Holidays are Hell

"Perfect, just the way you are." Joseph held out his hand. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. What a team we make, Six."

"Yes." Six trailed her fingers down his chest. "And what will we do next, as a team? I am a wanted woman. You are a wanted man. We cannot ever go back."

"China is a big country, but it's not as big as the world. We'll manage." He patted the back of his motorcycle. "Ready?"

Six hesitated for a moment, gazing down at the valley below her. The land could swallow the sky with its vastness: green and brown and full of lush curves that idled like the clouds.

No walls, anywhere in sight.

Six turned around. Joseph was watching her, a question in his eyes. She kissed him, long and slow, and slid behind him on the motorcycle.

"I want one of these," she said. "I want to fly on this land."

"We'll fly together," he said.

And they did.

About the Author

MARJORIE M. LIU is an attorney who has lived and worked throughout Asia. She hails from both coasts, but currently resides in the Midwest, where she writes full time. Her books include the New York Times bestselling Dirk & Steele series of paranormal romances for Leisure, and her forthcoming Hunter Kiss urban fantasies from Ace Books.

For more information, please visit her website at: www.marjoriemliu.com.

The Harvest Vicki Pettersson

For my mother—Joanne Johnson.

Happy Thanksgiving; Happy Birthday.

Chapter 1

Zoe Archer had hated hospitals even before she became mortal, and absolutely loathed them now that she was subject to the same capricious whims of the universe as those she used to protect. The sharp smell of disinfectant, and the even sharper underlying emotions, was a bitter reminder that she, too, was suddenly vulnerable to gun-toting criminals and shifty-eyed rapists.

Vulnerable to the rampant evil of Shadows.

For God's sake, she thought irritably as she strode from the fourth-floor stairwell, these days she was bothered by a mere paper cut. She'd had to find new ways to move through this old world; stepping aside, moving around, and shrinking back instead of barreling through, clamoring over, and standing up. She'd had bruises for weeks after her transformation—bruises! — until she'd finally learned the limits of mortal flesh and blood. She was just thankful this learning curve wasn't being recorded in the manuals. How embarrassing would it be if the agents of Light knew she actually bruised?

How dangerous if the Shadow agents discovered she bled?

Zoe shivered and picked up her pace, her steps echoing through the wide sterile hallway as she settled her briefcase strap more firmly on her shoulder. It was still worth it. She no longer deserved the powers that had once made her extraordinary, and if she'd ever been a heroine worthy of the title, she would've passed on her chi before her daughter was almost murdered. But so intent had she been on her mission, her own deceitful life, that she hadn't even considered that possibility. So when it was too late, when all she could do was watch her Jo-baby fight for life—wires and tubes and casts canvassing her young body like she was caught in a web—Zoe knew there was only one title that mattered, and it wasn't Superhero.

It was Mother.

And she was determined to prove herself worthy of that. Tonight she'd tie up this final loose end and in doing so ensure the safety of all the loved ones she'd left behind—both mortal and supernatural. Then she'd spend the rest of her life in this fragile human skin as penance, hiding from both ally and enemy alike.

The nurses' station on the labor and delivery floor was eerily empty when she arrived. She heard a woman's cry from down the hall, a sound that had her belly tightening as she remembered the pangs of her own two births, but she needed to stay focused and quickly shook the memory off. Throwing a cursory glance over the rim of her owlish glasses, and spotting no one, she leaned over the admission's desk to thumb through the charts. Yep, there she was. Joanna Archer. Room 425.

Swallowing hard, Zoe headed that way.

She was three doors from her daughter's room when she heard the crying. She slowed, but told herself she wasn't stalling. Just being respectful. Compassionate. Human. At least, that was her excuse.

Peering around a doorway, she spotted a young couple dressed in unassuming street clothes, clinging to one another as the world spun heedlessly around them. She couldn't scent their sorrow as she'd have been able to six months earlier, but she didn't need to. Bleakness was printed on their faces; carved in the bend of the man's back as he held his wife, jackhammering her trembling shoulders as she wept.

"Can I help you?"