Their Shifter Princess

by May Dawson

  Chapter 22

  When I let myself into the house, everything was quiet and still. I carried my purse stiffly across the entryway to the stairs, listening for any sound. Maybe Maddie had fallen asleep after her teary message. When she woke up, I’d be there and everything would be okay.

  “Good morning, Piper,” my father said acerbically from the doorway to the kitchen.

  God damn it. I stopped with my foot on the first stair and faced him. “Good morning, Dad.”

  “When I said you could choose your own curfew, I thought the same boy who took you out would bring you home.” His voice was deadly quiet. “Instead, Eli’s father says he was attacked last night…by a boy you seem to have taken a shine to. A boy who’s all bad news.”

  “Eli wasn’t very nice to me last night,” I said, in the understatement of the century. But I couldn’t tell my father about the magic. He wouldn’t believe me.

  But if he did, that would be even worse. The last thing my father needed was to add to his power.

  “You’ve been nothing but trouble since the day you were born,” he said. “It was a terrible storm that night. The Heavens rattling, lightning striking the trees around the house. It was like God himself was furious about your entry into the universe.”

  Well, that was a nice bedtime story. It was one I’d heard before. My father loved to talk about how I’d always been a pain in the ass.

  “Maybe God was just excited about what an awesome little person He’d just sent off into the world,” I said, my mouth moving faster than my brain. I’d thought it before, but I didn’t mean to say it. Every once in a while, my love of a good quip overwhelmed my self-preservation instincts. I flashed a smile at my father, hoping to soften my words and sound like I wasn’t arguing with him. “It sounds like it was quite the birthday party to me.”

  Something dark flashed in his eyes, like a memory had just occurred to him. “Oh, it was. It’s too bad you don’t remember.”

  “That childhood amnesia.” I found the phenomenon fascinating; little children were supposed to remember their births and toddler years, then forget them before they were old enough to tell us much about what they’d seen. I wished I remembered any of my early days; I didn’t have any memories of a mother who loved me.

  My father’s gaze sharpened, fixed on my neck. I’d tucked the necklace into my shirt, and now I fought the impulse to reach up and touch my collar, to make sure it was still hidden.

  “Who gave you that, Piper?” he asked.

  He was going to be even more furious I’d disrespected his friend’s son after Eli had given me a gift. Lying wouldn’t help me now, though. “Eli.”

  He was at my side in two quick strides, and he grabbed my necklace with his fingers, trying to wrench it away. I cried out as pain raced through my body, my vision darkening around the edges. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the cold tiles.

  “What did you do?” he ground through gritted teeth.

  Then he grabbed the necklace in his fist and yanked me across the floor. I fought to pry his fingers away. I kicked out, trying to get a purchase with my heels on the slick floor, but I couldn’t stop him. He dragged me relentlessly through the house to the garage as the metal cut into my throat.

  It was only when he’d gotten the trunk open that he released his grip on my necklace. Before I could gather my wits, he bent and grabbed me around the legs, tossing me easily into the back of the car.

  His furious eyes met mine as I reached up for the hatch, trying to stop him from closing me in.

  “Please don’t,” I said, my voice coming out broken and raspy; I coughed, still choking from the way he’d dragged me. “Please.”

  There had to be some part of him that loved me, or that had loved me once. I had to reach that part of him.

  He didn’t say anything. He just slammed the trunk shut.

  Suddenly I was all alone in the black fabric interior. I drew a panicked breath. Calm down, Piper. You need to get ready to fight back. Don’t wimp out now.

  Well, maybe I could take a minute or two to panic.

  I searched frantically across the rough black fabric. I’d been carrying my purse. Had I dropped it in the struggle? If I had my phone, I’d have a chance. Or where was the release—there was a release on the inside of every trunk, but I didn’t know where it was. I searched frantically until I found a wire loop to one side of the hatch, and I yanked on it desperately. Nothing happened.

  My father might have always planned for things to end up like this.

  I hadn’t found his emergency kit either. If I could find scissors, or a flare, or something I could use for a weapon…but it seemed as though he had stripped everything out of the trunk. Tears blurred my eyes in my frustration, but I blinked them away. Think, Piper.

  The car shook, the rumble of road noise loud as if we were traveling over gravel, and the cold seeped into my muscles, making them even more sore and tense. The prolonged pain from the necklace had left every muscle aching.

  I was going to have to be smart. Was my father bringing me out into the woods to kill me, or did he have another plan?

  The car slowed. I curled up on my side, drawing my knees up to protect my organs. I wanted to be ready to launch myself out of the car, but I wasn’t sure I had the strength in my muscles now.

  When the car stopped, I fought a sharp rise of bile. I was terrified, and the adrenaline flooding my body wasn’t helping when I couldn’t move. The minutes ticked by, and I was left alone.

  The trunk popped open. My father looked down at me, a dark metal gun in his hand. The barrel took all my attention. It gaped wide, staring at me, full of the promise of death.

  “Get out,” my father said impatiently. “I’m not going to hurt you, Piper. I just didn’t want your sister to see you like this. And I know you—I don’t want any of your antics.”

  For Maddie to see me like this? Like what? Still, he stepped back from the car, gesturing with the gun.

  I swiveled my legs over the back of the hatch and eased myself out, testing my unsteady legs. As soon as I was out, my father grabbed the necklace at the back of my neck, inadvertently ripping out the strands of my hair in his way. I groaned, and then the pain lanced through my neck, radiating through my body. My knees weakened again.

  “It hurts.” My voice came out as a whimper.

  He jerked me close to him, so my ear was close to his mouth, before he said, “Oh, I know.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Dad? Where are we going?”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, proving—once again—that he and I had very different definitions of hurt.

  I was pretty sure he meant he wasn’t going to kill me, at least not yet, which was a pretty low bar to set on parenting.

  “You’re lucky Maddie’s useless to me still,” he said, dragging me toward a small hunting cabin in front of us.

  Hearing my sister’s name on his lips gave me a spike of energy, and I reached back to grab his hand. He wrenched harder on the necklace, which gouged deep into my throat, cutting off my airway. I gagged as pain spiked through my throat, worse than before. When I stumbled, my father just dragged me with him, up the stairs that loomed large in my vision, across the porch.

  He pushed open the door and I had the blurriest sense of the room around us—a fireplace, a kitchen counter, a bed in the corner—before I saw the open trap door, the rug rolled back haphazardly next to it.

  “Your choice if you climb down the ladder or fall down,” my father said, his voice calm.

  “I’ll go,” I said, desperate to get his hand off me for a minute.

  “I don’t want to shoot you, Piper, but I will,” he said, and I didn’t doubt him. “You’ll survive a leg wound, but it will make you quite uncomfortable.”

  “I’ll go down,” I said.

  “Good.” He released me. The barrel of the gun gazed at me again. “Good girl. Go.”

  Reluctantly, I looked down into the dim light of th
e room below, then stepped onto the first rung of the ladder. I descended on unsteady legs, my hands shaking so badly on the rungs I feared I’d slip and fall.

  At the bottom, I stepped onto a cold earth floor. In one corner of the room was a cage, and across from it was a table and a chair. Bare bulbs illuminated the rough plywood walls. I looked up at him in panic. “How long have you been planning this?”

  “Since before you were born,” he said. “Go into the cage and close the door. Bang the door shut. I want to hear it.”

  I didn’t see any escape, so reluctantly, I went into the cage. Inside was a mattress on the floor, a blanket and pillow folded at the foot of the bed, and a bucket. There was a package of plastic water bottles and a box of granola bars, too. The metal ceiling brushed against the top of my head as I turned and reluctantly took the metal door in my hand, swinging it shut. It clanged hard.

  He wouldn’t have gone through all this to kill me. Not yet. Survive and fight another day.

  Satisfied, he holstered the gun and climbed down the ladder himself. When he reached the bottom and turned to face me, his gaze fell on the necklace again, and his eyes blazed with anger.

  “Who put the necklace on you?” he asked, his voice full of controlled fury.

  “Eli,” I said.

  “That boy doesn’t have the kind of magic to work that spell alone,” he muttered.

  “He said he didn’t want to date me…he wanted to own me.”

  He shushed me impatiently, holding a finger to his lips as he paced across the room. Finally, he stopped, crossing his arms. “It would be nice if this were nothing but an overindulgent father giving his son the girl he wants.”

  I don’t know that I’d call it nice, personally.

  “But I think Alan Kingston’s finally moved against me,” he said. “He wants control of you for himself.”

  “Dad,” I said. “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  A cold smile twisted his lips. “You can stop calling me Dad. It’s always been a farce—and from the way you’ve acted since you were a child, you’ve always felt it too.”

  “I’m not your daughter?”

  “But you were my most prized possession. At least until I found Maddie. But she hasn’t yet come into her powers.” He shook his head. “Saves your life, girl. I’ve got to get that collar off you and keep you breathing until Maddie’s old enough to be useful. But that doesn’t mean you need to see sunlight.”

  His words chilled me. As much as I needed answers, I found my fingers curling around the cold, hard bars. “Please. Come on, you raised me. You must have felt something—”

  “Oh, I felt something,” he said. “The frustration of having to look at your sullen face every day has been outweighed by the power coursing through my veins.”

  “Please just tell me what’s going on,” I pleaded. The more I understood, the better my chances of finding a way out.

  “You’re not human,” he said. “You’re a werewolf. The spark of magic inside you—the princess of the pack—burns bright and fierce enough to power a whole coven.”

  Almost to himself, he added, “But someone always has to get greedy. Alan must have seen a chance to take you for his own and used Eli to put that chain around your neck. Stupid girl.”

  “Well, maybe you could have filled me in earlier.” Tension twisted my stomach, my emotions roiling so much I could barely understand what I felt. I was terrified, but also… I was the pack princess? The one Callum and the boys searched for? But Callum was so convinced it was Misty…

  He snorted. “If you knew I murdered your parents and stole you from your pack, I’m sure that would have made you less rebellious, hm?”

  What did he know about the guys? The thought made ice crystals unfurl inside my stomach. “Why didn’t my pack ever come looking for me?”

  “They’re all dead.” He flashed me a tight, cruel smile. “You’re no princess now. But your powers can still be useful to us.”

  “If I’m a werewolf,” I stumbled over the word, which still felt strange to use, “How come I’ve never changed?”

  “Your powers are drained in our regular rituals.” He made finger quotes. “Poker night.”

  “You give me pizza and take away the thing that makes me…”

  “Special?” he filled in. “You aren’t special, Piper. You’re just useful.”

  “Wait. If you killed everyone in my pack, how did you get Maddie?”

  “She’s another pack’s princess,” he said. “She only came to us four years ago.”

  “I remember Maddie being born,” I said. I remembered all those years when she was little and growing up.”

  “You think you do.” His voice was gleeful. “Your own magic powered the coven to rewrite your memory.”

  “Wait. Who else is in the coven? Eli’s father. Is Eli…?” When I found Callum again, he would want to know who was in the coven, who’d destroyed our pack. Our pack.

  I had to survive, because I’d go home to Josh and Nick and Kai.

  “He’s too young and stupid,” my father said, “although apparently Alan told him more than he should have, while he was plotting to steal you from me. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill them both.”

  “What happens to me?” I asked.

  “You rot here,” he said. He turned to the ladder, then paused. “I almost forgot.”

  He dragged the table toward me, stopping it just out of reach, and stepped back to gauge the distance. Then he set up a battery powered baby monitor.

  “I don’t want to leave you without entertainment,” he said. “One videotape deserves another, don’t you think, Piper?”

  He stepped away, revealing a grainy color image of my sister’s room. She was still in bed, one arm tossed across her face, blocking out the sunlight. She looked so little, and my heart twisted, seeing her there.

  “Enjoy the movie,” he said.

  When he left, he pulled up the ladder, and the wooden trap door slammed into place.

  At least he left the lights on.

  I sank to the floor, trying to take in what had just happened.

  I’d told Nick and Kai not to hang around, but I’d had the funny feeling they wouldn’t listen.

  Now I hoped to God they hadn’t. I’d fight to escape, but for now, they were my best chance.

  I paced, alone, with only the faint buzz of the monitor for company. I tested the bars, even banged my shoulder into them, but I was trapped.

  Half an hour later, when my father walked into Maddie’s room, his eyes went to the camera. He smiled at me.

  Then he sat down on the edge of Maddie’s bed to wake her. When he spoke, the monitor chimed and then sound clicked on, staticky but audible. She sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes, as he patted her knee.

  He told her I ran away from home.

  He told her I left them both.

  And when she curled up in his arms, sobbing desperately, she couldn’t see the way he smiled over her shoulder. I screamed at the monitor, but it was a one-way feed, and I reached out through the bars so desperately that I bruised my shoulder, but I couldn’t get to it.

  When my panic faded, as my sister sniffled and wept, unreachable, then despair curled around me. I raised my chin, trying to fight it.

  I was a princess, even if I was lost and imprisoned.

  He thought I was the princess of nothing.

  But I knew better.

  I’d always been a princess, no matter what was done to me. I always would be.

  And I’d fight for my sister and my kingdom.

  Chapter 23

  Kai

  “We can’t just leave her,” Nick said.

  “Callum wanted us to bring the car home and then double back,” I said. It was the smart choice. Leaving the car on a nearby street might draw attention. Especially in Piper’s neighborhood, where everyone parked in their big garages or in their long driveways. Our car parked on the street would stand out. Piper’s father might notice, a
nd then we’d have made more trouble for her. And Callum was worried about even more dangerous enemies.

  Nick looked out the window, watching the big houses on the rolling green lawns. He didn’t feel right leaving Piper, even for ten minutes, but he didn’t argue with me.

  I took the turn onto the main road that led toward town, then took the next right, a quiet country road. Nick’s head snapped toward me, and his eyebrows rose. I didn’t say anything as I pulled over into the gravel at the side of the road. As I rose out of the driver’s side, I stripped off my hoodie and tossed it on the driver’s seat before pulling off my white t-shirt. I’d use it to mark our car as disabled. Hopefully it wouldn’t draw too much attention while we doubled back to check on her.

  I had an itchy feeling. And I also hated that the kid felt uneasy. He should learn to trust his instincts, too.

  “Thanks,” Nick said to me.

  I rolled the white t-shirt up in the window, and the breeze caught it and set it flapping like a flag. “Let’s go check on our girl.”

  Together, the two of us headed through the woods at a run. Every once in a while, Nick would stumble, breaking the near-silence of the woods as a branch broke or as he caught himself with a hand against a tree. Sometimes, because Nick was big and quiet and well-spoken when he did talk, it was easy to forget he was the youngest, and he hadn’t grown fully into himself yet. As a man or as a werewolf.

  The stretch of woods just beyond Piper’s lush, freshly-clipped backyard was familiar now, from the fallen tree with moss growing across its side to the long-abandoned deer hollow filled with damp leaves. I leaned against one of the trees. Even in human form, our hearing was powerful enough that we’d hear raised voices if Piper had trouble with her father.

  “When do you think we’ll get to hunt some witches?” Nick asked.

  That was a hell of a way to make small talk. I grunted.

  The night he’d shifted and lost his humanity, streaking off through the woods, I’d been so pissed. At myself, and at Callum, not at Nick. We’d finally found each other, and I didn’t want to lose any pack-members because we did a bad job teaching him how to be a wolf. Callum said he’d be fine, but he hadn’t been the one who was right there, trying to guide him. I felt tense and irritated every time Nick shifted. Never knew when things might go wrong.