Rejected Shifter King: Book One: Collars and Knives Read online

  Rejected Shifter King

  Book One: Collars and Knives

  By Victoria Rook

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2022 Victoria Rook

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Legalities aside, as a one-person indie publisher, I ask that you please do not redistribute my work away from my platforms.

  This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ***

  Dedication

  To everyone who got bad grades in school because they were too busy reading

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  1. Lambs to the Slaughter

  2. The Smell of Memories

  3. Living Your Dreams

  4. Welcome to Absolothen

  5. What Are The Chances

  6. Just a Conversation

  7. Special Alpha Powers

  8. It's Called Burnout

  9. The Next Dark Moon

  10. Time to Break Bones

  11. The Pit

  12. The Whole Day Is Good

  13. Unlucky In Love

  14. Silver Scissors Snip

  15. Not Again

  16. A Lack of Restraint

  17. The War Room

  18. Under the Cedar Tree

  19. Violence and Boundaries

  20. The Basement

  21. This Is Fine

  22. Back in the Kitchen

  23. It Begins

  24. The Edge of a Cliff

  25. This Isn't About You

  26. Combat Club

  27. Fight For It

  28. While She's Gone

  29. The Spirit World

  30. Old Wounds

  31. A Little Consumed

  32. The Grand Dame

  33. It's Getting Worse

  34. Then There Was Darkness

  35. The Great Malefic

  36. Lunarimalis

  37. It's On After All

  38. Friends In High Places

  39. Once And For All

  40. Surfacing Secrets

  41. The Plan

  42. Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Note From The Author

  1. Lambs to the Slaughter

  Brinja Sol

  I'm waiting to find out if my life is over.

  You'd think that being ripped from your home and thrown at the feet of a shifter alpha and his Shields would include torch-lit throne room and chain mail bikinis, or something.

  But no, it's a raffle in the high school auditorium. Half the town is sardined into the grand-stand seating. The rest of us are standing on the basketball court. The air conditioning must be broken, and the air is thick with anxiety and sweat. I can hardly breathe.

  The shifter woman at the podium clears her throat. She keeps pausing after each name until the crying stops. I wish she'd just forge ahead and be done with it. The wait is torture.

  "Kayden Lange."

  I wince. I know Kayden, and his big brother. I met them both when I was still doing Silverlight. I find Kayden below me in the crowd. His fists are balled up in his lap, and his mom starts crying.

  There will be forty-eight names total called today. We're only through the first thirteen.

  My name can't be called. I can't leave home. I never can. And being forced out of my home and made to face the shifters? I can't do that. I've had panic attacks just imagining having to face the Cedar pack. Now, I might have to live with them.

  And they'll be expecting any witch who goes there to submit as a Shield's mate. What a nightmare.

  I wrap my fingers around the edge of the bench and bounce the balls of my feet on the aluminum walkway. I can't go. Even if it wasn't the Cedar pack, I can't leave. I have to live in that house until the day I die.

  "Lilitta Spencer."

  A wail pierces through the crowd. Poor little Lilitta. She's only nineteen.

  I frown. Kayden is only, what, twenty? Twenty-one? I skip through all the names called. We all know each other in a town this small, and I know that the oldest person on the list so far is twenty-four. It's not like I'm a crone, but if they're only calling on college students then I'm safe. My thirty-fourth birthday is coming up.

  "Brinja Sol."

  My eyes snap to the shifter woman, and for a second I can't feel the walkway beneath my feet or the bench under my thighs. Heads turn towards me, half of them with glowing eyes.

  The first thing I feel again is a hand on my shoulder. It's my cousin Gerome. "We'll figure it out," he says under his breath.

  I blink back tears and take a deep breath. "Yeah."

  I don't need to be anxious. There's no way any of them know. This is a political move - the magister must be getting tired of me standing up to his stupidity. Stupidity like this fucking trade with the shifters.

  I look back at our waxy-faced magister, standing far behind the shifter woman. He's swamped by his heavy black robes. A big copper pendant of the Lord of the Earth glints atop his breast bone, and there are fat rings on each of his fingers. He might be the only person in Malgate that can ward as well as I can. I don't bother turning on my Sight - I won't be able to see a thing in him.

  I look back to the shifter woman. She's wearing a pendant, too - I recognize it as one of the magister's own. It wards against malefica and magical attacks.

  How many shifters in the Cedar pack will be protected like she is?

  But it doesn't matter. I'm not going.

  I can't.

  2. The Smell of Memories

  Brinja Sol

  I lock my front door behind me just in time to start crying.

  In the hours I've been gone my home has taken on a Renaissance-like quality. This morning, the half-burned candles dripping beeswax onto my shelves and old bundles of herbs crumbling on altar cloths were a mess that I needed to get around to cleaning.

  Now they seem like works of art.

  I look at the familiar pen scratches on the frame of the front door. A dozen names and a hundred tick marks throughout the years mark generations of my family growing up in this house. I place my palm over my mother's last mark made fifty years ago.

  I wipe my sleeve across my eyes, inhale through my nose, and go sit at the kitchen table. My great-grandpa made this table from oak crates, until he could afford to buy my great-grandmother a "real" one. He built the addition, too. I spent my childhood in this kitchen wondering if I'd ever marry someone who would build a house for me. But since I grew up, I often catch myself wishing I could just burn this place to the ground.

  Through the window I see an osprey lands on one of the pine branches and watches me. I sigh. My familiar might be with me, but she can't fix this. I turn away from the window. I'll go spirit walking later to talk to the real Moonbeam. For now, there's much work to be done - beginning with talking to the magister and advising him that I'm leaving over my own dead body.

  I hear a knock at my door. I go to the window and brush the curtain aside to find Elizabeth, Gerome, and the shifter woman on my porch.

  I wipe the tears out of my eyes and open the door. "Hello, Cousin."

  "Tell Elizabeth to fuck off."

  This gets a small smile out of me. If Gerome is using swears, he must be furious. I look at Elizabeth, the magister's assista
nt who is trying to hide her shit-eating grin. She's the magister's secretary and is so far up his ass she can see out his eyes.

  "What are you all doing here?"

  Elizabeth holds up an iron ring the width of my outstretched hand. She's using a small cloth to grip it so it doesn't burn her fingers.

  "Oh, fuck right off Elizabeth."

  "You're not putting that on Brinja," Gerome says. His hands crackle with blue arcs of light. The shifter snaps her eyes to him.

  Elizabeth purses her lips. "The both of you must calm down. Or -"

  "I'm coming to help my cousin sort out this mess and I find you and your thug prancing up her walkway, ready to put her in an iron collar?"

  I watch the shifter's face. I don't need my Sight to know she doesn't like being called a thug.

  "Given Brinja's unique past, it seems like the safest course of action for everybody."

  "It's not the safest for me," I say.

  The shifter speaks. She's a tall woman - a foot taller than me. She towers above tiny Elizabeth and even Gerome. She's wearing a sleeveless shirt, and her muscles are clearly visible beneath the black bands of tattoos across her arms. "You have nothing to worry about."

  "I disagree. I feel very worried."

  "It's a non-issue," Gerome insists. "Put that thing away, Liza."

  Elizabeth smiles at me like she's a cat and I'm a bird in a cage. "Either you can put it on now and go with the plan, or you can put it on when you're arrested and your property is seized."

  Gerome and I look at each other. I press my tongue to the roof of my mouth and breathe slowly. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

  "Felix didn't announce it because he didn't want anyone to over-react. But in order to enforce our contract with the wonderful Cedar pack, you risk forfeiting your possessions to the Coven if you refuse to comply."

  I grit my teeth. "How about I promise to just not kick your ass?"

  "This is our family home," Gerome snaps. "You can't take it from us."

  "Nor will we! If Brinja puts the collar on."

  I sigh and grab the collar out of Elizabeth's hands. I don't use a precious little cloth to hold it because I'm not a baby. It stings and leaves pale red marks where I touch it.

  "For how long?" I ask. I hate wearing these stupid collars. It stops you from being able to do magic - or shift, or use your demon curse, or whatever Lunar-touched abilities you might have. A few years ago I got into a scuffle with the magister's niece and went to jail for a month. I was the only one collared, because the magister is a petty bastard.

  The shifter woman hesitates. "Not permanently."

  "Wow. Great." I turn the collar over in my hands. It's heavy, and I feel a sinkhole of dread bottoming out my stomach.

  "What's your name?" I ask.

  "Avalon."

  I run my tongue over my teeth, take a deep breath, and put the collar around my neck. "Are you one of those Shields, Avalon?"

  "I am."

  Elizabeth hands me the key so I can lock the collar myself, which is considerate. The collars come in sizes but they're always fitted to be as close to your neck as possible without choking you. You have to get right next to someone's skin to work the lock, and it gets very touchy-feely. My hands go to the keyhole and I slide in the iron key. I only skip a few beats before I turn it. Gerome's jaw flexes.

  "So," I ask Avalon. "How does it feel to finally get your hands on some witches?"

  Her eyebrows draw together for a brief moment - it's so fast I think I might have imagined it. She opens her mouth like she's going to say something but thinks better of it. Instead, she reaches past Elizabeth's outstretched hand and takes the key from me.

  "Both of you, get off of our property," Gerome says.

  Elizabeth smiles at us. It feels like an invitation to punch her, but instead I shove my hands in my pockets and we watch Elizabeth and Avalon walk away.

  "This is on you, Gerome."

  He looks at me.

  "This is because you dumped Elizabeth for Becca Harmon."

  He barks out a laugh. "Seventh grade bites me in the ass once again."

  Gerome and I plan as he helps me pack. He's my only family left in town except my great aunt Tabatha, who's eighty and in a wheelchair. We could put the house in his name, but I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with that. And now that Felix has apparently lost it and gone on a power trip, that's no real guarantee the house would be safe from him or anyone else.

  For now, I guess I have to go to Absolothen and see the Cedar pack. My stomach twists in knots every time I think about it. So instead, we talk endlessly about the wards on the house. Gerome knows how to prepare them. When my mom died and the responsibility fell on me, I was obsessive about finding a back-up. I guess that paid off - two weeks would never be enough time to train someone on that level.

  I make him tell me everything twice before he puts his foot down. "You're starting to insult my intelligence."

  "I know you know what to do. I need to know that you can do it."

  "You really can't believe someone else might be as good at magic as you are, huh?"

  I shrug. He's right. "We need to find someone else to do the work, as a backup."

  "It'll be you, when you come back."

  "They're taking my citizenship."

  "That doesn't mean you won't be allowed back across the border."

  I chew on my lip. But he's right. They won't be able to keep me there for long.

  3. Living Your Dreams

  Brinja Sol

  Late the next morning I'm sitting on a creaky wooden bench underneath plastic awning. I sip coffee out of a Styrofoam cup. It's acrid and too sugary, but at least it's a distraction from my pounding headache. Gerome can handle his liquor drinker; I cannot.

  Witches are swarming around me like ants. Piles of luggage and boxes are stacked everywhere. The train station is an early morning stampede of darting eyes, hurried conversations, and frantic footsteps. The magister is nowhere to be seen, and no one else seems to be in charge.

  Gerome and Tabatha both offered to see me off, but I declined. We had already said our goodbyes. I had to promise Tabatha several times that I'd call her as soon as I was in Absolothen.

  But apparently, when they said we'd be leaving in the early morning, they just meant everyone had to show up at seven o'clock and mill about for a few hours while absolutely nothing got done. People started showing up with moving trucks worth of things to take with them, and when the shifter woman explained our dormitories were fully furnished and we can't bring our own furniture, things really started falling apart.

  I check my watch. I wonder if this is like a college class, where you're allowed to leave without penalty if the professor is late.

  It's already starting to get hot, and since my things have already been loaded into a cargo car I'm thinking about going to get an early lunch. Nearby, Nalini rips packing tape off of a cardboard box and starts taking out pots carefully wrapped in paper.

  Elizabeth materializes out of nowhere. Not literally - I doubt she could perform a true Jump. "Nalini, what are you doing?"

  "She just said we don't need kitchen utensils - there's a whole list of things we don't need, why didn't you give us the list?"

  "You don't need to unpack right now, hold on-"

  I spot Kayden across the platform. He's watching the scene with Nalini, and then drops into a crouch and pries open one of his own packing boxes. He starts taking out stacks of folded blankets, which weren't even on the list.

  These kids are alright.

  And since there's no way this is going to be over any time soon, I'm going to remove myself to the diner across the street and eat microwaved gravy and freezer-fresh biscuits.

  Akita and Sparrow are standing near the entrance of the platform.

  "Where are you going?" Sparrow asks.

  "To beg a shifter to marry me so I can finally feel like a real witch," I say.

  "Fuck you," Sparrow says.

  I repl
y with my middle finger. Twenty minutes later I'm digging into a steaming hot, very delicious breakfast, watching the chaos on the train platform from behind big glass windows.

  Several glasses of water, eight coffees, and four hours later, the last of the exiles are boarding the train. I leave a huge tip to the server and tell Elizabeth to go fuck herself as she asks me to confirm my name for whatever paperwork is attached to her clipboard. She looks at my collar and smirks, and I weigh the pros and cons of bloody knuckles before I calm myself down and get on the train.

  It's one of those sleek silver trains with a pointed nose and two levels to each car. The ride to the station in Absolothon is only four hours, and it's a long bus ride from there. With all this fuss, I don't know why they didn't just let us hire moving trucks and get their on our own.

  I pass by Akita and Sparrow, who are spread across two seats apiece and enthusing to a small gaggle of witches about how naturally fulfilled we're all going to be once we spread our legs for the shifters.

  I go into the next car and drop my messenger bag onto an empty table before collapsing into the chair.

  "Holy shit, they collared you." I look up to see Lilitta. She's an adorable young woman. She has big black eyes, delicate features, and a mouth like cupid's bow. Combined with her short stature and willowy weight, she's reminiscent of a fairy - or a slightly gothic elf.

  "They sure did."

  She sits down across from me. She clasps her hands together on the table and her knuckles are all white. "I'm kinda freaked out, Brinja."

  I spot Kayden and Nalini sitting nearby, and they're both looking at me. "You don't need to be freaked out." I straighten up in my seat and wince as the collar shifts against my burned skin. "Nobody needs to be freaked out. Uh, what did that woman call it? A cultural exchange. So that's what it is."

  "What about all that stuff about… mating?" Nalini asks from across the aisle.

  The car door opens and Avalon steps in. She hesitates when she sees me.

  "Don't worry about any of that," I say with a lot more resolve than I feel. "Shifters aren't evil, you know. Except for the magister making us move there, nobody is going to make you do anything."