Empire of the Sky, Book 4
Steampunk Romance
Date Published: 7/26/24
Publisher: Changeling Press
Nancy Lea is the Lunarian envoy to Queen Victoria. She and Jacob McCleary come to Earth with a deadly warning from Mon Ilson, the Emperor of Space. At an isolated airfield in the midst of a raging storm, Nancy is cruelly mistaken for the murderous Lady Neva Talbot-Rhys. Nancy is interrogated by the Queen's Agent, the witch Felicity Cressy. To keep her off guard, Felicity employs an unorthodox strategy. She introduces the dashing Captain Jaimee Dalgliesh to the alien in human form. His mission is to seduce Nancy, but can he avoid being seduced in turn?
Goblin Girl continues the Cressida Troy saga in which an unprepared world faces alien invasion. In a time where airships are commonplace, and witchcraft plays a crucial role in Queen Victoria's empire, Goblin Girl is a steamy adventure in the strange but curiously familiar universe of what could have been.
Excerpt
Copyright ©2024 Mikala Ash
Nancy Lea
1867 A Goblin Girl Goes to Earth
It was a rough descent. Inside the capsule, Jacob and I were pressed together in the contoured couch, hip to hip, and shoulder to shoulder. The belts that held me securely in place as we were jostled about bit through my one-piece flying costume and would surely leave bruises. We were riding a human test vehicle which we had captured some time ago. Jacob had been the pilot and had been our prisoner until he reluctantly agreed to be Mon Ilson’s envoy. I was to carry my emperor’s voice to the queen.
Jacob was wearing a leather flying cap and green filtered goggles and looked quite amphibian as his gaze shifted from side to side. He was closely monitoring the gauges and dials on the control panel and manipulated the various levers that controlled the ship’s buoyancy. Occasionally he would glance at me, and the visible part of his face split in a broad grin. He was excited to be returning home.
By Mon Ilson’s magic, the churning storm camouflaged our arrival. Barely two minutes before, we’d been released by the Lunarian airship and were descending at a rapid rate toward the Lizard Peninsula on the Cornish coast. Our ship, little more than a spherical steel ball barely ten feet wide, bucked and swayed at the mercy of the tempest. I bit my lower lip, imagining the gale that raged on the other side of the vessel’s thin shell, just a few inches from my head.
Jacob was adjusting the controls to release helium gas from our envelope so that we landed as close as we could to the designated airfield. Timing was of the essence if we were not to be blown too far off course. A violent wind gust rocked us, and I clutched Jacob’s arm.
“Chin up, Goblin Girl. We’ll be on solid ground soon.”
The appellation took me back to the first occasion he called me by that vile name. At the time I knew he’d intended it as an insult. We’d been “fucking like ferrets” as he described our frequent coupling, and I was panting frantically in the aftermath of a thundering climax.
“Why do you call me that?” I had asked resentfully once my breathing had calmed.
“Goblin Girl?” His smile as he chucked my chin was annoyingly patronising. “My dear,” he began, his tone mocking. “I know inside that pretty little human head is a leather-skinned goblin, like those stone gargoyles perched high up on a cathedral wall. You have huge yellow eyes, slimy slits for nostrils cut in a grey face as flat as an anvil. Rows of pin-sharp teeth hide behind knife-edged lips. You have bony shoulders, and muscled arms like knotted wood, so powerful you could snap a human neck. Not to forget the pair of oily black wings like those of a demonic bat, equipped with a half dozen razor-tipped talons, and ugly gnarled feet! For God’s sake, don’t get me started on your feet!”
I would be lying to pretend it hadn’t hurt, but his description of our -- yes, my -- natural form was accurate. What cut deeper was that he’d use those words to hurt me while his pearly seed dripped from my very bruised and unmistakably human cunt. I had given him the most hateful of glares and stuck out my tongue.
He laughed. “That’s the spirit! On occasion you act so human. Sometimes I quite forget.”
“I don’t want you to forget.”
“Why do you say so?”
“I want you to love me for myself, my soul, not my outward form whatever it takes.”
“Huh! Beauty is only skin deep as they say. Is that what you mean? Are you sure you want to go down that thorny trail?”
My feelings were hurt, still an odd sensation, and I didn’t yet know when to stop. “Perhaps.”
Jacob knitted his brow. “Why on Earth do you want me to love you? Don’t answer that. I know you are just following orders and will say anything to get inside my head.” His expression had changed, from mild curiosity to utter contempt.
“I wonder you can bring yourself to lie with me if that is what you believe.”
Jacob shrugged. “A man has urges. I can’t control the call, the quickening of the blood, or deny the demanding reality of my hard cock. That body you have stolen, killed for, I should say, would get a rise out of any man -- alive or dead! Your human covering is just an empty vessel, somewhere to dump my seed.” He glared at me, his eyes as hard as flint, and I saw the hatred behind them. Then they softened. “Ah, don’t do that.”
He wiped the tear away with his thumb. The gentle action broke the dam, and there followed a flood.
“Ah, my Goblin Girl… come here!” He held me close, his heart thudding in his chest, his warm breath upon my cheek. “I’m a beast too. There’s no denying it.”
Later, after he’d ploughed my furrow once again and jetted more seed into my human cunt, he held me tight. “Why?” he asked after a few moments.
“Why what?”
His gaze took in my quivering form. “All this. Why did you give up your natural body for this human one? Marjorie was so in love with hers she’d do anything to get it back, even murder and treason. Why are you lot not attached to your form?”
He was referring to Marjorie, a nascent witch whose body had been taken from its grave and later adopted. Her soul found sanctuary in Cressida Troy’s mind until Mon Ilson enabled her to return to her body for helping Cressida kill the human scientist, Fleur Cumberland. Now Marjorie was our most powerful agent on Earth.
Jacob had thumped his naked chest. “My attachment to this weak and breakable frame was so strong it allowed me to survive after my soul had been wrenched away.” He took my chin between thumb and forefinger. “You chose to do this,” he continued, forcing me to justify myself. “Why?”
Why indeed? “I do not regret it.”
“I’ve noticed, and that’s what I don’t understand. Have you all been mesmerised by Mon Ilson to deny your love of your natural form?”
“I have not!”
“Then why? I want to understand. It’s no small thing to give up your body, no matter how grotesque it is.”
“We do not see ourselves so,” I countered.
His brow furrowed with incomprehension. “Then why? You could fly, for God’s sake!”
“It is hard to express. It is too easy to say, as many will, I did it because Mon Ilson commanded it. Those words are just a public display of loyalty. As wonderful achievements as our cities are, the selfish reason is we are heartily sick of existing underground. We want to live under a wide blue sky rather than a roof of stone, feel fragrant wind on our cheeks rather than a sterile breeze from a fan, to bask in the summer sun and have our faces tanned, impossible under cold artificial light. We want to swim in the ocean and feel mud squish between our toes. We want to make love, to feel a kiss and take pleasure in it, to quiver with a soft caress, and be overwhelmed by the glorious sensations of making love.”
About the Author
Aussie Mikala Ash used to be a mild-mannered training & development consultant by day, and a wild sci-fi and paranormal adventure writer by night. Now she is a brazen full-time writer and nature photographer who is concentrating on having among other things, “… bags, and bags of fun!” Mikala can be found on Facebook and on Twitter.
Publisher on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok: @changelingpress
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