Shifters Forever Worlds Epic Collection Volume 3

by Elle Thorne

  Calder put his hands on her face, cupping her cheeks, his eyes locked with hers. “I know not of what you speak, woman. I only know that my heart calls for you. My mind calls for you. My bear needs you.”

  Brenna tried not to let her emotions get carried away. This wasn’t the time to tell him how much he meant to her. How he’d become engrained in her very soul. “Then you must come with me. You must let me save you.”

  He gave her a nod and they took off at a sprint with only the clothes on their bodies, an axe in his hand, a knife in hers. She led him to a mountain, winding their way up, she knew of a cave, one she’d found ages ago when she’d visited the village as a young girl and explored the area.

  At the cave’s entrance, she paused. “This is where we will stay.” She thought for a moment, then added, “For now.”

  He was pale, the hand holding the axe shaking.

  She led him into the depths, sitting him against a wall. Uncertain what to ask or how to say it, she relayed what was on her mind. “What is it that you’re feeling?”

  “That my bear is chained. He cannot come forward. I cannot shift into my bear.” He leaned forward. “I’ll start a fire.”

  She stayed his hand. “No. Not until we know we are safe.”

  “Safe from whom?”

  “From the other women. From Freyja.” She didn’t want to tell him that the other men would be dead without a doubt, including his brother.

  “They are mere women,” he scoffed.

  “You’d be ill-advised to think they are mere anything. You know not who Freyja is.”

  His chest puffed out in defiance, his jaw set firmly.

  “Please, Calder. Please, listen to me.”

  He gave her a nod.

  “I’ll be back,” she told him.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Just to the entrance.” She hadn’t told him she’d heard a noise behind them. She didn’t tell him she wondered why his inner bear had not picked up that there was someone—or something—following them. “I won’t be long.”

  “Don’t go far.” His eyes fluttered closed, his face a visage of pain.

  “I won’t.” She wiped the blood from his cheeks with her sleeve.

  She picked up the axe he’d set nearby, and with one final glance in his direction, she made her way toward the entrance.

  Brenna hadn’t been wrong. There was someone following them. She caught a glimpse of a shadow moving within the trees not far from the entrance. Moving to the side of the entrance, she made her way out, and circled around to behind where the shadow had last been.

  A tiny sound, a leaf being crushed beneath a careful footfall alerted Brenna. She whirled around, the bladed weapon in her hand at the ready, raising it above her shoulder, poised to strike.

  Just as Brenna was bring the weapon down on the figure that had stepped out of the trees’ cover, she froze.

  “Eerika,” Brenna hissed.

  Eerika’s eyes were wild. “Hush. One of them escaped.”

  Brenna narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “One of those bastards. He came this way. He’s not traveling alone. He’s with—” Eerika paused. Her eyes took in the axe Brenna wielded.

  Brenna knew she could see this belonged to one of the captors, it was clearly of their people.

  Next, Eerika’s gaze traveled to Brenna’s bloody sleeve. Her stare turned hard and cold. “You are…” She rubbed at her head. “You’re not traveling with…”

  Brenna dropped the axe and pulled the knife from her hip and lunged forward. “Say no more.”

  “You’d kill me?” Eerika’s voice was tinged with incredulity.

  “I owe you my life for the lie you told when they were going to kill me.”

  Eerika licked her lips nervously, her eyes dropping to the blade at her throat. “How do you know about that?”

  “Astrid told me. I owe you. Take yourself away. Now.”

  “But…” Eerika’s head tilted inquisitively. “You are harboring him?” Horror was etched in her features. “Why? Did you not see what his people did to us?”

  “His people. Not him. Calder is different.”

  “You trust me not to go back to the village and get the women? We could outnumber and overpower you.”

  Brenna nodded. “I realize this. I do. But I know you won’t do that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Astrid. We both love her. We wouldn’t put her in a position to choose between our friendships.”

  Eerika’s anger and concern faltered. “True.” She glanced around Brenna, toward the cave’s entrance. “You love him?”

  I do. More than life itself. But it was so much more than that for Brenna. Mere love did not convey the depth of the emotions she felt for Calder. “He is my destiny.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Calder couldn’t explain what was happening within him. His bear growled and snarled like a beast in chains. Calder remembered seeing a bear like that once, long ago. A traveling band of entertainers had been going through the village Calder lived in with his family.

  The travelers had a captive bear they used for entertainment. It was easy to see that said amusement was based on the cruelty they exhibited on the bear to make it appear fierce to the audience. The bear’s body and face were covered in scars and burnt tissue.

  Calder had seen twelve summers, maybe thirteen when he first caught glimpse of the bear. He’d complained to his father, telling the older man that he wanted to save the bear, to release it from bondage.

  His father had scolded him and reminded him that they did not interfere in the goings-on of humans. That the bear was not a shifter, nor was it human. It was merely a beast. This answer did not satisfy Calder, who against his father’s orders, in the still of the night with the snow falling, slipped out of the warmth of his bed and the security of his father’s cabin, into the cold night.

  Finding his way in the dark, his shifter vision enabling him to see clearly even on this moonless night, Calder found the bear. The creature was hungry and miserable, and Calder’s heart broke to witness this.

  A large padlock served as the obstacle that would allow him to remove the chain that held the bear prisoner in a cell too small for the beast to even stand in.

  A key. That’s what Calder needed. A key to free the bear.

  “I’ll be back,” he whispered to the bear, who seemed to understand that Calder was not the foe, and watched the young human with curious dark eyes.

  Calder expected to hunt a key, to have to pilfer through possessions and tents. What he did not anticipate was that he would actually spy the large brass key hanging from a wooden peg driven into a post nearby.

  It almost would have felt like a trap, finding the key so easily. Calder slunk into the shadows, not retrieving the key until he was certain it wasn’t a trap. That someone wasn’t waiting for another to reach for the key.

  Then again, why would they? And why would they want to keep the key hidden? There was no reason for that. It wasn’t as if the bear could get out of the cell and retrieve it, or even have the manual dexterity to use it.

  Calder wondered if perhaps his paranoia had gone too far. He rushed toward the key, slipped it off the peg and was in front of the bear in seconds.

  “Here we go.” He unlocked the chain and beckoned the bear forward.

  The bear snuffled and studied Calder for what seemed like an eternity while it made up its mind.

  Then, taking one ambling step after another, the bear made its way out of the cell, tentatively, as though not believing it actually could leave the iron bars behind.

  “Come on,” Calder whispered. “We need to get you out of here.”

  And get him out of there, Calder did. They made their way toward the forested area that bordered on the town, and then Calder led the way into the depths of the shadows, where he shifted into his bear.

  Together, Calder and the bear explored the forest, taking down a deer, enjoying the
fresh warm meat in the icy temperatures of that far northern climate.

  For three days, Calder led the bear farther and farther away from humanity and the dangers that people brought to his kind.

  Finally, mission accomplished, the bear free, and Calder’s heart at peace, the boy made it home.

  Sadly, what awaited Calder was a whipping at a post not unlike the one that held the key.

  His father’s hand was heavy as he laid the leather straps into his son’s back until blood was drawn.

  “You do not disobey me,” his father had said.

  “How did you know?” Calder said between unshed tears. He’d refused to let the tears flow. “How did you know I was—what I did?”

  For it was not unusual for Calder and his brother to occasionally vanish on hunting trips—together or separately—and return days later. Their father had never been concerned before, as bear shifters, they were perfectly capable of caring for themselves.

  His father’s smile was grim. “I can smell the bear on you.”

  And so, the bear he’d saved had inadvertently betrayed Calder. But neither Calder, nor his bear, had regretted the act they’d committed in saving the other animal.

  It was that other bear’s confinement that brought Calder’s circumstance to his mind. His bear was as captive in Calder’s mind as that bear had been in its cell.

  What is happening to me?

  Calder knew it had something to do with witchcraft. What else could it be? What else could make all the men in his clan have the same symptoms? Were the men alive? Was Halvar? Or Gunnar, Torsten?

  Calder had to get to them. To help them, but at the moment, he couldn’t move. His bear was chained within his mind, but something had paralyzed his legs. He couldn’t feel them. How did that happen? When? Was it related to his bear? He opened his eyes, and found himself encased in darkness so dark as to be midnight black.

  What is this?

  Even in solid darkness, he could see because of his shifter vision. Why could he see nothing now?

  He raised his arms—at least he could do that—and rubbed his eyes. Still the same darkness persisted.

  Have I gone blind? Permanently?

  It was with these thoughts that Calder’s mind was plagued when the same darkens took him into a state of unconsciousness, his bear taking him into a shared blackness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Brenna returned from her talk with Eerika to find an unconscious and pale Calder.

  Her first thought was that they would need food. He would especially, because he’d lost blood, and not just a little.

  Anguish tore at her. She’d have to leave him. She couldn’t hunt and kill something with what they had. An axe and a knife wouldn’t serve. Given enough time, perhaps she could make a trap, but…

  No, time was not on their side. She had to make sure he could eat, and then they would have to vacate the area. They couldn’t stay here.

  Though Brenna trusted Eerika to keep her secret, she couldn’t risk having another person happen on them.

  She exhaled her frustration. There was really only one option: go to the village and take some food.

  She appraised Calder, wondering if what she was doing was right.

  No, she didn’t second-guess her desire to be with him. What she questioned was how she was going about this. Would he be incapacitated? Would she be able to fend and hunt for them?

  She pushed the nagging doubts aside. One thing at a time. First, food. And with that thought in mind, she placed the axe next to him, secured her knife at her hip, and left the safety of the cave for the unknown status of the village.

  The battle between the village women and their captors had ended, and the women had been triumphant.

  From the cover of the brush, Brenna noticed how the women, victorious and celebrating, had painted their faces with dye, creating runic symbols on their bodies and limbs.

  She heard the word Valkyrie mentioned repeatedly, and caught sight of Freyja, striding from woman to woman, looking much like a general on the battlefield.

  The women had freed the children from the thorn corral and were dragging the bodies of the dead men to the same thorny enclosure, in the interim piling wood on the bodies.

  Brenna shook herself from her reverie. There was no time to study the happenings here. She had a purpose. She noted one of the storage huts, the one closest to the forest. She could slip in there. It was close to dusk, she might be able to do so unnoticed, and grab enough food for—well, she’d grab as much as she could because who knew how long they’d be unable to hunt and cook.

  With stealth and surefootedness she’d have never thought herself of, Brenna managed to find a bag and fill it at the hut. Just as she was leaving, she spied anther bag. She took the first one and secured it in a branch on a tree then ran back to the hut to get the second bag.

  The sun had fallen, the woods were dark, and the sky ominous, but the village was well-lit for a pyre had been set, using the wood and the bodies of the dead captors.

  The stench was overwhelming, and brought to mind another time when her father’s family had done the same to an uncle that had passed. That smell. Her stomach roiled.

  Leaving the first bag in the tree, well hidden by branches she’d arranged carefully, Brenna took the second bag and made her way toward the cave, stumbling about in the dark, wishing she had better night vision.

  She scoffed at that, and of course, it made her think of Calder and how well he could see in the dark.

  “Where have you been?” a voice said in the darkness of the forest.

  She gasped. Her heart leapt into her throat. And then she recognized the voice.

  “Calder. What are you doing out here?”

  “I could ask you the same.”

  “I had to get us food. How are you?” She wished she had enough light to see his face, to ascertain he was doing better.

  “I am conscious. Was I out long? Days?”

  “No, no. Not days. Just a few hours.”

  “You went back to the village?” He took the bag from her shoulder.

  She heaved a sigh of relief at not having the weight on her back.

  “I did.”

  “My—my brother? My men? My clansmen?”

  She bit her lip. She didn’t want to say.

  “I can smell them,” he told her. “I’m just wondering if you saw—” His voice broke. “Mostly my brother, Gunnar, Torsten?”

  She swallowed hard. “I did not see any of them. No one I recognized, but…” She swallowed again. “I didn’t see anyone alive.”

  He cursed softly in the darkness, then took her hand. “Follow me. I’ll lead us back to the cave.”

  Next to Calder, her head against his chest, Brenna chewed on dried meat. “I’ll fill the water bag from the creek in the morning.”

  “I need to see for myself.”

  She knew what he meant. But she didn’t want him going there. What if Freyja had put a ward of protection over the village? What if he lost his life just to see if anyone survived?

  “You shouldn’t.”

  His chest rose abruptly, then fell as he exhaled mightily. “I must. If there is anything…”

  “Calder, Freyja is a powerful sorceress. She overpowered your entire group. All those men. You think she will have a problem with you?”

  “I must see.” His voice reminded her of the hardness of the rock wall behind her, of the inflexibility of his axe.

  Morning brought an anger to Brenna when she realized the spot next to her was empty. She found her fury burning deeply within. How could he leave? How could he go to check on them and risk his life to do so? Did he not understand there was imminent danger for him at the village?

  These were the very thoughts that consumed her when the very cause of her angst walked into the cave’s entrance and made his way back to her. He carried two water bags, and his face was free of blood, as was his clothing, though it was dripping wet.

  “You should not hav
e done that.” She fumed.

  He leaned in, kissed her on the lips. A part of her softened, his lips were cool and tender against hers. “I had to go check on my brother, my men.”

  There was a sadness in his eyes that told her not to ask any questions.

  He handed her the bag with water.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded. “We cannot stay in the area.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  It had not been easy to see the bones of so many he’d known and fought next to in the ashes of the pyre the women had created.

  He overheard the powerful one called Freyja telling the women they were now a new breed. That they were Valkyrie. And that they were to be warriors.

  Though Calder knew and understood the life of a warrior, he’d never taken into account there could be an army of women warriors.

  A part of him wanted nothing more than to shift into his bear and wreak havoc and seek vengeance upon these village women who now strutted, carrying weapons, occasionally mock-sparring.

  Was this how his own men had behaved in front of the women? Is that why they were doing this? Was this what they had seen modeled and were now emulating?

  In his head, Calder’s bear roared, mourning the other bear shifters, their bears, particularly. Calder wondered if the anguish his bear felt would allow him to break the chains that bound him, rendering him unable to shift into his bear. And knowing that he risked discovery, Calder pushed for a shift.

  He pushed, he strained, and yet, nothing could break the invisible bonds that bound his bear into powerlessness.

  And so, it had been that Calder had left the site of the village and gone to the water to fill the bags and return to the woman who’d saved his life.

  It was with this in mind, he watched the woman he’d come to love more than life itself drinking the water he’d brought, and told her, “We cannot stay in the area.”

  Brenna nodded, her face tear streaked through the grime and blood of the prior day’s events. “I know not where we can go.”