Fairplay Shifters Boxset

by Serena Meadows

  ***Quinten***

  Quinten watched Penny walk away, the stubborn set of her shoulders, the gentle sway of her hips, and knew that no matter what happened, he wasn’t going to let her get away from him. The sense of doom he’d been feeling since they got here had changed, and now he knew that it had nothing to do with his relationship with Penny.

  His feelings for her had clarified when he realized that she might be in danger; he understood that she brought something to his life that had been missing: love. It was hard to believe that he’d been wrong about so many things, but the evidence was walking away from him right that second and it would be the biggest mistake of his life to let her get away without a fight.

  But first they had another fight on their hands, or at least that’s the way it was beginning to look. There was a small part of him that hoped the horses had somehow managed to free themselves and they’d find them in the pasture by the barn, but just in case, he raced back into the cave and gathered a few supplies he thought he might need.

  It wasn’t hard for him to catch up to Penny, who’d stopped to look at some tracks in the snow. When he saw what she was looking at, his heart plummeted to his stomach as his eyes followed the path of the prints right up to the far side of the cave. The prints were made in the fresh snow, and he knew that someone had been there recently, watching them. He shivered, thinking about Penny out here alone for all that time, and he stepped closer to her just in case they were still out there.

  Hoping that she’d made the tracks, he pointed to her and then the prints. She shook her head no and pointed to another set of tracks that were hers. Together they crept down the trail as silently as possible, stopping every few minutes to scan the trees around them, and for the first time Quinten was glad that the ground was covered in snow.

  They made it to the barn without seeing anyone but were cautious when they opened the back door, afraid they’d find someone on the other side. Safely inside, Penny pulled him up the stairs and across the barn to a window that faced the cabin. Standing back from the window in case someone was watching the barn, they scanned the trees looking for shadows or anything that moved.

  Penny’s focus was razor sharp, much better than his, so eventually he backed away and quietly explored the top floor of the barn. He found what he needed in a back room and began to set up, first drawing a pentagram on the floor then placing candles around it. Satisfied with that, he dug into his bag and found the oil and herbs he needed, then set to work.

  ***Penny***

  Quinten had been gone for a long time, and she’d seen all she needed to see, but she wasn’t about to go looking for him, not because she was still angry at him, but because she wasn’t. So, she stood at the window and continued to watch, trying desperately to block her feelings for Quinten, knowing that it was a distraction she couldn’t afford right now.

  When he came back into the room, his energy felt different, stronger somehow, and she couldn’t help but study him for a second. His golden hair was rumpled from the hat he’d worn, his cheeks slightly red from the cold and his blue eyes sparkling, and it was all she could do not to throw herself into his arms. Instead, she pulled him to the back of the barn so that they could talk.

  “I can smell them out there, but I can’t see them,” she whispered. “They must be scattered around the pasture, but they’ve hidden themselves well.”

  “Can you tell how many there are?” Quinten asked, the look on his face making it clear that the reality of their situation was finally sinking in.

  She shook her head. “I can’t tell, but it really doesn’t matter. I have to try to get to the cabin. I’ll wait until after dark then I should be able sneak over there. They won’t be expecting us then.”

  Quinten shook his head. “You’re not going out there alone; I’ll go with you.”

  When she sighed deeply, Quinten couldn’t help but smile; she gave him a dirty look, then said, “If I go alone, I have a better chance of not being seen. I can shift into other things than a mountain lion, something smaller, less likely to be seen.”

  “I guess I can’t argue with that, but if you’re not in and out, I’m coming after you,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

  Penny knew that she should pull away, but couldn’t make herself. Instead she clung to him for a few minutes, absorbing his strength. With his arms around her, she felt strong enough and brave enough to do what she needed to do, and she wanted to remember that feeling, to be able to draw on it when she needed it.

  All at once, her entire body was filled with an intense feeling love; it was so strong it took her breath away for a second, but when she finally took a breath, it was gone. She looked up at Quinten, confused, not sure if she’d been feeling his feelings or hers. One look at his face told her that he’d felt it too, so she quickly untangled herself from his arms and left the room, unable to deal with what she’d experienced.

  ***Quinten***

  Quinten watched Penny run away from him, the shock on his face quickly turning into a smile. For the briefest moment, he’d felt her love, felt it deep in his soul, and nothing he’d ever experienced had been so wonderful. Its intensity had taken his breath away, but when he’d taken a breath, it had vanished just as quickly as it had come. Still, he knew what he’d felt, love so intense it almost hurt to feel it.

  Now all he could feel was joy; Penny loved him, that much had been clear in that moment when their souls had merged. He’d heard of it happening before, that two souls could be so perfect for one another that they could feel each other’s emotions, but he’d never thought he’d experience it.

  When he found Penny, she was standing at the window again watching the woods. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and tell her that he loved her too, but he stopped himself. If she wasn’t ready to admit to him that she loved him, then he’d wait; the love was there: he’d felt it. He was more than willing to wait until she was ready; it would be worth it if she were the prize in the end.

  He went to the window and stood next to her, scanning the woods around them for some sign of movement, but everything looked still. It was then that he realized that the woods were totally silent; normally there would have been the sound of birds and the small animals rooting around in the snow for food.

  It was an eerie silence laced with the feeling that something was coming, the air heavy as before a storm, but what he was feeling wasn’t moisture: it was evil. Penny must have felt it too because she shivered, and he couldn’t help but put his arm around her. She let him, even moved a little closer, and he immediately felt better, his inner voice telling him that everything was going to be okay.

  As they watched darkness fall, he strengthened his spell, pumping as much energy into it as he could, and he could feel it growing. It had been a long time since he’d done magic like that, but he’d learned his craft well and knew that it would work. The only question in his mind was if it would work in time, if they could keep themselves safe long enough for help to arrive.

  He hadn’t lied to Penny when he told her that he couldn’t get them out of here, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t bring someone here, and the mirror in the back bedroom had been exactly what he’d needed. If they were lucky, Annabelle would be able to bring people through that mirror; the only question was whether she’d get his message before it was too late.

  Chapter 20

  ***Penny***

  When the sun had finally set, and darkness was thick, Penny turned from the window and headed for the stairs. Before she could go down them, Quinten grabbed her and kissed her, then crushed her to him and whispered, “When we’re safe, we have to talk.”

  She looked up into his eyes and felt that intense feeling of love again, but this time it didn’t shock her as much, and she let it wash over her, let it give her strength. “Okay.”

  “If you’re not out of there in three minutes, I’m coming after you,” he said, his eyes locked on hers.

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, kiss
ed him quickly on the lips, and pulled out of his arms. “I’ll be right back.”

  She slipped down the stairs without looking back, out the back door, and stood in the cold for a few minutes trying to get her focus back. Quinten had a way of blowing her concentration, and right now she needed to concentrate so she pushed him from her mind and visualized the animal she’d decided to become.

  It took some concentration, but eventually, she felt the shimmer in her blood that told her it was coming. Then in an instant, her body disappeared, and an Arctic fox appeared where she’d been standing. It felt foreign at first, so she took a few careful steps, testing out the lithe little body.

  Then she took off through the trees, blending into the snow and hiding in the shadows as she made her way to the cabin. She scrambled up onto the porch, relieved not to have run into anything in the woods. But to get the phone, she’d have to become human again, and she’d be out in the open for the time it took her to open the door and grab the phone. If anyone was watching it would be then that she’d get caught.

  She took a deep breath and shifted it took only a second to open the door and a second more to open the bench by the door. The phone was in her hands when she was suddenly blinded by a bright light; it lasted only a few seconds, but she couldn’t see a thing.

  Then a voice from the darkness asked, “Are you looking for this?”

  She turned to see where the voice was coming from and saw a faint pink glow coming from the back corner of the room. It began to get brighter, and as it did, she saw a figure uncurl itself from the top of a table. The figure took a few steps toward her as the light grew bright and she was able to see that it was a woman, a woman who looked a lot like the wolf-shifter they’d defeated earlier that summer.

  “I can see by the look on your face that you recognize me,” she said, then laughed evilly.

  Penny shook her head, unable to believe what she was seeing. “I don’t know you.”

  “No, that’s true, you don’t, but I do believe you met my brother. In fact, I believe you helped kill him,” the woman said, then came closer. “You might also see some family resemblance; we are sisters after all.”

  Penny sucked in a breath, then said, “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, I can promise you that it’s true, sister dear. Can’t you see how much we look alike? It’s our eyes I think. Bet you never thought you’d have a big sister someday,” the woman said.

  This time when she stepped closer, Penny began to back out of the cabin, relieved that she’d only come in a few steps. “What do you want?”

  “I think that should be obvious. I sent Gerome to take care of this, but apparently he wasn’t quite as strong as I thought he was. So, I’ve come to claim what’s mine myself,” she said.

  Penny kept backing out feeling like she’d have a better chance out in the open; she wasn’t sure what the shifter was holding in her hand, but it looked a lot like the amulet. “There’s nothing here that belongs to you,” Penny said, hoping that Quinten was watching from the barn, would see that she was in trouble.

  “Oh, sister dear, that’s where you’re wrong. You see, as the oldest, this all belongs to me. I’ve waited and watched my entire life while the rest of you lived the good life and I was forced to scrabble for every meal. Now I’ve come to claim what’s rightfully mine and the rest of you will have to beg for your meals.”

  She laughed then, a sound that made Penny want to cringe, but she stood her ground. “That is never going to happen; we beat your brother, and we’ll beat you.”

  “You and who else? That witch boyfriend of yours? That’s funny, little sister. Besides, even if you had an army, I have this,” she said, holding up the amulet.

  “Where did that come from?” she demanded, stalling for time.

  “The wizard that sold it to us put a Phoenix spell on it, so it always comes back; bet you wished you’d known that.”

  “You’ll never get away with this; it’s not just us protecting the valley; there are other shifters,” Penny said, getting desperate when she saw dark figures coming out of the woods.

  “I have plenty of help with me, and I can’t wait to see what this little baby can do. Shall we have a little experiment?”

  Penny watched, horrified, as the stone began to glow; a flash of light came shooting towards her, and before she knew it, she was flying through the air. She landed on the ground hard, a pain in her chest, all the air gone from her lungs. Struggling to take a deep breath, she got to her feet and faced the shifter again, her chest burning from the inside out.

  The shifter growled and held the stone up again; this time she was prepared for the impact of the rose-colored light, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. When she came to rest on the ground this time, it took far longer for her to get air into her lungs, and the world swam into and out of focus. But she finally managed to drag a ragged breath back into her lungs and get back on her feet.

  ***Quinten***

  Standing at the window, he watched Penny open the cabin door and step in, then counted off the seconds, visualizing in his mind what she was doing. Not long after he thought she should have come back out, there was a flash of pink light. He turned from the window and took the stairs two at a time, went out the back door, and ran around the barn.

  By the time he got to the front of the cabin, Penny was standing in the middle of the pasture facing a woman who was holding a pink glowing rock above her head. When the first beam of light from the rock hit Penny in the chest, he couldn’t help but cry out, her pain somehow his. The second one nearly knocked him off his feet, but he focused through it, desperately searching his mind for a spell to stop the woman.

  When the spell came to him, he didn’t hesitate to use it, raising his arms to the sky and yelling the words as loud as he could. He’d never know if the spell worked, but it did distract the woman from Penny, gave her enough time to get to her feet. The only problem was that now the woman was focused on him.

  She raised the stone above her head but before she could use it, there was a flash of light and a huge crash of thunder followed by a gust of wind so strong snow flew up into the air, making it impossible to see anything. When the snow settled, it took him a second to realize that Justin and Annabelle were standing there, behind them Joslin and Jake.

  Justin stepped forward, Annabelle close behind him. “What is your business with this family, shifter?” he asked, his voice booming in the silence.

  “Well, brother dear, it’s nice to see you too. Since we haven’t been introduced, let me do that. I’m your sister Clarice; our introduction is long overdue.”

  “I seriously doubt that you’re my sister, but even if that was true, you’re going about this all wrong. I told your brother that, and now I’m telling you. All shifters are welcome in the valley, but only if they work for what they have; no one is entitled to anything just because of blood.”

  “Well, this amulet and I feel differently about that,” Clarice said, then held it up above her head.

  Quinten had been moving slowly up behind Justin and Annabelle, intent on getting to Penny who was swaying on her feet about to collapse on the ground. The dark figures were slowly moving in on her from the trees, and he wasn’t sure that she’d noticed them or could defend herself even if she had.

  Quinten could feel the power of the amulet filling that air and knew that it was getting stronger, the evil in the shifter feeding it. But then Annabelle stepped forward. “I’m tired of playing these games with you and your brother; this is going to end here and now.”

  When she raised her hands into the air and began to say a spell, Quinten knew what she was doing and immediately began to recite the spell with her, still making his way to Penny who had finally collapsed on the snow, a trail of red staining the white. Anger surged through him, but he channeled it into the spell, and over his shoulder, he saw the color of the crystal turn from pink to blue and heard the scream of the shifter as it burned her hand.

&nbs
p; “I’ve changed the amulet from evil to good, shifter; it’ll be of no use to you anymore,” Annabelle said, making the shifter scream again and suddenly there was a huge wolf where she’d been standing.

  It took only seconds for Justin and Jake to shift, and then they were on the wolf in one huge leap, and in only a few minutes, it was over. The dark figures shrank back into the forest, and Quinten turned his attention back to Penny, who lay bleeding from the wounds on her chest.

  He gathered her into this lap and ripped open her shirt, gasping when he saw the glowing wounds. As he watched, her body tried to heal the wounds, but each time the bleeding seemed to slow, there was a hissing sound, and the wound opened again. Annabelle knelt next to him and looked at the wounds, then at him.

  “These wounds look just like Justin’s; they won’t heal on their own,” she said, gently.

  Quinten smoothed the hair back from Penny’s face, trying to imagine a life without her. Then looked over at Annabelle. “We’re going to need one more person.”

  Annabelle nodded her head. “I’ll go get Joslin.”

  ***Penny***

  Penny slowly opened her eyes, prepared to feel the pain in her chest, relieved when she felt nothing but the air streaming through her lungs. The first thing she saw was Quinten’s concerned face staring down at her; then other faces came swimming into view. Justin was there, and so was Annabelle, and she was sure she could hear Jake and Joslin’s voices in the distance.

  “You’re all here,” she said, trying to make sense of what had happened.

  “Quinten summoned us through a mirror in the barn; we got here just in time,” Annabelle said. “I brought Jake and Joslin too; they’re um… cleaning up the mess.”