Frank Kurns Boxed Set

by Natalie Grey

  Andrei smiled as one child caught another in a game of tag. He was walking in the trees very slowly to allow for his grandfather’s pace.

  “You’re not going to tell me where you got all that money, are you?” Mihai complained.

  Andrei smiled. “As I have explained many times, grandfather, that money was not mine. I have no idea where it came from.”

  The first part was true, although the second was a lie. It had taken many careful phone calls and transactions, but he had managed to empty Ioan’s illegal accounts and wind down the man’s operations, ending up with a very large sum of money.

  He still fielded the occasional call from a client, and explained that Ioan’s business was simply too dangerous in the current climate. It hadn’t survived.

  He didn’t mention that by “it” he meant Ioan, and by “dangerous” he meant ‘prone to being ripped apart by wolves.’

  Andrei, meanwhile, was making a good living working in one of the new shops in town. A few had come and gone since the money appeared, but most were staying.

  Mihai smiled. He knew from experience that his grandson was lying to him, but for once he didn’t mind. He also knew the tell-tale signs of guilt, and for the first time in years Andrei seemed to have none.

  He was grateful for that, and grateful to see the town being built up by the younger generation. He and Alexi often sat over tea or a beer and discussed the young people who were coming home, or who had decided to stay after school.

  It was beginning to look like their home was valued by others as much as they valued it themselves.

  He looked up at the sky. Whoever you were who came here and no matter why you did it, I’m grateful to you.

  John let the silence hang until someone yelled, “Just tell us already!”

  He laughed. “The winner, by a very large margin in both our chief judge’s vote and our secondary judges’ votes, is Marcus.”

  The bar exploded into whistles and stomps.

  Bobcat and William exchanged an incredulous glance and looked over to where Marcus was staring just as incredulously at the judges’ table.

  It was Bethany Anne who noticed the faintly smug smile on Barnabas’ face, and she made her way through the crowd to his side. “Would you like to explain what you did to tip the scales?”

  “I,” Barnabas said confidently, “did nothing to tip the scales.”

  There was a snort from beside them and Tabitha tucked a strand of bright blue hair behind her ear. “As usual, Barnabas is being sneaky.”

  “As I have said many times—”

  “It was sneaky, you were sneaky, the whole thing was sneaky.” Tabitha raised her eyebrow at him.

  Barnabas gave her a long-suffering look. “A matter of opinion.”

  “All right,” Bethany Anne tried to keep her mouth from twitching, “what was sneaky, Tabby?”

  “Barnabas laid a nice little trap for Bobcat and William,” Tabitha said. She crossed her arms and gave Barnabas a look. “Which Marcus almost fell into, I’ll have you know.”

  “I do know,” Barnabas said. “I know you helped him almost fall into, and I know he didn’t fall into it. I know that he spent a great deal of time on his process instead, and thus ensured a far better, more balanced beer than the others were able to make. They, on the other hand, felt that because they had a way to cheat, they could be sloppy.”

  “You sabotaged their beers?” Bethany Anne asked. “Barnabas—”

  “I did no such thing.” Barnabas held up a hand. “The ingredient they used was specifically formulated to do no harm to the beer, but neither did it help. A consummate beer brewer—and a worthy competitor—would either not have used the oil, having had no chance to test it before, or they might have used it but would have taken care on the rest of the beer. William and Bobcat did not do so. Marcus did.”

  Bethany Anne laughed and let her head fall back. “Oh, man, you have got to be kidding me. So you set up a way to trick them into thinking they’d have better beers?”

  “Their choice to brew with sloppy technique was just that,” Barnabas said. “Their choice. They didn’t have to use the oil, and they didn’t have to brew sloppily.”

  Bethany Anne exchanged a look with Tabitha. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Never get in a fight with Barnabas?” Tabitha asked her.

  “Yup.”

  Barnabas smiled, then coughed discreetly. “There is…one more matter regarding this ingredient.”

  “Yes?” Bethany Anne asked with deep misgiving.

  “I seem to have created somewhat of a…thriving business.” Barnabas stared at the ceiling with a determinedly blank expression. “You see, in my attempts to establish myrcene oil as a valid substance to use, it was discovered by many other home brewers. It is now the subject of lively debate, and we find ourselves consistently sold out of it.”

  “We?”

  “Well, I had to lease time in a factory to have the first orders made.” Barnabas cleared his throat. “I understand they’ve hired many additional workers and are expanding the factory.”

  Bethany Anne dropped her face into her hands. Her shoulders were shaking with laughter, and she took a moment to enjoy it before wiping her eyes and giving a little groan.

  “Oh, wow. Oh, Barnabas, you’re a treasure.” She leaned over to kiss him on the cheek and grinned when he stiffened awkwardly. “A somewhat prudish treasure. I trust you’ll manage the business well. Meanwhile, I’m going to go get more of Marcus’ beer.”

  FINIS

  Author Notes - Natalie Grey

  January 24, 2018

  When Michael and I talked about Seed Vault, back when it was still a nebulous concept, he knew he wanted to show the team unwinding and having fun. Of course, this is Bethany Anne & company, and trouble has a way of finding them - but what, exactly, do they all do on their days off?

  Turns out, most of them are huge nerds in their own ways. Also, there’s Tabitha.

  I don’t see how anyone could read the Kurtherian Gambit series and not love Tabitha. What has always struck me about her is her intense vulnerability. Though she kicks ass unapologetically, believes in herself, doesn’t back down, and has plenty of snark, she also has a big heart, and she doesn’t close it off from getting hurt. In many ways, that’s one of the ways in which she’s bravest - and this is a woman who does things like throw herself off roofs with surprising regularity.

  In this way, Gabrielle is really her opposite: refined, elegant, and not very open with her emotions a lot of the time. But if anyone thinks Gabrielle’s understated displays of emotion means she doesn’t care for her friends … well, they have another thing coming (and they’ll deserve it).

  As always, the beta readers and behind-the-scenes team have been amazing. The energy of the KGU readers has a way of making my day, and I am so grateful to all of you.

  I hope you enjoyed this peek into the world! For other works, including the Shadows of Magic books and a new standalone SciFi series, as well as a series centering on Barnabas (!!!), you can sign up for the mailing list here (no spam, I promise!):

  https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/w0k9j4

  Happy reading,

  Nat

  Author Notes - Michael Anderle

  January 24, 2018

  Here we go!

  Thank you for not only reading these stories, but ALSO reading through to the author notes, as well!

  It is with a “WHEW” that we get this book (a little out of order) to you. Natalie had penned some books, but they got into a shuffle, (there was a baby, which if you haven’t read what she and her husband call the little person, it’s adorable), and a shitake-ton of challenges to get these stories out.

  However, I’m to blame.

  I am hoping (and crossing my fingers) that when you read these stories, you may forgive me for being so late!

  We are tracking down Trials & Tribulations #3 which has more of the beer stuff in it now.

&nbs
p; So, slightly funny story and it goes like this.

  I’m JUST about finished with my 21st book in The Kurtherian Gambit and I am at the Aria (I had been writing there) on a conference call with one of my contacts (3D Artist) working to see if we can create a way for him to move full time into building covers for authors. As it would really help him and his family.

  And you and I would get access to kick ass shit.

  I get off that call, to check Slack (where all of the company communications happen) to see that Operations Guru and Zen Master Walking™ Stephen Campbell has informed me that for our release tomorrow (11 hours since he is in Florida), of this book you just read, he is missing:

  1.Title

  2.Blurb

  3.Author Notes

  4.Cover

  OH SHIT!

  Now, Title? Ok – not too hard.

  Blurb? Grrr…

  Author Notes… Well, ok…

  Then, I see “Cover” and FREAK THE HELL OUT!

  It’s 3:30 PM in Las Vegas. My “guy” (Andrew Dobell) is in England for these things and I want to beat my head in frustration that I’d forgotten this little but really important part of the project.

  So, I walk back home from the Aria and finish some family business before I have another CC with a collaborator, and start working down Zen Master Walking™’s list.

  Takes me about five minutes to realize that both of these stories are a CHALLENGE. Great! So, Challenges becomes the title.

  Blurb? Dammit! That takes me a while to dream up but I get it done. Then, Murphy bites me on the ass like a snapping turtle and won’t let go! For whatever reason, the usual tools to help me make a viable blurb (with bold, italics etc for Amazon) just FUBAR’s the HTML code and it takes me a good 45 minutes to finagle that and fix it.

  SIGH…

  Now, I have to deal with the cover.

  I bring up the last Frank Kurns cover I worked on (December 2016) and after taking a couple of minutes to FIND said cover project, I pull it up in Pixelmator (MAC).

  I jump on Slack and send a message to Andrew to see If I happen to be lucky enough and he is working super late…

  Yeah, I got nothing. Family men who have to be up early tend to go to sleep on time.

  (I tend to go to sleep earlyish too, but that’s because I’m an old man who gets up with the stupid sun a lot of the time and peters out too early. Nothing exciting to see here, move along…move along.)

  I start thinking about what I need for the cover, and how I would build it. Then, it HITS ME!

  HUCKING FELL, Andrew and I did this cover DAYS ago! I was the one who failed to put on the typography.

  I go back to our channel in Slack, scroll up, SCORE! There is the image and NOW I’ve got this sweet assed cover.

  Crises averted as well as much embarrassment if I had failed to remember this. Although, I’m getting good at blaming age. This age defense is fucking brilliant, that’s all I’m saying.

  Now, all I needed to do was consider what I was going to share in my author notes.

  … And then realize at that moment that I forgot to ask Natalie for HER author notes on our stories call earlier this morning.

  FML.

  LOL

  Ad Aeternitatem,

  Michael

  Witch Of The Federation

  Have you read Michael Anderle’s latest creation, WITCH OF THE FEDERATION? It’s available now at Amazon and through Kindle Unlimited.

  The future has amazing technology. Our alien allies have magic. Together, we are building a training system to teach the best of humanity to go to the stars.

  But the training is monumentally expensive.

  Stephanie Morgana is a genius, she just doesn't know it.

  The Artificial Intelligence which runs the Virtual World is charged with testing Stephanie, a task it has never performed before.

  The Earth and their allies, may never be the same again.

  Will Stephanie pass the test and be moved to the advanced preparatory schools, or will the system miss her? Will the AI be able to judge a human's potential in an area where it has no existing test data to compare?

  Available at Amazon

  Other Books by Natalie Grey

  Shadows of Magic

  Bound Sorcery

  Blood Sorcery

  Bright Sorcery

  Set in the Kurtherian Gambit Universe

  Bellatrix

  Challenges

  Risk Be Damned

  Damned to Hell

  Vigilante

  Sentinel

  Warden

  Paladin

  Justiciar

  Defender

  Protector

  Metamorphosis Online

  You Need A Bigger Sword

  The New Queen Rises

  Reign With Axe And Shield

  Writing as Moira Katson

  Shadowborn

  Shadowforged

  Shadow’s End

  Daughter of Ashes

  Mahalia

  Books By Michael Anderle

  For a complete list of books by Michael Anderle, please visit:

  www.lmbpn.com/ma-books/

  All LMBPN Audiobooks are Available at Audible.com and iTunes

  To see all LMBPN audiobooks, including those written by Michael Anderle please visit:

  www.lmbpn.com/audible

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