Shifting Fate Read online

  The Descendants Series

  Book Two:

  Shifting Fate

  Melissa Wright

  Copyright 2013 by Melissa Wright

  Smashwords Edition

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This one’s for Regina, who continues to inspire me. Thank you for the years of support and friendship; it’s been an incredible experience and I’m so grateful to have had you for it. To Brittany, who makes me a better writer, and Jenn, who keeps reminding me why this is the best job in the world. You guys are amazing! And to Mom. Because.

  ***

  Prologue

  Chapter 1 Wounds

  Chapter 2 Watched

  Chapter 3 Concealed

  Chapter 4 Archives

  Chapter 5 Connections

  Chapter 6 Confessions

  Chapter 7 Outings

  Chapter 8 Histories

  Chapter 9 Prophecy

  Chapter 10 Discovery

  Chapter 11 Dragons

  Chapter 12 Abandoned

  Chapter 13 Found

  Chapter 14 Return

  Chapter 15 Captured

  Chapter 16 Secrets

  Chapter 17 The Key

  Chapter 18 Threads

  Chapter 19 Time

  Chapter 20 Breaking

  Chapter 21 Morgan

  Chapter 22 Fire

  Prologue

  Emily

  It was my birthday. I was eighteen years old, lying in a hospital bed at the Division, waiting to find out who had died. This was the life of a prophet.

  This was my life.

  “Brianna,” Brendan said the moment he came through the door. I was so relieved to hear something other than the steady beep, beep, beep of the monitors, I actually smiled.

  It was the wrong thing to do.

  Brendan took my hand as he sat on the stool beside my bed. It was too awkward to pull away, and too uncomfortable to let it pass. I tried to sit up, but he protested. Instead, he rose to adjust the head of the bed a few inches higher. When he settled back onto the stool, my hands were resting in my lap. He took one anyway.

  “Brianna,” he repeated, and he was so utterly relieved that I felt a pang of guilt at wanting to deny him. I liked Brendan, I did.

  I swallowed hard, forcing the thought away. “Who was hurt? Is there anyone I can help?”

  Brendan shook his head. “No. No more of that. You need to recover, Brianna.”

  “I’m fine.” I stared him down. “They said I was fine.”

  He smiled. “They aren’t lying to you.” His eyes fell to my side, where the white cotton blankets covered the hours-old wound. “The cut was clean, and somehow, Aern managed to miss anything important.”

  His eyes came back to mine. The blades had been my request. I had chosen them specially, and Brendan had gone out of his way to bring them in time. For my sister. The Chosen.

  I did pull away then, because I could not share the prophecy. It was all too fresh.

  Brendan leaned back, his hands falling to the legs of his black slacks. I finally got a good look at him then; his button-up shirt was rolled at the sleeves, wrinkled and smudged. He was not himself yet. He’d had no sleep.

  “How many were lost?” I whispered.

  He took a deep breath. “Too many. Far too many.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I could have done better.”

  His jaw clenched. “Don’t. Don’t take this on yourself, Brianna. Everyone knows it was my order. I made the call.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Suddenly, the sound of a throat clearing came from the doorway. I opened my eyes to see my sister, fingers laced tightly into Aern’s.

  “Emily,” I said, grateful to see her well. Safe.

  Brendan stood, drumming the tips of his fingers against his leg, and gestured toward the others. “I’ll let you …”

  As he passed them on his way out, Emily wagged her eyebrows at me. But I had to look away, because I hadn’t told her about the man in my visions. The man who wasn’t Brendan.

  And then guilt struck again, because it was one more secret I was keeping from her.

  “How are you?” she asked as they reached my bedside.

  “Fine,” I answered, smiling until my gaze trailed to Aern. He stood beside her, face so distorted with remorse, shame, and absolute regret that I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. When he opened his mouth to speak, I raised a hand to stop him. “No, Aern. Don’t even say it.”

  He uttered the first syllable and I said, “Stop.”

  Emily’s lip twitched and her eyes fell to their hands, both white-knuckled with his grip on her.

  “Brianna,” he growled, “Please let me—”

  I cut him off. “No. I won’t let you apologize for something that wasn’t your fault.”

  We all knew how the sway worked, and there was no question he’d done everything he could to subvert Morgan’s order, to save me by not going for the kill. By missing every vital organ.

  But that didn’t stop the torture of guilt. I stared straight into his beautiful, grief-stricken eyes. It hadn’t just been me. Aern had lost so many of his men. His friends. His family.

  An apology of my own almost came out, but I held it back, pushing it into the pit of my stomach where all of the other guilt lay so heavily. Instead, I said, “It was the only way.”

  Chapter One

  Wounds

  On the eve of my eighteenth birthday, I was stabbed. I had known it was coming, but there could be no other path, and I’d had to accept it. Such was my life. The life of a prophet.

  So I couldn’t say I was surprised when the man with the gun appeared in my bedroom.

  “Don’t make a sound,” he warned, his voice low, emotionless.

  I held up my hands slowly, showing him I meant no harm.

  He flicked the barrel of the pistol once, indicating I move toward the dresser. I stepped sideways, never taking my eyes off him. I’d not foreseen this, and I couldn’t help but be annoyed. A little heads-up would have been nice.

  I tried to remember what lay on top of my dresser. A decorative bowl, a notepad, a paperback novel my sister had given me during my recovery. Nothing that would help me now.

  “Turn around,” the man whispered. I swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. The gun had a silencer. He would be one of Morgan’s men. If I made one wrong move, he’d wound me. Shoot me in the thigh or the shoulder; prevent me from trying to escape.

  “I understand you think you have to do this,” I started in as quiet of a tone as I could manage.

  He took three swift steps toward me, the barrel of the pistol moving down to aim at my leg.

  “No,” I whispered, cringing back as my hands remained palms out.

  His eyes narrowed on me and I nodded, slowly turning toward the wall. There has to be a way, I thought. Some way to convince him Morgan’s directions were wrong, that they no longer mattered.

  The barrel pressed into my shoulder blade, and the metal seemed unnaturally cold, hard, and round.

  “Wrists,” he breathed, and I closed my eyes as I slid my hands behind my back. An instant later, they were zip-tied, the plastic strap cutting painfully into my arms. “Move,” he said,
the barrel pressing harder into my shoulder to turn me before he pushed me forward.

  The window. He was taking me to the window. Did he have more men outside? Had he killed the Division’s guards?

  My eyes flicked to the bedside table, my cell phone lying out of reach. What did I have in my pockets? A note from Emily. She and Aern would be gone for a few hours …

  There was nothing I could do.

  Suddenly, a red pinpoint light reflected off the glass of the window. It was coming from the small white box above my door. The alarm system. I faltered, almost falling to my knees in relief. They knew he was here. Something had tripped the alarm. Just one more minute, two at the most, and they would find me. They had to find me.

  “Go,” he said, shoving the pistol against my back.

  I reached forward, fumbling purposefully with the lock, and when metal bit harder into my skin, I slid the window open. The wind took my breath away, and I had to steady myself before carefully raising a foot over the sill. I’d worn flats. Slip-on shoes that would not help me run, that would not be good for climbing. Luckily, I had jeans on. They might protect me some from scuffs if I stumbled. But not if he throws me out of the window. Panic surged at the thought and I tried to force it back. He wouldn’t do that. He’d need me alive. Morgan would have told him to bring me alive.

  Decorative railings covered the wall six feet below me, trellises shrouded in ivy and blooms. He couldn’t expect me to jump. Not from the second story. I turned to look at him, one leg over the ledge, one dangling above carpet.

  He was snapping a carabiner to his vest. My stomach dropped. Those weren’t holster straps crossing his chest; they were a harness. He was going to grab me and rappel the two stories down. We would be there in seconds. My eyes jumped to his. It was only a few yards to the trees. He had planned carefully. He would make it.

  He had found a way to take me.

  The sound of the door crashing open was like an explosion in the silence of my room, and my heart quit for the long instant it took Brendan to rush through. His gaze barely brushed mine before settling wholly on his target, the man at my back.

  The man spun and Brendan slammed into him, throwing them both hard against the wall beside me. I scrambled to climb back in, but the man’s arm jerked free, swinging the barrel of the gun too close to my perch. I ducked, grasping the ledge with my tied hands, leaning forward onto my leg to keep from falling out the other side. I pressed my right foot to the siding to lever myself as the men struggled beside me, and my shoe slipped, falling noiselessly to the ground below. I couldn’t look, but I could imagine it landing, imagine it cleaner than a landing of my own.

  I pushed against the inside wall, finally anchored well enough to find purchase, and the muffled crunch of breaking bone caused me to turn in time to see the man crash down onto the window and me. There was nowhere to go, not enough time to move, and my breath caught as I prepared to fall to my death. But Brendan’s hands were suddenly on my arm and leg, too tight as he fought to pull me up past the prone form between us. My eyes found his, silently pleading he not let go, but I could see the strain the fight had caused.

  And then I felt his hand, slick with blood, begin to slide slowly off my arm.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but he moved quick, leaning forward and grabbing a handful of shirt to jerk me headlong through the window. My legs dragged over the man on the floor—one bare-footed, both trembling with shock—and Brendan pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me before realizing I was tied.

  Chest heaving, he fumbled anxiously in the pockets of his slacks, grimacing as his gaze fell to the body by the window. My attacker. I heard the muted sound of boots hitting floor down the hallway, and realized Brendan was behind me, using the man’s bowie knife to cut my hands free. He tossed the weapon aside and rubbed my wrists. I wanted to turn to him, fall into his embrace, and cry … but I didn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  I closed my eyes tight against the vision, the man fate had chosen for me. Because that man wasn’t here.

  “Brianna,” my sister gasped from beside me. I opened my eyes to find the room full of men; Division soldiers and the man who had stabbed me.

  “I’m fine,” I promised Emily, but my shaking voice betrayed me. She pulled me to her, squeezing tight as she stared over my back. When she drew away, her gaze met Aern’s.

  “It’s fine,” I said again, hating the look that passed between them. “You couldn’t have known. No one could have known.”

  Emily’s gaze returned to mine, and I implored her to side with me, to not let him take the blame for one more thing that had gone wrong. She sighed.

  “I suppose not,” she murmured, knowing that Aern would understand the implication. I was the prophet, after all.

  He stepped forward, regret obvious in his features, but he didn’t say he was sorry. Not after I’d threatened him for it the weeks before. “It is our job to know,” Aern said. “And we should have seen this coming.”

  Brendan was suddenly beside us, the skin of his cheek and neck red and bruising. “I’ll stand watch over Brianna.”

  I swallowed hard, unable to look at any of them.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Aern said. “She’ll need a fulltime guard. You have too many responsibilities.”

  Brendan stared at him, but he didn’t have much room to argue. He was still running the men of the Division, still managing a dozen houses and multiple businesses. Things would fall back together, all under Aern’s command, but only after this threat was handled.

  I glanced down at my hands, puffy and raw, and saw the blood smeared on my torn shirt. “It’s my fault. I should have seen this.” My eyes met Aern’s. “I didn’t make Morgan remove the sway from everyone. He only did it to the men that were there.”

  Aern winced at the reminder of that night, the night he had stabbed me, and I wanted to grab him and shake him. He’d done everything he could to subvert Morgan’s order, and though he couldn’t have stopped the action, he had managed to not hit anything important. “It’s not your fault,” I said again. “None of it was your fault.”

  He reached up to squeeze my arm. “It won’t happen again, Brianna. I swear to you, you will be safe.”

  Chapter Two

  Watched

  Eventually, Emily escorted me to a new set of rooms where I took a long, too-hot shower. As I stood in front of the mirror combing my hair, I could hear their muted voices from the next room.

  “I tried to keep from hurting him,” Brendan was explaining, “but he wouldn’t stop. And Brianna,” he paused, and I could imagine him shaking his head, glancing toward the window, “I couldn’t let her fall.”

  They might have been able to force Morgan to turn him, to release his sway and let the man regain his own will, but no one was sure he would come out of this. Healing could only do so much, and Morgan wasn’t willing to do anything from the position he was currently in.

  I stayed there for a long while, staring at the dark marble countertop, the tiles inlaid with gold, until all of the voices quieted. When I finally came out, Brendan was waiting for me in the bedroom.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said, indicating the windowless walls around us. “As soon as the security updates are finished, we’ll be moving you to Council.” I could see the idea bothered him more than it should, and the rest of his explanation seemed to be more to convince himself than me. “It’s the best place for you. To keep you safe.”

  I nodded.

  “I had them bring up some lunch. It’s in the sitting room.”

  My stomach turned. “Thanks. I’m not really hungry.”

  He didn’t shift; he hadn’t taken his eyes off me at all. “If you’d like to sleep for a—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “No, I’m not tired.” I was exhausted—my muscles ached, and my hands still shook—but I didn’t want to be alone.

  He held out a hand. “Sit with me then?”

  I walked past him toward the sit
ting room, and his hand fell to the small of my back. I could have sat in the reading chair, but I didn’t. Instead, I took the center of a small sofa where Brendan could settle beside me. His arm came around me, and I curled my legs up, letting him tuck my back against his side.

  I shouldn’t have. I knew that. But Brendan cared about me, and it felt good to have someone there.

  I stared at the wall across from us, a beautiful Wyeth painting centered over a narrow table. It was probably an original. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate it. They had been attacking Council ever since Morgan was taken. We had thought it was in retaliation. We had thought they meant to rescue Morgan. But we were wrong ... because they were after me.

  I closed my eyes, trying to force a vision to come. It didn’t work that way, but I wanted so badly to finally have this over with, to save my sister and myself. To save everyone. I just needed a clue. One small indicator of how, of what I was searching for in Emily, of what to do.

  Brendan’s hand slid down my arm, and I became suddenly aware I’d sunk into him. My elbow rested on his leg, my back against his chest. His cheek brushed my hair, and I went rigid.

  “Brianna,” he started, and I was on my feet, nowhere to go but the table across from us.

  I could almost feel his presence behind me. I picked up a vase, examining the etched glass, and internally cringed. Nice, Brianna, run over to look at glass.

  “Brianna,” he said again, and the hurt in his tone was clear. I had to say something. Do something.

  I turned to face him. “I’m sorry.” He was too close. I sat the vase back on the table, stepped one leg behind me. Two would have been too much. Two would have injured him more. I looked into his eyes, so dark they were nearly black, and said, “I like you, Brendan. I do.” Before I could finish, before I could add, “but …” his phone rang.

  He answered it. In the middle of our conversation.

  After a brief exchange, he slid the cell phone back into his pocket. His gaze found me. “I’m sorry, Brianna, but I have to take care of something.” He glanced at his watch. “I hate to leave you alone, but Aern will be here shortly. There are two men at the door, and the alarms are always on.” He reached up to touch my shoulder. “We will talk soon.”