Something Old, Something New
A DRA Production
Seven bestselling authors. Seven incredible second chance romances. One epic anthology.
What would you do for another chance with the one you love?
Something Old, Something New - a unique novella anthology - tries to answer this question with fantastic, different, desi dramas.
Whether it is shapeshifters or shifting interracial relationships, single moms in small towns or rich alpha heroes, friends-to-lovers or passionate ex-husbands; this anthology has something for everyone.
Something Old, Something New explores the many different facets of love, forgiveness, fated mates and more in seven, distinctly Indian tales!
Blood Red Love by Neil D'Silva
When beauty becomes the beast...is love enough to save her?
Vimal, the most eligible bachelor in town, falls in love with the elusive Yamini, the most beautiful girl he has ever seen.
It sounds like a match made in heaven, but wait—the darkest of secrets besmirches their love. Yamini is not all human, and the non-human part of her, which she transforms into once a week, is the most terrifying anyone has ever seen.
Throwing all caution to the wind, Vimal plunges headlong in her love and vows to do whatever it takes to be with her, even if it means playing with his own life every single night.
For a while, everything goes according to plan. But strange are the ways of the supernatural! Yamini loses control her transformation, and to much greater horror, she has no control over her actions.
Will Vimal be able to find a cure for Yamini’s rare condition and make her his eternally? Will Yamini be able to find true love in Vimal? Or does destiny have something else in store for both of them, something that they could never have imagined in their wildest of fancies?
To know the answers, read Blood Red Love, the newest offering from Neil D’Silva.
Read an Excerpt from Blood Red Love
Vimal wanted this night to last, which was not different from any other night that they were together, and he used every method he had learnt with her to prolong the night. His greatest pleasure lay in giving the gift of himself to her and then withdrawing it just when she was about to savor it fully, and then give himself again.
That pandered to his male ego—even the most decent of men cannot escape the male ego—for it placed control in his hands, and he would have it no other way.
Yamini did not mind it either.
She loved every bit of what he did to him—even the deprivation—because she knew one thing that all women know. And that is, men never have the power in their hands. Even when they think they have the power, they are fools because it is the woman who has given it to them.
The house around them had gone to sleep. The city was silent too.
The only thing that could be heard now was the soft swishing of the eiderdown quilt that was sometimes over them and sometimes under them, and the movements of the two bodies in their heightened moments.
Vimal whispered, 'Are you tired?'
Yamini just about managed a grunt.
'Okay then,' he said, and dove in for one last time for that night. Holding her close, he grabbed her by the small of her back.
That was the moment when he felt something at her back and withdrew in shock.
'What is it? What’s wrong?' Yamini asked, afraid.
He quickly picked her up and brought her to the full-length wardrobe mirror. He directed her back at the mirror and their eyes grew wide in shared horror.
'How is that possible?' Vimal gasped.
'I-I-I don’t know…' she stammered. 'Tonight is a safe night.'
But apparently it was not. For, sprouting from her waist, just above the coccygeal vertebrae of her tailbone, was a tuft of black feathers.
'You… you are turning!' he said, aghast.
'I am!'
She should have run into her room at once, but the shock was so heavy for both of them they couldn’t think!
They kept staring at the tuft of feathers until they grew out prominently and took the shape of wings, and even as that happened, feathers sprouted from all over her skin; not the tiniest space was spared.
But the most wondrous transformation was on her face.
Vimal watched in horror as her ears retracted into her skull, her eyebrows grew heavy and covered with a fuzzy, fibrous growth… her upper lip retreated while her lower lip and nose grew till their tips touched each other and assumed the shape of a beak.
Yamini grew in size too, and when she was so large that her head hit the ceiling, deadly talons erupted from her toes, popping out like from an automatic gun, and repeatedly clacked on the floor with a manic fury.
It was that sound that broke Vimal’s reverie.
About the Author:
Neil D’Silva primarily writes horror and is published with Penguin Random House, Rupa Publications, and Hachette among others. His books and other stories are in the process of being adapted for screen on various platforms. He is the founder and festival-director of Mumbai’s interschool litfest, Litventure, and mentors aspiring writers. He has conducted workshops on writing at several places, notably at IIT Kanpur, and has also spoken on a TEDx stage on the art of writing a bestseller. He hails from Mumbai and pursues writing as his full-time vocation.
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