Page 5 of Alice and Her Shifters (Dirty Paranormal Fairytale Haremlan 2)

Less than five minutes later, the steps followed me again. “I mean it. Get lost. I’m off duty and in no mood to continue to entertain.”

A few whispers floated on the soft breeze that brushed against my back. I wrapped my jacket around me tighter and turned at an intersection, toward the house me and my sister share.

About halfway home, the steps echoed behind again. The last of my patience ran out. I sighed and turned around, “Look—”

I stopped and stared, dumbfounded to find no one on the sidewalk. Not even across the street. For all I was able to see, there wasn’t a soul in sight. That wasn’t so unusual for this side of Seattle. But I was so sure I had heard steps behind me.

“I’m more tired than I thought,” I said to myself and shrugged before turning around and continuing my way home.

But the sound of footsteps following me didn’t stop. And the sound was worse than before. Because, as much as it pained me to realize the fact, they sounded like they were coming from all directions.

Frustrated, I stopped again.

Electric tingles vibrated through me as I strained to listen for the faintest whisper of sound. A piece of gravel ground under someone’s shoe. A breath that didn’t belong.

My amulet started to glow as warmth slowly bled through my body. The sensation centered in the palms of my hands. The sensation of someone standing behind me weighed heavily on my shoulders. As I turned around again, I found three men standing before me.

One of them was the man who wouldn’t leave the coffee shop until the last minute. The other two were just as startlingly beautiful as the one with blue eyes. The second one had shaggy, unkempt brown hair and hazel eyes that almost glowed. He stood to Blue’s left. The third had short hair left long enough on the top that it stuck out in every direction. He wore glasses and had deep green eyes. He stood to Blue’s right.

I was so struck by their appearance that I almost forgot the reason why I had turned around in the first place. Especially since each one of them smiled at me in a haunting way.

“If you don’t mind,” one of them said. The green-eyed one. He reached for my necklace.

I took a step back and clutched my amulet in my tight fist. “I don’t think so.”

He smirked. “Come now, be a good girl…”

He reached for my chain, and I lifted a hand to stop him. Fire shot from my hand like a torch. All three men were thrown back, landing on the pavement, the sidewalk, and an unforgiving patch of grass. Each man had a certain level of surprise in his eyes.

Except for the one with the glasses. He also seemed rather impressed.

I, however, was shocked. I stared at my hands and then at the men who had already started collecting themselves and climbing to their feet.

The green-eyed one said, “That wasn’t very nice of you.”

“Didn’t your mother teach you not to take things that didn’t belong to you?” I asked.

“Sadly, no,” he said. “Matters not. I’ll be taking that amulet now.”

“Over my dead body,” I said.

“That can be arranged,” he smirked.

“That’s no well,” the glasses said.

The men take a step closer. I didn’t want to stick around and find out what lengths they would go to in order to take my necklace from me. Instead, I turned around, kicking my feet as hard as I could to get away from them. My mind raced through every ounce of reason to make sense of what happened.

It was useless. There was no way what was happening was real.

In my delirium, I turned down a street, heading deeper into downtown. Keeping up with the insanity of the night, I ended up turning down an alley. It was a mistake the was probably going to result in a very bloody end. But I didn’t have the time to chide myself or turn around and head in the other direction. My only hope was that the alley would be opened at the end, and I could take another turn. With luck, I would lose these bozos, hot or not, and make it home where I was safe, and things made sense.

As I drew closer toward the end of the alley, I realized I was approaching a dead end. I started to slow myself down so I wouldn’t smack into the brick wall. It wasn’t an ideal turn of events, but maybe I would still make it out of everything relatively unscathed. After all, though I didn’t know how I had done so, I shot fire from my hands once already. I was sure I could do it again. And I would stand my ground and defend myself with my life.

Right before I hit the wall, a small voice spoke to me. It was like an urge that I couldn’t deny. “Keep going. Don’t slow down.”

I didn’t want to listen. But the voice kept repeating itself in such a soothing tone. The end was coming up. With no other options available, I obeyed, closing my eyes as I braced for the impact of a solid building. But instead of meeting a solid surface, cold air whooshed around me. A sense of weightlessness overcame me. I opened my eyes to black smoke billowing around me. Seconds later, my feet rested on solid ground again, and I was not in Seattle anymore.

Thick trees surrounded me, towering high above my head. The night sky barely poked through the canopy. But what little light that managed to break through showcased skeletal branches reaching toward the sky. Little more of the silver light from the moon filtered in tiny beams through what space it fit through. Though nowhere near enough to see clearly by, it was enough to help the shadows play tricks on my mind. The darkness around me seemed to move, and I sucked in a breath of shock.

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