Wicked Winters

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Wicked Winters Page 9

by Melanie Karsak et al.


  "No wonder the whales migrate south during winter," he says. "I wouldn't want to be around when there's a crazy man entering people's houses."

  I laugh. "I think it has to do with spending time with family."

  Just like I wish I could spend more time with my family. Specifically, my sister.

  The thought sobers me for a moment, and I hug the book to my chest. "Do you think she thinks about me, Theseus?"

  He's still for a long moment before answering. But, just like a best friend, he doesn't need me to explain what I mean. "I don't know, Adria," he says finally. "Guinevere went away when she was very young."

  And it's been so long that I can barely remember her. "Do you think she's up there in the human world celebrating Christmas like this?"

  He lifts a shoulder. "Maybe? It's hard to tell. It's also hard to believe that humans would be all right with something like Christmas, so maybe she does celebrate it, too."

  I nod and set the book down. "Okay. I think I'm ready to go home now." I don't want to, but seeing a human home like that and how much they all love each other, I know that she's well cared for on the surface, even if she doesn't remember me.

  Maybe my gut feeling isn't meant for me to find Guinevere. Perhaps it's meant for me to finally be at peace that she's found a loving family and that she's somewhere up there living a happy life. And having a fat man sneak into her house during the winter.

  And maybe I'm meant to learn that tonight.

  Theseus takes me back to Atlantis, where I'm able to sneak back through the window.

  "Hey," he says softly, "are you going to be okay?"

  I pause and look up at his eyes as I'm about to shut the pane. "Yes," I say. "I will be."

  He smiles. "Well, I don't know what day Christmas is, but...Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."

  I laugh as he swims away, back to his home on the outskirts of the palace. My room is dark, and I head toward my bed and lie down, meaning to look as though I'm asleep in case Father comes in to check on me.

  There’s no chance that I’ll sleep tonight, though. Not with what I’ve discovered.

  "Did you find what you were looking for?"

  I gasp as Mira activates one of the lights in my room. She's sitting in a chair in the corner. How long has she been waiting for me?

  I nod. "I think so. But I think I misinterpreted my gut feeling."

  She smiles. "Future sight is kind of hard to understand sometimes. But you'll get more and more used to it as time goes on. So, will Guinevere be making her return to Atlantis?"

  I feel the corners of my eyes tingle, and I sniffle. "No, I don't think so. But I do think she is happy wherever she is. That she's loved."

  Mira considers this for a long moment before she gets up and comes over to my side of the bed. "You will make a great queen one day," she says softly as she pats my hand. She turns to leave. "Good night, Princess Adria."

  "Good night, Mira," I call after her.

  She turns off the light and shuts the door behind her, leaving me enveloped in darkness.

  I roll on my back and look up at the ceiling, wondering what it would be like to be among snow and have Saint Nicholas sneaking into my house. I wonder if that's the world that Guinevere lives in.

  I feel words rise in my throat, and so does my heartbeat as I collect my thoughts. But I do speak these words out loud, wondering if there's some way she can hear me, even though she's so very far away.

  "I don't know if you can hear me," I whisper, "or if you even know who I am. But wherever you are, I'm sure the sea calls to you. I'm sure you may feel different than the other humans — and that's because you are. You're a princess of the seven seas. And you're my sister. And even though we haven't seen each other for a long time, I want you to know that I still think about you. Worry about you. Love you. And," I add, thinking about the book, "I want you to have a Merry Christmas, Guinevere. And to make sure that Saint Nicholas doesn't steal from you."

  I turn on my side and fall asleep. Tomorrow I'll go with Father and join the whale migration. Tomorrow I will be the princess that I need to be.

  But for tonight, I'm going to be a mer named Adria.

  And all this mer wants to do is cry herself to sleep.

  Somewhere on land, four thousand miles away in a magical town called Omaha, Nebraska, an eight-year-old girl with sea-green eyes and blond hair wakes up with a start. And no matter what she does, she can't stop crying. Because even though she has a loving Mommy and Daddy and Christmas is only fourteen days away, according to her advent calendar, she could have sworn that someone called out to her just then. There's a deep longing inside her like she's missing something, but she can't remember what it is.

  And it takes her a long, long time to fall back asleep.

  Did you enjoy Adria’s story and want to see if her sister ever returns to the world of Atlantis? Read Sunken Souls to find out what happens next.

  NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER!

  Our deepest, darkest fears don’t just live in our nightmares.

  They’re under the sea. And they want me.

  Growing up, my parents just had one rule: stay out of the ocean. Which was pretty easy when the closest beach was a thousand miles away. My days are spent at swim meets and hanging out with my only friend Dylan who I may or may not have a crush on.

  All that changes when I go off to college in Hawaii, and my plane falls out of the sky and into the Pacific Ocean.

  I should have been fish food.

  Instead, I wake up to a world I never knew existed. Mermaids and kelpies and krakens and more — they’re real and more deadly than you can ever imagine.

  And then there are the exiled sirens of the deep. They’ve been planning a war since the moment I was born. And it looks like I’ll have to be dragged further and further to their depths to stop them.

  But once I learn the truth, I may want to join them.

  Sunken Souls is the first book of the Sirens of the Deep trilogy. It contains mermaids, dangerous sirens, and an even more dangerous romance.

  Pre-Order Now!

  About Erin

  New York Times bestselling author Erin Hayes writes what she wants to read, which includes paranormal romance, contemporary romance, and urban fantasy sprinkled with vampires, billionaire princes, mermaids, steampunk and all the stuff you love.

  She lives in San Francisco with her husband and a giant cat, along with too many Sailor Moon figurines and pieces of art she brought back from her travels. When she's not writing, well, she's planning her next big trip or watching sci-fi movies.

  And if you like Star Wars, we're already best friends.

  Join my Facebook Group for some nerdy fun: Erin’s Facebook Group

  O Holy Hell by Margo Bond Collins

  A Story of Unholy Alliance: A Devil of Reverse Harem Romance Series

  O Holy Hell Description

  A Story of Unholy Alliance: A Devil of Reverse Harem Romance Series

  When evil elves attack their hideout, monster hunter Grace Falls, her pregnant foster-sister, and three protective demons set out to find a new place to call home—but it might just take a Solstice miracle to keep them safe!

  O Holy Hell

  Moving as carefully as I could, I peered around the corner of the three-story brick building I’d just ducked behind.

  “Fuck,” I whispered to myself. “Elves.”

  And not the tall, lovely Tolkien-style elves of mythology. No. These were the kind of elves who hung out in Blood Heights, the most dangerous part of the city. The sort of elves Luc had described as “Hobbesian.” When I asked why, he grinned, popped out his blood-red, leathery wings, and said, “Because, dearest, they’re nasty, brutish, and short.”

  Turns out that’s a quote from some philosopher. Luc thinks he’s funny.

  The biggest problem with having pissed off the self-proclaimed King of Blood Heights was the fact that he had minions—at least as many minions as enemies, unfortunately. So the
re was never any telling who might suddenly turn and attack when I was out just taking care of business.

  The problem went deeper than that, actually. Johnny DeMarco had been holding my sister for some demon—a bigwig in the nearest hell dimension—and I had taken her back, away from Johnny and therefore away from the demon. Johnny and his boss were both pissed off.

  I was guessing Johnny had sent the creatures I was staring at now.

  Lucky for me, I had some minions of my own.

  Okay. So maybe I was the minion. It was kind of hard to tell. I preferred to think of myself as an equal. But the three lust-demons I had pledged my loyalty to—at least for as long as it took for my sister to have her half-demon baby and get free of the demon faction that wanted to steal the child—generally treated me as an equal.

  I took another peek around the corner to do a quick headcount of the elves currently clustered around the entrance to our latest hideout.

  Six that I could see.

  I didn’t have time to get tangled up in brawl with them.

  So I pulled out my phone—enchanted to repel search spells, Damon had promised—and texted the three demons my sister Eileen and I were currently living with: Elves outside. Join the party?

  Sounds like fun, Grace. Be right there! Bane replied.

  Fun. Right.

  This was what I got for going to the bazaar alone to pick up Winter Solstice gifts.

  But living with three lust-demons—and more to the point, spending kind of a lot of time keeping them powered up—left me without a lot of alone time.

  A trip to the market had seemed like a good way to get away for a while.

  But of course, I’d had to return to this.

  I fought the urge to shiver. It was way too cold to be waiting outside for their steamy demon asses. They never seemed to get cold—probably not surprising, since they could generate enough heat to warm us all up whatever they needed to. A perk of being a demon, I guess.

  Granted, I could probably warm myself up if I went ahead and attacked the elves. But that was just as likely to get me killed. Especially when I didn’t have adequate backup—or any sense when my backup would finally get around to moving their butts outside to help me.

  Still, no harm in being prepared.

  Gently, I set down my Solstice gift purchases—still in the canvas bag I’d been using to carry them home--on the brick-paved alleyway.

  I couldn’t decide whether or not to engage my knives. The elves were trying awfully hard to be quiet as they lurked outside the entrance to what we had assumed was our secure hideaway. I risked another peek around the corner. They were all in place, ready to attack as soon as anyone came out.

  Once the battle started, I didn’t want to waste any time. So I backed away slowly, tiptoeing to make sure I didn’t make any extraneous noise. When I figured I was far enough away to keep anyone from hearing, I flexed my hands in the way that employed the knives I’d had magically-surgically implanted. They popped out from between my knuckles with an audible snick.

  Where were those devils of mine? I was getting antsy.

  I moved quietly back up to the corner and was about to check again when I heard the distinctive sound of the heavy metal door of our hideout start creak open.

  In the end, it looked like we had planned it.

  A cloud of sulfurous smoke rolled out in front of my three demons—probably setting up that effect was what had taken so long.

  The elves who’d been crowded around the doorway backed away instinctively.

  Damon, Luc, and Bain strode out of the smoke like some sort of avenging angels—or at least, fallen angels.

  Luc and Bain peeled off to the left and right as soon as they were out of the doorway.

  Luc’s wings, blood red and leathery like a bat’s, popped open, fanning the smoke and sending it rolling off him.

  Bain’s magical sword glowed a hot blue-white, giving his blond hair a bluish tinge and lighting up the maniacal grin on his face.

  Damon stepped out after them, his eyes glowing red as his hands traced out sigils in the air. The smoke billowed out around him almost as if it came directly from him.

  With the arrival of all three of my demons, I stepped out from my hiding place. Damon caught sight of me and made a beeline in my direction.

  The elves were beginning to regroup, their attention on the demons. The first one, I took by surprise. My left-hand knives sank into his back and I wrapped my right arm around him to slit his throat. He didn’t even have time to shout a warning.

  The second one saw me coming, though. He jumped toward me, his face distorted into a mask of tiny-featured rage, his snarl revealing teeth filed down to sharp points. His long, spindly fingers were wrapped around the hilt of a short sword. I swung downward, knocking the sword away from me, but not out of his hands, unfortunately. Before he could take another swing at me, though, Damon was by my side, sending a firebolt into the nasty little creature’s chest.

  “Where have you been?” I demanded. “What took you so long to get out of here?”

  Damon grinned, his charming smile, as usual, at odds with his murderous intent as we fought. “I had to get a little surprise ready for them.”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  An elf launched himself at me, right into my flashing metal claws.

  Damon kicked another elf out of the way. “Watch and see.”

  He waved his hands around in a complicated pattern and I stepped a little in front of him to ward off any would-be attackers.

  The sulfurous smoke really had been a distraction, as it turned out. When David finished his spell, a scorching fire sprang up right in the center of the densest knot of elves.

  They screamed as their caught fire.

  It wasn’t any regular flame, either. It was the source of that sulfur-smelling smoke, and it had a touch of brimstone to it.

  “Hellfire?” I asked, falling back to let the screaming, burning elves rush past me.

  “Straight from the bowels of eternal damnation,” Damon confirmed.

  As the last of our tiny attackers fled, Luc and Bain strolled over to join the two of us from fighting on the outer edges of the elvish circle.

  “Nice work,” Bain said to Damon.

  Luke nodded appreciatively. “Definitely. I doubt they’ll be back anytime soon.”

  “How did they find us in the first place?” I retracted my knives and Bain’s magical sword disappeared back to wherever it came from. It always looked like it sprang into his hands fully formed. It was clearly much more magical than my knives, which, although they had required a spell to install initially, were otherwise purely mechanical.

  “DeMarco must have upped the bounty on us again,” Luc observed.

  “Does that mean we have to move again?” Eileen’s voice came from the doorway, plaintive, lost, and almost whiny.

  “Afraid so, sweetheart,” Luc said in his typical cheerful tone. Somehow, nothing seem to faze him.

  Eileen was not nearly as resilient.

  Not that I really blamed her. My foster sister’s life had gone completely sideways. She’d begun dating some guy who seemed utterly charming—right up until he impregnated her and then handed her over to DeMarco to be imprisoned.

  Apparently, he was some kind of demon lord who expected the baby Eileen was carrying to be the demon savior.

  But the demon lord hadn’t counted on me. Or my three new companions.

  “Where will we go now?” I asked Bain in a whisper.

  “Luc’s got a call into someone. Supposedly, we’ve got a place to land for tonight, at least.”

  “Good.” I glanced up at the clouds gathering in the sky. The wind was beginning to pick up, a few snowflakes starting to fall. “Looks like the weather’s about to turn ugly.”

  “It’ll be a blizzard, for sure,” a voice said from behind us. I spun around to face the latest threat, my knives snicking out in the open again.

  “Rudy,” Luc exclaimed, smiling
widely and opening his arms as if to hug the newcomer. “Thank you so much for coming to our rescue, old boy.”

  Rudy, a tall, thin man with mouse-brown hair, looked less than pleased to see Luc. “This will wipe out my entire debt to you, right?”

  “All of it. Cross my heart.” Luc’s grin didn’t abate. “Let us gather our things and then you can lead on.”

  We didn’t have much—one bag each was all Damon allowed us to take from one hiding place to the next. This time, though, I had more—I thought. I went to retrieve my Solstice gifts, but the canvas bag was gone.

  Fucking elves.

  Less than five minutes after Rudy’s arrival, we were ready to go. Not before time, either, as the snow was falling harder every minute.

  “Who is this guy?” I whispered to Luc as Rudy led us down the alleyway toward one of Blood Heights’ main thoroughfares.

  “Someone who owes me a favor.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. I figured that part out.”

  Rudy turned to face us, walking backward. “I’m going to change to scout ahead. You stay here until I return.”

  I glanced around at the dead elf bodies strewn about. Maybe we should get out of here before someone came along and… did what? I thought. It’s not like the authorities would respond to a call in the Heights. The worst that could happen was someone telling DeMarco where we were. And that was always a danger, whether we were surrounded by dead elves or not.

 

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