ROMANCE: SHIFTER: Shifter to the Max Collection (Dragon, Bear, Wolf and Panther Shifter Romances) (Paranormal Fantasy Romance Collection) (89 page)

During the last several hours, Karyn had had a lot of time to think. She questioned her own sanity, wondering if the things that she had seen throughout the day could possibly be real. Since she knew nothing of her biological family, it crossed her mind that maybe schizophrenia ran in her genes or some other psychological illness that she was unaware of.  Perhaps everything she had seen was real and they were going to kill her because she had seen it. Killian had told her she was a shadow walker. Since she had no idea of what that really was, she couldn't determine whether it was a good thing or a bad. What if she was really like those monsters she had seen today, capable of so much destruction so much slaughter? Of all the things that she wondered about herself, the most curious thing was that her mind continuously went back to Killian. She kept expecting to see him walk in and rescue her, yet again. She hoped he had not gotten himself into some kind of trouble.  The way he continually walked himself into danger scared her. If he was human, she would say it was almost suicidal. but he wasn't human. He couldn't be killed, at least not in conventional manner. She began to wonder what could kill him. Since the only information she had on vampires came from movies, she doubted their authenticity. Killian did not seem to have the qualities of any vampire she had seen before. After all, he had walked out in the middle of the day at the hospital, a hospital with crosses along most of the walls, and she had seen him walk through flames and come out unscathed. Maybe he was completely indestructible? She liked him, that was for sure. She had never felt so close to someone so fast before, it was terrifying in its own way. From her years of growing up, being moved from home to home, and from people to people, the first thing she had learned is that you don’t get attached. She had not only accepted that way of life, but had in fact embraced it.  Staying distant and unattached made her stronger in ways, helped her to focus on only the things that mattered to her, kept her flexible. But, Killian had found a way to instantly sneak under her defenses and touch a part of her she had denied even existed. Now, her thoughts constantly found themselves latched onto him. His grey eyes that seemed to go on forever, the way his black hair fell down in whips, the way his muscles bulged under his black shirt just enough to know that he was stronger than his sleek form would normally allow. These were the things that attracted him to her, but they were not the things that made her heart jump.  It was his character and mannerisms that made her feel like she was falling in love with someone she barely knew. And, yet, she did know him, or at least she felt like she had known him for a very long time. Karyn wasn’t sure if it was her new shadow walker abilities or something entirely different, but when she looked into him for the first time at the hospital she saw way more than what she said. It felt as if she had seen the entire span of his life laid out in front of her in images, thoughts, and feelings. Even though it had all happened in just under a second.  In all the things that Karyn had ever seen about vampires, they had to be bitten to be turned from a human, but Killian hadn’t been bitten. He had been born. Killian was the son of vampires in a line of vampires extending back farther than she could see with a history much richer than anything she had witnessed in this place. Karyn also saw that Killian did not come from this world.  He came from a world where vampires ruled everything, and humans were nothing more than breeding stock.  In her vision of Killian, she had seen the pods of people being grown in cities similar to the ones here on earth. There, humans were born and raised and lived normal lives, thousands upon thousands of them. Then, they were sent out into the world oblivious to the death that awaited them. Stalked, hunted, and bled dry by the vampires who were never at a loss for food. Only, Killian had been breaking the mandate of protection against the breeding cities and had been going inside to kill causing chaos and questions. Karyn had seen an image of Killian stalking a young boy his fangs extended in anticipation of the kill, and then he was being pulled. Something had yanked Killian not just away from the boy, but completely out of the world. There was blackness and hunger and loneliness that seemed to go on forever, and then he was here in her world. After that, the images were very confusing as if Killian went crazy for a while with images of the real and the unreal overlapping amongst dreams and desires. For the first time in his existence Killian had been faced with fear, and it had almost destroyed him.

The last image she had seen of him, he had been staring at his own reflection in the mirror, something she herself had done on numerous occasion. This wasn’t the kind of looking that people did when they were checking their makeup or hair line, this was the type of looking where you were trying to find yourself, discover who you were and who you were going to become. Karyn had always believed that mirrors were the gateways to a person’s soul, when there was no one to hide behind and no place to run. How can you hide from your own reflection, or deny what you see when you look at your own reflection? Karyn knew that this was the type of soul searching that Killian did when he looked into the mirror just the same as she did and she connected with him because of it. It took courage to truly look at yourself in that way.

Yes, Karyn had seen the killer in Killian when she had looked at him the first time, but she had also seen the man who looked himself in the eyes and chose not to live as one. This, more than anything, was the reason that even though she was alone in a cold room where she may never come out again, Karyn’s mind remained locked on Killian, her vampire in shining armor.

As Karyn sat in the corner of the small room thinking about Killian she began to hear a high pitched droning noise.  At first she thought it was because she was exhausted and hungry, after all, as far as she knew, she hadn’t eaten in almost a day, if it was even the same day. She really had no way to know.

Just as she had convinced herself that she was hearing things, the floor in front of her began to open up. Karyn laughed out loud, she had checked every wall in the room for a door but never thought to look on the floor. It made sense. Killian had told her that each floor went deeper underground, so of course the doors would be on the floor. Karyn immediately dismissed the idea of trying to escape. Regardless of the purpose behind why she was in this room, the reality was that she was here. Somehow she doubted that they were simply going to give her a way out and then just let her walk away.  So, instead she waited calmly and patiently in the corner watching as a small table and a chair was pushed up through the opening in the floor. Karyn wanted nothing more than to rush over to the table and see what was on it, sit on a chair instead of the cold hard steel floor, but she forced herself to wait. She felt for some reason as though everything she did was being watched and tested. She was already angry with herself for not having thought to look on the floor for a door. She wanted them to know that she could care less what they sent into her little cell.

Karyn’s time in orphanages, foster care homes, and sometimes even the streets had taught her not only how to survive, but also how to be patient, and how to adapt. She knew that there would be food of some kind on that table as well as at least some water. If they had wanted her dead, they could have done so a long time ago. She also knew that there would be some kind of condition that she would have to meet. One of her foster mothers used to make her eat her food off of the floor like a dog. Karyn would do so because she knew that she had to eat, but she never let it break her. She always knew that those people were less than her because of their actions and she would not allow them to make her less than who she was. She would do whatever she needed to do right now to survive and to find her way to the truth, but she would not be broken.

Karyn waited for what she deemed to be a good amount of time, and then slowly but steadily made her way to the table. She had been right about the food. In front of her on the table lay a steaming pile of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, vegetables, and two large biscuits slathered with butter and jam. There was also a large glass of ice water and a cup of steaming hot coffee.  Whoever these people were, they certainly knew her taste. As much as Karyn wanted to immediately stuff her face, she forced herself to start slowly while looking around at the rest of the table.  There wasn’t much. On her left was a small black button and on her right was a white one. Nothing else appeared to have been brought up through the floor. She ate in silence and savored every bite of her food drinking her water but saving her coffee for the end. Even though it was just barely warm by the time she drank it, the bitterness of it made her meal complete and gave her some much needed caffeine. Karyn sipped her last drink and then got up from the table to walk around a bit. As soon as she stood up, her food was removed via the small doorway in the floor and a voice sounded inside the room.

“Hello Karyn. My name is Ben and I will be in charge of the first phase of your realignment. As you have probably guessed by now, this first phase is a testing phase. Many are bought to us with some abilities as a shadow walker, but very few can make it through the realignment. We do not do this out of malice, but out of necessity. The things that you would see should you pass your realignment will be dangerous not just to you but to the world around you. That is why realignment is so strenuous. If you are not strong enough in mind, body, and spirit to survive realignment how can we expect you to survive the world outside of this room? We like to call this first phase a sharing phase. We will share with you a number of truths about ourselves and what we do and in turn you will share with us a number of truths about yourself. You will notice that you have two buttons on your table, one black, one white. When you are asked a question, you must press one of these buttons. Figuring out which one is also part of this phase. Let’s begin.

“For starters, let me tell you where you are. You are currently in the Kansas City Missouri branch of Department 99. There are several branches of Department 99 located all across the United States. There are also similar departments in other countries that are identified in their own ways. Our facility was created in order to handle all of the new ones. We don’t know when exactly it started, some say it has been happening for as long as this world has existed, and some say that it has only begun in recent years. When is not as important as what however. As well as we can tell, our world is only one of many other worlds that exist. I’m not talking aliens from millions of miles away either. I mean that there are infinite numbers of worlds living all on top of each other, so to speak. A theory was created a long time ago that says that time and space are the same thing, and as far as we can tell that has now been proven. Think of it as two people being separated by nothing more than a piece of cloth, eventually that cloth will begin to unravel and now there is nothing to separate you from the other person. As weak of an example as that is, it is the only one we have. Something is thinning the fabric of time and space as we know it and our world seems to be the point to which the holes in that fabric lead.

“Now, for your first question. What is your name?”

Karyn did not have any idea what to do. She had been expecting a yes or no question that she would have at least a 50 50 shot at getting right. How could she answer a question like this with buttons? The more she thought about it, the more complicated it became. After all, Karyn wasn’t even her real name. She had never even known what her original name had been and she had been given a new name with just about every new location. Karyn had been the legal name she had given herself when she turned 18. Besides, Ben had already called her Karyn at the beginning which made her question why he would be asking her name. Then she began to wonder about whether a title was a name as well. After all, she was a nurse, a student, a woman, and so many other names used to describe a person. What was it that Ben wanted her to answer and how? Then she heard Killian’s voice in her head,
you’re a shadow walker
. Without hesitation, she reached out her hand and depressed the black button.

Bens voice rang out again, “Great. The next thing I will share with you is that right now there are nine other shadow walkers going through exactly what you are going through. Only one of you will make it. Would you like to give up now so that one of them has a better chance to continue on?”

Karyn wasted no time; she quickly hit the black button. She had no idea why she chose the black button other than that it reminded her of being in dark places and finding the courage to never give up. It took several minutes for Ben to speak again and she wondered if she had made a mistake in the button she had chosen. Finally, she heard his voice again.

“Department 99 has several different areas to it including shifter relations were Killian works, and realignment where I am currently assigned. We also deal in areas of magic, demons, witches, and many more. We do our best not to have to kill anyone or anything, but sometimes we have no choice. Do you believe killing is good or bad, Karyn?”

Once again, Karyn had to think about her answer. If she were to answer in a way that she thought was right she would say that killing was bad. After all she was a nurse and she dedicated herself to trying to save lives, not to take them. However, if she could have killed that werewolf today in order to save that child she would have. If she was completely honest with herself, there were people in the world that she felt deserved death. She had seen a case last year where a drunk driver had killed a woman and her two young children. While Karyn had been stitching up the driver’s leg, she couldn’t help but think that it should have been him lying in the morgue and not the innocent victims he had killed. Karyn hit the black button again.