Release Date: 25 November 2024
Arabella’s Christmas Eve out on the town turns to disaster when she drags her best friend, Jenson the wereshark, down to the beach for a calming swim.
A swim? Absolutely.
Calming? …Not exactly.
With lives now at stake, Arabella needs a miracle, and fast. What she gets? Unexpected allies that unravel old family secrets and threaten everything she thought she knew about the people she loves — and about Christmas.
A classic urban fantasy novella perfect for the holiday season, for readers who know the key to survival is good communication.
CHRISTMAS MIRACLE IS JUST A SAYING
Anyone who says they like Christmas is lying. That’s my default position, anyway, because honestly, all it means is dealing with family secrets and fights, guilt and gifts equally unwanted, misery wrapped up in a giant glistening bow.
Okay, okay, the lights are pretty and the music isn’t entirely questionable, and it’s kind of cool that the whole city is, like, vibing together for the most part, night-time streets lined with sweaty bodies trying to cool down after the heat of the summer day and vibrant cocktails brighter than tinsel and the women’s dresses and yes, the lights I mentioned, strings of them, cobwebbing from trunk to pale trunk to canvas restaurant awning… Yeah, okay, fine. I like the time of year.
I just hate everything else that comes with it.
Which is why, when my phone buzzed in my bra for the third time in as many minutes, I ignored it. Not hard, honestly; the noise of the city street party made regular conversation impossible, the crowd ebbing and flowing, swelling and shushing like the ocean that lay only two blocks over, itself a background susurrus that added to the sense of urgency in the air: it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming.
I inhaled the salt wind deeply, tongue-tip dabbing a drop of some tropical-flavoured liquid that purported to be non-alcoholic but was making me suspiciously buzzy away from the corner of my mouth.
Jenson jostled me from the right, himself being elbowed aside to make way for a tall bear of a man in a suit that looked far too sharp, too polished for this particular street, even in the dark.
“You right?” I murmured to a tousled-haired Jenson, manoeuvring the cup of suspicious liquid out of harm’s way with one hand and digging my phone out of my bra with the other.
He muttered something in reply, too low for me to hear, and definitely too low for the bear-man to hear—but the bear-man turned anyway, pinning Jenson to the spot for a heart-stopping moment as the sea of bodies swayed through the street around us.
Something about him seemed to shimmer for a moment.
I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm and thumbed my phone unlocked.
Whatever. Jenson was a big boy. He could look after himself.
(Not coincidental, and I’m not saying it was the entire basis of our friendship, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t far off.)
Urgh. The phone call had been Mum. Again.
“He shouldn’t be here,” Jenson muttered, hands balling at his sides.
I glanced at the packed street that was currently exploding with Christmas Eve frivolity as people shopped and strolled and clustered out the front of White Rabbit for its annual free party. “Why not? Everyone else on the planet is.”
“He’s fey.”
Ice clutched my chest for just an instant—then I rolled my eyes and shoved the phone back in my bra. “Let’s get out of here,” I said, catching Jenson by a skinny wrist and pulling him around. “I’m sick of this place.”
He was not fey. No fey would be that stupid. Jenson was just jumpy in the crowd and spooking at shadows. I shouldn’t have dragged him here to begin with.
Jenson’s body stayed tense a moment longer, resistant to my hand—then he broke off and relaxed into an easy stride beside me. He straightened his black-rimmed glasses. Harrumphed.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes—and my shoulders. “You could have taken him, I know, I know.”
“It’s not that.” Jenson cut through the crowd like the shark he was, late-night last-minute shoppers and public party-goers avoiding him alike. Walking with him was always like that, like regular people could sense that something was off about him and it made them nervous. Even in the semi-light of the Christmas lanterns and street lamps, I could see the little glances people were giving him, and all he was doing was walking.
“No?” I said, tugging on his arm to both slow him down and steer him sideways so the oncoming mother-with-pram wouldn’t need to divert around him.
Jenson muttered something inaudible over the chatter of the crowd.
I rolled my eyes skyward, a vague blackness somewhere up there above the street sparkle. Heaven help me and give me patience. I tugged at his arm again, hard.
There was only one solution when he got like this. “That’s it,” I said. “We’re going for a swim.”
That slowed him down.
Stopped him right in his tracks, actually.
“Jen.” I skip-hopped sideways into the road as a gaggle of white twenty-something males sauntered down the footpath. (Didn’t matter, the road had been closed to traffic since five.) “This is non-negotiable. You’re jumpier than a toad tonight and it’s ruining my chill. I’m taking you for a swim, and then we are going to spend the rest of the night partying like it’s Christmas Eve and we have no family to bother us, okay? Beach or boardwalk?”
He stood, skinny frame rigid like a clothes rack under his baggy tee, fingers knotting and flexing at his sides.
My bra buzzed again.
Summoning every ounce of maturity I had, I left it alone instead of hurling it across the street.
“Fine.” I turned on my heel, letting the crowd wash over me, someone’s rosy perfume curling through my hair, sweat and heat and salt a hot summer bouquet. “I’ll go by myself.”
…Three, four…
I pressed my lips tightly together to hide the satisfied smile as Jenson appeared at my shoulder, a little knot of blackhole energy.
“Beach,” he grunted.
I nodded, and pressed a hand against my chest as my phone buzzed yet-a-freaking-gain.