Last Call: A TempleVerse Anthology Book 1 (TempleVerse Anthologies)
Page 1
Last Call
A TempleVerse Anthology Book 1
Shayne Silvers
Cameron O’Connell
Contents
BOOKS IN THE TEMPLE VERSE
STALK ME ONLINE!
I. MOTHERLUCKER
Chapter 1 — Quinn MacKenna, Boston
Chapter 2 — Callie Penrose. Kansas City
Chapter 3 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 4 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 5 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 6 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 7 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 8 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 9 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 10 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 11 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 12 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 13 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 14 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 15 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 16 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 17 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 18 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
Chapter 19 — Quinn MacKenna, Vegas
Chapter 20 — Callie Penrose, Vegas
II. COLLINS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
III. BEERLYMPIAN
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
MAKE A DIFFERENCE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT SHAYNE SILVERS
ABOUT CAMERON O’CONNELL
BOOKS IN THE TEMPLE VERSE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Shayne Silvers & Cameron O’Connell
Last Call
A TempleVerse Anthology Book 1
© 2018, Shayne Silvers / Argento Publishing, LLC
info@shaynesilvers.com
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author / publisher.
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BOOKS IN THE TEMPLE VERSE
CHRONOLOGY: All stories in the Temple Verse are shown in chronological order on the following page
PHANTOM QUEEN DIARIES
WHISKEY GINGER
COSMOPOLITAN
OLD FASHIONED
DARK AND STORMY -
MOSCOW MULE - COMING FALL 2018…
FEATHERS AND FIRE SERIES
UNCHAINED
RAGE
WHISPERS
ANGEL’S ROAR
SINNER - COMING OCTOBER 2018…
NATE TEMPLE SERIES
FAIRY TALE - FREE prequel novella #0 for my subscribers
OBSIDIAN SON
BLOOD DEBTS
GRIMM
SILVER TONGUE
BEAST MASTER
TINY GODS
DADDY DUTY (Novella #6.5)
WILD SIDE
WAR HAMMER
NINE SOULS
HORSEMAN
LEGEND (TEMPLE #11) - COMING DECEMBER 2018…
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: TEMPLE VERSE
FAIRY TALE (TEMPLE PREQUEL)
OBSIDIAN SON (TEMPLE 1)
BLOOD DEBTS (TEMPLE 2)
GRIMM (TEMPLE 3)
SILVER TONGUE (TEMPLE 4)
BEAST MASTER (TEMPLE 5)
BEERLYMPIAN (TEMPLE 5.5)
TINY GODS (TEMPLE 6)
DADDY DUTY (TEMPLE NOVELLA 6.5)
UNCHAINED (FEATHERS… 1)
RAGE (FEATHERS… 2)
WILD SIDE (TEMPLE 7)
WAR HAMMER (TEMPLE 8)
WHISPERS (FEATHERS… 3)
COLLINS (PHANTOM 0)
WHISKEY GINGER (PHANTOM… 1)
NINE SOULS (TEMPLE 9)
COSMOPOLITAN (PHANTOM… 2)
ANGEL’S ROAR (FEATHERS… 4)
MOTHERLUCKER (FEATHERS 4.5, PHANTOM 3.5)
OLD FASHIONED (PHANTOM…3)
HORSEMAN (TEMPLE 10)
DARK AND STORMY (PHANTOM… 4)
STALK ME ONLINE!
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Part I
MOTHERLUCKER
Motherlucker—Feathers and Fire #4.5 / Phantom Queen Diaries #3.5
Coming-of-age can be an awkward time in any young person's life. Hormones flair. Hair grows in weird places. Wrestling becomes foreplay. But at no point in any would-be adult's life is the transition more obvious than the 21st birthday—an American tradition as rich as drinking to celebrate other cultures. But for some, this transcendent experience is rockier than others.
For Aria and Sonya, weredragon sisters and birthday girls, it's about to be downright turbulent.
Head out for a night out on the town with Callie Penrose, Quinn MacKenna, Othello, and the Reds as they do their best to break the "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" adage by taking on the leprechaun mafia, hitting on Johnson Beaver, avoiding were-strippers, donning Dorian Gray's clothing line, robbing a bank, and drinking everything they can get their hands on, of course. If these girls thought Lady Luck was on their side, they should have known better.
Because in Vegas, the House always wins...
Chapter 1 — Quinn MacKenna, Boston
They came for me in the middle of the night.
I felt them the instant they entered the room, my hard-won instincts jerking me from an already troubled sleep. A pair of dainty hands snatched my wrists, and another set grabbed my ankles. Or they would have, were I not already drawing them towards my stomach, coiling into a defensive ball. I lashed out with one foot, catching the figure at the base of my bed—little more than a feminine silhouette in the dim light of my bedroom—squarely in the face. She, whoever she was, yelped in pain and f
ell away.
“Aria!” the woman reaching for my forearms yelled. She didn’t get to say much more than that, however, because I used the momentum of my kick to spin away from those hands. I came up swinging, firing off a left jab, then a right cross that made my knuckles sting like hell.
“Damn! That hurt!” the other woman said, clutching her face.
“Sonia!” Aria cried, struggling to her feet on the other side of the room. “What happened?”
“She punched me in the eye! I think she knocked out my contact!”
I rolled off the bed, putting it between me and the would-be assailants, and snatched up the Sig Sauer P226 on my nightstand. I raised it and adjusted into a shooting stance but didn’t flick the safety off. Usually, I’d have shot first and asked questions later, but something held me back. For one, if one of my many enemies wanted to jump me in the middle of the night, they’d have hired professionals. These two sounded young and had so far been anything but professional. For another, they clearly had no idea who they were dealing with, or they would have brought at least a few more thugs; two-against-one odds rarely guaranteed a flawless victory.
“Who are ye?” I asked, my Irish brogue cutting in sharply through their muttered curses.
“Is that a gun?” Aria asked, crouching down. At first, I thought she was trying to avoid me aiming at her, but then I realized she was scouring the carpet for the contact lens I’d knocked loose.
Definitely not professionals.
“It is, so don’t try anythin’ stupid,” I said, sounding cliché even to myself.
Sonia perked up, and—even in the darkness—I could tell the pupil of one eye was not only a different color, but a different shape. A horizontal slit like a goat’s eye. And the iris was blood red. Well, that was entirely new to me. “Cool. Almost none of our friends use guns. I’ve always wanted one, but Nate never lets me touch his thing.”
“That’s what she said,” the other assailant muttered. Before I could ask the half dozen or so questions this exchange prompted, she spoke up again. “Who the hell keeps a loaded gun next to them in bed?”
“Someone who doesn’t like to be woken up in the middle of the night,” I replied. “I’m not exactly a mornin’ person. Now, tell me who ye are, or I’m goin’ to shoot ye on principle.” I left out the fact that—now that the adrenaline had worn off—the hangover from the drinks I’d had only a few hours before was making it harder and harder not to shoot them and be done with it.
I could always clean up the mess in the morning.
But then, before they could respond to my ultimatum, a series of knocks sounded at my door, making my shoulders twitch. The two girls exchanged looks in the dark, their faces unreadable. As I considered my options, wondering whether it was merely coincidence that someone was at my door in the middle of the night or whether this was some elaborate scheme, the theme song of “From Russia with Love” began playing on the nightstand on the opposite side of my bed, the light from my phone illuminating the room.
Now that I could see them more clearly, I realized I was looking at a pair of nearly identical girls, each with red hair remarkably similar to my own. They were stunning. Not simply because they were attractive—though they were—but because they were ridiculously dolled up in a pair of cocktail dresses and heels that added five inches to their height at least. How they’d managed to stay upright in those things, let alone sneak into my room, was beyond me.
“Do you want me to get that?” Sonia asked, inching towards the nightstand.
“No, stay right where ye are,” I growled.
“I’m just going to get it,” she said, stepping forward to flick her finger across the screen with inhuman quickness before returning to where she’d stood only a second before, simultaneously accepting the call and revealing her true nature.
So not professionals, but definitely not human, either.
I snarled and flipped the safety off, overly cautious despite the fact that my own supernatural ability routinely rendered all magic obsolete in close quarters, including superhuman speed. “One more move like that, and I’ll put enough silver inside ye to make ye worth sellin’ at an antiquary.”
“Did she say silver?” Aria asked, hands suddenly raised in surrender.
A voice I recognized echoed throughout my bedroom, emitting from both the phone and outside my door at different speeds. “Quinn, don’t shoot them!” Othello urged. “Reds, what did I say?!”
I froze. Othello, a Russian hacker and businesswoman who also happened to be one of my very few friends, was apparently standing outside my apartment, telling me not to gun down the girls who’d broken in to abduct me. “Someone tell me what the fuck is goin’ on,” I growled. “Now.”
“We were just trying to have some fun,” Aria whined.
“It’s not our fault she fisted us,” Sonia added.
“Punched,” Aria corrected. “She punched us. Well, you. She kicked me.”
“Girls, what did I tell you?” Othello hissed.
Aria hung her head, her red hair falling forward over her face. “That kidnapping Miss MacKenna was a terrible idea.”
“And?” Othello said.
“And,” Sonia replied, “very dangerous.”
“She still didn’t have to kick me in the face,” Aria muttered under her breath.
I took a deep, calming breath and flicked the safety back on. “Othello,” I said, finally, “what the fuck is goin’ on?”
“Oh! Right. Are you busy this weekend?” Othello asked.
I blinked, too thrown by the question to function, my hangover making it nearly impossible to figure out what I’d done in my past life to deserve this shit. Kicked a baby, maybe? Hunted an endangered species into extinction? “Why?” I asked, hesitantly.
“We’re going to Vegas,” Aria said, her grin visible in the light provided by my phone, no longer the least bit remorseful.
“For our birthdays,” Sonia said, hopping up and down, her skintight dress barely holding everything in.
“And we wanted to see if you’d like to come,” Othello chimed in, her voice still echoing from the corridor.
I lowered my gun, eyeing the two girls, each of whom looked like a kid who’d been given a Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate factory. I could tell they desperately wanted me to say yes, despite the swelling settling in along Sonia’s raptorial eye and along Aria’s cheek. Had it been anyone but me they’d come for, it was entirely possible that these two—with their frightening speed and supreme recklessness—would have succeeded in kidnapping them, whisking them off into the night. I set the gun down on the mattress and began massaging my aching temples.
Jesus Christ, a night in Vegas with two would-be kidnappers and a Russian hacker.
Sure, why not? What could go wrong?
Chapter 2 — Callie Penrose. Kansas City
I stepped out of the darkened alley, scanning the streets for any sign of danger. My tight jeans and tank were casual, but the cleavage factor was a ten, and the sporty short black coat dressed up my outfit enough to hopefully gain me entrance into the club across the street.
Regulars—humans without any flavor of magic about them—formed a line waiting to get in, but I knew the bouncer was something else entirely, a shifter cat of some sort, one of many supernatural creatures we called Freaks. The unsuspecting humans, of course, had no idea they were so close to danger, probably assuming the bouncer was nothing more than a strong, handsome Hispanic man. But like knew like, which meant he would probably recognize me—Callie Penrose, the wizard who hunted monsters for the Vatican—in an instant. He might even wonder if I was here to ruin his day.
Luckily for him, I wasn’t. I had a friend waiting inside. Well, friend might be pushing it. More like a business acquaintance. As per usual, Dorian Gray only held business meetings in less than reputable places. Hence the night club.
I walked up to the bouncer, making sure to not look threatening or aggressive, in case he’d heard of m
e. As expected, he marked me before I made it even halfway across the street, and his eyes narrowed instinctively. He wasn’t challenging me. It was more like he was asking a silent question. Are you going to be trouble tonight, Miss?
I smiled innocently, lifting my palms as I continued to walk, shaking my head as I neared. “I’m here to meet a friend. Mr. Gray.”
A trio of curvy brunettes at the front of the line tittered upon hearing what sounded like a Fifty Shades of Grey reference. More giggles followed as they openly judged my casual attire, obviously a few levels below what they deemed club appropriate. I didn’t really care about their fashion opinions or what deep-seated fantasies they held about a billionaire bondage relationship. I wasn’t that kind of girl.
The laughter continued longer than I decided I wanted to tolerate, so I glanced over at the instigator of the group, meeting her mahogany eyes. I pointedly studied her up and down, from cleavage to caboose. If her top had been any lower or her shorts any shorter she could have auditioned for a job at a strip club. Her friends weren’t dressed any classier. They hadn’t learned that a girl could still look sexy without baring it all.