by Connor Crowe
I took a breath and approached the stones, fear swirling in my belly. I unbuttoned my fly and positioned myself over the stones, praying with every fiber of my being that this would work. This variety of stone had been used in the Emerald Isles for generations. ‘Stones of green, child to be seen’ went the rhyme. Something about the pregnancy hormone causing a reaction in the stone, making it change color from a dark almost-black to a mossy, pale green.
Markus and Arric stood behind me, and I knew that if this didn’t go as planned, they would likely die. They would fight, I was sure. But would they survive?
“There has to be another way!” Arric growled, his voice cutting off in a grunt when one of the Emerald Isles men jabbed him right in the diaphragm.
I waited, cleared my mind, and thought of home. My real home. I thought of Arric and the comfort I felt in his arms. I thought of Felix and how he’d rescued me from the Black Hands’ cells. And I thought of the little girl banging on the dishes like drums.
Urine trickled across the stones and it seemed that even nature had stopped to watch. The crickets no longer sang. The wind ceased.
Seconds passed by. The stone remained black.
We’d failed.
“Ha!” Tina screeched from behind me, her laughter turning to delirious triumph. “Told you, worm!” She stomped toward me as her men waited for the signal. “You’re as broken as they come. Helpless. Useless. Worthless. And now you’re mine.”
I sank to my knees, staring at the stone in anguish. Everything I’d felt, all the kindness I’d experienced...
It didn’t matter.
None of it mattered.
We’d still lost.
And then, like a spreading sliver of ice, color began to creep across the rock.
I blinked and tried to clear my blurry tear-streaked eyes. No. It couldn’t be...
“Greeeeen!” She howled in anguish, rearing up on her back legs to strike.
I didn’t have time to react. Didn’t even have time to process the color. Green. Green. Child to be seen.
I curled in on myself, covering my head with my hands in a feeble attempt to block the blow. But it never came.
The ground shook and a great rending sound tore through the air, even louder than Tina’s screams of rage. I dared to open my eyes.
Columns of dirt and stone rose up all around her and the other dragons, trapping them into an earthen cage. I watched, mouth open, still shaking from the adrenaline and shock. What had just happened...?
I whipped my head backward to find Felix there, panting.
And holding the Fist of the Mountain in his shaking hands.
“Fool!” Tina cried. A red gem I hadn’t noticed before started glowing against her chest. It had blended in with her scales so well I hadn’t seen it, and now...
“You can’t defeat me with your magic tricks! I don’t just have the Heart of the Hearth, I AM the Heart of the Hearth!” She reared up once more, and the earthen cage around her exploded out in all directions. An inferno raged around her, coming out of the stone at her chest and spreading toward us.
“Now!” Someone screamed, and I ducked. Rocks and fire flew, clashing in mid air. The super heated air licked through the stones, turning them first red, then white hot like metal. The molten rock swirled around her ever closer as she tried to pull more energy from the stone, but in the last moment, it faltered. It glowed brighter, stronger, blocking out everything in my vision and singing my skin. Then a sound like a dull thud. A crack. A hiss.
And silence.
Little by little I unclenched my muscles. I opened my eyes.
A huge obelisk of obsidian, jagged and cracked, stood before me, heat still radiating off of it in waves like an oven. And in the center of it all, a final expression of disbelief on her face?
Tiratina herself.
“What...” I croaked, but my voice cracked and I coughed, holding my chest.
Arric rushed forward and caught me. Felix joined me at my side, still holding the pulsing Fist in his hands.
“What did you do?” I asked Arric when I found my voice again. “What happened?”
“I was able to get the message about the Fist to Markus while we walked. And Markus, through his link with Felix, was able to reach out and get him to bring it to us. Lucky timing, that.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah...but she...what....”
“In the end, she brought her own demise. Tying her life force to the Key like that was foolish. The elements were not made to be controlled by any one man or woman. And it rebelled, the combination of fire and rock sealing her into that volcanic prison.”
I sat for a few moments, still stunned. I couldn’t believe it. I was okay. I was alive. “And the other dragons?” I dared to ask.
“Neutralized and detained,” Markus said. “Thanks to your bravery. Gotta say, I didn’t think you could pull it off.”
I still had so many questions and so little answers. But the time would come for answers. As I sank into Arric’s arms, the stone’s decision flashed again in my mind.
“Was it really green?” Arric whispered. “I was too far away, I couldn’t see—“
I looked around in the rubble, but it was nowhere to be found. Probably swept away in the chaos, else now part of Tina’s eternal prison. There was something kind of satisfying about that. The only thing she would see for the rest of time would be bright, pale green.
“Stones of green, child to be seen,” I recited with tears in my eyes. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Arric threw up a whoop that echoed through the air and scattered the birds from the trees. “A baby!” He bellowed, his face split in half by the biggest expression of sheer joy I’d ever seen. “We’re going to have a baby!”
And you know what? I let out a whoop too. After all the strife and struggle, I’d finally found a place to belong. People that cared about me. And a man to love for the rest of time.
So I let out a whoop. And then another. My screams of relief turned to laughter, and laughter turned to happy sobs. For all those who never believed in me. Who said I was a worm. Worthless. Useless. I’d proven them all wrong.
The sky filled with cries of laughter and relief, and together we stood. As pack mates.
As family.
11
Arric
One month later
“Honey, have you seen the pile of papers I was working with last night?”
I pawed through the growing clutter in mine and Elliot’s new living quarters. What could I say? Taking care of my pregnant mate as well as taking on new duties for the pack hadn’t left much time to clean.
With several of their most powerful members gone, the Emerald Isles had fallen to civil war. Several different factions vied for command of the islands, and with the Heart of the Hearth destroyed, they’d become even more fractured as a group.
Many of Elliot’s friends and family were still there, caught in the midst of the fighting. I wanted to be able to do something about it, but we were still trying to rebuild and refortify Nox Bay.
I stepped out of the house and peered into the bin outside, where Elliot would sometimes toss things in an overzealous cleaning fit.
Nothing.
I sighed and rolled my neck, trying to get rid of the tension there. I’d spent far too long cooped up with the advisors lately and not enough time out in nature. I needed to run. I needed to stretch more than just my legs and feel the fresh air rushing through my lungs again.
My feet led me to the gates and beyond, following a small trail close to the walls I’d often walked while thinking. So much had happened in the last month. So much had changed.
“Excuse me,” a voice came from behind me. I jumped and whirled around, already in a fighting stance.
A man stood there with his hands up. “Hey, I don’t mean you harm.” He shook his head. “Are you of Nox Bay?”
I considered him with narrowed eyes, trying to assess any threat. Couldn’t see any weapons on him.
Didn’t smell like a shifter. What was he?
“Who’s asking?” I said at last.
He gave a big, sweeping bow. “You can call me Lionel. I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
The adventure’s not over yet!
Who is the mysterious Lionel? What will happen to the Emerald Isles?
In book 3, Felix’s wolf/fox baby comes due, Elliot learns of a hidden heritage, and our heroes must travel to new and dangerous lands.
Tap the cover below to keep reading —>
Find out what happens next…keep reading now :)
Claiming His Heart
Nox Bay Pack Book 3
Connor Crowe
Prologue
Two Days Before Arriving At Nox Bay
I was getting close.
I could sense it in the air. Feel it in the soil. All my work, all my research, was coming to a head. Soon, all the rumors would be true. All those who had doubted me would see the error of their ways.
I was going to prove that shifters were real.
The University had ousted me after one too many ‘hare-brained’ ideas, they called them. I’d lost nearly everything. My position, my office, my funding. All I had left was my home and my savings. They probably expected me to put my tail between my legs (metaphorically, of course) and live out the rest of my days quietly at home.
They had another thing coming. In fact, firing me was the best thing they could have done for my research. Now, I didn’t have to worry about the board of directors, inter-departmental politics, or getting approval from anyone else but myself.
I was going to set out on my own, and I was going to show them all how wrong they were.
A twig snapped behind me and I froze, hand racing to my belt for the hunting knife I kept there. I’d been lucky so far, only running across a few docile animals, but the further I got into this uncharted territory, the more I had to be on my guard.
I strained my ears. Listened again.
Nothing.
Probably just a fluke, I told myself. Probably nothing to worry about.
That’s when the scent hit me.
Full on, like a smack in the face, the smell of cinnamon and clove invaded my senses. It unfurled. Expanded. I stopped dead in my tracks, nearly intoxicated by the weight of it.
Tall trees stretched into the sky around me, filtering the mid day light into shimmering slats on the leaf-strewn floor. The faint trickle of water, perhaps from a creek, reached through the branches and carried on the breeze.
But nothing this deep in the forest should have smelled like that.
Nothing, except...
I swallowed.
I’d read all the stories, of course. Did my research. Shifters, if they even existed, had some kind of connection with the universe that us humans couldn’t fathom. They were said to have “star-mates”—that is, love matches predestined upon them from birth. While it was a romantic idea, I couldn’t help but wonder—what if one didn’t like the mate he’d been fated with?
What if he wanted someone else?
I shook my head. That question was purely academic, and not something I needed to be thinking about now, of all times. I was out in the wild with no one or nothing for miles around. If some feral beast leapt out of the woods to attack me, no one would ever hear my screams...
The racing pace of my heart thudded in my ears, but still there wavered that delicious, inexplicable smell. It was like the sweetest, spiciest perfume I’d ever smelled. So distinctly out of place, yet so right, at the same time.
I couldn’t explain it. But I had to find where it was coming from.
I turned around, wrinkling my nose at the scent. It had to be around here somewhere. My stomach clenched. What if the smell was some sort of predator’s trap?
What if it was meant to lure me into a false sense of security, just in time for whatever it was to strike?
I pushed out a breath, steeled myself, and turned around.
What I saw there wasn’t a monster at all.
It was a man.
He could barely be called even that, I realized—his small frame and short structure gave him a youthful look, but still the features of a man. He hunched over, watching me with wide eyes and clambering forward on his hands and feet. Like some sort of animal.
His hair was so dirty it clung to the side of his head, matted with leaves and mud. His eyes, bright as ever, poked out from a ruddy, sun-beaten face. He wore merely scraps of clothing over his thin frame, but he was not fragile. No. That much was for certain.
He had a lean, lithe build to him—like a swimmer, or—I realized too late—a hunter.
I took a step back, holding up my hands to declare peace. Could he smell that delicious scent too? I wondered for only a moment before he stepped forward again, eyes still on mine, and it hit me.
The spicy herbal scent was coming from him.
It made even less sense as my mind raced to keep up. He was young, dirty, and watching me with all the intensity of a predator.
Or of lifelong prey.
“Are you...okay?” I asked, still holding out my hands where he could see them. “Can you understand me?”
The man limped closer, sniffing the air around us with just as much curiosity as I had. I didn’t flinch. I held my ground. He closed the distance between us, still watching my every move, then his perfect lips parted to say one word.
“Mate?”
Pieces fell into place, the puzzle locking together in my mind.
It couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t be.
Was this what the stories had been talking about?
Was I actually seeing my very first shifter?
“Are you…” I started. “What are you talking about?”
“Mate,” he rasped again. He drew close enough for me to feel the heat pouring off of him, close enough to finally give in to the intoxicating sensations around me...
Then he turned and fled into the forest.
“Wait!” I cried out, my foot nearly snagging on an upturned root as I made to follow him. “Come back!”
Adrenaline coursed through my veins and I gave chase, all other notion of my mission forgotten. As much as I’d read about shifters, to actually see one so up close and personal?
Nothing could have prepared me for that.
Something deep inside me took hold and surged me forward. I ran, unmindful of the branches and leaves scraping against my arms and face. I ran, my footing sure and determined. I ran, knowing that on the other side of this chase was my destiny.
Was my mate.
It was clear enough that some kind of supernatural force had taken over when I realized I’d been running for over ten minutes and wasn’t even winded. I could barely run at all on my best days, even after giving up smoking.
Yet here I was, racing through the wild, all senses set on finding the one that nature meant for me.
And if it was true, then—if this was real? That meant that all of it was.
All of it.
The forest opened up around us and I stumbled into a clearing, my blood hot and ready. Soft clover blanketed the ground and a parting in the trees let sunlight in, full and powerful. At the edge of the clearing was a small creek, trickling down the hill behind us and off into the distance. At the bottom of the hill lay a much larger body of water, stretching out toward the horizon. A bay of some sort, perhaps.
Brilliant pops of color dotted the landscape. Poppies and petunias sprouted up from the fertile soil to say hello, seeming almost to turn in my direction as I approached.
I stopped dead in my tracks. I stared.
The scent was still there. It flowed through me now, easily as breathing. My muscles tensed and relaxed. My heart pitter-pattered out a rhythm that I’d never heard before.
Fast. Powerful. Alpha.
I’d heard that word before. Studied it.
But it was only supposed to apply to shifters—if they even existed. Not humans. Not unless...
Just
as the idea finally crystallized in my mind, something grabbed me from behind. Air whooshed out of my lungs and I tumbled forward, the world spinning around me. My head struck the ground, but the cool moss was there to catch me. A flurry of movement. Legs and arms scrambling for purchase.
I closed my eyes, trying to will away the sudden headache that had gripped me.
But when I opened them again, he was right there. Right in front of me.
My mate.
People used to tell me how their whole world shifted the moment they had a baby. How looking into that little one’s eyes changed their life forever, and how they saw their future unraveling out in front of them in the wake of this perfect new bundle of life.
They said that to try to convince me to settle down and have some kids of my own. But now leaning toward my middle age, I never had.
I never knew that earth shaking, world changing moment that they talked about. Even doubted that it existed. Thought they were just embellishing things for my sake. They always did.
But in that moment, there was no doubt in my mind. They were telling the truth. One look into those emerald-ringed eyes, and I was a goner.
Everything within me wanted to reach out and hold him, protect him, and keep him. I wanted to be there for him. I wanted to scare away anyone that would hurt him. And more than it all, I wanted to claim him, right here and right now in this meadow, for all of nature to see.
I swallowed and it turned into a cough as I tried to catch my breath. Still wheezing from being knocked over, I tilted my head, taking in the strange creature in front of me. I was a professor, damn it. I relied on logic and reason to do my work. I didn’t spend long hours researching what everyone else said was folly for no reason. It was rational in my mind, at least.
But this sudden onslaught of lust and desire and empathy for someone I’d never met? That wasn’t rational in the slightest. That was pure madness.
