Roar of Magic

Born, abandoned and left for adoption, she has no idea she’s a shifter until a fey walks into her life and sparks something inside her. Something that wants more.

Anessa is self-sufficient, bright, reasonably attractive and works at a spell-supply shop. She negotiates with shifters for their saleable goods and sells those same parts to mages on a daily basis. When a fey walks in to purchase some fur, she finds out that touching him will send a shock through her hand.

One year later, he returns with startling information for her. She is a shifter, and he has found a tutor for her to help her find out what she is. It turns out that she is a lioness, and once she is comfortable with her beast, it makes its own demands.

In heat, she has the choice of the pride or the Crossroads, and she decides to take her chances with her own luck amongst strangers. A familiar fey face is more than welcome.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Roar of Magic

Copyright © 2015 Zenina Masters

ISBN: 978-1-4874-0333-1

Cover art by Carmen Waters

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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Roar of Magic

Shifting Crossroads Book 30

By

Zenina Masters

Anessa looked up when she heard the chime on the door. Blinking was her instinctive response.

Next to her boss, Evan Wilkes, was an elf. Her boss was a mage, and there were very few circumstances in which a mage and an elf would be seen in public together.

“Anessa, this is Leroc Alberthswitch. He is looking for some humanely obtained vixen hair.”

She looked down at the powdered mint that she was measuring. “Just a moment.”

Evan smiled. “I can find it.”

She doubted it, but she didn’t want to embarrass him. She finished measuring the mint and sealed the bag. Evan had found the fox hair, and he was about to measure it out.

She beckoned to him, and he handed her the container. She opened it and sniffed. “This is male. The female is on the shelf above it.”

Evan closed the container. “What would I do without you?”

She snorted. “You would label your products and freak people out.”

She looked to Leroc and tried to ignore the healthy golden tone to his skin as well as the breadth of his shoulders. “What are you using the hair for? Elves don’t come in here much.”

He grinned. “I am trying it for fly tying.”

She stared at him for a moment and then burst out into laughter. “Do you want some peacock feather to go with it?”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Whatever you recommend.”

She went through the bottles and vials, extracting one peacock feather and a vulture feather. “There. That combined with the vixen fur should make you an irresistible lure.”

Leroc nodded. “Thank you. What do the feathers do?”

Anessa lifted the peacock feather. “This will attract the eye of the fish and bring them in.”

She lifted the vulture feather. “This will make them take the most repulsive or ridiculous bait as if it was the best meal they had ever eaten.”

He nodded. “You know your product.”

Evan sighed. “She does. She also does most of the negotiating for the items with their previous owners.”

With precision, she wrapped the feathers and the fur so that nothing touched the other species and nodded to Evan. “Can you ring this up? I have to get to the zoo.”

He sighed and flipped through his ledger.

Anessa nodded her head at the elf. “Pleased to meet you, enjoy the feathers.”

She grabbed her pack from under the counter and headed for the front door. He stopped her and reached for her hand. “The pleasure was mine.”

The jolt of colliding power made him release her a moment after making contact. She mumbled goodbye and headed for the door.

Once she was outside, she took in a deep breath and went to her bike, unlatching it and slipping her leg over. She cycled the fourteen blocks to the zoo and glided through the employee and volunteer gate.

Leroc was not the first elf she had ever met, and the zap was something she had expected. The sensation was akin to licking a nine-volt battery, and she could still feel it in her hand as she changed into her uniform and prepared to help measure out the food for the big cats.

The veterinarian students always wanted to be in on the big-cat feedings, but the animals preferred Anessa in their midst. She found them comforting, and she imagined that they felt the same. Sometimes, when she was feeling particularly fanciful, she imagined herself as a lioness running through the enclosure, jumping out and frightening the tourists and visitors.

She chatted with the staff and vets, had the measurements and supplements verified, and then arranged the chunks of meat into the metal pans for her rounds.

It was feeding time.

* * * *

Leroc rubbed his fingers. “You didn’t tell me that your assistant was a shifter.”

Evan looked at him with surprise in is expression. “Anessa? She isn’t a shifter. She works here, volunteers at the zoo and has another job doing the books for a few companies in the area. She honestly doesn’t have time to shift.”

The mage was completely serious. He honestly didn’t know that the woman who worked the counter had another shape.

“How long has she worked for you?” He looked at the bill and paid for the supplies. They were really going to add to his fishing skills. He would take any advantage he could.

“Six years. I advertised and she applied. She wasn’t a mage, but she gained a command of the inventory in a matter of days. I was sold.”

“Interesting.” He didn’t mention anything more. It was her secret to keep. His own secrets could fill far more than a closet. “Thanks for this. I will let you know if it improves my fishing.”

Evan nodded and came around to shake his hand in farewell. Leroc inclined his head and left the shop.

* * * *

Anessa looked up and smiled at the man coming through the door. It was one year to the day that he had moved across the threshold of the shop.

“Good morning, Mr. Alberthswitch. How did those feathers and fur work out for you?”

He paused in the doorway, his head nearly touching the frame. “You remember me?”

She closed the jar she was working with and smiled. “Of course. Not a lot of fey cross the threshold.”

He smiled. “You have stuck out in my mind as well.”

He was dressed in a suit and moving with an easy grace toward the counter.

“I have looked into you and have made some enquiries. This is for you. Do with it what you will.”

He handed her a heavy cream envelope.

Anessa turned it over in her hands. “What is it?”

“It is a letter from some folk that might be able to tell you why you dream of being a beast and running through the wild.”

She stared at him. “How did you know?”

“Did you feel that shock when we touched?”

She blushed. “I have to be honest. I have felt that before.”

He sighed. “I would like to imagine that it was just me, but you react that way to all fey. The letter explains it, but the power in your body belongs to a shapeshifter.”

“Bullshit.”

His strangely golden eyes blinked as he reared back. “I beg your pardon.”

“There is no such thing. With the fey around, of course, mages are real. I have never heard of shapeshifters outside of romance novels and fairy tales.”

“Read the letter and contact them. They will help you find out what you are.”

His voice told her what he wasn’t saying. There was no one in her history who could tell her. He really had done his homework.

She looked up at his sharply featured face, his dark hair and strange gold eyes. “Why did you look into this?”

He smiled. “There is a negotiation currently in process that might allow fey and shifters to find equal romantic ground.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Is there a lot of call for that?”

Leroc chuckled and turned to leave. He opened the door. “Not yet, but you never know when things could change. Read the information and act on it. A whole new world is waiting for you.”

Anessa stood still as he left and looked around at the lie she had told. Of course, she knew what shifters were. She dealt with them every day and bartered for pieces of their shifted bodies. Fur, feathers, scales and venom were bought and paid for every single day. She had felt at home in the shop with no name. Evan was a fair boss, and he gave her plenty of time for the other things that made her feel whole. Bookkeeping was fun, and volunteering at the zoo made her feel at home. After a life of being adrift in the world, she had found anchors, and she was clinging to them.

She tucked away the snakeskin she had been inventorying and set the envelope in the centre of the counter. It looked so innocuous sitting there.

She gripped the edges of the heavy envelope and smiled at the wax seal. A roaring lion was pawing at the black and gold wax. She slid her finger under the seal and pried it up.

The heavy pages came out, and to her surprise, each of the four folded pages were from a different branch of the shifter community. Each page was an introductory letter offering Anessa Prin the chance to seek out her inner beast in complete safety and with supervision.

The letters also confirmed that an elf was a very accurate assessor of these things. If he sensed she was a shifter, she probably was.

Each of the letters had a name, a number and an email address at the bottom.

She had the information, now she had to find the time to use it.

It took two months before the first email turned into a call and then the second and the third and fourth. Each representative had a question for her that she thought was odd, and it helped them to narrow down what she was.

In the end, it was decided that her affinity for the large cats was a side effect of her being one. The revelation sent a click through her thoughts that locked in all she had seen and felt while dealing with the animals at the zoo.

A date was set where she would meet with the pride master, and she would be introduced to her other shape. She took a bus then cab to the large home at the edge of the city and got out after checking that she had her purse and her phone with her.

A woman greeted her, and she carried a baby on her hip. “Hello, are you Anessa?”

Anessa nodded. “Yes.”

“Good morning. My name is Lee, and I will be working with you today.” Lee jostled the baby, “This is Amelia and she will be supervising.”

The baby had huge green eyes, a mop of golden-brown hair and clapped her hands when her name was mentioned.

“I thought I was to meet the alpha or the pride master or something.” Anessa followed her up the stairs of the walk toward the brick manor.

“He was called away to deal with a homicide. One of our kind was murdered in a fight with another species, and he has to look into the motivation.” Lee led her into the house and paused in front of another woman. “This is Ystine, the wife of the Prime Alpha, Norman.”

The woman had tawny hair, and she moved her arms. “Do you want me to hold Amelia?”

Lee shook her head. “No, she is fine with the shifting and knows what to do with strange animals.”

Amelia clapped her hands again. The bright gaze of the baby made Anessa smile.

“If you are sure, the parlour is yours. It has been readied for this.”

Lee nodded and beckoned Anessa to follow her. “This way. We will have a snack after we change back. It is best not to shift on a full stomach. When things change shape, it can get ugly.”

Anessa took that in. “I am still not sure that I am a shapeshifter. I mean, if I am, why wouldn’t it have happened earlier?”

“Shifting is part necessity, part social behaviour. From the file Norman showed me, you have sublimated the social behaviours into your tending of animals. You don’t need to shift because they already accept you.”