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NEW RELEASE: Blood & Bone Book 3 The Symbiotic Law

NEW RELEASE: Blood & Bone Book 3 The Symbiotic Law

Book 3 Mailing List Giveaway Winner!

I’m super psyched to announce SCOTT the winner of my first giveaway. Thanks everyone who signed up, both new and old followers, I can’t thank you guys enough for reading the B&B books and being so supportive this past year while I took my first baby steps into publishing.

Speaking of publishing…

Book 3: The Symbiotic Law

The Symbiotic Law
Buy on Amazon!

The long awaited finale of the Blood & Bone Trilogy is FINALLY HERE!!!!! I know many of you have been waiting for this since February and I’m so thrilled to finally share it with you. It has been a hell of a crazy ride writing Ethan and Pat’s journey from antagonistic co-workers to soulmates. This series has been at time exhilarating, frustrating, and amazing to write and it was sort of earth-shattering to see it come to a close. I’ve been writing about Ethan and Pat since 2012 and now, 2 years later their journey has come to a close (you know, for now at least ;)))).

The Symbiotic Law is available to buy on Amazon right now and will be available (along with Book 2 The Convergence Theory) cross-platform after January 13th in case you want to read it on a device other than Kindle.

I’ll be opening my blog up to reader questions and snippet prompts in the coming weeks so stay tuned for those.

In the meantime, happy reading,

xoxo Lia

NEW RELEASE NEWS! Cold Press (A Palouse County Romance #1)

NEW RELEASE NEWS! Cold Press (A Palouse County Romance #1)

cold press150x250I’m super excited to announce that my first holiday novel is for sale on Amazon right now for $0.99! Looking for a sweet wintery romance while its cold and rainy (or snowy) outside? Do you love coffee shop AUs? Do you enjoy small town stories? Then check out COLD PRESS.

Blurb

Despite what anyone says, Jordan Kane is not lonely. He’s not. Being alone is not the same as being lonely. At least, that’s what he tells himself. But it’s hard to hold onto his more hermit-like habits when Avery O’Sullivan blows back into town. The sweet–if hapless–writer is hardly prepared for Belleville’s harsh winters, and Jordan can’t help inviting the other man into his home for the holidays.

Two strangers find happiness between a dozen cups of coffee and writer’s block in this sweet M/M short romance. A Palouse County Romance #1 featuring stories big and small from Eastern Washington.

This is a novelette approximately 50 pages long. It contains minor language, some adult themes and a romantic relationship between two men.

Buy now on Amazon!

Blood & Bone Book 3: The Symbiotic Law

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten B&B Book 3. Even as I type up with quick blog announcement, I’m sitting in Starbucks with scrivener open to get some writing done. My goal is to have The Symbiotic Law finished before Christmas and published close to the new year so say posted.

I’ve kept this book pretty under my hat for awhile now but I’m really excited about it. It’s quite different from the first two books. But I can tell you it picks up RIGHT where book 2 left off–with the boys back in trouble again. It features a whole new cast of supporting characters as well as a couple old faces from books 1 & 2!

When I sat down to conceptualize the Blood & Bone Trilogy, I thought of book 1 as a “mystery” and book 2 as a “horror” novel. Book 3 is definitely the “adventure” novel of the trio and I think you guys will enjoy it.

As a special sneak peak, here’s the first couple pages of THE SYMBIOTIC LAW

symbiotic_law

PREVIOUSLY…

Ethan stared out his balcony window until he heard the front door close. He felt sore, but more than that, his stomach wouldn’t stop jumping around, excess adrenaline still flooding through his veins.

He shivered and dug out a soft, long-sleeved shirt and put it on.

It was the middle of the afternoon. So far he’d watched a man get put in the ground and had his suspicions confirmed: fucking werewolves.

Ethan rubbed at the ache in his chest and startled when someone knocked on the front door. Well, hammered might have been a better description. It was too soon to be Patrick returning with their food.

He checked the peephole and jerked back. The door wasn’t even locked; it swung open.

“Uncle Eoin?” he asked, his voice pitched up in shock. His mother’s brother stood on the other side, disheveled, dirty, and with purple bruises under his eyes. Eoin had a fat lip and a cut across the bridge of his nose, crusty and only half healed. He smelled like the sea.

“Ethan. Thank the goddess.”

AND NOW…

Ethan’s uncle stumbled inside the apartment, one hand falling heavy across Ethan’s shoulder and squeezing hard. His eyes were wide and bloodshot, his dark hair lank and slipping free of its tie.

“What the hell happened? Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” Eoin waved his concern away. “I sent you a telegram. Several in fact. When I didn’t hear back from you I feared the worst.”

“I haven’t had any messages,” Ethan said, leading him over to the kitchen table and pulling out a seat.

Eoin dropped dropped into it with a squelch and watched Ethan as he grabbed the stack of junk mail he’d left to pile up.

“What’s going on? You look—” Ethan’s words dried up at his Uncle wan face. A shiver raced down his back.

Eoin gave a low, wry laugh and pushed his hair off his face. He had green eyes like Ethan but his coloring was darker, tanned and wind burned, hair like a raven in a ponytail, with callused hands.

“I don’t suppose I could get a drink of water?”

The mail slipped between numb fingers. Ethan grabbed water and a granola bar for Eoin and sat down in the chair across from him.

“Thank you.”

“What’s going on?” he asked again.

“I had a visitor, down in Auckland. Not a very friendly fellow, let me tell ya. He was looking for something of your mother’s.”

Dread curdled Ethan’s stomach. Without his leave, his eyes darted past Eoin’s shoulder to the empty kitchen drawer.

Eoin’s eyes narrowed. “You know what he was looking for.”

“Maybe? Who’s ‘he’?”

“Didn’t get a name.” His uncle crammed the end of the granola bar in his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper. “Some sort of retrieval specialist.”

He leaned over the table, eyes intent on Ethan’s face.

“Was he here?”

Christophe’s face flashed across Ethan’s mind but he took in Eoin’s scrapes and couldn’t imagine his ex being responsible for that kind of violence. Christophe never lifted a finger if his mouth would do the trick.

“I don’t know.”

Eoin hummed to himself and sat back. “Oh, I think you’d know if t’were the same fellow. He was looking for a stone. Your mother kept it on a pendant chain.”

Ethan swallowed down bile and nodded.

“A bloodstone,” he said flatly.

His uncle’s eyes worked over his face for a long, tense moment before he said, “That’s one word for it. So, he did come here first?”

Ethan pushed back his chair. “It might not have been the same—” He gestured at Eoin’s face. His uncle grimaced and touched a finger to the cut on his nose. “I had a friend, a former friend, from Toronto show up a couple months ago. He said he was looking for something called a bloodstone.”

“Did you give it to him?”

“No. I didn’t have it.”

“What?” Eoin demanded. The dining chair screeched across the wood floor.

“At the time. It was at the jeweler’s.”

This news seemed to settle Eoin who sat back down and finished his water.

“But you have it.”

“Yeah.”

“This friend, what’s his name?”

“Christophe Granger.”

“I don’t suppose he told you what he wanted with it?”

Ethan shook his head. He hesitated before he blurted, “He said my f—father sent him for it.”

Ethan watched his uncle’s expression collapse on itself, grim and dark under heavy brows. He fanned out his junk mail across the table while he waited for him to say something. It was all bills and ValuePaks and advertisements for Domino’s Pizza.

“I was afraid….” Eoin stared at a scratch in the wood grain under his hands. He sighed and grabbed Ethan’s wrist, holding it tight. “You might have fooled your friend Granger but you won’t be able to fool this fellow. He didn’t seem to be the sort that’s easily dissuaded from a task.”

“But you—”

“Ran away by the skin of my teeth. I put sail to wind and came straight here. I had hoped that you’d get my message and be long gone already.”

Ethan frowned. “I don’t understand. If they don’t think I have it, which they must if they went looking for it from you, then why—” He stopped at Eoin’s guilty expression.

“Your Uncle Liam’s boy—Aiden—he might have let slip something about you inheriting everything. Whatever you convinced your friend Granger to believe, I wouldn’t count on this retrieval man to take it at face value. He’s was a professional. And if there’s one thing you can say about professionals, they don’t leave loose ends to amateurs. That’s what makes them professionals.”

“But we don’t know that,” Ethan protested. His bare feet were cold and his shorts slid down uncomfortably low on his ass. He still smelled a little like sex despite cleaning up and Pat—no, Clanahan—Clanahan would be back with their take away any minute.

“You willing to take that chance?”

“I have a job, I can’t just leave. Shit, I’m a cop. If this guy attacks me I’ll throw him in a holding cell.” Ethan stood and started pacing across his kitchen, agitation making his stomach jump and fresh sweat break out under his arms. His heart beat too fast to be comfortable.

“You can’t stay here,” Eoin protested, his voice grim. It grated against Ethan’s skin. “Men like this don’t work inside your legal system.”

“You’re saying I should be afraid of a shadow that attacked you? That might not even come here? Not going to happen.”

“I didn’t think you’d grow up to be such a foolish boy.”

“Foolish? Me?” Ethan laughed, if you could call the ugly sound coming out of his throat a laugh, and slapped the table between them.

He watched Eoin retreat into himself. Catalogued his weathered clothes, dirtier and more torn than they usually appeared. He hardly knew the man—hadn’t seen him in years, not since late fall ’07 or ’08, he couldn’t even remember exactly.

Eoin, like the rest of the family on his mother’s side, preferred to come and go with little warning or fanfare. They drifted across the world on their boats and barges at the wind’s decree, never settling in one place longer than a season. Nomads, gypsies, wanderers, whatever you wanted to call them, people that Ethan didn’t bear much resemblance to. Despite living in a city surrounded on both sides by water, he hadn’t been out on a boat since—well, since whenever Eoin’s last visit had been.

He looked at his uncle now, the shadows under his eyes, the way his shoulders tensed up around his ears and his fingers gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. He didn’t know this man, not well at least, but he knew what fear looked like.

Eoin was worried. Worried about Ethan’s safety. The concern both grated and soothed a tattered edge in Ethan’s brain.

He blew out a frustrated breath and sat back down, reached his hands across the wood, fingers held loose.

“I can’t just pack up and disappear. I have responsibilities,” he said.

“Are they more important than your life?”

“Whatever you think is going on, my life’s not on the line.”

“You sound very certain.”

“I am.”

“So certain that your father won’t…” Eoin grimaced.

“He hasn’t so far.”

“Ah, but you used to be a child, that always affords some protection. Now you’re a man with something he wants badly enough to send someone halfway around the globe to get it. You think he’ll stop at asking you? At threatening? Perhaps. You would know better than I.”

Eoin’s words squirmed in the back of Ethan’s brain where a healthy fear of his biological father—none other than Alexandre Pellatier, the patriarch of the oldest magical family in Quebec—slumbered. The decade since Ethan had run away from Alexandre had done little to squash the instinctive recoil he felt at just the insinuation of his name.

He’d be a liar if he tried to argue that there was no truth in Eoin’s argument. Alexandre Pellatier had not risen to his position of power through niceties and being soft. He was hard, the unbending steel rod running through the spine of their family, holding most of the wizards along the Eastern Seaboard in his grasp. All of it smoothed over by impeccable manners, money, and the irrefutable veneer of politeness.

The clock in the hall ticked off the seconds, loud enough it sounded like the crash of brass symbols reverberating in Ethan’s head. He dug his fingers into the table.

“There’s nowhere for me to go.”

Cover Reveal: Cold Press (M/M small town christmas romance)

Cover Reveal: Cold Press (M/M small town christmas romance)

cold pressWhen it’s cold and snowy outside, there’s no better way to warm-up than with a cup of coffee and a sweet story. This December, I’ll be releasing COLD PRESS, a holiday story about a small town barista–whose heart was broken several years ago by his former business partner–and a hapless writer whose come back to town in the wake of his father’s death, but who is woefully underprepared for the harsh Belleville Christmas season.

COLD PRESS is the first in a series of short stories based in various big and small towns from the Palouse region (e.g. Eastern Washington) and inspired by the number of years I lived in Pullman.

Keep your eyes peeled, this book will be available December 8th on Amazon!

Latest Updates from Lia’s WIP Corner

Latest Updates from Lia’s WIP Corner

Long Time No Blog-y

Indy's_whipOh, man guys, have I been terrible about blogging or what? Life is so crazy and I feel like I never have enough writing related news to warrant a whole post here. But I also feel it’s important to reassure you that I’m not dead and that I am writing.

First, the thing that’s been keeping me up at night: my sister and I are opening a tea room/lunch cafe! It’s so crazy and we’ve been so busy–I’ve found 2 new grey hairs! It’s exciting though. We’re leasing a little kiosk with a beautiful atrium in a restored historic building in Downtown Olympia. We’re not quite ready to open, we had some set backs with the health department requiring us to update pretty much every single piece of equipment in the kiosk and we still need to submit out Food Business application but we’re in the homestretch it feels like. In December, we’re going to be selling English Tea and gifts for the holidays since we can’t actually serve food yet. It’s very exciting! We’re going to make up some gift mugs and such as soon as the christmas crackers I ordered come in.

I can’t say how thankful I am to have all you lovely readers reading my books, buying/borrowing my novels, and supporting me! My sister and I have long dreamed of opening a tea shop or cafe and it never would have happened without my books finding an audience with you all.

Champagne cupcakes with orange Italian buttercream–might have found my new favorite buttercream 😉

A photo posted by Kellianne Rumsey (@winterrogue12) on

If you follow me on twitter you’ve probably seen some of my baked goods as I’m in the process of testing all our recipes for the shop.

Book News

But enough about the tea room, let’s talk about books. The Source and the Wire by Lia CooperIn case you missed it, I released a contemporary (with a dash of magical realism and soulbonding) novella at the end of september called The Source and the Wire. This novella was one of the first things I began writing while I lived in Pullman, very shortly after deciding I wanted to write for a living and is still one of the stories very dear to my heart–it even has a happy ending! So be sure and check that story out if you haven’t.

Blood & Bone Book 3: The Symbiotic Law

I’m roughly 3/4 finished writing the final book in the Blood & Bone Trilogy and lmty, it’s a doozy. This book is wildly different from both previous novels, charting an adventure literally around the world, and I’m so excited to share it with you all. I know this trilogy has been a rocky emotional ride, full of lots of frustration, so I hope book 3 will be just the welcome relief you’ve all been patiently waiting for. My current goal is to publish book 3 before Christmas. I’ll be giving away a free copy as we get closer to launch for people subscribed to my mailing list:

Sign Up To Lia’s Mailing List For A Chance To Win BLOOD & BONE 3!

Forthcoming Projects Winter 2014-Early 2015

  • Secret Christmas romance (Title/Cover reveal Dec 1!) between a small town coffee shop owner and a new in town novelist trying to connect with his dead father
  • Substitutions for Lemons, a f/f novel involving a down-on-her luck baker and a French mail-order-bride
  • The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 2: Courted by the Alpha, political tensions run high as the disfavored Lord Riven begins a tentative courtship of the Crown Prince Aubrey, set against a back-drop of betrayal and strained loyalties.

New Author Boost – Charissa Dufour

New Author Boost – Charissa Dufour

A friend of mine is giving her book away free this weekend on iBooks. If you enjoy ironic vampire stories check it out! (vampires, novelists, m/f, urban fantasy, intrigue!!)

Sucked In by Charissa Dufour

sucked in cover

Blurb

Ashley Hawn writes novels where the dark, handsome, brooding anti-hero always gets the attractive mortal girl… that is, until her out-of-her-league boyfriend turns her into a creature of the night. The only problem is, real life vampires are nothing like the creatures of her imagination. Suddenly, she is trapped in in the middle of a supernatural war that challenges everything she thought she understood about the world of fiction, leaving her with the realization that being a vampire actually sucks.

Available FREE this weekend on iBooks

$2.99 on Amazon

New Release: The Source and the Wire

New Release: The Source and the Wire

GUYS! I’m super psyched to finally say that The Source and the Wire is finally done and available on Amazon.

The Source and the Wire by Lia CooperThis book is very dear to me in that it marked the first thing I wrote way back when I made the decision to switch majors from Criminal Justice to Creative Writing. It’s the first full novella I wrote and FINISHED, which let me tell you, took some serious effort.

I began writing The Source and the Wire during my first winter in Pullman back in 2010 in the SUB. I hadn’t written anything more than a couple 500 word flashfics in roughly 5 years but I had this idea and I sat down at the ass crack of dawn in the empty Student Union Building and I just started writing. I made myself write that first 5000 words in a couple of days and spent the next several months taking the bus to the only coffee shop in town (because there were 3 feet of snow on the ground) and drinking an americano with extra shots, and writing 700 words. That was my daily goal. And I did it.

But then the draft languished and was forgotten as I moved onto other projects–namely The Duality Paradigm which was my first FULL LENGTH novel. But here it is. Extensively revised for public consumption and with a new ending, which I think all of you HEA lovers will enjoy 🙂

Blurb

Sometimes you meet a person and it’s the wrong moment, the wrong city, the wrong life…Sometimes it takes years for both of you to be ready to fall in love…

Simon Cowen’s life is as neatly tailored as his bespoke suits, everything and everyone in a particular place. Just because a person works on the shadier side of legality, doesn’t mean they have to be uncivilized. It’s this control that has made Simon good at his job.

His parents were soulmates, but Simon decided a long time ago that he had no desire to ever be so weak to another person. Weakness didn’t fit into his neatly framed life. He certainly had no interest in falling in love with the sloppy, flirtatious Luc Allard. Or at least, that’s what he told himself.

When an accident on a con job causes Simon to bond to Luc, he must relearn what it means to put his life in someone else’s hands.

More soulbonding, more exotic locations, and more about two men learning how to be in love.

This story contains explicit M/M content.

Buy it on Amazon!

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NEW RELEASE: The Omega Prince (The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 1)

NEW RELEASE: The Omega Prince (The Kingdom of Pacchia Book 1)

TOP with title blog small

For Sale on Amazon $2.99

Author’s Note

Here it is! The novella I began writing a month ago for fun because I needed a break from Blood & Bone and all the pressure that comes with that series, here’s the first in a little series of stories set in a AU medieval kingdom called Pacchia where Alpha/Beta/Omega sex and gender are the norm. (this concept is often called Omegaverse if you’re fannish)

I described this book to my writing partner as Medieval Jane Austen and it was a hellofalot of a fun to write. Check it out and lmk what you think!

Blurb

The Tri-fete, an opportunity for the alphas in Pacchia to show off their strength, stamina, and martial prowess, comes once every three years. This is the first time the competition has been held since the Crown Prince Aubrey of Lyle and Wescott presented as an omega and there is much speculation he may take a mate from one of the alphas competing.

But there is more than friendly competition underway as the mysterious Lord Riven returns to court for the first time in nearly a decade and assassins plot against the King.

Prince Aubrey must find a way to balance expectation and personal desire in THE OMEGA PRINCE, the first story set in Pacchia, a mythical kingdom based on the a/b/o gender structure.

This story contains explicit M/M content.

Excerpt

Prologue

He was Lord Riven now, the only son of the late Lord Riven.

A middle child, considered spoilt and indolent in his youth through very little fault of his own. It was the prerogative of the peerage to keep their children in the comfortable style to which they themselves were raised. And so the youngest Lord Riven was instructed by tutors in the manor castle, taught to ride and mock fight, and left to enjoy the pleasanter pastimes in life such as hunting every day except Sundurn, which was reserved for feasting.

The son, known to his sisters and closest companions as Dierik, was little seen at the High Court of the King of Lyle, and there was much talk bandied amongst the other houses when his fourteenth birthday came and went without his joining the King’s Guard as was the want of most noble sons looking to distinguish themselves.

No acts of valor, scholarship, or might were thus put forward to advance the young Dierik, and his name was predominantly forgotten until his twentieth year when news reached the High Court that Lord Riven and his household, excepting the son and the youngest daughter, had been murdered in their beds and the manor castle burned to its foundations.

After that, the name Riven was explicably attached to gratuitous rumors of patricide and plot though no evidence ever surfaced that the son was in fact the root cause of his family’s fall. The damage was already done. The more greedy and tenacious corners of the court, smelling blood, were quick to circle the floundering house. Within a month, expeditionary forces began to make their presence felt all along House Riven’s boarders and shortly after the son gathered his knights and loyal vassals and marched to his defenses.

That was eight years ago.

Review Copies

As with my other books, I will be offering 5 free review copies of The Omega Prince in exchange for a FAIR and HONEST review on Amazon/goodreads/your review blog etc. Fill out the form below if you’re interested in a reading copy 🙂

The Convergence Theory Free Reader Copies

The Convergence Theory Free Reader Copies

Available on Amazon $4.99

Review Copies

As with THE DUALITY PARADIGM, I will be offering review copies for THE CONVERGENCE THEORY for people who are interested. I only ask that you write an HONEST review, state that you received a review copy somewhere in your review, and post your review on the web and link me (Amazon, Goodreads, personal blog etc). If you’re interested in reviewing Book 2 send me an email: liacooperromance AT gmail DOT com.

You can read chapter 1 here on my blog.

Blurb:

Walking away from your soulmate is not for the faint of heart…

Following the Matilde Walker murder, Detective Ethan Ellison is back working misdemeanors and minor crimes, but he’s only just begun to realize how much the experience has changed his life.

Meanwhile, Detective Patrick Clanahan would give anything to get the memory of Ethan out of his head. If he can’t have him, and every sign suggests that he can’t, he sure has hell wishes everything at the station didn’t remind him of the other man.

Murder, UST, pining, and emotional turmoil lurk right around the corner for both men as Seattle hurtles to the hottest summer on record and their fates bring them back together in THE CONVERGENCE THEORY, Book Two in the Blood & Bone Trilogy.

This is the tense sequel to THE DUALITY PARADIGM.

Contains explicit M/M and minor M/F content.

Book 2: The Convergence Theory Book News

Book 2: The Convergence Theory Book News

convergence rightside up small
Available on Amazon $2.99
So I made a DAY-Of post about the release of my new book here and on twitter but I’m a big believer in NOT SPAMMING my list so after that first day I kind of stayed quiet. But you know, we all have busy lives and don’t always stay up-to-the-minute on our blogroll or RSS feeds. I figure it’s time to make another little post saying Hey, lookit, I published the sequel!

You can read chapter 1 here on my blog.

Blurb:

Walking away from your soulmate is not for the faint of heart…

Following the Matilde Walker murder, Detective Ethan Ellison is back working misdemeanors and minor crimes, but he’s only just begun to realize how much the experience has changed his life.

Meanwhile, Detective Patrick Clanahan would give anything to get the memory of Ethan out of his head. If he can’t have him, and every sign suggests that he can’t, he sure has hell wishes everything at the station didn’t remind him of the other man.

Murder, UST, pining, and emotional turmoil lurk right around the corner for both men as Seattle hurtles to the hottest summer on record and their fates bring them back together in THE CONVERGENCE THEORY, Book Two in the Blood & Bone Trilogy.

This is the tense sequel to THE DUALITY PARADIGM.

Contains explicit M/M and minor M/F content.

Review Copies

As with THE DUALITY PARADIGM, I will be offering review copies for people who are interested. I only ask that you write an HONEST review, state that you received a review copy somewhere in your review, and post your review on the web and link me (Amazon, Goodreads, personal blog etc). If you’re interested in reviewing Book 2 send me an email: liacooperromance AT gmail DOT com.

Book 3 News

So what’s in store next? I’ve got ~33% of the final book in the trilogy written and I’ll be working on that over the next couple of months. Originally i’d hoped to have to ready to be published very soon after book 2 but it looks like early Winter is going to be more accurate. I’ll be posting a sneak peak of the cover and Chapter 1 as we get closet to the release date, so stay tuned!

I’ve also started a tumblr based WIP called The Omega Prince. TOP began life as an exercise in having fun with my writing. I just wanted to write a sweet fantasy AU, not of our world, that examined Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics in a non oppressive culture. IDK about you but I get sick and tired of fantasy AUs that are just our world, with all of its prejudices and misogyny, and the serial numbers scrubbed off.

Here’s the first snippet for you reading pleasure:

He was Lord Riven now, the only son of the late Lord Riven.

A middle child, considered spoilt and indolent in his youth through very little fault of his own. It was the prerogative of the peerage to keep their children in the comfortable style to which they themselves were raised. And so the youngest Lord Riven was instructed by tutors in the manor castle, taught to ride and mock fight, and left to enjoy the pleasanter pastimes in life such as hunting every day except Sundurn, which was reserved for feasting.

The son, known to his sisters and closest companions as Dierik, was little seen at the High Court of the King of Lyle, and there was much talk bandied amongst the other houses when his fourteenth birthday came and went without his joining the King’s Guard as was the want of most noble sons looking to distinguish themselves.

No acts of valor, scholarship, or might were thus put forward to advance the young Dierik, and his name was predominantly forgotten until his twenty-fourth year when news reached the High Court that Lord Riven and his household, excepting the son and the youngest daughter, had been murdered in their beds and the manor castle burned to its foundations.

After that, the name Riven was explicably attached to gratuitous rumors ofpatricide and plot though no evidence ever surfaced that the son was in fact the root cause of his family’s fall. The damage was already done. The more greedy and tenacious corners of the court, smelling blood, were quick to circle the floundering house. Within a month expeditionary forces began to make their presence felt all along the Lord Riven’s boarders and shortly after, the son gathered his knights and loyal vassals and marched to his defenses.

That was eight years ago.

You can read along with the rest of it as I write it here: http://lia-cooper-writes.tumblr.com/ and the tag #the omega prince.