Dark Days: Semester 1 Read online

  DARK DAYS: SEMESTER 1

  A vampire desperate to escape his past. A wolf shifter determined to protect her future.

  A killer on the loose.

  One year ago, wolf shifter Emma accepted her dream job teaching PE at a Norwegian international school, finally freeing herself from her mother’s incessant matchmaking. As the alpha’s heir, walking away from her pack, from her obligations—potentially even her fated mate—weighed heavy on her heart. But deep down, she knew it was the right decision.

  Unfortunately, her sacrifice may have been for nothing—because the new history teacher has fangs.

  With a reputation for kidnapping and selling shifters to research labs, a vampire is the last thing Emma needs in her life, but she refuses to be intimidated. This is her territory and she’s not going anywhere, so that grumpy, gorgeous vampire can suck it.

  Forced together at a prestigious boarding school, two supernatural enemies are torn between ripping each other's clothes off…

  And ripping each other apart.

  Eager for a fresh start, vampire Calder accepts an invitation to teach history at a private school above the Arctic Circle. Its remote location appeals to his sensibilities, and years of practice have taught him how to charm his human colleagues, but a certain gym teacher is seriously trying his last nerve.

  All Calder wants to do is teach, so if the strikingly beautiful shifter refuses to see him as anything but the big bad vampire, perhaps he ought to lean into the part and really give her a show.

  As summer turns to winter, humans disappear from nearby villages, gone without a trace and presumed missing—or worse.

  Only one thing is certain: there are dark days ahead.

  Even for creatures of the night.

  Dark Days is a standalone enemies-to-lovers paranormal romance duet. While Book 1 has a cliffhanger, all will be resolved with a supernatural happily-ever-after in Book 2.

  Content Warning

  Please note that the DARK DAYS duet contains Mature content, including graphic violence and gore (Book 2), plus a healthy dose of steamy sensuality (both). Reader discretion is advised.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Paranormal by Liz

  August

  1. Emma

  2. Emma

  3. Calder

  September

  4. Emma

  5. Calder

  6. Emma

  October

  7. Emma

  8. Calder

  9. Calder

  10. Emma

  November

  11. Emma

  12. Emma

  13. Calder

  December

  14. Calder

  15. Emma

  16. Calder

  17. Emma

  18. Calder

  January

  19. Emma

  Thank you for reading!

  Never miss out again!

  About the Author

  Copyright 2018 Liz Meldon

  Published by Liz Meldon, Amazon Edition. All rights reserved.

  License Notes

  Thank you for purchasing this book. It remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Any unauthorized copies or distributions can and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons or situations is unintentional and coincidental. References or mentions of trademarks are not intended to infringe on trademark status. Any trademarks referenced or used is done so with full acknowledgement of trademarked status and their respective owners. The use of any trademarks is not sponsored or authorized by the trademark owner.

  If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-989261-02-6

  Acknowledgments

  Much love to Amanda, the first to squee about Calder and Emma.

  Thank you Sandra, for catching all my little mistakes along the way.

  Gorgeous cover art courtesy of Daqri @ Covers by Combs.

  A million thank yous to my ceaselessly supportive friends, family, and readers.

  And to my Sun and Stars: I couldn’t do any of it without you.

  Paranormal by Liz

  The Hunt – a Demon Romance

  Predator (#1)

  Prey (#2)

  Stalker (#3)

  Killer (#4)

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  August

  1

  Emma

  Hi Bean,

  Just checking in! As I recall, your welcome-back assembly was supposed to be sometime around now. I hope you have a good batch of students this year! I’m not sure how you put up with the smell of sweaty preteen humans all day, but I suppose you manage.

  You know I don’t approve of you teaching so far away, but I’ll still support you. Dad is just being Dad. He’ll come around eventually. You know that he loves you.

  The pack has decided on Cancún for our winter break this year. Your brother is taking care of all our tickets—I guess he knows a special way to get a group discount? He’s started dating that flight attendant, the fox shifter. Some of the old-timers still don’t approve, but I just say give them time.

  Now, on a more serious note: I read in the online newspaper that another person has gone missing—a woman this time, right? That’s six this summer from the towns around Solskinn. I really wish you would have considered taking that job here in Maine. Did you get the posting I sent you? I would just feel a lot better if you weren’t living so close to the problem areas. I thought being north of the Arctic Circle would be quiet. Please tell me you’re being safe, at the very least.

  And write back properly this time. You owe your mother, the woman who spent forty hours in labor with you, that much.

  Lots of love!

  Mom

  Yeesh. Nobody knew how to lay on the guilt thicker than my mom. How many times had I heard the labor story? Too many to count. Sometimes it was forty hours, other times seventy. She really ought to get her numbers straight.

  Still, she wasn’t wrong: yesterday’s reported disappearance of an elderly woman from Heggelia brought the number of people who had vanished from our little county in northern Norway up to six, all in the span of about three months. We might have been in the middle of nowhere, but this was bound to make national news. Thus far, police hadn’t reported the disappearances as suspect; it wasn’t unusual for folks to come and go from the smaller rural communities in the Troms region. Some came up for summer work; others went south for the winter.

  But then again, most of those who had been reported missing were younger—in their twenties, thirties, the kind of population who would drop everything and leave the northern wilds for work, university, or a relationship. The older woman—that was a break in pattern. I’d caught up on her story in Solskinn’s local paper online, perusing the news on my phone during the flight from Oslo to Bardufoss yesterday. Last I’d read, police were checking with relatives across the country, working under the assumption that Inga Hansen had merely taken an impromptu trip without telling her neighbors.

  With a sigh, I scrolled through Mom’s email again to make sure I hadn’t missed anything the first time around that required an immediate response. Nope. Just the standard stuff, albeit with slightly less pack gossip. Usually I got a full rundown on who was doing what with whom, but that was the way with shifter clans. Everybody knew everybody. We were all in each other’s business. Gossip ran like wildfire and mutated weekly.

 
She claimed I’d relocated above the Arctic Circle because it was quiet, and she wasn’t wrong. I had chosen Solskinn, practically in the middle of nowhere, because of its remoteness, its wildness, and, of course, for the highly reputable international academy that was actually interested in hiring me.

  Most of all, I had chosen it to escape pack drama.

  To escape my alpha dad’s plan to marry me off to some other alpha’s son before my twenty-fifth birthday, which, coincidentally had come and gone last year—and not a peep from the old wolf in the meantime.

  Dad is just being Dad. He’ll come around eventually. You know that he loves you.

  Right. My eyes narrowed at that particular line, cheeks warming, heart thrumming just a touch harder. Dad was just being Dad when he had told me that if I took this job at Solskinn International Academy, if I finally got a passport and fled Maine like I’d always wanted, I may as well go and not come back. Sure, those were the words of a father who loved his eldest daughter. As of this email, Mom was either still in the dark as to what Dad had growled at me before I left, or she was being willfully obtuse. Neither made me feel any better.

  Just as I was about to hit the Reply button, my phone’s timer shrieked from the bedside table, its piercing cry sharp enough to make me jump. A half-hour to go before the Welcome Back assembly started in the auditorium; as always, Mom had a mind for dates. August 25th marked the start of term, but given it was a Saturday this year, classes wouldn’t commence until Monday.

  Students had arrived yesterday by the truckload, some one hundred and forty teens from across the continent shipped in by parents hemorrhaging money. I had arrived amongst them but opted to walk back from Solskinn proper rather than climb aboard one of the academy’s transport buses jam-packed full of rambunctious teenagers.

  Since then, I’d been hiding in my room, taking the time to recover from my summer vacation, half dreading the start of a new term, half chomping at the bit to get back to it. The rest of the teaching staff would have arrived over the course of the last week, but given I had no classroom to set up, no books to order, just a gymnasium to inspect and equipment to take stock of, I was probably the last to return.

  A quick glance at the clock in the corner of my laptop’s screen told me I needed to get my ass in gear. While I had wrangled my thick dirty-blonde mane into a braid crown about an hour ago, that was all I’d managed before plopping on the bed to go through my emails. Most of the administrative ones could wait until after the assembly, but Mom had flagged hers as important—classic Mom move.

  So, instead of getting ready for the assembly, I’d focused on that, worried something had happened to my brothers, to my pack, only to discover it was the same old news. Come home. Be safe. Dad loves you. You’re too far away. Thankfully, there hadn’t been any the pack needs you, or the Brownstone pack’s new alpha grew up soooo handsome—look at the photos I attached this time. Maybe Mom had clued in to the fact I didn’t respond to those emails and finally decided to take a subtler approach as our pack’s resident busybody and matchmaker.

  And I’d reply to that much subtler approach sometime tonight, when I wasn’t running late. After marking her email as unread, I closed my laptop, turned off my phone alarm, and rolled off my cozy double.

  While we were welcome to furnish our suites in the staff lodgings as we saw fit, the furniture provided by the academy had suited me just fine, as had the studio-sized apartment. Tradition dictated that the newest staff members lived in the smallest space; once you had a year under your belt, you could upgrade to the larger suites provided one of the more seasoned faculty had left SIA. Last year, the senior-level IB history teacher, Remus Ivanic, had taken a job in Sri Lanka, which meant his roomy two-bedroom apartment on the second floor was vacant come term’s end.

  I had opted to stay put. I had everything I needed. The double bed. The six-foot dresser. The desk overflowing with lovingly worn-in paperbacks and spools of wool. The bay window overlooking the ivy-laden stone wall surrounding campus, my trio of plants soaking up all the sunshine they could before winter hit within the next month or two. The ensuite bathroom with a shower just big enough for one.

  Sure, the living quarters were a tight fit, but I spent all my time elsewhere—at the gym, in the teachers’ lounge, the dining hall, the dog kennels, the greenhouses, and the great outdoors beyond the academy’s walls. I didn’t need a mammoth suite; it was just little ol’ me living here, and that wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

  What I could have done with more of, however, were clothes appropriate for this type of assembly. Most of the time I was in uniform: collared tee with the Solskinn International Academy emblem on the breast pocket, then a pair of black track pants and well-used sneakers. Today, I had to actually put on makeup. Do my hair. Rock a pair of stockings beneath the pine-green A-line dress, my one of two that I usually dusted off for special occasions. Stuff myself into a crisp black blazer—and heels.

  Ugh. Faculty had to look somewhat “professional” today; after the assembly was over, we would be lined up to pose for a photo headed straight to the upcoming parent newsletter.

  Mercifully, I managed not to snag my tights when I yanked them up my legs. Little blonde hairs stubbornly poked through the nylon, and I frowned; probably should have shaved this morning. Well, no time now. Next came the dress, just a touch too snug around the nipped-in waist, followed by the blazer, which was missing a button.

  “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, glaring down at it, then to my teeny, tiny closet. How the hell had that happened? Gnomes? No time to fix that, either, so I left the blazer unbuttoned and scampered off to the bathroom. My braid had managed to hold, the flyaways minimal, and I quickly slapped on the makeup basics: foundation, mascara, blush, and a nude lipstick. There. I smoothed my hands down my sides, nodding at my reflection. Somewhat presentable. Could I have done something with eyeshadow to make my brown eyes pop? Sure. Did I care enough to do so? Nope.

  My bedside table clock told me I had twenty minutes to get there—no way was I slinking onto the stage late. So, I shoved my feet into my lone pair of three-inch black heels, shoes that had unquestionably seen better days, grabbed my keys, and, already a little sweaty, cracked a window before I left.

  Shifters ran hot, and since I’d been out of my living quarters for the better part of three months, the place was stuffy—but give it a day and the tepid late-summer breeze would freshen it right up. One of the other reasons I had chosen a job at a private school in Norway over, say, Dubai, a city where I’d also been invited to interview, was because of the climate. Sure, the winter was miserable and wet and freezing, but the wolf in me loved it. While nearly everyone else used the underground tunnel system between the buildings from October to May, I preferred to brave the elements, rain or shine.

  My heels clacked noisily down the vacant hallway, and I picked up the pace when I heard voices around the corner. The staff lodgings were nearly identical to the student dorms nearby, albeit with larger suites. Girls and boys were separated into a pair of four-storey buildings beside ours, which made night patrols easier, but you always had to make sure your curtains were firmly closed to avoid some of the nosier kids catching you in a compromising position. Unsurprisingly, the married couples were all upstairs, while most of us single folk had the first floor all to ourselves.

  Glossy dark wood floors ran throughout all three buildings, the walls a neutral taupe with the odd landscape of Norway and black-and-white photos of the school here and there. The main doors of all three had an enormous bulletin board posted nearby as well, and while the student bulletins would have things like board game tournaments and movie nights and club listings, ours had the night patrol schedule, among other tedious administrative info. Occasionally, someone would find a flyer for a theme night at one of the pubs in Solskinn, the Norwegian scratched out and translated into English for us expats.

  I bypassed our board completely, knowing I’d have to give it a proper look sometime befo
re Monday, when I spotted my two favorites headed out the front doors.

  “Lord and Lady Howard!” I grinned and waved when Robert whirled around, utterly bewildered. Honestly, who else would go yelling something like that at them? He motioned for his wife Phyllis to wait, and soon enough I was wrapped up in two enormous bearhugs that squeezed the breath out of my shifter lungs.

  Robert and Phyllis Howard had been at SIA longer than anyone on staff—nine years this month—and were two of the loveliest, warmest people I’d ever met. Both taught the ninth and tenth grades, like me; Phyllis managed the chaos of the art room five days a week, while Robert waxed on about symbolism and similes in English class.

  In their late forties, the Canadian couple pushed well over six feet, towering over my statuesque five six, and were built like linebackers. I’d only heard Robert raise his voice once last year, but the guy could bellow like a foghorn. They had been navigating the international school scene all their married lives; no kids, they bounced around the world, teaching wherever the wind blew them, until they finally settled at Solskinn.