by Barb Shuler
Shifted
The Oblivion Series - Book 1
Barb Shuler
SHIFTED (The Oblivion Series; Book 1)
© Copyright 2018 Barbara Shuler
Published by Barbara Shuler
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This is a work of fiction which is only recommended for those 18 and older due to violence, strong language and adult content. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), places or actual events is purely coincidental.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Cover Art Design By: Madhat Covers
Edited by: Mindy Seal & Emily Maynard
Formatting by: Tattered Quill Designs
Also by Barb Shuler
Other Books by Barb Shuler
Shattered Lives Series
My Own Nightmare
Somewhere I Belong
Shatter Me Whole
Sparks Of Deception
Living In Your Hell
Edge of Danger
The Cowboy Way Series
Wrangled By Love
A Rescue Series Novella
A Marshal’s Courage
Her Savior
Flashpoint
Primal Darkness
Harmony Duets
Finding Harmony
Through The Eyes Of Madness
(Co-written with KA Graham)
Shifting Shadows
Anthologies
The Parlour: All Access - Ultimate Control
Coloring Books
Shaded With Love: A coloring Book for a Cause Volume 5
Cooking With Love: Shaded With Love Volume 6
For everyone who feels they aren’t quite themselves. Never fear the silent voices inside you.
Acknowledgments
I owe my team a special, extra-large, sugar covered thank you for this one. Talk about a hot mess and a lot of rewrites over the last year. Haha
This started out as a standalone book, then it was a trio of books but after finishing book 2 (haha) I decided to mold them into the Shifting Shadows world. This meant rewrites, a little cursing and a little more research as I wanted to expand the SS world. With every step I made my girls worked their asses off to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and for that I am truly grateful!
My beta readers (Mindy Seal, Kelly Graham, Jade Lindaas, Emily Maynard, Laura Nelson, Annamarie Gardner), editors, and my awesome formatter, Annie, thank you. You are all the reason I can do what I do. Without you, I’d be in the land of the lost.
I owe a special thank you to Author Jen Winters who came through for me with her ninja skills in Latin.It’s safe to say that is not a language I can understand. I tried and it kicked my butt. She saved me! :)
Thank you to Shari J Ryan, my cover designer. This cover was a special one, you worked on it for hours until it was just right and a year later here we are. So, as always, you did an awesome job.
Beneath the skin lies your true self.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
SHIFTED PLAYLIST
About the Author
Prologue
Legends. Myths. Fairy tales. None of them can prepare you for the destiny that lives inside your blood. If fate leads you down a path that was foretold in a prophecy by an unseen deity, then you would know life is not always as it seems to be. Not all truths that hide in plain sight are always bad, though they should still never be taken lightly. My path started some twenty-two years ago on a cold night in the mountains of Tennessee. My father, Trenton, the eldest of the two princes of the vampire race, laid with a woman from outside of his order. Even as taboo as it was, he still did it, because he simply didn't care.
This woman, Natalie, was a shifter from a small clan hiding in plain sight. She had won his heart instantly many years before when he came across her in an abandoned field. She had been watching the clouds, daydreaming, trying to clear the whispers of hate and desperation in her mind. He had wanted her to be his, to mate with her, from that first moment, but then wasn’t the right time to claim her, so he left her to her thoughts and moved on. It was his destiny to be her mate, her only love for all eternity. The seer had said their union would start something new. A revolution would be brought forward. A new dawn in the world of vampires and shifters.
Once her people, namely her father, discovered he had seen her, she was taken by her family, locked away from the world. See, Natalie was special, a gifted shifter. One that was coveted, treated like a treasure. She was to be safeguarded, hidden, not to be desired or sullied by the likes of my father, or anyone like him.
Thing is… nothing stays hidden forever. He found her a few years later thanks to his friend or foe, depending on the day of the week and both of their moods. Ramport was a wolf shifter, a silent warrior that was under the Prince’s protection. Ramport was not just any shifter, though, he was the Alpha of a small pack with many hidden abilities. He searched for and found Trenton’s soulmate for him. Natalie would never have been successfully hidden for very long. She was Trenton’s female. She was his true mate. That one in a million person that was linked to him before either of them were even born. The helpless, depressed mental state she had fallen into while being held captive, kept away from her heart’s desire, washed through him the moment he had her back in his arms.
During the first night they spent together after she was rescued, he learned of her secrets, of the family that disgraced her. Natalie became pregnant with me after that night. I shudder to think of such primal acts between my parents, however, it’s part of the cycle of life.
My parent’s mating threw out the old traditional laws the vampires and shifters had in place. Change should not to be feared, but embraced, or so my father would say. The Prince had disgraced his order by laying with someone unbecoming of his status, sullying the throne. An uproar was made until my father was dethroned, disowned, and tossed aside like the bones of the dead.
He was left to be forgotten.
My father spirited my mother away from the uprising for her safety. If one of them were killed, the other would perish from heartache and complete agony. It was a slow, agonizing living death without your mate. The death of a soul, inside a living shell. Once you were mated, that was it.
You became an unbreakable, inseparable pair.
One could not sustain a fulfilled existence without the other. Yes, a shifter or a vampire could live alone, but it’s not the life either of them would want to endure.
My parents managed to stay hidden from both sides for months. No one knew where they were until that n
ight, the night that everything changed - the night I was born.
Tragedy struck my parents.
My mother died as I was being delivered. Her body was already fighting the pull of the full moon, demanding that she shift, but she knew if she had I would have been lost. She fought the change, fought the loss of blood, fought desperately to stay alive, but it was too much for her.
Her body gave out just as I escaped the safety of her womb.
My father spent hours watching the lifeless body of his mate, me in his arms and his heart breaking. At some point in his grief stricken haze my mother’s body was taken away. I can only recall parts of the story but my father was so far gone, that he let her go. I, on the other hand, was taken away by him. He wanted to do all he could to keep me safe… but things went downhill, fast.
My father was devastated. Without his Natalie he was left as nothing but a shell of a man. He brought me up as best as he could, but if not for Ramport and his family, I wouldn’t have survived. I know that.
A few years after my birth, my father disappeared. He left no word of where he was going. He simply kissed me on the forehead and ran off. I chased after him, but as everyone knows, a child, vampire or not, is not as fast as an adult. He left me like I was nothing more than the last moldy piece of bread in box. I crumbled that day, reeling from a pain unlike any other. It was as if my heart had been ripped from my chest and stomped on. He had left an impression, a bad one, but nothing more. It’s hard to have true, deep feelings for someone you didn’t spend much time with as a child.
I have no idea to this day if he is dead, or alive, suffering somewhere. He could be gone, or living out his existence in pain, completely alone. Life irrevocably changed for me that day. I was hysterical, a broken-hearted child and it took time for Ramport to calm me and get me back to his home, to his family. My small bag of meager belongings was all I had left of me and my father from that day forward.
I made slow progress at first. My whole world had collapsed, and things still changed almost daily, but mostly for the better. I grew up the only non-shifter child within a pack of wolves.
The wolves took me in as one of their own. As the only vampiric child in the pack I had many protectors. Not only as a child under Ramport’s roof, but as a child of the Prince. The pack respected my father and loved my mother. She was best friends with Sheri, the Alpha’s mate, and treated as an honorary member of the pack. They were all pained when they lost her, and I, as her only heir, was welcomed and loved without fear or worry, without prejudice.
That didn’t mean I was without enemies. If those left of my father’s order ever found me, I would be destroyed as an abomination. As the Prince’s only child, and the child of a shifter woman who had powers of still undefined origins, I was an oddity at best, and a threat at worst.
Well, I was an oddity.
Until I became more. The night I turned seventeen, my life, and the lives of all the ones around me, changed. Being different had never bothered me before, not that it does now, but that night, the night 'it' happened, I hated what I had become.
I saw myself as an enemy of my people. I was a half-breed, but I had only shown one side. I was a vampire... until the night of my birthday. When the moon came up to its full mass, my body was wracked with pain and the change took me. I never saw it coming. My vision blurred to nonexistent as I laid on the ground, screaming in pain. I heard the howls of the wolves around me getting louder only to be drowned out by my own screams until the darkness swallowed me. At one point, when I was drifting in and out of consciousness, I heard a faint voice. It just appeared in my head. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, but grew in intensity as it spoke, while staying soothing, soft even. The whispered words seem to wrap me in warmth. The agonizing pain that had gripped me was slowly eased as it spoke.
“Unto you I grant the grace, determination, eternal life and gifts of your father, as well as those of your mother.”
How could I know that with those words this new life I was granted would bring danger to us all.
The past never dies… not really.
1
Joshua
I use the quiet time I get with Talia, which is not much, to relax. I look out over the lake just outside the thicket of trees where our pack lives. I watch as she skips rocks into the water. It was something Father taught her not long after she came into the pack. My heart has belonged to her ever since I hit my maturity. The bonds that bind me to her grow stronger every day that I draw breath. It’s only a short bit of time before she hits maturity and she too will feel the full tug of our shared destiny.
I sigh in frustration as I think back to the first days after she had came to be part of the pack. Talia had been just six when she came to live with us. The Prince had left her here with Father and quickly departed, leaving a broken daughter behind. My wolf was drawn to her instantly, which was unheard of given that I was only eleven and she younger still, but it happened just the same.
“Mother, why does she only lay there and cry?” I asked as I looked over at the small bundle on the bunk in my room. The spot where Natalia lay, curled beneath the covers Mother had given her. Mother had used one of my old, tattered shirts to make her a rag doll, to which her little hands clutched for dear life.
“She is saddened by the departure of her father, my son. Why don’t you see if you can’t get her to come out and play at the lake while I do the washing. I think she would have a good time and could use some company.”
“Yes, Mother.”
I moved to the bed, crawled up beside her and laid there, just staring at her for a bit. My fingers reached out slowly and tapped her hand. Her eyes opened, bloodshot and still tear filled.
“Would you like to come catch some little fish with me?”
I remained unmoving, not leaving my spot beside her. She just stared at me for the longest time, not saying a word, not even blinking. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she nodded her head. I gave her a beaming smile and slid from the bunk. I helped her down from the bed and assisted her in putting her shoes on.
I was five years older than she, so I took it on as my responsibility to keep her safe. Some of the older children could get aggressively rambunctious when we were swimming. I walked her down the path that led to the lake. You could already hear the laughter, and a few growls, from those already playing in the water and along the rocky shores.
A small gasp came from her as soon as she got her first good look around. My hand went up to wave at Mother and Father, who were having a hushed conversation over by the washing buckets. I saw Father smile. That was a rare sight, indeed. Being Alpha kept him on edge most days, and grumpy on the rest.
I moved to the edge of the water and sat on one of the felled trees that were scattered about.
“You can take your shoes off and get in if you would like. Mother will make sure we have dry clothing for when we get out.”
She shook her head and I nodded, accepting her choice. I would go in first to show her that there was nothing to be afraid of. I stood and removed my shirt, draping it over the tree. I gave her another chance to join me but she again shook her head. I moved to where Xavier, Cayden, Tanner and Anton were. We chased fish, trying to see who could grab the biggest one. I held one up, triumphant, but dropped it as soon as I noticed Rock, another of the pack children trying to rip the rag doll Mother had made for her out of her hands.
The moment my mind registered the scene an unusual sensation flooded my body. Anger unlike any I had felt before swamped me.
Rock was older than we were, bigger too, but I would not allow him to pick on a small girl, my girl. Where that had come from I wasn’t sure, but she weighed half of what I did, so to see her cower from Rock, who was twice my size, sent my wolf into an angry frenzy. I hurried from the water and moved to shove him out of the way.
Talia fell back, her little body slamming into the ground as she lost her balance on the log she had been standing on. I grabbed Rock’s arm and
threw him to the ground. He growled, his wolf eyes showing a split second before he started to shift. I followed suit, my shift coming faster. My body snapped and transformed from one form to the other. I jumped upon his back, my teeth sinking into his right shoulder with a vicious growl.
There was a shout, and then I was pulled from the sniveling wolf who was curled up under me. Ha! That’ll teach him to be kinder to what’s mine. Mine? What was happening to me and my wolf?
I snarled and snapped at the arm around me. My father’s booming, rage-filled voice filtered through the fog in my brain. I tucked my tail and yipped as he dropped me to the ground.
“Shift, the both of you!”
I shifted, my body heaving in air as I tried to bring my wolf’s and my own rage back under control. I glanced over to see where Talia was. Mother held her in her arms. She was crying silently, but when her eyes met mine she sniffled and moved from Mother’s lap. I missed what was said between them but Mother stood, took her hand and marched to where we stood. I looked away from her when my father said my name.
“Joshua, what was the meaning of this?”
“He was picking on Talia, Father. He made her fall off the log and cry.”
Father cut his eyes to Rock. The cub shifted on his feet. When his father stepped up behind him he stiffened, his head falling forward. I let out an aggravated sigh.
