Magic & Mistletoe: 15 Paranormal Stories for the Holidays Read online

  Magic & Mistletoe

  15 Paranormal Stories for the Holidays

  Aimee Easterling

  A. Blythe

  Demelza Carlton

  Katie Salidas

  C.N. Crawford

  J.L. Hendricks

  Katerina Martinez

  Hailey Edwards

  Rachel McClellan

  K.N. Lee

  Amy Hopkins

  May Sage

  Rick Gualtieri

  Erin Bedford

  P. Joseph Cherubino

  Contents

  Aimee Easterling

  Yule Moon

  Polar Bear Challenge

  Hunting Christmas

  Joining Up

  Potatoes and Gravy

  About the Author

  A. Blythe

  Miami Twist

  Miami Twist

  About the Author

  Demelza Carlton

  Fall

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Katie Salidas

  Frost Bitten

  Rachel

  Other Books By Katie Salidas

  About the Author

  C.N. Crawford

  The Angel and the Beast

  The Angel and the Beast

  From the Author

  J.L. Hendricks

  Santa Meets Mrs. Claus

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  From the Author

  Katerina Martinez

  The Witch of Christmas Present

  The Witch of Christmas Present

  About the Author

  Hailey Edwards

  A Stone’s Throw Christmas

  A Stone’s Throw Christmas

  About the Author

  Rachel McClellan

  Simon Says

  Simon Says

  About the Author

  K.N. Lee

  Frost

  Frost

  From the Author

  About the Author

  Amy Hopkins

  Druid Spirit

  Druid Spirit

  About the Author

  May Sage

  Matchsticks

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  About the Author

  Rick Gualtieri

  Bloody Jolly Christmas

  Bloody Jolly Christmas

  About the Author

  Erin Bedford

  Heart of Ice

  Celebration

  About the Author

  P. Joseph Cherubino

  Kris Kringle Rides Again

  Kris Kringle Rides Again

  From the Author

  Don’t stop now!

  Yule Moon

  Four Shifter Shorts

  Aimee Easterling

  Yule Moon

  Four Shifter Shorts

  by Aimee Easterling

  Copyright © 2016 by Aimee Easterling.

  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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Read more about my books at www.aimeeeasterling.com.

  Polar Bear Challenge

  A job interview on Christmas day? Well, why the hell not?

  Roger wouldn’t have approved, of course. He’d believed weekends were sacred, holidays even more so. During their three short years of marriage, he’d still found time to waft Meeshi away to the Bahamas, to Vegas, even to Alaska for one memorable Christmas she’d never forget.

  Polar bears definitely made the season bright.

  But her spouse had been gone for over a decade. No, not gone—dead. Meeshi firmly believed that Roger would never have willingly left her side. But even the protector she’d loved with all of her heart couldn’t argue with cancer.

  Cancer and the miscarriage all in the same year. No husband, no baby to remember him by. Meeshi had floundered for a long time after that. Thank goodness for the insurance money that had kept her afloat.

  But now she was ready to reenter the world, to bring laughter and chatter and people back into her life. A job, an office, useful work to fill her mind. It would all be good.

  The directions seemed a little off, though. Not only was she instructed to arrive on Christmas morning, but even the address didn’t seem quite right. Because the GPS didn’t prompt her to turn left into town as she left the airport lot. Instead, the computerized voice led her deeper into the countryside, down rambling roads and up a spiraling driveway into a small community of stately homes.

  So...personal secretary to a rich eccentric maybe?

  “You’re going to freeze to death out here.”

  While she’d been second guessing, the nearest house’s door had opened to reveal a coltish girl leggy with pre-teen growth. For an instant, Meeshi couldn’t breathe. She didn’t think of her own daughter much any longer, didn’t visit Jasmine’s gravestone except on the anniversary of her birth and death.

  But the tween impatiently tapping her foot in the cold was just the right age. The sparkle of mischief in her voice was so familiar that Meeshi thought for a moment Roger had been reborn in a female body.

  “Are you shy?” The kid tapped on her window until Meeshi rolled it down, cold December air quickly evacuating all of the buffering warmth. “Because that’s okay. The job is work-from-home. You just have to impress Dad once, then you’ll never need to see us again.”

  The pit in Meeshi’s stomach deepened. She should have known the offer was too good to be true. The pay was great, the benefits phenomenal, but she couldn’t handle another week stuck in her lonely apartment with only the radio for companionship. The chance to be around people even more than the money was what had finally drawn her out of her funk.

  “Sign this.”

  “Excuse me?” Meeshi asked. Despite her age, the girl was certainly bossy.

  “Non-disclosure agreement. Blah, blah, blah,” the girl said, finger running down the page of legalese. “Can’t talk about what you see or hear. Sue you for all you’re worth. The usual.”

  Meeshi found the pen between her fingers and her signature scrawling across the bottom of the third page before she’d fully regained her breath. It was completely unlike her to sign before she read. But who did she have to tell secrets to?

  “Okay, great,” the girl said, all smiles. “One more thing, then you’re hired.”

  “Wait, this is the interview?”

  “Sure.” There was that gamine grin again, the one that struck directly to her heart. “Turn on the engine. Just in case you want to leave fast, you know?”

  Without waiting to see that her instructions had been obeyed, the girl whirled around to face the trees then began stripping out
of her clothes right there in the middle of the driveway. Was the kid on drugs? Psychotic?

  Meeshi hesitated, torn between hunting down the aforementioned father or dragging the girl inside the nearest house before she succumbed to hypothermia. The job no longer looked enticing. But if this girl had been her daughter, Meeshi would have hoped a stranger would be kind enough save her from herself.

  The car door slammed before Meeshi even realized she was disembarking. Formerly frigid air warmed a trifle, perhaps because she was lunging forward to grab the girl’s arm before the imp could escape buck naked into the wintry woods.

  Only Meeshi wasn’t holding an arm. She was clutching the foreleg of a massive beast, its fur nearly as thick as the coat of those polar bears she and Roger had oohed and aahed over during that memorable trip west.

  For a moment, the two froze eye to eye. The wolf’s iris was the exact same vivid blue as the girl’s had been in human form. Her sharp teeth weren’t the least bit menacing when the snout twisted into the canine equivalent of the girl’s smirk.

  “So?”

  A new voice prompted Meeshi to release the wolf-girl’s leg and turn to face the man stepping out of the house behind her. She cleared her throat, but was proud to hear firmness in her tone when she finally managed to speak. “So...what?”

  “So do you want the job?”

  The one time Meeshi had gone looking for work while she and her husband were still together, Roger had warned her that it was easy to think the boss always possessed the upper hand. “He doesn’t, though,” Roger had countered. “You have something he wants. So haggle.”

  Obeying her absent spouse, Meeshi lowered her brow as if considering how terrible it would be to work around werewolves. She tried to make her eyes widen in fright even though she was secretly wondering whether she could talk the girl into shifting again more slowly for the sake of examining the transformation from start to finish.

  “I’ll take a twenty percent pay reduction in exchange for room and board,” she said at last.

  Then her greeter was back, long blond hair brushing against Meeshi’s cheek as the girl slid back down onto two feet. “Pretty good deal, huh, Dad?”

  “Pretty good deal,” the man agreed, respect in his eyes. “Can you start today?”

  Hunting Christmas

  “It’s meant to be a surprise, Wolfie.”

  I cocked my head and peered down at my mate’s offering. The box she’d handed me was just the right size to cradle in the palm of one cupped hand. Colorful paper was creased to perfection and taped unobtrusively, the whole wrapped up in a shiny red bow.

  I sniffed at the tiny gap where paper bowed up and allowed a millimeter of air to seep through. The scent that met my nose was so mild I couldn’t quite pin it down. I was reminded of running through the woods after a light rain, of nosing through the leaf mold in search of critters for a midday snack.

  Tilting the box, something slid ever so gently down the incline. Intriguing.

  I only realized I’d dropped into fur form when I felt my chin being tipped upward. My mate’s laughing brown eyes fixed me with a mock stern stare. “Do you hear me, Wolfie? We’re opening presents in an hour. I’ll bet you can’t guess what’s inside.”

  Then she was gone, off to putter over the thousand and one things she thought were essential for creating a perfect holiday. The tasks were all unnecessary of course. We could both feel the joy of the pack filtering in from every direction. But staying busy made my mate happy, so I couldn’t complain.

  Wait, was that a sound?

  The tiniest mouse-like scratching emanated from the wrapped parcel in front of me and I dropped down nose to paw to focus on the puzzle. Something living? Something mechanical?

  And were those words visible through the tiny gap left between wrapping paper and object underneath?

  My wolf eyes crossed when faced with letters and numbers, so I shifted form once again and plucked the box off the ground with human fingertips. Perhaps a little extra light would help me focus on annoying human scribblings.

  Stepping closer to the window, I leaned into the sun’s warmth. Flick, flick, flick. It wasn’t really opening the present if I just pried up an edge of tape that was already loose. Or at least I hoped my mate would see it that way.

  The noise within the box sped up as if the sun’s rays had accelerated a chemical reaction. Cold-blooded critter maybe? Lizard tails were always so tasty wriggling alone on the patio stones. And beetle exoskeletons crunched so nicely between lupine teeth...

  Wait. Crenellated edges, a rectangle full of tiny brown lines in the shape of our nation’s southern neighbor. A stamp.

  Unable to wait, I found fingers tearing at paper. Packing tape ripped from cardboard. Tiny brown seeds fell out into my palm.

  My mate returned just as I popped the first morsel into my mouth, cracked it between flat molars, sucked out the sweet larva wriggling inside.

  Delicious.

  Tasty morsel a mere memory, I turned to see my mate clutching my gift to her, this parcel still wrapped. The soft cashmere sweater hiding inside would hug her close when I wasn’t available to do the job myself. From her hangdog expression it appeared she needed a hug sooner rather than later.

  Pulling her into my arms, I squeezed the angst out, then stepped back. Her mouth was quirked to one side, her eyes on the three Mexican jumping beans still sitting in the palm of my hand.

  “You’re disappointed,” she said. “I shouldn’t have gotten you a gag gift.”

  I titled my head again, brow creased. She was such a perfect mate, I sometimes forgot she couldn’t see inside my brain. Words then.

  “Are you kidding?” I countered. “Hunting Christmas was the best gift ever. Let’s do it again next year.”

  Joining Up

  After a certain age, a man on the prowl for a life partner has to accept that the dating pool is pretty much limited to single moms. I was good with that.

  So when Celia told me about the existence of an estranged daughter, I empathized. And when that same grown daughter came back into both of our lives, I knew I had to do the right thing.

  I’d ask Fen for permission before I popped the question to the most important woman in my life.

  “Just don’t stare into her eyes,” I reminded myself. “Werewolves hate dominance displays.”

  Perhaps that’s why I felt more like a wildlife biologist than a cop as I headed up the hillside to the cabin Fen shared with her spouse. No, scratch that. Her mate. Gotta get the terminology down pat if I wanted to make this errand a success.

  “Paul?”

  I whirled, pulling my hand away from my absent sidearm. I’d forced myself to leave the firepower behind, knowing that guns and girls don’t mix. Only this wasn’t a girl. This was a massive male whose brawn wasn’t half as intimidating as the feral wolf that peered out from behind his eyes.

  “Hey,” I said, watching him sniff my fear out of the air. “Is Fen around?”

  Her mate jerked his chin at the cabin barely visible through the darkening forest. “Need any help?”

  “No, thanks. I think I’ve got this.”

  He smirked. Turned, dropping pants onto the frozen earth. Fell to the ground in the shape of a massive canine and loped away into the winter-bare trees.

  I gulped. Combine the size of the male’s teeth with the emotional volatility of a woman and I had a sinking suspicion I wasn’t going to make it out of that cabin alive.

  Luckily, I had an ace in the hole. Feeling within my pocket to make sure the trinket was still present, I strode forward with squared shoulders. This really shouldn’t be any worse than the time I’d gotten the call about bank robbers while my partner was out of town. Okay, well, no worse than I’d assumed facing down those bank robbers would be...before they’d materialized into dumb kids in Halloween costumes looking for a candy fix.

  The cabin door opened the second my fist touched the wood. Creaking ominously inward, the widening crack revealed an in
terior pitch black to human eyes. Perhaps putting off this project until sunset hadn’t been the brightest idea.

  “Paul?”

  Unlike her mate, Fen appeared perfectly normal. Well, perfectly normal with tattoos running up and down her arms and with hair that appeared to have been hacked short with a machete.

  She was nothing like her mother. Still, she could have passed for human on a city street, probably because she was only half werewolf on her father’s side. I just hoped Fen was like Celia in the only way that currently mattered.

  “I...”

  I stuttered my way back to silence, the long explanation I’d dreamed up over the past few weeks stubbornly refusing to emerge. Here I was taking the step I’d dreamed of for so long and I couldn’t spit out more than a single word.

  We stood and stared at each other. Finally, Fen’s mouth quirked upwards into a hint of a smile. “Okay, guess I’ll do the talking.”

  She stepped back, waiting for me to join her inside. The glass front of the wood stove in the corner glowed from the light of the fire within, but everything else receded into darkness. I inched forward anyway and the door clicked shut behind my back, shutting me inside with a werewolf who I suspected soon wouldn’t consider me her friend.

  She was polite, though, as she flicked on a table lamp then pulled a beer out of a mini-fridge and tossed it my way. I grabbed the bottle out of the air...and felt her fingers slipping into my pants pocket faster than should have been humanly possible.

  Of course, she wasn’t human. Best not forget that.