Your humble serving girl carried a staff.”The Grand Duke switched to archaic Danubian. He didn’t speak it fluently, but did speak well enough make...himself understood:“Excellent. So, I have, in my castle and under my command, a Follower of the Cult of the Ancients. A witness to the Old World. A woman with knowledge of the Old Ways. And, most importantly, a woman who can train my staff and teach me the secrets of the Cult’s alchemy.”Silvitya went white and tried to catch her breath. There was no. He tucked her in, between soft satin sheets, and left her room. Flora had intended to get up and about as soon as Dodds left her alone, but suddenly, she felt very tired, her arms and legs leaden, and she realized that she had been d**gged. Already, the soporific that Dodds had dosed her brandy with was making her drowsy, and Flora was soon fast asleep, unaware of the clicks of the key turning in the lock. -=*=- When she awoke, she lay still a moment, trying to remember where she. Kip, who I’ve met a bunch of times and snowboarded with, hottubed with, had lots of crazy sex with when I visit Colorado, was invited to the party and I’m going to be his plus one.It is a gay couple and the guys are renting a couple of huge house boats on Lake Powell. It looks gorgeous and the weather should be nice and hot in the Utah/Arizona desert. I’m flying into Denver and heading up to Kip’s and pretty much straight away we are on the road for the nine hour drive across where we’ll spend. As Darren chose a film, I took a quick trip to the bathroom to apply my lipgloss and freshen up before the film. When I returned to the main foyer of the cinema, Darren had already got popcorn and drinks."What we watchin' then?" Wait and see my little bunny."A few girls from school who were cheerleaders sniggered at this pet name, but I just ignored them. Like Amy always says, "At least we have better things to do, than hang around the cinema foyer, hoping for some highschool or college jock to.