Faith Hunter’s Two Snippets

Liz and Eli Sitting – Faith Hunter

Eli didn’t talk a lot, no chitchat, no chain of consciousness patter, no gushy mushy stuff, so she seldom knew where she stood with him. Not that she needed that kind of emotional validation. Not her. Never. Or, she never had before she met Eli. It had never mattered what a man thought or felt about her until now. Maybe because she had never really been in love with a guy, not with that desperate, weak-in-the-knees, want to spend her life with him kind of love.

He’d be gone for weeks, a trip that also involved his political and security work for some kind of coronation involving Jane Yellowrock, the Dark Queen of the Mithrans, the Master of the City of New Orleans, the master of Clan Yellowrock, and more titles, on and on. Jane was a very important person in the world of paranormals, especially vampires, and she had done a lot of good for Liz’s kind too, bringing peace and providing protection for witches that they hadn’t enjoyed in hundreds of years. Jane was also Eli’s adopted sister and, so far as Liz could tell, his best friend.

Liz was just… his girlfriend? Lover? Friend with benefits?

Her mind circled back to the importance of that wedding Eli hadn’t invited her to. She knew that he would be working throughout the planning stages and during the wedding. She hoped the reason she hadn’t been invited was because he’d be working, and not because she and Jane had an uneasy relationship.

Uneasy. Hah. Jane had killed her sister. The fact that Evangelina had summoned a demon and tried to kill her own sisters, and therefore had been targeted with a “take-down” order didn’t help a lot. Evie was dead. Jane was still alive.

Those upcoming weeks when Eli would be gone were looming empty, like a black hole of boredom and loneliness. Calling him for something that might be nothing was just an excuse to talk to him, maybe see him.

Liz looked down at the tracks that had her hesitating.

She shouldn’t need an excuse.

She shouldn’t need to see him either. This was a weakness she hadn’t dealt with before. Ever.

Magic School for Geezers – Faith Hunter

Dani was perched in one of the visitors’ chairs in the office as the COO perused her computer screen. Margorie Devoe, the Chief Operating Officer of “The Seven’s,” was behind her desk, making her wait. Hoping to make her squirm. Make her worry. 

Power games pissed Dani off; always had. But she knew how this game was played. She relaxed into the stiff-backed chair and sipped the coffee. It was still hot, so she hadn’t been here as long as it felt like. She lifted a hand and stroked her pearls, an affectation that went along with her undercover ID and fake personal and professional history.

She had spent the early morning in the lab, while the techs, the psychologist, and the counselor tested her magical abilities, and then the later morning filling out paperwork: medical records, financial records, personal and professional history. Part of the paperwork was true, the rest was total fiction and was currently being run through “The Seven’s” IT department for verification. If her cover didn’t hold, if someone picked holes in her false identification, she’d be tossed out on her butt, and their client would have no way to find their missing family member. 

The laboratory testing had taken place in a void room and Dani had failed. Utterly. On purpose. Instead of igniting the candle, or heating the cup of water with her power, she had blown up a computer and the desk it had been sitting on, and then set a wooden doorway on fire, the blaze so hot she had set off the fire alarm and the fire department had shown up, lights, sirens, and hunky first responders, most young enough to be her grandsons.

Blowing things up and setting things on fire had been fun, and not something she’d done on purpose in years.