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

by CK Dawn

  I crouched there and waited for the change to take place. My bones crackled as they shifted and rearranged. My fangs extended all the way to their full size before contracting and tucking neatly back in place. Strength returned to me, and my wounds healed at lightning speed. When I stood, I was myself.

  And I was not alone.

  “So?” Oscar folded his arms across his chest. “Did you get the ensorced stake?”

  I got a lot of stakes. Whether or not one of them was the ensorced stake remained to be seen. Come to think about it, no one had mentioned what the stake was supposed to look like.

  “Where is Celtric?” Blake asked.

  I was about to retort how the hell would I know where Celtric was when I thought about something. The amber-haired man looked out of this world even among vampires. But before I could ask him what Celtric looked like, an alarm went off behind me.

  The iron bars of the academy gate lit up brighter than ever. In the center of the gate was the stranger who could only be Celtric. My skin twitched as I watched him sizzle and burn. The gorgeous man turned into a red pulp right in front of me. I swore my heart clutched like it forgot it was supposed to be dead. The second lasted a lifetime, and I thought he was going to disintegrate into a pile of ashes, but then he leaped through.

  Blake rushed to his side and slammed a hunter on his trail onto the gate. Symphony smacked another in the head. More hunters poured out of the gate, and I couldn’t resist kicking my earlier attackers until their bones cracked and their blood spilled.

  Celtric’s transformation was almost magical. The red skin peeled and shed, replaced by a new layer. The swelling went down, restoring his model figure and breathtaking face. I was glad his clothing didn’t burn in the gate fire. I was standing directly beside him, and it would’ve been awkward for both of us if it had.

  Celtric turned to face the academy in full glory. As if on a cue, Blake, Symphony, and Oscar stood alongside him. They faced Hunter Academy like a line of attackers, and I couldn’t help stepping forward to complete the group.

  “Izella, did we get what we wanted from Hunter Academy?” Celtric asked without turning to me.

  Ummm. “I think so,” I finally replied.

  “What do you mean by you think so?” Oscar snapped.

  “It means just that,” I said. “If you tell me what the ensorced stake looks like, I’ll tell you if I have it or not.” All this time, I couldn’t believe no one showed me a picture of the ensorced stake, and I couldn’t believe I didn’t think to ask for one.

  “Izella, we don’t know what it looks like either.” Blake turned his smiling face to me. “We only found out it’s at Hunter Academy recently.”

  Great!

  “Izella, give back what you took from the academy.” Brydon burst through the crowd to the front. He would’ve run straight to me if an instructor hunter hadn’t pulled him back.

  “Very well,” Celtric said to me as if no one had interrupted us. “We’ll sort out the stake issue later.” He turned to go.

  “Not so fast.” Tessa pivoted herself right in front of him, her weapon drawn and her scowl in place. She leaped at Celtric with the grace of a cat.

  He didn’t blink or react to her in any way. Before her stake could touch him, he was miles away. We got the cue and followed him. Outside the academy gate, we descendants were unstoppable. No matter how the hunters chased us, they just couldn’t keep up, not with their human speed and not with their cars.

  Seventeen

  Izella

  We gathered at my mansion once again. This time, no one was missing. I threw the makeshift sack onto the coffee table, and stakes spilled all over.

  Celtric picked one up and turned it around and around before tossing it to the floor. “Not this,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you had the guts to go through reversification.” Oscar sank into the couch with both arms stretched across its back. “Did you realize what would happen if Celtric hadn’t rescued you?”

  The word rescued stung. “Reversification was better than the possibility of burning to death at the academy gate,” I said. “The one with guts is Celtric.”

  Celtric took a stake from the table and ran a finger down its length. “I can use magic. The gate wouldn’t kill me. It would just cause some discomfort.”

  That was an understatement of the century. I still didn’t like his tardiness, his confidence, and the way he spoke. No one ever said it, but he assumed the role of our leader, as if his decision was everyone’s decision and everything he said was to be carried out without question. But then, he did just save my life. I owed him more than I could repay.

  “Not this.” Celtric tossed another stake to the floor. “And not this.”

  He took the last stake on the table and stared at it for an extra long time. “And not this.” The stake fell from his hand and dropped to the floor in a clatter. “None of these is the ensorced stake.”

  “How do you know?” I thought we didn’t know what the ensorced stake looked like.

  “The ensorced stake is supposed to be enchanted. None of these are magical,” Celtric said.

  I wanted to point out Celtric was a vampire, not a mage, but he did say he could use magic, which was atypical of vampires.

  I stared at the stakes scattered over the floor. To think I’d gone through reversification and infiltrated Hunter Academy for this pile of wood! Oscar was already giving me the snickers. I could almost read his mind. If I had stayed with the group and done what I was told, I wouldn’t have suffered for nothing. I was too proud, and it was all my fault.

  “What is this?” Celtric picked up the only thing left on the fabric: a hardcover book I hadn’t had time to examine.

  That was Jayson’s book. I plucked the book from Celtric’s hand. I was the one who found it, and I should be the one who opened it first.

  It was a notebook of spells, skills, and general knowledge. I’d never seen Jayson write, so I didn’t know what his handwriting looked like, but a sixth sense told me this was his writing. The first several pages were the unpracticed writing of a child about the definition of vampires, what they feed on, and what they fear. As I flicked through the pages, the child grew. The handwriting became mature and took a strong, distinctive form.

  Julia.

  My name jumped out at me. He’d written about me?

  I was dying to read it, but not in front of Celtric and the others, so I snapped the book closed and slid it under my arm. “This belonged to me.”

  “You brought a book to Hunter Academy?” Oscar said, incredulous.

  “It contained my notes.”

  “About what?”

  “Hunter Academy, reversification, and my diary,” I said.

  He looked at me with his eyebrows arched. I didn’t care if he believed me or not.

  “If there is nothing else, I will retire,” I said to them and headed for the stairs.

  The pile of stakes didn’t contain the one we were looking for. It meant we had to go back to Hunter Academy. That would have to be another night. Today, I didn’t want to hear plans on how to go back.

  “Wait!” Celtric called out.

  I turned to him.

  “There is something stuck in your book.” He strolled over and pulled a stick out of the spine.

  The dark stick was as long as the book and thinner than my finger. Fancy engravings carved down the length to a sharp point, and I thought it glowed when it caught the light from the chandelier.

  Celtric narrowed his eyes on the stick, examining it inch by inch. He took so long that I shifted in my feet.

  “You could have it,” I finally said. The stick must be a bookmark of some sort. Why else would Jayson tuck it inside a book? I’d decided to let him go. I didn’t want to keep his possessions. After I finished reading the part of his book that involved me, I’d burn the book into ashes.

  If Celtric heard me, he gave no indication.

  Fine! Ignore me then.

  I was
about to stomp up the stairs when I caught the smile on his lips. “Izella, this might be it.”

  “What?” I couldn’t keep the irritation from my tone. He didn’t get to ignore me one minute and expect me to forgive him the next.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled. “I sense ancient magic locked in this stake.”

  I hated to admit it, but I couldn’t tear my gaze off him.

  “This is a stake?” It looked more like a stick to me.

  “This could be what we were looking for.” He opened his eyes and flipped the stick. It somersaulted in the air a couple turns before he snatched it in his fist in a single smooth motion.

  Show-off!

  “Could be?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “I’ll know for sure after I consult with my sire,” he said. “Thank you, Izella. You did well.”

  A glow warmed up my insides. No matter how hard I tried to suppress it, his compliment brought a smug smile to my lips. But when he turned to the rest of the group, I realized something. He didn’t give me back my stick.

  “I could consult with my sire about it.” I held out an outstretched hand to him. I’d dripped blood and sweat to take this out of Hunter Academy for my sire. He should be the one to decide what to do with it.

  “Izella.” Blake’s eyes disappeared deeper into his smile. “Celtric is the only one here who can perform magic. If anyone can figure out the stake, it’s him.”

  I frowned. What he said made sense, but not all the Originals were best friends with each other. They might agree to have their descendants work together to retrieve the ensorced stake, but who got the stake mattered. As the vampire who brought the stake out of Hunter Academy, I had the most right to it. But then, if not for Celtric, I wouldn’t have made it out of the academy alive, much less with the stake.

  I glanced at Oscar, the only other descendant sharing a sire with me. He hesitated for a moment and gave me a discreet nod.

  “Fine,” I said. “Do what you need to do with it.” I waved at the stick. “Close the door when you leave.”

  Celtric smiled at me before lowering his head to talk with Blake. I ascended the steps to the master bedroom with the heavy book in my hand.

  When I was finally alone, I sank onto my bed and opened the book. It was a leather-bound hardcover yellowed with age. The pages crackled when turned, and the ink had faded in some parts.

  Like I thought, the book was a combination of notebook and a diary. Jayson was an orphan raised by a vampire hunter and a mage. Since he was a child, they had taught him to fight. As he grew, the personal entries were less and farther in between, replaced by spells and notes. There was even a map tucked inside one of the pages. I skimmed through all of it until I found my name.

  ‘Everyone in the village died. Only one girl survived.

  ‘Julia.

  ‘She wasn’t truly alive. I sensed an Original’s blood in her. My mission tonight was to end this descendant and bury her with her parents where she belonged.

  ‘The task was easy. The girl hadn’t learned to use her strength and power, but when I raised my stake, I couldn’t drive it into her heart.

  ‘Her eyes were too clear, unclouded by evil. Her hands were too clean, unsoiled by blood. She was a girl who’d lost all her family and friends, not a vampire hungry for blood. She was an orphan, like me.

  ‘I’d asked my instructors if all vampires were evil. Their answer was affirmative. Vampires fed on blood. It was their means of existence. Yet this girl was still innocent, so she didn’t deserve to die. Not today.’

  The entry ended there. Then there were more pages of spells, notes, and records, until I saw my name again.

  ‘Vampires called her Izella, but I recognized her right away. She was that girl in the village, Julia, but she was no longer weak. I should hunt her down and fix my mistake of letting her go, but when I looked at her, I only saw the innocent girl from a year ago, and so I chased another vampire instead.’

  I blinked. I didn’t remember meeting him one year after I turned. Maybe he’d seen me without my noticing.

  ‘Izella Pristin convinced a vampire hunter to give up his life mission. Izella Pristin fed on the hunter guild members. Izella Pristin helped a group of vampires escape.

  ‘Her news reached me like snowflakes. Today, I received another request for her head. I could no longer avoid her.’

  My fingers ran down the page, reading and rereading every word, trying to determine the meaning between the lines. He was avoiding me. Why was he avoiding me?

  ‘What was wrong with me? She was right in front of me, but I couldn’t kill her.’

  I flipped through the pages to look for another entry about me, but there were no more. Everything else from that point on was notes of one sort or another. When I came to the end of his writing and turned all the remaining empty pages, I lowered the book to my lap.

  He said he couldn’t kill me, but two hundred years ago, he was stronger than me. Was it he couldn’t or he hadn’t wanted to?

  Jayson had died a long time ago. I would never get my answer, but perhaps I was not just another vampire he’d had to hunt. A heaviness lifted from my chest at the same time as loss filled it. Two centuries’ worth of obsession exhaled out in a single breath. I could never forget Jayson, but it was time to move on. I caressed the book and slowly closed its pages.

  A week later, Oscar told me Celtric had confirmed that the stick was the ensorced stake. Our mission was complete. We didn’t need to go back to Hunter Academy.

  The other descendants left my mansion. I ordered another coffin to replace my broken one and scheduled cleaning services to scrub my house.

  As I ran my finger down the length of the black tinted coffin, I felt no desire to lie back in. It was time to see what this world had become.

  * * *

  The End

  To learn more about Kassandra’s books, go to

  www.kassandralynn.com

  Join Kassandra’s newsletter to receive notifications of book releases and special offers.

  www.kassandralynn.com/email-list

  About the Author

  Kassandra Lynn tells herself a bedtime story every night. When the plot gets too complicated and the cast overwhelming, she has to write them down into books that she hopes you will enjoy.

  Rebel Dragon

  Steve Turnbull

  Rebel Dragon © 2017 Steve Turnbull

  * * *

  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.

  Rebel Dragon

  What value is freedom when you can't even ride a dragon?

  As the life of a slave goes, KANTEES doesn't have it too bad. Being responsible for a racing dragon means her existence is more than just drudgery and fear, even if her life is at the whim of her masters and their rules.

  But when her dragon wakes her in the middle of the night KANTEES is forced to make a life-or-death decision that breaks her masters' rules and means her life is forfeit.

  Escaping on the back of dragons, with a hodge-podge of unwelcome associates, she attempts to put right a wrong that can never be corrected. Until, ultimately, she must put her own life on the line to keep the freedom she has stolen for herself.

  One

  The floorbo
ards trembled beneath her and she came awake with a jump.

  The air in the eyrie was cold against her skin, and the light of the smaller moon, Colimar, shone slightly red through the arched window in the tower’s stone wall. It was still deepest night.

  Must have been a dream, thought Kantees, as she re-adjusted the thin blanket and tried to burrow deeper into the pricking straw. The boards beneath her shifted again and there was a quiet grumble. Oh, by the Mother’s milk. What now? Stupid animal.

  She contemplated doing nothing, pretending not to wake up. Maybe Sheesha would lose interest and go back to sleep. The boards jumped again and Kantees groaned.

  “Go back to sleep, Sheesha, it’s not even close to morning,” she hissed through the cracks. There was nothing to see since the gaps were smaller than her finger-width and there was no light down there anyway. Her reward was to have the boards tapped three times. Sheesha must be stretching high.

  While Sheesha might be an animal, he was cleverer than most, than even those of his own species. But that didn’t stop him behaving like a spoilt child, like little Jelamie, the mistress’s youngest. He was always getting into things and places he shouldn’t.

  Sheesha snuffled at her. The noise he made when he wanted something. Perhaps he’d spilt his water again. He was forever doing that with his tail; it was like he didn’t even know he had it.

  Maybe it was important. What if Sheesha was ill? If there was a problem with her charge and Kantees ignored it, there’d be trouble.