Queen Nyomi snarled in disbelief. “Really? What about the human female who runs that agency you align with? You felt something more than lust for her.”
Axel grunted and turned away. “It fluttered through my chest briefly and passed before I even recognized it was a genuine attraction. I do think it was a pity that she chose those two stone idiots as mates. What a waste of womanhood.”
“Gargoyles aren’t real stone,” she reminded him. “Remember that each gargoyle’s soul remains human regardless of the change to the original container. The ancient magic that created their bodies is to be respected just as much as the incredible power that forged the sentient blade you’re getting ready to encounter. Disrespect of such power is for ignorant humans. It is not something a Lyran Earth Guardian can indulge in, not even in jest.”
“I concede to your greater wisdom about ancient Earth magic, but I know my mind quite well when it comes to my sexual needs. I have no urge to mate permanently with any female and I find no fault with the way I have chosen to meet them,” Axel said, bowing his head.
“Oh, my dear boy, your sexual selfishness is nothing but male self-delusion. One day you will learn that truth. I hope it happens soon.”
“And I hope that it never happens at all,” Axel said calmly.
Tired of her and Axel’s debate, Nyomi pulled her mind back to the real reason she came to see her son. “We could argue your eventual epiphany for hours, but unfortunately, we have more important things to discuss today. That agency you pretend to work for is going to be calling you soon.”
“Are you for certain?”
Nyomi glared at her son. “Yes. The archaeologist who found the blade has gone to them for help. Take the assignment and bring the blade’s host here to your lair. But, Axel, do not seek to sexually dominate the female host of the blade. If the blade sees you as its host’s enemy, it will likely not hesitate to end your life.”
“What happens if I fail to keep its female host alive? Will I have to fight the blade on her death?”
“I do not know what would happen in that instance. The ancient records say when a blade’s host expires, it returns to Athena’s original form for it. Now that so many know the archaeologist discovered something that gives its owner enormous power, hiding the blade will be next to impossible. The new host must be kept alive and trained if possible.”
“You say she’s still bonding with it though?”
“Apparently, there are many layers to the symbiosis process. She’s survived the first few so far. You must take special care of her until it completes.” Nyomi paced away and looked off. “If this seems too much to bother with your wolf-sitting schedule, I can have the female collected by your father. I am willing to train her myself if there’s a chance to align our people with the host of the blade.”
“There is no need for you to risk yourself, Mother. When have I ever refused a request from my queen?”
“Should we discuss Rian again?” Nyomi asked with a smirk.
Axel frowned and shook his head. “No, but I do have one other question. Why must we accept responsibility for the trouble this human has gotten herself into with her curiosity?”
Nyomi lifted a hand. “How can a naturally curious feline ask such a ridiculous question? That must come from your human side. This is an example of the exact selfishness I keep hoping you will one day outgrow.”
“I fail to see how preferring to mind my own business is selfish. I think it’s smart.”
Nyomi growled in displeasure. “We could easily turn our backs and leave the blade’s host to her fate, but do you want her being corrupted by those seeking to control the weapon? Do you want to fight the blade’s host as an enemy one day or fight at her side as her ally? She is no doubt frightened by what has happened to her. I promise you that someone will manage to get close to her if we do not.”
Axel nodded. “Again, I concede to your greater wisdom. Not being a fool, of course, I would prefer the host of the sentient blade to be an ally.”
“Good. I want you to at least try to befriend the woman. Teach her to save herself if you can. That sort of benefaction is not something a human will ever forget. If we are lucky, your friendship may align her with our more noble causes in protecting this planet.”
That hadn’t crossed his mind, but his mother was probably right. Axel bowed his head in respect. “I will do as you ask, my queen. I will train the woman if she agrees.”
“Of course, you will,” Nyomi purred.
She walked back to where her son stood stoically yet mildly annoyed with her still. She lifted a hand to his handsome feline face and watched it change under her fingers to its other natural form. It was nearly a mirror image of the only human male she’d ever managed to love in all her time on Earth. His father was also the single male of any race who’d ever held her heart.
“The other children of Rodu are not like you, Axel. Your siblings were born either feline or human, but not both. Your ability to morph among the two is a great gift. I was over a thousand years old before I could shift my form. I hope one day you understand how blessed you are to have had the ability since birth.”
“If I am blessed, it is to be Queen Nyomi’s beloved son. That is all I need to appreciate my happy existence.”
She laughed as her hand dropped away.
“Oh, if only those words were true and not just something you incorrectly assume I want to hear. I wish you’d gotten a little more of your father’s irreverence.”
“Weren’t you chastising me for that very thing just moments ago?”
Nyomi chuckled. “When Rodu says anything to me, at least I know his words are completely sincere. To this day, I find his directness quite refreshing. Why do you think I keep insisting he extend his human life? Your father keeps saying humans aren’t meant to be so old, but it’s not like I leave him old. After regenerating, he looks as young as you.”
She smiled at her pleasant thoughts of Rodu as she moved away from her eldest child. “Guard the new Protector until she comes into her own, Axel. Doing so is a better use of your time than torturing that poor wolf.”
Axel nodded. “Minding the wolf is merely something to keep me from being bored. I trust your judgment about the blade’s host and will heed it. To the best of my ability, I will do what you have asked.”
Nyomi felt her face lift in joy at his words. “Thank you, my son. May happiness find you until we see each other again.”
“May happiness find you as well, Mother.”
Axel lifted a hand to wave as his mother created a ball of molecular energy around herself and lifted from the ground. Only fully ascended felines possessed the gift of transporting in that manner, but such power over the elements didn’t manifest until a Lyran was over three thousand years old.
As he watched her leave, it suddenly occurred to him that he actually didn’t know how old his mother was. He wondered if his father knew. Come to think of it, he didn’t know how old his human father was either. Their actual ages weren’t something he'd ever concerned himself with knowing. His parents were, well, just his parents.
The idea of being with one person for more than a week or two alarmed him. He couldn’t imagine spending several hundred years, much less a millennium, bedding only one female.
He looked down as something hit his foot. It was Max dropping the long-forgotten stick across his shoe. The wolf sat at his feet stoically with his large wolf eyes were full of concern.
Axel shrugged in answer before he spoke. “Looks like I have another human pain in the ass to babysit which means you do too, Maxwell. Come on. Let’s go collect her before those do-gooders at Psych Central get too involved.”
—Want more Bad Panther? Click Here—
Excerpt: It’s A Wonderful Midlife Crisis
Good to the Last Death, Book 1
Book Description
Whoever said life begins at forty must have been heavily medicated, drunk, or delusional.
Thirty-nine was a
fantastic year. I was married to the man I loved. I had a body that worked without creaking. My grandma, who raised me, was still healthy, and life was pretty damned good.
But as they say, all good things come to an end. I’d honestly love to know who ‘they’ are and rip them a new one.
One year later, I’m a widow. My joints are starting to ache. Gram is in the nursing home, and dead people think my home is some kind of supernatural bed and breakfast. Gluing body parts onto semi-transparent people has become a side job—deceased people I’m not even sure are actually there. I think they need my help, but since I don’t speak dead, we’re having a few issues.
To add to the heap of trouble, there’s a new dangerously smokin’ hot lawyer at the firm who won’t stop giving me the eye. My BFF is thrilled with her new frozen face, thanks to her plastic surgeon, her alimony check, and the miracle of Botox. And then there’s the little conundrum that I’m becoming way too attached to my ghostly squatters… Like Cher, I’d like to turn back time. Now.
No can do.
Whatever. I have wine, good friends, and an industrial sized box of superglue. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything, apparently.
All in all, it’s shaping up to be a wonderful midlife crisis…
1
“No. Way. Are you freaking serious?” I screamed as I flattened myself against the wall of my laundry room with a thud, trying not to hyperventilate. “There’s a hand in the laundry basket. There’s a hand in the laundry basket. There’s a hand in the damn laundry basket.”
Sliding carefully along the wall so the unattached appendage didn’t jump out and grab me, I eased my way out of the tiny room and sprinted to the kitchen. It had a door that led outside, just in case the hand was up to no good.
Wait. What kind of good could a lone hand in a basket of dirty laundry be up to?
No good. That’s what kind of good a companionless hand could be up to.
“I’m nuts,” I muttered, closing my eyes and pressing my fingers to my temples. Forty was supposed to be the new thirty, according to all the magazines. If this was forty, I was going to take a pass. I’d only been forty for three hours and it was already seriously bad. The solitary hand was the rancid icing on top of a really crappy birthday cake.
Pacing my kitchen and keeping my eyes peeled for more random body parts, I spotted the empty coffee container and almost cried. Handling the ridiculously absurd while un-caffeinated was not going to end well.
“I don’t have the energy for this right now,” I told no one in particular, since I was alone. “Who did I screw over in a former life that I’m dealing with this shit?”
Unfortunately, I’d been seeing semi-corporeal versions of dead people for a few weeks. I’d become the kid from the Sixth Sense except that was a movie and this was real life… and my dead people did not look like Bruce Willis.
Up until now, all my deceased buddies had done was stare and laugh—or so I’d thought. There was nothing quite like being the butt of a cadaver’s joke… that was, if the hand was a joke and not a warning that I was going to be six feet under soon.
“Isn’t it enough that you freaks follow me around? Now you’re leaving body parts in my dirty clothes? For God’s sake, today’s my birthday and this behavior is totally unacceptable. I almost puked. And let me tell you something,” I bellowed to the empty kitchen. “If I’d thrown up because one of you idiots thought it would be hilarious to put a hand in with my dirty panties, you’d be cleaning that mess up. Are we clear here?”
Of course, there was no answer. There was never an answer. They didn’t speak—just silently accompanied me to the grocery store and around my house. They were very partial to reality shows. I’d started leaving the television on all night so they didn’t wander into my bedroom while I slept. Thankfully they hadn’t discovered where I worked yet. However, I had no doubt that was coming soon.
“Come on, you guys. It wasn’t funny.” Maybe reasoning with them would work. Hell, I didn’t know if they were real or if I was imagining them. There was a fifty-fifty chance I’d lost my mind. “I think I’ve been pretty nice about letting you stay here rent-free. I don’t deserve to be given a heart attack at seven in the morning.”
Again, no answer.
Again, maybe I was nuts.
Was there even a hand in my laundry basket? Maybe it was a fleshy, skin-colored winter glove. Since it was October and I lived in Georgia it was doubtful. Not to mention, I didn’t own any fleshy, skin-colored winter gloves. I had a little more fashion sense than that. Until I had my iced coffee with an extra-large squirt of chocolate syrup, I wasn’t going to test the theory.
Pleasant. I’d be pleasant. A nice conversational tone might prevent another gag-inducing prank… or not. “Okay, I’m going to eat and leave the house. Whoever left their hand in the laundry room needs to remove it before I get home or I’m going to…”
What the heck was I going to do with a disembodied hand? Should I put it in the freezer? Should I bury it? Damn it, if I buried it, did I have to do it at the cemetery on hallowed ground instead of my yard? It would suck up, down and sideways if it popped out of the ground during a backyard barbecue. What if I got busted at the graveyard for burying a hand and had to do time in the big house? God, the heinous consequences were endless.
Terrified to open my cabinets, I debated how hungry I was. Breakfast was the most important meal of the day, but if there were eyeballs next to my oatmeal, I’d have to check myself into the loony bin.
From out of nowhere, a partially translucent woman tore around my kitchen, wailing in like a banshee—and ironically, she was missing a hand. Had the weirdos been trying to kill each other? Wait. That made no sense whatsoever. They were already dead. The varying states of decay were a dead giveaway—pun intended.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I shrieked as I scrambled up onto the kitchen table in fear for my life.
Could I make it out the door and into my yard? Crap, I was still in my nightie and it was chilly today. Furthermore, what in the hell was I going to do outside? Call for help to get the handless dead woman out of my kitchen? Not too many choices here.
“Stop,” I shouted in the voice I’d learned to use during my self-defense class at the Y.
She did.
Now what?
The woman was trembling from head to toe. Where her hand should have been was just shredded skin—if you could call grayish papery-looking stuff skin. No blood at all. If she was alive in the normal sense of the word, I’d guess her age to be somewhere in her late sixties. She was attractive in a ghostly way.
“Did you, umm… lose your hand? I asked, not quite believing I was conversing with someone I was fairly certain wasn’t there.
She simply stared and cocked her head to the side.
“Maybe you don’t speak English. Or maybe you were brain dead when you died so it isn’t functioning now that you’re not exactly alive. Or maybe you were mute in life… or maybe I’m insane,” I added for good measure as I cautiously got down off the table.
She came a little closer, and I jerked back. The rules were wildly unclear.
“Stay where you are,” I warned, holding up my hand and hoping she understood sign language. “If you promise not to body snatch me or eat me, I think I can help you out.
Still she said nothing as I carefully made my way to the laundry room to retrieve what I assumed was her hand.
“I’m using a bath towel that’s seen better days in case you’re a disease-carrying zombie.” Never in my life did I think I would utter those words in a sentence. “So, I’ll toss it to you in a sec.”
Surprisingly, my gag reflex didn’t kick in. Dead stuff usually set it off. However, she seemed so upset about her hand, I was okay. Strange. I approached her with extreme caution. I held out her hand, and she held out her stump.
Oh. Hell. No.
Did she want me to reattach it? How did you reattach something to what was little more than a g
host? Her hand felt real, and she looked real enough, even though I could see through parts of her.
“Here you go,” I said as I tried again to give her the towel-wrapped body part.
She wasn’t having it. She simply stood there with her arm extended and waited.
“I’m not a doctor. Not real sure what you want me to do.”
Her eyes were huge in the hollowed-out sockets—watery blue and filled with what I guessed were tears. I was tempted to take her in my arms and hug her, but I still wasn’t positive she wouldn’t take a chunk out of me.
“I suppose I could glue it back on,” I suggested hesitantly. I knew there was some superglue in the junk drawer. I had no clue if there was enough to glue a hand back on. “Superglue can hold a big fat guy attached by his hat to a steel girder, according to the commercial,” I told the woman as I put her hand on the table and searched the drawer. “It might work on your hand.”
Damn, I was a slob. The drawer was full of stuff I didn’t need. However, I did find my eyelash curler, a few tampons, last month’s electric bill and the superglue.
“Mmmkay,” I said, assessing the situation.
I was going to have to touch her to make this work. I was hoping to live longer than forty years, but if my time was up—it was up. Maybe all the dead people were hanging out to let me know I was soon to be a goner. It would be nice if I went out doing something kind for someone. Reattaching a dead woman’s hand wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it was the only one I had at the moment.
“Here goes nothing,” I mumbled as I bit down on my lip and covered the stump with the goopy glue.
She watched in fascination as I then picked up her hand and connected it to her stump.
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