Shifter Origins (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 1)

by Aimee Easterling

  Houseboats would be swept along and crushed into splinters as they slammed into trees and fell over the newly created falls. Bodies would float to the surface just like that one gut-wrenching memory out of the Lord Dragon’s guilty past.

  In the end, everything Mason and his brother had envisioned would be lost in one moment of complete devastation.

  Chapter 12

  The bomb hadn’t blown.

  Fee couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the fact that she was speaking to her father post-countdown, alive and well rather than separating into bloody fragments to rain down upon the fluffy layer of pristine snow below.

  She should have been relieved. But instead she felt numb...and not just because of the rime of ice forming atop her unprotected head.

  “You lied to me,” she murmured as a six-inch waterfall gushed out of a small hole in the concrete dam. Her emotions felt just like that plummeting water. Anger, rage, and disappointment were beginning to leak out from behind her formerly impenetrable barriers. And Fee had a sinking suspicion that if those feelings fully erupted, she wouldn’t be able to stuff the repressed thoughts back inside ever again.

  Because she now realized that Malachi had played her for a fool from the very beginning. He’d planned destruction far more heinous than anything she would have willingly taken part in. And, knowing his daughter’s feelings on the matter, the fire mage had purposefully left her out of the loop, twisting her bomb-making skills into a master plan Fee would have adamantly refused to embrace had she understood what she was signing on for.

  Worse, Malachi didn’t even attempt to deny her current accusation. Instead, his voice grew as cold as the wind biting into her cheeks when he replied. “This is no time for childish drama.”

  Despite herself, Fee flinched backwards, nearly sending herself tumbling off Mason’s heated neck in the process. She knew that Malachi was currently too distant to harm her physically, but his tone suggested that she’d pay for her commentary sooner rather than later. Yes, she’d pay in pain once her father had vanquished the dragons and installed all of his people—Fee included—in the elevated splendor of their new home.

  So perhaps it wasn’t irrational after all to cringe away from the threat of punishment that came through loud and clear in her father’s clipped tone.

  But before Fee could fully wrap her mind around parental betrayal, her minor rebellion was forgotten as Malachi returned his attention to the shifter currently bearing her aloft. “Fly west, dragon,” the mage demanded. “Every shifter will be out of this valley within the next five minutes or you’ll have hundreds of deaths on your hands. You’ll leave my daughter on the same charred mountaintop where you found her, then you’ll discover another Aerie to terrorize. This one is now mine.”

  Between her thighs, Mason’s muscles rippled as if he wanted to reply. So Fee spoke the words she knew her bearer ached to say. “And if he obeys, what will happen to the people he leaves behind?”

  “Then they’ll live.” She could almost see Malachi waving away the minor issue with a flick of one long-fingered hand. It didn’t matter to him whether the dragons’ underlings scattered into the Green or accepted new jobs as loyal servants to a fire mage. In fact, her father likely couldn’t understand why Mason and Fee bothered to ask about the fates of such inconsequential beings in the first place.

  At least there’s one dragon still alive inside the Riverview, Fee thought, grasping at straws as she attempted to think her way out of Malachi’s trap. But even as she glanced toward the tower, a final shifter leapt into the air and winged toward his compatriots. Meanwhile, the humans were almost gone from beneath the trees, most having already slipped inside the first high-rise as they followed Malachi’s orders to claim the space as their own.

  Silence filled the air as dragons hung motionless for an endless moment. Mason’s eyes were deep pools of sadness, but he made no move to countermand Malachi’s orders. Instead, her bearer appeared to be waiting for Fee to decide whether they should go or stay.

  The part of Fee that had emerged from its cocoon while she wandered up the stairs with a taco in one hand stretched and woke. It wanted to tell Mason to strike her father down, never mind the fact that Malachi was her only living relative. Her braver half wanted to urge the shifter to char fire-mage flesh to ash, removing the evil Malachi represented from their formerly paradisiacal world.

  But she couldn’t do it. Because she knew her father inside and out. And while obeying wasn’t a certain path toward saving the lives of Sarah and the other human inhabitants of the Aerie, disobeying was equivalent to signing everyone’s death warrants en masse.

  Malachi would have the reservoir-side bombs rigged to explode unless he personally cut them off. And Fee couldn’t live with all that blood on her hands.

  “Okay,” she said at last, the sound more breath than word. But it was enough, because her father confirmed his acceptance by ending the call with an abrupt click. And the dragons beneath and around her obeyed without argument, spinning in a formation of shining scales and barely repressed fire before retreating west as a single unit.

  Perhaps it was because they were now flying into the wind, or perhaps the weather itself rejected Fee’s capitulation. Either way, the snow that had been drifting down like gentle holiday ornamentation abruptly transformed into a gale of billowing white. Landmarks disappeared as the ground faded away, and their journey soon took on the aspect of an endless flight into the void.

  Meanwhile, the heat Mason had sent into his neck faded, Fee’s bare feet going numb as they clung to his rough-scaled hide. Her eyes squeezed shut at the pain in her aching fingertips, but impending tears refused to overflow.

  No, Fee didn’t deserve the catharsis of crying. Not after helping her father rip apart the only real refuge that had come into existence since the Before.

  Between her own betrayal and the frigid cold, in fact, she should have been glad when her belly informed her that the cadre of dragons was swooping downward rather than flying straight ahead as fast as wings could beat fire through frozen air. But, instead, she swallowed hard against the obstruction in her throat. Mason would leave her now and she’d never see him again. The one spark of joy in her life was winking out as quickly as it had initially flared into existence.

  Sure enough, her dragon touched down amidst a powdery mixture of black ashes and white snow that danced and sparkled around his mantled wings. Then the Lord Dragon was human, his strong arms holding Fee above the ground so bare feet wouldn’t touch numbing ice.

  “What now?” he demanded, his voice rough with the same emotion that coursed through her slender frame.

  “Now you go,” Fee answered, staring at the gray fluff settling back around her dragon’s booted feet. “He’ll call me to check and...I can’t lie to him.”

  It was yet another deficiency on her part, she knew. Yet another way she’d failed to live up to the strength and honor of the Lord Dragon who even now chaffed bare arms between broad palms until goosebumps faded and warmth entered frozen limbs.

  “Okay,” he said simply. Then, glancing over one shoulder, the Lord Dragon jerked his chin commandingly at three men standing only a few feet away.

  They were like knights out of a fairy tale, all craggy chins and ramrod-straight backs. Which would make her dragon the king, she supposed, since they obeyed him without the requirement of words.

  Heated clothes flew off male limbs as a pile of socks, sweaters, and scarves accumulated in the tallest shifter’s waiting arms. The Lord Dragon laid a scarf on the ground to protect Fee’s bare feet, then he set her down and knelt to remove his battered boots.

  Once her companion’s coverings had been reduced to the bare essentials, the Lord Dragon proceeded to reassemble all four shifters’ clothing around Fee herself. First he layered every sock they owned onto her frozen feet, then he laced tough brown leather back up around shaking ankles to separate skin from snow.

  Three sweaters and a scarf-turned-head-covering
later and Fee was actually beginning to feel warm. Still, the icy core within her chest grew larger rather than smaller as she waited for the dragons to shift and leave her behind for good.

  Sure enough, three men flared into draconic shape, eyes intent upon Mason as a trio of winged monstrosities awaited further instructions. “Keep flying west,” he told them. “I’ll catch up shortly.”

  Snow chilled cheeks and ash stung eyes as the dragons leapt into flight. Then Fee found her face pressed into the protective bulk of Mason’s chest. He’d given her his own sweater, so only a thin layer of cotton lay between her nose and the skin she ached to claim as her own.

  He still smelled like marshmallows. Sweet, smoky, and enticing.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured, knowing her actions were unforgivable. Never mind her eleventh-hour change of heart, she’d come to the Aerie intent upon blowing up Mason’s home, had considered taking the dragons’ mother hostage at knife-point. No, she wasn’t the type of woman a shifter like the Lord Dragon would willingly invite into his ring of light.

  Only he ignored her apology as unnecessary. “We’ll find a way through to the other side,” he rumbled. “And then, I’ll return to you.”

  Ever since her dragon had landed, Fee had been too chagrined to look into his face. But now seductive words pulled her chin upwards at last. Caramelized sugar once again invaded her nostrils and she breathed in one final gasp of hope.

  Then her shifter took three huge steps backwards and a mighty dragon lashed its tail where Mason had once stood. The Lord Dragon bugled a farewell as he ascended, and off in the distance three mournful cries matched his own.

  Fee wanted to stare after her receding dragon until he dwindled into a speck and finally disappeared into the snow-shrouded distance. But the cell phone at her hip was vibrating and she couldn’t afford to ignore the hated device...or to do as she really wished and stomp it beneath the hard heel of her borrowed boots.

  Instead, she raised cold plastic to colder ear. “They’re gone,” she said, her voice emotionless and her eyes dry. “They flew west.”

  “Good,” Malachi answered, his words just as flat as her own. “Come to the Aerie as quickly as possible. I’ll be waiting.”

  Chapter 13

  Mason fell rather than landed as he touched down on the flat ledge of rock at long last. He almost hadn’t made it, usually harmless flakes of snow beating back his fire bit by bit as he flew away from his treasure and away from his home.

  Hesitating, he drew on every ounce of energy he had left, managing one final shift to join his brothers beneath the slanted overhang. With Fee out of reach, the Fade was coming fast and his limbs quivered with bone-deep cold and exhaustion. He wouldn’t leave this sheltered cranny alive, but at least he’d meet fate on two human legs.

  Zane raised an eyebrow at Mason’s flubbed descent, but the twins didn’t appear to notice any unusual lack of grace. “The bastard!” Alexander roared instead of a greeting, his form shimmering back and forth between human and dragon as emotions riled up inner flame.

  Nicholas and Zane were no less angry, but they understood that wasting energy wasn’t the way to save the people they’d left behind. So the former laid a calming hand on his twin’s fiery shoulder while the latter knelt to kindle a stack of damp wood into a raging bonfire. Someone had been wise enough to put his muscles to good use while waiting for their Lord Dragon to return, and Mason appreciated the gesture as warmth licked a layer of chill away from his bones.

  The thaw took longer than it should have, but Mason’s teeth finally stopped chattering sufficiently for him to speak. “Our people will wait until morning if they can,” he said, keeping his voice firm and commanding with an effort, “but then they’ll need to leave the tunnels. Zane and Alexander, I’m counting on you to hold back the Green as they head for the ferries. Nicholas, you’ll begin scouting out a new Aerie, somewhere safe for this winter and for the long haul as well.”

  The unexpected orders caught Alexander’s attention at last. “Nicholas and I can watch over our people. Send Zane to look for a new home.”

  The rock ledge grew silent as the volatile twin glanced back and forth between his wordless companions. Everyone knows but you, Mason thought sadly, wishing he didn’t have to be the one to squash Alexander’s childlike view of the world.

  Because the twin’s suggested alternative made perfect sense...or it would have if the dragons had been fighting off a human enemy while otherwise going about business as usual. Alexander and Nicholas worked better together rather than apart. Of course it made sense for twins to guard the Aerie’s inhabitants as a unit.

  But Mason could barely muster enough energy to speak, let alone fly. Yesterday, he’d believed the Fade was a figment of Sarah’s overactive imagination. Today, after fighting against a headwind that nearly crushed him against the side of this rock cliff when it should have barely ruffled his whiskers, he had to accept that his foster mother had been right.

  Without the boost Fee gave to his inner fire, Mason wouldn’t last much longer. And twinless Zane was likely to succumb to the same fate sooner rather than later.

  Only a twin could be counted upon as the long-term leader of the dwindling Aerie population. So Mason forced out a reply from between frozen lips, knowing even as he spoke that his words were terse and cruel. “No. Nicholas is our new Lord Dragon.”

  A gust of wind lashed snow inside their open-fronted shelter as three brothers assessed the shifter who’d been their leader for so long. Could they see the way water dripped from his sodden clothing rather than evaporating into vapor on contact as it would have done the day before? Did they note how his knees buckled, forcing him to lean against the rock wall in an effort to remain erect?

  Yes, his weakness must have been painfully obvious. Because his brothers’ eyes fell to the ground while their lips firmed into pursed frowns.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Zane said after a long moment, the implication clear. His twinless brother was offering to stand sentinel as Mason succumbed to the Fade.

  “Thank you, but no.” It was a good thought, a kind thought. But Mason would rather leave the world behind with neither flame nor friend to buoy him up rather than allow their enemies to triumph when dragons spread their forces too thin. “Go. Take care of Sarah.”

  And, abruptly, even heat from the nearby fire wasn’t enough to keep his inner flame alight. Because the thought of his foster mother’s face when she learned that yet another son had perished reminded him of her tearless visage fourteen years earlier after Sam had died on his watch.

  Cold gnawed at Mason’s insides as memories he’d fought so hard to repress bubbled back up to the surface. Memories of Sam’s smiling face. Memories of Sam’s enthusiasm. Memories of his twin begging Mason to tag along on an ill-fated kayak journey as they scouted the confluence of two rivers before the Golden Reservoir was built.

  “It’s not a good idea,” Mason had told his twin in the same imperious tone of voice he later used to name a new Lord Dragon. Birth order meant little when dragonets popped out of the egg within seconds of each other. Still, both boys had long ago accepted the fact that Mason was the metaphorical older brother, the one with a solid head on his shoulders.

  But this time around, Sam had merely laughed away his twin’s concerns. “Scared, are you? Don’t worry, big bro, I’ll protect you.”

  They’d tussled on the carpeted floor then, two lanky teenagers who were growing into the shared job of Lord Dragon. And when Mason twisted his twin’s arm behind his back and forced Sam to cry Uncle, he’d assumed the matter was settled in his favor.

  Except it wasn’t. Because Sam had snuck back out the very next morning, had packed a lunch and a sweater just in case the day turned cold. But he didn’t bring a life preserver, never mind that river water could quench a dragon’s flame and take his life just as easily as the Fade.

  When Sam failed to return that evening, everyone turned out to search the surrounding countryside. A
bright orange kayak was found floating bottom up on the second day, but the missing shifter hadn’t surfaced for a week after that.

  During those gut-wrenching seven days, Mason forced himself to believe that Sam was merely injured and awaiting rescue. Perhaps his beloved twin had broken an arm and been unable to fly. Or maybe he’d fallen into one of the sinkholes the Green sometimes created to toy with uninvited guests.

  But no. Sam’s bloated body finally bobbed back to the surface on a sandbar in the river, his bulging eyes seeming to accuse Mason of failing in his duty as brother’s keeper.

  Sarah’s fiery words thereafter were nearly dragon-like in their intensity when she insisted Sam’s actions were not his sibling’s fault. But the newly minted Lord Dragon knew better. Sam had asked him to come, Mason had refused, and his brother had died. Where else could the fault possibly lie?

  Since then, Sarah had never been quite the same. And now cold shivers racked Mason’s body as he wondered whether his mother would survive losing yet another dragon son, this time to the relentless cooling of the Fade.

  “Our mother is a tough old bird,” Nicholas said, stating the obvious. “She’s lost everything once. She’ll carry through yet again.”

  Mason wanted to beg additional promises from his closest friends, to pass along every bit of half-assed wisdom he’d accumulated while heading up the Aerie alone since Sam’s passing. But time was of the essence and he wouldn’t risk his people’s safety for his own selfish needs.

  Instead, he accepted claps on the back from one twin after the other. Let Zane pull him close in something dangerously resembling a hug while they both ignored liquid droplets falling onto Mason’s shoulder in quick succession.

  The water was condensation from the rocks above, he decided. It couldn’t be his brother’s tears.

  “Here.” Three chips of darkness rattled into his palm before Mason even realized he’d extended his hand. Zane’s lips quirked upwards into a bittersweet grin as the familiar aroma rose to encircle both of their noses. “Jasper gave me some for Sarah,” his brother explained. “But she’d want you to taste it at least once before you go.”