Night Carnival — Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Walking among the eerie assortment of skill-game booths and tattered tents she's strangely drawn in by the eerie calliope music and the mesmerizing inhabitants of a carnival the likes she's never seen before. The carousel is alive with demonic steeds flashing their hooves and neighing silently to the moon. There are wraith like luminescent creatures lurking in the shadows along the midway and the Ferris wheel, aglow with thousands of twinkling lights, moves without human hands to control it. The strange animals, lions, tigers and elephants, in the main ring have no human trainers, are much larger than they should be, and seem to float. Then there are the sad-faced clowns who manipulate the crowds with only their glittering eyes and thoughts. They and the other carnies are vampires. Oneâ€"ancient and powerful, their leader Dominicâ€"has been waiting for her for a long time…to make her his forever. He offers her what she's never had before. Love. A place to call home. But is she willing to give up her humanity for this creature of the night? Is she willing to join her life to his and live among the vampires, shape shifters and ghosts of the traveling carnival for eternity? Could she be happy as one of them? Is she willing to die for him? (The short story Night Carnival was a *Finalist* in the 2011 Just One Bite Anthology Contest at All Romance eBooks.)