Metamorphosis by Jennifer Carole Lewis
Publication date: February 2016
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal Romance
Praise for
Revelations: Book One of the Lalassu
From Writerin Progress: “This is
one of the best love stories I have read in a long time.”
From
Romance Novel Giveaways: “I was on
the edge of my seat with ‘Oh my gosh, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!’ almost constantly
coming out of my mouth.”
Ron McBride thought his life couldn’t possibly get any worse. He’s been physically transformed, hunted across most of North America and is haunted by the failures of his past. Now it looks like he’s about to die in the Canadian wilderness.
When he wakes up in the tiny community of Bear Claw, he thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. Particularly when he meets Lily Charging Bull, a beautiful young woman whose family runs almost everything. But there’s a reason why no one has found Bear Claw before.
Lily and her family are skinwalkers, able to shift between human and animal form. For generations, they’ve protected thelalassu who can’t blend easily with human society, often lethally. The question is, will they offer Ron sanctuary or will he vanish like last year’s snow?
Lily and her family are skinwalkers, able to shift between human and animal form. For generations, they’ve protected thelalassu who can’t blend easily with human society, often lethally. The question is, will they offer Ron sanctuary or will he vanish like last year’s snow?
Chapter One
Snow’s ethereal silvery beauty was
best appreciated by someone who wasn’t having to slog through it, Ron McBride
decided, pushing his way through clinging white drifts. Halloween might be a
few weeks away but this far north, winter already had a solid grip. Light-headed
and dizzy, he shook his head against the illusion of the dark trees merging
with the sky, forming a cage around him.
Without the strength of his enhanced
muscles, this cross-country detour would have dropped him hours ago. As it was,
he began to wonder if he’d made a fatal mistake. Hell of a thing if his
paranoia ended up killing him.
Four months of running. Four months
of carrying the burden which weighed down his jacket pocket. Never staying in
any one place for more than a few days. Always making his way further north and
west, searching for the tiny community Virginia Harris had told him about. He’d
already learned the fine art of scrounging for cash-only day labor but after
his captivity he needed to be extra careful. It was too easy to accidentally
lift more than he should have been able to or move faster than human reflexes
allowed. People noticed and then he had to leave quickly before his hunters
showed up on his trail.
He’d been moving steadily, trying to
fulfill a promise with little more than one name which didn’t appear on any
maps and another name which had been an alias. He’d been forced to try and
research both without drawing any attention to himself. All he could do is keep
moving forward and hoping that he would eventually find someone who would
recognize one or the other. He was exhausted, worn out from constantly being on
edge. He’d had a few lapses, blackouts which ended with mad scrambles to
escape. Just a few days to rest. If
he could get them, maybe he could finally start planning rather than reacting.
Find a way to fulfill his promise and then find a way home.
Yesterday, he’d hitched a ride with
a trucker who’d promised to take him to one of the remote supply towns in
northern Canada, near the Alaska border. Ron couldn’t even remember the name
through the fatigue fog drowning his brain. It had been lost but he did
remember the man at the rest stop, poking at the collection of sunglasses,
candy and toiletries under the harsh fluorescent lights. The one dressed in
plaid and jeans, with a baseball cap pulled low over his features. There had
been a jarring addition to the traditional trucker uniform. Expensive leather
boots.
He didn’t know who the man was or
what he was doing there, but he wasn’t about to take the chance. He ducked back
out the door and began to walk. The snow fell lightly on him, promising to
cover his tracks in fluffy obfuscation. His dark clothes would help him to
disappear into the dense woods.
Nearly twenty hours later, his
choice didn’t seem so brilliant anymore. There was a lot of wilderness up here.
He could wander for weeks and never come across another human being. He only
had a few basic survival rations in his backpack. Without warmth and shelter,
he wasn’t going to have to worry about his former captor finding him. His
corpse would vanish without a trace.
The picturesque puffs of snow
floating down from the sky might make a lovely postcard but they clung to his
hat, hair and clothes, melting and refreezing into dense chunks of ice,
weighing him down. His fingers shook with cold despite being pressed into his
armpits as he walked. He needed to stop soon and take a chance of pursuit
catching up to him if he wanted to survive. Just
a little further.
The light faded rapidly into grey-blue
twilight. Ron knew he needed to stop and build a shelter except his body seemed
to have acquired a terrible inertia, plodding endlessly. It took more effort
than he wanted to believe to force himself to stop and actually look at his
surroundings.
Black silhouettes of pine trees
jutted into the sky all around him. The steadily falling snow piled into waist
high drifts. He needed some bare ground and a fire. Numbly, he remembered a
lesson in survival training. Birch bark burned, even when wet. Staggering
through the snow, he peered into the forest, searching for tell-tale white
trunks.
His frozen fingers bled as he pried
strips of bark from a birch and broke branches to burn from a nearby pine. He
found a small gap in the snow, blocked by three large trees growing close
together. He used a branch to sweep away the sparse accumulation of snow and
laid out the supplies for his fire. It took him three tries to get a match to
light and another three before he got a piece of birch bark alight. Luckily the
branches he’d broken were relatively dry and pitchy, catching easily and
flaming brightly.
The warmth hit him like a truck,
sparking an irrational temptation to crawl directly into the tiny fire to thaw
his frozen body. He clenched his jaw against the pain of blood returning to
numb extremities. He’d give himself a little time to warm up and then he’d go
collect more wood and see about a shelter. Just a little time.
His weariness seduced him into
dangerous unconsciousness. Ron felt as if he’d only closed his eyes for a
moment when a snuffling sound popped them back open. His fire had burned out
and the cold ground had leached the remaining warmth from his legs. It was
dark, far too dark.
His body wanted to collapse back
into sleep. A tiny piece of his brain shrieked warning that if he did, he would
never wake again. He needed to get up and get moving again.
As he rocked back, preparing to
rise, the darkness in front of him moved.
Adrenaline cleared away the twin
clinging cobwebs of exhaustion and cold. The image in front of him suddenly
resolved into perfect terrifying clarity.
A bear stood less than five feet
away from him.
Ron’s hands trembled as he watched
the animal. It was monstrous, the shaggy head easily the size of his torso.
Even on all fours, the shoulders would reach his waist and the massive hump
over them would be halfway up his chest. If it stood, he guessed it would
measure ten feet. Dark brown shaggy fur blended into the darkness, except for a
short slash of golden brown over its shoulder, like a crescent moon.
The bear huffed at him, clacking its
jaws together. Controlling his fear, Ron slowly moved up, using the tree trunks
for balance. If he could go slowly enough, maybe he could get out of range
before it took an interest in him. His legs were numb and sore, ensuring he
would have no chance of outrunning the creature.
Except it didn’t seem aggressive.
It kept looking at him as if trying
to figure out what he was. Perhaps it hadn’t seen a human before. If ignorance
kept it from trying to eat him, Ron could happily let it continue. He thought
bears were supposed to hibernate in winter, though. He vaguely remembered
reading that a bear who was awake in winter was considered especially
dangerous.
“Good bear. Nice bear,” he croaked.
The bear’s ears went flat against
its skull, exactly like an annoyed cat. It snorted and shook its head.
“You don’t want to eat me, Mr.
Bear,” Ron continued. “Go on and find a pik-i-nik basket somewhere.” He stopped
as the creature let out a low growl.
Okay, so much for the
human-voice-calms-wild-animals theory. The bear reached out with an enormous
paw and raked through the remains of his fire. A few glowing coals shone amid
the ashy flakes. Then it poked at the remaining crisped fragments of birch bark,
growling again.
When it turned and began to amble
away across the clearing, Ron saw his chance. He eased himself around the trees
and started walking slowly out of the bear’s sight. A good plan and one which
might have worked if his legs had cooperated.
His stiff limbs collapsed under him,
dropping him to the ground with a massive thud. The bear’s attention
immediately swung back to him and primitive instinct took over. It didn’t
matter how many times he’d been told to never run from a wild animal, his feet
were pumping before his brain could consciously give instruction.
Running wildly through the woods, he
heard the bear crashing behind him. This
is it, he told himself. I’m going to
die now. He tried to summon his enhanced strength for a leap into a tree
but his abused muscles had already had enough. He slammed into the trunk and
then rolled down the hill on the far side, his backpack flying off and
scattering his belongings across the snow.
A tree graciously halted his
downward tumble, catching his head and shoulders with a tooth-rattling abrupt
stop. Stunned, he could only stare at the top of the ridge as the bear looked
down on him.
The life of Ron McBride, ended by
Canadian wildlife. Embarrassing, but at least no one would ever know. He braced
himself for the inevitable crunch of jaws.
The bear stared at him, outlined
against the inky sky. Then it turned and walked away.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
Instead of being a bear’s before-bedtime snack, he was going to get to die of a
combination of exposure and a concussion. He patted his jacket, feeling for the
hard lump he carried. Still intact. He tried to force himself to his feet but
he was too weak. Wearily, he stared at the green and blue lights floating in
the sky above. Maybe this was for the best. All the things he’d done and seen.
Maybe they should go to his grave with him.
Resignation pulled him down into the
darkness.
Jennifer Carole Lewis is a full-time mom, a full-time administrator and a full-time writer, which means she is very much interested in speaking to anyone who comes up with any form of functional time-travel devices or practical cloning methods. Meanwhile, she spends her most of her time alternating between organizing and typing.
She is a devoted comic book geek and Marvel movie enthusiast. She spends far too much of her precious free time watching TV, especially police procedural dramas. Her enthusiasm outstrips her talent in karaoke, cross-stitch and jigsaw puzzles. She is a voracious reader of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction and always enjoys seeking out new suggestions.
Author links:
https://twitter.com/
https://www.facebook.com/
http://www.pastthemirror.com/
She is a devoted comic book geek and Marvel movie enthusiast. She spends far too much of her precious free time watching TV, especially police procedural dramas. Her enthusiasm outstrips her talent in karaoke, cross-stitch and jigsaw puzzles. She is a voracious reader of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction and always enjoys seeking out new suggestions.
Author links:
https://twitter.com/
https://www.facebook.com/
http://www.pastthemirror.com/
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