TABLE OF CONTENTS
COVER
TITLE PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
QUOTE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
LINK TO RECURVE
NEWSLETTER
ALSO BY SHANNON MAYER
AUTHORS NOTE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COPYRIGHT
PRAISE FOR THE RYLEE ADAMSON NOVELS
“Shannon Mayer’s Rylee Adamson paranormal romances keep me glued to the page. Rylee is a kick-ass character who loves with her whole heart and reminds me of my own Rose Gardner—a collector and protector of lost and broken souls. Every new book is better than the last and I always finish her latest book hungry for more.”
-Denise Grover Swank
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author
“The Rylee Adamson Novels are filled with a wonderfully detailed and rich paranormal world with engaging characters, a fast paced plot and lots of action. A must read for urban fantasy lovers.”
-Eve Langlais
New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author
“If you love the early Anita Blake novels by Laurel K. Hamilton, you will fall head over heels for The Rylee Adamson Series. Rylee is a complex character with a tough, kick-ass exterior, a sassy temperament and morals which she never deviates from. She's the ultimate heroine. Mayer's books rank right up there with Kim Harrison's, Patricia Brigg's, and Ilona Andrew's. Get ready for a whole new take on Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance and be ready to be glued to the pages!”
-Just My Opinion Book Blog
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you seems inadequate when it comes to being grateful to those who help bring a story to life. My editors, cover artists, proofreaders, ARC team, and readers. All of you have a part in making this story more than it could have been without you.
Here’s to a thousand more.
“Always go too far, because that’s where you will find the truth.”
-Albert Camus
CHAPTER 1
THE GULF OF Mexico beach is where Raven found me, where we met the first time as I tried to convince three shifters that the demons had been contained and they could trust me, an underage witch.
“Listen to me.” I struggled not to yell at them. In part because of the wind and the sound of the waves, but more because they kept turning their backs to walk away. It occurred to me that this must be how parents felt when their children refused to see basic logic and reason. I drew a breath and forced myself to relax my stance before I continued. “Rylee stopped the demons. The world is safe now. I was at the battle. I saw them go down.” My back was to the softly lapping water of the Gulf. Around us was the constant hum of the world continuing as if there had been no fight for its existence. Strange how that was.
The cries of the gulls overhead, the rhythmic push and pull of the waves on the sand, the rustle of clothes as the shifters adjusted their stances; my words made them uncomfortable. A waft of dried seaweed—tangy and sour—curled up my nose, tickling and taking me to the edge of a sneeze, something that would make me look even more undignified than I was sure I did. Soaked to the bone, my hair a wild, wind-blown mess, and I knew without seeing myself that I looked younger than the fifteen years I was.
The three shifters stood in human form in front of me, almost as bedraggled as I was. Their clothing was not in good shape, and two weren’t even wearing shoes. They looked like bums, homeless men who’d been out for a night of drinking and ended up on the beach at daybreak. But I could see through what the world saw to what they truly were. One wolf, one bear, and one mountain lion—all male—were battered and bruised beyond the way their clothing looked. The wolf shifter took the lead, which was not a surprise seeing as they tended to be a bit on the bossy side when they were Alphas. “Look, I know the demons are gone. I was at the battle, too.”
I smiled, doing my best not to sigh with relief. “Then you know that now, more than ever, we need to look out for each other. There are so few of us left.”
“Us? You aren’t one of us.” The bear shifter shook his head and a smell of rotting meat floated through the air as he let out a wet grunt. “We aren’t meant to be in close quarters with one another. Don’t know what you’re up to, little girl, but I don’t like it.” He took a few steps forward as if to intimidate me.
Marco, my friend and transportation, clacked his beak. Just once, but the sharp snap stopped the bear shifter in his tracks. “I wouldn’t threaten her. It would be bad for your health to do so again.” Of course, being a thousand-pound male Harpy with talons that could gut all three of the shifters with very little effort helped his words in their effect. I appreciated it, but it also irritated me that no one took me seriously on my own. Even now, after all that had happened, I was still seen as the kid.
The young one. True as it might be, I didn’t feel young.
The wolf hadn’t taken his yellow-green eyes off me. He had dirty blond hair and those eyes seemed to be looking for something, as if he could see through me. I held his gaze easily. I’d locked eyes with far more frightening people than him.
“We don’t need each other now; the threat is over. Brighton is right about that,” the wolf said. Brighton must be the bear. The burly man nodded. Brighton the bear, then.
I clenched my fists at my side, fighting the urge to grab the wolf and shake him till his teeth rattled and what I was saying sunk in. How did I explain what I couldn’t even fully say to my family, to Rylee, or even Liam? The fear that curled through my blood at night while I lay trying to sleep was all too real. The war against the demons was won, but something else was coming, and I knew it as surely as I knew the color of the sky.
But you can’t just spit that out to supernaturals who are not only older than you, but have more life experience. To supernaturals who think that because they are physically stronger than you, they know better.
I straightened my back and tipped my chin up. “Something worse is coming. Maybe not demons but something else, and you’d be a fool not to notice.”
They glared at me and I shook my head. Well, at least I had their attention now.
“Have you not seen the humans and their preparations? They are gearing up for war. You think you will somehow be passed over? That you can escape a human war unscathed? They are not going down quietly; we all know that.” I was throwing caution to the wind and acting on a hunch. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure the humans were going to war. But Marco and I had seen so much activity in the sky that it was hard to come up with any other explanation for what could be going on. Several of the army bases we’d flown over were the same, buzzing like a hornet’s nest that had been kicked repeatedly.
The three shifters looked at each other, eyes flicking, soft shakes of their heads, fists clenching and unclenching.
For just a moment, I thought they believed me. The mountain lion shifter, who up to that point had been silent, was the one to enlighten me.
“Fuck off. We don’t want any part of your conspiracy theories about humans going to war. We�
�re tired and are going to relax here on the beach. If the humans go to war they can all just go and ram a warhead right up their own asses.”
I put a hand to my forehead. “You idiots don’t get it—”
“No, you don’t get it, you mouthy, brat witch.” Brighton the bear took several steps until he stood over me, staring down at me with his rank, rotten breath.
“Too close,” Marco muttered, and Brighton took a few steps back with a glare at the big gray Harpy.
I put a hand to the shifter’s chest as I gathered the power inherent in my blood. “Witch, at least, is right. Brat, not so much.”
The power raced out of me and slammed into the bear shifter, sending him into the air. I clenched my fist and he paused up there like an oversized, far too angry kite. Another time I would have laughed.
“Let him down, now,” the mountain lion shifter snarled as he began to change forms. Slowly and painfully, giving me plenty of time to prepare for his attack. Ridiculous codswallop.
Marco ruffled his feathers. “They really think they can take you? That’s sad and amusing at the same time.”
The mountain lion finished his shift. His tawny coat caught the sunlight as he leapt. I snapped the fingers of my free hand and then flicked them outward, as if shaking off water. He swept upward to join his bear friend.
I turned to look at the wolf. He hadn’t moved, those chartreuse eyes not twitching, not indicating he was going to attack. “You aren’t convincing me that we should want to come with you. Attacking people is not how to make friends—human or otherwise.”
“Then they shouldn’t have come at me, and you damn well know it.” I wanted to add a few choice words about how stupid they were, and how overt aggression would only get them killed sooner rather than later, if not by me then by someone else. But I didn’t.
“Aw, they were playing.” He smiled and winked at me as he took a few steps closer. His hands were in the air and Marco didn’t give him any warning to stay back. “You know us animals can’t always control ourselves.”
I didn’t let his friends down. “That isn’t going to work on me.”
“No? Then how about this?”
He was only six feet away when he dropped to the ground, scooped up a handful of sand and flung it at me. The grit caught me full in the face before I could close my eyes.
The world spun as I was tackled to the ground, and the weight of the shifter slammed me hard against the earth. Air sped from my lungs and I struggled to think around the lack of oxygen.
Marco screeched and I managed to shake my one hand at him with my two middle fingers held down. That was the sign that I was fine. That I would handle whatever I was facing on my own. The Harpy didn’t step in.
He, at least, trusted me to take care of myself.
“You don’t deal with them in the next ten seconds, I will. His friends are on the ground and coming fast,” Marco said.
I kept my eyes closed, the scratching sand making it painful to even try to open them. I didn’t need to see to deal with them.
The wolf held me down by my wrists. As if keeping my hands away from him would save him. I drove my knee up fast and hard the way Rylee had taught me and caught him in the balls. He grunted and his hands loosened. Squinting through my grit-encrusted eyelids, I snapped my right hand forward and drove it into his neck with as much force as I could muster while lying on my back. It was enough to send him rolling away.
“Now, you’ve pissed her off,” Marco said as if he were an announcer at a prize fight. The thought made me smile. “And she’s smiling now. That’s a bad sign for you three. I’m just going to sit back and watch. I need popcorn for this.”
I could see the shifters, though my eyes were watering madly. Two running at me. One writhing on the ground. Left hand down, right hand up, I sent my power through the earth and the air at the same time. The ground exploded under the three, and sent them flying into the air where I caught and held them for a moment once more. Three kites now made of fur and snapping teeth.
With them effectively nulled, I could have mounted up on Marco and left. But that was not how things were done in our world. If they would attack me because I was younger and female, they would attack others for the same reason. Others who could not defend themselves. If I let these three go, I was effectively sentencing another girl to them. Darkness rose through me and I recognized it for what it was. The desire to kill them to protect other innocents.
Other children like those I’d left behind so long ago.
A shudder rippled through me—no, I would not go back to that place in my past.
“What are you going to do to us, then?” one of the shifters asked. I’m not sure which one, because his voice was pitched differently. Maybe the wolf, seeing as I’d busted his balls good.
I shook my head. “Deciding if I’m going to kill you or not.”
They laughed, and then slowly the laughter died. The mirth tapered off and then seemed to be physically strangled out of them.
The flutter of wings drew my eyes from the three in the air. Marco leaned his head down to me so his eyes were level with mine. “They attacked out of fear, Pam. Not because of your size or your gender. They are afraid, and they are right to be so in the current state of the world.”
“How can you know that?” I looked from him to the three shifters.
He blinked several times. “Their stances, the way their eyes won’t settle on any one thing. You have an aura of power around you. They attacked because you scare them. They did not think you weak. They thought you would try to kill them from the outset.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I know you well. I know you think you are protecting others, when all you are doing is letting the darkness convince you of things that are almost true, but not quite.” He butted his beak against my shoulder. “Let them go, and we will find others that will come with us. Others that are not consumed by fear.”
I still hesitated. Mostly because I was afraid Marco was right. Was I not seeing things the way I should? Was I letting the darkness take hold of me again? A spurt of sheer terror shot through me and with it I flung my hands outward to send the three shifters away. Far away. They would survive a fall.
Only I sent them into the Gulf of Mexico and not over land as I had intended. Would they survive? Maybe, but it was a long way to swim, even for a shifter.
“Oh shit, that wasn’t what I meant to do.” I looked up at Marco. “Would you?”
Marco let out a sigh and stretched his wings. “Yeah, I’ll get them and take them further down the beach. Wait for me here.”
With a great leap and down beat of his wings, he took to the air. The sand kicked up around me and I closed my eyes against it. I didn’t need more grit under my eyelids, thank you very much.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered, my English roots showing up. That’s what stress did to me. I fell back to the lingo of my birthplace. I was trying to fit more into the American culture, trying to soften my accent, but it didn’t always work. I dusted off my clothes and shook off the feeling of panic as best I could. I certainly wasn’t expecting to have any sort of a conversation.
“That was impressive work there.”
I spun around, one hand raised palm up with a ball of energy spinning over it, and my bowie knife I always kept in the sheath on my lower back in the other.
A man stood about twenty feet away from me. Black hair, blue eyes, youngish. Maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, I would guess. “Good reflexes, too.” He nodded as if actually impressed.
“Who are you and what are you doing sneaking up on me?” I didn’t move from my stance other than to wave the tip of the knife at him.
He smiled and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you, but shouting from a distance is rather undignified. My name is Raven.”
I could see he was trying to soften me toward him and that alone made me wary. “What do you want,
Raven?”
“You going to hold that knife at me while we talk?” He continued to smile, now with a quirk to one side of his mouth. Definitely he was used to getting his own way. It was the way Will smiled whenever he was trying to soften the ladies to him.
I nodded. “You betcha.”
He laughed softly. “Ah, nice touch. You almost sounded American there.” He brushed the side of his nose with one finger, that smile still hovering on his lips.
My heart pounded. Was he a telepath? Could he read my mind?
“No, I can’t read your mind, but I am very, very good at reading people. And to answer your other question, I think I can help you with something.”
I arched an eyebrow and lowered the bowie knife just a little. “Really? Just what is that?”
“I can teach you.”
My other eyebrow shot up to join its mate. “Teach me what, exactly?” Strange men didn’t just show up to teach young girls . . . nice things.
He leaned his head forward, just a little. Enough to make me think he didn’t want anyone to hear what he had to say. “Everything you ever wanted your magic to do.”
His words sank in slowly. I’d had two teachers so far when it came to magic. Deanna, the druid, who only taught me the ways of peace. Healing and divination, for the most part. She had been Will’s sister and she’d died in the battle with Orion. Then, there had been Milly. Prior to my arrival, she had been the strongest witch the world had ever seen. She was gone now, too, dead at Orion’s hand.
With so few witches left, and those being weak, there had been no more training for me. And I knew training was exactly what I needed for what I hoped to accomplish.
“Are you a witch?” I lowered both hands, though I was ready to throw down if I had to.
He shook his head. “No, I’m an elemental. And I can teach you things no other witch will ever be able to teach you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I was no fool. Fifteen I might be, but I’d lived a lifetime in those few years. “And what do you want in return, Raven?”
Pamela (The Rylee Adamson Epilogues, Book 3) Page 1
