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Karen Chance

Karen Chance Books

Novelist

Touch the Dark

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Curse the Dawn

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Fury's Kiss

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Hunt the Moon

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In Vino Veritas

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A Family Affair

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Shadow's Bane

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Related Quotes

“You look furious,” Pritkin said, watching me. “I just—I can’t understand not fighting for your life— for what you want. Just giving up—” A corner of his mouth quirked. “No. You would not understand that. You never stop trying, do you?” “What else is there?” “Despair. Hopelessness. Anger. Depression.” “But those don’t get you anywhere.” He huffed out something that might have been a laugh, only it didn’t sound happy. “No. They don’t.”

“Success. I turned back to my sandwich, only to find that it wasn’t there anymore. Maybe because it had been hijacked. “Give me that!” I told the vamp, who was holding it firmly against his chest, a determined look on his face. “What ees zat?” he demanded, eyeing my prize. “Cheese.” I held it up. “Zat ees not cheese.” “How do you know?” “Eet is orange.” “A lot of cheese is orange.” “Non! No cheese ees that color. Cheese comes from zee milk. Zee milk, eet ees white. When ’ave you seen milk that looks like zat?” I held up the square of little slices and pointed at the bold-faced label. “Processed American Cheese.” He snatched the package, without letting go of his hostage. And eyed it warily. “Eet says ‘cheese food.’” He looked up, obviously perplexed. “What ees thees? Zee cheese, it does not eat.”

“What bug crawled up your ass?" I demanded. "If you mean, why I am upset? I should think that would be obvious!" It took me a second, but I got it. "Oh, come on. You're not still pissed about–you did the same damn thing to me!" He had the utter gall to look offended. "I did nothing of the sort–" I stared at him. "And just how do you figure that? You stripped me butt naked, diddled me over a desk and stole my duffel bag. And my clothes!" Somebody made a choking sound. I glanced up to find the door to the study open, and the old vamp looking scandalized. "Diddled?" Anthony asked, apparently delighted. Mircea closed his eyes.”

“I spun to see my own reflection starting back at me from a shiny chrome fender. My eyes were started, which was understandable considering that the fender was hovering 6 feet off the ground. ... "Get off the road!" "I'm not on the road." I pointed up. "It's that way." ... but even so it was clear that this joker was well below the designated traffic lane. I pointed that out, but all I got for my trouble was another loud blast from the horn. So of course I flipped him off. He said something rude, threw the truck into reverse, then shot past close enough to force me to duck. He swerved around another vehicle, rolled sideways to fit between a couple of buses & vanished into the glare.”

“Want a ride?" ... One look at the car, & I decided that walking didn't sound so bad, after all. ... "Half the people around here shouldn't even be driving." She said this will no irony whatsoever, despite the fact that her car's black cloth top kept rising and lowering like some kind of strange bird trying to achieve flight. The driver, a young ginger haired guy, took a stab at making it stop, & turned the wipers on instead. "I'm good," I assured her. ... Ronnie panicked & veered sharply to the right, missing the race car but clipping a VW Bug that had stalled out in the middle of the air. It's hood was jacked up, and its owner's butt was hanging over the side. Or, at least, it was until the impact caused the Bug to go spinning in one direction & flung the owner in the other. ...."uh-oh" .... Ronnie glanced at me. "Get in if you're getting!" I'd have refused, considering his grasp on the fundamentals of the road -- or in this case, the air. But traffic was piling up around the accident, pushing more people out of the safe zone. And I was beginning to doubt that most of them even knew how to drive on land.”

“Pritkin, it’s a hotel room, not a death trap!” A glance over his shoulder showed him impatient blue eyes under a fall of messy blond curls. “Anyway, you’re here.” “I can’t protect you from everything,” he forced himself to say, because it was true. It was also frankly terrifying in a way that his own mortality was not. He’d never had children, but he sometimes wondered if this was how parents felt when catching sight of a fearless toddler confidently heading toward a busy street. Not that his charge was a child, as he was all too uncomfortably aware. But the knowledge of just how many potentially lethal pitfalls lay in her path sometimes caused him that same heart-clenching terror. And the same overwhelming need to throw her over his lap and spank the living daylights out of her, he thought grimly, when she suddenly popped out of existence. “Cassie!”

“I was the dhampir daughter of the family patriarch, the little known stain on an otherwise immaculate record. Louis-Cesare, on the other hand, was vamp royalty. The only Child of Mircea’s younger, and far stranger, brother Radu, he was a first-level master--the highest and rarest vampire rank. A month ago, the prince and the pariah had crossed paths because we had one thing in common: we were very good at killing things. And Mircea’s bug-eyed crazy brother Vlad had needed killing if anyone ever had. The collaboration hadn’t exactly been stress free, but to my surprise, we eventually sorted things out and got the job done. By the end, I’d even started to think that it was kind of nice, having someone to watch my back for a change. Sometimes, I could be really stupid.”

“I cocked an ear, but there was nothing much to hear. A girl was on the phone next door, complaining about some guy to a girlfriend, and someone down a floor was either talking to his cat or having a psychotic episode, but both voices were clearer than the soft noises coming from the living room. The vamps were presumably cleaning the wounds better than I’d been able to do at the bar, and bandaging him up. I knew nobody was planning a snack– it would be like offering people used to Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon a sack of stale Fritos and a flat Coke. Sloppy seconds weren’t likely to appeal.”

“I… What are you doing " Mircea had run a hand through his waterfall of hair and now he was sliding those beautifully shaped hands down his chest to glide over his nipples. His torso was hairless and perfectly sculpted with toned muscles and a long waist. He followed the lines of his flat stomach to the low-slung border of his only remaining garment. His fingers lingered there sliding along that insubstantial barrier teasingly drawing my eyes to the line of dark hair that started below his navel and disappeared beneath the black silk. It was startling against the pale perfection of his skin and except for the faint pink of his nipples gave the only color to his upper body. "Doing dulceaţă " he asked innocently. "I am trying my best to seduce you.”

“I dodged behind Mac for cover and refused to take the bait. I glanced at my nonexistent watch. 'Oops, look at the time. Guess I have to be going now. Let's not do this again sometime, okay?' Before I could move, Pritkin was there, jamming the medallion into the skin of my upper arm.'Ow!'He looked at me expectantly. I glared at him. 'That hurt!' What do you see?' A big red mark.”

“He smiled at that, and then his gaze shifted to a spot over my shoulder and it faded. 'These doubts wouldn’t have anything to do with the company you’re keeping of late, would they?' I didn’t get a chance to answer before the shop door was thrown open and a furious war mage stomped in. Pritkin spotted me and his eyes narrowed. 'You shaved my legs?!' Mircea looked at me and folded his arms across his chest. I looked from one unhappy face to the other and suddenly remembered that I had somewhere else to be.”

“Pritkin gave me a little shake and I eyed him without favor. The only other occasions when I had been dragged back in time, the trip had been triggered by proximity to a person whose past was being threatened. I have to tell you,” I said frankly, “if someone is trying to mess with your conception or something, I’m not feeling a pressing need to intervene.”

“He shook me, and despite it being one-handed, it made my teeth rattle. “If anything like that ever happens again. You. Leave. Me. Behind. Do you understand?” I would have argued, but I was feeling a little shocky for some reason. “I’m not good at abandoning people,” I finally said. A front-desk person scurried over, first-aid kit in hand, but Pritkin snarled at the poor guy and he quickly backed up a step. “Then get good at it!” He stomped off, limping, one shoulder hanging at an odd angle. “You’re welcome,” I murmured.”

“How did you hear about that?' 'Are you kidding me? So far, I had that runt Kyle-' 'I hate him. I hate all vamps. That complete toad, Michael-' '-tell me you were pregnant by a vamp-' 'kidnnaped me and-Kyle said WHAT?' 'and then a member of the Domi shows up and informs me-' 'The Domi sent someone HERE?' '-that you're actually pregnant by the late king of the Fey.' 'Late?!' Heidar squeaked.”

“My one-time roommate Claire had inherited the house from her uncle, and when she went off to bigger and better things, she’d left it in my care. And it needed a lot of it. Most importantly, it needed a new roof. There was a worrying stain on the ceiling of my bedroom that had started out roughly the shape of Rhode Island, but now looked more like North Carolina. Another few more days of rain and it was going to be Texas. And then it wouldn’t be anything at all because the battered old shingles were going to cave in on my head.”

“Louis-Cesare’s anger suddenly filled the small room like water, and in a heartbeat his eyes went from silver tinged to as solid as two antique coins. I sat frozen, awash in a sea of power. I was beginning to understand why Mircea had wanted him along, only Daddy had failed to mention anything about the hair-trigger temper. I guess he assumed the red hair would clue me in.”

“Mircea must have heard us come in, but he continued what he was doing. He stood with his back to us, the candlelight on his bare skin causing his muscles to fall into sharp relief. He’d washed the river gunk out of his hair and now he threw it back, the water droplets shimmering in the light. The scene looked for all the world like a really good romance novel cover.”

“I’m beginning to sense a theme,” Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. “I believe there is only one thing to say at this point.” What’s that?” Yee haw,” he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf.”