WILD SHORT READS - PARANORMAL ROMANCE FLASH FICTION

PARANORMAL SCREW UP

SOPHIA

How to commit social suicide as a freshman when attending America's most prestigious supernatural academy in ten easy steps:

1) Get a paper cut in art class.

2) Survive the ensuing carnage by cowering under a desk.

3) Score a pity invite to the frat party of the year as your consolation prize.

4) Squeeze your curvy ass into a borrowed designer outfit.

5) Allow your undead BFF to cake on the makeup until you look like a manic pixie.

6) Get buzzed by the full moon.

7) Perform an impromptu striptease round the campfire.

8) Clang fangs with your vampy hook up.

9) Recognize the strictly off-limits Prince of Darkness as your fated mate then accidentally-on-purpose claim him.

10) Throw yourself to the wolves—literally—when your father and his monster hunting chums crash the party of a lifetime with stakes.

I thought wearing lipstick to a full moon party was the stupidest thing I'd do in my first year of college. Turned out I was wrong. So very, very wrong. I was about to lay down an alpha challenge on the head of the Northwest Pack with nothing more than a set of pitiful human teeth and non-existent claws.

So why was I signing my own death warrant under magical law by squaring off with my lethal and utterly ruthless sire? Because I had an epic crush on the world's most unattainable frat boy. Oh, I wasn't an idiot. I knew Raul had already checked out from humanity. But the look he'd fixated on me from across the fire pit had burned with longing as his glittering onyx gaze ate up every inch of jiggling flesh.

It made me bold.

It made me reckless.

Now I was squaring off with my disreputable father, Prez of the Slayers MC, stuck in my highly destructible human skin. Apparently my inner wolf—the coward who refused to show her doggy face to the world—had decided that performing a brief half-shift to claim her chosen mate was as close to the blessed moonlight as she planned to get, thank you furry much.

When I'd thrown myself in front of my father's stake and caused a complete ruckus, I was kinda hoping that the cowering beast might find her hairy lady balls and finally come to my rescue. Nope. She preferred to slink through the darkest recesses of my mind, leaving me to defend her impulsive claim alone.

Luckily, I'd been training to kick supernatural butt since I was a babe.

Unluckily, my father didn't need silver knives to tear out my throat. He planned to use those sharp fucking teeth if I didn't back down and forsake my forbidden vampire mate.

When I'd gotten this scholarship, I really thought all my latent shifter dreams were about to come true. Turned out, being a freshman—even at a supernatural college as prestigious as this—still sucked ass.

***

RAUL

Five stupid things to do if you want to remain undead:

1) Invite the sexy new girl—from the wrong side of the tracks with no supernatural smarts whatsoever, except for the fact that her old man is Prez of the nastiest slayer MC known to vamp kind—to your party. The very same recruitment drive designed to lure rich college kids to join your mother's undead army.

2) ...

Nope, that was it.

All I needed was one.

One monumental fuck up.

One blindingly stupid moment when I'd let my cock run away with my mouth.

It was right after I'd laid waste to a dozen of my own classmates.

As soon as the geeky troublemaker got her fatal paper cut, she'd immediately sucked the fresh dewdrop straight off her finger. However, in a classroom full of monsters juiced up on the full moon, the damage had been done. Her eyes had flown wide—catching mine from across the room in a silent but electric scream for help—before diving under the desk like a fucking rabbit.

The sight of her fear.

The smell of her blood.

The shock of her silent plea as she chose me—me, the most psychotic classmate of them all—as her savior did something strange to my head. No, not my head. Something far more dangerous than that. My undead soul had roared to life in that moment, demanding I save this delicious snack. Immediately. I had to taste her. Just once. Because that unassuming bookworm—the shifter who couldn't shift—smelled like sunshine in a mountain glade.

No one else was worthy of Sophia's divinity.

Only me.

I'd clawed at my desiccated chest as the painful drumbeat of life returned. Stuttering at first, it quickly gained strength in her presence. Sophia had woken up the beast which resided in my soul and the predator locked onto its target.

Its next acquisition.

Miss Heartgrave was mine now, even if she was never meant to be.

To make matters worse, when her father showed up at the bonfire to take me out that fucking rabbit had thrown herself in front of his stake. The one aimed at my newly-beating heart. Her dog of a sire only just managed to pull out of his lethal thrust in time.

All the same, I smelled sunshine on the air.

A tiny trickle of blood ran hot down my mate's chest.

It was that sight—not the one of death coming to kiss me a well-deserved goodnight—which painted my world red. Unrepentant, I let the tightly wound leash I usually kept on my inner monster slide from my fingertips and embraced the dark. The fierce siren call of her blood urged me on and the sweet promise of her essence thrummed in my veins. Because, if there was one thing my long and cursed existence had taught me, it was this.

Even the briefest taste of love is worth dying for.

Tonight, I would rise triumphant from battle to claim my forbidden mate.

~~~~~

PARANORMAL SCREW UP was first published as part of the WILD AT HEART PNR FLASH FICTION writing circle. Keep an eye out in my Facebook Readers' Group -- The Phoenix Inferno - Miri Stone's Book Devourers -- and author newsletter for new short works and other cool reader bonuses.