Chapter Sixteen of The Velveteen Tortoise is now available.

Luna the Baby Bunny

“Luna.” Emys snags my attention with her ‘make-better-choices’ tone. “If you are unharmed, stand.”

Right. We can’t have Pyx zipping over here at his natural speed to see if I’m okay. You know, because secrets gotta stay secrets and all that.

I do a quick self-check. My face is flushed—hot with embarrassment and the first tingles of arousal—and my hands are heating up.

So, I toss out a crappy reply to buy me some time. “Just my backside and pride are kinda bruised.”

Emys—who’s still crouching—leans closer to me. “Do you need either to repair the drill?”

“Nah.” I wave off her concern. “Those only get in the way anyways.”

“Pride often does.”

“Yep.”

“As for backsides…” Emys tilts her head, as if examining me from a different angle. “I have no advice for you in that regard.”

“How about ‘Next time, land on your feet, Luna’?”

“That goes without saying.”

“Says the woman who enters like a legendary badass.”

Emys pushes up to standing while still looking down at me. “I always enter like a warrior.”

Which of course means that I’d entered like, well, me. Luna the Tragically Uncoordinated…

Read Chapter Sixteen…

Chapter Fifteen of The Velveteen Tortoise is now available.

Luna the Baby Bunny

We’re all standing outside of the bolthole and Rez is running her hand over my shoulder, doing her best to soothe me. “Luna, stop moping and listen to me.”

I ignore her. Crossing my arms over my chest, I direct my glare at the still-smoking hole-in-the-ground.

I’m not moping. I’m fuming because I just set a fireproof canister on freaking fire, and Jo and Rez are still treating me like a temper tantrumming toddler.

“You’re wasting your breath, Rez.” Jo waves her hand at me. “Baby Bunny never listens. You gotta show her.”

Really? We’re regressing to Show-and-Tell tactics?

Jo arches her brow at me. “You’re the one actin’ like a toddler.”

“Unless you have something to say that actually fixes problems,” I point at her, giving my finger a good, hard jab, “then keep your all-knowing bullshit to yourself, Joia.”

“Bullshit,” Jo chuckles dryly. “You know, there’s an old Earth saying about monkeys.”

“Yeah.” I scoff. “I know.”

“Nah, ya don’t know.” Jo taps a finger on her brow, directly over her right eye. “It’s monkey see some obvious shit before its own damn eyes; monkey do something about it.”

“That…” I comb through my memory. “Yeah. That doesn’t sound right.”

“Well, it ain’t monkey listen to some heart-to-heart bullshit; monkey make the world all better.”

“That also doesn’t sound right.”

I mean, where’s the bit about infinite monkeys using infinite time to solve any problem…

Read Chapter Fifteen…