Feral: Wild Heart Chronicles

Prologue

The future held a thousand mysteries, each one more complex than the last. There were key players who remained the same: the girl with the scar on the heel of her foot, and the young man whose eyes burned with love for her. The wolf and the wolf-like thing, making madness in a man’s haunted soul, and the witch who moved worlds with her hands. Faintly, she saw a girl made of ice and lilac, and the outline of wings in the sky.

I hate this. Mara closed her eyes to try to make the visions go away, but they dogged her stubbornly. Why is it all my responsibility?

She couldn’t sleep, even in his arms, so she rolled out of bed and left her boyfriend Riker snoring peacefully beneath the sheets. His penthouse apartment looked out into the city, which promised many mysteries for her foreseeing eyes.

Tomorrow, she had a test, but she knew it didn’t matter, so she didn’t bother worrying about it. Nora will be worried for me, she thought, a sad smile curving her lips at the thought of her best friend. I’ll have to tell her why it is that I’m barely going to school anymore.

Soon enough. Nora wasn’t ready to understand the paranormal world that lay beneath the crust of Belmont City, but before long, she would belong to it in her own way. Until then, Mara found it difficult to even sit in the same room with her because all she could ever say were lies.

A flurry of dark wings landed on the balcony outside. Riker still slept; Mara slid silently out the glass doors and approached the raven, whose eyes glowed eerily with reflected moonlight.

Hello, Darkness, she said, using her new nickname for the leader of the strange, precocious flock. Have you found her yet?

In answer, he opened his beak. A clump of hair fell, white blonde and soft. Mara bent and quickly picked it up, holding it up to the light. That wasn’t what I was expecting, she thought.

What is this?

Darkness opened his beak and cawed; with the sound of his voice, she heard words inside her head, dark and strange. The lilac girl. The one between.

Not the witch?

He shook his head. Sighing, Mara pocketed the lock of hair, wondering what his little bird brain was up to. I saw the witch first. She’s the one I want to find.

Not yet, he said, she isn’t ready. Before Mara could ask him to clarify what he meant, he spread his wings and flew away. She watched him turn into a speck in the distance, shivering in the new winter air.

That was helpful, she muttered as she went back inside. In the bed, Riker tossed and stirred, but he didn’t wake; for a panther shifter, he was a surprisingly heavy sleeper. Mara slid the locket of hair into her jewelry box, then crawled back into bed with him, safe and warm once more in his arms.

Even the future couldn’t scare her away from the man she loved. She only hoped they could get the timing right; without all the pieces in place, her lover, and their future together, was doomed.

Chapter 1

Wild Ones

There was nothing I loathed quite as much as winter in Belmont City.

It turned the air frigid as ice, made the hair stand up on your arms, and worst of all, shortened daylight to a brief moment in time. Staring out my office window, I couldn’t suppress a pitiful whimper at the fact that the sun had just started rising when I got to work, and I might not get home until it set.

Moving to the east coast was a mistake, I thought to myself, but it wasn’t like I could go back to California. The Federal Agency of Inexplicable Crimes had nothing to investigate there except the occasional street musician.

Hey, Lily. I looked up at the voice of my partner, Vin Martin. We’ve been given a case to check out at the community college campus.

With a glee typically reserved for lottery-winning tickets and Super Bowl touchdowns, I shot up out of my chair, practically quivering with excitement. What is it?

Murder. Pretty grisly one, too. So stop looking so excited, darling.

Frowning at his term of endearment for me, I crossed my arms and stared down my partner. At 6’5" and with the shoulders of a linebacker, Vin would intimidate most people. Unlike most people, I was a telepathic witch capable of crushing his skull with mere thoughts.

Don’t call me ‘darling,’ Vin. I’m not your darling.

Grinning, he leaned towards me and hushed his voice so the rest of the office couldn’t hear him. "That’s not what you said when we were together. You begged for me, Harlow."

Irritated, I telepathically threw the image of me punching his lights out into Vin’s mind. It was a detailed tableau, all the way down to the blood spraying from his nose, but as a warlock himself, Vin wasn’t intimidated.

You’ll come around.

Don’t count on it, I muttered. I could handle Vin’s teasing, but the reminders that I’d been stupid enough to sleep with him a few months ago were unappreciated. The last thing I wanted was the whole office thinking of me as the slutty brunette who got around.

We took the squad car to the scene of the crime: Belmont Community College, a middling school for local high schoolers taking extra credit and middle-aged parents adding a degree to their education. Vin drove while I looked over the case on my tablet.

The agency didn’t like to give us paper copies of things; they claimed it was for the environment, but I had a sneaking suspicion that they wanted to make sure we didn’t keep any evidence of supernatural beings just hanging around. Secrecy was a regular part of our job description.

Most of the crimes we investigated were minor, and only crimes in the sense that a supernatural did it: shapeshifting in public, using telekinesis during rush hour traffic, or even hunting in animal form on public land. Occasionally we had to deal with thefts and assault, especially from the panther shifters; they were far more trouble than the wolves and lions. For the most part, it was a pretty boring job.

These days, though, murders were up. Way, way up.

As we pulled up to the crime scene, I had to press down an instinctive wave of nausea. I’d seen bodies before as a regular cop in San Diego, and certainly I was used to blood; but the difference with these type of crimes was the scope of it. Getting mauled to death isn’t pretty. The near-empty overflow parking lot behind Belmont Community College had certainly seen better days.

Holy shit, Vin cursed; internally, I shared the sentiment. She’s in pieces.

Getting out of the squad car, we stepped towards the crime scene and flashed our badges at the local cops. Dark looks passed over their faces, but they all knew by now that we weren’t the sort of feds to back down from asserting our jurisdiction.

Ducking under the crime scene tape, I observed to myself that the victim had been a brunette. I knew this because of the chunk of hair torn out of her head and thrown several feet away from the body… what was left of it, anyway.

We think he lured her out on a date to get her alone, one of the cops said; I couldn’t remember his name, but I knew I’d seen him on at least one other case. BCPD blurred together for me. Her latest phone activity indicates as much. What we don’t know is what he used as the murder weapon.

Don’t worry about it, Vin said, casually dismissive. We’ll take it from here.

I could see that the cops didn’t appreciate that, but they kept their lips tight. Guiltily, I reached out and skimmed the top of their thoughts; neither one was holding any information back from us about the case, though they both had a few choice words that they kept to themselves.

As well as a dirty thought about my ass. I pulled back from reading their minds, disgusted as always by the results.

Once the cops were out of earshot, Vin and I went over the evidence.

It was definitely a shifter, he said, looking closer at the wounds. We’ll have to get her into the lab to confirm, but I’m betting we’ll find their signature hybrid DNA in the wounds.

What kind of shifter, though? Unlike Vin, I couldn’t see her wounds from here; he had the benefit of supernaturally enhanced vision. He was even capable of seeing across miles. It was his only power, and no match for my telekinesis, but he more than made up for that with sheer brawn.

Something with claws. Very, very big claws. Maybe it was a big cat of some kind. He shook his head in disgust. Whatever the hell it was, I want to put the damn thing down.

That’s not our job. We track them and take them in, Vin. The rest isn’t up to us. My partner had a rather primitive view of law enforcement’s role in society. They’re still at least half human.

Nah, Lily. He turned to me, his eyes grave and dark. "I would’ve agreed with you once, but I’ve seen too much now. Those things aren’t human; they aren’t even animals. An animal wouldn’t do… this. With one hand, he gestured at the carnage that stretched all around us. They’re savages. If anything, I’m surprised they put their human masks on convincingly enough to get a girl to date them. This girl probably ran screaming the moment she saw her date, and he killed her because that’s all he is: a murderer."

Silently, I disagreed with him, but there was no use saying anything aloud. No one at the agency, including Vin, knew that I’d dated a shifter once; they certainly wouldn’t believe that I’d loved one. In a lot of ways, my ex was the reason why I was here now, instead of out west. Not all shifters were like this one, and while I would certainly never let one close again, I didn’t think they all deserved Vin’s hatred.

Except for the thing that killed a young woman and tore her body into blood and bits of flesh.

Let’s catch the bastard, I said to Vin, anger rising in my throat as I thought about this young girl’s last moments. He deserves to pay for what he’s done.

Little did I know—since I was incapable of seeing into the future—that the path I started on would lead me to him.

Chapter 2

The Hunt

The first thing we did was search the nearby area for any signs of someone—or some thing —passing through. If the murderer fled the scene on foot, he could’ve unknowingly left a trace of himself behind.

Of course, given that the body showed signs of shifter involvement, tracking the suspect was going to be a bit difficult. That was where Vin came in: he used his enhanced vision to look for tracks nearby. That left me with very little to do.

Hey, Vin, mind if we split up? I’m going to go ‘question’ anyone who might’ve seen something, I said, since watching him stare at the pavement was getting boring.

Go ahead. I’ll call you when the M.E. shows up.

I left the crime scene, grateful for something to do—and glad to get away from the blood for a moment. If I ever get used to scenes like that, I thought to myself, that’s a sign it’s time to quit the force for good.

I’d considered it a few times in the last year and a half of working at the F.A.I.C., but every time, my boss convinced me I was needed. It was tough to argue with him; as the strongest witch in the department and the only telepath capable of reading thoughts at a great distance, I made an excellent detective. The ability to throw cars at people with my mind also didn’t hurt.

When Vin and I talked about my questioning suspects, what we really meant is that I would casually read minds and get a statement out of someone if I really found something. Strolling through the college campus where our victim was killed, I did my best to look casual as I opened up my mind and let the thoughts of others wash over me.

…And if he really thinks I’m going to let him fuck other girls because he read some book about polyamory…

Professor Brighten is such a tight ass, I bet he puts it up his—

Where is she? What if something happened—oh God, please Tara, just call me back. Call me, call me, call me…

That last one intrigued me. I narrowed my focus towards its source: a young blonde woman pacing back and forth inside her dorm room. I dug a little deeper inside her thoughts, my touch causing her some anxiety as she sensed that something foreign was looking at her. She was worried about her roommate who’d gone out on a date last night and never come back.

Sadness filled me as I realized I’d discovered the identity of our dead girl. Her roommate, Mona, was worried about her. She was also growing increasingly more aware that I was rummaging around inside her head; I pulled away slowly, no doubt giving her the strange feeling that she was being watched without really knowing how.

Reaching out, I mentally tapped Vin on the shoulder to let him know I had something to tell him. I was careful not to read his thoughts; we had an agreement to strictly keep our powers away from each other, although I wouldn’t have chosen to look inside his head anyway.

I found out the victim’s identity: Tara Saint. I’m about to question her roommate about her death.

Vin couldn’t telepath to me, but he did shout his next thought so I’d be aware of it. FIRST, come find me. I think I know who killed our girl, and I’m about to give him a rude awakening.

In the physical world, I quickly about-faced and started running in Vin’s direction. DON’T do anything rash, I telepathed to him, knowing my partner was angry. We need to bring him in for questioning.

If you say so. I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t defend myself if it comes to that, though.

I could imagine exactly how easily he might decide to defend himself—an action I would be held responsible for, since one of my jobs as Vin’s partner was to keep him in check. I picked up as much speed as possible, legs pumping as I carried myself into the parking lot and out beyond to one of the many patches of untamable wilderness that surrounded Belmont City and kept creatures hidden from sight.

Vin hadn’t gone far into the trees; the spot where I found him was still within