by Maia Starr
Salem had been everything she expected it to be. Small and extremely local, strung along on a rhythm of quiet chatter between native residents and warm breezes that blew through every once in a while. Bright cardinals fluttered over houses and buildings, landing on thin tree branches, opening their vocal cords to sing briskly to other birds passing by.
No matter where Eliza went, the sun shone down on her as well, giving her that warm, relaxed feeling, the feeling of happy safety amid a new town. It was important for someone to have that feeling when first moving to a new city or town, at least in Eliza’s eye. If one was too stubborn, or too gloomy at the thought of packing up their belongings and suddenly moving to a new place, then things wouldn’t go well. So Eliza wore a smile, bright and cheerful, waving at the older ladies and gentlemen who tipped their hats to her. There were even a few people her age, or close enough, who stopped to chat and ask where she had come from. Those very acts of going out of their way to welcome her into their little hometown were what sold Eliza.
This move might be even better than I thought it would be.
Turning onto a street she didn’t recognize, Eliza started down it, humming along. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted another local across the street. A man, eyeing her, his lips curled upwards in a strange, accentuated way. Curious, Eliza waved, and he waved back, though his wave was slow, and something about it simply felt off to Eliza. Continuing on, she ventured a look behind her once she was past the man, and saw him still staring after her, his eyes rising from her hips to meet her gaze.
Quickening her pace, Eliza entered a popcorn store, clutched at her thumping chest, and calmed herself while she bought a bag of classic popcorn.
What’s wrong with me? The guy was just checking me out, though why do I feel like there was something more there?
Pushing open the door to step down the steps to the outside, Eliza nearly ran into the same man. He flinched back at the opening of the door, his hand still outstretched from when he was going for the handle, and instead, a cool smile spread over his lips. “Pardon me, I was—”
But Eliza slid by him, unable to help herself. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to get in your way.” And she was off, hurrying down the street like she was late to a meeting in some office building.
Reaching a park, Eliza stared back, seeing no sign of the man following her. She rubbed her forehead and then slapped her cheeks. What was wrong with her? Why did she just run from that guy? He hadn’t done anything wrong...not yet, anyway. Maybe he had just picked up something she’d accidentally dropped and wanted to return it. After thinking about it, Eliza suddenly opened her purse and rummaged around, counting up that everything was still in place. So that couldn’t have been it then.
Sitting down on a park bench, Eliza sighed and took out her phone to distract her mind. After opening the weather app, she glanced up and saw someone duck behind a thick tree on the other side of the little park. Blinking, she waited, staring, and eventually caught sight of the figure looking out again. Eyes dark and startling locked with hers, narrowed, and then hid behind the tree again.
Rising to her feet, Eliza’s chest hammered as she stepped away. Her mind was so focused on spying the man peeking at her that the fresh batch of popcorn got left behind. Thankfully Eliza didn’t notice another man come up and pick up the popcorn bag, sniffing it, and then swinging his gaze in her direction.
Deciding to go home early, Eliza took the most direct route home, swearing she spotted the same men walking parallel to her on the other side of the street. Unsure of who they were, and why they were following her, there was only one logical conclusion she could make: they were stalkers. Maybe Salem really was too perfect after all. News might have spread that a woman her age had moved into town since it was so small. She’d only hope that she wouldn’t have men following her everywhere now.
Arriving at the coffee shop above her apartment, Eliza, glanced around, seeing a fourth set of eyes staring her way, the pressure of the gaze heating her cheeks, and then she stepped down onto the walkway and jogged to her front door. Pulling out her jingling keys, she unlocked her front door, stepped inside, and slammed and locked the door.
So life in Salem wouldn’t be so perfect after all. She supposed there were weirdos in every town. As long as those men didn’t take things too far...
Chapter Four
Eliza
Eliza had expected her first class to be small, but not this small. There were five other people in the lecture hall, which really couldn’t be considered a hall so much since it was simply a small room with a few chairs and desks. But whatever floated the university’s boat didn’t really bother her too much.
But still, only five other students in this course? Eliza was nearly in shock the moment she’d walked in to spy the five others. Two had already been deep in conversation, while a third was blasting rock music from his headphones, and the other two were either asleep or reading. She knew Salem was small, but there had to be more people applying from outside of town. She was sure of it.
She sighed as she stared out a window that gave a view of the road leading up to the very front of the university entrance, resting her chin on her hand as she stared out.
More than once, she had tried to strike up conversations with the others, but none were too inclined to speak with her. As much as she hated to admit it, making friends in Salem was harder than it seemed. Even during the past three days, Eliza had difficulty keeping up with the locals, mostly older men and women hellbent on telling her about all the strangeness she had apparently jumped in to. Frankly, the very idea that all the locals would talk about were baseless rumors irked her. Even the people her age seemed to want talk about nothing else. Not even small talk!
Sighing heavily again, she glanced over to find the guy reading glaring at her. She straightened, embarrassed for disturbing him, and smiled apologetically. He grunted and went back to reading his book.
So she slumped, resting her forehead on her crossed arms as she waited for class to start. Another fifteen minutes and Professor Allard would walk in. At least the Professor couldn’t afford to simply ignore her.
Maybe another student would walk in before then?
As if on cue, the door to the lecture hall swung open with a start, and a blond haired, bright-eyed young man walked in. Eliza watched him huff and puff as he shut the door, a messenger bag swinging from his shoulder. Tall and relatively thin, the young man looked around for a seat as he walked up and down the columns, and then locked eyes with Eliza.
She blinked before it registered that the man was staring at her, and she straightened audibly as he shuffled between gaps in the chairs and desks to sit down next to her. He flashed a handsome smile at her, one that showed off the straight, pearly whites that glinted in the sunlight rolling in from the long window. Wide-eyed, she watched as the man extended his hand.
“Hi, I’m Jesse; you’re new in Salem, right?”
Almost robotically, Eliza gripped his hand. Strong, and muscled. Oh dearie me. “Uh, yeah. Name’s Eliza. From out of town.”
“To come to be taught by the great Gabriel Allard, right?”
Eliza straightened again, her handshake now becoming animate. “Yes! I’ve heard he’s a genius! He is, isn’t he? Do you know him? Are you a local?”
At her barrage of questions, Jesse’s brows raised. “Well, aren’t you excited. First of all, yes, he’s a genius. Second, yes, I know him. We’re pretty good friends. Third, yes, I’m from Salem...though I live on the very edges of town.”
It occurred to Eliza that she was still shaking Jesse’s hand, and let go with a blush to her face, leaving Jesse to laugh handsomely. “Sorry. Sometimes I get too excited.”
“You don’t say...aren’t you a little young, though?” Jesse asked, his brow raised. “To be in this class? It’s graduate, after all. You can’t be more than twenty.”
“Twenty-five.”
“No way!” Jesse’s tawny eyes looked her up and down, th
e act making her conscious of her heart beating. “You’re joking.”
“I am not!”
“Damn, that would make you older than me, then.” Jesse’s relaxed gaze caught hers. “Not that I mind a year’s difference.”
A nervous smile crept onto her lips and Eliza chuckled, happy to be going from pure, frustrating silence to suddenly being complimented. It wasn’t every day someone handsome suddenly came in and locked eyes with her. No, that was simply a part of her dreams. As he laughed, however, she glanced out the window and back to the forest and spotted for a split second an oversized wolf staring at her from across the clean-cut lawn. Eyes the color of sunlight observed her incessantly before the massive creature padded backward. She blinked, and the thing was gone. Another figment of her constant imagination.
“So why here?” Jesse suddenly asked, causing her to snap back around to him. “I mean, besides Gabriel. Do you want to be a doctor?”
“Of course! I mean, I applied here specifically for graduate studies in pre-med and the like.”
“Well, hot damn, you’ll be following the same curriculum as me then,” he said, his grin growing. “Why a doctor though? With killer looks like yours, you could have been an actress.”
“Because both my mom and dad work in the medical field,” she answered, leaning forward. “I grew up around it. I remember hearing about the first time my dad saved someone’s life. I thought it was so cool!”
Jesse shook his head dramatically. “Typical backstory!”
Playfully, Eliza slapped his shoulder, eliciting a hearty laugh from him once again. I could get used to that laugh.
Jesse opened his mouth to say more but closed it, hesitation written all over his face. But he ended up speaking anyway. “And the rumors? They don’t bother you?”
Most of the other graduate students turned to hear her response, their eyes sparkling and striking, as if her next words were more than a simple opinion.
Eliza raised a brow. “The ones about the shapeshifters?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s all nonsense. That stuff comes from fairytales. I barely even paid any attention to them before moving here.”
“And the ones about kidnappings?”
“There were kidnappings in Salem?” she said, eyes wide. “That’s news to me.”
Jesse shrugged, his facial features twisting awkwardly. “Yeah, they weren’t just rumors either. Young women like you being snatched up left and right, by men who, uh, weren’t so nice to them.”
Eliza shuddered. “Seriously? That’s scary…”
As if to right what he thought would damage her view of Salem, Jesse stammered and leaned closer to her, letting her get a whiff of something musky coming from his wavy hair. “Well, the kidnappings are over with now...mostly, anyway. There’s nothing to worry about. The assholes who were behind it all were punished already.”
Smiling her understanding, Eliza nodded. “Don’t worry; I get what you’re saying, Jesse.”
The next moment, the door to the lecture hall opened again, this time with a much more reigned-in force of strength. In strode a gray-haired, steely-eyed, middle-aged man, black-rimmed glasses framing his deep-set eyes. His lips were tightly sealed as he placed a bundle of books and folders nearly bursting with papers down on the front desk. Grunting, he turned to pick up a piece of blue chalk and began to write on the massive green chalkboard behind him.
Leaning over, Eliza whispered to Jesse. “Don’t tell me...is that—”
“Gabriel? The one and only.”
Suddenly a surge of hot excitement coursed through her veins like adrenaline, and it finally hit Eliza that she was about to learn from one of the best doctors in the country.
Turning on his heel to face the front again, Gabriel’s almost reptilian gaze darted around the room, landing on Jesse, and then Eliza herself. He regarded her for a split second before returning his gaze to the general room and opening his mouth to speak loudly.
“My name is Professor Gabriel Allard, and I suppose I’ll be your instructor for this class. I’m not good with introductions and the like, so let’s get started. I’ll learn your names as we go.”
Jesse leaned over, his breath warm against her ear. “I’ll introduce you after class.”
The suggestion made her smile uncontrollably.
Chapter Five
Ethan
Metalsmithing was a difficult art to master, even in the modern age. To be able to shape the metal, the smith needed to be unrelenting in his strikes, precise in the amount of force he used to pound the molten metal, or gentle in how he shaped glass. Due to the heat, a metalsmith, even in the modern era, needed to have a higher tolerance, ready to sweat constantly throughout his time in the shop, ready to get blisters and burns where he least wanted. And endurance, oh, Ethan didn’t even want to get started on the sheer amount of endurance needed to get a project finished on time without any failures. Orders for utensils and tools came in all the time, even more so for custom orders.
The steady supply of orders meant there was always something to work on, and always money coming in. The job suited him like nothing else did, especially since he was practically born for it. With his strength and ability to control how much force he put into striking metals and shaping them, Ethan continuously earned employee of the month. The heat was bearable, despite the sweat that glistened and made his tanned skin shine.
He wondered, for the slightest moment, what Maia, might have been doing during those moments he worked overtime. Where had she flitted off to all those nights he’d come home and collapsed in their bed, only to wake up the next morning to feel the cold that had seeped into her side during the night?
Ethan’s strikes at the metal became strangely more rushed while he thought of his former mate.
“Hey, Ethan’s at it again!” a coworker called out as Ethan struck a heated orange-yellow bar of steel. The voice died out in the ringing from the steel, his words failing to reach some of the others in the shop. Only one other guy turned to observe Ethan’s work. The one who’d spoken watched in awe and grinned. “There goes my bid for employee of the month. Damn, man, how do you have so much energy? You’ve been going all day?”
Ethan stopped for a second and glanced over his shoulder and smiled. “Just working off some energy, man. I’ve got a lot built up today. Hard for me to sit still.”
“But that order isn’t due for a whole week yet!” the man said, eyeing Ethan. “You’re not even human, working at that pace.”
“It’s like he’s one of those shapeshifters,” another called out.
“Yeah, he’s too perfect,” a third said from somewhere behind all the heavy machinery, the voice echoing.
“Superhuman my ass,” the first said. “Say, if you were a shapeshifter or whatever, I wonder what kind you would be?”
Ethan shuffled uncomfortably, straining to keep his composure. A smirk appeared across his flame-licked lips. “Maybe a lion shifter?” he called out.
The first man scoffed. “Lion? There ain’t no lions in these woods, buddy. Pick another?”
“Chipmunk shifter?”
The second and third man who had spoken laughed, while the first simply smiled. “I like your thinking, Ethan! Not too bad a thought.”
“I never have bad thoughts,” Ethan replied, turning his gaze back to the nearly molten steel. He angled his hammer once again and struck down, but at that instant, a pang of something feral gripped his mind, and he smacked the very edge of the steel ingot, the blow bouncing off and almost hitting his knee on the backswing.
Ethan doubled-over as the pain surged through his body, growling as his dragon inside rammed against its cage.
No! Calm down, Ethan, calm down! Now’s not the time to go insane.
Virtually unaware that the other metalsmiths had noticed him nearly collapse, Ethan was caught off guard when the first clasped his shoulder. “You okay, man?” Throwing off the grip, Ethan bared his teeth at the men and glared at the
m, his feral eyes causing them to shiver and jerk back. “Woah, woah! Calm down; we just wanted to make sure you were okay, is all. There’s no need to get mad at us, is there, pal?”
Realizing what he was doing, Ethan forcefully calmed himself, shaking the cage holding in his dragon. Calm again, Ethan sighed and rose to his feet, placing the hammer on a tray nearby. “I think I need fresh air. Can one of you handle the shaping for me right now?”
“Sure thing!” the first man said. “Count on me, man.”
And so he did, trudging past the first man to the backdoor, shoving it open to reveal bright sunlight nearly blinding him. Stepping outside, he slammed the door shut just as his co-worker struck the steel he left at his workstation. The muffled strikes from inside helped to give Ethan a rhythm to calm himself to, taking deep breaths, even as he felt his insanity try to spread once again.
I didn’t realize it would be this bad, going without a mate. Why do alphas go feral so quickly? I guess I really should find a mate sooner rather than later, so I don’t need to worry about this crap.
“Are you alright?”
The voice came from Ethan’s left, the voice of a woman, familiar to Ethan even as he struggled to focus. Staring at the woman, he recognized her as another of his clan. Another dragon shifter. “Here to give me some sort of update on the Cave Dragons?”
“Not anything to do with our clan. No one’s gotten into trouble or anything like that.”
“Good. I expect decent acts from all of you,” Ethan said, rubbing his eyes. The sweat had rolled down, making his eyes burn like crazy. “I’d kick any of your asses myself if one of you was caught doing something not so pretty.”
The dragon shifter smiled, her dimples cute beneath the light. Ethan blinked. “You wouldn’t happen to be mateless, would you?”
The shifter chuckled. “Unfortunately for you, I’m taken. But that’s why I’m here.”
