All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Flip a Coin
Word Count: 1783
Note: Non-canon, from a previous version of the novel.
Jordan sat at the table a while longer after Katrina headed to bed, staring at the piles of crumpled notes and logbooks scattered in front of him, the only data they'd been able to save from the lab. Sipping his water as he flipped through the pages, his heart sank as he realized just how little there was - though a few of his field notes had survived, the majority of the pile was data that predated his arrival in Rion Fell, which meant he had nothing to show for the past nine days.
Sighing, he thumped his glass onto the table and braced his head in his hands. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it, but really, he was frustrated more than anything. The video he shot in the forest, the DNA samples, the mountains of data - they were his ticket to moving up in the world, gaining respect from his peers. He was the first person in history to have secured concrete evidence of predators in the Rion Fell rainforest, evidence that could have saved the entire ecosystem from annihilation, and he couldn't prove a single goddamn bit of it.
Then there was Katrina. Katrina and her talks of honor and respect and loyalty. Katrina and her whole "these people saved our lives" stance. Katrina with her eyes so wide and desperate for Eli that she would believe anything he said, even his stories about gods and prophecy and magic. It was enough to make Jordan snort in disgust as he shoved himself away from the table, heading for the patio. Magic indeed - the only "magic" was entirely in Eli's bloated ego and ridiculous charisma.
The air outside was only marginally cooler than in the house, and he strolled across the concrete patio and sat on the short wall that ringed the back yard, staring up at the night sky and the explosion of stars across the heavens. His eyes traced constellations, many he could remember and others he just invented names for, and after a few moments he was surprised to see a bright streak flash through the middle of Orion's belt. As he debated the odd coincidence, another shooting star flew in a short, brilliant arc, followed by another a few seconds later. He remembered, then - the Rasemis meteor shower Katrina had gone on and on about. The memory made his stomach churn a little, as it felt like they'd had the conversation months ago, rather than less than forty-eight hours. Back when things were still normal.
It'll be a good night for wishes! she'd said. Think about it, Jordie! All the wishes in the world!
He snorted a laugh. More of her childish, idiotic little games. Wishing on stars - what was next, rubbing old laps in the bazaar to see if a genie would pop out? Or maybe she could go take that romantic walk through the ruins with Eli and see if the old Fel'danai gods could give her what she wanted?
It made him almost sick with loathing, the entire situation. Nine days in this wretched place and his entire life had fallen apart. Deanna was gone, his career was ruined, he had no way to get home, some crazed cult was trying to kill him, his mentor was either dead or drunk in a ditch somewhere, the lab was destroyed, and the only person he could trust was some prissy-faced playboy who liked to talk about shapeshifters and ancient arts, not to mention -
"Well, hello."
He'd been so intently staring at the stars that he hadn't even noticed the woman until she was only a few feet away - the abrupt sound of her voice in the evening silence scared him so badly he almost fell off the wall.
"H-Hello!" he called in return, trying to disguise his shock by smoothing his shirt and settling down on the wall again. She smiled at him, tilting her head to the side so that the curls of her raven hair fell across her face, her pale skin illuminated by the light of the flickering torch she carried. "Sorry, I was -"
"Wishing on stars?" she asked. Her voice was so lilting and sad that it made his heart ache - he was struck with the odd and almost painful desire to embrace her. "I do that sometimes, as well," she continued, and raised her face to the heavens. "There are many things to wish for," she mused, the slender fingers of her free hand trailing from the shoulder of her simple linen dress and across the swell of her full breasts.
"I suppose," he said, his usual skepticism fading from his tone as he stared at her. There was something so odd about her, but the more he tried to pinpoint it the more vague his thoughts became, to the point that he could only stare at her hand, transfixed by the movement of her fingers. "What... brings you out this way?"
"I like to walk in the evenings," she said, and smiled sweetly at him. "Nights like these are so calming, don't you think?"
"I..." His tongue felt thick, his words sticking to the roof of his mouth like honey. He found himself only able to think in pictures, perverse and incredible images of his hands on her body, his fingers clenched into her naked flesh, his tongue exploring the inside of her mouth. The longer he stared at her, trying to force himself the speak, the more violently the images pressed at at his conscious thought - throwing her onto the ground, tearing apart the thin fabric of her dress, pinning her wrists to the dirt, thrusting himself into the perfect heat of her body.
"Would you like to come with me?" Her voice was equal parts hopeful and suggestive, the cool curve of her smile and the gleam of her eyes promising far more than musings on the virtues of stargazing. She extended her hand, curling her fingers in a beckoning manner, and without even a second thought he slid off the wall and reached for her, his thoughts growing faint and dim until there was only her eyes, her dark, perfect -
Strong hands gripped his shirt and yanked him backward, throwing him against the stone wall with such force he toppled over it. For a moment he lay there, dazed, until he heard the woman let out a terrible, furious wail. Scrambling to get his legs beneath him, he clambered over the wall and saw that...
Holy shit, he thought. Holy shit, this can't, this can't be happening, this -
... the woman was on fire.
No, not on fire - enveloped in it. Thick tendrils of blue flame spun and twisted from the torch she held and coiled like snakes around her body. Her thick hair flew up and away from her face, which was contorted in a horrible, savage expression, her mouth stretching from ear to ear and filled with jagged teeth. Crouching down, she narrowed her silver-white eyes and screeched like an angry cat, though her hateful gaze was fixed not on Jordan, but on Ryder, who stood casually between them.
"Can't leave you humans alone for five minutes, can we?" he asked, ignoring the hissing, spitting woman as he lit a cigarette.
"Wha... what the hell is that thing?!" Jordan demanded, pointing at her. His outburst was rewarded with ropey length of fire snapping at his face like a whip, sending him scrambling backward. His skin crawled just looking at her, even as a small part of his brain replayed the same erotic fantasties that had skimmed through his thoughts just moments earlier.
"Something you have no business fucking around with," Ryder said, and reached into his pocket to pull out the odd, oversized silver coin Jordan often saw him spinning in his fingers. When the creature saw this, she yowled and hissed even more loudly. "Come here, you ugly bitch," he growled, and lunged forward to loop his hand around the back of her neck. As he yanked her toward him he jabbed the coin flat against the hollow of her throat, and she let out a tortured scream even as she coiled herself almost passionately around him, the flames licking at his clothing and her taloned hands clawing at his back.
Jordan clapped his hands over his ears, her voice drilling into his bones and bringing with it shivers of erotic pleasure tinged with shudders of horror, his body quaking in confusion, trapped between arousal and a burst of panicked adrenaline. His eyes watered and blood streamed from his nose as every cell in his body was torn between pleasure or pain, some even confusing the two, the sweet agony enough to drive him to his knees. Thankfully the punishment was short-lived, because as she screamed her body shimmered and lost cohesion, flickering like the dying embers of a fire. Within seconds she simply crumbled into dust, and even that vanished before it hit the ground - all that remained was the coin, which Ryder caught in mid-air and tucked back into his pocket, the thin t-shirt he wore torn and smoking from the thing's embrace.
For a few seconds there was only the sound of Jordan's gasping breath and the wind brushing through the tall grass of the field, until finally Ryder sighed in frustration.
"What did Eli tell you about leaving the house?" he asked.
"Wha... what was that..." Jordan was breathless and confused, his heart racing, and as much as he wanted to answer Ryder's question he couldn't even manage to get a coherent thought to form. Looking up, he saw Ryder crouched on the wall above him, and barely had time to blink before he felt something metallic and cool pressed against his forehead. An electric shock swept through his body, locking his limbs in place, and his thoughts cleared as abruptly as if he'd been shocked from a dead sleep by a bucket of cold water.
"Get a fucking hold of yourself," Ryder ordered, his eyes brittle in the faint glow cast by the patio lights. "Now I'll ask you again. What did Eli tell you about leaving the house?"
"He said... he said not to."
"And do you understand now?"
"I... I don't understand what that thing was." Jordan searched Ryder's face for any sign of distress or discomfort, but he would have had better luck finding emotion in the stone wall. "Don't you... didn't you feel it?"
"No." He pulled the coin away from Jordan's forehead but watched him warily, rubbing his thumb along the smooth edge of the thick metal. "She's not interested in my kind."
Word Count: 1783
Note: Non-canon, from a previous version of the novel.
Jordan sat at the table a while longer after Katrina headed to bed, staring at the piles of crumpled notes and logbooks scattered in front of him, the only data they'd been able to save from the lab. Sipping his water as he flipped through the pages, his heart sank as he realized just how little there was - though a few of his field notes had survived, the majority of the pile was data that predated his arrival in Rion Fell, which meant he had nothing to show for the past nine days.
Sighing, he thumped his glass onto the table and braced his head in his hands. He was lucky to be alive and he knew it, but really, he was frustrated more than anything. The video he shot in the forest, the DNA samples, the mountains of data - they were his ticket to moving up in the world, gaining respect from his peers. He was the first person in history to have secured concrete evidence of predators in the Rion Fell rainforest, evidence that could have saved the entire ecosystem from annihilation, and he couldn't prove a single goddamn bit of it.
Then there was Katrina. Katrina and her talks of honor and respect and loyalty. Katrina and her whole "these people saved our lives" stance. Katrina with her eyes so wide and desperate for Eli that she would believe anything he said, even his stories about gods and prophecy and magic. It was enough to make Jordan snort in disgust as he shoved himself away from the table, heading for the patio. Magic indeed - the only "magic" was entirely in Eli's bloated ego and ridiculous charisma.
The air outside was only marginally cooler than in the house, and he strolled across the concrete patio and sat on the short wall that ringed the back yard, staring up at the night sky and the explosion of stars across the heavens. His eyes traced constellations, many he could remember and others he just invented names for, and after a few moments he was surprised to see a bright streak flash through the middle of Orion's belt. As he debated the odd coincidence, another shooting star flew in a short, brilliant arc, followed by another a few seconds later. He remembered, then - the Rasemis meteor shower Katrina had gone on and on about. The memory made his stomach churn a little, as it felt like they'd had the conversation months ago, rather than less than forty-eight hours. Back when things were still normal.
It'll be a good night for wishes! she'd said. Think about it, Jordie! All the wishes in the world!
He snorted a laugh. More of her childish, idiotic little games. Wishing on stars - what was next, rubbing old laps in the bazaar to see if a genie would pop out? Or maybe she could go take that romantic walk through the ruins with Eli and see if the old Fel'danai gods could give her what she wanted?
It made him almost sick with loathing, the entire situation. Nine days in this wretched place and his entire life had fallen apart. Deanna was gone, his career was ruined, he had no way to get home, some crazed cult was trying to kill him, his mentor was either dead or drunk in a ditch somewhere, the lab was destroyed, and the only person he could trust was some prissy-faced playboy who liked to talk about shapeshifters and ancient arts, not to mention -
"Well, hello."
He'd been so intently staring at the stars that he hadn't even noticed the woman until she was only a few feet away - the abrupt sound of her voice in the evening silence scared him so badly he almost fell off the wall.
"H-Hello!" he called in return, trying to disguise his shock by smoothing his shirt and settling down on the wall again. She smiled at him, tilting her head to the side so that the curls of her raven hair fell across her face, her pale skin illuminated by the light of the flickering torch she carried. "Sorry, I was -"
"Wishing on stars?" she asked. Her voice was so lilting and sad that it made his heart ache - he was struck with the odd and almost painful desire to embrace her. "I do that sometimes, as well," she continued, and raised her face to the heavens. "There are many things to wish for," she mused, the slender fingers of her free hand trailing from the shoulder of her simple linen dress and across the swell of her full breasts.
"I suppose," he said, his usual skepticism fading from his tone as he stared at her. There was something so odd about her, but the more he tried to pinpoint it the more vague his thoughts became, to the point that he could only stare at her hand, transfixed by the movement of her fingers. "What... brings you out this way?"
"I like to walk in the evenings," she said, and smiled sweetly at him. "Nights like these are so calming, don't you think?"
"I..." His tongue felt thick, his words sticking to the roof of his mouth like honey. He found himself only able to think in pictures, perverse and incredible images of his hands on her body, his fingers clenched into her naked flesh, his tongue exploring the inside of her mouth. The longer he stared at her, trying to force himself the speak, the more violently the images pressed at at his conscious thought - throwing her onto the ground, tearing apart the thin fabric of her dress, pinning her wrists to the dirt, thrusting himself into the perfect heat of her body.
"Would you like to come with me?" Her voice was equal parts hopeful and suggestive, the cool curve of her smile and the gleam of her eyes promising far more than musings on the virtues of stargazing. She extended her hand, curling her fingers in a beckoning manner, and without even a second thought he slid off the wall and reached for her, his thoughts growing faint and dim until there was only her eyes, her dark, perfect -
Strong hands gripped his shirt and yanked him backward, throwing him against the stone wall with such force he toppled over it. For a moment he lay there, dazed, until he heard the woman let out a terrible, furious wail. Scrambling to get his legs beneath him, he clambered over the wall and saw that...
Holy shit, he thought. Holy shit, this can't, this can't be happening, this -
... the woman was on fire.
No, not on fire - enveloped in it. Thick tendrils of blue flame spun and twisted from the torch she held and coiled like snakes around her body. Her thick hair flew up and away from her face, which was contorted in a horrible, savage expression, her mouth stretching from ear to ear and filled with jagged teeth. Crouching down, she narrowed her silver-white eyes and screeched like an angry cat, though her hateful gaze was fixed not on Jordan, but on Ryder, who stood casually between them.
"Can't leave you humans alone for five minutes, can we?" he asked, ignoring the hissing, spitting woman as he lit a cigarette.
"Wha... what the hell is that thing?!" Jordan demanded, pointing at her. His outburst was rewarded with ropey length of fire snapping at his face like a whip, sending him scrambling backward. His skin crawled just looking at her, even as a small part of his brain replayed the same erotic fantasties that had skimmed through his thoughts just moments earlier.
"Something you have no business fucking around with," Ryder said, and reached into his pocket to pull out the odd, oversized silver coin Jordan often saw him spinning in his fingers. When the creature saw this, she yowled and hissed even more loudly. "Come here, you ugly bitch," he growled, and lunged forward to loop his hand around the back of her neck. As he yanked her toward him he jabbed the coin flat against the hollow of her throat, and she let out a tortured scream even as she coiled herself almost passionately around him, the flames licking at his clothing and her taloned hands clawing at his back.
Jordan clapped his hands over his ears, her voice drilling into his bones and bringing with it shivers of erotic pleasure tinged with shudders of horror, his body quaking in confusion, trapped between arousal and a burst of panicked adrenaline. His eyes watered and blood streamed from his nose as every cell in his body was torn between pleasure or pain, some even confusing the two, the sweet agony enough to drive him to his knees. Thankfully the punishment was short-lived, because as she screamed her body shimmered and lost cohesion, flickering like the dying embers of a fire. Within seconds she simply crumbled into dust, and even that vanished before it hit the ground - all that remained was the coin, which Ryder caught in mid-air and tucked back into his pocket, the thin t-shirt he wore torn and smoking from the thing's embrace.
For a few seconds there was only the sound of Jordan's gasping breath and the wind brushing through the tall grass of the field, until finally Ryder sighed in frustration.
"What did Eli tell you about leaving the house?" he asked.
"Wha... what was that..." Jordan was breathless and confused, his heart racing, and as much as he wanted to answer Ryder's question he couldn't even manage to get a coherent thought to form. Looking up, he saw Ryder crouched on the wall above him, and barely had time to blink before he felt something metallic and cool pressed against his forehead. An electric shock swept through his body, locking his limbs in place, and his thoughts cleared as abruptly as if he'd been shocked from a dead sleep by a bucket of cold water.
"Get a fucking hold of yourself," Ryder ordered, his eyes brittle in the faint glow cast by the patio lights. "Now I'll ask you again. What did Eli tell you about leaving the house?"
"He said... he said not to."
"And do you understand now?"
"I... I don't understand what that thing was." Jordan searched Ryder's face for any sign of distress or discomfort, but he would have had better luck finding emotion in the stone wall. "Don't you... didn't you feel it?"
"No." He pulled the coin away from Jordan's forehead but watched him warily, rubbing his thumb along the smooth edge of the thick metal. "She's not interested in my kind."