Fierce Dawn (9 page)

“
Who the hell do you think you are?” she demanded. “State your purpose, seeker.”

Elijah stalked forward, ready to unleash his fury. The shifter stumbled, righted herself and squared her shoulders. She visibly gauged both his visage and her new surroundings, a flat stretch of sagebrush
-
scabbed Nevada dessert.

Elijah chuckled. “My purpose?” He’d give her this much
;
being propelled into a new place by a winged stranger wasn’t phasing her. Most immortals preferred more traditional means of travel. “Try again. How about we start with why you’re hunting an innocent human?”

She kept her stance wide but her limbs loose, ready for battle. “Either you’re an Enforcer, or trying hard to act like one. My guess is the latter,” she spat.

Judging by her antics, following Sadie
,
then chasing her in wolf form, he seriously doubted she’d sensed him all week. Hell, she looked too young to have enough sense to. The hint of lilac in her coloring marked her as different from any shifters he’d ever known. And she nearly glittered with malevolence.

“
No Enforcer here. But I’ll be happy to take you to one.”

“
Why? I didn’t hurt her. And I wouldn’t have
,
either.” She flexed her fingers, remaining battle
-
ready despite her blasé tone.

Elijah advanced on her, ready to pounce. “Oh? I suppose those fangs were meant to tickle her. Hunting this side of realm lines, you’re flirting with more than the law.”

If she was hunting, it was highly unlikely she’d hunt alone. Shifters willing to hunt mortals
—
likely to farm out their blood
—
would need protection in numbers.

He didn’t take her for a vampire, though. She lacked the telltale signs of blood addiction. No wild eyes. Vampires emanated a signal so loud and painful it was unmistakable. Following his gut, he’d stayed close to Sadie and waited. This one had shown up, dipping in and out of his radar for days.

“
Not that it’s any of your business,” she said at last. “But I was testing her.”

“
Right. Testing a human for what?
To s
ee how fast she can run?” Following Sadie himself for a week, he’d yet to see what Holly did. Now this shifter had gone and interfered.

Which changed everything.

What if other immortals suspected Sadie’s potential?

The shifter straightened. Her ashy white hair swished against her shoulders. Her dark eyes darted from his hands to his legs to his face. “Why are you guarding her?” she asked, looking like she had her own conclusions about Sadie.

Elijah narrowed his gaze on her, feeling unreasonably possessive of Sadie. The shifter dropped to a crouch, as if she would spring on him. He had no intention of hurting her. But she didn’t need to know that. Not yet. “What do you know about her?”

“
Enough.”

“
Do better than that or I’ll transport you into High Council itself here and now,” he said, iciness making his words sharp.

“
She’s a changeling,” she spoke again, her voice crisp in the quiet hum of the barren landscape. “I hoped if I pushed her, she’d be forced to shift, or fight back. I just want to know what kind she is.”

He narrowed his eyes on her. Changeling? Holly had never used the term changeling. She’d implied a half
-
breed who didn’t know. Never changeling. “She’s not a changeling.”

But as he said the words, the feeling in his gut changed and he knew the shifter was right. But it shouldn’t be possible. Immortals sometimes bred with mortals despite realm lines and strict laws, but humans did not become immortals.

“
She is.”

Humans couldn’t change. Changelings were nothing but myth, immortal fairytales. A chill ran over him despite his logic. Mortals weren’t genetically equipped to withstand the necessary evolution. Elijah closed the distance between them. “What do you know of it,” he hissed.

The shifter stepped several feet back but didn’t back down. Her gaze dared him. “I know plenty.”

Had this shifter sensed something in Sadie? The fact incensed further hope in him and Holly’s first words echoed through his mind.
I think she’s a messenger, or could be, somehow
.

If Sadie was a human changeling, becoming a messenger…Crusoe could be found. If she could be fully transformed, taught to see…. The Illeautians might be stopped before it was too late. But if humans could or were evolving
—
no. Impossible. That would be too close to the very prophecy that had supposedly inspired the Illeautians in the first place.

The lost verses of the Book of Sorrows predicted the marriage of the mortal and immortal realms, once cleaved in two to protect each race. The missing pages supposedly foretold of the collapse of realm lines.

Elijah’s mouth went dry as his neck flushed with sweat. His gut felt hollowed out.

He couldn’t believe it.

The shifter was just lying to get free. “Who ordered you to watch her?”

“
What? No one. I found her. No one else.”

Liar. Elijah paced a slow circle around the girl. A faint coyote howl pierced the silence. The bitter scent of the brush prickled in his nose. It masked the shifter’s scent but she wasn’t cloaking her signal.

“
Okay, okay,” she said, fidgeting under his scrutiny, showing him her palms. “What do I know? She’s not a changeling. Happy? I’ll leave her alone”

If other immortals discovered what Sadie potentially was, be it half-breed or changeling, she would be in danger. If a single Illeautian found even a trace of evidence that the prophecy was true, Elijah couldn’t begin to appreciate the consequences.

Would they push the collapse of realm lines and annihilate mortals completely? Or settle for enslaving them? Use them like cattle for their blood and energy, breeding with those who could?

What would they do with a changeling? Particularly a potential mess
e
nger?

He wouldn’t let it happen. He’d hide Sadie in the epicenter of the most remote vortex forever before he’d let an Illeautian have her. “I don’t believe you. Last chance, shifter.”

“
You don’t have to believe me. It doesn’t make it a lie, though.”

It was all he could do not to grab her by the throat. She’d done nothing provably wrong, though, outside of antics. Elijah snapped the space between them closed.

She stumbled back. “How’d you do that?”

He cocked his head, wary but curious. Did she not know what he was? He grabbed a fistful of her billowing shirt, unfurled his wings and launched skyward.

She screamed, kicking, holding tightly to his arm.

“
Tell me who sent you after Sadie now or I transport, shifter.”

Fear thrummed a beat he could hear. She clawed at his hand and arm, her eyes wide on the scabbed ground far below them. “Uh…uh…the Illipticals, er, Illeautians. Okay? Please, just put us down, okay?”

Liar. He could hear it in her. “Why don’t you know what I am?”

She balked but kept quiet, gripping his arm with both hands. “I do know. You’re immortal. You’ve got wings and do the whole blip into space thing.”

What game was this? Elijah spun their bodies higher.

“
Okay, stop! I swear to you on my life, I’ll leave her alone. I’ll forget she exists entirely.”

“
Why did she spark your interest? Looking for blood? Why hers?”

“
Ew, no! Look, I had my reasons. Purely personal. Completely forgotten now.” She wriggled in the air. “I’m not what you think I am. I’m not some derelict shifter. I don’t get off on scaring humans.”

“
Return to your brethren
,
” he said, alighting back down to the hard, crackled ground. “Before you find enforcement on your heels.”

Elijah released her.

Stepping back from him, she gave him a long, measuring look. “I have no brethren.”

His temper flared. “Then find some.”

One side of her mouth quirked up. She laughed humorlessly. “That’s what I was doing. Looking for others like me.” With each sarcastic word, she retreated another step. “But, like you said, leave her alone. Can’t have any unwanted attention, can we?”

Elijah considered transporting her again, but he itched to return to Sadie, to verify she was safe.

The smile reached the other side of her mouth, lending a wicked quality to her delicate features. She crouched down to the dirt. “Just so you know, flyboy, I’m not a shifter. And next time, try not to jump to conclusions. I may be able to help you one day. She’s a changeling and she will want to know others like her
.”

Elijah’s rage unleashed. A blink before he could snap through the few feet between them,
though
, the girl vanished.

He stopped, spun right, left, scanning the sparse landscape for signs of her. None. His mind boggled. Never had he witnessed such a thing from any being. Had she transported so fast he couldn’t detect the thick reverberation?

He couldn’t hear or sense her at all.

Elijah yanked at the compass around his neck, fumbling to read it for signs of a trace. Nothing! If she were fast enough to leave undetectable
—
“Sadie,” he whispered, dread fingering up his spine. With one last penetrating scan, hearing not the faintest tick
of
sound, he leapt back to Sadie’s last location.

He landed outside the house he’d shoved Sadie toward, his best guess as her destination before. He gathered in his wings and energy. The sodden ground squished under his steps as he strode to the rear of the stucco home. Soundlessly hopping over a cinderblock wall,
he
honed in on Sadie’s sound. Finding it easily enough, he switched to a peripheral search for any immortal traces. From its perch on the window screen, a scorpion pointed its stinger. Elijah flicked the thing away and peered through. He could sense her
,
but needed to see her face.

Safe.

Had the changeling made it here first? Had she come back at all?

Again, his mind wound around the potential consequences of what the creature claimed. If Sadie was a changeling messenger…if others knew or found out…Elijah’s chances of keeping her a secret seemed nil. What would he do if he were the hunter and Sadie his prey?

Peering against the cold glass he saw her, a glimpse, only for a moment, but his fears quieted.

What had he been thinking transporting the shif
—
changeling? He should have seen there was no real danger. Now, someone else knew Sadie held some significance. Looking for other changelings or not, he couldn’t dismiss his suspicions
that
there was more.

Who else knew? Holly, Lyric.

Holly wouldn’t betray him for the world. Or risk any chance of
finding
Crusoe.

Hell, even Lyric could be counted on for Crusoe’s sake.

How much more time before someone else got to her?

He should have let Lyric get a feed off of her from the start. Why had he waited? It didn’t matter now. What mattered now was Sadie. If the shifter changeling was near, she hadn’t shown herself.

Elijah’s heart rate slowed. The pendulum of his indecision fell still. A strange relief snuck through him. He had no other choice, no other answer. He had to interfere, not for Crusoe’s sake. For hers. He couldn’t leave her vulnerable to forces
that
would exploit her.

He watched through the window as she faked a smile over a meal. Though not visible from his standpoint, he could still recall the exact pale blue of her eyes. The shape of her mouth as it formed an oh. Recalling how strongly he’d repelled her, a fresh layer of guilt came to the fore

Now, he’d have to do more than watch and wait. He had to keep her safe.

More than that. If Lyric found Holly was right, Elijah would have to step into her life and upturn it entirely.

Only one question remained. Could he ease the butterfly from her cocoon without breaking her?

~ ~ ~

Chapter
Six

Back home and safely inside, Sadie slumped against the door and listened to Remy’s car drive away. With a ragged sigh, she gave in to the shakes she’d fought to suppress all evening. In the dark vacuous quiet of the bottom floor, she stopped denying the facts. She had hallucinated a glowing-eyed, sharp-toothed beast chasing her through the streets.

Sadie rubbed at her burning cheeks.

She’d run like a scream queen in a B movie, defending herself with a bag of Ben & Jerry’s. Yeah. Real intimidating, Sadie. One minute she hovered at the brink of hysteria, sprinting for her life, and the next she was standing, panting, alone and safe and sound right in front of Heather and Remy’s home.

Like she’d blinked herself there.