Shifters - The Jade Forest Chronicles 1

by Vivienne Neas

  The land was full of power. The bones in the earth had spoken to me the moment I set foot on it. Mr. Williams, the agent, didn’t know what he was talking about. He was in over his head. Raphael had been right to send me – he wouldn’t come on his own, of course, but he was right not to send Aryn. I was his second, and it was only right that I be here.

  Besides, Aryn, as strong as he was, wouldn’t have been able to handle himself with so much magic calling out to him.

  That little fae had left almost immediately after I arrived, and I was relieved. She was a distraction. Her magic was stronger than she let on, and the two of us clashed.

  “What have you learned?”

  Aryn was on the phone. I’d traveled the distance to the far end of the fae reserve, all the way from the Jade Forest, to see the land, and it hadn’t been a waste of my time.

  “I need to go back tonight. I think the land kept its secrets in the presence of the human.”

  “What do you want me to me tell Raphael?”

  Nothing. I didn’t want Aryn running to Raphael, sucking up while I was gone. He was a good wolf, but he wanted a promotion too badly, and he didn’t have what it took to be the alpha’s second. Raphael leaned on me more than he liked to admit, and Aryn didn’t have that kind of strength.

  “Tell him that I’ll report back in the morning. I need to get out there while the moon is still in the sky.”

  I hung up. I hadn’t given Aryn much to say to Raphael, but it was enough to stop him from saying anything he shouldn’t be saying.

  Milford was bustling with humans running their last errands before nightfall. I had a room at the Crown Inn in the town across the river from the cemetery.

  I looked up at the sky, then closed my eyes and turned my face to where the moon was. I couldn’t see it yet, but I felt it. I could hear its song anywhere. It wasn’t a full moon yet, but it was close enough for me to know what was in the ground. If it was a wolf, it would answer the moon’s call, and I needed to know before we moved in. Raphael wanted that power. If it was a wolf, we could handle it better.

  If it wasn’t, we needed to know what we were up against. There was going to be a war over this piece of land if word came out about the power in the earth. Who knew if the fae female was going to be able to keep that information within the reserve? I needed to find out while it was still a secret.

  When night fell, I left my room and crossed Prumm Brook at the south bridge. I followed the road to where the dust track wound away from the roads and up the lone hill. I parked in the cemetery parking lot – just a patch of dry ground now – and got out.

  Magic wrapped itself around me like a blanket and made it harder to breathe. Familiar magic. That was a good sign.

  The moment I stepped into the cemetery, magic prickled on my skin, rising from the ground upward. The moon was rising too, a giant white orb on the horizon, and suddenly the place came to life. There was power everywhere, the energy of the long dead and forgotten hanging in the air, waiting for someone to reminisce.

  I breathed in. It was like breathing in water. Then I walked up the hill where I’d met with Williams earlier. The magic got stronger the farther up I went, until the beast inside of me was fighting to get out. It was threatening to take over, but I wasn’t going to let it. I was in control. I wasn’t the alpha’s second for nothing.

  The source of all this power was buried under the tree. It wasn’t the only source of magic, but it was definitely the catalyst for the rest of it. The rest of the corpses were just being pulled along, part of the whirlwind of power that was starting to build.

  They’d been buried here for that purpose. Collective magic was stronger than magic from a single source. No matter how strong you were, as soon as there was more strength to be had, you could beat anything.

  My beast wanted out really bad. It thrashed around inside me, crying for the moon. I wouldn’t let it out. The full moon was going to come soon, and then I wouldn’t have a choice but to let it break free and howl. The moon was my mistress for at least one night a month, sometimes two. I didn’t want to give in to her when I didn’t have to.

  I closed my eyes and let the magic pull me along. It was like standing in a tide pool. The power washed back and forth over me, through me.

  Another source of magic appeared, and it felt different from the rest. It was almost like a spike of frost in the heat of the magic all around me. It drew me. It was magnetic, something strong but gentle, all at the same time.

  I followed it. It was attractive, a magic I wanted to know. And at the same time, my wolf was clawing and scratching to get out and back away from it. The conflict I felt was as fascinating as the power itself, and I wanted to know more about it. I wanted to know what had been buried in the werewolf cemetery that wasn’t a wolf.

  An apparition appeared at the edge of the cemetery. She was thin and delicate, like she could break, but the power that came from her suggested otherwise. She had hair past her hips that was white as snow, and her eyes glowed the color of whiskey into the night. This was the source of the power I’d felt. She wasn’t dead. She was very much alive.

  “I had a feeling you would come back,” she said.

  Her voice sounded normal, contrary to what she looked like. Normal and familiar. I narrowed my eyes and studied her. Was this the little wisp of a fae who had been at our meeting earlier? It was hard to bring together the blonde waif and this spectacular creature, ripe with power.

  “You were here earlier,” I said, just to be sure.

  She smiled, but it didn’t reach her fire eyes as she nodded. It was her. The blonde. She certainly wasn’t blonde now. She’d been wearing her glamour, but in light of the magic all around us, I was willing to bet she was as exposed as I was.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I was about to ask you the same question, Mr. Kerr.”

  Kerr. The surname I used when I was around humans. I despised it. “Balfour, please.”

  She nodded. “Balfour. This cemetery is not in the reserve, but it falls in fae land and you are trespassing.”

  Magic crawled over my skin as she spoke. I was sure that she had more tricks than just that. I didn’t know a lot about fae, but I was aware they used the elements. Which one did she use?

  “You can’t deny that the power calls what it yearns for. This is werewolf territory now. You have to admit that this magic belongs to us.”

  It was almost impossible to deny that the corpses buried here had to be wolves. This had been a power circle once upon a time, a place where the packs of old had met with each other, had buried their dead, drew power from each other.

  “And yet, here I am.”

  “Are you saying that this power drew you, too, Miss…”

  “Amber. Please.”

  Right. Like her eyes. She was mocking my earlier tone. I tried not to mind. She was a quick one, and part of me still wanted to get away from her magic. I took a step forward, and then another. Although part of me was driving me away from her, a much larger part was drawn to her.

  Her looks were deceiving. Even without her glamour, she was hiding her real power. I wanted to taste it. I was drawn to sources of power, and she was high up in the ranks.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Balfour.”

  Her tone was serious. She didn’t move as I stepped closer and closer. Fae didn’t like werewolves because of our aggressive nature. We had different outlooks on life. If fae weren’t so passive, we might have been enemies, but we reserved that kind of label for witches – the humans who had the power and the balls to actually attack us from time to time.

  I was almost right in her face when I saw the first signs of discomfort. A change in the atmosphere, the skin around her eyes tightening.

  Those eyes… they were spectacular. Up close, they were three-dimensional, with a depth to them that made me want to fall into them. Her skin was a caramel color and as smooth as marble. I wo
ndered suddenly what it would feel like to touch her.

  As I thought it, the atmosphere changed again. She must have felt it too, because she gasped. The cold magic that had surrounded her like a fence fell away, and something hot seared through me. This was her true magic, I realized. Scorching heat. I was willing to bet my hide that she was a fire user.

  And she’d been tricking me with the lick of frost. Even with the power in the ground that called out to me, she was able to practice illusions. She was fantastic.

  I lifted a hand slowly, so I wouldn’t scare her. She watched my hand, following it with her eyes as I brought my fingertips up to her cheek. I lightly brushed her skin. The next moment, fire burst up all around me, flames threatening to consume me. They didn’t actually touch me, but the force was enough to drive me backward. I lost my balance and stumbled to the ground.

  She was a couple of feet away from me now and breathing hard.

  “Stay off my land,” she said.

  Her voice was calm, but her eyes had changed from amber to the color of molten gold, a mirror of the fire that had blasted all around me for a second. She turned and walked away, her hair wafting in the breeze. I watched her go, wanting to run after her, but I didn’t dare.

  She was a force of nature, and God, I wanted more. I wanted to see her again. Just before she’d shoved me away from her with all that power, my fingers had tingled like I’d touched a live wire. There was something about her that I wanted to experience more of, and I wasn’t just talking about the fire and the magic.

  I had to see her again.

  Chapter 3 – Amber