Eat Your Heart Out: A Romance Charity Anthology

by Skye MacKinnon

  Now, in the field by the woods, she transformed willingly, her bones shortening and reforming, her ears lengthening, her leg muscles strengthening such that they could propel her forward. Things smelled more vibrantly like this, and the world looked different; so markedly different after her eyes shifted to the sides of her head, forming two half-orbs that gave her a better understanding of where she was in the world than she ever would - or could - as a human.

  Perhaps that, too, was the reason the wild called to her, especially in the spring; the winter nights were long and lonely, the days were too cold for the frolicking she loved so much. Shifter or no, the cold was rough on her clothed human body, and it was hard to find pleasure in stripping to nothing in the snow when she could instead still be in bed.

  But the warmth? No, the warmth was another matter entirely. The warmth reminded her of mornings spent in the gardens with her mother, tending tomatoes and lettuce and green beans. It reminded her of summer days reading books on lounge chairs as the sun tanned her skin and bleached her hair.

  Mostly, it reminded her of home. Home, a place she had not been able to think about since-

  Nope. She wouldn’t think about it, not now when the moonlight and starlight gave way to a world this beautiful. Not during the one time a day she gave herself not to worry about who she was in the greater scheme of the world and instead allowed her to focus on who she was in the present moment, among the grasses and the bugs and the breeze.

  For now, all she was - all she needed to be - was a normal fucking rabbit, hopping along in a dewy meadow where flowers would soon bloom, chewing grass, and making the most of the loud quiet of the morning.

  She froze.

  The sound of predators hit her, driving all of her senses to flee. And in seconds she was safe in the tall grass.

  Wolves.

  They didn’t sound quite right, not like the wolves she’d grown up with. She’d had lessons on them, of course, on how to differentiate the sounds they made from coyotes or wild dogs. But the difference between these and the ones she’d grown up with was stark, and there were so many things about it that made her alarms ring that, for a moment, she even forgot that she could control her reactions, that she had spent hours and hours for years and years to not need to stay a rabbit if she didn’t want to.

  On the other hand, if she shifted back into a human, she wouldn’t be able to hear them nearly as effectively. And, besides, it didn’t really sound like they were all that close, which would give her plenty of time to shift if she felt she needed to.

  It was an excuse, she knew; shifting back to human when scared was one of the most difficult things she’d ever really had to do, and it wasn’t made much easier by virtue of the predators being so far away. That was a certain kind of ironic; were she a human hearing wolves, she’d likely not be afraid at all, much less would her nervous system be so activated it made it difficult for her to control her shifting or lack thereof.

  But as a rabbit?

  Pure fear.

  So she instead stayed listening among the grasses and told herself she did it merely out of curiosity. Then again, there was certainly a strong amount of curiosity associated with the noise: so much like wolves, and yet, so distinctly not like any wolf she had had the pleasure of meeting as a rabbit.

  Or displeasure of meeting? That didn’t sound quite right, but what did she know as a rabbit? Not much.

  She listened to the howling again and again.

  That was it, she realized: the pattern was different. Which meant the species involved was different, especially when she considered the way their voices were deeper than any other wolf howls she’d heard; a deeper timbre that, if she was reading the situation correctly and without too much additional pessimism, likely meant they were bigger than the average wolves, too.

  Giant wolves in this part of the country?

  She shifted back into a human. It was rapidly turning out to be too risky of a day to go frolicking. She had her guess at what she was dealing with, and she was usually right about these things. Besides, wolves or not, she likely had a much better chance against a canine species coming from the woods as a human rather than a rabbit.

  That, too, had been a significant source of discomfort for her growing up: that she had been saddled with being a rabbit shifter of all the dang things. While her friends were finding out they were cheetah or eagle or bear shifters, capable of flying or running a mile a minute or shaking down entire trees, she learned she could... hop and grow a fluffy tail.

  Yeah, it did not exactly make her the most popular girl in school.

  She’d grown to appreciate it over time, of course. Had grown to appreciate that she’d been able to cultivate a closer relationship with similar sorts of animals: squirrels and chipmunks and even mice. And, sure, she had to keep her very-long ears perked for signs of predators, but at least no one ever assumed she’d be a threat to them.

  And that sort of skill came in handy. Particularly when it meant the government had tapped her for a secret agent gig.

  They had sold it to her as a short-term job. A one-time thing. And they had sold the following permanent position as a well-paying, hard-to-get career with a lot of prestige in the right circles and a comprehensive benefit package. And that was supposed to be only a few field years before moving into an internal position at headquarters until retirement.

  But, of course, it hadn’t taken long for the wrong mission to get fucked up in the wrong way and for her to need to go...

  Not undercover. That wasn’t the word she wanted, not really.

  Into hiding.

  The most fucked up thing was that, sometimes, she wasn’t even sure who she was hiding from, or why. Except now she was a grown woman hiding, naked, in the middle of some tall grass from what probably were some very normal wolves like a mile away.

  Which wasn’t really all that far.

  She sighed, then stood and began walking back toward the willow. The grass grazed against her calves, some thorns or sap sticking to her every once in a while in a way that was at moments merely unpleasant and at others painful. This, too, she had taught herself to tolerate, and it mostly worked, though not so effectively she was not already daydreaming about soothing the ache in some warm bathwater.

  The sun was rising, too, now; the walk was further than she realized she’d gone. It was amazing to her, really, how different she moved in the world as one species or another; she’d found that space felt shorter as a rabbit than as a human, despite how much smaller she was relative to the world around her. She assumed this part, at least, had something to do with the speed at which she moved, but she was far from a scientist and it was far from the most of her concerns, too.

  She quickened her pace back toward her clothing. She wasn’t afraid, not really, but the higher the sun got into the sky, the more likely it would be that someone would spot her walking around naked. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to make up a lie to explain away such a situation and to plead with whatever nosy-but-well-meaning-person had found her that day to please not call the cops, but any day she could avoid it was far preferable.

  Perhaps especially because her pleas didn’t always work, and sometimes when the cops got involved that simply meant it was time for her to move again, whatever semblance of a life she’d constructed notwithstanding.

  It didn’t matter.

  She heard a growl before she made it. When she turned, she was face-to-face with a pair of wolves.

  If she didn't know better, she'd say they were identical. They looked similar, that was true, but the differences, though subtle, were there: one was the slightest bit bigger, one had a rounder face, one had just the slightest touch of darker brown against the deep soil color of their coats.

  They were both male. She couldn't quantify precisely how she understood this piece of information, but they were, without a doubt. Now that she had stopped walking almost directly into their space, as she realized she had been, they were... rela
tively calm, all things considered. They watched her intently, though, too intently, too much like if she made the wrong move they might attack.

  Really, the mystery of the whole thing was that they were so interested in what a human was doing. That wasn't exactly what she would call "normal" for a wolf, and she definitely knew something was up when they merely just sat and stared at her, cocking their heads occasionally when she made a more sudden move, but, mostly, waiting.

  She sighed, placing one hand on a hip and glaring back at them. "Look, I don't know what your deal is, but my clothing is over there, and you are between me and it." She raised her free hand in a gesture that was vaguely toward the willow from earlier. "So like... if you're not going to attack me, scram."

  Almost as if in response, at that moment, two things happened:

  1. Unbeknownst to Kylie, the sun rose just a touch further in the sky, finally making it to the point in its commute where it had topped the treeline and could shine directly onto one wolf in front of her, however slightly.

  2. That wolf's body contorted, its bones crunching and shrinking or lengthening, surrounded by what appeared to be an amorphous bit of fur and meat.

  The whole thing was really just very loud, and she was not having it. Nope. Not today. She knew what was happening, had grown up around this for her entire life: a very, very sloppy transformation. So she was far from shocked when it finally ended with a naked man asleep on the ground in front of her.

  An attractive naked man, that was for sure, but still. Who'd taught the dude to shift?

  Was he... feral?

  Probably, she reasoned. Wasn't too frequent you found a wolf that was this bad at the whole shifting thing.

  Then, of course, the other one did it, too. Just as poorly, too. She had no choice but to assume they were brothers. How else would two shifters with the same atrocious upbringing be coming into themselves like this?

  She was embarrassed for them, to put it mildly.

  Then again, with both naked men in front of her, they didn't look so brotherly. Which was quite the mystery, but she was already too annoyed with them and their strange howling noises and their disruption of her morning hop routine to have the patience to either consider it or to spend more time assessing their naked bodies, however beautiful they were.

  At least asleep she didn't have to worry about them attacking her. So before she did anything at all, she finished her path to the willow tree, putting on her yoga pants and her tank top, then her socks and shoes before returning to the men.

  She considered, for a moment, letting them sleep. Some considered that the kinder thing to do. Then again, she'd be mortified if someone left her in a field like this given her particular situation, and these guys didn't seem like they really had their lives together, anyway.

  Didn't mean she was going to be gentle with them.

  "Yo!" she said, kicking one in the side. First gently, but it got harder and harder until he woke up.

  She wasn't sure what she expected him to do when he woke up. Scream, maybe. Ask her who she was, or where he was. Yell at her for waking her up.

  She definitely didn't expect for him to blink a couple of times, look at her, glance around him, and then kick the other guy.

  "C'mon, wake up, it happened again," he said while the other guy was coming to his senses. To his credit, he'd managed to wake his friend more gently than Kylie had woken him. But maybe that was just luck.

  What was less lucky for him was that Kylie was there to observe the whole thing.

  "It happened again? You mean you do this regularly?"

  "Every month," the first awake guy told her, then looked at the second. "You wanna tell her?"

  "No," the second guy started, but turned to her and said, "So... don't freak out, but we're werewolves."

  Kylie burst into laughter.

  "Look," the second guy continued, "I know it sounds crazy, but-"

  "No. Nope. It makes perfect sense. No wonder you two are so bad at shifting."

  "Excuse me?" the first guy started.

  Kylie rolled her eyes, then waved sarcastically. "Hi, my name is Kylie. I'm a shifter. What the fuck else do you think I'd be doing out here at the crack of dawn?"

  "That tracks," the first guy said.

  "What kind of shifter?" the other guy asked.

  Her cheeks broke out in a warm flush. "Rabbit."

  It was his turn to laugh now.

  "A rabbit shifter is making fun of how we shift? You've gotta be fucking kidding me," he said.

  "At least it doesn't hurt when I shift."

  "At least we shift into something worth shifting into."

  "I'm Blaise," the first guy interrupted. "Nice to meet you, Kylie. Now if you don't mind me cutting the flirting short, I want to remind Ryan that we are currently laying naked in the middle of nowhere and really need to at least get clothing on before too much of the world's awake."

  "I don't think Kylie minds given the way she's staring."

  "I wasn't-"

  "It's okay. You can look at my cucumber. I know how much you rabbits like salads."

  "Ryan thinks he's brilliant," Blaise interrupted again, but now Kylie was blushing even more. "Then again..."

  "For fuck's sake, get out of here and get some clothes on," she nearly shouted. It was defensive, sure, but she was also losing her ability to control herself.

  Blaise lifted his hands to his forehead in a quick salute. "Yes, captain. You coming with us?"

  Kylie stared. "Why would I be going with you? Don't you have, like, things to do?"

  He shrugged. "Not really. But I have some questions for you."

  "Oh? Like what?" She raised an eyebrow. She couldn't help it.

  "What are you doing here? Are there others? And why do rabbits like salads so much?"

  "It's gonna be a long walk, isn't it?"

  "You bet it is," Ryan said. "But I have a feeling you'll be, shall we say, making salads with us before too long."

  Enjoy this excerpt? Go to www.edelinewrites.com for complete stories and updates on current projects.

  About the Author

  Edeline Wrigh is an eccentric storyteller with a penchant for swearing, drinking too much caffeine, and spending more time with cats than people. She writes fantasy, romance, and love stories without happy endings from her house in the Midwest. When she's not putting words on paper, she's busy up leveling her martial arts game or taking in stories in any way she can.

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  Feeding Them Won’t Make Them Grow

  A Witching After Forty Paranormal Women’s Fiction Short

  Lia Davis & L.A. Boruff

  Heat level: 0

  Olivia has to throw Drew a birthday party with the help of the magical menagerie.

  And it all goes wrong.

  Chapter 1

  Olivia

  “Oh, no, darn it.” I lurched as the grocery sack ripped, catching the corner so it ripped even further. The big eight-thousand-pound bag of flour hit my foot, making the top of my foot explode with f-bomb worthy pain. But at least my foot, now throbbing, kept the flour from hitting the ground, busting open, and going everywhere. “Darn it, darn it.”

  Limping, I left the flour, which wasn’t really eight thousand pounds, even though it had felt like it at the time, sitting on the walkway and headed for the door. I had Ava’s spare key in my pocket, which didn’t do me much good, considering my hands were still too full. I should’ve grabbed a tote or something to carry all this crap in, but it was a little too late for that now.

  Usually, I was a little more organized than at this moment. But being alone in Ava’s house with a skeleton, a ghoul, and well…the house itself left me feeling a little out of sorts. I wasn’t used to dealing with all the magical things that went on in there, though I did enjoy them. Mo
st of the time.

  Of course, I stumbled up the stairs, but at least I caught myself. No major injuries: I didn’t even skin my knee or shin or anything. That’s good, right?

  Dumping the other bags on the porch in front of the door, I pulled the key from my pocket and slid it in the lock with a sigh.

  But then it wouldn’t turn. “Seriously?” I bent and squinted at the lock. Was this the wrong key?

  I pulled it out to check. No. Ava had painted the side of it with purple nail polish, so I’d always know which key was hers. Not that I would forget, but she insisted because I had a million keys on my ring. Her words.

  Not the wrong key. I gripped the handle tighter and jiggled it as I inserted the key. Still not working. “What is wrong with this lock?” I said through gritted teeth. I’d used it before, and it had worked fine.

  Maybe the door was just stuck. Holding the knob with one hand, I bumped my butt against it as hard as I could, but it didn’t budge. Instead, I cried out when a sharp pain shot through the side of my hip.

  “Damn it. Open up, you psychotic house!” I stepped back and glared at the house before picking my jaw up off the ground when the door opened all on its own. Okay, that wasn’t creepy at all.

  Alfred stuck his face around the door and grunted. His clouded eyes searched me for a few moments before he opened the door wider. He nodded, or at least I think he did. His pale, gray skin didn’t move much. When he grunted, I understood it as a welcome. He couldn’t speak due to a string that sewed his lips together.

  At least the door hadn’t opened on its own. Although I believed it could if it really wanted to. My adorably insane husband, Sam, who was also Ava's childhood BFF, claimed the house talked to him, and his name is Winston. Ava and I were skeptical about that.