Fragile Bonds

by Adelaide Walsh

  “In truth, I think most of the packs have to be thinking about an alliance of some kind. I think changelings in general are tired of walking on eggshells around each other.” Dariel was simply the catalyst for something much, much bigger that had been brewing in the wings of changeling society for years. As the world grew, matured, connected on a deeper level than it had ever been before, the creatures who inhabited our world were changing, too.

  He chuckled, and claimed my mouth in a laughing kiss, holding me close against his body. When he broke the innocent brush of lips, he buried his head in my neck and just held me.

  “Let’s go home, Adriana.”

  He laced his fingers through mine and tugged me through the corridors of the den and back to his apartment.

  Epilogue

  Just a week after the day Joaquin and I reunited, the Bears and the Jaguars signed the first alliance agreement in recent changeling memory. The treaty committed both groups to supporting each other in conflicts, should they arise, and gave each group the right to veto decisions made by the other to attack any external entity. The agreement also set up a shared network of communication between the packs, creating a groundbreaking first in changeling history. The packs had never maintained open lines of communication. Never in recorded history. A fact which made them vulnerable to manipulation, to extortion, to falling prey to more organized and well managed aggressors. With the implementation of a fluid communications network between just two of the many packs in South America, the Bears and the Jaguars became a force to be reckoned with, and they set an example for all of the other changeling groups in the country. The alliance served as a template for a brand-new way of coexisting.

  A bare two weeks after the alliance had been solidified, we planned and executed the first move in our guerilla strategy designed to cut off Dariel’s supply lines.

  I was standing with my back against a tree, attempting to blend into the foliage around me. The nice thing about the rainforest is that it’s always pretty easy to hide. The natural landscape provides more than enough cover and is excellent for obscuring the human form. Large leaves, a constant drizzle of rain, creatures on the move day and night, and the ever-present din of noise in the forest made for a perfect backdrop to our covert operation.

  I was waiting for Rora’s signal. There were only five of us on this mission. We’d done two trial runs, making sure the timing was perfect and the cadence of the ambush made sense. I felt as ready as I’d ever be. Joaquín vehemently fought me on coming out here, but we needed the information the Snakes had to keep our attack on the supply chains going strong. After three or four skirmishes with the Bears and Jaguars, the Snakes seemed to have figured out that we were in their comm systems. We’d first hit a weapons cache, then a delivery of ammo coming in from Venezuela, and then a small caravan carrying key personnel data. The three attacks had given us the practice we’d needed for a more advanced operation.

  A flare, red and flaming leapt into the sky and I knew it was Rora’s sign to move. My mission was to get into the small hangar planted in the center of human controlled rainforest and see what was inside it. I needed to find a Snake. If I could find one, the plan was that I would try to get some kind of vision off of him.

  I bolted through the trees to the edge of the forest. I traversed the short distance across the clearing quickly and once I got right up next to the house, I made a mad dash for the door. Four other men and women, some Bear, some Jaguar swarmed the building from all sides. The skirmish was a short one, the Snake soldiers quickly taken out by the claws and teeth of the changeling rebels. When I finally made it inside the building, I was disappointed to find that we’d already taken out the entirety of the unit stationed here. The hangar housed a stash of automatic weapons. Rather than attempt to haul all of these back to the den, Rora gave the call to destroy the place.

  While the others set about laying charges around the base of the hangar, I sat with the Snake soldiers we captured at the beginning of the raid. I laid a hand on each of their shoulders, searching for the tell-tale hum of a vision, but it never came. This mission had been only partially successful. We grabbed the Snake’s phones and any technical devices we could find and took the whole lot back to the den for further investigation. We moved the Snakes well out of the blast radius and placed each of the soldiers on the long stretch of forest road, not far from where our explosion would take place. They would be far enough away to walk away without damage, but they wouldn’t forget what had happened here. The practiced efficiency with which we took them out. The skill and operation like this would have required. We would purposely leave them alive, allowing them to go back to the Snake camp with a message of the brutality of the Changeling packs. The message would serve as an open declaration of war, delivered by the Bears and the Jaguars. We’d officially come clean as a rebel alliance and knew that it was just a matter of time before the Snakes brought the fight to us.

  When I finally got back to the den, I was exhausted. I could barely manage to keep my eyes open. Joaquín greeted me at the vehicle bay, where he curled his big hand over mine and tugged me into a hard hug before pulling me away from the garage. We walked together in silence for a long while as we headed back to his apartment.

  “Heard the mission went well,” he said, standing beside me in a crisp, clean suit that boasted his position of pride in the pack. It didn’t matter how well he cleaned up though, I only ever saw him as a warrior.

  I was dirty from crawling around in the forest all day, but still he bent his head to capture my mouth in a wild kiss. This tongue stroking along the line of my lips, demanding entry. I willingly obliged him, opening my mouth, granting him the access he’d asked for. His kiss immediately heated my blood. Lighting a fire in my stomach and making me fidget with desire.

  As soon as we reached Joa’s apartment, he tumbled me into the bathroom, stripping off my clothes in a trail from the front door. When we hit the bathroom neither of us had the hindrance of clothes to prevent us from stepping directly into the scalding stream of water in the shower. If felt so good to be standing there, under the spray of a hot shower, in the arms of my alpha, the dirt and grime of the day washing away. I felt as if, with every added drop of water sloughing off the dirt from the forest, that I was shedding a coat fashioned from the old ways of living.

  Joaquín had, so far, kept his promise and tried. He did not see the world in the same way I did. The lines that divided us all as a people remained clear to him, however, he understood that those lines could exist without harming. We all choose how we will treat others, the role that we will play in the lives of those that we meet. I chose to stand strong for my people, chose to prioritize the safety and the freedom of my people. Joaquín was choosing to live with the lines he saw, but not let them divide, not let them rip away his chance at thriving in the new world that I was creating. He was trying.

  The End

  From the author

  Thank you for reading Fragile Bonds.

  If you enjoyed this book, I would like to ask you for a favor. Would you be kind enough to leave a review for this book on Amazon and Goodreads?

  It will help other people who like urban fantasy, paranormal, and reverse harem to discover it, and motivate me to write more books in this series!

  Thank you and good luck!

  Want to know more about my world?

  Do you want more strong, kickass heroines, possessing unique powers and leadership abilities good enough to organize a rebellion?

  Make sure to check out The Ritual – a clean FF novelette about a young and sassy witch confident enough to stand against demons from hell!

  (BTW, Camille, the MC of The Ritual, will be having a guest appearance in the next book of Adriana Rojas series, Faded Lines. So prepare yourself for the dive in this universe and download The Ritual today!)

  Sign in to Adelaide Walsh’s newsletter to receive all the newest updates and deals, and be the first to know when the next book in the series will
be released!

  Click the link to become a member of an exclusive group of Adelaide Walsh’s fans, and receive an exclusive short story, “Feel the Pride”!

  You can also follow my news on Amazon author page, in Twitter, and in Facebook!

  Dive into Faded Lines

  The Healer

  He couldn’t figure out where the leak was, but he knew it was there. Someone was feeding the rebels information. Their attacks too precise, too conveniently timed to have come from reconnaissance alone. And there was something about that woman at the center of the revolution. Where the hell had she come from?

  The healer scrolled through the mission reports from each of the sites the rebels had attacked. They were smart about their targets. Adriana Rojas could become a very very big problem for Dariel, but she was a human. Fragile. So easy to destroy. His lips twisted into a private smirk. It seemed wholly unthinkable. Someone so easily breakable bringing down a man who stood, for his people, as the personification of strength?

  As his eyes scanned the reports, he considered the names that appeared there. No patterns that he could see, no clues emerging as to where the information was coming from. But the healer was smart. Smarter than most people gave him credit for. And so, he let his intuition guide him.

  I think we can draw her out. A thought sent out into the ether.

  He tapped out an email on the small screen of the phone he cradled in his hands. His fingers hovered over the button that would send the message and become the catalyst for something that could never be undone.

  The voice in his head gave him all the encouragement he needed.

  She’s his biggest threat. We have to try.

  Chapter 1

  I never really considered how rebellions are formed, precisely. I’d read about them. I’d covered them in my work as a journalist. I’d met and talked to and even befriended a few people who operated them. But the genesis of a rebellion…that wasn’t something I’d ever actually spent much time thinking about. I guess I’d always just assumed there were more formalities involved with these things. More planning. Yet, there I was. At the center of a rebellion. How I—of all people—got there was still somewhat unclear.

  Rebel Hostilities Threaten Key Supply Lines for Bogotá. I scrolled through the article on my phone for the fourth time. How was it that I was being cited as the driving force behind a grass roots revolution on Colombian soil? How had this happened so fast? The same news organization that still deposited a salary into my bank account each month, was publishing articles following the development of the rebellion and positioning me at its epicenter. I got stuck on the picture that accompanied the article. My mind simply refusing to process the information. I was depicted in what appeared to be full combat gear—black cargo pants, black t-shirt, heavy black boots, machete hanging from one hand as I turned my head to shout something to the four men behind me. In the background of the photo were the smoking remains of a small concrete structure. It was a picture of me. Me. Adriana Rojas, “ex-journalist”—according to the article—and current leader of the rebel faction seeking to restore democratic rule to Colombia.

  Was that what I was doing? Was this about democracy? When Dariel and his Snakes came into Colombia, crumbled our government from the inside in a series of precision strikes, I had only wanted to protect my people. To stop an evil man from hurting humans, changelings, our magnificent Amazon.

  “Stop looking at it.” Rora grabbed the phone out of my hands and tossed it into the couch cushions. She collapsed into the lush leather; her petite form seemed to take up every free inch of the sofa. Rora was like that. She was a tiny thing, but her presence invaded a room, making her seem larger than life itself. “Obsessing won’t get you anywhere.”

  I scowled at her and snapped a bitter reply. “I’m not obsessing.” My black mood clearly wasn’t limited to just the press. “I need to know what’s happening in the city, since you people won’t let me go home.”

  The pillow she whipped at me, hit me directly in the face. Bitch.

  “Cut the crap, chica. You wanna go home? Be my guest. Say “hi” to the Snake assassins for me. You know, if they actually sack up and kill you face to face. If it were me—” she paused for dramatic effect and I glared at her wishing that my witchy ancestors had gifted me a useful power. Like the ability to make a snarky bitch’s head explode. “I’d be more concerned about a bomb in the apartment. Feels a little more on brand to me.”

  “Yeah well…” She was right. “I’ll just go find a new apartment.” I crossed my arms over the pillow she assaulted me with and resigned to grumbling angrily about…well…everything.

  “You might wanna direct some of that snarling away from me, your good friend who has sacrificed her couch to your dumb ass, for like the third time this week.”

  I blew out a breath. Again…bitch was right. I was being really shitty.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be snapping at you. You aren’t the one I want to pound into the ground like a stake.”

  “Clearly.” She rolled her eyes and shoved up off the couch and padded on feet clad in fuzzy slippers over to her kitchen. “You want some coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “So, you gonna tell me what his alphaness did to piss you off this time?”

  I hated this part about our friendship. Rora was a sister of my soul, and in the five months since I met her we’d become fast friends. If things had been different, if the situation had been different, I think the bond between us could have been iron strong. But her loyalty would forever belong to her alpha first. As the second in command of the Bear pack Las Furia, she was a power all on her own, and firmly aligned with Joaquín—Alpha of the most powerful changeling pack in the country, and my current love interest. The ties made things…complicated at times. I was closer to Rora than anyone else in the den, and I could tell her when Joa and I were having a moment, even count on her to kill a bottle of tequila with me and curse men on the whole whenever I needed it. But Rora’s chief consideration was protecting her alpha. No matter how close we were, I continued to represent a significant threat to both Joaquín and the Bears, and that put a wall between us. One neither of us would ever attempt to breach.

  “Just a difference of opinion.” I tried to brush off the topic. Downplaying what was clearly becoming a toxic entanglement, because I couldn’t ask Rora to see the same side of Joaquín that I did. I couldn’t sow seeds of doubt, of disrespect in her aimed at her alpha. It was wrong on an ethical level, and it just wouldn’t work on a practical level. Her loyalty to her pack and her alpha was forged in the fires of their history together.

  “Just a difference of opinion my ass,” she grumbled from her position in front of her overly complex coffee machine. “You better get your butt moving if we’re gonna make it to the intel briefing with your little band of spies.”

  I dragged myself off her couch and stalked off toward her bedroom. “I need a shirt,” I called from the hallway.

  “Mi closet, su closet.”

  I was so going to look like a prostitute today. Rora was a good four inches shorter than me, and probably shopped in the junior’s section. As it were, I managed to find something relatively appropriate and emerged ten minutes later, showered and sporting t-shirt that was just barely long enough to tuck into the front of my jeans. I think it was meant to be a tunic on Rora. It squished my boobs.

  When I hit the kitchen, Rora shoved a steaming thermos of coffee at me.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure,” she said, clutching her own drink. “You know that you can talk to me about what’s going on. Just because he’s my alpha doesn’t mean I don’t know that he can be a bastard.”

  I nodded, but she was wrong. There was too much at stake right now to jeopardize me support among the Bears. And I refused to put her in a position where her loyalty to her alpha could be questioned.

  “If you won’t talk to me, at least call Isla.”

  “Yeah, I’ll call her.” I
shoved my feet into my boots by the door after grabbing my phone off the couch. “I gotta run. Still need to prep for this meeting. I’ll see you in the office.”

  “I’ll be there,” she called, still propped against the counter top in her small kitchen.

  “Thanks for the couch,” I pulled the door open and strode out into the public corridor that lead from the residential sectors of the den to the marketplace.

  I didn’t want to call Isla. My best-friend-slash-soul-mate would kill me if she knew I was keeping secrets from her, but I hadn’t seen her in months, and she was already so worried about me. I didn’t want to add more to that fear by telling her that my relationship was failing but she couldn’t be here to help me through it. She was still in Bogotá, and travel between the city and pack lands was way too dangerous to attempt for anything less than a critical emergency. The Snakes were everywhere. They’d set up checkpoints on every route going into and out of the city, and I was terrified that they’d get smart to my network and pull her in for questioning.

  My mother, however, was safely sitting on a beach in Florida, soaking up the sun and sending me pictures of the cosmopolitans her friends were plying her with. After the first clip suggesting I might be at the heart of the revolution in Colombia hit the new stations, my mother agreed to my demands that she get the hell out of Dodge. I had to smuggle her out of the country on a private plane, the whole affair had cost an arm and a freaking leg, but boy did I rest easier knowing she was safe.

  Neither of the two most important women in my life had any idea that things between Joa and I were rocky.

  “You still sleeping, Ady?”

  Anton’s gruff voice tore my mind from its current position in outer space and brought it firmly back to the early morning chaos of Punto Cero.