A random WIP excerpt, just for fun!

I added 2500+ words to the first draft of Conduit 4 (current total: 62, 783 words) this morning. (FYI. The first book is Awry). And I’m now sitting in the living room with my laptop and staring at my far too long ‘admin’ to-do list. And really resisting doing any of it.

I’ve been tracking my sleep all year (in yet another attempt to figure out the chronic headache) and I only got 13 minutes of deep sleep last night … so that might have something to do with this weird internal impasse … so maybe I should pick up a fav book and do a little restorative reading. 😜 After I finish this blog post, of course.

Anyway!

For a hopefully fun twist on Throwback Thursday, I thought you might like a glimpse of the (current) opening of Misfits 2. I’ve written about 12k of this novel and HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CONCRETE PLANS TO PICK IT BACK UP. Yet.

I’m focused on finishing the Conduit and Archivist series, then finally launching my ‘space opera’. In between space opera duologys, I’m hoping to drop books into Misfits and [redacted]. But I have no set timeline for any releases, and everything is headache dependent. Sigh.

Okay, disclaimers done and hopefully noted. [Though I do love that you all love the Adept Universe and want more!!]

FYI. The first book of the Misfit Series is Misplaced Souls. Click here to find the reading order of the Adept Universe, including all the shorter stories (most of which are collected in Moments of the Adept Universe 1).

Excerpt from Mistaken Loyalties (TBC) (Misfits 1)

I tugged at the stiff collar of my light blue dress shirt, trying to ignore the miasma of scents emanating from the crowd gathered around the international arrivals gate at the Vancouver Airport.

The guy nearest me had just come in from the parking lot dragging the scent of asphalt, gasoline, and a lingering crispness with him. The woman rocking her kid in a stroller, cradling flowers in her free arm, was way too fond of pineapple and coconut. It was in her skin cream and conditioner. Well, fake coconut and pineapple. The bartender in the open bar behind me pulled draught after draught of pilsner and amber ale for the customers lining the bar stools and the waitstaff slinging burgers and garlic-riddled Caesar salad.

Three days from the December full moon, aka the Cold Moon, and my skin was already itching under the suit I’d been forced to stuff myself in.

Apparently, it wasn’t appropriate for the head of security for a shapeshifter summit to wear a sports bra, leggings, and an obscenely printed T-shirt while on duty. I’d capitulated on the clothing — finding a black pant suit with as much lycra as possible and pairing it with shiny zippered ankle boots that added a much needed three inches to my height — but I refused to dye my currently florescent pink hair back to its natural mousy brown.

And there was no way I was removing the ridiculously-out-of-place runed-etched, raw diamond gold cuffs that perpetually adorned my wrists. The Wolf’s Bracers, the Adept snobs were prone to calling them. I’d deliberately rolled up the sleeves of the dress shirt and the jacket to display the artifacts. Even though doing so made me look like I was posing for the cover for some fashion magazine. Not that I was pretty enough to actually book such a gig. My nose was too narrow and straight, jaw too angular, and teeth too pointy to pull print media off.

Okay so, the teeth only got pointy when I was being nasty.

I adored being nasty.

But only when someone pissed me off.

Which was, admittedly, often.

How the hell had I wound up being the head of security for this stupid shapeshifter wedding and pack status negotiations?

Right.

My lord and alpha, and the head of the Godfrey coven, had conspired against me.

The grease coming off the dude chomping fries faster than he could chew and swallow uncharacteristically turned my stomach.

Yeah, that was right. It was the smell riling me up, not any pesky inferiority complex.

Keeping to the far back of the completely human crowd, I glanced over at the arrival screen. It still displayed the flight from London that I was waiting on as arrived, but it hadn’t been assigned a baggage carousal yet. I was early. But I just had to get away from all the frantic wedding planning going on at the bakery.

More than half the guests had arrived — filtering into Vancouver over the last week or so — including the bride, the groom, and his family. The pack princess, aka Elizabeth ‘Lessa’ Rothchild, was installed with her bridesmaids at the Wedgewood hotel. The Rothchilds had booked an entire floor of the luxury boutique hotel — so typical. Any shapeshifter not in or around the bakery was being babysat by Bitsy, and she was continually connected to me and Tony via text message. Tony was sequestered in his tech cave, aka his parent’s basement, obsessively watching the digital version of the map that tracked any magical spikes within the boundary the Godfrey Coven has etched around Vancouver. 

I should feel bad about those shitty assignments. With Bitsy practically manacled to the ridiculously privileged pack princess and Tony playing virtual guard dog.

But I didn’t.

And the more Rothchilds that rolled into town the less badly I’d feel about enforcing the strictly structured rules dictated by the shapeshifter Neutral Territory laws.

No one wanted this wedding except for the bride and the groom’s family.

And I had absolutely no problem making sure it came off as smoothly as any shapeshifter event could, even if it pissed off everyone.

I looked forward to it pissing off all the uppity, holier than thou shifters actually.

– Misfits 2, Chapter 1, first draft

How many sentences did it take for you to figure out who narrates this novel?