by Melle Amade
“I still can’t get used to the idea that Berzerkens are real and rule the Order,” I mutter.
“Oh they’re real. And they’re sense of smell is intense. Our best bet is to try to keep them out of Topanga completely,” Zan says.
Or else they’ll smell me. The nuvervel. The shifter that can shift into a dove and a raven. I have got to master my shifting and prove myself Ravensgaard.
My blood calls out to them.
I want to battle, fly, soar and drive my claws into their faces.
If I could just get the shifting under control.
Zan presses her hand against my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
Aiden pats my shoulder, but he doesn’t have any solutions. They’re all trying their best to hide me in plain sight, but it’s starting to get difficult.
“We’ll figure something out,” Zan says. “We always do.”
I cringe. We managed by the skin of our teeth to resolve Murtagh’s Revolt that almost got us all killed, but I don’t know how that’s going to work now. I haven’t told them about the pain that comes every night. I haven’t dared. If they knew about the shooting spasms that run through my body, they’d totally freak out.
2
“Take off the sling,” Zan says as she pulls off Topanga Canyon Boulevard and into the strip mall where Mom’s yoga studio is.
“Good point,” I say. Mom knows I’m a shifter, but she thinks I’m just a raven like her. Well, like she would have been if she’d had been given the Bloedhart ceremony. But without getting that ceremony at sixteen, the power of shifting was lost to her forever. All she has left are remnants of anger surging under her skin. “Do you have her meds?” I ask.
“Yep.” Zan reaches in her backpack and pulls out a metal tin with a clear lid.
I lift the top and take a sniff. “Urgh, smells like dirt.”
“Probably is some in there,” Zan grins. “You’ve seen Zaragoza’s burrow. Even though he’s staying up in the manor now, pretty sure that’s the stash from his den.”
“Right?” Still, whatever the badger warlock was giving her had done amazing things for her temperament. She was still her slightly controlling self, but her dangerous mood swings were completely neutralized. If being a shifter created a million other dangers in my life, revealing the truth had helped Mom. I’d always be grateful for the medicine Zaragoza gave her every week.
“Okay, so just be cool,” Zan says as I drop the sling on my seat and get out of the jeep.
My head swivels back as I gape at her. “You’re not seriously telling me how to handle my mom, are you?”
Zan’s turns the stereo down. “It’s just-”
“-just what?”
“You’ve been a bit jumpy lately.”
My fingers wrap tightly around the door handle as an unexpected pain surges up my back and through my arm. I keep my face still, but my molars grind against each other. Why is this happening now?
“Are you okay?” Zan asks.
“Yeah,” I breathe into the pain and it ebbs away. “I’ve got this.” I slam the jeep door. It doesn’t do anything to alleviate the discomfort under my skin and I can feel Zan’s frown follow me as I press open the glass door of Mom’s yoga studio. The familiar scent of her lavender, lemon grass, and clove essential oils fills the air. It used to make me nervous, but lately it seems to pull the tension out of my shoulders.
There’s no class at 10am on a Thursday. Everyone’s in school or work right now. Mom stands behind the counter, frizzy hair pulled back in a tight bun, glasses slipping off the end of her nose as she looks down at her schedule.
“These classes are just filling up,” she mutters. “I’m going to have to add more.”
“That’s great news.” I try to match the bright Zen of Mom’s studio with an easy tone. “I just stopped by before we go up to the-”
“You can’t go up to that manor.” Mom interrupts even as she writes notes in her schedule.
“I brought you your dirt.” I rattle the tin a bit and raise my eyebrows at her as if it’s an enticing sweet.
She shoots me that sideways ‘really’ look. “Don’t make this about me.”
“Did you take yours this morning?” I wag my finger at her, trying to keep it light.
“In fact, I did.” She raises her eyebrows with a thin-lipped smile. “Look, Shae, it’s not that I don’t want you to be friends with Aiden and Zan. I get it. I have friends –”
“No, you don’t.” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You have clients.”
“I don’t mind them coming over to our house at all.” Mom ignores my jibe. “But–”
“I thought we were past that, Mom.” I can’t stop myself from cutting her off. My body is racked with shooting pains. “I’m out of the closet now. I’m a shifter.”
Mom’s eyes are pensive. She doesn’t even look close to getting mad. But, I am. Cold irritation drapes across my shoulders. “Shae,” she measures her words out calmly. “It’s just that I don’t feel safe when you’re up there with them.”
“From what I understand, it’s one of the safest places in the shifter world.” I bite my tongue before I mention The Alliance for Righteous Humanity. The last thing Mom needs to know is that there are human hunters out to exterminate shifters.
“Last time we were all up there together, they tried to execute you.” She pulls her glasses off and gives me her cold stare. “You don’t know anything about those people.”
“I’ve known them my whole life.” I toss my body into the stool on my side of the counter and let it scrape loudly across the floor. “They haven’t changed. They’re still my friends.”
“It’s not your friends I’m worried about. It’s the people they report to.” She taps her pencil on the polished wood of the countertop.
“The Order.” I don’t know if she’s aware the Order is ruled by the Berzerken clan, but I’m not about to be the one to tell her.
“Those people live in an entirely different world than we do. They have different thoughts, different values.”
“We all have different thoughts.” My fingers start to tap on the counter distracting me from the pain shooting down my legs.
“Shae.” Mom’s hand closes over mine, stopping my fingers. “They are dangerous. They don’t like humans.”
“They liked me when they thought I was a human.” I yank my hand away from her. She’s so wrong. By now she must see their loyalty for me.
“They almost got you killed.”
“I got through fine.” I say it loud. Whatever’s wrong with me, though, it’s not my friends’ fault.
“And what happens when the rest of them, the ones who aren’t your best friends, find out about your dad? That he’s human?” Her fingernails tear at the corner of her scheduler.
“They won’t. Aiden and Callum have already been spreading the story that he’s a raven that can’t shift, too. A wyte that somehow got lost in the mix.”
“You’re building a foundation of lies,” Mom says.
I raise my eyebrow at her. It’s exactly what she did my whole life.
“I don’t want any of you to get hurt,” she whispers.
“I’m not going to get hurt, Mom.”
“You don’t know that. Stop for a second and think about it. You don’t know their laws. They are rigid and harsh.” She sits on the stool her elbows press into the wooden counter. She reaches her hands across to me like we’re going to kum ba yah it. I just stare, my eyes half shut. She sighs and withdraws her hands. “Shae. I didn’t miss the Bloedhart out of ignorance. My aunt found me when I was fifteen and wanted me to go. But I’d seen enough.”
“What are you saying?”
“I chose to become a wyte”
“You did what?” I sink back against the stool.
“I thought living with the anger would be easier than living within the laws of the Order.” She clasps her hands tight. “I didn’t want to be part of their world.”
&
nbsp; “You chose not to be a shifter?” I’m incredulous. “Why would anyone choose not to be a shifter?”
“Their laws are punitive.” Her fingertips press together, turning white. “Now you’re going to have to live under them. We all are.”
“But -”
“Rules and laws are real things that will alter your life. You can’t pick and choose the laws you live under. You’re going to have to accept them all.”
“I can’t believe you chose to be a wyte,” I say. “What did you even know about the Order and the shifters?”
“I knew enough,” she says. “There was a reason my family, our family, left the Order.”
“If they are all so dangerous and you wanted to be so far away, then how did we end up here? At the heart of Muiderkring West?”
“I made a mistake,” Mom says, gazing out the window at the rising canyons. “I fell in love with Topanga. And, well, I thought it was far away from the tyranny of the Order.”
“The Order’s a democracy made up of three factions. Muiderkring West, East and South.” Even though my parents keep me from shifter tutoring, Roman and Zan teach me as much as they learn.
Mom snorts. “The Order is not a democracy. Lord Van Arend doesn’t rule anything. The true leader is El Oso and he’s a Berzerken tyrant. Every decision that is made is made by him alone for his own self-interest.”
“You’re impossible.” I stand up, scraping the stool along the floor as I slide it back in. The shooting pains course through me. “Look, I can’t change that I’ve done the Bloedhart and I wouldn’t want to. I’m a shifter.”
“I’m trying to accept that.” My mother measures her words carefully. “But you’re still my daughter. You’re still sixteen and I’m still responsible for you. So, if you want to see your friends, invite them to our house and spend time with them there. Just because you can turn into a bird doesn’t mean you have a free license to take off wherever you want to go.”
“You’re being unreasonable, Mom,” I say. “It’s normal for a teenage girl to want to hang out with her friends in the evening.” Pain scrapes jagged in my torso.
“I’m okay with being unreasonable,” she says. “These are unusual circumstances.”
I swivel on my heel. Must hold it together. Must get out of here.
“See you at home,” she says.
“Uh-huh.” I grunt and press my hand against the cold door handle. She chose to be a wyte. Somehow when her aunt found her and gave her the property in Topanga, she also told her about the shifter world. She told Mom she could be a shifter, too, and explained the world to her. Mom had the opportunity to do the Bloedhart ceremony and learn how to shift, but she rejected it. She chose to be the person living with bottled up rage. She chose to be the person who almost killed me, who could never be there for me. Mom could have raised me as a shifter to understand this world and even teach me about it. Instead she chose to raise me in solitude and anger on the fringes of a world I didn’t understand and still don’t. She chose that for me.
Pain shoots through my fingertips.
I step outside the yoga studio, pressing my back against the glass window. My breath comes fast and dangerous. I need to calm down. Quickly. I need to control myself. I’m about to shift and I’m not even trying to. I can’t stop it. I stare at my feet, but dark sparkles fill my eyes.
Zan’s fingernails dig into my wrist as she pulls me forward. I blindly follow.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks.
But I can’t speak. I can’t tell her what’s wrong with me. Pain crackles all over my insides.
Zan rips open the door of the jeep and pushes me in. She stands between me and anyone who might be looking. My chest rises and falls in rapid bursts. “Breathe slower,” she commands.
But I can’t.
“Close your eyes,” she says. “Visualize the flowers.”
“I tried but I can’t.” I gasp. Curling over myself, shards of pain are loose in my body pummeling me inside. My gasp turns into a wail as knives stab my insides. Zan slams the door shut and rushes into the driver’s seat. She turns the stereo up to cover the keening that I can’t stop. My body is shifting and changing and shrinking and…
…ohhhhhhhhhhh… it hurts.
Zan throws a blanket over me to keep away any prying eyes in the strip mall, then she throws the jeep into gear and tears out of the parking lot. I fall forward in a ball onto the floor, writhing until finally my body is still. A strangled chirp comes from my throat. She yanks the jeep off the road and pulls the blanket back to look at me.
“Oh no.” She breaths. She bends over and picks me up with both hands, gently, carefully she places me on the seat next to her. “Oh, Shae.” She leans in close and peers at me, but I pull back. I can’t stand to be so close to the horror in her eyes as she looks me over. I twist my neck down and see the milky white feathers of my chest.
Zan reaches out a finger to stroke my beak and wipes something off my cheek. When she pulls her hand back, I see it’s blood.
“We have to take you to Zaragoza,” she says.
I shake my head.
“He’s the only one that can help. It’s not supposed to hurt. There’s not supposed to… to be blood.”
My wings wrap around myself. Need to get back to human form. I breathe in slowly as Zan smooths the feathers on my neck and back. Warm calmness floods into me.
As my breath steadies, the shift tugs at me again. But this time I chose it. This time it’s painless. In seconds and without pain I’m back in human form.
My body sags and arms clasp my torso as if my life depended on it. I rest my head against the jeep window. Zan takes a tissue from the glovebox and wipes the rest of the blood off my cheek. I look in the sideview mirror. There’s a bleeding that heals as I watch.
“This isn’t normal, Shae. Shifting shouldn’t slice your skin.” Her voice is gentle, but her words still make me cringe.
I take mental stock of my body. “It’s only one.”
“It’s one too many. There’s something wrong.” She rubs a hand along the back of her neck. “Let me take you up to Zaragoza.”
“No,” I say. “I can’t go to the manor. Just take me home.”
“You can’t go home.” Zan presses the words out through clenched teeth. “What if you accidentally shift when you’re alone? What if it’s worse? We have to figure out what is wrong with you!”
“Just. Take. Me. Home.” I grind the words out, refusing to look at her.
“But -”
“Now!” I ball my fists into my lap and stare at them. “Please,” I whisper. My eyes slide shut and I lean against the head rest as Zan puts the jeep in gear and gets back on the road. I only open my eyes long enough to make sure she’s following my request to go home.
3
I lay in bed watching the pink moon rise. The fire didn’t make it this far down the canyon, so there are still some leaves on the evergreen trees that grow by the creek below my house. They drape splotchy shadows across the walls of my room.
When I got home I came straight to my room with just a quick hello to Dad and Henry. Mom checked in on me when she got back, but left me alone. Now everyone’s gone to bed and the house is quiet. There’s a dull ache in my bones but the shooting pains from the shift are gone. My body is back to its normal state, whatever that means anymore. Zan dropped me off after I begged her not to tell anyone. She agreed, but said I couldn’t stop her from researching nuvervels more. I’d waved her off. There’s no stopping Zan from looking in her books for the answers to everything. But in a month, she hasn’t found much information on nuvervels at all. I’m going to have to fix this problem. It’s something inside me. I just have to figure out how to shift without pain. Shift into a raven. The last thing I need is my friends worried about my shifting issues.
The remodel of the house made it all the way into my room. The floral wallpaper is gone and the ceilings scrubbed. But when Mom asked what I wanted to do for decoration, all I
could think of was Aiden’s massive Baroque manor with its ornate gilt 17th century style. Zan suggested I paint some gold filigree along the walls.
“You can now,” she said. “You’re one of us.”
That just reminded me how even though I thought I was always one of them, they knew for almost my whole life that I wasn’t. In the end, I left my room plain. Just white walls and wood beam ceilings. I did get rid of all the broken furniture I’d smashed in fits of rage, they seemed a bit out of place now. I kept things simple.
Well, except for the gold ornate floor lamp that stands in the corner by the full length gilt mirror. I didn’t buy those. They were housewarming presents, or I guess room warming presents from Zan, Aiden and Roman. Zan and Roman pitched in to get me the mirror, but I’m pretty sure Aiden dug up the gold lamp from somewhere in the nether regions of his manor.
Despite my taste for simplicity, I love it.
Curly cues of golden splashes spray together into a bird bath where four doves sit on the edges of the water. I’d been surprised he’d had something with doves in his house, but Aiden had just smiled when I asked him about it. “Not everything revolves around shifter politics. Somethings are just pretty.” His eyes had lingered on me when he said the word pretty, but I hadn’t even blushed. That was the moment I realized my crush on him was a thing of the past.
He’s still a great friend. In fact, he’s the only friend I’ve told exactly what happened with Mom when I was little. I guess because of his issues with his dad I feel like he gets that part of me. But, whereas Mom has gotten better with the help of Zaragoza, Aiden’s dad hasn’t. I haven’t seen him enough to understand if it’s the alcoholism or something happened when he brought on the storm. Whatever is going on, it must be serious if Zaragoza’s moved in to Van Arend manor.
“Come to the manor later and I’ll help you practice.” That’s what Aiden had said at training this morning. Even if he can’t, maybe Zan’s right. Zaragoza might have the answer.
