by C. R. Jane
Seduced by Myths
A Mythical Paranormal and Fantasy Anthology
C.R. Jane
Mila Young
Eva Chase
Joely Sue Burkhart
Helen Scott
Erin Bedford
Yumoyori Wilson
Elle Cross
Table of Contents
Follow Me Into The Dark
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Preface
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
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Other Books by C.R. Jane
Hades’ Goddess
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Author’s Note
About Mila Young
Books By Mila Young
Wicked Heat Series
Beautiful Beasts Academy Series
Raven's Fall
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
About Eva Chase
Mythomorphoses
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
About Joely Sue Burkhart
Cupid’s Kiss
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Other Work
About Helen Scott
Acknowledgments
Copyright
Valhalla Bound
About the Book
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
Indebted to the Vampires
Chasing Rabbits
Marked By Hell
Until Midnight
About Erin Bedford
Come chat me up!
Luna
Prologue: The Land Of Luminus
1. The Ritual Of Luminus
2. A Taste Of Another Destiny
3. Goddess Of Eternity
4. Let's Start A Journey Together
To Be Continued.
About Yumoyori Wilson
Flame of the Phoenix
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Epilogue
About the Author
More from Elle Cross
Follow Me into the Dark by C. R. Jane
Copyright © 2019 by C. R. Jane
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review, and except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
For permissions contact:
[email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For all the girls who dared to be happy.
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Preface
We grow accustomed to the Dark -
When Light is put away -
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Good bye -
A Moment - We Uncertain step
For newness of the night -
Then - fit our Vision to the Dark -
And meet the Road - erect -
And so of larger - Darknesses -
Those Evenings of the Brain -
When not a Moon disclose a sign -
Or Star - come out - within -
The Bravest - grope a little -
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead -
But as they learn to see -
Either the Darkness alters -
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight -
And Life steps almost straight.
-Emily Dickenson, We grow accustomed to the Dark
Prologue
“No more,” he whispered to the stars as he peered out into the heavens. He was tired. The kind of tired that sat heavy in his bones and made him long for the kind of sleep that lasted forever. Not for the first time he wondered what it was about him that made it impossible for them to fall in love. As the centuries had passed by, and each tribute failed to pass the test, he became more and more convinced that the future he had been promised was a myth.
“We’ve found her,” came a voice that filled his nightmares when he was actually able to sleep. The voice of the Fates, the one who had given him this fate
“No more,” he called out into the darkness, knowing that he wouldn’t receive an answer.
She would come, like it or not. He wouldn’t have a choice.
Chapter 1
The breeze drifted around me, softly stroking the curls that had escaped from my haphazardly put together bun. I didn’t bother trying to tame them, I had learned long ago they were untamable.
I sighed, turning the page of my faded paperback. It was one of my favorites, which was good since my family’s lack of money meant that I didn’t own many others. I was at my usual spot, my favorite tree by the river that ran through the forest behind our house. It was old and moss-covered and somehow felt as comfortable as if I was leaning against a couch cushion. Plus, it had an amazing view of the river and the sound of the water rushing across the rocks helped me relax even when my books couldn’t. It was the perfect spot and one that I had been coming to since I was a little girl. Now at nineteen, it served as a source of comfort like only something that had seen you grow up could.
“Elena,” came a voice from across the river. Unlike the tree which calmed me, this voice made my heartbeat start to race and my breath begin to quicken. Dallin had always had that effect on me. I had been in love with him since he moved to our town two years ago, not that I would ever tell him that. I was firmly in the friend zone as far as Dallin was concerned. The girls fell all over him the second he appeared
, and he had enjoyed the offerings to the fullest. The fact that we lived in a small town didn’t seem to matter as Dallin had the rare gift of remaining friends with all the girls he slept with.
Friendly exes or not, I had never been comfortable with the fact that practically every girl we saw had slept with or dated Dallin. It was far safer for us to stay best friends.
“There you are,” he said with a grin, his blonde hair waving in the breeze.
“Hi,” I said lamely, admiring him as he skipped a pebble across the river.
“I’ve been looking for you all day,” he said, giving me a heartbreaking grin that stopped my breath for a moment.
“I thought you had football practice. “I asked.
“I mean after that,” he answered.
Dallin was a receiver on the junior college’s football team. He was doing so well this year though everyone thought that he would be picked up by a major college next year. I already missed him.
“So, will you go?’ Dallin was saying, and I realized that he had been talking the whole time I had been off in lala land.
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “Where are we going?” He looked annoyed for half a second which was out of character for him, but he quickly hid the look when he saw me watching him. “There’s a party at one of the guys’ apartments tomorrow. I thought maybe you would go with me.”
I grimaced internally. I hated parties. I was much more of a bookworm at 19 than a normal teenager/young adult. Plus, parties with Dallin in the past had meant watching him flirt with other girls while I stood in the corner sipping punch. I began to think of an excuse.
“We haven’t been spending a lot of time together,” he said, before I could come up with anything. “This would mean a lot to me.”
He looked so earnest standing in front of me with his baby blue eyes that I couldn’t help but give in.
“What time does it start?” I asked, and his answering grin told me that I had made the right decision.
“Pick you up at 7,” he asked, walking backwards away from me with a smirk on his pretty face.
Only when he was out of sight did I allow myself to squeal a bit. I was pretty sure that I had just moved out of the friend zone. A trickle of doubt ran over me, making me question if I was making a mistake or not considering everything I knew about Dallin. I pushed it away and ran home giddy like I was ten instead of nineteen.
The next day I was a bundle of nerves. I had hung out with Dallin hundreds of times, but my stomach was so fluttery that it may as well have been a first date. I spent the entire day agonizing over what to wear. All of my clothes were from the second hand shop, and even though I was proud of my creativity, I really wished that I could have gotten a new outfit for the occasion.
Mom came up the stairs a few hours before Dallin was set to arrive. She came in quietly and sat on my bed, holding what looked like a letter in her hand. She looked like she had just gotten bad news.
“Everything alright?” I asked hesitantly. One thing about my mother, Rosie Carmichael was always in a good mood. Despite the fact that she was a single mom, despite the fact that she had to work two jobs to put food on the table for my brother and I growing up...she always had seemed to see the glass as half full. Seeing her look so dejected was troubling.
She looked up at me as if she was seeing me for the first time even though she was sitting on the bed in my bedroom. Mother had always looked younger than her age. But right now, she looked like she had aged ten years just since I had seen her downstairs an hour ago. There were lines around her eyes and on her forehead that I could have sworn didn’t used to be there, and there was a pinched expression around her mouth that I had never seen before.
“Mom?" I asked hesitantly, all thoughts of my date that night disappearing from my head at the look on her face.
She looked up at me with a fake grin, “Yes, dear?"
“Is everything all right?”
“Everything's fine. I just received some news this morning. It’s nothing. What are you getting ready for?” she asked.
I studied her for a moment, wondering why my mother was lying to me for the time that I could remember. I decided to let it go and talk to her about it later. If I needed to know, she would tell me.
“Dallin invited me to a party tonight,” I told her with an excited grin. She knew that I had liked Dallin since he moved here and had often teased me about it. This time however, there was no teasing. Instead a flash of pain crossed her face at my pronouncement, worrying me further.
She quickly covered up her strange look and put another fake smile on. “That boy has finally come to his senses,” she said with a laugh. “I knew it would happen sooner or later.”
We spent the next hour with her helping me get ready and all thoughts of the mysterious letter and her strange attitude fluttered out of my mind.
Dallin was twenty minutes late. It shouldn't have bothered me but considering this was what I thought was our first date, I thought he would be on time.
“You look amazing,” he said with a wide-eyed grin, cutting through my annoyance. I looked down at my outfit. After too much deliberation I had finally decided on a jean skirt that I'd cut to make a little bit shorter and a black tank top. Hopefully it was fancy enough for this party. My mom came out with a camera. I was immediately embarrassed. You would think that I was 16 going to prom instead of 19. Dallin graciously took a couple of pictures, and I hurried him out the door looking backwards once over my shoulder to see my mother looking after me with a wistful expression on her face. It was as if she was trying to memorize the moment.
Instead of going directly to the party, Dallin took me to one of the local seafood places that was super popular. I had never been there before. We usually couldn't afford to eat out, and even though I had picked up a job since starting classes, I tried to give my mother as much as possible since I was living at home while I did my two years at the junior college. I was worried what would happen to her when I transferred to a university. My brother has moved out three years ago, and she would be all alone once I left.
“I've been wanting to do this for a while,” Dallin said, shaking me from my thoughts as he reached across the table to grab my hand.
I looked at him, a little smirk on my face. “Oh really, I would never have guessed that with all the other dates you've been on lately.”
He answered my smirk with his own grin. “It almost sounds like you're jealous,” he said.
I scoffed. “We know each other well enough that you don't need to give me false flattery,” I said.
Dallin looked offended at my statement...and then he looked a little worried. “I never thought you would say yes to a date,” he said. "You’re always so cool and collected around me. You had to have known that I’ve been in love with you since I moved here.”
I looked at him shocked. I tried to think about how I would act if I was in love with someone. Sleeping with every girl that I came across didn't seem like something that resembled love, but maybe I was just naïve.
Conversation was easy after his admission. Maybe it was because he was saying everything that I had dreamed he would say to me if we ever went on a date, but him admitting what I had always dreamed he felt helped put me at ease. As I ate my grilled salmon it was easy to see why every girl in town had fallen under his spell, he was just that charming. Dinner went so well that it seemed like second nature to let him hold my hand as we walked out to the car.
It was a cool night, the kind that held the threat of winter but was still trying to hold on to what had been a glorious fall. I loved this time of year, but I couldn't help the trickle of unease that went down my spine at the feeling that someone was watching me.
I surreptitiously looked around, just to make sure that I wasn't crazy. When I didn't see anything, I resolved to ignore the ominous feeling and try to enjoy the night.
Dallin had understated the type of gathering that we were going to. Instead of a “couple” of football friends
, it appeared that the entire junior college and all of their friends were at this party. Raucous laughter and screams of excitement filled the air. People yelled out Dallin’s name as we walked through the crowd, everyone checking me out to see who he was with. I wondered what they thought. I had always been confident about my looks, but Dallin had always been so much larger than life that I wondered in the moment if I looked like I fit with him. Acting at ease as always, Dallin put his arm around my waist, waving to people as we walked but never stopping to talk to anyone.
