Reign of Monsters, page 1
part #2 of Artifact Hunters Series Series
Reign of Monsters
Artifact Hunters #2
S M Reine
SERIES IN THE DESCENTVERSE
The Descent Series
Seasons of the Moon
The Cain Chronicles
Preternatural Affairs
Tarot Witches
The Ascension Series
War of the Alphas
The Mage Craft Series
Dana McIntyre Must Die
A Fistful of Daggers
Artifact Hunters
* * *
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
This book is sold DRM-free so that it can be enjoyed in any way the reader sees fit. Please keep all links and attributions intact when sharing. All rights reserved.
Copyright © SM Reine 2020
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Contents
About Reign of Monsters
Reign of Monsters
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Afterword
About the Author
About Reign of Monsters
Shatter Cage has everything he wants. He’s convinced his billionaire boss that he’s a phoenix shifter—not a were-squirrel—and he’s working his dream job as a professional thief. But just when everything is going to plan, his home falls apart. Literally. The barriers protecting his lower-class neighborhood from toxic fog have fallen.
Luckily, his new boss is powerful. Less luckily, his new boss doesn’t care to help.
Cage can help his hometown if he doesn’t mind stealing from his boss, risking his dream job…and if he can survive the resentful ex-girlfriend on his heels, hellbent on murdering him.
In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
Hunter S. Thompson
Dear Readers…
It’s been a minute, but welcome back to the story of Shatter Cage! When I started writing this book, I was grateful for the levity that Cage brings into my life. This silly squirrel makes me laugh. But when I started the book, the world looked radically different than it does now.
As I write this letter to you, I’m socially isolating from the world to slow the spread of COVID-19. Things are feeling like a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, nearer to the post-Genesis world I’ve written in the Descentverse than I want. It’s strange to edit a book where I’m cramming vulnerable people underserved by their government into a room, when in reality, we’re cramming vulnerable people underserved by their government into separate houses.
This book is no commentary on the strange turn life took in early 2020, and I hope that others will enjoy Cage’s wacky ongoing adventures of fetish, fencing, and fur.
For those of you new to the Descentverse, welcome! Please read Race of Thieves first. If you decide you’d like to spend more time in this universe, you can find reading lists on my website.
I’ll stop talking so you can get to the shenanigans. If you want more blather, you can always find me on Twitter or Instagram. For a much lower shenanigans-to-news ratio, I also offer new release email alerts.
Happy reading!
~ Sara (SM Reine), March 2020
http://smreine.com/
Reign of Monsters
Chapter One
12 May 2075
A nineteen-year-old woman named Brigid Byrne stood atop the waterfall at the Northgate shifter sanctuary, placing her a hundred meters above the city nestled against the lake’s shore. She was two weeks away from leaving Marut University, which shined on the opposite side of the valley. And she was contemplating death by falling.
It was common for students to do free dives from the waterfall on hot days. They always survived. They were shifters.
If Brigid leaped, she’d be dashed to mortal bits. She was only human. Her gift as a planeswalker was good enough to send her to the best school in the North American Union when she didn’t meet the species requirements, but it wasn’t good enough to save her life if she did something stupid.
Hundreds of meters below, jagged boulders jutted from the spray, taunting her with hungry teeth. The lake had been denied the bones of a thousand graduates. It would happily chew hers.
She could still do it if she were willing to risk the chance of death.
Am I willing?
Brigid edged her toes over the edge.
“Don’t jump,” said a male voice.
Brigid was so startled that she almost fell off. She pinwheeled her arms and leaped onto steady ground, away from the rushing water. “Who’s there?” She squinted against the sunrise to search for the interloper.
“Hi!” A young man was crouched in the branches of a nearby tree, plucking leaves off a stick one by one.
“Who are you?” Brigid asked.
This guy was not from the Academy. She knew all the students, and there were no shifters with that wild, tawny hair, such big eyes, and a mischievous smirk, like he was thinking about stealing the shoes off Brigid’s feet.
“I’m Cage.” He released his grip so that he swung from the branch with his knees hooked over it. His hair dangled like brown flame as he grinned. “I’m a student.”
“You’re not,” Brigid said.
“Sure I am!”
“You’re too old. And don’t try to tell me you’ve been hired to teach. Mr. Adamson would never let someone like you in the gates.”
Cage splayed his hands over his heart, looking astonished. “Someone ‘like me’? That’s racist.”
“You’re carrying at least six different hexes on your belt.” Her earring could detect them, and it had grown so hot that her neck might burn. “You’ve got mud under your fingernails and gypsum in that bag around your neck. That tells me you dug out a piece of the wards to get into the sanctuary. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Wow.” He dropped down into a crouch without losing his grin. His teeth were dazzling. His eyes were as bright-gold as any shifter’s, and therefore unremarkable, even with that thick fringe of eyelashes. “Then I guess this is the part where I bribe you to keep quiet.”
Brigid’s eyes narrowed. “What are you offering?”
“What do you want?” he countered.
“I want to jump off this waterfall without dying,” she said honestly, surprising herself. It was impossible not to say what was on her mind when he looked at her with those eyes.
“Parachute?” he suggested. “Careful aim and crossed fingers? Or you could always whip out your wings and fly down.”
“I don’t have wings,” Brigid said.
“That’s weird. I could have sworn you were an angel.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s not a compliment. Angels are terrifying.”
“And so are you,” he said. “In a good way! How’d you know all that about me? Like the gypsum in my bag.”
“Eyes, brain, three seconds of thought.” And charms that she had stolen from Academy witches.
He sauntered over to peer down the side of the waterfall. “What kind of lady wants to jump off a cliff like this? Those are a lot of rocks.”
“What kind of thief breaks into the sanctuary to steal a bit of warding crystal?”
“Yes, ha ha, that is all I plan to steal from here.” Cage clenched a fist around the bag at his neck. “Just this warding crystal. My dastardly deed is already done.”
Maybe Brigid should have reported him. She had no real love for the Adamsons, who ran the Academy, but they would want to know about a new thief in their midst. There were innumerable valuable things in the sanctuary that Brigid wasn’t interested in stealing, but Cage might be.
The sanctuary shifters would tear this guy apart, though. He was scrawny and tall, as if stretched out on a taffy puller. The Alphas could kill him with a single swipe.
That wasn’t Brigid’s problem.
“I’m going to start screaming,” she said, folding her arms.
“No, don’t do that. Hell. I’ll really pay you anything,” he said. “I prepared a few different bribes. Look. This one…there’s almost ten thousand northcoin on this wallet. I’ve also got this bracelet, which is worth as much if you can find someone to fence it.”
Whatever Cage planned to steal from the sanctuary must have been valuable.
“I want both,” Brigid said.
He dropped the northcoin wallet into her hand, then unclasped the bracelet. It wasn’t her style. A thin gold chain, like on a bicycle, with gems set between the links. It made her earring burn hotter when she took it. She slipped the earring off when Cage wasn’t looking, putting everything into her pocket.
“And I want the truth,” she said. “Tell me what you’re really after.”
Cage glanced around the forest, down at the city. He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you know ho
“At least twenty thousand northcoin.” Without a social life, Brigid had plenty of time to research the exact value of everything around the sanctuary.
“I know someone willing to pay fifty,” Cage said. “So I’m going to take her granddaughter’s copy.”
“Taking a family heirloom? Rude.”
“They have more floating around. They’ll be fine! And that’s the whole truth.” Cage crossed his heart. “I’m not going to hurt anyone if that’s what you’re worried about. Not my style.”
Brigid wasn’t worried about it. Not just because she wasn’t a huge fan of the Gresham descendants, but because she couldn’t imagine this scraggly twenty-something shifter killing ants on his picnic blanket.
“Fine. Have fun.” Brigid turned to leave—harder than she would have expected, since she could have kept staring at the symmetrical lines of Cage’s face until the sun hit high noon. She was practiced at ignoring beautiful men, though. Her talents as a planeswalker made her a curiosity among Academy students, and she’d dumped as many as she’d dated.
“You still wanna jump?” Cage asked.
“Of course I do,” she said.
He caught her wrist. Brigid considered breaking his nose. She also considered getting naked and screwing him, right there, on top of that damn waterfall.
“Kiss me and I’ll make sure you survive,” he said.
He was ridiculous. A total idiot. Grinning like she would never say no.
“What the hell are you?” Brigid asked.
“Um, I’m a phoenix shifter,” he said.
“Like the Alpha?”
“I’m so much more powerful than that,” Cage said.
That was both vague and unlikely. Brigid’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly how powerful?”
“Enough to get away with this,” he said.
He yanked her against his chest, but Brigid kissed him first.
She crushed her mouth against Cage’s, inhaled his breath, and clenched a fistful of his shirt in her free fist. She was so breathless with it that she didn’t realize he’d thrown them both off the side of the waterfall until they were already halfway to the water.
His arms were hot around her. He was laughing against her mouth. Wind beat at them, the water roared, and Brigid had only a moment to suck in a breath.
They were submerged.
The impact wasn’t painful with Cage taking the brunt. She felt only jostling when they hit the surface, a sudden chill, and then a hard stop at the bottom. She bounced out of his grip. The churn separated them.
Brigid kicked off a rock and broke the surface. She gasped. The air was sodden with mist, so it barely felt like she breathed. She took in the cold wash of water with her eyes closed. It peppered her face in stinging needles.
She had done it. She had survived the jump, as promised. And by the time she trudged out onto the muddy shore of the lake, she felt like she was finally ready to leave the Academy. There was only one thing left unresolved.
“Cage?” Brigid called, searching the surface of the water.
There was no sign of him.
He’s probably fine. He was a phoenix, much like the Alpha of the North American Union’s shifters. There was no reason to think he hadn’t flown away while Brigid was still floundering.
She sat up on the sand and reached into her pocket for the bracelet. It was gone.
“What?”
She wiggled her fingers deeper. Her earring charm was gone too. Also the northcoin wallet. And…her thumb ring?
Brigid muttered a few choice words.
“They probably fell out,” she said.
But her thumb ring wouldn’t have fallen off. It was too tight.
Uneasy, and more than slightly worried, she trudged toward the Academy. It sat in the hills overlooking the sanctuary. The sprawling wings had huge windows reflecting sunrise, the gardens bloomed with roses, and sanctuary police were combing the grounds with flashlights.
They were stopping students to search their book bags, but Brigid had nothing but sodden clothes that had halfway dried on her walk. She got nothing more than a cursory nod on her way through the front doors.
A collection of her classmates stood inside. They slept in the same wing, so she was on polite terms with them, if not exactly friendly ones. “What happened?” Brigid asked. “Why are there so many sanctuary police officers?”
Madelina whispered, “I heard someone broke into Mrs. Adamson’s office.”
“No,” Brigid said, as if she were surprised.
“I think someone set fire to her desk,” Suleikha said. “I smelled burning when I passed. I bet it was someone from the coven program.”
“No, that’s just how Mr. Adamson smells. He’s like…roasted marshmallows.” Madelina’s cheeks reddened. “My friend’s boyfriend’s cousin, Noel, said that someone stole from Mrs. Gresham. She’s missing a book.”
“Oh no,” Brigid said again, even less convincingly. She felt her naked thumb and patted her empty pocket.
Cage had succeeded in stealing from the sanctuary, and it seemed likely he’d stolen from Brigid too. Yet she still wasn’t sure if she would fight him or fuck him the next time they crossed paths.
She was guessing both. (She guessed correctly.)
Chapter Two
4 June 2084
While tied to a hotel bed in Barcelona, Brigid recalled the first time she met Cage. Before graduating two weeks later, she had stolen another copy of Rylie Gresham’s autobiography and used it to finance a hunt for Cage. She’d stolen her ring and charms back from him. And then, after a month straight of barely leaving his studio so they could have ridiculous quantities of sex, he had vanished.
Brigid had been angry that time. Angry enough she contemplated murdering him. But the next time they met, in Montreal, he had distracted her with even more sex. She’d forgotten about murder, until he stole the Horn of Læraðr before Brigid could get to it.
She shouldn’t have been so easily fooled this time.
And yet when he followed her into Shadowhold, she still hadn’t killed him on sight. She’d let him ruin her heist of Nabrók. Then she had kissed him, touched him, let him tie her to the bed…and gotten abandoned for her trust.
Brigid was not amused.
Sure, his antics were funny sometimes. Cage was funny the way that a rabbit writing poetry about the ocean was funny. He was such a jumbled mishmash of skills, principles, and attention that his every act was a thermodynamic miracle, and Brigid wasn’t immune to the irony of his success.
But she was going to murder Shatter Cage this time.
She meant it.
Her arms had been stuck over her head for twelve hours, so her old shoulder injury was acting up. Cage had tied the knots so tight. And with that damn warding stone in there, Brigid couldn’t go anywhere.
She was actually relieved when the door exploded open and a strange man rushed in. He stood at the edge of the bed, ribbons of magic coiled around his hands, revenge in his eyes—
—and he spotted Brigid, naked and bound.
“Où est Shatter Cage?” asked the man.
Brigid seethed with resentment—at Cage, at herself—and she twisted her arms in the ropes again. Pain burned bright to shock her out of exhaustion. “I have no idea what you’re asking.” She responded in English, her first language, because she spoke as much French as High Valyrian.
The stranger clearly understood and replied in English. “He’s already left, hasn’t he?” He cursed under his breath in French.
Brigid understood the tone of his complaints, and she didn’t disagree. “Let me out. I think we have a mutual enemy.” She hoped he agreed that the enemy of her enemy could be an uncomfortable ally at the bare minimum. She was still too naked and immobile to handle a fight.
