Adopted by The Owl: The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book One

by Qatarina Wanders

  Marion was as handsome as they came. Dark hair. Sharp eyes. Glowing skin. A body structure that was just the right amount of muscle. He was dressed smartly as always. And he had that intense stare in his eyes all the time.

  Maybe if she didn’t have so much going on at the moment, she might have considered dating him. Maybe . . . just maybe.

  “Okay, you’ve got me alone,” Emily quipped. “What do you want?”

  “I want to be friends,” the guy said pointedly.

  Emily was taken aback by his odd candor. Odd because, naturally, you don’t go telling people you want to be friends with them. At least not so directly. You just got close enough, and if it worked, it worked. If it didn’t, then maybe it wasn’t meant to be.

  Emily wasn’t sure how to handle such a level of directness.

  “Erm . . . ,” she stuttered.

  Marion smiled. “Don’t tell me the great Emily Davies is at a loss for words.”

  Emily frowned and folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t even know you. You don’t even know me. Why would you want to be friends with me? Why would I even want to be friends with you?”

  Marion’s smile broadened. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  “Really?” Emily didn’t believe him for one second.

  “Really,” Marion said. “That’s why I want to specially invite you to a party I’m throwing Sunday evening.”

  Emily swallowed hard. It wasn’t because she was being invited to his party; it was because she hadn’t known there was a party. Usually, this sort of thing reached her ears first. You know, Miss Popular and all.

  “Party?” Emily croaked.

  “Yeap,” Marion pressed his lips together and bobbed his head. “Up at my house. Nine till dawn. Everyone is coming.”

  “Everyone was invited?”

  “Nope, just you,” Marion said sarcastically. “Hey, this is high school. Do people really get invited to parties anymore?”

  Emily chuckled nervously. “I guess not.” She’d just had a party the previous weekend, and most of the attendees were people she didn’t even know.

  “So, would you come?” Marion prompted. “We could use the time to get to know each other, and then you’d see if you like me enough to accept my offer of friendship.”

  This was weird, but the offer was tempting. Emily wanted to say yes. But would she be free on Sunday? Would she even be alive by Sunday?

  Good question, Selena peeped.

  Emily ignored her. “Look, Marion, I’m sure you’re a great guy and all, but—”

  Marion cut her off there. “You don’t have to say anything now. Just think about it. If you’re feeling up to it on Sunday, you know where my house is. But I’ll be expecting you.”

  And then he did the strangest thing yet. He took her right hand like a gentleman and planted a light kiss on it before he turned and walked away.

  What in the world was that all about? Selena said what Emily was thinking.

  Hell if I know, was Emily’s only answer.

  33

  “What was that all about?” Joanna asked as Emily joined her in Joanna’s new car—it was the latest Saab. Black, savvy, and it screamed posh.

  “He’s throwing a party,” Emily replied.

  “Oh.” Joanna put the car in gear and drove out of the school lot.

  “Did you know there was a party?”

  Joanna shrugged. “I suppose. It’s been on the rumor mills this week.”

  They drove silently for ten minutes before Joanna added, “It’s kinda odd that he’d ask you to come to a party. Have you guys been having conversations behind my back?”

  Emily glanced at her friend. The cautiously guarded tone in Joanna’s voice could only mean one thing: She was jealous.

  Emily couldn’t help but break into a chuckle. “Is that jealousy I’m hearing?”

  “What?” Joanna blurted. “Hell no! I’m just concerned, is all.”

  “Hey, if you’re into him, no problem,” Emily said. “I don’t really like him like that. I’m too concerned about my dad and this rove right now. I don’t have time for that.”

  Joanna retorted, “Yeah, sure, we don’t have time for that—”

  “No, I don’t have time for that, you do,” Emily corrected. “Don’t put your life on hold for me, Jo. If you like him, by all means, go for him. I’m not interested.”

  Joanna remained silent as they drove through a very busy market. This was the shortest cut between school and where they needed to be.

  “Are you, by any chance, going to the party, though?” Joanna muttered like she didn’t care about the meeting, but Emily knew she was dying for her to say yes.

  Emily played along. She wasn’t going to make this easy for Joanna.

  That’s so wrong, Selena added.

  What can I say? Emily replied—she was practicing responding to Selena internally now. It was getting easier by the day. What are friends for? But to Joanna, she simply said, “No, I’m not.”

  Joanna stiffened a bit. “Any particular reason why?”

  Emily shrugged. “Erm, just don’t feel like it. We have a lot on our plate. If things go according to plan, we should be facing the rove this weekend.”

  On that note, the air in the car turned gloomy. Emily knew that Joanna didn’t yet trust Emily’s ability to defeat the rove. Joanna had yet to voice her concerns, but it was only a matter of time.

  The address Rina had given them was a small, shady-looking apartment building. It was old, and lots of its parts were made of wood. There was a window open on the side facing the road, and a woman spreading a few wet napkins on the rusty fire escape.

  Emily saw the problem immediately. The building was three floors. By the looks of it, there were three to five apartments to each floor. Which one belonged to Rina?

  “We have to call her,” Joanna said, pulling off the road and parking beside the main entrance—a small doorway with torn hinges and no door. It didn’t look safe. How could Rina work in such a dangerous-looking place?

  Emily pulled out her phone and dialed Rina. It took five rings to get an answer. Before Emily could speak, Rina was already spouting orders.

  “Last floor, third room on the right,” Rina said. “Check for tails.” The line went dead.

  Emily frowned at her phone.

  “What’s the problem?” Joanna asked.

  Emily shook her head. “She says we should check for tails.”

  Cocking her head to the side, Joanna raised an eyebrow. “Tails? What? You mean like someone following us?”

  “Yeah, I would assume. Rina probably likes all that ‘reporter-speak.’” Emily made air-quotes with her fingers as she said the last words. “Plus, she has a good point.”

  Joanna rolled her head along both shoulders to look from side to side, although she still looked in the rearview mirror. No strange car parked behind them. No creepy man in a trench coat and dark sunshades hovering about.

  “Clear,” Joanna announced.

  Emily led the way into the building. The place smelled of fish . . . weird. There were a few bums sleeping in the corridor and on the steps. Emily avoided them, while trying not to wake them. This area was starkly different from what she and Joanna were used to. Emily had to remind herself that even though she still felt like a pauper compared to Joanna’s money, Emily still had it way better than most. Especially Rina—apparently.

  “I’m so confused,” Emily leaned in and whispered to Joanna. “Aren’t Rina’s parents supposed to be rich and famous?”

  “Looks like Rina’s an even better storyteller than we realized,” Joanna scoffed as she examined the skeezy area.

  “Good lord.” Emily shook her head in astonishment. “Some people.” She raised her right hand to knock on the door just before she heard the sharp clicks of several bolts releasing. The door opened an inch, and Rina’s face peered into the hallway. Her eyes bulged in complete terror. Her breathing, even through the small opening, was audibly erratic.


  She glanced at Emily and then Joanna and then behind them into the corridor.

  “Rina, what’s going on?” Joanna asked, concerned.

  Rina’s head snapped to look back at them. “Did you come alone?” she asked, flatly refusing to answer Joanna’s question.

  “Yes . . . ,” Emily muttered. She’d observed the dark patches under the girl’s eyes. “Are you all right?”

  Rina shut the door. Seconds later, the door opened wide. She yanked them both in and slammed the door shut behind them. It took her a good thirty seconds to return the series of bolts to a locked position, locking all three of them in.

  The room was small and stuffed with books and papers. It also smelled of old cologne and clothes. There was a cot to the side with rumpled sheets and clothing. Near the only window—which was closed and boarded up—was a table. Rina’s laptop sat atop.

  Emily looked around, aghast; she hadn’t even know places this rundown even existed in New Haven. After all, New Haven was known for being the richest town in Texas.

  The overhead fan swung sluggishly slow, making a hell of a noise.

  As soon as Rina was done with the door, she returned to her laptop, muttering to herself. This version of Rina was starkly different from the Rina in Emily’s house the day after the party. What had happened? “Rina?”

  Rina looked up with a start. “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, take a seat. Give me a moment.”

  Emily glanced at the couch on the other side of the room. It was littered with a mound of even more clothes, books, and a moldy slice of pizza. She and Joanna exchanged worried looks.

  They remained standing for a good five minutes. During this time, Rina kept muttering to herself, typing feverishly on her laptop.

  “Michael—he told me everything,” she said with a snap. “And now he’s gone. And—”

  “Hold on,” Emily cut in. “Back up a little. Michael is gone?”

  Rina nodded. She was on the verge of tears. “He’s gone, and I think it’s the Alfreds. I think one of them is the rove.”

  Emily frowned. “Rina, you’re not making sense. What are you talking about?”

  “Start at the beginning,” Joanna coached. “Take us through it slowly.”

  Rina nodded and told her tale: She had planned to accost Michael with questions on the second day of the week, because she had loads of assignments she hadn’t done during her busy weekend. However, it was not to be, because seeing Marion Alfred somehow spooked Michael.

  He didn’t show it in class. The only reason Rina knew was because he told her over coffee immediately after school. He explained that in his portion of the vision, he saw the face of the “man of darkness”—the evil rove. He saw that the rove had ebony hair and bright orange eyes.

  He said the rove told him that he had the whole town under his spell, and that the vigilantes worked for him and didn’t know it. The rove planned to unleash Nadarog Maragog (Selena freaked at this point), and that Emily and her pithy crew could do nothing to stop it.

  And then the rove removed his veil of darkness and showed Michael his face. The evil rove had the same facial features as Marion. Same hair color. Same eye color. Same general build, but he was not Marion. The rove said that he was only showing Michael his face because it was customary for a rove to reveal his identity to another rove before killing him.

  The creature said that Michael was going to die because he was the second piece of the puzzle. He was the warlock that was required to unleash Nadarog Maragog.

  Michael took the dream lightly because it meant that he was a rove, which was just absurd. But that day in class when Marion showed up, he realized there could be some truth to his vision. And when Marion spoke about having siblings and parents in town, Michael realized with a sudden terror that the vision was true. Or would be true.

  It wasn’t the fact that he was going to die that terrified him. It was the fact that he was a rove. He was hell-bent on finding this rove who would kill him. He decided he was going to break into the Alfreds’ and look for the man—really to prove to himself that this vision thing was all nonsense. Rina tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t listen. Then Michael disappeared.

  “They got him, I’m telling you. They got him,” Rina ended.

  Emily and Joanna were left stupefied. For a full three minutes, they were silent. Even Rina understood the need to allow them time to come to grips with what they’d heard.

  When Emily finally found her voice, she asked only one question. “Michael is my brother?”

  34

  Joanna frowned and bit her lip. She opened her mouth in a bid to oppose Emily, but that was as far as she got before she closed her mouth and deepened her frown. “Hmm,” she breathed instead.

  “What are you talking about?” Rina didn’t get it. She didn’t know about what Aunt Anastacia had told Emily about her family or how there were two genes being passed down from generation to generation.

  At that, Emily explained everything to Rina.

  “Oh . . . ,” Rina muttered after she took in Emily’s words. “That makes sense then.”

  “But how?” asked Joanna. “Is Mr. Winter your father, too? Or is Michael your dad’s son?”

  Emily had no response to that question. She flat out didn’t know. She was realizing that there were a lot of things her mother hadn’t told her. It was either Michael was a rove and her blood brother, or he wasn’t a rove and the vision was a hoax. In either case, it was imperative they locate him. “We need to find Michael,” Emily replied. “If he’s gone to the Alfreds’, and they are a family of roves, we need to get him out.”

  “We also need to get answers from Mr. Winter,” Joanna pointed out. “Whichever way you want to look at this, he should be our first point of call. He needs to confirm that Michael is truly your brother.”

  Emily didn’t like the idea. First, Mr. Winter was still allegedly responsible for her mother’s death. Second, he was actively hunting people like her. The only place they’d find Mr. Winter now was in the lion’s den. Why would she walk into a complex filled with people who lived and breathed for her destruction? Plus, Michael must have left quite the seed of mistrust in some of the vigilantes. The moment she walked in, they’d instantly be suspicious of her.

  Yet, Emily understood the importance of rescuing Michael—if he needed rescue at all. Just because Michael wasn’t showing up in school didn’t mean he was missing.

  “Did you ask his parents, though?” Emily asked Rina.

  Rina looked offended. “What, do you think I’m an amateur, Emily? Is that what you think? That I’ve somehow gone off the deep end?”

  “Hey, relax, I didn’t mean it like that.” Emily held her hands out in a placating manner. “It’s just kinda strange that Michael would be missing and the whole town wouldn’t be out looking for him. Don’t you think?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Rina rolled her eyes. “It’s the warlock. He has the whole town under his thumb. He has somehow cast a spell. I don’t freaking know. He has Michael, and yet Michael’s parents would swear he’s just hanging out with me.”

  “You?” Joanna coughed. “Why you? And really? Hanging out for several days?”

  Rina shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It wouldn’t,” Emily said. She understood what the warlock had done. It was the same spell he had cast on her house. He’d wrecked the house and no one was the wiser. Even after he was gone, her neighbors still didn’t realize that a supernatural freight train had plowed through her home. “If he can cast a spell on the whole street, why can’t he cast a spell on the whole town?”

  “Wow,” Joanna muttered in awe. “So he really does have the whole town under his spell?”

  “What I don’t understand is why we weren’t affected.” Emily chewed her lip, puzzling over the issue.

  Knowledge, Selena said. It’s difficult to ensnare the mind of someone who is aware of your existence and a portion of your plan. Especially when your spell is a
blanket spell.

  Selena’s explanation made a whole lot of sense. Emily shared it with the group.

  “So we’re the only ones in town who are . . . awake, so to speak?” asked Rina, wide-eyed.

  “It seems so.” Emily nodded. “We need to find Mr. Winter.” She pursed her lips in exasperation. It was absurd that even the vigilantes, who maliciously tracked supernaturals, had been utterly mellowed by a simple blanket spell. “I need to be sure Michael is my brother. If he is, then we know the game is afoot, and we’re losing.”

  It took a lot of convincing to get Rina to leave the apartment with them. In fact, it was informing her that Aunt Anastacia was possibly a rove (even more likely now that Michael seemed to be rove as well) that got Rina to agree. Even at that, just to humor her, they had to tolerate a few totally useless safety precautions. Like climbing out the back fire escape in case the front of the building was being monitored.

  They also had to wear disguises to go around the building to where Joanna’s car was parked in front. Even then, Rina refused to take off the scarf she wrapped around her head, and still after they had been driving for ten minutes.

  At some point, Joanna glanced at Emily. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She motioned at the rearview mirror. Rina was now dozing off.

  Emily nodded. Maybe the rove got to her. Screwed around with her head. Maybe she was currently under a spell. Maybe she was leading them into a trap. Who knew? “What choice do we have?”

  Joanna shrugged. “None.”

  The vigilante facility was a large complex sitting on the edge of a small lake. It was a three-story complex surrounded by a high fence. They had to pass through a series of security checkpoints. Emily flashed the card Mr. Winter had given her, and they were let through every checkpoint.

  They parked in a special visitor’s lot and were assigned an escort through the large facility. It was not really clear how the vigilantes operated. They didn’t have a uniform or anything. They did, however, have a crested jacket, which operatives were required to wear during operations. They also carried standard-issue weapons as well as specialized weapons they used to fight specialized foes.