Free A Shade of Vampire 31: A Twist of Fates by Bella Forrest Page A

I approached the door and poked my head around it.
    The room was bare, except for a bed of kindling in one corner. Lying on the bed were two infants with skirts of black feathers around their waists—infants whom I immediately recognized as ogres. And surrounding them were two harpies. Their heads were those of women—with long, matted hair—yet their short, stunted bodies were those of feathery birds. Both of them had coal-black feathers, with hair to match.
    They were cooing softly—eerily—over the infants, apparently putting them to sleep.
    Tearing my eyes away from the bizarre scene, I moved into the next room along. There were no harpies in this one, but there was another bed of kindling, upon which lay three werewolf cubs. Their fur was pure white, and their eyes were closed. They looked terribly thin.
    The next room held another black-feathered harpy bending over a bed of twigs. She was hovering over five… infants. But what kind of infants, I had no idea. I’d never seen this species before in my life. Their small forms were humanoid, but their skin was scaly and the color of ash. Despite the scales, they were not dragons. I was sure of it. They each had two tiny bumps on either side of their foreheads. These were… something else. Something undiscovered.
    I wondered where the harpies had found all these children. It would not have surprised me if some of them had been stolen from their parents.
    It was also odd to me that they were all so young—babies. There weren’t even any toddlers around. If this orphanage had been going for years… What had happened to the other children they housed, who would have grown up? What had they done with them? Maybe I didn’t want to know that answer…
    I searched the rest of the ground floor—not finding any more children or harpies—and then the upstairs, which was by far the most dilapidated part of the house. Most of the windows hung open for the freezing breeze to flow in, and there was no indication that anybody lived up here or had even ventured up here recently except for the odd feather scattered on the dusty floors.
    I returned to the ground floor, defeated.
    Our specimens were not here. Maybe the harpies had done something to them.
    I needed to speak to those birdwomen.
    I hurried back outside to where the others were waiting and resumed my solid state so that they could see me. A hand grabbed me and pulled me closer; it felt like a woman’s hand—my mother’s, perhaps.
    “So there are definitely harpies in there, and it appears to still be a running orphanage,” I said, even as I winced at the latter word. “But I didn’t find any signs of the specimens. I’m going to go back and talk to them now. I’m thinking it’s best only one or two of us go, in case it makes them nervous.”
    “I’ll come with you.” A voice spoke to my right, the same person who had gripped my hand. It was Rose.
    Ibrahim removed the invisibility spell from her.
    “Okay,” I said, taking her hand. I looked toward the general direction of the others. “We’ll be back soon.”
    Rose and I headed to the building and knocked, as was decent.
    There were no sounds of anybody approaching for at least a minute. Then a grating voice called, “Who is it?”
    “A brother and a sister who mean you no harm,” were the first words that came to mind.
    Maybe she’d think we were orphans, come for shelter. Two rather overgrown orphans.
    I heard the sound of flapping wings.
    “Push the door open,” the unpleasant voice commanded. “It’s not locked!”
    It occurred to me that it might be difficult for them to open doors. That was probably why they kept open windows in the top floor, to serve as entrances into the building… even if it did mean allowing the freezing cold to seep down into the entire house. I imagined many babies wouldn’t have survived the cold, not to speak of the apparent lack of nourishment.
    Rose took the initiative and pushed the door, a little too