How I Took the King on a Bone-a-Fide Quest of Piracy, Piemu, and Profit (Villainy #7)

My 2024 Reading Challenge for the month of February will be Beat The Backlog work (digital and print books). I'm going to claim this also includes keeping up with and catching up with my favorite authors most recent releases. ;) Here's A.J. Sherwood's short story "How I Took the King on a Bone-a-Fide Quest of Piracy, Piemu, and Profit" (which is "Bone One" to the second part of her How I Stole the Princess's White Knight and Turned him To Villainy" series (aka the Villainy series)).

["Sentient dragon skull acquired! Do you wish to find rest of body? (yes) (no)

Yes!

No, but why?

We get half of his hoard~

We leave tomorrow."]

And the bonus tags (because they're arguable better than the blurb itself): ["Tan’s field trips go awry, no one is surprised, only he can find a sentient dragon skull in a church’s basement, Quest time!, Wells gets stuck babysitting, again, Niran’s more excited than anyone else, except maybe the apprentices, gold is a great motivator, all the bone puns"]

Again: another bandaid of cracky and fluff and steam and shenanigans for my soul. 

Since this "episode" is the first in another set of six, I am going to wait until the final one is out to review the rest (but trust me, I won't be waiting that long to read them, and neither should you).

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this one (in chronological order)...

"When Devan had asked Tan to check out the situation, Tan had enthusiastically agreed. Why? Because anything sealed in the basement of a church was likely evil in nature, and something evil sealed in a dark place was a mystery box of goodies he'd never pass up on." (Tan)

"'You've taken apprentices? Oh, the world is indeed becoming a better place. Study well under him, children. His Highness is the epitome of what a sorcerer should be.' // Why..did that sound like an insult? The priest had bascially insinuated that Tan was a good person. How dare he." (Priest // Tan)

"'Stop. I sense fuckery afoot.'" (Devan).

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