Lily Mayne

Twenty years ago, monsters rose on earth and began a new age of civilization.

One where humans live in military-controlled, cramped and dirty cities along the coasts, and the majority of the United States is known as the Wastes. A lawless, desolate and dangerous place, teeming with monsters that have claimed the land for their own.

Including Wyn the Soul Eater.

He appears every three years, making his way across the country and slaughtering humans randomly, sucking them dry until they’re nothing but husks.

I’ve only been in the military for six months, but now I’m part of a unit tasked with trying to stop and capture him. And when I’m the only soldier out of hundreds that the Soul Eater leaves alive, I realise that… something about me has intrigued him.

But what is it? What could a twenty-three year old guy from the south, with no one and nothing in the world, have possibly done to capture the attention of a death monster with horns, blackened fingertips and a face hidden in the dark depths of his hood?

Soul Eater is the debut novel of Lily Mayne. It is the first in a planned post-apocalyptic fantasy series featuring monsters and human men falling in love. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit content and is not suitable for young readers. There are also graphic depictions of torture and violence.
Revised and extended: August 2021

Soul Eater

I was just a boy when the monsters rose on earth, forcing humans to flee to the coastlines and live in cramped, dirty, military-controlled cities. I enlisted as soon as I could to escape.

Now, I’ve been in the military for twelve years and have the scars—and missing body parts—to prove it. As a hardened soldier who’s spent his fair share of time out in the Wastes—the dangerous place where monsters roam free—I didn’t think anything could surprise me anymore.

But then circumstance forced me together with a big, annoying purple monster who’s arrogant and bossy and pushes all my buttons in the worst—and best—ways. I need his help, and I hate needing anyone’s help. But the more time I spend with him, the more I realise that maybe there’s more from him that I need. And that he might need things from me too.

But I’m still a soldier. I still have responsibilities. It doesn’t matter how I feel about Edin, because we can’t be together. It’s too dangerous.

That doesn’t stop me wanting him, though.


Edin is Book Two of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that focuses on monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of torture and violence, and mentions PTSD.

Edin

Life as a raider in the Wastes, where monsters roam and the military lurks, is as easy as it sounds.

I’ve been out here for a long time, and the fear that courses through my blood every time I have to step outside our camp walls to scavenge never fades. No matter how many monsters you face—and have to run for your life from—it doesn’t ever get easier.

But when I come across a bound and injured monster in an abandoned military base, I can’t leave him behind. His presence in our camp is causing tension, but I can’t bring myself to care when I get to see a different side to him—when he starts to show me who he is, beneath the pain and lingering trauma.

But despite his gentle nature, I soon discover why others are so desperate to own him. Why the military, and now this stranger lurking outside our camp, want to put him back in chains and take him away from me.

There’s something hiding under his skin. Something that threatens to upend my entire life, the one I’ve spent my years carefully protecting out here.

There’s a reason why all other monsters fear him.

The Rycke is Book Three of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of torture and violence, and deals with PTSD.

The Rycke

When I—along with my best friend and his big purple monster boyfriend—come across a fortress-like raider camp while journeying across the monster-infested Wastes, we stop to deliver a message.

Somehow, that simple pit stop turns into a seemingly impossible quest to get this camp’s missing leader out of the prison where he’s being held and forced to fight monsters and other humans. And I know exactly where it is, because I’ve been there.

Problem is, I’m making this journey with the prickliest and most arrogant guy I’ve ever met, who seems to immediately hate me on sight. Oh, and he’s also half monster. So there’s that. And he’s in love with a raider who definitely does not love him back, and he seems determined to take it out on me. So there’s also that.

But I’m not going to rise to his childish insults and barbed words. I’m not.

I’m also going to try very hard to ignore how mindnumbingly beautiful he is, even when he’s scowling at me.

But the longer we’re out here together, the more I learn about my prickly half monster companion Moth. I realise there’s a reason he’s so closed off and angry. There’s a reason he hates everyone.

There are secrets he’s been keeping, and when I find out what they are, I want to do everything in my power to help him—even though he’s telling me he can’t be helped.

Moth is Book Five of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order. Warning:This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of death and violence.

Moth

When a strange woman shows up outside our camp in the Wastes with monsters chained up to her RV, it feels like I’m the only one who actually wants to help them.

That big, grey-skinned monster with the cage on his head and the chain hanging from his back—something is telling me I need to help him. I need to free him. But I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to do that, especially when he can’t even talk to me to tell me how.

Collector Mary is finally leaving our camp to head back to her monster menagerie, so I do the only thing I can think of to help him. I go with her.

Now, this big beastie and I are travelling companions for the foreseeable future. Now I just have to think of a way to get that cage off his head, which seems like an impossible task. But I’m not giving up. He has no one else, and when I start to discover who he is beneath the cage, my motivation to free him becomes far more than just a desire to help.

This is so dangerous. The military is lurking. Vicious monsters are lurking. And when Mary turns out to be even worse than we could have ever imagined, my desperate bid to save this monster turns into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to die out here.

Gloam is Book Four of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order. Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of torture and violence.

Gloam

I am a monster.

A ghoul. A demon. The bogeyman. I have been called all of them. Most creatures fear me, but humans are repulsed by me. They are terrified of me. They have created legends about me, ever since they became aware of my existence when the tear between our worlds grew and we—the monsters from their nightmares—flooded through in our droves.

There is only one human who isn’t afraid of me. The only one who matters. And I will destroy anyone who tries to hurt him or take him from me. Danny is mine.

For the first time in my unfathomably long life, I know what it means to want another so much that the thought of losing him threatens to ruin me. I will do anything to keep Danny with me for as long as I can have him—for as long as he is willing to stay by the side of an ancient, scarred creature with a voice so inhuman it has sent some mad.

For some reason, Danny loves my voice. For some reason, Danny loves me. And when we both decide that his natural human life is nowhere near enough time for us to have together, we go on a journey between worlds to the one place where we can do what it takes for us to be together forever.

Wyn is a sweet, low-angst novella that is part of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read this series in order—if you haven’t read books one to three already, there are big spoilers in this!

Warning:This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains graphic depictions of torture and violence, and very briefly mentions the lingering effects of PTSD.

I first saw the Folk when I was a little boy. When they started appearing in my garden, with their unnatural, cruel beauty and honeyed words and veiled taunts. I grew up with big green eyes watching me from the forest. Whispers from the trees. Shimmering skin darting between the bushes. Black creatures always lurking in the shadows.

While they were here, I thought nothing of them. It wasn’t until they were gone that I realise it wasn’t… normal.

But it isn’t until I’m twenty-one, when my life is in ruins, that they come back to take me away.

They say I’m not fully mortal. They say I should be among them. The Unseelie Ruler wants me on her land for reasons no one will explain to me, but it’s her aloof, painfully beautiful son who captures my attention and refuses to let go.

The cold, black-eyed assassin prince who strikes fear into the hearts of all Folk. Who I’ve been warned about, repeatedly.

Who watches me always.

I don’t trust the Folk, so I ignore their fearful advice to stay away from him. I ignore all of them except him, despite everything telling me that he can’t be trusted—that he’s just as bad as the rest of them, that he’s playing games with me, the clueless mortal held here against his will.

But I want him.

Mortal Skinis the first in a mm fae romance trilogy about a dark fae assassin prince and a mortal who is thrown into the cruel world of the Folk.

Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains depictions of violence and deals with the death of a close family member. This trilogy will follow the same couple who get their HEA eventually, but book one ends on a cliffhanger.

Mortal Skin

I realise that I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to kill him, even for his own sake, but it doesn’t matter anyway. He’s already dying, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Not even when new visitors at our raider camp bring with them secrets about Seraph. Secrets the military has tried to hide.

I’m used to it. It’s what I do here. Kill monsters and other people. And this monster, Seraph, is particularly unstable—has been since the moment he arrived from Collector Mary’s monster menagerie to the west, where the military stashed him away.

When I start guarding him in his cage every night, I begin to see the person beneath the agony that tortures his every waking moment. I begin to see who Seraph could have been if he hadn’t been twisted into this monstrous creature.

He’s in pain. I can see it. But he’s not a mindless beast. Not like some of the others think.

I’ve already mentally prepared myself to kill the screaming, murderous monster in the cage outside our camp.

And now… Now, I will kill anyone who tries to hurt him again.

Secrets that reveal the true extent of the horror he’s been put through.

Monstrous six

Seraph

My mortal skin is gone.

I’m one of them. One of the Folk. And all I feel is anger.

I’m going to kill the Carlin and her sons for everything they did to me. It’s all I care about.

But first, I have to navigate this new world. My new skin. My new brother. And, when I fall into her clutches, my fae mother—the Brid. The Seelie Queen.

I don’t like what I’m becoming, but I can’t stop it. Something’s wrong with me. Something’s missing. There’s a hollow ache in my chest and I can’t fill it, no matter what I do. It’s like I’ve forgotten something vital from my time on unseelie land.

Why do I feel so incomplete? Why do I have an oath etched onto my skin, one I don’t remember making? Why is there a tiny black feather nestled in my throat that I can’t bring myself to take off?

Why do I feel so much longing every time I see a beautiful black-haired, black-eyed unseelie fae, even though I don’t remember him at all?

My life has become yet another game of cat and mouse, but this time it’s not just the Carlin and her sons trying to get me. New threats lurk, and I have to force myself into this new fae skin to be able to fight them.

Forgotten Vowsis the second in a mm fae romance trilogy about a dark fae assassin prince and a ‘mortal’ who is thrown into the cruel world of the Folk.

Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains depictions of violence, serious injury, death, minor drug use and deals with the death of a close family member. This trilogy follows the same couple who get their HEA eventually, but book two ends on a HFN.

Forgotten Vows

Untitled

He’s the most perfect man I’ve ever met, but something is… wrong. 
I don’t see it at first. All I see is the gorgeous man with dark eyes and long hair and that unusual blue beard. The piercings and the tattoos, the beautiful smile. All I can focus on is the way he touches me, the sound of his voice in my ear, the perfect life he draws me into. 
I hide it from him at first. The fact that… I think I’m losing my mind. That I keep seeing something lurking in the corners of rooms, keep hearing a terrible voice mumbling in the dead of night, keep seeing white eyes watching me in the dark. 
Something is haunting me. Tormenting me. Trying to ruin this perfect life I now have with Theo, so I do my best to pretend that everything is fine. That I’m not terrified I’m losing my mind, or that a demon is stalking the halls every night trying to… get me. 
Until I can’t pretend anymore. Until I realise… the monster in my nightmares and my perfect, loving boyfriend are not so different after all. 
Death’s Bloom is an MM horror retelling of Bluebeard, as part of the collaboration Monsters & Mayhem: An MM Horror Collection, adapting some of your favourite classic horror stories with an MM romance twist. 
Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It includes mild BDSM, including restraint and breath play, and MMM elements as well as graphic depictions of death, gore and violence, a somewhat toxic relationship and morally reprehensible characters. 
Trigger warnings: Explicit sexual content; restraint; throatf*cking; breath play; hair pulling; primal play; consensual sex while one MC is (knowingly) possessed; elements of MMM through demonic possession; male MC who wears “feminine” clothing including lingerie; MC who questions their mental health; graphic descriptions of on-page killing, injury and violence; brief mentions of queerphobia; themes of religion, demons and worship; horror elements of ghosts, hauntings and demonic possession. 

Monsters & Mayhem

Death's Bloom

(Goliaths of Wrestling Book 1)

Impromptu Match

My role as Moric—ruler of a small and prosperous fiefdom in a quiet corner of the world—has always been painfully dull and stifling.

Until a beautiful, otherworldly creature with pink skin and a mane of golden hair falls through a strange void that has appeared in my guestroom.

And I am instantly captivated by him.

I have never seen anything like him. I have no idea where he came from, and what else is through that unsettling void—another world filled with soft-skinned, defenceless creatures like him? No tails, no horns, no claws, no sharp teeth. Tiny clothing, rounded ears, bright blue eyes. He is fascinating. And I want to keep him.

But I have no idea how my citizens and councillors will react to his presence—to the knowledge that a whole other world exists, and there is a portal to it in my guestroom. As much as I try to keep him my secret, the truth starts to slip out.

And those in my fiefdom who cling desperately onto power do their best to tear us apart. To take him from me.

I won’t let them.

Lor is Book Seven of the Monstrous series, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order.

Warning: This m/m love story contains explicit sexual content and is not suitable for young readers. It also contains non-human genitalia, mentions of a past familial death, grief, depression, attempted murder, depictions of death and violence. 

Montrous #7

A 34.5k word short for Christmas 2022! This short sees the Nebraska camp celebrating a (late) Christmas, with lots of food and gift-giving and *ahem* other stuff. 
It features every POV of the Monstrous lads so far! (Plus Anchor!)

Content warnings: Oh boy here we go: Explicit sexual content, 18+ only, mentions of death and grief, alcohol consumption, pimple popping, blood and pus (Wyn hates pus!), groping in public (Charlie you bastard), restraint, use of sex toys, very brief mention of Moth’s past abuse, mentions of anxiety, squirrel, Edin flashes everyone, Hunter has unique feelings about Mrs Claus, chastity, lingerie, Wyn being a filthy old man, my poor sweet Danny goes through some things, graphic description of death, mentions of nausea and an instance of vomiting, inhuman genitalia 
Spoiler warning: Set after the events of Seraph (Monstrous: Book Six)

Monstrous #6.5

A Monstrous Christmas in the Camp

Twenty years ago, monsters rose on earth and began a new age of civilization. One where humans live in military-controlled, cramped and dirty cities along the coasts, and the majority of the United States is known as the Wastes. A lawless, desolate and dangerous place, teeming with monsters that have claimed the land for their own. Including Wyn the Soul Eater. He appears every three years, making his way across the country and slaughtering humans randomly, sucking them dry until they’re nothing but husks. I’ve only been in the military for six months, but now I’m part of a unit tasked with trying to stop and capture him. And when I’m the only soldier out of hundreds that the Soul Eater leaves alive, I realise that... something about me has intrigued him. But what is it? What could a twenty-three year old guy from the south, with no one and nothing in the world, have possibly done to capture the attention of a death monster with horns, blackened fingertips and a face hidden in the dark depths of his hood?

Goliaths of Wrestling #2

Clean Finish

Rafe
I really, really don’t like my neighbour.

We’ve lived next door to each other for three years, and we couldn’t be more opposite. I’m a quiet, introverted ghoul with a small friend group and a love of true crime podcasts and tabletop role-playing games. Dan Ewen a party boy with an endless string of ‘guests’ who likes to blare country music all night. He’s loud, inconsiderate, messy, loud, a total dudebro… did I mention loud?

And when I start my new job as IT manager at Goliaths of Wrestling, an underground supernatural wrestling organisation, I quickly discover that my terrible dullahan neighbour is now my new colleague. Great.

I still don’t like him. It doesn’t change anything. I can avoid him at work. But when I spot him one night through his living room window doing something that is utterly shocking, obscene, really weird… I find myself thinking about my annoying neighbour. A lot.

All the time, actually.

Oh no.

Dan
That neighbour of mine is a cute, surly ghoul whose pretty green eyes and angry scowl just make me want to rile him up even more.

We’ve never really been buddies, despite living side by side for three years. But when he starts working at Goliaths as our IT manager, helping to bring us into a new digital age, our lives begin to become a bit more entangled.

Mainly because he starts watching me each night while I… relax. So I make sure to give him a good show through my living room window.

I’ve always assumed Rafe Hare is straight, but it quickly becomes clear that I might be wrong. And when I propose a fantastic new way for us to get… ahem… friendlier, he’s as all-in as I am.

Which means I get to show him just how weird it can get with a dullahan. And I can’t wait.

(Goliaths of Wrestling Book 3)

Cheap Heat 

King of Death

Revisit the Monstrous couples from the first seven novels of the series in this collection of sixteen short stories. Plus, meet a new Monstrous couple in a brand new 20k-word novella, Ruke.

Catch up with the original monster-human couple, Danny and Wyn, in their Wastes-style adventures; witness Moth and Wyn’s blossoming and potentially concerning friendship; find out all the new ways Edin has been frustrating Hunter (lovingly) since their story ended; and join Lor and Jugs in welcoming a new furry addition to their monster-world family.

Want to find out more about Wyn’s ex Orlith? In this collection, you can take a peek at some very old letters between the two telyths, read Orlith’s historic (pre-Danny) attempts to seduce our favourite grumpy Soul Eater, and meet his uptight and righteous older sibling.

Ruke (A Monstrous Novella)
In the brand new novella Ruke, human Jamie finally finds the one being he can trust after a lifetime of loneliness…

I was born the night monsters rose on earth. I’m a true child of the new world. I’ve never met a single other soul except for my dad, who decided to keep us out here in the Wastes when he escaped with me from the hospital that catastrophic night.

But now Dad’s gone, and I’m alone. Completely alone. I don’t trust humans—not raiders, not the military, not all the people living in those big dirty coastal cities—so I find the most remote spot I can to settle down and live out the rest of my life on my own, just like my dad always taught me was safest.

But I’m not on my own out here. Something is here with me—someone is leaving me strange gifts by my campfire every night. And suddenly, I realise that I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want them to go.

When he finally shows himself to me, I realise that my mystery companion out here isn’t human.

And that suits me just fine.

This is a collection of short stories set within the Monstrous universe, a post-apocalyptic m/m fantasy series that features monsters and human men falling in love. It is best to read the series in order.

Warning: These stories contain explicit sexual content and are not suitable for young readers. The introduction for each short story contains content and spoiler warnings specific to that story. Main content warnings include explicit sexual content, non-human genitalia, mentions of death, injury and violence, restraint and mentions of past trauma, but please check the warnings specific to each short story.

Monstrous #7.5

A Collection of Monstrous Short Stories

Nikole Knight

YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT’S HIDING UNDER YOUR BED…
At twenty-four, Cody has already lost hope of having a life of his own. All his time is spent playing nurse to a dying, spiteful step-father and maid to his bully half-brother. His only escapes are playing his favorite online fantasy game, Black Oasis, and talking to the strange, unearthly presence under his bed that may or may not actually exist.

But everything changes when his nightly visitor, who introduces himself as Nor, starts talking back.

As their connection deepens, Nor invites Cody into the surreal world existing just beyond his nightmares, filled with haughty demons, passion-killing pet bugs named Gef, and a dark landscape that is oddly familiar. With his sweet but monstrous companion by his side, Cody might finally gain the life of freedom and adventure that he’s always wanted.

Join Nor and Cody as they unearth the true meaning of hope, passion, and a love of endless depths that spans between worlds in Whispers in the Dark, the first book in Knight and Mayne’s co-authored queer, monster romance series, Black Oasis.

WHISPERS IN THE DARK IS AN M/M MONSTER ROMANCE FULL OF HURT/COMFORT, ANGST, HUMOR, AND A SWEET, SPICY LOVE BETWEEN A REDHEADED TEXAN AND HIS PRECIOUS, SIX-FINGERED DEEPDWELLER. THIS LOVE STORY CONTAINS EXPLICIT CONTENT AND IS NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG READERS. BE SURE TO CHECK THE TRIGGER WARNINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOK FOR MORE DETAILS.

Lily Mayne

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