Page 23 of Shift of Morals (Shifter Lords #2)
Chapter
Fourteen
CAELAN SPEAKS TO THE FOREST
“ P laying games with the gods is a fool’s endeavor.” The voice came from nowhere and everywhere all at once, from the wind and the trees and the ground at my feet.
I’d summoned the god with one simple bargain in mind and received a lecture in exchange. “Do I need to ask someone else?”
The being’s laugh was aged and dry. Ancient. “You will die if you do. Consider me a curious god.”
“Will you consider it?” Everything rode on my proposal.
“Why should I?”
I stood in a forest clearing, the full moon high above my head, and I knew I no longer stood on the earth.
The moon at home was barely into the new phase, darkness lingering over Joy Springs for at least the next week.
This place, wherever the god had brought me, dripped magic.
My beast threatened to rip from my chest and run through the woods, a primal howl lingering in my throat.
Lies, a Lord’s currency, would get me nowhere this evening. “Because I have plans.”
“The plans of a territory Lord do not concern me.”
My shoulders tensed at the anger in the god’s voice. “Because I am desperate.”
“Better,” the god mused, “but still not a complete answer.”
I gritted my teeth. “Because I have met someone I…need.”
“Need or want?”
“Both,” I growled.
“And why do you need her?”
I couldn’t answer him because how could I lay bare what was in my heart when even I didn’t understand it?
When I didn’t answer, the god tried another way. “Tell me about this woman.”
“She is not a shifter.”
“You’d sully your bloodline?” the god said, scorn dripping from its voice.
My nostrils flared, fists clenching at my sides.
A deep laugh as dry as summer leaves floated around me. “No need for anger. I ask due to your Council’s stance on mixing non-shifter bloodlines.”
I turned and tried to catch a glimpse of the god, to no avail. He was large but faster than me. A sense of unease crawled across my skin. “How would you know such things?”
“The gods know all,” came the cryptic response.
“Then you should already know the answers to your questions.”
“What is it you love about her?”
“I—” A Lord rarely thought about love. Was love what I felt for her? It didn’t seem like it. My feelings were possessive. Primal.
Evie Quinn was mine. I wouldn’t take her, not by force, but I would do everything in my power to lay open the path.
“And if she does not go to you of her own volition?” the voice said.
“She will.”
Another dry laugh, this one deeply amused. “I fear you have much to learn, Lord.”
“Will you consider it?”
A long pause before a fading voice spoke its last words. “So little amuses me these days. I will consider it.”
It was all I wanted. Dipping my head in respect, the world turned upside down.
Seconds later, I stood in my office once more, the fading smell of loamy, ancient forest in my lungs.