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  The Prelude

  Shifting Seasons - Prequel

  Sammie Joyce

  Copyright © 2019 by Sammie Joyce

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Sammie Joyce

  The Prelude

  1. Aspen

  2. Locklear

  3. Aspen

  4. Philippe

  5. Aspen

  6. Locklear

  7. Aspen

  8. Philippe

  9. Locklear

  10. Aspen

  Sammie Joyce

  Preview - Summer Enchantment

  Chapter 1

  About Sammie Joyce

  The Prelude

  Shifting Seasons - The Prequel

  Sammie Joyce

  1

  Aspen

  Faster! Run faster! I wheezed to myself, barely turning my head to look behind me. My legs stretched out to capacity but I was no match for the wolf on my heels, regardless of how hard I pumped my limbs. On all fours, I lumbered through the thick of trees, careful not to trip on the haphazard logs strewn about as my claws sunk into the dirt, catching traction where I landed.

  Of course, I knew the terrain better than anyone, the beds of leaves, the jutting rocks, even where the streams started and stopped. The forest was my home after all and had been for years but when I was being pursued, it was almost impossible for me to take note of my surroundings. Thank gods I had learned the landscape by rote, my animal instincts overtaking the heightened element of being chased and I didn’t falter as the chase continued.

  Through my peripheral vision, I again caught glimpse of a flash of gray fur and with my heart pumping wildly in my massive chest, I sprung forward with a sudden burst of adrenaline. He was too close now!

  Above my head, I glimpsed an eagle, one who had been following my race across the woods but he was the least of my concerns. I was almost at the river’s mouth. I just needed to make it five more steps until I was home—

  I didn’t get a chance to finish my thought, the beast jumping onto my back and sending me growling face first into a bramble, mere feet from the water’s edge.

  I howled and flipped my body, sending the lupine over my shoulders and fully into the clear, calm river beyond. The splash was loud and deliberate. I stuck me head up and began to laugh at the sight of my best friend dripping from tail to snout.

  “I win!” Locklear chortled, bouncing up from where he’d landed, grinning as he morphed into his mortal form, his amber-brown eyes sparkling mischievously. “Again.”

  “You cheated!” I sputtered, feigning anger as I, too, shifted back into my human body, shaking out my long, hazelnut hair until it fell at my waist. I was still panting but I struggled to compose myself. Even though we were playing, I didn’t want Locklear to see he’d gotten the best of me. Call it ancient bear pride but I didn’t like losing.

  No one likes losing, I reminded myself. Some of us are just better at it than others.

  Like Locklear. He was never a sore loser, even when I gloated.

  “How is it I cheated now?” Lock chuckled, wading up to the bank to stand before me. His ebony hair was dappled in droplets of water but before I could answer, I heard the surprised squawk of the eagle over our heads.

  Both our attention was diverted upward but the bird had already flown away as if our bantering had disrupted his flight.

  “I think we interrupted his peace,” Locklear joked as I bushed the remaining leaves from my body and joined him on the bank.

  “I think we interrupted the entire forest’s peace,” I sniggered. Unable to resist, I leaned down and soaked my friend in water with a cupped hand and he protested as I took off ahead of him again.

  “Haven’t you had enough yet?” he yelled after me but I shook my head over my shoulder.

  “I never get enough of beating you!” I challenged, racing along the river. I didn’t need to look back to know that he was on my heels again but this time we remained in our mortal forms where I had the advantage.

  Without the shortness of my bear legs, I flew effortlessly over the sandy banks, giggling to myself as I heard Lock panting behind me.

  Such a silly game we played, one without any real loser or winner but we’d been doing it for years.

  What else was there for us to do out in the wilderness of Alaska but entertain one another with such antics anyway? Ours was a remote community, removed from the hustle of city or even town life.

  For years, we’d lived in quiet solitude among the mountains, ingrained in the nature and wonder of the forest. It was a life we preferred to the greed and corruption beyond the sanctuary of the trees.

  Wars, famines, capitalism—we were far apart from all of that in our home and I couldn’t imagine living life any other way. We didn’t see the war draft or even read the terrible words printed on newspapers, depicting the tragic events occurring in Vietnam. That didn’t mean we didn’t hear about it for even the most isolated beings couldn’t escape such large-scale heartache, not when it affected the entire country in which we lived.

  Anyway, how could we romp so freely in our natural bodies if we lived among the mortals, the people who didn’t understand our way of life and were conditioned to fear the unusual? We could never know true freedom living among the mortals, could we?

  It was one of the many things that Locklear and I agreed on, the desire to remain hidden from the world. Our way was the better way, in tune with nature and the elements, caring for one another like packs of animals had been doing since the beginning of time.

  After all, that’s what we were at our core—animals.

  Abruptly, I froze in my tracks, my nose arching into the air as a I sensed something there. Locklear almost smacked into my stopped back.

  “What the—”

  I held up my hand, signalling for him to be quiet and he obediently clamped his mouth shut, perhaps hearing the music at precisely the same time I did.

  “What is that?” he hissed but I shushed him again and pulled him off the shoreline toward the trees again.

  The sorrowful twang of a guitar met my ears fully as we retreated into the treeline, causing my heart to flutter. The feeling surprised me but there was something in the sound of the music which pierced my core.

  “Is that Evander?” Locklear asked, his brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of the song.

  “That’s not Evander,” I murmured, pushing the bushes aside. I’d answered even without laying eyes on the man beyond but my instinct told me that whoever strummed away at his instrument was no one we’d met before.

  I saw him, crossed legged next to a dying fire on a large boulder, his eyes half-closed as he played. Even from the distance between us, I could see the fineness of his features, the sun-kissed glow of his skin. He was unkempt, scruffy even but there was a serenity about him that superseded his slender, dishevelled appearance. It was impossible to tell the color of his eyes but I had a feeling that they were a deep, haunted emerald although how I knew that, I couldn’t say.

  Suddenly, his full lips parted and his voice flowed into my mind, overtaking every crevice of my body as he began to sing.

  There was something melancholic about the way he belted out the tune in a low but mellifluous way. Somehow, it reverted me back to a time or place I was sure I’d never been as I was swept up in a feeling of hiraeth.

  “Would you look at that?” Lock snorted from beside me, thrusting me back to reality with a thud. I’d almost forgotten he was there. “One of the Beatles found his way into ou
r neck of the woods.”

  I didn’t answer but I instantly felt myself growing defensive at the jab.

  “Come on. Let’s scare the hell out of him,” Lock tittered, half-shifting back into his lupine form. “He’s a little too close to home anyway, isn’t he?”

  “No!” I snapped with more harshness than I intended. “Don’t!”

  Locklear’s eyes narrowed and he stared at me like he was confused by my reaction but I was still fixated on the stranger who seemed oblivious to us a mere few feet away.

  He’s too caught up in his song, I realized and for some reason, I found that endearing. Before I realized what I was doing, I stepped forward toward him. It wasn’t until I felt Locklear’s hand on my arm that I whipped my head around to look at him.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded and I saw that he’d morphed back into his human form again, understanding that we weren’t going to scare off the interloper.

  I wrested my arm free and without answering, I moved through the shrubbery toward the man.

  It turned out I was right—his eyes were bright green and very wide when they fell on me, the notes of his song dying on his lips. The guitar fell from his hands and landed on the dirt with a gentle thud as he untangled his legs and rose to face me.

  For a moment, neither of us spoke and I was sure I didn’t breathe either. I was too consumed by the electricity surging from his green orbs, the ones which searched over my face like he was trying to place me from somewhere.

  I was the first to break the silence even though I could have sat there staring at him for hours, memorizing every line of his handsome features.

  “Hi,” I heard myself say.

  “Hi,” he replied softly, a warm but wan smile forming on his full lips. “Was I disturbing you with my playing?”

  I gasped and shook my head, feeling the ends of my hair graze across my hips as I did.

  “No! Not at all,” I replied quickly. “It was amazing.”

  His beam widened and without breaking his steadfast gaze on me, he closed the short distance between us, extending his hand.

  “I’m Philippe,” he explained. For half a second, I could only stare at his open palm, almost as if I was afraid to touch it but that was ridiculous. I’d seen mortals before and touched them. Remote as we were, there were always hunters and campers who dared too deep into the wilderness. Why, then, did I feel some breathless anticipation as I slipped my hand into his?

  I had my answer soon enough. Instantly, a heat exploded between our connected skin and an almost heady feeling of intoxication washed over me. I’d have to have been blind not to see the way Philippe’s eyes dilated too.

  Quickly, I withdrew my hand and looked nervously at the ground, pursing my lips together in embarrassment.

  “Good to meet you, Philippe,” I managed to choke out, willing my face to return to its normal peachy color. Yet under his intense scrutiny, the notion was easier wished than accomplished.

  “Do you have a name?” he asked lightly. My head jerked upward and I met his eyes again, wondering if I’d ever been so tongue-tied in my life.

  “Aspen,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  His dark eyebrows arched slightly.

  “That’s a very pretty name,” he offered.

  “Phillipe is a very French name,” I chirped. “Are you French?”

  His English was flawless but there was an unmistakable accent, one that I couldn’t place. My knowledge of culture was limited, being borne and bred in the wilderness but I did know a French name when I heard one.

  A grimace appeared on Phillipe’s face. I was instantly contrite, wondering if I was being too pushy with my question but before I could apologize for my brazenness, he spoke.

  “My family is Creole,” he explained. “Hence the francophone name.”

  “You’re a long way from Louisiana,” I offered, my brow rising with interest.

  “That was kind of the idea,” he remarked dryly.

  “What brings you all the way out here?” I pressed, intrigued. I knew I was captivated by Philippe but I just couldn’t say why. Yes, he was very attractive and there was most certainly an attraction between us but it was something else, something deeper.

  I was sure he could sense it too.

  Philippe paused and for a moment, contemplating my question carefully and I thought he was going to tell me to mind my own business. Instead, he only released a huge sigh and shrugged his toned shoulders before he looked away.

  “My life story isn’t very interesting,” he explained lightly even though I caught the hard undertone of his words. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.”

  Bore me? I almost snorted. I don’t think there’s a boring bone in your body.

  “I’m not easy bored,” I offered without hesitation and he cocked his head to the side slightly, a small grin playing on his lips. Another bolt of energy shot through me as I returned his stare.

  “You really want to know?” he asked and I nodded with much more fervor than the situation required.

  “Yes,” I replied. “I really want to know.”

  I wanted to know everything about this stranger—even if I was breaking all the rules by asking. I had no right to question him about anything, not when he was so close to our home and definitely not when he wasn’t one of us.

  For the first time since approaching Philippe, I suddenly remembered that Locklear was still hiding in the woods and I turned my head to look toward his hiding spot.

  His yellow-brown eyes gleamed back at me and for a moment, I thought they flashed with anger but before I could second-guess the expression on his face, he was gone, leaving me alone with Philippe.

  I perched on the very same boulder he’d claimed just minutes before and tilted my head toward him with shiny, interested eyes.

  “Well?” I encouraged him. “Are you going to tell me your life story or not?”

  “Aspen,” he murmured, sitting forward so that I caught a whiff of his manly, husky scent.

  “Hmm?” My neck was all the way back as he towered over me, causing my pulse to race dangerously.

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to hear,” he breathed and I shivered with pleasure.

  2

  Locklear

  I couldn’t escape the scene fast enough, nausea twisting in my gut as I slipped away. I’d seen enough even though I couldn’t fully comprehend what it was I’d seen.

  In my upset, I’d morphed back into my full wolf form, prowling against the fading light of the afternoon but truthfully, I hadn’t remembered doing it. My paws padded over the beds of leaves, usually a sensation I enjoyed but I was far too upset by what I’d witnessed between Aspen and her new friend to relish in the feeling under the pads of my feet.

  She doesn’t know that guy. Why did she approach him like that? Like they were old friends or…

  I didn’t let myself finish my own thought. It made my stomach churn more to entertain it.

  I knew how she looked at him. I’d seen it before.

  Gritting my razor-sharp fangs together, I broke into a run, flying through the brush without any direction in mind. All I knew was that I wanted to put as much distance between me and the infatuated couple as possible.

  I had no one to blame but myself for the feeling of grave disappointment sweeping through me. After all, I’d been carrying a torch for Aspen since I was a pup and she was a cub. We were raised together, despite being different species but that wasn’t uncommon in our community. All of us were shifters, anomalies by society’s standards. It was one of the reasons we’d chosen to live out in the Alaskan tundra, away from prying eyes.

  Aspen had always been my rock, my very foundation of everything in our community. I couldn’t remember a time when we’d been apart, even though I had ventured out into the world briefly, only to return, missing her with every fiber of my heart and soul.

  Truly, I had believed she was my mate and until recently, I thought she’d belie
ved the same about me.

  I’m not entirely sure at what precise moment I realized that she didn’t see me as anything more than her sidekick, her pal, or—gods forbid—her brother. One day, I suddenly knew that she didn’t look at me the same way I looked at her.

  The way that man looked at her and she at him, I thought miserably. There was no doubt that there was a connection between them. Even the birds in the trees must have sensed it. It had taken me both by force and surprise.

  But he was an outsider, an interloper. He didn’t belong among us and certainly not with Aspen. I entertained the idea that maybe he’d just move on but my well-honed sixth sense told me that he wasn’t going anywhere now that he’d met Aspen.

  Who could blame him?

  Aspen was enough female for any male and this stranger wouldn’t have been the first to set his sights on her.

  She was lovely with her enigmatic dark eyes and flowing mane of chestnut strands. Her body was lean, tall and strong from the endless hours of jousting about the woods with me and our other companions. Aspen had always been able to take care of herself, a fact that had little to do with the fact that she was a bear and everything to do with her stubborn but intelligent way.

  An old soul. That’s what her father called her and he was right. Aspen was Damien’s pride and joy and he’d raised her properly. No one ever worried about Aspen.

  Nobody but me.

  I was very concerned about this “Philippe”. Was that even his real name? What was he doing out here? Our location wasn’t on any map and while there had been teams lost in the woods before, it was odd to have a single man traveling alone in those parts. Had he come for a specific purpose?