Fire and Fantasy: A Limited Edition Collection of Urban and Epic Fantasy

by CK Dawn

  I sat out in the back garden and waited for Rose to retrieve me for the meeting.

  “My life is over,” I said to myself aloud.

  “Why is your life over?” A male voice came from above me.

  “Excuse me,” I said and looked up, noting the calm appearance e of a young man, “just ignore me,” I told him.

  “Well someone as lovely as yourself shouldn’t be so sad.”

  I looked down and shook my head, “thank you for the flattery, but I’d like to be alone.” I told him assuming he was one of the assistants that was usually in and out of the house.

  “Well I was sent out to get the hostess,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said realizing that it was the Carter boy.

  “It’s quite okay, I’m Joseph,” he said extending his hand.

  I took his hand and was surprised at the connection and kindness that I felt from the boy. We talked most of the afternoon and he actually made me smile.

  I opened my eyes and found myself in a dark room. I almost panicked but my fears were laid to rest when I realized that I was hooked up to machines in a hospital room.

  I moved my head to the left and was surprised at the effort it took move. My body felt so sore and stiff.

  “Jack,” I called out as loud as my dry mouth would allow, “Jack.”

  He started to stir and it took him a few seconds to respond.

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “Water,” was the only thing I could say.

  Jack immediately sprang into action and called for a nurse while he retrieved water for me.

  While he helped me drink the water the nurse checked me over and told us that my doctor would be in soon.

  “What all happened?” I asked him.

  He wasn’t surprised that my memory wasn’t clear, “after the guy stabbed you, Dr. Griffin took care of the woman, while I tried to stop your bleeding.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “I got you stable, but the EMTs got you to the hospital and the doctors patched you up.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything for my sister,” he patting on the head.

  “Has anyone been here?” I asked him. I was curious if Liam had been, but I was afraid to ask.

  “Dr. Griffin, has been,” he replied.

  “Oh, that’s nice.”

  “You’ve been out for two days, and I’ll let Arianna know that you’re awake so she can visit.”

  “Okay, I will be happy to see her.”

  One thing I noticed is that neither one of us had mentioned the last month and how I had been wanted by the police and ran away.

  “Umm, what about Liam?” I asked, “the boy that was with me.”

  “I know who he is,” he said and went to look out of the window, “he hasn’t been here.”

  “Oh okay.” I said disappointed.

  “I’m not sure I like this version of him,” I could hear Jack mumble.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  But I heard him and couldn’t let it go, “you know?” I asked.

  He exhaled, and nodded and started to speak, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  Dr. Griffin entered, and looked a lot warmer than she usually did, “I’m glad you are awake.” She said.

  “It’s good to be awake,” I said.

  “The doctor says you are going to be okay,” she said.

  “Thanks for helping Jack save me,” I told her.

  “You’re welcome, and you will also be glad to know that you are no longer wanted by the police.”

  I felt a huge weight fall off my shoulders at her words.

  ‘Strings were pulled, and they knew things weren’t right.”

  “Thank you.”

  She nodded, while Jack said he was going to make a call.

  “Where is he?” I asked, and I knew she would know exactly who I was talking about.

  She sighed, “honestly I don’t know.”

  “Is he okay? Can I talk to him?”

  “He is fine, he has checked in,” she shook her head, “the boy is a survivor and will be okay.”

  “I know.”

  “Some of the stuff that happened shook him up and he has some things to think about.”

  I didn’t know what to think, I thought we had a connection.

  “Don’t worry,” she nodded more to herself than to me, “fate has you two so intertwined that he will be back.”

  And it was true, she was right and fate was always going to have the last word.

  “I had a happy dream,” I told her.

  Epilogue

  Sitting in the den at home, I looked out into the backyard.

  It had been months since I had heard from Liam, I had graduated high school and was getting ready to leave at the end of the summer.

  The dreams had subsided and in my mind all of my past lives seemed to come back as memories. It was interesting that just because I had become aware of my past lives that the memories were just there. All of the happiness, love, and especially the heartbreak.

  It seemed that that was always a big part of every life that I had ever lived.

  “Amelia?” Jack called to me from the front of the house.

  “Back here,” I called out.

  “What are you up to?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I shrugged as I looked around the room at all of the boxes.

  “You told me that you would work on packing this room,” he rolled his eyes.

  “I am,” I smiled sheepishly.

  After the incident with trackers, Jack and I decided that we would go through and clean out the house and put it up for sale.

  He would move in with his girlfriend and I would be living in a dorm while school was in session. And during the holidays I would stay at their apartment with them. It was just hard going through all of the memories in the house. I think after everything that had happened the two of us just needed a change. We wouldn’t be erasing our parents, but we would be moving out of the house that constantly reminded us of the past and what we had both lost in this life and others.

  It was one of the hardest things about knowing all of my past lives, and reliving them over and over. I was always an orphan and always alone in the end.

  “It feels like we are erasing them,” I told him.

  “I know,” he agreed, “but this is what they would want.”

  I nodded.

  “You can keep anything you want,” he explained, “even if we have to get you a storage locker.”

  “Thank you,” I told him and I stood to get back to work.

  Ding. Dong.

  We both looked at each other slightly surprised.

  “I’ll get it,” he said, and quickly left the room.

  At the bookshelf, I began to line a box of all of our mother’s books. Jack and I had already discussed me keeping them and we were going to store them in the spare bedroom at his apartment.

  “Amelia, it’s for you,” he called from the front of the house.

  “What?” I said surprised, “who is it?”

  “Come see for yourself,” he called back.

  As I got to the door, my brother stepped aside and let me go outside alone.

  I gasped, “what are you doing here?”

  Liam was leaning against one of the posts on the front porch, looking as unbothered as he always did.

  “I came to apologize,” he replied.

  “For what?” I asked and folded my arms over my chest, “for just leaving without a word?”

  He flinched.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I muttered, “after everything.”

  “I’m sorry,” he looked up and stepped closer to me.

  “Why?” I asked and raised my hand to his chest as if to keep some distance, because if I had learned one thing, in every life my thoughts were always clouded when he was close.

  “I was confused and had to figure out some things,” h
e looked down at the ground, “every single memory of life I have from this to ten others,” he looked off in the distance, “has been hard.”

  “I understand, I have too,” I explained, “but I’m pretty sure it was harder because you weren’t here. None of anything has made much of any sense,” I shook my head.

  “I know,” he nodded, “but I won’t leave again and we can figure out this new future ourselves.”

  I smiled and stepped closer to him and let him envelope me in a hug.

  “No matter if demons or angels try to kill us or even try to recruit us.”

  “We’ve got new futures out in front of us,” I looked at him wide eyed, “and we can ignore them all and we’ve got college to look forward to.”

  He actually smiled, “we do.”

  I looked up and our eyes meet and just like magnets our lips meet.

  Inside I was relieved that unlike our past lives we had a chance at something new, past all of the heartbreak. Fate had gotten twisted and we were going to fully take advantage of that, no matter what the future holds.

  And just maybe in this life I wouldn’t end up alone and scared.

  It could even be a happy life and fate didn’t even seem so twisted anymore.

  The End

  Continue the many lives of Amelia and Liam in the Twisted Fate Series with book two, Fighting Fate.

  Twisted Fate Series

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  About the Author

  Sharon lives in Texas with her two sons and two cats. She chronicles her daily life at her personal blog Not Your Mom Blog and has been active in the blogosphere for over ten years. When she is not chasing her kids and participating in roller derby and training for her first marathon she writes and dreams of all of the places she can't wait to travel. She loves to write Young Adult stories about vampires, vampire hunters, witches, reincarnation, paranormal, and even a little bit on the New Adult side under the name S.R. Mayes, but don’t tell her mom that. Some of her books include the Blood Pact series about a group of vampire hunters who grow up in the organization to keep their city safe from the things that go bump in the night.

  Read More from Sharon Rose Mayes

  The Sphinx

  Jessica Cage

  The Sphinx © copyright 2017 Jessica Cage

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  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Untitled

  Some stories are told, others are not, the best ones are reimagined.

  Stories are told of the sphinx—a monster with the head of a woman, the body of a lioness, the wings of an eagle, and a tail tipped with the head of a serpent. This beast was told to have been made to guard the entrance to the Greek city of Thebes. For each traveler to cross her path, a riddle was presented. If they could answer it correctly, access would be granted. What was her riddle?

  “What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three in the evening?” The price to pay for answering the riddle incorrectly, which of course they all did, was not a simple denial of entry to Thebes. Instead of turning them away, the sphinx, monster that was, strangled them with her tail and devoured them whole.

  The story goes that when it finally came to pass that someone could answer her riddle and the consecutive ones to follow, she committed suicide. What else was a girl to do? Some say she threw herself down from the high rocks and fell to her death, while others say that she devoured herself, subjecting herself to the same punishment she dished out to all those who had failed before, a talented feat.

  However, the question remains ... what really happened to her?

  One

  Standing atop the crown of the great green beauty gifted by France to the Americas, she stared down on the world, which had changed so much since the day she’d staged her death on the cliff outside of Thebes. Gone was the time that she had to run and hide, living in the shadows to avoid the attention of the gods. He, like the others, was no longer a threat to her, having fallen with the others, and she could roam free again.

  Those stories, though they worked in her favor, told of her in such a terrible light. A beast, a monster—and of course that was how he would want her to be remembered. That was the entire point of what he’d done to her. Because of his actions, and his selfishness, her light was diminished and replaced by hatred and ugliness. No one would ever know that she was in fact beauty personified, and that because of her beauty she’d been changed. A curse was placed on her, which transformed her appearance into something no one could love. As if that was not enough, he sent her to Thebes, a land not many dared to venture to. All of this for the purpose of stopping the world from finding out about his time with her, to make sure that the one he really intended to be with never knew she existed in his life.

  She was done with hiding in the shadows. Centuries had passed, and in that time, her strength had grown a hundred times over. He would be made to face what he’d done to her. If she had to cut down a thousand gods to do it, she would.

  A lesser known fact about the sphinx, one that even she herself hadn’t always known, was that when she devoured those who failed to answer her riddle correctly, she absorbed their power. In the beginning, she hadn’t realized just how the act affected her, but over the years of her sentencing, she learned that with each failed response and each meal, she became stronger. It wasn’t until she came face-to-face with a witch disguised as a poor woman, that she learned just how much of a gift this was. The woman was there intending to do what she thought was an act of justice. Her plan was to launch an attack on Cadmus, the King of Thebes, who the old woman said had betrayed his own people to serve an unworthy god.

  Once strong enough and confident in the power she had taken, she moved forward with her plans. With the magic she’d stolen, she convinced a riddle traveler who crossed her that he had solved her riddle fair and square, and as punishment for her failure, she could no longer live. It worked. Oedipus, who would eventually become celebrated for many things including ridding Thebes of their pest, went on to be King of Thebes and she was free.

  The sphinx thought it unfortunate that the woman was unable to solve her riddle. She would have loved to piss off the god who betrayed her by allowing his precious king to be murdered. It was her curse, however, to require the riddle be answered before she could ever permit a traveler safe passage. The witch, though bold and with great power, was unable to solve it. Though she fought, attempting to use magic to defeat the monster who denied her access to Thebes, she failed and she, too—like those before her—was devoured. After the witch was defeated, the sphinx turned to retreat to her nest to wait for another to dare to approach the boundaries.

  With each step, she felt the change in herself as the energy stored in the body of the witch moved throughout her and gave her a high like one she had never experienced before. Content with her full belly, and looking forward to enjoying the high of her meal, she headed back to her claimed space and hoped for an easy night of rest.

  A cavern at the base of the mountain had become her home, filled with claimed items she’d collected from those who became meals for her. No reason for good things to go to waste. The inside of the cavern was loaded with jewels and tapestries, clothes she couldn�
�t dream of wearing, and a corner that held relics she didn’t really care for but would often take her rage out on. The shattered pieces proved to bring her comfort as she used her tail to fashion them in new ways. She stood in front of a mirror, another gift from a traveler that didn’t reflect her entire frame. Each night she looked at her deformed body and with a sigh, she made the useless wish that she could return to her former self. The spell placed on her to hide her beauty was still intact. Each time she passed the mirror and made the wish, her anger grew. It festered inside, building to eruption. How could she be punished in such a way, and simply because she dared to love someone? As she walked away she made the internal request once more. How she longed to see a face she recognized, a face she missed, staring back at her.

  A flicker out of the corner of her eye caused her to turn back to her reflection and find herself, the way she remembered, before he thought it okay to take it away. Sun-kissed skin in milk chocolate tones that shimmered as if dusted with gold and stood in strong complement the thick, dark hair which fell around her frame. Her face was no longer ugly, distorted by magic and anger. Returned were her soft features, alluring plump lips, and eyes reflecting the depths of the ocean. Her body was once again her own—no lion’s frame or eagle wings, no tail that hissed at her when she went too long without feeding. She danced and laughed, happy to have finally broken the curse, but her celebration was short-lived.

  As she came down from a leaping twirl that sent her flying in the air, the strong legs of a lion steadied her landing. The change was not lasting, but it was telling. Disappointment was suffocating. How could this be? How could this change not last? Afraid to view herself, but needing to know what she was, she returned to the mirror. As the last of her real face faded away, hidden by the curse again, tears fell from her eyes. Wings wrapped around herself, she did her best to hug away the pain of her defeat. For a moment, she was herself again. For a moment.