Broken Fate

Broken FateShards of Fate (Book One)Riley Storm Copyright©2023Broken FateRiley StormAll Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic means, without written permission from the author. The sole exception is for the use of brief quotations in a book review. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.Edited by Olivia Kalb – https://www.oliviakalbediting.com/Cover Designs by Jacqueline Sweet Covers Chapter OneFourteen Years Earlier“Jada, that’s far enough!” Lanna called, her words tugged and pulled apart by the wind as it swirled across the icy landscape. “Come back now. The river isn’t fully frozen yet.”“Calli-Catch. Calli-Catch.”“Jada!”“Can’t. See. Me.”“I mean it. Come back here. You can’t go too far onto the ice, Jada!”“Calli-Catch. Calli-Catch.”Jada skipped across the ice, silver hair flowing wild, blending with the snow as she sang the ancient rhyme.“Now. I’m. Free!”Watching as her sister hit the end and turned around—the game ensured it happened on a bounce—Lanna crossed her arms and glared, trying to hold in her frustration at being put in charge of her kid sister. She was eleven now. She wanted to do her own thing!“Jada. Now. Off the ice.”“I can’t stop,” Jada called back. “If I do, I’ll be a Calli!”Lanna rolled her eyes. How could her sister still believe such childish nonsense at seven years old? She’d been over it by that age. She was sure of it.“The Callis aren’t real! They’re just bogeymen. A silly, made-up story that isn’t real.”“Are, too!” Jada called back as she started her way back, bouncing on one leg or two, depending on what was called.“Calli-Catch. Calli-Catch.”“Come. On!”“Watch. Them. Flee!”Jada landed triumphantly with two feet back where she had started, just as the game called for. She looked up at her sister for approval.CRACK!“Jada!” Lanna screamed as the ice started to buckle Chapter TwoToday was the day I would kill my best friend.Sort of.It started like any other. The crow family that lived high up in the boughs of one of the filmore trees in our yard started to crow with the rise of the sun. My wolf stirred inside me, nudging me awake, urging me to go out and stretch our legs. To run with the morning breeze that gently bent the long stalks of grass that covered the plains to the east.It would be warm but not overbearing, she warned, and I tended to agree.“I’m going, I’m going,” I muttered at her nuzzling insistence in my brain. “Don’t get uppity on me today.”The mixed sigh and whoof that echoed in my head translated loosely as “I would never.” I rolled my eyes but got out of bed, nonetheless. There was no point in trying to put off the day by staying in bed. It wouldn’t help.After stretching to the sky and then down to the floor, I moved to the glass door and pushed it open, welcoming the cool touch of the breeze.A shiver puckered my skin from head to toe, the abrupt temperature change dragging me to full alertness. Dropping to all fours, I let the change come over me, and then I leaped from the second floor to the ground, four legs easily absorbing the landing.Happy now? I asked the bestial