Deluge: YA Dark Urban Fantasy (Shifter Chronicles Book 4)

  SHIFTER CHRONICLES BOOK FOUR

  DELUGE

  A Dark Urban Fantasy

  MELLE AMADE

  DELUGE

  Copyright © 2017 by Melle Amade.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

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

  For information contact:

  www.melleamade.com

  melle@melleamade.com

  Book and Cover design by Derek Murphy @Creativindie

  Cover art: Consuelo Parra | Model: Tris-marie | Bg: Malleni-stock

  ISBN:

  First Edition: September 2017

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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  Dutch born, Matilde, the estranged niece of Lord Van Arend, barters with her scheming mother to spend the summer with the only friends she’s ever had, the Ravensgaard at Castle Brannach. The only problem is, what she has offered her mother is information, information that will break her friends’ trust and begin the downfall of the regime who governs them all.

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  MELLE AMADE BOOKS

  Shifter Chronicle Series

  Novella – HERITAGE

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  1 - SANCTUARY

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  2 - REMNANTS

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  3 - HARVEST

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  4 - DELUGE

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  Quest for Shifter Magic Series

  1 - IRON CAGE

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  For those

  who dream of flying

  1

  The slicing point of the arrow tip slashes into my skin, sharp, quick and clean. I twist my body, retracting my arm. The arrowhead stabs deep into my arm. I double over as my nerves scream up my limb and I stumble forward. My foot slips on a mossy rock. Losing balance, I fall forward toppling into the freezing November water. I lay there, floating, feeling the blood trickling out of me, warm and meandering as it mingles with the river. My hair fans out and coils on top of the water as I let myself drift with the current. I click my fingernails to try and get a spark of heat, but my flames don’t work in the water.

  A soft plop on my forehead and a gentle tapping on my forehead tells me there is no way I’m getting out of this easily. I brush the bright green frog off my face as I place my feet down, secure a foothold and stand up in the frigid morning air. The sun is starting to burn through the fog of the Northern California mountains and I can just see the spires of the redwood trees poking their way through the thinning mist. Hills rise steep around the river bank, covered in deep forest, dark green and hazy in the cool autumn air. The river is shallow here, only three feet, although it will rise as the winter rains begin. At least that’s what I’ve been told.

  I place my hand over my arm where the arrowhead stuck. Gotta pull it out. I grit my teeth as I dig my nails in and raw fire explodes up my arm. Blood pours down my arm. Roman, still splashing around in his badass frog form, jumps on my pant leg and on to my arm.

  “Don’t you dare touch it.” I know the poison in his webbed feet would make the pain unbearable.

  His big orange eyes blink as he looks down and back up at me. By our training standards, the wound isn’t bad. And even as we watch the shifter blood in me is already healing it. Still, it’s going to be a pain to stitch together my Ravensgaard uniform. The black sealskin material is tough for a reason, and almost impossible to stitch.

  “Could you be a little more careful next time?” I yell up the river, aiming my words at the tree where I know Jacqueline is poised among the damp branches. The fresh rain has finally made it possible for me to train my power. Up until now my ability to make fire just created blazes we had a hard time putting out.

  Jacqueline jumps down, nimbly landing on the soft moist earth without a sound. She moves like a ninja in the forest, her black hair double braided and pulled up to clip at the nape of her neck. She’s wearing black jeans, black cowboy boots in and a long-sleeved brown cotton top with two feathers running down each sleeve. The earth rumbles slightly as she walks towards me. Ripples move through the water. It’s one heck of power she has, to cause earthquakes.

  “Come on,” she says, raising her bow and arrow again. The weapon is magnificent. Hand carved by Hercules out of native wood, its grace and accuracy in Jacqueline’s hands is formidable.

  “I’m tired.” I know even as the words come out of my mouth they’re not a good enough excuse.

  “Then lay down and die.” She pulls the trigger and lets the bolt fly directly at my head.

  Roman springs off my shoulder and lands in the river, swimming to safety.

  I raise my hand, focusing all of my irritation into my palm, letting it burn and shoot a blazing volley of red and yellow fire to meet the arrow head-on. I’ve learned to focus my power to an almost deadly level. The torch incinerates the wooden shaft and black ashes sizzle into the river. But the stone arrowhead still comes at me, hurtling forward from the force of the bow. My blast of fire barely slowed it down.

  I spring off the wet rocks, leaping into the air as high as I can go and reaching for the power to transform. I shrink, contorting sideways, my arms spread out as black feathers rise out of my skin and wings appear. I angle sideways from the arrowhead and barely make it out of the way in time as it slices through the end of a feather. I flap my wings, letting out a raucous caw as I skim towards the treetops and float up above the layer of mist covering the hills.

  “Cheating!” Roman’s voice follows me as I head up through the haze and out into the sun.

  I caw back, my energy exploding into raven form. The sun is already high above the hills, though we couldn’t see it in the mountain canyon. But now it beats down on my wings, warm and balmy even in the cold fall air. We’ve already been training for two hours this morning. Racing through the mountains, hiding in the trees, trying to gain advantage over each other.

  But now I need some space. I need a moment to myself. I know Mom and Henry are safe in the village, protected by the guardians through Lydia’s magic. Jacqueline’s mother grounds the guardians and keeps the village hidden. It’s the best place I can imagine for Henry and Mom to be. Even though they’re shifters now, Henry is a dove. He’s a Passief in a world where Predators rule and prey are not tolerated. I try not to let the thought get to me. In the last month, we have worked hard to see if he can shift into a raven, but he can’t. I don’t know if he’ll be able to when he’s older, but for now every time he shifts he turns into a pale white dove. I scan the perimeter of the roads leading into the forest where the village is, but everything is quiet.

  The Hunters discovered the edge of the village only a month ago, but when I redirected them to the Berzerken, the shifters who rule the Order with an iron fist, they left to chase them down.

  Of course, chasing Polaris, the Berzerken who decapitated Zaragoza, they weren’t going to get very far. The evil polar bear outsmarted them near the base of Frog Woman Rock and apparently took care of all of the Hunters. At least that’s what the Order told Aiden to report to the shifters of Muirderkring West.

  My
wings take me down the side of the mountain and I’m drawn out over the fertile fields of Potter Valley. This place, where I’ve lived the past couple of months, is starting to feel a bit like home. The farming community, nestled up in the hills of Northern California, is full of fields of vineyards, orchards and pastures. Now, in the middle of November, the fields are deep green but tree leaves, flaming yellow, orange, and red, are carpeting the ground. My mother doesn’t like it when I go flying. She thinks it’s too dangerous. Even as a raven herself, she only flies above the village. In a place where she can feel safe and set a good example for Henry. Her job is to protect us since Dad is missing. I feel she’s thinking of settling down here. Starting some sort of a yoga class for all the farmers and keeping Henry up in the village. But just as much as I want to keep them safe, I don’t see how it will work. How do you keep him hidden in a community of thirty people and never let him go out? What sort of a life is that for a kid?

  I’m drawn to the ashes of Spotswood House, but even as I fly I’m still conscious at any moment, there could be a Hunter or a Berzerken watching for a raven who looks like they know a little bit too much about where they’re going and what they’re doing. Because, I should just be some bird flying around for the fun of it or looking for food or something. But I’m not. I’m drawn to the ruins for a very specific reason. I want my father back, and there are two things I am up against. The Order, who has my father, and the Hunters, who are after any shifter in existence.

  I don’t really know what I’m hoping to find when I get to the remnants of Spotswood ranch. The brick foundation of the building still stands, patchy with ash. Charred wooden beams protrude at awkward angles from the blackened debris, but the scorched stone chimney still stands tall and undefeated. The fence around the perimeter of the property wasn’t touched, and neither was the barn. But all the animals are gone. The house, safe for a hundred years, doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe, in an unforeseeable future, shifters will live here again, but I’m pretty sure it’s not going to be in my lifetime. The place is known to Hunters and to the Order, it’s a deathtrap waiting to happen.

  I flit casually by the telephone wires to keep up the illusion I’m a simple black bird. Even though a bunch of other birds are sitting on the powerline, I don’t sit next to them. That stuff still freaks me out. My whole life it’s always been “don’t you dare touch a powerline” and now I’m a bird I’m supposed to just casually sit on it. Instead I fly past the farm in a straight line as if I’m going to the base of the far hills. But something bright and shiny catches my eye. I can’t stop myself, I tilt my wings slightly to the left, needing to find out more. Because although I would never tell anyone, I fly over this site every day. I know every bit of dirt around it. I never land because I can’t afford to be seen as a shifter and you never know…maybe the Order has eyes here, or the Hunters do…either way it’s too dangerous.

  But now I see something sparkling in the ground in front of the barn. My eyesight is better as a bird then as a human and even from this height I can make out what it is. It’s hidden under a couple of pieces of straw but not so much it can’t be figured out. It’s the piece of metal Jacqueline broke off the Hunter’s blade when he tried to invade the village. She hit him with her sonic boom. Callum recovered the scrap of metal and Roman ran experiments on it, because it was the same composition as the collars we were enslaved to. He tried to figure out what chemical would melt the metal so we could use it to get the collars off. But nothing had worked. We finally got the collars off when we discovered I was a Thunder Being with power over fire and could literally melt the metal in my hands.

  The sliver of metal had to have been in the library when the building burnt.

  So, how did it get here? Outside the barn?

  I swoop down and land. I can’t help it but I don’t shift into human form. As a raven as I move forward and grab the metal scrap in my mouth. But as I turn to take off again, the midday sun creates a sharp shadow on the wet muddy surface. Just outside the barn I see them very, very clearly with my raven eyes: fresh boot prints leading into the barn.

  2

  I burst into The Lodge, the small shop nestled between Hopper’s Corner Store and the saloon. This is where the Pomos are set up to sell their stunning, woven baskets and jewelry made out of delicate beads and porcupine quills. There’s a row of cabins standing, empty at this time of year, behind the building; a small alley between the cabins and the back of the saloon. I dive down to the alley and shift as I touch down on the ground. I know I’m not supposed to do this, but I have to tell Hercules. Every morning he brings Evie down to the school and then he comes to The Lodge. It doesn’t actually open until eleven, but he spends a lot of time down here on the computer, because there’s no service up in the village.

  We still don’t let Henry go to public school. Mom is homeschooling him. Until we get a handle on exactly what is going on in the shifter world, public school is no place for Henry. On the other hand, for the locals who live here, if Evie suddenly wasn’t going to school it would look a little strange and they would start making inquiries up at the village.

  As I rush in the back door, my eyes automatically flick up to the mural of the Thunder Beings as they walked out onto earth. This delicate painting depicts people gifted with Earth magic. Little did I know when I first saw it, I was one of those people myself.

  Hercules looks outside the front window even though I came from the back. “Did you suddenly learn to drive?”

  “I know how to drive,” I say. “I just don’t have a car.”

  He looks at me and raises an eyebrow. “Then how did you get here? Who drove you?”

  “Somebody is at the ranch.” I ignore his question completely. “Somebody who was looking for the metal.”

  Hercules glances at the computer screen before returning his gaze to me. “What makes you think someone’s at Spotswood?”

  “I saw a piece of the meteoric iron blade,” I say. “Right by the door of the barn. There were footsteps near it.”

  Hercules’s eyebrows knit together as he stares at me, his finger running under his chin thoughtfully. “And where was the piece of the blade before?”

  “It was in the house,” I touch the scrap of metal in my pocket where I shoved it once I landed. Not sure I should take it out. “Before it was burnt, in the library where Roman had set up his laboratory.”

  “And there’s no way it could’ve just been carried by some animal and dropped by the barn?”

  “It doesn’t explain the footsteps,” I say. “Besides, Roman went back and looked for this for ages. He kept trying to find it because he wanted to do more testing against how it overpowers shifters’ abilities. To find if there is some way we can overcome the effect it has on us. He couldn’t find it.”

  “It also doesn’t explain why they found it and then dropped it again.”

  I start to pull it out of my pocket, even though I know this isn’t going to go down very well, but Hercules has always been really good to us. He’s one of the first Pomos we met. He’s Evie’s older brother, about twenty-three. Like all the rest of the clan, except Evie, he’s a quail. I haven’t figured out if Quails are Passiefs or Predators. They don’t really care about the labels given by the Order. They just consider themselves guardians of the Earth. But Hercules is the kind of guy who never has any ulterior motives. He’s always there for the protection of the family. So, I know he’s going to be pissed when I bring out the piece of metal because he’ll know I landed. But I do it anyway and place it on the counter.

  “I didn’t shift.”

  “You stopped to pick this up?” He says, a strong brown hand reaching forward and gingerly turning over the metal.

  “I had to,” I say. “How else would I know for sure?”

  A deep sigh comes out of his mouth. “Shae, you’ve got to follow the rules,” he says quietly. “We simply can’t have people seeing you still here.”

  “I know,” I say. “But there wasn�
��t anybody around.”

  “How do you know? It’s easy for someone to hide. My job is to keep the tribe safe. And if you are staying with us, you’re one of our people. If you don’t follow the rules I can’t keep you safe.”

  “I know.” I don’t bring up the fact we both already know, I shifted in front of a Hunter before they burnt down Spotswood ranch. I showed him I was a raven shifter.

  A truck pulls up outside aimed directly in front of The Lodge. I glimpse the driver, white blond hair, and it makes me run behind the counter. I duck down as the man gets out of the truck, doesn’t even bother looking around, but walks straight towards the front door. His hair is close cropped and he wears a hunting vest and strange glasses perched on top of his head. It’s the exact same Hunter measuring the Thunder Being magic in the rodeo grounds a couple of months ago. The Hunter who figured out where the village is. The Hunter who I directed towards the Berzerken at Spotswood ranch. He knows exactly what I am.

  There’s not much room to hide behind the counter but I get down as low as I can. The bell on the door jangles and Hercules stares at the computer screen, closing a couple of search engines as I watch. He researches the Hunters as best he can even though there’s not a lot of online information about this ancient sect. We don’t know much except they think we shouldn’t exist. For a thousand years they’ve made efforts to kill every single one of us, and they’re still failing. But they are persistent. Hercules calmly looks up at the Hunter.

  “We’re not quite open yet,” he says warmly.

  The man leans against the counter. “Not looking to buy. My name is Darko,” he says with a slight accent I can’t place.

  “That’s not a real name,” Hercules says. “Did you make it up to sound like an evil villain?”