Good Story Orgy Monday morning! Ah, I love autumn. The crisp fall air, the changing leaves, that Halloween feel to the air when spooky things can run amuck. Before we get to those spooky things, however, the Story Orgy writers have been busy, so a few announcements!

Em Woods’s story Choices, her hot male menage story, is now up for pre-order at Breathless Press. Click HERE to hop on over and reserve your copy today! Or click HERE to go to Stumbling Over Chaos’s blog and enter a comment for a chance to win a copy! Be sure to read the rules on the page, and you have until Thursday evening, September 20 to enter.

Em Woods has been busy! Holding On, her story about the strength of love in difficult times, is now available at all e-book retailers, including Total E-Bound books. Click HERE to jump over to Total E-Bound and get your copy today!

Lee Brazil‘s fifth book in his bestselling Truth or Dare series, Risking It All, is now available at Breathless Press. Click HERE to hop on over and download your copy today! His Naughty Nursery Rhyme story, It’s Simple, Simon, is now available at ARe and Amazon.

Havan Fellows‘s Geoff’s Teddy, the third book of her Synchronous Seductions series, is burning up the Romantic Comedy category at ARe. Click HERE to jump over and download a copy of your own if you haven’t already.

Keep an eye out for our next anthology, And the Prompt Is… Road Trip, which will be available soon. As always, the first 90 days of profits will go to a LGBTQ charity, and this time we’ve chosen The Point Foundation, which empowers promising LGBTQ students to achieve their full academic and leadership potential – despite the obstacles often put before them – to make a significant impact on society.

Wow, lots of publishing news! Lots of great stories from your Story Orgy authors, and we really appreciate all of our readers. Okay, you’ve been wonderfully patient, now on with the story! Let’s see how Demetrius and Cody handle the after effects of that chase by the werewolf! The prompt for this week is: “It’s a rule, so it’s right…right?”

Critter Catchers

Parson’s Hollow Series, Book 1

Chapter Seven

by Hank Edwards

(c) 2012

The ride to Parson’s Hollow Medical Center did not take long. Demetrius sat in the backseat of Zenona’s SUV and stared out at the trees flashing past, afraid of looking too deep within their ranks and seeing the beast keeping pace with them. He was surprised they had survived being chased by the thing. Well, chased and nearly killed. It would have killed them, too, had it not been for the arrival of Zenona Baldwin, doctor at Parson’s Hollow Medical Center and one of Cody’s ex-girlfriends.

Demetrius tuned into the conversation from the front seat, listened idly as Cody grilled Zenona on what she had and hadn’t seen when she had stopped her SUV and honked. Cody fired questions at her until, after they pulled into the doctor’s parking lot and Zenona spun the wheel to arrow into a free space, she finally turned to him and said in a low voice that Demetrius could just barely hear, “I was sending a text message, okay? Now back off! When I rounded that corner, I was looking at my phone for just a few seconds, and when I looked up I saw…”

“What?” Cody demanded. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know!” Zenona shut off the engine. “A bear! A wolf! A really big sheepdog! I’m not sure, Cody, all right? It all happened really fast.”

“I saw it. We both saw it as it tried to tear us apart,” Cody said. He pointed a finger in her face. “And I think you did, too, but you don’t want to say it.”

Zenona slapped his finger down. “Stop that.”

Cody’s finger came back up. “I know what I saw.”

Zenona slapped his finger aside. “Don’t point your finger at me, you know I hate that! And I don’t give a shit what you think you saw, Cody Duran Bower, because you were drunk. Don’t try to deny it, I can smell it on you. And besides that, your best friend needs medical attention.”

Demetrius blinked, realized she meant him, and he opened the door to step out of the SUV. He heard Zenona and Cody get out of the truck behind him and they started across the lot for the hospital doors. The moon overhead was just past full, and its white glow lit up the few cars and made the asphalt look like dried blood.

The hospital was quiet and filled with efficient, soothing sounds. Demetrius was taken to a bed with a privacy curtain pulled around it. A nurse took his vitals and asked him questions about how he was feeling, to which Demetrius answered that he didn’t really know. Zenona showed up at some point, looking very professional with her hair pinned up and wearing a white lab coat and reading glasses. She made a few notes, told him to get some rest, and then excused herself.

Demetrius closed his eyes and drifted for a while, trying to relax, but his mind kept turning back to the werewolf crouched on the shoulder of the road. It’s chin had been scraped raw when Cody had tripped it, and it had been pissed as it stared down into the drainage ditch at them. It had raised its paw, so big, impossibly massive, and Demetrius knew it would have taken off their heads with one swipe if it had had the chance.

The glass doors and thin curtains of the emergency room here would be no match for those paws.

Panic rippled through his chest again, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He still wore his shoes, thankfully, no one had made him change into a gown yet, and he tried to stay quiet as he stepped out from behind the curtain. Only a few nurses were on duty and they were busy at the desk, allowing him to slip away toward another set of doors.

He wanted out. Out of the maze of the hospital, out of Parson’s Hollow, and, hell, out of Pennsylvania. It had been a nice run, all twenty-eight years of his life, but it was definitely time to start somewhere new. Somewhere without a werewolf.

“Oh, hi there.” The voice startled a squeak out of Demetrius and he turned to find Oliver Berridge, the new reporter at the Parson’s Hollow Herald, sitting in a chair in the hallway. His sandy red hair gleamed beneath the fluorescent lighting, and his round glasses had slipped down his nose to allow him to peer over the tops and fix his blue eyes on Demetrius.

The helter skelter flutter within Demetrius’s chest quieted, replaced with a completely different, and much more pleasant, nervousness. Demetrius glanced over his shoulder, found he had not been seen by the hospital staff, and stepped around the corner and up to Oliver. There was something about Oliver that drew Demetrius inward, like the pull of air when a train goes into a tunnel, or the suction of a drain. He realized the sexual undertones of these images and cleared his throat nervously.

“Hi,” Demetrius said, trying to keep his voice steady.

“You here visiting someone?” Oliver asked.

“You could say that,” Demetrius replied, thinking that maybe it was the sanity he was feeling slip away. “What about you?”

Oliver lifted his head and pointed at a bandage on the underside of his chin that Demetrius had overlooked until now. “Getting a few stitches.” Oliver looked at him again and shrugged as he blushed. “Clumsy. I caught my foot on a tricky step going up to my apartment, banged my chin on the stairs. Five stitches, first I’ve ever had, so I can cross that off my bucket list.”

Demetrius stared down at Oliver, feeling as if all of his organs had just frozen into one solid mass. The bandage covering the underside of his chin seemed to glow white hot now that Demetrius had noticed it. Oliver had cut his chin. Just like the werewolf had out on the road when Cody had tripped it. Could it be? Could Oliver be the murderous werewolf?

“Hey, you okay?” Oliver asked, his brows coming together to produce a tiny line of concern just above the bridge of his nose. He stood up and reached out to Demetrius. “Demetrius? What’s wrong?”

Demetrius pulled back from Oliver’s touch, felt himself flail for a few steps until he bumped into someone behind him. The only word Demetrius could think to say was, “Don’t!”

Hands from behind him gripped his upper arms, and he craned his head around to look up at Cody’s shocked and concerned face.

“Demmy? What’s going on?” Cody flicked his gaze over to Oliver, then back. “Everything okay?”

“I just asked him if he was feeling all right,” Oliver said. “That’s all, I swear! Totally off the record. Just making conversation.”

“His chin,” Demetrius whispered up at Cody. “Look at his chin.”

“His chin?” Cody looked back at Oliver, and Demetrius watched as Cody’s eyes widened. “What’d you do to your chin there, Ollie?”

Demetrius looked back at Oliver, saw his eyes narrow. In anger? In annoyance? Maybe nervous contemplation? Demetrius couldn’t tell, but it sent a fresh chill through him.

“I tripped on the steps going up to my apartment,” Oliver said. “Five stitches.”

“Uh huh. I see.” Cody’s grip tightened on Demetrius’s arms. “Tripped, huh? That’s a bitch.”

“What’s going on here?” Zenona asked as she stepped up between them and looked from Oliver to Cody and Demetrius and back again. “Oliver, did you sign your release forms yet?”

“Just waiting for them,” Oliver said.

“Go on down to discharge,” Zenona instructed and pointed toward the main doors of the emergency unit. “Carol will have your forms ready.”

“Thanks, Dr. Baldwin,” Oliver said. He looked at Demetrius once again and nodded. “Well, good to see you again, Demetrius. I hope things turn out well for you.” His gaze shifted up to look at Cody. “Good-bye, Cody.”

Demetrius watched Oliver walk away, couldn’t help dropping his gaze to the firm, rounded curves of his ass. Even though Oliver was, most likely, a murderous werewolf, he still looked hot, and a tiny part of Demetrius mourned the fact that he would never get a chance to get to know him better.

“Did you see that?” Cody whispered to Zenona. “His chin! Did you see that bandage?”

“Yes, Cody, I did,” Zenona said in a calm, quiet voice. “I applied the bandage after I put in the five stitches. He tripped going up his apartment stairs.”

Cody snorted. “Likely story.” He turned Demetrius around and looked down at him. “What do you think, Demmy?”

“Seems kind of convenient,” Demetrius said, and took a breath, feeling the fresh air start to thaw the cold terror that had formed within him. “I mean, you tripped that thing chasing us and it scraped up its chin and then he needs stitches under his chin?”

Zenona gave Demetrius a long, sad look. “Oh, Demmy. I was hoping you had some sanity left, but I see hanging out with Cody has eaten it away.” She sighed and shook her head. “I’ll say this one last time. Oliver is not a werewolf. There is no such thing as werewolves. You were chased by a bear or a dog.”

“We need silver bullets,” Cody said.

Demetrius looked at him. “What?”

“Silver bullets are the only thing that can stop a werewolf,” Cody explained. “It’s common knowledge.”

“Common knowledge?” Zenona repeated.

“Yeah. Silver bullets are for werewolves.” He looked at Demetrius. “It’s in all the horror movies. It’s a rule, so it’s right… Right?”

Demetrius shrugged. “I guess so?” He looked at Zenona, saw the fear and disappointment in her eyes before she turned on her heel to walk off, saying over her shoulder, “I’m calling the police.”

“Good!” Cody called after her. “They need to know what we saw!”

Demetrius winced and looked up at Cody. “It is pretty unbelievable.”

Cody gaped at him. “What? You were there! How can you say that? If it hadn’t been for me tripping the fucking thing, it would have torn you apart.”

“It was big, and it was scary, yes,” Demetrius said. “But we were drunk, too.”

“You’re such a pussy.”

“What?”

“You’re pussing out on me.” Cody turned his back and walked away. “I can’t believe you’re pussing out.”

“Cody…” Demetrius called after him. But Cody kept walking, leaving Demetrius in the hallway wondering just what the hell he had seen out on the road, and how thin, wiry, handsome Oliver could transform into the big, hairy, nasty beast they had seen on the road.

~~ * ~~

Oliver? A werewolf?! Eeep! What do you think, Story Orgy fans? Be sure to stop by next week and see what Demmy and Cody do about their suspicions about the adorable Oliver, new guy in town and potential werewolf. For now, however, hop on over to the other Story Orgy blogs with me for more hot, smexy reads.

Lee Brazil,     Havan Fellows,     Em Woods,     Jade Baiser,     J.R. Boyd

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