by Jen Talty
Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Latin Goddess Press, Inc.. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Paranormal Dating Agency remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Latin Goddess Press, Inc., or their affiliates or licensors.
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Table of Contents
Spring Fling
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Books by Jen Talty
About the Author
Spring Fling
Paranormal Dating Agency
A TWILIGHT CROSSINGS NOVELLA, book 2
By
JEN TALTY
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Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank all you readers for your support. When THE BLIND DATE, the first book in THE TWILGIHT CROSSING series hit #1 in Contemporary, I was both thrilled and humbled. I write because I can’t imagine doing anything else, AND I love sharing my stories with all you readers. I hope you enjoy the next installment in this series.
Writing is a lonely profession at times, and I’m incredibly grateful for my critique partner, and best friend, Casey Hagen. Without her, I’d be lost.
Prologue
NICO FERGUSON tapped on the wood door. His mother would have his wolf head served on a platter if she knew what he was doing just two days after his brother’s wedding and what it meant for his pack.
And for the world.
The Legend of the Princess and the Wolf, which unlocked the powers of the Royal Fairies, sealed Nico’s fate as protector of his brother’s family until the twins were born. A boy and a girl.
Wolfairies.
He shook his head at the name. Not a cool name for a brand-new species. This new being created by his brother, Chaz, the Alpha of the most powerful pack, and the dormant Fairy Princess, Daphne, was both revered and feared. Never before has a Royal Fairy mated with any other creature, and the mixture of power has created quite a stir in the paranormal world.
Other than the name, Nico couldn’t wait to see what a Wolfairy would be capable of.
He accepted his new role with pride. He’d do whatever it took to make sure no witch would repeat the history of the past, banishing the Royal Family.
But it didn’t mean he had to do it alone.
“Welcome, Nico,” Gerri Wilder said as she pulled open the back door. Gerri had matched his brother, Chaz, with Daphne, setting in motion a fate predicted many moons ago. If anyone could find him the perfect woman, preferably a wolf, it would be Gerri. “Come in.”
He followed the short woman with white hair down the hallway. He’d heard all sorts of stories about Gerri and how she could make any man blush.
“Sit,” she said, pointing to a chair in the living room.
“I have your word, you won’t tell my parents.”
She laughed. “I won’t need to after I’ve matched you. Tell me, what is it that you think you want?”
That was easy. “Someone who isn’t afraid of a little adventure. Likes to bend the rules but has a strong sense of duty to family.”
“That’s all fine, but what about in the bedroom?”
“About the same,” he said, trying to hold back the heat rising to his cheeks. He wasn’t going to tell this nice, old woman anything about his sex life. “Willing to try new things.”
She waved her finger. “But loyal to one.”
“Exactly. I do want love.”
Her lashes fluttered slowly over her eyes. “And I have the perfect match for you, her name is Isidore, and she’s a spunky little thing. Might even be too much for you to handle.”
“I doubt that,” he said, biting back a smirk.
Gerri handed him a piece of paper with a phone number.
“That’s it?”
She nodded. “I’ve known your family forever. I know your mates. This is yours, and it will be that magical mating that happened to your brother. She is your destiny.” Gerri leaned in, pressing her hands on the table. “But you must put your faith in the fact that she will be true to you, even when you think she’s not.”
“What?” He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Shoo.” Gerri waved her hand. “Go call Isidore, get things going.”
“But—”
“No buts. Go. I have another appointment.”
***
“You’ve not only disrespected your father, but our entire coven!”
Isidore Crowe waited for the bigger blow. The one that would give her a black eye. At twenty-one, the only reason she stayed at home was because of her little sister. As soon as Coral turned eighteen, and Isidore had enough money, she was taking her sister out of this hell hole. Her father would have no say once they were both of legal age.
And she wanted to make sure Coral came into her full powers before leaving. If they left before Coral’s Branding Ceremony, she could lose her powers altogether and when you come from the wickedest Warlock, you needed every piece of magic you could get your hands on.
“Do you have any idea what we are facing?” Her father towered over her with his hands planted on his hips, glaring. His orange eyes turned fire red. “You’re a warrior, start acting like one.”
“I never wanted to be one,” she muttered. “And I don’t hate fairies.”
“You’ve never met one, how do you know?” her father inched closer.
With all the courage she could gather, she lifted her chin. “Have you ever met a Royal Fairy? I mean, really, Dad, all this crap about how horrible their magic is, it’s ridiculous when you consider what our coven does half the time.”
He smacked her face with the back of his hand, sending her flying from the chair in the kitchen onto the floor. A sharp pain stabbed behind her eye.
“Your sister would never dare question me.”
That’s right, she wouldn’t. Coral was the good child. The happy one. She did as she was told, but only because she learned by watching what would happen if she didn’t. Isidore would take every slap to make sure her sister never had to know what it felt like to have a man lay their hands on her in anger.
“She understands the ugliness of fairies and our need to destroy them, and this new offspring.”
Actually, Coral didn’t believe that at all. She’d once confided in Isidore that she’d had a premonition that their coven had it all wrong, and this new creature would bring the paranormal world together. Isidore told her to keep her thoughts to herself and do her best to block out anyone who might look into her mind.
Those kinds of thoughts would get her killed.
Isidore rubbed her cheek, the pain now at a dull throb.
“Killing creatures, of any kind, is against the law of all covens,” she said, pulling herself
from the floor, a wave of nausea making her legs wobble. Her coven hadn’t had a seat at the annual witch convention for over a hundred years because of their practices.
“You’re wrong.” He curled his long fingers around her biceps, squeezing until her skin turned white. “Our coven has the right to destroy this new species and ban the Royal Fairies. It’s been foreshadowed and tonight, at the ceremony, the one you missed, we chose the witch warrior who will kill the mother of the Wolfairy.”
She swallowed, hard. She hated the Coven of the Unseen Moon. A bunch of crazy witches who lived in the past and in fear of a creature that had never done anything to them.
Ever.
She couldn’t wait until she could turn her back on the whole thing. Other witches had left other covens, and some had formed ties with new ones, but even if she didn’t, anything would be better than this.
“Aren’t you going to ask me who?” He stood behind her, bending over her shoulder, his hot breath burning her swollen cheek.
“Who?” she said softly.
“You.”
“What!?” Her heart beat so fast she couldn’t breathe. A swirl of gray fog filled the room, blurring her sight. “Why me?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t know about your visit to the matchmaker?”
Her lungs deflated. She’d gone there a month ago and had yet to hear back. Gerri told her it might take a little time, but to be patient. She’d find her the perfect man.
The man that would help her and her sister out of this insane life and give her a fresh start.
That text had come earlier this morning and in three days, she’d planned on meeting her mate. He had no idea what she wanted him to help her with, but if was the man for her, then he’d do anything, because he loved her.
She had to believe this and have faith in her sister’s weak visions.
“What does that have to do with all of this?” She pressed her hands flat on the table for support, while she tried to blink away the double vision.
“The man you’re being set up with, Nico Ferguson.”
“How do you know his name?” She snapped her gaze in her father’s direction as he sat on the chair across from her with a sinister smile. She couldn’t remember a time, even when her mother had been alive, that her father showed her any kindness. In all her years, she could never do anything right, and when she turned fifteen, she’d stopped trying. The one time she tried to leave, he’d told her he’d hurt Coral in unspeakable ways.
Isidore believed him.
He’d taken his anger out on their mother, and she ended up killing herself. Another shameful act their coven didn’t take lightly, one that had taken him off the Coven Circle of Leaders. Her father, of course, blamed her and hence the hitting began. He used to apologize, but that didn’t last long. When her father had been reinstated on her sixteenth birthday, she thought maybe he’d stop.
He didn’t.
Reaching across the table, he cupped her chin with his thumb and forefinger, pinching hard. “Shouldn’t you be asking why his name is important?”
She held very still. “Why?”
“He’s the vehamante,” her father spoke in their ancient language.
“The protector,” she whispered. All through her training, they drilled into her head that the protector would lay down his life to make sure the offspring of the most powerful wolf Alpha and the Princess Fairy was born.
The elders also warned all the warriors that once the Wolfairy was conceived, the vehamente’s strength would triple, and he’d develop new powers no wolf had ever had before and not even the sharpest of seers could detect what they’d be.
“Yes. And you, my child, will kill him and the mother of the disgusting creature by the dawn of the Spring Fling.”
“You can’t make me,” she said, sucking in a deep breath, bracing herself.
He laughed. “If you don’t do it, I’ll kill your sister, and then I’ll hunt you down like an animal and bring you to the circle to be burned at the stake for her murder.”
Chapter 1
“I KNOW YOU DON’T want to move her, but I think it’s for the best.” Nico paced in his parents’ living room on the family farm turned Royal Fairy castle. He burned his footprints in the thick, gray area carpet which lined the large room decorated with dark leather furniture. Family portraits lined the panel walls. The farm had been in their family for centuries, and it was the only place Nico had ever really called home.
He hated asking his brother and his wife to leave it and go into hiding, but it was only two months from Spring Fling, the eve of the twins’ birth, and it was his job to make sure nothing happened to his brother and his family.
“She wants to give birth at home,” Chaz said. He sat on the sofa, rubbing his temples. As Alpha of their international pack, the father of a new species, and the Wolf King of the Fairies, Chaz had a lot on his plate. The hardest part for him, however, was that until the birth of the Wolfairies, he couldn’t leave his wife’s side. The power of the twins couldn’t be controlled, but together, they could manage them, and hopefully keep them under the radar of those who wished them harm.
“If we can keep your location a secret, we can bring her back on the eve of the Spring Fling.” The closer the impending birth of the twins came, the more Nico worried he couldn’t fulfill his role. According to legend, the future of his brother’s children has never been certain.
Only their creation and their potential to change the world.
If they are never born, all fairies will parish, and Nico’s pack will no longer be the strongest and largest pack of the world, and in time, they, too, will become extinct.
If they are born, but die within the first month, the Royal Fairies will be banished for another ten thousand years, and it’s unclear if there will be another awakening between a chosen wolf and a royal fairy.
“Where do you suggest we go?” Chaz asked, glancing in his brother’s direction with a furrowed brow.
Nico understood that Chaz hated not being able to perform all his duties at this time, leaving their youngest brother, Drew, and their father to manage the wolf pack. Their mother and sister, Cheryl, were now in charge of all the Royal Fairies that have clustered in this one location. A large undertaking, but one each member of the family readily accepted, without question.
“The top of Buck Mountain on the east side of Lake George, New York.”
“The back drop of Camp Uncas?” Chaz asked with a frown. “During the winter and spring months, that’s used for warrior witches from the coven of the Raindrops. I think being near witches is a bad idea right now. We really don’t know who we can trust when it comes to them,” Chaz said.
“They don’t fear fairies and are in support of your children, but they won’t know you’re there until we need them.”
“We don’t know that for sure, brother. And if they are creating potions to hunt out wolves or fairies, we’ll be fucked.”
“I’ve thought of that. The fairies who have developed powers can create a small bubble to protect you.”
“Trapping us.”
“No. More like keeping bad people out.” Nico let out a long breath. Ultimately, his brother was in charge. He was the Alpha, and Nico one of his pack, even though Nico had developed some powers that were known only to other species, he still wasn’t even second in line anymore since one of the twins was a boy.
That said, this was his role. His mission as mandated by the Twilight Crossing Council.
“Until we get past Spring Fling, and your babies reach the month-old mark, you have to trust me.”
“I do, believe me. But put yourself in my shoes.” Chaz raised his palms to the ceiling.
Confession time.
Nico leaned against the doorjamb, crossing his ankles, staring at his feet. “Ever since Lilly and I broke up—”
“She wasn’t meant for you, and you really didn’t love her. Not like a mate would,” Chaz interjected. “When it happens, it will knock you on y
our ass, and there is nothing on this earth that will stop it. You won’t even know it happened until its done.”
“I know, and I see what you and Daphne have, and I want it, too.” Nico lifted his gaze.
Chaz arched a brow. “What did you do?”
“I went to Gerri.”
“I don’t think this is the time for romance.” Chaz stood, making his way across the room. He was a formidable man. Tall and muscular. His rich-raven eyes demanded the attention from everyone around him. In wolf form, he was bigger than most and intimidated even the most powerful of creatures.
Nico could match his brother in every way. He was just as strong, and now, with some of this weird shit going on with his body, like being able to move objects, he was a force to be reckoned with. But he couldn’t command a room like his brother.
“Not to toss your own words back in your face, but you said we need to go about life normally, just be hyper-alert and take every threat and piece of intel seriously.”
Chaz rested a firm hand on Nico’s shoulder. “I did say that, and I’d love for you to find what I have with Daphne. What did Gerri find?” Chaz’s tone was less than enthusiastic, obviously annoyed Nico would even consider finding a mate, but if this legend were to hold true, then Nico’s mate would be a fierce warrior, willing to protect the family at any cost.
“You’re not going to like this.” Nico couldn’t believe his ears when the woman on the other end of the phone, with the deep, sultry voice, said her last name.
“You know the old saying ‘keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer?’”
“What have you done?” Chaz asked with a dark growl.
“All I did was go to Gerri and asked to find my mate. She gave me the name of a woman. Just her first name. When I found out her last name, I nearly choked.” Actually, he had to hang up and call Gerri back because a piece of fried cake had gotten caught in the wrong pipe.
“Stop beating around the bush, and just spill it,” Chaz said with his hands on his hips, glaring. The sun filtered through the picture window behind him, nearly blinding Nico every time Chaz shifted.