by Lisa Ladew
Table of Contents
Title Page
1 – Finally, She Glows
2 – The Shifter Glows, Too
3 – One More Glow-er
4 – The Tests Begin
5 – The Cosh Switch
6 – Growler Receives a Present
7 – Bad Magic, Really Bad Magic
8 – Growler Carves
9 – Why Do You Stare?
10 – The Hunt
11 – Prowl, Prowl
12 – Much Changes in Five Years, While Much Stays the Same
13 – Growler Finds the Center of the Forest
14 – For Shame, Antimony
15 – Sir Dewey Gets Mean
16 – Vampires Attack the Cosh
17 – Cosh No More
18 – Antimony Knows
19 – “Just” Four Days
20 – Hell Has Come
21 – Resynynt
22 – The Vampire Vant
23 – A New Cosh Switch
Notes from Lisa XOXOXO
Table of Contents
Title Page
1 – Finally, She Glows
2 – The Shifter Glows, Too
3 – One More Glow-er
4 – The Tests Begin
5 – The Cosh Switch
6 – Growler Receives a Present
7 – Bad Magic, Really Bad Magic
8 – Growler Carves
9 – Why Do You Stare?
10 – The Hunt
11 – Prowl, Prowl
12 – Much Changes in Five Years, While Much Stays the Same
13 – Growler Finds the Center of the Forest
14 – For Shame, Antimony
15 – Sir Dewey Gets Mean
16 – Vampires Attack the Cosh
17 – Cosh No More
18 – Antimony Knows
19 – “Just” Four Days
20 – Hell Has Come
21 – Resynynt
22 – The Vampire Vant
23 – A New Cosh Switch
Notes from Lisa XOXOXO
Switch of Fate Prequel
by Lisa Ladew
and Grace Quillen
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or organizations, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Copyright © 2017-2018 Lisa Ladew All Rights Reserved
Acknowledgements
Book cover by The Final Wrap. Dewy’s mom. Lol. Lol.
Cover model: Chris McBride, wowsa what a great look he’s got <3
Photographer: Shannon McPeek! Keep them coming.
Much thanks to: The Dew Crew (the members in my facebook group formerly known as One True Mate Spoilers). My bestest dewsies. Lol. You’ll never know how much you lift me up <3 <3
Thanks to Grace for being super awesome. She “gets” me. I was lucky to find her to do this with. … ooh. Look at me breaking a rule. Oops, I just looked it up, and don’t end a sentence with a preposition is no longer a rule for the English language. 9th grade English was all lies. Science, too. Sigh. I don’t know what to believe anymore. Lol.
<3 <3 and of course the readers, and Sue Currin. She’s my kick-ass editor. Let me thank her now because I appreciate her bigly. Lol.
This book was originally intended to be only a novella, only an intro to the Switch of Fate series, and given away for free, but I felt compelled to fix it up and put it on Amazon. So the original one was given away only by newsletter. If you read that one, this one is a lot different, and I believe, worth a read again. Not much has changed, only minor details that don’t change the core story, but it’s much stronger now, much more clarifying as to what a switch is, and what their role was in the past, which helps us write the story in the present. <3 (3-1-2018)
1 – Finally, She Glows
The year is 1503
The location is The Forest of the Spring (present day Nantahala Forest, North Carolina, U.S.A.)
Anna strolled along the cobbled street, head held high, her sister Theresa at her side. Idly, she braided a lock of her hair as Theresa prattled on about nothing. Sister stuff. Anna’s eyes were drawn by a male on horseback, lean and dark, probably a big cat shifter, urging his horse faster than he should on the rough cobblestones, horse and rider heading into Five Hills, the tiny town at their back.
Anna grabbed for her sister, wanting her to look, too, but Theresa had stopped in front of an eatery and was staring in the open air window at a row of big males eating the first meal of the day.
Theresa sighed and found Anna’s hand. “Look at all that bear meat in there. Let’s have breakfast.”
Anna looked. Yeah, there was a lot of bear meat. Big guys, thick through the chest and the arms and the legs and the everything else that mattered. Plus they could turn into bears. Minor detail since all she cared about was the man. She crowded in close to her sister. “Are any of them cosh-shifters?”
Theresa looked at each one in turn. “I can’t tell. I don’t see any ingravs. No one is glowing.”
“But they won’t glow unless one of their switches is in trouble,” Anna whispered, pulling Theresa to the side, when one of the big bear-men looked up at her. Blondish hair, cropped close to his head topped dark eyes and a strong expression. Simple cotton spread across a strong chest. Big forearms. Big hands. Anna took him in, then looked him in his eyes.
He was staring at her.
Insolent. But she liked it. She stared back and they locked eyes, as shifter and switch were known to do. A mini conversation occurred in the air between them, she was certain.
You like bears? his eyes said.
Sure, who doesn’t? Come here, let me show you, hers said back.
Anna collapsed into giggles and pulled her sister away from the window, laughing at her silliness. They’d had no unspoken conversation, and letting Theresa drag her in there would be a bad idea. She had many chores to do and there was no place in her chores for bears. Bears were big and clumsy and thumped around the forest and female’s hearts equally, overturning carriages, chewing up trees, scaring everybody.
“Let us go, Theresa. No lusting over bears today. We have work waiting.” She ignored her sister’s protests and pulled her down the street, but at the next window, still to the same eatery, someone called out to her.
“Switches! Please, come in, eat, first meal of the day on me. My thanks.”
Anna looked around for the switches. She was a switch, but an ordinary one. One who didn’t glow. She supposed she could kill a vampire if she came upon one. A weak one, and then she might glow for a bit, but it wouldn’t last.
The cosh-switches and shifters were the ones who glowed, because they were the ones who fought the vampires. They were the strongest, lent even more strength and power by The Cause and the cosh. The Cause was the fight against the vampires. The cosh was where all cosh-switches and shifters lived.
Theresa squeezed her hand. “He means us.”
“Us? Why?” Anna met the man’s eyes. He nodded earnestly and motioned them inside. They’d eaten in the Bear Claw before, both her and Theresa, more than once, and this man had served them. He hadn’t offered any free food those times.
The bear from the table, the one who hadn’t asked her if she like bear meat, he was watching her intently. His eyes narrowed and his being changed, from relaxed to tense, waiting, ready. This was getting weird.
Theresa pulled her through the door, hissing at h
er, “I don’t know why, but Fate is talking to us.”
Up to the counter Theresa pulled her. Anna could feel the bear’s eyes on her. All the bears’ eyes on her. One of them muttered something. “She’s a cosh switch.” “She glows,” another said. One raised his nose. “No vampires about.”
Anna startled. Vampires? Who was glowing? She looked to Theresa, but Theresa was already staring at her, crossing her eyes hard, like she was trying to see angels in the drops of dew on the lawn.
Theresa gasped and touched Anna’s face. “Anna, you’re glowing. There is an opening at the cosh and Fate has chosen you.”
Anna sucked in a breath, touching her face, then holding out her hands in front of her and turning them over, trying to see the glow herself. The glow that meant that she, Anna of the Forest, was reinvented, her life only beginning at the age of 37.
2 – The Shifter Glows, Too
Growler pushed his food away and stood. The lovely, tall switch with the brown hair and the mesmerizing, bright, honey-colored eyes had rushed out after a whispered conversation with the female who looked much like her.
He would follow the switch and her sister, who had not been glowing. He was not a cosh-shifter, but there were no shifters with them, and that was not acceptable. Vampires lived in the Forest of the Spring, were as called to it as shifters and switches were. It was conceivable one could be close and would jump at the chance to corner a switch, get her alone and outnumber her, or worse, drive her into a killing frenzy that she could not control, endangering all. Her sisters, shifters, humans, the animals of the forest, the forest itself.
Such was the job of a shifter, what they were all born to do. They directed and focused the killing ire of the switches, then kept their heads while the vampire-blood-crazed switches lost theirs, anchoring them, forcing them back into reality when the vampire threat was gone.
Growler pushed outside, then followed the pair down the street, staying back from them so they wouldn’t notice him. This was not his place.
When he’d first seen the switch, Anna, the female with her had called her, she hadn’t glowed. He’d known she was a switch because almost all non-shifter females in Five Hills were. Growler could pick out a shifter, any shifter, by scent, and she had not been one of those. She and her sister fit the profile of a Bond switch even before she’d glowed. Tall, striking eyes, plus kind expressions.
When she had glowed, it had come upon her all at once, lighting up her entire body, the dusky, reddish orange of a fire at sunset. Gorgeous. She hadn’t noticed. Growler had. The other shifters had. It was not often they saw cosh-switches in town. Mostly the cosh-shifters came to town for supplies or information.
He followed the pair for almost an hour, to a farm situated in the center of a clearing off several secondary roads that could really be better described as forest paths. They disappeared inside the long farmhouse, and Growler only watched for a moment, before turning and heading home. That was not the cosh, but that was not his business.
Growler stepped behind a tree, removed his clothes, stashed them under the roots of the tree, and shifted into a massive bear, running headlong toward home, the man within the bear thinking hard about a new development in his life.
For the first time in his 33 years, he wanted to be a cosh-shifter.
***
Growler steered himself toward the fire pit they called the meeting place, where other shifters who lived like him would sometimes meet for fellowship. It was a small meadow that didn’t fit in the forest, with a fire pit dug in the center and chairs carved all around in a circle. Growler had carved the chairs himself, never quite knowing why, but he knew he liked to build with his own hands. That was reason enough.
He had lived in the Forest of the Spring since he was born, a simple life with his parents that consisted of work and wandering the forest. When his parents had died he’d turned the farm over to his uncle, rarely returning.
He lived in the forest alone, catching his dinner with his own paws, working as a tracker, occasionally spending days or weeks at the meeting place, socializing. Sometimes, he went into town to advertise his services.
He was glad he’d gone that morning. The switch’s face still lingered in his mind, her orange glow warm, welcoming, and dangerous at the same time. He was glad to have seen her, glad to have been of the opportunity to be of service to her, even if she knew it not.
Not for the first time, Growler wondered where in the forest the cosh stood, the longhouse where all the cosh-shifters and switches lived together, united in The Cause against the vampire. The house was protected by both magic and sentries, and ordinary folk would never happen across it. His father had always said that Fate could be tempted, but not fooled. His mother had always added that the cosh was the same.
Growler felt the pull of The Cause of the Forest like all other shifters, but so far, had not found anything else to keep him in Five Hills. Switches were not considered by Fate to become cosh-switches if they had mates already, so he’d not found one willing to share his bed for more than a night at a time.
Female bear shifters were harder to find, and courted mercilessly. They had their fill of hard bears. Growler was among the hardest, but something kept him from joining the ranks of the hungry, begging for a scrap of female attention. Something he could not name.
Ahead of him, through his bear’s eyes, Growler saw the orange glow of a campfire. Someone was at the meeting place already. He steered toward the trees where he had hiding places, his earthen holes where he had clothes stashed, shifting as he went, then pulling on his clothes. If he were a cosh shifter, he would have spells placed on him to pull his clothes magically around him when he shifted. It sounded better to him than it ever had before. Only cosh-switches were strong enough to do such magic.
When he made it to the circle of carved logs, though, the place was empty. No campfire. He looked around into the forest. Growled. There was no scent of shifter, switch, human, or even vampire in the air. Fire neither, even though the day light still glowed orange to him, like there should be fire somewhere.
Then it struck him. Growler held his hand up in front of his face. Orange light struck his palm, reflected from Growler’s own eyes.
He was being called.
Growler shifted again, dropping to the forest floor, not bothering to take off or cache his clothes. He would never be back to this place. He was not glad or sad or even surprised. He’d always known he was meant for more than simply tracking or farming. He hadn’t thought that meant he would be a cosh-shifter, but so be it. Now, the future was completely unknown. Maybe better than he had it right now, maybe worse, but it was coming for him, like it or not so he would face it head on, with a growl and his very best.
That pretty cosh-switch, Anna, she would be there, which was reason to reach past his best, all the way to excellence. There was no room within excellence for second thoughts, maybes, or hesitation. And so he did not hesitate.
His huge bear lumbered at first, then ran, toward the center of the forest, instinct steering him. He picked up speed as he went, readying himself for the challenges that could start at any moment.
Growler growled into the forest.
Here I come, cosh, prepare thyself.
3 – One More Glow-er
Anna marched away from her home, her pack on her back, tears streaming down her face. She’d said good-bye to all of them. To her family, to her sister, to the animals, to her room, to everything she’d ever known her entire life. She was on a forest path, only a few steps off the farm, and hurting already.
She’d always wanted to be a cosh-switch, they all did. There was not much point of being a switch if you weren’t killing vampires.
And that’s why leaving felt so good but so bad at the same time. Anna was a Bond switch, that way from birth. Her sister Theresa was also a Bond switch. Their mother had been a Blood switch, which probably would have been hard for her daughters to deal with, if she’d ever been around. Being a
Bond switch meant her magic was based on bonds, any bonds she could tend or form or create. But also meaning that she was a weepy female who cried when she left her family, because relational bonds she formed were always the strongest bonds, and hers were stronger than most people’s. As such, it hurt her more than most when they faltered or were sheared through.
She would never be back, and so she cried.
Noises sounded from behind her. Anna whirled, plucking a wooden dagger from her skirts, and another from the weapons pouch between her breasts. All cosh-switches were tested before allowed to enter the cosh, but Anna hadn’t known the tests would start so soon.
It was Theresa, long hair bound in a braid that swung wildly down her back as she ran, her dress brushing the ferns on each side of the path. She had her own pack on her back.
“Theresa, don’t make this harder,” Anna said.
Theresa ran at her, knocking her over with a hug. “Look at me, Anna, look at me!” Theresa cried from their position on the ground, sticking her face right up into Anna’s. Anna stared hard, barely hoping to breathe, definitely not hoping that her sister had been called alongside her.
But she had. If Anna crossed her eyes and squinted and leaned her head back, she could see it. Theresa was glowing, a pretty, bright orange the same color of their magicks that moved around her. She laughed into the forest and snatched one of Anna’s knives out of her hands, tucking it into her own weapons pouch. “It just happened. The stable shifter saw it and told me.”
Anna laughed with her sister, pulling her into a hug. “I can’t believe we’re going together. Whatever must have happened for them to need two Bond switches at the same time?”
They sobered quickly at the thought of it. Death or ejection, those were the two ways out of the cosh. Anna did not know much about the cosh, almost no one did, but she knew that much. Shifters and switches never chose to leave, the pull of doing what they were born to do too strong for any to make that choice.
