FEAST MODE

I don’t know give me all the headcanons of any character you want go Pookie

Do u have a sixth sense for when I wake up OH MY GOD. Right now I am on my measly phone on measly 18%. So forgive if some of these HC’s are a bit rough or the formation is weird.

Today, Frost particularly tickles my fancy.

Look at her and that goofy haircut. So silly.

- You already know this one, but I headcanon her as Wasian! Specifically French on her dads side and Taiwanese on her mom’s. It just seemed to fit her. I also gave her the name Hsiao Han. She grew up with just her mom in France until she was orphaned at seven or eight, and found by Kuai Liang.

- Frost always wanted Kuai Liang’s approval. She’d never had a father figure, but he did not seem to have any intent on filling that gap for her. As a child, she couldn’t help but wonder why he took her in if only to raise her as a weapon. Kuai Liang thought he was doing what was best, giving an orphan a home. Frost felt used.

- She thought then, that it was her ranking. If she could just become something more than a ninja he had to order around, she could receive the attention, affection, and validation she wanted so badly. So, she set her sights on being the next Grandmaster. By any means possible.

- Her ending is so bland and lazy, and i fucking mean that. Not once did she EVER want to coat the world in a winter wonderland, and the Cyber Lin Kuei operation was just a means to get acknowledgment, it literally debases her whole character and makes her a stock villain. Lets be real, she’d go more of a Kung Lao or Sindel route. She’d want to be praised and her efforts be seen. She’d want something that feeds into her confidence and desire for recognition, not a world of ice and snow with a bunch of robots.

- Can’t draw for shit. But she can sing, and she can embroider and sew. Not that she’d ever admit to that last one. She refuses to be delegated to patching up clothes.

- There’s like a blank space where we have no idea what she’s doin’ in the canon. So i head canon during that time she joined up with the Black Dragon. After all, she was seen fighting Cassie in one of their operated fighting rings???

- A bit of a klepto. Not like diagnosed or an actual psychological problem, but yeah she’ll just lift things from people. Pens, things she likes, never heirlooms though. She has a base-level respect in that regard.

- She can’t remember her mother’s face, only her death, and it bothers her deeply.

- Even though Scorpion nearly killed her when she ambushed him during that peace meeting, she actually…doesn’t hate him? He recognized her skill enough to not pull a single punch. She only resented Kuai Liang in the whole situation.

- She knows all the gossip, but doesn’t actually spread it. No, she collects it and then investigates to use as blackmail on people.

- Her room is a mess. Not with dirty clothes or dishes but just…messy in general. Like damn girl how do you know where anything is. She does have a big ass, soft ass, queen sized bed in her room also.

Ok i am on 14 percent my phone is holding on for DEAR life so I am gonna end this here but THANK YOU FOR SENDING THIS I LOVE HC DUMPING

Okay, I know nobody asked, but since that 200k word fanfic for Rise of the Guardians was the first ever fanfic I wrote, I remember the plot, so I’m going to tell you about it.

*buckles you into a chair*

And you’re gonna listen.  *SPOILER WARNINGS, DUH*

Oh, let me tell you her powers first:

Shadow travel like Pitch, she can control the nightmares, but she has to be in constant contact with them, she can create weapons out of pure and corrupted sand, Sandman’s sleep dust doesn’t work on her and she can turn invisible to the Guardians as well.  other than that, she’s pretty low power wise compared to the others.  Like, she has a lot, but they’re all pretty draining.

...

So, the plot started in a flashback scene in Egypt, around the time that the pyramids were being built.

Our main character, I don’t remember her name, sits up and we see that she’s almost completely covered in sand.  She doesn’t know how she got there, her name or who she is as a person.  So she stumbles to her feet, dusts herself off and starts walking.  People are ignoring her (duh)  and when she finally makes it to a small watering trough, she looks into the water to see that her cornrows are pure white, one of her eyes is gold and the other is a black.  Other than that, she looks like how a 18 or so Egyptian girl would look at the time.  

anyway, she looks up to see the moon and someone walks through while she’s distracted.  The walking through her startles her, she stumbles back, falls through a shadow and is gone.

Then there’s like a montage of all the other guardians becoming guardians, and she’s always either nearby or a slight trigger to it- like with Jack Frost’s, she’s the reason why the ice started cracking, and that’s why he fell in, because there were three people on the ice that day, even though it only looked like two.

Final jump to the events in Rise of the Guardians.  She’s changed outfits by now and is wearing black jeans, a black bomber jacket and lots of gold jewelry.  She’s chasing one of the nightmare’s in the same town that Jack is in (She likes keeping tabs on him and Sandman since those two move around the most and it’s more interesting than constantly fucking with the Yeti).  Anyway, over the course of this time, it’s clear that she doesn’t use her shadow traveling and so the nightmare gets away.  

So she’s upset about the nightmare getting away, but before she can really do anything, she hears a yell, and looks to see that in the alley below her, the Easter Bunny is wig snatching Jack Frost (like how in the movie)  and right before the snow globe portal closes, she slips through invisibly.  She gets out of the way before anyone can see where she is and ends up shadow hopping to sit on the globe and watch shit go down.

Anyway, that scene happens, she accidentally outs herself as being there, it’s implied that she has bad blood with the Sandman, Jack Frost has never met her, Tooth Fairy just knows of her as like a cryptid and she’s halfway friends with Easter Bunny.

Anyway, Santa takes Jack to go have the talk (if you know, you know) and the other three guardians are like: “bitch, you need to go.”   And she’s like: ‘fuck no, im staying, this is the most interesting shit’s been in years.’

they try to subdue her, can���t lmao and so they get stuck with her as like a weird protector of the guardians.

So while this is going down, the Tooth Palace attack happens and she tags along, helping take out a few nightmares and she actually rides one until the Easter Bunny takes it out on accident and she ends up landing on a different level of the palace than the main guardians + Jack.

She hears the whole convo from down there and she also starts to see the crumbling from her vantage point and it looks like the foundation itself of the Tooth Palace is corroding.

That all happens, including the scene where Jack is like: “you shitheads had my memories the whole time?”   

She’s the first one to pipe up and be like:  ‘It’s chill, I don’t have memories either, and look at me, 4000 years strong and I’m still not a Guardian.”

Whoop, there it is.

Teeth collecting montage, not much changes, except for the room scene before Sandman’s death, where it’s her, sandman and jack that are still awake.  She stays behind to wake everyone up, not realizing that the snowglobe slipped out of Santa’s pocket and rolled into the hallway...

She wakes them up, they all go out in time to do that cool fight scene and she watches sandman’s death from a closer point because she was shadow traveling through the nightmares, trying to get there in time.  She doesn’t and she almost gets KO’d by Jack Frost when he kills all the nightmares.

Funeral, once again, not much changes, although she has to take up a temporary role as the Sandman due to her powers being a weird cross of Sandman’s and Pitch’s.

The next part is as the Warren (Easter Bunny’s headquarters)  and she volunteers to go scout the tunnels ahead while everyone else is getting the eggs ready.   She gets mixed up and accidentally runs through a wall, landing in Pitch’s lair.  

She doesn’t see the lil tooth fairies, because of her location, but Pitch taunts her with her fears and shows her a canopic jar made of corrupted sand.  He then explains that she was supposed to be the Sandman, and she was, for many years before she fought him in the desert, got half corrupted and Pitch stole her memories and name as a trophy.  That rightfully pisses her off and she almost KO’s him right then and there if it weren’t for Jack Frost showing up and Pitch going off to torment him while she runs around trying to get out.

She literally runs into Jack Frost, grabs him and shadow travels them out.  It weakens her, and she tells him to go and warn the other’s while she recoups. In reality, she kinda just passes out in the tunnel and by the time she wakes up, Jack Frost is gone, the Big Three thought she got offed like Sandman and so it’s an awkward funeral walk in moment.

She yells at them for being dumbasses, watches Easter Bunny shrink and is like: “Oh fuck, we need to figure something out because I now have personal beef with Pitch and you guys are on the verge of collapse.”

Pitch comes for his big victory, everyone realizes that Jamie won’t give up like the absolute piece of shit he is and so while the Big Three go to go save him, she sticks back and has a brief one on one fight with Pitch to stall, she almost wins, but gets hit by some blowback of her own powers and so Pitch runs and she has to follow, making her show up to the battle a bit after Jamie turns the first nightmare into pure sand.

There’s the fight scene, all the kids can see the Guardians, but not her because there’s no name to believe in, ergo she does not exist.  

There’s this one moment in the film where Pitch rises up behind Jack Frost in the final battle, fully about to take him out with the scythe, but Sandman comes in time and saves him.

Here, our main character pushes Jack out of the way and takes the blow instead.  The second the scythe touches her, she’s gone, destroyed.  The Big Three and Jack Frost are upset and Pitch shows off the canopic jar to them, bragging and THAT’s when Sandman comes back.  Pitch loses control of the jar, Jack catches it and Santa takes it from him to keep it safe.

Once all of that is done and Jack Frost is a Guardian, etc, it goes to the last scene, where they’re having an actual funeral for her with the jar.  The funeral ends, Santa places the jar on a shelf and everyone walks away.  Except for Jack Frost and the Sandman.

Jack turns to Sandman is like: “She was cool.”

Sandman makes like the opening a jar motion and Jack Frost is kinda confused, but he realizes that since the jar is made of corrupted sand, Sandman can’t open it, but for some reason, he wants him to.

So he takes the jar and pops it open.  Inside there’s a single slip of papyrus.  Jack Frost grabs it, looks at the words on it, which have somehow shifted from their original hieroglyphs to English.

He reads the word outloud.

and from behind him and Sandman, a familiar voice says: “Took you long enough.”

~THE END~

I hope you enjoyed lmao, I wrote the original fic when I was a freshman in high school and while all my friends were dating, I was writing fanfic about a character that gave no fucks and was just there for the ride.  She didn’t even have a love interest, just a close platonic relationship with everyone by the end.

and yes the fic was stolen.  I even remember the girl’s name: Clair Deg** (im not trying to doxx her..)

ℕ𝕠 𝔼𝕤𝕔𝕒𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕙𝕠𝕤𝕥𝕤

Title: No Escaping the Ghosts

Characters: Quentin Beck + Male!Stark!Reader (also a little bit of Peter Parker x Male!Stark!Reader, which can be read as platonic or romantic)

Warnings: language, grief, violence, angst, general nightmarishness, bastard man being a bastard man, implied PTSD, past trauma, manipulation, basically psychological torture, Endgame spoilers, Far From Home spoilers

Prompt: Midnight Thoughts by Set It Off (also elements of Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Lorde if you squint)

Word Count: 2.2k

A/N: Another submission for @locke-writes​ Intro to 2020 Challenge and sequel to ℍ𝕠𝕝𝕕 𝕋𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥, 𝕊𝕨𝕖𝕖𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕥

An extended illusion would never have worked on Peter. The kid’s instincts were too sharp. The best Beck could have hoped for with Peter was keeping him under long enough to shake him up. Accomplish what needed to get done quickly before he posed too big of a threat. But you? With you, Beck could savour the unravelling. He could take his time breaking you apart piece by piece for what your father had done to him. And then, when he was finished, he could kill you.

A slow grin curled Quentin’s lips as he strode over to the chair you were chained to. “You know, I wasn’t planning on doing this to you at first. I was going to give you a clean death or at least something close to one. The world would have wept for your loss, or at least for mine when I was forced to kill you. I would have held you in my arms as you died and sworn revenge on the people who’d turned you into a monster, vowed to keep going in honour of you and your father, yadda yadda yadda, the tragic hero. Peter would be heartbroken, but that would be fine, I’d be there for him to lean on. He’s a good kid, though I don’t have to tell you that, do I?” The man’s expression darkened, “Too bad he got too nosy. Now I’m going to have to kill both of you.”

The chains holding your wrists behind your back rattled as you yanked against them. A snarl curled your lips, “If you touch him-”

“You know, as much as your tough-guy act might impress Fury, I’m really not that intimidated by a kid with daddy issues.”

“You should be.” Heat rushed down your arms, the metal turning to putty against your flesh. You grabbed hold of the solid end and whipped it over your head towards Beck, red-hot sparks flying from the links. But instead of hitting him, searing hot metal passed right through him and crashed against the concrete with a clang. Beck smirked and disappeared, the world going dark around you. You whipped around, heart pounding.

“Did you really think it would be that easy?” his voice echoed from all around you. “And here I was hoping you’d be civilized about the whole thing. Guess you can’t expect much from a Stark, can you?”

“Show yourself, Beck!” you shouted, still turning in the dark as you struggled to orient yourself. Even the chair you had been bound to had disappeared, the half-molten chain gone from your hands like nothing more than smoke.

He materialized out of the black, EDITH perched on his nose, “Miss me already?” Before you could even take one step in his direction, he was gone again, appearing this time a few feet to your right.

“Those don’t belong to you,” you snapped, rage boiling in your chest as he continued to shift from one place to another, always just out of your reach. 

“Last I checked, they don’t belong to you either. Does that hurt? Knowing your dad cared more about some kid he scraped out of Queens than he did his actual son? Then again, he did scrape you out of the gutter too, didn’t he?”

“You don’t get to talk about my dad!” This time when you lunged for the illusion, your world shifted dizzyingly. You stumbled, breath catching in your throat as you recognized your new surroundings.

“Fine. Then let’s talk about you.”

You could already feel your hands starting to shake, your body betraying you as you faced the room plucked from your nightmares and midnight thoughts. This was classified. How did he know this room? And if he knew this, how much more did he know? The fire in your veins had turned to ice in an instant.

Beck’s voice seemed to emanate from the very concrete that made up the small cell, “You remember this place, don’t you?”

The anger in your words was undermined by the tremour beneath them. “Fuck you.”

“What’s it like for a little boy to get turned into a monster?”

“Shut up.” Your fists were clenched so hard it hurt, smoke curling up from between your fingers.

“Which came first, rewriting your brain or your DNA?” His voice was insidious, taunting you from every direction.

“Shut up!” You threw your arms out at the concrete walls, heat pouring from your palms. The last time you’d been in this cell, you’d been a frightened kid surrounded by monsters. You weren’t that boy anymore. You didn’t have to be afraid anymore. But even as the concrete turned molten and you pushed your way through, your world shifted again and you were strapped down, machinery hovering around your head. 

“They turned you into a weapon. And that’s all you’ll ever be. You were Hydra’s attack dog and now you’re Fury’s. Some things never change.”

You thrashed against the restraints as the paddles of the machine lowered towards your skull, every muscle tensing in panic. “This isn’t real,” you spat, half trying to convince yourself as ghosts from your past tried to drag you somewhere you wouldn’t be able to escape. They had tried to make you forget, but your body remembered this place and it was afraid.

“How do you know? You’ve had so many people walking around inside your head, how do you know anything anymore? For all you know, you’re still some sad little kid hitting his head against a wall in a room where the light won’t find you. For all you know, you never left. No one knows where you are and no one’s coming to save you. You’re alone, and you’ll always be alone.”

“You’re lying.”

“Do you even remember your life before they stole it from you? Do you even remember your own mother? Or how he killed her?”

Your rage overwhelmed your fear. You jerked against your restraints, the metal biting into your wrists and ankles, unable to move your head. “Shut up!” you screamed. You could feel the heat pooling in your hands but the cuffs held fast, pinning you in place, keeping you helpless, keeping you a little boy stuck in a memory you wanted nothing more than to forget.

“You had to know. It was all in the files. Or did you know and just pretend it wasn’t true? Were you there when he killed her? Did she scream? Do you even remember the sound of her voice?”

“Shut the fuck up!”

His words burrowed into your ears like worms, relentless and poisonous. “Did you think he rescued you because he cared about you? Or did he do it because of his guilt? Because he was the one who condemned you to becoming a human weapon. Because he was the one that destroyed any chance you ever had at a normal life. Because he murdered your grandparents just like he murdered your mom. If he really cared about you, where is he now? Why isn’t he saving you this time?”

You ground your teeth in frustration, trying to calm the shaking in your hands. “I’m gonna kill you.”

“Killing’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?” Reality shifted again so you were on your knees in the dark, a single gravestone looming before you. Your breath caught in your throat. “Too bad it didn’t help Tony though, did it? Maybe if you’d been good enough, he’d still be alive.”

The heat turned back to ice, frost crackling across your fingertips. The shaking was back, your heart pounding against your chest as you scrambled away from the name carved into the stone.

“Then again, you’ve never been good enough, have you? Never smart enough, never strong enough. Your own father didn’t even want you to be part of his legacy. You’re a menace to everything he ever created. Why would he ever want you? You’re a danger to everyone you’ve ever cared about. You know it, and Tony knew it. Maybe if you’d died instead of him, your life would finally be worth something.”

You lifted your hands to cover your ears, squeezing your eyes shut, but his voice just kept coming, always taunting, a constant noise in your head mirroring the pulse in your veins. Tears froze on your cheeks beneath your fingers.

Beck crouched over you, one hand coming to rest on the back of your head. The contact would have been almost fatherly if you weren’t stuck in a nightmare of his own design. Then his grip tightened, wrenching your head back, forcing you to look at him. “You’re just a broken little kid who thinks he can fill his daddy’s shoes. But the only thing you inherited from him was his arrogance. But how does it feel? Knowing you’re always just a few words away from being turned into a machine? Knowing anyone with the right words could trap you inside your own mind and use you to destroy everything you love? Knowing you’re just a tool someone created in a lab?”

The sound that tore from your throat was half a scream and half a sob as you threw yourself at Beck. Your hands came up to his face, smoke and heat pouring from your palms. You wanted to hurt him. You wanted to make him suffer. But when he cried out in pain, it wasn’t Beck anymore. You jerked back, bile rising in your throat as you saw Peter’s face marred by burns in the shape of your hands where his suit had melted away.

But then another Peter was next to you, grabbing your arm, “Come on, we’ve gotta go!” 

Another Peter grabbed your other arm, “He’s not real, don’t listen to him!”

A mob of Peters descended on you out of the darkness, pulling at you, begging you to listen to them, blocking out any light with red and blue and grasping hands. You struggled to break free, panic filling your lungs. It was too much. You shut your eyes and a shout tore from your mouth. Heat exploded out from your body and the pressure disappeared. When you opened your eyes, a single Peter stood before you in an empty warehouse, his suit torn and smoking in places. Half-melted chunks of drone lay scattered across the concrete.

Peter said your name and moved towards you but you held out your hands, heat still pulsing through your palms even as your own clothes smoldered. He stopped, pulling off his mask, “It’s okay, it’s me.”

You shook your head, sweat and tears steaming faintly as they leaked down your cheeks. Your voice shook. “You can’t trick me.”

Peter took another step closer, his expression turning pleading, “Please, let me help you. You’re safe, I swear.”

“You’re not real.”

“Beck’s gone, you broke the illusion,” Peter insisted, gesturing with one arm towards the shattered drones.

Still you didn’t lower your hands, “No, tell me something only Peter would know!” Inside, your mind was screaming. Not him. Please not him. Please don’t make me hurt him again. Your arms shook. Were you nervous or were you insane?

He blinked, face going blank for a moment, “Y-your dad left you a message. On EDITH. He-he wanted you to take care of Morgan.”

Slowly, your hands fell to your sides as your legs folded beneath you. Peter caught you before you hit the floor, “Hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re okay,” he soothed, “Beck’s gone. You’re safe.”

A shudder passed through your body as the heat leached out of you. “He’s in my head, Pete. He knows everything. I can’t shut him out.”

Peter’s hands cupped your face, forcing you to look at him. Blood smeared under his nose and across his cheek and his eyes were red and wet. “He can’t hurt you anymore. We’ll figure this out.”

You shook your head, swallowing hard, the tears coming faster even as he tried to brush them away. “He lied to us, Pete. He lied about everything.”

“I know, I know, we’ll figure it out, we’ll-”

Peter’s words were cut off but the crack of a gunshot. Your eyes widened as the boy slumped against you, blood already spilling out onto your hands. “No, no, no, Peter, please, no,” the words spilled out in a panic as you struggled to hold him upright. His head lolled, his eyes fixing on your face as blood dribbled past his lips. The look of shock in his eyes, of confusion and pain was enough to shatter your heart a thousand times over. Your voice cracked, “Stay with me, please, Peter, no-”

Your name fell from his lips, a quiet gasp among the blood and tears. He gripped fistfuls of your smoldering shirt, pulling you down to your knees. 

You could see Beck standing just past him, clipping the gun back to his belt. “I’m sorry. He forced my hand.”

Your pulse was a roar in your ears. Cold radiated from your body in waves as Peter stilled in your arms. The blood that pooled beneath him crackled faintly as a web of frost spread around you, covering the scorch marks from before. Your whole body shook as you stood, face twisting. Your breath clouded as it fell from lips trembling with rage. “I’m gonna enjoy killing you.”

A slow smirk stole across Beck’s face. “That’s the spirit.” Then he snapped his fingers and the world turned black.

Release Day Review! Dangerously Dark by C.J. Burright, Plus an Interview w/ the Author!

Dangerously Dark (The Dreamcaster Series #3) by C.J. Burright Genre: Adult Fiction (Paranormal Romance) Date Published: November 13, 2017 Publisher: Ravenrock Publishing LLC

Some call him Purgatory’s Missing Prince. Demon Master. Overlord of Shadows. Only one woman may call him hers.

A master of dreams, a failure at life…

After another botched career attempt, Quinn Carmichael escapes to a remote lodge for a weekend recharge, needing respite…especially from the nightmares that haunt even her days. When a wounded, sexy-as-sin stranger faceplants unconscious on her kitchen floor, there’s something disturbingly familiar about him—as in he’s the boy from her childhood dreams. Mr. Dark, Dangerous, and Diabolical may be the key to unlocking the mysteries of her past and future, and Quinn isn’t about to let the opportunity—or him—escape without a fight.

His time is running out…

Known as Purgatory’s Missing Prince, Zaire’s existence has been one of endless pain, torture, and loss. Resigned to his fate, his final goal is simple—rescue his nephew before succumbing to the deadly darkness inside him. But when a fateful misstep brings him face-to-face with the one woman who could have saved him once upon a dream—the one woman he treasures above all else—he battles to keep his distance before he destroys her, too. But he would gladly sell his soul for just one taste.

Love draws them together, destiny will tear them apart

With ruthless enemies closing in, Quinn and Zaire must fight to save each other and those they care for before it’s too late—even if it means they’re doomed to live apart forever.

Dangerously Dark is the third book in the Dreamcaster series by C.J. Burright. This series just gets better and better. This time we see things mostly from the perspectives of Zaire and Quinn, though we do get glimpses from other characters from time to time. These different views really helped to build the situation and what was going on. Zaire has had a horrific life. Granted he has also done a lot of horrific things. Quinn was unique. She has used her dreams to strengthen herself it seems. She is a survivor. So, when Zaire disappeared from her dreams, she learned to fight them herself.  I loved her strength. I also love when they showed their vulnerabilities too. Characters like these are what makes fiction believable. I love it. The romantic tension is palpable. You don't know if they're going to rip each other's throats out or rip each other's clothes off. Add in the horror and mystery that always surrounds the world of the V’alkara, and this is completely impossible to stop reading. The whole Dreamcaster Series story line is pretty ingenious. Each book blows me away. I can't get enough. 

The ARC of Dangerously Dark by C.J. Burright was kindly provided to me by the author & Bewitching Book Tours for review. The opinions are my own.

Quinn tossed the note on the coffee table and wrapped one hand around the warm ceramic mug, absently petting Wolfgang with the other. Dusk took over beyond the wall of windows, made darker by the blizzard. Falling snow hid the skirting tree line. Wind howled at the house corners and turned treetops into jerking puppets. The perfect meltdown location. No phones, no people, no problem. The lamp flickered and died, leaving her with only the dancing firelight, not that she minded. The power had lasted longer than she expected. Stoked fire, hot cider, and now she had a great excuse to procrastinate reading unhelpful flyers. She sipped her drink and wriggled back on the couch. Wolfgang launched off her lap, kicking papers everywhere and sloshing her drink. “Bad cat!” He scurried into the kitchen, out of sight. A distinct thud followed, which meant Wolfgang was up to no good. “I should’ve sent you off to the Nameless One.” Quinn shoved the remaining flyers aside and nabbed the flashlight from the end table. “You’d make an amazing hat, and there’d be enough fur left to make a stole, the perfect ensemble to compliment her plastic face.” She flicked on the flashlight and shuffled into the kitchen, ignoring how the light made all the shadows twist and scuttle on the walls and ceiling. Broken bones might bother her, but the dark never had. Wolfgang expectantly stood at the back door. He meowed, high and plaintive. Nothing looked out of place. Whatever had made the thud wasn’t in the kitchen. Maybe the wind had blown a loose branch against the house. “What, you’re a snow leopard now? There’s no fancy feline feast waiting out there for you.” Wolfgang rubbed his cheek against the doorframe, circled, and meowed again. Thud. The entire door shook. Quinn jumped. That was no branch. All the horror movies she loved to watch and ridicule flashed to mind, a lot less funny now. Alone in the woods. Killer storm. No electricity. No connection to the outside world. Wolfgang’s purr rumbled, and he slid his face over the jamb again. The noise hadn’t spooked him even a little, and animals always sensed evil. Wolfgang had had no problem detecting it in Molly. She squared her shoulders. No one would be roaming around in a blizzard. An animal had probably knocked the trashcan into the door, and a quick look would ease any worry. At the first glimpse of fur or fang—or red, glowing eyes—she’d go for the door slam. Pushing Wolfgang back with one foot, she cracked open the door. Wind exploded in, ripping the doorknob from her grip and firing snow and ice into her eyes. The door banged into the wall, and the storm’s full force rushed inside. Quinn scrambled for the knob and stopped, frozen by more than the sudden blast of cold. A man filled the entryway from threshold to frame, dark as the nightfall behind him. Steam drifted from his bare head. Frost coated his short, sable hair, and even in the flashlight beam, his complexion held an unhealthy blue-gray hue. One hand was anchored to the doorpost in a white-knuckled grip. The other brandished a wicked as sin knife. She shone the light on his face, and her stomach roller-coastered. Her demon. The one who’d haunted her nightmares years ago and then abruptly bailed, never to return. No matter what face he wore, his death-black, abysmal eyes were unforgettable. Or were her delusions returning with a vengeance? “Get out of my way.” His chest heaved, and he lurched forward, the knife pointed at her. His guttural words erased any suspicion that he might be another hallucination. He was too present, too solid to be anything but real. Merde. He was real.

How long have you been writing?  Growing up in the boonies, I had to find ways to entertain myself after I’d read all the books on hand, so I turned to writing my own stories when I was in my teens. I wouldn’t call them good stories and they are best kept in a shoebox in the deepest, darkest recesses of the attic. Those early scratchings should probably be burned to avoid becoming blackmail material. What inspired you to write The Dreamcaster Series? A dream started the whole thing. Appropriate, huh? 😊 I dreamed of Kalila from Wonderfully Wicked, standing in a café with Lydon standing menacingly behind her, and I had to know why he was stalking her. Then I started plotting, and as more characters come out of the shadows, I find I must write their stories too. Did you always plan for it to be a series? Once I started writing Wonderfully Wicked, I knew there was too much in this supernatural world of dreams and nightmares that I wanted to explore to include in a single book. And as I fall in love with the broken characters, I want them all to experience their own HEA. It wouldn’t be fair to leave them all hanging, right? What was the weirdest thing you had to google while doing research? I did Google some angelic language, which was both weird and interesting. I thought about using a bit since Zaire knows how to speak in angel/demon tongue, but I didn’t want readers stumbling over how to pronounce words like oxex and gmicalzo. But I’ll definitely name my next cat zvrza. This series would make some great movies. Would you want to turn your books into movies or TV shows? Ooh, thanks for saying that! I’d choose a long-running TV show like Supernatural – with awesome (and hot) guys, spooky stuff, action, fun times, and romance. Maybe Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki could find a new acting home. 😊 Which of your characters do you relate to most and why? They all have a piece of me stitched into them, but I relate most to Kalila from Wonderfully Wicked and Quinn from Dangerously Dark. Kalila is guarded with people she doesn’t know well or trust (like me), but I’m also an idealist like Quinn. And like both of them, I’m not afraid to fight for what’s important to me when necessary. Ka-pow! What is a secret about you that nobody else knows? I’d be on Dancing with the Stars if I could partner with Val Chmerkovskiy. And dancing (especially in public) sooooo isn’t my thing. What book have you read too many times to count? The Magic Garden by Gene Stratton Porter. It’s antiquated, beautiful and bittersweet, and a rescued treasure from my grandmother’s library. I’m not usually prone to waterworks, but this story gets me. Every time. What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received? Keep writing, keep learning your craft, and never give up! If you could hop into the life of any fictional character, who would it be and why? Claire from Outlander because…Jamie. He’d be worth giving up a couple hundred years of technology. What was one of the most surprising things you learned while creating your books? In researching dreams, it was interesting how some people are so paralyzed by their dreams they can’t move and even have trouble breathing. It’s amazing how the subconscious (or is it some outside force?) can affect the body. What do you like to do when you're not writing? I have a day job which takes up an unfortunate amount of my time, but when I’m not writing or working, I’m reading, working out, or playing Assassin’s Creed surrounded by my adoring cats. It’s a superb life. Are any of the things in your books based on real life experiences or purely all imagination? My stories are a mixture of both—I think it’s impossible not to color my writing with my own life experiences—and as far as who and/or what are based off truth…I’ll never tell! Thanks so much for having me! <3

Thank you for hanging out at my blog & answering all my questions!

Check out my review of the previous books in this AMAZING series!

C.J Burright is a native Oregonian and refuses to leave. A member of Romance Writers of America and the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal special interest chapter, while she has worked for years in a law office, she chooses to avoid writing legal thrillers (for now) and instead invades the world of urban fantasy, paranormal romance, or fantasy. C.J. also has her 4th Dan Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and believes a story isn’t complete without at least one fight scene. Her meager spare time is spent working out, refueling with mochas, gardening, gorging on Assassin’s Creed, and rooting on the Seattle Mariners…always with music. She shares life with her husband, daughter, and a devoted cat herd. To learn more about C.J. Burright and her books, visit her website.You can also find her on Goodreads, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter.

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