Prologue
Not all witches are bad.
Her mother’s words echoed through her head as little Katra stared into the hate-filled eyes of the four teenage witches who stood before her in the small clearing in the woods she had previously been playing in. It was clear from their body language and sneering mouths that they were of the persuasion to believe that shifters were less than them. In this small southern town, there was a solid, distinct line drawn between the local coven of witches and the spattering of shifters that resided in its borders. The Imperium Coven—the name they had carried for decades—was led by Caroline Abernathy, a 40-something powerful witch who had spent her 10-year leadership instilling in her subjects the idea that shifters were a lesser form of supernatural being and, as such, had no business being in her glorious town. Before her rise to power, the town of Morning Hills had sported a fairly equal representation of every supernatural species, but since her ascension, the number of shifters had dropped dramatically as they were systematically driven out until only a handful were left.
Katra Embersen was one of them, along with her mother and father, Marana and Jakob Embersen. Her father, a wolf shifter, had many times attempted to convince both Katra and Marana to leave, but Katra and her mother were firm in their belief that this was their home as much as anyone else’s, and they refused to be swayed. Part of this was due in large part to Marana’s animal, a lioness, who were notoriously territorial and protective by of the land they were born and raised in by nature. Although, if she were being honest, Katra would say that her refusal to leave was due primarily to her love for her best friend, Addilyn, also known as Addi, who now stood next to Katra as they faced down the angry witches.
“You lot aren’t that smart, are you? I mean, at least the others were smart enough to know when they weren’t wanted, but you’re so dumb you can’t figure out when you should get the fuck out.” The prettiest of the witches, a tall girl with white-blonde hair and cold blue eyes sneered at her as she looked down her nose at the little 7-year-old.
“Don’t talk to my friend like that! She’s better than all of you!” Addi responded with as much vehemence as an 8-year-old could muster. Standing as tall as she could, she glared up at the intimidating witch without flinching, and Katra felt a flutter of pride for her best friend.
Addilyn Pierce and her mother were the only witches in town who refused to pander to the radical ideals of the Imperium Coven, and for that, they had been disowned and were treated nearly as bad as the shifters. The separation was an idiotic move on the coven’s part; it placed them in the position of being entirely unaware of Addi’s blossoming power, a power that was far greater than any average 8-year-old witch. Unfortunately, this power also tended to give Addi a sense of invincibility that she couldn’t fully back up, since her power was largely uncontrollable.
The four witches cackled in unison, and Katra tugged on Addi’s arm from where she stood hiding behind her, hoping to grab her attention enough to convince her to just leave. “No, Addi. I don’t care what they say. I just wanna go home. Please, Addi—let’s just go.”
Pulling her arm from between Katra’s shaking fingers, Addi pulled herself up even higher. “No way. These stupid bitches need to learn that they aren’t better than anyone.”
“Addi, you know your momma doesn’t want you swearing. You’ll get the switch again.”
Her response elicited a round of obnoxious giggling from the quad of witches as they began to surround the two little girls with looks of danger in their eyes. “Aww, do you need to run back to your momma and tattle? Like she could ever compete with my mother, the leader of the Imperium Coven.”
Of course they would be dealing with Charlotte Abernathy, who was just as conceited and over-zealous as her mother. She flipped her hair over her shoulder with haughty arrogance, the kind that came from years of being treated as important simply due to the luck of her birth. The witches positioned themselves around Katra and Addi as they eyed the children up and down like a butcher studying a fattened-up cow.
Like meat.
“You can’t touch us.”
Katra’s eyes closed in dismay as Addi’s words sank in. Challenging members of the local coven was akin to challenging the gods. Nothing good could come from it.
“Well let’s test that theory.” Charlotte responded as she pulled a small, glass orb from her pocket that was roughly the size of a large marble. She whispered a word over it before smiling wickedly at the young girls.
The orb glowed softly before cracking and releasing a green mist that quickly flew up to surround Addi and Katra.
Addi simply smiled. Lifting a hand, she cut through the dull green mist without saying a word, and the mist quickly evaporated into nothing.
The older witches were clearly surprised by the younger witch’s skill. Only the most powerful witches could cast without using words or objects, and for an 8-year-old to hold that skill was simply unheard of.
A wise person would turn at that point and choose to leave the situation for safer ground. But clearly Caroline Abernathy’s daughter was neither wise nor was she planning to leave. If anything, this sudden turn of events angered her to the point of seething, and she pulled another glass orb from her pocket as her eyes burned into Addi’s. Whispering another word to the orb, she grinned with an expression that sent chills running down Katra’s spine.
Things were about to get very, very bad.
The orb cracked and this time, a black, inky looking smoke welled up from it as Charlotte threw it down at the ground in front of Addi, who simply looked as if she were bored. But when her hand attempted to slice through the smoke like she did with the green mist, the smoke latched onto her arm as if it were a living thing. She blinked, and her mouth opened into a startled ‘oh’ before her expression quickly changed into one of pain. Waving her arm up and down as if she were trying to shake off the foul substance, her body began to convulse as the smoke morphed to take a more liquid form, moving slowly up her arm like spilled oil.
Katra watched in horrified fascination, lost as to how she could help or what to do, desperate to end her friend’s suffering but knowing that, as a still unidentified shifter, she had no abilities of her own with which to provide any kind of assistance.
Addi convulsed again before collapsing to the ground, her body trembling as the oil-like spell began to reach her throat.
Not all witches are bad. And certainly not her best friend and self-assigned body guard, Addi.
Katra fell to the ground next to her best friend and grabbed her arm, not caring if the spell might decide to latch onto her as well.
It was at this point that the unimaginable happened.
The moment Katra’s hand touched Addi’s blackened arm, the air around them heated by a good ten degrees, and little sparks of fire began to flicker in the air over her and Addi. The tiny tongues of fire slowly coalesced over the black spell, and as Katra watched, the flames ate through the spell like hungry vultures picking through the carcass of a zebra.
Picking it clean until there was nothing left, not even a hint of black, before flickering out completely.
Blinking her eyes slowly, Addi tenderly sat up as she gazed at Katra in awe.
But she couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t as if Katra had done that…right? She couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.
The only creatures capable of burning away magic were…extinct. If there was anything her dad made sure her young mind knew well, it was supernatural history, and supernatural history said that every creature who had that kind of ability was long gone, disappearing from the world almost 2000 years ago.
The phoenix shifters.
However, if the terrified expressions on the four witches’ faces were any indication, then she was in serious trouble.
“A…Phoenix shifter. You’re…you’re supposed to be extinct. How can…” Charlotte stuttered in dumbfounded shock as she slowly backed away, the three other teenagers following in equally stupefied awe. One of them, a short, round girl with straight brown hair, tugged on the blonde girl’s arm as she leaned in to whisper to her.
“Your mom. We need to go tell your mom. Remember she was talking about that guy? I can’t remember his name…but she needs to know. She’ll want to tell him.”
Shaking her head, Charlotte continued to stare at Katra with a look that was quickly changing from shock and awe to something that closely resembled…hunger. As if she were a starving person who had just been presented with a meal of filet mignon, mashed potatoes, and succulent lobster tail.
“No…we’re going to take her with us. She might be immune to magic, but she’s fuckin’ 7 years old. We can easily overpower her physically. Knock her out, take her with us, deliver her to my mom, and then she can bring her to him. He’ll be indebted to us.” She quickly began to move towards Katra and Addi, the look of hunger never once faltering.
“I can’t let you do that, Charlotte.”
Startled by the new voice, Katra’s gaze swiveled around to see the deep, honey-blonde hair of her mother, Marana, as she emerged from a cluster of trees. She wore an expression of determination and not a little bit of fierce, motherly protection, and the claws had already begun to grow on her fingers as her hair gradually shifted to the soft russet color of her lioness. Her mother was clearly holding back, as she was long past the point in life where shifting fully to her lioness form took only a matter of seconds. It wouldn’t be long before she was fully shifted, and the intimidatingly large lioness would have no qualms with extinguishing any threat to her offspring.
“Go home, Charlotte. Don’t tell anyone what you saw. I promise you—this won’t end well if you do.”
Charlotte scoffed, a very unwise gesture, though it had already been made clear that she was severely lacking in the intelligence department. “Please. Four witches against one lion shifter? That’s not even a match. We would take you down in less than a minute.”
Marana’s lioness growled low, clearly threatened by the tone of the young witch’s voice, and not content to take it lying down.
“Momma—”
Before Katra could finish, Charlotte suddenly threw a glass orb Katra hadn’t even seen her grab while screaming a word in Latin—premo—and it broke at Marana’s feet, unleashing a lightning storm that quickly covered Marana’s body. She twitched and spasmed as the lightning bit into her flesh, leaving char marks in its wake. Katra screamed, rushing to help her mother, and the moment she reached her, flames of fire filled the air again and quickly ate through the electricity spell until it was gone.
Marana’s body fell to the ground as smoke wafted off her scorched flesh, and much of her clothing had been disintegrated into nothing more than a bit of charred fabric.
A vicious howl filled the air, and in her shocked state, Katra barely recognized the broken voice of her father as the sound of a scuffle filled the air. Moments later, she felt more than saw her father fall to his knees next to her as he reached out to gather his wife in his arms.
Except it wasn’t his wife anymore. It was her body.
Her mother was gone. She knew it with the same certainty that she knew her life would never be the same again.
“Jakob…we need to go.” The soft, feminine voice drifting through the clearing was enough to startle Katra, forcing her to finally lift her eyes from her mother’s lifeless form. The voice belonged to none other than Addi’s mother, Evangeline Pierce, who was leaning over Katra and Jakob with a look of sorrow and understanding.
Of course she understood. She’d lost her husband nearly 7 years ago, soon after Addi’s birth. She understood all too well the loss that Jakob felt.
“We need to go. Now.” Evie repeated as she glanced around the clearing, and it was only then that Katra realized her mother’s body was not the only one there.
Charlotte Abernathy’s shredded corpse lay some ten feet away, mutilated almost beyond recognition with bite marks and a very clearly broken neck, judging by the odd angle at which it now lay. She didn’t see the other three girls, and could only assume that they had fled.
“I know where we need to go, but we need to leave immediately, before the other girls bring the rest of the coven.” Evie reached down and tugged on Jakob’s arm as Addi moved to Katra’s side and wrapped her arm around Katra’s shaking shoulders. The mother-daughter team both pulled the shocked father and daughter from the ground, forcing them to walk blindly through the woods as they guided them to some unknown destination.
Katra didn’t really register much of the journey, only the ground below her and the trees passing by her. Eventually, she found herself sitting at Evie’s kitchen table with a glass of water held between her hands that must have been given to her at some point, though when, she didn’t know. She was aware of the sound of shuffling around her, papers moving, drawers opening and unknown items rustling around in said drawers before she heard the sound of them close again. Moments later, Evie’s kind brown eyes appeared before her as she gently took the glass from Katra’s hands, and Katra felt a fleeting curiosity as to whether or not she had even taken a sip from it before hazily focusing in on Evie.
“You can’t stay here, sweetheart. Even if…even if what just happened hadn’t happened, just knowing what you are places you in grave danger with the Coven. There’s this…man that they’ve become entangled with who will do you nothing but harm. But it’s okay. I know someone—someone who can help hide you from the supernatural community, just so long as you never come back here again.”
Jakob suddenly rose to his feet next to Katra, and she was surprised she hadn’t realized he was sitting next to her earlier. “Marana—we can’t just…I can’t just leave her there. I have to go get her. She needs—”
“She needs you to take care of her daughter, Jakob. That’s what she needs.”
Staring at her blankly, Jakob slowly nodded before looking down at his hands absently. “What do we do?”
“Take this.” She placed a broken smokey quartz crystal in his hand. “Hold onto Katra and smash this on the ground. It will take you to a man—possibly the only man—who can help you.” Stepping back, she took a deep breath before suddenly launching her small form at him, pulling him in for a violent hug. “I hope we see each other again one day, Jakob, but I am simply unsure of what the gods have planned for us all. Thank you for always being so good to my daughter. You and Marana both. You are good, decent people. You never deserved this. None of it.”
Jakob returned her hug fiercely as tears squeezed out from between his closed eyelids. “You as well, Evie. You refused to cow-tow to Caroline and her idiotic ideals, and for that, I am truly grateful.”
“Caroline is a moron. She will never understand that we supernaturals are all family, no matter how different our magic is.”
“And this will make you better than her until the day she dies. But then, we already knew that.”
Evie’s mouth quirked into a tiny smirk. Wiping away a few errant tears, she took a deep breath and stepped back before focusing her attention on Katra and Addi. “Girls…I’m so sorry, but…you need to say goodbye. I don’t know if you will ever…well. Now is the time. We all need to move before it’s too late.” Turning around, she began grabbing a few books and some scattered papers, shuffling them together. She was clearly packing up what few things she felt she absolutely needed.
Katra turned to Addi, staring at her beautiful, strong best friend for what felt like the last time, and she could feel tears begin to burn behind her eyes. She couldn’t believe this was happening—Addi was her lifeline, so valiant and brave and confident. With her midnight black hair, thick black lashes and beautiful blue eyes, and her skin as pale as winter snow, she looked like some dark goddess of the night. Katra only hoped to have half her confidence, half her fortitude, and half her strength of will.
She couldn’t handle this. It was too much loss for one day.
“Don’t worry, Katty. We’ll see each other again.” Addi smiled at her with complete confidence, as if they were only saying goodbye for a few hours instead of an entire lifetime.
“I—I guess we can hope for that.” Katra forced out through a tightening throat as tears started streaming down her face.
“Oh my gosh, Katty, really? Relax. It’ll be a while, but we’ll see each other. There’s a lot that still has to happen, and we have people to meet, but in the end, we have really big things to do.”
Katra could only stand and stare at her best friend as Addi pulled a bracelet from her wrist, the same one she wore every day, the one that had belonged to her father before he died some two years ago. It was silver with small, twinkling stars dangling around it. Katra remembered the day Addi had insisted they get it adjusted so she could change the length as she grew older. Her father had always been fascinated by the stars, saying they were little gateways to other worlds, and if you paid attention, they could tell you what to expect from the future.
With a decisive pat on her head, a confident nod, and a quick hug, Addi took a hold of Katra’s arm and clipped the star bracelet on her wrist before turning her back to her father. Katra looked back at Addi over her shoulder as her father pulled her close while lifting the crystal high over his head, preparing to throw it against the floor. There were so many questions Katra had for her best friend but no time with which to ask them as Jakob threw the crystal and it shattered into a whirlwind of swirling color and glimmering magic.
“That was Evangeline’s crystal.” A deep, ancient voice boomed in Katra’s ear as the world took form again in the shape of a large room decorated in ancient artefacts and odd bits and ends that seemed to have no real form but pulsed with undisguised magic. She absorbed the room with a sense of wary curiosity before her gaze landed on a tall man with mocha skin, dark chocolate hair, and black eyes. He stared at them blankly, not a hint of emotion on his face, and she briefly wondered if perhaps they should have knocked first or something.
“The only way that would have worked for you was if she transferred over guardianship of the crystal to you. Why would she do that? What sort of trouble have you two brought to my home?” The man cocked his head to the side and regarded them with his dark gaze, like a scientist examining a new species of mammal…or possibly bacteria.
He was seated in a high-backed, velvet chair that looked as though it had seen better days, and he wore an odd assortment of clothing that appeared to be pulled at random from several different time periods—high heeled shoes from probably the 1700’s, black pin-stripe slacks from the 1920’s, and a Victorian era waistcoat over what could only be described as a billowy white pirate shirt. It was the most bizarre ensemble, and while she wished she could say he pulled it off, the truth of the matter was, he really didn’t.
“Are you Daromir?” Jakob spoke up then, keeping one arm firmly around Katra’s shoulders in a protective manner as he eyed the stranger up and down, seeming to find the man’s outfit equally alarming, particularly in comparison to his simple blue jeans and plaid button up shirt. Katra didn’t remember any discussion of the man’s name when they were at Evie’s house, but then again, there was a lot she didn’t remember from the last hour.
The first hour of the rest of her life without her mother.
The man nodded in affirmation. “Indeed I am. So why has Evangeline sent you to me? I mark every teleportation crystal I hand out, you know. They each have a sort of signature. I know it was her that sent you.” Crossing his legs, he peered at Katra.
“She said you could help us. She said you were the only one who can.”
“Well, now, that’s quite the recommendation. But I have to wonder why she thinks I would help you? What benefit could there possibly be for myself?”
Shifting awkwardly, Jakob seemed to weigh his options before finally making a decision. “We need to hide my daughter. Both physically, and…magically.”
Daromir’s gaze drifted back down to Katra again with a touch more curiosity. “Oh? And hide from whom, exactly? I can’t imagine who would possibly want to find her.”
“Everyone. We need to hide her from everyone.”
This seemed to grab the man’s attention more than anything else, and he stood quickly, staring Jakob straight in the eyes. “Why?”
“Because…” Her father swallowed as he looked down at her with worry. “She’s a phoenix shifter.”
Katra thought she felt the temperature in the room drop fractionally, but moments later, it was normal again, and she wrote it off as her imagination.
“Well. That is…I thought it was impossible. How can you be sure?”
Releasing her from his hold for the first time since arriving, Jakob took a step back and motioned towards her while keeping his gaze on Daromir. “Can you try to cast a spell on her?”
Daromir’s eyebrows quirked together in surprised confusion. “You want me to cast at your daughter?”
“If what I say is true, you know it won’t matter what you do.”
The man cocked his head to the side as he continued to stare at Jakob, before he finally looked back at Katra. Flicking his hand in her direction, a gust of powerful air flew at her, strong enough to throw her tiny body against the wall at her back. But instead, the familiar tongues of flame flickered into existence, appearing to eat the air itself as it formed what almost looked like a thin shield of fire in front of her before disappearing.
Daromir’s eyebrows flew up to disappear under his shaggy, dark bangs, and a low whistle escaped his lips. “I never thought…you aren’t supposed to be possible, love dove. Do you know that?”
She nodded meekly.
Shaking his head, he moved to a bookcase against the far wall, scanning the titles as he continued to address her. “You’re going to have to lose that meek attitude quick, child. Your future, if you want it to last for any length, won’t allow for it. You might not have asked for it, but this is the hand the gods have dealt you, and you’re going to have to learn to play it, and play it well.” Finding what he was looking for, he grabbed a dusty tome that looked older than the history of the phoenixes themselves. He brushed it off before cracking it open, and she could hear the sound of old leather creaking as he began to turn the brittle pages. It was a few minutes before he finally stopped on a page, and he skimmed over it with his eyes as he moved to a table beside the bookcase that was covered with strange instruments that looked like they could be torture devices.
Picking up something that looked like a swirling wooden wand ending in a frighteningly sharp point, he turned back to Jakob and Katra with a look of sympathy. “I can indeed help hide you, but first, a warning—this will be painful. It will only last a few moments, but once it’s done, you must promise me something…what is your name, child?”
“Katra. But my best friend calls…called me Katty.”
“Well,” he began as he moved closer to her. “I think I’ll stick with Katra. It sounds as though your friend was very special, and that nickname should be reserved for her alone. I assume you mean Evangeline’s daughter, Addilyn?”
She nodded.
“An amazing child in her own right. Now, Katra, you must promise me, no matter what, you will try your hardest to never use your magic. These runes will help to shield you from any supernatural who could sense you, but remember that your magic is made to eat away at other magic, even that of someone as powerful as myself.”
“What are you?” Katra asked hesitantly.
The tall, dark man smiled sadly. “I am a sorcerer, child.”
Her mouth fell open in a startled ‘oh’. There weren’t many sorcerers in existence, and most of them were well hidden from the rest of the supernatural community. She wasn’t fully educated on what the full extent of a sorcerer’s abilities were, but from what she understood, they were nearly limitless. It was said that a sorcerer was just a step or two below the gods themselves.
He nodded in understanding at her reaction as he held up the sharpened wand. “This is a stylus. I am going to use this to draw a series of runes on your body. It will be reasonably small, about the size of my hand, but we’ll have to make sure it’s somewhere most people won’t see it. Perhaps the center of her back?” He directed the question to her father, who considered for a moment before nodding.
Turning her around, Daromir handed Jakob a small strip of thick leather before lifting the back of her shirt. “You’ll need to bite down on this, child, and please, if there is any place you can gather strength from, gather it now, because once I start, you cannot move. One line out of place by even a millimeter will destroy the power in the runes.”
Katra felt her fear and panic rising, and she scrambled desperately to find something—anything—to keep from running out of the room in terror.
In that moment, Addi’s smiling face flashed in her mind, her strong hands curled into fists as she faced down the witches time and time again, demanding they leave her best friend alone. She never once mentioned herself, never once seemed to realize that she was just as much an outcast as Katra, even as the coven ridiculed her and called her a traitor to her own kind. Through every verbal attack, every stink hex they left at her house, every rot hex they put in her mother’s garden, Addi had remained strong.
If there were ever anyone Katra wanted to be like, it was her warrior angel Addi.
Biting her lip harshly, Katra took a deep breath, then stilled her body as she waited.
The pain was gut-wrenching.
It bit into her skin, into her very soul, and carved out pieces of herself she didn’t even know she had. She felt the magic work its way into her essence, and she also felt her own magic rising in answer, ready to burn away the offending presence, but she just bit down harder on her lip, tasting blood as she struggled desperately to gain some semblance of control over her newly-discovered power.
After what seemed like an eternity, the pain stopped. A dull ache settled in its place in the center of her spine, and she felt something cool and soothing spread over it. Some kind of ointment, she guessed, as Daromir finished and then tugged her shirt back down over it.
“You did amazing, child. Truly amazing. I don’t know where you found your strength, but wherever it came from, keep a hold of it. Don’t lose that. It will help you survive.”
Jakob wrapped a gentle arm around her shoulders again, careful not to touch the tender center of her back nor put too much weight on her, as he reached into the pocket of his jeans. “We don’t have much money right now, but I can come back when I’ve been able to—”
“No.”
Freezing with his hand in pocket, Jakob looked up at Daromir in surprise. “But…this was no small thing. You’ve saved my daughter’s life. I have to repay you somehow.”
“You can repay me by keeping her safe. In fact, I have some funds stashed away for emergencies that I will be giving you here before you go to help you find somewhere to hide. I would highly recommend not staying in one place for too long—a year, two at the most, but preferably less. Try to stay away from any supernaturals, stick to the back country as much as possible, and only go into town if absolutely necessary. The runes will hold up so long as you keep your promise to never use your ability.”
Jakob just stared at him stupidly, his hand still stuffed in his pocket, his mouth hanging open slightly.
Daromir’s head tilted to the side ever so slightly as he regarded Jakob’s shock. “You really don’t understand the extent of her abilities, do you? There are a number of very bad, very powerful people in this world who would love nothing more than to get a hold of your daughter and use her power to accomplish any number of things.” His eyes grew dark as they seemed to lose focus, as if gazing at some far-off scene that frightened him to his core and left him empty and desolate.
“Terrible, horrible things.”