I got caught up working on Conduit 4 and apparently forgot it was Friday, so here is a late but super long (3K) excerpt of Kandy’s book to tide you over this weekend! I need to get some new words written next week because, after this, I’m all caught up!
Enjoy!
Meghan
Reminder: this is a first draft so typos abound, plus possible tense changes. Anything in [parentheses] needs to be fact checked or I’m not happy with the phrasing yet.
Start here: Misfits 2: Chapter 1, Part 1
Or if you’re behind:
Chapter 1, Part 2
Chapter 1, Part 3
Chapter 1, Part 4
Chapter 2, Part 1
Chapter 2, Part 2
Chapter 2, Part 3
Chapter 3, Part 1
Content of note: explicit language.
Avoiding the werewolves I could smell congregated in the bakery storefront, though it probably made me look weak to Leesa, I leaned back against the stainless steel counter in the center of the kitchen and checked my own text messages. I had Tony sending me updates on the hour. Another of the Talbot brood and a sorcerer with an affinity for tech, Tony preferred to stay holed up in his parent’s basement as he used the boundary the witches had erected around Vancouver to help him monitor magical activity in and around the city.
I’d have Tony up the frequency of those updates to every thirty minutes when the official talks started tomorrow. His last text was just a series of custom emoticons that I didn’t bother figuring out. If anything funky had been going on — magically at least — in town while I was out of range, and then cloistered with Jorgen, the tech sorcerer would have used his words.
Jasmine, who’d been a tech witch before she’d been turned into a vampire to save her life, was also monitoring remotely during Tony’s enforced naps. If we didn’t schedule breaks for the the tech sorcerer he’d do crazy shit to his body to stay awake, alert, and attached to his tech for days on end.
Then his mother would get mad at me.
As powerful a sorcerer as she was, Angelica Talbot and I weren’t playing in the same league. But she could still seriously disrupt my near perfectly balanced life. Plus, I didn’t much enjoy pissing off mothers.
I’d already had a serious fight with Kett when he’d informed me that he was taking his toothy brood, aka Jasmine and Benjamin, out of town during the summit and wedding. The old as ass vampire had been all snooty about it, claiming that Jasmine had a taste for werewolf blood because I hadn’t monitored her closely enough the ‘last time my kind showed up.’ Jasmine had looked like she’d wanted to strangle her master herself at that comment. But, of course, she couldn’t. What with her need to feed from him and all.
Anyway, the vampires were all in Whistler.
Skiing.
Well, Kett was skiing. Jasmine was teching, and baby vamp Benjamin was probably covered in ink and making shit up for his chronicles. Like having the balls to anoint my cuffs, The Wolf’s Bracers.
My skin itched, all up my forearms and around my neck.
I ignored it, sending text updates to Tony, Pearl, and Bitsy.
I didn’t like my pack divided. Or my life quite so disrupted. Hence the itchiness.
But even I had to admit that Kett was right to remove himself. Shapeshifters and vampires didn’t mix. Vampires didn’t really mix with any other Adepts, but they really brought out dominance issues with shifters.
Everything brought out dominance issues with shifter.
In the office, Leesa laughed, quietly delighted and presumably at some text exchange with Mel.
And just for a beat, I … wondered. I wondered what it would have been like to stay with my birth pack, even after Justin was killed. To fight them for the right to be with Dedra, to marry her, to raise children with her while surrounded by those who lived and died for us, who’d fight for —
I shook the traitorous thought away. No, not a thought. A simplistic fantasy. Justin was murdered. And I never knew — not in my heart, at least — who was responsible for his death. Other than all the people I’d killed while stuck in that alleyway.
The pack investigated and everyone else was cleared of any wrong doing, including me. Though I should have been insulted that they even looked at me twice, since I’d almost died there next to Justin.
But I was never certain.
I’d always remember the smug sneer on my mother’s face as she pontificated about the opening that Justin’s death left in the structure of the pack. And Dedra, my outcast lover, had been suddenly all chummy with my mother, who’d loathed the mere sight of her only hours before. What had she said? That ‘If Arthur wasn’t strong enough to protect his son. He isn’t strong enough to hold the pack.’
And yes, all of that moment, that conversation, they’d both forced upon me while I was still barely functional myself still echoed through my head all these many years later.
Maybe it was just guilt.
Guilt that I’d never talked to Justin about Dedra. That I’d considered ditching him altogether for her. And then that he’d died protecting me. Shot in the back with silver bullets even as he shoved me toward safety …
I’d walked away from it all.
Run away, maybe. All the way to the opposite coast where I eventually helped takeover the North West Coast Pack with Desmond as my alpha. Refusing the beta position he offered, because I still wasn’t worthy of it.
That far away from it all — my mother, my lineage, and Dedra — I never had to know anything terrible about my past, anything I couldn’t bear to know. Not for certain.
I felt the shift of energy right before Peggy Talbot pushed through the swing doors into the kitchen. The [twenty-one] year old telepath’s expression was pinched, pained. She squeaked when she saw me, pressing her hand to her chest, but then closing her sky blue eyes and sighing in relief.
She should have sensed me, even through the doors, but Peggy’s telepathic ability was a quiet sort of power — likely because, finding it intrusive and overwhelming, she didn’t much use it. Especially while she was working in the bakery, which often had a line up out the door at opening and steady customers throughout the day.
With her sleek blond hair pulled back in a high, thick braid, the telepath was wearing a black T-shirt printed with the Cake in a Cup bakery logo over a black pencil skirt that hit just below her knees. With white socks tucked into black and white low-rise sneakers, but otherwise bare legs.
The swing doors slowly closed behind her. “They’ve eaten all the cupcakes,” Peggy murmured without opening her eyes. “We’re not supposed to close for another hour.” She looked at me, smiling tightly. “And they’re … constantly lying to each other.”
“Shapeshifters can’t lie to each other,” I said automatically, then sighed. “But they do enjoying playing word games.”
Peggy grimaced. “Whatever it is, it’s giving me a serious headache. It doesn’t ping as hard as a bald-faced untruth directed at me, but its been incessant since that last trio showed up. And how can they drink so much coffee?” She took off toward the open pantry next to the office. Filled with all the delectable treats a bakery could want, the pantry was the size of a large walk-in closet.
It also led to a hidden guardian dragon portal.
The quiet hum of the dishwasher faded. Likely in the dry cycle. Which, this late in the day, meant that Peggy’s twin, Gabby, had already stayed late, baking extra cupcakes. By demand. I considered busting into the bakery storefront and berating the werewolves I knew to be congregated within for their bad manners.
It was a near thing. But I didn’t.
And it wasn’t just the addition of the aforementioned ‘trio’ of newcomers — that had to be Dedra and her two enforcer buddies — that held me back. Not that I could smell my former lover through the doors. Her muted but fake [cinnamon] scent was nothing among the delectable lingering of bakery, or the gentle touch of lemon verbena that accompanied Blossom’s cleaning magic.
I didn’t want to start anything that might end up with the bakery getting trashed.
Also, if I was being honest with myself, if just for this moment of uncharacteristic past reflection … I’d walked away from that last conversation with Dedra without ever telling her I’d never be back. Abandoning her in a pack that might have never accepted her due to her ‘outcast or rogue’ upbringing, if not her sexuality.
Though she’d obviously found her way much better without me, given her current enforcer status.
Peggy wandered out from the pantry, cradling a bag of dark roast. “I’ve asked Mory to take a shift tomorrow. I’ll handle cash, but she knows all the cupcakes. And Burgundy is coming in to help Gabby bake more cupcakes.”
Mory was a kick-ass, uber powerful necromancer. She wasn’t a werewolf servant or an employee of the bakery. Burgundy was the witch who might be persuaded to wield a bit of her magic to help realize Leesa’s cupcake-tiered wedding cake fantasy. And, though Burgundy might be on break from university, except for a few exams, like Mory, and Bitsy for that matter, she also wasn’t actually employed by the bakery.
“It’s going to be okay, Kandy,” Peggy said softly, smiling. The touch of her magic was a gentle caress on my shoulders, though the telepath probably had no idea she was projecting. Or that I was powerful enough to pick it up. “We can do this. It’s just a little extra baking.”
I shook my head sharply, but I didn’t shove away the touch of calm and resolve she’d inadvertently offered me. “Close early. You can sell anything you have left to the shifters, then clean up. They can make their own drinks if they linger.”
Peggy tilted her head thoughtfully. “Okay, I’ll close. But I don’t want them breaking the machine. I’ll stay.”
I chuckled. None of the Talbots were pushovers.
The telepath smirked. “It’s going to take me forever to cash out, they’re all using American cash. Like we don’t have credit or debit machines in Canada. Though …” She grinned at me, widely. “The Dubois brothers and cousins are …” She wagged her eyebrows, trying to be suggestive.
I jutted my chin at her. “You stay away from the shapeshifters, Peggy Talbot. You and Gabby.”
Her grin became playful as she turned, pushing through the doors with her back, and not dropping eye contact with me. “Sure thing.”
I tapped my nose. “I can smell a lie, little [truthseer].”
She chuckled.
I growled quietly. The last thing I needed was to be breaking up trysts. Damn weddings.
Leesa appeared in the doorway of the office, holding the clipboard. She’d combed her hair and made a solid attempt to fix her makeup. “Mel’s just parking. Peggy will still let him in?”
I nodded, knowing the werewolf would have heard every word exchanged between me and telepath.
Leesa raised the clipboard slightly. “All picked. Mel helped over the phone. Except the dress. And accessories. Bitsy is taking me tomorrow. We’re buying something off the rack because there wasn’t time to get anything made. But the shops Bitsy selected all look like they have lots of pretty options.”
I was so far beyond caring about wedding dresses and accessories my brain was melting.
“Kandy?” Leesa lowered her voice. “How far do you think they will go? To stop the wedding? To stop the pack status hearing from going through?”
“Who is they?” I asked darkly.
“If I knew for certain, I’d tell you.” She shrugged. “Everyone? Do you … do you think it will be … violent?”
“It’s bunch of shifters,” I said. “You know it will come to violence.”
Leesa shook her head. “You know that’s not what I mean. I mean … honestly I don’t care about the pack thing. Even if my dad rejected me for marrying him, I’d be packless with Mel if I had to be.”
Arthur and Edith must have loved that option when their precious baby girl threw it in their faces. They’d already lost Justin, then Audrey abdicated to another pack. My pack. I was still pissed about her following me, but she wanted to be beta and I didn’t.
“Vassals,” I said, offering the slight correction without any heat. Technically Mel’s pack, the Dubois, were vassals of the North West Coast pack. “Not packless.”
“Right,” Leesa flapped her hand offishly. “All of that’s just Mel’s family using our wedding so they wouldn’t be denied for, like, the fifth time.”
Third time. The Dubois had tried to separate twice over the last twenty years. They hadn’t been able to prove independence.
See? I occasionally did homework.
“Mel and I wanted to … we would have been okay doing our own down thing, you know. In the human world. Get a license, sponsor me for Citizenship. But I got pregnant …” She pulled a face. “And a baby is more … binding, I guess. So the parents got involved.”
“None of this is my business,” I said.
“But the security of the entire thing is,” Leesa said, straightening to her full height. She had two inches on me, without the three inch heels she wore.
I gave her a sour look.
“I just want to get married.” She tapped the clipboard on the palm of her other hand. “Without anyone dying. I should be able to declare my love for Mel without having to sacrifice anyone else, right?”
I couldn’t argue with that. I relented, deciding to actually participate in the conversation. I raised my voice slightly, for anyone with sharp enough ears to hear us through the swing doors. Dedra, specifically, had always had heightened hearing. Though her nose was shit. Not that I knew for certain that she was one of the shifters currently bothering Peggy. “They’ll try to break you up first.”
“Been there, done that,” Leesa murmured.
“They’ll be less subtle about it now.”
She nodded. “We’re prepared.”
“Expect … manipulation from every corner, games. They’ll dig up dirt —”
Leesa shook her head. “There’s nothing we don’t know about each other. We sat down last weekend and laid it all out. Everyone we’ve slept with, anyone we hurt, or hurt us.” Her expression became grim. “Who might hate us, or think they have some sort of rights over us.” She swallowed. “Every beating, every … attempted rape.”
I tried to ignore the fierce well of anger and protectiveness that rose at her words. Leesa wasn’t part of my pack, and she already had enough people ready to rend and tear to protect her. It wasn’t for me to avenge any wrong done to her.
I’d just keep telling myself that.
“We even traded family secrets,” Leesa whispered, almost too softly for me to hear. And way too quietly for anyone in the bakery storefront to pick up.
I didn’t know the Dubois pack at all, but the possibility of family secrets being exposed was enough to get the Rothchilds riled. Even I kept my mouth shut about my birth pack. And even more specifically, my mother’s family. The Tates once ran the East Coast pack, after all.
Leesa raised her eyes to meet mine, determinedly. Closing the space between us she set the clipboard down on the metal workstation beside my hip.“And if they can’t get us to break up, then what?”
I’d really like a list of who Leesa’s ‘theys’ encompassed. “They’ll definitely undermine the pack status negotiations.”
“But the Rothchilds have no say in that, right?”
It was odd that she referred to her family by last name. “Right. It’s between Desmond and the Dubois, with Jorgen [Anderson], Pearl Godfrey and the sorcerer, [name] arbitrating.”
“Neutral parties.”
“No one is truly neutral,” I said. “But yes, I think those three are as close as it gets.”
Leesa scanned my face. “Will Desmond try to exert his rights as alpha over Mel?”
“I can’t speak for my alpha,” I said stiffly.
“Kandy …” she whispered, wetting her lips and glancing at the swing doors. “They … hurt you, right? Disowned you?”
“Not officially.”
“But … you never visited. You never saw your mother again, right?”
I nodded, even though I hated discussing anything so personal.
“Audrey made sure … after that, after whatever happened with you and Justin, with … with … his … death.” Her tone tightened with old grief. “That she and I had separate trusts. That our parents couldn’t do what your mother did to you.”
That was news to me. “It’s hardly the same.”
Leesa worried her bottom lip. “So … your alpha?”
“Desmond is as fair as any alpha can be. He works in the interest of his pack.”
She smiled tightly. “And I’m an asset. Whether or not the Dubois gain full pack status.”
She didn’t need confirmation. Desmond had accepted me. And years later he’d made a Rothchild his beta. Though he’d been pushed to do so because Audrey had been dying at the time. After saving my ass on a demon strewn battlefield.
Leesa’s gaze was sharp. When her hormones settled, she was far more wily than she seemed. All the [pink clothing] was definitely part of a costume, one she enjoyed wearing but used to her advantage as well. “Audrey says you’re loyal. And fierce. Duty-bound.”
“No one is getting through me to you.”
“Or Mel.”
“Or anyone I’m honor bound to protect.”
She nodded, then she deliberately brushed her fingers across the cuff ringing my left wrist. Shivering slightly, presumably at the touch of power she’d picked up, she said quietly, like it was a benediction of sorts, “I’m glad to have met you again, Kandy Tate.”
Uncomfortable with Leesa feeling anything close to mushy or anything like that, I scoffed. “Just so you understand I won’t hesitate to kick your ass if you’re the one stepping out of line.”
Her eyes gleamed with humor. “And if I’m just a toe over? Does that rate a spanking?”
I snorted.
The faint sound of the tickling of trinkets filtered through the swing doors.
Leesa smiled, suddenly glowing. Her scent spiked, and she took off into the storefront without another word.
Apparently, Mel had arrived.
I checked my phone for messages though I would have felt it vibrate. Then, already glowering in anticipation, I followed the pack princess into the bakery seating area. Not at all happy to be forced to confront the gathering of shifters.
It was going to be a long three days.
– Misfits 2, Chapter 3, Part 2 – first draft
Are you new to the Adept Universe? Click here for the suggestedreading order where you can download a PDF that includes all the shorter stories (and where to find them).
The first book in the Misfits of The Adept Universe Series is Mory’s Misplaced Souls. Kandy’s three prequel shorts can be found in Moments of the Adept Universe 1
