The Shifter's Fight

by R. A. Boyd

  “Hello, Poppa Sam. I just got your flowers.”

  His laugh was a devious smoke that curled around her insides. “You’ve let me down, Paige. I’ve put so much time into this plan, and you managed to ruin it in a matter of days.”

  A chill made its way up her spine, but she held fast and didn’t let her voice break. “Glad to help. You are evil. You used me and my mother and you destroyed my family. I will kill you.”

  “I doubt that,” he said quickly. “Though, I do wish I could have seen you take off the amulet. I always wondered what the after-effects would be. I know how I designed it to keep you from taking it off, but watching would have been interesting. Have you been claimed yet? Did you allow another abomination to be reborn unto the earth? That’s why I sent you flowers. You must have been deflowered by now. They are animals.”

  Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed a few times to keep from gagging. He wanted to see her suffer. He’d rather her dead. “Why do you hate me so much?” She hadn’t meant to ask but the question came shooting out of her mouth before she had a chance to filter it.

  He was quiet for a moment, and Paige thought he may have hung up the phone.

  “It was never about you, Paige. Only making sure the Ghost shifters remained the way they were. Even without their beasts, they are too powerful to exist in this world. That atrocity killed your grandmother and half of her coven like it was a daily occurrence. And then a coven, my coven, sheltered him. They should have killed him. And I know you’re probably surrounded by them right now. I will make sure that they all suffer the same fate as their brother, Ronin.” He spit out the name as if it were a decaying substance on his tongue. “And I will find the coven who is helping you and make them suffer. Enjoy your flowers.”

  The call disconnected and something snapped inside of Paige.

  She looked down at the phone in her hand, the weight of it pulling on her arm like a boulder. A scream ripped through her parted lips as she launched the phone at the wall, breaking it into dozens of small pieces.

  Pushing past Aiden, she walked hurriedly toward the door only to be blocked by Simon.

  “Move.” Her voice was deep and scratchy. Rage. Her entire being was filled with rage and she would fucking gut Simon if he didn’t get the hell out of her way. “I won’t say it again.”

  Shaking his head from side to side in a slow pace that made Paige want to punch him, Simon sucked his teeth. He put his hands on his hips, taking up more of the door space. “Can’t let you out, Paige. You’re thinking of being really stupid, and I won’t let you.”

  Right now, Simon didn’t know what he was up against but she would gladly show him. Everyone said he didn’t mind pain and Paige was about to give him a daily dose of it. If he didn’t get the hell out of her way she would shift her nails into talons and yank out his intestines.

  “Cass,” he said, still looking at Paige. “Get that shit that made you stop shifting. Aiden, get your woman. If I let her through this door she’ll fly straight into a trap.”

  A twinge of pain erupted along her nailbeds as talons as long as her natural fingers broke through her skin, and the light that flickered on and off in her eyes danced across Simon’s face. Something was missing from him.

  Aiden grabbed her by the arm and roughly turned her around. “Just stop. I’m not letting you out of here either. You want revenge, I get it. But you aren’t alone now. You going and letting yourself get killed doesn’t just affect you anymore. It affects me and everyone else in this room.”

  He was right, but right now none of that mattered. All the fight she’d felt just moments ago drained from her body as she craned her head back and looked at Simon. “What did you do with it?” Aiden let go of her and she fully turned to face Simon. “You didn’t let someone take it, did you?”

  Simon’s lip raised in a snarl as he moved to open the door. “Don’t bring me in with your crazy, Baby Bird.”

  Paige turned to the rest of the clan and was marveled by the blank looks on their faces. They didn’t know.

  Her eyes moved from face to face, and the only one who seemed as if they knew anything was Audra. If Paige hadn’t been staring right at her, she never would have seen the brief shake of her head to let her know not to say anything.

  She turned back to Simon and nodded. “Fine. But don’t call me crazy. I might be a lot of things, but crazy isn’t one of them.” It wasn’t her secret to tell. Whenever they learned the truth it wouldn’t be from her.

  Sadness pooled in her eyes as she met Aiden’s gaze. He didn’t trust her. “And I wasn’t going on a suicide mission to kill Samiyah. I mean, the thought did flash in my head, but I wouldn’t have done it. I gave you my word that I wouldn’t go after him half-cocked, but I guess that wasn’t enough for you.”

  Aiden stilled. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he pulled his lips to a thin line. She could tell he was sorry, but he had to learn to trust her.

  “Besides,” she said, a cold smile on her lips. “He thinks I’ll be dead by tomorrow. And he still doesn’t know that you know he’s a fallen angel. We can use those to our advantage.”

  “Why is it only such a little bit? Samiyah has a ton of it. And you do realize you using this is a huge cliché, right?”

  Paige looked at Willow and then down at the cauldron, a freaking cauldron, with Heaven’s Flame inside of it. It couldn’t have been more than a cup of the shimmery white liquid. It danced in the bottom of the cast iron pot like a fire was burning beneath it.

  Willow wore a protective smock and gloves. The stuff was toxic to angels. “That’s probably because he’s been conjuring it much longer than I have. Zeke and I had to get the incantations to the summoning spell just right before we were able to make it.” Her dark hair was pulled in a high ponytail, and the tips of her long strands brushed over her shoulder as she shrugged. “Just in case Samiyah still has connections in the Coven of the Fallen, we didn’t want to ask anyone there. For now, we need to keep this inside the clan. They don’t even know that one of our own heads the Rogue. It will take time, but we’ll be making more in a little while.”

  They both stood in Willow’s backyard and watched the pot roil with what Paige imagined unicorn pee would look like. It sure was cool. But that’s not why she came here. She was going to get her life back on track and reclaim everything that Samiyah had taken from her.

  Paige clapped her hands together, the sound echoing through the large yard, and smiled at Willow. “So. I need a favor. I’m half witch and my father was teaching me to be a spellcaster. Can you teach me? I used to have premonitions but Samiyah used a stripping potion to take them from me before he put me under the spell. Is it possible I could get those back? The premonitions?”

  Her words came out as one long sentence. She was excited to get this part of herself back. What better place to start than within her own clan?

  Willow’s amber eyes looked everywhere but at her, and Paige knew she wasn’t going to get the answer she wanted. Maybe she didn’t want a student who was starting from scratch.

  Puffing out her cheeks, Willow shook her head and gave her a regretful frown. “A simple binding spell could be undone, but this is different. I’m sorry but the stripping potion was permanent. You said once before that you used to have premonitions, but when I look at you I don’t see it in your aura. Those who have the sight have a tinge of gold resting on the outskirts of their aura. You don’t.”

  Even though she’d already known that was the answer, Paige was hoping against hope that she was wrong. Her father had once told her that using a stripping potion should be a last resort. It couldn’t be reversed.

  She put her hand on Paige’s shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile. The anger in Willow rolled off in waves but she kept up a kind face to offer comforting words. “You’ve lost so much in this, and it had nothing to do with you. To imagine that one of our own would do this to anyone, especially when compassion was practically built into our existence. I can�
��t help you get your power back, but I can teach you the craft.”

  Yet another thing that was gone forever. Since she’d taken off that necklace, it was like things were being stolen from her a second time. It was horrible the first go round, but learning about it again was just as bad.

  The wind kicked up around them and the dewy scent of spring filled her. “Thanks, Willow,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’d like that. My dad taught me detection spells, defensive spells, stuff like that. I can barely remember them now. A few weeks before he died he was trying to teach me to pull energy from my surroundings. I could do little things like make plants grow or pull life from them to heal small wounds, but I couldn’t make energy blasts like my dad.”

  Willow took a heavy lid and placed it over the cauldron. “Only full-blooded witches can do this. Some half witches can, but not enough to do any real damage. I think, and I could really be wrong, that the reason you can draw from the earth is that you are a shifter. Shifters have a natural connection with the earth.”

  Paige shrugged and helped Willow settle the lid. The poor angel looked terrified of knocking over the cauldron.

  “That’s a plus.” Paige dusted her hands on her jeans and took in a deep breath. “Maybe that’s why my gardens were always so beautiful. I could take any soil, nourished or not, and make the most lovely flowers grow. Even plants that were supposed to be out of season and not meant for every climate. I could even keep them going through the first few snowfalls of the season.” Her flowers would sometimes last all through the winter. She always thought it was because Samiyah was a witch and had done it to make her happy. It had been her all along.

  Willow walked to a corner of the yard where a chard patch of grass sat darkened and lifeless. “Let’s try something now. Fix that.”

  “Fix what?” she asked, one eyebrow raised as she surveyed the area. After taking a better look, she noticed that only the top layer of grass was burned. The dirt beneath it still seemed healthy. It had a few gray areas where ash had gathered, but it was all pretty much superficial. “I haven’t tried to do anything related to magic for almost twenty years.”

  “Eighteen,” Willow said. “You want to learn. Let’s have a little lesson now. It’s always been there inside you. I’m amazed you haven’t been casting spells without even realizing it since you’ve been freed of the spell. When witches try to suppress their power, it builds up to the point where they can’t control themselves.”

  The thought of it made Paige smile, but she knew why things like that weren’t happening to her. “My magical abilities were weak. Premonitions were my thing. The spells my dad taught me were written spells that only needed ingredients and the right words. Maybe if I were a conjurer by birth, but that wasn’t me.”

  “You’re thinking too hard. You already said you could pull energy from plants. Paige, when you did that you were literally shifting energy from one place to another. Healing cuts, making flowers grow, making flowers wilt. See?” she said, shrugging as if Paige should know this. “It’s your shifter abilities manipulating the magical energy inside you. Just try. Once. Then I’ll give you one of my books to learn what plants and herbs are used for in spells. And another book on auras.”

  Paige thought it over for a few moments. What harm could it do? “Okay. Show me.”

  “Good. I blew up the last batch of Heaven’s Flame,” she said as she pointed at the burned grass. “You need to have contact with the charred grass. Sit down next to it.”

  Paige gasped and crossed her arms over her chest. “Ew. I don’t like sitting in the dirt.”

  The look of confusion on Willow’s face almost made her laugh. “What do you mean you don’t like to sit in the dirt? You said you liked gardening.”

  “Yeah. With gloves and a gardening mat. Sitting in it makes me feel funny. Like the dirt is getting me dirty. Like on the inside.”

  Willow still stared, a muscle in one eyelid twitching as she looked at Paige in disbelief. That slightly annoyed off look morphed into one of amazement. “Oh! Oh, my gosh. Paige. It probably was making you dirty.”

  “Ew.” A sense of revulsion clogged Paige’s throat, and the impulse to run back into the house and out of the backyard seemed like a really good idea.

  Willow touched her arm before she could bolt to the porch. “No, not like that. Maybe the earth itself felt an affinity to you and you just didn’t know what it meant. Paige. You might be an earth witch. They don’t harness power as Zeke and I do, but they are powerful in their own right. And rare. And you’re a shifter.”

  Paige didn’t know how to react. Excitement? Fear? All she’d ever wanted to do was throw a kick-ass energy bolt at someone and make them fly across the room and onto a table that had cups of juice and a huge bowl of popcorn. Still didn’t seem like that was going to happen.

  “Willow, I can’t do anything. I’m not powerful.”

  The purest of smiles split open Willow’s face, and she looked as giddy as a kid at a playground. “Give me your hand.”

  Paige eyed Willow’s fingers as they waggled, beckoning her to let Willow do whatever she wanted. “Fine.”

  The feel of Willow’s warm hand made her jump. Angels must have high temperatures. They stood quietly for a few moments as Willow’s eyes moved behind her eyelids as if she were watching a private movie. Her lips moved as she whispered something Paige couldn’t make out, and when she opened her eyes the strange amber color was gone. Her entire orbs were clear and it freaked Paige out.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Willow, trying not to focus on her eyeballs. If she kept it up Paige was going to ask for her hand back.

  Willow’s glass eyes seemed to travel up and down Paige’s body. It made her uncomfortable.

  “You may think you are weak—” Willow said, the centers of her eyes darkening until they returned to their normal color. “— but you have so much power inside you just waiting to be set free. The Creator sure does know how to follow through on a promise.” She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold. “The Ghost shifters were promised mates and the ability to shift into their beasts. My goodness, the mates of this clan are going to make it one of the most powerful shifter clans on the face of this planet. And I get to witness it.”

  The joy in Willow’s eyes dimmed and sadness took its place. She went quiet for a moment and Paige began to worry. Had she seen something wrong in her aura and didn’t want Page to know?

  “Willow, what’s wrong?”

  Willow started to speak but then stopped. Started again and gave a half smile that was given through pain. “I never wanted to love someone until I came here. Never wanted someone to call me their own. You all have that and in a sense, I’m jealous. I want love and passion and longing. Being associated with this clan has been the best thing to happen to me since I took the fall.” A trembling breath flittered from between her lips. “I don’t think I’ll be content when I return to the coven.”

  “Then don’t go back. How long have you been here?”

  Willow looked down at her fingers that were folded at her stomach. “About seven months. But I have to go back.”

  “Why? Do they need you?” The question seemed to hurt her feelings. “That may not have been the best way to phrase that, but do they? Who says you can’t find all the things you want? Samiyah left your coven and no one came after him. Do what makes you happy. Find love. Have fun. Be Willow. Doesn’t that sound like the best thing in the world?”

  Willow’s eyes fell to the burned patch of grass. She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it. “It really does.” For a full minute, her focus was glued to that darkened bit of grass. She looked up at Paige and gave her a grin. “You’ve given me something to think about. Also, if you’re as powerful as I think you might be I don’t want you to try to heal that grass. You might make a mistake and bring forth a forest in the middle of this yard.”

  That sounded pretty cool. Maybe she should try? The win
d blew across her hair again and slapped the dark coils into her face as if attempting to deter her from playing with magic she didn’t understand.

  “Are you going to the meeting tonight?” Willow asked as she took off her gloves and apron.

  Paige followed behind her as they walked toward the house. “Shouldn’t I be playing dead?” She chuckled and then stopped short. “Holy crap. I’m supposed to be dead by tonight.”

  “But you won’t be, so that makes us all happy, right?”

  Right now, the dumbest plan ever known to man was forming in Paige’s head. It probably wouldn’t work and just might blow up in her face. It might even get her killed. But it was something, and right now the whole ‘let’s wait and see’ tactic wasn’t working for any of them. She had made a promise to her mate not to do anything crazy, but if everything fell into place it wouldn’t be crazy. Maybe crazy-awesome, and that had to be acceptable, right? She didn’t have all the specifics, but the idea had already taken root and was developing second by second.

  If Willow would go along with it, Paige was going to make sure the Ghost shifters didn’t have to spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders. That sadistic son of a bitch Samiyah was going to get what was coming to him, even if it killed her.

  “Willow, I need your help. I know I’m supposed to stay away from those flowers that were sent to me, but we’re going to need them.”

  Chapter 12

  Aiden stood at his bedroom window and watched Paige as she left Willow’s house. Well, technically it wasn’t her house. Sabastian had given it up when he left to join the Ghost shifters who chose to live apart from everything and everyone. His choice. Willow could have it for as long as she wanted. The clan who called this place home had already decided.

  As he watched, Paige stopped walking and looked up at the sky. The coils of her dark hair got caught up in a sudden gust of wind, and it brought a smile to her lovely face. She deserved to be happy. He would do all he could to keep a smile on her lips and in her heart.