My coworkers are all married and they’ve started popping out kids.  I’m at a corporate bring-your-family get together and everyone is firmly ensconced in first-world tedium:  SUV talk, PTA stuff, the latest yuppie-geared New Agery…I’m bored out of my skull.  I look around and notice they’ve gradually formed a ring around me.  WTF?  “One of us is not like the others, Kent.  We’re tired of you being single and not contributing to our groupthink.  You think you’re better than us?  a ‘cocksman?’ A ‘dicksmith?’ ”  I want to laugh but this is too creepy.  I say, “No man, I just like to—”  He cuts me off:  “I DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT.  Children…AT HIM!”  Every kid there, from infant to teenager, looks at me in unison, their eyes lighting red.  Suddenly they’re galloping at me on all fours, fangs extending from their mouths.  HOLY BALLS!  Open my eReader to Echo.  Magic flash.  I hear a mythic croon slice the air and a cyborg velociraptor materializes in front of me.  It’s saddled, has a gatling laser cannon mounted on its neck, and a sheathed longsword named Iceflame dangling off it.  It turns to me and yells, “My name is Grimstroke, I’m here to save you!  Jump on!”  I leap on its back and ride like the wind, strafing the demon-tikes with the gatling laser.  Then I charge into my evil coworkers’ midst, laying them low with a radiance-threaded Iceflame.  After a path is cleared, I charge off into the sunset, my heart beating a mile a minute, my grin as wide as the blue summer sky.

Swords, lasers, and cyborg dinosaur besties!  Get Echo Vol. 1 on Kindle here:  Vol. 1 on Kindle.  Vol. 2 on Kindle here:  Vol.2 on Kindle.