A Bite of Frost: Paranormal Anthology Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Zoe Parker and contributing authors.

  All rights reserved.

  No part 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.

  You are allowed to cuddle it and yell at it, though. Sometimes stroke it a little to make it feel wanted.

  Enjoy!

  Contents

  Introduction

  Cold Blood by Zoe Parker

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Also by Zoe Parker

  Curse Fate By Melony Paradise

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Keelut by Rinna Ford

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Author

  Flames of Ice by A.C Pontone

  Introduction

  1. Victoria

  2. Victoria

  3. Kyle

  4. Victoria

  5. Victoria

  6. Victoria

  7. Victoria

  8. Victoria

  9. Victoria

  10. Victoria

  11. Jason

  12. Victoria

  13. Victoria

  14. Victoria

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Cyan by Lashanta Charles

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Introduction

  The following short stories range are paranormal themed with a hint of winter. With a range of sub-genres.

  Enjoy!

  Copyright © 2019 by Zoe Parker

  All rights reserved.

  No part 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.

  I totally get wanting to read all the books in the world and not having enough money to do it… but, if all the books get pirated, how will authors keep writing? Unless, there’s a magic-author-money-cloud lurking above all our heads? *looks up* Nope, no puffy green cloud is making it rain benjamins - so please, get the book legitimately. My very thin, mostly empty wallet thanks you.

  The following story is a paranormal short story.

  Kali is grouchy. She’s stuck in a car playing Columbo and trying to conquer how to pee in the soda bottle.

  Then her entire day takes a turn that she’d have never expected.

  She meets him.

  Thank you, Dayquil for giving me the energy to finish this Anthology.

  Chapter One

  Playing private eye was not as fun as they depicted on TV.

  Kali sighed in frustration and lit another cigarette, taking a deep drag. As she blew out the lung full of smoke, she studied the line of people going in and out of the nondescript club. Most of them looked under twenty-five and drunk enough to have already puked on their shoes a few times. At least, that’s how it appeared to anyone else who would look at it.

  She wasn’t just anyone else. Not anymore.

  If one chose to look closer with a newly awakened mind, they would see the differences. The two bouncers at the door, for example, had an aura about them that went beyond hired muscle. Maybe it was the way their hungry gazes lit on every person passing in and out of the door? A hunger that had nothing to do with sex.

  Mostly nothing. There was a bit of leering mixed in there.

  Other sets of eyes also watched the humans like they were walking Happy Meals. The line was dotted with more than one Other, set on leaving the club with dinner on their arm. It wasn’t just limited to males either, the normal predators found in these types of places. There were just as many hungry females too.

  She should know. She was dealing with the same issue.

  The parts of her that still remained human would rather eat a real Happy Meal than a walking one. Mostly the truth. Another smokey sigh fogged up her windshield. Her appetites were becoming a daily struggle. The cravings and stomach cramps were becoming harder to ignore. She fought as hard as one could fight nature and would continue to do so as long as she could, but two different, powerful appetites were dueling inside of her and she wasn’t sure which one was winning. If the blood sucking Strix side won she’d be using people as suck-bags for the rest of her life. If the Lupe side won - the more animalistic of the two - it would get much messier. To top it all off, instead of calling themselves by the monstrous names that human lore has concocted, they simply called themselves, Others.

  Neither side was limited to humans as food but the craving was still there. They were designed to be the natural predator of human beings, much like a great white shark was adapted to hunt for the fat fur seal. Everything has checks and balances and Others was nature’s way of giving the humans one. Not all of them prey on humans. Some fight the urges as hard as they can - like her.

  Some were more like her quarry, who lost that battle a long time ago; if he ever fought it to begin with.

  He was currently partying it up in that club while she sat outside in the cold, needing to pee so badly it hurt. As much as she hated him, she envied him for the freedom of being in there. So far she hadn’t been brave enough to go inside. Up to this point, she hadn’t been around the Others. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to avoid them. She wasn’t sure how things would go when she was surrounded by them.

  An average monster she was not.

  Her lack of courage and information had prompted her to monitor the place instead. After reading a few ‘how to’s’ on being a private investigator, she felt let down. None of the material covered the boredom part, or explained how a woman was supposed to use a bottle for bathroom time. The lack of a penis was putting a serious damper on the entire experience.

  There was also a constant reaction when someone came near, an instinct to tense up and become still. The worry of getting caught made her lock up tighter than a bank vault, straining her eyes to constantly search the sea of faces going in and out. Searching for the one she memorized long ago. The one she saw in her nightmares. This place was his regular haunt, but he never came out alone. For the last two weeks she had spent every night watching; crossing her fingers he would come out without some drunk idiot on his arm, but every night she was disappointed.

  So here she sat playing Dick Tracey with a numb ass and smoker’s breath. The whole stake-out thing had lost its coolness on night two. It was now night thirteen. More than once she considered buying a bug of some kind and just sticking it in his house. They sold all types of them on the internet.

  Then your smell would lead him and others right to you, Kali, whispered her common sense in a familiar voice.r />
  Yeah, Margie I know. She mentally snapped back and then frowned. Margie, whose voice Kali’s conscience now spoke with was right. Breaching a Strix lair for any reason other than to kill them was dangerous, especially for her. Perturbed by the path of her thoughts, she shifted in her seat. Hopefully, it would un-numb at least half her ass and maybe take some of the pressure off her bladder.

  There wasn’t really much to do to pass the time except smoke and think. The latter often got her into trouble when it led down old roads. Quiet moments like this always took her down those roads. Managed to pull her kicking and screaming into a past where things were better left alone.The very reasons she sat in a rental car - that she’d have to pay a cleaning fee for - at two am in the morning.

  God, come out of there, creep show, so I don’t have to take a walk down memory lane.

  So impatient, Kali. Margie/common sense argued with her.

  Ya, Margie. I know. So shut up already.

  Guilt briefly flickered in her thoughts over snapping at the subconscious version of Margie. Despite everything, Kali missed her. The woman had shown up out of the blue - a stranger - giving her comfort during the worst time of her life. Comfort Kali didn’t want at first, but over time she became used to her being there. Margie had only been gone a few days but there was a small hole in Kali’s life without her. Just last week she had been pissy with Margie’s presence, now she was pissy due to the lack of her. For a year, Margie had been her daily companion, but she also had a life to return to and Kali had no right to keep her from it.

  Memories flitted through her mind.

  Great more stupid junk to think about!

  For months after she woke up from a coma - made possible by her lovely ex-husband, something she didn’t want to think about - her days bled into each other. They were identical to the one before. All starting out with the blaring of an alarm clock and breakfast consisting of some funky ‘health’ shit Margie cooked. Followed by ‘Kung Fu’ time and then a good two hour dose of history lessons. Day after day of the same boring, annoying things.

  Every single step Margie pushed her forward had been a fight. Kali was constantly mouthy and ungrateful and hadn’t been an easy student for the incredibly patient Margie. She was so lost in her own grief and anger she had even given in to the impulse to attempt suicide.

  Not once, but twice.

  Her first attempt was a clumsy swan dive off a four story building. A guaranteed splat, or so she thought. Nothing came out of it but a few broken ribs and a busted up face. Pissed off, she tried again, this time an eight story building. In her estimation, double the fun and all that. Right before she hit bottom an annoying, dormant survival instinct had kicked in. She flipped mid-air and landed on her feet… like a cat.

  It was the first big wake-up call that she was no longer human.

  It was also the first time she sat down and heard Margie out. Margie, who had been the one sitting in the hospital next to her bed knitting when she woke up. The only one. It was Margie who told her about the death of her children. Margie who held her while she cried rivers. She was the one who pushed her and pulled her and made her get off the floor. Figuratively and literally.

  On auto pilot, Kali pulled a picture out of her wallet and stared at it. Two sets of blue eyes looked up at her. Bright with laughter and the innocence of youth. Her thumbs traveled a worn path over the picture. Chest tight with the grief that always wanted to consume her, she replaced it in her wallet. With gritted teeth, she tensed head to toe as the memories scorched through her mind.

  Memories filled with children’s laughter…

  With a will Margie revived in her - one that she had spent her entire previous life honing, she pushed them back down. Fighting the waves of emotional turmoil that always accompanied them. She tried to shove it into the back of her mind, from where it could torture her later. The agony of loss and grief swarmed up into her chest and forced her to clench her teeth to hold in the sob that wanted to break free. After a brief struggle that felt like forever, she won and sat back breathing hard. She never imagined that grief could do this to a person. It gave her an entirely new perspective on it.

  The fact remained that without Margie in her life the grief would’ve consumed her. She’d have jumped off buildings until one was high enough to kill her. If not for the annoyingly persistent woman, it would’ve destroyed her completely. Margie may have been hard on her, but it was all with purpose - part of it being why she was in this car - the rest was for survival. Margie got her through the nightmares, the ever-flowing tears, and the darkness eating at her heart like cancer. She taught her to channel that rage and pain, into more constructive things.

  Vengeance.

  The burning of unshed tears caused her to squeeze her eyes shut.

  Damn, I really do miss her.

  Kali thanked whatever gods were out there for Margie being part of her life. Even as a tiny part of her wished she hadn’t been. With Margie had come things that she could’ve done without knowing. The lack of her humanity, in the literal sense, being one. The knowledge and enlightenment about those things that skitter in the shadows that no one really wanted to believe in.

  Thankfully, there were only two kinds. Strix and Lupes. Not like the ones you saw sparkling on TV, either. Or the ones tearing off their shirts to rescue you from the big bad. In the real world, neither made good dinner companions. Any of them would eat you if given the chance.

  She asked Margie once how the two species escaped human notice. With her inhuman, amber eyes dancing with humor, Margie laughed and informed Kali that, ‘Humans see what they want to see.’ She went on to explain how for the first thirty years of life both races were essentially human themselves. Inside, lying dormant and hidden, was the trigger that would make them change into something else the day they hit thirty.

  There were two stages for them. Larva, which was the first thirty human years. Then the Shed - which is what humans would label as puberty. It was a lengthy process that took two or more years for their bodies to completely transform into whatever side their DNA swung to.

  To her it seemed odd - and at first, completely unbelievable - but the insects had things more right than anyone realized.

  Then there was Kali. Neither, but both. Her stages of development would go differently. Margie, a Lupe herself, hadn’t been sure of the exact nature of what to expect considering Kali was the first hybrid to make it to puberty in Margie’s lifetime. There was no precedent or solid information about hybrids.

  Kali stubbed the cigarette out in frustration. Always the odd man out.

  A lean, blonde rather scruffy looking Strix walked out of the club with a human woman on each arm. To see them for what they really were still amazed her. How had she never realized that it wasn’t just humans walking around on two legs? Neither species moved like humans. They didn’t smell like them either. There was an air about them that wasn’t… right. Their faces weren’t quite put together like they should be.

  It had a lot to do with their wide mouths. A trait both species shared.

  It was these types of things that she couldn’t fathom missing, because once seen, she couldn’t un-see them.

  As she watched the Strix, she noted how he was careful to keep his pace slow, but her sharp eyes caught how it appeared jerky and unnatural, because for him it was. Strix could move faster than a human could see for short periods of time. Lupes could move quickly too, but that wasn’t their strongest trait and it wasn’t comparable with a Strix.

  He flashed a smile and the light bounced off the silver rims of his sunglasses. Ah, the fun of being an Other. One thing that couldn’t be faked or hidden well. The eyes. The reddish brown of Strix and the golden amber of Lupes. Contacts didn’t work when your body wouldn’t allow the intrusion of a foreign object without causing a great deal of pain.

  She’d tried and it was annoying enough that she gave up.

  The beginning of her smile turned down into a frown. Each of the ra
ces had their own set of unique talents. Talents they used indiscriminately to kill each other. A never-ending war that stretched back to the beginning of their existence. Most didn’t survive the first five years after transformation.

  Hybrids didn’t usually survive the first five minutes after birth.

  Kali lit another smoke. Going from a weird human to an even weirder hybrid wasn’t something she would’ve chosen. Even with the ‘super’ powers. It was still a struggle to accept it all. Oh no, it wasn’t like the movies where in the first five minutes the heroine is like, “I am monster, hear me roar!” It had taken her a year to get to the point where she would fully acknowledge she wasn’t human anymore. She still had issues with it.

  The movie people and the dreamers who romanticized monsters didn’t realize what one had to do to live in their fucked up world of sci-fi. How they really were.

  What they freaking ate.

  Her wandering attention turned back to the club. Time had passed quickly while she took a walk in La La Land. The line was gone and the light over the door was out. She sat up so fast she banged her head on the door window. Ignoring the twinge of pain, her eyes searched.