by Bree Moore
“Why would Tyson go off into the forest alone if he knew they were out there?” Harper asked.
Ian answered from her left. “They’re not active until after dark. He probably figured he was safe to go for a stroll. But there’s a storm rolling in, so it’s darker earlier than usual.”
Kamri mentioned something about gathering the pack, and Fletcher said he’d find Violet or Lilith. No one else moved. Harper stood, scooting her chair back.
Ian glanced up. “What are you doing?”
“He can’t have gone far. I’m going with the pack. I’ll fly overhead and help them find him faster.”
“No, you won’t.” Violet’s voice came in behind them. Harper turned around. Violet’s eyes had lit up, they were literally glowing. She must have been casting some sort of spell.
“It’s my fault he’s out there. If he’s in danger, I want to help get him out of it,” Harper said.
Violet held up a hand. “I healed your back too recently. If you shift now, you’ll undo all of it. No, you’ll stay here with the others.
Harper curled her hands into fists. It was a problem she had caused, and she wanted to fix it. She opened her mouth to retort, but Violet interrupted, moving on as if Harper weren’t still standing there, glaring at her.
“Fletcher? Are you up for flying?”
“I was just out there and that wind’s a beast.” Fletcher was breathless. “I’m not sure I can last in it, but I’ll try.”
He walked from the room, blue wings tucked against his back until he stepped outside. Harper watched through the window as his wings unfurled and he launched into the evening sky. The wind immediately buffeted him, but he corrected his course with ease.
A moment later, a pack of werewolves ran through the same field in the back, splitting up in groups of two and three and heading in different directions. Harper counted ten, including the black one she recognized as Zeke.
Inside the cabin, everything returned to normal for movie night, although a palpable sort of tension lay thick in the air. Harper stood in the kitchen as everyone trickled toward the common room. Someone flipped off the lights in the kitchen except for a dim one above the bar-like counter that Harper leaned against. Her eyes remained trained on the storm brewing outside as if she could see across distances through walls and trees to find the person everyone worried about. Was she worried about him? It wasn’t her fault that Tyson had decided to wander off near dark. He knew better than she did the dangers that existed here, and she hadn’t intentionally goaded him into leaving. Guilt gripped her chest in a tight fist.
A click on the countertop drew Harper’s attention back inside. A woman stood beside her, skin and hair black, eyes milky white.
Harper squeezed the counter’s edge with her hands. “Who are you?”
“Which stone?” The woman asked, dipping her head toward the counter.
Two polished rocks gleamed there—one a muddy red color, streaked with white. The other was white with soft grey lines through it.
“You want me to pick one?”
“Yes.” She clipped the word so short that Harper assumed she might say something else, but she pursed her lips together, staring sightlessly to one side.
Harper wasn’t one to linger on decisions like this. She pointed at the red stone, hardly knowing what she was choosing. The blind woman smirked and snatched the white stone from the counter.
“You’ve chosen your fate in the red amethyst. I knew you were a fighter when I first felt your aura, Harper King. Take your stone and go find him.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. Harper palmed the stone, staring at it. “Why the rock?”
“For courage. For strength. For protection.”
Harper snorted. “Are you some kind of Seer?”
“No. I See nothing.” She passed Harper, entering the common room without looking back.
Harper shoved the red amethyst into her pocket and faced the back doors, taking in a breath and releasing the tension in her shoulders. Lightning flashed, lighting up the field briefly before thunder permeated the sky, rattling the windows of the lodge.
The door opened effortlessly and no one stopped Harper as she shut it behind her. The back deck of the cabin had an overhanging roof. For a moment, she was sheltered, watching the rain clouds, barely feeling the wind. She breathed deep. Violet said she shouldn’t shift for twelve hours after receiving the healing wards, but the witch could redo them, right? Wasn’t it more important to find Tyson before the pack of rogues did?
Harper walked down the front steps, shrugging out of the new jacket. Faint marks still decorated her arms, like whispered warnings against what she was about to do. The wind lifted the hair off her neck, and a few drops of rain struck her face. Her shoulders grew numb. Would the spell suppress her ability to change? Harper breathed out, mentally probing her body. Feeling nothing different, she released her wings.
Pain split down the center of Harper’s spine. She shrieked, falling to the ground, knees striking the gravel. Her fingers curled into the loose rocks. Slowly, and with agonizing pain, her wings pierced through her back and stretched toward the sky. Damn that witch. Harper’s hands curled against the ground, and she panted, blinking tears from her eyes. Blood soaked through the tank top, now damp against her back, but it stopped soon enough.
Standing, Harper stretched her wings and flapped them a few times. She could move them. Her shoulders ached fiercely, but she could fly. The wind caught her wings as she leapt into the air. All she had to do was find a single person among the trees. Hopefully, she would be looking for a moving target, not a body.
Chapter Eight
Tyson
Tyson stormed through the forest on a familiar path, keeping the cabin in sight and letting his thoughts whirl around his head. Anger took over his body, kicking loose rocks and sticks on the trail, berating Harper’s foolish stubbornness in his head. If she would just accept his help it would make all the difference. The counseling program worked; Tyson had seen it time and time again. It wasn’t perfect, but wasn’t it better than running and hiding from the government forever?
Tyson kicked a large rock that didn’t budge from the path and his toe throbbed. He stopped and shook it out, cursing at the rock, the dirt, and the light rain that had started falling. Mostly, he cursed himself. He hadn’t gotten anything from her about her abilities or her family. Instead, he’d lost his temper. He had never gone off like that with the other residents. No matter how abrasive, how critical, how much they rejected what he offered them, he could always let it slide and do his job. Harper got under his skin. Around her, Tyson felt like he had no idea what he was doing.
Tyson’s mind turned to Reya. Mentioning her to Harper had been stupid. How could she understand? He believed that he had helped Reya and her family, but he couldn’t know for sure. The records he’d searched had brought no results. It was as if her family had vanished, fate unrecorded. Could they have escaped? Back then, methods of containment were harsher and less organized. Many records, if they were kept, were locked and Tyson wasn’t sure how he would gain access. He’d given up a while ago, but Harper’s criticism lit the fire in him again. He wanted to find Reya’s record—not just to solve his own curiosity, but to prove to Harper that he had helped someone.
Tyson’s stomach lurched. He paused, putting a hand to it and rubbing. He was hungry. Maybe that was all. But he wasn’t ready to head back. He walked a little further.
The more Tyson thought about finding Reya’s record, the more it felt wrong. He should focus on the here and now. Fletcher would be Tyson’s first successful Naturalization. Tyson could prove that he was an effective counselor when Fletcher was Reformed and had completed the Naturalization process in a few days’ time. Then Harper would see, it wasn’t all empty promises with no return. The methods worked.
Tyson’s feet slowed to a meander. The raindrops grew heavier, striking his head and shoulders. He looked up into
a foreboding sky filled with electrified grey clouds. Shoot. He’d have to head back.
He looked around for the cabin, but he didn’t see anything but trees. Blurry trees. His stomach lurched again, a completely different sensation than hunger. Had he wandered farther out than he expected? He hadn’t been walking long enough to do that.
Nothing looked familiar. Tyson wheeled around and headed back down the path. The crisp smell of pine and rain mingled in his nose as he rushed along the path. Furtively glancing between the trees, Tyson expected to see the cabin at any moment, but minutes passed and thunder rumbled overhead and he saw nothing but trees for miles, and no end to the path ahead.
The trees blurred again.
Something was wrong. Tyson broke into a run. The density of the air increased. He had chalked it up to the storm and changing air pressure before, but now the hair on the back of his neck rose. A branch snapped. The sky grew darker, and rain clouds loomed thick and ominous. A loud crack penetrated the air, like a gunshot. Tyson whirled around, sending leaves scattering along the ground. Just thunder. It was just thunder. He jogged, hands stuffed in his pockets, head jerking left and right. Shadows kept pace with him on both sides, their strides almost leisurely.
Tyson sprinted.
A crouching figure leapt between the trees ahead, springing off one tree trunk and landing against another before falling right in front of Tyson. Tyson scrambled to a halt and nearly fell backward. Laughter echoed around the forest, a dozen different tones. A group of people emerged from between the trees.
Rogues.
The nearest shadow pacing him turned out to be a short, pale-faced red-head. Heath. The blonde to his right was Lexi. Both vampires. Tyson recognized one or two of the others in their company. Their clothing hung in rags. Their hair lay knotted and tangled, and their faces were filthy, scratched, and bruised. They didn’t carry any weapons, but then, they wouldn’t need any.
Tyson wiped his hands on his jeans and breathed in through his nose, swallowing his fear. How could he approach this situation and still get out alive? His training didn’t cover what to do in a forest ambush.
“Hey.” Tyson managed to squeeze the inadequate word from his constricted throat.
A guy stepped forward, buzzed head gleaming. He smiled, though it was more a baring of teeth.
Tyson had to get a handle on the situation fast. “Heath, Lexi, what’s this about?” The couple had once seemed like ideal Naturalization candidates, but they had deliberately avoided counseling appointments for quite some time. Trouble always brewed in the vampire faction. As a whole, they were moody and extremely unpredictable.
Heath’s mouth twitched upward in a sneer. “Fresh blood.” He had an arm loosely draped around Lexi’s shoulders. As if they weren’t standing in a forest at twilight with raindrops peppering them.
“Let’s see if anyone at the big house misses him. Should send the right message,” a raspy-voiced female snarled. A shadow darted around the clearing, faster than Tyson could follow, coming up behind him. Her nose nuzzled his neck from behind, and she inhaled. The others drew closer, murmuring. Tyson’s pulse pounded in his ears.
“Mmm. He is fresh. O-positive.” Her lips mouthed Tyson’s neck. He pulled his head away from her, but she grabbed his hair and jerked him back again, licking his neck. Tyson shuddered, which made her laugh. His arms ached, twisted behind him in her impossibly strong grip.
“No, please. Just don’t—”
“Don’t what?” she teased. “You can relax, kid. It’s not what you think.”
One of the paranormals bent down as if picking something up, but he didn’t straighten. Instead, his back hunched, and a dark mass spread over him. He lifted his head, showing snarling fangs on a narrow snout, straightening on four legs.
The woman holding him whined at the back of her throat, like a cat warning another cat just before the squall. “Stand down, Rudy. Boss said I got first draw tonight.”
The wolf snapped and growled, but bowed its head deferentially.
Her mouth touched Tyson’s neck again, the unnaturally long points of her incisors grazing his skin.
Tyson’s heart raced. He never should have left the lodge, let alone entered the forest. The only one who had any idea he left was Harper, and she hated him. This was the end, and Tyson couldn’t think of a single person who would care if he died. Megan might. Sisters were good for some things. But what about the residents? Would any of them mourn his death? He doubted it.
Maybe Harper was right about something.
Tyson couldn’t draw breath. The vampiress chuckled. “They all cry, curse, or pray at the end.” Her tongue flicked his ear as she hissed the words.
“I can't wait to hear what you do.” Harper, suspended by a pair of dark wings that almost blended into the clouded sky, soared above them. She looked like an avenging angel, backlit by a flash of lightning, the wind pulling her hair back from her face.
Tyson sucked air into his lungs. She shouldn’t be able to remain suspended that way, as if held by the wind.
The vampiress wrenched Tyson’s arms back further, and he stumbled against her. More of the gathered mob shifted, some baring teeth, others crouching and making the stomach-churning transformation into beasts.
Harper folded her wings and dove. The vampire dropped her hold and leapt. She met Harper mid-air and they fell in a tangle of wings and limbs, rolling to the dirt.
Tyson sprinted for the trees away from a scene of madness. These weren’t the tame paranormals he worked with every day; these were nightmares from hell come alive.
A shoulder rammed into Tyson’s back, knocking the breath from his lungs and sending him crashing to the ground. A man sat on top of him, his weight pressing Tyson into the muddy ground. Tyson tried to roll, but the man’s bulk was too much to throw off. His eyes lit up silver, tinted with red. He bared his teeth and lunged for the throbbing, pulsing vein in Tyson’s throat.
Enormous jaws clamped down on the vampire’s midsection and tore him off Tyson. The vampire bolted, gone in a blink. The werewolf took his place over Tyson, the black blood from the vampire dripping from his teeth onto Tyson’s coat. He didn’t have time to do more than whimper as jaws darted toward his face.
A shrill whistle broke through the air. The werewolf froze, teeth inches from Tyson’s throat. Tyson’s head buzzed, and the sound rattled around grasping for purchase on his mind, but it kept slipping. He dragged his hands over his ears, muffling the whistle. The grasping sensation disappeared.
The werewolf turned to the source of the sound, apparently transfixed. No longer facing down its jaws, Tyson felt dampness on his jeans and realized he’d wet himself. Any sane person would have done the same. He slid out from between the wolf's legs and clambered to his feet, slapping his hands back over his ears the moment he was freed. The whistle became a song, somehow winding around Tyson without touching him.
It came from Harper.
She hovered in the center of the clearing, mouth open. She was singing, although it was like nothing Tyson had heard before—ethereal and otherworldly, rising and falling with the gusting of the wind. The other figures in the clearing stood enraptured, though their eyes seemed glassy and unseeing. Harper’s song commanded the attention of a force of two dozen supernatural beings. No ordinary bird shifter had any abilities like this.
Harper drew a breath and held a final high note that reverberated in the air. Tyson’s teeth rattled and his pulse quickened. An invisible force built up around him, and his eardrums compressed until they might burst. Tyson slapped his hands over his ears and the pressure lessened.
The note ended abruptly, and the entire mob force dropped in crumpled heaps—vampire, man and beast alike. Tyson’s knees wobbled, and he struggled to remain standing but somehow managed. Harper turned and Tyson’s heart clenched in awe and fear. Her hair disheveled, her feathers outstretched, her gaze wild…He could see it. Raven born.
Harper
surveyed the road filled with still bodies.
Tyson swallowed. “Are they…dead?”
Her eyes flickered up to meet his. The wild edge lingered there, but it was giving way to something more…normal. “I don't think so. We should go.” What was she thinking? Had she done it on purpose?
Harper’s wings flapped open, and Tyson jumped. She reached toward him.
He didn’t move any closer. “For a moment, I thought you would join their side.”
“Yeah, well, don’t think about it too much. I still might.”
A joke. Definitely a joke. She had an odd sense of humor.
Rain fell steadily around them as Tyson stared at her extended hand. What did she expect him to do?
“You managed to get yourself out here pretty far. What were you doing, running?” she asked.
Tyson furrowed his brow. “I think one of their group is some kind of illusionist. Or a transporter? A mentally enhanced being. I could see the cabin before…” He trailed off. The realization of how close he’d come to death clenched in his stomach.
“You’re miles from there.” Harper stretched her hand out further. “Come on, I’ll take you back.”
When Tyson didn’t take her hand, she sighed and dropped her arm, then flapped her wings and launched into the air as she grabbed him under his arms. Tyson yelled as his weight forced her to dip toward the ground, and he braced for a crash. With several powerful thrusts of her wings, Harper pulled up into the sky.
If Tyson hadn't already peed his pants, he would have then. Harper tightened her grip under his arms, adjusting until she clasped them around his chest and locked her hands on her wrists. Her chest pressed against his back, almost like an embrace except his legs dangled toward the ground, and he was too terrified to enjoy it. The wind whipped past his face, numbing his ears.
For a few minutes, Tyson saw from Harper’s perspective. The trees and ground rushing below, the horizon ahead, the air buffeting him. His heart lifted above the terror, and for a second he understood why Harper wouldn’t want to risk losing this.