by Casey Lane
He stirred at the sound of her voice. His long lashes fluttered open. Those glassy eyes at first unfocused, widened, and then snapped into place. “What the fuck!” he groaned and pushed himself upright. The patched white recliner creaked under his weight. “Why the hell you standing there like a goddamn spook, Lettie?”
She said nothing.
“Come on, move,” he said. “I can’t see the television.”
She still said nothing.
“You still pissed about the money? Fuck, Lettie, I needed it. If you needed money, I would give it to you.”
She looked at the dried blood on his face. “I hope you enjoyed it, because that’s the last dollar you’ll ever take from me.”
He snorted, disbelieving. “What the fuck are you going to do? Stop me?”
“Yes.”
She tasted his anger, a sweet flush in the back of her throat, even before his face screwed up and he launched himself to his feet.
She moved before he could lay a hand on her. She caught the hand in the air, plucked it out like a dandelion seed, and snapped a finger in one movement. He howled instantly. And because she liked the sound of it, she broke one, two, three more fingers, just to hear that howl again.
Before he could recover from the pain, she yanked hard. The shoulder popped free of the socket as he was shoved into the floor. Too strong, she thought. I’m too strong. The smallest efforts destroyed bones. Part of her thought she should be careful with such a gift. Another part thought she should bring down the house, just because she could.
She drove her knee into her brother’s face, and the nose caved. Like a water balloon hitting hot pavement, it erupted. Blood splattered across his face, and the smell of it was too much.
She was on him, sinking her teeth into his throat, ripping at flesh before she even considered what she was doing.
The hot rush of blood hitting the back of her throat made her moan. As if from a great distance, she noted his feeble attempt to pull her hair and wrench her away from him. But it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let go. She drank him down, and those slaps and tugs became as weak as an infant’s.
He was completely soft in her arms, almost boneless by the time she stopped.
She stood, laughing, a low bemused giggle. Her stomach sloshed as if she’d drunk too much. But she felt good. So good. All the cold stiffness that had followed her from the grave through the rainy night left her. Now she was hot. Filled up and more than a little drunk. She had no idea if that was something that happened every time a vampire drank blood, or if it was the drugs in her brother’s veins.
She smiled down at the corpse, limp on the carpet. She poked a finger into its hollowed cheek.
Quiet fell over the house.
As last, Lettie stood, sucking at her fingers the way she used to suck at salted watermelon and sugared strawberries as a child, her fingers just as red and sticky now as they had been then. Her stomach as swollen and satisfied.
“Lettie?” Her mother called. “Lettie, is that you?”
It was a desperate cry. Soft mewling like kittens without a mother. Some dark and terrible urge rose inside Lettie then. She followed the scent of that desperation down the narrow corridor to the closed bedroom door. She pushed it open with a blood-soaked hand.
“Yes, Momma?” she purred into the darkness.
“What was all that screa—” Her mother’s words died on her lips. Her eyes doubled in size and kept widening as she surveyed Lettie from head to toe. The gore on her mouth and down the front of her chin. The grave dirt still dusting every inch of her, tumbling from her hair. “My God, Lettie. W-what happened?”
Lettie only smiled. She stepped out of the doorway and crossed to her mother’s bed. Her mother reacted violently, pulling herself up against the headboard and clutching her blankets.
“There, there,” Lettie said. She could hear her mother’s pounding heart, smell the death and dying all over her now. Her own death had opened such things to her. “Don’t worry, Momma.”
Tears sprung to her mother’s eyes. “Are you going to kill me?”
A terrible thrill ran up Lettie’s spine, and she thought of all the hateful things she could have said to this hateful woman. Instead, she only smiled brighter. “Don’t worry. I’m gonna take good care of you.”
Chapter Eighteen
I stood in the dark surrounding Lettie’s house—because it was her house now—and listened. Lettie was enjoying her first kill. That was good. There wouldn’t be another quite like it. Best she took her time and found pleasure in this moment.
I was pleased with her transformation. I hadn’t been sure she would wake from the grave at all. Sometimes, they don’t. When some find themselves in the earth, they decide they like it there just fine. And they stay.
Lettie must have found something worth rising for.
I smiled as her mother screamed, lifting my nose to suck in the scent of terror and pain. It was heady. I was drunk.
And while my head was upturned toward the rain, my nose detected something else. I turned my head, cocked it as if hearing a faint melody.
East, I thought. Another one calls me—east. I blew a kiss to the now silent house and followed that old familiar song. And that was how I found you.
You asked me for a story—that’s all you asked for—and I hope you’ve enjoyed the one I chose.
But I’m afraid we must begin now. We’ve run out of time.
You’ll be glad I reached you first, anyway. I have experience with these things. The one not far behind, well, let’s just say she can get a little carried away.
The End
Thanks for reading!
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About the Author
Kory M. Shrum lives in Michigan with her wife and their ferocious guard pug, Josephine March. Kory is a big fan of naps, caffeine, books, socks, traveling, and noodles.
She's an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Horror Writers of America and the Four Horsemen of the Bookocalypse, where she's known as Conquest. She’s the author of the Dying for a Living urban fantasy series and the Shadows in the Water supernatural thriller series.
Learn More about Kory M. Shrum at:
www.korymshrum.com/
Loving You with Teeth and Claws
Martina McAtee
Loving You with Teeth and Claws © 2017 Martina McAtee
* * *
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.
Loving You With Teeth and Claww
Sometimes Finding Your Soulmate is the Easy Part.
Twenty-two-year-old alpha wolf, Isa McGowan, is busy. While most people her age are finishing college and starting their careers, Isa’s raising four pre-teens and running a restaurant. She doesn’t have time for dating and she especially doesn’t have time for the lunatic standing on her porch claiming to be her betrothed…no matter how pretty he is.
Wren Davies has a dangerous problem and Isa is his solution. When he arrives in Belle Haven to explain his plight, the last thin
g he expects is a punch to the face…but that’s exactly what he gets. Instead of finding a politically savvy alpha with a large wolf pack, he finds a barely five-foot spitfire with a mess of kids, a mean right cross and a million excuses why she’ll never honor their betrothal.
Now Wren has two problems…
Prologue
“Neoma!”
Neoma Davies shrank further into her hiding spot. The tiny space behind the rusted water heater fit her just right if she pressed her knees to her chest and her forehead to her knees, curling in on herself tightly. She just had to make herself small, so small he couldn’t see her, couldn’t find her. She wouldn’t cry. He didn’t care if she cried. He even seemed to like it. So, she didn’t cry; she didn’t utter a sound. But there was no quieting the ragged sound of her breathing. There was no way to mask her scent. There was no hiding from a wolf.
“It’s worse when you hide from me. Just give me what I need, and you can go back to chasing rabbits in the woods or whatever it is you do out there all damn day.”
She could hear the excitement in his voice, could feel his anger. He was close, close enough that the stink of his sweat was pungent even to her non-wolf senses. She jumped as something loud hit the wall just to the left of her, a wooden bucket that splintered on impact, sending wood shards in every direction.
“Wren won’t save you. He can’t. Wren’s dead. Wren’s dead and you’re all mine.” Her heart plummeted at Wren’s name, silent tears seeping from her eyes. Wren had said he’d be there. “His division was hit by insurgents. I know you don’t know what that means, but it’s bad. It’s especially bad for him.” He huffed out a laugh that sounded more like a satisfied growl.
He’d promised he’d be home before her eleventh birthday. He’d promised. The voices said he was coming home. The voices had never lied before. “Do you hear me?” he shouted. “He’s not coming to save you. He’ll never be your hero.” Another piece of wood hit the wall. She clutched her knees tighter, trying to quell the shaking as she sobbed quietly. “I can smell the tears you cry for him. What makes him so special anyway? Why does everybody think Wren is so damn perfect?”
He wasn’t talking to her anymore but himself, stalking around the small room. Neoma tried not to listen. Tried to concentrate on making herself small, so small he couldn’t see her. She focused on hiding her scent, her sounds, but there was a heaviness in her belly telling her this was all for nothing. He always found her. He always hurt her. Wren wasn’t coming to save her. Ever.
You can’t hide from a wolf, not even when that wolf was hiding in a man. She’d been trying for months. She didn’t want to do this for him anymore. Every time she’d told herself she just had to make it until Wren came home. He fought every day and so could she. He promised he’d always come back for her. She thought she could wait for him. When Wren was home, everything would be okay. He would never have let Dylan hurt her. But Dylan said Wren was never coming home, and it felt like somebody cut a hole in her guts, and they were all just spilling out of her.
She screamed as a clawed hand snatched her by the arm, yanking hard, dragging her from her hiding spot. “There you are,” he snarled. “It took me almost a whole hour to track you this time. Are you getting stronger? Maybe your powers aren’t bound as tightly as the old man thinks.”
Neoma fought him. She did. She pushed and struggled, her little bare feet leaving tracks on the dirt floor of the abandoned house, but it didn’t matter. It never mattered. She was no match for him. He cuffed her cheek hard enough for her vision to bleed red at the edges. She stopped fighting then, body going limp as she let him drag her to the dirty mattress on the floor. She turned her head away when he pulled the knife and bottles from his pack. What did it even matter anymore? Wren was dead.
“I don’t know why you make me do this,” he scolded. “I know it hurts, but you’ve seen the alternative. Do you want me to take you back to her? She’s going to get what she wants one way or another. I’m doing this for you. Protecting you. You don’t remember what she did to you the last time I brought you to her. I took that from you. Me. To protect you because I care about you.” Neoma shuddered at his words, stomach curdling like milk at his words. “Wren isn’t here to save you, but I am. Why can’t you see that?”
She didn’t acknowledge him in any way. She hated looking at him. He looked so much like Wren in some ways. The same sandy-colored hair and sky blue eyes. But Wren’s eyes were always smiling, always happy. Dylan’s eyes were mean, always accompanied by a look that made you feel stupid when he talked to you. So, she didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She swallowed her gasp of pain as he pressed the knife’s point against her vein. “Now, if you struggle, you’re going to make me cut too deep. We don’t want a repeat of last time. Hold. Still.”
Neoma did hold still. She held very still. She closed her eyes and thought of only white, the white-hot, throbbing blob of power that lived in the nexus of all things. She wasn’t in that dirty room on that dirty mattress. She was in the forest, her feet warm on the forest floor, fingers pinching the satiny petals of a flower. She didn’t focus on the blade slicing her skin but of the energy in the ground and the flowers…in the trees that whispered their secrets to her. She thought about it until she could feel that energy pulling into her, through the backs of her legs, up through her torso, building, and gathering.
“See? All done, drama queen. Put those sad blue eyes away. It’s not that bad.” Neoma opened her eyes. “I’ll be back tomorrow. And the day after that…and the day after that.” He winked. “You get the point.”
Dylan was laughing. Laughing at her. At her pain. Something burst inside her. She lunged for him, cupping his ears, all that collected energy leaving through her palms and forcing its way inside him. “No!”
The light hit him with enough force to throw him backward. He hit the opposite wall hard and collapsed into a heap, blood seeping from his ears and nose. He didn’t move, eyes open but not seeing. As she watched, his body shifted from the man to the wolf, blood matting his reddish-brown fur. Neoma’s eyes widened. She stood, chest heaving, hands shaking, unsure. Should she run or stay? What had she done?
She ran. She ran and ran as fast as her legs would carry her. She ran through thickets of brush that snatched at her skin like cat’s claws and branches that tore at her clothing. Her muscles burned and her chest hurt, but she just kept running.
Until she ran until she collided with another person.
“Neoma?”
Wren? She fought to suck air into her lungs as she stared at the ghost of her adopted brother, her eyes wide and face tear streaked. She touched his hand again. Not dead. He was solid. He wasn’t dead. Dylan had been lying. He’d been lying about Wren. She’d killed Dylan. She’d killed him for nothing.
Wren was crouching beside her, running his hands through her hair and over her body. “Neoma? Neoma, sweetheart, what’s wrong? What happened? Did somebody hurt you? Are you bleeding?”
“Somebody did something bad to Dylan,” she whispered, face crumbling as she fell into his arms.
“Dylan? What do you mean? Neoma, what happened to Dylan?”
She squeezed her lids shut tight. “I think he’s dead.”
Chapter One
Wren
The house was straight out of a Grimm fairy tale. Its stone chimney and weathered gingerbread frame were charming and spooky and exactly what the tourists expected when they came to have their cards read by a mountain witch. The owner had even placed a handmade ash broom to the side of the front door, and a rickety rocking chair sat on the front porch.
Wren Davies knew a fraud when he saw one. The quaint old shack was brand new, the worn and weathered wood chemically treated to look rustic. They’d purchased the broom from an Appalachian tourist trap just outside Watcher’s Bend, and that rickety rocking chair had come from Deacon Pilcher who imported them in bulk from a supplier in China. It was all for show.
He fought the urge to pound his fist on th
e steering wheel cognizant of Neoma sleeping in the passenger seat beside him. This had been a mistake. Nobody there could help him. He looked at Neoma, her brows furrowed, face pinched in sleep. He wondered what she dreamed. She always seemed eerily serene when she was awake.
He couldn’t afford these kinds of setbacks. Soon, his father would realize Wren had Neoma, and the hunt would be on. He had to put as much distance between them and this town as he could. His hand was on the truck’s key when somebody rapped their knuckles against his window, startling both himself and Neoma.
Wren hesitated for only a moment before rolling down the window. It was a young girl of maybe sixteen or seventeen with sallow skin, sunken eyes and snarled hair the same color as the mud on her bare feet. She wore a short flowery dress with buttons down the front and a mutinous expression on what had probably once been a beautiful face. “You don’t belong here…wolf.”
Wren hid his surprise. “I’m looking for Granny.”
“We didn’t do nothin’. You just leave us be.”
“Wylodene, you hush.Come inside, boy, and bring the young’un.”
The elderly woman stood in the doorway of the tiny gingerbread house, hands on her hips and a dishrag clasped in her hand. She was tall and slender, and her mustard colored dress hung shapeless on her narrow shoulders. She had hair like steel wool that she wore unbound, and even from this distance, Wren could see the crags and lines of her face. She watched him with suspicion.
That had to be Granny.
Wren did as she asked, the humidity hitting him like a wet blanket as he helped Neoma out through the driver’s side door. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight for even a minute; he couldn’t risk it. Even now, his father could be looking for him. He glanced upwards. There was a storm rolling in, the thick black clouds obscuring half of the bright blue sky overhead. If Wren believed in omens, he would take this as a bad one.