Making Monsters

by Nikki McCormack

Shai is a girl with nothing in a world run by men. Her parents are gone. She has no lineage to brag about. No future to hope for. Only her brother keeps her safe, but even he isn't willing to stand up to Kurth, the leader of their little band. Not when it comes to keeping Kurth's hands of off her and not now, when he should be disputing the older boy's plans to involve them all in a dangerous heist.

Shai knew the heist would go terribly wrong and, when it does, she is the one to pay the price. Only this time, what promised to be a tragic end brings her together with a woman secretly practicing magic, a craft forbidden to her gender. The encounter will give Shai the strength and freedom she needs to turn the tables on Kurth, but she may have to abandon her humanity in the process.

18 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 6, 2015

About the author

Outside of her career as an author, Nikki is a professional technical and creative writer, spider wrangler, animal lover, and devoted cat mom. Writing fantasy and science fiction stories has been a lifelong passion for her. She loves to draw upon her myriad life experiences doing everything from wild cave exploration and competitive horseback endurance riding to practicing iaido and archery. She invites you to join her for some fantastic adventures.

Grand Prize Winner of the Dante Rossetti Award for Young Adult Fiction for The Girl and the Clockwork Cat

Finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards for The Keeper

Finalist in the Cygnus Award for Science Fiction and Speculative Fiction for Dissident

Writers of the Future finalist with the short story In Silence Waiting.

NOTE: No generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) or predictive language software has been or will be used in any part of the creation of my books.

Reviews

[Breanne ~ The Literary Life of Beans · Rating 4 out of 5]

very intriguing! I was surprised by how invested I was in such a short story