Chapter 1

Ten years later…

Finding a new place to call 'home' is never easy. Especially when hidden movements within heaven are working in secret to arrange your death, sending their agents both mortal and immortal to execute you whilst the Devil himself plots his revenge against your mother and father. It doesn't help when demons and other immortals are baying for your blood either. Because of this, Caelan had grown up moving from place to place. It was a safety precaution, to prevent anyone from getting too close to Caelan, too close to his location.

The effect this had upon Caelan was a natural one, he had learned how to adapt to different environments, about the world itself and how different cultures often appeared to be worlds apart, he learned about all the different people: about their lives and what made them who they were. He met so many interesting people ranging from those whose true beauty and colours were shinning ever brighter for the world to see, to those who buried their true form beneath the very surface of themselves, only ever letting the proverbial tip of the ice berg to show, only ever scratching the surface of what they could accomplish.

But it had also made him exceedingly shy, as he was never, or very rarely, around someone that he knew and if he ever did recognize someone, he would soon have to move again: friend or foe.

So moving to a new town had become common practice for Caelan – it was apart of his life now – but he didn't have to like nor enjoy it. He just wanted a place to truly called 'home' like he had been able to ten years ago when he was six, when he was just another child, when his dad would visit whenever he could and would be able to send him presents without fear that some old enemy would intercept the package and find Caelan and his mother (or any other guardian that he had at the time).

But he now knew that he could never be normal and he didn't want to be normal, not in truth and he knew that no one was really born normal. It was such an indefinable quality as people had their own opinion on what normal was.

Caelan did miss when he had friends to play with, people whom he could talk to and share secrets with. But of course that was impossible now that whenever they stayed in one place for more than six months a Tracker would find him.

It was his scent, that one unique smell that belonged to him and him alone: the smell of a human hybrid. The older that Caelan got, the stronger his scent became. The more potent and intoxicating his essence became, the easier it was for them to find him.

Caelan remembered - remembered when it would takes months – years – to find him, and when he first changed, when he first transformed. Three years had dropped down to just six months. Six short months to make new friends and get settled in until they had to move again.

He'd forgotten what it was like to have a home.

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Sarah's eyes glanced at her sixteen-year-old son, Caelan, who was sat in the car seat next to her, going through the books and pamphlets of information that she had acquired about the town they would be 'living' in.

"You'll be starting at school on Monday. The head teachers name is Mr Brown and the assistant head is Mrs Cleaves. On Monday go straight to the receptionist, tell her your name and she should give you your time table."

"Okay mum."

"I know that last time was a bit short notice but I'm sorry Caelan."

"Mum, it's okay. We got out alright." Caelan replied, "No harm done."

She shook her head and said, "You changed Caelan…"

"And I fine now. Yeah, I was a little… shaken, but I'm fine now." Caelan said softly to his mother, "I need to get used to it anyway."

Sarah sighed, smiled at her son, "You're so much like your father, well, when he was younger."

Caelan arched an eyebrow, "I don't think dad was ever young."

Sarah smiled, "You'd be surprise. He's actually considered quite young for an angel."

Caelan smiled, "I know."

Caelan went back to reading the latest pamphlet for Haven. It was an appropriate name for the town: discovered in 1820, seventeen years before Queen Victoria was crowned, by a group of explorers and to them it must have appeared as a Haven. The history books said that they had run out of water and almost all food supplies when one of the men caught sight of a dense wood that eventually transformed into grasslands that went into a valley all because of a river that had came down from the mountains in the north. Despite its name, Haven had a long history of the supernatural. Demons and angels alike had been to the town for their own reasons as well as that of Heaven and Hell. Something to do with the land and what was underneath, a long network of tunnels. Sacrifices had once been made in a large cavern that said tunnels were all connected to.

Caelan relaxed into his car seat and adjusted his sunglasses. It wasn't really that bright at the moment, but it would very soon. He rolled his head against the seat as he felt the day become warmer. It was a small change that most people wouldn't notice, but to him, it was easy and he relished the heat as it soaked into him. Drawing the heat into his body and feeding off it.

He saw her smile out of his peripheral vision and he laughed, a baritone sound that was completely different from his normally soft voice and it rang out across the desert to their new home that was now just on the horizon.