Marked (Valeterra Series Book 1) Read online

8.

  ~~~Jackson~~~

  “So she agreed to come to Valeterra with no proof that this place indeed exists?” I asked, dubious, fearing Stephanie was playing a cruel trick on me. We were at my cabin preparing for our monthly family meal. My niece Azure and Great Aunt Rose would be there shortly.

  “Yeah. I think I caught Valerie off guard when I showed up with the proposition. I think she’d only just received the eviction notice. She’s going to be pissed off at you…well, both of us when she finds out you were the one who bought her building. She’s heartbroken about losing the business. The bookstore is the only reason she agreed to come so readily and without thinking things through. I’m going back tomorrow and will probably stay in the area for a while to help her with the transition. Do you want to come with me?”

  More than anything in the world, but I couldn’t leave the pack the way it was.

  “No. I have no desire to spend a second in that world. I’ve seen photos and heard your stories. No thank you. They can keep their world,” I said, hating that I’d caused Valerie even an ounce of pain, but Stephanie and I couldn’t come up with a better plan to lure her to Valeterra.

  “I find it unfair to ask them to help us save our world when we’re doing nothing to help them save theirs.” She didn’t say that as an accusation against our people but more in sorrow that we truly couldn’t help the humans. The seers saw no good coming from aiding the humans in any real way. Every course we’d thought of led to the destruction of Valeterra, and our people would never allow that to happen. What little we had offered, though, the humans had dismissed. The humans had created their mess, and they’d have to be the ones to fix it.

  “You know we’ve offered to help, and they’ve declined. The humans are worried more about making money than saving their planet.” I promised myself that I would never tell Valerie just how corrupt her world was. I just hoped that she didn’t regret leaving it once she was in Valeterra. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle letting her return to that place once I had her.

  “I know. I’ll never understand the humans, and I find it hard to play one. I’m doing a good job, I guess. No one seems to notice my oddities.”

  “You just have to fake it for a few more weeks.”

  “Only a few weeks,” she said sarcastically. Changing the subject on me, she asked, “Are you moving into town because of her?”

  “I am,” I said defensively.

  Most of my pack lived in and around Greenleaf. I was acting Archon of the town even though it wasn’t technically on pack territory yet. I was slowly absorbing the surrounding packs considering I was one of the few alphas left in the area. Once she’d settled and I’d laid claim to her, I’d petition to have my territory line redrawn to include it.

  “I’m not arguing. I think that’s an excellent idea. I have a feeling Valerie will want to stay in town and not at this ultra-secluded cabin. Still, I can’t see you mingling with the common folk on a daily basis,” she said, needling me.

  “I’m just like everyone else. I’m not that much of a recluse. I’m our pack’s alpha. I have to talk to our people often already.”

  “Uh…no you don’t. You send others and me to talk to them for you. You’ve seen your pack once a week at most since…” She trailed off, and I knew she meant since Alexis died. Surely I hadn’t been that out of touch with my people.

  As if to answer my thought, Stephanie said, “I know you grieved hard over losing her, and your people have been patient with you, especially now that most of them know what you’re going through, but you have been a bit of a hermit these last fifty years. I’m glad you’re making an effort. I just don’t want you to push yourself too far past your comfort zone too quickly.”

  “If she’s my mate, I’m not leaving her alone in town. I’ll be as close to her as possible in case there’s trouble.”

  “Do you foresee trouble?” Stephanie asked, eyeing my reaction.

  “From those against this plan, yes. I’m hoping her transition here goes smoothly, but I’m planning for it to go badly.”

  “If that’s the case, maybe she shouldn’t come.”

  “It’s too late now to back out. Valerie has to come.” I know I sounded a little panicky, but the thought of her staying in her world made me want to kidnap her and hide her away in my cabin, something that wasn’t acceptable in either world.

  9.

  ~~~Valerie~~~

  Seven weeks later, I kissed my sister goodbye on the steps of our home. We were both bawling as if we would never see each other again. Gail was crying that hard because I was leaving her side for the first time in years despite the fact that I promised her that I wouldn’t stay gone forever and that I would be home during the holidays. I prayed that she would be in Valeterra within the year, and I knew the probability was high that she would be, but I cried as if I were saying goodbye to her, the house, our life together for the last time. I also cried because I was scared of what I was about to do.

  All morning, Gail followed me from my room to the SUV parked in front of our house and back again, as I loaded the vehicle with all the items I couldn’t bring myself to leave behind. I couldn’t take any furniture yet, but I packed nearly every item of clothing I owned, all my favorite books, photos, and pretty much whatever else I could fit into the back of the vehicle.

  Instead of telling Gail that I was taking a trip to Europe or a cruise, I told her I was driving across the country, and I didn’t know when I’d come back home. I told her that I needed to clear my head and have some alone time. That last part was true. I was going to use the time to focus on myself.

  Over the last few years, I’d gained more weight than I would have liked. I’d always been on the thick side, but what I weighed right at that moment was more than I’d ever weighed. I might take up jogging, I told myself while planning my new life. My health wasn’t bad, but I figured I should probably get a handle on things before I developed diabetes and other problems. I wasn’t sure if they had yoga classes in Valeterra, but one could hope, or I could get a few books to teach myself some of the poses.

  Stephanie wasn’t big on dispersing information about Valeterra despite my constant barrage of questions. She did tell me that Valeterra was more rural than our world was, but that was due to the low population and lack of technology. They didn’t need ten story apartment complexes to house large families or skyscrapers for big businesses. She told me to think of the smallest town I had ever visited that had maybe one stop light in the middle of Main Street because most of their towns were that size. Some were slightly bigger, but most were much smaller.

  I was both anxious and scared to cross over to Valeterra. At the same time, I was dubious that it existed. I finally saw the video of a male, not Jackson unfortunately, stripping and shifting. Stephanie also showed me videos taken of the portal zones. Yes, the videos looked real and helped convince me I wasn’t losing my mind in agreeing to everything. The money they spent on me also helped. I couldn’t see spending that much on someone like me for a hoax.

  Reluctantly, I pulled myself from my sister’s arms and got into the vehicle. Without looking back, I pulled out of my driveway and turned toward the interstate. Stephanie and a tall, dark-haired gentleman by the name of Scott met me at a small airport across town. We wouldn’t be flying to the portal, but they would be able to store my vehicle there for me to use when I returned. My SUV wasn’t properly equipped to run in their world. When I baulked about not having my own form of transportation, Stephanie told me to worry. Very few people in her world had cars, as very few creatures were in need of one, and that they would provide me one if I needed it.

  At the airport, Scott transferred my belongings to a bigger vehicle that didn’t look that much different from one of ours on the outside. ON the inside though it ran on solar power while in our world and magic and solar in Valeterra. Stephanie and I sat in the middle row while Scott drove so that she and I could talk about what I should expect. She was vague on so much of
it that I worried even more that they were playing me or that I was walking into something completely different than a simple “set up a bookstore and maybe meet a hot guy” situation.

  Scott drove us deep into the Tennessee mountains. When the road became gravel, then became dirt, I started to panic.

  “Everything is fine, Ms. Stutts,” Stephanie said. “Some of the portals are in slightly more public areas, but most are in a secure place like this, which is a good thing. You wouldn’t want people and creatures moving back and forth at random. Their location also makes us, and them, wonder if someone from Valeterra didn’t open the portals on purpose.”

  “Is that possible? Why would one of them do something like that,” I asked, trying not to let the blurry trees passing us by distract me.

  “It’s possible, yes. Proven, no. As to why, I don’t know. Either way, it’s a good thing that whatever caused them made them mostly hidden from the people of this world.”

  “Will the other side look like this?” I said, nodding toward the world outside the vehicle.

  “Pretty much. Greenleaf is close to the portal, though. Maybe a ten-minute drive, so you won’t be in the middle of the woods.”

  We drove for another twenty minutes, then Scott slowed to a stop. He turned to face Stephanie, and my heart began to beat wildly in my chest. That was the moment where I would die—I just knew it. Those two were Satanists or something, and they were about to sacrifice me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, reaching for the door handle, readying myself to escape. I wouldn’t get far as out of shape as I was. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t try.

  “I have to cross over first to let them know you are here,” Scott said.

  Stephanie nodded and opened her door.

  “Want to move up front so you can better see where we’re going?” she asked me.

  I nodded slowly and followed Scott out of the vehicle. He walked around to the front bumper and pulled off his jacket, socks, shirt, and pants, while Stephanie and I watched. It took me a second to realize what he was about to do and from which world he was from, and it wasn’t mine.

  Shocked, I opened my mouth to say something, but Stephanie cut me off, saying, “Watch.”

  Scott didn’t seem to mind that Stephanie and I were seeing him in the near nude. I blushed and looked away when he got to his underwear. Stephanie did not.

  I’d seen the video of the wolf changing. I’d read about how shapeshifters and weres turned in books and saw them do it in movies and TV shows. Some shows depicted the shift as painful, others as if it happened in the blink of an eye. Scott’s change was in between the two just like the man in the video’s change. He didn’t make a noise as if it hurt, but he grunted a time or two as his joints popped and his body transformed into a dark, gray cougar. It didn’t take long, but I was so awestruck by it that it felt like it took an hour.

  Up until then, I had told myself I believed, or well, that I wanted to believe, but I hadn’t believed, not really, not until Scott shifted right in front of me. Once he was in animal form he turned to Stephanie before disappearing.

  “What the…” I said.

  “He said he’d be right back,” Stephanie said as if that was what I was questioning. That hadn’t been what I wanted to know, but once she mentioned it, I then wanted to know how she’d known what he said.

  “You understood him?” I asked, turning on her in confusion and fear.

  “Yeah,” she said as if her being able to do so meant nothing.

  “How?” I asked, growing a bit angrier.

  “I’ll tell you all about Scott and me when we cross over,” she said, reaching for the door handle.

  At that second, Scott crossed back over the border. He apparently gave Stephanie the go ahead, because she asked me to get into the vehicle.

  “Can we cross over in this thing?” I asked. My head was swimming, so I chose that subject to focus my thoughts.

  “We can cross through this portal in something this large and heavy, but not many of the other portals.”

  Looking doubtfully from her to the area the portal was supposed to be and down at the cougar pacing the portal’s entrance, I got into the vehicle. There was no going back then, and I knew it. Bracing myself for what was to come, I stared forward and let a virtual stranger take me to a new world.

  I didn’t know what I thought I expected to see when we crossed that invisible line, but it wasn’t what I saw before me. I looked over my shoulder, then back through the windshield. Nothing had changed. Nothing. The trees and plant life that had surrounded me on my side of the portal surrounded me on the Valeterra side. If I hadn’t seen Scott change and disappear into thin air, I would have been confident that the two of them had been lying to me.

  Stephanie pulled to a stop a few yards from the portal and two men approached her window. I had been so caught up in looking forward and out my window that I hadn’t seen the log building to the left of us that almost blended into the forest. She rolled down her window and handed Scott’s clothing to one of the men. He carried it into the building while the other one gaped at me.

  “Close your mouth, Saul. You’ll catch flies,” Stephanie said to the man. “Yes, she’s a human, but she won’t bite you. Compared to you and your inner bear, she’s harmless.”

  I wanted to growl at her words, but if he was a bear, then harmless was what I was in comparison. I also wanted to know who she was. She obviously wasn’t human. I’d known something was off about her, but I hadn’t guessed she wasn’t human.

  Saul didn’t respond to her. He just kept staring at me.

  The second man came back with a human-looking Scott in tow. Stephanie got out of the vehicle and moved to the middle seat. I started to ask her if she wanted me to join her, but she shook her head before I could open my mouth.

  “You stay up there. I’m from Greenleaf. I know the town. You enjoy the view.”

  Scott nodded to the two men, and we started toward town. I grew nervous all over again.

  10.

  ~~~Valerie~~~

  Greenleaf opened up before me in tiny increments. At first, all I saw were trees, lots and lots of trees. Gradually, I started to glimpse dirt driveways and dirt roads hidden by brush and trees. After a while, I saw driveways with open lawns to either side, but with houses so far down the drive that I couldn’t see them. Slowly some of those driveways turned to gravel roads. Most I wasn’t able to spot until we came upon them. Eventually, the houses started coming into view a little at a time just as the road beneath us began to shift from dirt, gravel, broken pavement, and smooth asphalt.

  When our vehicle bumped onto the paved road, I started, shocked by the sudden change. I hadn’t expected a paved road. Why? I don’t know. Stephanie had said they were rural, so I had been half expecting to step back in time to the Middle Ages. I’m glad I hadn’t voiced any of my thoughts or expectations aloud to her or Scott.

  Stephanie laughed and shook her head at me as if she could read my mind. Scott looked annoyed and offended.

  “Hey,” I said to both of them, “if Saul can look at me as if I have two heads, I can be surprised by what I find here.”

  Besides, the paved roads made me wonder again if I were truly in another world. Scott’s shifting and disappearing act could have all been a show or a mere trick of the light. I didn’t say that last bit. I didn’t want to piss them off.

  As we neared town, the houses started popping up closer and closer together and closer to the road, not as near one another as they were in my neighborhood, but close enough that two people could stand on the porch of two neighboring homes and almost hear each other scream hello.

  The entire time we drove to town, Stephanie told me about herself and Scott.

  I knew we’d reached the town when I saw a small park with a single child playing on a swing set. I didn’t see an adult anywhere near the child. I found that worrisome but told myself not to judge anyone until I knew the customs of their land. Behind the park was
a small building that I assumed was a school. A bank came into view shortly after we passed the school, then a post office—all the little buildings you see on Christmas postcards depicting what life was like fifty to seventy years ago. I wondered at that moment when I saw an apothecary next to a library how it came to be that we had the same language. The two worlds were too similar to have different timelines and histories. I made a mental note to ask Stephanie about it at our nearest convenience.

  There weren’t many people wandering the streets, and all of them looked human. I had hoped to see a fairy, a troll, hell even a smurf, but all I saw was the same group of humans I would have seen at home.

  “We’re here,” Stephanie said from behind me, and I looked away from the couple I had been watching to see that we had pulled up in front of a two-story building.

  The building was a dark red brick with five tall, thin windows that arched at the top running the front of the building with a beautifully crafted stained glass bevel door with matching transom set off to the right of the windows. The apartment above had a black metal balcony with windows that matched the storefront. The entire thing was too much and way out of my budget. The rent for the apartment alone would be a thousand or so a month back in my tiny hometown.

  I turned to Stephanie to voice my worries that I couldn’t afford the building, but she was ready for my argument.

  “Don’t start arguing. The rent for everything is seven hundred dollars, or well, Valeterra’s equivalent of such—five for the store and two for the apartment. We will help you out for the first couple of months if your sales aren’t enough. We have faith that in about six months you’ll be doing fantastic business.

  “I hope so,” I said, looking up at the building. “Seven hundred dollars. That can’t be real.”

  “We’ve already stocked the place with books,” Stephanie said as she unlocked the door and motioned for me to enter. “We photographed your store and a few others and a few libraries to make sure we had the right layout. Your stockroom has more books in it. We have people on Earth’s side who will be placing orders for you so that you can stay current with new releases and the like. Scott will show you how to work the database that runs your computer and register. It will be much more primitive than what you’re used to, sorry. It will show us, though, what you’re selling the most of to help us keep stock of what’s popular here.”