Random Fits of Fancy

Book 4 Excerpt for A Witch's Debt

I wrote this last year as a way to get out of my writing slump. It is a "hurt comfort" scene between Valerie and Keiren, when they are accepting of their mate bond and trying to navigate life as that. It just makes ME feel all gooey and comforting, the high before the crashing low that is planned later on in the book. Hope you enjoy :)

Series: Champion of the Void (Valerie Winters)

Planned book: Book 4 (untitled as of now)

Section: uh...midway? 

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The woman sat on a still lake's edge, one large flat boulder with smooth texture her only refuge. Tall evergreen pines and underbrush protected her huddled figure from behind with just the smooth water's obsidian surface greeting her in front. She sat with her legs hanging over the rock, shoes discarded on the rocky beach some ways away. Pale toes nearly rippled the clean surface, yet even as the woman trembled the peaceful water was not disturbed. She drew her leather jacket around her even tighter, hidden inside the worn folds as if it would protect her from all the wrongs of the world. It was a farce.

She wished to hide from the world. From her mistakes. The memories. The rush of pure, undiluted Void that still zipped through her veins. The icy hold of rage that clenched her heart. The fierce predator in her eyes that shone purple hues behind shadow, a predator that would protect her pack, no matter the cost. To hide from the knowledge that everyone had seen what she had just done. The feeling of complete and total chaos.

She had lost control. Let her anger get the best of her. What the shadows had shown her...she closed her eyes, but the memories still played behind her eyelids. Cody's body slamming into the tree. Lucinda's voice screaming in pain. Aggie's face at all the insults, digs. Cooper gritted his teeth as he tried to solve the problem. Alex being trampled all over as if she didn't exist. Mikayla resolves to duel the diplomat, only to be beaten to near death. McCormick nearly losing control. There were so many more memories, and all of them made her ill.

Where had she been during all of this? Sitting through a stupid trial, trying to get through to blind fools who weren't listening. Forced to dredge up and relive some of her worst memories. All of the pain and literal torture she had endured to end the life of a horrid vampire, one that had claimed the lives of so many of her own people, Champions just like her. Politics sucked.

She should have been home. Had his back while he dealt with all of this. She had said she would try. Try to understand his world, to understand what it meant to be part of a pack and to lead one. What all the difficult decisions were. She had promised to come 'home', even if it was nothing like she expected. She promised to try and find her place within this structure.

Little did he know she had resolved to protect them no matter what over a year ago. Her magic had only done so much to help those who had been in physical altercations, but it had its limits. The emotional damage...her magic wasn't any good with that.

What a great protector she was.

Something had to be done about the woman. She couldn't keep just traipsing about the pack doing as she pleased. She was an Outsider to their culture - Valerie knew plenty about that. A visitor to the culture couldn't just come in and expect everything to be to their standards and their way of life, yet the diplomat had done just that. Valerie couldn't just let her keep hurting them. The pack didn't deserve that. They were good people trying to do right by their Alpha as he navigated a difficult pack transition. So she stepped in, and made the woman deal with her. A buffer was what she wanted to be. Maybe she could get the woman to apologize, to stop being a 'Karen', whatever Mikayla had meant by that. Outsider to outsider, Valerie had hoped to make the woman see reason. Instead, it was a witch talking to a shifter who followed the old ways. Someone who saw her as a big problem. Food. Trash. Something to be killed and tossed to the birds. It didn't bother Valerie any, but it meant the woman wouldn't listen.