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And I don't know if my heart is ready for this.
ALIEN DRAGON is available wherever eBooks are sold.
Hybrid Academy
If you love urban fantasy and fairies, you might also enjoy Hybrid Academy, a story by my alter-ego, L.C. Mortimer. Check out the first chapter here!
Chapter 1
"This isn't what I ordered." The tall man in the suit looked at the coffee and sneered. He thrust the cup back at me. A little bit sloshed over the side of the cup and onto the counter. "And you'd better clean that up."
Biting back irritation, I managed a smile.
"Of course. Anything else I can do for you?” I asked politely. Inside, I felt anything but polite. This guy was being a total jerk, as always. I knew for a fact that his coffee had been made perfectly. He just didn’t like me because I couldn’t do magic.
He wanted Maggie to make his drink.
“A free bagel couldn’t hurt,” the man said, jerking his head toward the display of blueberry bagels.
“I’ll have to get my manager’s permission,” I said. “Please wait just a moment.”
I scurried to the back of the café and knocked on the door to the office.
“Come in.”
I yanked the door open and peered inside. Tony was sitting at his desk with his ankles crossed over the top. He looked bored out of his mind.
“What do you want, Maxine?” He asked.
“It’s Max,” I said. “Not Maxine. And there’s a customer who wants a free bagel.”
“We don’t give out bagels for free,” Tony said with a yawn. He was obviously bored. He was always bored at the café.
“I know, but he said that his drink was wrong and he wants to be compensated with free food.”
Tony glared at me and got up with a huff. He acted like it was my fault that he was the manager of the café or that he had to leave the safety of his office to come do his actual job. Whatever. I’d been dealing with Tony ever since I started working at the café. He was neither a good boss nor a team player, so I tried to stay as far away from him as possible. Besides, something about Tony made me uncomfortable, and I couldn’t quite pinpoint why.
“Is there a problem, Lionel?” Tony asked the tall man.
“Yeah, your em-ploy-ee,” he dragged the word out sarcastically. “Messed up my drink. I asked her nicely if she could fix it.”
“Not a problem,” Tony said. He jerked his head toward one of my coworkers. “Maggie, make Lionel a new drink.”
Maggie shot me a nasty look but nodded and started the drink. The café wasn’t busy and the drink wasn’t complicated, so I wasn’t sure what the big deal was. Actually, I had the distinct feeling that Lionel’s original drink had been just fine, but that he wanted a bagel out of the deal.
Correction: he wanted a free bagel.
Tony and Lionel sat and chatted while Maggie made the drink. I cleaned up the spill on the counter before starting to check our inventory. I wasn’t a magic user, so I couldn’t just summon cups whenever we ran out of something we needed. Instead, I’d have to trot back to the stockroom, find what we needed, and carry it back. It was kind of a drag for everyone, which was just another reason nobody liked me.
By the time I left work that day, I was tired, exhausted, and spent.
And I knew my grandmother was going to be beyond pissed that I was late.
I RAN UP THE STEPS to the little log cabin where I lived with my Grandmother. My heart was pounding, racing, and I silently begged it to stop. Slow down. It needed to chill out, to be honest. Overreacting never turned out well for anyone, least of all me.
I smelled sweaty and I was tired: both signs that I left work much later than I should have. I didn’t want her to give me a hard time about it. Mémère had enough to worry about. She didn’t need to be concerned that my boss still wasn’t letting me leave on time or that my customers were constantly giving me a hard time.
