Shifters Gone Wild; Collection

by Skye MacKinnon

  Frustrated, she rubbed her clammy palms on her pants as she grimly witnessed her boyfriend deal with the aftermath of his butchery.

  She watched him calmly splash water from the sink over his torso and massive shoulders, then towel-dried the bloody smears of violence on his throat and hands. After stepping into the small bedroom, he returned with a pair of black linen trousers, which he casually fastened, apparently oblivious they belonged to the man he had just mutilated and killed.

  He retrieved what looked like his father’s mystical bracelet from the pile of torn clothes, snapped it on his arm, then nodded at the blood bath and torn-up corpse on the floor. “We need to do something with the body.” He was cold, remote.

  “How can you be so casual about what you just did?” She huffed in disbelief.

  He shrugged. “It’s my nature. Weren’t you ready to kill him yourself,” he said. “Isn’t that why you snuck out without telling me and came here?”

  “Not quite.” She stopped him, a hand on his chest. “I needed him. To help me. There is something I haven’t told you.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Go on,” he said carefully.

  “Ever since, you know…” Her voice trailed off. For the first time, with the mangled body of Burton at her feet and Sin still so emotionless, and just as her mom always evaded the words, she couldn’t express what had happened to her. “I’ve been having nightmares. Visions sometimes.”

  “Visions?”

  “Yes. I didn’t tell you. Or anyone, I didn’t want to worry you. But those visions are getting worse. I saw,” she paused, “horrible things yesterday. Even as I was driving here.”

  “It was Burton. You’ll be fine now,” he said with certainty. “It’s done.”

  “No. Last night, before you came in the hotel room, Burton told me. He was growing weak. No longer immortal. He sacrificed my soul to a dark force to gain power. Morgius. He is in my mind.”

  “Morgius.” A shock registered through his features, the name horrible enough to pierce through his icy demeanor.

  She nodded and swallowed.

  “Morgius, Soul Harvester.” He shook his head. The uncaring beast psyche receded, making ways for the concerned man. “Oh God, Cee, why didn’t you tell anyone? We need to go home. We need the whole Order for this. We need the elders.”

  She nodded and stared again at the mutilated body at their feet.

  It finally sank in. Burton was dead. Trembling, she slumped back in the chair.

  Her gut flipped inside her again as she glanced at the carnage. Sin was right. Seeking answers, sparring with incantation was fine. She was a witch, but she didn’t have the edge to kill.

  She didn’t want to have that edge.

  Despair swallowed her, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. She was sick of the whole thing. She had just wanted to move on. Get that job with Burke and Cones, help people.

  “Baby.” Sin crossed the distance between them, kneeled to her level, and wrapped her in his arms. She was so drained, she didn’t even have it in her to protest at him calling her “baby.”

  She leaned into him, then took a deep breath and found a strain of strength within. “Come on, I’ll help with the body,” she said warily as a slew of spells rose to her mind. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Sin’s body stiffened abruptly. He became absolutely still. “Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Shhh,” he whispered, his arms locked around her. “Do not move.”

  “What?” She frowned. Fear seeped through her bones at Sin’s tone.

  Then she saw it.

  An acrid mist rose around them. The early morning light dimmed, casting the whole house in darkness. The place suddenly stunk of dark magic and malevolence.

  “Giuahrdye ahnneau,” Sinclair mumbled in her ear.

  The carving on his father’s bracelet glowed an eerie green.

  “What’s going on, Sinclair?”

  “No time to explain, just do as I say.”

  Part of the mist congregated into a thick dark gray shade at the back of the room. The scent was so caustic she could barely breathe. She covered her nose with her scarf and deliberately got to her feet with care, facing the unnatural mist.

  Sinclair grabbed his rune-etched coat from the kitchen chair and slipped it on. He seized his blasting staff from the kitchen table and stayed poised beside her.

  She had nothing to defend herself as she faced the shadow which slowly materialized into a huge being.

  Thick dirty mist morphed into skin of steel gray. Eyes glowed golden in a face of horror. Deep cheekbones carved into parched rotten flesh. Elongated malevolent chin. A crown of multiple bloodied spikes protruding from his head like a deadly circlet.

  And drawing back over an array of thin and spiky teeth, a rictus of death amused by the puny mortals before him.

  She gulped, terror scattered through her veins. She had seen this dark entity before. In her dreams, in her grimoires. But never in the flesh.

  “Morgius,” she whispered to herself. He was taller and more overwhelming than anything she could have imagined.

  “Where is she?” The being’s voice hushed like ten millions eerie pleas in her head, his pitch both loud and inaudible at once.

  He finally rested his flat gaze upon her. Then moved his head into what looked like a nod.

  “Celeste.” Sin shielded her from the Soul Harvester. His left arm adorned by the cuff between her and the demon.

  They took a step back together. The door was so close. Her body was tense, ready to do one thing, flee from the horror.

  Morgius said nothing but pointed at her.

  Blind pain took hold of her brain and she crumpled to the ground. Holding her skull, she screamed.

  “Cee!” Sin’s arms wrapped around her for a moment, then nothing.

  Darkness. Thick heavy darkness surrounded her.

  Nothing but shadows and frost.

  Her throat seized. Her breath vanished. And all around her, they whispered. One of us. You are one of us.

  Sweat beaded upon her skin from fear as she frantically looked around, searching for a way out but all she saw were eyes, glowing an eerie swirl of gold, silver and obsidian black. Shadows and mad eyes, enfolding her.

  “No!” She pushed them away. But they were on her. Hands, frigid skeletal hands slithering on her skin, in her hair, under her clothes. She screamed again, struggling, trying to run but she couldn’t.

  Shackles snapped at her ankles, at her wrists restraining her to an unseen stone wall.

  One of us. Forever.

  “Get away from me!” She flailed against her iron bonds, against the beings fetid breaths.

  But they kept coming. Smothering her in their despair.

  “Vahrasth moltarram noirceis!” A voice boomed far away in the distance. “Vahrasth noirceis!”

  The chains shattered against the stone floor. She became suspended, as if scooped up. The darkness, the stench, the atrophied murmurs faded away.

  Her breath eased and she inhaled deeply. “Sin?”

  The morning sun blinded her, the wind blew bitter yet welcoming upon her skin, as Sinclair rushed her out of the beach house and into his car.

  Her head throbbed. She heaved for breath while he turned on the ignition and screeched out of the driveway.

  “Morgius is bound to this house. I saw the sacred Sea Serpent chest where Burton kept the evil entity,” Sinclair said, his voice a sharp staccato. “We should be okay. He shouldn’t be able to follow us for now.”

  He zoomed through the village’s streets. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, trying to keep the nausea down.

  “Damn, Cee. This is way over our heads. I can’t beat this thing.”

  His words chilled her to the bones. Dread slammed over her.

  For once, she had nothing.

  Not one thing to say.

  Chapter 8

  Sinclair watched Celeste lay slumped by his side while he drove back to
the guesthouse. He laid a protective hand upon her shoulder. Fear and rage scurried though his veins.

  Burton had left his legacy all right—summoned Morgius to earth, brought him to life. It wouldn’t take long for the evil entity to turn strong enough to escape his bounds and wreck havoc on this community.

  A visitor dropping by or the owner of the beach house could be the first victim, or the cottage’s caretaker checking on Burton.

  Damn.

  Sin clenched the wheel in frustration and snatched a glance at Celeste again. When she’d fallen prey to Morgius’s power in front of his eyes, gripping her skull with both hands while the monster pointed at her, he’d lost it. How could they beat that?

  They had to retreat, they had to. He was no match for the evil being.

  Without her, he would have fought the monster to the end. But with her there. And with her ties to it… He shuddered. Would destroying Morgius destroy a part of her too?

  They definitely needed more.

  He checked on his girlfriend again. Her hair was a tangled mess and stuck to her wool coat which hung open over her tank top. She had lost the thick pink scarf she’d knitted herself and her throat was bare, vulnerable.

  A protective feeling rushed over him. Thank goodness she was asleep. The drain on her sympathetic system had been huge, she needed the rest.

  He reached over to button her coat. God, how he loved her.

  Still the same determined girl he saw on his return from London. His father had sent him to Oxford for college, and he’d spent his summers on the Malabar Coast of southwestern India with his mother’s family, with his kind. He’d learned to control the beast inside him and learned more of his mother’s heritage.

  And he’d returned to Seaport to find Diesel’s little sister all grown up, a lovely vision in the passenger seat of his friend’s car, picking him up at the airport.

  Same messy hair, same slightly crooked glasses giving her that adorable sexy quirkiness. And her mind. It hadn’t taken much conversation to realize how smart and interesting she was.

  Always seeking more.

  He fell in love instantly that day. And she’d accepted to go out with him later. Once to a band concert on the waterfront. Another time to a lazy afternoon hunting bargains and coffeeshops on Thayers Street in Providence. Then dinner under the stars on his yacht, where he’d kissed her for the first time, tasted her fresh lips, her passion so fierce under the studious demeanor.

  A passion that eventually led her to his bed and a commitment they both shared. Together, they knew they were heading for something serious. He was waiting for her to finish law school at Brown. He had the ring in his pocket the day she was dumped at her father’s gate. Thinking of the grandest way to propose. And since that day, nothing had been the same for them.

  And he thought it was Burton he had to fear. Fool. It was so much worse.

  What would Morgius do to her?

  Burton had been mortal, a man, one that had lived for over three hundred years but bound by similar constraints as any of the warlocks. In the end, not matter how he wanted to be immortal, his own flesh had betrayed him.

  But Morgius. Sin shuddered at the memory of the being’s finger pointed at the one he loved. Morgius was an entity made entirely of darkness and malevolence, with not even a hint of desire aside from the pure instinct to devour souls.

  Morgius wanted to use Celeste just because that was what it needed to exist. A soul to feed on. Nothing else.

  No weaknesses.

  A prince of the Daeva realms.

  Sin shot a glance once more at his girlfriend sleeping on the crafted leather seat of his jag. While he respected that she wanted to deal with this in her own way, he didn’t have to accept that.

  Even if she’d fight him over this, he knew when to admit he needed help.

  And now was the time. They couldn’t wait.

  He sighed, reached for his cell phone, and sent out a quick but much needed text.

  * * *

  “But I can. I can beat this.” Celeste curled her knees under her on the quilted bedspread. She’d woken as Sin had parked by the guesthouse and, utterly drained, she’d dragged herself to the room.

  As she spat the words at him, she knew she was wrong. She had no idea how to beat Morgius. But every inch of her rebelled at the thought that she was defenseless. She could not admit it.

  Not to Sin. Not to herself.

  “Cee, you have studied and practiced, and sure you did have Burton for a while. But this, this is magic so dark you’d have to ally with forces you can’t control to defeat it.”

  “Sin, listen. What happened at the cabin, I’ve survived things like this for days while in the coma last year,” she protested as she rummaged in her suitcase frantically. “I just have to figure out its weakness.”

  She admitted to herself that yes, without Sin, she would not have survived Morgius attack today. But she hadn’t expected it.

  Now she knew. She would be prepared.

  He stopped her, a hand on her shoulder. “Cee, slow down, There’s no ‘I’ here. We have to figure out his weakness.”

  She ignored him, digging through her travel bag. All she found were a few books, her glass orb, and sachets of herbs. “Damn, the rest of my tools are in the Lexus parked at Burton’s cottage. We have to go back and get it,” she told him. “All my grimoires are there.”

  “No, I can’t do that. I can’t risk your life,” he said grimly.

  “You don’t think I’m strong enough,” she said with bitterness.

  “No, it’s not that.”

  Her eyebrows knitted in irritation. “You think so. You liked me without magic, didn’t you? Liked me dependent on you?”

  “Celeste, you are so wrong. I love you. I want you to be away from harm.”

  “Safe?” She burst out, her voice shrill. “I was supposed to be safe surrounded by all of you. And look what happened. At my work, of all places. Just like that,” she said with a snap of her fingers, “one small conversation and look where I ended up.”

  She’d shouted the last words, sunk farther into the bed and again, desperately rummaged through the content of her bag.

  “Cee.” He had probably meant to be soothing.

  “And you just go ahead and kill Burton,” she told him, her tone acidic. “He would have told me everything I needed to know.”

  “No he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have said a word.”

  “But you didn’t let me try.” Tears welled in her eyes at the hopelessness of her situation. “You just barged in and took care of it, without even asking.”

  “You were gone. Your car was gone. What was I supposed to think?”

  “That I had it under control.” She glowered at him. “It was my business to take care of. I was handling it.”

  He sat down by her and sighed. “Baby, I was scared. You could be anywhere. I thought maybe Burton had you. Finding him was the quickest way to see if you were okay.”

  “And kill him.”

  “He taunted me. Told me you were his, that he’d tainted you with his darkness. He also brought up my mother.” Pain twisted his features. “It was too much. The beast in me came out. I couldn’t control it.” He shook his head slowly while his eyes softened. “Trust me, he wouldn’t have told you how to get rid of Morgius. He felt it was his legacy.”

  “His legacy? I’m his freaking legacy?”

  “His darkness in you, yes. He gave your soul to Morgius. To feed on. Maybe in a way, he wanted a part of him transfer over to you through the demon. A dying sorcerer’s wish.”

  “But I don’t… No, I can’t have his essence in me,” she said, shuddering in revulsion. “I have visions but that’s it.”

  “As more of Morgius takes hold of you,” he started, his voice hoarse with agony, “you’ll turn into something like Burton.”

  “Oh god. That’s sick.” She felt as if weird slithery things crawled all over her this very minute. She looked down at her body, disgusted.


  Sin wrapped his arm around her. “We will figure this out, Cee. But you need help with this. You really do.”

  “Ehael said I need to go home.”

  He frowned, puzzled.

  “I left you to do a ritual, called on the Guardian of Secrets, “ she explained. “I need you all, she told me. The Warlocks. My mother.”

  “She’s right.” He gave her an uneasy smile. “Hey, I need them, too.”

  “Sin.” She rested her forehead on his chest. “I don’t know. I’m weary. I’ve been fighting this for so long. But I have to keep going. Fight what’s within me. No one knows what’s really there. Even I don’t know where I am when my mind is gone from this realm.”

  Celeste was suddenly overwhelmed and exhausted even though it was mid-morning, the bright sun shining through the lace curtains framing the window of the guesthouse’s room. “I wanted to get off on my own, away from you all. Get a new job, a new place. Not run away from you, just be more grown up. And now…”

  “Now, you’re not alone,” he said. “We will fight this. It’s okay to need help.” He kissed her forehead. “You will go to New York City, be a lawyer. I love you, sanam. I never meant to trap you.”

  She nodded quietly. She loved him more than ever but just couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not when Morgius had hold of her and its darkness resided in her. She would not let it taint what had been most precious to her. Her love for Sinclair.

  “But now we need the others to help,” he said. “This is not something you tackle alone.”

  “Okay,” she said quietly. Of course he was right. She had been fighting the wrong fight. Thinking asking her family for help meant being weak.

  He wrapped his muscular arms tighter around her. “Right now, you need to rest. A couple of hours to get your strength back, then we’ll figure out a plan.”

  “Yeah.” She nestled into his arm, her mind blank for once, in the safety of the one who loved her. She still had no idea how she’d reclaim her independence while being so in love with him. But she’d cross that bridge later.

  For now, she had more to worry about.