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

by CK Dawn

  She glanced at Jacob. The staff would know what to do to get her a car in the morning. “I just wanted you to know why I’m charging a car to my Land credit card.”

  She carried a Land of Milk and Honey company card even though she hadn’t worked at her father’s bar since high school. He insisted. For emergencies.

  Which this was. No denying that. But not one she couldn’t handle.

  No clinking ice, though the background buzz of his bar drifted over the line. “There is no need.”

  He was going to send someone to pick her up. “Dad, don’t send the plane, okay?” Not that she wouldn’t appreciate the gesture, just that it seemed extreme. And as much of a douchebag move as Brad’s abandonment in the first place. It screamed self-centered self-absorption with an extra-unhealthy dose of self-deception.

  Her father laughed. “I will make a call.”

  “Dad. Really. Don’t. I’m fine.” I’m not, she thought.

  Daisy closed her eyes. Why would she think such a thing? Yes, Brad had left her in Wisconsin without a ride, but he was gone, and the anger and relief seemed to be balancing each other. And she’d gotten to help a wolf. A real wolf.

  A wolf was infinitely better than Brad, any day.

  So maybe she wasn’t fine, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her composure. She’d been in much worse situations. Brad leaving her was a cakewalk.

  Plus, she’d gotten to touch and heal a wolf.

  Still, damned good thing she hadn’t said “I’m not” out loud for her father to hear.

  His glass clinked again. “It is okay to ask for security,” he said as if she had said her thought out loud.

  She would have hugged him, if they had been in the same room. He might be a bit of a hardass, but he would drop everything and drive from Branson to Wisconsin Dells himself if he thought Bradley would cause her one more tear.

  “I need to get back to campus,” she said, to change the subject. “I have to pick up my graduate student ID.” Four more years, and she’d have a Ph.D. and vet licenses in both Minnesota and Missouri.

  Her father sniffed. “You will become an extraordinary veterinarian, daughter. My horses will have the best.”

  Daisy shook her head. Her father spoke as if he voiced not his expectations, but an inevitable future. “You sound like a Fate, Dad.”

  He sniffed again. “One does not need to see the future to understand the truth of the world.”

  No, but sometimes it helped. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine,” she said.

  The ice clinked yet again. “I know.” He sipped. “Care for the animals.”

  Daisy Reynolds Pavlovich, the woman who saved wolves and who also happened to be the daughter of a Russian gangster, smiled for the first time since her now very-ex decided to abandon her in the tourist mecca known to the world as The Dells.

  “I will, Dad. I will.” Daisy disconnected the call and stuffed her phone into her pocket.

  Jacob from the front desk looked up from his task and smiled. “I’ll comp your room tonight,” he said. “And we’ll find you a ride in the morning.” He patted her arm and leaned close as if sharing a secret. “You’re way too good for that jerk who ran off.”

  Yes, it was a fine day, even if she had been abandoned.

  Daisy inhaled deeply. She straightened her t-shirt, and hugged Jacob. “Thank you,” she said, and walked into the lodge to sleep off her bad-yet-good day.

  Three

  Morning blazed through the curtains of Daisy’s sweet and clean, if small, room. She’d slept surprisingly well by herself. No weird dreams about walking naked in public, or not finishing tasks, or finding herself in the final of a chemistry course she’d forgotten to attend.

  No dreams of her very-ex, either, or the wolf for that matter. At least not that she remembered.

  She sat up and rubbed her cheek and ear. Her head hurt, though.

  Her mind may not have clenched over Brad abandoning her, but her jaw had.

  Douche—, she started to think, then stopped herself. No use in getting into a spiraling internal monologue about her now very-ex. Time to focus on finding transportation, and perhaps spending a day at one of the rides. She was at The Dells. It would be a shame to go home without a t-shirt.

  The reception area, like the rest of the lodge, was surprisingly bright considering the amount of dark wood on the walls and used in the furniture. Someone had flung open the windows, and a humid, warm breeze moved from the front, toward the desk, and down the hallway.

  Car exhaust mixed with traces of three or four people who hadn’t been in the building last night, as well as another person whose scent reminded her of Jacob, except this new person smelled young and feminine.

  The young woman looked up when Daisy walked into the reception area and quickly wiped her hands on her lodge polo shirt as if she’d been handling dirt instead of playing solitaire.

  She looked just as Daisy expected her to. A smaller, female, young version of Jacob stood behind the desk, right down to the same cowlick at her right temple, except that the young woman—Marci, her tag said—sported a bright pink streak instead of Jacob’s salt and pepper.

  Marci smiled. “Are you Ms. Pavlovich?” She glanced down at her desk as if she’d been storing an important package she just had to give to Daisy.

  “Yes,” Daisy said.

  Marci nodded. “Grandpa said you’d need a ride today.” She tapped her keyboard and pulled up a screen, but leaned over the counter. “He said the guy you came with up and left like a dumbass.”

  Marci stiffened and her scent shifted toward embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m not supposed to say stuff like that to guests.”

  No, she probably wasn’t. “It’s fine,” Daisy said. “It’s an apt description.”

  Marci grinned and tapped the counter. “Grandpa says you need to get to The Twin Cities.” She pulled a map of Wisconsin Dells and the surrounding area out of a folder and set it on the counter for Daisy to see.

  Marci tapped a building on the edge of town. “The car rental place is here, next to the train station.” Then she tapped on one of the large hotels next to the water park. “They have a satellite pick-up station here.”

  Daisy nodded.

  Marci circled a phone number at the bottom of the page. “They’re closed today, so I called my buddy at the hotel.” She tapped the hotel again. “Sounds like they don’t have any one-way rentals available right now, anyway.”

  So no driving herself home.

  Marci tapped the train station again. “The train comes through in the afternoons. That might be your best bet.” She circled yet another hotel. “Or the bus.”

  The train might be fun. “Thanks,” Daisy said.

  “Oh!” Marci dug in a drawer. “Grandpa said to give you this, too, if you wanted to stay another day.” She handed Daisy a free pass to the big amusement park with the giant horse rollercoaster.

  “Thanks,” Daisy said again. Why all the front desk love? The fight she’d had with Brad must have annoyed the lodge’s other guests. Why were Jacob and Marci being so nice?

  Marci swirled the end of her pen across the map. “I think you remind Grandpa of someone.” She shrugged and her scent took a wistful, sweet tone. “Every once in a while he’ll get talking about the old days, ya know?”

  What could Daisy say? Unlike Jacob, she wasn’t old enough to be nostalgic about ex-flames, though she knew enough long immortal Shifters to understand.

  Daisy glanced at the door, then back at Marci. “You wouldn’t happen to have a bike I could borrow? So I can pedal into town?” She held up the pass. She’d stop at the train station and buy a ticket while she was at it. A little two-wheeled exercise never hurt anyone, and Wisconsin Dells wasn’t that big or far away.

  A wicked, naughty grin appeared on Marci’s face. “Oh, I have something much better.” She dug in the drawer again and pulled out a rabbit’s foot connected to a ring and a chain.

  And a key clearly designed for a moto
rcycle.

  The cycle was smaller than the one Daisy had learned on in Branson. Dirtier too, but it purred like a lion cub and got the job done.

  The helmet was more Motocross than street, but it fit well. Her red hoodie would have to do, but the town wasn’t far away; plus, she’d be on a slower road, and the morning was already warm. Town beckoned, as did a day of rides and waterslides.

  Daisy pulled the bike onto the two-lane road leading out of the state park and toward the loud and energetic world of Dells tourism.

  There were other Shifters here. Small, local tourist hubs often drew in clans. Enthralling visitors into leaving heavy tips made places like Wisconsin Dells, and her father’s entertainment complex in Branson, and at least twenty other locations she knew about across North America, perfect for Shifter employment.

  Maybe she’d meet a few. Maybe not. Either way, she’d remember to buy herself that t-shirt.

  Daisy buzzed down the little road. The wind whistled around the helmet, and the bike bounced along the pavement. The road wasn’t in bad shape, but a motorcycle took bumps worse than a car, and she found herself lifting off the seat more than she expected.

  The road twisted. Daisy slowed and adjusted her core to the bike’s rhythm and natural center of gravity. Even with the bumps, the bike handled well.

  Sun burst through the trees and splattered pools of glare onto the road—shadow then brightness, then shadow again—but the summer warmth made up for the squinting.

  She was free to enjoy the day.

  Free.

  The road twisted again. Daisy leaned into the curve.

  Freedom had as many meanings as snow. Sometimes it fell gently from the sky. Sometimes you could build igloos and snowmen and flap your arms and legs in it until the landscape filled with angels.

  Sometimes, it came screaming in as a wall of white and the next thing you knew, you’d lost three toes to frostbite.

  Or you simply died.

  Brad’s abandonment wasn’t a blizzard. She wasn’t so self-absorbed and self-serving that she believed her minor trauma at the hands of a douchebag was anything more than a little bump of ice in the road of her life. But it still jolted.

  The real road under the motorcycle curved yet again, and yet again, Daisy leaned into the real summer world outside her own thoughts. Animals filled the woods even with all the humans around. Nature and commerce intertwined and the land seemed to have a balance she hadn’t fully realized until she got onto the back of the bike.

  Perhaps she should follow suit. Perhaps Brad was nothing more than a slight chance of fog and she should ride on through into the warm sunshine to the other side.

  Daisy revved the bike around a sandstone outcropping.

  A road sign came into view—not a big one, though the billboard did have lights. Just a smallish, yellow-and-white, hand-painted sign declaring “Auto Repair” a quarter mile up the road.

  The sun hit the sign, and the glare hit her eyes—just as raccoon and the hot, metallic tang of fresh blood hit her bloodhound nose as if someone had slapped a bleeding palm over her face.

  Daisy coughed, then gagged, and her hand jerked.

  The bike’s front wheel leaned too far to the left. The back hit one of the road’s many bumps. Gravel smacked against her helmet. Another rock bit into her arm. The world swayed.

  The bike dropped onto its side.

  Up turned sideways, and down rose to smack into Daisy’s hip and shoulder. She hit the pavement hard—as did the bike. The engine revved, then coughed, and the stink of gasoline overrode blood and her own fear.

  Daisy rolled. The helmet slammed the pavement and her world went dark, then it slammed again and the sky appeared. Dark, then brightness, then dark once more—and the clean freshness of grass. Damp soil. Minty lavender rising from deep green, scallop-shaped ivy. Larger, smoother rocks under her belly and hands. Soil.

  She’d rolled face-down into a ditch.

  The helmet suddenly constricted around her head. The padding pressed on her ears like the rocks under her belly pressed on her gut. The visor cut off her air.

  “Off off off!” Daisy tossed the helmet. It bounced once, then rolled down the shallow slope into a puddle.

  Minty lavender hit her nose again. Small, delicate, purple flowers rubbed against her cheeks. She’d crashed a borrowed motorcycle and landed in a patch of creeping Charlie ground ivy.

  Daisy flopped over onto her back.

  The warm Wisconsin sun reflected off the sign and danced over her face. The green and purple of the ground flickered over to the printed, flat, white and yellow promise of “repair.”

  “Promises, promises,” she groaned. Air left her lungs. Ache took its place.

  Shit, she thought. Damn it. The adrenaline anesthetization dripped away from her nerves and her skin and her jostled brain, and left behind her body’s screams.

  She was a Shifter healer. An animal healer, but like every healer no matter how weak or strong, her body instinctively righted itself. The bruise on her arm faded. The jolt to her hip re-aligned. Her brain immediately healed all damage from being jostled by the fall and the roll.

  But it still freakin’ hurt.

  A lot. Spikes of heat stabbed her spine. A boiling ache meant one of her major abdominal organs wasn’t happy.

  Breathing through it was her only choice. Not like anyone was around to help.

  And she still smelled blood. Not hers. Just a trace under the gasoline and her trauma. An animal’s.

  Daisy coughed. Just how much damage could her body tolerate? This wasn’t so bad. No poison. No knives. No evil Fates looking to slowly murder her.

  Maybe if she closed her eyes for a moment, her healer would finish its work and she’d be able to sit up.

  Or not. The creeping Charlie really did smell nice. Why did people think of it as a weed? Better a bed of ivy than a coffin full of nettles.

  She closed her eyes. When she woke up, she’d find the bleeding animal.

  I promise, she thought, and let the sleep in.

  Four

  A shadow moved over Daisy’s face.

  She sat up faster than she meant to. Faster than she should have, considering how the world did a swirly jig around her head.

  A kid knelt in the creeping Charlie next to her side. He looked to be eight or nine—ten, tops—and a couple years out from puberty. He was tall, though, or perhaps just lean. But he already had the beginnings of an inverted triangle shape to his frame, and was probably destined to be one of those surprisingly strong thin guys—the ones who looked unassuming but could scale the sides of buildings or carry couches by themselves.

  She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes. The sun hit the billboard and the glare made them both squint, but his eyes looked rich and dark, like royal violet, or a velveteen chocolate brown. His hair matched—maybe black with blue undertones, or maybe brown with violet. In the reflection of the billboard, she couldn’t tell.

  His skin was both warm and pale at the same time, much like her own, with strong olive undertones, and his face matched the sculpted, chiseled sharpness of his hair.

  The kid stared even though he squinted. He held his chin low and his jaw tight, and radiated an all-seeing vibe that made her wonder if he read not only her injuries, but her mind and her soul.

  Fate, she thought. But he was too young to be active. Like Shifters, Fates rarely activated their children before they were mentally mature enough to deal with their gifts, which usually meant late teens or early twenties.

  And like the three morpher, enthraller, and healer flavors of Shifters, Fates also came in threes: past-, present-, and future-seers. They activated in triads, with each Fate taking up one of the abilities. They needed a talisman—something metal that represented a context. It focused their seeing. Daisy didn’t quite understand it, but she knew that if you asked the same question of three different triads, you’d get three completely different sets of answers, depending on whether their contexts were love, or ha
te, or war.

  Whether the kid staring at her would one day frame his life as love or hate, or if his destiny was to stop a war, she did not know.

  Nor did she feel a seer. One of the bonuses of being a Shifter was a sixth—or seventh, or eighth—sense of who was nearby. Fates, other Shifters, the world’s two dragons, it didn’t matter. Only a few particularly powerful individuals—Prime Fates and class-one Shifters—could hide in plain sight from other paranormals, but such individuals were few and far between. And dangerous.

  This kid, for all his physical presence, was much too young to have both the power and the training to hide his gift. Even unactivated, it still pulsed off him in waves.

  Which meant that she was likely in the presence of a young man who would one day become a powerful Prime.

  The last Prime Fate to notice her… took advantage.

  Daisy pushed away her thoughts of Primes and Fates. That part of her life was done, and she’d moved on before she left Branson for her undergraduate studies. And this sweet-if-intense kid was not the Fate who had caused her harm.

  The kid touched her arm. “Do you still hurt?” He pointed over her shoulder. “Your motorcycle is damaged. You fell, yes?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I fell.” She patted at her belly and back. No pain. No sprains. Her healer must have finished the job while she was unconscious.

  She looked up at the sky. The sun hadn’t moved much. She hadn’t been out very long. Thankfully.

  The boy straightened his back, lifted one knee, and stiffly pushed himself to standing. He stood over her, blinked once, then pointed his finger at the billboard. “Will you help, please?”

  The animal blood she’d smelled earlier still hung in the air. “Is there a hurt critter nearby?”

  The kid blinked, but didn’t respond. He tilted his head as if listening to someone or something she could not hear. Then he blinked again.

  Daisy’s nose picked up… something. A calling scent, perhaps. Or maybe a natural pheromone. Whatever it was, it vanished as quickly as it appeared.