Frank Kurns Boxed Set

by Natalie Grey

  There was a clatter as William dropped the drone rotor. His jaw hung open. He closed his mouth and opened it again several times, but no sound came out.

  William looked around and muttered, “Where the hell is Marcus when I need a third party bet review?”

  “That would be great!” Yelena was smiling again. She bit her lip. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to mess up your day or anything.”

  “No, not at all.” Bobcat held out his arm and felt a shiver as she took it smiling to her, “First, let’s go see Jean….”

  As they left, William walked quickly to one of the communications panels. He jabbed at the call button furiously. “Meredith! Please, get me Bethany Anne. Now. NOW.”

  It was a second before her voice came on the line. “William, what’s wrong?”

  William’s voice came out in a rush, “Bobcat just fell for a girl.”

  Bethany Anne hummed for a moment before replying, “Okay….”

  William searched the best way to prove what he was saying. “No, I mean, he’s showing her around instead of trying new beer.”

  Bethany Anne was silent for a long moment.

  “You know what this means, right?” William was practically dancing in front of the communication panel.

  “Ok, yeah, I believe you William,” Bethany Anne agreed. “I owe three ounces of gold,” another pause, “Dammit! That man should have tried the beer, first.”

  But she was laughing when she hung up the call.

  “This place is wonderful.” Yelena looked out the huge window of the bar, her accent making Bobcat feel tingles up and down his spine. “The best wonderful. Most wonderful? Did I say that right?” she asked as she looked back at him.

  “You can say it however you want, if you keep talking in that accent.” Bobcat grinned at her.

  Yelena blushed. Something about this mechanic made her want to smile so hard her face ached. Her eyes had locked on him the first moment she stepped into the hangar bay.

  She watched him pilot the drone, explain it to his friend. She’d noticed his hands—callused, streaked with grease. Honest hands, as her grandmother would say. And he had a way about him, like he took real pride in his work.

  If it weren’t for the fact that he was in space, he was just the sort of guy her parents would be crazy about for her. She could just see him fixing cars with her father, debating skis with Alec, laughing in a pub at night. This wasn’t a guy who needed suits or fine wines to enjoy his life. He just wanted to do his work and laugh with his friends over a beer.

  “What is it?” he asked her.

  Yelena flushed bright red. She’d been staring at him, she realized. And he’d caught her. She wanted to melt through the floor. She cleared her throat and busied herself with a pretend coughing fit. “Nothing. I am sorry.”

  “I’ll get you some water.” Bobcat knew the coughing was fake, but he wanted to be able to grin to himself in private. She’d been smiling when she looked at him, like she approved of him. Him! With the dirty mechanic’s hands and the casual clothes. How long had it been since he’d even tried dating? All the women he’d seen years back had rolled their eyes at how he doted on his helicopters. This girl, though, she seemed to like hearing him talk about Shelly.

  She listened. She asked questions.

  On a sudden hunch, he pulled her a pint and turned around. She had followed him down from the viewing area. “I thought you might want a beer instead.”

  Her eyes lit up. “You have beer in here?”

  He was in love. He was absolutely, positively in love. If he’d had a ring, he would have proposed on the spot. As it was, he had only the beer, and so he handed it to her reverently. “Try it.”

  She took a big gulp, wiping the foam from the corners of her mouth with a self-conscious laugh. Then she took another drink. And another. “This is amazing. Where did you get it?”

  “Actually….” Bobcat took a seat. “I brewed it myself.”

  “Really?” She took another drink. “This is so good. Could you teach me?”

  “To brew beer?” He grinned pretty damned wide. “Hell yeah! Want to go learn about it in the back now?”

  “But we have the whole rest of the ship to see...” her voice trailed off as she looked down at the beer, and then over to the door. Down at the beer again and slowly to the door once more.

  Her eyes rested back on the mug, “Ok, Let’s brew some beer.”

  Bobcat nodded, “Good choice. Come on, I keep the supplies through here….” Bobcat led her away, pausing only to fill two more mugs for them.

  As soon as they were gone, Bethany Anne, William, and Nathan came out from the other side of the restaurant / bar.

  They’d been in the bar and hid when Merideth told them the two were heading in this direction. They stared after Yelena and Bobcat incredulously.

  “He found a woman who likes beer as much as he does,” William admitted.

  “He found a woman he likes more than beer,” Bethany Anne agreed.

  “If they ever have babies, they are going to be born holding steins,” Nathan concluded.

  Beside them, Bellatrix chuffed with laughter.

  FINIS

  Author Notes - Natalie Grey

  December 21st, 2016

  This is Michael and I’m going to write Natalie’s first Author Notes. Why? Well, two reasons.

  First, she is leaving for vacation with her family early in the morning and is out of touch and I didn’t make sure to get one from her :-(

  The second, and possibly just as telling, is that she really isn’t that fond of attention. She is, in my experience so far, the first author that says that she doesn’t want too much attention…and like, means that.

  So, as you might guess, I’m trying to get her to open up a little. I’ve asked for an Author Notes from her (about five minutes ago). and we shall see if I get something. If I do, I’ll add it below this so you get both of these ;-)

  I met Natalie AKA (Facebook name withheld on purpose) on 20BooksTo50k. She is helping me with this book (ALL OF YOU DOG LOVER’S REJOICE - That means you too, Stephen Russell). Further, she is going to do a series of the happenings in the three years between The Kurtherian Gambit 13 (My Ride is a Bitch) and The Kurtherian Gambit 14 (Don’t Cross This Line) called The Dark Years Illuminated. These stories are going to be anchored by Stephen and Jennifer.

  I’ll give more information about Natalie when I’m given permission, and we shall see if I can get her to enjoy opening up about this author thing that she does so well.

  Please give a warm welcome to the VERY FIRST lady Kurtherian Gambit Author!

  (I received a quick Author Note from Natalie before she left last night…Here we go ;-)

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  December 21st, 2016

  As always, can I say with a HUGE amount of appreciation how much it means to me that you not only read this book, but you are reading these notes as well?

  This book about Bellatrix was not only a fan desired book (ok, some fans demanded the book) but also my editor Stephen Russell was bugging the shit out of me to get it done.

  Like…weeks ago (as soon as he saw Bellatrix in book 14).

  Now, you may not know it, but Stephen Russell previously bred dogs, and he has been a big supporter of Ashur through all of these stories. As one of my editors since book 5, he has had a lot of time to bug me. Now, he had ANOTHER dog to champion, and he was using the fans clamoring for a story to bludgeon me because of HIS desire for a story.

  So, I told him to write some ideas down, and then he and I worked with Natalie to flesh out the story, and the two of them gave it life. I edited and provided commentary in the beginning, and then I polished the final draft changing some things that wouldn’t work in the universe.

  So, due to their hard work, we have BELLATRIX, and I have to say, there were two scenes that brought tears to my eyes.

  Dammit!

  Merry Christmas Natalie, and to all of you as well!

>   Michael Anderle

  Challenges

  Frank Kurns Stories of the UnknownWorld Book 4

  Payback

  By Natalie Grey & Michael Anderle

  Chapter One

  Buenos Aires, Argentina

  Gabrielle took a sip of her wine and settled back in her chair with a purr of contentment, “I swear, this is the best steak I’ve had in years.”

  “It is what we’re known for.” Tabitha forced a smile and sniffed the wine tentatively.

  “Drink it. You’ll like it.” Gabrielle lifted a glass to toast. “It’s a bonarda—a type of wine I haven’t had since Italy, way back in the day.”

  “How ‘way back?’” Tabitha clinked glasses and smiled. She took a cautious gulp. “Oh, that’s good.”

  Gabrielle watched, amused. After centuries spending time with both the richest of the rich and the starving artists of the world, she had learned an appreciation for the finer things in life—both food, and art.

  And occasionally other types of hedonism.

  She cleared her throat hastily.

  “Way, way back.”

  Gabrielle lapsed into silence as she cut another bite of steak. She was worried about this excursion. In many ways, Tabitha reminded her of some of the artists Gabrielle had known over the years: insanely talented with souls like bright fires. But they hadn’t often been happy, those people. Sometimes a soul burned so brightly it ate a person up.

  And Tabitha didn’t have the hard edge Gabrielle associated with the bohemians she had known. Despite everything, Tabitha seemed to lack the air of cynicism that so often came with counterculture.

  That wasn’t to say she didn’t try. From the tattoos to the piercings to the dyed hair, Tabitha went out of her way to look like someone with sharp edges. Someone you didn’t want to get close to.

  The thing was, when you were a few centuries old you started to get a feel for when that was an act. Tabitha was a talented person, someone whose talents had put her in the middle of a game she was really too young and naïve to play.

  A game she was walking back into tonight.

  And that was why Gabrielle was worried. “I’ve been thinking about what you told me,” she said. She paused as the waiter came by and gave Tabitha’s clothes and hair a nasty look. The man took one look at Gabrielle’s cold eyes, however, and was gone like a shot. Gabrielle watched him go and turned back to Tabitha. “You said you wanted to make sure people were safe.”

  “A lot of people sheltered me over the years,” Tabitha explained. “And I want to make sure that none of Anton’s old friends are hurting them.”

  “Anton’s crew is done,” Gabrielle assured her.

  “Anton wasn’t picky about who he used,” Tabitha said bluntly. She put her knife and fork down as if she were oblivious to the expensive food in front of her. “Anton and his higher-ups aren’t around anymore, but he worked with a lot of people once or twice, humans who were on the wrong side of the law. The sort of people no one was going to miss. They didn’t know what Anton was—most of them didn’t, anyway—but they do know how to be very, very mean. All they care about is themselves.”

  “Wait, back up. Some of them knew what Anton was?”

  “It’s not… Um...” Tabitha searched for the words. “It’s not always the same in the human underworld as it is in the normal world. People there are likely to believe all sorts of things. They believe in angels and demons and curses and that kinda stuff, so when they found out about Anton it wasn’t like this was some big revelation. It was something they’d always believed in anyway.”

  Gabrielle sat back and considered this.

  This was dangerous. She knew it was up to her to make sure all who were aware of the vampires were either convinced that they were wrong or otherwise taken care of.

  But frankly, if they were the type of people she suspected they were, she wasn’t going to spend much time trying to persuade them. She was going to bring them to justice instead.

  “So you want me to hurt these people,” Gabrielle said finally.

  “No! No.” Tabitha shook her head. She took a bite of steak and chewed, mouth partly open as she thought.

  Gabrielle bit back a smile. Michael and Stephen would be having an aneurysm right about now if they were here to witness this. Tabitha ate and drank with the focused air of someone who’d gone hungry before and viewed food mostly as fuel.

  Tabitha said finally, “I want to make sure people are okay, that’s all.”

  “Oh?” Gabrielle had long ago learned not to direct the flow of conversations by guessing at what she thought the other person might say. The longer she spent as a vampire, the less she seemed to understand how human minds worked.

  “Look, I…put people in danger.” Tabitha looked miserable. “I got in over my head, and other people could have suffered for it. A lot of them. My whole family, and all the people who sheltered me. I didn’t want to take help, but I needed somewhere to stay. They could have been hurt because of me.”

  Gabrielle smiled. “When I was very young—okay, younger than I am now—I got mixed up with some revolutionaries who thought they were going to assassinate a whole bunch of government officials. I was…stupid.” She shook her head. “I was very idealistic in those days, and I was trying to be very moral, very…chaste.” To be honest she’d been prudish, but she didn’t feel like sharing that. “Well, I fell in love with this young man who wanted to go around butchering officials and their families, and he talked about all the injustice in the world and how he would save things. I foolishly believed him.”

  Tabitha took a bite of her food as she listened. Gabrielle was easily one of the most beautiful, elegant people Tabitha had ever met. She was so otherworldly that she didn’t even make Tabitha feel self-conscious. Trying to compete with her would be like competing with a statue or a sunset. Gabrielle was on another level.

  Tabitha would never have thought that Gabrielle would do stupid things.

  “Well, someone in the revolutionary group started to have second thoughts. They argued that it wasn’t right to go around killing people’s families, and Henri—that was his name—killed the dissenters in front of all of us.

  “I should have known right then that he wasn’t about to listen to reason. Luc had made very good points. He was being very respectful, but Henri always had an impulsive streak. In that moment the scales fell from my eyes and I realized I had aligned myself with a common criminal. Henri wasn’t really a revolutionary. He was just a violent man who wanted to be important.”

  “So what did you do?” Tabitha’s eyes were very round.

  “I stayed,” Gabrielle said bluntly. “I kept working with them for weeks after that because I wanted to keep loving Henri and I wanted to keep feeling like I was part of a group that was fighting for justice, even though I knew that wasn’t what they were doing anymore.”

  “So why did you stay?” Tabitha asked.

  “You tell me.” Gabrielle studied her, and then looked down at her plate. “These steaks are so good I could almost have another one.”

  “This is nothing,” Tabitha said absently. “The best food in Argentina is choripan.”

  “What’s choripan?” Gabrielle plucked a menu from a passing waiter and scanned it. “It’s not here.”

  “Of course it’s not there. A place like this would never serve it.” Tabitha gestured at the four-star establishment with a wry grin. From the white-and-black clad waiters to the subtle clinking of crystal and china, the whole place was worlds away from where she’d grown up. “Choripan is street food. It’s a sort of sandwich with sausage in it.”

  “And it’s better than this?” Gabrielle gestured at the steak and the wine.

  “Oh, yes.” Tabitha sighed happily at the memory. “Sometimes when I had enough money for more than rice and beans—which wasn’t very often—I’d go get a choripan. I never had enough money for anything really, so I felt so guilty buying it. I would wolf it down in an alley, but I remember
it was just the best food ever. A choripan and a Coke.” She grinned and shrugged.

  Gabrielle smiled. “Best food ever? I’m going to need to have one of those.”

  “We’ll get one in my old neighborhood, I promise.” Tabitha wolfed down the rest of her food.

  “So,” Gabrielle began, “have you thought about what I asked you?”

  “Wha’d’you mean?” Tabitha swallowed a large bite of steak. “What?” she asked again.

  “The reasons I stayed in the revolutionary group?” Gabrielle asked her.

  “I don’t know.” Tabitha shrugged.

  “Because it’s easy to keep making the same mistakes,” Gabrielle told her. “It is very, very easy to see the world one way, and then even when it leads you down a bad path you don’t change your behavior because you can’t see the choices you actually have. I was so desperate to keep being a person who was fighting for justice, who loved this wonderful man, that I got tangled up in something that wasn’t justice with a terrible man. I kept making that mistake until I could believe in myself.”

  “You were a vampire then, weren’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So why didn’t you realize you could leave?”

  “Because I would have had to reevaluate who I was and how I believed the world worked. Believe it or not, sometimes it’s easier to stay around a homicidal maniac than it is to challenge your beliefs about the world.”

  Gabrielle sighed. She knew what she needed to say here, but she also knew that Tabitha might not believe her.

  That was always the problem with speaking the truth. People tended to be highly resistant to it.

  “I am going to tell you something that may sound absurd,” Gabrielle said finally. “As absurd as me telling you that this steak is better than choripan, for instance.”