Arwin goes for a drive and crashes through a portal into a fantasy world: Heartstone.
He discovers puns brought to life, magic, blue people, horrid goblins, and enchanting nymphs. He also befriends a talking skeleton, a former knight who just split...
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ARWIN
Arwin woke with his body tingling from poison and his head filled with the excruciating pounding of his pulse. His head felt like it was going to split apart at any moment. His leg, where the spider had bitten him, felt like it was stuck in a fire pit while also being eaten alive by fire ants. A groan slowly oozed from his mouth. He felt brutalized. It was a long moment before he realized that he could breathe freely. He forced his eyes to open. For three and a half moments, things were blurry from the pain. Then he saw someone astonishing standing before him, and all thoughts of discomfort instantly receded to the far reaches of his mind.
She was darkly radiant. She was young, perhaps his age or a little older, and utterly beautiful, so much so that his heart squeezed in his chest. She raised her hand to his face. Creamy skin glowed pale under milky moonlight streaming down from windows and skylights above, the glass somehow amplifying the moon's silvery beams. Gently, with a hand decorated with long, elaborately painted and jewelled nails, she stroked his cheek.
Instant, cooling relief flooded Arwin's body, and he moaned in gratitude. He breathed deep as his eyes drank her in.
Tall, confident, immaculate, and gorgeous, she was physically the pinnacle of womanhood. She casually stood there with weight more on one foot, one hand on her hip, hungrily eyeing him the way a cat does a mouse, the corner of her lips curled up in a cruel smile.
She stepped even closer until they were almost touching. In her very high heels, the woman was almost as tall as Arwin. Their eyes met, and he became lost within two dark gems of purple amethyst: rare, exotic, beautiful eyes. Leaning in, long, wavy dark hair framing her fine features, she spoke, her voice like silken steel. "Welcome to my parlour, said the spider to the flies." Her lips shone the colour of fresh blood. Her smile widened, and she studied him with playful yet calculating and very intelligent eyes.
Arwin opened his mouth to speak but was so stunned by her beauty that nothing came out.
She turned away from him and casually sauntered over to Yaz, who hung chained from the wall, just as Arwin now realized he, too, did. It gave Arwin a chance to see the woman's whole body.
She wore a long, skin-tight dress with a slit up one side, ending high on her wide hip, so her leg flashed with each step. The silken material of the apparel made it look like liquid violet paint had been poured all down her body, though it miraculously hadn't covered most of her full breasts or her back. So thin and ephemeral was the dress that it seemed to be more of a naughty thought than a real thing. The side slit revealed lithe, lightly muscled legs, like those of a dancer. And she didn't just walk. The movement was more feline, more predatory: she stalked. It was obvious that she wore nothing at all underneath the sultry gown. Tall, stiletto heels clicked on the stone as she glided forward. Literally, the heels were stilettos, shaped like small daggers that gleamed silver and flashed in the moonlight.
