Dark Empathy by Archibald Bradford (best books to read for women .txt) 📗

moment to crack his back with a grunt; though he kept himself in top notch shape he wasn’t a young man anymore.

Once again he lamented his missing bond-mate: normally Yana worked with him to keep him from stiffening up like this.

“You better be right about him.” Bloom warned.

He looked to her scarred face, the severe look in her eyes enough to give him pause.

Scratching at the patch over his missing eye, he nodded his agreement with the statement.

“That is the hope.”

__________

In a person’s life there are countless innocuous little moments that have no meaning whatsoever.

A slight stumble, a sneeze in public, a leaf blowing along in the wind and brushing against one’s face; each little event is over and done with without anyone giving them a second thought.

Indeed people would be hard pressed to remember the time they had to blink rapidly because a stray dewdrop fell off of a branch above them and landed too close to their eye.

But sometimes, in some lifetimes, something might happen without anyone noticing at all, and yet these insignificant little events can have far-reaching consequences beyond anything anyone could ever imagine.

Such was the case when Rebecca the Lapine courier arrived at work determined to finally locate Carol Reindel’s missing parcel.

For three weeks she had been routinely checking the shelves marked ‘Oakridge: Incoming’, but hadn’t seen it come up at all. So she had come to suspect that Carol’s fears of the parcel getting lost were justified and ducked into the sorting facility proper in search of it.

Normally the couriers only went into the ready rooms for outgoing packages. These were the smallest sections of the massive building where they stored the variety of letters, packages, and parcels that had already been given the blue stamp of approval that meant the sorting inspectors had done their jobs.

But it was not unusual for the couriers to go into the warehouse itself, to help someone with a particularly heavy parcel, or if there was some overflow from the ready rooms.

As such, with the exception of one particularly young warehouse worker who gawked at her figure as she searched the tall metal shelving units, no one gave her a second glance.

Since she knew where the parcel was coming from and the name of the recipient it did not take long for the Lapine to locate the little package, she rolled her eyes and huffed in exasperation when she saw that it had actually arrived over a week ago but had been randomly flagged for inspection.

Lazy inspectors!

She shook her head at her own foolishness for not checking for it sooner and slipped it into her bag.

But whatever misgivings she had about how long it took to find the parcel were drowned by a great swell of anticipation and satisfaction that filled her breast at having it safely on her hip.

She was greatly looking forwards to her lover’s gratitude.

Her bag wasn’t empty as she had yet to begin her route, and distracted as she was imagining how exactly Carol would show her appreciation, Becks bumped hard into another courier on her way out.

An innocuous little moment.

While neither was injured and they quickly exchanged cheerful apologies, the package in her bag rolled over on its side.

And another nearly identical box shifted down in its place.

Chapter 28:Convocation

Ophelia fussed with his collar, striving to get it just right as he stood patiently before her. He was wearing his uniform, freshly cleaned and pressed in preparation for today.

“You look so very handsome dearheart.”

“Huh? Looks the same to me.” Nina shrugged.

“Yeah: handsome.” Milly said with a quick nod of her chin.

Volka stepped beside Ophelia and gave her a kiss on the ear.

“We’re going to be late if you keep fussing love.”

The Flutterby pulled back from him with a sniffle, dabbing her hanky against her cheek.

The bittersweet moment was ruined though when they heard an odd snapping sound from one side.

Four sets of eyes turned to see Erica sitting on the bed, impatiently rolling her fingers in a wave over her thigh one after another.

Like Nameless, she was dressed for the occasion in her full body catsuit, and the skin-tight leather made a hard crackle each time the pads of her fingers struck it.

She paused with all of the eyes on her.

“What? I like the sound! Are we leaving or what?”

“Erica, are you-” Nameless paused as he tried to find the right words regarding her outfit, but balked as he felt a twinge of anxiety from her heartstone; “Are you… sure you have enough knives?”

It was a really stupid question.

With Kar’s warm brown leather sheath standing in contrast to the otherwise black garment, she had a total of seventeen knives strapped to her body.

And if she ran out of those, she always had her claws.

“I think she looks great.” Milly declared.

The Minotaur shifted over to loom over the Katje and give her a big kiss.

“None of that you two.” Nina said drily.

Erica made a disappointed yowling noise deep in her chest, but regained her composure quickly enough.

“Uh, yeah, I guess you’re right. This is a big deal right? Field training I mean?”

She hopped to her feet and kissed Milly on the nose before offering a mischievous wink.

After taking a second to languish in the familiar love the two shared, and to get over his own hang-ups regarding his Katje’s clothes, Nameless stepped towards the dresser to take up his bracer and Erica’s claw.

“Yeah, it’s kind of important. We’ll be getting our mentor assignments today, unless I’ve missed something.”

One arm around the cow’s waist, Erica made a face.

“Blech, boring.” But then she tilted her head to one side and thought about it for more than a second; “Actually, not boring, I wonder who