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  Pick Your Poison

  Jeanette Lynn

  © 2016 by Jeanette Lynn

  License Notes

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  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademarked ownership of all trademarks and word marks mentioned in this book

  Table of Contents

  Warning

  All shook up

  Shake, rattle & cough

  Witch’s brew

  Find your way

  Twenty minutes and thankfully no show tunes later...

  All pucked up

  Euphoria short lived—post Great Escape

  And who’s there? Knocking, knocking at my chamber door?

  There it is, and nothing more...

  Atonement

  Punctured, fractured, dearly departed

  Clarity defines us

  Expectation—Affectation

  The first step is admitting you have a problem

  Life’s a gas, erm, mask, suctioned to your face...

  Just a bite

  Fleshing it out

  Burn it up

  Hitch

  The speed of mate

  Dobickney, with a big D

  Obstacles of course

  Four hours later

  Two weeks left and counting

  And then...

  Back at Daunte’s

  Epilogue

  Other books by Jeanette Lynn

  About the author

  Warning:

  This book contains sexually explicit material, foul language, and a whole lotta other crap, intended for readers 18 and older.

  Pick Your Poison

  Jeanette Lynn

  All shook up

  “So? We’re all friends here, and we’re all adults.” Callie blinked her pretty jade witch eyes innocently, waiting for someone to contradict her.

  No one did, though her comment was more than a bit of a stretch.

  Tugging at my Daunte’s Inferno apron self-consciously, still decked out in my work uniform, I couldn’t believe I, the only human here, was the only one with the cojones to speak up.

  “Actually...” Pausing to clear my throat, I gave my lifelong chum a long, withering look. “I really don’t know anyone here more than a Hey, how’s it going—pass the chips? kinda thing, despite how long you’ve been putting on these whatchamacallits.”

  Callie’s lips pursed for all of about two seconds, but as is typical of her she turned that frown upside down, her expression smoothing out into that familiar, cat-like, calculating half-smile of hers that had even the most thick-skinned of creature’s hair standing on end.

  Lips tipping up into a nauseatingly sweet smile that had me squirming a little in my seat as our gazes clashed—knowing full well it wouldn’t bode well for me—she chuckled.

  “All the more reason for us to play a game like this, I’d think,” the tricky witchling replied with enough sugar to rot a tooth.

  “Or not,” I muttered, slumping down farther into her plushy, navy blue sofa.

  Plucking at the fabric sulkily, lips drawn down, eyebrows low, I glanced up through the corner of my eye, giving the woman a moody look. Seriously don’t know why the hello I’m even here.

  If I was going to be dragged to these little soirees of hers every first night of the new moon, then abruptly ignored by all her little otherworldly friends because I’m ‘too normal’—no matter how nice I am or how hard I try to be civil—I didn’t have to like it, darn it.

  Why I kept up with appearances to this crap was beyond me, other than for Callie’s sake, but even then I had to question myself.

  Am I prolonging the inevitable? Have we grown apart, outgrown each other, so to speak, and neither one of us is willing to let go or come to terms with the fact? These meet up deals were our only hangouts, and even then our interaction was limited, sometimes the bare minimum, at best. Hmm... Maybe I should just stop.

  The thought saddened me. I mean, who wants their longest standing friendship to end? And she does get me, for the most part, accepts me as I am, much as I do her.

  Meh. Maybe I’m overthinking all this.

  We live totally opposite lives though, we do. Not only do I reside completely across town from Cals, my jobs are a hop, skip, and a jump from my house, as hers is for her. With the exception of her little shindigs, we wouldn’t ever cross paths otherwise.

  Hell, she’s a witch and runs her own coven, has her own shop down by The Drift. Me? Well... I work part-time on weekends as a checkout/bag girl at the grocer my parents manage—Hardmen’s—and full-time during the week at a little hole in the wall pizza joint called Daunte’s Inferno, putting up with a crotchety, old, de-horned rage demon for minimum wage and the promise of a migraine. So, really, not much of anything.

  Granted, I’m renting out my folks’ basement and I pay for my own food and utilities, but still, I ain’t exactly out in this big bad world making something of myself all on my own, doing my own thing like Callie over there.

  It’s my fault, I know. I’m trapped in a perpetual prison of my own doing—a vicious, endless cycle—but I’m content, or at least pretend to be so, in my little cave of not so hoo-hah-hurrah greatness.

  A huge part of me is thankful for that, because the reluctant adult in me is terrified of pushing myself too far, reaching beyond that point, taking that leap off the ledge, and then what? What’s after that? What about when I fail and it all comes crashing down around me? Where will I be then? Where do I go when I can’t pick up all the pieces?

  I’d be a big fat has-been with mud on my face and nothing to show for it, that’s where I’d be, right back to zero anyway. Just the idea had me cringing. Nah. I’m cool with my mundane existence and meager, well, everything... Can’t fail if you don’t try.

  To my mind, I’d rather be the loser in the basement, stuck at square one to begin with, thank you very much. Sad, maybe, but there you have it. It’s my life, after all. And I’ll keep telling myself that until the feelings of inadequacy rise within me to the point I feel motivated to, uh... erm... get off my lazy ass, figure out what it is I actually want to do with myself—my life—stop being a chicken shit, and set forth or some philosophical shit.

  Stefan, the resident necromancing warlock I’d yet to see raise a single dead body—not that we go around trying to do shit like that or anything—lifted one of his oversized-ring covered hands lazily to wave it at me. “What Norm said, Callendra, dear.”

  Duncan, some type of telepath/empath/telekinesis guy or something—I never was good with all this Other terminology—the ‘things with his head guy’—paused with a thick sandwich half way to his lips and blinked.

  “Norma Gene, Stefanos. I know you know she hates it when you do that. You’re thinking it. It makes her aura all...” Face bunching, he grimaced, jerking his chin towards me, then the perpetually disturbed, pasty necromancer. “Purplish and black and inky.” The man’s thick, dark eyebrows pulled into a heavy scowl over his bright blue eyes and he made an unhappy sound in his throat. “Disturbed and turbulent, messy, like yours, minus that weird smoky-grey hovering over the edges of yours all the time.”

  Blink
ing as I tried to keep up with the man and what that meant exactly, Stefan had no problem interpreting the mumbo jumbo and glowered, slinking down into his seat, his thin shoulders hunching in his fancy black dress shirt like a pouty child.

  It was too bad I’d never gotten to know Dunc. He wasn’t exactly a bad guy or anything, just kind of weird and really standoffish, but maybe he was also kind of shy too, like me.

  Stefan’s gaze slid to Callie, dismissing Duncan initially. He gave her a dirty look, which she raised an eyebrow at but then promptly chose to ignore.

  Muttering something I couldn’t make out under his breath, he snickered, his dark, fathomless black eyes rolling sarcastically.

  “She’s just trying to help.” Duncan leaned close to whisper to the grumbling male.

  “Oh, shut it and stuff your face. And don’t you worry.” His slender finger made to poke at the other man’s softer belly, but Duncan jerked back. “I’m sure Callie has plenty of snacks to appease your need to fix all those emotions you’re feeling with food,” Stefan put in snidely.

  “Better to eat your emotions than waste away from avoidance all together,” Duncan responded casually, though he set his plate full of food aside on the coffee table, frowning over at it disconcertedly as he leaned back against the loveseat.

  Stefan’s already chalky pallor turned ghostly white, his gaunt face pulling tight as his lips thinned. “Fat ass,” he muttered under his breath, but Duncan wouldn’t rise to the bait.

  Pretending he hadn’t heard a thing, Duncan smiled serenely while he plucked at his grey cotton shirt, picking off imaginary lint.

  “Got a little chilly in here, didn’t it?” he asked no one in particular, glancing around the room. The slight tint to his ears gave way to his emotions, but I gave him props for handling Stefan the a-hole so well.

  “Yes, downright frigid,” Divit, the usually quiet vampire, piped in drolly from his spot on the ugly chaise he lounged on. Situated towards the back and off to the side, he was far enough away from everyone else to be considered separate, yet close enough to take everything in and comment.

  The vampire’s dark brown eyes fairly glittered as they settled on the back of Stefan’s head, as if to stare a hole right through. “Stiff as a board, rigor mortis setting in, and all that. Stone cold dead, as it were.”

  Stefan’s jaw clenched and I could practically hear him grinding his teeth.

  “Enough, Div.” Callie strode over to sit on the arm of Stefan’s chair, nudging his shoulder. Smiling down at him, she wiggled what was in her hand carefully. Winking sweetly, she held out the steaming mug.

  Without glancing up, Stefan grimaced but took it, chugging down the contents of the black coffee cup in one long gulp.

  “Thanks.” The words indicated anything but as he coughed and choked, though he did offer Callie one of his rare half smiles.

  Making a disgusted face as his expression twisted, he swallowed convulsively a few times, as if Callie’s concoction might come back up, but managed to keep it all down, dutifully handing her back the cup.

  Smiling, Callie gave his back a quick pat, then went to set the cup on her tray. “Thatta boy, get some color back in those cheeks. You don’t eat enough.”

  “I eat just fine.” Stefan flashed her a smile more teeth and grimace than sincerity. “Don’t concern yourself with me, Callendra. You have your own things to worry about.”

  “Good little death walker,” I heard Divit hiss under his breath. “Doing what mummy witch tells us now, are we? What’s wrong? Got to be too much? Can’t handle being special? Or,” his voice lowered to the point I almost couldn’t make him out, “did little Stevie piss someone off, again?”

  A low, evil chuckle followed, but there was an edge to it that struck me odd. These two definitely had a history. Whatever that may be, I didn’t want to know.

  Seeing as to how this was the first time we’d all been gathered here in a non-party-like fashion for such an extended period of time—hence, no room for me to slip off to and barricade myself in with Callie’s impressive movie collection for the night once things got hopping—we were all stuck here.

  This is going to be a long night, I thought miserably.

  “Shut it, corpse,” Stefan shot back, lifting his skeletal wrist to flick it dismissively in Divit’s direction. If it weren’t for the pink tint dusting his cheeks, I wouldn’t have thought he cared what the old vamp thought.

  Duncan, face hidden, was smiling to himself, his thick lips tipping up as he tried to hold his smile back, failing miserably. I didn’t blame him, I’d smile, too. And those dimples in his cheeks were actually kind of adorable.

  From what I could tell, based on our minimal interactions, poor Dunc was usually the target of Stefan’s wrath. Maybe because he was the most normal out of them, more human-ish? Heck if I knew. Either way, the sight of the necromancer being put in his place by the old vamp pleased me immensely as well—Stefan’s second favorite easy target.

  Stifling my own snicker, Duncan coughed to cover it up after I realized too late it was kind of loud. Feeling a little sheepish, I threw him a grateful look.

  He wasn’t meant to see it but he did, his eyes already fixed on me, studying something around my head.

  Glancing up, trying to follow his gaze, I ran my fingers through my hair self-consciously, wondering at it, but nary a hair on my head was out of place.

  Huh.

  The man was kind of funny like that, but in a way it was all part of his offbeat charm.

  Duncan was like an oversized teddy bear: big and tall but soft around the middle; and he appears friendly and approachable, despite his massive height, at first glance. When he smiles you want to smile back, and if he frowns you want to walk right over and make it better, no real idea why or how.

  The only thing holding me back from doing just that was how loopy he’d think me to approach him and start groping him like a crazy woman, trying to hug it out with him or some crap. I couldn’t explain it, but Duncan both repelled and attracted me—it was a strange dichotomy.

  I could see myself crushing on him, maybe, if we ever got around to actually talking.

  Duncan blinked, as if snapping out of a strange trance, and smiled suddenly. “Thank you. I mean, you’re welcome.” A befuddled look beetled his brows. “I, uh, I mean, I find you approachable and repelling, too,” he said jovially. “I could crush on you, as well.” Nodding, his face lit up like I’d just given him a present.

  As if I’d been sitting too close to a roaring fire, my whole face flushed beet red as my jaw dropped, while Spira, having just taken a hearty swig of her drink, sprayed everyone with ginger ale.

  “Oh, tellie-path...” the dragoness got out between choking gasps, offering me a sympathetic look as her gaze darted my way. “You are not supposed to be saying the things like that.”

  Duncan’s lips drew down and he squirmed in place, a man-sized child just given a gentle reprimand he didn’t understand, his eyes shifting as he frowned.

  Looking as if about to reply, lips parting slightly, his brow lifted along with his hand—as if to beg a moment of her attention. Anyone with a set of eyes could tell Spira had more to say though, so Dunc sat back, his hand slumping as his mouth slowly slid shut, and he politely let her finish.

  Steam wafting out her delicate nose as it crinkled softly, Spira’s lips curled up ever so slightly as her nostrils flared. Tiny white puffs clouding around her, her lizard-like eyes glittering thoughtfully, she canted her head. “You may have just killed my friend here from embarrassment.”

  “I didn’t mean to embarrass her.” The telepath’s big hand lifted and he jabbed a finger in my direction. “She thinks I’m cute. I think she’s cute and weird, too.” Licking his lips nervously, eyes darting back and forth between us, he shrugged. “I’m just saying... she thinks I’m quiet and shy, and, uh... uhm...” Snapping his fingers, he looked to the ceiling, lips screwed up, expression tight as he searched for the word. “Oh!” His index finge
r shot up, a triumphant smile shooting across his face as his baby blues widened. “And standoffish! That’s what it was.”

  At Spira’s look and my desperate groan, he explained quickly, “I don’t read her mind normally, because Callie put a binder on her so I couldn’t, but tonight I can.” There went that smile again, followed by more exuberant hand gesturing. “I’m just letting her know before I can’t get back in her head.”

  He said this so defensively as he tapped his skull, his large eyes hopeful as his head bobbed along encouragingly. The man was a giant, walking disaster with the looks of a puppy dog.

  “That will not be to happening. Change the mind, tellie-path.” Spira snorted, incredulous, but her words lacked their typical bite. She was careful with Dunc, much as she was me, softening just enough of that hard outer shell of hers in our favor. A dragon soft on humans was almost unheard of.

  Deep lines creasing his forehead as his gaze met mine, his wide blue eyes fogging uncertainly, I spluttered in the face of it. What do I say to that? But the fart noises my face was making, lips pursing and pouting, gaping unattractively—plus a side of saliva to spray myself with as the sound effects I produced created unintentional mad raspberries—said it all.

  Enthusiasm dimming, Dunc’s shoulders slumped and he tried to smile. It fell flat two attempts in and he gave up, taking those deep dimpled divots in his cheeks along with him.

  Mumbling an apology under his breath, he could no longer meet my eyes. “Yeah, okay. I can take a hint.”

  He looked so hurt—wounded, even—as if I was the one who’d somehow committed an offense, while I gaped at him like he’s a crazy man.

  Why do I suddenly feel so freaking guilty?!! The insta-guilt was faster than “just add water” as it immediately began to gnaw at me.

  “Mm. Yes, well, think on it, Dunc, darling. Did you have to try all that hard to get into her head in the first place?” Mary asked curiously, her voice on par with a purr. Red lips tipping up maliciously, she set her glass down on an end table and flung her thick, shoulder-length, auburn and orangey-red streaked hair over her shoulder, reaching out with the opposite hand to twirl the little umbrella in her fruity drink.