Chapter 1
Seth
No Man’s Land
The dead space of desert and waste at the center of the kingdoms. At one time, it was a lush land full of green grass, rolling hills and vibrant buildings. It was ruled by demigods but it teemed with eternals of all kinds.
Now it was a forbidden, barren land of sand and ruins that rose like the skeletal fingers of the dead from the ever-shifting tide of desert. The wind howling across the bleak hellscape whipped up sand until it abraded the skin and eyes of anyone foolish enough to wander into it.
Only those eternals running from the law, their families, looking for a thrill, or simply seeking to live outside the confines of the kingdoms came here.
I knew that, because I’d often explored the wasteland.
From the moment my father told me it was forbidden, I’d been determined to find a way to enter it.
I succeeded in doing so on a weekly basis from the time I was ten. I’d dart amongst those skeletal fingers as they snagged at my clothes and hair while I sought shelter from the sand.
Eventually, I’d escape into the ruins buried beneath the earth. There, I’d climb through the remnants of the palace, the buildings of the old town, and through the tunnels and pipes of the abandoned water systems.
Being there was reckless and dangerous but that was what made it fun. If my father found me, he’d skin my ass but that didn’t keep me away from those endless tunnels, empty ballrooms, and abandoned stores. Nothing would do that.
It was in No Man’s Land, when I was ten, and she was nine, that I first saw Briar’s head poking over the top of an abandoned pipe crisscrossing the forsaken city. I frowned as the dark head disappeared, and footsteps scampered toward another pipe.
I should have left then. If I was caught here by the wrong eternal, it could mean my death, but curiosity kept my feet planted.
While I’d seen the eternals gathered in some of the other rooms, playing games, gambling, drinking, and betting on who would win in the cage, I’d never encountered anyone in the tunnels.
These passageways were my secret place to explore and lose myself in. I didn’t want to give them over to anyone. Plus, I was a shifter… we didn’t run from others.
When a giggle came from the shadows, I found myself irresistibly drawn toward whoever hid there. Creeping forward with all the stealth of my shifter heritage, I traversed the fractured aqueduct beneath the city.
I edged around a jagged piece of stone just as a head popped up again. I didn’t know what type of eternal the young girl was, but she wasn’t a shifter. I would have sensed that and I didn’t recognize her or her intriguing, strawberry aroma.
She ducked down and placed a hand over her mouth as she giggled. Then, her eyes traveled to me and widened when she spotted me standing in the shadows. Her smile vanished, then returned, then slid away again when I simply stared at her.
Dark espresso brown hair tumbled around her shoulders, framing a sweet, innocent face and plump cheeks. Full lips, the color of the deepest red rose pursed as her intriguing, sea green eyes twinkled.
But the longer we stared at each other, the more her unease grew until she glanced nervously around. She looked ready to bolt but I didn’t want her to leave. Despite the fact I considered these tunnels mine, I was lonely, not only here but also at home.
“I’m Seth,” I blurted.
She rose a little to reveal the purple dress that swirled around her ankles when she walked. “I’m Briar.”
She looked more like a perfect, beautiful rose to me than a thorn and while I was too young to understand it, I felt an undeniable pull toward her.
“Do you want to play?” she asked.
I looked around at the underground, barren wasteland where I’d spent many solitary hours exploring the devastated city. It might be fun to investigate it with someone else; plus, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her.
“Yeah.”
And that simple question and answer changed everything.
Over the following years, we’d meet once or twice a week to explore the tunnels, crawl through the underground rooms, and examine the city that was destroyed long before sand buried it.
We ran through the palace rooms, darted in and out of the outlaws and forgotten who barely acknowledged our existence. These eternals were simply looking to be left alone and didn’t want to be bothered with a couple of kids. They had no stake here, no territory, and they didn’t seek to defend it.
Over time, I learned Briar was the daughter of the queen of the dark sorceresses and sorcerers, and she discovered that my father was the alpha shifter and last dragon shifter.
While the night casters, as the dark sorcerers and sorceresses were also known, were not well liked by shifters, and vice versa, that never damaged our friendship.
In the beginning we didn’t discuss such things. We simply savored our freedom from the confines of our heritage as we ran through the dark tunnels.
I sensed she felt the same as me when it came to her family life; it wasn’t a place of happiness. I wasn’t like my father much to his utter disappointment.
I didn’t consider myself a beta shifter, but I didn’t want to rule anything, let alone all the shifters in the kingdom of Wildwood if something should happen to my father. And while Briar didn’t speak of her mother often, I sensed her sadness when she did.
We kept things simple and fun, but as the years passed, I learned so much about her. I knew what made her laugh, how her body moved with fluid grace when she ran, jumped, and most importantly, I basked in how she made me feel.
And those feelings grew with every passing hour, and day, over the years. Despite my growing love for her, I didn’t work up the courage to kiss her until I was sixteen.
We were running through the tunnels we’d traversed a hundred times before when it happened. Her dark hair trailed behind her like a banner in the wind, her laughter… that sweet, beautiful cadence, bounced off the stone surrounding us. She was so happy it made my heart swell with joy.
I laughed with her; I couldn’t help it. And when she spun toward me, her dark hair billowing out and her blue dress flaring around her legs, I caught her around the waist as I’d done a hundred times before.
Her sea green eyes shone as our laughter rebounded around us. But instead of lifting her and spinning her through the air, or tossing her high and catching her again like I usually did, a different impulse gripped me this time.
And I had to go on instinct because I couldn’t think about it. When I thought about doing this, I feared losing our friendship over my desire for her. But on that day, at that moment, nothing could have stopped me from kissing her.
I was an idiot, a fool, and hopelessly in love with the girl with sea green eyes and rose-colored lips. When our mouths touched, I braced myself while I waited for her to shove me away.
Instead, she went rigid with surprise and then, to my utter joy, she melted into me. Her slender arms wrapped around my neck as the sweet aroma of strawberries filled my nose.
She felt even better than I’d imagined as her lush body melded to mine and her mouth opened. The dark sorceresses were evil, devious eternals and nothing to mess with, everyone in the kingdoms knew that, but she wasn’t like them, and I wasn’t like the other shifters.
We were us and the only place we could truly be ourselves was with each other. When I kissed her that day, I didn’t expect it to lead to anything more, but when Briar pulled back, she smiled as she played with the hair on my nape.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
I grinned before kissing her again.
And from that day forth, she was more than my best friend… she was my everything. It was so natural to go from kissing her to making love to her.
Everything between us was easy within these walls. Outside of them, we battled the complexities and demands of our lives.
When I was eighteen and she was seventeen, we lay in our tunnel together. We’d turned one of the many underground aqueducts into our place. We’d brought in blankets, lanterns, books, sketch pads, clothes, food, and drinks. It was our nest, our hiding place, our joy.
She lay against my chest, curled, warm, and smelling of me as I played with her hair.
My animal had yet to appear, I still had no idea what I would shift into when the time came, but I knew what she was to me; even if I’d been too young to recognize it at the time, I’d known what she was from the moment I first saw her in the tunnel.
A shifter always knew their mate even if it was rare for that mate not to be a shifter.
I studied her neck as I played with her dark hair. I’d yet to brand her as mine.
My animal was getting stronger as I aged. It wasn’t time for me to shift, that would come when I stopped aging and fully came into my powers, but I sensed how much it wanted to break free to claim her and never let her go.
Despite its growing desire to mark its mate, my animal had yet to emerge. When it did, it would be for her. I was certain of that. My animal might even come earlier than the other shifters because of her.
And when I did shift, I’d finally learn if I was a canine, feline, or the rarest of all, a dragon shifter. My future creature sometimes stirred within me, but I had no idea what animal would emerge. I was excited for the day I made that discovery.
As we lay together, Briar read to me from her favorite book, one about pirates, a hidden treasure, and a girl who’d stolen it from them. Her voice, so sweet and fluid, made me smile as a new desire stirred. I wanted her again, but she was lost in her story, and I wouldn’t take that from her.
When she shut the book, closed her eyes, and leaned against my chest, I stroked her cheek with my thumb. “Run away with me.”