Shades of Pink Read online

  SHADES OF PINK

  a romance anthology

  33 authors. 1 cause.

  Each story is Copyright © 2013 for its respective author

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are purely fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The ebook is our thanks to you for participating in our fundraiser.

  It is your own private copy. Please do not share it or make it available for others.

  Thank you.

  FOREWORD

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who made this project possible.

  Thank you to all the authors who took part in this endeavor, whether they are veteran writers or new to the craft.

  Thank you also to the editors who assisted them with their contributions.

  Thank you to Magz ‘Glad Girl’ for designing our cover.

  Thank you to all the bloggers who helped us spread the word about our effort.

  And thank you of course to you, the readers, for contributing to our fundraiser for the fight against breast cancer. We hope you’ll enjoy our offerings.

  Kallysten

  CONTENTS

  Note: Participating authors come from all over the English-speaking world. Regional spelling was conserved within each story. Whether color or colour, the shade is still pink…

  Ratings:

  sweet – no sex / behind closed doors

  sexy – graphic sex

  spicy – ménage and/or ‘kink’

  The Last Sunset by Kallysten [M/M, M/F/M – paranormal – spicy]

  One More Bloom by Vivien Dean [M/F – fantasy – sweet]

  Blood Lust by DJ Shaw [M/F – paranormal – sexy]

  Dirty Strategy by Eden Summers [M/F/M – contemporary – spicy]

  Highland Eclipse by Laura Hunsaker [M/F – sci-fi/historical – sexy]

  In Search of Pink Coral by Sabrina Garie [M/F – fantasy – sexy]

  Flock That! by Ellie Heller [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  The Touch by Amber Green [M/M – historical/paranormal – sweet]

  Collar Me Pink by Rachel Firasek [M/F – BDSM – spicy]

  Princess Pink by Kristin L. Wilson [M/F – sci-fi/fantasy – sexy]

  The Mother by Rose Caraway [M/F – historical/fantasy – sexy]

  A Single Pink Rose by JJ Ellis [M/F – contemporary – sexy]

  Mysteries in Pink by Matthew Welch [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  Pink Rose by Perci T. Brooks [M/F – contemporary/YA – sweet]

  Fate, Free Will & Fancy by Torie James [M/F – fantasy – sexy]

  Olivia by Madeline Sheehan [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  Break Out by Brei Betzold [M/F – contemporary/YA – sweet]

  Avoiding Commitment: Jack’s POV by K.A. Linde [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  See Me by Zoe York [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  Love and Other Silly Emotions by Susan Harris [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  The Pink Ribbon by Sarah Daltry [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  The Pink Hippo by C. Deanne Rowe [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  Real Men Wear Pink by Lisa M. Harley [M/F – contemporary – sexy]

  Harlequinade by Gill Taber [M/F – fantasy – sexy]

  Surprise Weekend Getaway by K. R. Haynes [M/F – contemporary – spicy]

  The Princess’s Consort by J Annas Walker [M/F – fantasy/paranormal – sexy]

  Pretty Little Rockstar by Bethan Cooper [M/F – contemporary – sexy]

  In Love With Teresa March by T. Hammond [M/F – contemporary – sexy]

  The Last Night by Jean Booth [M/F – fantasy – sexy]

  I Already Am by Catherine Bowman [M/F – fantasy/shifters – sexy]

  Pink Girl by Kate Baum [M/F – contemporary – sexy]

  Pinkie Swear by Jennifer James [M/F – contemporary – sweet]

  Blush by Angela Yseult [M/F – contemporary/YA – sweet]

  THE LAST SUNSET

  Kallysten

  When she first met vampires Blake and Marc, Kate couldn’t imagine falling in love with two men; after five years of fighting demons by their side, she can’t imagine not loving them both. Tonight, she plans to become theirs for good, and make them hers forever.

  ~~~

  Author’s Note:

  Although this story features the characters from the Blurred Trilogy and takes place after its conclusion, it can be read on its own without spoiling the previous books.

  After almost fifteen years of fighting demons, and fourteen breaches closed over the last five years, there was only one thing that Kate hated more than fighting in the woods: fighting in the woods when a preternatural mist swirled around the trees, the rest of her squad—and the demons.

  That damn mist came out of one in every four or five breaches. There were theories about why it happened, whether natural conditions or some kind of magic on the part of the demons. Kate didn’t really care about the why of it, she just knew that it made fighting a lot harder.

  There had been mist around the very first breach the squad had closed five years earlier, but the battle had taken place in the ruins of a devastated town. Fighting among the ruins hadn’t been so bad, or at least not once the reinforcements—namely, Blake—had arrived. Then again, it might have been the passing years that made the memory more pleasant. Closing that first breach had started it all. Things weren’t going as quickly as they’d all hoped because few mages were strong enough to pull off the spell. Nonetheless, one by one the breaches were being closed.

  But this… this was a nightmare. Kate couldn’t see a damn thing. Every tree looked like a demon, and she was sure that once they finally came out, every demon would look like a tree. The squad was spread out around her, and she couldn’t tell where Simon and the other mages were. She couldn’t tell where anyone was.

  “Weren’t we supposed to stay together?” Marc asked from behind her, sotto voce.

  She glanced back, but could barely see him in all that mist. He sounded worried, and she had no trouble imagining that what he really meant was, I thought you were supposed to stay close to us.

  Close to them. Close to him and Blake. Close enough that they’d be able to protect her, even if neither dared to say that to her face. The thing was, she could take care of herself. And she needed to prove it to herself one last time. She needed to know, once and for all, that she could have gone through the rest of the war the same way she had so far. Her decision to change it all had nothing to do with her fear that she wouldn’t live to see the end of the fight. Instead, it had everything to do with how she wanted to spend the rest of her existence—and with whom.

  “I can’t see a damn thing,” she said, just as quietly, and it wasn’t an accident if she wasn’t answering him. “Can you tell where Simon and the other mages are?”

  “To your left.” This time, it was Blake’s voice that rose through the mist, closer than she’d known he was. “About twenty yards away, a little behind us. Daniel and a couple of his goons are with him.”

  A low hiss rose from twenty yards or so to the left, and Kate wanted to roll her eyes. Blake had an uncanny talent for annoying Daniel, even at a distance. She never had a chance to chastise him. Ahead of them, in a small clearing, an eerie glow pierced the mist, announcing that at long last, after
three nights of searching, they’d finally found the breach. And, of course, demons.

  Daniel barked a few orders, but by now they all knew their roles. The bulk of the fighters took on demons head-to-head, while a handful remained with the mages, ready to defend them should the demons get too close. Simon and the two mages working with him had done the spell to close the breach many times and they knew what they were doing, but they still needed between twenty to thirty minutes of chanting and casting magic within sight of the breach before they could actually close it. Kate, Blake, Marc and the other fighters only had one goal: to give them that half hour.

  Her sword raised high, Kate charged at the closest demon with a shout. It towered a good four feet above her, almost five with that incongruous unicorn-like bone spiking out of its forehead. It raised an ax to meet her sword. Rather than confront the creature straight on—a stupid move seeing how much bigger and stronger than her it was—she used her speed and greater agility to feint, spring to the side, and slash toward its knee. She drew blood, along with an angry roar from the demon. It swung the ax blindly toward her, but already she’d stepped out of reach and was regrouping for her next attack.

  As the demon faced her, she could hear grunts, cries, and the clash of metal on metal all around her, each sound echoing through the mist. The cacophony hid the sound of the mages’ chanting, but Kate knew they were hard at work. All of them were.

  A shadow moving behind the demon caught her eye, and she called out, “Don’t you dare, Marc! This one’s mine, find your own.”

  The shadow stilled, then retreated a few feet away, still unnoticed by the demon. She knew Marc wouldn’t leave; he’d stay close enough to intervene if needed. But he wouldn’t need to, because as the demon started to move forward again, Kate ducked low to one side, feinted—and could do nothing but glare when Blake jumped into her fight from the other side, his sword a blur as it struck high on the demon’s arm.

  “What did you do that for?” she shouted, rushing at the demon as it twisted toward its new assailant and opened its side to her. “I wanted to kill it by myself!”

  Even as she said the words, she stabbed her sword in an upward movement, sliding under the leather armor that covered the demon’s upper body and plunging deep. In the near darkness, the spurting blood was inky black when she pulled her sword free. The demon fell, face first, the ax slipping from its fingers.

  “You did kill it,” Blake said, laughter barely hidden in his words. “What are you complaining about?”

  “You know what I mean! I wanted to kill it one-on-one.”

  He shook his head. “I used to play those games, remember? You’re the one who taught me better. You’re smarter than that.”

  She was about to object—it wasn’t about games, just about proving something to herself, couldn’t he understand that she needed that?—but Marc’s urgent voice cut short her train of thought.

  “Argue another time. Now’s the time to fight.”

  Kate started running toward him at once. Blake was right at her side. They joined Marc’s fight against two demons. When those two were down, there were still more to kill, and on and on it went. Sometime in the middle of all of the fray, it occurred to Kate that Blake had been right.

  She was smarter than that.

  She didn’t need to prove anything, to herself or anyone else. She’d survived the fight for more than a decade when the life expectancy of a fighter on the front line almost every night like she was rarely exceeded seven to eight years. She’d already beaten the odds. All she needed was to survive one last night, and the two men fighting on either side of her would do anything to see that she did—just like she’d do her best to see them walk from this battle unscathed.

  Between the three of them, they took down seven demons in the twenty-odd minutes it took the mages to close the breach. Around them, in the swirling mist, the rest of the soldiers killed a dozen more. The scent of blood was heavy in the air, and it wasn’t all demon blood. The fight didn’t end there, though. The squad wouldn’t leave until every demon they could find was dead.

  The darkness was deeper without the glow coming from the breach, but the mist soon thinned down to nothing. Kate’s arms and legs felt as heavy as lead, but she kept fighting alongside the others. When the call rose to return to the vehicles, she was too tired to let out a ‘whoop’ like Blake did, but she smiled at him and Marc, and made her way back between the two of them.

  Coming back to town, Kate felt that familiar mix of exaltation and pride at the thought that she’d been there to help close yet another breach, all of it compounded by exhaustion. She started to doze off in the transport truck, her head pillowed against Blake’s shoulder, and wasn’t all that sure how she ended up in bed, this time with her head on Marc’s chest and Blake curled up against her back. She didn’t wonder long, and simply let herself drift into a deep sleep.

  When she woke up, her body felt sore all over, as it always did after a night of fighting. She wasn’t sure if it was the soreness that had awoken her, or her hunger—it had to be long past noon already—or the caress of Blake’s lips against her bare shoulder.

  “Don’t even try,” she muttered, the words muffled against Marc’s arm.

  Blake didn’t reply, but she could feel him chuckle against her back.

  “I mean it,” she said, pushing herself to a sitting position with a stifled groan. “Not now.”

  In the semi-darkness, even her human eyes could see his wide grin. She gave him a severe look, although she knew it might be more enticement than deterrent to him. Her attempt at sternness ended with a shudder when Marc’s fingers traced the bottom edge of her camisole, raising goose bumps all over her back.

  “No, no, no,” she said, extirpating herself from the covers and their arms. “Not now. I’m starving. And sore. And I never showered last night, I must stink.”

  “You did shower,” Blake protested, one arm now curled behind his head, the other under the sheet and no, she didn’t want to know where that hand was—on himself or on Marc. “Right in between us. Don’t you remember?”

  She didn’t, but Marc’s nod when she looked at him questioningly confirmed Blake’s words.

  “I don’t,” she admitted with a grin and a shake of her head. “Talk about dead to the world. But I am starving so—”

  “Not now,” Marc finished for her with a half-smile. His voice was a low, sexy rumble, and oh, that wasn’t playing fair. “So that means, later?”

  Her knees were shaking a little when she slipped into a pair of pants. She could resist one of them. It wasn’t easy, but she could do it. When they both turned on the charm at once, however, it was a lot harder.

  And hard definitely was the word as she now could tell that Blake’s hand was on Marc’s cock. She couldn’t see a thing, but she could guess, and the images were almost as nice as what she knew she’d see if she only pulled the sheet off their laps.

  “Later,” she repeated, her mouth too dry for more than a whisper. Then she realized what she was saying. “Wait. We’re leaving later.”

  “Not until nightfall,” Blake reminded her. His eyes were molten gold in the near darkness. “Plenty of things we can do ‘til then.”

  She could feel her resolve eroding. How much did hunger matter, really, when this was the alternative? Marc let out a quiet little moan at that moment, his eyelids falling to half-mast as he shifted under the sheet. Raw need trickled along Kate’s spine. She shook her head and averted her eyes.

  “I’ll be back in a while,” she all but squeaked. Finding a jacket, she zipped it up over her camisole and left the room.

  By the time she reached the mess hall and helped herself to the buffet of reheated pasta, soggy chicken and wilted lettuce, she was having a hard time remembering why she’d left the bedroom and her lovers. But then, a few members of the squad called her name and made room for her at their table, and she remembered. It wasn’t so much the content of the meal that mattered, but the people she
wanted to share it with. That and the fact that it would be the last human meal she shared with them.

  She had meant to say her goodbyes, but as they all traded the usual stories, a mix of ‘do you remember that fight when’ and ‘once all the demons are dead I will,’ she found that she didn’t have to. They were her family, more so than her genetic family, and she knew they’d accept her choice when she came back. They’d accepted Daniel’s, after all, even if at first it hadn’t been easy.

  Daniel joined them as Kate was almost done with her meal. Rather than food, he brought along a large mug of coffee. He didn’t starve himself anymore, but he was still reluctant to drink blood in front of the rest of them. Kate had told him more than once that it was silly, but today, she didn’t. Instead, she wondered if she’d share his reluctance, or if she’d be okay with showing that part of her with those who had known her as a human.

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Daniel commented after a little while, low enough not to intrude on the conversations around them. They were seated across from each other at one end of the table, and as she met his gaze Kate decided that he, at least, ought to know.

  “Remember what I told you when we came to this town?” she asked, looking closely at his features for a reaction.

  His eyes widened gradually as he understood. “You said you’d do it once this breach was closed,” he said softly. “So… now?”

  She nodded. “We’ll be leaving tonight. I’m not sure how long we’ll be gone. You’ll probably have moved on by then.”

  “You know how to find us again. And you will, right?”

  She couldn’t help but smile. Reaching across the table, she offered him her hand, and Daniel rested his own on top of it, squeezing gently. This was Daniel’s way of telling her he’d miss her, and wished her well. After all these years fighting at his side, she could decipher the words hiding behind what he actually said. He’d taught her what the fight was about better than her instructors ever had, and they’d kept each other alive through countless battles. When she came back this time, they’d share one more link: blood.