Yes, you read the title of this entry correctly. The 2014 Spring Anthology: Nature's Wrath is NOW LIVE!!!! What better way to end the week than with 15 brand new short stories for you to read and enjoy? I decided to do the announcement a bit different and include a brief snippet from the start of each story. Enjoy and thank you to everyone who participated!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Ryn of Gryphon’s Reach, fourth son of Lord Silas, moved with purpose. The uniform of the King’s Rangers along with the proper salute showing his magical sigil, impossible to duplicate, gave any Ranger passage through the Guard positions. The inner sanctum of every base housed the Ranger Commanders as well as other servants to the King. The base at Land’s End was bigger than most, qualifying as its own fortress. As the largest Ranger stronghold outside the capital, it also held the Ranger General.

 

Ryn, twenty-two winters old, was in his sixth year of serving the King’s Rangers. With his dark burgundy hair and emerald green eyes, he broke many hearts. The scar stretching from his left eye down to his jaw gave him a rugged look that his otherwise youthful appearance lacked.

 

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Mark squinted through the rain, his fingers tapping the steering wheel in a rapid beat, willing the red light to turn green.

 

Now! Now! Now!

 

He briefly entertained the thought of how it would be if he could change the light with his 'secret superpowers', then he scoffed at himself.

 

Yeah, right. When did I turn into a geek?

 

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One young man stood out from among the group, excited and animated. He threw his hands about as he talked and smiled, and laughed among his friends. I wondered if his liveliness extended into the bedroom. The thought had barely passed through my mind when he turned and surveyed the room. His gaze caught mine and went no further, imprisoning me with an intensity I had never experienced. It acquainted me with the impression that he was rooting around in my head. I attempted to repay the impact, but the sensation that any moment I would be found wanting and dismissed arrested me.

 

I didn’t want to know how a dismissal by him would present itself. But ahead of me breaking eye contact, some undefined switch seemed to flip. The vibrancy of his eyes went out, his facial expressions became empty, and he was suddenly not the same person sitting in that chair.

 

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It was my first day as a junior in high school and I was excited about being back. I was an upperclassman now, so I was looking forward to having a great year.

 

As I walked into my first period class, I realized that I had never seen this particular teacher before. She appeared to be only a few years older than me, so it was obvious I was going to have a recent college grad for English this year. Shortly after I sat down, the class got underway and the teacher began taking attendance. This was taking longer than it normally would have, because she was taking her time trying to match the faces to the names on the class list.

 

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“I can’t, Mom. My plans have been made for over a week. Jim will get angry if I break our date. He said he’s got a surprise for me.” Petey turned to see Jim walk in the kitchen door, his mouth falling open, listening to the conversation. “No, Mom. I’ll call you when I’ve got a free weekend.” Petey shut his phone off, dreading what was coming.

 

“Do you know another Jim or was I the subject of that conversation?” Jim leaned against the cabinet with his arms folded. He watched Petey nervously run his hands up and down the front of his jeans, putting off answering his question.

 

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“Seriously? That’s a real thing? You can pay someone to do that to you?” I gaped at him.

 

“Something, not someone.” Keon gulped down half his beer and then belched. He gestured toward the hologram screen on the wall. “They even have advertisements for it.”

 

“That’s ridiculous.” I smacked my glass down on the table. “How can shifters demean themselves like that?”

 

Keon rolled his eyes. “You are such a rube, Nehemiah.”

 

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“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

 

That saying is nothing but accurate when you consider the two women who had demanded the appearance of so many of us. When Mother Nature and Gaia gathered the weather gods and goddesses from every pantheon the world has ever known, well let’s just say this isn’t going to be a social gathering in the local mead house.

 

Gaia walked to the table and watched as the rest of the crowd slowly filled the space. No one could deny who or what she represented.

 

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“So, give me a rundown on the trials,” the woman in the cream colored skirt and silk blouse asked as she crossed her long, shapely legs. “I heard they are going quite well and this could be a breakthrough for us.”

 

“It’s early yet, but the mice seem to be responding favorably to the treatment. We weren’t sure it would be easy to measure the effectiveness but they seem to be sleeping more peacefully and they’re not as aggressive,” the man seated behind the desk said. Dr. Jason Hampton watched as his boss inspected her perfectly polished nails. Dr. Carol Littleton was a very together woman whose star was on the ascent at Luminair Labs.

 

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The end of summer was always a terrible thing, those first few specks of rain falling from a clear blue sky, the threat of encroaching clouds, the knowledge that the days were getting shorter, the nights longer, and the ground more squelchy. First rain can be a lovely thing, soft relief from the heat that bleeds into the beginning of autumn, a chance to stand outside in what feels like a shower, mouth open and upturned, t-shirt clinging to your skin.

 

It rained the day he left me.

 

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After losing his job, Rick had fallen into a deep depression. His mental state only changed when he read an ad in a magazine. Rick saw his chance. He made a trip to Las Vegas and won 18,000 dollars, more than he had earned in the previous two years. Fortune had favored him. Rick was on a winning streak.

 

He was looking out on the lake, his arm placed around Frank's shoulder. The midsummer night was quiet and warm. A few crickets were chirping. Rick looked at the full moon.

 

"The moon is very big," he said.

 

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At 3:45 in the morning on February 7, 1812, an earthquake struck the southern United States. It was the third in a series of immeasurably violent quakes and it was felt over an area of more than a million square miles. A million miles. Seems unthinkable, doesn’t it? To give you an idea of what kind of an earthquake we’re talking about, here, the historic 1906 earthquake that wiped out eighty percent of San Francisco radiated tremors for approximately six thousand square miles. The continent of North America is approximately nine million square miles. That means one-ninth of a whole continent felt the rage of this hellish thing that punched its way through the earth and, according to one man, “laughed in the face of God.”

 

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Past several small, dying suns and a glorious wasteland of broken stars, the tiny planet of Gadet orbited around three miniature suns. Gadet itself was no bigger than most moons, and the entire planet’s population was less than some major cities on other worlds. But the Gadetans didn’t allow their small size to keep them down. A quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and sometimes acerbic people, they made the most of what they had and weren’t afraid to offer a sarcastic turn of phrase if the teasing about their tiny planet went too far.

 

Half the planet was covered in silvery waters somewhat like the element mercury. The rest of the planet was divided between mountains, forest, and plains. Travel on the planet was done mostly by airship or watership.

 

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My two brothers and I had been brought up on my grandmother’s fairy tales.

 

I can remember the four of us sitting by the open fire on a cold winter’s night in her cottage, with a hot milk toddy each, and she would tell us stories that were long forgotten. I also remember on one occasion she invited us for dinner and we were not permitted to talk during the meal, she called it a “Dumb Supper”. Apparently, it was something she held every November 1st to remember those relatives who had died.

 

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Iowa in the middle of December is usually cold with snow on the ground, but this winter had been unusually mild so far. It had been cold, but not much of the ice and snow.

 

TJ decided to head up to his family’s cabin in Charles City, Iowa. It was always nice to get away from the hustle and bustle of the Christmas shopping and decorating. He had put in for the vacation time back in June because he knew that this time of year was difficult for him.

 

Ever since his parents had died four years ago, he had had trouble handling the Christmas holidays.

 

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