Free Yearnings: A Paranormal Romance Box Set by Amber Scott, Carolyn McCray

this shifter sensed something in Sadie? The fact incensed further hope in him and Holly’s first words echoed through his mind. I think she’s a messenger, or could be, somehow .
    If Sadie was a human changeling, becoming a messenger…Crusoe could be found. If she could be fully transformed, taught to see…. The Illeautians might be stopped before it was too late. But if humans could or were evolving — no. Impossible. That would be too close to the very prophecy that had supposedly inspired the Illeautians in the first place.
    The lost verses of the Book of Sorrows predicted the marriage of the mortal and immortal realms, once cleaved in two to protect each race. The missing pages supposedly foretold of the collapse of realm lines.
    Elijah’s mouth went dry as his neck flushed with sweat. His gut felt hollowed out.
    He couldn’t believe it.
    The shifter was just lying to get free. “Who ordered you to watch her?”
    “ What? No one. I found her. No one else.”
    Liar. Elijah paced a slow circle around the girl. A faint coyote howl pierced the silence. The bitter scent of the brush prickled in his nose. It masked the shifter’s scent but she wasn’t cloaking her signal.
    “ Okay, okay,” she said, fidgeting under his scrutiny, showing him her palms. “What do I know? She’s not a changeling. Happy? I’ll leave her alone”
    If other immortals discovered what Sadie potentially was, be it half-breed or changeling, she would be in danger. If a single Illeautian found even a trace of evidence that the prophecy was true, Elijah couldn’t begin to appreciate the consequences.
    Would they push the collapse of realm lines and annihilate mortals completely? Or settle for enslaving them? Use them like cattle for their blood and energy, breeding with those who could?
    What would they do with a changeling? Particularly a potential mess e nger?
    He wouldn’t let it happen. He’d hide Sadie in the epicenter of the most remote vortex forever before he’d let an Illeautian have her. “I don’t believe you. Last chance, shifter.”
    “ You don’t have to believe me. It doesn’t make it a lie, though.”
    It was all he could do not to grab her by the throat. She’d done nothing provably wrong, though, outside of antics. Elijah snapped the space between them closed.
    She stumbled back. “How’d you do that?”
    He cocked his head, wary but curious. Did she not know what he was? He grabbed a fistful of her billowing shirt, unfurled his wings and launched skyward.
    She screamed, kicking, holding tightly to his arm.
    “ Tell me who sent you after Sadie now or I transport, shifter.”
    Fear thrummed a beat he could hear. She clawed at his hand and arm, her eyes wide on the scabbed ground far below them. “Uh…uh…the Illipticals, er, Illeautians. Okay? Please, just put us down, okay?”
    Liar. He could hear it in her. “Why don’t you know what I am?”
    She balked but kept quiet, gripping his arm with both hands. “I do know. You’re immortal. You’ve got wings and do the whole blip into space thing.”
    What game was this? Elijah spun their bodies higher.
    “ Okay, stop! I swear to you on my life, I’ll leave her alone. I’ll forget she exists entirely.”
    “ Why did she spark your interest? Looking for blood? Why hers?”
    “ Ew, no! Look, I had my reasons. Purely personal. Completely forgotten now.” She wriggled in the air. “I’m not what you think I am. I’m not some derelict shifter. I don’t get off on scaring humans.”
    “ Return to your brethren , ” he said, alighting back down to the hard, crackled ground. “Before you find enforcement on your heels.”
    Elijah released her.
    Stepping back from him, she gave him a long, measuring look. “I have no brethren.”
    His temper flared. “Then find some.”
    One side of her mouth quirked up. She laughed humorlessly. “That’s what I was doing. Looking for others like me.” With each sarcastic word, she retreated another step. “But,