Chapter One:

Bjorn walked down the darkened hall towards his grandmother’s bedroom. It was well past supper time, yet she hadn’t left the room to join them. Reaching the door, he knocked quietly several times, but got no answer even when he knocked quite loudly. “Grandmother?” He asked as he opened the door and slowly entered the room.

The room was hot and stuffy; it felt as though the windows hadn’t been opened in months. It also smelled quite bad inside. Bjorn’s nose crinkled as he began approaching the bed. “Grandmother?” He asked again when he stopped beside it. The form within the bedding wasn’t moving, causing worry to fill him. With a shaking hand, he pulled the blankets away from the head of the bed.

Bjorn’s worry and shaking worsened; Allison didn’t appear to be breathing either. Reaching two fingers to her throat, Bjorn breathed a sigh of relief. She was breathing, though it was quite shallow. For several minutes, he stood beside the bed in indecision. He knew he needed to go get help for her, but he didn’t want to leave his grandmother’s side. Shaking his head, Bjorn quickly left the room and headed for the closest phone.

I stood beside Rodney, smiling brightly at a job well done. We had been working on my and Laborc’s home for the past couple years, without Laborc’s knowledge. Amara’s guards had done quite a number on the place six years ago. It was slow going, since I really didn’t want him to know until it was finished, but Rodney and I finally completed it. Laborc had believed it was completely destroyed and couldn’t be fixed, but I wasn’t willing to give up our home.

Rodney was still upset over losing Kass, so he easily volunteered to help me fix and remodel the entire place. Though there were only two walled in rooms, Allison’s and the bathroom, the loft was ten times larger now than it had been in the beginning. We had all new furniture, I had borrowed money from Claire for that as well, and in the rear of the place was my boxing equipment with a brand new ring. We had even brought in an expensive, extremely good artist to paint more windows with skylines on all the new walls. She wasn’t as good as the original had been, but the difference wasn’t major.

“So,” I started as I bumped Rodney with my hip. “You think he’s going to approve?”

Rodney grinned while he took another look around. “If not, then you can have my home and I’ll take this one.”

Laughing, I took his arm and led him out of the house. Quite happily, I had enlarged the staircase as well and added a light halfway down it. It would make me much, much more at ease coming up and going down them at night, especially when I was alone.

Jacoby walked silently beside Laborc, dreading the meeting they were heading to. He couldn’t understand how Laborc was so stoic beside him, the messenger had stated to Advisor Verdan that he was from the Western Community. The Community in which Laborc was born. That was all the Shifter would tell Verdan, the rest he said would only be told to Laborc in person. The reason Jacoby came along for the meeting, besides for moral support, was because he was the Patriarch now and any message from a different Community concerned him. He just hoped Lynn and Rodney would not be late.

Not only was Lynn Jacoby’s twin and the Matriarch here, she was mated to Laborc. Jacoby had a feeling Laborc was probably going to need and want her present for this as well. Especially if it concerned his father and they wanted him to go back to that Community. It was just a shame the Western Community did not share the views as the Eastern. In the west, they forced the Patriarch’s children to fight, more often than naught, to the death to discern which would be the next Patriarch.

At the time Laborc’s grandmother sent him to here, he had both an older and a younger brother. If his father was ill or dying, they would try to force Laborc back to fight his siblings. Since he was the middle child, his younger brother could not be challenged by his older brother. Besides losing Lynn and Allison, Laborc’s greatest fear was to be forced to kill either of his brothers.

Jacoby sighed mentally in relief as they approached the cave heading to the shared thrones, Lynn and Rodney stood at its entrance waiting on them. Confusion filled Jacoby when he realized Lynn was holding Allison in her arms; the child should have been left at Claire and John’s, not being here with them for this meeting. It had been six years since she was born and she was still too young to be present for this.

Lynn noticed his curious stare, but chose to ignore it. Instead she smiled at Laborc, before wrapping her free arm around his neck when he walked himself into her arms. Jacoby smiled sadly as they just held each other for several minutes, it was clear they loved each other deeply. Jacoby didn’t begrudge them their happiness; it just reminded him of his ex-mate, Amy. Amara’s lover had killed Amy several years ago in an attempt to break him and make him vulnerable to her dark motives.

Amara was the late Matriarch of this Community and his and Lynn’s mother. She was also a Hunter, the bane of the Shifter existence. Six years ago, they had challenged Amara for the throne and the Shifters of this Community had killed her. Jacoby remembered that day clearly, though he wished day after day that he would quit waking up in the middle of the night because of it. He had almost lost Lynn that day; Amara had captured her and nearly killed her before they had caught up to them.

Jacoby had never been that fearful in his entire life nor, must he admit, had Laborc. Since they both shared a link, though their bonds to her were entirely different, with Lynn, they both felt her unrelenting fear and terror at being caught. But neither of them had known where she and Amara had run off to and Lynn’s panic was driving them both insane. Jacoby had wanted to kill Amara himself, just as desperately as Lynn had, but he contended himself to protecting Lynn and Kass’s fallen forms from being trampled by the stampede of Shifters all after Amara’s head.

Kass, Rodney’s mate, had not survived the confrontation. She had sacrificed her life to save Lynn’s. Rodney had not been the same since that day, but luckily with going back to being Lynn’s personal guard, he hadn’t done anything rash or killed himself. Jacoby knew Lynn was worried that Rodney may yet, and he also knew if Rodney did, Lynn would be devastated. Growing up, Rodney was the only constant in Lynn’s sheltered life; he had always thought of and treated her as a daughter even though he was but a rogue their father, Jackson had hired.

Jacoby’s thoughts came back to the present, when Laborc pulled away from Lynn and kissed Allison on her forehead. A slight smile formed when Laborc glared at Rodney, before entering the cave. Though the two of them held mutual respect for each other, Laborc and Rodney kind of hated each other. If left alone for even less than five minutes, a fight between them always broke out. Sighing deeply, Jacoby followed slowly behind Laborc and Lynn, who were walking side by side down the narrow hall.