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Jazz found herself alone in Pestale’s dungeon and looked around with disgust. Pestale had a chance to start over here in Conglam, and what did he do, but construct a castle with a dungeon…full with instruments of torture.
She shrugged it off and sniffed the air, careful to keep her Fios centered. She found the iron cell Frankie was imprisoned within and went to the door, opened it with a flick of her wrist and found that Frankie was gone.
Jazz grinned, “Okay, Frankie-girl, you figured it out and shifted. Where would you go?”
Jazz shifted outside the castle walls and surveyed the terrain. Green, everything was green lawns and colorful flowers. The air was warm and full with exotic scents, but she immediately discovered that she could sense Frankie.
She wasn’t wonderful at tracking, but she wasn’t awful at it either, and then she saw him, a lone wolf. He was huge and eyeing her thoughtfully. She knew exactly what he was—a Shapeshifter.
She took a few steps toward him and as she tried to decide just what to say, he turned and loped off.
With Fios speed, Jazz followed.
* * *
Frankie stood amongst the wolves unmoving. She wasn’t about to engage them if she could help it. If she was stronger, if she could just figure out where to go from here, she could just shift. She had used the last ounce of strength to get her and she hadn’t a clue where to go. She could always just hover in the sky but she needed time to recoup her strength and her powers.
Something in the demeanor of the beautiful creatures glaring at her had caught her interest and she plodded on sure, that they no doubt were threatened by her sudden appearance in their territory.
“Nice wolves,” she said as soothingly as she could, still standing stock-still with her arms at her sides. “Daoine Fae here—Fae of nature, looveee nature. Not staying, just trying to get home, ye must see that I mean ye no harm?”
One of the multi-colored wolves snarled and showed its teeth, another wolf, moved around her and snapped at the air. Probably the betas, she thought.
Frankie just kept talking in her easy fashion, sure that they were not quite ready to attack. Her inner sense told her she was missing something and when that happened, she always liked to get to the bottom of it.
Shifting here had been difficult. She was still weak and depleted. Shifting or flying now would take the last bit of strength she had. She needed to stall for as long as she could. She could feel her body healing. Now, all she needed was time.
She opened her arms and her palms non-threateningly and said, “So here is the thing, if ye will but listen. I have no wish to be here, and less to interfere with ye, or yers. No, not here by design. Here by mistake—sort of. I don’t really know where to go in this realm and I am on the run from a Dark Prince. Maybe ye know of him? His name is Pestale,” she stopped as she saw them step away from her and growl. She tried again, “There ye go. Ye know of him. Well he had me imprisoned, he did, in his dungeon and I’m not feeling quite right yet, though I shouldn’t be telling ye that, should I…if ye mean to attack that is, which I’m dearly hoping ye don’t.”
Several wolves, seemed almost to gasp, as though they did in fact, understand her, and she frowned over the problem.
They made mewling noises between each other and the two she had pegged as the alphas stepped closer to her, and sniffed her, as though for confirmation of the truth to her words.
Apparently, they seemed to understand something of what she said. Right, she thought, magical wolves.
She watched as one of the wolves, a silver streaked black beauty, suddenly lifted his head away from her and sniffed the air. With a sudden movement, he whispered a ‘wolfen’ string of sounds toward the rest of his hefty pack and off he went, loping at an amazing speed.
Frankie licked her lips and continued in her quiet way, “So then, no doubt, ye be wondering who I am, eh, and why a Dark Prince would have wanted to take me prisoner and cause me so much trouble?” Frankie smiled hopefully and carefully spread her wings at her back, aware of the picture she presented.
The pack as a unit, stepped back, and many went onto their haunches, apparently not unpleasantly surprised by the fact that she had wings.
Hurriedly, she continued, hoping to get across to them, the fact, that she meant them no harm. She cleared her throat and told them, “Ah, so ye see that I’m not yer usual garden variety of Fae.” She sighed, “I hope ye believe that I am a Daoine, a Sluagh, in particular. M’da says we are the last of our kind, but I’m hoping mayhap that might not be true forever.” She saw that they seemed very interested, so she continued to talk in her easy rambling style. “M’mother now, she was a human, a Fios hum
an. It is m’da I get the wings from. Came on me just before I turned eighteen last month in fact. That was a surprise,” she snorted, and a few of the wolves snarled at the sound. With wide eyes she said, “Oh, sorry, bad habit, need to grow out of it.” A heavy sigh as she thought of how it had felt when she first realized she was going to have wings. “Well, m’wings and what I felt about them at first, quite another story for another time. Now, all I be wanting is to go home. I would have shifted home, had I the strength, but need a bit more time to heal ye see, for Pestale poisoned me.” She sighed and eyed them, for they were studying her with keen interest and none were snarling any longer. “Not sure ye are getting what I am saying, but, maybe ye’ll get enough from m’tone, eh?” She looked at the pair who she was now sure were the alphas. Everything about them spoke of leadership and confidence. Odd, that she could think of an animal as being confident, but it radiated off of them. Something in the way they stood apart from the others, in control of themselves and the beta soldier wolves nearby, betas ready to serve and protect the pack.
Frankie studied their markings, striking and a physical indication of their status as alphas. One of them, the female came closer and engaged her eyes with her own bright yellow, speaking orbs. Frankie was impressed.
The low throttled growling had totally stopped, as did the baring of teeth from the individual beta wolves. The two alphas who had been regarding her with suspicious yellow eyes, looked at one another, and nuzzled.
Frankie smiled, and then nearly jumped out of her skin as one of those two alphas morphed right before her eyes. With sudden dawning, she realized…
These wolves were Shapeshifters!
As this was her first experience with shapeshifters she wasn’t sure if she needed to be even more worried than she had been before. All she knew about Shapeshifters were the legends, only the legends. Could a Shapeshifter kill a Fae? If one caught a Fae, they could rip its head off. This was so not good. Maybe she should just shift away. Right, and go where? She needed help. Somehow her instincts, her gut, told her they meant her no harm.
The female who had morphed into human form, stood tall, much taller than she. She was a graceful dark haired woman in a leather halter, matching pants and sandals. She wore an interesting pendant of bronze, and there was no doubt that she shared leadership of this pack with her mate, still in wolfen form beside her.
The woman/wolf didn’t speak for a moment as she regarded Frankie with keen interest and Frankie thought it best to wait, besides which, she was momentarily bereft of speech.
