Shifter's Heart: A Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Hills Book 1)

by Sarah J. Stone

  Larissa stopped and looked at Tina before she went. “She says that she’ll see you on Friday. She’s putting together a disguise. Be ready to meet her by the boulders near the grove.”

  “Thanks. I mean it.” She hoped Larissa heard her, but the girl was walking away before the last word had left Tina’s lips. She looked down in the dirt. There, the drawing of the bear was full of tiny divots. The stick was standing straight up from its target – the bear’s eye.

  CHAPTER 6

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  Harper snuggled down into her bed where she had hidden the thermometer. She prayed her plan would work – she was dying to get out of the palace. It had been months since she’d been out on the streets, and she still thought about her last night out constantly. Life away from her father and his politics seemed to be the only life worth living, and she would not let it slip away.

  There was a knock on the door, and she knew it was her father. She pulled out the dummy thermometer quickly and put it in her mouth. “Tum in!” she called and put on her most pathetic face. President Bachmann’s head poked through the door, and he raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, darling girl. You do not look well.” He crossed the room and pulled the thermometer out of her mouth. “You are ill, my little one. You’re far too warm.” He put his soft, aging hand on her forehead, and Harper smiled despite herself. Her father could be so kind with her; she wished he would show this side of himself to all those photographers.

  “I hate to miss the banquet, Dad,” she said as she yawned and snuggled down into the covers. “It’s always so nice.”

  “Well,” her father sighed, “I suppose we can have it without you. But Victory Day won’t be the same without you. Who will cut the cake?”

  “Dad, you’ll be fine.” She laid onto the pillow and made sure to trail off as she spoke. “Go have fun…banquet…you look so…” She rounded off the performance with a little snore, and her father seemed to buy it. He leaned forward to put a little kiss on her cheek and then paused a moment just above her. Would he stay? She kept her breathing even and prayed her banging pulse would help convince him that her body was weak with germs. After an agonizing wait, he finally slipped out of her room, clicking the light off as he went.

  Harper visualized her father’s movements as she lie in her bed, heart still slamming into her breastbone. She could see him in her mind’s eye chatting with her personal guard, whispering that she was ill and that they should hold their guard but let her sleep. Then, his own assistant would come up, put his cufflinks into his white cuffs and give him a few compliments on his appearance. He would crack a joke, and everyone within a few feet would laugh and then walk with him to the ballroom.

  That night, all of the president’s staff, a visiting dignitary from a new territory beyond the city, and all of their friends and protectors were celebrating the night the humans supposedly defeated the shifter army. The story went that the humans set out poisoned raw meat, and the crafty, evil shifters ate it and perished in animal form, supposedly dying a terrible death. Harper knew it was nonsense, but every year she played along as if she had no idea what had really taken place, cutting the cake and passing it to her father’s cronies as she played dumb. But not this year; she was out of there.

  As quietly and slowly as she could, she slid out of bed and laid on the floor. From there, she reached under her bed and felt around for the wig she had stashed. One great advantage to being the president’s daughter was that she could request literally anything and no one hesitated to bring it to her. So, when she asked for a long, black, curly-haired wig several months beforehand, no one even hesitated. It was on her desk an hour later.

  She wiggled into her wig and then crawled over to her closet. There, she had some civilian clothes folded up and hidden under a loose board. She slipped into them in the closet without a sound, then moved the loose board aside once more. Underneath was a key that her friends outside the palace had illegally copied for her – a favor that had cost her dearly – and opened exactly the door she needed.

  For her safety, a small, secret door had been added to Harper’s room back when the palace was built. It opened into an unguarded tunnel that led down to a secret garage where an old, beat-up car that no one would ever give a second glance to was housed. The idea was that Harper and a guard could escape through this little secret hatch should the palace ever be under siege and drive off unnoticed. The president and his guards had no idea that she knew how to drive or that she had a map of the city (a real map, not the fake one that was distributed to civilians). Again, these were skills and resources she’d had to beg for, borrow, and steal to obtain, but she needed them. Even the cheap clothes she had on were more dear to her than any of her jewels or designer clothing.

  Dressed in her discount clothing and with her wig firmly on, Harper stopped a moment to take in her room. She looked at her huge, four-poster bed covered in plush blankets and a silk duvet, and honestly considered crawling back in and just calling it a night. She glanced around at all the little accessories that covered her room that were meant to keep her innocent and maintain the illusion that she was still Daddy’s little princess – the vase full of wands topped with sparkly stars, the closet full of ballgowns she rarely wore, the vanity table packed full of makeup and jewelry. She stepped into her basic black flats and ducked through the door before she had another moment to consider passing up the night and quietly latched it behind her.

  A few minutes later, she was in the car and coasting down the tunnel that led out to the road. She couldn’t be sure that the guards would be gone, but she hoped they would. The giant ball meant all guards had to be available and on point, so the two that usually kept an eye on the secret exit would most likely be in a different position. She crossed her fingers and pressed the garage door opener that tilted the door up. Sure enough, no guards.

  She wasn’t quite home-free. She had to get out the back entrance to the president’s compound. She had a lie wrapped up and ready to go: she was a kitchen staff worker with a personal emergency. She didn’t care if she would be replaced; she needed to get home to her mother. Harper just hoped that if she was rude enough the guard would wave her through. Her hands gripped the wheel, and she could feel how much she was sweating. The giant wig was not helping.

  The gatehouse was just ahead, and two very bored-looking guards motioned for her to stop. She braked and rolled down the old window to address them.

  “Hi Brad. Hi Steve. Look, I gotta go. Family stuff.”

  The two of them peered at her and then stepped back. Sure, this woman looked familiar, but they couldn’t quite remember from where.

  “What department are you again?” Scott leaned back and narrowed his eyes. “Jog my memory.”

  “I’m the dishwasher in the kitchen.” Harper said it just like she’d practiced: bored and annoyed with an eye-roll. She’d had a few drama lessons and had really enjoyed them. She just prayed they would buy it.

  “They’ll let you go for this,” Brad offered, leaning down. “You know you’ll never get another job.”

  “Well, my mom might be dying and, I just… I can’t…” She hiccupped out a little cry and waved her hands in a don’t-look-at-me gesture. The guys instantly softened and told her to go on. They opened the gate, and she went through with a quick wave goodbye. She was free.

  As soon as the palace was behind her, she sped up as she would through the mountain range that separated her from the world. Her window was still down, and she propped an elbow on it as she swerved around the curves of the mountains. She had read somewhere that at one point these mountains had been covered in trees and wildlife. She always wondered if any of those birds or deer had actually been shifters living right next to the ruler’s giant palace. Life in woods sounded like heaven on earth.

  As she drove down the road, the car’s communication system beeped to life. A voice whispered through the static-filled connection, and Brad’s voice was suddenly with her in the fron
t seat.

  “Harper, I know it’s you. Come on, you’ve had your fun. Come back.”

  She knew it would be a few minutes before they could get motorcycles to follow her, but just to be sure, she pulled off to the side and around the back of a boulder, then clicked off the radio. She didn’t know if it had a homing device, but she guessed no one had bothered. It had been decades since the president had been attacked or even threatened. The good President Bachmann had seen to that, terrifying everyone and everything until any hint of rebellion was stopped long before it reached his property.

  Harper sat in the cool air of the car and listened. The boulder was larger than her car, but an enterprising guard would have been able to find her. She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath, then heard the motorcycles on the road. She pulled off her wig and slid down in her seat. “Please don’t let them find me. Please.”

  The thrumming motors stalled next to her on the road, and she could hear two voices speaking loudly to one another. They were agreeing to split up – one would head back to keep an eye on the boundary and the other would go into the city and see if there was any kind of party or event that had tempted the First Daughter. They zoomed off to their respective zones, and Harper smiled to herself; God bless the ignorance of her father’s house.

  When she couldn’t hear the motorcycles any longer, she started the car up and drove off, taking the little dirt road she knew was a shortcut to The Hills.

  The secret little pathway was a rarely-travelled passageway out of the mountains and down onto the Open Zone where no one lived. She would be exposed for the ten minutes it would take to drive across it, but she couldn’t risk going through the city. Now that one guard was looking for her, others would follow right behind him as the hours of no First Daughter being at home ticked by. No, it would have to be the Open Zone and the possibility of being seen.

  Just as the rocky trail ended, she parked the car to put on her wig and take a look at herself in the little mirror that came down from the ceiling. She always marveled at these little details; she didn’t need an expensive mirror to see herself with because she could just look in this little car mirror. It didn’t matter that her shoes were only worth a few bachmanns, they covered her feet just as well as a pair worth millions. Her father had always given the impression that a life of anything less than extreme wealth was hardly worth living, but Harper saw no problem with a simpler approach. The wealthier people who lived above the city always seemed very on edge. Their lives appeared exhausting and, as far as Harper could tell, very boring. They were so bored they had an inescapable need to invent new mythologies to tell themselves and create villains to fear. She detested them.

  She looked at the Open Zone and squeezed the steering wheel, turning her hands in an attempt to wipe the sweat from her palms and calm down. This empty stretch of road was always thrilling in the light of day, but at night it was desolate and terrifying. Not even a boulder was there to bear witness to anything that happened along this piece of road.

  Her foot gently pressed the pedal and she eased out onto the road. No sign of the guards on their bikes, no flashing lights, no team of law enforcers to drag her back up the mountain. Despite the wide-open landscape, she decided not to risk it and pushed her foot flat on the gas pedal and tore down the road.

  The sound of the engine gunning and revving in the clunker car drowned out everything else, and Harper knew anyone nearby would hear it, but it was the only way to cut down on time on this odd stretch of road. She pressed her lips together and pushed even harder on the pedal, revving the engine further. Soon, she could see the shelter of the grove that marked the edge of The Hills. The small, shrubby trees grew from the horizon as she approached, and her heart started to sing out a little. She was going to make it! She was almost there!

  Just as the end was in sight, the car let out a loud cough like a gunshot, and the vehicle began to slow down.

  “No! No, no, no! Come on; you can do it.” Despite her lecture, the car died little by little until it was dead and smoking in the road. She slammed the steering wheel with her hand and then grabbed it and made a great effort at ripping it off the car. The wheel held, but the engine coughed and belched to death and sent a smoke signal of her location straight up into the sky. The sound of sirens in the distance spurred her into action; she grabbed her bag and flew out of the car, running down the road as fast as she could. She held her wig in one hand and her cheap purse with a little cash in the other as she sprinted down the street, heading straight for the trees.

  A moment later, she was perched in the crotch of a tree and gasping for breath. She watched through the branches as a whole brigade of guards and law enforcers surrounded the abandoned car and stood talking to one another. Harper didn’t move; she knew one little rustle in the branches would be the end of everything – she’d be monitored non-stop the rest of her life. She swallowed and adjusted her grip on the branches. Her fingers were already cramping, and her legs were falling asleep in the deep squat position, but she didn’t dare to stand. A guard walked toward the trees.

  He looked into the grove with a flashlight, shining it into the leaves of several different trees. “Harper Bachmann,” he said firmly, “we are here to help you. You are on the boundary of the shifter settlement. Please come out so that we can get you home safely.” His beam of light continued across the trees, pausing inside the shadows of each one. “I’m sure you just want to be safe in your bed right now. Come with me, and I’ll make sure the president goes easy on you. I promise.” Again, the light traveled, and the beam was heading straight for Harper’s head.

  She ducked down and squeezed her eyes shut, briefly hoping the light would miss her, but suddenly it clicked off. From the road came the sound of her pursuer laughing with another guard or enforcer. They seemed to both be in on some wonderful joke. She listened as hard as she could, but she only picked up snippets of what they were saying as the motors started up again and motorcycles began pulling back out into the road.

  “Let the old man sweat…bigger budget for this…keep the search going, even if you find her!” She crinkled up her perfectly-plucked eyebrows. They didn’t want to find her? She considered this as she lay in her tree, resting her head on her hand. Was her disappearance giving the guards an advantage? Surely her father would terrorize them, but then again, she’d just given them an excuse to be away from the palace constantly. Perhaps they felt as trapped as she did as each day rolled by.

  Long after the sound of the motors died off and drifted away, she slid down the tree and then collapsed to the ground on numb legs. She stretched them out in front of her as she sat in the dirt and fallen leaves, shook them out, and waited for them to regain feeling. Sitting in the dirt and feeling the cool earth around her brought back a lot of memories. For a moment, she could almost hear Grey’s voice crying out, “You win! Humans win!” as they played war. She shook her head; she’d learned the real story of the war when she dug up the old book collection in the basement. Reading about how the humans used animal-specific diseases to reduce the number of the shifter population, how they got the different species to fight one another, and gave preference to one group at some moments and the other to make them not trust each other, the shifters were quickly at one another’s throats while the humans stayed safe at home. And leading it all was her grandmother, the first President Bachmann with her father as a young boy, right by her side.

  She stood and brushed herself off, hoping she didn’t look too messy for the party. She looked back at the dead car in the empty road for a moment, then shook her head and turned away. Harper Bachmann, First Daughter and most powerful woman in all that remained of the human race, sincerely wished to have a whole new life – one where no one would care about titles or money, and she could just exist as part of a group all day long. She turned and walked into the grove towards the big boulders that stood as tall as the trees, hoping Tina would be there.

  She walked quietly between the gia
nt rocks, pulled on her wig, and leaned against a boulder to wait. Somewhere in the distance, she could hear drums beating and the distinct sound of people having an amazing time. As much as she wanted to go and find the party on her own, she knew she’d never get there without Tina. Entrances to shifter parties were always impossible to find, and Harper knew she’d end up wandering around all night by herself if she tried.

  A cold, terrifying prickle went up the back of her neck. She looked up, not daring to breathe. There, on the boulder above her, was a huge female wolf.

  “Tina?”

  The wolf jumped down and faced her. It stepped forward and sniffed her hand. Harper swallowed and told herself not to be afraid, but her heart wouldn’t listen. It slammed against her ribs in a futile attempt to escape. The First Daughter closed her eyes and prayed the wolf would kill her quickly.

  “Hey, Harper.”

  Harper opened her eyes to see Tina standing there in front of her with a big grin on her face. “Oh! You scared me on purpose.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who insists on hanging out with shifters.” She leaned in a little and touched her friend’s arm. “Don’t you know we’re twisted?” Tina’s eyebrows wiggled up and down, and both girls burst out giggling. Harper felt her shoulder muscles melt a little for the first time all night.

  “It’s great to see you!”

  “Good to see you. Ready to party?”

  “Oh, so ready.” Tina put her arm around Harper’s shoulders and led her over to a path that led through a broken part of the fence. The path went straight up and then curved around to an unseen patch in the landscape shrouded by shadows. While the shifters were all forced to live in this odd little settlement, they were also well-versed in its hiding places should the need to escape ever arise again.