Fangs Fur & Fa La La: A Paranormal Christmas Collection Read online

  Fangs, Fur & Fa La La

  A Paranormal Christmas Collection

  Margo Bond Collins

  Zoe Forward

  Kathryn Hearst

  Sharon Kay

  Lisa Kessler

  Donya Lynne

  Julia Mills

  Regina Morris

  Kristen Strassel

  Valerie Twombly

  Copyright © 2018

  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.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Merry & Bright

  Introduction

  1. Tyler Bright

  2. Merry Delfino

  3. Tyler

  4. Merry

  5. Tyler

  6. Merry

  7. Tyler

  8. Merry

  9. Tyler

  10. Merry

  11. Tyler

  12. Merry

  13. Tyler

  14. Merry

  15. Tyler

  Newsletter

  About the Author

  One Night with a Witch

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  About the Author

  Melting Jack Frost

  Introduction

  1. Jack

  2. Ginger

  3. Jack

  4. Ginger

  5. Jack

  6. Ginger

  7. Jack

  8. Ginger

  9. Jack

  10. Ginger

  11. Jack

  12. Ginger

  13. Jack

  14. Ginger

  15. Jack

  16. Ginger

  17. Jack

  18. Ginger

  19. Jack

  20. Ginger

  21. Jack

  22. Ginger

  23. Jack

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Kathryn M. Hearst

  Wolf Tracks

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Books By Sharon Kay

  The Lone Wolf’s Wish

  1. Shane

  2. Piper

  3. Shane

  4. Piper

  5. Shane

  6. Piper

  7. Shane

  8. Piper

  9. Shane

  10. Piper

  11. Shane

  Epilogue

  Other Novels by Lisa Kessler

  The Night Series

  The Sedona Pack

  Stand Alone Works

  About the Author

  Raven’s Gift

  An AKM Novella

  Definitions

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Her Dragon’s No Angel

  Her Dragon’s No Angel

  Acknowledgments

  The Dragon Guard

  Language of the Dragon Kin

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  Read The Whole Story Here

  About the Author

  Also by Julia Mills

  Dragon Guard Berserkers

  Kings of the Blood

  Destined Desire

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Also By

  Intercepting Christmas

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Finding Hope

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also By

  Also By

  Introduction

  For weeks, kitsune Tyler Bright has been on the run from agents of a Fae Queen who wants to use his clan-members’ life-force to fuel her rise to power. When he stumbles into a bear-trap in the Colorado woods, dying seems like the only option he has left—but it’s worth giving his life to save his clan.

  Former detective Merry Delfino left the Dallas police force because she could no longer stomach the brutal things people did to each other. Now nothing angers her more than finding traps set on her land—except finding those traps full. Usually she puts those poor animals out of their misery. But this Christmas Eve, someone’s caught a fox. One who can turn into a naked man.

  She knows she should stay out of whatever trouble landed him there, but she can’t resist the mystery he brings with him. Taking him home with her draws her into a whole new world of power and intrigue, exactly what she wanted to avoid. But if they can learn to work together, they might be able to save his clan…and each other.

  Tyler Bright

  I should have seen the trap.

  I ran through the woods, weaving past trees in the dark. The silvery-blue moonlight reflecting off the snow provided more than enough illumination for my eyes, as they were more sensitive in my fox form. I could see where I was going.

  But I had been on the run for weeks, shifting from fox to human and back again, with never enough time to sleep and barely enough to eat. I was exhausted and worn, a
nd I knew that Maeve’s minions were going to catch up with me at any minute.

  I could hear them behind me, their evil cackles echoing through the Colorado forest.

  I’d ended up here almost by chance, following some instinct that told me to take ever-higher ground. I needed to be able to get the drop on these fuckers. But I had no idea how.

  As I ran, I watched for the glints of moonlight off their oversized, fully black eyes, for the hint of motion in their white-against-snow skin and clothing. I was far too busy looking for them to pay attention to where I was going.

  So when I landed in a bear trap, I didn’t have enough time to leap back out before it closed on me. I was fast—shifter-fast. But not fast enough. It clamped shut on my left hind leg. I heard the clank of the trap slamming at the same moment I felt the bone snap in two. Agonizing pain whipped through me, and I screamed, my fox voice bouncing back off the walls of the mountains around me in some directions, muffled by the snow in others.

  The elves laughed and then hissed as they stepped into the small clearing where I lay incapacitated. If I had simply tripped and broken a limb, it would’ve been all over then. But Maeve kept purebloods around her, and this trap was made of iron. That was my only saving grace—they couldn’t get to me. Not while I was caught in the trap.

  I needed to change into my human shape as soon as possible and do what I could to get away. But that would take a lot of energy, and right now, the pain was too fresh. I had to carefully weigh the cons of staying in the trap, lying injured in the cold and snow, as opposed to shifting and removing myself from the one thing that was holding them at bay.

  And right now, I was in too much agony to make any sense of my options.

  I can’t go to sleep. If I die out here, everything I fought for will have been for nothing. I worked to keep my eyes open, to focus on the power I needed to shift.

  The elves were circling, coming in closer and closer, their circle contracting. Like other natives of the forest, they blended in easily. And these elves were from the Winter Court, so the snow and ice acted as additional camouflage for their pale faces and dark eyes.

  In the distance, I heard the rumble of an engine. There weren’t many vehicles up here, but it was coming this direction. The elves paused, their leader cocking his head to listen.

  “Human,” he hissed, his lip curling up.

  Some of the fae could pass for humans themselves, even when they were in their natural form. The Winter Court elves weren’t among them. This elf was tall and thin, his limbs too long, his knees prone to bending in the wrong direction, like a marionette’s or a grasshopper’s. Add to that his stark white skin, silver braids, and all-black, iris-less eyes, and he looked more like a giant, albino praying mantis than a person.

  He was one of Maeve’s warriors, a hunter, one who’d been sent out to gather up all the kitsunes he could find and drag us in. His queen wanted to use our blood to help fuel her rise to power.

  I was still figuring out how that worked when this one had gotten wind of me and set out to catch me.

  My only choice had been to flee, moving in the opposite direction of my family and my clan in order to draw off the elves.

  Now the hunter flicked one overly long finger in a gesture that apparently meant something along the lines of an order to withdraw. All of his fellow elves melted away into the forest as the vehicle drew closer. Its rumbling engine stopped not terribly far away. I hesitated to cry out to whoever it was. But perhaps if I could change into my human form, I could request help. I would have no answer for why a naked man was caught in a bear trap the woods, but it was better than dying at the hands of the Winter Court queen.

  When I heard the door slam, I let out a howl.

  Merry Delfino

  I hadn’t planned to go into the woods on Christmas Eve.

  I’d been in town attending the last day of the holiday festival the town put on every year. Not for the first time since I moved here, I found myself feeling more alone in a crowd of people than I ever did by myself in my tiny one-bedroom cabin up on the mountain.

  Not that the people of Assumption, Colorado, weren’t perfectly friendly. They always were. I’d left the festival with a bag full of tiny gifts that people in the various booths and at the indoor stations had been handing out.

  But I didn’t have any real friends in Assumption yet, even though I’d been here for more than two years. I mean, I knew plenty of people to say hello to when I was in town—but very few to stop and chat with for any length of time

  Unless you counted Sheriff Jim Ford. And really, all we ever did was talk shop.

  I was still feeling that sense of loneliness when I got in my Jeep to head back home. I spent much of the drive considering why that might be—normally, I liked my own company just fine. Even better since I’d left my job as a Dallas cop and moved to the Rocky Mountains, where I ran an online consulting business from my one-bedroom cabin.

  I enjoyed the solitude of the woods.

  But that didn’t mean I didn’t want someone to spend the holidays with.

  Anyone other than the poachers who showed up from time to time.

  My cabin sat on part of an old silver mine claim. I owned the mine, the claim, and the cabin, as well as all the land around it. I don’t know what the previous owner’s understanding had been with the kinds of poachers who regularly made their way past the boundaries through Colorado’s forested land, but as far as I was concerned, hunters were not welcome on my property.

  My lack of enthusiasm for them, however, did not stop most of them from turning up anyway. Since the first time I had found a maimed rabbit in a trap, I had begun posting Do Not Trespass signs. When that didn’t work, I began doing semiregular sweeps through the parts of the woods that were actually mine.

  I’d learned to recognize the different kinds of traps and gotten good at disarming them and gathering them up to hand over to Sheriff Ford.

  I planned to take the night off from patrolling, though. It was Christmas Eve, and all I really wanted to do was curl up by my fireplace with a hot drink and a book.

  But as I passed the first turn-off onto my property, I spun the steering wheel to guide my Jeep onto the bumpy drive almost unconsciously. My cabin was farther up the mountain.

  This drive would take me to some of the poachers’ favorite hunting grounds.

  When I first moved up here, I’d discovered an old trailhead that wound its way up through the woods, crisscrossing in and out of my land. It seemed to be a fairly regular path used by poachers. I was always careful to watch for other people when I took it. I rarely checked it this late, though.

  I’ll just do a quick sweep of the first two clearings, I promised myself.

  When I parked and stepped out of the Jeep, however, out of the woods came a noise like nothing I’d heard before, a high-pitched sound somewhere between a scream and a yowl.

  I jumped, startled, and pulled the pistol I still carried out of the glove compartment, where I had left it during the festival.

  I hoped I wasn’t about to come upon an injured cougar. Or bear. Idiot poachers are likely to catch anything in the traps.

  I took the holster belt I kept in the back of the Jeep and strapped it on. If it was nothing, I could holster the weapon. But for now, I was keeping it drawn.

  I moved slowly up the path, every step sounding louder than the previous one as it crunched into the snow, certain to scare off any wildlife around. Except maybe the cougar or bear.