Bloodline, Part 1
It had been about two months since that first night with Abram. For a long while, what I felt most was a peculiar kind of emptiness, a sensation of a large hole in my spirit. When that image finally came to me fully, I realized exactly what it was that...
Gaming the System
I left the employment queue, keeping my anger in check. It was bad enough that they weren't going to give me a job at this high-and-mighty office complex; I wasn't going to give them the excuse to have me incarcerated as well. Just as well that it...
Ring In the New
"Happy New Year, GMT!" Laughter rang with the clinking of glasses filled with sparkling cider, toasts were drunk all round, and then began the joyous abandon of kissing in the new year. Eoin snagged Zachary for his first and warmest kiss, and for a...
Collar 11 -- Memento Mei
I woke slowly to morning light trying to peek around the drawn curtains in a bedroom warm with the scent of recent lovemaking and the feel of a beautiful young wolf in my arms. Like me, he was shifting gently, not yet awake, not entirely sure he wanted...
Collar 12 -- Pax Vo Biscum
I gasped and pulled Fletcher tightly into my embrace, feeling him grip me closely to him. The words clanged inside my head:_I think he sold me._ Nothing in my life had prepared me for the horror that I felt from those five words. Even Elizabeth's...
Model Behavior
Emerson wondered if it really was cold in here, or if it just seemed like it because he was clad only in underwear. Specifically, boxer shorts. More than that, boxer shorts that weren't even his. Seated on a bare wooden bench, the only furniture in...
A Single Candle, Part 2
"That sounds as close to impossible as makes no odds." "You're friggin' well told." As a rule, Dr. Newton Augustus Gutenberg did not use such language. This was, he thought, an occasion to break any number of rules. His experience in Chase's quarters...
A Single Candle, Part 1
When the flickering light beneath the door had faded at last, he knew it was over. It had taken longer this time. The red panda, cautious but prepared, waited another pawful of seconds, just to make sure that no more flickers could be seen. Padding to...
A Single Candle, Part 3
"Are you going to tell me now?" "What, and spoil dinner?" Newton offered a rueful smile as he looked over the happy ruins of the dinner that the two of them had shared in Chase's quarters. The coyote had done them proud, with his...
A Single Candle, Part 4
They ended up in Chase's quarters, for reasons of proximity to the lab, size of the room, and the availability of chilled bottled water. Newton had rarely felt more parched in all his life, and he was grateful to the coyote for reminding him not to...
We'll Always Have Coffee
The line never gets either longer or shorter, with the exception of brief lulls that allow the staff a chance to straighten up the place a bit. I know just about all of the staff, on most of the shifts, even when they juggle their schedules around....
Annabel Lee
The day, bright, cool, clear, was not what many would call "proper" for a funeral. It was an anomaly in this rainy spring, being the third in a string of dry days with little cloud cover. The mourners could not help but comment on how beautifully the...