Adventurer's Honeymoon

By Kevin L. O'Brien

Differel Van Helsing had been married to Victor Plunkett in the Waking World for four years before he was killed by an assassin seeking to kill her. The loss devastated her, and she very nearly resigned as Director of the Caerleon Order as a result.

Years later, when she learned how to sojourn to the Dreamlands each night, she discovered that he had been a Dreamer himself, and that after his death he had retired there to live out the rest of his Dream-life. By the time they were reunited, he had become a diplomatic troubleshooter for the Island Nation of Punica, and had been made the Marquis of Elissa. They discovered that their love for each other was just as strong as ever, and he proposed to her. At first she was not certain if she should remarry him because of the time they would be separated when she awakens each morning, but finally she yielded to her heart and said yes.

They wed between crises, so they never had a proper honeymoon, but then an opportunity presented itself that allowed them to spend a week alone on a tiny deserted island. They jumped at it, and spent six days in connubial bliss, doing little beyond eating, sleeping, the occasional swim in the ocean, and making love.

On the seventh and last day, however, an old enemy, bent on revenge, crashes their party. Taking them prisoner, he intends to sell them as toys for others' amusement: Victor to a wealthy matron, Differel to the Moonbeasts. In both cases, they are unlikely to survive for long with either their lives or sanity intact.

Differel and Victor have no weapons or retainers to help them, but they are far from helpless.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin L. O'Brien
• Release date: Oct 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301099368

Kevin L. O'Brien

Kevin L. O'Brien was born with a pen in his hand.Well, not quite, but he has been writing for as long as he can remember, at least since First Grade. Writing has always been his first, true love, but it hasn't always been his career. He worked for 15 years as a biomedical researcher, then for 3 years as a web designer. However, after 30 years of trying to be published in print with little success, he has decided to try his hand at self-publishing.He writes primarily speculative fiction -- fantasy, science fiction, horror, and their sub-genres -- but he also likes to try his hand at thrillers, suspense, mystery, and even westerns. However, his stories tend to have a fantasy element, no matter how subtle.Most of his stories involve the following three main characters:Medb hErenn (http://www.medbherenn.com/) -- One-time queen of Ireland, she is over 3500 years old. A warrior and a sorceress, she cannot be harmed by any weapon made by the hand of man.Eile and Sunny, Team Girl (http://www.teamgirlforever.com/) -- They are two adorable, vivacious, fun-loving young women whose motto is ONWARD TO ADVENTURE!!! Yet trouble follows them like a love-sick puppy wherever they go.Sir Differel Van Helsing (http://www.sir-differel.com/) -- The descendent of Abraham Van Helsing and King Arthur, she heads the Caerleon Order, the premier monster-hunting organization of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. She commands Dracula, the most powerful vampire extant, and the greatsword Caliburn, better known as Excalibur.He also writes a series of sword & sorcery stories set in an alternative universe known as the Lands of the Dreams of Men.Kevin lives in Denver with his family and 4 cats.For more information, see his website: http://www.kevinlobrien.com/

Book preview

Adventurer's Honeymoon

Kevin L. O'Brien

Smashwords Edition

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Text Copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

Cover design and typography copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien

Adventure font distributed under a free use license by Neale Davidson and Pixel Sagas

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License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. It is licensed for your personal enjoyment and remains the copyrighted property of the author. This ebook may not be sold, reproduced, or copied, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes, but it may be given away if no changes are made. If you enjoyed this book and would like to share it, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from Smashwords or their favorite online retailer, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support, and for respecting the hard work of this author.

Please consider writing a review for this book on the retailer's website.

If you see any misspellings or typographical errors, please notify Kevin L. O'Brien using one of his online social networks. Thank you.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, including those based on the real world, are either products of the imagination of Kevin L. O'Brien or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Because some ebook platforms do not support special characters, certain words may appear misspelled, but this was done deliberately to avoid the problem of the platforms deleting the characters. Also, the LRF platform used by older models of the Sony Reader does not permit the use of links to external URLs, whereas the PDB platform used by Palm reading devices does not support any form of linking whatsoever. Finally, certain words use British instead of American spelling, to simulate the characters' English accents.

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Table of Contents

Preface

Adventurer's Honeymoon

About the Author

Other Books by Kevin L. O'Brien

Connect with Kevin L. O'Brien

Sample Excerpts

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Preface

When Sir Differel Van Helsing married Victor Plunkett in the Dreamlands, the ceremony took place between crises, so they didn't have a proper honeymoon. In this story they have rectified that oversight, but you can probably guess what happens.

The title is a play on the phrase busman's holiday. Back when municipal buses were simply large horse-drawn carriages, the drivers often became very attached to their teams. As such, many of them spent their holidays riding the buses to make sure their temporary replacements treated their horses well. The term came to mean spending one's free time doing whatever one did while working.

Back to TOC

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Differel awoke, and found herself draped over Victor's body with her head on his shoulder and her arm across his chest. She looked out the nearest window and saw the sun well up in the azure sky, making it around early mid-morning. She gazed down at her sleeping husband and smiled. That handsome, angular face could make her swoon like a schoolgirl, with its chiseled rugged cinema star features, but the goatee gave him a diabolical caste.

She rolled backwards and sat up on the edge of the bed, careful not to wake him. She took a moment to scan the tiny room of the deserted fisherman's cottage before she stood up. Rustic did not adequately describe it; it looked too bare-bones for that.

She retrieved her chemise from the back of the only chair and slipped it on over her head. Then she opened the door and stepped outside. She looked up at the startled cries of the seagulls as they took off from where they rested on the roof. Her gaze followed them out over the wine-dark sea. The cabin sat in the middle of a tiny, rock-bound island, barely above high tide, but for the moment the water had receded to expose the encompassing shingle beach.

She heard a noise behind her and turned to see Victor out of bed. He stood in the only open space in the hut and stretched his strong svelte naked body, the sight of which never failed to incite her pulse to race and her breath to catch. She stood in the doorway, admiring her Adonis, when he focused his toffee-brown eyes on her.

Good morning, she said as