Shifter's Destiny. Anna Leonard

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For B. True friend, and hero-on-call.

       Prologue

      The smell of salt in the air normally invigorated him, made him willing to crawl out of the warm bed and see what the day would bring. But that morning he woke wishing instead for the sweeter smells of fresh grass and warm horseflesh, the sound of female voices and clattering hooves, instead of male shouts and the thump of a winch rising and lowering as the catch was brought in.

      The wish settled deep inside him and became an itch, a dissatisfaction he couldn’t quite identify.

       It’s time.

      Josh groaned, and rolled over to shove his face into the pillow. No, he was going to sleep a little while longer. Long day ahead, and he needed a few more minutes of sleep.

      It’s time, the voice sounded again, and he realized, with a jolt, that the voice wasn’t telling him to get up.

      It was telling him to go home.

       Chapter 1

      The sun was high overhead, and the Saturday flea market was in full swing.

      “You like? It’s twenty dollars, but for you, sweetie, eighteen. No? All right, fifteen!” The vendor held up the brightly patterned silk scarf, letting the breeze ripple it invitingly.

      The girl he was addressing gave the scarf a longing look, but shook her head, backing away from the table. Just that hesitation had cost her—she looked around, frantic for a moment, and then hurried to catch up with the woman who, not realizing that her companion had stopped, strode through the crowded flea market several paces ahead. The woman’s gaze darted back and forth, scanning the crowd as though she was looking for someone—or looking to avoid someone.

      “Libby?” the girl called, her voice high and thin with worry.

      Elizabeth stopped, looking back with alarm that subsided when she saw her sister was not in trouble. “Maggie, come on! Stay with me, baby.” Elizabeth’s voice was calm and soft, but it carried through the crowd, and there was a note of tension running through it that her sister heard as clearly as a shout, and obeyed immediately.

      “I’m sorry,” Maggie said, running forward and slipping her hand into her sister’s. “I’ll stay close, I promise.”

      The two girls were obviously related; both of them were slender, with long legs, although the preteen Maggie’s were more coltish than her older sister’s. Long black hair, braided in Maggie’s case and pulled into a long ponytail for Elizabeth, and wide-set brown eyes with a vaguely exotic cast, further stamped the family resemblance. Their looks hinted at Spanish blood, or Arabic: an exotic edge that spoke of distant lands and warmer climates than their current New England location. Although they wore plain jeans and unadorned sweatshirts, and Maggie had the same backpack over her shoulder as half the kids around her, something more than their looks set them apart from the others milling around them; something obvious, but difficult to identify.

      It was a way of looking around, of observing without being part of the crowd, a difference that identified them—if an observer knew—as residents of an enclave that some cynics called a cult, or a commune, but most people simply called the Community.

      Good folk, neighbors would say if asked. Founded, oh, near fifty years ago, wasn’t it? Bunch of them came and bought old farmland, built it up nice with houses and gardens and a proper downtown with stores and whatnot. Pay their taxes on time, send their kids to the local schools, mostly. They don’t seem to like technology much, but otherwise perfectly normal. Not a cult at all, no. No, there was nothing particularly strange about the Community.

      Six months ago, Elizabeth would have agreed with them. Now, she was less certain.

      “We have to hurry,” she told Maggie. “They saw us come in here, but they can’t keep track of us so long as we keep moving.”

      Maggie nodded, and the two moved on, weaving through the shoppers and sellers, moving around the overladen tables and backed-in vans that filled the parking lot of the makeshift flea market.

      “Here, this way.” They slipped behind an oversized van near the end of one row, between two racks of brightly tie-dyed summer dresses, and found themselves at the far end of the lot. Behind them, the bustle and noise of a warm Saturday afternoon. In front of them, a muddy field, cars parked in a squared-off pattern. To their left was the bulk