I'm stuck.
It's guy trouble.
Would you mind if I brainstorm a little?
Working my problem through in public might help clear my mind, though it hasn't worked in a .doc
I've put my heroine between a rock and a hard place before, in Mating Net. I like the idea of look-alike hunks as the personification of the rock (the solid, worthy twin) and the hard place (the bad, dangerous, sexually ready twin).
Now we come to a story that I will probably NOT be permitted to call "Family Fork"! (It is another chess term, but it sounds grossly unhygienic in these days of H1N1 when we're being urged not to share.)
Devoron and Deverill are identical twins, and while they may not be inseparable, they do most things together. In my first alien romance, Forced Mate, they were banished from Earth after they both simultaneously showed signs of being rut-raged over Djinni-vera. Before any harm was done, 'Rhett intervened, and with his characteristic, elegantly brutal efficiency, put their lights out.
In Insufficient Mating Material, Devoron begins acting a little bit strangely, mostly off stage.
In Knight's Fork, suspicions surface that Devoron has a mild but chronic case of the rut-rage, and his behavior is like a juvenile delinquent elephant in musth. Happily for my gentler reader, most of his misbehavior is off stage.
While Devoron is hurling insults and picking (and losing) sword fights, no one is watching Deverill, whom the reader would be pardoned for taking as the good twin. Thus, Deverill has the opportunity to be presented with a cure for the "rut-rage".
Devoron is otherwise occupied. Deverill has to be the one that gets the "cure". I do need a "cure". Under the rules of the rut-rage that I set up in Forced Mate, Devoron and Deverill both ought to be fixated on Djinni. Still. Even eight years after they identified her as their scent love.
Yet, surly Devoron is the one who appears to have the frustrated hots for an undiscovered scent love back on Earth. (He has been to Earth recently.)
It is possible for males to be permanently fixated on their scent love and ready to fight to the death for mating rights, yet aware that another female is in heat. I've established that. I've also hinted that there must be a cure, but what it is has not occurred to any POV character so far.
At the end of Knight's Fork both Devoron and Deverill could be in the vicinity of Earth. They're not both supposed to be there, one of them is supposed to be on the Shadow Asgaard, and the other is on the Nirvanah. One of them is saddled with an inconvenient assignment.
So, which twin is going to locate (presumably by her scent) the new heroine? The cured-of-Djinni twin? Or the twin-in-musth who smelled her first, but who shouldn't be cured-of-Djinni ?
Does the good twin abduct Demetra by force? Or does the bad twin?
Which presents the greater danger to the heroine?
Which twin (good one or bad one) ought to come roaring to the rescue like an avenging .... djinn, furious that his brother has abducted his scent love.
(The ambiguity with the masculine possessive pronoun was deliberate.)
Maybe they should both be bad?
By the way, this is envisaged as a LoveSpell. It's not "Justine".
All the best,
Rowena Cherry
Mating Net is now available as a Kindle (for $2 )
http://www.amazon.
Posts
