Author: catstark

From Inside the Grey House:

Charlie stood silently, waiting for more.

“From now on, you will be Natalia’s protector. Should a situation arise in which I am attacking her, you will turn to your Alpha first and ask her for the best course of action. Is that clear?”

Charlie was stunned. Not only was he being spared further punishment, he was being assigned as Natalia’s guardian. The werewolf fell to his knee, bowing low in front of Vincent. Though the desk hid the man, Vincent still appreciated the gesture.

“I will protect her to the best of my ability and always ask my Alpha for guidance when I’m unsure of a situation.”

“Good. Now get out, both of you. I need time alone.”

Rebecca pulled Charlie to his feet and the two left hurriedly. Outside the office, Charlie grabbed Rebecca to him and gave her a strong kiss. “Thank you.”

She smiled. “Thank me upstairs.”

Charlie grinned, picked his wife up in his arms and practically ran up the stairs to their bedroom.

From Inside the Grey House:

Vincent grinned maliciously while Charlie breathed deeply to calm himself. Still smiling, Vincent backed up to lean against the nearby chair. “I expect you to tell me the truth.”

Giving up the fight, Charlie let himself slump to the ground as he continued to breathe deep to stop himself from turning Blitzkrieg. After a couple minutes, Charlie looked up at Vincent. “At first, I was worried about what Rebecca would say, then about what you would do, but in the end, she just feels too good and knows how to distract men way to well. Of course, I enjoyed her. She’s a beautiful woman that I used to screw on a regular basis. How would you feel if an ex-girlfriend came up to you and started making out with you for no reason you could discern?”

“I’m not happy with you, Charlie.”

From Inside the Grey House:

Still agitated about the situation, he reached for the intercom. Mierka was in the surveillance room. “Would you like to know what he did, boss?”

“Every minute.”

There was a sound of fingers hitting keyboard as Mierka brought up the camera views that would replay Joseph’s interaction with Natalia. Vincent, not really wanting to wait, stood. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Yes, boss.”

By the time he was in the surveillance room, the playbacks were ready. Vincent watched Joseph punish Natalia, nodding at the end. He felt she would think twice before disobeying his orders.

“So, what are you going to do with her now?”

Vincent gave Mierka a sideways glare. “Is that any of your business?”

She smirked, leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the desk. Giving a loud sigh, she placed her hands behind her head, then gave Vincent a large grin. “Anything I see on the screens is my business.”

From Inside the Grey House:

Vincent restrained himself from running to Joseph to pull him away from Natalia. His friend would not harm his woman, and in fact was letting her go now. Vincent strolled to the others with Charlie and Markus in tow. He waited for quiet as he stood facing the pair at the wall. Natalia displayed no emotion and was shaking herself off, checking for wounds. When she realized all was well, she turned the intensity of her warrior look on Vincent, making him growl. He would have an interesting night when the match was done.

Natalia watched as the vampires and werewolves behind Vincent greeted a man she didn’t recognize. Someone asked him a question and he just smiled large, showing off his fangs. There were several shouts of welcome, which she ignored in favor of the fight. She turned back to Joseph, who was looking toward his master.

“Let’s finish this, vampire.”

From Inside the Grey House:

His smile made her blood boil. “For you to understand your place. He is allowing you to join our exercises. Vincent believes you will be an asset if you learn to fight vampires who know how to fight. But understand this: if you break his rules, you will be punished. Though he did not order you to leave Theodore alone, you were in the room when he told Anthony not to kill the vile vampire. If Vincent orders one of us to do something, the order applies to all of us who can hear him. Would you like to tell me why?”

Natalia took a deep breath, not liking his tone of voice. He was talking to her as if she were a disobedient child. Her eyes narrowed as she realized this was the second time today someone was trying to make her feel like a child. She let go of the annoyance as he raised an eyebrow, waiting for an answer. “Order must be maintained.”

From Inside the Grey House:

Natalia sat in her car, redressing the new wound on her arm. She was in Vincent’s garage, deciding whether she should get out of the car or wait until noon, when there was a better chance that he would be asleep. There would be trouble for what she’d done. Natalia’s hand went to her silver beaded necklace as she stared at a thin sliver chain hanging from the rearview mirror. Dangling from the chain was a blue stone pendant with a silver engraving of the infinity symbol. She’d found it hanging on Theodore’s trophy wall under the pictures of Tina. The wall was covered with trinkets and pictures of other young girls. Many she recognized from news stories of missing children. It disgusted Natalia, but Theodore was dust now.

Natalia was tempted to call the police so that they could return the trinkets to the girls’ families, but she knew that was impossible. The evidence in the house would lead to her, not a man long thought dead. Edwin seemed to control the police. If he found out she was involved in Theodore’s disappearance, it would mean more trouble for Vincent than for her, once Edwin found out who she belonged to. Therefore, she left the trophy wall alone, choosing to leave the place for Edwin’s people to deal with.

I’m not a mom, and I’m ok with that. My mom is still alive, but lives in San Francisco. I live in the Midwest. I’ll be calling her later today. I wanted to share a passage today with a mom and child, then realized that most of the main characters in my stories are without moms. Their moms die before the story begins. In almost every single story, the main character, usually a woman, is raised by dad. Some instances, main character is an orphan.

I know why this is. When I realized I was doing this, after writing a few books, I thought about it and found the answer. I read A LOT of fairy tales growing up. Most of the moms in those stories are dead as well. I was also closer to my dad growing up, so naturally, moms are not present in the stories.

I changed that with Evelyn of Kambria. Her parents both live for a long time. Though they are old when they have her, they still die when she is rather young. They still survive to see the start of the book, and a good chunk of the second book as well. (It’s a 2 part-er.)

Therefore, when deciding to post something for Mother’s Day, I knew I wanted to give an explanation as to why this passage is very special to me: it’s Evelyn and her mother, in a creative person’s very limited mom/daughter selection. Here you are, from Evelyn of Kambria, and Happy Mother’s Day:

Evelyn linked arms with Sarah and nodded. “I’m all right. Let’s continue on.” Before walking again, she turned back to her mother. “Is this too far for you?”

Sarah shook her head and smiled. “I have taken this walk everyday, dear. Long before we start dinner, I made certain your father was comfortable and I would walk from one end of the farm to the other.”

She looked at her mother. “You do. Why is that?”

“To keep myself limber. If I do nothing but sit, it makes my body hurt. If I walk, I feel better and I sleep much better as well.”

Evelyn smiled and kissed her mother on the cheek. “You’re a very smart woman, mother.”

Sarah smiled back. “Only so that you can be as well.”

From Inside the Grey House:

She grabbed the notebook again, holding it up to Vincent’s face. “This is full of notes on your people, Vincent. As I have told you before, Jesse, Ben, Dr. Elving, Kim and Owen are being followed. The only reason Joseph and Mierka aren’t being followed is because they know to look for things like that. No one is following you because you don’t leave the house without your bodyguards. I’ve also found notes on some of Anthony’s people, but most of his people know what they’re doing, and are able to mislead or simply lose their trackers. The Slayers are also following Edwin’s lot, but I’m more worried about your men.”

Vincent frowned. “I thought you stated you killed those following my men.”

“I killed the vampire hunters that were following them, then the group responsible sent Slayers to follow your men. I killed the Slayer following Dr. Elving. When a new one started to follow him, I gave up. I can’t keep killing Slayers. Someone’s going to notice what I’m doing and then they’ll not only hunt me, they’ll stop talking to me. I’m not going to risk the tenuous relationship I have with the Slayers. And this,” she shook the notebook, “is not just about that. This group of Slayers is plotting something big. That’s what I’m trying to find in all this paperwork. What are they plotting and when will it happen? For the past few months, that’s all I’ve been trying to find out, and I haven’t been able to figure it out and that, to me, feels dangerous.”

From Inside the Grey House:

Vincent was steps away from Joseph, seething with anger. Joseph refused to give any kind of explanation. From the look on his face, he wasn’t going to explain until the fight was done. Vincent contemplated just picking Natalia up and carrying her out of the room, except that she wanted to finish the fight. She demanded to be treated as an equal in the training room and worked hard to achieve it. There were different rules when she fought to keep her from dying, but none of her opponents gave her any slack. They used their skills and helped her to test her own. To stop the fight now would be an insult to Natalia.

Vincent ground his teeth, knowing he had to relent. “If in the end, you don’t have a very good explanation…”

“You will take my blood in retaliation.” Joseph stared at Vincent, knowing he had won. He turned to Natalia, who was leaning meekly against the wall. She didn’t look well, but he could still see the warrior. The tension in the room thickened as Joseph ran to his prey.

From Inside the Grey House:

She held her head up high and walked right past him. He grabbed at her, his anger about to boil over. She dodged him and continued to where Julia was standing. Natalia reached out her hand and placed a glittering chain into Julia’s hand. Julia looked hard at the object, almost shaking, looked up at Natalia, gave a small nod and closed her fist. Anthony barged over, grabbing his woman’s fist. Natalia prudently backed away as Anthony addressed Julia loudly.

“What did she give you?” His voice was not kind, despite Julia’s sad smile.

“The necklace I gave Tina at her birth.”