Havok Publishing

Tag - family

Candy-Caned

“Mason, what do you think?” Aunt Peggy asks, beaming.
It’s terrible.
Of course, I don’t say that out loud. Aunt Peggy would be inconsolable if I do. So I swallow and hope my face doesn’t express my shock. “Aunt, you shouldn’t have.”
She giggles

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Blood Brothers

My brother and I have labored since dawn under the Colorado sky, hacking away at a rock face in a luckless search for silver. Growing numbers of werewolves back East have made that metal more precious than gold. Frustrated, we eat a meager

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Still Breathing

Tavin was on autopilot until everything ahead turned a bright vermillion.
His feet had been leading him home while he watched his favorite engineering channel, trying to meet his required screen time. His family didn’t need trouble with the ever-vigilant Inspectors.
He’d lightly

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Burnt Sugar & Mischief

Fern pressed a wrinkled finger against each of the tiny shamrocks embedded in the mossy roof. “I used to love playing leprechauns,” she mused, turning the miniature clover-colored house in her stiff hands. “Guess you’re not so magical after all.”
Peering inside

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Cry of the Beast

The cry sends a chill through me, as it does every time I hear it. It always arrives at the height of summer, yet I pray this is the cycle it will not come.
But it does. It always does.
I take out the muting silk and put it in my ears and those of my beautiful daughters.

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Cracking the Case

Frank the Pig Detective shuffled papers on his desk while his brother Bob studied the bookcase.
Wonder what kind of mood Bob’s in today?
Frank adjusted a paper that didn’t really need adjusting, and sighed. Before the Big Bad Wolf fiasco, he, Bob,

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The Gift

Cazria turned the box over in her hands, admiring the silver wrapping and sapphire bow. She shook it. No sound. She placed it back on the pedestal and chewed her fingernail. Jewelry. It had to be. Earrings or necklace? Her father had called

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The Photograph

My stroll down the block came to a halt as I caught the sign in my periphery. TIMELESS: Antiques & Vintage Goods. I could practically feel the time portal pulse with hope, though I’d shoved the former deep within my bag and the latter deep within my soul.

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The Rightful Heir

The Rightful Heir

Salamanders are slow. This was something I hadn’t considered before beginning my search for the witch responsible for transforming me into the creature. See, while I’d been stuck as a salamander for the past six months, I hadn’t strayed from the fountain outside my father’s castle. Until recently, my brother

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Getaway

I peered down the prison ward’s empty hallway—shiny and sterilized like everything else in the Domand Empire. “All right, I’m here.” My whisper echoed off the metal walls. “Which cell is Colton’s?”
Alexander’s tinny voice crackled in my earpiece. “B-5.”

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Grow

“Grow, and live,” I whispered to the glass butterfly in my hand. I kissed it and placed it into the dirt hole in front of me.
“Now cover it,” my mother said. “Everything must die and return to the earth before it can grow.”

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The Lightkeeper

Cold air burns my throat as it rushes in and out of my lungs, my feet pounding across the snowy shore in rhythm with my heart. My eyes are locked on the lighthouse, on its strangely muted glow. Gemma would never let the stars outshine it.

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