Tarnished Beginnings: Historical Shifter Fantasy (Soul Dance Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Tarnished Beginnings, Soul Dance Book One

  Book Description

  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

  Tarnished Legacy, Book Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Tarnished Beginnings, Soul Dance Book One

  Historical Shifter Fantasy

  Ann Gimpel

  Edited by Angela Kelly

  Edited by Diane Eagle Kataoka

  Illustrated by Fiona Jayde

  Contents

  Tarnished Beginnings

  Copyright Page

  Book Description

  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

  About the Author

  Tarnished Legacy, Book Description

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Tarnished Beginnings

  A Prequel

  Soul Dance, Book One

  Historical Shifter Fantasy

  By Ann Gimpel

  Copyright Page

  Tarnished Beginnings Copyright © January 2017 Ann Gimpel

  Cover Art Copyright © January 2017, Fiona Jayde

  Edited by: Angela Kelly and Diane Eagle Kataoka

  Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Book Description

  1700s Egypt is a haven for magic-wielders of all kinds. Vampires hold court, staying one step ahead of the priests and priestesses who want them dead. Gypsy caravans roam the Nile from north to south and back again, plying their wares, telling fortunes, casting Tarot cards, and stealing from the gadjos.

  Tairin Jabari was born in a caravan and has always believed she’s Romani. Why wouldn’t she? Her mother and father never suggested otherwise. The Rom have harsh rules. When Tairin’s first shift catches her unaware at thirteen, her father disappears, and the elders move with deadly speed to punish her mother for mating outside the blood.

  Hurt, lost, confused, and fearing for her own life, Tairin runs away, leaving her mother’s smoking funeral pyre behind. If she could only find her father, he’d welcome her. He’s always loved her, hasn’t he? Only problem is he’s in a shifter settlement. With her mixed blood, they won’t welcome her any more warmly than the Romani. It doesn’t take long before Tairin discovers how desperately unprepared she is for life outside her protected caravan. With her survival on the line every single day, she and her wolf have some hard choices to make.

  Chapter 1

  Egypt 1740

  “Tairin. Get moving! The water buckets are still empty,” her mother shouted. Long black hair hung in two braids behind her shoulders, and her dark eyes snapped dangerously. She stood over Tairin with her hands on her hips, staring down at her. Dressed in long, colorful skirts and a red, patchwork tunic, she dug her bare feet into loose sand. Beads and bracelets clanked against each other when she moved, and rings circled all her fingers and several of her toes.

  “Yes, Mother. Sorry, Mother.”

  Tairin rose from where she crouched on the shady side of one of the wagons in their Gypsy caravan. Midday sun beat down on her, making her dizzy and nauseated. She hadn’t felt right for days. A wolf—the same one that had haunted her dreams for years—was making its presence known with greater and greater frequency. Every time she closed her eyes, the creature was there, and she wondered if she was losing her mind. The thing was actually talking with her.

  Urging.

  Pushing.

  Exhorting.

  Appealing.

  Shouting.

  She’d always seen the animal as a special imaginary friend who visited her in the dream world, but it wasn’t content to remain in the shadows any longer. It was angry, fury evident in its snarls and raised hackles, and Tairin was frightened. She’d tried to talk with her mother, but Aneksi curved two fingers in the Romani sigil against evil and told her to throw herself on the goddess’s mercy.

  Confused and wondering what any of the goddesses had to do with her problem, Tairin had asked which one to petition, but her mother shook her head. “You cannot talk about such things, even with me. They are forbidden. For the sake of all that’s sacred, do not mention these visions to anyone else. They’ll think you mad.”

  Tairin pushed the unsettling exchange with her mother aside. It had happened a few days ago, but it still haunted her. Snatching up two buckets fashioned from goat hide, she trudged toward the Nile River. It ran fast and muddy not far from their encampment. Their caravan had just left Cairo where they’d done well telling fortunes and entertaining wealthy patrons with dancing girls and tarot spreads. Tomorrow or the next day, they’d head for Giza. They plied the settlements up and down the Nile, along with several other caravans. The elders set a schedule so not more than one group was in any given city at a time.

  Her head spun and she shook it to clear black spots swimming in front of her eyes. What was wrong with her? She’d always been healthy, but she’d just turned thirteen. On the heels of her birthday had come blood and cramping pain in her lower abdomen. An uncomfortable bundle of rags bunched between her legs made it impossible to ignore her body’s betrayal. She wasn’t bleeding as much as she’d been a couple of days earlier, but this would happen every month. Forever.

  Would she always feel this bad?

  Tairin hoped not. Her body was changing, and she’d have to get used to the awkwardness of breasts and blood. It wasn’t as if she could alter anything. Kneeling, she dipped her buckets in the brown, murky waters of the Nile. Their weight made her stagger as she headed back to drop them off and get two more. Ten buckets twice a day provided enough water for her mother’s wagon. Tairin longed for brothers and sisters to share the chores, but no such luck. Her grandparents were too feeble to do anything requiring much effort, and her father wasn’t always around. Even if he were, men didn’t dirty their hands with menial tasks like carting water.

  Not for the first time, she wished she’d been born a male. No blood. No breasts. No hucking water. She’d enjoy sitting in circles with the other men, drinking, smoking, and cracking jokes. And she liked taking care of the horses and goats, chores traditionally done by men.

  May as well demand the moon on a platter.

  Partway back, raised voices drew her to a hal
t. Her mother and father were arguing. They’d done more and more of that of late, but they always shut up fast when she drew close. Maybe this time, she’d actually hear something.

  Tairin dropped to her belly in tall marsh grass that grew thickly in the Nile’s delta and shrouded herself in magic. She might earn a session with the whip for not delivering the water faster, but she wanted to hear what was wrong. Her father had left for a long time the previous month. He’d been gone so long, she’d been afraid she’d never see him again. Even though he’d returned, things between him and her mother had remained tense. The usual sounds of their lovemaking conspicuously absent.

  Their voices vanished abruptly, but Tairin wasn’t fooled, nor did it deter her. They’d summoned a spell to hide their words. Not wanting to miss anything critical that might shed light on what was wrong between them, she snaked a tendril of magic outward and drilled through the ward enveloping her parents. She was careful to intrude near ground level to lessen the odds of her mother or father noticing.

  “We must leave the caravan, Aneksi. There’s no choice.”

  “I refuse to penalize my parents for my bad decisions, Jamal.”

  “So leave them the wagon. I’ll secure another for us. I found an oasis to shelter us. It’s what I was doing last month: hunting for a place we might settle. No one need know—”

  “Maybe it won’t happen.” Her mother’s voice shrilled. “And we will have turned our lives inside out for nothing.”

  “It will. Nothing you or I can do will stop it. Not only will it happen, it’s close. Closer than you imagine. I see it in her eyes, and my wolf walks with hers in the place where the animals all roam together. I must talk with Tairin. Prepare her—”

  “It’s forbidden. You’ll do no such thing.”

  “It’s not fair to her. Whether she wills it or no, her first shift will catch her unaware if I say nothing. None of us are ever quite ready. If it happens in the midst of the caravan…” Her father’s voice trailed off.

  Tairin swallowed hard. First shift? What on earth was her father talking about? Did he and her mother have another child? One she didn’t know about? Tairin muted her racing thoughts and focused on her mother’s next words.

  “We must make certain that first shift never comes to pass.” Aneksi’s normally low, musical voice was strident, strained.

  “You can’t stop it. Nor can I, which is why we must leave,” her father argued. “You and I were selfish indulging in a love we should have been strong enough to resist. When you became pregnant and decided to keep the child, we didn’t think it through. We’ve offered our daughter nothing but tarnished beginnings. At least if we steal away together, we can be a family who lives out truth, not falsehood—”

  “I’m not going, and that’s final. Find another way.”

  “Aneksi. Be reasonable. I’m your husband. I could order you to leave with me, but I don’t want to have to do that.”

  “I wouldn’t go. I’d divorce you first. I’d have grounds. I could tell the elders you tricked me, obscured your shifter roots with magic. My home is with my people.”

  “You should’ve thought of that before you became my wife.” Jamal’s words held a harsh, bitter edge.

  Tairin choked back fear that made her throat so thick she couldn’t breathe. Like a macabre puzzle that suddenly yielded to persistent efforts to solve it, understanding slammed into her. And she wished she’d left well enough alone. Wished she’d never eavesdropped.

  Wished she’d never been born.

  Her father was a shifter. He had to be since he’d mentioned his wolf and her mother had thrown his shifter blood in his face. Tairin was half shifter, which meant she was unclean. Once the Romani discovered that, they’d cast her from their caravans. Or worse. She’d seen the Rom burn their own for lesser offenses. Drawing her knees up, she wrapped her arms around them and stuffed a hand into her mouth, so she wouldn’t give her presence away with whimpers and moans.

  How could her parents have been so stupid? Romani didn’t mate outside their blood, and they sure as hell didn’t mate with shapeshifters. The Rom saw shifters the same way they viewed vampires, as abominations.

  Tairin held onto herself tighter, afraid if she let go, she’d shatter into a million pieces. She was a shifter. Half a shifter, anyway. That was what the wolf in her head was about, and it was tired of waiting.

  Her mother and father were still conversing in tense, stilted tones, but Tairin had stopped listening. She hated them. They’d been selfish and ruined her life.

  They ruined their lives too, a small voice insisted.

  Maybe not. I’m the one with mixed blood. The one who’s unclean. Forbidden.

  Tears burned behind her eyes, but she refused to give in to them. She was old enough to be on her own. Children half her age roamed Cairo’s streets, living on scraps they begged from strangers. If they could do it, so could she.

  Brave words, but the specter of leaving the caravan tore at her. This was her home. She had friends here. She’d learned to ferret out truths from the gadjos who paid them, and her fortunes and tarot readings were in high demand. Because she was quick, one of the elders had begun grooming her in the finer points of pilfering—

  “Tairin!” Her mother’s voice was edged with steel. “Where’ve you gotten yourself off to? The horses need water.”

  She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, dragged herself to her feet, and picked up the heavy buckets. Once she was close to the wagon, she dropped them and picked up two more before her mother could grill her about why the first buckets took so long.

  Tairin snuck a glance at her father before heading back toward the Nile. He looked sad, with lines carved into his high forehead and eyes pinched at the corners. His brown-gold hair and dark eyes were just like hers, and she’d always loved him.

  Until now.

  She traipsed back and forth again and again, grateful to have something to do. It didn’t quiet her mind or her fears, but at least she could pretend her life was still normal.

  Not for much longer.

  Tairin positioned the last two buckets, keeping them out of direct sunlight so her hard work wouldn’t evaporate, drawn into the dry, baked air of northern Egypt. The heat was worse in the south, but this was the only place she’d ever lived. The only life she’d known.

  Her magic told her that her grandparents slumbered in the back of their wagon. Her mother and father were nowhere to be found. Maybe they’d left the area to continue their argument about her. She abandoned the circle of wagons and the scent of cook fires and headed back toward the Nile. A glance at the sky told her she should light their own fire and get tonight’s grains softening in boiling water, but she kept walking.

  The river was shallow here, and she made her way across rocks and sandbars to a small island, rucking up her skirts to keep them dry. Like most of her kinsmen, her feet were bare. They only wore shoes when they went into towns with their open sewers and garbage pits. No need out here.

  She unwound the rags between her legs, inspecting them. What had been a flow was now spots. Maybe her moon cycle was done for now. She returned to the water and rinsed out the rags, hanging them from clumps of vegetation. Not having the bulky strips of cloth bound to her body made her feel more like herself.

  She sat on a low, flat rock and watched the river flowing by. It held a timeless aspect that drew her, soothed her. The Nile had always been here, and it always would be. People came and went, but the river endured.

  “I should leave.”

  The words surprised her, but she’d said them out loud for a reason. Maybe to focus her wandering attention. Where would she go? Would she end up a beggar? Or maybe worse. She was old enough to marry, which meant she was old enough for what men and women did behind curtains in the dark of night. Without the caravan to bargain for a husband for her, though, and pay a dowry, she’d never secure a husband. No man would want a woman who came to him penniless without a wedding gift.

&
nbsp; No man would want a woman with mixed blood like mine. Not to marry, anyway.

  The thought made her wince and pounded a few more nails into the coffin her future had become. Just because she wasn’t marriage material didn’t mean men wouldn’t want her for the hidden mysteries of her body, though. As a woman alone, she’d be vulnerable to every passing male with an itch in his private parts. It wasn’t cold, but Tairin shivered and wrapped her arms around herself.

  Maybe her mother was right and she’d never shift. So far, she’d been stronger than the wolf. She’d kept the upper hand. If she were vigilant, she could keep the creature hidden. Force it to remain in the shadows of her mind. Even a few years would make a huge difference. She’d be far stronger at sixteen than she was right now. Her magic had been expanding by leaps and bounds, and she expected that to continue.

  “Tairin! What are you doing here?”

  She snapped her head up at the sound of Calista’s voice. “Nothing. Thinking. Why are you here?”

  The other woman looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

  Tairin’s stomach twisted into a hard, painful knot. Maybe her father and mother’s argument had become public, and something unspeakable had happened.

  Stop. I’m jumpy as a scalded cat. Calista was surprised I was here, which means she wasn’t hunting for me.

  Tairin pushed her anxiety aside, waiting.

  Chapter 2

  Calista made her way to where Tairin sat, color high on her dark-skinned face. A few years older than Tairin, she had neither wagon nor family. She remained with the caravan out of the kindness of its members, who allowed her to drift from wagon to wagon. Her fine, dark hair was wound into a bun and secured at the nape of her neck with bone pins. Dark eyes skimmed the ground, and she shook out her long, black skirt. It had been bunched in both hands to keep it out of the water.