It’s Hump Day. That means it is time for words, based on a theme. Sometimes. I came across this prompt and since Iffy is sulking, I took the words and ran. “And the words are?” you ask. INCONVENIENCE or
AGGRAVATION, things that make you GRRRR! or GRUMBLE!! or DAMMIT!!! So here is a first (and rough!) draft from MOONSTRUCK: BETRAYAL, here’s a little peek at some of the new material going into the book. I leave up to you, dear readers, as to whether my words meet the challenge. 😉
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Mac stood very still, all sensation bleeding out. Hannah raged, like she’d captured every bit of emotion in him, draining him dry. Liam was gone? No! This couldn’t be happening. Not after…
“Breathe, man.” Lightfoot. Reminding him to live.
“We’ll find him, Mac.” Sean. Vowing to make it right.
He searched the face of each man, his alpha stare in high gear. Neither of them flinched. Then Danny was there, hobbling but chin high and determination exuding from his every pore. Harjo. The same. His gaze surfed over the women. None of them approached his mate. Smart. Hannah was too volatile, too apt to say something that could never be taken back. He next looked to the other men, the one’s they’d rescued from Area 51. They stank of burnt toast, their anger a visceral presence in their scents.
Not them then. No scent of carrion, of road kill rotting in the heat that signaled betrayal. But someone had. Had betrayed him. Hannah. Betrayed them all.
He needed to do something. Say something. But he remained frozen. Liam. His son. His only child. And Hannah had given everything to Mac, over and over, until her heart broke this one last time. They would find Liam. They would get him back. And then everything would be okay again. He and Hannah would be a pair, connected in heart, soul, and body as they once had been.
Rubbing his chest with a fist, he attempted to focus his thoughts. Aggravated that he couldn’t think straight, he scanned the faces of the people gathered there to celebrate Harjo and Amy’s marriage. His brain, on autopilot, noticed. He whirled, searching.
“Where is she?” More demand than question, Mac noted the rising panic in his voice.
Lightfoot gripped his shoulder. “Hannah’s right—”
“No! Not Hannah. Sutherland! Where the fuck is that gawddamned bitch?” His voice devolved into a growl.
The men exchanged looks. And then the crowd erupted.
****
Writers, any aggravating words you want to share? Readers, what aggravates you about us authors? Inquiring minds want to know. 😁
Silver James 
Oooooo! Awesome! You’re killing me here. But probably no worse than I’m killing you with all my snippets of the next Sleeping Ugly stories.
Speaking of which, here’s the current beginning of Cinder Ugly, it’s is dirty first draft form…
“Jennifer Braxxon, so called supermodel. You do realize you’ve been sitting in filth for three straight days now. I don’t know how you can stand it.”
I dragged my gaze away from the flatscreen television. It and the sofa I was becoming one with were about the only things the rental company hadn’t repossessed yet.
“And your point would be what?” I flicked a piece of pizza crust at my loathsome, furry interrupter and went back to watching women in tiny bikinis and men in tinier thongs play volleyball on some east coast beach somewhere. I used to look like that. The women, not the men. Well, actually I used to look like those women all day every day before I got cursed. Now at midnight, I turned uglier than the ass end of a diseased rhinoceros. Every freaking night.
Sure, I get better throughout the day. Otherwise, the curse wouldn’t be nearly as mean. But every midnight? Ugly.
After he dodged the doughy missile, my heinously annoying disturbance… err, butler… err, familiar… err, cat, Kazimir sat on the table staring at me with those damn unblinking eyes, whipping his tail back and forth in true ‘pissy-kitty’ fashion.
“You are emitting an unpleasant odor,” he said.
“So?” Showers were for people who gave a damn.
“And there is nothing edible in the house.”
“So?” It wasn’t as if I was hungry. I probably hadn’t been hungry since they took my fridge away. I thought about using my magic to shut him up. Which spell, though?
“Ten thousand dollars,” he said.
There was a point I didn’t want to think about, but had to. The Society for Sorcerous Activity had informed me that since I wasn’t licensed to do magic, I would be fined every time I so much as created a sparkle. I did not need another charge added to that bill. Besides, it wasn’t worth ten-K to shut up a cat.
I chucked another piece of pizza crust at him, missing him by a mile, which he anticipated because he didn’t even flinch. “Order something,” I said, “and have it delivered.”
“I am unable to do that for a variety of reasons. Obviously.”
“Name one.” I could think of a few, but I wanted to see which reason topped his list. Probably the no dexterous fingers thing. Or maybe the fact that I was the only human who could hear him.
“They cancelled your credit cards.”
Sure, he had to pick that one. The one that hurt me the most. “Oh, yeah. Well, screw them.” I turned the TV up to drown out the voice of doom with the gray and brown striped fur.
After too short a span of silence, Kaz said, “They’ll be coming to evict you tomorrow, you know.”
That almost, kind of, sort of, made it through the haze of misery I was wallowing in. Then I realized I didn’t care about that either. When the repo men carted the sofa away, they could shift it sideways and dump me on the ground somewhere. I wasn’t moving.
Whoa! Yeah…you need to get to work! LOL And I totally love Kazamir! TOTALLY! I love that he’s snooty with a hint of snark. The snoot works great!
I HATE snippets! Now I have to sit on pins and needles before the story comes out! (However, you notice I still read it…..)
LOL Of course you did! 😉 It’ll be out soon. Promise. Once I get through the middle part, the end will go fast and then I just need a cover and formatting. Which reminds me. I need to nudge my cover artist…
Sounds good!
I hope so! 🙂