Raven Born: An Urban Fantasy Shifter Series (Lost Souls Series Book 1) Read online

  Tyson zipped up his backpack, put his phone in a side pocket and stood with it over one shoulder, watching the darkness.

  “Tyson.”

  The whisper traveled down Tyson’s back. He shivered at the breathy, ice-cold touch. A Cheshire smile glowed in the darkness.

  “Cut it out, Violet.” He swallowed against the fear, smoothing a hand down the back of his neck to rid it of the prickling sensation.

  “Tyson.”

  The voice again. Ice trailed down his arm. He jerked it away.

  “Seriously?”

  “Aw, can’t we have a little fun?” A shadow emerged, silhouetted by the window behind it. The figure’s chilly laugh echoed in the room. With the sound of two fingers snapping, a glowing, silvery-blue oval opened up in the air, and a woman stepped through.

  “Taxi’s here,” she said, smirking at him. There wasn’t anyone in the world he wished to see in his bedroom this time of night less than Violet Petrov, coven leader at Camp Silver Lake and his coworker.

  “Har, har,” Tyson replied, adjusting his backpack strap on his shoulder. “Let’s just get this part over with. There’s a new resident that needs me at camp.”

  “You better get used to the midnight calls, Miller. Tom’s not going to be around forever. You could start by moving closer.”

  “I will, once I’m promoted.” And maybe then you’ll give me some respect.

  “You know my signature of approval is needed to get there. You’re not doing much to earn it right now.” Violet dangled the leverage over his head without a trace of shame.

  Tyson grimaced, flexing his fingers. He knew she wanted him to bow and scrape, and if he wanted that promotion, he had to do it. Never mind that he was the human here. “Thanks for the portal.”

  “My pleasure.” Violet’s grin widened, not so unlike the ghostly grin from before. “Step right up, my human friend.”

  She gestured at the portal like a model from one of those old TV game shows.

  Tyson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His stomach rolled at the thought of stepping through and having his insides all jumbled up in another dimension before getting deposited at their destination. Convenience or not, he hated traveling by magic.

  Tyson’s feet carried him forward until the tingling energy of the portal latched onto his foot, disintegrating it before his eyes. He hated this part. He swallowed and took another step, letting the light swallow him whole.

  The witches he’d talked to swore no one was supposed to feel anything. To Tyson, it felt like a thousand needles pricking every fiber of his being. The ethereal winds of space and time blew him to bits and carried him across the universe and back again, throwing him together haphazardly at the end until he landed on the other side of a twin portal in another place.

  For a moment, Tyson feared Violet had taken him into the middle of some ritual where he would be sacrificed and his entrails torn out and read like tea leaves.

  Ridiculous. That kind of magic was banned years ago. A licensed witch wouldn’t practice anything so dark. He shook the paranoia off like a wet dog, scooting on all fours away from the portal so he wouldn’t get drawn back in. His knees and hands stayed locked to the ground. Tyson didn’t care how ridiculous it looked, he needed to remember that earth existed, that he existed.

  A slight sucking sound behind him indicated Violet had come through, and the blue light of the portal disappeared.

  “It’s a shame I have to take it down. A permanent portal to your home would save you so much on gas, not to mention avoiding an interaction with the rogues.”

  Avoiding the wild group of paranormals that roamed the forest surrounding the lodge was a definite benefit, but Tyson wasn't about to admit that to Violet. He rubbed his chest, feeling like he was missing something, but his mind was still spinning from the transition and he couldn’t figure out what it might be. All of his essential parts still seemed intact, at least.

  Violet stepped around Tyson and grabbed a folder off the desk, dropping it so it landed between his hands. She crossed her arms and gestured with one hand at the folder. “We don’t have much, as you can see.”

  Tyson sat back on his feet, still kneeling on the floor, and opened the folder eagerly. This part always excited him, meeting the new residents. He read as he stood upright.

  Name: unknown.

  Age: unknown.

  Gender: female

  Lineage: appears Native American.

  Paranormal type: shifter, bird, Raven or Crow?

  Abilities: flight, others unknown

  Tyson lingered on the details they had about her pickup and what they found on the scene, then flipped the page over only to find more blank pages.

  “Thank you, I guess.”

  Violet shrugged. “She’s a hard one. You’ll have your work cut out for you.”

  “I’ve had difficult cases before.”

  “I’ve unspelled the door for you. She’s waiting inside. I’ll be in my studio. However, if you want that promotion, you won’t even think about needing me. I’m in the middle of a crucially important spell process.” She walked past him down the hallway toward the stairs.

  As always. Tyson scanned the file again, shaking his head at the lack of information. It was like Violet wanted him to fail. He could do this, though. His schooling and mentoring under Tom had prepared him for this. He had done it several times already, just not in the middle of the night and not without Tom to consult with.

  Tyson turned the door handle in front of him and entered the room.

  There she was. Sitting on a chair sideways with a hood up over her head, eyes staring out the room’s only window into the darkness. Could she see in the dark?

  Tyson took a deep breath, calming the slight tremor in his hands. Just nerves, he told himself. “It’s locked and warded. You won’t get far that way.”

  She twisted. Her brown eyes hardened their gaze, narrowing slightly. She crossed her arms and slumped back in her seat.

  He took note of her posture. Completely closed off. Nearly everyone started out this way. Seeing that change was one of the most satisfying parts of his job.

  “I’m Tyson Miller, your camp counselor. Welcome to Camp Silver Lake.”

  His introduction had minimal effects. She blinked once, then looked out the window again.

  “What name do you prefer?” He was prepared to get a fake name. An alias. A lot of the residents had those.

  She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. He felt like chuckling but suppressed the urge. If she only knew how predictable she was being. He took a chair opposite the shifter and set the folder and pen on the desk.

  Intertwining his fingers, he took in her disheveled, dirty appearance; the ragged, short-cropped hair, her worn-out sneakers and jeans, her broken and chewed fingernails. She had a naturally pretty face, except for the scowl she wore whenever she glanced his way.

  She had been on the road for a while by all appearances, but why had she come out of hiding? Tyson jotted a few things down on a lined sheet of paper, then tapped his pen while he thought about where to begin.

  If only the official police report was in. The folder didn’t have more than a statement from the S.T.F. team that picked her up. The full report would come in tomorrow, and possibly have her name. Meanwhile, Tyson had to parse information from her like an interrogator. He could start somewhere less obvious, though, and work his way forward to what happened when they caught her.

  “Where were you when the Paranormal Naturalization law was passed?”

  She blinked rapidly at the question. “Why do you want to know that?”

  Tyson put his hands in his pockets and leaned back in his chair. Best to play it casual with her. She was used to people demanding answers. “Curiosity.”

  She glanced to her left, then examined her fingernails. “Foster home.”

  Unsurprising, given her lack of trust. “Why did you leave?”<
br />
  “Who says I left?” she shot back.

  “You have all the marks of a runaway. Did they discover what you are?”

  “No.” She smirked. “They never caught me. I aged out. I’ve been on the run from your people.” Her voice dripped with disdain.

  “Then someone saw something,” Tyson emphasized.

  She bristled.

  It wasn’t usually wise to irritate a sleep-deprived, possibly starving and frightened paranormal being, but he was tired and didn’t want to dance around getting answers. It was nearly 2:00 a.m., but these check-ins couldn’t wait. First, it was part of the law that allowed them to keep a program like this running. Second, the residents needed some orientation before they got settled—someone to welcome them to camp, help them understand what would happen. Except Tyson wasn’t doing a very good job of that. Sleep deprivation or not, she needed to know someone was her friend.

  He smiled, and the shifter squirmed, as if that simple gesture made her more uncomfortable than anything he had done or said so far.

  “Yeah, okay, someone saw something,” she said. “I wanted to stretch and chose the wrong moment, but you know what? I made it seventeen years without an incident. Seventeen years. You guys are so oblivious, you make it easy.”

  “To evade the law.” He raised his eyebrows.

  She showed no guilt, just pursed her lips again as if upset she had shared as much as she had. It wasn’t lost on Tyson that she lumped him in with the people who caught her. She would see it that way at first—her against them. There were more sides to this than she presumed.

  Tyson refocused on the numbers she gave him. Extrapolating from the date Naturalization laws were passed and her comment about how long she had been hiding her abilities gave away her age. Not much, but it was progress. He filled in Age: 20 on the form. Only a couple years younger than him.

  “What happened?”

  She rolled her shoulders back. “That got your guys on my trail? Or that got me caught?”

  Tyson lifted his hand, gesturing for her to speak, and waited. He wanted to hear whatever she wanted to share. Silence could sometimes be more effective than words.

  “Isn’t it in there?” Her jaw jutted out, gesturing toward the file.

  “I’d like to hear it from you.”

  She bristled. “Why?” Her defensiveness seemed like a cover for embarrassment.

  Because I want to help you. Tyson cleared his throat. “Nothing you say will make me think poorly of you. I’ve heard it all.” Or near enough, especially with Tom’s stories from ten years on the job. Tyson had nothing on him in comparison, but he’d still heard plenty.

  She slouched in her chair. “The Stiffs grabbed a werewolf at the gas station, and my ride freaked. Stiffs saw me sack the driver. The only way out was to fly.” She stared at her hands, fingers rubbing against each other.

  Tyson sensed a tone of failure in her voice, and the disappointment in her expression was palpable.

  “Were you supposed to meet someone?”

  Her jaw clenched, and her chin tilted away from him. So there was someone else.

  “I could get a message to them, if you let me know where to send it. What do you want it to say?” Tyson grabbed a pad of paper and set it on his knee, clicking his pen open again.

  The shifter chuckled. “You really think I would fall for that? Allow you to deliver a note in confidence, only to have them—if there was a them—captured and brought here same as me? You’re insane.”

  Tyson smiled in spite of himself. She was sharp. He tossed the pad of paper and pen back on the desk. “You’d be surprised how often it works. Having friends and family with you can make the transition to Naturalization easier.”

  “Why do you care so much about making my ‘transition’ easier?” she snapped. “I’m just a case number to you.”

  “No, you’re much more than that.” He softened his voice and looked directly at her. She adjusted her position, clearly uncomfortable. “You have a chance at a normal, productive life. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “I can’t live a ‘normal’ life. I wasn’t ever meant to.” She punctuated each word with conviction.

  Her words sank their teeth into Tyson’s brain. He’d never heard a paranormal phrase it that way before. Most of them voiced doubt and fear about the Naturalization process. He knew how to handle that. This was something different altogether.

  “Why do you feel that way?” His pen hovered over the page, fingers twitching with eagerness.

  She scoffed. “All you want is to fit me into your human box. Get me as close as possible to your ideal. Take away everything that makes me what I am. Have you considered that I can’t be squeezed into your definition of a being that’s worth existing? I don’t need a camp to reform me. I need society to accept that some of us are different, and then maybe we could find a way to coexist.”

  Interesting. He breathed in and sighed, considering what she had said. He’d heard this position before, mostly by liberals protesting outside government buildings with angrily-worded posters. Coming from someone sitting in front of him, someone who didn’t want the help he had to offer…He reached to his left and adjusted the picture frame there. It was the only thing in this borrowed office that was his. Everything else belonged to Dr. Hartford. Tom. Tyson could wish his mentor was here right now all he wanted, but it wouldn’t help him get that promotion. He had to do this on his own.

  He forced himself to stop tapping his pen on the desk. The last thing he needed was for the new resident to pick up on his anxiety and use it against him. What would Tom say if he were there? When a session steers in a direction I don’t want it to, I reset it. Remember, you’re in control. Now seemed like a good time for that.

  Tyson set down the pen and closed her file, then clasped his hands in his lap. “We have another bird shifter right now. You’ll meet him tomorrow. You can’t miss him.” If anyone could break this shifter’s rock-hard exterior, it was Fletcher.

  He gave her an encouraging smile, initially wasted since she wasn’t looking at him. The sensation that he was missing something passed through his mind again, but he dismissed it to focus on the situation in front of him.

  Her head slowly turned, her eyes piercing his. “I don’t need counseling. And I don’t need friends.”

  Tyson’s smile faded. “What do you need? We’re here to help.” He swallowed against the tension mounting in the air and started the breathing pattern from his training to keep his own emotions calm.

  “What I need is to get out of here,” she snarled, standing suddenly.

  Her hands curled into fists as she advanced toward me. There was a crackling sound, like a spinal adjustment, and feathers rustled as her wings extended from her shoulders, filling the room.

  Tyson dropped his pen and slapped the panic button under the desk. Squiggly green characters spread through the room from the button under his hand. They crawled across his skin, tingling as they immobilized him, and he suddenly realized what was missing.

  His lanyard.

  He groaned internally. It was sitting on his bathroom counter. He’d been in such a rush to change, he’d forgotten to put it on.

  The shifter’s eyes widened at the sigils, making it clear she had never seen magic like this before. Just like Tyson, she stood frozen mid-step.

  They could breathe but not move. They stared at each other.

  The door behind Tyson opened and Violet, James, and Lilith stepped inside. The camp’s resident witches. Well, and warlock. The lanyards around their necks, like the one Tyson had incidentally left home, were spelled to keep the sigils’ activation at bay. James pulled out a piece of chalk and drew on the carpeted floor around Tyson. The moment he closed the circle, the spell lifted, allowing Tyson to move.

  Tyson wiggled his fingers and toes, just to be sure nothing funny had happened, then nodded to the magic-users.

  “Thanks.” There were times, al
beit reluctantly, that he had to admit magic was useful. Twice in one night should please Violet to no end, except her scowl indicated she was anything but pleased.

  “Where’s your lanyard?” Violet hissed, crossing her arms.

  “I left it home.”

  James stepped in between them. “I would expect this from an intern in the early months, not someone up for promotion. It’s sloppy, Tyson.”

  A massive lump lingered in Tyson’s throat as he glanced between the three of them. He hadn’t maintained a perfect record the past two years only to lose his chance at promotion over this stupid mistake. He straightened.

  “It’s never happened before and it won’t happen again. You know that.”

  They exchanged looks.

  Tyson cleared his throat. “Look, I think she was with someone, or looking for someone. If you can get her to fill out this questionnaire before I see her again on Monday, that would help. I can find out who she was looking for and maybe we can get a team to bring them in.” He pulled open a drawer and slid a paper out, putting it on the desk. No one reached for it.

  “Why did she attack you, Tyson? Two years and only one other incident, and that vampire was near-starved and raving mad.” James still had his arms crossed and he looked pissed, probably about being woken up.

  “She said she didn’t want help, she wanted to get out of here. Then she attacked. Our conversation went as well as expected before that.” There was nothing Tyson could do about Violet’s dislike, but the turn this case had taken might have given James enough of a reason to withdraw his approval of Tyson’s promotion. He needed four signatures to become Tom’s partner. This shifter wouldn’t ruin it. Whether she wanted his help or not, she would get it.

  “I’ll call Tom. He might have some insight into how to handle her. You can spend your night here thinking of a way to track down her friend,” James said.

  “Take it easy. I don’t think Tyson did anything to cause this.” Lilith smiled at Tyson, a smile he returned gratefully.

  “There isn’t any need to bother Tom over this,” Tyson insisted. “I’ll call him when I need his advice. For now, I’d like to go home and sleep.”