Have you been touched by big wave magic?
Eek, I've written a new WILD SHORT READ in response to a glimmer here on the Northern Beaches which has lasted for days... Are you ready to devour something salty and delicious?
Greetings creative souls, talented friends and fellow book devourers,
I’ve been hit over the head with a new WILD SHORT READ. So I thought, rather than spend endless days polishing this wee tale right out of existence, I’d share it now in its rawest form so that we can marvel at this mini-whirlwind of creativity together.
Bonus, sharing this story sooner rather than later also means I can be released from its clutches and return to my beloved work-in-progress. WEATHER WITCH is the next book in my KNIGHTS OF DESTRUCTION, a steamy and action-packed paranormal motorcycle club romance series.
In today’s post at MIRI AND THE MUSE—which serves as both my indie author newsletter and a personal journal into living a creative life—you will find:
An update from the writing cave.
Some gorgeous pictures of this real life big wave energy.
A tasty paranormal treat from a talented friend that you can download and devour at your own leisure.
A WILD SHORT READ about a drowning surfer and her fated mate which I’ve called SALTY EMBRACE.
Scroll to the bottom if you want to devour this roiling fated mates tale straight away.
Fair warning. Like all of my WILD SHORT READS, this story is fodder for the Muse. It may well end up being expanded into a future novella or novel at some point, but for now I’m sharing it with you—for free—right here on MIRI AND THE MUSE in bite-sized format.
Update from the writing cave…
Hello my lovelies,
How does this always happen?!
I’d just announced no more WILD SHORT READS for a bit in my last update from the writing cave and then… BOOM. Life LYFED. And the Muse pounced on me.
Creativity is a trickster god, I’m sure of it!
I’m going to back up and explain. But first, here are a few pretty pictures from this week’s glimmer because the last few days really have been breathtaking and not just in a ‘being-swept-up-in-creative-flow-thank-you-goddess’ kind of a way.
I got pulled away from Weather Witch—a novel which you know I’m super excited to be writing—for admin of all things. Book keeping, in fact. Yep, it’s tax time again. Blerg!
As I was working my way through the pointy end of being an indie author, there was also a multi-day weather event building here on the Northern Beaches. Huge surf was shutting down the beaches up and down the coast with its big wave energy. This phenomenon has been drawing crowds of looky-loos to the beaches—including yours truly—all week because none of us could resist the allure of stealing away from our busy lives for a few minutes to marvel at the raw power of Mother Nature.
That’s how, I believe, this latest WILD SHORT READ tackled me unawares.
It pounced on me from the depths of that big foamy surf, when my guard was down and my heart was full of awe and wonder, then swept me up and dumped me back in the writing cave for a brief dalliance with pure inspiration.
And what a delicious respite from the daily grind it was!
Now it’s back to bookkeeping land for me and then… WEATHER WITCH. Storm and her mates are waiting—rather impatiently, I might add—to have their story told.
Have you been craving vampire paranormal romance lately?
A few of my talented writing friends and I have teamed up to bring you a tempting new tale to download and devour each month. This morsel is called A WHISPER THROUGH TIME by Ragan Carmichael… and doesn’t it look saucy?
SALTY EMBRACE
By Miri Stone
A #wildshortread hosted by MIRI AND THE MUSE
My life was already a wreck.
Watching yet another giant set of waves bearing down on me, slavering with sea foam and roaring in their eagerness to pummel me into submission against the unforgiving rocks below, didn’t rate in the top five disasters of the thirty-something years I’d spent—or, rather, wasted—here on Earth.
This squall wasn’t the punchline, nor was it even a notable headline.
More the inevitable conclusion of a brief and chaotic existence such as mine.
Something about this wild and woolly day, however, had kicked-started a chain reaction deep inside me. An instinct I thought had long since been snuffed out. It all came down to this—one singular, fierce and rather inconvenient truth—burning bright in the center of my soul.
I, Sofia Lazarus, didn’t actually want to die.
When faced with my inevitable doom—in a situation I’d stubbornly courted, none the less—I’d discovered that I wasn’t remotely ready to roll over and give in to my fate. Nope. Instead, I was doing my damnedest to survive.
No one was more shocked by this one-eighty than me.
After all, I’d spent the last year of my life chasing the edge. Poking my tongue out at death. Tempting fate. Lost in my grief, I’d been driven to the brink of insanity chasing an adrenaline rush where the land met the sea which reminded me to keep breathing, keep moving, keep resisting the decadent allure of the void.
But now, when Mother Nature had finally answered my plea for absolution, it turned out I wasn’t quite ready to run into the embrace of her open arms. Oh, no. I was suddenly—inexplicably—determined to find a way through the eye of the storm.
Despite the dark churn of the ocean, or perhaps because of it, my will to live shone through the murky depths of uncertainty. Like a blazing lighthouse, it was gloriously perched on a forlorn headland, beating back hopelessness as it pierced the gloom.
Searching, always searching.
But for what?
Or for whom?
I gasped as I felt a sharp tug in return.
Someone—or something—had answered my call.
They’d been searching, too.
I could feel them now.
Their determination a metallic stain on my tongue.
A formidable presence rushed headlong in my direction, racing faster than the waves could close in over my head. Grabbing hold of that urgency—their sheer, bloody-minded resolve to answer such an unlikely summons—I wrapped the bold presence around my soul as though it were a lifesaver ring. Then, I dove beneath the broiling surface before the maw towering above me could break.
Striving with every fiber of my being, I fought to continue my downward momentum even as the fist of the crashing wave grabbed me like a rag doll and shook the life out of my lungs. The world flipped upside down. Spinning, end over end, as I lost my grip on gravity and reality both. Such childish notions were wrenched from my mind by the endless churn. Another wave crashed upon the shore, then another. Each one adding to the turmoil.
Tugging me, thrusting me, battering me this way and that.
I felt—rather than heard—someone yell out in warning.
Before I could even raise my hands to protect myself, however, my skull thudded with a hollow crack against the brittle reef below. The last of my breath escaped in a grunt of pain.
My body was sucked away from the rocky headland as I was caught in a rip. The back of my head throbbed. Something warm and vital leaked out into the water, leaving a trail of my passage. I didn’t even have the energy to resist, I simply went with the flow as the ruthless current delivered me out to sea.
Deeper and deeper.
Colder and colder.
All the while, I was squeezed.
The pressure tried to transmute my insides into primal fear while the salty water worked its way into the gaps between my cells. But it was no good. There was no point in fighting. Not anymore. I’d slipped into a wondrous place where fear couldn’t touch me.
Suspended forever in the balance between life and death.
My limbs became nothing but seaweed, flowing in time with the currents.
My eyes transformed into sea shells as they opened in search of the stars.
A small, ineffectual scowl rippled briefly across my forehead like a tiny wave upon a pristine shore when I realized the gentle giants of the sky were hidden by infinite gloom. How unfortunate. However, the momentary distress was soon brushed away by the tender embrace of the endless ocean.
Then, all at once, sharp awareness exploded across my vision, disrupting my calm.
That bold presence I’d felt only in my imagination was taking shape.
Racing, always racing.
Toward me.
But what was this soul racing for?
There was no rush.
Time meant nothing down here in the depths.
Direction had become empty and meaningless, too.
The monster didn’t seem to concur for—seeing my plight—he let out a mighty roar. Bellowing in defiance, his open maw was filled with razor sharp teeth. The sight should have been worrying, to say the least, but I could only focus on his eyes as they bored into mine.
How could I be afraid when this newcomer was gripped in such soul-splitting terror? I wanted to reach out to the monster, to comfort him, but my hands were made of seaweed and had no will of their own.
His eyes widened in understanding, as though my concern for his well-being had touched him. Reinvigorated his mission in some way. The orbs burned with fresh hope, reminding me of that brave, solitary lighthouse I’d imagined on the headland. The one that refused to quit, no matter how terrible the storm.
The monster said something to me—something I’m sure was supposed to be reassuring—but the pressure in my ears had burst my ear drums so all I could hear was the symphony of the sea.
Putting on a fresh burst of speed, the male eliminated the space between our bodies, crushing me to his chest as he raced off again. I wanted to tell him to quit hurrying because all was well. My mouth remained closed like clam. Given I had no breath left to waste, anyway, I simply released my fate into his arms.
It felt good to be here.
With him.
It was only right we should be together in the end.
Held against his solid form—not warm, but cool and unyielding in its singular purpose—was reassuring.
I was no longer alone.
A beautiful smile crept across my frozen lips.
Reflections dappled their hazy way across the surface of my mind.
Tiny impressions trickling down through the submerged kaleidoscope of sluggish consciousness.
The monster was huge, muscular and well-adapted to this brutal environment. Pretty gills on his neck worked industriously to milk the salt water for sustenance while his muscles felled a path through its inky depths. His gills tickled my hairline from where my head was cradled into the crook of his neck. A peek down below revealed that his feet—somewhat resembling a humanoid shape still in the process of being carved out of marble—had become fused into a powerful tale. This marvelous appendage tore through the aching distance to wherever we were going like a sharp knife through tissue paper.
From where my eyelids kissed his neck, I marveled at the ever-changing skin along the male’s chest and abdominals, wishing I had the energy to trace its lurid patterns. One moment the surface of his thick hide seemed to pulse, luminous and otherworldly, like a string of pearls reflecting dappled moonlight. Then, the next, it seemed to be sampling the aquamarine landscape of the ocean, forming a roadmap as delicate and intricate as the designs of a paua shell.
Drifting in his arms, I sensed two chords floating in the ocean between us. Each tether emerging from the center of our souls.
Searching, always searching.
For each other?
If that was the case then it seemed a travesty that the monster and I were so close and yet these delicate tendrils had not intertwined.
I was dying. I knew it. He knew it. Hell, the sea definitely knew it. Hungered for it, in fact. But I couldn’t bear the thought of floating down to the aquatic graveyard far below without tasting one perfect moment of connection.
So, in that strange twilight, my seaweed hands took shape in my mind’s eye. I reached out and joined those tethers. Tenderly placing the ragged edges together. As if one could offer comfort to the other. Ying and yang.
Big mistake.
With a thirst which scared me, the pair locked together.
The fusion of two opposites instantaneous.
And brutal.
My whole being jerked as power surged between us.
Lightning struck every nerve in my body, forcing it into crystalized consciousness.
I was suddenly, painfully, aware of how deep we were.
Of the heaviness of the water pressing down on my soul.
Of the anger as the gods realized that I—a mere mortal—dared defy their terrible odds.
Well, screw the gods. I’d only just found him. So I would be clawing my way back to survival, thank you very much. And this beautiful monster was going to help me do it. But my escape from death’s clutches would come at a price.
I knew it with a terrible certainty as I screamed in agony.
My heart began to thump again in my chest.
Pumping in time with the monster’s own.
Now we shared one beat.
One life source.
He must have felt it, too, because I could have sworn the male cursed as his speed faltered, almost coming to a stop. His body was also being wracked by insurmountable pain. Lightning rushed down his spine in nightmarish unison with my own. A cacophony of silence as our souls keened and our bodies shuddered under siege. I thought he’d throw me away from him, then. Cast me adrift before I caused him more harm. But his arms merely tightened, refusing to release me nor to let me go through this blind terror alone, even though my fingers clawed at his fishy hide.
I was desperate to escape this excruciating turmoil.
Surely, he was, too?
His breath was ragged in his chest and his heart was thundering in the pulse beneath my cheek. Still, the male didn’t let go. In fact, he redoubled his efforts and quickly regained his former speed, maybe even surpassed it. His jaw locked into battle-position as the magic raged inside our cells.
Soon enough, my wish for a temporary reprieve was granted. The transformation became too much for my fragile human mind and I blanked out. Yet some indefinable part of me remained there.
Anchored in his arms.
Like a stubborn oyster, I clung onto life and his bold essence as if they were one and the same. Perhaps they were. The chord stretched between us seemed to come to life with possibilities I couldn’t even begin to fathom.
And so the monster—my monster—swam on.
I knew he would either succeed in carrying me to our destination or join me on the ocean floor. Either way, I could rest easy in his salty embrace, for I was already home.
[“SALTY EMBRACE” is an original short work written by Miri Stone © 2025. All rights reserved.]
Want to devour more of these delicious WILD SHORT READS?
All of my favorite shifter and paranormal romance WILD SHORT READS are hosted right here—for free—on MIRI AND THE MUSE. I’ve included quick links and a short blurb below so you read them all!
Another ocean-inspired fated mates story. This one is about a selkie and his human mate who, once a year, dances his heart out on a deserted beach… hoping to connect with his beloved in the waves. (MM)
A fledgling necromancer is trying to banish three uninvited house guests, aka. ghosts, but accidentally summons something much more dangerous in their stead. (MFMM)
This Christmas-themed short is about a tattoo artist whose life is about to be upended by two hot-as-F bikers and the trouble that’s following them when they roll into the Dragon’s Den for some ink. (MFM)
A dark and delicious tale about an ancient goddess in the throes of a curse who is determined to break the chains of fate so that she can write her own ending. (MF)
Set in New Zealand, this one features a kiwi shifter who paints herself into a corner when her demanding lecturer and her strictly ‘off-limits’ but ridiculous hawt BFF surprise her in her painting studio on a wild and stormy night. (MFM)
This wee ditty is all about the beautiful torture of watching… when a brood of gargoyles are called to defend their fated mate from a bloodthirsty horde of vampires. (FMMM)
A recently-turned wolf shifter returns to her hometown where she is forced to confront her childhood crush… only to discover he is both her fated mate and harboring a dark secret. (MF)
A fun take on accidentally summoning characters from a book with plenty of deliciously decadent possibilities for both conjuror and the conjured… (MFM)
Happy reading, friends and fellow book devourers!
With love,
M.S. xox
Oh wow I did not expect anything and was so pleasantly surprised by how the story unfolded!! The pacing feels so effortless, too
Oh, this was just beautiful! Thank you for the amazing read, Miri! 💜