~Maleus~

“Well, isn’t this a surprise...”

The domain of darkness and nightmares. Where nothing but the most unnatural and twisted of fauna and flora grow. Where the day was grey, the sun burning muted ivory, and the night was black with only the acidic neon glow of insects and the magenta eldritch flowers bloom. A land of shadow and fog that was ruled over the most powerful of Fae.

Me.

Yet dangling in my clutches, hanging upside down, was a lesser fairy of spring. Their eyes were large and their fear permeated through the tree of thorns and sharp blades off grass. Surely they knew the risks of trespassing my lands, much less the punishment for the crime of theft.

“Lo-Lord Maleus...forgive me, I should’ve announced myself.” Their pink hair paled just like their face, their eyes beginning to sunken under the toxic fog. Indeed, if they had sent a most humble request, they would’ve been able to enter my land without being eaten inside out of my fog. However, the tiny shimmering blossom they held in their hands would cancel that mercy out.

“That is the lesser of your crime, little pixie.” I sniffed as my tendrils lifted up the pathetic imp, it’s four transparent wing flapping with anxiety. It’s body vibrated, fingers fidgeting, it’s lips chattering as sweat like nectar dripping from it’s temples, ears, nose, and eyes.

The wretched was terrified, yet instead of dropping the one thing that would grant it mercy, the pixie held my treasure close to it’s chest, “My-My Lord, please...this flower is the only thing that ma-may help the good queen.”

“The ‘good queen’? I have met many queens and I suppose you lesser fairies may call some ‘good’. The actual question is...what gave you the right to take my flower?”

Any hint of pink from the pixie dissipated into an amusing shade of sickly ivory, “Please, please forgive me! I only mean to save the Queen and her-her baby. This flower, the last gift of Selene, is-is the last cu-cure.”

I glanced down at the little blossom glowing as if i was a fallen piece of the moon. A smirk danced on the edge of my lips, “A little superstition over my flower. You would steal for a fleeting taste of hope?”

The pixie, who lost all color in my grasp, shaking with a terror so palpable it tingled on my tongue, looked up at me, crimson irises glaring up at me with such misguided ferocity, I had to fight the urge to pluck them out, “For the goodly queen and her babe, y-yes.”

My tendrils lunged out, black daggers stopping millimeters from those oversized orbs, tempted to see if the insides would gush a liquid matching the iris. The imp flinches, eyes closing tightly, yet it did not dare drop my flower. Nor did it’s tiny fingers tightened it’s grip. A faint whimper escaped from it’s mouth, sharp teeth clenched. It would be so easy to just end it’s life and return Selene’s final gift to it’s solitary plot.

Yet for a moment, when gazing at the blossom in the squirming thief’s hand, I was blinded. In my domain of darkness, the flower was the only pure light; a flicker of life that didn’t belong in my darkness.

I scoffed, tilting my head, studying each petal and the pearlescent veins pulsing with life within each piece. It glowed with a light that lesser creatures might even call ‘Holy’. That kingdom of light and hope had inched closer and closer to the abyss, it’s greedy grasp encroaching into the void of which I ruled.

Trespassing, like this insignificant pixie. Coveting what rightfully belonged to me. The only light in my darkness could in fact be the impossible cure for that mortal queen.

Just like Selene, planting a seed of the celestial in the center of the void, an idea bore fruit. I allowed a single chuckle and the needlepoint tendrils slithered back into my forearms. I plopped the pixie onto my palm, it’s shivering pastel body immediately kneeling, head bowed low, “All you had to do, little imp, was ask.”

It’s head shot up in surprise, wide eyes glistening, “Lord Ma-Maleus, you would let this one take the blossom?” It’s teeth chattered before taking a quick breath, “Please?”

“The ‘goodly’ king can borrrow my flower to...attempt to save his ‘goodly’ queen.” I turned my palm over, the tiny fairy flapping it’s wings to avoid the snapping black fog prowling along the ground.

“Th-Thank you, thank you! This generousity will not be forgotten, your Emminence.” The little dimwit seemed to smile.

So did I. My lips curled into a smirk as I waved it away, the glow of the flower in it’s careful grasp fading.

Foolish tiny thing. Foolish mortals.

Words should be taken at face value.

~Lynneae~

It started with flowers.

Yellow, pink, pastel flowers, growing along the edges of the warmth surrounding me.

A sound, a giggle from my throat, small, just forming, made the flowers glow.

They smiled at me.

Each glow receded until my voice called them back. Sweet pastel light and smelling bloomed things surrounded me. My fingers, tiny soft nubs, reached for them.

And then the warmth thinned.

Something was wrong with the room. The corners were wrong.

The corners had leaked.

Black smoke gathered at the edges of my vision, slow and patient. The flowers in the room noticed before I did.

The petals closed.

The vines curled tight against their columns. The light that had been floating from the ceiling stopped floating. A pink petal fell and turned grey before it reached the floor.

A voice began underneath everything. It was so deep I did not hear it with my ears. I heard it in my teeth. In the small bones of my chest.

The flowers died.

Yellow first.

Then pink.

Then the pastel ones at the edge of the warmth.

They blackened from the inside.

The smell that had been sweet turned to wet ash.

The smoke was closer now.

A shape was moving inside it.

A shape that knew me.

Its hand reached out. The fingers were wrong. Too long. Too deliberate. They moved the way roots move through soil, not reaching but arriving, as if the hand had always been coming and the smoke was just the courtesy of warning.

And in the place where the hand touched the warmth, a flower grew.

Not yellow, or pink, or pastel.

A bloom the color of a bruise, with veins that pulsed. It opened slowly, and at its center was a sound.

Not a word.

A hum.

A hum that matched the hum in my teeth, and for one moment before I woke, I understood that the flower and I were the same pitch.

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~Maleus~

Of course, the mortals would have no way of noticing what lurked and moved through the shadows. The fae and mages never strayed far from the light, thus they were also unaware of my presence. Not that they could do anything to me.

My abyss would easily engulf their paltry parlor tricks.

What vexed me most was the two arrogant so called royalty standing before their loyal sycophants! This was what that stupid imp took my flower for?! The only light I allowed in my lands...for what?!

That barely alive, mewling thing?!

What an insult!

“So, this is where you took Selene’s Blossom, whelp.”

The flowers that had invaded this quaint chapel shriveled as I rose from the accumulation of shadows everyone regretted ignoring.

Verdant vines blackened and petals rotted into dust as I stood, soaking in the sheer terror in those pink eyes.

Eirlys would always be that tiny bug like pixie.

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The impossible flower that bloomed in darkness had brought life back into the queen and her babe. Pallid cheeks gained color; strength that had been wanting to protect the princess had multiplied, enough for both child and mother.

The fairies of Spring, who answered that desperate plea, received sparkling rewards of jewels and seeds. The Kingdom’s best clerics and mages blessed their forests, and the heroic tiny pixie, who made the most arduous journey into the abyssal lands, got the greatest reward of all.

A Name.

With a name came power, a shape that went beyond her humble origins, and a domain of her own.

“For your will and determination, for your courage in crossing the abyssal lands and bringing us Selene’s blossom, you have ended our long winter.” The king’s voice shook as he gazed upon the pixie with reverence, “You have returned my Queen and with our blessed child, you have brought Spring at last!”

The Queen raised the pixie aloft in her hands within the resplendent Palace Temple, as a crowd of clerics, mages, nobles, Elven sages, and other fae looked on. The Queen, her voice now strong, joyfully declared, “For the gift of our princess, for my salvation, we proclaim you as Eirlys, the herald of Spring!”

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Lived a Queen and an honorable King, whose bountiful kingdom brought contentment and peace to their people.

Blessed by fair folk who lived in the magic filled forests surrounding their kingdom, their land never knew war nor famine, for the King and Queen considered all within their domain as equal citizens, worthy of their protection and love.

The people returned such devotion and fealty tenfold, and everyone rejoiced when they learned the Queen was pregnant. However, with the blessings of a child came risk, risks unique to motherhood. The Queen, kind and noble, used all her strength to nurture the life within.

Which left the Queen and her wisdom, bedridden, and the King, a pillar of might and power, helpless. They were never apart, but there was a kingdom to rule, and the Queen forced her husband to keep guiding their people.

Until she fell into a deep sleep, her body heavy with their child, no strength left for the mother. In desperation, the King turned to physicians, magicians and then...

To the creatures of the forest themselves.

“Please, save my Queen. We will pay any price. Without her, our princess will die, and this kingdom with fall.”

Once upon a curse, a kingdom bargained with darkness.

To save a dying queen, a kindly fairy stole Selene’s Blossom—the last flower to bloom in the Abyssal Lands. The queen was healed, her daughter born beneath an omen of shadow and starlight. But when **Maleus**, the fae of malice and void, returns to reclaim what was his, he does not seek the flower—

He seeks the princess.

Hidden away by fairies of spring and light, Princess Lynneae grows up in secret, her life stitched together with lies and lullabies. There, she meets Rowyn, a mortal boy whose warmth defies her endless twilight. Their forbidden love blooms between realms—

until the sanctuary of light falls, and darkness comes to claim its due.

In Maleus’s realm of ash and desire, Lynneae must fight to keep her soul from unraveling, even as the shadow tempts her heart. Meanwhile, Rowyn ventures into the Abyss itself, ready to sacrifice his humanity for the one he loves.

A tale of obsession, defiance, and doomed devotion, ‘Taming Malice’ is a darkly seductive reimagining of Sleeping Beauty where love is a curse, salvation is a sin, and only those who surrender to the darkness can hope to survive it.

Welcome to ‘Taming Malice’, a dark romantic fantasy with erotic horror overtones. Inspired by a certain animated retelling of the fairytale “Sleeping Beauty”, ‘Taming Malice’ has one notable difference…

There will not be much sleeping for our beauty. That is for sure.

Due to the dark and erotic nature of ‘Taming Malice’, this will not be a free serialized novel. This will be available to premium subscribers.

However, for those premium subscribers, I plan on putting future serializations on Substack first before Kindle or KU, thus ALL future publications, from ‘Taming Malice’ to ‘Letters Between Sex and Violence vol. 4’ will be accessible for premium subscribers.

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Schedule

Episodes ‘Taming Malice’ will, tentatively, be released weekly on Friday as this would be perfect for #FairyTaleFridays. When an episode is released or scheduled, I will announce it on my newsletter.

Not only that but comments and a chat dedicated to each episode for my publications will open for critique on Friday as well!

Without further ado…enter the world of ‘Taming Malice’.

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