It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Yes! Candy apple time. That and it’s all deliciously snuggly chilly, russet reds and burnt oranges as leaves fall and dead things decide to walk the earth. It’s also a jolly good time to get one’s read on under a warm blanket with an Irish coffee or four. This story is one of my favourites, Put Out The Zombie.

It started out as a challenge by the late great and gloriously nutty Rhonda Scales who declared “Zombies cannot be sexy!” With a Barney Stinson-like glint in my eye, I put my hands on my suited hips and said, “Challenge accepted.” So here we are. Crazy pyro of a witch and a zombie who isn’t quite a zombie. He’s better than that.

http://beautifultroublepublishing.com/put-out-the-zombie-ebook.html

See the blurb right here:

Kamilah is fine, all right? Fine. People needed to stop asking her if she was okay. And definitely stop giving her that should you really be amongst the living look. Then she would be even better. Destiny’s Child sang it best””she was a survivor. And to prove it, she was going to party like it was Summer Solstice 1999. Any incidental panic attacks that accidentally set anyone on fire would just have to be accepted. She was a witch. Things like that happened. Every so often. A dirty warehouse rave would sort that all out. What’s the worst that could happen when dubstep is booming?

Novak needed to think for a minute without all that panicked energy distracting him. No one liked zombies””he got it. If the world really knew what he was, they’d like him even less. But he was of the live-and-let-live mentality. To have his people being picked off one by one for what they could do was becoming ever so slightly disconcerting. Dark music would not only relax him but give him the space to see what he needed to, for the sake of The Congregation. Getting in the way of a leggy witch with serious trust issues probably wasn’t the best thing to do, but there was something about her, like that missing piece of the puzzle. Kamilah will not only show him who is trying to wipe out zombies but be the key to how to stop them. If she hurts him in the process, he’ll get over it. By getting under her. Once or twice.

What you know is wrong. What you thought you were right about is completely upside down. What a zombie can do for you will be enlightening. They are rising and it’s all for you.

And a delicious except here:

That woman. Was. Crazy. All he did was save her from a paranormal savaging. And something else. He sensed that the moment her blood was spilled””and he didn’t mean vampires. Sometimes it was better to perpetuate the myth that all zombies were created brainless under one virus, but once in a while, it would be a lot simpler if people understood that the walking dead had masters.

“How dare you!” she yelled. “If you’re like that you probably deserved it!”
That was entirely accurate, he realised. He really hoped she didn’t set his Regency desk on fire. Not to put too high a price on it, but he was rather fond of it. “Where are you, Zombie coward!”

Why was she making the word zombie sound like an insult? “Are you going to stop setting my antiques on fire, you little pyro?”

“Come back here and I’ll think about it.”
“I don’t trust you!”
“Feeling’s mutual, you freak!”
“Oi! I’m not the one shooting fire from my mind, Carrie!”
She gave a growl of irritation. “Ooh, I am not seventeen, it is not prom night and I haven’t got pigs blood on me! You kidnapped me then blamed me for the way you are!”

“I saved your life, and this is the thanks I get?”
“I can look after myself, you”¦you misogynist!”
“What?” How dare she! “I love women!”
“I bet you like eating women!”

Novak struggled with his laughter. “All right you’ve got me there, but not the way you think. Have you stopped burning things yet?”

“Maybe.”
He didn’t quite believe that tone was entirely truthful. “I’m coming back in. You throw fire at me again, and we’re not friends any more.”

He heard her laugh then swallow the sound quickly. “It’s on standby just in case.”
Novak took the conventional method of opening the door. The room billowed with heat, all the more noticeable by the waves that distorted her frame. “You want to cool it down a little?”

She blew out gently and the heat dissolved. “How’d you know who Carrie is and you don’t know MacGyver?”

“Because I’ve read one or two books in my existence.” His glance touched the white halter top sticking to her skin, outlining three jagged lines scarring her chest.

“Demon?” he asked.
“What? Scars are sexy. I read that somewhere,” she said defensively. “Just stay where you are. Where’s my cousin?”
Novak rolled his eyes. How would he know? “She called herself home mid-travel.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you and I have trust issues. Legs, I won’t hurt you. I swear.”
She frowned at the name. “Legs?”
Well dammit. “If you don’t introduce yourself, I have to make something up for you.”
Flames flickered at her nails. “I don’t trust you won’t do anything.”
“I said I swear.”
“On?”
Good point. “My very existence.”
“Not good enough.” Her gaze touched on an object next to him “How about that nineteenth century desk over there?”
Powerful and sharp. Shame she could set him on fire, she was growing on him.