Mia Darien: Good Things

Alpha Ascension Copyright © 2016 by A. Star

For You Copyright © 2016 by Angela B. Chrysler

What We Do for Love Copyright © 2016 by J. Kim McLean

Outreach: Part One Copyright © 2016 by Dariel Raye

Personal Responsibility Copyright © 2016 by Mia Darien

Psyched Copyright © 2016 by Abigail Owen

Kamry's Hope Copyright © 2016 by Crystal G. Smith

An Act of Love Copyright © 2016 by Kat Jameson

Windsong Copyright © 2016 by Christi Rigby

The Will of Nyx Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Nicholls

Cover Art Copyright © 2016 Deranged Doctor Designs (http://www.derangeddoctordesign.com/)

Random Acts Logo is used with permission by the Random Acts Organization.

(http://www.randomacts.org/)

All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the permission of the author.

Dear Readers,

This is the fifth anthology that I have organized and edited for charity, following Here, Kitty Kitty in 2013, Reaching Out in 2014, Bellator in 2014, and Amor Vincit Omnia in 2015. I have worked with many fantastic authors, sometimes for just one anthology and some have been willing to deal with me again and again. They benefit some great charities. This anthology, however, I think is the one I’m most excited about.

It’s not at all that the past anthologies weren’t awesome, they were, but this is the first time that I’ve been able to speak directly to the charity ahead of time. While before, we just donated the profits and said as much, this one is being done as an approved fundraiser by the charity we’re giving the money to. It’s not official merchandise, but we are approved to use their logo and talk about them a whole lot. This is exciting.

What’s the charity, you ask? Well, that will take a little back story.

As always, I was late to the party. I didn’t start watching the television show Supernatural until it was already airing its eleventh season. Since then, I’ve gone through the previous ten seasons on Netflix and am working my way through to the end of this latest season before the next begins. (Yes, they have been given the green light for season twelve, which makes it the longest running primetime genre show in history.)

And for good reason. It’s amazing. This isn’t the place for me to fangirl however, so I’ll move on.

There’s always that fear when you like a show or movie that you’ll learn more about the actors and realize they’re jerks. Well, that didn’t happen here. Not only have I found that the actors of the show—headliners as well as return characters—love their work and their fans, but they seem like genuinely nice people and they pretty much all adore each other. They hang out together during hiatus!

They also believe in giving back, and are involved with/have created charities.

That brings me to Random Acts. This charity was co-founded by Supernatural star Misha Collins. I’ll talk more about it at length at the end of the anthology, but basically, its goal is to promote kindness throughout the world. In a time when many of us feel like the world may, in fact, be slowly ending, when we see hatred and violence everywhere we turn, the idea of being kind resonates so strongly.

When you want to be a force against the hatred, be kind. That’s what this charity promotes, and what we want to promote.

In the spirit of the show itself, I present to you an anthology of ten urban fantasy stories all involving an act or acts of kindness in some way. Since I don’t like to self-congratulate, I’ll only say that I know for sure nine of them are awesome! Stories from authors you’ve read in previous anthologies and new, stories that re-visit some of these authors’ wonderful own worlds and others that go to new places, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this journey.

One hundred percent of what we (the authors) receive from the sales of this anthology will go straight to Random Acts to continue their mission. We hope that you enjoy these stories, and maybe feel inspired to go out and spread some kindness in the world yourself.

Happy Reading,

“ Xavier Wesley! You are called to testify!”

I entered the lecture hall on Wesley College’s campus that had been turned into a makeshift courtroom for the purposes of holding a trial that could cost my dumb ass cousin his life.

He’d broken a century-old treaty between our wolf pack and another, and now he had to answer for it. Other members of our pack were in attendance, but I was the only one who’d been summoned to testify.

I started down the narrow row of stairs on the left side of the room. Remy, Darien, and Foster, younger wolves in my pack, looked solemn as they sat together in the middle of the lecture hall. At the front of the hall, sitting behind a long table and wearing all-black tailored suits, were the three nobles of the King’s Congress: Stefan, Marcus, and Jackson. They advised the lycan king, enforced his laws, and held court for any violators. They were the judges and the jury, and your testimony only held as much weight as they said it did.

As I approached the professors’ podium, I tried to play it cool, but then I spotted Roman, the king of the werewolves himself, and I almost couldn’t keep it together. He was conspicuously seated in the shadows on the right side of the room in a throne-like chair that had been brought in just for him. He also wore a black suit that made me look like nothing more than a door-to-door salesman in my collared shirt and tie. I had assumed all of the wolves in suits on campus were just for the nobles, but now that I knew the king was also here, the overly-intrusive pat down they’d subjected me to before letting me in the room made more sense.

Standing before Roman and the congress, I couldn’t help but think that I should have helped Kane go lone wolf–or on the lam–like he’d suggested the day before. With the king there, the nobles would be far less likely to cut Kane some slack. In fact, if Roman wanted them to, they would sentence my cousin to death without even hearing his side of the story.

Roman Diallo was descended from the purest of African bloodlines. Most of us shifters, my own family included, were of African descent mixed with a bunch of other stuff. But not the Diallos. They were “untainted” and Roman carried himself with all the dignity of someone who knew how important he was. He was the last male in the Diallo pack and it was mating season. He was finally going to take a female, make her his queen, and produce an heir. But apparently, not before he made Kane pay for breaking the treaty.

My cousin sat in the first row of chairs some feet behind the podium, looking smug and defiant. His younger brother, Eli, sat next to him, clearly terrified. Eli was a timid wolf who liked to avoid fights and conflict in general. I could imagine he was freaking out on the inside, as he should be. His brother was in a shitload of trouble, not that Kane seemed to care much.