One True Mate 1: Shifter's Sacrifice by Lisa Ladew Page B

mirage? Ella snorted then laughed at herself for snorting and walked to the stairs. As she ascended, holding onto the hand rail with her left hand, looking at nothing in particular, something caught her attention on one of the shelves built into the wall. She stopped and stared at it. It was flat, but colorful.
    She stepped backwards down the stairs and made her way to the shelf, reaching above her head and feeling around where she had seen whatever it was. Her fingers found it, but as she drew it off the shelf, the shelf moved smoothly toward her, about a half an inch.
    Ella gasped and stepped back, pulling the piece of paper with her. She could see immediately what it was, a bumper sticker of a police badge with the badge number K27 on it. Above the badge was written, Remember Forever. Ella frowned. She hadn’t known her aunt supported the police. She hadn’t known much at all about her aunt, even after she and her mom had moved in with her. Her mother had always seemed to discourage her and her aunt from talking, and after her mother had died, her aunt had gotten sick, so there had been no talk then either. But maybe this explained the police officers at Aunt Patricia’s funeral?
    Ella put the sticker back on the shelf and dropped her fingers to the wood. She pulled, experimentally and the entire shelf swung out easily, as if on oiled hinges. Ella blinked at the small room that lay beyond, her heart beating hard in her chest. She took a step forward without meaning to, then another, and another, until she was inside. It was colder back there, as if the heat didn’t reach the area. The room was small, only about six foot by six foot, lined in concrete like the rest of the basement. The light was dim, but she could still see well enough. To her right were six large boxes with lids, piled as tall as she was. To her left was a door.
    Ella looked at the boxes, then looked at the door. She turned and approached the door, slowly. It looked heavy. All metal, steel maybe. She grasped the knob and twisted, then pulled, but the door didn’t budge. Ella let her fingers fall away, glad that it hadn’t. She felt suddenly like she was at a pivotal moment in her life, like everything hinged on the next moment, and if she had managed to get inside the door, her life would have changed forever.
    She slumped to the side wall and tried to calm her nerves. “Calm down, jeez. It’s just a door.”
    Her voice didn’t soothe her at all. Electricity jumped and buzzed through her nerves. She noticed, built into the wall at eye-level, a small brown, plastic contraption. She lifted her hand and ran her fingers over it. Smooth. Secure. She bent forward to stare right at it. A light played over her eye, startling her, and the plastic contraption beeped, making her back up.
    The door opened as if on hydraulics, but only for a moment. Then it slammed shut, making Ella glad she hadn’t tried to step inside but she didn’t think about that for long. Instead, she tried to puzzle out what she had seen. A wide concrete tunnel stretching into darkness. She had no way of knowing, but her sense was that the tunnel was long, maybe miles long.
    Ella backed up, trying to figure out the puzzle. Life had been so boring for so long, only an endless procession of bed care and hospital visits, punctuated only by death and awkwardness. She felt bad for thinking of her mother’s last years as boring, but her mother had never liked her, had never spoken a kind word to her that she could remember. Her aunt hadn’t seemed to dislike her, but she’d never talked much either. The lung issues that had stolen her last years had stolen her breath and energy also.
    The door could be what? A─
    Ella’s thoughts were interrupted by a strange sense that something in the house had changed. She cocked an ear towards upstairs. Hearing nothing, she stepped outside the tiny room and looked at the ceiling over her head. Footsteps. Big, booming footsteps sounded over the