers into the flesh of their children. It’s not just traits and flesh skinners steal, but spells, ones of ancient knowledge that allows magic to be drained from their prey and the traits imbued into the thief.
There is no way to change a person’s biological makeup to allow them to produce magic if they don’t, or control magic if they can’t, with the one exception being the howler plague. A human infected with the werewolf virus can gain paranormal powers, good and bad, that they otherwise never would have had. This has led to a lot of debate of if a virus could be manipulated to turn people into paranormals without the horrible side effects of the howlers.
The Shifter Slave Trade
What was first created for the sole purpose of hunting, stealing, and harvesting the energy and eventual bodies of shifters and rare paranormals has evolved since the years of the howler plagues. A new market has rose up, one interested in more long term placement for stolen shifters, seeking out those with powerful allure for the sex trade, or great strength and specialized skills for manual labor and protection.
It’s not uncommon for shifters who have been stolen from their lives to be manipulated by magical and psychological means until they are willing participants in their captivity. Some going so far as to help steal other shifters for slavery or butchery. Because of this, rare paranormals, including demons, with powers greater than the average shifter can be found doing the bidding of criminal sorcerers, and even protecting them.
Anti paranormal tech
Anti-paranormal tech is a combination of nullifying technology, heavy duty armor, wards and weapons designed specifically to take on a paranormal.
Some of this technology was created to stop the spread of the werewolf plague, while others were designed to assist skinners and hunters in tracking down and restraining and killing shifters. The most prevalent, legal use of anti paranormal tech is in the prison system and in the howler prevention fences.
Visdevor
This synthetic compound is the root to nullifying technology and the howler prevention fences. A thin coat is bonded to steel for it to be effective. Routinely paired with a layer of kevlar to prevent removal of the visdevor coating.
When visdevor makes contact with paranormal flesh it causes burns and damage to the living tissue as the paranormal energy in the cells are nullified/made inert. Long term exposure can lead to permanent damage and scarring.
Nullifiers
Anti paranormal tech commonly used by the police and prison system. When electricity is conducted through steel coated in visdevor, a nullifying field is created that can suck the very magic out of a paranormal and the air, turning the magic inert.
It takes a huge amount of energy for a nullifier to raise enough power to be able to turn magic inert, and as a result, multiple nullifying generators can be required for just one cage/armored vehicle. Although extremely effective against paranormals, this cost plus the weight of the generators limits the use of nullifiers to that of the wealthy and the government.
Depending on a paranormal’s need for magic, contact with a nullifier is potentially lethal, and always dangerous when electricity is involved. Headaches, exhaustion, and feeling unwell are very common among paranormals who are in the proximity of nullfiers for any amount of time. Shifter beasts are quickly knocked unconscious from nullfiers, and halflings and werewolves suffer danger to health and life just by being close to a nullifying field.
Howler prevention fences
Electrified visdevor fences over 30 feet tall and topped with barbed wire surrounding a large, usually public area, these fences were first designed by a coven of sorcerers as a means to protect themselves from the howler plague. The technology was shared with humans to prevent the plague from spreading when sorcerers revealed to be real.
A common sight found in the PATB world, these fences are a staple in urban areas. In small towns and rural areas, fences are either erected in a shared area close to everyone and paid for by those involved, or rich sorcerers with their own fences will open their homes for the night of the full moon to the surrounding residents.
Given the para-biological makeup of a howler, aka, a fully infected werewolf, these fences can kill a howler on contact, and weaken any in the vicinity of the fence. Because of the huge amounts of power required to run electricity through the fences, community fences are only turned on during the full moon, although wealthy private residents have been known to use similar fences as deterrents against all paranormals.
Null-collar
Collar restraint used on patients at the Academy when their magic or shifter beast is out of control.
Disgusted with the barbaric use of nullifier technology in the prison system, Collin McPherson has been pushing research into the development of paranormal safe restraints. The null-collar is still in its developmental phases, but can currently subdue paranormal ability without harming the paranormal or turning their magic inert.
McPherson’s goal is to one day create a nonlethal solution for the remaining victims of the werewolf curse to subdue howlers without killing the host. Currently a null-collar used on werewolves where the virus has progressed leads to the host going in a coma.
Grave digging
Grave digging of shifters, although far more common in the past, is still a troublesome occurrence in modern times. Ancient burial sites are the most likely to be desecrated as magic users seek out rare, valuable remains of shifters for spells.
Is magic conscious?
There are a lot of different theories in the PATB world as to just why magic is the way it is and where it came from. There are some interesting aspects of magic that raise the question of if magic might have it own consciousness. This is one of those questions that no one really knows the answer to but paranormals think on a lot as they find themselves so different from everyone else.
*Shifter beasts have a completely different personality than their human counterparts. The inner beast can like different foods, can want different things—it can even fall in love—all autonomous to the human side’s interests. That inner beast can take on its own form through shifting into a body of paranormal biology. It can even force a shift, taking over the human will to do as it pleases.
*Because of the duality of a shifter, there is no way to know if they are humans who manifested a magic based consciousness, or if a magic based consciousness chose a host to grow inside. Some shifter animals claim to have existed before their current manifestation, but there’s no way to know if that’s not the human psyche trying to rationalize the ability to shift into another form by creating a separate personality.
*The cursed infected with the magic based virus each take on distinct personality and physical traits similar to each other as they are taken over. During the full moon when the moon empowers the wolf to take over the human host, the infected howler’s one goal is to spread the virus and therefore help the virus reproduce. This magic based virus doesn’t just seek to survive but manifests it’s personality into its human host as it battles for dominance.
*There are signs to suggest that the cursed virus—being all the same strand—is manifesting the same consciousness into every howler out there like a hive mind or pando colony.
*People with magic are usually more beautiful, more charismatic and full of allure. Magic allows for any gender to reproduce together. It’s almost as if it’s doing everything to mate the most viable of magic users to create a perfect host body for magic.
*Magic when around elements long enough will infuse and become elemental magic. Consider how magic is manipulated by will alone, in some ways an extension of will. Could magic become will power the same way it becomes an element?
*Magic could originate outside of the known universe. If it did and was imitating life, perhaps it also ended up imitating consciousness as a result, instead of starting out with one. Is it imitating life by imitating consciousness?
Bias against werewolves
Although the werewolf plague of the past has been subdued, there remains a common bias in modern times against any of the cursed. Howlers, fully infected werewolves, are still killed on sight, but there are still plenty of people who believe humans in the earlier stages of the virus should also be killed as a preventative measure. No one cursed has never not eventually turned into a howler and lost to the mad wolf. Some see killing the infected as a mercy killing, or a requirement to keep the community safe.
These beliefs are just as strong, if not more, in the paranormal community. Shifters, who have a keen sense of smell, can usually scent an infected before any signs are noticed. Their inner beasts will usually have a reaction to scenting the distinct magic of the mad wolf and either fear or seek to kill.
Sorcerers, who have a history of battling the howlers and helping to contain them for the good of humanity, are very single-minded when they identify an infected. They believe it is their duty to kill all werewolves and rid the world of the cursed completely.
It’s only been in recent years with the plague long contained and information getting out of the atrocities committed by sorcerers during the howler hunts that biases have shifted. Werewolf rights activists have started changing public opinion to allow the cursed to live the best lives they can, and only judge them for their actions and not their potential actions. Modern shifter packs are learning to empathize with the plight of the infected.
Sorcerers though, are still hold outs, a side effect of their past experiences of taking howlers as trophies and being at war with the wolves for so long.
How does magic work in PATB?
So, for starters, this is a paranormal story, not a fantasy, so all my magic is made to work in a world similar to our own. Physics apply; limits apply—there is no breaking reality but bending the rules in place to make room for the paranormal. Magic is an energy—a paranormal energy—that occurs side by side with our normal energy, very similar in every way except for a few key differences.
1) Magic is energy that can be manipulated through will.
2) Magic is solely created in the bodies of paranormals.
3) Magic, unlike energy, does not experience entropy. (oh yeah, I fucking nerded this shit up. XD)
4) Magic needs will and/or to be connected to a paranormal, otherwise it becomes inert.
5) Inert magic requires a lot of energy to activate, the only exception being elemental magic users.
So what does that all mean? For the most part, people can’t will energy outside of action. You can think something, but unless you actually do something, very little is going to happen to reach a goal. But with magic, that changes. Magic can interact with normal energy and matter, manipulating what’s around the user to change the world as willed.
Magic can transform like normal energy does. It can be potential energy, willed by a sorcerer to be stored in wards/charms without any energy loss, therefore usable once the spell is triggered. It can be kinetic energy, willed by a sorcerer into spells/sorcery to alter the physical world. Because it doesn’t entropy once triggered, magic can be far more powerful than normal energy, a little going a long way. But it isn’t limitless; without a will to direct magic, it becomes inert, just existing in a potential but nonreactive form, spreading out in the natural world and eventually infusing with whatever it’s around. This is how elemental magic comes to exist in the PATB world.
Magic is a byproduct of paranormals
The biggest thing about magic in the PATB world is that it only exists in active form because of paranormals. Their bodies can run on magic, produce magic, or both. The distinction is important. Some magic users are also made up of magic where they cannot function as a biological being without magic, while other magic users are merely capable of manipulating magic but cannot produce it. If a being needs to run on magic, that doesn’t automatically mean their body will produce any extra that can be used in sorcery—but it’s at least a very good sign that they will be able to will magic. Shifters transform the normal energy they get from food into magic to fuel their inner beasts—which is why they eat so much. And for all shifters, their flesh—alive or dead—will always have magic in active form.
This is really the core of how the paranormal hierarchy came to be. In some ways, magic is set by birth, aka, there is little changing a person’s biological makeup to allow them to produce magic if they don’t, control magic if they can’t, or create more magic than their bodies naturally create. But magic can be stolen and stored. A magic user can drain a sorcerer dead, stealing whatever magic their body might be running on at its core, and storing it for use later—but it’s a one time score. Once it’s used up, the magic is gone, inert and a total bitch to make usable again. But a shifter? A magic user can kill and preserve every part they want of that shifter and use their magic for decades. And if it’s a rare shifter like Wylie, whose body holds far more magic in it because of the nature of a dragon shifter, he could power a magic user for centuries, or his flesh could be used in energy intensive spells that otherwise would be impossible.
And Wylie wouldn’t just be a battery for a sorcerer. They would also be able to steal his paranormal traits, like heal by harvesting his saliva, use a spell to activate his allure that’s in his flesh, or have super strength and deadly scales if they stole his skin. A dragon shifter is a fortune of opportunity to the right magic user who is ambitious enough, which is why although shifters are hunted, it’s the magical ones that tend to be hunted to extinction. Magic users aren’t hanging out in graveyards, looking to steal the corpses of shifters—well, not as much anymore. >_> They go and either hunt and kill shifters, or they pay someone who does it for a living, aka, skinners. And in case you didn’t guess, that means hunters have found uses for the more everyday shifters as well, keeping them alive so that they can fuel the magic they want instead of killing them outright. The shifter slave trade started as a way to harvest shifters for their magic, and then evolved from there.
Nullifiers and anti paranormal tech
So we’ve got this amazing energy source controlled by will that doesn’t break down or entropy in the hands of a few select beings on the planet. Just what in the world do the normal humans have at their disposal to protect them from magic?
Visdevor and electrified visdevor, for starters. Humans discovered if they chemically bonded steel with visdevor (a synthetic compound I made up for this series) and added a current of electricity, they could create a field that makes magic inert, taking that once active and willable magic and turning it into an inactive form. Pretty badass.
They use this on howlers, cursed humans who have been taken over by the werewolf virus—because, yeah, we have magic based viruses in this world. The only issue is, a nullifier requires a ton of energy to create a nullifying field that can suck the magic out of a paranormal and turn it inert. Otherwise it’s only useful on contact, mostly only capable of burning the skin. This means normal energy that can entropy is being used to fuel a weapon against paranormal energy that doesn’t entropy, and depending on the source, magic can also activate inert magic at the time of casting, creating a chain response that can be larger than anticipated. Aka, to contain magic, you need a lot of energy, and fuel to provide that energy.
Nullifiers can either contain or kill paranormals depending on their exposure and how much of their biological body requires magic to live. This is the interesting difference between shifters and howlers: a shifter is human when in his human form, and therefore when hit by a nullifier, it will only damage their inner animal, requiring them to consume more energy and transform it into magic to recover. A howler, on the other hand is a biological being who is being taken over by a magical virus. In the early stages of the virus, nullifier technology could potentially ‘cure’ a human of the curse. But as a human’s body is taken over and replaced with para-biological parts, contact with a nullifier will turn off processes that can lead to the death of a cursed human. Once a human is full howler, nullifier technology can kill them. This is why the giant electrified visdevor fences work against the plague. When the magic is being sucked out of a howler, it is sucking out their life force.
This is also a problem for halflings, who are beings whose bodies are part paranormal and part biological based. What might be a nuisance with nullifier tech for a shifter or sorcerer whose human forms don’t need magic to survive, will be a crisis for a halfling whose life can be in jeopardy just from coming in contact with visdevor or a nullifying field. And if they’re a demon, or have full paranormal biology? Their magic going inert can kill them.
This is why Collin McPherson has been leading research into the field of paranormal safe nullifying technology and has created the null-collar. It is still in developmental phases but he hopes that he can one day create a long term solution for howlers where their paranormal viral side can be suppressed without killing the host.
Is magic conscious?
So, there are some interesting things when it comes to magic in the PATB world that raises the question of if magic might actually be conscious. For starters, we have shifters, where the magical side of them has a completely different personality than the human side. The inner beast can like different foods, can want different things—it can even fall in love!—all autonomous to the human side’s interests. That magical side can even take on its own form, a body of paranormal biology that can be shifted to at will. When it comes to shifters, it feels like the paranormal side has a will of it’s own!
Then we have the howlers, aka werewolves. With a human infected by this magical virus, a distinct personality and physical traits occur. At the full moon, a howler’s viral paranormal side gains power over its host, and when it does it seeks to spread its infection and take over more humans. This magical virus doesn’t just seek to survive, but it manifests a personality of its own in its human host, one that battles with the person it’s trying to take over. There are some who believe the magical virus—being all the same strand—is manifesting the same consciousness into every howler out there like a hive mind or a pando colony.
If you talk to Dorian, he’s happy to point out how people with magic are usually more beautiful, more charismatic and alluring, as if the very magic itself is trying to change a host to make it more viable to mate and then create a better host. It’s almost like magic is trying to reproduce in the same way biological beings do.
Then there’s the fact that magic can be manipulated by will—in some ways, is an extension of will, an extension of the physical body inacting change on the physical world with paranormal energy. Dorian would ask what a shifter really is: a human body that then created a shifter animal, or was it a conscious shifter animal acting like a parasite in a human body as it grew, using the biological basis to build enough energy to gain human form?
Adam, our sneaky tech sorcerer, has a different theory about magic based around how magic doesn’t decay and it doesn’t transform into normal energy even though it can be created by energy. It’s only active with will. He thinks that magic is an extension of consciousness but not necessarily conscious. William, the resident elf halfling at the Academy has a different theory. He thinks magic originates from outside the known universe and is mimicking the life that it finds here, not necessarily consciously but consciousness being created as it mimics conscious beings.
There are a lot of different theories in the PATB world as to just why magic is the way it is and where it came from. This is one of those questions that no one really knows the answer to, the same way we don’t really understand what consciousness is or how it comes to be in our world.
So, what do you think? Did I nerd it up just a little too much for something as simple as ‘magic did it?’ XD
What is Theodore Howld’s goto magic?
Theodore, our badass grown up dragon shifter is usually seen using his beast magic, which is basically his dragon’s preferred default. This includes allure to draw prey in, extreme force by manipulating air molecules to crush and incapacitate his prey, and an amazingly powerful energy drain that can feed/heal his dragon and kill his prey all in one go. Sever, the name of Theodore’s dragon, is an apex predator, partially in response to so many paranormals having been hunted down and wiped out by skinners. I like to think of Sever as what nature/magic created to adapt to being hunted.
Curious what Theodore’s sceptre might look like in real life? A little bit like this, but it packs more than an aura punch. XD
Hey peeps,
I’m hanging out at the hospital. My brother ended up with appendicitis and we’re waiting to see if the antibiotics will be enough, or if he’ll need surgery. So, to avoid having to think of all those worrisome things, I thought I share with you all some of the reasons I went in the direction I did with The Paranormal Academy For Troubled Boys Serial.
Oh, if you missed the preorder for the second episode of PATB Serial, you can snag it here!
Before I get into the changes made in the serial, I picked up a book today that was, like, everything I’ve been missing in my reading lately. In the first chapter alone there was forced-to-fuck, straight to gay, noncon, and unseen alien/demonic entities controlling the action. First chapter. And yeah, there’s plot too. <3 So if you’re interested in a crazy, wild ride of a read—one that’s only $0.99—you should check out the Beast In The Nothing Room.
A lot of amazing books released this week. I’m putting them all here, cuz I’m being wordy today and I don’t want anyone to miss any of the deals.
MM Reads
MF and LGBTQ Reads
10 Things I deliberately changed in PATB (and didn’t)
So, I feel like I should start this off by explaining, a lot of these changes came about because of branding. When I started writing, I wasn’t thinking too much of long term. I was ill, life was happening, and writing was just about whatever felt fun in the moment. But that started to change once I saw my health improving, and I could look at my writing as a business, not just an escape. I had to make some big decisions of how I wanted to brand the Sadie Sins books so that whenever someone picked up one of my books, they would have a fair idea of what to expect about the contents.
If you’ve read episode #1 of the PATB Serial (which hit bestseller in LGBT fantasy last week!!! <3 ) and happened to have read Demon Arms before, you might already have an idea of what direction I’m going for with my branding. But if you haven’t, I’m happy to explain it a bit.
1. More Than Insta Love!
When I was writing the first sequel to Demon Arms, I got to do something I’d never done before. I got to write characters falling in love instead of crashing straight there. I wanted to do that in the Demon Arms story arc too, where it felt like there were reasons Wylie and Dorian end up together, emotional connections and stuff beyond plain old chemistry and a demanding inner dragon. I wanted a space they could grow together, not just magic into love. I write a lot of lust stories—and I love them, don’t get me wrong! XD But I wanted to write a real love story (well, ass real as magic and shifters can get, anyways.)
2. Turning Up The Heat
This was actually one of the choices I struggled with conceptually for a while with this series, partially with how tame I had written Demon Arms. Demon Arms had been confused for YA by a lot of readers, YA with some sex—it just didn’t make much sense, especially when these readers would then see what else I wrote and find a bunch of books that pushed limits they didn’t want pushed. This choice was where the branding direction came in, and I’m sure it is both controversial and loved depending on each reader’s preference.
Here’s the deal, I didn’t want to have to use a new pen name for this series, I didn’t want to build something from scratch, and more importantly, I didn’t want to find myself stuck writing a series I didn’t enjoy writing. So I went in and turned the heat up. For the peeps leaving reviews such as ‘rape and more rape’ yes, that was absolutely by design. Now you know; welcome to a Sadie Sins’s book. For anyone who picks up episode #1 of PATB Serial and enjoys it, they can be happy to discover that my other books contain adult subjects, much of it dark and sexual explicit, and they will not be freaked out by that. For those who can’t handle this first episode, I don’t have to worry about them hating on my other books.
So you’re now all informed. There will be no ‘sweet’ Demon Arms sequels free of kinky sex and aggressive personalities. I’m planning threesomes, sexual slavery, dubcon, scenes of my delicious killer Theo doing what he does best, dark moments, caretakers crossing boundaries with patients, and just all around fun. There’s no point having a power like allure and not using it like a weapon or weakness. This is a world of dark, manipulative magics gained through hunting down and killing shifters; it’s not supposed to be a civilized reflection of reality.
I want a mature audience. I’m not talking like in age (although, to be real, I’ve met more than a few awesome-sauce 80 year old fans.) I’m talking a more mature mentality when it comes to erotic sex, in not thinking fiction is real, in allowing a book to be a book and not demanding it be anything else. I want to have some fucking fun, and I don’t need peeps crying rape about words on a screen. (Go ahead, try to rape words. See how they respond when you shove a dick into text. If pain is felt, it’s not from the damn words.)
This is a tame series, but it’s still a Sadie Sins book. I’m tired of being told erotic sex can’t ever meet amazing plot and strong characterization. I’m tired of people trying to insist that sex ruins the validity and value of a story, and that stories with sex have to be hidden away. I do not subscribe to that kind of discriminatory thinking about my fiction, and I want to draw in readers who don’t either.
3. Show, Not Tell
I started this when I wrote Hellcat, this hint of craft that’s been growing after I spent a few years writing. I has started looking at scripts, started studying movies and tv series and musing on how I could improve the things my writing was lacking. I needed to create a more concrete world. My characters were all in their heads, narrating the events instead of IN the events. I wanted to show the world, but more importantly, show how the characters impacted their environment. What did a gesture do to the scene—a burst of magic, a flare of anger, anxiety? If it were a movie, how would it look, and how would the physical world change in response to the character’s action? I felt the best way to get the characters out of their heads was to put them in the scene.
Now, when Wylie’s hands are shaking because he’s nervous, he tears through a shelf and a bundle of cash so we can SEE he’s nervous. We don’t narrate that men are hollering at Theodore for base, sexual favors but have them shout thinks like “suck my dick, sexy!” In my first draft of Hellcat, I had tried to explain that Sean was a shitty friend to TJ, only to realize it would be way easier to show it by having him jerk off while talking to him on the phone. It that doesn’t say total shit friend, what does, right?
There are some consequences to showing instead of telling. My very first draft of Demon Arms was in first person, and it had a strong narrative voice as a result that shined through even when I changed it to third person for the final draft of the book. Showing a scene instead of letting Wylie tell it stripped a lot of the personality away from his inner voice. I tried to preserve it a bit, ensure that his thoughts or words were heard, but it absolutely changed things. Wylie’s not just telling a story now but is in one, reacting to what’s happening, and at the same time, the environment reacting to him.
I still struggle with it. It’s a new skill I’m learning, not quite a natural habit, but it makes me see my writing in a brand new way, I love that. I love the challenge. I can’t imagine ever settling for the same old thing as a creative. Without the promise of something new to learn, it just gets boring after a while.
4. Beast Voices
This was a last minute decision, but it made this story in a lot of ways. I was doing the final draft and I kept forgetting the motivation of a very important character Wylie was dealing with: his dragon. There’s this voice inside of him that’s been quiet for so long, so quiet that he confused it with his own for the last 10 years. Yet here he is, mid heist, letting his demon arms out for the longest time ever, and he’s starting to realize he’s not that alone in his head. That the shit he thought was annoying about his arms is actually quite deliberate because the beast inside him is a different being who wants different things—for starters, blood.
Wylie was not an ‘out-of-control’ paranormal like the other patients in Demon Arms, he was just a wannabe thug with a bad past that he used to excuse his shitty behavior. But as our intro into the series, I wanted to show what out of control really meant—how a shifter could lose control because they’re battling with a completely different personality inside them. I think Theodore becomes a beautiful example for this. We don’t really know why he’s working for the Academy in this intro, why he is so interested in ensuring the patients are safe, but we know in this first book that he is damn well familiar with what it’s like to be out of control when it comes to his dragon. For the most part, they seem in sync, doing what needs to be done, the goals the same… until the dragon asserts a demand of the moment, and you can see the cascade of compromises Theodore must make to get along with the beast.
Would these compromises be required when things are much calmer, when stress isn’t crashing down around Theodore? Probably not. We get to see the beasts as a stress response, where the more difficult something presses on Theodore psychologically, the more his beast rebels and wants to do things his way. It’s why Wylie’s dragon showed up in that gang initiation—stress. Stress kills, even. XD We don’t see Theodore go out of control, but we do see what happens when his beast is in control, tearing through skinners and full of a rage that comes from being hunted for a lifetime and seeing so many die.
I found that in Demon Arms, the conflict was rather nonexistent or easily diffused when it came to the patients. It wasn’t realistic, and I realized I needed those beast voices—those impulsive, animalistic reactions—to keep tensions up in the more peaceful parts of the story. Otherwise, it’s boring.
5. A Grown Up Perspective
I really wanted some adults to get a pov this time around. Theodore and Michael get love story arcs later in the series that I wanted to easily transition into by giving them stronger parts now. I wanted to head hop, I’ll be real. XD I like head hopping, and apparently I did it well this time cuz no complaints were made (that I saw.) I want readers to meet the characters and care, and I could only do that if they got to really see and feel what it was like to be in their shoes.
But also, Theo and Michael are the first wave of Academy goers—the ones still alive—and they’ve seen up close the world and danger that they’re protecting their paranormal patients from. They’re a bridge in a lot of ways, providing a more worldly view. They don’t get to hide from the world but are forced to navigate it as a form of protection. They understand when direct action is needed and how sometimes good and bad are completely blurred when fighting to live. That those lines are naturally blurred when it comes to killing, and trying to pretend they aren’t is idealistic nonsense that neither of them subscribe to.
Killing to survive is not a heroic act. Murder at all is not some white shining knight BS. Death should not be prettied up or sanitized—to kill a person, there is blood, pain, a line crossed every time. This is not a simple ‘bad guys are evil and therefore they deserve to die’ type of series. That’s 2-Dimensional and unrealistic. Everyone who dies is a character, and I want my characters to be fleshed out, felt, possibly even mourned.
I am not here to write a manual of how to be a good person—the teens in this book; that goal might be important to a lot of them. It’s usually a theme for younger people as they strive to find a place in the world. But Michael and Theodore have experienced a level of life—of war and slaughter and systematic bigotry—that makes them not care about morality the same way. They care about survival; they care about a life well lived; they care about doing what needs to be done with ruthless precision, sometimes preemptively, so that they can wake up and face themselves in the mirror each day because their patients weren’t slaughtered. For every confused question from the teens of if it’s right to do bad to survive, our caretaker adults already have an answer and it’s ‘it doesn’t matter. Just survive.’
6. Not Always Agreeing With The Characters
This was a risk, but at the same time I find the stories I love the most are of complex characters we don’t necessarily like all the time. I don’t think good characters are necessarily supposed to be people that would be your best friend. I think it’s a bit like the funny prankster in a story; that guy is usually a sarcastic, total asshole. People ignore it because they laugh, but the reality is you don’t want to live with Homer Simpson, or Peter Griffin, or with those douche-bags from the big bang nerd show. People in sitcoms are fucking terrible, and I don’t think their behavior should really be a reflection of how people should treat each other. But that doesn’t mean they’re not entertaining.
So, this is not a sitcom. These are people trying to do the right thing, but in situations where right is a compromise to the dark stuff happening around them. It’s the compromise of ‘a little bit better than worst.’ First time around, everyone was best friends in the Academy, except for Leo. Leo is won over pretty easily, and you see this a lot in stories, especially romance troops. It’s like this equalizing of conflict and personalities to get along, just because the characters are all in the same scenes. They lose their independence, they lose their motivation, and they become tools for the author who is failing to notice that these characters are no longer there own personalities.
In that regard, I’m trying to be better this time around (but it is tough.) I’m not saying on making them enemies for the sake of conflict – although there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s more, trying to allow the characters to be true to themselves while not being caught up by my own personal need to make them agreeable to get the plot going. Sometimes characters kick and scream, fighting against the plot, and those are usually the best stories. These big personalities, these alphas, sorcerers, just inner beasts combined with hormonal teens and 20 somethings should not result in everyone getting along. That shouldn’t be automatic; that should be what a lot of the work in the character development is for, teaching them to get along.
7. Villains
I realized we needed villains. Wylie’s gangsters weren’t going to be enough. How could I show that this was a world full of shifter hunters, that shifters were actually in danger, and let it be felt, not just heard in passing? Well, now the police station isn’t full of indifferent professionals who were just trying their best, but some are clearly bigoted against paranormals like Wylie, hating him just because they know at some point he can turn into something they can’t. We can see the bigotry is deep, where even the paramedics, a company created to help people, would put the well-being of others and their own profit aside to ensure their unreasonable hatred makes their decisions.
This is why villains, shifter hunters and skinners, were needed from the very beginning. We need to see what it means to hunt a shifter, what that power looks like that they’re trying to obtain, the type of money that went into it—that armored bus wasn’t cheap—and we got to see that in things like the chameleon coat, and some of the abilities the skinners use against Theodore as they battle. We get to see the hatred, the question of what is really human in the sorcerer who takes over George Snyder’s appearance. Here’s a sorcerer passing as everyone else around him, but his hatred runs far deeper than any strangeness that would be in a shifter hiding in human flesh.
These themes were already there in the first book, but they were just themes, they weren’t really realized in the environment. I think this time around you get to feel the weight of these concepts, see how the world is shaped by them. I’m actually rather excited about it, to be honest. Characters grow the best when in conflict, and stories get more interesting as a result.
8. Increased Word Count and Detail
Okay, this was not particularly planned. Actually, I fought this a lot until I realized just WHY my writing style had changed so drastically. When I realized what was happening, I gave into it. I don’t subscribe to a ‘right’ kind of writing. I think we all have different styles and that’s perfectly fine. But I do know as a content creator, some level of consistency in style is helpful, if not expected, and that was my concern in all this.
Here’s the reality: my brain changed. I had no say in the matter. It started happening once I got my allergies under control. I think the first signs of it were when I was writing Hellcat in the beginning of 2018. That book—believe it or not—was supposed to be a short story. Instead it became a novel over 100,000 words long. I noticed something was happening in my head, how I looked at words, how I started to *see* a scene and not just float around in the dark. Shortly after publishing Hellcat, I was hit with mold that took over my bedroom and living room, and the neurotoxins had me suffering with multiple chemical sensitivity for months. During this really shitty time, my brain got messed up. It’s hard to be an observer to your mind when your brain is the one struggling, but my functionality in my life was impaired. Eventually, after taking a ton of supplements to regrow neurons, support and protect my brain, supplement my flat lined dopamine, remove the neurotoxins, heal the damage, lower the inflammation and stop the immune response, I returned to ‘normal.’ Except normal had changed.
You can see the change when during episode 11 of Demon Bonded in July, 2018. What averaged as 15,000 word episodes became 35,000 just for a handful of scenes, and I was completely unable to stop it. My brain had decided on a new level of ‘done,’ and it wasn’t where the old line used to be.
Have you ever looked at the way someone cleans a kitchen counter top—or a room, or maybe it’s their car, etc—and it’s different from the way you clean? We all have different levels of done. Some people need to wash that counter down, make sure every crumb and speck it swept away, clearing off the surface completely just to neatly arrange things back once it’s all clean: that’s their done. Someone else, they pick up the obviously dirty dishes piled there, toss them in the sink for washing later, and flick a few crumbs away: that’s their done. Another person might glance at the mess on the counter top and decide to go watch tv: that’s their done. We’re all different, yet we still have a line that’s called done. My done line moved, and it feels in a drastic way, much more toward the cleaning every fucking aspect of the counter to then neatly arrange the stuff back on the top. And no, this style is not always relatable to people who wait a week or month to get to cleaning their counter top.
When I started this rewrite, I noticed that a scene suddenly took 3 times the amount of words to write on average. It required more words to describe a scene, to linger and show an action instead of have the character think something unattached to the physical world of the scene. The style was more immersive, more in-depth, more action oriented. And to be real, when I saw this drastic change, I worried. A lot. I had attracted a fan base with my previous style. 100%. And I know the writing game—popular fiction is rarely about wordage or sophisticated vocabulary. And erotica? Yeah, no. Just no. This could absolutely destroy me as a writer if my fanbase hated it. But… my brain couldn’t write any other way.
I had no choice in this. Seriously, it’s not like I’m looking to pad word count, or scam people by making a book so long it needs to be broken into pieces, or anything like that. It broke me for a while— I could see the severe problems with such a big writing style change after years of having put out a different style. It could be career breaking, or at least fan breaking—I don’t even like to read long books, but here I am, everything I write becoming long as fuck! My brain changed and there was nothing I could do about it.
So… I chose to embrace it instead of trying to slice up this new style. I had spent far too long battling with myself, battling my insecurities, and making compromises where I was never allowed to just exist as I am. I accepted there was no going back and forged forward instead. The new style came naturally, meaning I would write faster this way, in flow, as long as I didn’t battle myself. If I set the style in the first book, those who liked it would know the entire series had the same style instead of getting a bad surprise next book. And it is a style thing—style doesn’t mean anything beyond a preference of getting words on a page. I can’t decide what readers like; I can only write to the best of my ability and put my work out there.
I am absolutely certain that I have alienated previous readers with this style, and there is very little I can do about it but keep writing. I’m sorry if you were used to how I wrote before; I really am. I can just hope my brain has settled and sticks with one style—whatever it might be—so fans won’t have to go through such a drastic change again.
9. Serial Instead of Novels
This story was too complex in plot and far too much planned in the future to be able to squish it all into a novel format. Demon Arms was planned as a love story a book, and it just wasn’t going to work. I started Fox and Vincent’s story arc in the sequel and they just couldn’t fit some romance mold. So instead of cutting the story down to fit a norm, I decided to go wild and plan this as a long serial. Each episode plans to be around 80,000 words, give or take.
10. Demon Arms Was Unscathed
I think the greatest reason I was able to break out of the old style was by not touching Demon Arms. This wasn’t a rewrite that was ‘fixing’ the original. I didn’t want to replace it, didn’t want to take it away from the fans. This was probably the final deciding factor in why I pushed to create it as a serial instead of novels; I needed to change the format completely to push away from it getting caught up in the old book.
I was a younger author when I wrote Demon Arms, still swayed by popular demands, still trying to figure out what my style was, what my brand was. I had to think hard about if I wanted to be isolated on Amazon and the romance genre for being dark—dark romance was so damn small, and it was hard to know if it would be allowed to grow when everyone was screaming about requiring HEAs for a book to be a ‘real’ romance, etc. I didn’t want to erase the first book even though I had grown up. When I set out to write the PATB Serial, I knew who I was, and I knew who Sadie Sins was, and I didn’t need to erase that journey.
Sadie Sins does not write young adult. Her endings are happy but there are always compromises, always dark paths to get there, and morality is not the main key. Cleverness, perseverance, character connections; that’s how happy endings are reached. Love in the darkest of moments fuel these characters to never give up, to be their best versions, even if they’re still imperfect and held back by their unique limits. It’s easy to love a diamond for its shine, but far more valuable to love it for its flaws.
