The Tales of Twisted Felix Katt (Book 1)

All Trussed Up and Nowhere to Go (NaNoWriMo)

A/N: image to the side is Rorick played by Vin Diesel.

War does not determine who is right: only who is left - Bertrand Russell

Day 1 Post Shuffle 

“Can anybody tell me why the male has the big, sharp sword and I just have… this?” Van demanded, impressing Rorick and I with the voluptuous just of her… fan.

I felt an eyebrow raise and heard my idiot mouth say, “Because even the Goddess trusts Rorick more than you.” Yes ladies and males, my mouth really is that stupid. For some reason a good Shuffle always seems to reset my internal filter to asshole mode. My second in command gave me a death glare, killing the next smartass thing about to pop out. 

“Felix, I could always claim you died in the landing and feed your corpse to the dragon.” Van jerked her thumb at the ship and I laughed.

Van frowned, face pouting as she realized I wasn’t in the least bit intimidated by her threat. Even if I wasn’t physically capable of handling her myself, and I am, I saw Rorick move in close behind her while her attention was on me. The way his shoulders bunched and rolled as he stepped in place silently told me that he would drop her before she could ever attack me. It didn’t matter that there were a dozen eyes on us at the moment, he would protect me. Made sense that the Shuffle decked him out as the Knight.

We were all of us displaying our feathers. Rorick- a slave and a man is the only honorable one. His moral code is simple and unbreakable. Goddess I wish I knew what it was. Van was her gorgeous and lethal self, an assassin and a tramp. My keen eye spotted the edged tips of her fan and the garrote laced into her hair. Me? I was pissed.

“Shit. We gotta wait the Shuffle out. Even if homebody could be retrieved from Destiny, the temporarily large and grumpy dragon, we still couldn’t do the surgery.  One of the tools could have really wanted to be a bunny  and is currently off eating carrots.” I groused.

“Oh goody.” Van breathed and I realized the flush on her cheeks was building excitement. Being held in a Shuffle basically meant twiddle your thumbs until life goes back to normal. She was going to get enforced time off to spend with her two R’s.

“Go forth and fuck blind my pretty. Just for the love of Goddess use condoms, I do not need you pregnant and moody on my ship.” I slapped her on the ass and sent her a stumbling step forward.

The pink on her cheeks was washed away in a tide of angry red. “You bitch, you’re so lucky that the brute is in love with you. You know where to find me when there’s things to kill or people to blow up.” With that Van grabbed her skirts up and strode off, looking offended.

I gave Rorick an amused look, watching him glower at Van’s retreating back. It was like watching siblings go at it. They would gladly gouge each other’s eyes out if I let them, but Heaven forefend that anyone else hurts them.  Rorick is only slightly less protective over Van than he is me; I’m possessive over both of them and Van… She’d do whatever it took to get both him and I out of some pretty wibbly situations. My lovely, dysfunctional family.

“Buy you a drink slave?” I asked him, hip cocked to the side. My layered costume was surprisingly comfortable, light but warm, the katana on my hip feeling familiar. Only civilized people were supposed to carry the noble blade and it would scandalize the more polite members of a normal settlement to see me carry one. Of course Bluewater is nowhere near a normal settlement. They were grime and backwater and my kind of mojo.