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44: Defeat
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2020-10-30 11:24:49Carson
Even though he’s technically in charge, I’m never inclined to directly obey Cordelion. Except when he’s stupid enough to be planning a head-on attack on the Candlewood weres. Then, I’m all in, but I’m still taking a few personal liberties. Sure, I told a couple hundred more vamps if they didn’t show up in three nights, he’d be coming to kill them—which isn’t really true, Cordelion never does any of his own legwork, so it’ll be me— but I’m taking my own sweet time getting back. He knows I’m a late riser anyway.
And breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I never skip it.
As it happens, I’m sitting in a dingy crowded diner with my hands wrapped around a steaming mug of the absolute sewage this place calls coffee and that I have no intention of drinking, and looking over the my menu options sitting at the other tables when I overhear a co
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Anna Jack’s arm tightens around me reflexively as I try to leave the bed. “Roll over, lover,” I whisper, pushing against him, and obliging even in his sleep, he does as he’s asked. His hand unconsciously seeks Lili as my replacement and he pulls her against him on the other side, allowing me to slip out. I kiss his temple, then hers.It doesn’t make any sense. I pad quietly to the French door that leads to the courtyard, ruminating. Then again, neither does what I’m about to do. I don’t know why, but it’s all I can think of since Ian’s funeral. Now that all the strangers have departed for their home territories, there’s time for me to pursue it.The bitter cold raises fierce gooseflesh over my entire body as I soon as I step outside and I shiver. Fighting th
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IanStanding at the bare office window in the temporary building housing me, Sean and our assistants, I stare unblinking even against the brightness, noting the construction crews’ progress clearing and rebuilding the Candlewood shops along the destroyed plaza. With the framing complete for the shops in the small notch where Suzanne’s boutique once stood, the contractors have started installing the building’s major systems, including plumbing pipes, electrical wiring and heating and cooling ducts. I cross my arms over my chest, pleased overall.Further around the plaza, crews are working on a new façade— the forties style diner storefront Darla and Joe have always wanted—and the Main street government offices like mine and Seans and Jack’s Security building will be restored to look as they did before. On the opposite side of the plaza, I see Charlie, dresse
Where Wild Things Roam 53: Afterward
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Where Wild Things Roam 47: Desperate Measures
CarsonIf I thought it sucked clawing and dragging my blackened flesh out of the scraping clinging earth, I was sorely mistaken.Compared to the blinding screaming pain of crumpling every severely damaged nerve against every inch of edgy crisped flesh into the smallest iota of space, then twisting and squeezing it through a port, crawling over frozen coarse loam and grit to lay in the snow was child’s play.When I come to, I have no clue how long I’ve been draped like a wet towel over the back of a Queen Anne wingback chair in the downstairs parlor. Just that the scratchy cotton-polyester upholstery I spent a small fortune for during the renovations here feels like I’m lying on ground glass.Ahhh, home.The scent of garden violas drifts on the mercifully warm moist air and from somewhere in the distance, the
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Anna Jack’s arm tightens around me reflexively as I try to leave the bed. “Roll over, lover,” I whisper, pushing against him, and obliging even in his sleep, he does as he’s asked. His hand unconsciously seeks Lili as my replacement and he pulls her against him on the other side, allowing me to slip out. I kiss his temple, then hers.It doesn’t make any sense. I pad quietly to the French door that leads to the courtyard, ruminating. Then again, neither does what I’m about to do. I don’t know why, but it’s all I can think of since Ian’s funeral. Now that all the strangers have departed for their home territories, there’s time for me to pursue it.The bitter cold raises fierce gooseflesh over my entire body as I soon as I step outside and I shiver. Fighting th
