Page 4 of Fated to the Lone Shifter
My thoughts flash back to the bureau briefing. Beige conference room. A manila folder with my name on it, slid across the table like a death sentence.
“These arsons have crossed multiple states,” the Director had said, voice low and clipped. “We’ve got several dead bodies, and there's not enough of them or their DNA left to identify anybody. But that’s not the main reason we’re involved.”
He let that hang in the air.
Then he dropped the real bombshell: “One of the burned victims was FBI Agent Leighton. One of our best.”
That had been all I needed to hear.
Agent Leighton trained me, and I always suspected he knew more about my family than he let on, but regardless, he always had my back.
Now he was ash, and I had no one in the bureau who I could completely trust like that.
The mission was clear: Infiltrate the firehouse closest to the most recent incident. Identify the source of the fires, and possibly the motive. And don’t get caught.
I exhale through my nose and lock the phone.
A shadow crosses the doorway—Noah.
He doesn’t look at me, but the tension in my spine ratchets up anyway.
If he is what I think he is…
If he felt that spark too…
Then this whole assignment just got a hell of a lot more complicated.
Later that evening, after the last hose has been coiled and the rookies sent back to their dorms to sleep off their first-day jitters, I slip out the back of the station house and head towardthe tree line. My day is not yet over. The forest behind Firehouse 333 is dense, shadowed even under the light of the waxing moon, the trees too tall and close together, like they’ve learned to lean on each other for survival.
The scent of burned bark and damp pine hits me as soon as I step past the last floodlight. My boots crunch over ash and needles. A couple hundred yards in, I find it—the blackened stretch of earth that wasn’t here a week ago. A recent fire, already buried in the official logs. No one talks about it.
Which means it matters.
I crouch low beside a twisted, half-melted helmet. The ground is soft, churned in places. Something burned here. Something…someone. My fingers brush through the ash, and I shiver. Not from the cold.
From the pull.
There’s something in this place. Not just soot and smoke, but residue. Energy. I close my eyes and press my palm against the earth.
Magic. Not mine. Not my kind. But close. Familiar in a way that makes my stomach twist.
And then I see it—a stone, half-buried in the dirt, slick with soot and pulsing faintly with heat. The police would never view it as evidence, but I do. I dig it out and hold it in my palm. The same energy I felt when Noah touched me slithers through my skin. On its underbelly, a rune.
A crack echoes through the woods. A branch snapping?
I freeze. Straighten slowly. My spine tingles.
Someone’s watching me.
I scan the trees without turning my head. Nothing moves. No wind. No animals. Just that presence.
I pocket the stone, force a yawn, and stretch like I’m just out here clearing my head.
Then I turn casually, keeping my heartbeat steady, and walk back toward the firehouse. Inside every instinct I have is screaming.
Whatever lit that fire didn’t leave..
And now, it’s watching me.
