FYI… do not read if you haven’t read NIGHT BLADE.

 

YOU SAW THE WARNING…right?

Okay.

There are spoilers!

Now…I’m posting a short snippet from BROKEN BLADE.  Do not read this if you haven’t read NIGHT BLADE.  I kid you not.  You’ll be confused…and there might be spoilers.

 

Behind me, I heard a familiar whine—somebody else trying the wards. Anybody who came into TJ’s place had to fight the wards. Most people could get inside, but it wasn’t just as easy as opening a door and walking through. The wards would have their way with you and it wasn’t a fun way, either.

The wards resisted for a moment and then yielded, spitting somebody out onto the floor.

For a second, my heart stuttered. Dark haired—cat—

No. We don’t think about him. Not ever.

But it wasn’t him. This werecat was tall enough, but too leanly built. Too elegant.

Dressed too nice for Wolf Haven and that had my instincts humming. As he started for the bar, I turned my attention back to TJ, still keeping half of my attention tuned on the newcomer. He didn’t belong in Wolf Haven.

Didn’t belong here at all.  That right there had me wary.  People didn’t come to Wolf Haven just for the ambience.  Either they came because they wanted to hide, or they came because they had no place left to go…or they came because they were looking for something.  Somebody.

And automatically, even though it did me no good, I flexed my wrist.

“So what did Sexy Sexy what?” TJ asked.

“You realize he has a name, right?” I asked, although I didn’t know why I bothered. If TJ had decided she was going to call him Sexy Sexy, then Justin might as well add that to his Banner ID. “Look, he’s just aggravating me. I pissed him off. He pissed me off. End of story.”

“What’s he want?”  TJ asked.

“Shit. What is this, twenty questions?”  I glared at her and then looked at the werecat sitting at the bar, regarding us with unreadable eyes. “What do you want?”

“Redcat whiskey. Neat.”

I sighed and got it for him. High-end stuff like that never used to be served here, but over the past month, more and more weres were showing up asking for it.

TJ believed in supply and demand.

I dumped it in front of him as TJ said, “He ain’t wrong, you know.”

“TJ. Drop it.”

“This isn’t your place, anymore.”

“TJ…”  I picked up the bottle of Redcat and turned to face her. “If you don’t drop it, I’m dropping this.”

Her eyes narrowed on my face. “That shit costs a thousand a case. If you drop it, I’ll beat it out of your ass.”

Somewhere out in the bar, somebody growled. Swinging my head, I glared out over the bar and tried to figure out where it had come from. The wolf still sitting at the bar?  The cat?  What the hell—

Both of them seemed fixated on their drinks and it had seemed too faint to have come from so close.

Brushing it aside, I switched my attention back to TJ. “You are so full of shit, it’s amazing you don’t reek of it. You won’t touch me and you know it. Now are you dropping the discussion or am I dropping more than a hundred bucks worth of booze?”  I waggled the bottle in the air and held her gaze. She might be bluffing, but I wasn’t. Maybe it made me childish, but I’d decided a little bit of regression felt good.  I hadn’t felt good in a long while.

“You can’t hide forever, Kitty.”  She blew out a sigh and then shrugged. “You know that.”

“I don’t plan to.”  I put the Redcat back on the shelf and washed my hands. “I’ll die sooner or later. That’s good enough for me.”

The hair isn’t right, but here’s a good idea of how I see Justin…

Now… tomorrow…. GO HERE AND VOTE… and if you all get me thru to the next bracket…I’ll post MORE from BROKEN BLADE.  This was 600 words.  Get me through, and I’ll post 1200.  And there’s also some dirty sex coming tomorrow…from Damon’s POV.

Image via wikipedia.  Creative Commons.