MCD health update and a Kandy snippet.

In case you haven’t seen my posts on my various social media platforms, I had a hysterectomy (everything but ovaries) almost two weeks ago. I’ve been taking my pain meds diligently and reading a book a day but getting seriously restless. This afternoon, I’m doing some slow walking on my treadmill desk, which in turn spawned some slow, slow writing on a short, short Kandy story that I was hoping to include in Moments of the Adept Universe 1 but didn’t quite make it.

Needless to say, my publishing schedule is now even more delayed than usual. As are my newsletters, etc. But I’ll get back to work on Amplifier 5 as soon as I’m up for it.

Here is a tiny Kandy snippet to tide you over (hopefully).

I stood on the land of the pack of my birth and felt nothing.

The gate had been open, but the long drive was filled with vehicles so I’d parked my Jeep on the street and walked. Walked until the behemoth of a house loomed over me. The white siding and columned front porch showed signs of age for the first time in my recollection. The dusty pink roses woven through the trellis that stretched up to Justin’s bedroom window on the top corner didn’t quite hide the broken cross brace midway up. And I could see that the untreated splintered wood had grayed with age.

Five years and five months of age to be exact.

I’d broken that trellis the last time I’d sneaked out of Justin’s bedroom. Though he’d asked me to spend the night, and nothing happened clandestinely in a house occupied by adult werewolves, no matter how stupidly large that house was, so sneaking around was just a game.

Just a game.

Fooling around with Justin and Dedra at the same time.

Pretending I wasn’t committed to anything or anyone, least of all some imposed sense of place, or status within the pack. The pack I’d been born into, bred into really. Bred to be the best of the best.

At the time I’d thought that walking away was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, ever have to do.

I’d been wrong.

And not for the last time.

Because it was possible — no matter that I was happy as I could be in Vancouver and within the loose structure of my pack of choice — I wasn’t going to be able to bring myself to walk through the front doors, let alone jog up the few steps leading to them.

My mother was dead.

– A Moment of Reflection (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.8), first draft

From One Moment to the Next (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.4)

Excerpt. From One Moment to the Next is the third Kandy prequel story available in Moments of the Adept Universe 1, including an illustration by Memo that captures the (bleached-blond) werewolf in a moment of surprise.

Click here for the full reading order of the Adept Universe, including a downloadable PDF.

From One Moment to the Next

Moments of the Adept Universe 0.4

(Aka Kandy 0.75)

May 2011.

An apartment in Malibu.

I let myself into the swanky apartment. It was unlocked, but I knew I was in the right place because I could smell Desmond and Hudson all around the exterior door, even despite the salty, warm breeze coming off the ocean. Plus the address matched the scrawled note I’d found taped to the inside of my apartment door that morning. Other than that address, though, the only other info I’d gathered was the meeting time and the smell of Desmond on the paper.

But I knew why the soon-to-be alpha wanted to see me. The coming request had been building since I’d joined Desmond’s cousin’s pack three years ago.

And I would say yes.

Just not to the second question that Desmond also planned to ask.

I tugged the door shut behind me, toeing off my sneakers. Padding barefoot across the cool marble-tiled floors, I easily followed the scent of the two men I was apparently meeting. Clandestinely.

Shades of white-on-white ran throughout the apartment. Though perhaps it was pedestrian of me to call it something as simple as an apartment. A condo? A townhouse? An upscale townhouse, situated on the corner of a whitewashed complex perched over a sandy beach at the edge of the sea in sunny California.

I missed the snow.

I shoved that idiotic thought away, scanning the ridiculously luxurious living room as it spread out before me. I had shucked off the chains that came with that snow years ago. I wasn’t going back.

An open kitchen, looking as though it had never been used, sat to my far left. Even the abstract paintings on the walls were monotone and completely impersonal. Though knowing that Desmond’s family was as ridiculously wealthy as my own, I didn’t doubt that any one of those paintings could have covered my rent for over a year.

But I had left that money, that unwanted inheritance, behind with the snow. Along with the heartache.

I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that I was leaving dirty footprints behind me, grubby, unruly wolf that I was. I huffed, pleased with that image of myself. As always.

A breeze carrying the scent of two powerful and slightly sweaty males drew me toward the patio. Crashing surf rolled steadily in across the sandy beach just beyond. I was pleased that I’d decided to wear a bikini, just throwing on a rather revealing, bright-green cover-up for the drive to the coast. Even though that green actually contrasted terribly with my currently overly bleached hair.

On the patio, his golden-brown hair a little longer than usual, Desmond leaned back against the glassed railing. He was dressed in washed-out jeans and a light-blue T-shirt that was rapidly failing to contain biceps the thickness of my thighs. His feet were also bare. His casually crossed arms only emphasized the should-be-impossible breadth of his shoulders. He pinned his golden-brown gaze on me and offered me a lazy but toothy grin.

Hudson stepped up to the right, following Desmond’s gaze and hitting me with a megawatt smile.

My heart pinged painfully, as it often did when I laid eyes on the dark-haired werewolf. Though his lean form was taller and broader through the shoulders than Justin had been when he died, Hudson reminded me of …

Well, everything I had tried to leave behind. Unsuccessfully. When it came to the emotions attached to that past, at least.

I bared my teeth at both of them. “This isn’t a threesome, is it? Because it sure isn’t balanced in my favor.”

– Excerpt From One Moment to the Next (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.4)

New to the Adept Universe? The first book is Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser 1). Or click here for the main READING ORDER.

Need to get caught up? Or want to reread in order? Click here for the FULL READING ORDER OF THE ADEPT UNIVERSE.

In Less Than A Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.2)

Excerpt. In Less than a Moment is the second Kandy prequel novelette available in Moments of the Adept Universe 1, including this ridiculously perfect illustration by Memo (one of my favs of the entire collection).

Click here for Kandy’s bio and illustrations.

Click here for the full reading order of the Adept Universe, including a downloadable PDF.

In Less Than A Moment

Moments of the Adept Universe 0.2

(Kandy 0.5)

March 2008.

A back alley in Boston.

Justin was dead.

I had dragged him behind an industrial garbage bin … or maybe it was for recycling. At least … I thought it had been me who had dragged him … blood streaking away from us into the middle of the alley …

Justin’s blood. From the three gunshot wounds.

They’d shot him in the back.

I thought they’d shot him.

Though it wasn’t yet clear to me who they were.

He’d gone down without a sound.

We’d been chatting and laughing … and …

Now Justin was dead.

Vaguely aware that I was panicking, I rolled him over, tearing his T-shirt so I could get a better look at his back. I accidentally scored his pale skin with wolf claws that I hadn’t consciously manifested.

Blood was just pouring out of him, pooling underneath him. I was crouching in it, kneeling in it. His warm lifeblood.

I’d thought … if I could remove the bullets … but the wounds were already blackening at the edges, a poison there spreading as dark veins of death.

Justin was dead.

Three bullets to the heart would do that.

Even to a werewolf.

If those bullets were silver.

And wielded by a sorcerer.

Sorcerer …

Even as I gently settled Justin onto his back, I whirled around, placing myself between him and the Adepts who were coming for us, hunting us.

No.

They’d already found us. Meaning we had no idea we hadn’t been the only ones doing the hunting.

Wait… had we been hunting?

No …

I touched my temple, then looked at my fingers. More than just Justin’s blood coated them. I’d been shot too. Now that I realized it, I could feel the gouge. It burned and wasn’t healing. More silver.

Had … had Justin shoved me out of the way?

Yes.

I’d darted back for him, dragged him to shelter.

But he was already dead.

The alley had been empty.

Seemed empty.

But it wasn’t.

I could smell the magic now … spells that they’d ignited at the same time as their shooter tried to take us out from behind. That power felt oppressive, like tight boundary spells often did. They’d sealed us in the alley.

So they could murder us.

The sorcerer I’d been expecting stepped around the garbage container, his gun trained low, pointing toward my heart. Black gun. Dark suit. White dress shirt, no tie. Clothing layered in protection spells. I knew. I’d been trained. Was in training.

The sorcerer’s brown eyes flicked to take in Justin sprawled behind me. Dead, I reminded myself. And for the briefest moment, the tip of his gun wavered, lowered.

As if he wasn’t going to shoot me.

The beast that lived deep within my soul tore through my human skin, shredding my clothing and sneakers. Bones shifting, pain streaking through me, I transformed far more quickly than I ever had before. Massive clawed feet scoring the pavement, teeth so large and jagged that I couldn’t effectively close my maw, I rose.

The sorcerer stumbled back, having to look up at me as I now towered over him. Belatedly, he remembered to try to pull the trigger. I crushed the gun in one clawed hand first. Then, clamping my other hand on his shoulder, I tore the offending limb completely off his body.

He screamed.

The protection spells on his suit weren’t rated for a werewolf in warrior form. At least not against my beast.

I snapped his neck.

So he was dead.

Like Justin was dead.

– Excerpt from In Less Than a Moment (Moments of the Adept 0.2)

In But a Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.1)

Excerpt below. In But a Moment, a prequel novelette set in the Adept Universe, was originally sent to my newsletter in an unedited state in early 2021. Now edited, it is the first of the stories collected into Moments of the Adept Universe 1 along with an insanely gorgeous, perfectly evocative illustration by Memo.

Click here for Kandy’s bio and illustrations.

Click here for the full reading order of the Adept Universe, including a downloadable PDF.

In But A Moment

Moments of the Adept Universe 0.1

(Kandy 0.25)

January 2007.

At Rothhouse Estate in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Beer in hand, I grabbed the arm of the beat-up recliner and dragged it closer to the sliding doors on the far side of the living room, angling it so I had a view of the back patio — and more specifically, the full moon. Curling my legs under me, I lounged back, taking in the cool, dark night along with a sip of the beer. It was still too warm. And bitter. Which was fine, because the bottle was really only cover. If I didn’t have it in hand, I’d be asked incessantly if I needed a drink by the other werewolves slowly filtering into the lakeside cabin from our evening hunt. Some of them still wearing their fur, incapable of changing back to human form with the moon so high in the sky.

I’d arrived early, hanging out in the woods that occupied the bulk of the acreage surrounding the estate of the current alpha of the East Coast pack just long enough to witness the deer slaughter, but feeling no need to participate myself. Not that I was antiviolence when it was called for — which honestly was almost perpetually in a pack as large as ours. But I wasn’t big on tearing the throat out of an innocent creature that never had a chance against me. In wolf or human form.

I wiggled my bare toes under the overly plush arm of the recliner, catching the sound of another car winding along the long drive to the little-used lake house. Little-used by everyone except the younger set of the pack, at least. Yeah, we were supposed to be sleeping off the hunt in fluffy, adorable piles of teeth and claws and ridiculously loud snoring, but our alpha would turn a blind eye to us breaking that tradition as long as we didn’t seriously maim or kill anyone.

And even then, as long as the injured soul wasn’t a pack member, our alpha would probably just clean up our mess and give us a tap on the nose. Arthur was like that. Except he’d then assign some sort of horribly boring duty for a month or two, like rebuilding the estate fence or volunteering at a local charity. Being around mundanes — people without magic — for longer than a few hours was a surefire way to make a werewolf beg for forgiveness.

I, fortunately, was currently slightly out of reach of the pack’s smothering tendencies, thanks to suffering through my first year of college on the path to a physiotherapist specialty. I didn’t have the attention span to become a full medical doctor, but werewolves were impervious to most magic and healed quickly, making a physio degree both pragmatic and a somewhat interesting way to waste my time.

Limiting the messes we got into — and therefore the need for the intervention of any sort of medical professional — was why the entire pack was forced up to New Hampshire for the first full moon of the year. Every damn year. A smaller number of unlucky pack wolves were forced to attend every full moon run. And an even smaller, more dangerous subset of wolves were forbidden from living more than an hour from Rothhouse Estate and Arthur’s calming influence.

I’d been able to control my changes from a precociously young age, though. I’d been transforming multiple times a day since my early teens without exhausting myself. Only the alpha’s eldest progeny, Justin and Audrey, could boast the same.

Not that I boasted about it. Because who really cared? My position in the pack was already firmly set. It had been since before I’d been born. Sure, if I’d been a weak-ass whelp, it would have confused and possibly upset the pack elders. But I wasn’t.

In fact, I was so powerful, so … not intelligent, exactly, but perceptive, that I was a threat. Or I would be, if I were interested in climbing the ranks any higher than I was already positioned.

I wasn’t, though.

I was just seriously bored.

All. Of. The. Time.

College helped a bit. Screwing around with Justin occasionally filled the darkest hours of the night — both in and out of clothing. I’d gotten happily lost among the California pack for a couple of months last fall.

I took another swig of beer, instantly regretting it. “Who bought this garbage?” I howled, not speaking to anyone in particular.

All movement in the tiny house … paused. For just a moment.

“Sorry, Kandy!” Allie squeaked from the region of the kitchen. “It gets better chilled. Promise.”

– excerpt from In But A Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.1)

Discussion thread: From One Moment to the Next (Kandy 0.75)

I just dropped From One Moment to the Next (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.5) (aka Kandy 0.75) into the inboxes of my newsletter subscribers, and as promised, I actually remembered to start a discussion thread!

The short (2600k) is just a sweet (well, my version of sweet) glimpse into Kandy’s life. It is set between her leaving her first pack and the events of Dowser 1. And features two other reader fav characters.

Please assume that there are spoilers for the short, as well as any Kandy book, in the comments below.

Feel free to discuss among yourselves (I believe there is a follow comments button? So you can see if anyone replies, etc?).

I hope you enjoyed the read!!

Discussion thread: In Less Than A Moment (Kandy 0.5)

I just dropped In Less Than a Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.3) (aka Kandy 0.5) into the inboxes of my newsletter subscribers, and as promised, I actually remembered to start a thread where you could discuss all the secrets it reveals as a group.

The novelette (15k+) cracks Kandy’s background wide open – a large piece of the puzzle leading to the events of the Dowser series, as well as the upcoming Misfits 2. Yep, the Kandy stories are most definitely prequels to the second novel of the Misfits of the Adept Universe.

Click here for Kandy’s bio and sketches.

Click here for the discussion thread for Kandy 0.25.

Assume there are spoilers for the novelette, as well as any Kandy book, in the comments below.

Feel free to discuss among yourselves (I believe there is a follow comments button? So you can see if anyone replies, etc?).

I hope you enjoyed the read!!

A little sunshine.

I’m making this tidbit of sunshine my desktop photo for the day – aka a little yellow daffodil that has braved the still-chilly morning temps to bloom – because I’m about to do a second pass on Kandy’s second short, In Less Than A Moment. And I know I’m going to blubber through it. Again.

I’ll just keep reminding myself that Kandy has found her pack, her family. Not that life is ever without strife but it can be filled with love and laughter at the same time.

***

In other news, I’m (slowly) putting together a Frequently Asked Questions, Spring Edition blog post so if you have any burning questions – LOL – drop them in the comments below and I’ll add them to the list (as long as it’s not too rife with spoilers).

Moments of the Adept: Kandy 0.5 progress.

In Less Than a Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.3) aka Kandy 0.5 – first draft. 13,099 words. Done!

A shot of my desk while in the middle of writing Kandy’s second novelette. I’m honestly never certain why I do these things to myself – things requiring so much tissue – but I write what the muse wants me to write … blubbering and all.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

Sorry, I really couldn’t find an excerpt that wasn’t a huge spoiler.

Stop reading now if you don’t want to wait until the end of March to read the rest.

***

Justin was dead.

I’d dragged him behind an industrial garbage bin … or maybe it was for recycling. At least I thought it had been me that had dragged him … blood streaking away from us back out into the middle of the alley. Justin’s blood. From the three gunshot wounds.

They’d shot him in the back.

I think.

Though it wasn’t yet clear to me who they were.

He’d gone down without a sound.

We’d been chatting and laughing … and …

Now Justin was dead.

Vaguely aware that I was panicking, I rolled Justin, tearing his T-shirt so I could get a better look at his back. I accidentally scored his pale skin with wolf claws that I hadn’t consciously manifested.

Blood was just pouring out of him, pooling underneath him. I was crouching in it, kneeling in it. His warm lifeblood.

I’d thought … if I could remove the bullets … but the wounds were already blackened at the edges, that poison spreading in dark veins of death.

Justin was dead.

Three bullets to the heart would do that.

Even to a werewolf.

If those bullets were silver.

And wielded by a sorcerer.

– In Less than a Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.3), first draft except

***

If all goes smoothly, the third draft of In Less Than a Moment should drop in the inboxes of my newsletter subscribers on Thursday, March 25 – headache dependant, as always (unfortunately).

Reminder: my newsletter is not the same as following this blog and getting notifications. It’s not the same as following me on social media. You can sign up following the link under the image of the Adept Universe cookbook, either to your right (if you’re on a computer) or by scrolling down (if you’re on a mobile device). And, once again, I cannot force your email provider to deliver my emails to you. You must make certain you’re subscribed and check all your own folders – spam, junk, promos – on your end. 🙂

But! Don’t worry if you do miss the unedited shorts. I will be bundling them for publication at the end of 2021.

Discussion thread: In But A Moment (Kandy’s prequel)

I don’t usually open up discussion threads on my blog, but I just dropped In But a Moment (Moments of the Adept Universe 0.1) (aka a Kandy prequel novelette) into the inboxes of my newsletter subscribers and realized that you all might like have one place where you could discuss it as a group.

The novelette reveals lots of little bits of the ‘evolution’ of Kandy from an 18-year-old to the 31-year-old who appears in Misfits 1 (as well as all the Dowser books and Oracle 1, of course). I’m planning on at least one more story from Kandy’s POV in 2021 and she also narrates the upcoming Misfits 2. The shorts are most definitely prequels for the plot that unfolds in the second novel of the Misfits of the Adept Universe.

Click here for Kandy’s bio and sketches.

Assume there are spoilers for the novelette, as well as any Kandy book, in the comments below.

Feel free to discuss among yourselves (I believe there is a follow comments button? So you can see if anyone replies, etc?).

I hope you enjoyed the read!!

Moments of the Adept Universe.

I launched into January 2021 with a multi-tiered plan. Not resolutions, but a tweaking of a few aspects of my writing life. Okay, I’m always attempting to reduce portions sizes and get back to daily yoga/pilates. But those are continual personal goals that I’m pretty good at maintaining unless something extreme happens, such as my hip bursitis flaring.

Yes, I’m a 47-year-old with a bad hip. It’s freaking hilarious.

Anyway, I digress.

One of the ‘tweaks’ involves switching up how I do giveaways in 2021. Not all giveaways, but most. I’ve decided to focus more on the digital realm so I can reach (and hopefully treat) more of my readers at once. And, in switching up my giveaways, I’m also putting more focus on writing and less on the effort it takes for me to manage a physical giveaway.

The idea is to set a couple of Saturdays aside a month to write (and rewrite) a random short story set in the Adept Universe for my newsletter, one per month. Most of the shorts will be prequels to the currently published books. At the end of the year, I’ll bundle all the shorts, get them properly edited and proofed, then publish them on all retailers.

Today was my first Saturday devoted to this new endeavour. I intended to draft the entire story in one day, using a second Saturday to redraft, and a third to proof/polish. But apparently Kandy’s tale needs more than what I can give in a single day because I wrote 6165 words (read: a really good writing day for me) and it’s still nowhere near finished.

So … only two days into January, into my multi-tiered plan, and I’m behind schedule.

Typical freaking werewolf. Always taking over every scene she’s in. I really should have known better.

😂

So … I’ll write the rest of the short tomorrow. Because on Monday I’m supposed to be working on Archivist 1, not playing around with a snarky werewolf who, when bored, apparently enjoys getting herself into entanglements that completely screw with her worldview. And yeah, the first short is going to come with a content warning. Did you expect anything less from Kandy?

In case you missed it, I released the first chapter of Awakening Infinity (Archivist 0) yesterday. Also, Kim, over on the reader run fan group, is hosting a discussion of the new book, chapter by chapter, if that interests you. ETA: as of Feb 26 these chapters have been removed, pending the release of the book on all retailers!

Happy New Year!!