Paranormal Magic (Shades of Prey Book 1)
Paranormal Magic: Shades of Prey, Volume One
Copyright © 2016 by Bathory Gate Press
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 collected fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious. 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.
Note that several of these books were originally written, produced and edited in the UK, where some spelling, grammar and word usage will vary from US English.
Original Copyright Information
All works reprinted by permission of the authors and original publishers
Faerie Blood (The Changeling Chronicles Book 1) © 2016, 2016 Emma L. Adams
Fairy, Texas (Fairy, Texas Book 1) © 2014 Margo Bond Collins
Originally published by Solstice Publishing
Dust and Moonlight © 2016 Keta Diablo
The Fairy Bargain © 2016 Blaire Edens
Madame Lilly, Voodoo Priestess (Vol 1) © 2014 Dormaine G.
Her Wolf © 2016 Erin Hayes
The Man in Black © 2015 Steffanie Holmes
Silenced © 2016 K.N. Lee
Wicked Satyr Nights (Book 1 of The Cursed Satyroi) © 2012, 2015 Rebekah Lewis
Good as Dead © 2016 C.P. Mandara
Limerence © 2013 Claire C. Riley
Angel Grace © 2016 J.E. Taylor
Paranormal Magic: Shades of Prey, Volume One
Extraordinary tales of paranormal love and obsession by 11 USA Today, Award-Winning, and Bestselling Authors.
From the sweet to the erotic, the romantic to the horrific, these books bring you all the shades of paranormal lover and beloved, predator and prey, featuring shapeshifters, fairies, voodoo queens, demons, and more.
This set, part of the Shades of Prey collection, is available for a limited time only!
Paranormal Magic: Shades of Prey, Volume One
Paranormal Magic: Shades of Prey, Volume One
Faerie Blood
by Emma L. Adams
Fairy, Texas
by Margo Bond Collins
Dust and Moonlight
by Keta Diablo
The Fairy Bargain
by Blaire Edens
Madame Lilly, Voodoo Priestess
by Dormaine G
Her Wolf
by Erin Hayes
The Man in Black
(A Crookshollow Ghost Story)
by Steffanie Holmes
Silenced
by K.N. Lee
Wicked Satyr Nights
by Rebekah Lewis
Good as Dead
by C.P. Mandara
Limerence
(The Obsession Series)
by Claire C. Riley
Angel Grace
by J.E. Taylor
About the Authors
Faerie Blood
by Emma L. Adams
Chapter 1
When I was sixteen years old, I walked out of hell, thinking I’d finally be free of the faeries.
Ten years later, the joke was on me. Instead of spending my Saturday morning sleeping in, there I was, deep in a troll’s lair with a piskie hovering over my shoulder.
“He took my friend’s charm,” whined the piskie.
“Yes, you said.” I hoped the faerie wasn’t mistaken, if just because it’d mean I’d climbed into a troll’s nest for nothing. I gritted my teeth, sorting through the array of junk the troll had gathered, searching for the tell-tale glint of a spell. Charms were notoriously tricky to get right, but given the wad of cash on offer, this one must be the real deal. I’d get a nice bonus if I returned it to its rightful owner.
In the suburbs, you took what work you could get. Even skulking around a troll’s nest. I’d had to wait until it went off hunting before I risked sneaking in. I’d rank the danger level up there with putting a harness on a kelpie. But at least kelpies didn’t smell like a blocked drain. Grimacing, I shoved a heap of what looked like human clothes aside—hopefully stolen, not the remnants of past victims. Trying to make faeries obey human laws was tricky at the best of times, but I was not sifting through troll dung to figure out if it had recently consumed a human being or not. Luckily, that job fell to the clean-up squad, who were one rank below me on the less-than-impressive ladder of poor souls freelancing for Larsen Crawley.
The word “freelancer” sounded like it ought to mean something like “dragon slayer”. In my case, that was almost literally true. But right now, the only things getting slayed were my already tattered new jeans and shoes. The low ceiling forced me to kneel in unappealing wetness to sift through another heap of old junk. Trolls had magpie-like tendencies for reasons I couldn’t fathom. I shoved a pile of expensive-looking jewels aside and found what I was looking for.
“Gotcha.” I picked up the small, glinting cylindrical charm. “What kind of spell is this?”
“Beautification,” said the piskie.
That figured. Damned half-faeries were posers and narcissists, one and all. I slid the charm into my pocket and headed towards the exit.
A shuffling noise ahead made me stop. Oh, shit. I’d planned to confront the creature later on for extra cash, but definitely not here in its cramped nest. Trolls were notoriously territorial. Great job there, Ivy.
Damn. The ceiling was high enough to account for the troll’s hulking frame, but the nest contained nowhere for me to hide. Which meant I’d have to break my own rule.
Don’t spill faerie blood in the mortal realm.
I reached for the sword I kept strapped to my waist. I don’t kill if I can avoid it, but it’s amazing how quickly an adversary will back off if you’re pointing a sword at them.
As per usual, I’d hoped for too much. The troll saw the blade and bellowed, swinging a giant fist at me. I ducked, cursing the cave’s tight walls. I needed to get to the exit, but the troll didn’t seem inclined to move out the way. As the light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling landed on the creature, it was revealed in all its ugly glory. Trolls resembled misshapen boulders, which meant none of my hits would do any damage. Its huge, lumpy body was resilient to virtually anything. Except—like all faerie-kind, with no exception—iron.
I repositioned myself, raising my sword, hoping it’d have the good sense to move. Unfortunately, expecting good sense from a troll is like expecting manners from a brain-eating boggart.
Rather than ducking, the troll took the hit. I hadn’t put all my weight behind it, but a few years swinging a blade in defence of your life makes it difficult hold back. Especially with faeries. The bright spray of blood made the troll scream in alarm, stomping its huge, hairy feet. Its fists drove me against the wall, step by step, until I stood ankle-deep in… troll dung.
Worse, the piskie had disappeared into thin air, leaving me to deal with the fallout.
“Take a hint,” I snarled, swinging the blade again. A second spray of blood made the troll fall over its own feet towards me, driving me further back into the dung heap. “I’m sparing your life, you idiotic creature.”
Said idiotic creature aimed anot
her punch at my head. I ducked, and the troll’s fist went through the back wall instead. The troll roared and tried to pull its hand free, sending bits of crumbling rock over my head.
Abandoning all restraint, I dropped to the ground, crawled between its legs and pointed my blade at its spine.
The troll flailed its free arm, howling—its other hand was stuck in the wall. I’d have laughed if I wasn’t doing my absolute best to forget what I’d just crawled through.
My blade gleamed, even covered in blood. Irene was my beauty: my faithful companion through ten years of fighting the evil forces of Faerie and laying down the law.
“Enough,” I said in my most dangerous voice. “I’m confiscating the charm you stole. A representative from the city’s council will be here shortly to question you and search for anything else you might have stolen.” I suspected everything here in its nest was stolen, but I couldn’t help being fervently glad the interrogation didn’t fall on me. No. I was just the sword-for-hire, the runner of dangers. Someone who played nicer with others would be in charge of the interrogation.
As for me, I gave the troll one last warning tap on the spine with my sword. Faint red lines rose where I’d hit it: a result of faeries’ incurable allergy to iron.
“Evil Sidhe!” wailed the troll.
“I’m not Sidhe,” I said. “I’m human.”
The hilt of my sword struck the back of its head, and the troll crumpled, its hand still wedged in the earthen wall.
I grimaced. Blood and troll dung covered every inch of my clothes, which meant risking the landlord seeing me walk back into the flat in this state. I’d figured the job wouldn’t go smoothly and had set up a cleansing spell to remove the blood from my clothes ready for when I got home. Once I’d dealt with that, I’d collect my bounty. Faerie blood attracted all kinds of trouble. The kind worse than a pissed-off troll.
Twenty years on from the faeries’ arrival and we’re still cleaning up their mess. Summer and Winter Sidhe might have come to Earth to stop humans destroying one another, but when they buggered off home, they left us saddled with their henchmen squatting under our bridges and nesting in our rafters. Most of the faeries who live around here have no allegiance either to the Seelie or Unseelie courts, because there’s no way back to Faerie. They probably fare better in our realm because there’s a marginally lower chance of being flayed alive.
Isabel sometimes says faeries got the raw end of the deal. I’m not inclined to agree.
The piskie reappeared at my side as I set up a ward outside the troll’s nest in case it woke up. “Thanks for the help,” I said.
The piskie fluttered its tiny gossamer wings. “I am honoured, human.”
I rolled my eyes. Faeries are the most literal creatures in existence.
My flat’s on the east side of what used to be a suburb of south Birmingham. After the mess the faeries left behind when they left following the invasion, most newly exposed supernaturals laid claim to various parts of the newly created town. I lived between witch and shifter territory, while Larsen’s place was situated between shifter and necromancer territories, right at the town’s edge. In other words, the place there was most likely to be trouble. The building I approached was a squat red-brick construction. It served as the base for Larsen’s offices as well as the clean-up squad, with various facilities open to freelance employees like the gymnasium and the target practise hall. I spent half my time there when I wasn’t on jobs.
Larsen accosted me at the doors, wearing his usual scowl. His sloppy T-shirt and jeans getup wouldn’t be out of place in a seedy bar. Then again, the local supernatural police unit’s place was hardly an elite establishment. Anyone who couldn’t afford to hire a mage to solve their supernatural problems came to Larsen, but everybody knew his place was a last resort.
“There you are. I was beginning to think I’d need to send someone after you.” He looked me up and down in the suspicious way I always hated, like he was looking for an excuse to lock me away. Why he thought being the head of what amounted to a magical garbage disposal unit was worth lording it over everyone else was a mystery to me.
“I couldn’t come here covered in blood,” I countered. I’d showered and changed, leaving my ruined clothes to soak, and cleaned away every trace of the faeries. I still felt like the stench clung to my skin, though. Places like the troll’s nest smelled more like a sewer than pure Faerie, but my nose is sensitive to every trace. The faint aroma of decaying magic made my skin crawl like it wanted to leap clear of my body.
“Blood?” Larsen raised an eyebrow. “You were supposed to retrieve a stolen object, not cause a scene. Especially after last time.”
“Don’t worry. No one’s hurt. I got the charm, knocked out the troll and put a ward around its nest. When clean-up go down there later, there are a bunch of other items I’m pretty sure are stolen.”
“And just how did you take down a troll?”
“I cut it a little.”
“I thought you did.” He gave me another of his suspicious stares, eyes lingering on the sword re-strapped to my waist. I met his gaze, daring him to ask. My cover story was airtight, and I was hardly the only human capable of defending herself from supernatural creatures. I’d had more incentive than most.
Regularly escaping intact from fights with Faerie’s biggest, ugliest denizens tends to make people ask curious questions. Mostly it’s a combination of witch charms and a handy skill with a blade. Larsen wouldn’t know I had faerie magic unless I hit him in the face with it. Humans, even witches and shifters, aren’t Sighted.
“Come in,” said Larsen.
I walked in through the grimy glass doors. A gorgeous woman waited in the lobby—the unnatural kind of gorgeous that practically advertised her Summer Faerie heritage with a neon sign. Golden curls flowed to her waist, and her ears were slightly rounded. She couldn’t pass as human, as far as half-bloods went.
“You found my charm?”
I pulled out the sparkling object. “No problem. This is a beautifying spell, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I need that.” She snatched it from my hands. Please. She thought she needed a beautification spell? Her smile might have caused a traffic accident, if she wore one. As it was, her full lips were curled down in a melancholy manner. Nobody pulled off melodrama quite like faeries.
It’s a common trait in half-faeries whose parentage is from Summer or Winter, one I’d seen a lot. Those who didn’t accept the human side of themselves often went out of their way to seem ‘pure faerie’ in any way possible. She was stunning. Model-worthy gorgeous. But she couldn’t see past her own blood, which would never be good enough for Summer.
She might have sent me crawling into a troll’s nest and showed zero gratitude for it, but I knew too well how easily the words of the Sidhe could worm their way into your head. I held her gaze. “Take it from me, though—you really don’t need it.”
My good deed for the day done, I left the building before Larsen could jump on me again. I needed a stiff drink.
Stopping at my flat to change into something nice—finding a clean, bloodstain-free outfit was unsurprisingly difficult—I headed out to the local pub.
The Singing Banshee was a dingy place that catered to supernaturals and humans alike, so I wouldn’t get too many stares walking in armed to the teeth. Two knives concealed up my sleeves, two at my ankles. Boots rather than strappy shoes, jeans rather than a short skirt. Long brown hair tied back, just in case. Simple, practical. The bartender, Steve, knew who I was, so I perched on a stool in the bar’s corner, safely hidden amongst the artificial smoke the pub used to hide supernaturals’ auras so they wouldn’t pounce on one another. My own magical aura was only visible to people with the Sight and most faeries would have more sense than to wander into an establishment like this, but I appreciated the anonymity.
Two shots later and my annoyance faded to a pleasant buzz. Nobody approached me at the bar. I’d acquired a reputation since a sleazy necromancer tried
to grope me a couple of years ago and triggered the stinging spell I kept hidden on me. The story ended up being exaggerated. He’d regained the use of his hands again… eventually.
Being a weekend, the pub was more crowded than usual—scruffy shifters hanging out near the pool table, witches sipping cocktails in groups, and even the odd vampire sulking in a corner. I didn’t expect to see the mages until a flock of them walked in, all long coats and posh, cultured accents. This wasn’t your typical mage hangout, so it came as no surprise when they started whining loudly about the terrible lighting. I liked this old, dingy place precisely because mages didn’t come inside. Their territory was way over the other side of town, so what the hell they were doing here was anyone’s guess.
A couple of them shot cursory glances my way, but I ignored them, concentrating on my drink and glad of the low light level. The word ‘necromancer’ floated my way and I tuned into their conversation long enough to gather they’d had a disagreement with the leader of the local Guild of Necromancy again. Luckily, the necromancers never came in here either. Nothing ruins a night out quite like an oncoming undead horde.
After I’d finished my vodka and coke and was about to quit, the mages traipsed off, still complaining that the place was a shithole.
The bartender, Steve, rolled his eyes after them. “Those mages think they’re too good for everywhere.”
“About right,” I said.
“I heard Larsen was being a dick again," said Steve, pouring me another shot. “This one’s on the house.”
“Cheers,” I said. Steve had been on my side ever since I’d helped him kick out a piskie infestation a few years ago. “I needed that. Ended up neck-deep in a troll’s nest earlier.”