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It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see my family. I loved them more than anything, but I also was trying to figure out some things.
At the end of my training, I got to pick which portal I wanted to be stationed at. Six months had passed since then, and I could argue with myself and ask why I’d chosen to return to Portland, but it was always the same lie. I said it was to stay close to my sister, Dannika. To stay near our moms. The truth was, I’d chosen to return home because some inexplicable thing pulled me to this place with magnetic force.
I couldn’t make sense of it.
Maybe I was imagining it.
Maybe I was having grandiose thoughts about who and what I was.
Maybe I was going nuts. It was rumored that peacock shifters often did, not that I would know since I was the last one, so maybe that was just some bullshit people made up.
But whatever the reason, the feeling that something was missing was ever-present. I needed to find it, and it seemed to be tied to the shifter portal into Arcadia.
I traveled all around the world to each of the seven portals during my apprenticeship. I’d seen them. I touched every single one. Hell, I’d even crossed through into the world of fae. My moms would have a conniption if they knew that I’d jumped over into the land of fairy a few dozen times for the wildest fucking nights you could imagine—but none of them called to me the same way that our portal did.
There was just one problem.
Anyone that entered the Arcadian portal never returned. We weren’t sure why or how. All we knew is that any shifter or person with shifter blood that crossed over hadn’t come back in over twenty years. When other creatures crossed, if they came back right away they were okay, but every time there was an expedition to find out what was going on, the Watchers tasked with that mission never returned.
Eventually people stopped crossing all together. So instead of doing something crazy and reckless like I typically would—such as going through the portal when the shift change was happening—I chose to guard it. To watch it. To listen.
When I put a lot of thought into it, I figured I was probably going crazy since no one else seemed to hear the tempting whispers that came from it. But on the off chance I wasn’t, I didn’t want to be away for even a moment in case whatever was calling got tired of waiting.
“I’m still new,” I explained, giving my sister the explanation I’d prepared. “I’ve only been an official Watcher for six months. The newer you are, the less time off you get.” It wasn’t a lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.
Danni made a disgruntled noise. “Yeah well, if you back out on Christmas, Mom has threatened to come to the portalin person. Abby said this is your warning. No missing Christmas.”
I groaned. “I said I would be there.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said, “but you also said the same thing onourbirthday, and then instead of coming home, you let me break the news to her. Which was crappy by the way—”
“There was a real emergency!”
“And Thanksgiving wasn’t an emergency? You just chose to not come home?” she asked in a very neutral tone, something Danni had picked up from being queen. Damn it. She was getting better at this.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t give in to Mom when you didn’t show for Thanksgiving. She’d asked—no, wrong word—she’d damn near demanded that I send an official order from Blood and Beryl stating that Adora Kresley was to be sent back to the capital.”
I let out a string of curses as I dug through the laundry on my armchair. “She said that?”
“Yup,” she answered, popping the “p.”
“Please tell me you reminded her you’re a queen and an adult. You don’t have to do what she says.”
We’d had this conversation. Many, many times before.
“Of course I didn’t. Abby did, but she’s got a point. So if you’re not here on the 20th—as promised—I’m going to pull rank.”
“That’s cruel.”
“Missing our birthday and making me tell Mom you weren’t coming was cruel,” Danni replied. “I haven’t seen you in ages and I miss you. We all do, even Elias—”
“Okay first, there was a damn dinosaur that came through the portal! Adi-no-saur, Danni. That was a new and unexpected experience for everyone. You saw the pictures.”
“Excuses, excuses.”
“Second, don’t even go there. Guilt me if you must, but the only person Elias cares about is you, dear sister, which is fine. Good. Fantastic, really. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Don’t make it weird, though.”
