Falling for Shifters: A Limited Edition Autumn Shifters Collection

by Lacey Carter Andersen

  She spread her fingers across her stomach. It would be a while still before she began to show, but she already felt the bond to the pups and knew the future would be even less predictable moving forward. She still remembered spying August that first day. She hadn’t expected the adventure that unraveled after.

  “What are you thinking about, Squirrel?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “You. Always you.”

  About the Author

  Godiva Glenn is a nocturnal being, much like vampires and cats. She holds a B.A. in Literature, which more or less means she has spent more hours reading and writing than she would ever care to admit to. Luckily, all that knowledge comes in handy for her creative pursuits.

  * * *

  Most of her recent writing endeavors circle around the paranormal/supernatural. Wolves are her preferred sexy shifters, but who knows what the future holds.

  * * *

  She resides in the U.S. with dreams of traveling abroad to research locations.

  * * *

  More info at GodivaGlenn.com

  A Rueful Equinox

  Stacey Jaine McIntosh

  About A Rueful Equinox

  Fox Donovan has never quite belonged in either the Winter Court or the Summer Court.

  * * *

  His marriage to wolf shifter, Violet Grayson, leads to further complications. Especially now that there’s war on the horizon.

  * * *

  What will happen when family and court politics collide?

  A Rueful Equinox

  “What the—” My voice carried across the densely wooded grove of oak trees on the outskirts of what I knew to be the wildwood. It was home, primarily to Herne and to other solitary fey as well.

  As an arrow whizzed past my ear and hit the trunk of the tree behind me, I cursed and looked up, facing a young girl. But this girl wasn’t human. She was fey with pointed ears and antlers that jutted out of the sides of her head, like a deer’s. I blinked once, then twice, convinced I was seeing things. No faerie I knew had horns except for Herne, the keeper and guardian of the wildwood and the sacred and oh so dangerous Wild Hunt.

  “Bloody faerie,” I muttered, noting how her long copper hair hung in waves over her shoulders, resting below the curve of her breasts. A stray strand fell across her eyes, and she shoved it away quickly before raising her eyes to meet mine.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said arrogantly. “Don’t you know the wildwood when you see it? It isn’t safe.”

  I continued to stare at her. She had an air about her that was strangely familiar, only I couldn’t quite place it. “And why is that? Last I knew, the wildwood was the solitary fey’s territory. No more Summer’s property than it is Winter’s.”

  “It is, but you reek of the mortal world and your clothes—” She turned her nose up, as if offended.

  “What about my clothes?” I asked, looking down at my jeans and t-shirt. Sure, they weren’t in any way designer, but they were clean.

  “You’re trespassing, Prince,” the distinct voice of Kit, my mother’s twin brother, and thus, my uncle said, coming to stand next to the antlered fey girl.

  “Kit?”

  Kit chuckled. “I see your mother’s still not big on the use of proper titles then?”

  “No,” I scowled. “And she hasn’t been to Court in forever.”

  Kit smirked. “Zooey was never really big on being Queen. Exactly how long is forever?”

  “To what do we owe the unexpected pleasure of your company, Prince? You’re not planning on declaring war, are you?” Even without his trademark leather kilt, I would have recognised Herne anywhere. He had that kind of unmistakable air about him, which meant you simply couldn’t forget him, even if you wanted to. And being fey, he never appeared to age, much to my annoyance.

  “I suppose you would think that, given the right to rule the Summer Court was taken right out from under me, but no, I have no desire to rule. Scarlett and Ash can keep the Summer’s throne.”

  “You know it might be prudent of you to take back your claim. You are a Prince of Summer, after all.”

  “I’m more a Prince of Winter,” I muttered, thinking of my mother and how she was Queen of the Winter Court. My father, Evander, dead since I was five, had been a Prince of the Summer Court. I remember the day my mother told me. I couldn’t even cry. It had been the Summer Queen, Scarlett, who had killed him. Damn near tore his head from his shoulders with one bite. Being half wolf shifter is what gave her the uncanny ability and blood lust. Her wolf enjoyed the hunt a little too much. Given the Crown of Summer had all but landed in her lap, she kept her wolf shifter heritage largely under wraps and rightly so. Both the Winter and Summer Courts were short on female heirs. Not to mention the fey’s hatred of wolf shifters stretched back hundreds of years. “Since when do the Solitary fey take interest in the affairs of Court?” I asked.

  “Since your mother has been absent from the Winter Court. The wildwood is rife with whispers. Without a Queen, the Court will falter.”

  I shook my head slowly. “The Winter Court has a Queen.”

  But Herne pressed on, interrupting my apparent denial. “You don’t get to Arcadia very much, do you, Prince Alexander?”

  “I would prefer it if you addressed me by the name my mother gave me,” I replied, trying to regain some control. I had heard once from Robin Goodfellow that it was hard to ignore the lure of Herne, because one’s gender did not seem to deter him. Blinking, I licked my lips and tried to regain some semblance of control over the desire that flooded through me.

  Get a grip, Fox. I told myself. Better yet, think of Violet and how you can bury yourself in her when you get home.

  Home! I should have really been going. Staying too long in Arcadia was never wise, especially given the time difference. I’d been passing through on my way from the Winter Court. Apparently, since the supernatural treaty had been in place these last sixteen years, the fey council needed to sign off on all fey weddings. Especially when the bride was a wolf shifter.

  “Fox, yes, I know,” Herne mused and frowned. “So, what is Zooey up to now? Am I to assume she sent you here in her stead? Has her brood of children kept her too busy to warrant her a moment to steal away to visit me personally?”

  “Three’s hardly an absurd number.”

  Herne’s gaze flicked to Kit,millennia, who was nearby before coming to a rest on the fey girl. “You two haven’t been formally introduced, have you? Rue, this is Fox—the Winter Queen’s eldest boy. Fox, my daughter, Rue.”

  “Your daughter?” I asked, flabbergasted. Although I had suspected it, it was another thing entirely to hear it confirmed by Herne himself.

  “Yes, I have a daughter of my own flesh and blood. I realise how strange that must seem to you, given how Kit came to us. Your mother, she never kept the truth from you surrounding Kit’s identity, did she?” I quickly shook my head, while Herne wore a smug look of self-satisfaction. “Well there is one secret she has kept locked up, I’d wager, Prince.”

  While my mother hadn’t kept Kit’s identity a secret, nor the revelation of the sordid story of how he came to be living with Herne and Rhiannon, back when it had all come to light it had well and truly shocked my family.

  “And what might that secret be?” I asked. While I grew bored with the tedium of this conversation, I couldn’t help but be a little curious as to the secret Herne thought my mother had kept.

  “Rue is your half-sister,” Herne said, taking obvious delight in my all too apparent shock at the situation.

  “My what?” My jaw dropped, and I stood there open-mouthed, simply staring at him.

  “I’m what?” Rue shrieked, quickly recovering her composure—quicker than I, anyhow, only to proceed on in what could be explained as nothing more than a tantrum. “The Queen of the Winter Court is my mother? And you knew all along and didn’t think it was worth telling me? How could you, Father?”

  “I’m with Rue, how could you?” Kit asked.


  “The Winter Queen,” Herne’s eyes came to rest finally on my face. “It’s how she wanted it. Your mother—Zooey—she was adamant after Ever and Leo were born that she wanted no more children. She didn’t want to rule. She didn’t want to be Queen. She wanted nothing more than to settle down in her quiet, mundane life in Knox with Tristan and forget about being fey. Forget about Arcadia. I wasn’t about to let that happen. So, I used a particular rite to my advantage. Two months later she came to me and told me she was pregnant, and she was going to terminate the pregnancy. I could not let her do it, so I gave her a way out.”

  “A way out? How, exactly?” I asked, already feeling sick to my stomach, and disgusted not only by Herne, but by my mother as well. She’d done what she condemned her own mother for—given up a child. For reasons unfathomable to me, beyond that of an unwanted pregnancy.

  “By offering to take the baby from her once it was born. Much like your grandmother did with Kit. Of course, she had a much more complex situation than an unwanted child.”

  “Did Tristan know?”

  “No, of course not. At least not straight away. He tried to talk her out of it when he finally found out. Goodfellow too, but she was determined. Once your mother sets her mind to something—”

  “She digs her heels in,” I concluded. “Yeah, I know. It’s a family trait.”

  “Ah, yes, and how is your great grandmother, the Seer, doing?”

  “She’s fine, given she doesn’t seem to age significantly, and how she’s nearly ninety. Doesn’t look a day over fifty.”

  “That’s what happens when humans meddle in fey magick,” Herne grumbled.

  “Should I take offence to that, milord?” I asked.

  “I suppose you could, if you like, but I wasn’t aware that you were openly admitting to the fact that human blood runs in your veins,” Herne said.

  “I think you’ve mistaken me for somebody else. I don’t share the same views as my stepfather.”

  “No? Well that is surprising, given he all but raised you as his own son,” Herne said.

  “Tristan may have raised me, but he’s not my father!”

  “No? That honour goes to Evander, the disgraced Prince of the Summer Court, doesn’t it? Met his demise by a wolf shifter, didn’t he?”

  I frowned. My father’s reputation had once been golden. But from the moment his mother Gloriana had driven him to secure the line of succession with a female heir, it had all gone downhill from there. He’d become obsessed. Even sleeping with Rhiannon and enacting the Rite of Sovereignty. Despite succeeding, he wouldn’t live to see his daughter, my half-sister, Arianna born. “You seem to know an awful lot about my family, milord,” I said. “Perhaps you could tell me.”

  “How unfortunate for you. I do have somewhat of a vested interest, you might say.”

  “Really?” I asked dryly.

  Herne smirked. “The stories I could tell you about your family, would make your head spin, boy, believe me.”

  “I think I know all I need to know.”

  “All that means is, you don’t know everything.”

  “People have skeletons for all sorts of reasons, Cernunnos,” I said using the name my great grandmother had for Herne, while keeping my eyes trained on Rue. Like most fey who had been around for millennia he had many names. Humans thought the fey were ancient pagan gods and they weren’t wrong. Where once the fey had existed among mankind, their world residing alongside ours, they had all but pulled away in recent times. Their world—Arcadia—existing solely in the shadows behind the veil. “There are some things that are better left… secret.”

  “Is that supposed to be a dig, brother?”

  I smiled, to the point where even my eyes were hurting. “Maybe.” I shrugged. “Be seeing you, little sister.”

  “Not if I see you first!” Rue retorted.

  “Very well, have it your way,” I replied, spinning around to reach the arrow that was still embedded in the broad oak tree’s trunk, and pulling it free. “Guess now you have a reason to, huh?”

  “But that’s… mine.” Rue pouted, her lower lip turned down slightly in a frown.

  “And now it’s mine,” I said grinning wickedly. “Finders Keepers.”

  “I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing at Prince, but whatever it is, it won’t work,” Herne said.

  “Who said anything about a game, milord?” I asked innocently. “It’s more like a plan. One I intend to put into action.”

  “Of course, you will. You are your mother’s son after all,” Herne said with a knowing smile, a smile that I didn’t like overly much.

  “Bye, Kit. Say hi to Rhiannon for me,” I stated, giving a slight wave.

  “You could say hi to me yourself, Fox,” Rhiannon said, stepping forward slightly before noticing Rue. “Oh dear, now that has to be awkward. Not at all unlike the last time.”

  “And look how well that turned out.” Kit mumbled.

  “Yes, well, it certainly wasn’t the most pleasant of homecomings.”

  “I should be going,” I pressed, turning my back on the small assembly of fey in front of me. “Violet will wonder what kept me away so long.”

  “The wolf’s pup?” Herne asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Luke Grayson’s daughter, Violet, yes,” I corrected.

  “Didn’t think you would be the one to fall for the likes of a wolf, boy. I had pinned that folly on your sister, Ever,” Herne said.

  I shrugged, scuffing the toe of one of my sneakers. “Guess I’m more like my mother than you would credit me being,” I said, my gaze never left Herne’s for even a second.

  Herne chuckled. “She told you?”

  I scoffed. “No, Luke did, when he saw how serious things were getting between Violet and me,” I replied, thinking back to the conversation I’d had with Violet’s dad, Luke a few months back. I’d learnt that he and my mother had kind of dated. But faeries and wolf shifters had a long history of being enemies and for the most part wolves didn’t willingly get into a relationship with one of the fey. Even one who had human blood running through her veins as my mother had done, before she’d lost her soul to Arawn.

  “Ah. You should heed his advice then. Wolves and fey don’t mix.”

  “Scarlett and Ash don’t seem to be having any trouble,” I said. “In fact, they seem to get on rather well.”

  “Which goes to show there is an exception to every rule,” Herne said wisely. “Go on, you wouldn’t want to keep the girl waiting.”

  The front door was thrown open, and a teenage girl with wild brunette curls darted out. She was barely down the small flight of stairs before she shifted right in front of me.

  The girl, now a dusky grey wolf, took off running down the street.

  “Damn it, Mercedes!” The Summer Queen cursed.

  It’s been ages since I’d seen her, but she—like my mother—never seemed to age.

  “Hi Scarlett,” I greeted. “Bad time?”

  “Fox,” she answered cordially. “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “No.” I frowned, stuffing my hands into the pockets of my jeans, as the Summer King appeared. His gaze fixed on Violet.

  “To what do we owe this rather unexpected surprise, Violet, you know it’s not always wise to travel the fey roads alone.”

  “She wasn’t alone, Ash,” I stated. “She was with me. And we’re here because we figured a road trip was in order. Mom kind of did something stupid and we’re the ones copping it.”

  “How stupid exactly?” Scarlett asked. Looking at her I could tell she was somewhere around eight months pregnant. I hoped we weren’t interrupting.

  “Can we come in? It might be easier to explain when we are all not standing in your doorway.”

  “Alright, come on in,” Ash said somewhat begrudgingly. “But I’m not condoning you running away.”

  “Wasn’t asking you to,” I said. “But that’s um, that’s good to know.”

  Ash smiled
slightly.

  Once we were seated in the lounge room, I began.

  “Did you know there’s a Queenmaking rite?” I asked, directing my question at Scarlett.

  Scarlett answered with an eye roll. “I did.”

  “Mom came away pregnant from the Queenmaking rite,” I said. “I think Herne might have planned it… somehow, I don’t know.”

  “She didn’t want me,” Rue blurted. She appeared out of nowhere. Did she follow us here?

  “What?” Scarlett wrinkled her brow. “I’m confused. Who are you?”

  “I’m Rue,” Rue stated. “Herne’s daughter.”

  “Mom gave her up,” I said. “I found out by accident when I went trekking through the wildwood.”

  “Zooey had a child with… Herne?” Scarlett looked shocked, but at least the pieces were finally falling into place for her.

  “Yeah,” I frowned.

  “And you came here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m calling Luke,” Ash said.

  “No, don’t! Ash, please?” Violet begged.

  “I can’t very well hide it,” Ash answered. “Your father is here for the shifter summit.”

  “Damn it!”

  “You forgot; I take it?”

  Violet nodded. “I was supposed to go to my mom’s and well I didn’t want to go.”

  A knock at the door forced Scarlett up and out of her seat to open the door.

  “Fox?” I looked up, coming face to face with my mother and… Herne.

  “Who called you?” I asked.

  “Nobody called me,” Mom said. “Herne came to me after…”

  “Rue?” I asked. “You can’t say her name, can you?”

  “Damn it, Fox!” Mom yelled. “Why’d you have to go sticking your nose in where it didn’t belong?”