Rebirth: Land of Shifters Book 1 Read online

  Rebirth:

  (Land of Shifters Book One)

  MIRA CREST

  Rebirth: Land of Shifters Book 1

  Copyright © 2018 by Mira Crest. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Other Books by Mira Crest:

  Land of Shifters Book 2 : Revenge

  The Torn Fairy

  Meragon Book 1: Mermaid’s Destiny

  The Fae Queens Book 1: The Crown of Myth

  Kingdom of Glass and Ashes: A Limited Edition of Cinderella Retellings (Kingdom of Fairytales Book 1)

  Kingdom of Salt and Sirens: A Limited Edition of Little Mermaid Retellings (Kingdom of Fairytales Book 2)

  Prologue

  What was going on?

  There were too many questions that flooded my mind as my heart beat heavily in my chest. If there was one thing that changed everything, it was that I almost died tonight. We almost all did. The memory of that creature that chased us in the forest won’t leave me anytime soon. It was both a man and a beast with sharp teeth – no, fangs – dripping with red and those hungry eyes that belonged to a monster that wanted to swallow me whole.

  It was like something out of a nightmare. My eyes watered as I leaned back against the front door of the house. My hands were shaking, and I wanted to do nothing more than curl up between my parents and cry with Mom and Dad assuring me everything was just a bad dream.

  Only it wasn’t. That man, if you could even call it that, was still out there. Who knew if there were more like him?

  The thought made me tremble even more before a voice called my name from the living room. As much as I wanted it to be my parents, I knew it wasn’t. Dad was still out of town and there was no knowing where Mom was. I stumbled forward to the living room, holding myself up with a hand against the cream colored walls. In the living room were my friends, looking as shaken as I was as we all tried to process the terrifying event that night in our own ways, which ranged between huddling on the couch and raiding my Dad’s liquor cabinet for something strong enough to drown out the memories.

  One of them held out a piece of paper to me. “Found this on the coffee table” was all she said before I took it and watched her return to the recliner at the corner with red eyes.

  Milla-

  They will kill us all. Leave Strange Ville now, don’t come back!

  -Mom

  My hands shook as I read the paper in my hands. What did my mother mean? Who were ‘they’? Why did she want me to leave town so urgently?

  I ran from the living room and up the stairs to the second floor. Pictures of the three of us - Mom, Dad and I – hung on the wall, fond times that seemed to belong to another lifetime now. We looked so happy in each picture.

  I arrived at the door of my parent’s bedroom and slowly grabbed the brass handle. What would I find on the other side? A trashed space with empty hangers and open closet doors or will nothing in there has changed?

  Did I want to know?

  I turned the handle and pushed the door open. Nothing had changed. The only thing that appeared to be missing was the old duffel bag where Mom kept stuffs from her college days. Everything else was still here. I stepped into their bedroom and moved to the bed.

  Everything was still here, except them, of course.

  Dropping onto the firm mattress, I let out a loud yelp as something sharp poked me in the ribs. What was that? I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the stone I’d picked up earlier today before throwing it towards the open closet. I couldn’t stand looking at it now.

  Not when it shared the same yellow as that thing’s eyes.

  1.

  Milla

  “DuBois! A little focus, if you please!”

  If there was one thing that reminded me more of hell than lunch time in the cafeteria, it was Coach Wilder’s gym class.

  We were doing one of those mandatory fitness tests that were required by the school board to make sure that the coach was doing his job properly or something like that, but by the evidence shown by a wheezing Artie hunched over on the bleachers, trying to catch whatever breath he could in his tiny body to a red-faced Simone who looked like she was about to kill something or someone, this test was working. We were ready for the next war.

  Pretty much only the athletes looked fine with everything since they did all this for practice. The lot of them was standing off in the sun seemingly unfazed by the heat. From the muscle-bound football players to the stringy soccer players on both the girls’ and boys’ teams, the whole group was practically having a social in the middle of the school field after we just ran what felt like a marathon.

  I, on the other hand, was somewhere in the middle of the dying and those that weren’t. Sure, the sweat was making my shirt stick against my back along with my hair, somehow looking as if it blended in with the wet fabric - honestly, whoever picked navy blue as the color for our gym uniforms needed to be put on trial - so now my black waves seemed to just make my shirt look even baggier than it usually did.

  “Alright, kids, you had your break.” Coach Wilder circled round again with that stupid clipboard of his that surely had the results of this torture. “Pair up for sit-ups and push-ups, so we can finish before the period is over,” he yelled before he looked at a desperate Artie who looked like he was going to start protesting like he did before the run. “Yes, I’m looking at you, Spinnet. Come on, this one isn’t as hard.”

  The guy looked like he was about to faint on the other hand. “Sir?” I said, lifting a hand up.

  “What is it?” He grunted at me.

  “I think he’s having an asthma attack.” The boy definitely seemed to pick up on the hint as he dropped to his hands and knees, putting on the best dramatic performance of an asthma attack as the coach swore and stomped over to the sandy-haired boy. He fussed over the kid as Artie tried to lie and say that he forgot his asthma inhaler in his locker before the coach looked at me.

  “DuBois, take Spinnet here to his locker and then the nurse. On the double!”

  “On it!” I responded, trying not to sound too happy about him buying our performance before I rushed to Artie’s side and put my arm around his waist and his over my shoulder. Luckily, he was stringy enough that none of the boys had to take him or else we’d have had a problem in this plan. “Just keep it up till we get to the gym locker room,” I whispered to him before we started walking to the locker rooms.

  “Thanks, Milla,” he said when we got to the pale white corridor outside the gym shower-slash-locker rooms. “I really didn’t know how I was going to survive the rest of that.”

  “No problem. Anything for a friend.” This was practically a motto that I lived by and Artie here was definitely a friend I’d help anytime. Since I spent a lot of the time in the archive section of the library where I hung out mostly after school, Arthur – which he didn’t really like to be called by – was usually the one who found all the older newspaper copies and case files from the town’s tiny courthouse on all the weird stuff that happened around town in the past, as well as the old legends of strange creatures living up in the woods not too far from the high school.
r />   So far, most of it sounded like something you would only find on one of those conspiracy websites, but that was what I loved about living around here. Who really knew what kind of stuff you’d find living up on the Hills?

  “Coming by the library again today?” Artie asked as he pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose with his pointer finger

  “Of course,” I responded. “Got something good for me?”

  “I do, actually. A really old storybook came in with the newest batch of donations and there’s definitely someone I know who’d love to have her hands on it first.” He knew me too well.

  “How old are we talking?” I asked eagerly. With any luck, it’s something on those old creature legends I had seen while reading some of the older news articles. There was one of the headline stories that spoke about some kind of beast roaming in town, frightening the people and destroying some of the traps that were left out for other kinds of smaller wildlife out in the Hills sometime before I was born. No one had ever gotten a close enough look at it to say what it was.

  “Ancient,” Artie grinned. “The thing’s covered in leather and the real kind that usually gets wildlife committees mad. Do you want me to keep it on hold for you?”

  “Duh.”

  He nodded before putting a hand on the boy’s locker room door. “See you later then? I should probably go to the nurse before Coach figured out we just wanted to get out of class.”

  “Usual spot,” I said with a wave before I watched him push open the door and head inside. I took a sniff of my own shirt. Whew, maybe a shower wouldn’t be a bad idea.

  After school, I decided to head home first before I went to the library. With Dad out of town on a conference with some other professors from the colleges around the state, it was up to Mom and me to watch over the house. Rather, me to watch over her.

  Mom wasn’t exactly a hands-on parent. There were times when she was around and actually focused on the things that Dad and I did. However, that had changed over time. Nowadays it was as if she couldn’t keep still. If it wasn’t town council meetings, it was bake sales for the community or chaperoning events with the other mothers around town.

  After all, Jacqueline DuBois was someone who couldn’t stay still. You’d think we had moved here from a big city at some point where everyone was busy and moving twenty-four hours of the day, but this wasn’t the case. Dad was the one from the big city, yet he did a better job fitting in with the rest of the laidback townfolk than Mom.

  When I got home, it was empty as usual. Mom had gone somewhere without even a text to say there was food in the fridge or anything. There wasn’t anything that didn’t require cooking beforehand. Grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, I headed upstairs to my room.

  Silence was a norm when it came to us. Even when we were all home, we were usually tending to our own things. Dad and I would be reading in his study while Mom busy researching new recipes online, or I would be in my room with the keyboard my dad had gotten me two years ago for my birthday with my headphones while my parents on the couch.

  We didn’t really feel the need to be in each other’s business all the time.

  By the time I got to my room, it was exactly as I left it this morning. The bed was still opened on one side after literally having to scramble out of it this morning. After staying up late with homework last night, I somehow managed to oversleep.

  Putting my bag down on the end of the bed, I scanned under my desk for my phone charger. Somewhere between leaving late this morning and lunch, I’d realized that my phone battery wasn’t going to last that long.

  As I plugged the device in, I heard the front door open downstairs.

  “Anyone home?” A voice called from downstairs. Mom was back.

  “Up here!” I responded before putting my phone down on the desk and heading out of my room. It was rare that we ever got home around the same time.

  When I got downstairs, Mom was busy packing groceries away in the kitchen. As soon as I entered the room, a bright smile curled on her lips. It sometimes still amazed me how much we had the same face. If it wasn’t for Dad’s side of the family, I’d have definitely inherited her pale skin and light hair as well.

  “Hey there, sweetheart. How was school?” She asked as she put the last of the new groceries on the counter and started folding up the bags to use again later.

  “It was alright,” I shrugged. “We had a test in history and then one of those fitness tests in gym class again.”

  “Ah yes, I remember those.” Mom packed away the new box of cereal before turning to face me again. “I can’t imagine you enjoyed it so much. You never were one for sports, being your father’s child and all.”

  I let out a dry laugh before giving Mom a cheeky grin. “Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun indoors.”

  “Sounds like something he would say too,” she chuckled. “Speaking of your dad, he called me earlier from his conference. He said he’ll be back next Wednesday.”

  “Really? Why so long?” I asked with a brow raised.

  “Something about wanting to attend a book launch while in town or something. You know your father.” It’s true. He definitely had a few of these moments already during his last trips out. During his last conference, he stayed in that city for an extra week because his favorite author was going to host a book signing the following weekend.

  After a while, it didn’t surprise us anymore.

  “So, we can expect new additions to the library, hm?” Mom rolled her eyes. I knew she secretly didn’t mind. I knew she loved the way Dad came home to ramble on about the new books he bought to add to his already stuffed shelves.

  Their relationship was odd that way.

  Speaking of books, I remembered that I had somewhere to be. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She tilted her head at me. “I’m going to head to the library for a bit. Artie had something on hold for me.”

  “Artie, huh?” She teased.

  “Mom! I told you it’s nothing like that between us!”

  “Sure, sure.” A grin spread across her face. “It’s not like you’re not at the age where boys are something you don’t think about.” My cheeks burned hot as she folded her arms across her chest. “Or is it the other side of the scale...?”

  “Mom!” I didn’t want to talk about this anymore.

  “I’m just saying, it’s perfectly fine if you did-”

  I was walking away. I didn’t want to bring anything related to the topic of dating up with my mother.

  By the time I went upstairs to retrieve my phone and returned to the front door, Mom was on the phone with someone again. I waved goodbye to her and she mouthed “be safe” before I left.

  I had to see what that book was about.

  2.

  Milla

  If there was one thing I wasn’t sure how to feel about when it came to living in a small town, it was the way everyone seemed to know who you are.

  As soon as I hit Main Street, I noticed at least five different families as well as several different classmates from school almost immediately. Being a native resident of Strange Ville, whenever I walked down to the library, there’s always a delay or two because either Mrs. Ferris from the bakery wanted to know how my mother was doing or Mr. and Mrs. Simmons from the antique store asked if my father picked up something interesting at the university.

  Today the routine was the same. I passed by the bakery with its variety of cakes and bread are out for display with kindly Mrs. Ferris waving from behind the counter. She’s probably in her late fifties, but something about her seemed to keep her looking older than thirty-five. Where you’d expect little grey hairs to show was the same fire truck red she once told me she was born with.

  I called bull on that one. It was definitely salon done. Not that I’d tell her that to her face.

  She signaled for me to come inside and despite how much I didn’t want to, the smell of chocolate chip cookies had me hooked by the nose already.


  I pushed open the door and that smell of heaven multiplied tenfold. I blamed my mother for this sweet tooth.

  “Milla!” Mrs. Ferris yelled in her Southern accent that was never explained, “How are ya?”

  “Doing well, and you, Mrs. Ferris?”

  “Nothin’ to complain about.” She gave me an exaggerated shrug before placing her hands on her hips.” How’s your mother? I’ve been wanting her to stop by to try our new recipe for carrot cake.” She indicated with a tilt of her head to a white frosted cake sitting on the end of the counter. It looked pretty good to me, but I supposed the taste was what really mattered.

  Not that I was interested. Somehow Mrs. Ferris’ new recipes rarely turned out well. Memories of her past experiment with strawberry shortcake put me off cream for a few months straight.

  “I’ll be sure to tell her to come by,” I said hastily as I tried to slowly shuffle back out of the door.

  “Don’t you want to try some?” She asked with a pout that almost made me feel guilty.

  “Not today, I’m late for an appointment which I should be getting to.” I pushed open the door. Almost there. “Maybe another time. Bye, Mrs. Ferris.” And I was out before I could hear anymore.

  After that, I definitely jogged past the antique store with a brief wave to the Simmons, all the way to the library.

  ______________________________________

  “Hey, Milla,” Artie greeted me with a smile from the librarian’s desk as I walked in. Judging by the book in his lap and the lack of headphones, he must be working again.

  “Hey, where’s your boss today? Out sick?” I asked, looking around the quiet space. With the few students that actually used this place to study, it was pretty much the same crowd in the open space.

  “He’s in the back, making stickers for the new books. You know, the fun stuff.” Artie joked, rolling his eyes as he placed the heavy book on the desk.