Maeve
I’m not one to wear sun dresses and cardigans. I’ve never considered myself softly girly, by any means. I like clothing I can move in–athletic shorts, sneakers, a sweatshirt if it’s chilly… or the sweeping, ethereal fashions I grew up with in Veiled Valley–gowns and cloaks of satin and silk.
I look in the rust-eaten mirror in the tiny bathroom, running my fingers through my frizzy dark hair. It’s the best I can do as it stands. I don’t have a comb. I don’t have pins or a scrunchy to keep my mane pulled back away from my face. I’m just… me in my rawest form, I suppose.
I stare at my reflection. My eyes are bloodshot and glazed, and my fingertips prickle with adrenaline as I swipe toothpaste onto a shiny new plastic toothbrush Soren left on the counter for me. I spent most of the morning in bed, finding it hard to move. My body feels numb and stiff, and every breath is a struggle, but I manage to brush my teeth and limp back into the main room where a pair of brand new, rolled up socks are sticking out of one of my sneakers.
I’m not sure what he did last night. He said he mended a chimney to get the money he needed to buy these things for us, but… given the circumstances, I find that hard to believe.
What I can’t deny is that he plucked every single thorn and splinter from my sneakers. It must have taken him hours. He did the same for my jeans, which he then folded neatly and sat on the corner of the bed with my tank top resting on top of them.
He had no reason to do it. He’s a criminal, a thief. He broke into my royal apartment and stole my jewelry, and he’s… not ashamed of it.
People have their reasons to be bad, to do bad things. He said he had a debt he needed to pay, and I’m well aware of the gnarled scars on his forearm. He’d been… shackled, robbed of his shifter powers for years.
I almost feel sorry enough for him to forgive him, but the phantom weight around my neck where my moonstone should be–now useless and lost in the forest forever–stops that feeling from fully materializing.
It takes some effort to get into my socks and sneakers, but I manage it, then leave the room, abandoning my old clothes. The hotel is… mostly empty. No one mans the counter, and the small deli sharing space with the bottom floor is silent, save for a flickering TV in the corner playing some soap opera from Crescent Falls.
I stayed in the room too long to get breakfast, but I’m not hungry. I know I should eat, but this wobbly, tingling feeling in my body makes me wonder if just a few hours of sleep is enough to spirit back to Moonrise.
It’s a simple jump–a short one, even if the capital of Eastonia is at least a hundred miles southeast of here–but I don’t even really know where I am. The Roguelands are full of rural villages and communities. The territory has dozens of Alphas that guard a handful of villages and towns at a time, and this tiny, one road town isn’t familiar to me.
I walk down the street, not bothering to shield my identity to try to conserve my powers, and reach a gas station that marks the end of the village. Beyond it, a dirt road winds through the thick woodlands where the trees are so dense the sunlight doesn’t even touch the road. I tug my cardigan close, smoothing my hands over the thin, gray fabric, then step into the gas station.
The attendant doesn’t even look in my direction as I pluck a pamphlet sized map from a magazine rack, then a pair of sunglasses, a roll of elastics for my hair, and the best looking gas-station sandwich.
“Anything else?” the old man behind the counter asks, ringing my bounty up without looking away from his newspaper.
“Do you have coffee?”
“Just around that aisle, in the corner.” He tilts his head in that general direction.
I place the money Soren left for me on the counter, telling him he can keep the change, which is only a few pennies. Plastic bag of things to get me through the morning in hand, I pour myself a cup of coffee, black, and slide the sunglasses up the bridge of my news before perching on the curb, in the shade, eating my sandwich.
I’ve never really been… out like this. I don’t get a lot of opportunities to explore. I’m constantly bouncing between Veiled Valley, Moonrise, and Crescent Falls, of course, but I’ve never been a nobody–never been just a girl sitting on a curb somewhere, enjoying the soft, early summer breeze whispering through her hair and the way the sun dances through the treetops.
I think of Jane, however, with a long, dramatic sigh. She knows I’ve gone after Soren. She tried to talk me out of it when I stepped out of a very short shower and found an armchair in shambles and a trail of blood on my balcony. I told her not to tell anyone where I’d gone, and if anyone asked, I was in Silverhide, with Brie, visiting family.
While being nearly powerless is extremely inconvenient at the moment, the timing of this… adventure couldn’t have been better. I have nothing pressing on my agenda back in Moonrise. The family is busy, out of the loop of my shenanigans.
I stuff the last bite of sandwich into my mouth, chewing slowly as I let my mind reel. I do, in fact, have a few weeks of quiet before the family descends on Moonrise again… and for the first time in years, I have a lead on Hannibal.
Even the thought of his name makes me see red. What his people–people like Soren–did to my sister makes me want to scream, but that was years ago, and he’s been quiet since.
Yet, I think I believe Soren when he said he doesn’t work for Hannibal, not directly. He’s probably a fringe member of some other criminal underlord with ties to Hannibal, who seems to have his fingers in the underground crime network constantly plaguing the Allied Kingdoms.
Soren left, though. I have no idea where he is. He left me here, and it’s over. Whatever the past two days were.
I rise and tie back my hair then move, walking at a slow pace down the road. Wolf trails cut through the forest for a while, but eventually, the forest swallows everything whole, and the road narrows, becoming more hilly and less traveled by vehicles. I have no direction in mind because it doesn’t matter. I’m just waiting for my powers to return enough to jump, and then I can sulk in Moonrise, wondering if I missed my shot at taking Hannibal down for good.
Once, that was my only objective when I became queen.
Now, I’m not sure how to feel.
I cut into the woods, into a clearing with pockets of sunshine that dance across soft grass and fresh flowers. I close my eyes, imagining my powers drifting through me, warming my skin, but it’s likely just the sun beating down on the clearing.
Rogue locks of hair begin to lift around my face, however. My skin tingles, and I smile, whispering, “That’s it. Just a little more–a little more–”
A snapping sensation erupts all over my body before the world tilts on its axis and dissolves. A vacuum of sound and darkness swallows me whole before spitting me out again in a matter of seconds but…
I gasp, filling my aching lungs with desperately needed air. It’s dark. I can see the outline of the trees overhead cast in the shadow of full night. Thunder booms nearby, and I’m soaking wet. Soaked to the bone. I flail my arms to the side and grip moss and snapped twigs, not the carpet in my apartment.
Pain reverberates through my body in throbbing waves as I take another breath, then another, and grunt with the effort of sitting upright.
I’m in a forest. I’m not in the clearing where I tried to jump. I turn my head, scanning the shadows, seeing nothing but miles upon miles of trees.
Rain patters against the top of my head as I stumble forward. My cardigan and sunglasses are gone. So are the elastics and plastic bag from the gas station.
I look up, trying to find the moon. Did I jump? I had to have jumped because this isn’t where I started, but it’s night now, which means I did jump, and I've been lying prone all day, passed out.
A chill wraps up my spine as voices drift toward me through the rain, carried by the scent of smoke. Hushed voices–calm voices laced with laughter.
Without a second thought, my body twists into my bird form, but it’s painful. I can’t hold it for very long, not with my powers so weak.
I flutter toward the voices, landing in a tree overlooking a cabin resting along a burbling creek. Three men are sitting out by a fire, ignoring the sprinkle of rain as they pass a bottle of what looks like whiskey.
“You still have that safe house near Twin Rivers, right?” one of them says, and through the darkness, against the glow of the fire, I can see his face. He’s young and handsome, with dark curly hair and what must be light colored eyes because they reflect a bright amber hue when he turns to one of his companions, and my heart skips a beat.
Soren, sitting on the ground with his back against a tree stump, stretches out his legs and crosses his ankles, tapping his fingers on the bottle of whiskey. “Yeah, I do. She doesn’t know about that place yet, and I’m hoping to keep it that way, but I need to go to town. I need to face her myself and get this sorted out.”
My powers flicker as I gaze down at the men, at his companions who he seems to be perfectly comfortable with. Both men have silver bands on their forearms.
My stomach curls as the rain drips down my wings, and my powers thrum in warning that my time in this form is limited.
The dark haired man clicks his tongue, aggravation lacing his words as he says, “This isn’t even your debt to pay.”
“Neither was the last,” Soren says under his breath before taking a pull from the bottle.
“I say you go to the safe house and lie low for a few weeks,” his companion argues. “She can’t find you without the band. It’s quiet now, anyway. Neither Duke nor I have been called in for jobs in months.”
I glance at the man who hasn’t spoken yet. He has short-cropped blond hair, but his back is to me, so I can’t get a look at his face.
“That’s going to change with the coronation coming up, and you know it,” Soren replies dryly. He sighs, closing his eyes for a moment, continuing, “The Viper needs me and can’t kill me because of that. I can take a beating from her guys. What I want to avoid is the Hounds.”
“You must have really pissed her off for her to call those guys in.”
“I’ve been ignoring her summons the past few months.”
“Why?”
“Because I haven’t needed the money,” Soren replies with a shrug, but his mouth ticks into a smile. “I have no interest in going deeper in her debt just to stay alive, and she knows it.”
“You’re still doing outside work? That contact of yours?”
“He’s still around,” he mumbles, and if I had brows to furrow in this form, they’d be pinched together in confusion.
A squawk high above my head steals my attention. A hawk spots me, circling in interest. I look back down at the men and freeze when Soren meets my eyes through the darkness, his gaze narrowed as he peers up at me.
Shit, twice over.
The hawk dives. I flutter from the tree, diving through the branches and gliding out of sight of the cabin. The hawk chases, but I roll out of the bird form and into my human body, which startles the hawk so much it screeches before flapping aggressively away.
Panting, I brace my hands on my knees, gulping down fresh, rainy night air. That freezing ache spreads through my joints like a fever, but I have to ignore it. I can’t keep doing this. I need to rest. I need to find a train depot or hitch a ride somewhere. Hell, I could hitchhike to the border of the Deadlands and call on Ryan–
Soren’s body collides with mine. He cages me in against a tree, his hand wrapped around my throat.