Soren
Storm clouds roll in as I lean on a wooden counter rapping my knuckles against the surface while a pudgy man in grubby clothing inspects the gems. Sapphires, rubies, and emeralds glimmer in the lightbulb swinging over the top of his bald head as he squints through a pair of glasses that make his eyes ten times bigger than they actually are.
I glance over my shoulder at the narrow, dimly lit hallway leading back to the heart of a pub in Old Moonrise. This room is a secret, closed off from the public, and open to only a select few.
There’re places like this all over Eastonia. We call them Fences here–a place to barter and sell stolen goods without questions being asked. In Crescent Falls, they simply call it the black market. If I had time on my side, I would have traveled there to fetch a better price.
Thunder rattles the building, followed by the roar of sheets of heavy rain hitting the tin roof. I glance at my watch. It’s already 3:00 in the morning.
“How long is this going to take?”
The man scowls up at me. “You wanna good trade or not?”
“I’m not here to trade. I’m here for cash.”
“Well, this one’s worth nothin’,” he says, tossing the cat’s collar on the counter. “Don’t know where you got it. Don’t need to know, but that’s useless to me.”
“What do you mean?” That’s a fucking diamond!”
“It’s a moonstone, boy. Moonstones grow on fuckin’ trees round here, ya know? I don’t need it. The chain is worth more to me than the rock.”
I growl as I snap the moonstone off the chain and toss it back down to him. “Better?”
“Fuckin’ thieves, always wasting my time.” He grumbles under his breath as his thick fingers reach for a pen and pad of paper. His mouth twitches into a teasing smile when he asks, his voice laced with sarcasm, “I’m guessin’ you ain’t got a bank account?”
“Hurry. Up.”
He smirks, writing a number down and tearing the paper off the pad. I grind my teeth while looking at the number. It’s not what I thought it’d be. Far less, in fact. “You’re joking.”
“Ain’t nothing funny.”
“That lot is worth–”
“Ain’t worth shit to me if I’m caught with royal jewels in my possession,” he snaps. “I subtracted a handling fee for my troubles. Forty percent off the top.”
“You fucking dick–”
“Do you want the cash or not?” he asks, raising his brows as he stands. Two large, lumbering men appear nearby–his bodyguards, no doubt.
I’m tall, but they have weight on me for sure.
I run my tongue over the edge of my lower teeth and nod. “Fine.”
With a frustrated sigh, the man reaches into a metal box and pulls out three thick stacks of crisp bills and two small bags of coins. I snatch them off the counter before they even touch the gnarled, faded gray surface, slipping the moonstone into the pocket of my leather jacket.
“Better not be seeing you here for a while,” he hisses in farewell, but I ignore him. Come morning, I’ll be leaving Moonrise and not returning for the foreseeable future.
I stuff my pockets with the cash and walk through the pub, side-stepping through the groups crowding the bar. I shove through people blocking the entrance, having come in recently to take cover from the rain. I can’t remember the last time I slept. I’ve been up for days planning this, researching the castle, figuring out the movements of the staff and guards, and for what?
It might be enough, I think, as I walk down the street, cutting between alleys and crossing intersections until I reach a run-down block of apartment buildings near the outskirts of town. There was once a great crystal castle built in this same area, overlooking the lake and valley where the new city of Moonrise now rests. Now, it’s nothing but rubble and the forest has taken it back, new growth trees bending in the wind as the storm funnels over the lake.
I climb the exterior staircase to my third floor apartment. It’s nothing but a studio with a small kitchen and bathroom. Holes in the plaster give a view of ancient stone, which leads me to believe this building used to be a manor of some kind before it was crudely renovated into small, separate living spaces.
I wouldn’t call it home, but it has a bed, and that’s really all I need.
I immediately take the cash, coins, and the worthless moonstone out of my jacket and tuck them in a hole in the wall where I keep my valuables. A few other stacks of cash rest inside, painted in shadows. I have to be close to paying off this debt. I might actually have enough to cover it and then some at this point, but I’d need to count it all out to be sure. If that’s the case, I could buy a train ticket to Crescent Falls. I could set myself up there, get a bartending job or something in the inner city, and kiss Eastonia goodbye, for good this time.
But I’ve done this before. Paid off the debt that kept me in a silver shackle, unable to access my wolf powers.
The people I work for… have their ways when it comes to keeping their boots pressed to our necks, and I learned that in the worst way. Maybe it’ll be different this time.
I take a shower and rummage through the fridge for leftovers. The sun is just beginning to rise over the lake, poking through the clouds as rain pummels the roof. Water drips into a bucket in the center of the room where a deep, bulging stain continues to creep across my cracked ceiling, but it doesn’t matter. My bags are already packed and waiting by the door. In two hours, I’ll be on the first train out of Moonrise.
Coffee in hand, I climb out my only window to sit out on the rusted fire escape to watch the sunrise like I do every morning. Rain trickles down the aging metal, but it’s warm and humid–the best kind of weather. It’s going to be another hot summer.
I scan the street. The only shop open is a corner store that never closes. No one’s out and about. But my eyes land on a shadow moving through the alley directly across the street. The shadow stretches under the glow of a street lamp before its owner comes into view.
I’m seeing things. The white cat staring up at me is a figment of my imagination after days without sleep. I’m sure there’s other white cats around. I don’t see cats often. Shifters don’t tend to keep pets, and the witches that do tend to keep them inside, out of harm’s way, but….
The cat moves closer before sitting on the curb, and turns its flat face in my direction. Blue-green eyes hold on mine, unblinking.
“What the fuck,” I whisper into my coffee as a prickle of unease licks up my spine. I blink to clear my vision, to erase the hallucination perched on the curb two stories below me, but the cat remains.
I slowly, carefully, slide back into my apartment and shut the window. I change into fresh clothes, pulling on a pair of thick socks before slipping into my boots. I return to the window as I’m shrugging my jacket back on and notice the cat is gone. It’s likely an omen–a reminder that I need to get moving. There’s no point in waiting around here for the train. I’ll just go to the station and wait there.
Still, my heartbeat skips several times as I start moving toward the hole in the wall where I just stashed all of the money I have to my name, but the moment my fingers brush over the coin purses, footsteps sound in the hallway outside of my door. The knob jiggles, just once. I glance at the deadbolt, some of the tension leaving my shoulders when I realize I’d remembered to lock it. The floor creaks as the footsteps move away, then to the side.
They stop. I freeze, going perfectly still to try to slow my racing heart. I move my fingers until I feel cold, hard metal, and curl them around the hilt of a knife when the floor outside the door creaks like someone is stepping further away from it.
I pull the knife from the hole at the very moment the door bursts off its hinges, splintering like glass. Dust flies then settles as knee-high black boots appear, followed by a body hurtling in my direction, a crimson cape flying out in her wake.
Princess Maeve collides with me, ignoring my knife, and tackles me to the ground with impressive strength. I roll with her in my arms, slamming her against the foot of the bed, her head bouncing against the metal base, but she hooks her leg around mine and flips us over, her nails sinking into my wrist as she fights me for the knife.
I rip her cape off, the clasp biting into her neck before snapping free with enough force to cause it to careen through the air and ping off the wall above my bed. I tangle my fingers in her hair and pull–hard, her neck bent back and teeth bared as she grits out a yelp of pain, but then I finally get a look at her face. She tries to yank out of my grip, but I twist my hand, my fingertips pressed against her scalp.
She’s panting, her chest heaving with each shallow, pained breath she takes. Her wide, full lips pull back in a sneer, showing off her perfect, pearly white teeth. She has sharp canines like a shifter, but she’s not a wolf. She doesn’t smell like one. She smells like her room did–like magnolia, with an underlying sweetness that’s hard to ignore, but I can’t place it. It’s familiar in some way, like an old, almost forgotten memory.
Her sharp, manicured nails sink into my wrist as she claws for the knife, drawing blood. She has my wrist pinned to the ground while I have her stuck in place with my hand fixed in her hair, but she’s straddling me. She has the advantage right now; not for long.
“Let me go,” she grimaces, her blue-green eyes wide with murderous rage.
“So you can stab me? No.”
She tries to pull out of my grip, but I yank on her hair. She hisses in pain, her eyes watering, and sinks her nails into fresh wounds on my wrist.
I wait for her to blink, to give into the pain, then bend my knees in a sharp, controlled motion and thrust her to the side, rolling on top of her and bringing the blade down against her dainty neck. She doesn’t look like she should be this strong. She’s lean but hiding what I assume is a muscled build beneath a black long-sleeved shirt and tight dark jeans. It’s taking all of my strength to keep her pinned. She’s tall. Abnormally so, but so am I.
“I know who you are.” She sneers, arching her neck as if in invitation to slice through her throat. It wouldn’t be too hard from this angle.
“I’d hope so. We’ve met. Twice.”
“Three times. You came to the ball.”
I arch a brow. She’s lost the baby-faced innocence I remember from the tea shop and the diner. Her cheeks have hollowed out. She’s shed her youth after all these years. She’s beautiful in a fierce way–like a flame–and just as dangerous. I lean down until our noses are almost touching. “You owe me a door.”
“I don’t owe you shit,” she sneers. “You stole from me.”
“Did you send your little kitten to follow me, witch?”
Her answering smile is totally unnerving–delirious, like she’s possessed by a blood-hungry demon of old. I lick my lips, smirking down at her while she tries to catch her breath with me pressing her into the floor.
“Why don’t you use your powers on me? I know you have them.”
“It wouldn’t be a fair fight.”
“Like it’s fair now?”
“What? Because you’re a man?” She laughs, her eyes narrowing. My mouth begins to pull into a smirk, but she thrusts her knee between my thighs, and any humor I felt vanishes, replaced by blinding pain, then fury.
Maeve grunts with effort, taking advantage of my momentary weakness, and gets out from underneath me with practiced grace, like she’s been sparring all her life. She leaps to her feet, sending her boot into my ribs, but I grab her ankle and twist, forcing her back to the ground. Her other foot locks with my jaw in a crunching blow that has me seeing stars, but I grip her calf, dragging her toward me. She kicks the knife out of my hand and lands another kick to my face, my nose this time. Blood sprays. “Fuck!”
“Where is my necklace!” she screams in a blood-curdling rage, sitting up and slamming her fists against the back of my head.
I roll over, roll away, and stand on unsteady legs while the room tilts and spins. Maeve rushes me. I grab her arm and toss her into my dresser, which splits into pieces on impact. She’s up on her feet in an instant, but the smell of blood is thick, and I can’t tell if it’s my own at this point. She’s gone absolutely feral.
She throws a punch. I catch her fist, squeezing with all of my strength.
With a grunt of pain, she kicks out, swiping my leg, and I fall through the bed, the metal collapsing under my weight, then hers.
“Where is it?” she shrieks, punching me in the jaw so hard my teeth crunch together. I clutch her waist, shoving her far enough away that I can draw up my knee, then kick, sending her flying into the wall.
Her impact sends a deep vibration through the room. She hits the ground, the sound of plaster cracking and falling all around her mingling with her sharp cry of pain. I slide off the remains of the bed, crawling to her, then grab her by the throat and drag her back to me. She regains her composure enough to fight it, clawing at my skin with her nails, but I squeeze her neck.
“Use your powers on me,” I command with a rough laugh. “I know you can. Do it, Princess. This fight isn’t as fair as you thought it’d be. There’s no shame in admitting it.”
She spits at me, so I tighten my grip.
“Do it! Make killing you worth my while!”
“My necklace!” She growls, struggling for breath. Her hands warm my skin, and at first, it doesn’t feel like much… but then… heat–blazing, boiling heat–erupts over my wrist, traveling through the dense scar and burrowing under the silver band. A soft clinking sound pings through my ears before the band falls away.
I look down at her, shaking my head. “You shouldn’t have fucking done that.”
Her smile is bloody. “You shouldn’t have stolen from me, you fucking idiot.”
The room tilts off its axis and spins out of control before the world goes black, and my eardrums burst.