by N. R. Larry
The Red Shoe Chronicles
A Limited Edition Steamy Fantasy Romance Collection
N. R. Larry
Margo Bond Collins
London Kingsley
Gracen Miller
J. P. Uvalle
Liz Gavin
Brea Viragh
Anya J Cosgrove
EmKay Connor
Chiquita Dennie
Allyson Lindt
Sunny Abernathy
The Red Shoe Chronicles: A Limited Edition Steamy Fantasy Romance Anthology © 2021 N. R. Larry
All individual story copyrights remain in control of the individual authors over their own works:
“Waving the White Cape” © 2021 N. R. Larry
“New Orleans Heat” © 2021 Margo Bond Collins & London Kingsley
“Love, Lust & Stilettos” © 2020 Gracen Miller
“Dangerous Desires” © 2021 J.P. Uvalle
“Sin Wears Red” © 2021 Liz Gavin
“Midnight Skies” ©2021 Brea Viragh
“Hell over Heels” © 2021 by Anya J Cosgrove
“Do You Believe in Magic” © 2021 EmKay Connor
“Red Light District” © 2020 Chiquita Dennie
“What We Need” © 2021 Allyson Lindt
“Toe to Toe” © 2020 Sunny Abernathy
Cover Design by Kris Wagner
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.
These are works 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.
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Contents
Waving the White Cape
N. R. Larry
New Orleans Heat
Margo Bond Collins & London Kingsley
Love, Lust & Stilettos
Gracen Miller
Dangerous Desires
J. P. Uvalle
Sin Wears Red
Liz Gavin
Midnight Skies
Brea Viragh
Hell over Heels
Anya J Cosgrove
Do You Believe in Magic
EmKay Connor
Red Light District
Chiquita Dennie
What We Need
Allyson Lindt
Toe To Toe
Sunny Abernanthy
Waving the White Cape
A Fantasy Romance
N. R. Larry
About Waving the White Cape
All power comes at a price. For Destiny Langston, that price is all physical pleasure.
Destiny gave everything up to be a hero, including romantic love. With a flair that requires an almost constant state of mediation, things like sex and romance were never an option for her. Then, she met super villain Genesis Burke. For the first time, Destiny found herself wanting something more than the hero life.
She walked away from love with Genesis anyway.
Eight years later the love of her life shows back up with her old cape, a pair of magical red shoes, and the promise to fulfill Destiny’s every desire.
But, when you love a bad guy, can you ever really trust them?
Chapter 1
Destiny stood on the cracked pavement at the outskirts of her city and stared up at the ripped white cape she’d promised herself she’d never look at again.
Brutus cleared his throat from behind her.
Destiny winced. “Dude.” She glanced over her shoulder at her old friend. “You sound like you’re trying to clear gravel out of that thing.” She eyed his veiny neck. “Go home.”
“Hey, you called me.” The six-foot-tall brick wall that was Brutus Amspoker spat his half smoked cigarette onto the sidewalk and sniffed. “If you want to get killed, Langston, I got several better ways for you to go than walking into a damn trap.” Putting the still burning butt out with the toe of his steel boot, he shook his head. “I can smell the crazy all the way down here.”
She seized up and had to shake her hands out to loosen her muscles. “Why do you think she’s doing this now?” Destiny flicked her gaze back up to her old cape, which was flapping in the icy wind like some lude memory of her past. A tribute of her failure for the entire city to see. “After all this time?”
He scoffed. “That’s like asking why a crazy bitch crazy.” He tapped the face of his smart watch and then held it to his ear as if it would answer Destiny’s question. “Um, because its Tuesday?”
Destiny bit down a smile. “It’s actually Friday.”
Brutus lowered his arm and gripped the hilt of a weapon anyone in Sling City would recognize. Not that the biggest member of the Sling Group needed the jet handled katana. The man was a weapon in and of himself.
“You should let me call them,” he grunted, ignoring an opportunity for them to banter like they did in the old days.
She shook her head and darted her gaze up and down the block just to make sure they were still alone. “You’re the only professional hero that still speaks to me.”
“I didn’t know us not talking was an option. But its one I might take if you don’t stop bullshitting me.”
Destiny looked back at him, keeping her attention on his white mohawk. The action made her feel like a two-year-old, someone that couldn’t look someone in the eye and lie at the same time. She opened her mouth to say something, and then wrinkled her nose. Finally, she sighed. “The Group would bring her in. And she can’t go to jail, Brute. I can’t…” She finally met his gaze. “If you’re uncomfortable with that, I can do this by myself.”
He narrowed his dark eyes, reached into his front shirt pocket for another smoke, and then lit it. “I’d be more uncomfortable with you dead.” He blew a smoke ring into the air.
Destiny turned and looked up at her cape once again, blowing out a relieved breath as she did so. “She would never hurt me.”
Brutus barked out a noise that would have made her jump if she weren’t so used to the thunderous quality of his laugh. “If you really think that, you’re crazier than she is.”
She balled up her hands and said, “Well, I’m also going in alone.” Almost as soon as she started forward, his heavy hand clamped down on her shoulder. “Langston, all the cute shit aside. You know Genesis Burke better than any of us. If I let you go in alone, are you walking out?”
Destiny stared at the towering, brick building they were standing in front of. It hadn’t been a part of Sling City an hour ago. She didn’t ask Brutus if he knew that because she wanted him to let her go inside. At least she thought she did. Part of her knew the danger, which was why she’d called Brutus in the first place.
A shadow passed in front of a window on the top floor. She held in a shiver, but it was like being kissed down the spine by danger. Clenching her jaw, she ground out, “She would never hu
rt me.”
Hopefully repetition will make me right.
Brutus lowered his hand from her shoulder. “Don’t make me regret this.”
The dark figure at the top of the building backed away and out of Destiny’s line of sight. She sucked in another breath. “I won’t.” Before either of them could change their mind, she moved forward and placed her palm on the green door of the building.
At first, all she felt was the chipped paint. Then, something buzzed against her hand and she had to stop a shudder. If Brutus saw her hesitate, he’d take the fight to their old enemy, and she couldn’t lose him.
Or her.
Don’t think about that right now.
Steeling herself, she pushed inside. She adjusted her vision to the dim light flickering overhead. As the door closed behind her, she took in her surroundings. Other than a set of stairs to her left, and an elevator door set toward the back of the room, it appeared empty. She dragged her feet across the saw dust covered floor and grunted.
It seemed wrong. Something was off.
As she made her way toward the elevator, she bumped into something she couldn’t see, and it clattered to the floor. A spark of red went off near her feet. A sizzle popped in her ears. The object she knocked over rolled across the floor and hit the far wall.
Tilting her head, she edged closer. “A genie lamp?” She stared at the golden artifact and snorted out a low laugh. “Ha, ha. Very cute, Genesis.”
A thump echoed above her head and she looked up. She could make out the sound of Genesis pacing back and forth, waiting for her. Destiny slowly scanned the rest of the room she was in when she detected something barely there.
A thin veil of red energy cloaking various objects in the room.
“I don’t get it,” she muttered to herself upon realizing what she was standing in the middle of. “Why would you bring your stash back to Sling City?”
Even though she knew the answer was a short elevator ride away, she took the stairs, forcing herself not to run. She knew nothing good was waiting for her on the top floor. She also knew that everything good was waiting for her. As she turned a corner in the stairwell between the seventh and eighth floors, she paused on the landing, staring at the crackling red energy surging through the number.
She could still go back to Brutus. In fact, she could run. Eight years ago, she did. Genesis was using her flair to remind her of that. Destiny swallowed, looked away from the mocking numeral, and continued to climb. When she got to the twelfth and final level, she was out of breath, but not from physical exertion.
Nerves stole her ability to breathe.
From the other side of the door, the pacing she’d heard when she was still downstairs stopped.
Genesis knew she was there.
Genesis knew so many things. That’s why she was so dangerous, to Destiny in particular. Despite that, she reached for the doorknob. When her fingers were only inches away, she froze.
Another pop of energy rang in her ears. Red mist poured through the cracks in the door. Its hinges creaked. Then slowly, it opened.
Genesis Burke stood before her.
Her eyes glowed like red lasers and she was surrounded in a crimson aura that matched the tight leather she was clothed in.
Chapter 2
Genesis didn’t move, so Destiny knew that she hadn’t rushed forward and wrapped her gloved hands around her neck.
But that’s certainly how it felt.
Destiny’s eyes widened, almost as if she weren’t controlling them, and her entire body began to shake. Genesis raised one eyebrow, the way she used to when she was confused or taken off guard by something. Somehow, she never looked surprised, only more or less severe. Both of the woman’s hands were raised and slightly cupped. Two orbs of red energy floated above her palms.
When Destiny lifted her own hands and clasped them around her throat, Genesis lowered her arms, but only slightly. Destiny tried to speak, but the air trapped itself on her tongue. She struggled for what had to be several minutes before dropping onto one knee.
“What the fuck are you doing?” the other woman asked, her tone giving no indication of how she felt.
Destiny shook her head as she lowered her other knee.
“Are you having an actual anxiety attack?” The heels of Genesis’ red boots tapped toward her. The red light she gave off whenever she used her flair started to fade from Destiny’s vision, being chased off by the telltale black of coming unconsciousness. Genesis hissed. “I’m not doing this.”
Destiny couldn’t tell if she meant cutting off her air or falling for this. She also couldn’t tell the super villain that she wasn’t trying to trick her. What she could do was decide who was going to be in control, and knew that the dead rarely had any.
Forcing the trapped air off her tongue, she forced it down her throat and then pushed her own power out of herself. It collected into two batons that rested in an astral harness on her back. Two batons that only she could touch.
“Well, fuck,” Genesis muttered as Destiny’s vision started to return.
She sucked in another breath, regained her feet, and reached for her batons. Holding her astral weapons after all this time steadied her. The dizziness left her so quickly it was almost as if it were never there. Clenching her jaw, she flipped one over in her left hand and struck out at the quivering mass of red energy now circling Genesis.
Destiny’s glowing baton bounced off the crimson sphere and she flew backwards into the door she hadn’t had the nerve to walk through on her own. Her head thudded against the metal and she dropped to the floor, using her right hand to soften the fall.
Genesis clicked her tongue as she stalked toward her. “I know it’s been a hot minute, Des, but even you should know you don’t come at me like that.” She waved her hands through the air as she came to a stop. The two small orbs in her hands fused together, forming a massive globe that threw the room into harsh light. “Lucky for you, I didn’t come for a fight.”
Staying crouched, Destiny snarled up at her. “Then why did you come?”
Genesis eyed the baton that was still slightly raised in Destiny’s free hand.
“Don’t even think about asking me to put my weapons away, Gen” she warned. “Now talk. Before I get to my feet again.”
Gen laughed. It was a low, slow moving sound that worked itself through Destiny’s body like a dangerous caress that made her tingly down to her core. She snapped her teeth at the reaction and the side of her foe’s full lip curled into a knowing grin. It was as if she knew what Destiny was feeling.
She hated the fact that she did know how she was feeling. Being around her was a constant violation of all senses.
“If I wanted to hurt you, Des, I’d start and end by killing that brute you had the nerve to bring with you.” She lowered her hands and the red orb zapped out as the energy funneled back into Gen’s body. Her pale skin pulsed with the energy, lighting up in the veins of her neck, making her look like a demon sent to haunt her. “What do you think he can really do to me? Prick me with his stick?”
Destiny glanced to the open window of the room. Her faded cape was still flapping from its hinge.
“I’m not going to hurt your guard dog,” Gen said in a bored voice.
Destiny chuckled and stood up, leaning against the door behind her for support. “What reason could you possibly have for coming back to the city?”
Gen trailed her tongue against her full, bottom lip. Destiny tracked the movement and tried not to think about it trailing across her body. The effort failed and her nipples hardened, pressing against her white hoodie.
“Hm,” Gen muttered without ending their stare off. “Since when do you go braless?”
Destiny drew in a shivering breath. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Genesis sauntered forward, coming within inches of brushing against her. “To surrender.” She lowered her gaze, allowing Destiny to glimpse the shadowy red shadow tinting her eyelids. It almost matched the energy
she radiated. The sudden vulnerability in Gen’s stance made her want to melt through the floor.
Shit. I shouldn’t have come here.
“Surrender?” Destiny repeated. “To the Sling Group?”
Gen’s gaze snapped up. “Of course not,” she hissed. “To you.”
She wanted to back away. To get some breathing room, but her feet remained sealed to the floor. “What do you mean?”
With a half shrug, Genesis grinned and brushed her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “How did you like the genie lamp?” She chuckled. “I thought you might find it… Fitting.”
Warm memories teased their way into Destiny’s head. At first, she couldn’t tell if it was Genesis using her flair, or something of her own doing. Then Gen snapped, pulling her away from her thoughts, and seconds later, a red tinged, golden lamp appeared in the palm of her hand.
She held it under Destiny’s nose. “I wanted to lay your first failure.” She bent over and sat the lamp on the floor. “At your feet.” When she straightened, it was with exaggerated slowness. Destiny gasped and locked up. Her legs began to tremble, first at the ankle, then the movement rocked her thighs. No part of them touched, but to her body, it didn’t seem to matter.
“My failure.” Destiny gasped out the phrase to keep from reaching for, and tangling her fingers in that silken red hair. “Is that how you see it?”
“It ended your career.” The words lashed off her tongue like a whip.
Destiny winced, as if struck. “Is that why you’ve really come, then? To mock me.”
“You say that like you already know the answer.” Stepping backward, Gen raised her arms. “Does it look like I’m trying to mock you?”
