Magic Awakened: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set

by K.N. Lee

  "You could say that again," I said. "But don't bother. Saying it again, that is."

  She shifted, her body language achingly awkward. "Is your boyfriend here?"

  I thumbed over my shoulder absently. "He's in his stone form so good luck trying to seduce him."

  She laughed uneasily. I heard her shuffle up to the counter. I glanced up surreptitiously to see her fiddle with something at her waist. The belt again. She brought her hand up to her mouth and feigned a cough, but I noticed she had one finger extended to her lips, just like last time.

  In the semi-gloom of Moonlight it was easier to see the shimmer this time as it billowed over Vale's statue. Every muscle in my body tensed, but I forced myself not to move. I'd made a plan. I had to trust that it would work. I hastily looked back at my phone when she lowered her hand.

  "Well, I just stopped by to apologize for my behavior last night," she told me. "I may have had one too many margaritas."

  "That or you're a spineless witch." I finally raised my head to look at her. "The only reason my dragon hasn't bitten your legs off is because I believe your heart was in the right place. You saw a threat; you thought to eliminate it. But I'm warning you now: if you try anything with my boyfriend again or with anyone I've spoken to in my entire life, I will find you and I will burn you to a crisp, you got that?"

  She paled. "I didn't—"

  "Don’t insult my intelligence."

  She swallowed but then tilted her chin up, which I sort of admired. "I made a mistake, Anne. I'm sorry. I give you my word and that of my coven that I won't harm you or yours. We want you in good health."

  "I'll hold you to that." I picked up my phone again and thumbed through a bunch of tweets. "I think you should leave now."

  She exited so quickly I felt a breeze on my face from her passing. Once the door had closed behind her, I set my phone aside and studied the gargoyle statue while butterflies danced in my stomach.

  "Did I do the right thing? Or did I make things worse?"

  Vale's statue had no reply for me, though I thought I saw its topaz eyes flare with light.

  I kept Moonlight closed for business, locking the door to make sure people got the message. At sunset, I stood and watched the gargoyle statue transform into my boyfriend.

  "Hey, sexy," I said tentatively. I held out a set of clothes for him.

  I half-expected him to slap the clothes out of my hands and tackle me to the floor. He was already naked so the battle was half-won if immediate sex was his intention. But to my tremendous relief, he accepted the clothes and pulled them on.

  "Something's different," he murmured. He stood for a moment, silent and still, as though taking measure of himself. "The anxiousness I felt previously. It's gone."

  "Oh, thank god," I groaned, collapsing partway over the counter. I turned my head to look up at him. "I wasn't sure it would work, and if it didn't I was going to have to enroll you in Sexaholics Anonymous."

  He scowled. "That's not funny."

  "Neither was your gigolo libido!"

  He crossed his arms and leaned a hip against the counter. "Moody, what did you do?"

  I straightened with a proud grin. "I didn't use my sorcery on her! I could have. I really wanted to, but I didn't. Just like I promised." I crossed my arms to mimic him. "Told you I'm in control."

  "But what did you do if you didn't use your dragon?"

  With a laugh, I reached behind the counter and snagged the newspaper that had been floating there for most of the day. I flashed it at him.

  "I thought you hate that paper," he said, frowning.

  "I do. But it has its uses. Check out the top story."

  He took the copy of The Magickal Meddler from me and studied the front page. His eyebrows climbed up his forehead. "'Anne Moody Is Our Only Hope Against the Asteroid'?" he read aloud, his tone incredulous. "Moody, what the hell is this?"

  I shrugged, all innocence. "So maybe I convinced the editor that it was in his best interests to run a pro-Anne Moody piece for once. And maybe we mutually agreed that it should be something super awesome and heroic."

  "Mutually agreed," he echoed. "I highly doubt that."

  "I may have supplied the headline but who cares? That strawberry witch sang a different tune after learning I'm going to save her scrawny butt from instant annihilation. It's why she removed the hex. She wouldn't stand to get a lot of dates if everyone learned that she'd contrived to murder the only person who can stop this approaching asteroid."

  "There's no asteroid."

  "Probably because I already destroyed it," I said slyly.

  He shook his head again, looked at the photo—which I had helpfully provided and which may or may not have caught me on my good side and which may or may not have utilized some amazing filters—and then he smirked. He tossed the paper aside and dragged me against him.

  "You're always impressing me, Moody," he said as he gazed at me fondly. "How did I get so lucky?"

  "Your butt may have had something to do with it, just saying."

  His gaze darkened handsomely. "Then it's yours to do with as you please."

  I grinned and then I groped him. Sometimes it paid off to be a badass.

  Endless Winter

  J.A. Armitage

  Chapter 1

  Anais had awoken after a night of such delicious dreams that she kept her eyes closed so as to savour the last remnants of dream and to put off the real world for just a few seconds more. A smile played on her lips as she opened her eyes, remembering that it was Sunday, her favourite day of the week, and that she could go straight back to sleep if she wanted.

  She turned to look at her digital alarm clock, for even though she could theoretically sleep all day, she didn’t want to waste the whole day in bed, and she especially didn’t want to miss Winnie’s famous Sunday Breakfast. The alarm clock was invisible through the darkness and its usually luminous orange readout was now as black as the rest of the room.

  Anais assumed that there must have been a power cut as the whole bedroom was a lot darker than it usually was. The power cut had extended to the outside lights as well. The streetlamp just outside her window was not throwing its usual glow across the room. Being late November meant that it was likely to be dark well into the morning which left Anais no clue as to the correct time.

  This morning, though, Anais had such a wonderful feeling, a feeling of potential and warmth in her belly that she supposed it must be quite late in the morning and she’d slept well through the night. After a quick sniff to ascertain if breakfast was being cooked yet, Anais decided to stay in bed after all and try to get back into that wonderful dream she’d been having about a gorgeous prince with white blonde hair. Yawning, she stretched her arm out, plunging it into the total blackness of the room. Her hand brushed the wall next to her bed which was when Anais realised that something was wrong.

  Her bed was in the middle of the room and the only wall it touched was against the headboard. She had at least three feet on each side of the bed until the pink floweriness of her walls. Unease started to build as she tried to rationalise her hand touching wall.

  Perhaps she had just brushed against something on her bedside cabinet, but the angle was wrong and besides, all she had on her bedside cabinet was a book and a hairbrush, nothing that could have been mistaken for a wall. She opened her eyes for a second time, but it was so dark she couldn’t see anything through the blackness. She put her arm out again, and what she felt was definitely a wall. What’s more, it wasn’t her wall. Her bedroom at Winnie’s had beautiful printed wallpaper of flowers and birds. It was old-fashioned wallpaper, but it was flat. This wallpaper was patterned, but she could feel the pattern rather than see it, some kind of swirl.

  She briefly wondered if she had fallen back into her old ways of going to bars, getting drunk and waking up the next morning goodness knows where and with a vile hangover though it certainly didn’t feel that way. There was no hangover, no pounding alcohol-induced headache or feelings of bot
h nausea and guilt. In fact, despite the rising panic, there was still the underlying wonderfulness that her dreams had brought and the smile that she realised was still on her lips.

  She dropped the smile and felt the bed next to her to confirm what she already knew. The bed was a single bed which sealed the fact that she was not in her own double divan. She thought back to the previous night to try to find reason in why she would not be in her own bed in her own room, but last night had been the same as it always was.

  Leaving Winnie watching her soaps as usual, she’d taken her milk up to bed where she had read a few chapters of the novel she was currently reading before falling asleep. It had been a very normal evening, boring even, as she couldn’t stand the soaps and couldn’t think of anything to do, so had taken herself to bed earlier than usual in the hope she would finish the book she had been reading.

  As her panic increased, her heart rate elevated and her breathing became sharper. The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle uncomfortably and without thinking she raised her hand to her neck as a small gesture of comfort and to quell her rising anxiety. Any hope that she’d somehow been mistaken was lost when she got out of the bed. Her feet felt plush carpet beneath them, warm, unlike the polished floorboards she was used to. The long fibres, velvety soft between her toes, left her in no doubt of being in an unfamiliar room.

  Leaving the bed and following the wall anti-clockwise, her fingers traced the same raised swirls around the room as she took in its dimensions. The room was about twelve feet in length and breadth, and apart from the bed, was devoid of furniture. She felt her way along the wall slowly until the third wall where she hit a doorframe, and then a door. She quickly felt for a handle, but there wasn’t one. Moving her hands all over the door in the hope that the handle was just in a strange position, either at the top or the bottom or even in the middle, was to no avail. It was as empty as the rest of the room, just the flat expanse of the thick wood door. The only evidence that a handle had once been there was a small hole where it had been removed. She bent down to peek out, but the handle was still on at the other side and so the hole was blocked. Poking her finger through to dislodge the other side of the handle resulted in a broken fingernail, but the handle itself steadfastly remained in place.

  Her breathing became more ragged as she fought the rising panic. Taking a few deep breaths, she managed to slow it down to a more manageable state. Putting her ear to the door, she listened out for some kind of sound, but all she could hear was the sound of her own breathing. The darkness closed in on her as she stood by the locked door, giving her an unfamiliar feeling of claustrophobia. The walls seemed to be moving in on her, crushing her lungs, disrupting her ability to breathe. She once again steadied her breathing and tried to shake the feeling of intense fear that enveloped her.

  She tentatively raised her hand and gently knocked on the door.

  “Hello,” she whispered softly before realising how ridiculous and ineffective this was.

  She was in a strange room, with no idea how she had got there and no way out, and she was tapping on a door as if embarrassed to disturb someone on the other side. It was this stupid, totally wrong feeling inside her that was making her into an idiot. Panic was there alright, but despite that, she still couldn’t shake the happiness, the total joy she had woken up with. She still had a warm feeling that something good was going to happen.

  The thought occurred to her that she had somehow been drugged. It would explain how she had been removed from her bed without her waking up. The inexplicable feelings of joy were a mystery to her, though. She’d never heard of a drug that knocked you out and then made you feel wonderful hours later. She almost gave a giggle and then chided herself. Whatever the drugs were that had knocked her out were now making her feel giddy. The fear she was feeling, combined with the effects from the drugs, produced a curious combination of emotions which swirled through Anais.

  Intellectually, she knew that she was in a desperate situation, but despite that, her heart was beating like it was full of the joys of spring.

  The fear of the situation in which she found herself was fighting the warm, happy feeling inside her for dominance.

  “It’s the drugs, it’s the drugs,” she breathed to herself.

  She realised that while it was nice that she was feeling a lot calmer than she should, it would impede her chances of escape.

  She needed her faculties about her now more than ever. She needed to be sharp and stay focused. A little bit of fear was not necessarily a bad thing.

  After taking a few more deep breaths, she dropped the whispering and started to shout at the closed door.

  “Let me out, Can you hear me?” She let her head rule her heart and screamed and shouted for all she was worth.

  She let forth a string of expletives which, had she been at home, would have made Winnie faint.

  ‘Potty mouth,’ Winnie had called anyone who had so much as uttered a swear word. She abhorred anyone who “Was too lazy to speak the Queen’s English,” and if she was ever really angry or stubbed her toe, the worst you would get out of her was “pish” or “darn” or “sugar.”

  Thinking of Winnie finally made Anais cry. Her fear dissolved into sadness as she realised that Winnie would be going into her room this morning to find an empty bed. Dear sweet old Winnie wouldn’t be able to cope with losing her. She was just a sweet old lady who knew everything there was to know about books and baking but was woefully naive about dealing with the real world. Anais didn’t think that Winnie would know what to do when she found that Anais was gone. Would she think Anais had run away, or would she know the truth? Surely, Winnie knew her well enough to know that she would never leave in the middle of the night without an explanation.

  Anais finally gave in and cried until her tears ran dry. The fear for Winnie overshadowed the fear for herself. The sadness she felt for her only friend finally drove out the last remnants of happiness and the effects of the drugs at long last wore off, along with the kaleidoscope of emotions they had induced. Anais was spent, empty. She slumped on the floor and wondered what the hell she was supposed to do now.

  Winnie had taken Anais into her home about six months previously and in many ways saved her life. She’d certainly changed her life at the very least.

  Anais was born and had grown up in Los Angeles to British parents. Her father, Alistair was a world-renowned expert on rare books and ancient manuscripts. Having taught history and literature at UCLA, he shared his love of the written word with his only daughter. Sarah, Anais’ mother, worked on the set of a celebrity-driven chat show doing the makeup of the screen gods and goddesses of the moment. All three were happy with their lives, but both Alistair and Sarah missed their home.

  A year ago they had decided to move back to York with Anais and had sold everything to set up a new life in England. They hadn’t even been back six weeks when a drunk driver had driven off the road straight into the couple, killing Sarah and Alistair instantly. Anais had been at home, filling in college applications, when she got a visit from a policeman. She was three days shy of her eighteenth birthday.

  Newly orphaned in a foreign country with no money and friends who were over 5,000 miles away, Anais had very quickly spiralled out of control. Despite her parents being relatively well off, their money was all tied up in various trusts. Anais was looking at being quite a wealthy young lady, but various legal issues had to be addressed before she’d get a penny. The little money she did have went for six month’s rent on the house her parents had rented and the rest went on cheap alcohol in even cheaper bars. When the lease on the house was up, she had slept on the sofas of people she barely knew. She had hit rock bottom when by chance she walked into Winnie’s Rare and Antique Book Emporium. It was down a street she had never been on before, and she didn’t know what it was that had made her go in. She supposed it was because it reminded her so much of her historian father, who had loved old books second only to his wife and daughter. Insi
de she had met Winnie. Wonderful Winnie, who recognised a kindred spirit in Anais and shared her love of books, a trait she had picked up from her father.

  They had chatted all afternoon and Winnie had made tea and sandwiches which they had shared. By the time the shop closed, Winnie had offered Anais both a bed and a job. Winnie had told her that she had been desperate to find a shop assistant who knew enough about rare books and she really needed to rent her spare room out. It was serendipitous that Anais had come into her life at just the right time for both of them.

  Anais had first thought Winnie was crazy letting a stranger into her house (which was the second and third floors above the shop) but she soon realised she was just a lonely old lady who needed the company much more than she really needed a shop assistant. That had been six months ago. She’d been sober ever since.

  Chapter 2

  Anais decided to stop feeling sorry for herself and devise a plan to get out of the room. She had to get back to Winnie, who was probably out of her mind with worry by now. Thinking of Winnie made her think back to the previous night again. She couldn’t figure out how she had been drugged. She’d only eaten dinner as usual and there was no opportunity for anyone to slip in and drug her food. She pushed that particular conundrum to the back of her mind to solve later and turned her attention to the more pressing matter of escape.

  If there were a way out of the room, she would find it. Highly intelligent, she thrived on puzzles of any kind. At school, she was a self-confessed ‘nerd,’ spurning the cheerleading club that all her friends attended; she instead joined the chess club, much to the joy of the young men who also took part. She was actually chess champion for three of the years she was there. Her father had started her on the New York Times crossword at age eight. By the time she was ten, she could complete them all by herself.