AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter 1
Ryan
My eyes always see what's really there. Truth. Lie. Bird’s nest. Security camera.
I skirted the edges of the camera’s view and muted my heartbeat. An owl was in the tree, but not a true owl — a shapeshifter. A guard of Homewood.
I needed to talk to Kirsten, and I needed to surprise her.
Every so often, the Harlequin needs to be reminded I can get to her even in her safest places.
It’s also possible I just needed to test myself. Could I break Homewood’s defenses and get the jump on Cora, the Alpha Wolf, if she went rogue? Not just any Alpha — Kirsten shares her house with the head wolf over the entire Southeastern United States. It’d been a huge territory when Randall ran it, and it’d grown since Cora took over.
Kirsten is in a long-term poly relationship with two men: Nathan, the King of the Lions, and Mordecai, one of the ancient gods who’s gone by many names, Ares and Mars being two of the dozens I knew of. As power goes, Homewood ranks in the top ten residences on the planet, and since it’s in territory I claim, it was important for me to be able to get inside without an invitation.
Slayers look human, but we aren’t. I was raised to think I’m some kind of avenging angel, sent by God to protect humanity from the monsters, but the longer I do my job, the more I have to wonder if my race isn’t just another flavor of monster. Superhero or supervillain — both have special powers, it’s all in how you use them.
Vampire Slayer. The supernaturals had taken great pleasure in ribbing the Amakhosi, the King of the Lions, when the Disney movie had come out. But then a few decades later, there was Buffy. Fucking Buffy. In short order, I’d found myself the butt of the same kinds of jokes.
Thankfully, the writers either hadn’t known the reality, or had purposefully gotten most of the wider backstory and histories wrong.
I wrapped the shadows around me like a cloak, focused on smelling like the forest, and modulated my heart so the beat would sound like that of a squirrel. When necessary, I can super-oxygenate my body and completely stop my heartbeat for around a minute at a time. That shouldn’t be necessary on this night though.
The full moon was four days past, and this was a perfect night for shadows. The owls, hawks, and wolves patrolling the grounds wouldn’t see me or scent me, so long as I kept my focus. The cameras, however, were another story. I knew Cora would go back and analyze video from every camera to try to figure out how I gained entrance, and would likely ask the Drake Security techs to help. It was important they didn’t see a man-sized shadow move across the view.
It was just under seventy degrees outside on this night, and I’d lowered my body temperature to match the air. Five hundred years ago, Slayers did this so the shapeshifting owls and other birds with infrared vision couldn’t see us. Now, we also had to consider the infrared cameras.
The house came into view, and I stopped and took another good look around. In another twenty yards, there were no blind spots. The cameras would see all.
Slayers can’t teleport over long distances, but most of us can manage ten to fifteen feet. I’m better than most, which means I can manage around fifty yards. The trick is that we have to be able to see where we’re going to land. However, teleporting more than a few yards wasn’t an option when moving around outside on this property because the security team frequently moved cameras around and added new ones. Better to take it slow.
It took me twenty minutes to cover the next fifty yards, creeping through the shadows when possible, teleporting to the next shaded area a few feet away when it wasn’t. Moving an inch every minute would keep the people watching the cameras in real-time from seeing me, but it wouldn’t help when it was played back in high speed. Teleporting is always a risk because from any one spot, I can see the cameras that can see me, but not the ones around a corner.
On this property, I wouldn’t teleport more than six or seven feet. It’d been warded, so no one can teleport in, but I wasn’t teleporting onto the property. I’d walked onto it. Still, a long teleport would be enough to trigger the wards, and that would be bad.
So far, the fact we can wrap the shadows around us is a myth no one believes. Somehow, the teleporting thing isn’t even a myth. No one suspects we have the ability. It’s been kept a secret, and I have no idea how my people have managed to do so.
I made it to the house, levitated up to a tree limb so I could see inside Kirsten’s second story bedroom window, and looked through the glass. She was in bed with an e-reader, Smokey asleep on a dog bed near the door, with soft classical music playing. I moved to another window, so I’d come in behind her, and focused on where I wanted to stand.
I teleported into the room a dozen feet away from her, looking at the back of her head, and let the controls on my body temperature go. If she touched me, I needed to be back in the nineties, warm enough she wouldn’t notice I was chilled. I wasn’t worried about scent with her, but Smokey would alarm her, so I kept those controls locked down tight. Kirsten can sense power. Auras. I’d had to lock it down before I stepped onto their property. I’d have probably been okay until I was twenty to fifty yards out, but I hadn’t risked it. Holding onto it was the hardest of all, and releasing it hurt a little, like your hand feels after it’s held on for dear life for fifteen minutes, and the fingers can’t remember how to relax and release.
I breathed in, let it go, and in the same instant, asked, “What are you reading?”
She dropped the e-reader and rolled off the bed faster than humanly possible, but it’s been a long time since Kirsten could claim to be human.
“It’s Ryan. I mean you no harm.”
She stood. Furious. “If you make me fucking kill you, I will never forgive you. Dammit Ryan!”
I stayed on alert. Kirsten’s adrenaline surge would catch Mordecai’s attention. It’d come and gone fast, so he may decide she’s okay, but he might pop in to check on her. All my systems were back to normal now — scent, temperature, aura, color palette.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You bypassed our guards, our electronic security system, and you apparently knew both of my men and Cora are gone for the night. You know Nathan and Cora need to know how you did this.”
“Slayers can get anywhere. So long as no one in this house harms humans, you’re safe from us.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sometimes, it feels like you do this as a warning. As if you’re reminding us we’re in danger.”
That was exactly why we did this every so often, but in this case, I needed to ask Kirsten a few questions.
