Elora Rose Storm had spent five years nursing a heavy heart, while on a cross-dimensional mission to make the world a better place, especially wherever she found human/animal hybrids being mistreated. She’d seen horrors, righted wrongs where she could, and matured into a powerful witch/demon with altruistic leanings.
Description:Published: April 7th, 2016
For five years, Glendennon Catch had knocked around the globe as a floater, filling in wherever a team of vampire hunters was down a member. He’d buried six good knights and watched the life take its toll on countless others. He’d drunk his share of whiskey and bedded so many women he would hate to hear the count, but he’d never gotten over his first love. And, if he had a chance for a do-over, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have chosen Rosie Storm over The Order.
Elora Rose Storm had spent five years nursing a heavy heart, while on a cross-dimensional mission to make the world a better place, especially wherever she found human/animal hybrids being mistreated. She’d seen horrors, righted wrongs where she could, and matured into a powerful witch/demon with altruistic leanings.
After all that time, unbeknownst to each other, both were headed home. To Jefferson Unit.
EXCERPT
When they were once again left alone in the room, Glen was still standing. Monq motioned toward the table. “Have dinner with me for old times’ sake. You can say as much or as little as you please.”
Glen raised an eyebrow, but relented and took a seat at the table next to Monq’s video fireplace. After all, he’d been ordered to report to Monq and didn’t really have a choice in the matter. He lifted the stainless steel cover off the plate in front of him. “Lamb,” he said. “That’s my favorite.”
“I know. That means you have friends here who care about you.” Monq pulled out the padded leather chair across from him and sat down.
Glen raised his eyes to meet Monq’s, but remained distrustful. Monq noticed that he swallowed. “I did have friends here. Once.”
The way he said it made it seem that he believed that was no longer true.
As a man, Monq wanted to ask why Glen thought those friendships had dissolved, but as a psychiatrist, he knew that wasn’t the way to proceed.
“Let’s just catch up. Tell me about yourself. What’s happened since I last saw you?”
Glen barked out a laugh that was startling. Even though the effect was to make Glen look more mean than jovial, there was a hint of the boy Monq had known. The part of his heritage that was a quarter werewolf was evident in the way his eyes flashed and the contrast of white teeth against tanned skin.
Glen looked into his goblet like it was a crystal ball before taking a drink of red wine. “Nothing worth mentioning.”
“Well, that can’t be true. I mean, wasn’t your first assignment to fill in as Z Team’s fourth and try to redeem them? There has to be several hours’ worth of stories there alone.”
Glen cut off a bite of lamb and began to chew. “It would bore you to tears.”
“I doubt that. I’m not easily bored.”
#2
“I hope he didn’t just order drinks on the house and tell that guy that I would pay.”
Rosie looked at Glen like she’d never seen him before. “What’s the matter with you?”
“No idea what you mean.”
“You’re acting like a perfect stranger. The Glen I know would never be ungracious.”
“The Glen you know is gone,” he said, his tone completely void of emotion. “Thought you would have figured that out by now.”
“Are we leaving?” Rosie asks with an unmistakable sadness over the way the evening had turned out. She hadn’t realized that she was enjoying herself until Mr. and Mrs. Baka departed. Then the reality of the fuming thunderstorm that used to be Glendennon Catch settled around her like a shroud made of thick hemp dyed black.
Glen got up, walked around to the other side of the table and slid into the booth seat facing Rosie. “Might as well stay. We have to eat. And it’s free. Supposedly.”
The waiter punctuated the end of that thought by arriving to reset the table for two according to instructions from the maître d’. Glen watched every movement as if he was training for the job. Rosie wasn’t fooled by his feigned interest. She knew he was trying to find something to look at that wasn’t her.
“So,” she said, “tell me what you’ve been doing since I saw you last.”
Glen’s first impulse was to snarl and tell her to fuck off and that, if she’d wanted to know, she damn well could have called.
Her paranormal romances come with uniquely fresh perspectives on "imaginary" creatures, characters, and themes. She adds a dash of scifi, a flourish of fantasy, enough humor to make you laugh out loud, and, occasionally, enough steam to make you squirm in your chair. Her heroines are independent femmes with flaws and minds of their own whether they are aliens, witches, demonologists, werewolves, hybrids, psychics, or past life therapists. Her heroes are hot and hunky, but they also have brains, character, and good manners... usually.
Victoria lives in The Woodlands, Texas with her husband and a very smart, mostly black German Shepherd dog. She answers her own email and is happy to hear from readers.
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