by Selena Scott
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
(The Dragon Realm Series - Book 1 Preview)
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
(Secret Shifters of Spokane Series – Book 1 Preview)
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
Copyright 2017 by Selena Scott - All rights reserved.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Kain’s Game
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chosen by the Dragon
(The Dragon Realm Series - Book 1 Preview)
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
Danil’s Mate
(Secret Shifters of Spokane Series – Book 1 Preview)
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
Kain’s Game
PROLOGUE
Valentina wasn’t angry. She was furious. She sprinted deftly down the edge of the river, her eyes on a perfect, low-hanging willow branch. She sprang, gripping the branch and letting momentum rocket her out toward the middle of the river. She let go at the perfect moment and cleanly dislodged her brother from the floating log he’d stolen from her moments ago.
Their father roared with laughter from the bank of the lazy river as John Alec surfaced, sputtering, river grass in his hair. “That’s what you get, John! For trying to steal from our Valentina.”
She lounged atop the log and stuck her tongue out at him, laughing when he sent an armful of water straight into her face.
They scuffled in the fresh, clean river, playing as they so rarely got to. Every once in a great while, their father gave them the day off from training. The two little warriors, 11 and 8 years old, were very serious about their skills. They began and ended every day with weapons practice. A bit of sparring was thrown in here and there every day as well, not to mention hunting and trapping. Valentina was extremely proud of her abilities as a warrior, especially when it meant dunking her older brother in the river.
But today had been so beautiful, all golden sun and achingly blue skies, that their father had opted for a resting day. He’d chosen a particularly lazy stretch of river, found himself a tree to lean against, and watched his children play.
It was moments like these when he missed their mother so much he almost couldn’t see straight. He knew it was selfish to keep his children in such rigorous training, but it was still the only time he ever felt that he could breathe.
Perhaps a different kind of father might have laid down his mantle when his children came along. But the man was a fighter. He fought for freedom. For the humanity of shifters. They were the enslaved of his planet and it disgusted him to no end. He supposed he could have given up the fight, moved to a small village and taught his children about the simple life. But somewhere in his heart, he knew it would have been like a poison in his veins. He would have wasted away without fighting for what he believed in.
Seeing the two of them, John Alec with his honorable way of fighting, always taking care not to hurt his sister, and Valentina with her vicious efficiency, winning as quickly as possible, he knew that he’d made the right decision. His children were warriors to the bone. To deprive them of that would have been to take some vital nutrient from their diet.
His eyes drifted closed here and there as he watched them, tired from fighting each other and now floating on their backs. He had a dream. A disturbing one where he was very far away from his children while they played. And each time he took a step closer, he was a step farther away.
His eyes came open to the sunny day and when he looked at the river, his skin chilled. There was a man standing on the opposite river bank. And not just any man. He wore the bones of a shifter over his face and in an intricate armor over his chest and legs. He wore the dress of the hunters. Those that hunted down shifters and brought them to Herta to be enslaved. He was still, blending in with the shadows behind him, and staring at the children.
He didn’t call out to them, he didn’t have to. He simply shifted in that alert way of his and they knew that something was wrong. John Alec’s eyes flew to his father, Valentina’s eyes flew to the intruder.
The children had been warned of hunters countless times. They knew that hunters would kill them, simply for being allies to the shifters.
Alec shifted in the water and his father knew that he’d picked up a stone with his toes, was shifting it to his hand. Good boy.
But Valentina was still, half on the log and half in the water, her honey-brown eyes taking up her whole, eight-year-old face.
The hunter sprang, drawing the bow from his back and pointing it at the children. But he was struck with three things first. The second and third things were the rock from Alec’s hand and the hatchet from their father’s. The first was the small knife from Valentina’s little fist. It had landed directly in the man’s heart. He probably hadn’t even felt the other two things strike him.
Valentina was the first to rise. She climbed up onto the bank and kicked at the dead man’s foot. Next she took her father’s hatchet out of his belly. And last, she snicked her knife out of his ribcage, washing it in the river.
It was her first kill.
CHAPTER ONE
HERTA
Valentina tipped her blade to catch the firelight. She frowned. Not sharp enough. She kept her eyes on the knife so that she wouldn’t look across the fire.
Her brother had brought the clown again. And that made Valentina frown, too.
She much preferred it when John Alec brought his serious-minded, kick-ass warrior wife. Not the wife’s brother. This silly, joke-making fool.
Valentina looked up and took a quick moment to observe the fool in question. His long legs extended out from him, one bent at the knee, as he lay on his back next to the fire and watched the night sky. His shaggy blond hair was inside that strange cap he wore. All black and boxy with a big brim that just extended from the front. His eyes were closed but she knew he wasn’t sleeping. She knew because he was crunching something in his mouth. She would have bet her favorite dagger that it was— yup. She was right. She smirked to herself as he absently tipped his head to the side and spat pistachio shells into the fire.
What an idiot.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like Kain Keto. He just annoyed her. And she happened to think that freeing enslaved shifters from Herta was very serious b
usiness. And the way he lazily lay around their campsite put her teeth on edge. The way it always did. Every time she’d seen him for the last year and a half.
He was a good fighter, though. She’d give him that much.
John Alec came around the fire holding that ridiculous glowing earth tool that he seemed to love so much these days. Living on Earth with his wife had changed her brother in a lot of ways. All of them she approved of. Except for his fondness for this iPad thing.
“Stop frowning at me,” John Alec said good-naturedly as he sat down beside her.
“It’s not you I’m frowning at.”
John Alec’s eyes instantly roved across the fire to his brother-in-law crunching pistachios and looking for all the world like he was lying on the beach somewhere. Instead of in a hostile world that was designed in every way to enslave him, body and soul. But that was just the kind of guy that Kain was; his feathers were very hard to ruffle. “He’s not so bad, you know. If you’d bothered to know him at all over the last year and a half.”
“I know him just fine,” Valentina answered with just a touch of that royal aloofness she employed when she felt a little bad. “And it wasn’t him I was frowning at. It was the devil’s play-toy that you love more than life itself.”
John Alec let out a small noise of frustration for his little sister. “You would like the iPad if you would just learn to use it.” He pinched the bridge of his noise. “Never mind. I refuse to have this argument again.”
Across the campsite, Kain spit more pistachio shells into the fire and Valentina shifted in annoyance.
“You know, they help him,” John Alec said in a low voice. One that had just a hint of disappointment in it. Valentina hated it when he used that voice.
“What?”
“The pistachio shells, they help Kain with the Struggles.” He was referring to the bone-deep discomfort of any shifter when they were in the world of Herta. Something about the nature of Herta was like poison in a shifter’s blood. It made a shifter tired, uncomfortable, it willed a shifter to succumb to a master. Especially if they shifted. Which Kain did not do whenever he was in Herta. It was too dangerous to shift. If he did, he might never be able to shift back. He’d be in his bear form for the rest of his life, searching for a master. So whenever any of the Ketos came with John Alec into Herta, it was a constant resistance to the Struggles. A constant management of pain.
Valentina felt a burst of regret for having been so annoyed by him. She knew it must be painful to lie so casually by the fire. He’d been in Herta for three days this time. At that point in a trip, Milla, John Alec’s wife, would be sitting in a tight crouch, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. It hit Valentina then, that all of them dealt with it in a different way. All of the Ketos.
Whenever Ansel, the oldest Keto, came on these missions, he was quiet the entire time. And by the end of the trip, he wasn’t even responding to yes or no questions. Inka, Milla’s semi-loopy twin sister, would jabber on and on about things that Valentina had never even heard of. By the end of a mission, Inka would literally be talking to the squirrels, the owls, the trees.
But he cracked those shells again and Valentina couldn’t help the naturally hot streak of annoyance that burned through her.
“He’s my wife’s family,” John Alec spoke. “Valentina. He’s my family.”
Something lonely and cold slithered its way into Valentina’s chest. John Alec had other family. He had another home. He had a whole other world. Her only family didn’t need her the same way she needed him. And that had her sheathing her sharpened dagger at her hip and leaning toward the iPad. “Show me your plan of attack.”
If there was one thing that fulfilled her in this life, it was her dedication to freeing the enslaved shifters of Herta.
John Alec pulled up the map of the surrounding mountain on his iPad and started drawing lines and arrows, showing her what they would do come morning.
Valentina was intently listening to her brother lay out the plan when Williams, Valentina’s lover, came out of the shadows of the forest. He’d been patrolling, but now he wanted to hear the game plan for tomorrow.
Williams sat next to Valentina, his hand going around her waist. Valentina was listening to her brother speak with such focus that she didn’t even notice that the cold feeling in her chest hadn’t gone away at all.
***
Across the fire, Kain Keto kept his eyes half slitted against the stars. He kept them fuzzy because if he focused on them, with all their glittering sharpness, he felt even more pain gather behind his eyes. The third day on Herta was usually the worst. Because on the fourth day, at least he generally knew he was going home.
The last time he’d stepped through the portal and back onto Earth, Kain had shifted so fast he’d torn his favorite pair of jeans to shreds. He hadn’t cared at all. Shifting just felt so damn good after days of not being able to do it.
And the Struggles weren’t exactly a cakewalk either.
He popped some more pistachios and rolled them around in his mouth, concentrating on those instead. Honestly, the pain of existing on Herta wasn’t even what was bothering him the most.
What was really bothering him was the black-haired, muscle-bound grunter across the fire.
Yeah. Kain was not a fan of Williams.
First of all, he thought the ‘s’ at the end of his name was dumb. Second, he thought the fact that he was constantly off patrolling in the woods was dumb. A waste of energy and time. With his heightened shifter senses, Kain didn’t need a security guard. The guy was about as useful as a mall cop. And third, he thought the way Williams treated Valentina was dumb as hell.
Williams touched Valentina absently, like he’d forgotten she was even there, sitting next to him, looking all cute and big-eyed.
A small smile traced over Kain’s lips when he thought of what Valentina would do if he ever called her cute to her face. Probably stab him somewhere. She knew that Kain was a quick healer, like all the Ketos. Basically anywhere she got him would heal in a matter of minutes. And she’d threatened to do it before.
Kain decided that it would probably be worth the pain to see those big eyes narrow in irritation. He liked the way she looked all the time, with those light brown eyes, just this side of hazel, and her light brown hair to match, always in that complicated plait down her back. He liked her woodsy, tunic-y clothes. And he liked every single one of the dozens of weapons she kept on her person at all times.
But she had a man, as dumb as that man might be. So Kain kept his distance. She was attractive. And Kain liked attractive women. Actually, he liked women of all kinds. And he had the Tinder history to prove it. He wasn’t exactly what one might call picky.
Kain cleared his throat and shifted slightly, avoiding the temptation to jostle his leg up and down in discomfort. He hoped he could get some sleep tonight.
Fat chance. He needed to shift. He needed to get the fuck off of Herta. And he needed a woman. Somebody soft and sweet and willing to help him forget about the world for just a few hours.
Their voices died down across the fire and Kain knew they were done discussing the plan for tomorrow. He heard John Alec shuffle off to his bedroll. Kain knew that he should probably get up and go to his own, but he was so uncomfortable, going out of his skin so hard, that the idea of moving was akin to sticking needles under his toenails.
Kain smirked when he heard Valentina and Williams shuffling around. Though he’d never once seen them cuddle, they always slept next to one another. Kain pictured, for just one bright second, what it would be like to have her body heat next to him right that very second.
He tugged the brim of his baseball hat down over his eyes and blocked the light.
Williams was a bonafide douche. But he was also a very lucky man.
***
It was several hours later when something woke Valentina. A small noise in the night. Williams slept like a log beside her, like he always did. And when she glanced up, she
saw that her brother slept as well. Her eyes went next to Kain. But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t on his bedroll or next to the fire.
Valentina narrowed her eyes for a moment but laid her head back down. John Alec’s words rolled back through her mind.
He’s my family.
She rose silently. Valentina cocked an ear to listen for the sound of him again. She didn’t have the super human senses that shifters had, but she’d lived her entire life on high alert, just trying to survive. She depended on her senses to guide her. And sure enough, seconds later, she heard the sound of dripping water.
She didn’t put on her boots or her coat, as she didn’t want to wake the others. She suppressed a small shiver from the chilly early summer air as she stepped through the forest toward the creek.
And that’s where she found him. He crouched over the shallow, bubbling creek and brought water to his mouth in the palm of his hand. She paused when she saw his face. He was grimacing in pain.
She’d never seen that before.
She’d seen Kain smirk. She’d seen him flirt. Laugh, roll his eyes, whistle in amazement. But never pain. It tugged her forward.
His shifter senses had him looking up at her as she approached and she narrowed her eyes at him as he immediately smoothed away the pain off his face.
“Hey, sunshine. You’re up late.”
She narrowed her eyes even more. First of all, she hated when he called her that. And second of all, she distrusted the way he immediately hid his pain. How normal his voice would have sounded had she not just witnessed his grimace of pain.
She crouched next to him on the bank of the creek. His green eyes were on the water, not on her.
“You’re in pain.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Herta’s not exactly a vacation spot for shifters.”
She ignored his joke. “How bad is it?”
