Thrill of the Chase (Hunters & Heartbreakers 1)

Sneak Peek of Book II

Hi all! So the first installment of "Hunters and Heartbreakers" has wrapped! It was actually super fun to write, especially because I sort of thought of it as an LGBTQ version of Cassandra Clare's "Infernal Devices" series. If you don't know what that is, I suggest you check it out: the love triangle in it is one of the best I've seen, and I've seen a lot. Didn't try to replicate that here, though.

Below, you'll find an excerpt from chapter I of the (still untitled) sequel. I won't say much about it, except that it's time to torture another character. You'll see what I mean by that when I start updating it, which'll probably be sometime in late May/early June. That's the plan, anyway.

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I — Wells

A Traveller's Guide to France:

The Essentials.

2 June.

So there we were. Five hunters, chased out of our homeland, hiding like fugitives in some off-the-beaten-path bed-and-breakfast called La Grenouille. Two of us — me and my sister Naomi — had been able to get by on our wits this far. There was another sibling pair with us — Cornelius and Marjorie Selling — who had hatched the plan for us to flee London in the first place. And then there was Langdon Wilkes — the boy I loved and who most definitely held us together as a group at all. More likely than not we'd be at each other's throats if he hadn't been here.

The owner and proprietor of La Grenouille, a quintessentially French woman with a penchant for long brown cigarettes and brightly-coloured bohemian dresses called Angelique, didn't look like a hunter. Except she was — apparently she was best known for taming a creature called La Bête, or The Beast, and to this day, she was the only he would obey.

"La Bête?" Naomi had said when Angelique had recounted the tale at supper last night. "Like the fairy tale? La Belle et la Bête?"

"He is no fairy tale, girl," Angelique had said, pointing at her with a half-smoked cigarette. "He was a fierce creature...terrorising every village from here to Paris."

I'd noticed she'd said it Pa-ree, the French way. Which, I suppose, was not unreasonable, considering we were in France.

"So he was more like Beowulf," Marjorie had said. "Leaving destruction in his wake."

"Yes." Angelique had nodded at her, then turned back to Naomi. "You see? Mademoiselle Selling understands."

Naomi had grumbled and rolled her eyes, but she hadn't protested any more. Besides, this wasn't our homeland. We didn't know the first thing about it.

"Wells?"

I looked up from the map spread on the table in the common dining room, covered with colored circles and symbols I'd never seen before. I'd seen Angelique studying it a moment ago, but she'd gotten distracted by something Cornelius had asked her and breezed off to look into it. Now Wilkes was looking in on me, his bright brown eyes curious. The forelock of hair that never seemed to stay in place was falling across his forehead, and as he joined me I brushed it away.

"Angelique says we can go up to the market, on the Rue Sebastopol," he said, and I saw his throat work as my hand grazed his cheek. "She needs something from there anyway, for supper."

"Romantic," I said.

Wilkes gave my arm a punch. "Must it always be about you stealing a moment?"

"I mean..." I shrugged.

"Besides, we can't. The girls want to come with us." Wilkes jerked his chin in a vague direction over his shoulder. "It's better if we stay together as much as possible."