Prologue
Seattle, Washington – waning crescent moon
All she’d ever wanted was to belong. To help the ill and injured. Instead, she was a captive, barely existing.
Completely useless.
A cell of four white walls, a solid door, and this bed made up her tiny world. Margery slammed her fist into the thin mattress with a muted thump. Because the weak gesture was all she could do. That sadistic guard. What she’d give to be able to kill him.
Tears stung her eyes with the memory of Gallia’s bruised face. The bloody welts on her back. Because the gangly fourteen-year-old girl had accidentally bumped into the Scythe guard. The most brutal one.
Pressing her face to the lumpy mattress to muffle any sound, Margery growled. She’d been so useless. There’d been times she could intervene to calm an angry guard and keep him from hurting one of the younglings.
Not this time. Instead, Huber had backhanded Margery to the ground, kicked her half-unconscious, then returned to beating on Gallia.
She rubbed her aching face against the rough sheet and fought the urge to cry.
The first few years she’d been a captive, she’d hoped for rescue. Managed to endure. Clung to the fantasy of escape.
Eventually, hope died.
The Scythe were too powerful. The clandestine organization of wealthy, influential humans manipulated world events to gain even more power. Over a decade ago, they’d discovered the shifters, decided they’d be of use, and attacked Margery’s tiny mountain village.
They’d been disappointed when all the adult Daonain died but had cut their losses and sent the young males off to train as covert operations soldiers. The young females—their sisters like Margery—remained imprisoned here in the compound to ensure the shifter-soldier’s cooperation.
To the Scythe, the shifters were freaks. Animals to cruelly mistreat. And they did. The Scythe had no compassion, didn’t hear pleas. Rarely responded to reason.
She kept trying, though. Once in a while, she could save a young one some pain.
But every time she spoke to a guard, hatred squeezed her lungs. And gut-wrenching fear froze her muscles.
At least today, there had been no broken bones. In the tiny clinic, Margery’d done her best to patch Gallia up while whispering comforting words and giving quick hugs. Something every young captive needed so badly.
She blinked back tears. I need a hug, too.
With a sigh, she pulled the light blanket closer. Her thin T-shirt and sleep shorts didn’t lend much warmth, and November in the human city of Seattle was cold and damp. Rolling onto her back, she tried to ignore the nagging ache in her bruised face and ribs. Her ankle throbbed where the fractured bones had never healed right. Exhaustion dragged at her.
She was dying, slowly, but ever so surely.
Shifters didn’t survive captivity.
When the Scythe had captured her village, her littermate, Orson, died while charging a soldier. Grandmama’s body was tossed into her burning clinic. Mama died in wolf form, fighting in the streets.
Margery’s other littermate, Oliver, was taken away to be a shifter-soldier.
Imprisoned in Scythe cages, the babies and the adults—all those who had shifted once—died quickly.
Now, the rest would follow them into death.
In their early twenties, after eleven years in captivity, the females were failing. Trapped by walls, so far from the forests and unable to shift. Beaten down, half-starved, filled with despair, the oldest of the hostages were losing their grip on life.
At the end of September, as the leaves were falling from the trees, Barbara had simply faded into death.
I miss you, my friend, but I’ll join you soon.
Margery’s miserable thoughts wouldn’t allow sleep. If she could only sit in the moonlight… No, even that wouldn’t help. Tonight, the night sky was empty of the Lady’s glow.
Pushing her tangled hair from her face, Margery wiggled into a cross-legged position and closed her eyes. There it was, deep inside her—her haven. Fragrant, green forest surrounding a peaceful mountain lake. The water was no longer blue; each year, the Mother’s waters grew grayer. The Scythe compound was so, so far from the lands of the Daonain.
But the lake still refreshed and calmed Margery’s soul.
A creaking sound broke into her peace.
She turned her head. The cells around her were quiet—no one wanted to risk a beating. She could hear the low hum of nighttime traffic in the city and the scuff of a guard’s boots outside as he patrolled the grounds.
Not that he was patrolling against a shifter trying to run. If a captive escaped or died, the Scythe would kill her brothers. Love for littermates made tighter shackles than any metal ones.
A creaking, groaning noise—the distinctive sound of the heavy door to the hallway of cells. Was there trouble?
Margery lay down and pretended to be asleep.
Keys clanked. A door somewhere unlocked and opened. Someone whispered, “Into the hall. We’re getting out of here.”
What? That was Darcy’s voice.
Margery jumped off her bed.
Her friend was alive? Last September, she’d escaped. Like Margery, she’d been rail-thin, fading, dying. Margery had thought that was why Darcy had run—to taste freedom before her death. Soon after, the Director announced she’d been caught and killed.
Do dead people whisper?
Leaning against her cell door, Margery held her breath in hope—and listened.
Movement. More whispers.
Another door creaked open. Then the lock on her own cell turned. The door opened.
“Darcy.” Margery’s voice was almost inaudible because her friend stood there, healthy and strong. As joy filled Margery, she reached out.
Darcy squeezed her hand, tugged her out into the hall, and moved to unlock the next door.
When the last door was opened, the captives gathered—ages ranging from thirteen to twenty-four—silently crying and hugging.
“The Director said you were killed,” Idelle whispered.
Darcy snorted her opinion of the lie. “I escaped and found other shifters. We’re breaking you and our brothers out at the same time. You need to do what I say.” Fear and determination radiated from her.
Margery stared at her in disbelief. Darcy should’ve stayed safe, not set herself up for certain death. One person might make it out. All of them? Past armed guards, powerful spotlights, machine guns in the bunkers. Over ten-foot stone walls.
We’ll all die.
Yet hope rose within her like a painful, burning brand.
Darcy moved closer, her whisper barely audible. “Go to the ground floor, out the back door, and hide behind the building.”
Little Alice, barely thirteen, tangled hair falling over her cheeks, tugged at Darcy’s shirt. “What about the alarms? The floodlights? The guards? We’ll—”
“The lights will be gone; trust me.” Darcy held up a broken-off mop handle stained with blood. “I’ll handle the guards.”
But if we’re caught trying to escape… Terror froze Margery’s muscles. Fear fogged her vision at the memory of her worst beating. The tearing gut-wrenching pain as her arms and legs broke, then her ribs. The backhand across her face—the guard’s ring ripping her face open. Her blood hotter than fire. The huge boot crushing her ankle. Her screams…