Free Fierce Dawn by Amber Scott Page A

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, like you said, leave her alone. Can’t have any unwanted attention, can we?”
    Elijah considered transporting her again, but he itched to return to Sadie, to verify she was safe.
    The smile reached the other side of her mouth, lending a wicked quality to her delicate features. She crouched down to the dirt. “Just so you know, flyboy, I’m not a shifter. And next time, try not to jump to conclusions. I may be able to help you one day. She’s a changeling and she will want to know others like her .”
    Elijah’s rage unleashed. A blink before he could snap through the few feet between them, though , the girl vanished.
    He stopped, spun right, left, scanning the sparse landscape for signs of her. None. His mind boggled. Never had he witnessed such a thing from any being. Had she transported so fast he couldn’t detect the thick reverberation?
    He couldn’t hear or sense her at all.
    Elijah yanked at the compass around his neck, fumbling to read it for signs of a trace. Nothing! If she were fast enough to leave undetectable — “Sadie,” he whispered, dread fingering up his spine. With one last penetrating scan, hearing not the faintest tick of sound, he leapt back to Sadie’s last location.
    He landed outside the house he’d shoved Sadie toward, his best guess as her destination before. He gathered in his wings and energy. The sodden ground squished under his steps as he strode to the rear of the stucco home. Soundlessly hopping over a cinderblock wall, he honed in on Sadie’s sound. Finding it easily enough, he switched to a peripheral search for any immortal traces. From its perch on the window screen, a scorpion pointed its stinger. Elijah flicked the thing away and peered through. He could sense her , but needed to see her face.
    Safe.
    Had the changeling made it here first? Had she come back at all?
    Again, his mind wound around the potential consequences of what the creature claimed. If Sadie was a changeling messenger…if others knew or found out…Elijah’s chances of keeping her a secret seemed nil. What would he do if he were the hunter and Sadie his prey?
    Peering against the cold glass he saw her, a glimpse, only for a moment, but his fears quieted.
    What had he been thinking transporting the shif — changeling? He should have seen there was no real danger. Now, someone else knew Sadie held some significance. Looking for other changelings or not, he couldn’t dismiss his suspicions that there was more.
    Who else knew? Holly, Lyric.
    Holly wouldn’t betray him for the world. Or risk any chance of finding