Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(93)

She heard the crowd moan in disappointment. While it might have been impossible, she could swear she had heard the sound of her mom’s soft sad sigh. Her dream for her daughter gone.

“Our winner, Tabitha Evans,” the council announced and the sound of the applause rang too loudly in Miranda’s ears. A feeling she’d known too often filled her chest and twisted her stomach. The one associated with losing. The one she’d felt so often, having to face the disappointment in her mother’s eyes.

Head held high, refusing to show emotion, she walked over to her half-sister. Tabitha stood in blissful shock. Miranda hugged her. Tight. “Congratulations.”

Taking a deep breath, and trying not to look at her mom, Miranda darted to her dressing room. Her chest felt heavy. She’d let her mom down. Let her down so badly.

“Miranda?” she heard someone call her name. She didn’t stop. Moving faster, she longed for solitude. She made it inside of her small dressing room, took one deep gulp of oxygen, and then another. The door behind her swished open, slamming against the wall.

Miranda turned, expecting to see her mom, dreading the discontent she’d see in her mother’s eyes, but it wasn’t her mom perched in the doorway.

Tabitha, her cheeks bright, anger in her eyes, stood in the doorway. “You purposefully lost to me, didn’t you?”

Miranda rolled her eyes. “Please. I wanted this as bad as you did. For me. For my mom. You know how much my mom wanted this. You won fair and square. And don’t gloat about it. Just leave.” She gripped her hands into tight fists.

“I don’t believe you,” her half-sister said.

“Well, what do you want me to do? Take a lie detector test? Sign me up!”

“Tabitha,” Mary Esther’s voice called out. “You need to give a speech.”

“Go,” Miranda said and gave Tabitha a nudge out the door. “Go before my mother shows up and our moms get into another fight.”

“Are you sure?” Tabitha asked. “You didn’t do this on purpose?”

“I’m sure.” She gave her sister a quick hug. “Now go, before I get jealous and give you pimples or something.”

Tabitha grinned and then took off. And that’s when Miranda saw Della and Kylie standing there in the hall. Their expressions showed they knew.

Miranda waited until her sister had turned the corner and couldn’t hear. Crossing the hall, she faced her two best friends. “Never tell a soul. Promise me.”

They looked at each other and then said in unison, “Promise.”

“But why?” Kylie asked. “You’ve wanted this. I know you wanted this. Your mom groomed you for this all your life. Making your mom proud meant so much to you. Why throw it away?”

Miranda put her hand over her lips as tears slipped from her lashes. Then she wiped them away. As much as it stung, she’d done the right thing.

“Tabitha deserves it.”

“More than you?” Della snapped. “How the hell did you come up with that theory? I swear, I do not understand nice people.”

Miranda took in another deep breath. “My dad loves my mom. Not hers. And Mary Esther had him first. That’s wrong.”

“That sucks. And I don’t think that’s a good enough reason,” Della said. “The sins of the mother are not supposed to climb down the generation ladder.”

“Well, they do,” Miranda said. “And yes, it sucks.” She held out her arms. “So much so I … Can I have a hug?” They both walked into Miranda’s embrace.

And there in Paris, her dream of making high priestess forever vanished, Miranda knew that as uncertain as some things were in life—things like love—she would always have her two best friends.





Fierce





Chapter One


Fredericka Lakota slipped the polished hammered wolf pendant on the silver chain, and hung it up. Stepping back, she … frowned. She was a better artist in her head than she was in the flesh. But wasn’t that appropriate? She was better at everything in her head—even a better person—than she was in life, too.

Not a good person, but better than most people considered her. But people were like jewelry, the quality depended on what you were made of. She hadn’t come from great stock.

Not that she wasn’t pure-blooded werewolf. Any supernatural could tell that by looking at her pattern. But her parents had been rogue. Or at least her father had, she’d never known her mother.

She stepped back and looked at her ten jewelry sets. At the bottom of the black velvet display case she’d made was her logo painted in silver script: Ricka Lakota Designs.

Ricka because Fredericka was too long. In time, she supposed the nickname wouldn’t bother her.

Was her work good enough to show in a gallery?

In the morning she’d take her entire collection into Fallen, where after viewing her work, Brandon Hart, the owner of the new gallery in Fallen, would either invite her to sell her wares in the new business, or she’d be told to take a hike.

He planned to pick ten individuals’ works to display in his gallery.

However, he’d warned her in an e-mail that he’d already had two other jewelry artists make appointments and only wanted one.

She didn’t know shit about Brandon Hart—she guessed he was human. Was he even qualified to judge her work? What if he didn’t like it? Or didn’t like her? She wasn’t what anyone would call likable. Raised a rogue, always a rogue. So many supernaturals believed it. And she’d given up trying to prove people wrong.