Havok Publishing

Romantic

A Love Stronger Than Garlic

What’s a vampire to do when he falls head-over-heels for a girl from a garlic farm?
Brace himself to attend a home-cooked Italian dinner at her family’s, of course.
“We’ve got five minutes. Are you sure you want to go through with this, Vlad?” Sarah’s fingers tap the steering wheel in time with the car’s left blinker.

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The Vampyyri’s Daughter

I’d always been an oddity with my ivory skin, ebony hair, and blood-red lips, but when my father chose a vampyyri—a female descant of the vampires—as his second wife, my appearance became a curse. I wasn’t of the bloodsuckers, but to the outsiders who only knew them through scary tales, I looked like it.

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Selkie’s Sanctuary

Moira’s breath fogged the viewing window, her wide eyes staring unblinking, as though in the split second they closed, Isla would disappear once again.
She’d been searching for her sister for months, ever since the night she failed to return to their pod. A missing selkie typically

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Dreaming Spires

With my American sense of direction and independence, I’d thought I could make it from my boarding house to the dreaming spires and spinning cogs of Oxford University without help. But I’d been wandering the crooked, twisting streets for hours now. A distant clock tower, hidden behind thick swathes of fog, struck noon with a melodic mix of bells and whistles.

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How to Flirt in Church

Martha scanned the pews as she entered the sanctuary, one hand slipping almost unconsciously into her bag. Her fingers brushed the spines of two books, one as thick as her fist and one as thin as a pencil. The thick one was, of course, her Bible.

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All the Comforts of Home

“It’s dangerous to stay here.” Lili gazed at me with red-brown eyes. “We should go.”
Leave the comfort of Steve and Talia’s house? I had to calm Lili’s fears before she ruined the good thing we had going.
“We’re house flies,” I protested. “If we weren’t meant to live in houses, why call us that?

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Broken Box

Ping, pang, ping, pung, pang…
He cringed as his eardrums buzzed from the musical assault. “Man, I don’t think anyone could have made a worse music box. This thing must be broken.” Bobby leaned forward and put the wind-up music box between

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A Grand Gesture

Scarlet slammed her textbook down in front of the Head T.A. of Color-Based Synesthetics. “Teach me color transfer.”

The tired-looking elf didn’t look up from his book. “Hello to you, too, Scarlet. And no. You can’t learn color transfer for two more years.”

“It’s important, Aeris!”

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The Cleaning Lady vs. the Handyman

Dee Dalsey was constantly surrounded by heroes. Big heroes. Little heroes. (One that could be either, depending on the need.) Heroes with super strength, super speed, or super senses. Not to mention the whole slew of heroes that could fly.
Yet none

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The Princess of the Valley

Everyone knows how the stories go.
The princess imprisoned by a dragon. Then the knight comes and fights the dragon with his mighty lance and rescues the lady.
It’s a good story to tell around the hearth on a winter’s night.
There’s only one trouble with it, and I see that now:

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The Gardeners’ Quarrel

A man and woman bought a plot of land and built a cottage and greenhouse. The rest of their earth they cultivated to full, flamboyant, leafy life, pendent with edible gems. Some tomatoes ballooned to be nearly as large as watermelons. Others reminded one

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Dragonsbane

The crone’s home lies deep within the forest, so covered in moss and vines that I almost miss it. The old woman sits on a stool by her front door, hunched over a massive tome, running her fingers across lines of text.

I adjust

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