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“YOU ARE EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL.”
She laughed at him. She hadn’t meant to, but it was an absurd comment. She was built like a fire hydrant—dense and practical, but hardly the curvy, willowy blond specimen so popular in American society. She had no waist, and her legs were too long, and her tits were only so-so—she’d been a B cup for years. Plus, she had multiple scars from years of street scuffles—knife wounds, bullet wounds, even a permanent rope burn a junkie, high on acid and Jack Daniel’s, had given her. Her hair was the nicest thing about her, and it was too curly, too wild, too out of control in humidity, and the color of a tar pit.
He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. Even through her shirt, she could feel the heat from his hands. This was alarming, yet delightful. She was facing the sun—a small, white orb—and in the distance she could see a castle.
“My home is there. May I keep you?”
REALLY UNUSUAL BAD BOYS
MaryJanice Davidson
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
For the fans of Canis Royal,
who wanted to know how it ended.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Officer Lynn Ristau of the Superior Police Department, for patiently answering all my questions, and Jessica L. Growette, the greatest pharmacist in the world. Her bosses should worship her. Any mistakes you see are mine, not theirs.
Oh that the desert were my dwelling place,
With one fair spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And hating no one, love but only her!
—Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
A thousand fantasies
Begin to throng into my memory,
Of calling shapes, and beck’ning shadows dire,
And airy tongues that syllable men’s names On sands and shores and desert wildernesses.
—John Milton, Comus
Like sands through the hourglass,
so are the days of our lives.
—Days of our Lives
CONTENTS
BRIDEFIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
MATING SEASON
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
GROOMFIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 1
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Iwish I were dead.
It was 1:08 A.M. on the morning of September 17, and Lois Commoner was thinking thoughts that for her, of late, were typical.
As she was lying on the alley pavement, listening to the victim’s broken sobbing, she thought, Would I go to hell? No chance. This is hell. There’s gotta be something else. And if there isn’t, what do I have to lose?
She banished such thoughts—now was not the time—and rolled over onto her stomach. She took a deep breath, put her palms flat on the filthy street, and pushed herself up until she was standing. This took six minutes and was just short of excruciating. Her knee was screaming. Her back had a kink in it. Her knuckles were bleeding. And she had a splitting headache. The headache bothered her more than anything else.
“I don’t suppose you have any Advil in your pockets?” she asked the vic, who was crying and holding her purse strap. The purse itself was, of course, long gone. “Or even a Tylenol?” The victim had probably been a nice-looking woman when her evening began. Now the carefully coiffed blond hair was in disarray, her mascara was running down her cheeks, her dress was torn, and her shoulder probably hurt almost as much as Lois’s knee. “How about just aspirin?”
The vic shook her head and kept crying. Lois’s headache worsened. She considered telling the vic to cut the shit, then decided against it. She herself had become pretty jaded about this stuff, but that was no reason to be an unsympathetic jerk. At least not out loud.
Sirens
