Shapes of Autumn (Boxed set, books 1 - 5)

by Veronica Blade

  “Can we practice flips, you know like when I’m dodging a hit?” But if I found myself doing stuff that was normally impossible for such a young shape-shifter, how would I explain it to Egon? “Hey, I should probably tell you…”

  He relaxed his stance. “Tell me what?”

  At the vampire palace, I was given vampire blood. A lot of it. I bit my lip. I’d be stupid not to take advantage of that. Maybe I’m able to do more than I thought.

  “There’s only one way to find out.” Egon drew up his fists and pivoted to make himself a smaller target. “And watch out because I won’t go easy on you.”

  He probably had no idea that I’d survived much worse than what he might dish out. I grinned. “And I won’t go easy on you either.”

  “Uh-huh.” He regarded me, one eyebrow cocked. “Are you ready?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. The next instant, he exploded all over me. I rocketed backward and crashed into a wall before he could do more damage.

  “Uh, maybe I was a little too cocky before.” I groaned, pushing off the floor.

  “Possibly.” Egon laughed softly. “And though that was rather ungentlemanly of me, Ulric will be far less considerate of your feelings.”

  “Yeah.” I rolled my neck and shoulders. One thing I’d learned from using my supernatural powers was the importance of positive thinking. And being calm. I’d been frustrated when I’d first tried to morph but when I’d finally focused and quit doubting myself, I was able to shift into any form I wanted. Egon’s exceptional battle skills had landed him the job as the shape-shifter queen’s guard, despite his youth, and that meant something. But I wasn’t a lightweight. Maybe I could kick his ass.

  “When you’re fighting, you have to… how do I explain it?” Egon scratched his chin. “Sometimes it isn’t mechanical. Often victory comes from following your instinct. You have to feel what your opponent is about to do.”

  All I had to offer him was a blank look. I mean, I kind of got it but I wasn’t sure how to apply that concept.

  “Don’t just rely on your sight and hearing but other senses as well. Feel the energy around you.” He pursed his lips a moment and closed one eye in deep thought. “In order to control anything, you have to be a part of it and let it be a part of you. You have to let it in, and that includes your opponent and their energy. Don’t think. Feel.”

  Yeah… like Dathan had said before, I tended to overthink everything. I needed to feel and follow my gut. Whatever power I possessed, I had to tap into it. I needed to own it.

  I shut out the noises around me and concentrated on Egon. The sound of his heart beating, the musky scent of his skin, how he shifted his weight from one leg to the other, the rustle of fabric when his hand brushed the cotton of his sweats.

  I took in a long slow breath as everyone else in the room fell away. My gaze anchored to his as I felt for his movement. “I’m ready.”

  He charged me and I spun, landing yards behind him. Then he raced toward me again so fast I didn’t see him. Knowing he was coming for me, I vaulted, twirled in the air, and landed behind him again. Closer this time. Before he had a chance to dodge me, I thrust forward, reached around his neck and wrenched the inside of my elbow under his chin.

  “Say uncle,” I demanded. He coughed as I pressed harder against his Adam’s apple. “Say uncle.”

  “Let him go.” Natasha’s mouth had flattened into a thin line. I hadn’t realized her or the rest of them had stopped to gawk.

  After releasing him, I stepped back wondering why everyone was staring at me like I’d done something wrong. “What?”

  “No one but Her Majesty has been able to get Egon in a chokehold.” Haji paused to squint at me. “He’s too fast and avoiding trouble is his specialty.”

  I couldn’t afford to hold my abilities back for fear that someone would find out I was a weird hybrid. I’d have to roll with whatever and let their minds wander wherever they went. I couldn’t worry about any of that, not when our lives were at stake.

  I shrugged. “I guess this time I was faster.”

  Dathan smirked. “Natasha, perhaps you should deal with Autumn and let Egon partner with Haji.”

  Me spar with an ancient shape-shifter queen with superior fighting skills? She kicked ass even on Dathan, a vampire much older and stronger than her. Damn, just when I’d felt triumphant.

  Chapter ELEVEN

  Zack

  We’d made it through another night without an Ulric invasion. As far as we knew. Months ago, Charles had broken into Autumn’s house and remained hidden and healing a full day before finally acting against us. If Ulric managed to break into the compound and had somehow slipped by us through each search, would he show himself right away or hang out a while to assess the situation before attacking?

  We were already a half hour into our first training session of the day. War could erupt at any moment and until that time I would stretch my abilities as far as I could get them to go.

  As much as I hated being constantly outmaneuvered by Dathan, Autumn had the same problem with Natasha. I caught occasional glimpses of them and each time, Autumn was backtracking to avoid a beating, or she was vaulting up and away. Sometimes when she sprung straight up into the air, it was with Natasha’s assistance. I’d never seen anyone strike faster than Natasha and I didn’t envy Autumn.

  Back at the vampire palace, I’d been forced to train with my dad and I’d hated every minute of it. Sparring with him hadn’t gotten any better after my mom had told me he was my not-so-dead father. But that unpleasantness was nothing compared to partnering with Dathan. He was the last person I wanted to go up against in battle. Still, I was grateful for another day to work on my skills.

  “You’re part vampire, Zack.” Dathan blocked my feeble attempt to strike his face. “You’re capable of great speed. Use it.”

  Or maybe not… Maybe this hybrid thing was impossible. I mean, vampires and werewolves were different species. Birds and fish were different species; you didn’t see them making hybrids. Maybe vampires and werewolves couldn’t mix either. My newly acquired taste for blood could be the result of something else.

  A hybrid, me? Seriously? Ridiculous. “Dathan, isn’t it possible that my mom was fed vampire blood and that made me crave it for some weird reason?” I huffed. “It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a hybrid.”

  “Fangs, Zack. Werewolves can’t extend them at will, except when they’re in their wolf form and even then, they don’t change in length.”

  “Fine, I give up.” I raised a palm in surrender. “So how many vampire-werewolf hybrids have you known?”

  “None.”

  “Wait…” I wagged a finger at him. “In a thousand years, you’ve never met a hybrid like me?”

  Dathan shook his head. “No. It was impossible until this past century.”

  I scratched my head. “How do you figure that?”

  He lifted one shoulder and dropped it. “You and Autumn are the only outsiders since the seventeenth century who’ve been allowed into the inner vampire circle and shown the effect of vampire blood on other species.”

  “That rare, huh?” Holy crap. “Renzo and my mom didn’t know either, yet here I am.”

  His mouth skewed. “In order to make a hybrid, blood must be stored and kept frozen for months, which wouldn’t have been possible until the 19th century when refrigeration was invented.” He pursed his mouth in thought. “Or they’d need a vampire captive where they could extract blood on a regular basis.”

  I nodded, rubbing my chin. “They could capture a vampire, stake him and feed from him for months.”

  Dathan gave me a smug look. “Female werewolves can’t procreate, so the birthing would be left to a human. They’d have to capture a human and get the blood into her system while she’s pregnant. Extremely unlikely.”

  “Improbable, but not impossible.”

  But his expression told me otherwise. “More likely, the blood would make her and the baby healthier. Remember,
your mother was given vampire blood intravenously which a human body processes differently than if it were digested. Intravenous technology was extremely obscure a hundred years ago. Unlikely to have happened before then, especially considering no one, even myself, knew it was even possible.”

  Wow, I really was a freak.

  “And that will remain the reality unless word of your existence gets out. In that case both species will want to kill you while they try to make their own hybrid.”

  “Right.” A freak who was on the run from his own kind but now ran with a dangerous crowd, and could be eliminated simply for being different. Just great.

  “Now let’s try this maneuver again. I’m going to move rapidly and you’re going to stay with me.”

  Dathan blurred to the other end of the room, weaving through the others sparring. I kept up, staying a fraction of a second behind him.

  “Much improved, Zack.” He slammed a hand on my shoulder and I wobbled. “We’ll do it again. This time, in addition to following me with your eyes, I want you to sense where I am. Follow the energy. Ready?”

  I nodded and he vanished out the door toward the stairwell, down the steps and through the underground park. I’d left the area by myself earlier when I first learned I was a hybrid, but both Autumn and my dad had gone after me. We were supposed to go out in groups of four or five. So why was Dathan leading me away from the group?

  I followed him past the bench, then beyond the field and caught up with him at the garden patch.

  “Nicely done.” Dathan’s mouth straightened as he studied me. “So… do you love her?”

  I wondered how my feelings for Autumn were any business of his. But I was also exploding with curiosity. What the hell was he up to? “Yes. Why?”

  “You’d want to be with her even though for the rest of your life you could never truly be with her in the way that a man and woman were meant to be?”

  I whistled through my teeth hoping he’d shut the hell up soon. “What’s your point, Dathan?”

  “As a hybrid, your future together is even more complicated. Don’t you think you’re being unrealistic?” He sneered. “I find it difficult to believe that you could still see yourself with her a hundred years from now, both of you celibate.”

  A rumble erupted in my throat and my fangs popped out without my permission. “I swear, Dathan, if you have any plans to break us up…”

  He slid a thumb through a belt loop, his gaze steady on mine. “Answer my question.”

  “I’m never letting Autumn go. A century from now, two centuries, she’ll be the only woman I’ll ever love.” Was he trying to wear me down so I’d give up and he could have Autumn for himself?

  Dathan smirked. “You’re eighteen, a punk. You have no idea what love is.”

  “And you have no clue what I think or feel,” I snarled. “Lay off, Dathan.”

  He laughed and the sound reverberated through the park. “You think you can stop me?”

  My eyes bulged and the adrenaline roared through my veins. “I’ll fight for her. You’d end up having to kill me and then my parents too. And Autumn. Her parents would come after you and if you didn’t die then, you’d end up killing your whole army. Who would help you take down Mortimer?”

  “Oh, come on, Zack,” he said in barely above a whisper. “You think any of them scare me? Not even Mortimer can hurt me and if he stays alive to spread destruction to your kind and Autumn’s, that’s nothing to me. I’m going after Mortimer because I’m bored.”

  My limbs trembled. Bored? All this because he had nothing better to do? “So, what, it’s all a game to you?”

  “Why else would I do all this? You think I care about any of you?” His voice rasped. “And trust me, if I wanted Autumn I’d take her, whether she was willing or not. And there would be nothing you could do about it.”

  My brain completely shut down and instinct took over. I charged, crashing into him and sending us both across the grassy field. We landed in the bushes. Twigs scraped my face and leaves obscured my view, but I managed to grab a dagger from my back pocket and press it into his neck. “Stay the hell away from her or I’ll kill you.”

  His soft laugh grated over my skin like nuclear waste. “Reacting on your emotions again. What are you going to do now, Zack? Because I’m pretty sure you don’t want to kill me. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn’t succeed. The fact that you managed to get a knife anywhere near me only means I allowed it.”

  In my rage, my brain had ceased all rational activity. No way could I get the better of him on my skill alone. Or lack thereof. I’d attacked him and now he could punish me any way he wanted and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. Had he set me up? But why? Sweat beaded on my forehead and tickled my skin as it made its way down the side of my face in an agonizingly slow pace.

  “Relax, Zack. This was a test. I had to verify your feelings for Autumn. Drill over,” he said in the calmest tone I’d ever heard. Was he tricking me? “I’m convinced you’d go to stupid lengths for her, even get yourself killed.”

  He wasn’t going to let me off the hook after I’d attacked him. No way. But what the hell was I supposed to do now? I’d crossed the line, no doubt. I couldn’t see this going my way, yet I had no choice but to back off. I flew off of him, stopping at the other end of the field. “Now what?”

  “I won’t hurt you.” He held up both palms toward me. “You have my word.”

  Dathan always kept his promises. But what if he didn’t this time?

  “You have to trust me, just as you have these past weeks. I’ve never led you astray.” As he rose from the ground, slowly, he stood and his muscles went lax. “You’re fast, Zack, but not fast enough. If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

  When I made like a wax figure and still didn’t budge, he rolled his eyes. “Zack, it was a test. I, uh, have something I want to give you but before I let such a valuable piece go, I wanted to make certain it would be for a worthy cause.”

  All that was a test? And now I really wanted to kill him for putting me through that. While trying to steady my quivering knees, I took a cautious step forward. “You want to give me something?” I growled.

  Dathan dug into his pocket and revealed a small red velvet box. “It’s a ring. Take it.”

  “So, what, you want me to marry you?” My brows scrunched closer in confusion. “Didn’t we already cover my love life? Which I hope would imply my sexual preference.”

  Dathan’s nostrils flared. “This ring was intended for someone I once fancied myself in love with. She gave me hope and that’s when I commissioned the ring. That was before I realized what we had wasn’t anything close to real love.” A storm stirred behind his eyes but quickly passed. “This ring was created out of hope, of which I now have none. But you and Autumn have the chance I never had. Save it for a time when you’re ready and then give it to Autumn.”

  Giving me his almost-wife’s wedding ring? There had to be a catch. I lifted the lid and all I saw was a giant sparkly rock the size of my pinky fingernail. I’d never seen such a big diamond except in pictures. I couldn’t tell whether the setting was white gold or platinum but it had two smaller diamonds on each side and delicate filigree adorning the band. It had to be worth a small fortune.

  “I can’t take this.” I gently nudged the velvet box away. “It’s too much.”

  “So Autumn isn’t worth it?” He sneered.

  I scowled. “Don’t twist my words.”

  “Look, I get how much you love her. And I know she loves you back.” His top teeth scraped his bottom lip while he hesitated. “Supernaturals mate for life, Zack. And that can be a long time for us. Autumn is your forever.”

  I could feel the skin puckering between my brows. “Why me?”

  “You’re not going to make me say it, are you?” Dathan grimaced. “Take the damn ring. Give it to Autumn and create a beautiful life with her.”

  I bowed back on my heels. “But what are you trying not to
say?”

  Dathan hissed. “Damn it, Zack, I want you two to be happy together.”

  So in his strange demented way, Dathan cared about us and wanted us to make our relationship last? Enough to give us a small fortune, apparently. If I didn’t take it, would that hurt his feelings? “You think I should go upstairs right now and propose to her?”

  “Not necessarily. Hang onto it, if you like. When the time is right, whether it’s a month from now or ten years, you’ll be ready.” Dathan shoved the ring at me.

  Keeping my eyes on his in case this was a trick, I gingerly relieved him of the small velvet box. I would definitely be giving Autumn a ring one day and this one was stunning. Plus, why not a big sparkly one that screamed to everyone she was already taken? No guy could miss that thing on her finger. The more I thought about giving Autumn the ring, the more I wanted to. And I would—assuming that we survived the battle with Ulric and then King Mortimer. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. One more thing.”

  I inwardly cringed. I felt another ambush coming on. “What?”

  “You and I can do things others here can’t. If we find ourselves under attack, and for whatever reason don’t want to kill our opponent, feed from him instead. Once you make that physical contact, you can command him to stand down.”

  I couldn’t imagine Ulric or one of his men attacking and me not needing to maim him. “Wouldn’t stopping for a snack slow me down?”

  Dathan gripped my shoulders. “Very soon, you may be confronted with an attacker who’s actually your friend. Just remember what I said. Once your fangs penetrate their skin, they become numb and dazed. They won’t even remember you feeding from them, if you command them not to. They won’t see any bite marks either because our saliva heals the wound almost instantly.” Dathan paused. “But I digress. Best to use words, not thoughts. And remember that the unconscious mind is literal and will follow all commands exactly. Be careful what you tell them and say only what you absolutely have to.”

  Dathan didn’t dole out unnecessary advice. If he thought I’d end up in battle with someone I didn’t want to hurt, then I probably would. “Got it.”