Title: To the Flame
Author: A.E. Ross
Publisher: NineStar
Press
Release Date: February 3, 2020
Heat Level: 3 - Some Sex
Pairing: M/NB
Length: 20900
Genre: Paranormal, LGBTQIA+,
nonbinary, mythical creatures/cryptids, college, psychic ability, paranormal
Summary
Seattle
boy Emerson Oakley is about to find that the strangest thing about his first
year at West Virginia’s Vance University isn’t the neighbor in the next dorm
over, who ghosts him after one kiss. It’s the fact that he keeps having his
life saved by a stranger who seems to know about each accident before it
happens.
Morrie
Crisp, whose moth-person powers finally emerged at the most inconvenient time,
is just trying to figure out how to deal with their crush on the boy next door,
and all the different ways they’ve seen him die.
As
Emerson tries to get to the bottom of who his pre-cog savior could be, his
relationship with Morrie becomes extra complicated as their undeniable
attraction to one another becomes a liability to both. Even as Morrie struggles
to keep Emerson safe, Emerson is intent on igniting the fire between them, into
which Morrie is naturally drawn.
What
is a reasonable response to falling in love when the world itself is without
reason? Unfortunately, neither one of them has any idea.
Excerpt
To
the Flame
A.E.
Ross © 2020
All
Rights Reserved
Emerson
October
7th, 2019
With
the sound of the school radio’s late-night show in his ears, Emerson Oakley
pulled his wool-lined jacket more tightly around his broad frame and threw
dirty looks at any shadows he passed, mean-mugging at would-be creatures
waiting out there in the dark. Overhead, the campus clock chimed midnight, its
toll reaching long and deep into the West Virginia night. Emerson clutched a
stack of textbooks tightly under one arm, his free hand gripping the strap of
his rucksack. By October, the school’s grounds had become a world of swirling
fog. Frost was just beginning to lick at the blades of grass sitting neatly in
between the cobbled walkways. The paths crisscrossed campus like a foursquare
game. Just last month they had been full of hacky-sacking upperclassmen.
As
a born and bred Seattle boy, Emerson was used to the sparkling mist that filled
Puget Sound in spring, but the autumn weather in Appalachia was a different
phenomenon altogether. It hung low, filling his nose and throat with damp cold
as he made his way back to his dorm beneath flicking streetlights. His fingers
were beginning to numb just a few steps in.
A
loud crack rang out behind Emerson, causing him to jump a couple inches in
surprise before turning around to see dazzling colors light up the sky. Some
freshmen were letting off fireworks, probably to celebrate their newfound
freedom to make bad decisions. The illegal rainbow starbursts snapped and
popped in the sky over the astronomy building.
After
reaching into his pocket, Emerson turned up the volume on his phone, letting
the pop-punk singer’s smooth voice drown out any more unwanted jumpscare
fodder. The song began to fade out as he crossed out of the quad and into the
parking lot. His dorm was just on the other side of the empty gray stretch of
pavement, and he could already see the golden glow from his
next-door-neighbor’s room. He couldn’t hear the pounding bass that they loved
to blast from morning to night, but he’d be in range soon enough. There was a
reason he spent every night studying in the library instead of his dorm room.
He didn’t know too much about the kid next door, but there were two things he
knew for sure: they went by Morrie, and they fucking loved EDM turned up to 11.
“You’re
listening to WVUX 69.1, The Voice of Vance. That was local band Rubric with
their latest hit, ‘Risk Reward.’” The late-night host jumped in with perfect
timing, his tone smooth as silk. As he continued with a recap of the week’s
news, something flickered at the edge of Emerson’s vision. As he snapped his
neck to the right, his breath caught in his throat. For a split second, he was
certain he saw a dark shape on the roof of the nearest dorm building. The
three-story brick building, Gryphon House, happened to be one of the earliest
built on campus and was probably haunted, or at least that’s what the
orientation tour guide had said. Of course, the guide was a bored junior, so he
easily could have been making it up. Emerson was sure he had
glimpsed…something. The large dark shape with flickering edges, host to two
glowing red orbs that, ideally, were not eyes—or were eyes the better option?
Biting
his chapped lip, Emerson turned away and kept walking, trying to focus on the
words coming from his earbuds. “So, if you want to use the pool, you’re just
going to have to wait until it’s been emptied and disinfected…for your own
good. Oh, and one more thing—Emerson Oakley, watch your step,” the voice said
just before another indie-punk hit began to play, coming in strong with the
snare.
Emerson
jerked his head up so hard his neck wrenched painfully. Scanning the empty
parking lot, he took two nervous steps back. Just then, another colorful crack
rent the sky above him, followed by a low whistle. It was the sound of a
snapped power line slicing through the air and landing half-submerged in the
puddle where he had been standing one second earlier.
Eyes
wide, Emerson put a hand to his chest, a tight rush of anxiety beginning to
cloud his brain in a familiar way. Music still pounding in his ears, he stared
at the small sparks coming off the black wire. If he hadn’t taken those two
steps back, he’d be fried. Panic rising in his throat, he let his logical
pre-med brain take over and called campus security to let them know about the
potential danger before continuing on to his dorm. This time, the music in his
ears was drowned out by his own heartbeat as he swiped his key card and hustled
up the stairs to the third floor.
Once
he got into his room, the thump of his chest was drowned out by the heavy bass
of Morrie’s EDM playlist. He basically knew the track listing by heart at this
point. In a way, it was a comfort as he tried to get a grip on what had just
happened. It was strange enough to get a cryptic warning from the college radio
station, but he was certain that the warning had come seconds before the
fireworks had actually hit the power line, assuming that was what had caused it
to snap and swing into the puddle at his feet. How they could have called that
shot, he had no idea. Emerson was pretty sure that the radio station was on the
other side of campus.
He
wriggled out of his heavy coat and flannel then stripped down to a sweat-soaked
tee and gray boxer-briefs. It was hard not to think about what had just
happened. He could have been deep-fried, his body burnt up and smelling like
the hot dogs that the power company used to electrocute as an elementary school
safety demonstration. Emerson ran his hands over his whole body just to make
sure it was still there. He had always been barrel-chested with a soft, round stomach.
Okay, he could admit he had a bit of an apple bottom as well, but he loved his
body. If he had gotten his body fried up in a freak firework accident…well,
he’d be dead and pretty upset about it. Sitting down on his worn forest-green
patchwork quilt, he tried to sync his breathing to the rave beats from next
door the way he’d learned in therapy.
Inhale.
Hold.
Exhale.
Hold.
He
lay back on his bed and repeated that routine for several minutes until the
fight-or-flight feeling flowed out of him and a reasonable calm remained. After
grabbing his towel and toiletries, Emerson slipped out his door and down the
hall to the bathroom. He did his best thinking in the shower, and boy, did he
need a second to decompress.
The
most important thing about the dorm bathroom was not to focus on the floor. If
you did, it was over. All kinds of weird shit got caught in the grout that
lined the beige tiles between cleanings, and it was honestly better if you
could just keep your head on a swivel and ignore it altogether.
The
second-most-important thing about the dorm bathroom was not to focus on anybody
else either. To be fair, that had been Emerson’s modus operandi in every shared
shower room he’d ever used: junior-high gym class, JV football, the YMCA pool.
But it was especially vital now that he was in a university with all-gender
facilities. He was proud of Vance Uni for living in the twenty-first century,
and the last thing he wanted to do was make anyone feel weird or unwanted. That
said, the scene was deserted, so he turned the water on as hot as it could go
and divested himself of his earthly garments. The good burn of too-hot water
relaxed his shoulder muscles, despite the shitty water pressure.
With
a clear head, he convinced himself that there was surely a reasonable
explanation for the DJ’s timely omen. Though, even if there was, it still
didn’t do anything to ease his mind about the strange shape atop Gryphon House,
which was still stuck in his mind.
After
fluffing his hair dry and slinging a towel around his waist, Emerson made his
way back down the hall to his room, just in time to cross paths with the Ghost
of Electronica. Morrie was trying to unlock their door with a slice of pizza in
one hand and a two-liter of soda wedged under their armpit. Emerson walked past
and avoided glancing directly at Morrie, feeling irritated that they left their
music playing even when they weren’t in the dang room. Or at least, that’s what
he told himself. Certainly, his animosity for Morrie was all about the volume of
their music and absolutely not about the way they:
1.
Wore those tight black skinny jeans with the knee-baring holes, and
2.
Hadn’t spoken to him once since that kiss during Orientation Week.
Obviously,
neither of those things factored into the equation at all, and it was
definitely not true that either of those two things ever made it harder to
sleep than the pounding of a drum machine.
Purchase Links
Meet the Author
A.E. Ross lives in Vancouver, B.C. with
one very grumpy raincloud of a cat. When not writing fiction, they can be found
producing and story-editing children’s cartoons, as well as producing &
hosting podcasts like The XX Files Podcast. Their other works have appeared on
Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Netflix (and have been widely panned by
12-year-olds on 4Chan) but the projects they are most passionate about feature
LGBTQIA+ characters across a variety genres.
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