House of Stars (eBook)
437 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-3191-4 (ISBN)
Shaka Reed returns in House of Stars. Born a shapeshifter, Shaka has spent most of her life hiding who she is, but when she goes on a solitary journey to the remote mountains of Yellowstone National Park, she discovers something she never dreamed possible: a commune of wolf shifters, just like herself, living and hunting together. She is taken in by them at once and becomes an eager observer to their ways. The mysteriously reluctant alpha, Orion, sees something special in her and urges her to take a place among their pack, but the pack has issues of its own. Between the way they detest ordinary people and the inherent violence of some of the members, Shaka finds herself longing for her Minnesota home, but leaving the pack isn't as easy as joining it. In this sequel to the supernatural thriller Hearts of Prey, Shaka finds herself coming up against a threat she never could have imagined: her own kind.
Chapter Two
They stopped for the night in Dickinson, North Dakota. Shaka felt a little lonely on the prairie. With no great lake or forests to keep the secrets of the place she felt oddly exposed. She watched Adrian as he walked in front of her down the long hall to their hotel room. He had noticed very little of his surroundings so far on their journey and his irritation with her had become increasingly unpredictable.
He reached the door to their room and slid the key card in. It blinked red. He tried it again and it blinked red again.
“Come on you piece of junk,” he muttered as he jammed it in for a third time. Again, red. “You’re kidding me!” he said as he turned to Shaka.
She watched as anger set quickly into his features for the hundredth time that day. “I can go get a new card,” she said as she held her hand out.
“So can I. That’s not the point.”
“Well, there is no point, Adrian. We need a new card, that’s all.”
He pressed his lips into a thin line and stormed passed her. She stood by the door, watching him quickly make his way down the hall. She was starting to regret accepting his invitation to travel to San Francisco. If she had known he was going to be so touchy she would have rethought her answer.
She leaned against the wall and enjoyed the momentary quiet surrounding her. She looked at the cheap art hanging on the wall across from her: pastel seashells on the shore of a soft, playful ocean. She wondered what a painting like that was doing so far from any kind of coast. Her best friend Rena’s art was hundreds of times better. She imagined how it would feel walking down that hallway if it displayed only Rena’s paintings. They were often dark and mysterious, but also quiet and unobtrusive. She thought of a series of trees Rena painted, all with the sun behind them at a different time of day. Shaka decided this series would be best for this hallway. It was palatable by almost anyone, but still graceful and intriguing.
She was pulled from her daydream by the sound of hard footfalls. She looked to the end of the hall as Adrian rounded the corner, new key card in hand. She was glad she didn’t have to listen to him yell at the desk clerk. The longer he acted like this, the less she wanted to be around him.
The walls of their room displayed equally dull art of pastel hues that clashed with the red and gold bedspreads.
“This place needs a new decorator,” Shaka said as she threw her suitcase on the bed.
“Not good enough for ya, huh?” he replied.
Shaka looked cautiously over at him, unsure if he was joking, but when he grinned at her she felt a little relief.
“Next time we’ll stay at the Ritz,” he said as he turned toward her.
She walked over to him and threw her arms around his neck, pushing him back on the bed as she did so. “That’s all I ask,” she said and leaned in to kiss him.
This time he didn’t stop her as she ran her hands over his body and unbuttoned his shirt. One article of clothing after another was pulled off their bodies and they crawled under the red and gold bedspread and made love. When they were done the stress of the day was gone. It had floated away like hot air.
“That was amazing,” he said as he lay next to her.
“It was,” she agreed. “But I’m starving now.”
“Uh-huh,” Adrian said as he shut his eyes, trying not to move. “Room service.” Shaka crawled out of bed and walked nude around the room looking for a menu while Adrian watched her. When she found it, she faced him and summarized it for him.
“Burgers or pizza. No alcohol.” She set the menu down, put her hands on her hips and looked at him.
“Alright. I’m getting up,” he said and followed her to the shower.
They walked through the downtown streets, which had more charm than Shaka was expecting. The old brick buildings had a quaint feel to them, and though there wasn’t a lot of variety, the place was warm and friendly. They had left their hotel room in search of a restaurant serving more than burgers and pizza, but they ended up having burgers and beer at a sports bar.
“Cheers,” Adrian said as he lifted his beer, “to the wild west.”
“Cheers,” she echoed, “though it doesn’t look all that wild anymore.”
She looked around the room to see a handful of middle-aged men drinking and watching TV, along with one table of two women and five kids. Two of the kids fought over an iPad and the youngest, who looked less than a year old, cried loudly while her mother rocked her absent-mindedly. “Geesh,” Shaka said to herself as she turned around in her chair.
“Looks like they’ve got their hands full,” Adrian said.
“Yeah, they don’t look like they’re enjoying their evening at all,” she said, then regretted her comment immediately. “I mean, maybe they are, who knows? I think one or two kids would be fun, but any more than that would push me over the edge.”
“Is that so?” he said. “Lucky for you I’ve got you covered. I think you’re really gonna like Collin. He likes nature. He’s gonna love Arnold.”
“Oh, is he coming back with us?”
“No,” Adrian corrected himself quickly. “Not now, but eventually. I haven’t talked about that with his mom yet. I’m going to take it slow for now, but eventually I’d like to have him out during the summer.” Adrian looked at her nervously.
“Of course,” she said. “There’s nowhere better than the North Shore in the summer.”
Their food came and Shaka ate quickly, juice from her burger running down her hand. She felt Adrian’s eyes on her as she ate. She set her burger down and wiped her hands as she chewed.
“You don’t have to eat like a wild animal, you know,” Adrian said, and she shot him an irritated glance.
It was true that since she began living with her grandfather and shifting to run wild through the forest almost daily, she placed less and less importance on things like table manners. She had to remind herself to use a napkin and not lick the juice off her hand. Her appetite was growing, too. Just as she felt more easily aroused than ever before, she felt a near constant hunger for red meat as well. She knew shifting so often was changing her, and though it worried her a little, it seemed to worry Adrian more. She saw it in the way he reprimanded her during dinner and routinely denied most of her sexual advances.
After they had both recovered from the trauma of the previous year, she felt a huge weight lifted off her: she was in a relationship with a man who knew about her secret ability for the first time. But she soon found that it wasn’t that simple. He had to work to accept her, and it came out in little comments and frightened glances. At their best, she assured herself he just needed time to get used to being around someone like her, and at their worst she questioned if he would ever be able to truly accept her.
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child,” she said as she picked up her hamburger again.
“I’m sorry. I’m just a bit on edge right now,” he answered.
“I’ve noticed.”
“I just don’t know if he’s going to hate me for being gone these last couple of years. I mean, what if he hardly remembers me?”
“If he hates you, and I doubt he does, then he’ll grow to love you. I mean he’s five, right? I don’t know a lot about kids, but I do know that they are very forgiving. They don’t hold grudges like the rest of us.”
Adrian smiled at her and took another sip of his beer. “You always know the right thing to say.”
Shaka shrugged as she finished her burger.
“Even if you eat like you haven’t seen food in weeks,” he added.
Shaka licked her fingers and looked at him. “Are you going to finish yours?” she asked.
“Go for it,” he said as he slid his plate over to her.
She looked over his shoulder to the door as two women walked in. She glanced down and took a quick bite of his burger then looked back up and froze. She gulped down the bite of unchewed burger, her eyes never leaving the two women at the bar.
“I know you hate mustard but the way you’ve been inhaling your food, I didn’t think you’d even notice it’s on there,” he said.
“Your sister,” she said in a choked whisper.
Adrian’s sister Amanda had worked closely with their father in the laboratory. Shaka remembered her from the short time she had spent as a captive there, and from the days prior to her capture, when she feared Amanda and her colleagues were hunting her. Adrian turned around slowly and saw the two women at the bar, one with Amanda’s long, dark hair.
“You go outside. I’ll be right there,” he said as he rose from his chair.
Shaka rose, too, and quietly walked to the front door and slipped out. She walked to the end of the block, turned left, and waited under the awning of a pharmacy.
Inside the restaurant,...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 20.11.2023 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy |
| ISBN-13 | 979-8-3509-3191-4 / 9798350931914 |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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