Dakota’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?” The gold of his wolf eyes flashed. “Exactly what I should have done days ago.” Dakota inhaled a sharp breath. From the dark look in his eyes, she almost expected him to strip the belt from his jeans and use it to make the bare skin of her ass a dusky shade of pink. The thought of her bent over his knee sent an unexpected wave of heat through her core. Her mouth went dry as adrenaline coursed through her. “Blaze?” she breathed again, prompting more from his non-answer. His chaps and belt were cast aside now along with his Stetson. The shirt came next. “Showering,” he ground out. His tone was harsher, more hardened than usual. She didn’t exactly dislike it. “Exactly like you are,” he growled. “What else?” He turned on one of the showerheads in the adjacent stall block facing her. Another cloud of steam filled the room. “Here?” she nearly squeaked. “What?” he snapped. “We’re both warriors, coworkers as you put it, and I may not be as drenched as your clothes were, but we’re both covered in blood.” His shirt was on the floor now, and those large…

“Why is it,” Jeffrey Sitwell asks, “that you want to become a guard?” Under the desk, my steel-toed boot taps against the floor. Unsteady fingers smooth my ponytail, they tug my blazer straight. The past two hours were spent celebrating; Emerald is now a professional fighter, though it was never in question, and Maggie is a writer for Compound Eleven’s paper. I am happy for my friends, but now it’s my turn. I take a steadying breath and glance around the small office where I sit, one located on the fourth floor where the guardship is housed. A concrete room, no decoration or ornament whatsoever. Nothing to distract me from the two men sitting across the table. One of them has black hair and black skin, and his name is Dirk Nkrumah. He wears the uniform of a guard, but he is no regular guard. He is the most senior guard of the compound, and I loathe him for this reason alone. Beside him is Sitwell, a man much older, a Preme, one dressed in a navy-blue suit with gold cufflinks, one with white hair and a sharply cut nose. The one in charge of Compound Eleven’s security. His skin…

Rashida Howard maneuvered to the bar to order a drink. Then, wine in hand, she scanned the room for a seat. It might’ve been easier finding a spot on a Titanic lifeboat. People were shoulder-to-shoulder and breast-to-chest deep. Every person in downtown Atlanta must’ve had the same idea—hang out here until the sun went down then make a dash for their cars and homes. She spied an empty stool and pushed her way toward it. She could almost touch it, but a suit slid onto it ahead of her. In no mood to be nice, she had an urge to grab him by the collar and dump him on the floor. Breathe, Rashida baby, breathe. Her grandmother’s voice rang in her head. That voice of reason was the only thing that stood between her and an assault charge. Rashida’s usual calm demeanor had been submerged under the recent changes in her grandmother’s life.  Her day had been one disappointment after another, culminating with her last stop at Quinn Enterprises. She’d phoned Marcus Quinn all week. He hadn’t the decency to return any of her calls, so she’d decided to forgo courtesy and just show up at his office unannounced. No…

2:00 pm, Monday River Thames “’Tis good to be on a boat again,” Fiona said as the Sea Rover glided along, “even though ‘tis nae like a loch.” “That is an understatement,” Lorelei answered, trying not to sound sarcastic. Loch Awe, where Strae Castle was located, was crystal clear and carried the fresh scents of forested woods and heather. The river was grey and murky and smelled awful. Hopefully, this sailing adventure would not last that long now that Erik hadn’t accompanied them. “Combien de temps avant qu’ils ne le découvrent?” the boatswain asked the first mate. “J’espère pas avant que nous soyons en mer.” He shrugged. “Je ne veux pas les attacher.” “What are they saying?” Fiona asked. Lorelei frowned, not sure she heard correctly. She’d taken two years of French while Papa was still alive, but hadn’t had much cause to use it. “Oui. C’est une bonne dizaine de jours à Tripoli.” “Avec de bons vents.” The boatswain laughed. “Nous obtiendrons beaucoup d’argent pour eux.” Those last words chilled her. She gave Fiona a look that she hoped her friend would understand before she turned to the first mate at the helm. She prayed her voice wouldn’t shake….

“Quick, hide me!” Suz said as she ran into the large white tent. Kari Stuart looked up from where she was positioning a freestanding wall featuring pictures of animals currently up for adoption at the Serenity Sanctuary, almost dropping the display on her foot. Kari wasn’t sure which amazed her more–that her best friend, who was six feet tall with spiky lavender hair, thought she could actually hide behind five-foot-five, brown-haired Kari, or that there was something Suz would feel the need to hide from at all. They’d been friends since grade school and as far as Kari knew, Suz wasn’t afraid of anything. “Is there a demon chasing you?’ Kari asked, shifting one side of the hinged board so the whole thing was more stable. They were on the park-like grounds of the two year state college in Perryville, not far from their home town of Lakeview, for the annual Tri-county Kennel Club Show. Suz was a member of the local kennel club, one of three clubs putting on the event, and she’d been roped into taking on the coordinator role when someone else backed out at the last minute. In turn, she’d persuaded (okay, bribed) Kari into helping,…

We settled into a silence that was less awkward than I’d worried it would be. Colin played with his phone—he’d discovered a daily crossword puzzle app that could keep him occupied for hours. I thought about sketching, but decided I had a better way to spend the time. I pulled up a website I’d scoped out earlier on my phone. “Hey, Col?” “Yeah?” “Can I ask you some questions?” “I guess. Why?” I shrugged. “Oh, I dunno. To get to know you better.” “Sure, shoot.” He turned his attention back to his game. “Would you like or dislike inspecting a roof for leaks?” “Considering I have no idea how I’d do that, dislike.” “No, but, pretending you did know how to do it, would you like doing it?” He looked off into the distance for a moment, and I took the opportunity to make sure Evelyn’s house remained still and inactive. “Yeah, I guess if I had the skills, I’d like it. It would get me outside.” I clicked like on the form. “Okay, cool. What about analyzing the structure of molecules?” “What? No. I’d be in a lab all day.” He shuddered. Dislike for sure, then. “Coordinate a business…

“That is, without question, the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.” Ruby gave a start of surprise at the unexpected voice so close behind her and jerked the leash in her hand. Predictably, the dog on the other end—­a poodle shaved and trimmed into a series of white puffs like a Q-­tip—­didn’t move. Ruby had been holding on to her for over five minutes, and she had yet to see the dog do anything but blink. Her owner had commanded her to stay, so stay was what she intended to do. “I shouldn’t say that,” the voice continued in a low, flirtatious rumble. Its owner, a tall, well-­built stranger with shoulders like a linebacker, smiled as he stepped close. “I’m not supposed to play favorites, but you’ve obviously put a lot of time and effort into this dog. What’s his name?” “Her,” she said. “It’s a girl dog.” “Well, she’s got something special, that’s for sure.” The man extended a hand, his eyes smiling down into hers. They were gorgeous eyes, so dark they were almost black and ringed with the kind of long, curling eyelashes that Ruby had regularly pasted on when she was kid. “I’m Spencer Wilson, by…

“Sacked?” Witherspoon repeated. “And your family has no idea you no longer have a job?” Percy nodded. “That’s correct. I wouldn’t have said anything about the matter except you’re going to speak to my former employer. I know this makes me look very bad, but I assure you, I’ve nothing to do with my stepmother’s murder. I simply don’t like working. Well, that wasn’t the exact situation. It was more a case that my employer didn’t appreciate the hours I wanted to keep. Apparently, they expect you to be there from early in the morning until half past five or even six o’clock in the evening.” Surprised, Witherspoon simply stared at the man. It took him a good thirty seconds to recover and ask another question. “When were you sacked?” “At the end of September.” “You’ve been pretending to have a job since the end of September?” Witherspoon pressed. He wanted to understand, to ask how on earth anyone could possibly keep up such a tiring charade? But other than satisfying his own curiosity, the man’s employment situation probably had very little to do with Mrs. Andover’s murder. On the other hand, from what he’d learned of the dead woman,…

I wanted to believe I had changed. I was a better person with more empathy for others, but if Billy hadn’t pulled away, I wasn’t so sure I would have passed his test. It was time for another moment of reckoning. I walked over to my front stoop, climbed the three steps, grabbed the handle of the rust-colored, never-locked security door, and froze. I couldn’t quite bring myself to take the inside staircase to the top floor apartment to face the discordant soundtrack that was my family, but what choice did I have? I turned back to the street—maybe I could leave—but my ride was gone. Besides, my mother didn’t send a return ticket and the change at the bottom of my backpack wasn’t enough to buy a subway token. My backpack! I left it and my suitcase in the back of the van. I plopped down onto the stoop. The sun was setting, and in the second-story windows of the nearby buildings, with their red-brick exteriors, mirror images to mine, with their two legal apartments and one illegal basement apartment, I could see silhouettes of the infamous Beach Chair Ladies, BCs for short. From Memorial Day until the first…

“I did what I was told. Now, do whatever you’re supposed to do to allow me to remember my past.” “What?” His face scrunched up. An errant bit of unruly hair fell across his forehead and tickled the point at the top of his sculpted nose. Cameras must love his symmetry and angles. “You know me, right? You know who I am? Is Nova actually my name? Have we met before? Please, I need to remember.” “I don’t know you,” he said. He didn’t know her? He had to. Her phone vibrated against her racing heart, likely another countdown warning. Task accomplished. She’d gotten him out of the subbasement. Did she need to get him out of the club for the miraculous recovery of her memories? “Why was it important I leave downstairs?” he asked. “I don’t know.” She wanted to text back “Unknown” to report her success, but, “Unknown” probably wouldn’t respond. She’d replied to the texts the moment she woke up and never got anything back. “I think we have to get out of the club. Something might be about to happen.” His head whipped to the side to search the dance floor. “I have business to attend…