Page 1 of Stubborn as a Shadow

PROLOGUE

UH OH…

MORGAN

I missed the dragon shifter.

He’d been placed in a cage just like the rest of us in this yucky old warehouse, but he hadn’t moped. He’d been full of music and defiance. Then he disappeared. Right out of his cage. One minute he was there, and the next?—

Poof! He was gone!

I’d never seen anything like it. It was like a fancy magic show people go to see in Vegas or something, except I knew for a fact there hadn’t been any smoke or any mirrors.

It shocked the sparkle right out of my rainbow, and I wasn’t the only one taken by surprise. The phoenix shifter had even burst into flames. And things in the warehouse hadn’t been the same since.

The dragon hadn’t been here long, but he’d made a big impact.

And best of all? He’d left me with a present: an earworm. That’s a weird word, right? Because I don’t think anyone wants awrithing worm in their ear. But I liked the earworm the dragon gave me.

Splish Splash had been splishing and splashing in my head for days now. I couldn’t remember anything more than the first two lines, but I didn’t care. Thinking about them was so much better than listening to the phoenix moan about how weak her heart was.

I felt sorry for the bird. She had gone up in flames shortly after the dragon had arrived, and again when he’d disappeared. Doing that twice in less than a week had to be rough on a body. But I was getting bored nodding along sympathetically to her complaints. Under normal circumstances, she was probably a lovely woman, but these were not normal circumstances, and she was dulling the colors in my world.

So, I closed my eyes and bopped along to what I could remember of the song.

It was so much better than crying. Because that would be disastrous. My tears were a safety hazard. When they hit, everyone needed to take cover. It was all “Danger. Code Red. Run away as fast as you can.”

Nope. Unicorns don’t cry. Or least they really, really shouldn’t.

“Quit humming that stupid song,” the rabbit shifter across the aisle barked at me.

For a prey shifter, he could bark surprisingly well. I thought about complimenting him, but I suspected he wouldn’t like that. He didn’t like much at all.

Should I suggest we sing along to a different song? The dragon had made it seem so easy, but trying to find a song I remembered all the words to was impossible. The only one I could think of was “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, and the rabbit didn’t seem ready to twinkle with me.

Note to self: If—no, not if—whenI got out of here, I was going to learn more songs.

Before I could suggest something else, a wave of whispers flowed from cage to cage in a susurrus, reminding me of the aspen trees behind my uncle’s house. The air felt charged—almost magical. Although I doubted that’s what it was, since neither I nor any of my fellow captives could access our magic.

That didn’t bother me as much as it did some. As a unicorn, I’d never shifted much. My uncle had been too scared someone would see my glorious unicorn beauty and do bad things to me. I’d always thought his fear was unwarranted—because, seriously, people love unicorns! Everyone knew that!

But, um, yeah… He might have had a point, because now I was sitting in a cage.

That said, heaps of other supes were caged too, so I didn’t think my abduction had anything to do with my being a unicorn. Nope, these jerks didn’t seem to be picky about what kind of supe they captured and tossed in a cage. They were just collecting us like Pokémon cards.

But my life wouldn’t end like this. I knew it wouldn’t. I was too spectacular. And I didn’t deserve to die a virgin. Someone was going to punch my V-card, damn it! I shuddered. Okay, that was a horrible saying. At least I hoped it was just a saying because being punched during sex sounded horrible.

So yeah, I was sure I would lead a super amazing life outside of this cage. That’s why when something happened in the warehouse, I paid attention.

And these whispers? They were definitely something new. Something exciting.

As the whispers drew closer, I squirmed in my cage, straining to hear what was being said.

“He’s back,” the phoenix said.

“They caught him,” a fox shifter muttered.

My heart sank. There was only one person they could be talking about, because there’d only ever been one person who’d escaped. The dragon.