Shifters - The Jade Forest Chronicles 1

  She was in and out of the room like a whirlwind. I stayed behind after she’d left, feeling satisfied and craving more of her all at the same time. There was something about her that I just couldn’t resist.

  I’d felt her the moment she’d stepped into the lobby. In a town where there was no magic at all, there was very little to feel, but even if there had been magic all around me I would have been able to pick up her signature. She was like a scream in a room full of whispers, a splash of color in a grayscale world.

  Even when she had that face on that hid her real identity, there was no way I would be able to look past her. Something about her was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I’d never met a fae before, but I was sure that she was the only being in the entire world I reacted to like that.

  The sex had been spectacular, and afterward I felt like I needed another fix. She was addictive, and if I didn’t get my fill, I was going to do something drastic.

  Someone knocked on my door. Luckily, I was dressed again, the bed was made where the covers had been rumpled, and I’d sprayed some deodorant to cover the smell of lust that somehow wouldn’t go away – because the vibrating energy on the other side of the door told me it was the alpha.

  I opened the door and stepped aside, letting Raphael walk in. His very presence pushed me aside. I turned my eyes to the floor, submitting to him.

  He took a deep breath and looked at me. “You’re getting distracted.”

  “I’m not.”

  He looked at me blankly for long enough that I began to fight the urge to squirm. I’d challenged him directly, but, dammit, I was second, and if it wasn’t for me he wouldn’t be here or have any of the information he did.

  “Are you going to give me a good explanation for this?”

  His eyes were light green with black flecks in them. Soapy, like the real jade. I didn’t like it. The lack of jewel tones meant either that his animal was completely absent – highly unlikely – or that he was pissed at me.

  “The fae are selling to the witches.”

  His mouth opened, but he didn’t speak. I watched the natural color slowly come back into his eyes. My escapades were forgotten.

  “If they get it, we’ll lose everything. They’ll have the upper hand. We won’t be able to stand up against them.”

  I nodded. I knew what that meant. In the right hands, that power in the ground was unstoppable, but in the wrong hands it would be volatile, and what better way to destroy the wolves than with their own magic? The witches hated us. They wanted a monopoly on magic. They wanted a monopoly on everything. They were selfish beings.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked.

  Raphael turned to the window. The sun was a glowing orb sinking toward the horizon. I wondered if Amber was already home, or if she was still fighting time to get there.

  “Get Aryn. We’re going to them.”

  “At the burial grounds?”

  Raphael shook his head. “They don’t own it yet, and neither do we. We’re going to call them out.”

  Raphael walked out of the room, taking all his confidence and recklessness with him.

  The witches were south, past the reserve and the cemetery, in the Hollow Groves, woodlands that clustered around the river. It was a dangerous place for anyone to go. The stories went that no one ventured in there and came out to tell the tale.

  We wouldn’t be stupid enough to go in there, either. We would go to the meadow. It was the only neutral ground, absent human interference. We often went there to settle old grudges. It happened surprisingly often.

  The meadow was on the other side of the river, a couple of miles outside of Milford and practically abandoned by all human life. That was why we liked it so much. I didn’t know why the people of Milford kept to themselves so much and refused to explore or expand, but it suited us fine. The fact that they were surrounded by preternatural creatures on all sides was a good reason for them to move altogether, but of course, they would have to know about us to start off with.

  Mr. Gray and his associates at Forechester Keep made sure that that would never happen. He couldn’t move them any more than we could – they were humans, and they had a say only over us. That sounded wrong, and on a lot of levels it was, but what were we going to do?

  The meadow was the kind of place you wanted to take a photo of and stick it on a postcard. Knee-high wheat-colored grass wafted in the wind in rolling waves, surrounding a lake that rippled and reflected the sky. The trees of the hollows opened out onto the meadow, giving it a lovely backdrop.

  It only looked lovely. It was the place where bloodshed happened, where war was declared, where creatures died.

  Raphael had managed to get more wolves here. The pack was still in the camp at the foot of the mountains, and they needed the inner circle wolves to look out for them, but Raphael had sent for a handful of the bottom-rung pack members. They weren’t good fighters or very much in control of their magic, but strength would make up for the former, and Raphael could guide them in their magic if need be.

  I stood at the edge of the lake with Aryn. The sun had already set, but there was still light to be had and everything had taken on the silvery quality that foreshadowed the night. The air was alive. Anticipation hung around us, and I could taste the bloodlust drifting on the breeze from the other wolves.

  Cold air rippled on top of the lake and pushed toward us when the wind picked up. It was colder than usual. I had goosebumps on my arms.

  “What do you think of this?” I asked Aryn.

  He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but what are we going to do? You know how Raph is.”

  I nodded. I did know. He was power-hungry and driven by his constant yearning to be stronger. He sacrificed his wolves whenever he needed to, but they stayed loyal out of fear and necessity.

  Two things happened when you betrayed Raphael. Either he came after you, which never had a happy ending, or he just left you. The first was a painful death. The other meant being an outcast. It was worse being a lone ordinary wolf – having no guide for your magic when you were a werewolf. Both outcomes were horrible.

  Loyalty was the easiest option.

  Aryn nudged me with his elbow and nodded in the direction of the trees. The witches had arrived. More women than men, as was their custom, but there were two men among them. Warlocks, we should call them, but they weren’t the manly type, in my opinion. All witches looked the same – thin and precise, like they were trying too hard.

  Raphael came toward us, and the younger wolves clustered to the side. They didn’t look like frightening warriors; they looked like sheep in a pen.

  I recognized the black-haired witch with the eyes that made my skin crawl. She had two more witches with her, a man and a woman. They came out in a triangle. Three witches? We were ten wolves. I doubted that these few had come alone – I was willing to bet that the trees were crawling with witches.

  “Raphael,” the creepy one said.

  “Chandre.”

  He knew her. Shock rippled through me. Was it suspicious to know your enemy by name, or was it clever?

  “You’ve brought a posse with you this time.”

  “You’ve brought an entourage, too. Let’s not pretend.” Raphael’s voice was calm, but I could hear the tension in it. I felt it in my blood. I wondered if the witches felt it too.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m claiming the land.”

  She laughed, and it was that same horrific sound that had made me want to cover my ears and rock back and forth. “It’s sweet of you to see me as an opponent worthy of such a…” She looked at the wolves, looking for the right word. “Sacrifice.”

  Shit.

  “But it’s not necessary. Really. We’ve just come from a meeting with Mrs. Bluegrain. I don’t know if you know who she is”

  The blood drained from my face. They’d sold the land, then. Amber hadn’t been quick enough to warn me. Or the fae
had been quicker to get rid of the land than we’d thought. They didn’t want the land in their possession.

  Why not?

  The fae were cowards, but they weren’t stupid. Maybe naïve, but survival was their top priority. That either meant that they knew what was in the land… or that they really didn’t.

  Either way, we were screwed now.

  I felt power. It was like a wave of heat, and it was out of place. We weren’t fighting. There was no war. I focused on it, just before I felt a part of me open up and start leaking out. That was Raphael. He was getting ready for a fight, and he was tapping power from us.

  “What are you doing?” I asked in a low voice. Witches’ hearing was like that of the humans. Dismal at best.

  “Finishing this.” Raphael’s hands were balled into fists.

  “But it’s already done. You can’t fight for it now.”

  “Shut up. If you’re not going to join me in this, you’d better take the pack and leave.”

  Was he sending us away?

  “It will be a slaughter if we stay.”

  Why wasn’t he thinking about the wolves?

  Why was I? Because as second, and apparently as the only leader thinking clearly right now, that was my job. Raph wasn’t doing his. I glanced at Aryn. He looked bewildered.

  Before we could take the next step, it started. Everything grew dark. Clouds rolled in out of nowhere, dark and foreboding. The wind picked up and whipped around us, whispering through the trees.

  I looked at Chandre. Her black hair was flying around her face, making a halo of darkness around her head. Her eyes had gone black, the empty void eating at the white so that there was nothing human left about them. Her face had hollowed out, cheekbones showing like a skull’s.

  She was standing perfectly still, hands at her sides, but she was the image of death now, and it showed all around us. Darkness had set in earlier than it should, and the temperature had dropped.

  That meant trouble.

  “Raphael!” I shouted, my voice blowing away.

  He looked at me, and his eyes glowed a deep green. He was on the verge of the change. The younger wolves milled around each other, feeling the pull of Raphael’s change and fighting not to be sucked in.

  Raphael shifted. It was a quick shift, a seamless move from one form to the other. His wolf was enormous, copper-colored, with those glowing green eyes. Curled-back lips showed sharp fangs.

  Chandre laughed, and it echoed like we were in a small, closed room, not an open field. I rubbed my arms. Her voice was dancing on my skin, and the hair at the back of my neck was trying to march down my spine.

  The younger wolves were losing it. I could feel their magic, and it was unstable. Raphael wasn’t going to pull them through, so I had to do it. It was my duty as next in line.

  I stepped around Aryn and opened myself up, shoving power into them. There were seven of them – a lot of wolves to steady, but I wasn’t the alpha’s second for nothing. I felt them stabilize the moment my magic hit them, and they drank it in like water.

  Raphael jumped into a sprint and ran right at Chandre. She had expected him, though, and lifted her hands. When he lunged at her, it was like he was hitting a wall. He let out a yelp and fell to the ground. He was up a second later, shaking himself off.

  Chandre laughed again. God, I wanted her to stop doing that. It was a sound that was going to haunt me for a long time.

  I was losing the wolves. One was so close to changing, his teeth were sharp in his mouth and his arms had gone a little furry.

  “Aryn,” I called out. He snapped his head around. “I need your help.”

  He looked at the young wolf who was already more monster than human. He swallowed, looked at Raphael and then back at me.

  “It’s a death trap. If you go after him—”

  A loud crack, like a strike of lightning, sounded behind us. We both spun around.

  Raphael was at the neck of one of the other witches. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and there was blood on her neck where Raphael’s teeth had sunk in. She should have been on the ground, but she was still standing, waving her arms around. It was a bizarre dance, the witch with a wolf almost the same size hanging off her neck.

  Chandre turned her gaze on me. Suddenly, I felt like I was open wide, and she sucked everything out of me. Magic, willpower, life. I had the sensation of falling, and then everything went black.

  When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was a clear sky and a million stars. Pinpricks of light covered the night sky, and it was beautiful.

  “Balfour?” Aryn’s voice drifted to me like he was far away.

  I turned my head and focused on his face. He looked like death, pale and worried. This wasn’t right. Why was I lying down, looking up at the stars?

  I pushed myself up, and the world tilted on its side for a moment before straightening itself out. We were in the meadow. Some of the pack was here, seven wolves running through the grass and playing.

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know, man. She stared at you, and then you just collapsed.”

  I frowned. I didn’t remember… Then the memories crashed down on me like they’d been hovering around and had now finally found a home. The witches. The war. The wolves. I looked at them running through the grass, all grown wolves playing like pups. They’d all lost control.

  “I couldn’t hold them alone.” Aryn sounded apologetic.

  “No one expected you to. This is all on Raphael.” I looked around. “Where is he?”

  “They took him.” Aryn’s face was slightly ashen in the night, and his eyes were deep and scared. “That woman is a beast. After she did whatever she did to you, she attacked him, and she fought like a wolf. She managed to get Raphael down, and then she did something to his mind so that he was out. They dragged him into the woods.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Four hours.”

  Shit. I’d been out for a long time. I did a quick body check. Everything seemed to be working fine; I wasn’t injured. I just felt tired, like I’d fought a hard fight and had shifted twice.

  “I think she stole my power,” I said.

  Aryn scrunched up his face, and he looked like a child for a moment – scared and confused.

  “I think she drained my power and used it against Raphael,” I went on. “Witches have special talents, too. I think that was what she did.”

  “She can drain power?”

  “Wolf power.”

  The realization hit us at the same time.

  “That means that with the burial ground in their possession…”

  “She’s going to be able to tap the power and use it against us.”

  “But Raphael is alive. I didn’t feel the shift.”

  I nodded. Whenever an alpha died, the hierarchy shifted, promoting each wolf to the next position up, and the second to the alpha. It felt like a stab and a pull, and it involved a lot of pain. But it definitely hadn’t happened.

  “We need to get those wolves home,” I said. “And then we need to talk to the fae.”

  “They’ll never listen to us.”

  “One of them will.”

  Chapter 7 – Amber