Author Note: Bearly Accidental is Book 12 in The Accidental Series and is connected to Accidentally Ever After (Book 11). If you don’t wish to read spoilers, I recommend you read Accidentally Ever After first. Besides, Ever After has Nina in a yellow ball gown with big poofy hair and singing bluebirds circling her head. You don’t want to miss that, do you?
For anyone new to The Accidentals, I’ve included a link to Interview With An Accidental, http://dakota324.wix.com/dakotacassidy#!__accidental-series/freebie! a quick, totally free (and mostly painless) interview-style introduction to the women who are the heart and soul of this twelve-book series, originally published traditionally. If you’re a repeat offender (YAY to repeat offending, you rebels!), skip right to chapter one!
Love,
Dakota XXOO
Chapter 1
“I swear to God, ass-sniffer, if you don’t slow the eff down, I’m gonna—”
A woman named Marty—or “ass-sniffer,” as he’d heard—cut the pretty brunette off and, with hands on slender hips, bellowed into the cold late-afternoon air, “You’re gonna what, Not-Mistress-Of-The-Dark-Anymore? Rip my intestines out via my throat and wrap them around the nearest tree? Tie them into a big girlie bow? Or wait—maybe you’re gonna chew my face off? That’s always high on your list of threats. But guess what, Dark One? You can’t do that anymore, can you, Nina Statleon? Know why?”
Cormac Vitali winced. This Marty was taunting Nina. Outright daring her to take a shot at her. It was in her tone and in her stance. She’d been doing it since he’d discovered them here in the woods of Colorado while out on a run, and she hadn’t let up since.
What made him wince was how the brunette would react. He didn’t understand what the issue was between the two women, but the dark-haired woman was as testy as a sleeping bear poked with a stick.
Hah! Poking a bear. Funny, Cormac. You’re a laugh riot these days.
Nina made a fist of her gloved hand in response, her teeth clenched tight in her streamlined jaw. She was as stunningly beautiful as she was disgruntled, with her scrunched-up face peeking out from the furred hood of her coat, her almond-shaped, coal-black eyes narrowed.
She jammed her hands inside the pockets of her thick black jacket, but her lips instantly stopped moving, save for puffing out condensation in harsh gasps as she fought her way up the snowy hill.
So the question was, why couldn’t Nina chew Marty’s face off anymore?
Obviously, this woman Marty knew why Nina couldn’t chew her face off. Her question had certainly been asked rhetorically. Which made him curious, too. Who—on a regular basis, if Marty’s words weren’t an exaggeration—threatened to chew someone’s face off? And why was this beautiful woman so damn violent?
Marty stopped in the middle of her seemingly effortless uphill climb through at least a foot of snow and winked over her shoulder with a saucy blue eye.
“What? No answer, Mouthy McMouth? S’okay. I got your answer riiight here, Snookie. You can’t chew my face off or tie my intestines in a bow because you’re—not—a—vampire anymore, Statleon! You have neither the strength nor agility to carry out said threat. So take a breather from the I’m-so-scary crap you’re always flinging at everyone like a monkey with poop. In fact, just take a breather. You look positively winded.”
Oh shit. This Nina wasn’t just winded. She was winded and seething. And not a vampire anymore… Curious indeed.
Out of nowhere, the third woman of the trio appeared, moving into his line of vision from where he hid behind a thick pine tree.
She stomped across the length dividing the two women, kicking up packed snow like the ice was nothing more than a gaggle of dust bunnies, and held up a gloved hand with the speed and grace of a panther.
“For the love of all that’s holy. Shut. Up. The both of you just shut your flappy lips! I’m sick to death of the bickering.” The woman affected a hunched-at-the-shoulders posture with an angry expression, and growled, exactly like the brunette named Nina, “Aw, eff you, Miss Clairol 222. You don’t know shit—zip your fucking piehole or I’ll wax your damn eyebrows off!” Then she used a finger to twirl the length of her ponytail and bat her eyelashes as she said, in a breathy tone an octave higher, “I’d like to see you try, Faux Elvira! How will you ever catch me if you can’t even get past the refrigerator without a pit stop for another batch of Buffalo wings?”
Both the blonde Marty and the brunette Nina openly gaped at this woman—tall, elegant, and one helluva referee—as though she were the one who’d gone mad.