by Ann Gimpel
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Borrowed Trouble
Chapter Two: Oddities
Chapter Three: Sail on By
Chapter Four: Sing a Song of...
Chapter Five: All That Glitters is Probably Gold
Chapter Six: Team Players
Chapter Seven: Choices
Chapter Eight: Asylum?
Chapter Nine: Only One Wee Problem
Chapter Ten: Skin in the Game
Chapter Eleven: Misunderstandings
Chapter Twelve: It’s a Toss-up
Chapter Thirteen: Old Secrets
Chapter Fourteen: When Vigilance Isn’t Enough
Chapter Fifteen: Overdue Truths
Chapter Sixteen: Challenges and Cures
Chapter Seventeen: It’s My Ship
Chapter Eighteen: Pick Your Poison
Chapter Nineteen: Bargains
Chapter Twenty: Love Claimed
Betrayed, Bitter Harvest Book Four
Chapter One: Oversight in Judgment
Also by Ann Gimpel
Alphas in the Wild
Hello Darkness
Alpine Attraction
A Run For Her Money
Fire Moon
Bitter Harvest
Deceived
Twisted
Abandoned
Coven Enforcers
Blood and Magic
Blood and Sorcery
Blood and Illusion
Demon Assassins
Witch's Bounty
Witch's Bane
Witches Rule
Dragon Lore
Highland Secrets
To Love A Highland Dragon
Dragon Maid
Dragon's Dare
Earth Reclaimed
Earth's Requiem
Earth's Blood
Earth's Hope
Earth Reclaimed Series
GenTech Rebellion
Winning Glory
Honor Bound
Claiming Charity
Loving Hope
Keeping Faith
Rubicon International
Garen
Lars
Soul Dance
Tarnished Beginnings
Tarnished Legacy
Tarnished Prophecy
Tarnished Journey
Soul Storm
Dark Prophecy
Dark Pursuit
Dark Promise
Wolf Clan Shifters
Alice's Alphas
Megan's Mates
Sophie's Shifters
Standalone
Red Dawn
Marked by Fortune
Shadows in Time
Alphas in the Wild Collection
Midnight Magic
Heart's Flame
Icy Passage
Dark Storm, Soul Storm Books Collection
Warin's War
Shadow Play
Melis's Gambit
Rubicon International Series Bundle
Coven Enforcers Series
Edge of Night
Abandoned
Bitter Harvest, Book Three
Dystopian Urban Fantasy
By
Ann Gimpel
Copyright Page
All rights reserved.
Copyright © September & October 2017, Ann Gimpel
Cover Art Copyright © July 2017, Fiona Jayde
Edited by Kate Richards
Copy edits by Nanette Sipe
Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or people living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, e-mail, or web posting without written permission from the author.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Borrowed Trouble
Chapter Two: Oddities
Chapter Three: Sail on By
Chapter Four: Sing a Song of...
Chapter Five: All That Glitters is Probably Gold
Chapter Six: Team Players
Chapter Seven: Choices
Chapter Eight: Asylum?
Chapter Nine: Only One Wee Problem
Chapter Ten: Skin in the Game
Chapter Eleven: Misunderstandings
Chapter Twelve: It’s a Toss-up
Chapter Thirteen: Old Secrets
Chapter Fourteen: When Vigilance Isn’t Enough
Chapter Fifteen: Overdue Truths
Chapter Sixteen: Challenges and Cures
Chapter Seventeen: It’s My Ship
Chapter Eighteen: Pick Your Poison
Chapter Nineteen: Bargains
Chapter Twenty: Love Claimed
Abandoned, Book Description:
A handful of Shifters. A hardy ship. An upside-down world where evil runs rampant and none of the old rules apply. Taking a stand against the Cataclysm solved a few problems. Others rushed in to fill in the void.
Recco misses his cozy lab and well-organized veterinary clinic, but ten years as a Vampire stripped him of any illusions. Life is done handing him everything he wants. He could rail against fate—which never bought him much—or suck it up and keep going. Defeating the Cataclysm broke Vampirism’s hold on him, though. Even better, it threw Zoe square in his path.
When Zoe left Ireland for a visiting professorship in Wyoming, she assumed she’d be home in a year. That assumption swung around and bit her in the ass. The Cataclysm, a spell trapping her in Ushuaia for a decade may be gone, but it left a hell of a legacy. One that’s far from done pursuing her.
Darkness stalks the ship. Evil that will stop at nothing to protect itself.
Chapter One: Borrowed Trouble
Zoe Seisyll lurched from one side of the generous galley to the other, compensating for the motion of the ship. She was alone in the stainless-steel kitchen running behind Arkady’s dining room because it was her turn to prepare the evening meal. The beginnings of biscuits spread before her. Half the dough was shaped into rough circles. The other half still sat in an enormous mixing bowl. Back before the Cataclysm, Arkady had been home to as many as sixty passengers and a sizeable crew, which explained the industrial-sized pans and cookware.
She flexed her fingers, coated with cornmeal, flour, powdered eggs, powdered milk, and enough water to hold it all together. Maybe focusing on her hands would drive the infernal song from her head. The elusive mix of chords mocked her as usual, slipping away before she could identify their origins.
“Och, and I brought it on myself,” she muttered.
Zoe adored music. She played guitar and piano passably well, and could hold her own on the flute. Cooking and singing went together like old, cherished friends, and she’d been deep into an Irish folk tune when the discordant melody intruded.
The one she hadn’t been able to get out of her head from a few weeks after they fought the Cataclysm. Not for long, anyway. Whenever she gave in and hummed or sang anything, she rarely got away with it. On the occasions she did, her victory was short-lived. The aberrant notes always intruded, ruining one of her favorite escapes.
Aye, Why music? Any other intrusion wouldna be quite so hard to stomach.
Her mind voice was thick with the brogue from her native Northern Ireland. She’d spent nearly as much time in Scotland, so her speech held hints of both accents, something that had confused folk in the U.K., many of whom
amused themselves by placing wagers about her origins. When she’d taken a visiting professor position in Wyoming, everyone there chalked her up as a Brit. Or, God forbid, an Aussie.
No self-respecting U.K. native would ever make such a mistake, but to North Americans, British-type accents all sounded alike.
She swallowed a snort and plunged her hands back into the dough, working on autopilot until three pans of cornmeal biscuits were ready for the waiting oven. Popping them inside, she set a mental timer for fifteen minutes. At least the jarring music in her mind had fallen silent. It was like the intruder knew the moment she let her guard down, waiting in the wings to pounce when she was vulnerable.
The worst part was it killed the spontaneous joy she’d always taken in music.
Moving to the sink, she rinsed her bowl and her hands. Something about the eerie melody was familiar, and unsettling enough she always tuned it out before she could identify it. A knee-jerk reaction to unpleasantness. She perched on a three-legged stool to wait until the biscuits were ready to rescue from the ovens but was too antsy to sit still.
A quick tour through the pantry identified other items to add to dinner preparations. It was too early in the day to do much more than get the biscuits done, though. No point wasting electricity keeping a casserole hot for hours. Everything on the ship was generator powered, and those generators required fuel. The scent of warm cornmeal wafted through the kitchen, comforting and reminiscent of home.
Aye, home. Is aught left of it?
She rolled her shoulders back and stood straighter. No point thinking about Belfast or the family she’d left behind. Parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. She’d never meant to be gone forever. Her plan had been a one-year visiting professorship at the University of Wyoming. Their offer included full access to newly excavated Native American settlements and the expectation of several research papers in prestigious journals. Journals already lined up and anxiously awaiting her impressions—and her photos.
Definitely a career-making move, and one almost guaranteeing the offer of a full professorship after she returned to Queen’s University in Belfast.
Even with all that, she’d negotiated until the university in Wyoming sweetened the pot by offering to underwrite her travel and living expenses. Zoe would have been a fool to refuse what was any archaeologist’s dream. Plus, she’d gotten herself into a wee pickle, and leaving Belfast for a time seemed prudent.
Once her visa was squared away, she’d moved into a cozy cottage walking distance from the campus in Laramie. Soon afterward, she’d been delighted to meet Aura MacKenzie, another Shifter, who was also a history professor. Aura had introduced Zoe to the local Shifter pack, and her concerns about carving out a secondary home in America evaporated—
The smell of almost-overcooked biscuits sent her flying to the ovens, mitt in hand. She pulled the pans out, thanking all the bloody saints she’d gotten to them in time, and turned off the oven. They had sufficient supplies on Arkady, but it didn’t mean she could ruin an entire batch of anything daydreaming. Their food stocks wouldn’t last forever. Between now and then, they had to figure out a way to resupply.
She located cooling racks and stacked the pans atop them. Wisps of the eerie, haunting melody were back. Zoe shivered and didn’t dig any deeper. Something about the song drew her to the restless ocean churning beneath the ship’s hull.
Had it followed her from Ushuaia?
Worse, had she done something wrong during their group incantation to defeat the Cataclysm? Wrong enough to absorb some of its fell energy?
No point borrowing trouble.
The corners of her mouth twisted into a grimace. Her grandma had been partial to the phrase. Thinking about the old woman was bittersweet. It was hard to long for someone she’d probably never lay eyes on again. Painful and a waste of energy.
Zoe arranged the rest of her dinner preparations in a neat row and left the galley, intent on layering up so she could spend some time out on deck. She trotted up the stairs to the corridor leading to her cabin and let herself inside the small, neat space. One bunk ran beneath the porthole; another sat at right angles along the back wall. A small desk and chair were the only other furniture in the room.
She flipped the duvet into place to cover her unmade bed with its rumpled sheets and pulled gear from one of the cabin’s many closets. Because this boat had ferried tourists through polar regions, it held a full complement of cold-weather clothing, saving the passengers from packing bulky gear on long transoceanic flights.
Zoe stepped into thick black trousers and an insulated red jacket she zipped to her chin. Red waterproof bibs came next. Followed by knee-high Wellingtons and a weatherproof rust-colored parka. She tugged a woolen hat over her head, before snugging the parka’s hood into place, and stuffed her hands into fluffy down mitts. After a quick glance at her tarot deck and a few magical accoutrements—mostly gemstones—she’d hung onto through her years in Ushuaia, she felt guilty. Maybe her time would be better spent immersing herself in chasing the intrusive song to its roots.
I won’t be outside for long, she promised herself. Only enough to clear my head.
Before she could overthink her decision, she trudged out of her cabin and along the corridor to the first door leading outside. The ship had a million doors and almost as many staircases. She supposed they’d been placed strategically to maximize safety, but things like insurance companies were part of the Old World order.
None of that mattered anymore, and maybe the demise of things like insurance companies was one of the plusses. No one to bail you out when you fucked up meant you were a hell of a lot more careful.
Cold hit her like an unyielding wall after the ship’s warmth. Her first full breath stuck in her throat, making her gasp, and she buried her nose and mouth in the parka’s neck ruff.
Zoe walked mindlessly. She started to hum, but cut it off fast. For once, the marauding melody didn’t insert itself. After a while, she wrapped her arms around herself in a feeble attempt to preserve her body heat. Icy wind cut through her layers of clothing, and sleet stung her face. The cold air searing her lungs was clean, though. A welcome counterpart to the years she and eleven other Shifters had been trapped in Ushuaia, wondering what was going to kill them first. A marauding Vampire or tainted air and water.
Years ago, Aura had talked her into joining their group on a trip to the tip of South America. At the time, it sounded like quite the adventure, and it occurred during a week when the university was closed for one of many U.S. holidays. The Shifters had planned to harness the power of an eclipse, something that would have enhanced their Earth-linked magic. Except the eclipse never happened. Instead, a spell gone bad had imprisoned them at the ass end of the Earth.
She pushed past the chill leaching into her bones and strode briskly from deck to deck, covering a familiar pathway. She tried to get outdoors as much as she could, but foul weather had kept her inside the last two days. Her coyote had pitched a right fit at the confinement.
“Better?” she asked her bondmate and picked up the pace.
“Yes.” The word held a grudging tone.
Zoe waited. After twenty plus years, she knew better than to argue—or cajole—her bond animal into anything. The strategy never worked.
“What happens after this McMurdo place?” the coyote asked.
“Depends what we find there.” Zoe was hedging because she didn’t want to break the news about a blue water voyage that could take a month or better. For some reason, the coyote hated water—or maybe it was the combination of water, cold, and being stuck in a small space. She tried a different tack. “Before we left Ireland, you enjoyed our jaunts in those little boats I used to rent.”
“Those were different, and you know it. How can you compare a sunny afternoon when we’d spend an hour or two within sight of land to this? Everything here is white or gray. It’s unnatural. I miss green and trees.”
She gave up on telepathy—the coyote would hear her either
way—and chose not to mention most of their sailing time around the British Isles had scarcely been under sunny skies. It had been green, though. A byproduct of incessant rain. “What bothers you most?” She channeled a thread of magic to her feet before her circulation shut down entirely.
“All of it.”
“Could you narrow it down?” Zoe reached the sixth deck and reversed course. Clouds the color of hammered pewter boiled across the horizon, limiting vision to fifty yards. Wind ripped at her, pushing her first one way, and then another.
“I assumed when we defeated the Cataclysm and left Ushuaia the world wouldn’t be quite so hostile.” The coyote yipped, wistful and somber.
“We all hoped for much the same.” Zoe sent warm thoughts inward.
“What have we encountered so far?” the coyote demanded, not mollified by her attempt to soothe it. Without waiting for her to reply, it kept right on talking. “Four reluctant Shifters. A mad priest. Demons. Vampires—that apparently aren’t all dead yet. An evil dark mage—”
“I know all those things. I was there too,” she cut in. “Goddammit. This is hard enough without you cataloging all the bad shit. Besides, the men made peace with their bond animals, so at least that part is on its way to being fixed.”
A vicious blast of wind chopped sideways. She gripped a nearby railing with her mitten-clad hand just before her booted feet slipped on icy metal risers. A quick blast of magic kept her upright.
“What’s wrong?” She repeated a variant of her earlier question and hustled to the next deck down. “It’s not like you to be such a pessimist.”
“I want forests. I want you to shift so we can run and I can hunt.” Rather than petulant, the coyote’s words were sentimental, as if it were bidding farewell to a life it figured was gone forever.
Zoe constructed her reply carefully. “You can have those things. Just not with me right now. Nothing has changed in the special world you share with the bond animals. My feelings wouldn’t be hurt if you retreated there to roam.”
“Really?”