Although I tried! I’m working on catching up – I think I’ll make it, but we’ll see. The awesome news is that there is only 10 more chapters and the epilogue for Rites, and then it’s DONE!!! I can’t believe I’m so close to the end of this story!

Of course, then I get to play with Russian faery tales….

Today’s darling is for Sue, who will now have seen it 3 times today. 😉

Starting Count: 81677
Ending Count: 82885
Net Gain: +1208
Current NaNo count: 15921
Current Word YTD count: 17017
Val’s Tea Fund: $9

Starting line:
“Nikki was looking for you,” she said, turning around and grinning at him. “She came by about forty-five minutes ago. I was going to give you about another fifteen minutes before I woke you up.”

Ending line:
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He held on as Kore leaped forward, snow exploding from under her hooves. The grey mare burst through the front gate and tore up the hill, getting far enough from the house that she could open a Gate and not disturb Nikki’s spells. They hadn’t heard anything, but there was blood splashed on the ground as they rode through, and Justin hoped it wasn’t theirs.

Darling:
“Nikki was looking for you,” she said, turning around and grinning at him. “She came by about forty-five minutes ago. I was going to give you about another fifteen minutes before I woke you up.”

Justin stretched. “Hmm, maybe I should go back to sleep, then. Depends on how you’d wake me up.” He noticed there was a paint smear on the curve of her left breast and couldn’t help smiling.

Cleo jerked her head towards the window. “Oh, you know, the usual. Snowball in the face.” When his jaw dropped, she chuckled. “What did you expect?”

“I..uh..well…” Justin’s mouth worked for a few moments more, without anything intelligible coming out, and then he gave up and got out of bed, full of injured dignity. “I’m going to take a shower.”

As he walked by her, she said, “And then I would have kissed it and made it better, of course.” He stopped, blinking, and turned to look at her. She returned his look with an arch one of her own.

“Really?” Justin reached out and touched her face gently. “Can we just skip the snowball?”

Her eyes never left his. “I’m painting.”

“Funny. I thought your brush was supposed to be on the canvas when you did that.” He stepped closer to her, ignoring the palette and brush as he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers.

“It is,” she agreed, her lips moving against his. There was a clatter as the palette fell, dropped along with said brush as she stepped into his embrace. “I’ll have to work on that.”

And then there were no more words.