Controlled by a Fire Demon
The Owl Shifter Chronicles Book Two
Qatarina Wanders
Copyright © 2019 by Qatarina Wanders: Wandering Words Media
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To Ramy Vance, a kickass Urban Fantasy author and my first fiction writing coach. I hope to be as prolific as you someday soon.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Also by Qatarina Wanders
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About the Author
Acknowledgments
1
The darkness was absolute. The wind howled in from the south, bringing a terrible screech with it. It wasn’t the normal sort of screech, like you would hear from a crow or an owl with a particularly nasty case of throat inflammation.
No, this was a terrible kind of screech. The kind that caused your heart to pound at the furious pace of a mad stallion. It was the kind of screech that heralded horror unfathomable.
Emily sat on the edge of the patio, swinging her legs along the side, when she heard it. Her first instinct was to snap her head in the direction of the sound. Her eyes narrowed as she tried to make sense of the encompassing darkness and the swarm of clouds up in the high south.
By this time, her heart was already racing because she knew this night was no ordinary night. This night was special. This night was what determined if they won or lost.
Minutes earlier, she’d given her aunt—someone she was just finding out two days prior was a witch—instructions to heal her brother. Again, she just found out that Michael Winter—nasty schoolmate by day, supernatural-killer by night—was her blood brother (don’t even get her started on her weird family lineage).
Aunt Anastacia had made it clear to her that once she started the process, she had to complete it. She couldn’t stop halfway; otherwise, Michael would die. Also, she could do very little if their house was attacked by evil roves—warlocks and witches who had the ability to move from city to city and maintain their powers—and this was a high probability, seeing how Emily had probably destroyed the evil roves’ mansion up on Main Street in town (yeah, maybe let’s not talk about that).
Aunt Anastacia had told her to expect a war. In fact, not that she should expect a war, but that she had started one. The Alfreds would be coming for them, and she’d need to protect the house while Aunt Anastacia was working on healing Michael’s body.
It had taken everything in her to ask for Michael to be healed rather than the alternative, which was to go through the Adoption process (that would basically turn her into this owl shifter on steroids, but we will get to that). It made her more invincible and more terrifying to roves like the Alfreds. It basically guaranteed that she was a match for the evil coming after her.
It didn’t, however, guarantee that she would win. And when she found out that there wasn’t just one evil rove, but a family of them, she decided she needed a team. If she was going to fight the Alfreds and win, she needed help. The Alfreds had at least four evil roves (one mother and three children), and that’s not including the most evil rove of all time—Gregory Alfred.
Even though this was a man who had been responsible for attacking her father and crippling him—and sending her mysterious life-threatening text messages that scared her out of her wits—she had to quell her anger so she could build a team. No use going after a group of four warlocks and witches only to be imprisoned, or worse—killed.
So she’d asked Aunt Anastacia to revive Michael and get him back into fighting shape—Michael, as it turned out was a rove as well (surprise, surprise)—because if they were going to win this war against the forces of darkness, they could use all the help they could get.
Aunt Anastacia was already on their side, so that made them three. Dad was not a supernatural, but Emily knew he could use a gun. And her two friends—who were probably locked up somewhere under the burning house—if she could rescue them (she hoped they were still alive, that she hadn’t inadvertently condemned them to death), would make great additions to her team.
If all went well, she could have the team all set up and ready to take on the evil rove-family of the Alfreds. But that was a big if.
Everything would come crashing down if Aunt Anastacia was stopped. Everything would fail if Emily was unable to defend this house. If somehow the Alfreds decided they wanted payback immediately for what she’d done to their home.
If they came in force right at that moment, it was game over for her.
And, sadly, that was what it seemed like might happen. Out far in the southern sky, the swarm of darkness Emily had observed slowly began to dissolve as wave after wave of screeching blasted over the cottage.
Emily shot to her feet, a sense of dread clothing her like a cold blanket. She wasn’t yet sure what she was seeing. They looked like bats, only they were slightly bigger.
Now, Emily was an owl shifter. Owls had the best night vision of all birds. As a supernatural being, her Owl form had an inordinately better night vision than the average owl. Some of that ability translated to Emily’s normal human eyes. That meant, when she was human, she could still see with some of her Owl vision.
That’s how Emily could see the red-tinted
