Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty-Six.

Chapter 56

To Luke’s surprise, Sally put a hand on his arm as he went to get out of the car, stilling him. Her hand was warm, and there was a not entirely friendly electricity to her touch that unnerved him. She was revved up and ready to rock and roll.

“Luke,” she said, “I think you’d better stay in the car.”

His brow furrowed, and his own stubbornness stirred to match hers. “I’m sorry, what? Maybe you had better stay in the car. You’re here to accuse him, I’m here to hear his side of it.” Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 56 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty-Five.

Chapter 55

The phone at Sundance Hospital rang twice, and the receptionist picked up. Luke asked if Kristin and the others had arrived the night before; they had. He asked if Kristin was still there, and he was on hold for a long time, listening to a static-ridden synthesizer version of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me,” before Kristin’s gruff voice answered. She sounded like she was smoking, and Luke longed for a cigarette. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 55 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty-Four.

Chapter 54

The next morning, Luke was up with the dawn, and the rest of his entourage followed suit not too long after. He handed them each a cup of coffee as they staggered from the bedroom, each declaring him far too cheerful and energetic. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 54 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty-Three.

Chapter 53

Charlie was sitting up in Sally’s bed when they came in, a battered paperback copy of The Hobbit propped on his knees. He looked over the top of his glasses at them, a childlike librarian. “Am I getting kicked out?”

Sally smiled as she sat down on the bed next to him and laid her cheek against his shoulder. “No honey, of course not. Luke and I thought we might could help you. You know, get centered, get past the worst of the trauma. Satyrs work with earth magic, they’re good at that kind of thing.” Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 53 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty-Two.

Chapter 52

Luke rapped his knuckles on the door of the spare bedroom and entered when he heard Orson’s voice give a muffled “Come in.” He’d never been in this room of Sally’s house. Orson and Mae sat on a white metal daybed with enough decorative pillows to double as a couch. An old Singer sewing machine and a bookcase with an impressive array of cotton print fabrics and half-finished projects was on one side of the room; a pegboard with enough unfathomable tools to fill a dungeon hung on the adjoining wall. The closet door had a sign written in calligraphy: “Craft Closet: Open at Your Own Risk.” The room was awash in blush pink, lavender, and sunshine yellow. This was, clearly, Sally’s mother’s domain. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 52 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty-One.

Chapter 51

Back inside Sally’s parents’ double-wide, the mood had only worsened with the storm Sally had summoned up. Luke found that Orson had Mae in the spare room, trying to keep her calm and collected until they could take her somewhere safe; Cormick and August were back in Sally’s parents’ room, talking quietly; Allison and Agatha were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner; and Charlie dozed under a crocheted afghan on Sally’s bed, curled up into a little ball of traumatized Jersey Devil. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 51 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Fifty.

Chapter 50

A cedar trunk in the hayloft held old cotton quilts, their patterns long faded, their batting poking out of frayed seams and edging. The antique and heirloom quilts were safe in the house; these were the quilts of picnics in the pasture, forts in the tack room, and makeshift pallets in the alley outside a sick animal’s stall. It was one of these old quilts that Sally flung over the loose hay when she took Luke up to the loft in the barn. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 50 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Forty-Nine. Listen to the audio version at Nobilis Erotica here!

Chapter 49

Luke noticed Sally’s absence during dinner, which was sandwiches and microwaved soup eaten in near silence in the living room; the weight of exhaustion and violence hung over the group like a drug haze. He washed out his soup bowl and went looking for her. Sootie trotted along behind him, happy to be wherever he was, peripherally involved in whatever he was doing.

He found Sally in the barn, leaning against the thick-beamed door frame and staring at the empty space full of footprints and recent trauma. He came up behind her and put his arms around her waist; she leaned against him, and her tensed muscles relaxed at his touch. The dog found a pile of hay and curled up to doze, one ear alert in case her people wandered. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 49 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Forty-Eight. Listen to the audio version at Nobilis Erotica here!

Chapter 48

All things considered, the puncture wound in Luke’s arm was the least of their problems, but Sally and Agatha insisted on dressing it. When they came out of the house, Alan was gone, collected by the reinforcements Cormick had called for before Luke and the others left for the storage facility. The dead troll in the middle of the yard was gone, as was Sally’s mother’s sedan–riddled with bullets, windows shot out, the front half crushed from its encounter with the gate, bloodstained from several different people, and containing the body of Glen the goblin. Luke wondered which of the myth-folk locals had used what sort of magic to rid the place of the car so quickly and quietly. The three council members from the troll prison had left for San Antonio for long-term treatment with a myth-folk doctor. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 48 →

Welcome to Capricious by Julie Cox, a Texan tale of love and magic. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Tuesday. This week is Chapter Forty-Seven. Listen to the audio version at Nobilis Erotica here!

Chapter 47

Luke played the ancient song, the first time he’d played it since that day so long ago. It hung in the chill air like the baying of a hound. It was not the happy song he once thought. It was enthusiastic, exciting, but for no wholesome reason. It was a call to arms, an invitation to rabid violence. It was the kind of song felt bone deep, an inevitable, terrible melody recognized by all who heard it because it hibernated in the deep reservoirs of human ancestral memory, burned into the minds and souls of those who had it ringing in their ears as they died. It was an old song about old blood. Luke understood now how right his mother and the teacher had been to be frightened when a six-year-old in Texas drew that song out of thin air and a cheap child’s violin. Continue reading Capricious: Chapter 47 →