Shifters Forsaken: Shifter Romance Collection Bks 1-5

by Mia Taylor

  Kit. He rammed into the door.

  Kit was alone.

  Her lungs shrieked for air as she darted for the castle. No one else followed. Now the Wizen front line had managed a tighter formation, making it difficult for any wyrms to get through. But perhaps not human sized ones.

  No, no, no! Even with all her speed, she made it there perhaps a minute later.

  Still, no one else came. Did no one think to defend the Old Ones? Or did they think it inconceivable that danger existed for them? Or did the Old Ones protect themselves?

  Nothing stopped her from pushing open the door. Nothing stopped her from hurtling down a dark hallway, with most of the green lanterns smashed. Several lumps loomed in the darkness ahead, still upon the floor.

  Please, please… she reached the shapes and used her magic to light up what she saw. Two dead wyrms, curled up, blood pooled beneath them.

  And Kit. He lay face up, one hand covering his side, just below his chest. Blood bubbled out. Isera clenched her hands over Kit's wound, fighting back tears, fighting back panic and grief and rage all in one. The wyrm peered up at her with puffy eyes, reaching for her wrist. “L-leave me. S-save the Old Ones. Please...”

  “I can't leave you, Kit.” She pressed her mouth to his, barely containing the sob. “You might be dying.”

  “I-it... it doesn’t matter... if they succeed...”

  Too much blood loss. Far too much. With a whimper and an apology upon her lips, Isera allowed the tiny flames to dance across her fingers.

  I'm sorry, Kit. I'm too selfish. I won't let you die. Not when there's a chance I can save you! Here was something she could do with those tiny flames. She brought the flames to the wound. With the sizzling of flesh, Kit spasmed, let out one awful gasp, before falling limp from the pain. Tears spilled hot and salty from Isera's eyes. They dribbled over her nose, even as she finished cauterizing the wound.

  I can't do anything more.

  Giving Kit one last stroke upon his sweaty forehead, she found the will to go on, reaching the end of the junction, pushing open the double doors.

  No.

  A once clear blue pool, stained with black. Four wyrms. Each had glittering swords. They had pressed through in their human forms, and remained in them to commit their atrocities.

  Morytania gave Isera a pained look, a mortified twinge of her lips, even as the sword sunk into her heart.

  “No!” Isera screamed, her blood freezing, cold as ice as the wyrm twisted the blade, causing a strange black ichor to spill from Morytania's tree. “Get off!” She flung everything into her magic, reaching, scrabbling for the power. Doing as Fran had taught her, to grasp inwardly for the power, and not focus on making it physical. It didn't need – it didn't need to be physical to inflict pain.

  Screaming like a wounded animal, Isera felt her body temperature rise. Too much. Too much! The wyrm who had stabbed Morytania suddenly let go of the blade and stumbled back, clutching at his chest.

  “What?” The other wyrms in the chamber who had systematically gone through and stabbed each elder turned to their leader, who now bent to the ground, spitting rage. “Get the witch! Get that little witch! I don't know what she's doing, but –” his voice bit off in a manic screech, a soul-wrenching bellow of agony. Isera screamed as well, pushing, pushing, and she felt in an instant, the heat of his body. Something under her fingers, her skin.

  She turned it up. Cranking it to the hottest heat imaginable. The wyrm stopped screaming and tilted his head up, his eyeballs boiling in their sockets. His face melting. He reached up one shaking hand to something, perhaps begging – before he collapsed, crumbling into dust.

  Gasps of horror echoed through the sacred chamber. The one defiled by these evil, treacherous little wyrms, with no idea that the answers to their salvation lay here. These stupid, maddened morons. They condemned themselves. They condemned everyone.

  Why couldn't you leave things alone?

  Incandescent with rage, the kind that turned her whole soul black, Isera turned the power on the other three. “You will pay,” she hissed. “You will pay!”

  As she bellowed the last word, the three wyrms began to scream in that distorted, uncontrollable way, smoke billowing out of their mouths, their eye sockets, their muscles and skin turning waxy and dead. She screamed and screamed until her throat became hoarse. They – they had stabbed Kit. Stabbed him and left him for dead. The hatred burned. She physically struggled to breathe.

  Kit might be dead. She likely caused so much shock to his system that he'd never wake up again. The Old Ones... alive for so many centuries, ever since the curse landed... dead. Their sacrifice in vain.

  Everything ruined. It might not have been her fault, but she doubted anyone would see it that way. Weeks after letting in an outsider, the end of Wizen had come. Thanks to her.

  “G-go...” Morytania rasped, her speech a struggle. “P..pool...”

  The elder’s eyes became glass. The only light in them came from the reflection of the pool.

  Cold, empty of everything, because if she allowed herself to process what had happened – if she allowed everything to crash in at once, it would break her, Isera numbly approached the pool, now mostly tainted with black. Isera stared at the last glimmers of bright blue, before splashing into the pool. She didn't know why Morytania used her dying breath to utter those words.

  As the waters touched her bare skin, she felt a kind of presence pushing at her mind. A softness. A whispering. Many voices at once, forming breezes of sound across her skin. The waters sent a warmth through her as well, when she expected them to be icy cold.

  The whispers tugged at her mind. She didn't understand them. There was an insistence to them, though. Like they were repeating the same thing over and over, in an unknown language.

  Tentatively, she touched it with her magic. The whispers became frantic, swirling around her. The waters stirred.

  “No!” The voice came out choked behind her. “Isera! Don't do it!”

  Supported by Fran, Kit entered the room, barely managing to stand up, Narak followed close, his eyes burning in outrage at the sight of the dead Old Ones.

  “M-Morytania asked me to...” what was this warmth? It called to her. Begged for her to release her magic.

  “Don't. If you accept it, you'll become like them! Doomed to e-eternity.” He clutched at his side, where Isera had cauterized the wound. “Driven mad by the whispers.”

  Is that what this sensation was, crying for her to submit? Narak paced ahead of them, straight to Isera.

  “Child. Don't do it.”

  Isera frowned. “Why not? It could save everyone.” Yes... she sensed it would. Perhaps not how, exactly, but probably like before with the Old Ones. The barrier would come back up. The lives would be protected, never needing to worry about that oppressive evil outside. “Isn't that what you want?”

  Narak's golden eyes were sad as he grasped Isera's wrist, and yanked her out. The whispers stopped. Isera wanted to go back there. They soothed her, beckoned to her...

  “Their time is over. Our time is over,” Narak said. “We might be able to get more sorcerers to protect this place again, but all we do is lock ourselves in a bubble. Having no say upon the world. Becoming a frozen part of history.”

  “But... your people. They're dying.”

  “Everyone dies at some point, Isera.”

  “You really want to do this, Narak?” Fran regarded the older wyrm with respect.

  “Yes. It's time to do what we should have done a long time ago.” His eyes flashed with darkness. “Rejoin the world. And start doing something about those who seek to bring it down. And if we die in the process, then perhaps we didn’t belong anyway.”

  Something seemed off about this statement. Surely they would die if they stayed, die if they left. But… Morytania out of all the Old Ones showed Isera the most mercy. Morytania wanted her to do this.

  Who did she trust?

  I trust myself.

  Shruggi
ng off Narak's hand, she plunged herself back into the dark waters, and completely opened up her magic to the pool.

  I do this to protect you, Kit. You and your people. I wish... I had met up with my friends again. Shown them this place. I wish I could have shown you more. My heart. My soul.

  Kit and Fran's anguished screams were the last thing she heard.

  Chapter Eight

  The world fuzzed into existence. Bright light seared her eyes, making her close them again and squeeze hard. As if she could push out all the light that pained her.

  No. She needed to open them. To see. Gradually, everything came into better focus. A dark wood ceiling. The rustle of feathered sheets and the softness of a pillow. An ache in her back that suggested she might have been lying down for a long time.

  Wait.

  She was alive. With all the aches and grievances that went with it. She was also, most definitely not a tree.

  Didn't the others say that entering the pool would kill her? They'd been rather insistent on that point. Narak had tugged her out the pool, Kit pleaded for her to not do it. But she...

  She'd been selfish again. Not wanting to deal with the issues of everything else around her. Not wanting to deal with those dying, and that powerlessness to do anything about it. What was the point in having such power if it got wasted?

  A power that killed in a horrific way.

  Wouldn't it be nice to swap them? Death for life? Death for protection? Not one that caused others to scream. Not one that caused darkness to ooze across the ground, turning blue into black.

  Kit walked into the room, holding a bowl of soup. When he saw that she was awake, he almost dropped it on the floor. “Isera. Isera! You're awake!”

  Oh, she'd forgotten how soft that voice was. The way it just drifted into her ears and heated up the blood inside. Captivating her with the suggestion of his presence.

  She would have left him. Even after saving him. Not much of a relationship to be had when stuck in a tree.

  It’d all been such a blur of emotions back then. Back then, which still felt like mere moments ago.

  Kit placed the bowl of soup on the side of the bed, on the little desk, and scooped her up into a hug. The movement made her wince as she discovered new bruises, unnoticed from earlier. A dull throbbing along her arms and back in particular.

  “You scared the life out of me, Isera! When you just ignored us all and plunged back into that pool, I thought for sure you’d die because there wasn’t enough people to support you in the magic, or you’d turn into a tree.”

  “Yes… about that. Why aren’t I a tree right now?” Perplexed as she was, she still buried herself into his embrace, inhaling the strong, manly scent of him from his neck, closing her eyes to the safe cage of his arms. Enjoying the contact of skin and clothes and the heat that formed a little ball between them. She didn’t want to lose that contact just yet. Her hand dipped to where she knew him to be injured, and it rested upon a swathe of bandages. He didn’t flinch from the contact, so it didn’t hurt at least.

  Which meant she must have been out for a while.

  “I don’t think I can explain that. But I know someone who can. Narak!” Kit screeched, sounding for all the world like someone was trying to kill him.

  A loud crash resonated in the distance, like a table with all its contents falling over. Footsteps thundered from stairs beyond Isera’s vision, and Fran burst into the room, panicked.

  “You’re not Narak,” Kit said.

  “What was that scream for? My heart stopped!” Fran glared daggers at her brother. Narak appeared behind, slightly less concerned, a faint smile playing about his ancient lips.

  “Sorry. Um, as you can see, Isera’s awake now. And she’s asking questions about why she’s not a tree.”

  “And you want me to answer because you’re too lazy,” Narak said.

  “Well, when you put it like that… I guess?”

  Isera withdrew herself from his contact and smiled at Fran, who sat herself on the edge of the bed, next to her older brother. Fran opted for a set of white furs. She seemed to like the purity about them, which always struck Isera as amusing in a way, because of the issues she had in associating wyrms with such an image.

  If the soul is corrupt, you’re bad without a choice. If it isn’t, you’re bad with a choice.

  That was the uncomfortable truth Isera accepted.

  “Alright, well. Let me try then.” Narak cleared his throat, before clasping his long, twig like hands together. “Our original assumption that the waters would bind you to the same spell the Old Ones lived under was wrong. We thought that it meant eternal imprisonment, and without the additional conduits that helped maintain the spell before – one person instead of eight – it should have led to your demise. Instead, it appears that Morytania changed the nature of the spell. In fact, all the Old Ones did. They must have agreed and tried to implement it before the arrival of those wyrms, but were unable to finish it.”

  He said this all slowly, always making sure Isera followed. Kit encouraged Isera to slurp some of the soup, and she did so, with the taste of chicken broth trickling down her throat in a warm hug.

  “When you opened up your magic to the pool, you enabled the spell to be completed. It’s a weaker form of the barrier we had. Instead of an entire civilization imprisoned inside a place of our own making, living in isolation, we now have barriers around our souls. Those barriers protect us from corruption. They allow us to enter the world again without fear. They allow us to finally embrace change.” Narak rubbed his left eye with his palm. “I’m afraid that their knowledge of magic will be lost, but we likely still know more than those who teach at your schools. We’re still ironing out the details, but we would be interested, I think, in making your schools our new homes.”

  Isera frowned. She hadn’t talked so much about the school to anyone here, not even Kit. Though she certainly appreciated the fact that Morytania and the other Old Ones had finally conceded to allowing their people freedom. Though they likely didn’t have much choice, given that the wyrms were already inside the caverns.

  “Someone dropped into the area recently, close on the tail of those wyrms. Well. Someones. Looks like you’ve had some rather concerned friends searching for you.” Fran grinned. “When you’re better, maybe you can go and see them, hmm?”

  Isera probed them for more information, but the wyrms were unyielding, making Isera sigh, finish her soup, and ease herself out of bed to get dressed. Compelled by the new mystery, she soon left Kit’s home. At least they threw back all the invaders of the Wizen catacombs. Any corpses or blood had long since been mopped up, though many buildings lay in a damaged state, with ornaments smashed, and the enchanted sky above them a duller color than usual, as if the magic was slowly bleeding out of it. A place untouched by time, now slowly fading into the dust where it belonged. It might have been beautiful, but Isera knew that beautiful things didn’t last forever.

  When she made it to a small house nearby the inns, she peered through the window, and her eyes almost popped at the sight of Artiz in there, along with Seon. Her friends. No Elise, but Elise was pretty busy with her singing gigs at the moment.

  “What are they doing here?”

  “That drake friend of yours has been searching frantically for you ever since you disappeared,” Kit said, briefly clasping Isera’s hand. “You’ve got some good friends there. Go and see them.”

  Beaming, Isera kissed Kit on the cheek, brushing her nose against his before she went and knocked on the door.

  One Seon frenzied hug later, and Artiz exclaiming happiness, Isera found herself bundled onto a sofa, where her friends proceeded to bombard her with questions that she couldn’t fully answer.

  The general gist of the questions worked on the same surprise Isera felt when encountering wyrms that didn’t want to kill humans.

  “It’s incredible,” Seon said. “All this time, I was convinced it was impossible to find good ones.”

&
nbsp; “It does disturb me a little, though,” Artiz said. “I thought we drakes got it easy, but the drakes of this place have silver eyes. Which means that something’s wrong about us too. I can’t believe you were living here.”

  “I kind of didn’t have a choice. Due to the whole being captured thing and then the paranoia of the people of Wizen in letting me go. They dreaded the outside world coming in and ruining everything.”

  “Well… they were right to do so,” Artiz said. “Given what’s just happened. The wyrms are becoming paranoid now. It’s open decree from the cities that anyone with magic must be brought in or killed. And they’re sending special hit squads to do so – including Sniffers to find those who do have magic.”

  “It’s a mess,” Seon said. “One that we can handle though.” A dark smile entered her lips, and she examined her fingertips. Ones that contained powerful magic. Speaking of powerful magic…

  When Isera explained to them what she could do with her powers, her friends listened in silence. They saw how much it troubled her.

  “I thought having the power to kill was what I wanted. To make myself useful in the fight against the wyrms. In taking back our world. But I’m not sure if I want to do something like that again. I don’t want to… see that again. How it destroyed their bodies. Because to do it, I kind of needed to get inside them, under their skin, feel their heartbeat and organs working. And then I needed to mess everything up by cranking the temperature.”

  Every heat induced death, no matter how justified it might be, was personal. Isera felt the life under her hands, just before she snuffed it out.

  “How do you think I felt, when I discovered what I could do? People were complimenting me, cheering for me. But unfortunately, a part of me didn’t feel the same way they did. Taking someone’s life is a pretty heavy responsibility.”

  “Mm.” Isera didn’t elaborate further. Not wanting to dwell on the memories of the heat of another person’s body under her control. Or the sizzling, acrid smell of a cooking body. Or their eyes…