The Winter King Read online

  On this end of the planet, winter officially began every mortal year on December 21st, the winter solstice. It was the shortest day of the year, and because things took a while to cool off, it was the days following the solstice that were the coldest. That date and its thousands of years of recognition had given birth to generations of customs, and had been adopted by various religions and practices around the world. Kristopher had been there for all of them. He’d seen winter grow and change repeatedly, and yet always stay the same.

  The Christmas tree with its bright, warm lights was one of Kris’s favorite adoptions of mortality for this time of year. It had originated in the pagan celebration of the solstice with trees that sported candles lit amidst their branches thousands of years ago. That had been a dangerous practice, if ever there had been one. The more recent electric lights were a much safer bet, and they could be done in a host of colors!

  The wreath and the feast he also enjoyed were taken from the celebration of Saturnia, an ancient Roman event covering four or five days, beginning around December 21st and including December 25th, that again celebrated the changing day length associated with the solstice. That one, he was less fond of, if only because it was always a touch too warm in Rome for his liking.

  And… he’d known too many Romans.

  On and on, the traditions went, dating back far further than most mortals were aware, and all having something to do with the solstice. Why so many revelries? It may have been the shortest day of the year, but in the cold and the dark, people naturally needed something to look forward to. Knowing that the days would now grow longer from this point out allowed them to celebrate the dawning of a “new sun,” and a warmth they equated with renewed hope.

  But winter – actual winter – couldn’t have cared less what day on the calendar mortals had decided would be its “first day.” It came when it was good and ready, and it looked like this year, it would be arriving on December 4th.

  From the way the people around him, both entering the establishment, and leaving it, were bundled up in their layers of scarves and gloves, it was clear most of them felt it had already started. But if the sensations in Kristopher’s blood were any telling… they hadn’t seen anything yet.

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt winter coming on quite as strong as it felt right now. There was a stirring in his blood, almost like his cells were crystalizing. It wasn’t painful, not for him, but it was rare. There was a humming at the end of his nerves. And there was a scent to the air….

  Just as he reached the front door of the coffee shop, Kris looked up to the heavens. When he did, he exhaled and noticed the steam vaporizing. The air smelled like snow. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

  He looked back down at the door, steeled himself for whatever he was going to find inside, and went in. The air inside was stifling with humanity. It hit him at once like a wall of anti-magic, and like he usually did, he steadfastly ignored it and walked on through. It was just something you had to put up with in crowds of humans. Magic was dulled around mortals, and the more mortals there were, the more dulled the magic. In enormous crowds, it could feel as if there was no magic left in the world.

  It was just after seven at night, and the coffee shop was chock-full of people in the holiday spirit, families out shopping, and those who just enjoyed the night and the cold. Kristopher actually enjoyed the atmosphere; it was filled with life, mortal though it may be. And that life was vibrant.

  Because he was who he was, he managed to “find” a table and chair near one of the corners – okay, he just summoned them up when no one was looking, along with a cup of coffee – and he took a seat, anxious to see what Winter had in store.

  People came and went, orders were processed and created, and Kris sat back, wove his hands together behind his head, closed his eyes, and tuned his hearing into the crowd.

  “… you don’t need to understand me. You just need to love me.”

  He opened his eyes and swung his head toward the door. Two women were walking in, one with dark skin and black hair, and the other with lighter skin and multi-hued brown hair. The latter had her back to him, but her scarf was an extra-long knit number filled with so many colors, it grabbed his attention as much as the words she’d muttered. He found himself sitting up straighter, his breath held, his attention fixated – waiting for her to turn around.

  And then she did. And his world went tumbling.

  Chapter Two

  Poppy tried very hard to keep the smile on her face as she entered the coffee shop, despite the pain behind her right eye. But the day had just been crappy from the get-go. This was her absolute favorite time of year, but she was stressed. And stress often brought with it one of the banes of her existence – migraines.

  That’s what it had done this morning. She’d awoken to a coffee cup enshrouded in a migraine aura, and right then and there, she’d known it was going to be a bad day. Then her coffee had been cold – like, right out of the coffee maker. Damn thing was on the fritz or something. So she’d tried to microwave the coffee, but apparently the microwave wasn’t working either. The liquid was still cold.

  The pain in her head had started in then, right on schedule, settling somewhere in the space between her right eye and the base of her skull on the right side. It was always on the right. Some days, she would pay money just to have the damn thing switch sides.

  She’d sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and taken two Excedrin on an empty stomach, swallowing it down with water that was so cold out of the faucet, it chilled her teeth. Then, as she’d prayed it wouldn’t give her one hell of a stomach ache, she pulled on her coat, favorite extra long, highly colorful scarf, and favorite boots before she headed out the door to Starbucks.

  She really could have used the company of her best friend right about then, but she wasn’t going to bother Violet this time, no matter how badly she wanted to complain to her. The fact was, Violet was on her honeymoon. A honeymoon that came after getting hitched to a freaking king.

  Some girls had all the luck.

  In short, Violet was out of commission. Way out of commission. Most likely, she wasn’t even in the same realm just then. And she was probably sore from too many orgasms.

  Lucky bitch.

  That thought made her smile, an action she immediately regretted when the throbbing behind her eye picked up in both speed and severity, and she was forced to grit her teeth. She hated it when the pain on the inside began to show on the outside. She always felt like a freak. No one ever showed their emotions in society any longer. It was only acceptable to keep to yourself, be polite, and make your face a stone mask. As the British said, “Stiff upper lip and all that.”

  But a migraine was a migraine, and unlike Violet and the British, Poppy was only human.

  So she simply vowed to drink a shit-load of coffee as fast as she could and “nix” this headache like lightning, and hurried her pace to Starbucks. Half way there however, her cell phone chimed. She stopped in her tracks and looked down at the screen.

  Her boss.

  “Poppy, I need you to re-send that copy for the digital camera to me ASAP. Our file is lost for some reason, and we need to get it to the printer before three.”

  Poppy worked as an instruction manual writer for a company that actually did that for a living: RightInWrite. She wrote instructions on everything from video game consoles to blenders to hair dryers. There was never a shortage of need for a new set of directions; things were invented every single day. Hundreds of things. Hell, thousands.

  And someone had to tell people how to use them. That was what Poppy did.

  It would become too hectic for RightInWrite authors to take items home and use them; their houses or apartments would become overrun with objects far too quickly. So it was customary for the writer to fill their itineraries with seven items per week, use those items in the RIW warehouse rooms, and then type up a manual for each one. Seven a week.

  It was a weird job, not one you norm
ally heard of people having, but one she fell into rather naturally. She was just good at understanding people, and more importantly, understanding what they would understand. She knew what would help them comprehend instructions, and how to write it all down so that it meshed. She’d received rave reviews for her manuals and instructions in the two years she’d been working for RIW, and it paid well enough that she had no real desire to change jobs any time soon.

  Even so, a call from her boss that morning was the last thing she wanted. This was supposed to be a day off. She needed this day off. She needed it not only because of her pain, but to prepare for what was coming that night:

  Dinner with her mother.

  But of course Poppy had told her boss she would do her very best. Then she’d turned around, headed back to her apartment, and fussed with her computer until she was forced to admit that she no longer had the copy. It was always like this. You had ten copies of something you didn’t need, and the one bloody thing you absolutely did need would simply up and vanish. She had no idea why. She supposed it was just that kind of life, and it was just that kind of goddamned day.

  So, she said a lot of bad words and settled into her chair. Then, migraine and all, she re-wrote the whole thing. Fortunately for her, she had a very good memory and typed 102 words per minute. The copy was twelve pages long. It started out on page one with the words, “Okay guys, here we go. The first thing you’re going to want to do is get a beer. Seriously. Just get one. You’ll need it.” But it was this kind of sense of humor that had reviewers raving on Amazon and had product companies coming back to the company that employed her to get more instruction manuals.

  When she was finished editing the piece hours later, she sent it off with fifteen minutes to spare, a note to make sure the instructions were printed in a legible size; i.e., not tiny, and a prayer that she was typing in her boss’s email address correctly, since by that time the screen was covered in the wavy zigzag lightning streaks of a full-on aura.

  Apparently, she’d gotten it right because a few minutes later, her boss thanked her, and Poppy again donned her coat and scarf and headed out the door, shooting her coffee maker a dirty look over her shoulder.

  But this time when her phone rang around block five, it was her mother. She needed a bunch of stuff for dinner and wondered if Poppy could pick it up on the way over. And since dinner was at five because her mother went to bed around six, Poppy realized she had to go shopping then and there. No time for coffee.

  Two hours later, she was sitting down to dinner with her mother and trying her best not to get into an argument that was either political or religious in nature. This was supposed to be a holiday dinner, warm and inviting, filled with companionship and love and what not. Not silent fuming hatred and unshared fantasies about drowning family members in gravy boats.

  But then again, that was family. Perhaps especially during the holidays.

  By the time she kissed her mother goodbye at fifteen-to-seven, she was a physical mess that was barely capable of keeping down the food her mother had gone to all the trouble to cook. Migraines sometimes made you nauseated. And, so did family.

  If she didn’t get coffee soon, she was going to end up using her warlock magic to conjure some, and using her magic in the mortal world was sort of forbidden. It wasn’t like Harry Potter’s shindig, where using it at all would land you in some sort of Ministry jail where you’d have all your powers taken away. It was just that humans couldn’t really handle things they didn’t fully understand, and when people didn’t understand something, they automatically feared it, and that fear more often than not brought violence and evil. So, it was a good idea to steer as clear as possible. Plus, conjuring was advanced and dangerous and would definitely be noticed by Lalura.

  On attempted trip number three to the coffee shop, she took her phone out of her pocket and used it to make a call herself so that the damn thing wouldn’t ring again. She called one of her friends, they agreed to meet her just outside the Roastery, and for the first time that day, Poppy was able to take a deep breath.

  When she got to Starbucks, Angel was already waiting for her outside. This time, when Poppy smiled, it was genuine. But she was still punished for it by her headache.

  “Poppy, you look like something is trying to push its way out of your head through your eyeballs,” Angel told her as she approached. She tossed a lock of her long black hair back over her shoulders and settled warm, chocolate eyes on her with all the compassion Poppy knew she was actually feeling.

  “There is. My brain.”

  Angel frowned and opened the door for them. “You’ve had a migraine all day, haven’t you?” Angel could just tell. She was like that.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why are you only getting coffee now? You’ll have to drink so much of it you won’t be able to sleep.”

  “I didn’t have time.”

  “It’s a migraine. You make time.”

  “Long day.”

  Angel muttered something behind her as they entered the shop, but Poppy heard it. “Sometimes I really don’t understand you.”

  Poppy grinned. “You don’t need to understand me. You just need to love me.”

  Angel chuckled. “Fine. You know I love you. Especially since you gave me an excuse to leave the family dinner.”

  Poppy glanced back at her as Angel scanned the crowd, obviously trying to find them a place to sit. “You had one of those tonight too, huh?”

  Angel shook her head in slight bewilderment. “Everyone had one of those tonight. It’s Friday. And ‘tis the season.”

  Chapter Three

  They’d ordered their drinks and were standing at the waiting end of the line as the people behind the counter worked like an efficiently oiled machine, turning, grabbing, mixing, blending, and pouring with amazing expertise.

  “So… did you get the interview?” Poppy asked out of the blue.

  Angel raised a brow. “I did actually. Leave it to you to remember that right now.”

  “It’s important. Because if you get the job in Frisco, I’m coming with you.”

  “Then don’t call it Frisco,” Angel teased. “I’m told they’re picky about that.”

  “Nah.” Poppy shook her head – gently. “I think they maybe used to be, or maybe it was really just kind of a joke. But not anymore. They’ve grown up, I think. They’re adults. Busy building computer systems that’ll be able to take over the world and what not. No one has time to say the whole damn name anymore.”

  “Fair enough.”

  They got their coffee and somehow lucked out enough to get a seat by the window. It wasn’t by one of the fire places, which Poppy would have preferred, but at seven at night in the busiest Starbucks in Seattle, you really couldn’t afford to be picky.

  “So, you want some advice before you head into this interview?” Poppy asked.

  “Always,” Angel said, rolling her eyes.

  “You’re getting some anyway,” Poppy said. She leaned over the table toward her friend. “My mother tells me that when I was a baby, I never stopped crying. She claims that for the first three years of my life, I couldn’t be satisfied, that there was nothing she could do to make me shut up. She had three kids after me, and apparently my little sister was a walk in the park as an infant. Never made a fuss.

  From that moment on, there was nothing I could do right, and nothing my sister could do wrong that would cause my mother’s adoration to shift. I never smoked, never drank, always followed my curfew, and called my parents frequently to let them know I was safe. But regardless of the fact that she engaged in all the vices I refrained from, it was my sister who was my mother’s favorite. And still is.”

  Angel’s brow furrowed. She blinked. “Are you… telling me that if you’re a colicky baby, you’ll be paying for it for the rest of your life?”

  “No, honey.” Poppy turned her cup in her hands so the little hole at the top was facing her and prepared to take a drink. “I’m telling you that no
thing sticks like a first impression.” She raised her cup in a mock toast. “So make sure it’s a good one.”

  She took a sip.

  She nearly spit it back out again. “What the fuck?” she hissed as quietly as she could. “This is cold.” It wasn’t just luke warm. It was actually as cold as if it had been in the fridge.

  Angel made a face and reached across the table to give the outside of the coffee cup a feel. “Bizarre! Mine is too hot to drink, and they were made at the same time.”

  They sat there for a minute in mutually confused silence, and Poppy knew Angel was debating offering Poppy her own coffee. She knew she wouldn’t though, because Poppy and Angel had very different coffee tastes and Poppy hated hazelnut. Still… coffee was coffee.

  “Girl, either drink it anyway because you desperately need the caffeine, or just buck up and take mine, hazelnut or not.”

  Sometimes, Angel reminded Poppy a lot of Violet. The girl had so much empathy, she could almost read minds.

  “Thank you anyway,” Poppy sighed miserably, giving her friend’s hand a thankful squeeze. “I’ll just chug this and try again.”

  Why did this keep happening to her? She hadn’t been able to have a single warm drink that entire day!

  “Maybe if you hadn’t spent so long lecturing me on first impressions, it would still be hot,” Angel joked lightly as she sipped her own steaming coffee. But Poppy knew she didn’t mean it. She was just trying to lighten the mood. “By the way, why didn’t you get coffee at your mom’s?”

  “She had a bunch of other stuff sitting out, like cider and eggnog. I know better than to ask her for something she didn’t think of first. She’s way sensitive like that. One time, I was dating this boy who didn’t like Pork and Beans, and of course that’s what my mom offered him for lunch. He made a face, said, ‘No, thank you,’ and she sulked for two freaking weeks over it. Of course, he didn’t have to make a face, either. But boys will be boys.”