Steal the Sun: (Book 1)

by Stephanie Kelley

  “What?” The black blood was finger paint as she drew a rune on my chest. I’d seen it before, it meant death. ”My Raven has no words? Nothing clever to say to quiet me and save your heart? You’re happy knowing how much pain you caused me?”

  “Baby, you don't understand-” I finally managed as she traced the rune with her blade, the black blood burning as it seeped into the wound, drawing a sharp hiss from my lips. Her hair fell in waves fell around her face, obscuring her from my vision.

  “You’re right. I don't understand. And I don't care. I’ll see you disappear into the sea like everyone else I ever loved. You should have let me jump, Raven. You should have never grabbed that rope.”

  “Then take my heart,” I whispered, “because I’d save you every time.”

  The knife plunged into my chest, finding its home against my ribs. That bite of icy metal ripped a scream from my throat as hot blood boiled from my chest, bubbling into the seafoam I longed to touch as we both sank in murky water.

  I woke up face down on the floor having fallen from my bed. Panting. Chest aching. Heart racing. I cursed the powers that be as I slapped the floor in the darkness in frustration. It had been years since I had that dream. No matter how many times I’d had that dream, my answer would never change.

  I would never regret saving her that day when she was sixteen. But for the first time, I felt how deep those words actually cut. Seeing Koda, I wasn’t just waking up for another dream to push out of my memory. The pain I had left us both with was real, not just scars that I could ignore like the one on my face. I deserved to have my heart carved out.

  Pushing myself off the floor I saw a silver glint to my skin. Hell, that was fur. I was starting to shift in my sleep. I needed to get a hold of myself or I’d never make it out of this state alive.

  I pulled on a sweater, jeans and sat to pull on my cowboy boots but ended up scrubbing my hands over my face realizing my situation. The mine wasn’t running. Koda wasn’t going to forgive me. Dez was threatening me. Will wanted me to come home. Before I had fully grasped my decision I had thrown my meager possessions into two duffel bags. I was done with the Sesi clan. I was done with this town. I needed to be back with my own family. I needed the ocean.

  The smell of cloves and whiskey hit me as I stepped out into the night. Odd scratches crisscrossed the storm door to my trailer, they hadn’t been there when I’d gone to bed. There were large canine footprints along side my trailer. There were no predators around the area this large. The paw prints were nearly the size of saucers. The guys had to have been trying to play a prank on me after seeing my reaction to Koda’s monster dog.

  Let them prank me. Let them think they'd run me off. I needed to stay out of Alaska and a ruined reputation would make that easier for me.

  “I heard you scream.” Ken’s disinterested voice came from the shadows as I went to open the passenger side door on my vehicle to toss in my bags.

  “Yeah well, shit happens.” I fished for my keys as he leaned against the side of my trailer.

  He’d snuck up on me like always. Kenai was always passing in the shadows unnoticed. From the corner of my eye, I caught him running his fingers along the side of my trailer, tracing something.

  Ken paused in this tracing of the lines to light up a cigarette, the shadows that hid his face disappeared for the briefest of moments in that blaze of light making his one blue eye glow and while the darkness sank into the other his brown eye. I wondered how many Others he had fought and killed in the years I was gone. I could see the remnants of scars beneath the tattoos on his hands and up his arms. A compass tattoo on his neck peeking out from his jacket was illuminated in the flash of flame from his lighter. He was more menacing than any Other I had ever come across. If Dez had told him what I was, I had no doubt Kenai would slit my throat while I slept and added me to his black book.

  Everyone called him freak behind his back when we were growing up. He kept no one close to him but his family, and I couldn’t blame him for that. From kindergarten till we were in high-school, I was his only friend. I had wished every time Ken and I had hung out through the years that I could tell him I was different. But it wasn’t just my secret to keep. I’d have put my entire family in danger if I’d told Ken what my family was.

  Time had changed both of us, that we couldn’t deny, but I missed our friendship that we had. We had been so close we could finish each other's sentences, know what the other was thinking with a look. The few times he’d convinced me to be his backup on a hunt because Dez was too busy we’d been perfectly in sync. He’d begged me at one point to quit diving and help him, but I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to be the type of killers they were.

  “The boys do this?” He nodded towards the bare metal scrapes along the camper after a long drag on his cigarette, pulling his knife from his hip.

  I swallowed hard as the metal flashed in the low light, my palms slick with sweat. Those knives the Sesis carried were as intimidating as they were. Steel, silver and bone. The trifecta of defense against most Others. And I had Koda’s tucked under my sweater at the small of my back. She had to be going crazy knowing it was in my possession.

  “I'm assuming.”

  “Where do you think you’re going?” He settled against the side of the trailer, his calloused fingers toying with the edge of his own beat up knife. The caribou antler handle had seen better days, I could see the figurative carvings had deep gouges. He’d gotten in a fight with something nasty.

  “Seattle.”

  Ken nodded absently as he nicked the skin on his thumb, blood welling in the cut. I could smell it, faint but metallic, as he wiped the blood across the bare metal slash on the trailer siding. I felt my nose twitch, the smell of blood making me crave fresh meat.

  The corner of his lips turned up in a half smile as he caught my confused expression. I knew better than to ask why Ken did what he did. He often would just get a feeling and be compelled to follow through with it. Few times as teenagers, those instincts had gotten our asses handed to us.

  “Worked for the first born in the Bible. Can’t hurt. Besides, Connor’s a punk, needs shook up. Marie babied him too much.”

  I could only nod in agreement.

  “Keys for the mine and the machines are on the table in my trailer.” I managed when I found my voice again.

  “I’ll tell Dez.”

  “Yeah well tell him he can go-”

  He cut me off, meeting my gaze for the first time. Those mismatched eyes making me swallow hard as I second guessed myself. “You sure you want me to tell him?”

  “Yeah, I am Ken. Tell him he can go fuck himself. I’m done.”

  I’d only seen Ken a few times since I’d been back. We were cordial, but it was nothing more. There was nothing left of the ride or die, thick as thieves friendship we’d had growing up. Given the circumstances, I couldn’t say I’d even be as friendly to him as he had been to me if the situation was reversed and he’d screwed over my sister.

  “Will do, Tulugaq. Tell your sister I said ‘hi’. It's been a few months since I’ve heard from her.” Ken said as he pushed off the trailer and turned to walk away. I turned the word over in my head. Too-loo-gak he'd always pronounced it. It meant raven in Inuit. It was the nickname he’d give me in kindergarten. It hurt to hear it again.

  My keys bit into the palm of my hand as I squeezed them, unsure of what to say, my heart conflicted about leaving.

  “I’ll tell my sister when I see her.” I was a bit shocked they still talked, Willow had assumed he was dead earlier today.

  Darkness swallowed Ordeneige as the machinery sat silent. Kenai walked off into the softly falling snow, taking a drag on his cigarette before he called back to me over his shoulder.

  “Bear’s at Broken Tusk, Selkie. Don’t be a coward this time.”

  He had known. He had known what I was and still let me walk away.

  Every instinct told me to just leave town, not to bother with Koda, that there was
nothing left to say. I just needed to go home. But Ken was right, I’d been a coward. She deserved to know the truth about what actually happened. I couldn’t leave again the way I left before. I couldn't leave again letting her think I was that raging uncaring asshole who was screaming at her. I had worked so hard to prove to her before everything went wrong that people do care. And if she wanted to cut my heart out for being a shifter, so be it.

  Koda and I, we were oil and vinegar, we’d never truly mix, but it didn't mean things hadn’t been good. The past was the past and I didn’t expect her to believe that I wasn’t the asshole she thought she walked in on that day. My actions had been a stupid move to try to give into the blackmail demands in order to protect myself and my family from being put on the hunters radar. At twenty-three, knowing your best friend hunted and killed your kind, self preservation trumped rational thought.

  Will had always known better than I did the affect that Koda had on me, which wasn’t always a good one. But if my sister knew I was on my way to talk to Koda, she’d rip me up one side and down the other before castrating me. They had never gotten along. Will was always prim and proper like she belonged in some long forgotten royal court. Koda was the prettiest tomboy around. The two could rarely stand each other.

  I pulled in front of the Broken Tusk and bite of the cold steel of a knife in my chest again. Koda was here. I had passed her red truck when I pulled down the alley. I saw the rough local miners and fishermen walking in in flannel, dirty coveralls, baseball caps and beanies. I sat in my SUV in black denim, my dark cowboy boots, and a gray heather cabled sweater. My tattoos were covered and my black hair slicked back out of my face. I looked like I was a tourist, not a gold miner. Who was I kidding? I'd never belonged here even as a teenager. Willow and I always stuck out.

  Getting out of my vehicle, the smell and call of the ocean was too much, I wasn't ready to go into the building. I walked to the railing at the edge of sidewalk, the lapping waves were calling my name. I wanted to dive in so bad. The spray on my face teased my senses. I could almost feel my whiskers catching the spray as the storm was rolling into the harbor. The harbor seals were barking, begging me to come play.

  Foot on the bottom rung of the fence I started to climb. My skin itched so bad I would have bet Will I could have shifted before I hit the water. The more my nerves calmed with the smell of the salt spray, the more my muscles ached and tightened. I was fighting myself and I wasn’t sure I was going to win this time. Letting go of the railing, I rolled my neck and flexed my back, I felt the pop of every vertebrae in my spine with my arms outstretched as I breathed in that salt air as the boiling storm pushed into harbor. The ocean was calling and my body wanted to shift. It wanted to shift bad. I needed that measure of calm. But it wasn't exactly safe with the town full of people. And this town of people was not safe from this storm my soul was calling in from the ocean. With measured breaths I tried to calm myself, the salt taste, the biting wind on my face, it was going to have to be enough for the moment.

  I leaned forward, hanging over the edge and remembered the last time I’d dove into this harbor. Koda was with me that day. I ended up doing a backflip off the railing into the semi warm summer water. She jumped in after me with a little bit of convincing. We’d come to Broken Tusk for an early lunch that day. I’d rented a room upstairs for afterward. I persuaded the owner’s wife to help me out with my surprise, asking her to cover the bed in white roses, and put the plane tickets to Hawaii and the ring box in the center. I still wore that ring around my neck on a gold chain as a reminder of what I had screwed up.

  We had jumped into that water, laughing and happy, and when we swam to the shore, Ken was waiting by the truck, telling us we needed to get to the hospital. Dez and Will had been in a car accident. Koda and I both immediately thought the worst, and I rushed us to the hospital still in our wet clothing. Will had a concussion, and needed stitches and staples from the flying glass. Dez had a broken arm and leg from when the SUV he had been driving flipped. Taking care of our siblings became priority for both of us. Once they were both well, that’s when it all went to Hell.

  “Hey sonny, why don't you come down from there. No need to make the coast guard go looking for anyone tonight, let me buy you a drink“

  I glanced over my shoulder and a smile tugged at my lips. Old Mr. Romans. No one knew his first name and most of the time he was drunk, but he had the biggest heart of anyone in town.

  “Do I really look that lost, Mr. Romans?” I said grabbing the top rail and turned to sit.

  “Lost, lonely, like you've seen a ghost, and that black eye doesn’t help your case.”

  My fingers found the bruise. I’d forgotten it was there already. The tenderness had already started to subside. Thank you fae blood.

  “You don't remember me do you, Sir?” I hung my head and drew another deep breath of sea air trying to ingrain the calm in myself.

  “Would it make a difference either way? I can't remember who I am half the time. I just know the damn seals won't shut up tonight. They just keep babbling, saying the same thing.”

  My eyes snapped up. “You can hear them?”

  “Of course I can. Aren’t you listening?”

  “I am. They’re asking me to join them.” I glanced over my shoulder toward the ocean. The clouds parted while I stared out at the waves, the sliver of the smiling, bone white moon staring back at me.

  “Well, don’t listen, sonny. They’re babbling a lot about things. About wolves who bathe in blood, drink the sea and play with the dancing lights.”

  I squinted at him as I turned back to gaze his direction. I remembered him as a drunk, but not a crazy drunk. “Mr. Romans, you sure you heard the seals?”

  “Yeah, aren’t you? Maybe they have an accent?”

  Yeah, he was crazy.

  “I can, but I don’t think its the seals you’re hearing. You’ve been drinking haven’t you?” I said as I climbed down from the railing. I was going to have to try to take him home. I don’t think I actually had ever known of anyone knowing where Mr. Romans’ home was the more I thought about it.

  He smiled his crooked gold smile. “When haven’t I? No, I’m ok, sonny. But you need to watch for the ice.”

  Mr. Romans turned and walked away, heading back whichever way he had just come from.

  “I know who you are, Selkie, so do others. It's not the fish or the wolf you really need to worry about,” he muttered as he turned the corner. “It's the snow.”

  The snow?

  I chased after him, but he was gone when I turned the corner. Who else knew?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Kodiak

  I dropped my tray of drinks and food in shock when he walked through the door of my bar. My lip curled into the snarl. He wasn't doing this to me. I wasn't going to let Rhen get to me, not in my bar, not with my customers. This was my place, and I wasn’t going to let him mar this for me too.

  Rhen took our old seat in the far corner of the bar where he could still see out the window into the harbor. Old habits die hard I guess. The sweater he was wearing pulled tight across his chest and arms as he moved. His tattoos were covered and that bothered me, it made it too easy to think he was the man I used to know, not the one who had tore my heart out. But I still wanted to trace the lines of his tattoos with my finger and commit them to memory. Why was I torturing myself like this? I certainly needed him gone if I had any chance of sanity tonight.

  I waited on a few more tables before I realized that no one was waiting on him. I should have known better, he was sitting in my section. I leaned against the wall behind the bar watching him as he absently played with a ring that he wore on a chain around his neck. His focus on the task was almost at a meditative level as he sat there, no concern other than toying with the ring. I could have assumed he was trying to catch a glimpse of me without being noticed, but he didn’t move, his eyes never drifted from that glitter of gold. Only the howl of the wind and the rattling of the windows changed
his measured breaths. What was he up to? He’d never had a problem with the Alaskan weather before he left.

  His black eye didn’t satisfy me like I had expected. It actually made me sick to my stomach to see him injured like that. I had to decide what I was going to do, was I going to go over to his table, or send one of my employees? I could have stood there and stared at him all night. His black hair was just getting long enough that it was starting to curl, but even slicked back like it was, completely unruly. The white scar on his cheek was more stark than when he had left all those years ago. His cognac eyes still glittered in the low light. He was still just as delicious as before as much as I tried to deny it. Stop it, Kodiak. Focus.

  Heavy boots made their way down the wooden stairs beside me. It was typically an employees only passage to the upstairs rooms for rent, but I had a few exceptions that included friends and family. I knew by the cadence of the boots on the stairs who it was and I grabbed Caleb’s arm as he made it to the landing.

  He shot me a quick glance with a raised eyebrow, those blue eyes expectant and twinkling.

  “Rooms ready if you want to join me, the blankets could use warmed up.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. He never gave up.

  “I need a favor.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it? What's in it for me, doll?” He asked as he crossed his arms across his chest.

  “Beer for you and your boys is on the house tonight.”

  “Oh, this is a big favor. Deal.”

  “You don't even-”

  “You said free beer.” His smile was huge.

  I sighed heavily. He was too easy. And too eager. One of the many reasons I enjoyed his company and friendship so much. I could have said I wanted to burn my bar down and if he could find a fun reason, he probably would have done it with me.