Shifters - Book One

THREE

Nate sprinted full pelt towards the forest.

Anger and rage filled him, tearing him apart from the inside. Then, as suddenly as they had come, they left him. And in their place, something else grew. His surroundings were a blur. Blood rushed to his head. He could feel it rising...the Shift. He gave in, let it come, wanted its power.

Nate succumbed to the urge. He let himself free.

BOOM.

The vibration shot through him like a bullet, and he was now a majestic silver wolf running flat out down Watercave's deserted streets. His paws impacted the ground heavily, propelling him forward – a car jammed on its brakes as Nate bounded across its path.

To the startled driver, Nate must have looked like any old wolf or malamute – an extremely common sight around these parts. What the driver didn't know – and would probably never know – was the cold truth. The truth that Nate was a shape shifter.

He found out years previous, and by chance at that, that he could physically morph himself into three very different animals – one from sea, land and air – in the blink of an eye. Nate didn't know why, or how for that matter, but he was unhappily bound by these very specific rules.

What was stranger than this, however, was the discovery that every one of his friends could do the exact same thing. At the time, Nate had suggested coincidence. Rob suggested fate. The two best friends were very different in that way. Alexa suggested a higher purpose, something upon which the five of them could agree on.

As the freshly-made teenagers battled with the onset of puberty, so too did they learn to master their power. Nobody would know, not even parents or Rob's grandmother. It was their special little thing.

Naturally they all trained together in secret, honing their shared ability. Sparring was a common form of entertainment, and Rob even kept a running tally of win results on the Haven's shabby little whiteboard.

In an unnaturally sleepy town like Watercave, it was all just fun and games.

And Nate liked it that way.

He heard the cry of a large bird – unmistakeably an eagle – from somewhere behind him, but he chose to ignore it. Sam was the last person he wanted to see right now; even Callie didn't warrant the hatred Nate felt for his supposed friend. With another sudden burst of speed, he entered the thick and twisted tree line.

The forest was pitch-black by this time, shielded from both moonlight and the hundreds of streetlamps waiting just outside its protective barrier of trees. Nate continued on however – leaping over brambles and low branches with ease. Animalistic night-vision helped marvellously in scenarios such as this. His desired destination was somewhere around here...

Yes. He found it. The cramped-in little lake where he could just sit down and think. Nate's hidden sanctuary that was private to him and only him. In an instant, Nate the wolf became Nate the human – unexplainably but very thankfully fully clothed – as he sat himself down on a flat but smooth boulder near the dark water's still edge.

***

The massive bald eagle soared high over the dense trees of the forest's vast expanse. Sam needed to find Nate, it was the only train of thought bouncing around in his tiny avian head.

"NATE" – the thought echoed deep into the night, an echo that only Nate's ears could pick up.

"SAM" – came an instant, yet somehow quite strange, reply. Like a supernatural sort of sonar, he received the echo back. A handy perk, although it did have its drawbacks.

It exhausted the hell out of him.

Down there, almost close to below him. Sam spotted an opening in the form of a small clearing and dived in low...

THUD.

He was slammed upon and pinned to the ground by the neck. A huge, heavy paw extended from the source of the pain, twisting on Sam's primary blood vessels. Head feeling like it would explode at any moment and frantically struggling to breathe, he just about managed to turn a beady blue eye to his unexpected captor.

A wolf, nightmarishly savage and blending into the darkness around them. Its golden – no - yellow eyes seemed to pierce right through him. The beast's monstrous head lowered slowly and came down close enough to Sam for him to feel its moist, hot breath against his feathers.

There was a second of utterly horrific, pin dropping silence from the wolf. And then Sam received its single, yet even more horrifying, thought clearly.

"HURT".

This wasn't any old wolf, it was Nate. It had to be, who else could it be? Nate the sadistic freak was going to kill him.

Sam's vision was blurring. His struggles were weakening. He couldn't think, couldn't even shift.

He had to get free...

And then, as if his prayers were gloriously answered, he was. His captor had left and was nowhere in sight. Nate had fled.

Sam the human was left lying in a heap on the mossy forest floor - gasping desperately for every sharp, precious breath.

***

The pitch black wolf sat firmly at the end of Nate's driveway – taunting him.

"Go away! Leave!" he roared at it. In a single blink, the beast was no more than vapour in the air.

But then there was Callie, smiling coldly as she walked towards a shadowy silhouette that non-coincidentally fit Sam's bulky frame. Nate called after her, more out of anger and disgust than loss and pain. More so, he hated Sam with a passion, wanted him to hurt.

Sam the betrayer...

Alexa was standing with Nate now, smiling warmly in contrast to Callie's ice. She held out her hand, reaching for his. He took hold of her fingers in his own...

Nate awoke in a sweaty sprawl by the lake, gripping a wet handful of dead leaves.

His mind was groggy and confused, even more so than after his recent nap on the airplane. He must have fallen asleep halfway through 'meditation'. Hastily, he checked his cell phone, fearing the worst.

02:22am. Damn, he thought with agonising unease, he was in trouble now.

After getting his head straight – and taking the time to stretch out his stiffened-up muscles – Nate shifted to a sleek grey falcon and rose gracefully above the treetops, making his way home at the highest level of speed he could muster. Travelling by sky was definitely fastest.

But was it safest?

At first he bypassed the other bird, not giving the nocturnal animal another thought other than 'dodge'. But then, he realised smack-on-cheek that it was an eagle.

Sam?

The giant bird attacked him in a shower of feathers and blinding pain.