Marked (Valeterra Series Book 1)

by Jennifer Reynolds

  Azure beamed up at me. Jackson only gave me a questioning smile.

  “I was beginning to worry about you. Supper’s ready,” I said sheepishly, embarrassed that they had caught me trying to spy on them.

  “Can Uncle Jackson eat with us?” Azure asked.

  Uncle Jackson? I froze in surprise. Why I was surprised, though, I wasn’t sure. I had suspected he was her uncle.

  Jackson opened his mouth to speak, distracting me from my shock, but Azure interrupted him.

  “Oh, crap, I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone who didn’t already know that he was my uncle. And you can’t stay, can you, Uncle Jackson? Grandma Rose said you had some important stuff going on. Oh well, maybe next time.”

  She sighed and hugged him before either of us could say anything. He hugged her back. The way he closed his eyes and smiled as he did so told me he loved her very much.

  “Night, Uncle Jackson,” Azure said as the man started to leave.

  “Good night, Mr. Nichols,” I said before he could turn completely away.

  He nodded his head the way he always did and put out a hand to wave. Even in the darkness, I could see that there wasn’t a mating mark on his palm. It took everything in me to remain standing when all my body wanted to do was crumple to the landing in despair. I had so wanted him to be my mate.

  Jackson kept walking away as if he hadn’t noticed my breaking heart. Azure saw my shift in mood and asked me if I was okay when she reached me. Her words caused Jackson to falter a bit in his steps, but he didn’t turn around.

  “I’m all right, sweetie. I’m just tired. Let’s go in and eat,” I told her.

  “Are you sure?” She looked questioningly back at her uncle, probably wondering how he managed to upset me.

  “Yeah.” I shut and locked the door behind us and showed her to the spare room. While she settled in, I put the bread in the oven.

  Once we had sat and before she could push anymore about what was wrong—she had that look on her face that said she knew more was wrong with me than simply being tired—I asked her why she never told me Jackson was her uncle.

  “It isn’t a big secret. Most of the people who’re originally from Greenleaf know we’re related. My father and Uncle Jackson were cousins and in a sense brothers. When the sickness started gaining ground here, people got scared. They started threatening Uncle Jackson’s life, his family, his control over the town and the pack.”

  “Why him?”

  “He wasn’t special. Most of the alphas and leaders of our world were under attack in some form during that time. People blamed them for causing it or not stopping it. Uncle Jackson tried to get my parents to go into hiding with me, but they wouldn’t, then they got sick. After they died, Grandma Rose and he decided that the best place for me was the orphanage. By that time, so many people had died that they were worrying more about themselves than anyone else, and in a sense, everyone forgot about me.”

  She looked sad as she said that last part. I wanted to pull her into my arms and cry with her. Before I could move, though, she said, “Ms. Talia called him—she’s always finding reasons to call him—and Grandma Rose just as soon as she was done talking to us. Grandma told her that if I was okay with staying here with you, then she was.”

  I found her tone in regards to Ms. Talia suspect. Did she suspect the woman of having feelings for her uncle? Did she disapprove of the woman’s feelings? Why? Would she disapprove of me having feelings for him? I wanted to question Azure about her comment, but didn’t.

  “And what did your uncle say?” I asked instead when she took a bite of food instead of saying more.

  “Pretty much the same thing, then he met me here to ask me in person how I felt about things.”

  “And what do you think about staying here?” I asked. I was nervous about how she would answer, so I didn’t look at her while I waited for her reply.

  “I told him that you’ve been the nicest person to me since the day I walked into your store and that I thought I would love staying here with you for as long as you let me. If you move away, though, as you said you wanted to do, I don’t think I can go with you. You’re great and all, but I love Greenleaf, and my family is here.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to city hop with me,” I replied without realizing that we’d turned a simple few nights, maybe a week stay into something a bit more permanent. “Moving around like that isn’t good for anyone. I don’t want to move, no matter what I say about it, but after tonight, I think I might have to.”

  “Why? Is it because of me?”

  “Oh, no, sweetie. Because of you, I want to stay more than ever, but I saw your uncle’s palm when he waved goodbye. It doesn’t have a mark. I don’t know who my mate is or how I got this mark, but it’s obvious that no one around here wants to be my mate or they would have claimed me…unless they’re ashamed of me, which I can see why. Either way, I think I should go. I need to either find my mate or go back to my world. You would like seeing my world, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”

  “He waved goodbye to you with both hands?” Azure asked, sounding confused, as that isn’t how someone usually waves goodbye.

  “No, he waved with just one hand.” I raised my hand and mimicked his farewell.

  “Then how do you know he doesn’t have the mark? It could be on the hand he didn’t hold up.”

  She had a point, I thought, but something told me that the mark would have been on the hand he had raised, and I told her that.

  “But you don’t know for certain. Do all human women jump to such conclusions before thinking things through?”

  “Most people think with their heart, not their head,” I said. “Yes, I’m scared that he doesn’t want me, so I’m making up excuses, but my instincts tell me that his right hand was the hand he touched me with that day in the bookstore and would be the hand to have this mark.”

  I held out my right hand. The hand was the one in which I would’ve given Jackson his stuff.

  Azure took my hand in hers and examined it carefully. That was the first time I had let her get more than a glimpse of the mark. She traced the lines with an awed look on her face. I knew from past conversations that the mark fascinated her. She had told me that most people’s marks were in places that they could easily cover with clothing, so she had only seen a few marks in her lifetime. Her mother’s had been on her left upper arm. Azure had seen it a time or two but never gotten to examine it.

  “Why are so many marks in hidden locations?” I asked, curiously. They formed with skin-on-skin contact, and most people shake hands upon greeting, so one would think more people would have them on their hands.

  “I don’t know for sure. No one has ever told me. I think it is because most mates wait until they are in private to touch and shifters and weres seem to wait until they are in the animal form if at all possible. I think most see the mark as something private and prefer not have them where the public can see them. Still a good number have them on the top of their hands and palms as you do.”

  “I see.” I understood what she was talking about with wanting the marks to be private. I didn’t like having mine in such plain view of the world. I didn’t mind Azure looking at it the way she was, but I didn’t want everyone I met doing so.

  With a grave expression, she let go of my hand and said, “He’s a fool.”

  “Jackson isn’t a fool. We just aren’t mated.” I gave my mark a quick glance before going back to my food.

  “But…”

  “Have you seen a mark on his hand?” I asked.

  “No, but…”

  “Okay, then. He doesn’t have feelings for me, and he doesn’t have to have them.”

  “But you love him, don’t you?”

  “I find him attractive, yes. I love that he cares about his people, but I don’t know him enough to love him.”

  We ate in silence for a bit after that, and when I spoke again, I changed the subject of conversation to her schoolwork. I didn’t want to
send her off the following morning without her having done all of her homework. She let me change the subject.

  After she went to bed that night, I lay in my bed smiling. I was glad to have someone else in the apartment with me. I missed my sister greatly and couldn’t wait for her to join me once things were a bit more settled, but having Azure there was nice.

  32.

  ~~~Valerie~~~

  The next few weeks in Greenleaf went about as well as the first few. Business at the bookstore picked up a little, but we still weren’t making enough money to justify opening the doors every day. Stephanie continued to promise me that that would change the longer I stayed open. She also told me that she’d scheduled a few semi-local schools to visit the store over the next few weeks. I knew that I was going to be the main attraction for those trips, not the store, as she promised me was the case.

  Stephanie, upon my insistence, said she would start making plans for the alphas in the program to visit. She kept insisting that their coming was pointless, and I felt that way as well, but it would either introduce me to my real mate if the mark was a fake or make the person who’d mated me come forward and claim me.

  She also told me that they were making plans to approach my sister. They wanted me officially mated and if possible pregnant before they did, as proof that their plan was a feasible one. A pregnancy between two immune cases wasn’t a guarantee that the child would be immune, as it hadn’t seemed to be the case among those born since the plague began, but mortality rates among those children were low. Since the number of conceptions and births were also low, that meant that very few children had been born since the plague started.

  During the first week Azure was with me, Rose and Jackson kept a close eye on us to be sure Azure was happy staying with me and that I was treating her well. At the end of the week, they signed the necessary paperwork for me to foster her. I was well aware that if Azure had been anyone else’s child, I wouldn’t have been able to foster her.

  Azure and I got along well. She followed my rules, helped me around the house and store, and kept up with her schoolwork. She seemed happier than the first week I’d met her. Even Ms. Talia said so, and I could tell that she hadn’t approved of me taking in Azure. To be honest, I didn’t think she approved of me in general.

  On the down side, I hadn’t seen Nick much since taking in Azure. I had mixed feelings about not getting to see him. On the one hand, I missed him, but on the other, I found myself not thinking about him as much as I expected I would, considering how much I was attracted to him.

  My not seeing him was mostly my fault. I didn’t want to go out onto the balcony until after Azure went to bed each night. That meant nine times out of ten, I was tired from my day and didn’t sit out there long enough to wait for him to come out usually just long enough to send Gail a few quick messages. When I did stay out late, I wasn’t out there for very long talking to him. On other days, either he didn’t come home or, most likely, he’d gone to bed instead of waiting for me to come out to my balcony.

  I wish I could say the last part bothered me, and whereas I felt strangely drawn to the man, the part of my brain that wanted Jackson forced me to keep my distance from Nick. The feeling was an odd sort of tug of war. I looked forward to seeing both men equally, but my head kept telling me that Nick wasn’t Jackson and that no matter how much I thought I liked Nick, I’d hurt him if Jackson ever pulled his head out of his ass. Even if Jackson didn’t, I could never let myself pursue Nick, knowing I loved another man more. The love part of that statement seemed preposterous, considering I didn’t know the man, but deep in my heart, I knew it was true, nonetheless.

  As for Jackson, he was another man that I hadn’t had much contact with since taking temporary custody of Azure. I saw him every day, but only at the bookstore when there were plenty of other people around for him to converse with and ignore me.

  Azure and I had breakfast together every morning except on the weekends. Saturday she spent most of her time with Rose and Jackson when they were in town—though that wasn’t often. Stephanie said it was normal for those in their position to travel a great deal. They were rulers after all. Sometimes I joined Azure and Rose when Jackson wasn’t around, but most often, I left them to their family time.

  I didn’t know my grandparents that well since my parents lived too far away to visit them on a regular basis, and then they died when my sister and I were in high school. I wanted Azure to know her biological family as well as she could with all that was going on in Valeterra.

  When she wasn’t with Rose and/or Jackson, she, Stephanie, and I were out exploring Greenleaf and its surroundings. The longer I stayed in Valeterra, the more things I saw that reminded me that I was in a magical world.

  Due to how similar both worlds were in so many ways, I sometimes forgot that I was in a supernatural world. I would go days without seeing someone shift or do magic, as they weren’t allowed to do much of it in the store. That wasn’t my rule, but Jackson’s. I think he thought that seeing someone summon a book from a shelf or to leap from the first floor to the second would scare me.

  Okay, it did startle me when things like that happened. Yes, I would have preferred they not jump or shift in the store as doing such a thing could cause damage to the store and the other kids, and the summoning thing made me fear theft, but I didn’t want the kids dissuaded from being themselves. I was in their world, after all. They weren’t in mine.

  The weekends were a different story. Azure and Stephanie, after a great deal of begging Jackson for permission to let me leave the confines of the main section of town, which he eventually agreed to as long as we allowed more bodyguards than I thought we would ever need to come with us, showed me their world.

  My favorite thing was to watch the kids play in their animal forms. Most shifters in Greenleaf were canines of some kind, but we also had bears, felines, and a few birds.

  In Valeterra, and unlike most of the mythologies I’d read, shifters and weres were different but similar. Shifters couldn’t change into just any animal, but they weren’t limited in what they could shift into like weres. Canine shifters could turn into any canine they wanted and any breed they wanted: dogs, wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc., though most of them had a preferred form. Shifters were also more human than animal.

  Weres were a bit different. We didn’t have many weres in Greenleaf. Weres tended to live in small packs and mostly lived off the land or in villages. They behaved more like their animal and could only shift into that particular breed of animal. Like the shifters, they could mate and bear children with any humanoid creature, though that didn’t happen often. They preferred to create more of their kind, and a mixed couple never knew which parents’ genes would dominate.

  Jackson, Stephanie, Rose, and Azure were canine shifters. Stephanie preferred being a fox, Rose a gray wolf, and Azure a dog, a Collie to be exact. She was beautiful in that form, and she was the only shifter that I saw shift on a regular basis. Rose’s excuse for not shifting in front of me was that shifting took a lot of energy and she was too old to do it too often. Stephanie said it was easier for her and me to communicate in human form, so she found no need to shift that often in my presence. Again, I assumed Jackson had asked her or all three of them not to shift. I told Stephanie if that was so, then he and I would have to have a talk whether he liked it or not.

  Thankfully, Azure was not about to hide stuff from me, something for which I loved her for more every day.

  Azure was the one who told me Jackson patrolled the town at night in his wolf form, so all I had to do was look for him if I wanted to see him as a wolf. I had heard wolves and other animals at night and thought I’d caught a glimpse of him a time or two.

  When I asked if the guards usually patrolled the town in such a way, Stephanie said no. She was also quick to reassure me that they weren’t worried I would do something but worried that someone might do something to me. I didn’t find that comforting, but since no one had tried to kill me s
ince I’d arrived, the fear didn’t linger.

  During our weekend excursions, I met some of the other creatures who lived in Valeterra. Greenleaf had a large witch population, which Rose told me was typical for Valeterra’s larger towns, not that Greenleaf was very large, as they helped power the city. I also met a few fairies too. The tiny creatures lived in a beautiful park on the backside of the city from where I entered.

  To speak to them, we had to purchase special hearing aids that would amplify their voices so that we could hear them. When I asked if our voices would be too loud for them, Stephanie said that the witches had spelled the area around the garden so that any sounds coming from our world or that we made inside theirs sounded muffled.

  Out of curiosity, I asked why we didn’t pull an Alice In Wonderland and shrink ourselves to their level or vice versa. She said, after I explained the reference and promised to find a copy of the book, that it took a strong spell to do such a thing and that the shift saps more energy than their shifting from wolf to animal. The sapping of energy would put a shifter or were down for hours, meaning that it might kill a human. I opted not to do that…ever.

  I hadn’t met any giants, but Azure told me that they were solitary people who lived too far north for us to travel easily to see them. Their large bodies enabled them to endure the cold weather of the north. To them, it is Fall all year round where they lived.

  I only met one elf. She was a female who had come to town to meet with Jackson. She stopped by the bookstore on her way to meet him. She was gorgeous and quiet. As with everyone else I encountered, she didn’t say much to me in her short visit. I was glad I hadn’t known whom she was in town to speak with until after she had left, or I might have acted like a jealous girlfriend and made a fool of myself.

  Despite the fact that Jackson still hadn’t said a word to me since I’d come to Greenleaf, the longer I was there, the more I felt as if he was mine.