But I digress. This is the ever so tentative first chapter of Book 2 which, as of yet, is sort of untitled. I'm sticking with the flower theme but haven't quite figured it out yet. Yes ok so the obvious choice here is Wolf's Bane. No I am not going to name it that. Do you know how many books are already called that? It's a lot. It's like more than five. That is a lot. And if I name my sequel that how are you going to know it is the correct one instead of like some other weird werewolf book that wasn't written by me and doesn't have snappy commentary and funny dialogue?
Ok so...it's really only PART of the first chapter. But still, a sample.
“What is counterproductive?”
I was sitting on my couch, two day box of pizza on the floor, empty ice cream carton next to me, watching Jeopardy in sweatpants and a tank top. I’d done the same routine for longer than I strictly wanted to admit. I hadn’t taken a shower just yet, but I was pretty sure I’d taken one yesterday. That was still pretty good in my book.
“Hey Rose.” Celia walked in, her leather bag slung over her shoulder and holding a paper cup of coffee in her free hand. She was wearing a mini skirt over black jeans and a black t shirt today. Yesterday had been short shorts over leggings. I was almost positive Celia never showed her legs to anyone. Including her boyfriend.
“Hey Celia.” I didn’t even get off the couch to greet her now. After the incident with Jenna in the shop and the very real fact that Celia had shown up for work and instantly known that something was up, I’d come clean and explained what had happened. About Jenna at least. I was keeping the lich business a secret to approximately everyone.
“You get that circle yet?” Since finding out about Jenna and the vague, poorly informed story I had come up with about how we had killed her, Celia had been tutoring me in magic. Which was surprisingly useful since I had next to zero knowledge and Miss Eleanor’s grimoire, while helpful, was also kind of assuming that the person reading it knew how to control their magic already. Which was not me.
The spell we’d been practicing was some sort of protection circle. Like basic witch-101 stuff. Draw a circle, use your magic to cast it into being, stay in said circle and be protected from the bad shit outside the circle. I had parts one and three down but the bit in the middle was eluding me like a needle in a haystack. I tried three times with Celia watching me a few days earlier. On the first attempt, nothing had happened. The second I’d managed to blow every light bulb in the house. And the third had singed the rug so badly I’d gone to Target to buy another rug to hide the scorch marks with. We’d called it a day after that one.
“Nah I ah…haven’t tried it since.”
“I figured since the house is still standing.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.” In the few weeks since the succubus problem, I’d actually gotten pretty fond of hanging out with Celia. She was dry to the point where almost everything she said was funny. Even if she didn’t mean it to be. Which made it funnier to me but sometimes I had to hide the fact that I was laughing. Especially if she wasn’t laughing with me.
“So how long are you gonna wallow for exactly?”
“I’m not wallowing.” Minus the fact that I was wearing the same thing I’d worn yesterday and possibly the day before that. And the fact that I hadn’t been to the shop more than twice in the three weeks since the fight. One, to assess the damage. And the second time to tell the construction workers what I wanted done to fix it. Mr. P had left me a substantial amount of money with the shop and I figured, if I had to get it fixed anyway, why not make some improvements? And by improvements I mean also buy the café that closed next door and more than double the space we had to work with because hello, golden opportunity and the cash to make it happen.
Celia just shot me a look that cut through my thin excuses and just slightly stained attire. “Ok fine. I am wallowing.”
“Good. Now it’s time to move on.”
“How exactly am I supposed to do that?” Damn Celia and her practicality. I had at least another week’s worth of wallowing in me.
“Take a shower and come see the shop with me.”
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