Shifters of Black Forest Ridge: Rhett: a Fated Mates Paranormal Romance, page 1
SHIFTERS OF BLACK FOREST RIDGE: QUINN
SEDONA VENEZ
Copyright © 2022 Shifters of Black Forest Ridge: Quinn by Sedona Venez
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors’ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published in the United States of America
This book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
1. Quinn
2. Imani
3. Imani
4. Imani
5. Quinn
6. Imani
7. Imani
8. Quinn
9. Imani
10. Quinn
11. Quinn
12. Imani
13. Imani
14. Quinn
15. Imani
16. Imani
17. Imani
18. Imani
19. Imani
20. Imani
21. Imani
22. Quinn
23. Imani
24. Quinn
25. Imani
26. Quinn
27. Imani
28. Imani
29. Imani
30. Imani
31. Imani
32. Quinn
Epilogue
About the Author
CHAPTER 1
QUINN
When I stepped inside the empty Cauldron Saloon, Freya was standing behind her bar, putting away drinking glasses.
“So?” she called out. “How did the video conference call with the Shifter Council go?”
“It was a shit show,” I replied, sitting down at the bar. “They’re blaming me for Clancy. And they resent the fact that his actions have become their problem to clean up.” I sighed heavily. “Clancy has now been added to the Council’s most-wanted list.”
Before the Clancy incident, my position as alpha of the Ridge town and my Bane pack was highly respected by the Shifter Council—a secretive group of alpha leaders from various shifter breeds that governs the shifter world across the globe. But now they questioned my ability to run this town and pack effectively, all due to the Clancy clusterfuck.
Freya threw her arms up in the air. “There was no way you could have known he would do what he did.”
Guilt slithered through me for failing him. Clancy was no stranger to me. My childhood friend and former military like me, Clancy had it all until he caught the feral sickness and then disappeared into the Ridge’s rain forest. Now there was nothing I could do to save him.
“Maybe if I’d kept a closer watch on him, I would have known when he slipped out of town. Preventing him from killing those humans.”
Just thinking about the video footage the Council had sent me made my blood run cold. The sheer brutality Clancy exhibited while attacking and killing the two human males sent a chill down my spine. His only saving grace was not harming the human female.
Freya poured two shots of BF Home Brew before sliding a glass to me. “Quinn, Clancy is feral, and that’s not your fault. Now he has to pay the price for killing those humans.”
“But wasn’t it my fault?” I clipped out before downing the contents of my shot glass in one swallow, reveling in the burn as it went down. “I’m the alpha of this town. And if I can’t protect my pack, friends, and townsfolk, then what good am I as their leader?”
Now my failure could bring down not only me but my family, pack, and town as well.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” Freya said. “You’re not to blame for the feral sickness. Unmated male shifters have been going feral for eons.” She sipped her own BF Home Brew before continuing, “Everyone, including the idiot members of the Shifter Council, knows that the only solution to the feral problem is to find unmated males their fated mate.”
“That’s easier said than done.”
The feral situation was not new to this town or to the shifter world. It was a fact that all unmated males would eventually get the feral sickness—and go feral; it was just a matter of time if they lived without their fated mate. But no one understood why unmated female shifters did not suffer the same fate. Not that there were a lot of female shifters in the first place.
She pointed at me. “Exactly. That’s my point. The Shifter Council should be focusing on finding a remedy to the feral sickness problem, especially given the fact that they, too, are unmated. Without a mate…”
“They will turn feral. So will I and all the members of my pack.” My inner beast growled at my words. “Someday the Council’s Trackers will have to kill me and my pack.” My words held no bitterness even though I’d spent years trying to find my fated mate without success.
“The remedy is fated mates,” Freya said, refilling my glass. “We find them, then we stop unmated males from going feral. Even feral shifters like Clancy can be cured of their sickness if they find their fated mate.”
“Freya, if I don’t get the feral problem in the Ridge under control, the Council said they would.” I gulped the shot. “And we both know how the Shifter Council handles feral shifters.”
Her expression was one of disdain. “By sending their top Trackers to hunt and kill them.”
As with most things, the Council dealt with the feral issue with an iron fist. They terminated all feral shifters. There were no second chances. I knew that when the Trackers found Clancy, they would kill him.
I locked eyes with Freya. She was my mother’s best friend, a powerful witch, and one of the few who I respected in the Ridge.
“Freya, I’m here because I need your help.” I swallowed hard. “If you cast that spell you told me about—”
She cut me off. “No. We talked about this. There is no way in hell I’m casting that spell.”
It said a lot that a powerful witch like Freya, who was the leader of the town’s coven, had serious reservations about casting such a spell. But that didn’t stop me from pushing the issue.
“This is our only solution,” I gritted out. “Unless I find the mates for all the unmated males in this town, and fast, the Ridge is fucked.”
“You can’t be serious.” She laughed dryly. “You want me to trust the solution given to me by a strange spirit who waltzed into my bedroom in the middle of the night?”
“Yes,” I barked. “She told you it was the remedy to our unmated males problem.” I curled my hands into fists with frustration. “That when you cast the spell she gave you, it will call the fated mates of all unmated males to the Ridge.”
Freya’s stoic expression turned grim. “Quinn, I can’t trust a spirit who refused to tell me her name or why she picked me to give the mating spell to. All the spirit would tell me was the purpose of the spell and that it was ripped out of a book of spells.” She blew out a breath. “When I asked her who wrote it, she didn’t answer or tell me why the spell had been removed from the book in the first place.”
I finally threw my arms up in the air in my exasperation. “Can’t you figure out a way to validate the origins of the spell?”
She shook her head, annoyance etched on every line of her face. “The spell is ancient text. And without seeing the spell book the page was torn from, I can’t validate anything. But what I do know from analyzing the words is that this spell is pretty powerful.”
She paused, eyeing me. “Quinn, if I cast this mating spell, I don’t know what else I could be calling. Honestly, what the spell is supposed to do and what it will do could be completely different. I’d be messing with the universe with no clue about the ramifications. Are you really willing to accept the consequences as the alpha of this town?”
My irritation swelled. “I have no choice. Desperate situations call for desperate measures.”
I’d already failed Clancy. I couldn’t risk failing another unmated male in my pack and town.
Disapproval turned down the corners of her mouth. “And what if the spell doesn’t work?”
I narrowed my eyes, and my nostrils flared. “Then we tried, which is better than doing nothing.”
Freya’s lips pressed into a thin line. “If I cast this spell, and it works, the results will not be instantaneous. It will take time, as magic does.”
“I understand,” I clipped out.
She stared at me, worry shining in her eyes.
“Freya, you know I wouldn’t ask this of you unless I had to. You and I know this is the only way forward.”
She sighed heavily. “So be it. I’ll call the members of my coven.”
CHAPTER 2
IMANI
ONE YEAR, SEVEN MONTHS LATER…
* * *
Sheer determination—along with too much caffeine—were all that kept my ass going.
“Come on, baby, make Mama proud. Just hang on to the road,” I begged my old compact car that had carried me through so much already.
My car’s wheels skidded alarmingly on the snow-covered serpentine road that had twists and turns and dipped and arched over the imposing waves of the crashing sea that flanked both sides of the freeway.
I squinted through the drifting snow as it slapped against my windshield, faster and harder than the wipers could push it away. The wind battered my car as I navigated the icy, winding road, constantly squinting through snow and darkness.
Black Forest Ridge, Alaska, was somewhere ahead on this road and with it, hopefully, my next place to live and work until the season changed. Then I’d leave in search of somewhere new.
But the longer I drove through the inky darkness, the more I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake in making this long, nerve-racking journey. I couldn’t figure out why I’d been second-guessing every decision I made lately. Maybe it was the emotional exhaustion that had settled into my bones since I turned forty two weeks ago. Or maybe it was the fatigue that tore at me after having barely slept since leaving New York a few days ago, with a trunkful of my last remaining belongings and a wad of cash stashed in my messenger-style leather handbag. But what I was sure of was that my only hope of a safe landing at—fingers crossed—my temporary home was the online job posting for an executive chef position at a bed-and-breakfast in a place called Black Forest Ridge, Alaska.
But what if I don’t get the job?
I shook my head. No, Imani. That’s not an option.
Gripping the steering wheel, I tried to calm the anxiousness tightening in the pit of my stomach.
Dammit. I need this job and the money.
I was also freaking out because Black Forest Ridge, Alaska, wasn’t on any maps. Nor did it show up on my phone’s GPS. According to the internet, physical maps, and the local roadway authority, the town simply didn’t exist.
How is that even possible?
Piper Bane, the B and B owner, had given me vague directions over the phone. Those had put me on this thruway.
“Don’t forget. Black Forest Ridge is situated approximately thirty minutes from the city of Anchorage. Just follow my directions, keep driving on the thruway, until you see the tunnel in the mountain. It leads to the Ridge,” Piper had specifically informed me. “You can’t miss it.”
My knuckles ached from gripping the steering wheel and fighting the gusts of wind. I’d expected a short drive but had gotten hours in the pitch-black darkness and a wicked snowstorm.
Continuing to drive, I relaxed slightly when I spotted the passageway and drove through it, happy to at least find a reprieve from the storm. I slowed inside the dark tunnel, the beams of my headlights the only thing guiding me.
In Piper’s directions, she’d mentioned the tunnel, so I took it as a good sign that I was heading in the right direction.
When I made it out of the tunnel, my body slackened with relief just a second before crisscrossing lines made of white lights shimmered in front of my car.
What the hell?
I pushed my foot down on the brake pedal firmly, but my vehicle sped up instead of stopping, barreling me right through the Vegas-like light show. Loud popping sounds echoed around me, and a weird pulse of energy tingled against my skin.
The bright white lights vanished.
My cell screen flickered out.
Seconds later, so did my headlights.
“Shit! Shit. Shit,” I hissed while applying the brakes quickly, trying to stop, but my car continued moving forward at a fast clip.
Something big and black dashed in front of my car. I jerked the wheel hard, screaming as my car hydroplaned off the road and into a tree.
My body slammed against the seat belt, and the aging pulleys gave way before my head slammed against the steering wheel with a thump.
CHAPTER 3
IMANI
Groaning, I woke up, trying to get my bearings. I sat back gingerly, wiping my hand across the fogged-up driver’s side window. “Dammit.” My car was off the road, with rain sluicing over the vehicle.
Rain? What the hell happened to the snow?
No. How long have I been here?
Quickly, I did a personal inventory.
My head hurt where I’d smacked it, and my neck ached from being jolted forward. I could feel the seat belt bruises throbbing on my shoulder, hip, and across my breasts. Cautiously, I checked my collarbone. I hadn’t broken anything. Next, I felt around for my cell, finally finding it lying against the passenger seat. The screen flickered on when I swiped it. “Okay. That’s something.”
Grabbing my messenger bag, I checked inside, sighing with relief when I saw my money was still there. But when I tried to turn on my car, nothing happened—no power.
“Time to get the hell out of here,” I muttered. With my bag in one hand, I unbuckled my seat belt. Slinging the bag across my body, I opened the driver’s-side door, shoving it wide and clambering out.
As I stood on the road, icy rain pelted down on me, chilling through me as I realized the front end of my car was smashed against a tree.
“Damn. I’m lucky I survived.”
When I checked my phone, hoping to call a tow service, I didn’t have a single bar. Just my damn luck.
There was nothing else I could do but start walking in the same direction I had previously been driving, hoping the road would lead into town. My boots weren’t ideal for hoofing it, but it didn’t make sense to start digging through my luggage in the dead of night on an isolated stretch of road for something more practical to wear. Sighing, I started trekking away from my car in search of life.
My pace quickened as the frigid rain beat against my body. It didn’t take long for my thick, curly hair to come undone from the bun, and the leather of my peep-toe ankle boots chafed.
Just tough it out, Imani. Keep moving.
My feet were aching and growing numb at the toes and ankles as I slogged along. Mud caked my toes, and pebbles kept working their way into the boots and bruising the bottoms of my feet. I wanted to sit down and bawl my eyes out, but nope, just keep your ass moving.
I continued walking until I came across a fork in the road. I remembered from Piper’s directions that she’d told me to go left at the fork. So that’s what I did on foot.
A deep growl pierced the air. I froze, peering around in alarm, but I couldn’t see far enough up or down the road, and an impenetrable wall of blackness stretched between the trees that stood on both sides of the road.
With trembling fingers, I turned on the flashlight function on my phone, desperately shining the light around.
