The Apex Shifter Complete Set: Books 1 - 3

by Emilia Hartley

“I don’t think we should sit on the roof during a thunderstorm.” Rain pattered in the woods. Isabela shrugged deeper into her leather jacket.

  “Can’t see from down below,” Blood said.

  “See what—the hell?”

  He caught the light in the sky, coming from the north. Storm clouds roiled behind the light, as if in its wake. The rain increased to a steady downpour.

  “What is that?” Isabela asked.

  “Keep your eye on that tree. You marked it like I said, right?”

  Isabela’s voice sounded distant. “Yeah.”

  The dim red light arced around, heading for the dead tree. Despite the hard rain, the massive stump suddenly blazed.

  “Holy shit!”

  Blood tracked with the telescope. “Keep your eyes on her.”

  “Her?”

  As the meteor-like object rose, Blood and Isabela followed its progress. Storm clouds receded. In a few moments, the blaze in the sky dropped behind the tree line.

  “Maybe twelve, fifteen miles north,” Blood said.

  “What was that, a UFO?”

  He didn’t speak, only clambered down the roof to the ladder. Blood moved to his crude workbench, gazing at the pathetic collection of loaded shotgun shells.

  “What was that?” Isabela demanded, walking into the lodge.

  Blood eyed the girl. He decided to keep it vague. Maybe he could lure her in. “Something I’ve gotta prepare for. I don’t have time to chat.”

  “Are you going after it?”

  “Not at night. Not if I can help it.”

  “Well, then I’ll go with you tomorrow after school.”

  Blood shook his head. “No, you won’t.”

  “Oh, really? How are you going to get there, walk? I’ve got a car.”

  Blood looked up at her. She was hooked. It would make things easier. Especially if they had to get away fast. “If you wanna come, it’s gotta be in the morning. Lots to do.”

  “I have school.”

  He shrugged, and set the hook. “Up to you.”

  She folded her arms, looking like she was going to stomp her foot. “Okay, fine. Just not too early.”

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  Chapter Eighteen

  Kayla knocked on the door a third time without response. Elathan didn’t strike her as a sound sleeper. She checked her watch. She had to argue her motions to repress in front of the judge, but not until after lunch. Her heightened senses detected no presence within. Yet she noticed that Elathan didn’t give off a scent—not even while he was fully grizzly-shifted.

  This morning, her head was clear, her body feeling energized. Still, she felt a little guilty, prancing through woods instead of working on Elathan’s case. She still had moved in a positive direction. Kayla really needed to talk to her client about it. She pushed into the lodge.

  To her surprise, she found the man, stripped to the waist, seated in a lotus position on his cot. His hands were palms-up on his thighs, ring fingers touching his thumbs. Opened eyes did not flicker in her direction. She quietly closed the door and sat in the only chair.

  His physique looked stone-hard in the early light. No sign of age swayed his muscular frame. His deep chest rose and fell with long, even breaths. Kayla’s eyes locked on a tattoo on the planes of his pecs. A symbol she didn’t recognize adorned his skin in dull blue. It was something of a wonder. The ink should have disappeared when he shifted. Kayla had learned this the hard way after getting a pretty butterfly tatted on her hip. When she shifted back from her deer form, the tat had disappeared. It was why she had to wear clip-on earrings. Shifting healed her piercings, too.

  After several long moments, Elthan blinked. His eyes focused on her.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I thought we should go over your case.”

  When he looked to his chest, she realized she’d been staring. “You’re wondering how I can have ink.”

  Which sounded better than she was staring at his naked chest. “How is it possible?”

  “Colloidal silver. The symbol is from a language predating Mesopotamian cuneiform. It means ‘shadow.’ I got it in Bhutan, from the Cult of the Druk. They worship dragons. This symbol allows them to get close without the thing sensing them.” Elathan grabbed the shirt next to him.

  “I guess it works on shifters, too,” she said.

  Elathan grunted noncommittally as he buttoned up.

  “I think I can get most of the evidence against you thrown out. The cellphones used to contact Thorn were obtained without warrants. Mostly. I also talked to an expert about the explosive in the old sawmill. He said it was plastic—it could have been there since World War II.”

  “I set that trip wire well over my head. Didn’t reckon that idiot Kodiak was that much taller than me. I hardly believed it when I heard he was killed in the explosion. Man’s a shifter, after all.”

  What was he telling her? “So you did rig a booby trap?”

  Elathan shrugged. “Just guarding the back door to the lair. I figured if she got away from me, the blast would slow her down a bit. Never imagined some lummox stumbling into it. You’re right about it being there a while.”

  “But you sent a text luring Thorn there.”

  “Thought I’d get the drop on him. I needed the dragon to smell his fear, to draw her out. But he showed up with that damn jaguar. I was hurting, couldn’t shift, so I high-tailed it. Maybe I could put Thorn out of commission, but not the both of them. Then the idiots set off the bomb.” Elathan shook his head in disbelief.

  “It wasn’t meant to kill a man?”

  Elthan held his hand a few inches over his head. The man stood at least six-five. “I set the trap way high. That sound like I was aiming to kill a man?”

  It sure didn’t. But how could she argue it away in court?

  ***

  In the seventeen miles of stacks in the Portland Central Library, Kayla found only one volume that treated the subject of dragons with any seriousness: Dragons, Historic Encounters and Physical Evidence. It was stashed with the books on Bigfoot.

  There wasn’t much time before she needed to be at the courthouse, but Kayla sat at one of the tables to skim the book. It was fairly thick, but did it contain anything that would be of use to her? Chapters included Ancient Encounters, Modern Encounters, The 100-Year Cycle of the Dragon, Physical Evidence. Luckily, there was an index in the back.

  She flipped through, reading: Lewis, Meriwether, and Clark, William—see Corps of Discovery Expedition. Finding the page, she saw the same exerts she’d read online, and even more information. It seemed like she was on the right track.

  Back in the index, she saw nothing on Tomahawk or Shoshone. There was an entry for Obsidian—with a number of pages referenced, along with the note: see also, Volcano. Under Volcano, she saw a number listed, including Mt. Hood, Mt. St. Helens in Washington and Mt. Redoubt in Alaska.

  Alaska—Thorn was attacked in Alaska as a boy, wasn’t he?

  Kayla flipped to the photo section in the middle of the book. She found pictures of supposed dragon hoards, looted, of course. One of the shots included an elaborate weapon. A foot-long obsidian tip adorned the top of an eight-foot pole, the whole of it decorated with carvings, beads and feathers. The caption caught her attention.

  Dragons are thought to include weapons that might destroy them in their hoards. Pictured: a Han Dynasty artifact discovered in the Dragon Caves of Giao Chi. The lance dates to 100 BCE during the first Chinese domination of Vietnam.

  Another picture took her breath away. It was a sunset photo of Mt. Redoubt. Smoke of the eruption filled the air. Rising from the smoke was a shape that had terrified her. It looked exactly the same as the shadowy figure that had blasted her car off the road. The bat-like wings, the tail—while it could have simply been a shape in the smoky cloud, Kayla had no doubt that she was looking at a dragon flying from the exploding mountain.

  Her glimpses of the creature that attacked her and
Elathan had been fleeting, on a dark road, at an angle through the car widows. Any doubts she had were now wiped away.

  When she closed the book, another photo made an even greater impact. Kayla stared at the author photo. She knew the dragon expert. Kayla would have to pay her a visit as soon as possible.

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  Chapter Nineteen

  “You’re late.”

  Isabela hung in the doorway wearing her usual uniform of too-tight jeans and a biker jacket. “I said I wouldn’t be early.”

  Blood headed out to her vehicle—a purple VW Bus. He already missed Kayla’s more conservative rental. Or did he just miss seeing Kayla? No point following up that thought. She had made her position plain enough.

  “Where are we going?”

  He got in. “Shopping.”

  “Awesome. I have mad shopping skills. Shoes, right? I mean, what’s up with the ski boots?” Isabela hopped in. The engine wouldn’t turn over.

  “Shit.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Cheap-ass ignition wires. It doesn’t like to start if it gets too wet.”

  Blood got out of the car. “This is north-central Oregon. It rains all the time.”

  “It’s this stupid dirt road—it’s full of mud puddles. Can you give me a push?”

  He walked to the rear of the bus and leaned against the back. After it rolled a few yards, the purple van jerked as Isabella popped the clutch. The engine putted to life. So much for a quick getaway vehicle, Blood mused as he got back in.

  “Okay, shoe store?”

  “Coin dealer. I need more scrap silver.”

  Isabela dragged out “Borrr-inng.”

  “I also need more shotgun hulls, powder, primers, wads.”

  “How many shells do you need? Are you that bad a shot? I mean, we’re talking about shotguns here.”

  “Silver won’t hurt her, not unless I get her in the eyes, or the mouth.”

  Isabela squinted at him. “Her?”

  “Silver won’t penetrate her scales, but it’s what I have to work with.”

  She drove in silence for a time, winding her way toward civilization. Finally, she asked, “Are you maybe a little bit insane?”

  “Perhaps. Why do you ask?”

  “What the hell are you hunting?”

  “You’re a smart girl. Put it together. Arsons, fireballs in the sky—”

  “Are you being totally serious right now? Are you talking about a freaking dragon?”

  Blood didn’t answer. “Take 26.”

  “So we’re back to insane.”

  The sporting goods store was closest, and Blood stocked up. Since posting bail, his cash was low. Luckily, his wallet had survived the car crash, but the cash in it wouldn’t sustain him for long. Still, he did have some gold left over. He would have to sell it at the coin dealer.

  “Just wondering,” Isabela said in the parking lot. “If silver won’t work against—you know—what will?”

  Blood hauled himself into the bus. “Dragons are volcanophiles. Volcanic glass can penetrate the hide.”

  Isabela made a face as she started the VW. “Bullets won’t work, silver won’t work, but glass will?”

  “It’s magic,” Blood said. “I don’t make the rules.”

  A few minutes later, they parked outside the coin dealer. Blood nearly ran into Isabela. She stood in the middle of the sidewalk, staring.

  “Let’s go. Daylight’s wasting.”

  “Volcanic glass—that’s obsidian, right?”

  He angled his head at her. “Yes it is. Where’d you learn that?”

  “Hey, I read. Come on.”

  Blood gazed up at the sun. It was already past apogee. From here, he could see the courthouse. He thought of Kayla inside, fighting for him. It could well be a waste of time. There was no certain outcome when he went against a dragon.

  Still, the girl looked determined. He followed her into a shop. Tie-dyed T-shirts, hundreds of candles, incense sticks and books on Eastern mysticism greeted his gaze. He found Isabela at the counter, talking with a woman with long gray hair.

  “It forms a shield against negativity,” the proprietor was saying. “Also, it absorbs negative spiritual energies.”

  Isabela held a black prism in her hand. “How much does it weigh?”

  “They vary, but around an ounce.”

  On the counter sat bowls of polished rocks, crystal balls, slabs of minerals, geodes. Several woven baskets held crystal prisms, labeled “wands.” Most were about two inches long, a quarter inch thick. The one in Isabela’s hand tapered to a point.

  “We’ll take all of them,” Isabela shot a look at Blood.

  Blood glowered back. “Why?”

  She put the so-called wand in his hand. “It’s obsidian.”

  He raised his brows at her. “And?”

  Isabela leaned closer, her voice a whisper. “And they’re the size of shotgun slugs you dope.”

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  Chapter Twenty

  Kayla strode from the courthouse, angry with herself. She was too distracted. The author photo at the end of the dragon book still had her reeling. Her defense of an enigmatic, alluring and likely dangerous man, and her attraction to him, added to her cluttered mind. Not to mention the fact that a dragon lurked somewhere nearby.

  Well, she’d get the lowdown on the dragon soon enough. As for Elathan, the case wasn’t going as well as she anticipated. The prosecution’s case hinged on text messages sent to Thorn that served to lead him to his death. One phone was seized from the suspect, Sally, when she was arrested. The sheriff’s deputies had no warrant. Kayla argued that the phone had to be thrown out as evidence. The judge agreed.

  However, a second phone was taken from the private eye investigating Sally’s case. Sheriff’s detectives had a warrant to search his home and business. But the phone was taken off of Oscar León’s person. Her argument was that the warrant didn’t cover a pat-down. The prosecutor said that since Leon was on the property, a search of his person was in order. Unfortunately the judge agreed with him.

  “One for two,” she said to herself. “Fifty percent. Not a passing grade.”

  Kayla still had Elathan’s motive to track down. It could never play in court. No human could ever know that he was a grizzly-shifter hunting down a dragon. It still bolstered her efforts. He was not the monster the police and the press painted. Elathan was driven to stop the dragon before people were hurt or killed. She believed it—hadn’t he had put himself in mortal danger to save her life?

  There was no doubt that he was a violent man. Yet his violence was directed. Elathan was a man out of time, of that she had proof. Why his attack on a man insulting her held so much appeal, she couldn’t say. Kayla tried to weigh his manipulation of innocent people against the threat that hung over the town. She found she wasn’t able. But that wasn’t hers to decide. It was her job to promote the nobility of the man, his selflessness, over behavior seen as criminal.

  Kayla thought she could do that if she uncovered his true motive, the monster he meant to destroy. She got in the rental car and drove off to do just that. It was time to confront a so-called expert on dragons.

  ***

  Outside the New Age shop, Blood smelled them first. He pulled Isabela back inside.

  “What is it?”

  His eyes scanned the street from the sheltered doorway. “I smell Kodiak and jaguar. We’ve been followed.”

  She gave him the stink-eye. “Are you serious?”

  “That big, black car.” He saw Oscar León behind the wheel, Thorn in the passenger seat.

  Isabela saw it as well. “The guys from the lawyer’s office.”

  Blood thought about it. “They can’t be tracing me. I have protection against shifter senses.”

  “What, they’re following me?”

  “Thorn’s as smart as a bag of hammers, but that private eye is cu
nning. They saw us talking.”

  Her brows knitted, lips twisting. “So what do we do?”

  “Lose them.”

  Isabela snorted. “That’s a Lincoln, a four-hundred sixty-two cubic inch V8 engine. I drive a four-banger bus. No way am I getting away from that thing.”

  “It ain’t about speed. It’s about leverage. We’re only a few blocks from the courthouse. There’s always cops parked there.” His thoughts flashed on Kayla, working for his defense, while he was out prepping for a fight with a dragon.

  She held up her hands. “I get in enough trouble without lying to the cops.”

  “Then don’t lie. People follow their natures. You just have to get on the right side of their motives. Write down the license of that car.”

  Isabela gave him a disbelieving look. “You’re pretty old school, grandad.” She leaned from the doorway with her phone.

  Blood saw the image of the car, the license plate. “Okay. Whatever. Go circle the courthouse a few times. Make sure the car is on your tail. You only have to tell the cops that two creeps in a big black car have been following you. If the flatfoot is on legitimate business, he’ll have to explain it when they pull him over. If he’s shadowing you to find me, he’ll have to back off. Either way, you get free.”

  The girl nodded with an impressed pout. “You really are a criminal mastermind. Then what?”

  “Meet me in the parking lot of the Squirrels Nuts bar in three hours. It’s the last place anyone would look for me.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before.” Isabela giggled. “This is so cool!”

  Blood held her eyes. “Three hours.”

  “It’s going to take you at least an hour to walk back to Ripple.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  She put a fist on a thrust hip, giving him a scowl. “What are you going to do, steal a car in broad daylight?”

  “Better you don’t know.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. “Okay.”