The Prelude

by Sammie Joyce

  In my mind, a rational voice warned me that I was being paranoid, that we had approached him and not vice versa but my slowly cracking heart told me that I needed to pursue this more.

  I finally stopped running and paused to catch my breath. It was only then that I realized I’d run back to the caves.

  It took me a few minutes to catch my breath. I didn’t want anyone to see me like this, bedraggled and discombobulated like I was shifting for the first time.

  “Locklear!”

  I whirled at the sound of my name and saw Artemis standing in the woods at my back. I forced a smile, instantly feeling guilty as if the shaman had caught me doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.

  “Artemis,” I said, managing not to gasp out the words. “I haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  Artemis chuckled.

  “That is more on you than it is me,” he replied lightly. “You seem to keep your distance from the clan these days.”

  Ah. That’s why I feel so guilty.

  The shaman cast me his mystical smile, his eyes glittering against the shadows as if he already knew what I was thinking.

  It was hard to say what Artemis did and did not know. He had been a faith healer for the shifters for as long as I could remember yet he seemed ageless to me with his smooth, leathery skin and bright eyes. If I had to wager a guess to his age, I couldn’t.

  “Where is your other half?” Artemis asked when I didn’t respond to his blatant call of me avoiding the clan. “Has she given up on her community too?”

  Indignation sparked through me.

  “I haven’t given up on my community,” I snapped. “I just don’t have the—oh nevermind.”

  I wasn’t about to get into a debate with Artemis over why I chose not to spend as much time among the others. He wouldn’t understand anyway.

  “Well?” Artemis pressed and I peered at him.

  “Well what?” I asked, forgetting his initial question.

  “Where is Aspen?”

  I bristled at the sound of her name, remembering exactly where I’d left her.

  “No idea,” I lied, turning my back on Artemis.

  “Hmm.”

  I spun back around, my eyes narrowing at the sound.

  “Hmm what?” I asked and he shook his braided head to give me another pensive look like he could see right through my skull.

  “Hmm nothing,” the caribou shaman replied softly. “Will you be joining us tonight?”

  I blinked, trying to recall the date. It was so easy for the days and weeks to blend together out there. The only thing that dictated time were the seasons of change it seemed.

  Those are the only things that can be trusted.

  “Why? Is there a ceremony of sorts?” I asked, feeling ashamed that I didn’t remember.

  “Does there need to be a ceremony for you to join us for supper?” Artemis wanted to know. “Or will you only ever come around for Aspen?”

  I didn’t realized I’d started backing up into the woods again, wondering why I was there in the first place.

  Artemis was right—I never spent time on the shifter compound anymore, not when I could avoid it but that was only because it had been too painful since I’d lost my father. I didn’t like the constant reminder of what I’d lost when he’d so stupidly and bravely put his life on the line to fight an unwinnable war for people who would likely kill us on sight.

  “I have other things to do tonight,” I heard myself respond but as the words left my lips, I knew how ridiculous they sounded.

  “Full social calendar, I’m sure,” Artemis teased but he didn’t seem mad, even as I turned away.

  “Locklear,” he called out after me. I paused, swallowing the lump forming in my throat.

  “Yes?”

  “We all have our fates,” he said in a tone barely above a whisper. I felt the skin on my arms prickle as the hairs rose in apprehension.

  “Okay?” I replied even though I knew Artemis wasn’t one to speak without a purpose.

  “That fate is yours, whether or not you want it,” Artemis continued and I shook my head, thinking he was talking about my father.

  “Sometimes we make our own fate,” I growled, wishing the shaman hadn’t dampened my mood even more.

  “Not as often as you’d like to think,” Artemis replied. I opened my mouth to answer but as he always did, Artemis disappeared, leaving me to stare at a tree where he’d been standing.

  I hate it when he does that, I thought grouchily and spun to dash back into the woods.

  Whether or not we made our fate, Aspen was still my best friend and I wasn’t going to let her make a mistake by getting involved with an outsider.

  The question was, what could I do about it?

  3

  Aspen

  “You know,” I teased. “Stories are a lot better with a beginning, a middle and an end.”

  “They are? Where did you hear that?” Philippe asked innocently and I laughed. I felt a comradery with him, not unlike the one I shared with Locklear. But with Lock, our relationship had been cultivated since birth. I had never laid eyes on Philippe as of ten minutes earlier.

  “If you don’t want to tell me about your family, I understand,” I offered quickly, suddenly feeling like I was being a nag. “I just find you very interesting.”

  I groaned inwardly at the sound of the words but for some reason, I was having trouble making sentences sound intelligent, something I’d never battled with in my entire life.

  The smile on Philippe’s face was genuine to my relief. He didn’t seem to notice my slight awkwardness or if he did, he didn’t care. He nodded.

  “The feeling is mutual,” he agreed. “And I will tell you but I’m making a leap of faith here because I don’t know how you’ll react.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” I replied but I couldn’t imagine Philippe would say anything that would put me off.

  “Do you know much about the war happening in Vietnam?”

  “Not really,” I confessed. “Only that it’s killing far too many people and it’s all for nothing.”

  The relief on his face was instant and his shoulders sank as he nodded.

  “That’s what I thought too,” he replied. “Which is why I spent all my time protesting it.”

  My eyes widened in disbelief.

  “Were you drafted?”

  He shook his head.

  “It never got that far,” he replied. “But I didn’t want it to get that far. I was very active in the South, campaigning against the war.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” I replied, wracking my mind for the little I knew about the Southern United States. They were pro war from what I remembered.

  Philippe’s mouth pulled in at the corners and he sighed.

  “That’s what my family said too,” he muttered. “But I couldn’t sit back silently and watch as thousands died for this.”

  I looked at him with respectful eyes.

  “That’s very brave,” I breathed.

  “Or stupid,” Philippe replied dryly. “I was hurt during one protest and I had to give it up but I couldn’t go back home with my tail between my legs.”

  I felt my heart begin to hammer at the mention of a tail.

  Could he be… no. He’s not one of us, is he?

  “So I just decided to get out the South for a while,” he continued. “I made my way through Canada and thought about staying there for a while but Alaska had a nice ring to it. So here I am.”

  I suspected there was much more to the story than that but I decided I’d pressed him enough for one day.

  “Will you play something for me?” I asked, switching subjects. I could tell he didn’t really want to discuss his past anymore and I didn’t blame him.

  Nothing wrong with wanting to escape other people. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To commune with nature and be ourselves.

  “Like a song you mean?” Philippe asked, sounding surprised. I nodded.
<
br />   “I interrupted you before.”

  “You pleasantly distracted me,” he corrected and I had to laugh as he reached onto the ground for his fallen guitar. “What kind of tune would you like to hear?”

  I shrugged.

  “Surprise me,” I said and he nodded, perching beside me on the rock. I moved over to let him sit, savoring the heat of his body against mine. It felt so natural, so comfortable.

  The first strums caught in the wind, the G chord echoing through the trees and Philippe began to sing a tune different than the one he’d been initially playing.

  Once more, the melancholic feeling of nostalgia overwhelmed me and my mouth opened to join him in the haunting tune even though I’d never heard it before.

  Yet I knew the words and the song knew me, my voice melding with Philippe’s flawlessly as my eyes closed and I permitted the harmony to take me away. In my mind’s eye, I was soaring over the trees, Philippe at my side, the forest well below us.

  I was daydreaming but I didn’t dare open my eyes until the last note of spilled off the instrument to be caught in the eternal woods, our voices trailing off in unison.

  Only then did I part my lids and I saw him peering at me almost lovingly.

  Slowly, he rose, extending his hand toward me.

  “Can I show you something?” he asked and I took his hand without hesitation this time, nodding eagerly.

  You can show me everything.

  “Sure,” I replied, smothering my childlike desire to squeal with giddy contentedness. He led me through the woods and I felt my eyebrows shoot up but I swallowed my amusement.

  I couldn’t imagine that he was going to show me anything I hadn’t seen before. These were my woods after all. What could he possibly know that I didn’t?

  After a couple minutes, we stopped and I looked around curiously. There was nothing out of the ordinary—until Philippe looked upward.

  I followed his eyes and gasped in shock.

  Set between two trees was a makeshift treehouse, crude and unprofessional but a sensible shelter for someone. It was endearing to see the tiny shack, particularly coming from a family of builders. Still, it was very cute and I would have liked to have seen the inside.

  If there was only a way to climb up. I couldn’t see a ladder anywhere.

  “Is this where you live?”

  “For now. The winters are going to be too harsh for such a set-up,” he sighed as if he was already prepared for the somewhat cruel winters our region offered. My heart fluttered as I understood he intended to stay longer than I’d realized.

  I eyed him questioningly as if demanding to know how we were expected to get up there and he returned my stare evenly as though he was coming to terms with something. Before I saw it coming, he leaned in, his lips meshing to mine. My breath caught in my throat, the salty taste of his mouth sending heady waves of happiness through my body. I reached up to pull his tangled hair toward me but he backed away as quickly as he’d come, his irises shimmering with adoration.

  I didn’t have a chance to question why he’d pulled back because without warning, he morphed before my eyes into a massive eagle, his wings spanning outward to flap up into his home.

  Shock and awe consumed me and I laughed like a small child, clapping my hands together. I felt inebriated by the combination of emotions drowning me.

  An eagle shifter! He’s the same bird who was following Locklear and I earlier!

  I wondered how I’d missed it, how I hadn’t sensed another shifter in our midst.

  “Are you coming?” Philippe asked, his talons clutching a rail overlooking her from the treetops. I didn’t need to be asked twice and I, too, shifted into my animal form, climbing the bark effortlessly until I reached the uneven platform. I morphed back into my mortal state, knowing that my weight wouldn’t withstand the rickety entranceway and Philippe did the same, reaching a hand down to help me up entirely.

  “Welcome to my humble home,” he announced, throwing open the wooden door for me to take in the one-roomed shack he’d constructed himself.

  For a moment, I could only stand in surprise at the threshold, marveling at both the simplicity and beauty of his abode. True, it wasn’t much to look at from a structural standpoint but cosmetically, his art had made the tiny place come alive.

  “How have you sustained yourself for this long?” I asked in disbelief as he ushered me inside. I could make out no active plumbing or electricity of any sort. There didn’t seem to be extra food laying about and I wondered if he hunted every time he needed to eat. I took note of the modest but bright nest he had constructed, my eyes falling on a paint set near an easel.

  “It helps to able to fly away when things get too heavy,” he replied lightly but I could hear the undertone of wistfulness in his voice.

  “I suppose that’s true,” I replied, slowly wandering about to trail my fingers along the sparse furnishings. A lone bed lay unsupported on the floor next to the covered canvass and dozens of sketches littered the floor. He lived the life of an artist in every way I’d ever imagined one—if I’d ever spent much time imagining one.

  “Can I see some of your work?” I asked tentatively, unsure if I should ask something like that. Sure, Evander played his guitar back at the compound and some others dabbled in drawings but I had the feeling I was in the presence of true talent here. I was a little out of my element and I thought I remembered that artists could be moody. The last thing I wanted was to upset him.

  “Yes,” Phillipe agreed, reaching for a sketchbook near a plain wooden table on the floor. “In fact, there’s something I want you to see.”

  There’s a lot you want to show me, I thought coyly but I kept my mouth shut, even if a blush formed on my cheeks by the mere thought.

  Eagerly, I joined him on the straw bed, our legs barely touching as I plopped beside him but I felt a bolt of energy surge through me as if he’d shocked me with static.

  I shivered and as I stole a sidelong look at him, I saw the hairs on his arms rise at the same time.

  I’m not imagining it. He feels it too. We have some surreal connection, like we’ve met before.

  I swallowed my excited nervousness and retrained my eyes on the artwork before me.

  “Wow!” I gasped when he opened the first page. The sketches were elaborate, haunted landscapes which seemed to come to life. “You’re really good!”

  A wry half-smile touched his lips as he continued to flip through the book.

  “You sound surprised,” he teased and my flush deepened.

  “No, I-I just don’t have much to compare it to,” I confessed. “We’re hunters, fishers, gatherers. We don’t have a lot of artists around.”

  “Even hunters, fishers and gatherers need art,” he replied, winking. “It’s an escape from the mundane.”

  He pointed at a sketch as he stopped turning through the book.

  “This one came to me in a dream,” he explained, sinking back slightly so I could take in the picture. It was the drawing I’d seen of a person and as I peered closer, my breath again caught in my windpipe.

  The long hair, the stately, tall form, the deep eyes—the woman I was staring at was me!

  My head whipped up to look at him.

  “You dreamt this?” I whispered and he nodded, his eyes filled with emotion.

  “Long before I saw you. Although I have to admit, I almost fell out of the sky when I saw you shift into that very woman.”

  “It was you who was following us!” I cried although I don’t know why the confirmation elated me. I had already suspected as much.

  “Does that bother you?” he asked softly, catching my gaze with his and I lost the ability to speak under his intense scrutiny as I shook my head. Time slowed, the beat of our hearts filling my ears as I moved toward him—or did he move toward me?

  All I knew was that we were wrapped up in one another again, our mouths joining as if they had once been one.

  The tip of my tongue jutted out lightly to
taste his and Philippe fell backward, pulling me on top of him. My hair flowed down to cover us in a blanket, sheltering us in our already secluded hideaway.

  I felt his pulse quicken and mine synched to beat with his.

  Philippe pulled back slightly to stare at me, his breaths escaping in short rasps and he shook his head.

  “What?” I breathed, my lips grazing his as I spoke.

  “I feel like I’ve searched for you my entire life,” he confessed and I knew exactly what he was saying. Once more, our mouths met and Philippe flipped me without warning, his lean body overpowering me…because I let him.

  I raised my legs to encircle his waist, drawing him closer as his lips trailed down my neck and toward my collarbone. A million goosebumps exploded over my body and I finally closed my eyes when his strong hands cupped my swollen breasts, kneading them gently before placing my taut nipple in his mouth.

  I moaned, arching upward, relishing the heat of his breath against my skin. I’d never known such headiness, not even when I’d gotten in those mushrooms a few months back. This was something completely different than that. This was not artificial intoxication, brought about by overripe fruit or wild fungus—this was natural, biological and very, very real.

  This was a high I’d been looking for my whole life.

  Lower Philippe moved, his tongue sampling every inch of my body along the way until I was sure he’d left no crevice unsampled when my legs draped over his shoulders.

  I gasped when I realized what he meant to do, forcing myself up on my forearms to meet his gaze again. What I saw in his face only flushed me in another wave of heat so overwhelming, I thought I might float away.

  When his tongue delved into me, I groaned, my voice carrying through the cabin and out into the forest, my legs quivering as Philippe clutched to my rear, drawing me closer to him.

  “My gods,” I purred, my body rising to the heights he wanted to take me in mere minutes. I was above us, watching my naked form writhe with pleasure, my form falling in and out of my bear form as I forsook control and pulled Philippe upward. I needed him inside me and I told him as much, my words catching in my throat.