The Harder I Work, the Luckier I Get Read online



 

  Book five of the Avery Clavens series

  Amber Lynn

 

  Copyright © 2012 Amber Lynn

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Author’s note

  The calm before the storm

  Well, it’s the next to last book in at least this part of the Avery Clavens story.  I’m not sure why, but it was the hardest for me to write so far. I knew where I wanted things to end up, but even that ended up being different than I thought it would.

  This one takes place in Chicago, but doesn’t venture too far away from the home Avery has there. So my imagining of what different locations really look like is kept to a minimum, which gave me a lot more time to focus in on the craziness that leads up to Avery and Nate’s wedding. Since it’s Avery’s wedding, craziness is obviously required.

  Again, I hope you enjoy this book, as I hope you’ve enjoyed the other four. Let me know if you predicted any of the twists in this book. As I mentioned above, there’s some I didn’t even see coming.

  Amber

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  CHAPTER 1

  Hitting is an art, but not an exact science

  “Come on, Kyle,” I screamed, ducking from another one of his punches. “You really hit like a girl.”

  “Hold still just a second, dollface, and you’ll be eating those words,” he replied.

  Calling a berserker names wasn’t something I recommended anyone attempt. He was in full berserker mode, so I could test how quickly I was able to move around and deflect his incoming blows.  In ten minutes, he’d only been able to hit me twice, which was a vast improvement from a week prior. Not only that, they were just glancing blows.

  When we started the training, I only lasted three minutes total. After that, the match was called, to allow my ears to stop ringing. In his fighting mode, Kyle packed a really mean punch.

  “I think that’s enough for today,” Nate said from his monitoring position.

  Whenever I fought one of the guys, he was always there to oversee and make sure I didn’t actually get hurt. Evidently, he didn’t really care about the guys, because I’d messed up a couple of the newer recruits. Thankfully, they were quick-healing newer recruits. If they weren’t, a few of the knife wounds would have left some gnarly scars.

  I floated up to the ceiling, to signify the fight was over. I’d learned that it sometimes took a second or two for my opponents to calm down; extra punches were known to fly after the match was called to an end. Once I saw that Kyle had calmed down, I made my way back to the floor. Fighting a berserker was tough work, and I was sweating like a dog.

  “I’m really improving, right?” I asked, flexing my arms and neck a little.

  I had previously thought I was an amazing fighter, then the guys unleashed an extra level they’d been holding back. I hoped there wasn’t yet another level, because it took all I had to compete with what they were dishing out.

  “You sure are,” Rick said. “I can’t believe some of your moves, and you were just on the defensive. Any warlock should be shaking in their boots if they have to meet you on the battle field.”

  “Yes, you’re looking great, my little butterfly,” Nate added. “You need to get ready for the conference, though. You don’t want to keep your adoring fans waiting.”

  It would be my sixth conference in two weeks. After coming out to the world as a unique, my life had been pretty chaotic. Okay, technically it was a bit chaotic before that, but my whirlwind tour had made it even more so.

  The majority of the people believed me when I told them there were beings not quite human living among them, and most of those people were very accepting of us. With all the books, TV shows and movies out there about nonhumans, and the fact that kids were raised with that stuff, it’d be hard not to believe they really existed in some form.

  There was still a group out there who thought it was all some computer trick or mass hypnosis. They didn’t cause us many problems. Really, they were nothing more than annoying geeks. I imagined if I wasn’t one of the uniques, I’d probably be a member of the group.

  The real issue we were running into with the human population was a group calling themselves Humans Unite. It wasn’t an extremely strong movement, but they had a couple thousand supporters in the U.S. alone. They’d mostly been hosting their own rallies and trying to get Congress to repeal a law that was passed making us citizens. However, we did fear they’d turn to violence soon, so we had people monitoring them constantly.

  I was a little surprised at how fast the law made it through. Congress rarely agreed on anything, so it was astonishing that they did where we were concerned. Of course, I was shocked at how quickly the Director of the FBI chose to stand beside us from the beginning.

  I assumed the military records of about a third of the uniques made Congress realize we were really good in a fight. They also enjoyed my speeches and my in-person display of a shift. People went a little gaga when they saw me in my other form. It made me into a bit of a celebrity, and I didn’t exactly like my new status.

  Along with our little conferences around the country, we’d had to deal with warlock attacks in every city we visited. Since we weren’t hiding anymore, neither were they, and they’d raised their level of ruthlessness, but thankfully hadn’t killed any humans.

  At our second conference, they threw Molotov cocktails at the stage. With my ability to control fire, they were extinguished immediately and our security detail took the warlocks into custody. The warlocks could’ve harmed humans in an attempt to attack me, and that was something I couldn’t allow.

  Being out in the open meant we weren’t able to just kill them on the spot. As a result, we built several holding facilities that we put them in after I stripped them of their powers with a little spell. Warlocks without powers tended to whine a lot, so I also made sure they wouldn’t drive the guards insane with threats of what they’d do when their “master” let them out.

  Our security detail consisted of Joseph, Kyle and Liam as the main enforcers. They each paired up with one of the recruits, so we had six fighters always on guard. Vinnie was always around with his facial recognition software to scan the crowds and to verify that no known threats got close to me. Nate and Rick were practically glued to my side anytime I was outside our secured compound.

  To sum it up, I was very well protected. Elan also kept close by, just in case I needed an instant body double. The guys were all great, and rather than feel crowded and annoyed, I actually felt like a bad A double S.  Or as bad as a person who still didn’t say profane words could be.

  “How big do you think the crowd will be tonight?” I asked as I grabbed a towel and tried to dry off a little.

  “W
ell, since you’re a rock star now, I imagine the arena will be filled to capacity. Do you think you can handle another crowd?” Rick queried.

  “As long as you guys stay with me, I’ll probably be just fine. I stopped throwing up after the third one, so I don’t think anyone will have to hold my hair,” I said. My nerves still got to me at the events, but I needed to do a last one before I took a couple weeks off the circuit.

  I was getting married at the end of the week, and I was determined not to go another month with the war hanging over our heads. I wasn’t sure how I was going to find the “master” warlock, but I vowed to get it done. I’d tried some different locator type spells I made up, but they didn’t seem to be doing anything. Stupid magic never seemed to want to work when I wanted it to.

  That wasn’t really true. Magic came so naturally to me that everything worked except the locator spells, which frustrated me. The warlock I was trying to target with the spells apparently had something blocking them from his side of things.

  “Fine, I won’t tell everyone the event is postponed, but if it gets to be too much for you, just do the signal and Elan will make the crowd disappear for you,” Rick assured me.

  “Okay, before I go get ready, let’s have a quick status update. Can you get everyone to meet in the conference room?” I asked.

  The conference room was really just the dining room of whatever house we were in. It made it seem more important if I called it a conference room. I wasn’t ready to elevate it up to a board room designation, but that time was coming.

  “I’m hitting the button now,” Nate said, taking out his chatterbox.

  We called it chatterbox just for fun. It was basically a beeper and walkie talkie combo that Vinnie made for all of us. It was a little square that had a few buttons, a speaker and a microphone. One button was the push-to-talk button, so we could talk to each other as long as we were within ten miles.

  The button Nate hit let everyone know to head to the dining room for a meeting. As he hit it, my chatterbox vibrated on the table that was keeping it safe, and it lit up yellow. We gathered our things and made our way to the meeting.

  Other features of the chatterbox included another button that made it glow red, meaning battle stations. So far we hadn’t had to use that one, but we’d run a number of practice drills. The last, and most important to at least half the guys, was a button that indicated there was food ready. The light associated with it was green and it sure caused everyone to go.

  With us touring around the country, it was convenient that Nate and I had thought far enough ahead to have houses available in all the major cities. Because of my memories of him, I could remember actually being in the homes a little, so they weren’t all a big surprise.

  Over the years, they’d changed quite a bit to modernize, and a few of them were bought during my off years, so there was still a little wonderment every time I entered a new house. Nate was always quick to point out which sections of the house had been christened, so to speak, and where we needed to work on after our wedding. The man had a fairly one-track mind.

  We were in our Chicago home. We had it built around the same time as our New York area home. It wasn’t quite as large in square footage, but it had nine bedrooms and plenty of extra room for our guests. It was in the Lincoln Park area, next to a park and lake.

  As the four of us made it to the dining room, we saw the majority of our advisors were already there. Our band of misfits had grown to a group of nineteen. We had eight, nine if you count phoenixes, kings or queens of shapeshifter species on the panel.

  I was sure there were other groups who wanted to join as well, but our house just wasn’t big enough for everyone. If anything major happened, we’d alert all leaders. For day-to-day operations, though, we tried to keep the people involved to a minimum.

  Our group consisted of four phoenixes, Nate, Rick, Charles, and myself, Gary the panther, sitting in for his father, Vinnie the robot, Joseph the wolf, Liam and Kyle the berserkers, Elan the Kapre, Seth the Maltese tiger, Jimmy the black fox, Brad the wolverine, Ben the polar bear, Harry the hyena, Jeremy the hawk, Alana the cobra, Steve the human, and last, but not least, Eva the psycho Fate.

  The uniques in the group had pretty much turned their lives upside down and all moved in with us. Steve, also known as the Director of the FBI, traveled with us sometimes, but he was needed often back in D.C. He had been very handy, keeping the unique slash human dynamic peaceful. Because of him, we were usually treated as visiting dignitaries, which had its perks.

  Eva was the only one missing from around the table. She assured us her chatterbox worked wherever it was she hung out all day, but I had my doubts since it was the third meeting out of five she’d be missing.

  “Oh hush,” she said, sweeping into the room. “I have babies out there who need creating and it takes up a lot of time with this many billions of people.”

  “I thought you were focusing on uniques now, and I know there can’t be more than a couple hundred females who are mated and doing things that would result in a baby,” I responded.

  “That’s very true and they are all pregnant now, including your mother and one of your daughters. Plus, you know I don’t want to go too overboard with the uniques. The humans may get a little anxious if it looks like you’re breeding to take them over,” she said, taking her seat as she winked and waved at Liam.

  It wasn’t a relationship I’d ever wish to take place, but they seemed to be spending as much time together as Eva’s busy job allowed. I was hoping to set the berserkers up with some nice girls, not a crazy psychopath. It didn’t appear like I’d be getting that option with Liam. For some reason the idiot was smitten with her.

  “I’m pretty sure ensuring every female unique who could be pregnant is actually pregnant equates to a breeding frenzy, but we don’t have time to go over semantics right now. Let’s get on with this meeting. I have to be over in Evanston within an hour. Does anyone have any updates on our teams or warlock movements?” I asked.

  I didn’t touch the notion that one of my daughters was pregnant. The only one I believed could be was still locked out of my memory banks. I hoped I’d get my memory back within the four months it would take her to have the baby. Otherwise, Nate and I were going to fight about my right to see my grandchild. He was still on his kick about me taking things slow.