Ponderings of a shifter:
The Elf Kingdom is rather dull.
How these pointy-eared idiots enjoy their tiny rolling hills, quaint ponds, and land-dwelling abodes is a direct result of their upbringing and how and where they were raised. Moreover, it instilled a fondness for one’s own kingdom directly into their hearts.
What you see is what you get.
So you better like it.
And there isn’t much to see in my enemy’s territory, not like the mountains and forests of the Shifter Kingdom.
Here, there are only dull stores meant to soothe, happy smiles all around, hugs and back-patting for your neighbor, and good cheer.
All that rolled up into lying, conniving elves.
Please give me blood, fists, and claws over this backhanded bullshit.
Although, to be fair…
The elves’ sweets are rather tasty.
Iturned to the side, allowing an unaware elf to walk by, and pinched my lips together to keep from laughing aloud. The poor bastard’s nose wrinkled at the pig stench emanating from my body, stopping in his tracks to check the bottom of his fancy slippers, making sure he hadn’t stepped in anything foul. I snorted under my breath, too quietly for him to hear, and continued on my trek through the intimate, curving cobblestone streets of Gatlin Grove, the capital city of the Elf Kingdom.
Tiny stores lined the brightly lit pathways, the early afternoon sun akin to a giant sunflower battering the eyes. Rounded doorways were much too short for my massive seven feet six inches. They were definitely not shifter friendly, with too many bumps to the head through my five hundred years of life. I still had not habitualized ducking when needed, which was rather annoying when clandestine affairs were afoot, and stealth was a must.
As I brushed to the side once more, avoiding three tiny elf brats racing and razzing each other, I was simultaneously relieved—and slightly amused—that I was not normal.
A typical shifter merely shifted into their animal. All except one throughout history—our king had the royal bloodpower of our kind, gifted down to the heir, the firstborn, traced all the way back to the original shifter created by the Fae.
Then there was me.The anomaly.
Hidden in plain sight.
Because…
Well, sight would not help you.
Not when I walked with the spirits.
Whereas the King of Shifters—my deepest and most steadfast friend—controlledblood, the very core oflife, I played with thespirit, the very heart of thedead.
It had been a surprise to both of us when we were mere youths. Especially when, deep within the forests of our kingdom, skeletons had impossibly risen from the soft dirt beneath our feet.
During that moonlit night full of too much shifter wine, piles of bones had stolen into the air, and skeletons had taken shape.
Inexplicably, the long-dead corpses had started Fae damned boogying with hip bones gyrating like they were making love to the night, the dead just as inebriated as we’d been—yet vastly more affectionate.
I am not ashamed to admit that when my honey-brown eyes suddenly turned ghastly white, and the morbid festivities drunkenly erupted and literally danced around us, we’d both pissed our leather drawers without batting an eye on that historic, memorable eve. Of course, it wasn’t very royal, and it sure as Fae fuck wasn’t fit for my own station in life. Still, neither of us had given a shit at that moment in time, running like does from wolves with sopping wet breeches.
Only to have wobbling, teetering skeletons give chase like it was all a jesting, frolicking game, thrusting their pelvic bones at us as if they had something to use.
And I’d turnedinvisible.
Walking with the spirits.
I hadn’t realized it then, running and tripping over my feet as I had been, away from the amorously enthusiastic dead.
But my best friend sure as fuck had.
