{"id":1285,"date":"2018-06-04T08:25:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-04T12:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/?p=1285"},"modified":"2018-06-11T09:00:54","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T13:00:54","slug":"wolfs-bane-chapter-2-scene-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/?p=1285","title":{"rendered":"Wolf’s Bane: Chapter 2 Scene 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wolf'sIf you\u2019re just tuning in, you\u2019ll want to start at the beginning<\/a>\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ma Scrubbs glowered at me across a table littered with dollar bills and scraps of hastily scrawled wagers. To the uninitiated, the mess looked like, well, a mess.<\/i> But my second-shift supervisor memorized each offering, constantly recalculated the odds, and ensured the finances fell forever in her favor.<\/p>\n

Not so difficult when she had a fighter like me in her back pocket.<\/p>\n

Which, tonight, she most definitely did not<\/i>. \u201cI\u2019m not doing it, Ma,\u201d I responded, slamming the door of my employer\u2019s office to block out the crowd so I could transition from Disney princess into hardened warrior and feel like myself once again. Only after stuffing both arms into the leather jacket waiting for me on the back of the door then buttoning the armor up to my chin did my heart calm sufficiently for me to fall into the empty seat waiting on the other side of Ma\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n

\u201cCool it with the tantrums, girlie. And I\u2019m not your mother. So don\u2019t call me \u2018Ma.\u2019\u201d As she spoke, the older woman\u2019s brows scrunched together into a glower that I was far too familiar with. Because, no, Ma Scrubbs wasn\u2019t my mother. But she\u2019d let me play in her office dozens of times while my father fought, had offered me his vacated spot when I struggled to keep my tiny family afloat after being orphaned at age eighteen, and was the closest thing to a parental figure I had left.<\/p>\n

So I obeyed her command and elaborated as best I could without mentioning supernatural elements that Ma Scrubbs may or may not have picked up on by now. \u201cI can\u2019t win against those two,\u201d I explained. \u201cIt\u2019s just not possible. Pick someone else for the first fight then I\u2019ll go in for round two.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ma Scrubbs considered me from the far side of the desktop, her head barely visible above the cluttered surface. If I was small, she was wizened, face so wrinkled it was impossible to guess what the seventy-year-old might have looked like when she was young. After a moment of consideration, she shrugged, pulling a battered notebook out of one pocket. \u201cGo home then,\u201d she told me. \u201cI\u2019ll call the Raven sisters in to fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d The word burst from my lips before I could soften the rejection. \u201cThey\u2019re children! They\u2019ll be slaughtered!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot against those two. Gunner and Ransom are boy scouts. First blood will be a nick on the cheek. Won\u2019t even scar. And next week, ticket sales will skyrocket out of sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

So she was<\/i> aware of the existence of werewolves. No human would refer to a four-legged shifter in the same breath as his two-legged companion unless she fully understood the former\u2019s ability to change forms.<\/p>\n

Still, I had no time to further analyze that fact because Ma Scrubbs wasn\u2019t even looking at me any longer. Instead, she pulled out her cell phone and began thumbing through her address book, stopping only when the faces of Jessie and Charlie Raven popped into view. The twins were sweet young things who I\u2019d mentored for a couple of summers. Despite my best efforts, though, the duo still thought fencing was a sport in which you didn\u2019t hit below the belt or above the neck. They had no concept werewolves existed and they were barely older than my kid sister. If I didn\u2019t allow Kira to sit in the Arena\u2019s audience, I certainly wasn\u2019t going to be responsible for Jessie and Charlie ending up within the Arena\u2019s cage.<\/p>\n

So even though I knew I was being played, I reached out and blocked the phone\u2019s surface with my hand. \u201cOkay, you win,\u201d I answered. Took a deep breath, considered the angles. I couldn\u2019t use my supernatural speed to its full advantage against a pair of werewolves, but there had to be a way to turn my opponents\u2019 cockiness against them.<\/p>\n

If there was, Ma Scrubbs surely would have thought of it. \u201cAnd you clearly have a plan,\u201d I continued. \u201cSo let\u2019s hear it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d my boss answered, her eyes twinkling with old-lady mirth. \u201cYou\u2019ve been winning, winning, always winning. Nobody\u2019s gonna bet against you. So tonight, you\u2019ll reset the clock. Tonight…you\u2019ll lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

I’m afraid that’s all the excerpt I have for you today. But\u00a0you can keep reading by downloading the full book on the retailer of your choice.<\/a> Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re just tuning in, you\u2019ll want to start at the beginning\u2026. \u201cYou\u2019re late.\u201d Ma Scrubbs glowered at me across a table littered with dollar bills and scraps of hastily scrawled wagers. To the uninitiated, the mess looked like, well, a mess. But my second-shift supervisor memorized each offering, constantly recalculated the odds, and ensured […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,142],"tags":[14,7,27,23,8],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts-aimee-easterling","category-series-moon-marked","tag-paranormal-books","tag-shifter-books","tag-urban-fantasy-books","tag-urban-paranormal-romantic-fantasy","tag-werewolf-books","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1312,"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions\/1312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/aimeeeasterling.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}