DIRTY DEEDS 2 comes out on June 7. Find it for preorder at all the usual distributors. Here is non-spoiler-ish excerpt.
Liz and Eli Sitting
She stared at her cell screen, at Eli’s name and pic, her finger ready to tap the call.
It was an excuse. She knew that. She also knew Eli was heading to New Orleans for his friend’s wedding and she hadn’t been invited along as his plus-one. That was a thing, being a plus one at a wedding, and this was the first big social event since they had started seeing one another again.
Eli didn’t talk a lot, no chitchat, no chain of consciousness patter, no gushy mushy stuff, so she seldom knew where she stood with him. Not that she needed that kind of emotional validation. Not her. Never. Or she never had before she met Eli. It had never mattered what a man thought or felt about her until now. Maybe because she had never really been in love with a guy, not with that desperate, weak-in-the-knees, want to spend her life with him kind of love.
He’d be gone for weeks, a trip that also involved his political and security work for some kind of coronation involving Jane Yellowrock, the Dark Queen of the Mithrans, the Master of the City of New Orleans, the master of Clan Yellowrock, and more titles, on and on. Jane was a very important person in the world of paranormals, especially vampires, and she had done a lot of good for Liz’s kind too, bringing peace and providing protection for witches that they hadn’t enjoyed in hundreds of years. Jane was also Eli’s adopted sister and, so far as Liz could tell, his best friend.
Liz was just … his girlfriend? Lover? Friend with benefits?
Her mind circled back to the importance of that wedding Eli hadn’t invited her to. She knew that he would be working throughout the planning stages and during the wedding. She hoped the reason she hadn’t been invited was because he’d be working, and not because she and Jane had an uneasy relationship.
Uneasy. Hah. Jane had killed her sister. The fact that Evangelina had summoned a demon and tried to kill her own sisters, and therefore had been targeted with a “take-down” order didn’t help a lot. Evie was dead. Jane was still alive.
Those upcoming weeks when Eli would be gone were looming empty, like a black hole of boredom and loneliness. Calling him for something that might be nothing was just an excuse to talk to him, maybe see him.
Liz looked down at the tracks that had her hesitating.
She shouldn’t need an excuse.
She shouldn’t need to see him either. This was a weakness she hadn’t dealt with before. Ever.
“Gah,” she said. She hit the cell’s off button. She knelt on the ground and studied the paw prints. They were big. Bigger than black bear. But they were the wrong shape for bear.
There were a lot of creatures in the Appalachian mountains that had been explained away by the revelation of were-creatures, but there were a few that were still unaccounted for, the Virginia Devil Monkey, the Dwayyo, and the Snallygaster among the better known others, like Sasquatch.
I hope you enjoyed.
DIRTY DEEDS 2 comes out SOON. Preorder now!
https://www.amazon.com/Dirty-Deeds-Urban-Fantasy-Collection-ebook/dp/B09J1PPSF6/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dirty-deeds-2-rj-blain/1140328400?ean=2940165697616
Faith