Beautiful Dangerous Love
Teen Sampler
Alicia Kat Dillman
Jessie Harrell
LM Preston
Lorna Suzuki
Shevi Arnold
Chelsea M. Cameron
Do you crave the dangerously beautiful worlds of paranormal suspense, ghostly romances, and otherworldly adventures? The you’ll be swept up in this sampling of six fantastic indie reads including Daemons in the Mist by Alicia Kat Dillman, Destined by Jessie Harrell, The Pack -Retribution- LM Preston, The Magic Crystal by Lorna Suzuki, Ride of Your Life by Shevi Arnold, Whisper by Chelsea M. Cameron.
COPYRIGHT
Beautiful Dangerous Love- Teen Sampler
By Alicia Kat Dillman, Jessie Harrell, LM Preston, Lorna Suzuki, Shevi Arnold, Chelsea M. Cameron
Copyright © 2012 by Alicia Kat Dillman, Jessie Harrell, LM Preston, Lorna Suzuki, Shevi Arnold, Chelsea M. Cameron
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Beautiful Dangerous Love
COPYRIGHT
Daemons in the Mist
COPYRIGHT
Secrets in the Mist
You Don’t See Me
Parallel Universe
Pictures of You
A Thousand Different Ways
Let’s Get Out of This Town
Dreaming Out Loud
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Destined
COPYRIGHT
Chapter 1 - Psyche
Chapter 2 - Psyche
Chapter 3 - Psyche
Chapter 4 - Psyche
Chapter 5 - Eros
Chapter 6 - Psyche
Chapter 7 - Eros
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Pack -Retribution-
COPYRIGHT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Magic Crystal
COPYRIGHT
Prologue
A Grand Plan
Be Careful What You Wish For
A Strange Encounter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ride of Your Life
COPYRIGHT
Into the Bunny Hole
What’s Real
Choices
Perchance to Dream
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Whisper
COPYRIGHT
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Daemons in the Mist
The Marked Ones Trilogy
· Book One ·
by Alicia Kat Dillman
Finally getting the girl of your dreams; what could possibly go wrong?
Seventeen year old Patrick Connolly has been hopelessly infatuated with Nualla for years but he is all but invisible to her. Until, that is, he rescues her from a confrontation with her ex. Little does Patrick know he’s just set off a dangerous chain reaction that will thrust him into a world of life altering secrets and things that shouldn’t exist, because the fog and mist of San Francisco is concealing more than just buildings.
A deliriously captivating and exhilarating romantic rollercoaster full of unexpected twists and an ending you won’t see coming.
COPYRIGHT
Daemons in the Mist
Copyright © 2011 by Alicia Kat Dillman
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Published by Korat Publishing in California
www.koratpublishing.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
CREDITS
Cover illustration © 2012 Alicia Kat Dillman
Book design by Alicia Kat Dillman
1
Secrets in the Mist
Monday, January 9th
· Nualla ·
I looked out the window at the never-ending sea of fog, concealing the city as it came alive in its morning rush. In the mist, everything seemed timeless and still and wondrous. The fog drifted past buildings, their tops poking out and making it look all the world like there were castles in the sky.
San Francisco.
The exception, it seemed, to California’s bright and sunny weather. It’s not the foggiest city in the world, but its damn close. People have written books based here, and songs and movies. Even Mark Twain is quoted as saying, ‘The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.’ Though if I hear one more tourist say it, I’m going to hit someone.
“So, socks or leggings?”
“Huh?” I turned to see my cousin Nikki standing in the doorway holding up two types of leg coverings. One was a pair of bright purple leggings; the other was a pair of paler blue thigh-high socks with penguins dancing across them.
“Which should I wear?” She asked again as she jiggled them for effect.
We went to Bayside Academy, a private school for the Bay Area’s elite, so of course that meant uniforms. I was glad our school went in for the whole tieless-v-neck-knit-sweater-over-pleated-skirt look because personally, I think ties on girls are really creepy. Our school uniforms did not extend to things like shoes, socks and hair, so some students, like Nikki, went to town with their individuality.
I clicked my phone on to check the day’s weather. “Nikki, it’s like 45 degrees out.”
“Socks it is,” Nikki said, sitting on the edge of my bed to slip them on.
“You’re crazy!”
“Don’t you know it,” she said with a wink.
I rolled my eyes at her and stood up. I had gone for the more sensible I’m-not-going-to-freeze-my-ass-off standard black leggings with tall boots for good measure.
Another look at the clock said we’d better head out or we were totally going to be late. “Come on, Nikki. Let’s not be late the first day of spring semester, okay?”
Minutes later, we coasted down the street, the buildings sliding into existence just a few seconds before we passed them, my car’s engine quietly purring. Most people hate driving in the fog, but I love it. It keeps you on your toes; you have to be ready for what might appear before you at any moment.
Like this cat darting across the road in front of me. I took my foot off the gas as she streaked past me, a flash of smoky gray, like the fog materializing into a solid form. As her paws hit the curb on the other side of the street she turned her lamp-like eyes to stare at me. She knows me, the true me. Not this mask I have to wear each day. There’s something profoundly odd about that. That a cat could be more calm and rational than—
“Hey, Earth to Nualla,” Nikki says as she waves a hand in front of my face. “What are you looking at?”
The cat’s gone, disappearing into the mist like a dream. “Nothing,” I answer slowly. That’s when I realize the cat used a crosswalk. Smart little thing, even she’s not stupid enough to jay-walk. I mean sure, she did cross against the red, but hell, at least she wasn’t mindlessly listening to an iPod as she stepped off the curb. Sometimes I think they’re smarter than people; cats. Or maybe they just have a higher level of self
-preservation.
I return my focus to the road and hit the gas. The buildings float past, an odd collection of shapes so far from matching it’s almost funny. The city weaves together stringent modern simplicity and Victorian mystique in a way that almost seems intentional in its randomness. Cultures seamlessly blending into each other so slowly as to be unnoticed, while at other times they change rather abruptly, like the China Town Gate, announcing your passage into another world in large, imposing glory. The residences themselves are almost as odd; the houses in most cities are colors like tan, brick and the occasional sage. But not San Francisco; it’s a mélange of colors. I even saw a house once that was lilac with chartreuse trim.
Yeah—chartreuse.
The light slides to red and I drift to a stop. I lean back into the seat and fold my arms as I glance over at my cousin. Nikki sips her coffee in the seat next to me, the steam rolling off it already fogging up the windows. She wipes the window with her sleeve so she can peer out at the buildings.
“You know it’s just gonna fog up again in like two seconds.”
“Then I’ll just wipe it again,” She answers as she slides her arm across the window like a windshield wiper.
I roll my eyes at her and press my foot to the gas as the red blur in the distance shifts to green. The globes of light lining the streets float past, the sky still too dark for them to register that it’s morning.
It’s like driving though a dreamland; some of the things you see just seem way too unreal. People in shiny disco ball Gaga-esque clothes dancing outside Ghirardelli Square, joggers in tutus, and water valves painted up to look like video game mushrooms are just a few of the crazy things I have seen on the streets here.
But the mists also hold a secret.
They conceal a world that exists between yours, around yours, underneath yours. We may look like you, we may act like you, but we are not you. We pass among you unnoticed, carrying our secrets to the grave. You carve us into your stories, into your fears, distorting us into something that no longer seems real.
Humanity races forward trying to catalogue and destroy the last mysteries of this world, but we are one step ahead of you, hiding away the things you refuse to believe are possible. Some of us work in your favor, while others try to tear you down. Protectors and destroyers. A world of opposing forces battling for the upper hand. Muses, demigods, devils; the humans of antiquity gave us many names. But we claimed one for ourselves.
Daemons.
Every triumph and travesty in human history has a daemon behind the scenes. Like mist, we run through your world seeping into your lives and disappearing when you try to look too hard. In the beginning, we tried to reveal ourselves to you. But well, let’s just say concealing our true nature was just better for everyone.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re ready to know the truth now. That we have been silent passengers all along in humanity’s struggle to thrive.
Probably not. People get crazy when you mess with their paradigms.
As we arrived at school, the fog was already giving way to lighter swells of mist. I pulled into the last above-ground spot and opened the door into the utterly cold morning.
I burrowed down deeper into my heavy velvet pea coat with a shiver. The wind was picking up, swirling the mist past the students. I could already tell Nikki was rethinking her choice of socks over stockings by the expression on her face.
She turned to me, her teeth already starting to chatter. “Ready to go inside?”
“Naw, I think we should hang outside longer since it’s a balmy 45 degrees out.”
“The weather thingy could have been wrong.”
“By what, 30 degrees?”
“Sometimes you really suck.” Nikki said as she crossed her arms and scowled at me.
“Yeah, but you know you love me.” I said as I looped my arm through hers and started walking toward the building.
We drifted among the other students; just another set of pretty faces in a sea of prep school uniforms.