Shifters Forever Worlds Epic Collection Volume 3

by Elle Thorne

  Symone blew her brother a kiss then turned to Alara, taking both her hands. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  “It is,” Marco agreed, hugging Jaron.

  “I have missed you also, my friend.” Jaron took Marco by the shoulders and looked in his eyes. “Are you faring well?”

  “What? Did you think I’d crumble?” Marco laughed, then his face turned serious. “It’s different, not having you to talk to any time I need to.”

  “Or to butt in. Or interrupt,” Jaron added.

  “That too,” Marco said. “But I have missed hearing from you.” Jaron opened his mouth to reply when Marco raised a hand. “That said, I am very happy for you.”

  Still holding Alara’s hands, Symone leaned against Marco. “We both are very happy for you.”

  “Let us show you around.” Alara dropped one of Symone’s hands and tugged on the other. “Chione and Gornin are in their home.”

  “Home?” Symone grew even more excited to see what they’d been up to. She took Marco’s hand with her free one. “Let’s go.”

  He squeezed her hand, his emotions evident in his eyes. She released a small sigh as she followed Alara, with Marco behind, and Jaron tailing.

  They traveled down a path toward the amphitheater, then Alara took a sharp turn. “This way. Did you realize the island was fairly developed already?”

  “What? No, I didn’t.” Symone hadn’t seen anything. Then again, she hadn’t visited the island or its cursed prisoner since he was put there. And she’d never explored the island before Orimith was brought here.

  They rounded a bend and before them stood a bungalow made of stone and timber.

  Symone stopped and appraised the building. “It’s so charming! And it has a garden.”

  At that moment, Chione exited their home, followed by Gornin. They were dressed in T-shirts and jeans.

  “Look at you two.” Marco stepped to shake hands with Gornin.

  “You don’t even look Zimoshi anymore.”

  “We’re modern Zimoshi,” Chione exclaimed gleefully, hugging Symone. “We have identification, even.”

  Alara rolled her eyes.

  “What?” Symone looked between the two. “How is that possible? Or even legal?”

  Jaron whistled softly under his breath while he adjusted his collar. Marco turned to him. “You had something to do with this, didn’t you?”

  Jaron shrugged. “Your contacts are my contacts.”

  “Oh, I see how it is.” Marco laughed. “My sister had something to do with this?”

  “Linc, actually.” Alara made a zipping motion over her lips. “That is all I am saying.”

  Symone shook her head. “I should have known. You are a resourceful woman.”

  “A force to be reckoned with,” Jaron said with a proud smile.

  Alara looked down as though the praise was too much. “I do this all for my people.”

  Symone squeezed her in an embrace. “You do great. I’d want you on my team any day.”

  “I am on your team,” Alara said with a smile. “I will always be on your team.”

  “I know. I asked the Circle to have you two help me in my efforts.”

  Marco smacked his forehead.

  “I should have known.” Symone took Alara’s hands in her own. “I would have, even if the Circle had not asked.”

  “As would I,” Marco assured her. “As would I.”

  “I know, but I wanted you to be compensated for your efforts.”

  Symone smiled at her friend’s concern. “I’d have been okay, even if you hadn’t, but thank you.

  Alara acknowledged her appreciation with a quick nod. “I’m happy to see the two of you are happy. Together.”

  “As you predicted they would be,” Jaron added.

  Symone was taken aback. “Predicted? Did you really? Are you also psychic?” Was this something else elementals could do?

  “I am not. That is not one of my peoples’ skills.” Alara laughed. “I simply read the signs.”

  “Let us go inside. We have refreshments,” Chione offered.

  After all six were seated and enjoying tea and mead, a recipe that Gornin proudly proclaimed was his grandfather’s, Marco cleared his throat.

  “How are you going to go about getting elementals to join you? I mean, how will you recruit?” Marco asked. “And how can I help? What role do you envision for me?”

  Alara took a sip of her drink. “We will contact Circe and see if she will share the database that the Order of Elementals has of all elementals. Perhaps on a one-by-one basis, after she has contacted said elemental, Jaron and I will visit and present the option to the individual and the elemental within them. Jaron can explain his journey to liberation. If they have doubts or questions about your part, we will call you to come speak with them.”

  “Fair enough,” Marco said.

  “When will you be available to start?” Alara asked.

  Marco looked at Symone.

  “What?” Symone asked, confused. “Why are you looking at me?”

  “Well, because I won’t be traveling alone. And you had things you wanted to do.”

  She raised a brow. “Things…”

  Marco nodded. “Things. People to meet.”

  Oh, that’s right, she remembered. She wanted to meet Mae and Lucia. “A couple of weeks?”

  “Give us a month,” Marco told Alara. “In case.”

  “Where will you be going?” Jaron asked.

  “Bear Canyon Valley,” Marco said.

  Epilogue

  Symone rolled over. She and Marco were staying at the Bear Canyon Valley Bed & Breakfast where they had arrived last night. They’d been met by Kelsey Torrent Navarro, who ran the place and had a bear shifter as a mate. Symone was still trying to wrap her head around the whole shifter-mate thing, but she was taking a crash course, because she was head over heels in love with Marco. And evidently, he felt the same way.

  They’d left the island shortly after their trip to the island. Life had been such a whirlwind since that gorgeous man had stepped foot onto her beach. Okay, not hers, not technically.

  “Hey, sleepyhead.” The very man in question stepped into her view.

  She focused her still sleepy eyes on him. “Hey. What are you doing up?”

  “Someone has to get you coffee.”

  “You spoil me, Marco.”

  “I hope I will be able to spoil you forever.” He handed her a steaming mug.

  “I will not oppose that.” She blew on the coffee.

  “Mae’s here. She heard you’d come and she must have rushed right over. She can’t wait to meet you.”

  Symone sat up so quickly, she almost spilled her coffee.

  “Easy now.” He took the cup back. “Shouldn’t have handed it to you until after telling you, I guess.”

  A thumping sound over the side of the bed pulled Symone’s attention. Max’s tail was wagging and beating on the floor. He looked up at her.

  “I took him out,” Marco said. “He loves this area. I can tell.”

  “Can you?” she teased. “Is your panther talking to him?”

  “Funny. But no. I can just tell. His tail kinda gives it away. So, you want to throw something on and come downstairs?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Guess who’s with her.”

  Jeans in hand, she turned to glance at him. “Who?”

  “Lucia.”

  “Oh!” Symone went into overdrive, hustling to get downstairs. She had questions for them.

  Three cups of coffee, two stacks of pancakes, and three omelets later, Symone sat transfixed while she listened to the two women at the table with her.

  Mae picked at her food, a smile on her face, her dark hair pulled back, her eyes with a hint of indigo flashing every time she laughed. She had an elemental in her, this Symone knew. She wondered what Mae thought of all the changes happening with elementals now, but Symone had things she was far more curious about.

  Like Lu
cia. Also at the table. The mystery woman that Quake would not discuss.

  Lucia, dark-skinned, curly-haired, had a white and gold glow in her eyes. Symone knew the gold flicker in the depths of her irises was her white tiger, as she was not a witch, though descended of witches. Lucia had already promised her a tour of the area in Louisiana near New Orleans where the Black Glade Coven presided.

  Now, Symone was going to get to the question she’d waited the longest to ask. “And what about Quake?”

  Lucia’s eyes narrowed. Her lips thinned, ever so slightly, almost imperceptibly so. “What about him?”

  “What can you tell me of him?”

  Mae had a look on her face as though she wanted to warn Symone away from the topic.

  Too late, Symone thought.

  And still, Lucia was silent, studying Symone. Finally, she spoke. “I can’t tell you anything about him.”

  And that spoke volumes. What was she hiding? Why? Why was she refusing to speak of him?

  Just then the back door to the kitchen opened, and Marco stepped in. Symone cursed the timing, knowing this would be the perfect opportunity for the subject to be changed.

  Damn the luck.

  “Guess who I found in the woods.” He didn’t close the door behind him. Seconds later, a giant of a man with a scar slicing down his face walked in.

  “Griz!” Mae jumped up from her seat. “I’m so glad you stopped by.”

  The man named Griz nodded, then turned his attention toward Symone.

  Symone’s breath caught at the intensity of those eyes. She couldn’t draw her attention from his face. And that scar. Marco had told her that shifters healed swiftly, and often didn’t bear scars. But yet, this scar, it was—or had been—so massive that it’d left behind puckered skin that split his eyebrow and extended well down his face.

  “Griz,” Mae pulled the man closer to Symone. “I want you to meet a friend of mine. Cedric and Jenner’s sister, Symone.”

  Symone rose to her feet, extended her hand, and immediately had it engulfed in one much larger than hers.

  “Nice to meet you,” Griz said.

  “What were you doing in the woods?” Mae asked.

  “Giving my bear a chance to run off some energy. Maybe I picked up the scent of breakfast.” He grinned, the scar moving with his smile. “Got any leftovers?”

  “Of course!” Mae reached into the kitchen’s cupboard and pulled out two plates. “Marco, you’re hungry too, I imagine.”

  Marco gave her a nod then planted a kiss on Symone’s cheeks. “How’s the mission to learn more going?”

  Lucia did a doubletake between the two of them. “Mission to learn more?”

  Symone bit back a groan. Did he have to say that out loud?

  “Symone’s curious about a few things,” Marco continued, clearly completely oblivious to the undercurrents.

  “I’m done. I don’t need to know anything else,” Symone announced loudly, picking up her cup and heading toward the coffee machine for a refill. Anything to get out of this line of questioning.

  “Whew,” Griz proclaimed. “I wasn’t looking forward to sharing.” He smiled as though to soften the message behind his words.

  Symone poured coffee, but she had a feeling this man had a story. And just like she wanted to know more about Lucia and Quake, she had a desire to find out more about Griz.

  She felt eyes on her and glanced up. Griz’s piercing gaze was focused on her. She glanced at Marco, but he was too busy planting a kiss on her forehead to catch Griz’s look.

  Oh, I’ll get your story. All of you. One of these days. She stood on tiptoe and kissed Marco on the lips. But right now, she had a life to begin living with this amazing man.

  Marco stared into her eyes, and in their depths, she saw the glow of his panther.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “They can hear that, you know,” Marco whispered back. “Most of them are shifters.”

  “It’s not a secret.”

  But there were many other secrets, and Symone had those on her mind.

  Origins

  Many millennia ago, a group of Vikings raided a village. As fate would have it, this was the wrong village. It was home of the mighty witch Freyja.

  Calder was one of these Vikings. He and his brother lead this band of large, tattooed men with their gruff ways. They've found that one of the villagers' guests has a wealthy husband and can bring a healthy ransom. An amount of silver that will provide great wealth to these Viking fighters.

  Brenna can't tell her captors that she won't be able to secure a single piece of silver. Holding her for ransom is pointless. When one of her captors decides that he wants her for a night's pleasure, she's stunned to discover that another saves her. A huge man with tattoos, wielding an ax comes to her defense. Now she's beholden to him.

  When Freyja returns to her village to find that the men have been slaughtered and the women and children have been taken prisoners, she renders a punishment that lasts an eternity, and creates two new breeds of beings that will roam the earth in perpetuity.

  She also puts Brenna in a difficult decision of choosing love over duty.

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  Chapter One

  Northlands. Many millennia ago.

  The first thing that struck Brenna was the pounding in her head. It hurt so badly, she didn’t want to open her eyes. She pressed her fingers against the beating drum that her world had become and was surprised to find a sticky wetness.

  That sensation caused her eyes to fly open.

  She stared at her fingers as if they’d grown heads.

  Blood?

  Brenna sat up and surveyed her surroundings. She was in a cell with a thick wooden door and metal bars across the windows.

  She rose to her feet slowly. The pounding in her head was joined by dizziness. She reached for the table but miscalculated. She lurched into it, face first, and clipped her temple on the corner, then sent the chair reeling into the table’s legs with a crash.

  Clutching her forehead, she stayed in the tangle of furs on which she’d been lying.

  Furs?

  There were no furs like this in her home.

  Then—

  It came to her; this wasn’t home. She was visiting cousins in the north. But this wasn’t the guest hut she’d been staying in. No, not at all. The thick door. The bars.

  What happened to her head?

  “It’s about time you woke up, royal one.” A male guttural voice came from nearby, one with an accent different than the one she’d grown up with.

  She glanced in the direction of the speaker and found a fearsome sight glaring at her from the barred windows in the wooden door.

  “Who are you?” she whispered.

  “They call me Halvar,” he growled. His scowl grew more ferocious. His face had blue paint, or perhaps tattoos, scattered about in patterns that drew attention to his hair, shaved on the sides, long on top and plaited close to his scalp. His brows were drawn, his lips curved down in a sneer. A wild beard hid the bottom half of his face.

  “They call me—”

  “Oh, we know who you are, my lady. Brenna. The one who will fill our coffers.”

  A feeling of dread filled her, and she fought to retain her composure. This barbarian had clearly taken her captive. What happened to the rest of the village? To her cousins? To all the others?

  “What do you mean?” she dared to ask, though fear threatened to close her throat.

  The door rattled; it was being unlocked. Then it swung open.

  Halvar appeared even more fierce than before. Furs enhanced his broad shoulders. His arms held more tattoos—intricate designs that spoke of a foreign culture. His eyes were a light blue color, but the irises were ringed with a golden hue.

  Then another figure stepped in.

  Another man. Just as large, just as fear-inspiring. His face also bearded, but trimmed. His hair, a dirty blond cropped shor
t on the sides, longer on top and was also braided.

  The second man’s eyes were also blue, but not the light color of Halvar’s. His eyes were a dark azure, ringed with the same golden flames. He wore no shirt, and a light blanket of even darker blond hair covered his chest.

  But his eyes were different. There was something in them.

  He looked directly into her gaze, and for a brief second that seemed to last an eternity, she was captured in that stare, unable to look away, unafraid.

  “Halvar,” the newcomer said. “Are you frightening our guest?” He had an accent, just as the first one who had spoken.

  At first, his voice was mesmerizing. A deep resonance, entirely male, one that matched his chiseled countenance.

  But then it struck her.

  Guest?

  “If I am a guest, then I’m free to leave,” Brenna asserted, spearing him with a look that dared him to contradict her.

  Halvar laughed, a deep sound that boomed in the small area and made her flinch.

  “Calder, my brother,” Halvar said, still speaking in Brenna’s language. “I think she needs to be taught some subservience.”

  Halvar reached for his loins, his large hand grasping between his legs.

  Brenna gasped at the size of what he gripped, though hidden beneath his clothing. She backed up, crawling like the crabs the traders occasionally brought in for dinner, reaching for the wall behind her.

  The newcomer—Calder, Halvar had called him—raised his fist and planted it in Halvar’s bicep with a resounding smack. “You’re scaring her. We agreed. She’d be untouched.”

  “You agreed, brother.” Halvar crossed the space between them swiftly, quicker than Brenna would have thought, and bent, seizing the fabric of her tunic and wrenching her to her feet. Then using his other hand, he rent the fabric, ripping it clear to her waist.

  Brenna squealed. One of her hands flew to cover her breasts while the other sought to raise the now shredded tunic. “Animal,” she hissed.