The Tales of Twisted Felix Katt (Book 1)

Hounded (NaNoWriMo)

You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough. – unknown

I didn’t regret what we’d done, but I certainly regretted the location we chose. Although the waterfall was still as spectacular and romantic as ever, my back and ass hurt from all the little rocks that had dug into my skin while Rorick and I had addressed the sexual tension between us. I’d gone and celebrated not just my birthday, but Mardi Gras itself the way it was supposed to be done: with an illicit affair.

The two of us swam in the waterfall, relaxed a little longer and then slowly pulled our clothes on to make our way back out into civilization. Hard to believe that before the moon rose, we’d saved the life of the Creole Queen and then celebrated with the most primal dance there is between man and woman. Van was going to annoy the crap out of me with all the ‘I told you so’ comments she was going to say. I guess I was expecting the world to look a little different now that I’ve decided to really live on the wild side. I was a disgraced First Daughter, and I couldn’t be happier.

Sadly, the rest of the world was blithely ignorant of how my world had changed overnight. There was a whole bunch of news flying over the settlement as Rorick and I made our way back to Destiny, but it had very little to do with us, and had everything to do with the Queen we’d saved last night. It’s amazing how the moment some good celebrity gossip gets out, people feel the need to run up to you and shove it in your face. In this case, people I’d never met before had to come over and share the story. As a witness to the actual events, I found the story going around to be far more entertaining and it would have made for a hilarious night.

According to the local gossip mill, during Mardi Gras last night a hoard of malcontents had swarmed the Queen and her Consort, beating the poor man to death and almost killing the Queen before two masked and heavily armed heroes jumped to the rescue. Since neither Rorick nor I had had masks on by that point, I was starting to suspect that people really had no clue what actually happened. If the fight had taken as long or had been as vigorous as these people were telling, there would have been no energy for sex last night, though I think these people would just eat it right up if we were to tell them that after saving the Queen’s life, the two unknown heroes went off and consummated their relationship after five very long, celibate years.

And yes, I felt a little bad that Queen Anna’s lover had died to save her. It was romantic and a waste, but what really confused me was why anyone would want to kill the Queen? The Creole settlements were actually flourishing beyond just the usual bump that comes with Mardi Gras, even a sky brain like me could see that. So who would have the bad taste to shoot themselves in the foot? It made no sense to me. But it wasn’t my job to worry about, so instead I walked with my blood slave back to our ship.

My hands itched with the desire to cut that damn collar off his neck, but that would just be asking for trouble right now. Rorick was a registered blood slave and if the Hounds came sniffing by and found him sans collar, that would get him killed just as quickly as if they found out who I was and what we’d done. Yeah I guess I really am no good at taking the easy route in life.

That ominous sense of foreboding stalked me once again and I was wondering if maybe I’d fallen down a rabbit hole when no one was looking. As Rorick and I walked up to Destiny, I kept looking back over my shoulder to see if I could spot what was setting off my creeped out internal alarm. But it wasn’t until we’d walked into my ship that I finally got a sense of what exactly had gone wrong. Sitting on a chair, wearing the pure white of mourning, sat Queen Anna and about thirty or so guards waiting for us. Well shit, so much for being an anonymous hero.

“Captain Felix.” Queen Anna’s voice was lovely and rich, except for the fact that it was saturated with grief.

The thing is that this isn’t the first Queen I’ve ever met. Mommy being all high and mighty and powerful, there’s enough court etiquette branded into my brain from those few years she had to mould me, that my body executed a real bow, not the paltry thing I normally pull out at these times. I could see the eyebrow above her right eye quiver as if she suppressed the urge to arch it in surprise. Admittedly I probably was not striking the most imposing image right now. I was wearing my shift which was stained from the rocks and dirt of the cave, my red over dress was torn and stained and I had sex hair. That’s ignoring the scratches and love bite marks that peppered my collar bone, neck and many hidden from view. From the distant twinkle in the Queen’s eyes, I had the feeling that she had already put one and two together to realize what I’d been doing and the glimmer of amusement almost buried by her grief indicated that she approved.