Tarnished Journey: Historical Paranormal Romance (Soul Dance Book 4) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Book Description, Tarnished Journey

  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

  Book Description, Highland Secrets

  Tarnished Journey

  Soul Dance Book Four

  Ann Gimpel

  Edited by Angela Kelly

  Edited by Diane Eagle Kataoka

  Illustrated by Fiona Jayde

  Contents

  Tarnished Journey

  Copyright Page

  Book Description, Tarnished Journey

  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

  About the Author

  Book Description, Highland Secrets

  Highland Secrets

  Tarnished Journey

  Soul Dance, Book Four

  Historical Paranormal Romance

  By Ann Gimpel

  Copyright Page

  Tarnished Journey Copyright © May 2017 Ann Gimpel

  Cover Art Copyright © May 2017, Fiona Jayde

  Edited by: Angela Kelly & 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, Tarnished Journey

  Long before Germany rounded up Romani and sent them to prison camps, the Netherlands declared them undesirables. Yara’s caravan disbanded when she was fifteen to avoid being driven out of the country. Ten years have passed, and she’s been alone for most of that time hiding in caves and abandoned buildings. It’s been a lonely life, but at least she still has one.

  Stewart conceals his true identity for the best of reasons. He’s not actually Romani, even though he’s been a caravan leader for many years. In a bold and desperate move, he joins a small band of shifters and Rom to fight the Reich’s chokehold on Europe. When they’re crossing the border into the Netherlands, vampires attack.

  Yara senses Romani near her cave. The stench of vampire comes through loud and clear too, along with shifters. While not nearly as bad as vampires, her people have always steered clear of them. Another type of magic plucks at her. She can’t identify it, but it draws her from her hiding place. That decision tilts her world on its axis when she comes face to face with Stewart’s raw masculinity and savage presence. She could still turn tail and run. If she stays, it doesn’t require magical ability to recognize her life will change forever.

  Chapter 1

  Stewart Macleod paced in a rough circle, skirting the collection of shifters and Romani gathered in small groups. He’d declared a rest break, but everyone was too keyed up to sleep. A few of the shifters were combing the forest for food for the rest of them. The shriek of a vulture on the hunt told him Meara wasn’t far away. It had been drizzling all day, and now fog was moving in. He encouraged it with a bit of magic. Anything that would shield their presence might help.

  They’d avoided Hannover and Osnabrück as they transited the northern portion of Germany, selecting backroads that had stressed their truck’s ability. There’d been a few places where they’d all had to get out, but luck had been with them. They hadn’t broken an axle or even had so much as a punctured tire.

  The Netherlands border wasn’t far. Crossing it would push one problem—Nazis—to a backseat. Vampires would still plague them, but he hadn’t sensed any since they’d passed Hannover. Was it because the Reich was using every single one of the fell creatures they could get their hands on?

  The more he thought about it, the likelier it seemed. Vampires reveled in blood and death. Sex ran a hot second. The Nazi prison camps provided lush opportunities for both feeding and fucking, a resource far too rich to be ignored. Vampires might disparage the Reich, but they weren’t above using them to meet their needs.

  A corner of Stewart’s mouth twisted downward into a grimace. Hitler and his henchmen believed they had vampires under their thumbs, but they’d be in for a rude awakening someday.

  Och aye, and we can only hope ’twill come sooner rather than later.

  For once no one was bothering him. No questions. No “Hey, Stewart, come here for a moment,” requests.

  It gave him a much-needed opportunity to flesh out his plan for getting the group across the border and examine it for holes. Critical elements he might have missed. They’d be abandoning the large transport truck soon—not much choice, even though not having it created other problems. Every road had border crossing guards, and they prowled the terrain near their stations. The Nazis knew good and well that once someone moved into the Netherlands, they were home free.

  The safest way across was on foot for the Rom and in shifted form for everyone else. He ticked off names of the principal players. Tairin, Elliott, Jamal, Ilona, Meara, and Gregor were shifters. All wolves except for Meara, whose other form was a vulture. Nivkh and two other bear shifters traveled with them as well. That left himself, Michael, Cadr, Vreis, and Aron, along with three other Rom from Michael’s caravan.

  He thought about his own caravan hidden behind a magical barrier a short distance outside Munich. It was hundreds of miles away, and he hoped to hell they’d be safe. He hadn’t always been a caravan leader. In truth, he’d only adopted the Romani mantle a mere century before. Or perhaps it had been two. Regardless, he’d pulled off the deception swimmingly—until a few days ago. Jamal was sharp. He’d asked pointblank what Stewart was, having intuited his magic didn’t match Romani energy patterns.

  Fortunately, Jamal had the good sense not to keep nagging once Stewart told him that topic was off-limits. He swallowed a snort. Romani magic had dwindled until only a very few had much left. But Jamal was a shifter, and an old, canny one at that. Leave it to a shifter to call him out on his long-running deception.

  Before the Nazi problem heated up, he’d toyed with the idea of translocating his entire caravan to Scot
land, but he’d waited too long. He hadn’t understood how the Reich solidified its powerbase so quickly—until he discovered their mass hypnotism was fueled by vampire coercion.

  A squawk from Meara’s vulture was followed by a flash of light as she shifted midair and somersaulted to his side, landing lightly. Silver-gray hair fell to the ground, providing both cover and warmth. Her shrewd amber eyes still held an avian cast, and she looked more raptor than human as she regarded him.

  “Mind if I join you?” She quirked a brow.

  He met her gaze, not fooled by her words. She was one of the first shifters and always had a motive. “Ye’re not asking a question. Not really,” he countered. “State what’s on your mind.”

  The prickly jab of magic pierced him as she surrounded them with warding. Along with it came the odor of clay baked under a sun far hotter than it ever got in Germany—or the British Isles. Rosemary and fresh cut hay joined the clay scent, the combination the scent of many of her castings. Whatever she had to say, she apparently wasn’t interested in being overheard.

  “Everyone’s too worried to pay us much heed,” he said, keeping his tone neutral. The vulture shifter could be touchy and had a short fuse.

  She shot a pointed look his way. “Do you want them to listen in when I inquire whether now is the time to reveal what you are?” Without waiting for him to respond, she went on, “Laying that aside for a moment, we must firm up the details of how we shall tackle the border. The shifters will take their animal forms. Crossing the border unnoticed should go smoothly for them—”

  “Unless a vampire notices,” he cut in.

  “Unless a vampire notices and chooses to act on the knowledge,” she corrected him. “Shifters are immune to vampire mind control. They’ve pretty much left us alone because of that, preferring to focus on more tractable prey.”

  Stewart waited. Meara clearly had a plan of her own for spiriting them across the border into the Netherlands. One she was about to share. Perhaps it was less risky than his.

  “You’re quiet,” she observed.

  “Ye’re far from done. If I interrupt every few seconds, ye’ll never finish.”

  The corners of her mouth twitched, but didn’t quite form a smile. “True enough. All right then. By my count, eight of us are stuck in human bodies. Seven if we take you out of the equation, but bear with me.”

  He made come along motions with one hand, ignoring her gambit about taking himself out of the equation. She sensed he was different, much as Jamal had, but he’d been evasive in the face of her earlier probing. Was she hunting for information?

  “What is your true name?”

  Stewart started, not expecting the question. He shook his head. “’Tisn’t important. I havena used it for centuries, and no one remembers who I was.”

  Meara frowned, drawing her gray eyebrows into a single line. “Surely your gods would. Shifters don’t have such things, but the Celts had them in droves.”

  “Aye, true enough. If any recall who I was, none have chosen to speak with me for a verra long time.”

  He cut the flow of his words. Part of his plan hinged on those same gods, who’d discounted him for hundreds of years, still being tethered to Earth and capable of responding to a summons for aid. It was one of the biggest unknowns in his strategy, and one he hadn’t spent much time worrying about. They had to get to Scotland first—a place that would strengthen his magic sufficiently the gods might take notice of him once again.

  The way things were going, Scotland was far from a given.

  Even if the Celtic gods had left for other worlds, the British Isles would still concentrate his power, and everyone else’s as well. But without the Celts, no amount of magic would be enough to subvert the Nazis and their war machine.

  Meara narrowed her eyes. The gesture made her look even more like a vulture. “Skipping your name, you were a Druid high priest, correct?”

  “Good guess. I was the highest-ranking Druid in Britain. ’Tis why I’m close to immortal.”

  She narrowed her eyes further. “What does close to immortal mean?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not exactly certain. Danu, Gwydion, Arianrhod, and a few of the others got into an argument over events at one of the Druid temples. We had an overabundance of corrupt priests, and I had to sanction them. Not one of the proudest moments in our priesthood, but—”

  “Sanction as in kill?”

  “Aye.” An image of bodies smoldering atop a pyre flashed through his mind. He pushed it aside.

  “Interesting. I had no idea Druids were so bloodthirsty.”

  “We’re not.” Defensiveness raced through him like a hot tide. “Times might have been different then, but some transgressions deserve death no matter what the era.”

  “Now it’s me who’s doing the interrupting. You brought this up to answer my question about immortality. Go on. I’ll bite my tongue.”

  Stewart had a hard time imagining her sitting on her opinions, but kept that thought to himself. “Not so much more to tell. Druid priests provided a buffer between the Celtic gods and everyone else. The gods dinna wish to deal with anyone but me after the problem I described earlier, so they told me I’d live a long time.”

  “That’s it?” Meara’s nostrils flared. “No rough estimates?”

  Stewart shook his head. “After the first five hundred years or so, I stopped expecting to drop dead and just went with the flow. Modern times have made it harder to slip out of sight and reappear elsewhere. ’Twas one of the reasons I opted to masquerade as a Rom. They’re wanderers and more likely to escape notice. I’ve had to change caravans a few times, but luck—or something—has been with me. I’ve run into freshly leaderless caravans at just the right time. A dollop of coercion mixed with a dash of compulsion were enough to put me in charge.”

  He stopped to consider his next words. “Other than bullying my way in, I’ve never taken advantage of the Rom in my caravans. I needed a position where people would accept my magic, and the Rom never questioned me. I couldna verra well be a shifter. Druidry has seen a bit of a resurgence, but naught where I could lose myself and be invisible. Not much in the way of other magic wielders left in the world.”

  “You forgot vampires.” A feral expression etched into her ageless face.

  “As if I could. Ye asked me all these things for a reason. What do ye have in mind?”

  “I’ve been playing with a few options. It would be safer for the Rom to be invisible, but that level of expended magic fanned out over a large area is sure to attract vampires, if any are in the region.”

  “What does any of that have to do with exposing myself as a Druid?”

  “I was hoping you’d have some special magical tricks at your disposal.”

  “Tricks that would reveal I couldna be Romani if I employed them, eh?” Stewart cleared his throat. “Nay. Sorry. I havena any magic bullet that will transport the eight of us who are not shifters across the border. We’ll have to pray our good fortune holds. I dinna expect we’d get this far without notice, yet we have.”

  “You’re planning to leave the truck on this side, right?”

  “Aye. Too difficult to find a route past the border that won’t entail searches and requests for papers. None of us have them except the driver, and those are stolen. The communications network turns slowly, but by now the name on his identification might be on a list that would alert a border guard.”

  “I’ve cut that deck a few ways. We’ll need transport on the other side. It’s either that or a very long walk to the docks in Amsterdam where we can find a ship. More than sixty miles through settled country, places where a pack of wolves and a few bears would stick out like mismatched shoes and stockings.”

  Stewart raked a hand through his hair, but his fingers snagged on his braids. “I thought about Amsterdam, but ’tis crawling with officials. Far better if we angle north and try for a ship around Harlingen.”

  “So my estimate of sixty miles was conservative. That’
s even more reason to hang onto the truck. Shifters can still take to their animal forms to cross the border, which would leave Rom in the truck. Not so big a challenge to make it appear no one is there when the border guard checks the back, and I can magic up the driver’s papers to make certain they’re not flagged as stolen.”

  “I doona like it. What if the guard is one of the SS who’ve parleyed with vampires and holds some of their magic? Worse, what if the guard is a vampire?”

  Meara looked askance at him. “Have you seen even one vampire actually working for the Reich? Never mind in a menial, boring position where they’d be standing beside a little booth for hours checking an endless procession of vehicles?”

  Stewart winced. “Nay. Mayhap I’m overreacting, but this border idea was mine, and I’m the one who’ll have to live with it if we lose anyone during the crossing.”

  Her harsh expression softened. She stopped walking and laid a hand on his arm. “The odds of all of us making it across aren’t good. You have to know that.”

  “I do, but I doona wish to add to the risks.”

  “How were you thinking we’d cross the Netherlands once we put the border behind us?” Her question was soft, but her penetrating gaze never left him.

  “Stealing a vehicle—or two.” When he said it out loud, the words pinged sourly. Talk about danger. And an immediate one at that. Even if they removed the plates, most cars were easy enough to recognize.