Fools In Love: Fresh Twists on Romantic Tales

by Rebecca Barrow, Gloria Chao, Mason Deaver, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann

Genres: Romance Anthologies & Collections; YA Romance

Synopsis

Join fifteen bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming authors as they reimagine some of the most popular tropes in the romance genre. 

Fake relationships. Enemies to lovers. Love triangles and best friends, mistaken identities and missed connections. This collection of genre-bending and original stories celebrates how love always finds a way, featuring powerful flora, a superhero and his nemesis, a fantastical sled race through snow-capped mountains, a golf tournament, the wrong ride-share, and even the end of the world. With stories written by Rebecca Barrow, Ashley Herring Blake, Gloria Chao, Mason Deaver, Sara Farizan, Claire Kann, Malinda Lo, Hannah Moskowitz, Natasha Ngan, Rebecca Podos, Lilliam Rivera, Laura Silverman, Amy Spalding, Rebecca Kim Wells, and Julian Winters this collection is sure to sweep you off your feet. 

 

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Release date: December 7, 2021

Publisher: Running Press Kids

Print pages: 289

Sample

SILVER AND GOLD“Snowed In Together”

Natasha Ngan

THIS WAS THE HARDEST PART OF THE RACE.

This, of a race so deadly it claimed on average one of its competitors’ lives each year—and that was not including the wolves. Over nine days and almost one thousand miles, the contenders had braved the dead-tree forests of the Bone Maze; made it through the blizzards of the Shali Mountains’ highest peaks; navigated the Ghost Plains, whose ceaseless fog-sea caused many riders to lose their way such that they were never seen again. Then, after all that: Devil’s Pass. A barely there sliver of a path that hugged the teetering cliff edge like a dancer’s silks, with its ice-slicked floor and hairpin turns that, with just one tiny miscalculation, would lead to a drop onto the sharpened rocks of the sea below.

And still, the most dangerous stretch was to come.

It was also the last. The final twenty-one miles of the Kiroki Trail that would decide everything. No more checkpoints. No more stops for food, sleep, or warmth. Nothing but the competitors and their wolves, and the driving push to the finish.

Mila Solis was one of just twelve challengers left.

They’d begun as thirty.

Even Mila’s older brother, Bastian Solis, as bold and strong as his name sounded, and in second place—second place—had been forced to admit defeat at the last checkpoint. Mila had arrived at the mountaintop camp of Amber Head Cap to find Bastian in the trail doctor’s tent, her brother sweating under layers of bear furs in what the doctor diagnosed as the mid-stages of hypothermia. One hour more exposed to the elements and he’d have been dead.

“I’ll stay with you,” Mila had said, Bastian gazing up at her with the clear grey eyes they shared, both of them knowing she didn’t completely mean it.

“You’re fifth,” he replied, before amending without bitterness, “fourth, now I’m out. The timings are tight. Tio will fall behind before he’s even reached Chulao Lake, you know that. His handling of descents is terrible. You’ll overtake Verggia on the lake—your cubs are faster than hers on flat land. Then there’s…”

He didn’t need to say her name.

Something sharp twinged Mila’s chest. The name, her name, was coiled under Mila’s ribs like a sleeping serpent that had just tightened a little around the soft flesh of her heart. But she kept her face calm. She’d never told anyone what happened at last year’s race, and if Bastian ever suspected, ever caught the look on his sister’s face as she watched the dark-eyed, wild-haired girl while she climbed the ice-sculpted throne to claim yet another win, he never said anything.

“Second place, Mi.” Bastian’s voice was quiet, yet full of pride.

Mila was grateful he didn’t attempt a lie. Everyone knew only one girl was taking first.

The corner of his cracked lips quirked. “And your best time yet. This is it.”

Mila brushed a swift kiss to her brother’s forehead. Then she stood. “This is it,” she repeated, feeling something reverent in the words, less a hope and more a statement.

A statement, five hours and thirty minutes later, she was seriously reconsidering.

Eyes scrunched against winds so ferocious it was akin to battling a stampede of bison, Mila charged her wolves across the frozen lake. There must have been rain recently; it was the most slippery she’d ever felt it. Her gloved hands shook on the helm of the sled. It was taking all her strength to remain upright, the winds were so strong and bone-deadening cold, and her pack sprinted fast, excited to be let loose after those slow, winding routes along Devil’s Pass. Now the mountain was behind them. All that lay ahead was flat ice and victory.

A shiver ran through Mia that had nothing to do with the cold. She knew her wolves could feel it, too—the win, so close.

Her brother had been right. She’d overtaken Tio five hours ago on the descent, then Verggia just half an hour later, at the very edge of the lake. The old veteran and her pack had seemed tired. Mila had felt a twinge of guilt—Verggia was a legend in the community—before an overwhelming sense of triumph swept it away.

Only one competitor was ahead of her now. All she had to do was cross the lake safely, and the silver medal was hers.

Mila had always preferred silver to gold, anyway.

“Hap!” she shouted, urging her wolves on. Her voice was barely audible above the pound of seven pairs of powerful paws. The wind roared in her ears, itself an animal, wild and untamable.

At the head of the pack ran a small, tight-limbed wolf, all grey with black-tipped ears—Evie, Mila’s lead. She howled, and the others howled in response. They moved so fast the sled was practically flying. Ice flakes churned up from beneath their paws.

At a distance, it might be hard for noncompetitors to understand why Chulao Lake was the most perilous stretch of the race. Framed by the cloud-tipped peaks of the Shali Mountains on all sides, the lake was expansive, yes: its frozen surface glittered under the low afternoon sun, stretching on to the amber horizon. But what was so hard about traversing a frozen lake when there’d been towering cliffs, disorienting cloud plains, forests with trees clustered so close together they snagged the wolves’ fur as they slalomed through them?

Chulao Lake’s dangers were worse, however, because, like the most dangerous things in the world, they were not immediately apparent. They hid. They lied. They were secret.

Until they were not.

When Mila first arrived at the lake, conditions had been near-perfect. Good visibility. The wind strong and steady at her back—what riders called the High Woman’s Hand because of the way it felt as though the spirits themselves were helping them along. Only the ice-slip posed a problem, but Mila knew her pack could handle it.

Now, though, as they approached the midsection of the lake, everything changed.

It had taken mere minutes. The wind was first. The High Woman’s Hand fell abruptly away and gales blew in from all sides, treacherous crosswinds that sliced at her and her wolves, making them skid even more on the ice. Worst of all, the crosswinds had brought in dense clouds. Fog swirled fast and low across the great width of the lake. Overhead, the sky closed over, steel grey. Mila had just enough time to pray the fog would pass when she felt the first flakes hit her face and she was enveloped in clouds in an instant.

A whiteout.

Mila’s heart hammered. She shouted a warning to her pack. They slowed a little, but on smooth ice at such high speeds the momentum was too much. They raced on. Snow pelted down, blurring everything. Mila could barely see her own gloved fingers. She hunkered low behind the helm, aching thighs screaming in protest, and swallowed a lump of fear.

Not now. Not here—

A scream flew from her mouth as the sled careened to one side. A mass of black rock loomed from the white, disappearing almost as soon as they’d passed it, missing it by inches. Mila had barely caught her breath when her wolves veered again.

They weren’t quick enough this time. Mila cried out as the left side of the sled whacked into an enormous spur of rock. The impact jerked her sideways; she only just managed to cling on. Pain whipped through her as her head smacked against the metal of the helm. Her vision turned black. Then it was back to white as she licked her lips, tasting blood—and had one split second to brace herself before the next stomach-lurching swerve.

Chulao’s Teeth. That’s what the riders called the midsection of the lake, after the rocks that jutted up through its ice-capped surface. On a day with good visibility, they were tough to handle.

During a blizzard, they were near impossible.

Panic drummed a sickening beat in her chest. But Mila spat away the blood dripping from her forehead and refocused, shifting with the sway of the sled, calling out to her pack and trusting in their movements. She’d raised all seven of them from cubs. She knew everything about them, and they knew her, and together, they could do this.

For a moment, her thoughts went to the rest of the remaining competitors. They’d have seen the blizzard sweeping in. They’d have had time to stop, set up camp to wait it out. No rider in their right mind would chance a crossing during a whiteout.

Ru.

Mila’s gut twisted. Rushanka was ahead of her. Mila had no idea how far; Ru hadn’t even waited for sunrise before setting off from Amber Head Cap. She could be a mile ahead, or ten. Had she made it far enough to beat the storm? A vision came of Ru battling the winds and snow, warrior-like in the face of the blizzard, her thick hair a mess of ice flakes, a determined smirk tugging her lips.

Ru was incredible. The best rider anyone had ever seen—even old Verggia admitted as much. Still, Chulao Lake in a snowstorm…

The world tilted once more, all thoughts of Ru flying from Mila’s mind as they narrowly missed another hulking stone spear. Then a few things happened at once.

The clouds dispersed.

The storm quietened.

The shape of something enormous loomed ahead.

Blood dripped into Mila’s eyes, blinding her before she could process what she was seeing, just as Evie let out a howl Mila hadn’t heard from any of her wolves in a long, long time.

Mila couldn’t hold it back anymore. Panic lanced through her as she scrubbed the back of one glove across her eyes to clear her vision. Blinking away the red, she saw what Evie’s wail had already warned her of.

They’d entered one of the strange pockets of clear air found sometimes in blizzards. All around, thick clouds circled, a roiling wall of white. They were still in Chulao’s Teeth—here and there, massive rocks burst through the ice, ragged and menacing—yet they were nothing compared to the monster that had erupted from the black depths below.

The monster they were heading straight for.

It reared high out of the lake, broken slabs of ice scattered around it, some seesawing in the water that was splashing up all around it. The creature’s bulbous body glistened in the eerie storm-light. Eight tentacles, each as thick as five tree trunks put together, lashed through the air as it raised itself higher, and, like something out of a fever dream, eight more limbs emerged—lanky, hair-covered legs this time, tipped in pincers.

A wave of nausea flooded Mila at the sound of the scythe-like pincers scraping ice as the thing clambered out onto the frozen lake.

An even bigger one hit as she looked up and saw twelve horrible pairs of eyes blinking down at her.

The giant spider-squid was one of the Kiroki Trail’s many myths. Scary stories to tell on deep winter nights to make excitable children giggle or set a flame in the hearts of adventurous riders who, with a heady mixture of wonder and fear, imagined one day facing it for themselves. It was part of the reason Chulao Lake was the trail’s most deadly stretch. Yet no challenger had ever come across it in Mila’s lifetime—at least none that lived to tell the tale. And though she’d heard the story of Verggia’s famed escape from its pincered, tentacled clutches twenty years ago enough times now to know it by heart, Mila had never quite believed it to be true.

She was an idiot.

Evie’s frantic howl snapped Mila alert.

Her wolves were still speeding straight for the terrifying creature, and she could hear the distress in their yowls. Even worse, behind the spider-squid lay a line of jagged rocks she hadn’t noticed before. They stretched on past the clearing, a wall of imposing black.

The monster had picked its ambush spot well.

Mila didn’t take long to make the decision. Though she loathed to reenter the white-out whilst still in the midst of Chulao’s Teeth, she preferred her odds with the rocks than the awful thing rearing ahead of her.

She yelled a set of orders. Gripped the helm hard as the pack veered—then yelled again, this time in shock, as the sled hit a patch of water spewed up from the monster’s thrashing and tipped up on one side. Mila threw her weight to stop it from completely turning over. High-pitched yelps came from some of her wolves. They were slipping, too. Then Mila felt great fat drops of water hit her—rain, in a snowstorm?—and she looked up.

Her stomach plummeted at the sight of one of the spider-squid’s giant tentacles flailing overhead.

“HAW!” she screamed, her wolves skittering sideways just in time.

There was a whoosh.

A thunderous crash rent the air as the tentacle smashed into the ice.

The ground tipped.

Wind blasted Mila’s cheeks as the sled lifted. For a second, she really was flying. And then her bones juddered as the sled came crashing back down. Her shoulders almost popped from their sockets at the impact, yet somehow she kept herself upright. More blood filled her mouth; she’d bitten her tongue.

All around, the clouds seemed to be closing in, swirling in tighter circles. It felt as though they were herding Mila right toward the spider-squid’s eager maw.

Something fierce charged down her veins. She glanced around at the clearing, the storm beyond, the slabs of broken ice and the awful monster—and in a moment of either insanity or clarity, changed her mind.

Mila spat out a bloody wad. Shook the wet hair from her eyes. Glared at the giant spider-squid as it waved its tentacles from where it crouched in the water, blinking eyes still fixed on her.

My wolves are the herders, Mila thought, staring it down. And I am not your prey.

You are mine.

She called out a string of commands. The pack changed course, diverting from where they’d been aiming to leave the clearing and instead heading directly towards the monster. Clinging to the helm with one hand, Mila reached with her other for the spear strapped to her back. It slid from its sheath with a metallic shing. As Evie led them closer to the broken gaps in the lake, Mila steadied herself, shifting into position.

The spider-squid opened its horrid mouth to reveal rows upon rows of razor-like teeth. An alien screech split the air. Gooseflesh pricked along every inch of Mila’s skin. One of the creature’s tentacles slapped out; she ducked just in time to miss it. Two of its pincered legs lashed towards her, but neither Mila nor her wolves backed down. She called out to them and they circled closer, yipping and growling with the same heady adrenaline charging her veins.

Mila stared up at the spider-squid and its hideous gleaming eyes, readying her throwing arm. She was almost within striking distance, almost—

The very moment she was about to release her spear, a new sound split through the clearing. Not the creature’s high awful screech, but a bellowing battle cry. Powerful. Determined.

Human.

The twelve sets of eyes that had been blinking down at Mila flicked away.

The spider-squid shrieked again. It reared, this time away from Mila and her wolves, and towards something—someone—else.

Mila had just enough time to see a whirr of speeding wolves and a mass of dark hair blowing in the wind before a rush of ice-cold water surged towards her as the spider-squid shifted.

Her wolves yelped.

The sled skidded, tipped, then flipped onto its side.

Mila was thrown from its back. She slid across the flooded ice. Water rushed over her, into her, down her open, silently screaming mouth, filling her lungs. She thought, This is it. Not like before, when her brother had said it, that it was time for the win, but that it was time instead for the ultimate loss. She choked and spun a bit more. Then, like the perfect opposite of a whiteout, everything went black.

Mila was dreaming.

She had to be. It was a dream she’d had often, both during sleep and waking hours, half memory, half hope, entirely useless, she knew, yet she kept dreaming it anyway because it felt so nice. Ru’s strong arms strapped round her. The thud of the girl’s steady heartbeat. Her scent—pine and wolf fur, and something else, something she’d never been able to name—mingling with the smoke of a lit brazier. The warmth of blankets. Wind snapping the tent.

The details were spot-on. Mila had to congratulate her dream-mind. It could have been a year ago, that night during the party. Except…

Except Mila’s body hurt. Not the usual type of pain after the trail, but a hard, bruised, wounded kind of pain, burrowing deep into her bones. And she could taste blood.

Blood wasn’t usually involved in her dreams about the night Rushanka Laikho, golden girl of the Kiroki Trail, entered her tent without so much as an invitation and, wearing that infuriating grin of hers, took Mila’s face in her hands and started kissing her.

Mila’s eyes cracked open to find Ru grinning down at her.

“Hello, gorgeous,” the girl said. “Welcome back.”

It took a few moments for Mila’s brain to fight between shoving Ru away, kissing her, crying, crying and shoving her—oh, or crying and kissing and shoving her. Or simply just passing back out to avoid having to deal with any of it. After the adrenaline of facing the spider-squid, going back to sleep seemed a good option. Yet maybe some of that adrenaline still buzzed in her veins, because Mila surprised herself by trying to sit up. She stopped with a wince. Too painful. Instead, she settled for glaring up at the beautiful girl who had once kissed her—more than kissed her—before never so much as looking in her direction again, and snarled, “What in the spirits, Ru! You nearly killed me!”

Ru’s grin barely faded. Mila didn’t think it ever fully went away. She even smiled in her sleep.

Mila hated that she knew that.

Ru started to say something when Mila’s eyes widened. This time she did find the energy to push herself up from where she was lying against Ru’s chest, crying, “My wolves!—”

“All fine,” Ru said, coming around to crouch in front of her. She kept an arm laced round Mila’s shoulders. “Except this one, of course, but I’ve patched her up. She’ll be back to normal in no time.”

Mila’s eyes fell on a bundle of fur at her feet. Grey with black-tipped ears. “Evie!”

She lurched forwards, then doubled over as fresh pain lashed through her. After panting for a moment on hands and knees, she shuffled forwards, curling herself over Evie. She ran her hands through the wolf’s thick fur. In more than one place, her fingertips passed over bandages. Mila’s stomach contracted.

Evie was breathing heavily—but it was steady, and her heartbeat strong. One eye opened to reveal a flash of honeyed brown.

Relief flooded Mila. She felt the heat of tears. “Hey, little cub,” she cooed, nuzzling her face down to Evie’s. There was a scrape of rough canine tongue. Mila laughed, crying a little, then pulled back, shushing her, smoothing her hands down the wolf’s warm, firm body. “Get some rest, you. I’ll be here, and your sisters and brothers are right outside. We’re all here. We’re all here.”

She spoke softly. The brazier crackled, its light a golden underwater glow. Wind and snow beat upon the tent. The blizzard hadn’t let up yet, then. Mila heard the wail and snickering sounds of wolves outside, recognizing Luka’s and Amhr’s and Fell’s voices amongst less familiar ones. Ru must have tied their packs together. Mila resisted the temptation to run out and check on them. Her wolves could handle the snow and the cold.

The question was, could she handle Rushanka Laikho?

After a little while, Evie fell back to sleep. Mila sat up with a grimace—her chest felt battered from all the choking. She cricked her head round. “Thank you,” she said, not quite meeting Ru’s smiling eyes.

“For looking after your pack?” Ru asked. “Or—how did you so sweetly put it—nearly killing you?”

“Well, you did!” Mila winced, bringing a hand to her ribs. “I had the shot. The spider-squid was mine. And then you came out of nowhere and distracted it, and I was thrown from my sled and almost drowned in ice-water, and Evie was hurt and now I’m here, stuck in a tent with you! Again!”

Mila wasn’t fully looking at her, but even from her sideways view she could tell Ru was practically beaming.

“Why were you even there in the first place?” Mila growled, the same fiery thing that had reared up within her to challenge the spider-squid rekindling now. Lifting her chin, she turned to properly face Ru, who was indeed grinning broadly, her whole face shining.

Mila narrowed her eyes, as if looking into the sun. That was what it felt like sometimes, looking at Ru.

“You left Amber Head Cap before sunrise,” she pressed. “You should have been well clear of Chulao’s Teeth by then. You shouldn’t have been caught up in all of this”—Mila waved a hand, indicating the storm roaring and whipping the tent walls—“at all.”

Ru shrugged, flicking a tangle of windswept curls over her shoulder. “I ran into some trouble,” she replied simply. Her grin sharpened into a smirk. “Anyway, isn’t it better this way? I seem to remember we had a lot fun the last time we were alone in a tent, Mila Solis…”

Mila’s cheeks reddened. She forced herself not to look away from Ru—startling, statuesque Rushanka Laikho, with her laughing eyes and wild beauty, a girl who seemed every bit as powerful and predatory as the seven wolves who’d carried her to victory each year since Mila had known her.

It had been both their first times on the Kiroki Trail when they’d met. It was the day before the race. Mila was in line for the riders’ pre-race examinations and Ru was ahead, being checked, her back to the queue. The two trail doctors were laughing. Ru was joking with them as if one of the biggest days of her life wasn’t just around the corner, while Mila’s own stomach was tying itself in knots. Mila knew she’d never get the image out of her head: that big, broad-shouldered silhouette, head tipped back in a laugh, or arrogance—or, knowing Ru as Mila did now, probably both. A bushy mass of black curls glinted in the winter sunlight. Her coat was speckled with frost.

Then Ru had turned, as if sensing Mila watching. She’d looked straight past the rest of the waiting challengers to meet Mila’s eyes, and flashed a grin so fierce it had literally stolen the breath from Mila’s lungs.

Now, in the firelit tent with the blizzard pounding outside and Evie’s rumbling snores at her feet, and Ru close, so close, Mila felt breathless all over again.

“Here.” Ru shifted, grabbing some things. She held out a leather flask and a palmful of dried herbs. “For the pain.”

Mila took the herbs—a brush of skin—and chewed on them, instantly scowling. They tasted about as good as most herbal remedies. With a laugh, Ru passed her the flask. Expecting water, Mila took a great gulp, then almost coughed it all up.

“Ru,” she spluttered, “this is alcohol!”

“An expensive one too, so don’t waste it.”

Mila glowered, debating throwing the flask at Ru’s gorgeous head. In the end, she drank a bit more, enjoying the warmth the alcohol spread through her and the way it quickly masked the bitterness of the herbs. Within seconds, she felt the pain in her chest subside. Ru had given her good stuff.

She returned the flask and Ru took a deep swig. Then the girl leaned back on her hands, looking at Mila in a way that made her feel like her four layers of clothing were a few layers too few.

Dark eyes sparkling, Ru said, “So. Second place, and your best time yet. How does it feel?”

Mila knew it was every rider’s duty to know where the other challengers stood. Yet she felt a pleased glow all the same. “It’d feel better had I not almost been drowned due to another competitor’s interference,” she grumbled.

Ru only grinned more broadly at this.

Mila couldn’t help a tiny smile quirk her own lips. “And now said competitor is trying to get me drunk. I should report them to the trail runners for subterfuge.”

“Subterfuge!” Ru looked gleeful. “What a delightful word!”

Mila rolled her eyes. “What would you call it, then?”

“Seduction.”

Ru’s voice was practically a purr.

Knowing her cheeks had turned an indecent shade of purple, Mila busied herself with checking back on Evie. All the while she felt Ru’s gaze on her, as direct as fingertips to the nape of her neck. Mila had only been touched like that once, but the memory was strong enough to seem as though it had happened hundreds of times, ...