Creatures ok anthology, p.25
Creatures of the Dark Anthology, page 25
I can't see them. Not now. Not ever. They're better off thinking I'm in a fancy school learning the runic alphabet.
Marcus puts his sunglasses on. "Suit yourself. Now. Go back to the hotel and wait for me there." His vicious smile as he heads for the flock of teenage girls brings a chill to my bones.
Frank offers me a hand.
I hop to my feet, bury my fists deep in my leather jacket and shake my head hard to erase the imprinted image of Jeremy's hollow stare from my mind. My eyes dart to Marcus again.
"There's nothing we can do for those girls. Come before he decides to make us watch." Frank ushers me away quickly.
Horrified screams resonate around the yard as someone discovers the discarded head. Tears stream down my cheeks.
Frank pats my back. "We’ll survive this Liam. We’ll beat him, in the end, if we stick together. You and I, we're brothers now."
The cold gripping my entrails recedes by an inch. Brothers.
I like the sound of that.
The End… for now.
Did they beat Marcus? At what price? Find out in Shadow Walker, book 1 of the Bloody Hearts series. Read a sneak peek after this.
Thank you for reading this short story. I know it was a bit dark, but it’s a prequel to a much lighter, snarkier but equally suspenseful paranormal/urban fantasy romance. The series features Liam and Thom as adults as well as the newborn witch who derails their lives.
Read it first! Free, exclusive content and giveaways are available through my newsletter. Click here: http://bit.ly/anyaslair
Nothing stays black and white in a world full of shadows…
DANGER MAGNET
Vivian Lane
Children of Ossiria #4.5
Antony is hiding a dark past. Will the truth send Jana running?
Jana is the first person who wants to know all about him. The first to care in a long time, and he shouldn’t let it go any deeper, but he’s helpless to resist her. She makes him laugh, matches him in bed, and loves great food. He doesn’t want to hurt her.
But people die around him.
We briefly met Antony in MATE. Now discover how another exile from The Agency falls in love. This story is intended for readers over the age of 18 due to adult language, sexual content, and adult situations.
eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away, as this is an infringement on the copyright of this work.
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
By Vivian Lane
Edited by K.C. Taylor
Published by Phantom Ridge, a Willowick Publishing imprint
Copyright 2017 Vivian Lane
First Edition
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Chapter One
Jana returned home from another crappy date and left her shoes by the door. Changed into comfy PJs, grabbed Ben and Jerry’s and a spoon, and opened her journal.
Dear Diary,
Why can’t I meet a decent guy? Are they all married in this town? All I want is a caring and trustworthy dude with a stable job.
And hot.
In my dreams, he’d be really frickin’ hot.
And amazing in bed.
The rest of the week has been the story of my life—stubbed my toe, got two paper cuts (one on a finger, one on my tongue), and narrowly avoided a traffic accident. Can you believe people shave while driving?
Since moving to this San Diego ‘burb, it’s been a string of bad luck. If I didn’t have Melinda, I probably would’ve run home by now. So, please. Universe. Give me a break one of these days?
Preferably with a guy who doesn’t have a foot-tickling fetish.
Chapter Two
Antony must have the luck of a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. He was leaving the restaurant after his shift as usual and came across a girl with a vampire attached to her neck.
Plus column: He saved a pregnant runaway.
Minus side: She’s in labor.
Plus side: The baby is delivered alive and screaming.
Big minus: He can’t stop the girl from bleeding out. She’s dead before any ambulance could have arrived, but not before she makes him promise to take care of her baby.
He kept promises.
He considered taking the baby to a hospital, but home was closer. Tucked into his arm, wrapped in her mother’s coat, and staring up at him as he walked—unnerving. He thought newborns were supposed to holler and wail, but she was quiet as a church mouse.
Passing an all-night market, he bought nappies, formula, and a bottle. Laid her on his bed to go heat the bottle and then she started screaming. Now he was making breakfast one-handed.
Everything after that was a guess. He tried to make the milk human temperature like would be natural, and struggled to get her sucking on the nipple. Couldn’t blame her, as he preferred real breasts, too. Almost put the diaper on backward.
Clean and fed, she fell right to sleep.
Best idea he’d seen all night.
Antony woke to find his arm receiving a hickey. He chuckled and shifted the infant into his arms. “Got hungry, eh? Let’s see how you take to bottle number two.”
She started to fuss when he tried to put her down, so they had a repeat of a few hours ago, with him fumbling to do it all with one hand. The bottle sufficiently warmed in the microwave, the ex-Agent sat down and offered her breakfast. When he burped the baby, she hiccupped and spit up on his t-shirt.
“Thank you, truly. I have a minimal wardrobe, you know.”
Her blue eyes blinked at him innocently, and then she yawned. He hoped she’d sleep longer this time, and stripped off his soiled shirt, boots, and lay down on the bed, the baby cradled on his chest.
He was awakened way too many times before his usual late-afternoon rising for his comfort. Newborns were exhausting! No wonder motherhood used to be a group effort. He was ready to foist her off on the first soul that would take her, by dark.
Except he’d promised.
“Dropping her off at the hospital is taking care of her,” he muttered. “She needs a good, normal home.”
He thought about driving to the hospital, but didn’t have a car seat. She wasn’t even a full day old, yet, everything still wobbly and floppy. He wrapped her in a towel after the last feeding and a fresh diaper.
It’ll be easy. Just tell them you found her abandoned in an alley last night and brought her here as soon as you could. There’s always some rich couple waiting to adopt a baby, right? Just hand her over, and go back to your solitude…
He walked into the emergency room of the nearest facility and grimaced at the smell—a combination of Lysol, illness, and death. Even back when he hunted, he’d steered clear of hospitals unless it was necessary. The disinfectants made his nose sting, but it was the sickness that threatened to turn his stomach. He preferred the vibrancy of human life, the richness of youth and vitality.
The sheer cacophony of activity in the ER was almost deafening. The baby fidgeted in his arms, uneasy both from the noise and sensing his discomfort. His attention was brought down to her as she started to cry, and he suddenly knew he couldn’t leave her here. He’d find a doctor or clinic to check her out, make sure she was healthy, but this place wasn’t right. He turned around and walked back out the doors, cooing softly to reassure her.
It wasn’t easy finding a doctor in the evening, but Antony eventually got a referral from a midwife to a pediatrician with a private office. He wasn’t sure how he was going to pay for the visit, but if they could send a bill to his apartment…
He shook the doctor’s hand. She was a little thing with a warm smile. “I’m glad you could see me on short notice.”
“What’s the nature of your visit today?” Dr. Lin led him into an exam room and indicated he should set the baby on the table.
“Well, um…I found her last night, in an alley, while I was heading home. It was late, so I brought her home with me until I could find a doc. I don’t like hospitals.”
She smiled. “Neither do I.” She started unwrapping the towel and checking the infant over. “Well, she’s definitely a newborn.”
“Is she alright?”
“She seems perfectly healthy. I’m going to do a blood test to make sure, but everything seems normal. I can make arrangements with Child Services, if you like. You’ve certainly done your good deed for the year.” She looked between the man in black and the little girl, noticing how mesmerized he was by how the baby gripped his finger. “Unless you’d rather apply for foster care, yourself?”
“What? Oh, no, I couldn’t…that is, my lifestyle isn’t really fit for…I…”
“Advocacy for single fathers has a lot more support, these days.” she said. Normally, she wouldn’t encourage a single man who had no experience with children, but she could see there was already a bond between these two. It was only a hunch, but the doctor had a feeling he had a lot of love to give the right person.
“In another lifetime, maybe, but I can’t…” Antony replied wistfully. “Could you take her, please? She hasn’t cried here…I should go.”
With speed she didn’t know a man could possess, he disappeared through the open door. She heard the bell on the front exit chime a second later.
Dr. Lin sighed, disappointed. “Well, I guess it’s you and me, cutie. Let’s go make a phone call, hmm?”
The baby girl started to fuss as she realized he was gone.
****
Antony woke with a mild hangover. Someone was knocking on his door. He groaned as the tiny window near the ceiling showed it was morning.
He yanked the door open.
“Hi?” Dr. Lin said nervously. She was carrying an infant carrier.
“Um…what…how did you get here?”
She smiled self-consciously. “You’d left your number with the midwife that called me, and, well…I tracked you down. The baby cried all night, which makes her hard to place immediately, so… I know you’re not experienced with infants, but you two made a connection, I saw it at my office. I gather there might be more to the story than you mentioned, but…I had a good feeling about you.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I can instruct you on what you need to know,” the doctor hastened to add. “Until, you know, there’s a home for her. I normally wouldn’t do this, but I feel it’s in her best interests to start life where she feels comfortable. And, for whatever reason, that was with you. Will you take her?”
Of all the dilemmas he could get into…
It was the sense that didn’t make any—except he was lonely and without a purpose. “It’ll be temporary. You’ll find her a good home to go to.”
Dr. Lin sighed in relief and smiled. “Thank you. I knew I had a good sense about you.”
He backed up to let her in and shut the door. He’d probably regret this, but maybe it was a way to make amends for the weight on his soul. Ease just a little bit of the debt.
Knew as soon as the doc pricked the little one’s soft skin that he wouldn’t be giving her to another home. Couldn’t. The baby was part Qess. Their blood had an odd sheen only seen by supernatural beings—paladins included.
He’d only ever met one. They were a mostly mysterious race, looked human enough, and evolved rapidly once puberty kicked in. The mystery part came in few beings actually seeing an adult Qess. The books suggested they might just disappear, or become something else unknown.
The one he saw was a slave, a teen. Demon courts often tried to capture a Qess because they were empathic, and felt the intentions of any being in a room with them. Good to have around when you’re paranoid something’s going to stab you in the back, or worse. Also heard of them being prostitutes, since they could sense the customer’s wishes before they were spoken. But no one actually saw a free Qess. Guess the adults were good at not being found.
He asked the doc lots of questions, slipping in a couple shady ones among the mundane so she didn’t notice. He could get a birth certificate easy enough. There was no way he’d let an innocent baby fall into slavery or worse, so he was already formulating a plan to leave town. The good doctor was helpful, even leaving him some coupons for baby stuff. She was going to run the standard blood tests and get back to him tonight, so he shooed her out as politely as possible and locked the door behind her.
The baby watched him from her carrier. Her vision seemed clearer than your usual newborn. He hoped being half human was enough for the tests to look normal. “Guess you’re going to need a name, little one. Too bad your mother didn’t give me one.”
Her name had to be chosen carefully. He’d grab a book from the library. She yawned, he yawned, and they went to bed to sleep the day away.
He hoped.
Antony made a trip to Babies ‘R’ Us. It was unbelievable how much a being so tiny needed! Bottles, diapers, onesies, booties, blankets, toys…it was a good thing he was packing to travel, or there’d be the whole furniture suite to pick out, too. Oh, and he needed one of those strap-on things you wore so you could carry the kid with your hands free.
Cruising through the clothing aisle, he murmured, “You’re a pretty little thing, but sorry, no pink. I draw the line at pink.” Function over fashion. Frilly crap can wait until she’s older. He could see how it might be easy to get carried away picking stuff out, though.
Little One had opened her eyes by the time he reached the toy aisle, so he tested stuffed animals with her. She gurgled at the lavender bear and yellow fuzzy duck, so he dropped them in the cart.
$250 later, Antony stuffed it all in his car and headed home. He had some reading to do.
The doc came by with a clean bill of health, and a birth certificate for him to fill out. She just shrugged when he gave her a look. The easier this went, the better. Elyse Anne Sheffield was now filed away with the county of Los Angeles, blood type and footprint included.
A week after she was delivered, he was ready to leave town.
Five days later, they arrived in L.A. For her part, Elyse slept in the car, lulled by the engine.
It was easy to remain anonymous there. He found an apartment after a couple days in a hotel, small, but with two bedrooms. Her bedroom was more the size of a walk-in closet, but the crib didn’t take much space.
It’d taken him a week of combing furniture stores to find one that satisfied him. The wood had to be perfectly smooth, the rungs perfectly spaced, the color attractive, come with a good quality mattress—to be succinct, it had to be perfect. In the end, he chose a cherry-stained model with a carved headboard that matched the color of the bed and dresser in his room.
Furnishing the apartment bit a large chunk out of his stash, even with bartering for great deals on everything. It was the first time he’d bothered to make a home in three years.
Being the “single father” of an infant really made him a hit with the ladies in the building. They cooed over his “beautiful little girl”, and how “brave he was for raising her alone”, offering child raising tips and babysitting recommendations. He had just enough room for a gently used leather loveseat, a coffee table, the TV, and two lamps. A small table sat next to the kitchen, and an oriental rug covered the hardwood floor. The first week, the ladies kept dropping off casseroles.
Antony had until summer before the money started running low. He’d never been one to rack up expenses at home before, and needed to find a job, and a sitter. Elyse was fine meeting people if he was holding her, but she hated it if he walked out of her sight even for a minute.
And then he discovered a side-effect of Elyse’s heritage…
Chapter Three
March 4, 2004
The supernatural woman led Antony into a kitchen. He placed the carrier with the sleeping infant on the granite counter. “Would you like some tea?” she asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Tell me what brings you and a baby to my door.”
He took a seat and sighed, suddenly tired. “The baby is who needs your protection. Are you familiar with the Qess?”
She tilted her head in consideration. “I don’t think so.”
“Raven said if I needed to run, I should come to you and find safety. I hope she wasn’t too presumptuous.” Raven was a seer of sorts in Los Angeles. She’d told him to ask for protection from Goddess Kalana at this house.
With nowhere else to go, he did.
“No, not at all. I gave her that phrase for a reason. If she told you, she trusts you and so will I. Who are her parents?” She set a mug in front of him.
“Her mother died after giving birth. I don’t know who the father is. She will be safe with you, yes? I can’t be gone long.”
She put her hand on his in reassurance. “She’ll be fine here. It’s not the first baby I’ve taken care of and hey, I’m a goddess, right? Lots of power.”
“Thank you. I realize I don’t even know what to call you. I actually pictured you—”
“Taller?”
“Different,” he said, smiling.
“I reserve the ‘goddess look’ for Ossiria. I’m still Carys Taylor here.”
“Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. I’ll be in touch.” He stood, starting to leave.
“Antony, I have plenty of guest rooms and you look exhausted. You can wait to leave until morning—”
“Love, did you forget to lock the door?” A growl welled up before he finished the sentence. She rushed to a man in the entryway. “Why do I smell a man in the house?”
