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happened.
Yeah, like she believed that. But maybe it was worth a try anyway.
 The thing is& 
Bael looked at her encouragingly. Var nuzzled her hand and she found herself
scratching the soft fur at the top of his head.
 The thing is& 
Var licked her fingers encouragingly.
Tell him you were the barmaid. Tell him you didn t fuck Giacomo. Tell him he s probably
right and you are his mate.
Tell him&
He left you to die.
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Cat Marsters
Bael touched her hand and she looked up, her eyes meeting his. His eyes were so
green, impossibly green, shining like emeralds.
 The thing is, her voice came out as a whisper,  there s so much you don t know.
 Then tell me, Bael said.
 I don t know where to start.
 Start anywhere.
Var, cat-shaped again, slid onto her lap, his fur silky against her bare skin. He
looked up at her, eyes as green as Bael s, and purred.
Kett dug her fingers into his fur, and started talking.
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Mad, Bad & Dangerous
Chapter Nineteen
Once upon a time, Bael learned, there had been a little girl who was made of stone.
One day, she was turned into a real girl, but because she d been a statue for eight years
she didn t know how to talk or move or eat. She babbled like a baby and nearly choked
on ordinary foods. She crawled, shouted and hit people, because she didn t know it
wasn t acceptable to do so.
She also didn t know that it wasn t usual for other people to change their shapes at
will. She frequently turned into a dog or a horse without notice, since those were the
animals she d seen most when she was a statue. Later, when she was educated a little
more, and learned about tigers and gryphons, she started trying to emulate them. On
the island where she lived, there were dragons, but it wasn t until her teens that she
managed such a shape
 Hold on, Bael said.  Dragon island? The only one in Peneggan is Koskwim.
Kett nodded.  I ll tell you about it later. She paused.  It s well, it s not entirely
my secret to tell.
 But it might prove important?
Her fingers dug into Var s fur.  Yeah. It probably will.
 Who undid the spell? Striker?
She gave a half smile.  No. Striker was still imprisoned in the kelfs mythical hell
dimension don t ask pickling in his own madness. It was a couple of kids who d
nicked a magic book and went on some kind of spree, trying to turn inanimate objects
into real things. And with me they just& got lucky. Or unlucky, depending on how you
look at it. Her gaze slid in his direction.  You ve met one of them.
Bael gestured with his hand for more. He was too tired to think which of Kett s
many bizarre acquaintances it might have been.
 Jarven. He s the one who took me to Koskwim, didn t know what else to do with
me. He was pretty much the only one on the whole island who didn t treat me like a
freak.
Bael opened his mouth to speak and closed it again. Jarven, silent and unemotional,
quietly lending Kett the support she needed. A surrogate brother for an orphan child.
She told him how, when she was sixteen, a tall, lean man with chilling blue eyes,
dressed all in black, had turned up and said he knew her father. Kett hadn t believed
him in fact, up until then she d rarely thought about her father. She d discovered her
mother had been a shapeshifter, but absolutely nothing of her father.
 He said he was taking me home, she said,  and I told him I already was home. I d
never known anywhere else. I didn t leave that island until I was sixteen.
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Cat Marsters
Bael frowned, because all he knew of Koskwim was that it was inhabited by a
colony of wild dragons. But then, given Kett s day job, he wasn t that surprised.
 Who was he? he asked, although he figured he already knew the answer.
 Striker. He and my dad go way back. He brought me here.
She told him how she d met her father for the first time, and he d been distinctly
underwhelmed, more interested in chasing pretty girls and separating wealthy people
from their money than being a father. He d sent her on to his own father, an Anglish
earl, from whom Kett had been kidnapped by men who tried to sell her as a slave.
 Reckon he d probably have left me there if they hadn t gone after Nuala too, she
said without rancor.
 Don t you mind? Bael asked.
 What, that he prefers her to me? He s known her longer. He was best mates with
her brother now the king in their army days, saved his life once or twice. Nuala was
like his kid sister until she grew up, that is. She smiled.  Funny, everyone thought
she was still such a kid, but they treated me like an adult and I m six years younger
than her.
Bael frowned, and she said gently,  It s okay. You don t need to go calling him out
or anything. We actually get on okay now. She gave a faint smile and added,
 Apparently, finding out he has a teenage daughter can bloody terrify a man.
The lamp grew dim as she told him about meeting her father s exotic, glamorous
and sometimes just insane friends. Striker was the tip of the iceberg, just one of many
mad, bad and dangerous individuals Tyrnan of Emreland consorted with. Somewhere
in between being the son of an earl and marrying a princess, he d developed an
infamous career in highway robbery. Perpetually pardoned by the king in Peneggan,
and thrown in jail everywhere else, he spent his days with whom Kett called madmen
and freaks.
 Most of them have settled down like my dad, she said,  and the ones who didn t
are dead. Chalia and my dad knew each other at school. And then, turns out her mother
and his father d had a little& indiscretion. Like father, like son, I guess. Striker was the
one who figured out Chalia was my dad s sister. Lya& of course he made best friends
with a kelf, why not? And Striker, they knew each other from their schooldays too.
 I still can t believe he was a child.
 Well, of course he was. You don t think he just hatched out fully formed, do you?
 I thought he was something hell spat out.
Kett smiled at that, stroking Var s fur in a way that was quite distracting.  Hah,
she said quietly.  Some day I ll tell you about how Striker got to be Striker. He used to
be normal, apparently.
 I can t imagine it.
 No, neither can I. He was a normal kid, a teenager, he joined the army, fell in love [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]