Available on Pre-Order: Harper's Choice

The first of this month's short story releases is now available on pre-order. You can find the link to all its current platforms on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/bW8wZ1.

 

What's it about?

Harper's Choice is an updated version of the urban-fantasy science-fiction short story found in the Pixie-Dust Dreaming collection. It is the tale of a young woman who is rescued by an elf, approved of by the pixies, and protected by the unicorns. Harper returns to the world of man, to find it greatly changed.Fate has drawn her dance card, and rudely changed the tune.Will she surrender to its whims? Or find the courage to choose the next few dance steps for herself?

 

How does it Start?

 

“The world turns differently for each of us, and we have no choice but to turn with it, to take its hand and dance the next set of steps.”

Those were the words Argyllis had lived by, and by those words he had died. I stared down at his body, and thought what a liar he had been. We always have a choice of what to dance when the world’s rhythm plays. We don’t have to dance the way it demands. We can dance a counterpoint and not let our steps be chosen for us.

Argyllis had known that. He had merely hidden behind his words of false wisdom so he had an excuse for what he did. I looked around at the burning warehouse.

 Well, he has no excuse for this.

I looked down at his body, and all I felt was numb. Around me, the pixies swarmed and flew, flitting through falling cinders to makes sure no one had been left behind.

The elves had taken their dogs clear of the fire, and the unicorns trotted down each burning aisle to make sure they’d found each and every smuggler that had been involved. I just stood, staring at the burning equipment they’d used to turn the pixies into dust, Argyllis’s body at my feet.

All I felt was hollow.

He’d been going to gift me to the trolls.

I was frozen by the thought of it, stunned beyond terror, held in thrall by disbelief. The hand that curled

around my bicep and pulled me away from the blaze should have come as a surprise, but I felt nothing.

At least the voice was gentle.

“Come on.”

I was aware of the warehouse gradually emptying, of the unicorns gathering around me, and the pixies forming a protective shell around us. I didn’t resist as my escort took me past the police cordon, accepting a blanket from one of the paramedics as we left. We kept moving as he draped that blanket around my shoulders, and then tucked an arm across my back.

It was like moving through a dream. Surrounded by unicorns and pixies, my uniform holed by embers, my hands… I looked down, and then I remembered how to feel, and stopped dead.

“Shades of the Luca,” my escort swore, when he heard me gasp.

“Don’t look,” he added, as I started to raise my hands so I could see them better.

Of course, I ignored him, and only the arm he had around my shoulders, and the hasty grip on my wrists stopped me crumbling. I could see… I could see burnt flesh…and…and bone. I wanted to be sick. I wanted to run, and leave my hands far, far behind. I wanted… I didn’t know what I wanted.

“You got them out of the vat,” he said, holding me tight. “You saved them all.”

I wasn’t sure that would be compensation enough for losing both my hands.

“The druids can help you,” he said, and I wanted to laugh, managed it, too, if that tiny, broken sound could be counted as a laugh.

We kept moving, walking further from the warehouse, and entering the trees at the edge of the park, and then walking through them, and beyond. I wasn’t even aware we’d crossed the barrier between worlds, until the druid stepped into our path.

With snorting whickers of anxiety, the unicorns nudged me forward, buffeting my escort as well. He didn’t protest their rough handling, nor complain about being smeared by the blood on their muzzles, or the gore dripping from their horns, but he kept his arm tight across my shoulders, and his hand around my wrists.

“Help with what?” the druid wanted to know, and then he saw my hands.

 

Where Can You Find It?

 

 You can find it at any of the outlets listed on this Books2Read page: https://books2read.com/u/bW8wZ1