WIP meme from stilloquentia.

1. Go to page 77 (or 7) of your current ms.
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – and post them as they’re written.
4. Encourage other people to do it!

Seven paragraphs from Chapter Nine of The Hellion Prince, for those of you not on the reading filter:


The pause soothed him. Ansira was playing games, no different from ever, and there was no Bel here to jolly the edge off her humor. And Damarhis was, after all, about to draw her into a game of his own.

 

When she arrived in the drawing room after another quarter hour, Damarhis was not pacing or gritting his teeth, but leaning back in her favorite chair, resting his booted feet on the padded velvet hassock, reading a marginally legal book on the theology and ritual of necromancy.

 

He knew, immediately upon seeing her, that she'd changed her dress in order to put him off his stride. She was barefoot, her hair was down, and the dress itself was loose and black, hanging from her shoulders in pleats, paneled and edged in periwinkle so that it both blended with and drew attention to the matching chemise underneath. As close to scandalous as it might have been, she wore it easily, comfortably, with the sort of careless disregard that meant she was paying a very keen attention to this reaction to it.

 

It was an effort not to stare, or to swallow, and he did blink, once, envisioning her in a formal ballgown instead so that he could pretend, and move on. She paused a moment in the door, and in turn, managed not to pout at his recovery.

 

“Damarhis,” she said, shaking her head and clucking sadly. “Returning to the fray already, and in that coat?”

 

“Ansira,” he returned, setting the book aside and bowing over her hand. He refrained from kissing her fingers. He was too much his father's son to have any difficulties matching her air of cool distance, no matter how it stung. “I'm sorry to cause you any sartorial distress. If you can't find it in your heart to forgive me my carmine scarlet, can you at least excuse me for haring off into the scandal of the season without you?”

 

She grinned narrowly, and pulled him close into a tight hug. “Forgive you?” she asked. “Damarhis darling, I should skin you and start a new fashion in leather.”