Raptor's Peak: Switch of Fate 4 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1 - Canary In A Gold Mine

  Chapter 2 - Eagle Wants A Cracker

  Chapter 3 - Catbird Seat

  Chapter 4 - Birds Of A Feather

  Chapter 5 - A Bird In The Hand

  Chapter 6 - A Room Full Of Rocking Chairs

  Chapter 7 - Cat’s Meow

  Chapter 8 - Playing Chicken

  Chapter 9 - Flip The Bird

  Chapter 10 - Cat Under A Hot Man’s Roof

  Chapter 11 - Cat’s Pajamas

  Chapter 12 - I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat

  Chapter 13 - Pussyfooting Around

  Chapter 14 - Fly Like An Eagle

  Chapter 15 - No Spring Chicken

  Chapter 16 - Ruffled Feathers

  Chapter 17 - Ducks In A Row

  Chapter 18 - Cat’s Cradle

  Chapter 19 - Cool As A Cat

  Chapter 20 - Catnapped

  Chapter 21 - Stray Cat Strut

  Chapter 22 - Curiosity Bit The Cat

  Chapter 23 - Broken Wings

  Chapter 24 - Cat Got Your Tongue

  Chapter 25 - Cat’s Outta The Bag

  Chapter 26 - More Than One Way To Shift A Cat

  Chapter 27 - Cat Burglar

  Chapter 28 - Cat Fights

  Chapter 29 - Cat Dragged In

  Chapter 30 - Good For The Goose

  Chapter 31 - Swan Song

  Chapter 32 - Under Their Wing

  Chapter 33 - Early Bird Catches The Squirm

  Chapter 34 - Two In The Bush

  Chapter 35 - Hawkeye

  Chapter 36 - Crazy As A Loon

  Chapter 37 - A Little Birdie Told Me

  Chapter 38 - Feather The Nest

  Chapter 39 - The Caged Cat Sings

  Chapter 40 - Alley Cat

  Chapter 41 - Herding Cats

  Chapter 42 - Cat’s Eyes

  Chapter 43 - Sitting Ducks

  Chapter 44 - Fate Spirals

  Chapter 45 - Cock Of The Walk

  Chapter 46 - Home Sweet Nest

  Author’s Note

  RAPTOR’S PEAK

  SWITCH OF FATE BOOK 4

  by Lisa Ladew

  and Grace Quillen

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons or organizations, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  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 permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Copyright © 2018 Lisa Ladew and Grace Quillen. All Rights Reserved

  Acknowledgements

  Book cover by The Final Wrap <3

  Cover model: Caylan Hughes

  Photographer: WANDER AGUIAR

  So many thanks to the readers <3 We love you so much. Thanks also to our wonderful beta team and to the Dew Crew and BBB (Facebook groups). We have fun, don’t we? <3

  Chapter 1 - Canary In A Gold Mine

  Aven Kittrell stopped outside the crumpled entrance to the gold mine and considered. His eyes traveled over downed saplings and blasted stone, taking in every scrap of information, trying to see it fresh. If there were clues to what had happened here, to what he’d missed, Aven would find them this time.

  He tilted his head up and squinted into the late-morning, October sun. Maybe he would have better luck from the air.

  Aven was the lone eagle shifter of The Cause. The Cause was the only vampire-eradication game in town, consisting of all variety of shifters, plus a coven of magical female vampire assassins called switches. As the only flyer in The Cause, Aven had happily shouldered more than his share of responsibility… until he screwed up.

  He’d screwed up bad, right here at this mine. Exactly six days, fourteen hours, and - Aven checked his watch - forty-seven minutes ago.

  And he was no closer to figuring out what he’d missed. Somehow the bloodsuckers had rigged the mine to blow. Aven hadn’t sniffed it out. Three switches and six shifters could have been buried under tons of stone and precious metal, decimating The Cause’s fighting force and maiming a few of his good friends. It was only thanks to another shifter that they had found out in time to save everyone. Almost everyone.

  Aven eyed the dry, marked terrain around him again, searching petrified tire tracks for clues that didn’t exist.

  Frustrated, Aven clacked his teeth together once, hard. He pulled off his Search and Rescue team hat and ran a hand through his short hair.

  It was the middle of his patrol shift, so he was wearing his full uniform; forest green pants, wide-brimmed khaki hat, and a khaki button-down shirt. He’d been up in Cheoah National Forest, a few minutes’ air time north of here, keeping an eye on climbers and hikers who, if they were smart and lucky, would never need him. But Aven’s mind had wandered, and the breeze had carried him back to Nantahala.

  Call it a coffee break.

  All of this was unacceptable to him. The fact that he’d messed up, the fact that he couldn’t figure out why he’d messed up, and of course the fact that it was messing with his head so bad.

  For most of his life Aven had made a habit out of not making mistakes. Whether it was the extra layer of sense that raptors had about the world around them, or just the expectations he’d upheld as a Navy SEAL, whole chunks of years had gone by when Aven hadn’t put a talon wrong.

  Lately it seemed he couldn’t turn around without stepping in it. And the bigger the mistakes got, the more chance he was going to take someone down with him.

  Completely unacceptable.

  The rumble of an approaching engine pulled Aven’s focus back to his surroundings. He recognized the sound of Riot’s motorcycle. Riot was a mountain lion shifter, bound to Breath Coven by a certain switch named Gemma. He was also the one who’d saved Aven’s ass last week, tipping him off to what the vampires were really up to. If Riot hadn’t been there, none of them would be here.

  Riot rolled into view, kicking up dust and dirt with his back tire. He coasted to a stop, dropped the kickstand, and cut the engine, When he pulled off his helmet, his unruly black hair flopped over his face like always. He relaxed in his motorcycle seat and surveyed the hills rising above them, kicking up his boots, looking like he was home. Riot had never looked that way before Gemma came into his life.

  Riot flicked one hand toward a rocky peak jutting into the sky above them, then spoke lazily, explaining his presence. “I had a climbing group up the way, and then I ended up here. I should have known I’d find you.”

  A wave of guilt rose off Riot in that special way that only raptors could sense. They called it a “vibe”, and it told him what the cat wasn’t saying. The Cause had fucked up. Aven nodded, glad he didn’t have to say it. Riot was a good male, even if he didn’t look it with his wall-to-wall tattoos and cocky attitude. He wasn’t going to blow smoke up Aven’s ass, try to tell him that the hunt had been an unqualified success, that nothing had been missed. Stuff had been missed, and they were both hanging onto it.

  There had been a truckload of human women that the vampires had moved out of the mines before The Cause showed up to the hunt. The media considered them victims of the TSK - the Tri-State Kidnapper - a human nickname for what humans didn’t know were actually groups of vampires, abducting women all over the Southeast. As far as The Cause knew, the vampires still had the women, and were holding them captive somewhere. Aven’s gut seethed with the thought.

  Riot broke into his thoughts. “Nothing new?”

  Aven shook his head, anger ma
king his words tight. “I’m out here two, three times a day, looking for clues. Even slept out here a couple nights. What did we miss?”

  “We wouldn’t have even known about them if it wasn’t for you,” Riot said, his voice pitched low.

  Aven didn’t respond right away. He knew what Riot said was true, but he also knew they could have saved those women if Aven hadn’t read the situation so wrong. Something raptors were not supposed to do.

  “Lot of good it did them,” Aven bit out.

  Riot shook his head, a hard look in his eyes. “Gemma’s working on it. We’ll find them,”

  Aven nodded once, sharply. They would.

  Riot flipped his helmet in his hands, preparing to replace it on his head. “Come to Sparring tonight. I’ll kick your ass,” he said with a smirk. “Help you work the bugs out.”

  Aven growled in agreement. The growl was part kidding, part mammal-mocking, but mostly just because everyone around him did it and Aven found himself doing it, too. It was easy and women liked it.

  He waved Riot off as the shifter put his helmet on and started his bike, kicking up a cloud of dust when he turned in a tight circle and rode back the way he’d come.

  Aven stood there another moment, considering Riot’s words. He wouldn’t give up on fixing this, but maybe it was time to let someone else take the lead. If he could back off a little bit, maybe he could figure out what in the hell had happened.

  Still, one more flyover never hurt a soul.

  With one determined push Aven shoved into his eagle. His clothes disappeared under his feathers, but Aven could still feel them, like a layer of skin had been added when Cora, his boss’s mate, had put the everweft spell on him.

  The ground dropped away beneath him. Aven tracked every squirrel scurrying to safety, every leaf as it drifted to the forest floor. His feathers ruffled with the rising air currents, a harsh, cold wind against his face. He swooped over the gold mine for a better view.

  It was like nothing else, flying. Aven might complain about the extra responsibilities he had, but the freedom that flying provided made them all worth it. One shift and Aven could go anywhere. Around the world, if he planned it right. Flying had been a constant joy in his life since he’d been five years old and taken his first leap off a Colorado cliffside, felt the rush of pure liberation.

  Aven slipped into an air current that pushed him upward, tilting his wings so the wind would keep him aloft. He let his eyes wander the landscape. Two mice burrowed into pine needles a hundred feet below him, looking for seeds. An empty cicada shell hung from the tree trunk inches above their heads.

  He turned and made for the thick wilderness behind the mines, where the explosions had started.

  As Aven scanned the ground, his mind scanned the past, searching for imperfections he could pick apart and analyze. He was missing something, big time. Ever since that bad op eighteen months ago, his last with the SEALs, something about Aven had been… off.

  Not everything. His body was still lean, ripped, and ready, honed to a sharp edge by his active lifestyle and years of discipline. Riot may joke about Aven getting his ass kicked, but it hadn’t happened in a long time. His raptor mind was still keen, able to handle the rigors of designing software for The Cause’s new interactive shooting range or on-the-spot strategic decisions.

  Still, something internal wasn’t firing right. He felt it.

  A flock of birds burst out of a treetop nearby. Aven startled in mid-air as the crowd flowed away from him. He let his predatory instinct take over, just for the practice, and focused on the flock. Blue jays. Those birds were assholes.

  Aven squinted his eyes and stretched his six-foot wingspan as far as it could go, pushing hard against the breeze until he was above and behind the jays. He dove, splitting the group with his body. A few playful snaps made them scatter like dry leaves.

  Aven got back to business. He coasted, gliding on currents, making a wide turn back to the forest behind the mine site, tightening his focus on the ground, tracking the line of craters marking where the vampires had set the explosives that had blown the mine. Every twenty feet was another spot where the dirt rose in dark clumps, thick brush was blasted clear, and taller trees leaned slightly away from the devastation at their roots.

  A glint in a crater caught his eye. Something was down there. Something that surely could only be seen from the sky, thick as the forest was out here. A surge of hope heated his predator's chest. Aven folded his wings and dive-bombed for it.

  He slashed through the air, eyes on the shimmering glint all the way down. Aven levered his feet down and his head back at the last minute, ready to drop both talons to the ground. In that split second, in mid-air, he shifted. Talons became boots that hit the ground like he’d jumped from only a foot above.

  Aven walked as a man, his feathers magically transformed to clothes he could take on and off. The everweft was an incredible spell. Just the freedom it provided made being involved in The Cause worthwhile. Knowing witches had its perks.

  His shoelace dragged in the dirt. Damn. Aven’s everweft was coming loose again, like it did every few days, along with those of every Cause-involved shifter except the three who were covenbound to Breath Coven: Jameson (an unnaturally big wolf, and Aven’s boss with the Forest Service), Flint (a big-ass bear, but an okay guy), and Riot-the-cat. They could shift a hundred times and never have a problem.

  Aven’s theory was that, because each of the three covenbound shifters had had their everwefts done by their claimed mates, the magic in their spells was stronger. Which left Aven screwed.

  He was not covenbound to Breath Coven. Meaning, he wasn’t part of The Cause because fate had forced him into it, lit his eyes up, made them glow whenever one particular coven was in trouble. Nope, Aven was part of The Cause because he wanted to be. Not a thing on him glowed.

  Cora had already redone the spell for him twice, the second time just last night. Aven wasn’t complaining, though. Anything was better than showing up naked to a vampire fight.

  He stooped down to retie his boot, his eye on the crater, locating the glint of light that had caught his attention. From Aven’s vantage point, it looked like a long shard of crystal, half buried in the dirt. He lunged forward and snagged the eight-inch shard, working it free.

  Aven held it up and turned it over, the strangest feeling surging through his hands. He gripped the crystal tighter, sensing for just a moment a buzz like a live wire. But that was crazy. It was attached to nothing, and crystals didn’t buzz.

  The feeling faded. Aven stared at the crystal for a long time, willing the buzz to come back, or the feeling to tell him something important. His raptor senses lay silent. Damn. His eyes traced a shock of cobalt blue inside the crystal, looking like cold lightning, forever trapped.

  Aven’s phone rang. He shoved the crystal into one jacket pocket and fished his phone from another. He looked at the display and grinned.

  Dallas was calling.

  Chapter 2 - Eagle Wants A Cracker

  Aven was surprised to see his friend’s number. Dallas hadn’t answered Aven’s calls in nearly a year. Worry pierced Aven’s thoughts. Was Dallas still in pain? Aven would know as soon as he answered the phone because their strong connection meant that if Dallas felt something, Aven felt it, too.

  Dallas’s vibe had been agony the last time they’d talked, because of a lingering injury he could not shake, not even with a shift. Aven didn’t care about his own discomfort. He’d feel it all day long. He hated it for Dallas.

  Aven answered the phone, a smile forced into his voice. “Big D! How's your ‘rowr’ hangin’?”

  ‘Rowr’ and 'skree’ had started as a private joke, a way to reference what the two of them could do and others couldn’t. Technically Dallas was half-human, but as long as he had the skills Aven didn’t give a shit about his bloodline. The rest of their team had all been only human. They’d had no idea that Aven could become an eagle at will, and Dallas, a jaguar.

  �
�Long and a little to the left, A-Game. You still got that ‘skree’ in your step?” Dallas replied.

  Aven hedged for a moment, feeling Dallas out, before he spoke, glad to hear the strength in his friends voice, the teasing in his manner. He was better. Way better. Still a little pain, but maybe his wound had finally healed.

  Dallas’ lingering wound had not been Aven’s fault, technically, but Aven had been in charge of the military operation during which it occurred, so yeah, Aven took full responsibility for it. But he could do absolutely nothing about it, which sucked in ways Aven didn’t like to think about.

  Dallas had been shot in the foot, which was bad enough, since he could not shift to heal it around their teammates. He’d also been bitten by a snake, which was horrible, because shifters couldn’t clear snake venom with a shift. Sometimes, the effects of a snake bite were even worse for shifters than for humans; a bite that would have been non-fatal for a human could kill a shifter if no anti-venom was available.

  But wait. Dallas had called him A-game, a nickname Aven hadn’t heard since he’d left the military. Even Dallas didn’t call him that anymore. Something was up.

  Aven answered carefully. “One eye on the sky. What’s up?”

  Dallas laughed lightly. “I need a favor. You know my sister?”

  A picture flashed in Aven’s mind, of a female in an Arizona Highway Patrol uniform, her serious gaze looking past the person taking her photograph as she was sworn in, and Dallas' proud face as he showed off the photo. That had been ten years ago, when she had been fresh out of the academy. By now she must be, what, early thirties? Aven had never officially met Dakota Manteo.

  Aven walked in a small circle around the crater he’d been examining, between the blown-up dirt and leaning trees. “She still a cop out west?”

  Dallas grunted. Aven felt a wave of apprehension travel with the sound. Ordinarily his raptor sense wasn’t so clear over the phone, but his closeness to Dallas made it stronger.

  “Highly decorated and one hundred percent dedicated, up until four days ago. Now she’s gone.”