A Leash of Lovers

By Kim Antieau

Samuel and Richard have been together for centuries, bound by the disease that makes them vampires. One evening, they meet their new neighbor, Caroline, and everything changes. This story was originally published in Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction.

Kim Antieau has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, both in print and online, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s SF, The Clinton Street Quarterly, The Journal of Mythic Arts, EarthFirst!, Alternet, Sage Woman, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. She was the founder, editor, and publisher of Daughters of Nyx: A Magazine of Goddess Stories, Mythmaking, and Fairy Tales. Her work has twice been short-listed for the James Tiptree Award and has appeared in many best-of-the-year anthologies. Critics have admired her “literary fearlessness” and her vivid language and imagination. Her first novel The Jigsaw Woman is a modern classic of feminist literature. She is also the author of a science fiction novel, The Gaia Websters and a contemporary tale set in the desert Southwest, Church of the Old Mermaids. Her other novels include Her Frozen Wild, The Fish Wife, and Coyote Cowgirl. Broken Moon, a novel for young adults, was a selection of the Junior Library Guild. She has also written other YA novels, including Deathmark, The Blue Tail, Ruby’s Imagine, and Mercy, Unbound. Kim lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, writer Mario Milosevic. Find her books at your favorite ebook store.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Green Snake Publishing
• Release date: Mar 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466124370

Kim Antieau

Kim Antieau is the author of Mercy, Unbound. She lives with her husband in the Pacific Northwest.

Book preview

Contents

A Leash of Lovers

About the Author

A Leash of Lovers

Kim Antieau

Published by Green Snake Publishing

Copyright (c) 2012 by Kim Antieau

Originally appeared in Tomorrow Speculative Fiction June 1995

Cover image by jdurham | morguefile.com

I HAD BEEN with Richard forever, or so it seemed, that autumn when he met Caroline. We were living in the northwest United States. I cannot say exactly which city or street or house. Not because I don’t remember. I do. I remember every moment of that autumn with a clarity that does not diminish with time, though I wish it would. If I close my eyes, I can once again feel the warm Fall air against my skin and taste the sea air. I can still hear Richard’s voice as we sat on the stone porch of the house we rented and looked up at the sky.

The Moon hung scarcely above the skyline, like a huge gold coin. Richard was trying to convince me he could make out the features of Augusta Caesar.

Stop arguing with me, Samuel, he said. You are only showing your ignorance. You have never seen Augusta.

And you have? I asked.

Possibly. He smiled. The smile disappeared as he looked up and down the quiet street. A dog barked once, temporarily breaking the early evening stillness.

Richard rubbed his arms and shivered. I knew he was hungry.