Shifting Fates Read Online Free Page A

Shifting Fates
Book: Shifting Fates Read Online Free
Author: Nadia Simonenko, Aubrey Rose
Tags: Romance, Literature & Fiction, Contemporary, Paranormal, Military, New Adult & College, Holidays, Werewolves & Shifters
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wakes something up in me, and I drive it back down. Not Nim. I can’t. I won’t.
    “Let’s start dinner,” I say cheerily. I won’t think about it.
    I walk under the grate and follow the others down to the den. The drainage tunnel we’ve set up as our home is in the shape of a long, lower-case T. The door and the grate lead into the tunnel, and at the end there are three little nooks we’ve curtained off for bedrooms. Lily and Kit share a room, as do Logan and Nim. I’m by myself in the middle, where the escape ladder is, and where the storm drain leads out to the sewer. It gets a bit wet, but only in the winter.
    In the middle of all our bedrooms is a clearing big enough for us to live – a living room and kitchen all in one. It’s strange to think how this much space would’ve been a luxury apartment before the war.
    Lily and Logan work side by side over the small electric cooktop that I helped Logan rig up last year. Lily watches the pan, searing the side of pork carefully. The pot of small white potatoes and carrots steams white and hot, and the Christmas lights color the steam, tinting it pastel shades of green and red. Logan stirs.
    Kit is playing with her paper dolls. I kneel down beside her on the carpet, laying one hand on the back of her head, smoothing down her red curls.
    “What are you playing at?” I ask.
    “Princes and princesses,” she mutters, intent on the dolls and their journey.
    The piece of leftover carpet stretches across half of the den, but right now Kit has decided that the shredded edge of the carpet is the forest in her paper figures’ kingdom.
    “Still at princes and princesses,” Nim says. “When are you going to grow out of playing with dolls, Kit?”
    “When you shut your butt, Nimrod .”
    “Hush, both of you,” I say. “What’s their names? Your princesses?”
    “This one is me,” Kit says. “Princess Kit.” The piece of paper is only slightly torn, but smaller than the others. I nod.
    “And this one is Princess Lily. And Lily is married to Nim, and I’m married to Logan.”
    “What?!” Lily and Logan both look up from the stove at the same time.
    “What?” Kit asks.
    “I am not marrying Nim!” Lily cries. Her face is flushed red, though Nim’s not even looking at her.
    “Do you really want to kiss me, Kit?” Logan asks.
    “ Eww ! Gross! No!” Kit says, throwing Logan’s paper doll at him. It flutters to the ground a foot away, and she picks it back up. “No kissing ! We’re just married !”
    “Oh, well, as long as there’s no kissing,” Logan says, and winks at us both. Kit sticks out her tongue at him and gives him a raspberry. I reach over and, with my fingers, go to pinch her tongue. She snaps it back in her mouth lickety-spit, as my dad used to say.
    “What about me?” I ask her. “Who am I marrying?”
    “No, silly, you don’t marry anyone,” Kit says, bringing out another doll that I suppose is meant to represent me, long black streaks of hair drawn down the paper. “You’re the queen.”
    “So I rule the kingdom?”
    My mouth still has a smile on it, but Kit’s answer has pierced me deeper than I thought such a small barb could pierce. She didn’t mean it , I say to myself. Of course she didn’t mean it. It still hurts.
    “Yes. You rule everything. You’re the queen.”
    “Well, if I rule the kingdom, I decree that we are eating Christmas dinner right NOW!”
    Kit squeals and runs to the table to set out the cloth napkins and scavenged silverware. She places the settings carefully around the wooden circle. Nim sets out the water glasses while Lily and Logan spoon out portions of the ham and vegetables, and in ten seconds we’re all sitting around the low table, ready to eat.
    I take Kit’s hand on one side and Lily’s on the other, and then we’re holding hands around the meal that smells better than anything we’ve eaten in the past year.
    “Thank you, Lily and Logan, for preparing this wonderful dinner for us,” I
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