The Apex Shifter Complete Set: Books 1 - 3

by Emilia Hartley

  She had to get past this, to shake this confusion. Kayla was no wimp. She’d worked her way through college, through law school, without student loans, getting by on grants and ramen noodles. Physically and mentally, she was strong. Kayla knew she could overcome this. Even if she no longer had help.

  But what help, really, did Sybil Auger provide? The woman was a dragon. She probably planned to eat Kayla in her deer form at some point. How had she helped? She hadn’t prescribed any drugs—if she was even licensed to do so. Was she only a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to?

  No, Kayla thought, that wasn’t it. When she had confronted The Vet about the dragon book, the woman had tried to hypnotize her. What had she said? Kayla was experiencing one of her spells? So she had been hypnotized in the past. Was she still vulnerable to whatever suggestion had been planted in her mind?

  It didn’t matter anymore. Kayla couldn’t turn to her for help now, not that she knew what she was. It left her only one option. She wasn’t clear on it; the idea was but a shadow in her mind. It made her fearful, though she couldn’t say why. The Forgetting Place. If she could find it again…

  A knock fell on her door, startling the thought away. She knew it could only be one person at this hour. Kayla opened the door to Elathan.

  “You’re alive,” he whispered, sweeping her into his arms.

  She really needed the hug, and embraced him back hard. “Of course I’m alive.”

  He held her at arm’s length. “Your head. What happened?”

  Kayla’s hand strayed to the bandage. “I can’t remember.”

  Elathan’s eyes strayed to the opening of her robe. His face cinched in concern. “You’re healed,” he said. He then gazed at her face again. “But your head…”

  “I’m okay. Just a little headache.” She didn’t like the look in his searching eyes. “What?”

  He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “You are not okay, Kayla.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your amnesia. It’s more than memory loss. You’ve disconnected from your inner animal.”

  Kayla didn’t like where this was going. Sure, she couldn’t always remember what happened when she shifted, but a deer was a peaceful, gentle animal. Other than a sense of freedom, of speed, what would there be to remember?

  His eyes were on the bandage again, making her self-conscious. “It’s my fault, damn it.”

  “How is this your fault?”

  Their gazes locked. “It happened when I tried to kill you.”

  Kayla blinked rapidly. Memories washed through her, images too fast to focus on.

  “The damage I did is the reason you can’t share thoughts with your other self.”

  “The deer?”

  “You don’t shift into a deer, Kayla. You shift into a dragon.”

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  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Blood had been lucky to come to this moment so quickly. It was a long walk to Little Crater Lake. He had made it by dark. Police presence following the burning of the cabin had probably kept car thieves at bay, even though the keys were in the ignition.

  He studied her now, waiting for a reaction to his words. Kayla didn’t know. It was why the dragon was so out of control.

  “You have to find the dragon inside you, Kayla. The only way to heal is to become whole.”

  “That’s insane, Elathan. I turn into a deer. I go far out into the woods, or I’d be in danger.”

  Blood squinted. “Who told you that?”

  “I—I can’t remember. But it makes me happy. I prance around, alive and wild.”

  “You don’t prance around. You burn things to the ground.”

  She closed her eyes tightly. “Sybil is the dragon. I saw her turn when I confronted her. She attacked us when we were in the car.”

  “She has the power of the dragon—a gift from you, so that she might protect you. The illusions she casts, the fire she throws, these are just a diversion. You need protection, because your dragon is immature. She has no inner guide—she doesn’t know you.”

  Disbelief crossed her features. “You don’t think I’d know if I shifted into a monster?”

  “I don’t think you would.” Blood tried to find the words to explain. “Your heart is so true, your motives are pure. The dragon operates on its own instincts. She needs you, Kayla, and you need her.”

  “Why do I need a dragon?”

  “Because she’s part of you, like it or not. You can’t go on separated like this. It’s too damaging to the both of you.”

  “This is such bullshit!” Kayla spun away, pacing.

  Blood took a step toward her. “It’s the truth, Kayla. Think about it. Think about the times you shifted recently. They coincide with the arsons in Ripple.”

  She put her hands to her temples. “No!”

  How to reach her? Evidence would convince her. Exhibit A, he thought. “If you’re a hind shifter, how did you get home before I got here?”

  Kayla glared at him for a second, but the anger dropped into confusion. “What?”

  “I ran to Little Crater Lake, and drove your car here. It’s miles, Kayla. If you shifted into a deer, you’d still be on your way. Yet here you are, already showered. You’ve been here a while. It wouldn’t be possible for a deer to run all this way in so short a time.”

  Her face creased, hands going to her temples again. “Elathan, please stop.”

  “Can you remember what happened after we found the girl?” Time for Exhibit B.

  Her eyes opened wide with hope. “Yes. The dragon came. It burned Thorn. The whole place was shaking—from the dragon.”

  “And when she attacked us, in the elevator lobby?”

  Kayla nodded eagerly. “Yes, the wall came down, the smoke, the wings.”

  “But we’d just come through the building. There wasn’t enough room for a dragon-sized creature. In fact, when the true dragon emerged, the entire sanatorium was destroyed. The tomahawk, Kayla, remember? Sybil struck you with it. You were hurt, bleeding—dying.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You had to shift to stay alive. The dragon was so huge that it brought the building down on all of us. Including you.”

  “I don’t remember!” Her words came out a growl that echoed in the apartment.

  Blood heard the dragon in her voice. He had to tread lightly.

  “Try to remember. It’s a step toward reuniting with your inner beast. You have to do it, or you’re lost.”

  “I can’t remember. I won’t!” The low growl still issued from Kayla.

  The word stopped Blood. “Won’t?”

  “I won’t, because I’m in love with you.”

  He stood, stunned.

  Her dark orbs lit up, consumed by the slit pupils of a snake’s eyes. “If I remember, I’ll have to kill you, Elathan.”

  “Kayla, no.”

  “Because it … it’s true, then you’ve been trying to kill me for two centuries.”

  “I made a horrible mistake, Kayla. Maybe you shouldn’t ever forgive me. But I can’t leave you broken like this.”

  Fangs appeared as she snarled at him. “You’re the one who broke me!”

  “Since you want to kill me, perhaps you’re in love with me.”

  He hung his head. “I did break you. Together, we can put you together. Because it’s true. I am in love with you. From the first time I saw you in the courtroom. You were a bright light, sunshine on my heart--”

  “Save the pretty talk.” Smoke issued with her words. “There’s only one way to save us both. The Forgetting Place. I have to sleep the dreamless sleep, forget all of this. Otherwise, we’ll both end up dead.”

  “No.” He strode toward her. “That isn’t the way. You have to—”

  Her fist shot out, knuckles covered in hard scales. The blow slammed him into the wall with the crack of drywall. Everything went dark.

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IS LINE

  Chapter Forty

  She took flight, wind beneath her leathery wings, churning ever upward. The storm called to her, and she responded, clouds gathering around her. Updrafts from the sudden change in weather propelled her higher, faster. The dragon banked east.

  Deep instincts drove her. Her guiding thought was to destroy. She would set fire to the accusers. Her flaming breath would consume their feeble dwellings. The crossroads, in the mountain wilds, she knew the accusers dwelled there.

  Her motives were not understood on anything but a basic level. These beings posed a threat. That was all the dragon needed to know.

  She had been there before, burning at will the easily consumed constructions. Now she flew with purpose. With definite targets, she would forgo the wanton destruction undertaken for the sheer joy. Bears, she thought, and cats. These were vagaries in her primitive thoughts. Threats were something far more concrete.

  Glittering landscapes darkened and dimmed to black forest. Lights of dwellings became scattered. Scudding through the sky with her cloak of storm clouds, she banked south as Wy’east, the slumbering volcano, rose before her, its cap of snow blue in the moonlight.

  Nearing the doomed settlement, another directive entered her mind. This was not one of rampaging death, but the promise of solitude, of peace and long slumber. The dragon did not question this. She soared over the few points of light at the crossroads and flew onward. She was called by a familiar destination far to the east.

  ***

  Blood didn’t know for how long he was out. He rolled to his feet, room tilting around him. Kayla. Pulling himself together, he searched the apartment. It took only a moment to discover she wasn’t there. He picked up her robe from the foyer floor.

  A glance out the window revealed storm clouds suddenly gathering around the moon. He saw the silhouette for a brief second. The shadow of wings against the moon was swallowed by the storm.

  The dragon was loose.

  His first instinct was rote—to track her down and stop her. That hadn’t worked in the past. The situation had changed. This was no longer a vendetta against a monstrous killer. He needed to save the woman he loved from herself.

  Yes, he had to admit it. He was in love with her. Blood thought his love was a curse. Curse or not, he had to see this through, to bring Kayla to herself, both her human half and the raging creature within.

  The Forgetting Place, she had said. Blood had no idea what that meant. Still, he was a trapper and a tracker by nature. It might be impossible to track a dragon through the sky, but there were other ways.

  Blood needed a place to start. He cast his eyes around the living room. His case files lay scattered around the floor. He had tossed it there before they made love the last time. Was there something there?

  He took a few moments to reorganize what his passion had scattered. Ignoring the police reports, he read Kayla’s notes. While he was surprised at how well she had built a case for his innocence, he found nothing that gave him a possible location of the Forgetting Place.

  There was more information to read through. Blood found reports on Thorn from León Investigations. It brought to mind the strange physiology of dragons, for he now knew Thorn was Kayla’s son—and most likely his own. He knew dragons were long-lived, but nothing about their mating cycles. Did anyone?

  He read through the report, hoping. Blood’s own trap for the dragon involved putting her offspring in danger to draw her out. Maybe the detective’s search could lead him in the right direction.

  The name of a town suddenly leapt off the page. Willowcreek, Oregon. Isabela’s search turned up that name as well. Kayla was the victim of a hit-and-run accident there. According to the investigation, it was also the place Thorn was born. It was in a car that had run off the road in the freezing cold.

  It was a long ways away, all the way across the state, near the Idaho border. Blood had been through the country before. There was nothing there, just dusty hills surrounded by desert. The trip would take hours, and if he was wrong…

  What other lead did he have?

  Instincts of the tracker made him believe his hunch was right. Exhausted as he was, he grabbed the keys of the rental car. Despite the speed of the dragon’s flight, he had to reach the Forgetting Place before Kayla did. He had to stop her before she forgot again.

  Driving east, he thought about the hit-and-run accident he’d read about on Isabela’s cell phone. In such an unpopulated area, the chances of a person meeting up with a speeding vehicle seemed slim to none. Had Kayla thrown herself in front of a speeding car? Was the Forgetting Place really about memory, or was it something far worse?

  He pushed the accelerator down.

  Blood tried to recall what he could about the area. Remote farms stood scattered amongst and between the barren hills. There was nothing on those dusty buttes except prospectors. And mines, the thought jumped out at him. Mines were man-made caves.

  He would have to drive through the night.

  After half an hour, he passed the sleeping settlement of Ripple. Headlights picked out the destruction of Felicity Malkin’s construction site. He understood that something deep within the dragon was following Kayla Hart’s legal strategy, although in a more brutal fashion than a courtroom argument. There was no time to see what else the monster had burned.

  It was a six-and-a-half hour drive. Elathan Blood had no idea how long it might take a dragon to fly there. With the highway open before him, he pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

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  Chapter Forty-one

  Willowcreek was slightly larger than Ripple. In the dawning light, farm hands drove trucks to work. Blood saw a seed store, a general store with a café, an elementary school and a church. There wasn’t anything else in the town perched on both sides of Highway 26. In the false dawn, he saw no one out and about, except at the café. He pulled into the lot.

  The smell of frying meat and eggs made his stomach rumble. Customers filled half the place, most of the locals already at work, most likely. He took a seat at the counter, and said please to coffee. Blood eyed the room, and saw discreet glances coming his way. A stranger in town, they were thinking. He wondered if another stranger had arrived ahead of him.

  “What can I get you, hon?” A waitress flapped her order pad.

  Blood ordered the biggest breakfast he could see on the menu.

  “I haven’t seen you in here before. Just passing through?”

  He nodded at the waitress. “Actually, I’m looking into an accident that happened here a while back.”

  “Some kind of insurance claim?” The waitress had died blonde hair pulled up in an elaborate do.

  “A hit-and-run involving a teenage girl. Happened, oh, fifteen years ago or so.”

  Her face lit up. “I do remember that. Never made no sense. You couldn’t drive fast enough out there to actually hurt a body. Not sure if they ever found out who the girl was. Hey, Clem?”

  She called out to a man entering the café. Blood saw the brown jacket of a lawman. Clem gave Blood the up-and-down, eyes lingering on his face. Did he recognize Blood from a mugshot on the news?

  “What is it, Martha?”

  “You remember that girl in the hit-and-run?”

  He nodded, taking off his sheriff’s department ball cap. “Over by Bad Luck Butte. Never could quite figure that one.”

  “Why is that?” Blood asked.

  The deputy shrugged. “No reason for a girl to be out there. No reason for anyone to be driving out there, either. Nothing around for miles.”

  “Except the old mine,” Martha said.

  Blood’s heart stepped up. “What kind of mine?”

  “Prospector’s mine. Man found a tiny nugget out there. Swore there was a rich vein in the ground. He went a little nutty out there by himself. Never did find any more gold.”

  The deputy nodded. “People avoid the place. Bad luck is right. We had some crazy woman
go off the road there. She was nine months pregnant, delivered a baby while her car was down the ravine.”

  Blood sat up straighter. “Pretty aptly named, then. Where is this place?”

  “Out where 13th Avenue West becomes a dirt track.” The deputy angled his head at Blood. “You driving a four-wheeler?”

  “No.”

  The cop smiled. “You won’t be getting anywhere close, then. Not with the storm coming in.”

  “Thanks.” Blood’s breakfast had arrived, and he tucked in, mind working. A storm was on its way. He thought the dragon was pulling it across the state. More than that, he was now fairly certain that Kayla had been in this desolate country more than once. Most lately as a hit-and-run victim, previously as a woman in a wrecked car, delivering a baby named Thorn.

  There weren’t many roads leading off the highway in Willowcreek. Blood was pretty sure he knew the way to Bad Luck Butte.

  ***

  He managed a few miles of the dirt track after he left the blacktop off 13th Avenue West. Then, the road became two watery ruts, the space between them too high for the car to clear. Blood parked off to the side as far as possible, even though he hadn’t passed a vehicle.

  Brown, stony hills surrounded him, blocking the view. He took off on foot, hoping to find a sign to guide him. Wind whistled, blowing grit in his face. Crows cawed beyond his sight. Above, the sky was a featureless gray. He saw no sign of a storm blowing in yet.

  Trudging on, he followed the winding path. It was just that—calling it a road was giving it too much credit. As the lawman had said, it seemed impossible that a vehicle could get up any speed on this lonely trail.

  Kayla’s scar. Blood knew it didn’t come from any modern accident. He had wounded the woman himself centuries before, as she shifted into a dragon. The locals wouldn’t have any clue about that. A hit-and-run was probably the only rational explanation they could come up with.