by Sammie Joyce
Then I realized that there was also so much pain. Every movement was excruciating.
But why am I moving?
I managed to pry my swollen eyelids open and I saw what was happening.
I wasn’t dead.
I was riding on the back of a caribou cow, the driving rain not letting up around us and I knew that Larissa hadn’t left me to die in the mountain. I tried to lift my head, to call out for her to let me down so I could shift and run with her too but I was too weak. Whatever beating I’d taken with the rocks had done more damage than I’d realized.
When I looked down at myself, I saw my body was caked in blood, cuts still oozing from places where the shrapnel had hit me. I had no idea how long we’d been on the move but the sky above told me it was still nighttime without any hint of dawn showing on horizon. Of course, with the storm, it was impossible to tell.
“Larissa,” I rasped. Her gait slowed slightly but she didn’t stop. She could hear me.
“Let me down,” I gasped. The words only urged her to go faster and I knew that she wasn’t going to stop running until we were sheltered somewhere. I considered arguing with her but what would be the point? If I was going to make it home with her in my caribou form, I was going to more strength than I currently possessed.
As I predicted, Larissa continued to sprint through the landscape, ignoring the driving rain until she finally found a protected cavern inside a moderately wooded area.
It was only then she stopped to shift and speak with me.
“You are really hurt,” she told me when she’d settled me against the wet moss to start a fire. “I can’t tend to most of your injuries here. I just don’t have the proper supplies.”
“I’m okay,” I mumbled but even as I spoke, I knew that wasn’t entirely true.
“You’re not,” she said flatly, searching over my face with wise eyes. “You may have a concussion and I’m worried that some of your cuts might become infected. I found some thyme and applied it to your open wounds but that’s a Band Aid solution. You need to be properly disinfected and cleaned. The longer we’re out here, the worse your chances for infections and other issues arise.”
I could hear the worry in her voice and I tried to smile, shaking my head but the movement alone gave me a headache.
“Just rest,” she told me, laying a cool hand against my face. “We’re going straight home, straight through without frequent rests. It took us two weeks to get here, we’ll make it home in a week.”
I began to shake my head as I realized what she was suggesting. She couldn’t carry me for eighteen-hour days. It was too much.
“Do you have any better ideas?” she sighed, knowing I didn’t. If I pushed myself, I’d endanger myself more, especially when I wasn’t sure the extent of my ailments. At least now I was conscious and could communicate. If I got a fever or infection, I would be a dead weight and strong as Larissa was, she didn’t want to lug around a two-hundred- and twenty-pound bull.
“You can leave me here and go for help,” I suggested, loathing how weak I sounded, but maybe I knew she would scoff at the idea.
“What kind of help is going to arrive any faster than what I’ve suggested?” she insisted. “There are no roads out here, nowhere for a vehicle to drive. Barring a helicopter, which, I’m afraid, I’m not in possession of, I don’t see any other way.”
Of course she was right. All that would do was separate us and potentially put us both in more peril. I thought of the bull who had chased her and felt a sudden surge of energy bolt through me.
No, we had to stay together.
“Everything will be fine,” she assured me and I felt a pang of regret, seeing how tired she was already. “Anyway, you don’t want to break our streak with this now, do you?”
I looked at her blankly.
“What streak?”
Her smile was genuine as she curled her lean frame into me, laying her head on my chest to listen to my heart.
“The not fighting streak,” she reminded me and I couldn’t help but snicker.
“I’m not fighting with you, Larissa,” I sighed, allowing my hand to fall into her hair as I pulled her close. “There’s no point.”
She raised her head and narrowed her eyes.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, half-annoyed. My smile broadened and I pulled her back into me, kissing the top of her head.
“It means,” I murmured. “I’ve finally accepted that fighting with you is ridiculous because you’re always right.”
Larissa giggled and wrapped her arms around me but I could feel her anxiety. She was worried about the next few days and so was I.
“You’ll be happy to know that your injuries are not for naught,” Larissa said after a few minutes of silence. I had almost drifted back to sleep again but her voice brought me to the present.
“What’s that?”
She sat up, her long hair falling in tangles over her face as she reached back toward where her beaten satchel sat. I pushed my broken body upward to look also, suddenly remembering how I had last seen her before I passed out. She’d been crouched down, looking at something.
Could it be…?
When she turned back toward me, I had my answer, the beam lighting up her face as she held up a delicate totem, the details of which I couldn’t make out. Even so, I knew what it was.
“You found one,” I breathed, a strange burst of excitement coursing through me. She nodded, her eyes gleaming in the dimness of the cave, the light of the fire illuminating her flawless skin. In that light, in that moment, she looked like one of the spirits herself and I had never been more enamored with her.
“I found one,” she agreed.
We got what we came from, I mused silently. Now I just need to get back to Novak alive.
18
Flint
The entire community was on edge, no one more than me.
“She’s been gone almost a month,” I muttered but the words were repetitive, irrelevant. “Where the hell could she be?”
They were the same ones I’d been uttering for days, a sensation of dread forming in my gut as each day passed. The minutes seemed to drag on in her absence and I couldn’t fight the feeling of apprehension growing inside me.
“We need to send out a search,” Davis suggested and I could hear the concern in his tone too. I wasn’t overreacting, even though I knew Larissa would say I was if she was there.
But she wasn’t there and that was the entire problem. She had been gone for too long.
“If you send a search party out for her and she’s in the middle of her pilgrimage, she’s not going to be happy,” Karine said flatly and at her side, Lily nodded in agreement. I narrowed my eyes at the midwives, wondering if they weren’t privately enjoying their newfound power now that the shaman was out of play.
It seemed to me that the minute Larissa left, there had been an influx of illnesses and injuries, almost as if the community was trying to prove that they were useless without their healer. To their credit, Karine and Lily had stepped up to help but they simply didn’t possess the healing qualities that Larissa had been trained with, nor the spiritual connection to their ancestors that the shaman had. The midwives were temporary solutions and in my opinion, Larissa had overstayed her away time.
“I wish she’d given us a time frame,” Kea muttered and I spun around to glower at her. I was barely comfortable with the fact that Lowell spent too much time at the compound but having Kea there only added insult to injury. The other shifters seemed to have begrudgingly accepted her and Emmett’s presence, but I still wished she’d keep her distance.
Kea was the least of my issues for the moment, though. I’d called the meeting for advice and no one was helping. Half of us believed we needed to send out a search team while the others had more faith in Larissa than I did.
“She’s a grown woman, a shaman,” Margot-Celine reminded me in her gentle way. “I think it’s too early to be concerned.”
> I was slightly surprised that she’d added anything at all. I knew that being among the shifters still made her vaguely uncomfortable, but that day, I needed her with me. I needed someone reasonable to talk me down because I was getting increasingly worked up.
“How long should we wait?” I insisted, beginning to pace around the bonfire. Night had only just fallen and a coolness had taken hold of the air around us. “What if she’s already in danger and we’ve waited too long?”
“Why don’t you do a fly over?” Davis suggested and I paused to look sheepishly at my son. Understanding lit his face.
“You already did,” he said, answering his own question. I nodded, slightly embarrassed but what else was I supposed to do? I couldn’t sit on my hands.
“She’s either very far away or in the woods so deep, I can’t find her,” I conceded.
“She’s very far away,” I heard Kea mumble. I spun, my eyes becoming slits as I rested my gaze on her face. I couldn’t help but notice that she and her boyfriend were on opposite sides of the bonfire, barely looking at one another.
“Do you know something about where she went?” I demanded, advancing on her. “If you do, you need to tell us.”
Kea looked up at me, her dark eyes wide with surprise but as she opened her mouth to respond, Hud cried out from the tree-line.
“Someone’s coming!”
I fell back, my back tensed by the announcement. Anyone who should be there was there already.
“Who?” I demanded, hurrying toward the lip of the woods to see where my son’s best friend was looking. Hud pointed and my eyes followed as I saw a graceful but exhausted caribou cow ambling toward us. From where I was standing, I could make out the shape of a human on her back, but intrinsically, I knew that whoever it was, he was a shifter too.
“It’s Larissa!” I choked, running forward to greet her. She looked like she was going to collapse and when she raised her sleek neck to meet my eyes, I could read her defeat.
“Lily! Karine!” I yelled back but they didn’t need to be summoned a second time. By the time I met up with Larissa, the midwives had joined my side, water in hand.
I could see that that these two had been through hell, but from what, I couldn’t begin to guess.
I helped the stranger off Larissa’s back and only then did she morph back into her human form, her face filthy and scratched from battles unknown.
“What happened?” I demanded, scooping her up as Davis and Hud took the unconscious man on their shoulders. We moved back toward the compound and the warmth of the fire.
“Wolves,” Larissa managed to choke out but she didn’t meet my eyes when she said it. I tried to set her down by the fire but she shook her head and struggled to get to her feet.
“No,” she said firmly. “I need to tend to Ruben.”
I looked at the man laying near my feet, my jaw twitching slightly as I tried to understand the dynamic at play.
“Who is he?”
“I’ll explain everything to you after Ruben is healed,” Larissa insisted stubbornly. “Take me back home so I can get supplies.”
I knew better than to argue with her and I permitted Karine to help her home as I stared at Ruben on the ground. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kea gawking openly at the newcomer, her face waxen as she stared. Again, a pang of suspicion shot through me.
She knows more than she’s letting on.
I strode toward her, watching as Hud and Davis tried to revive Ruben into consciousness and Kea instinctively drew back.
“What is going on here?” I growled at her. “What do you know?”
Kea shook her dark hair vehemently and looked away but I could see the shame in her face.
“S-she said wolves,” Kea choked. “I think they were attacked by wolves.”
“I heard what she said, Kealani. I’m asking you for the truth.”
She visibly swallowed but before she could utter another word, Davis’ voice interrupted.
“Leave her alone, Dad. The important thing is that Larissa is back and safe.”
Begrudgingly, I looked at my son but the matter was far from over in my mind.
“Patience was never your father’s strong suit,” Larissa chimed in and I jumped at the words.
“That was fast,” I muttered, embarrassed that she overheard.
“I told you that everything would be explained, didn’t I? Leave Kea alone and come help me with Ruben. Can we use your cottage?”
I’d be hard pressed to say no, not when I was so glad she was back and safe, even if I didn’t know Ruben. Still, he was a shifter and therefore welcomed in our fold.
“Of course,” I agreed magnanimously, helping the males bring Ruben into my small home. When he was situated on the sofa, we turned to leave Larissa, but she called out to me before I could shut the door.
“Flint, you need to gather everyone by the fire. Don’t let anyone leave, especially not Kea and Emmett.”
I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her that now that she was safe, there was no need to monopolize anyone else’s time, but Larissa had already resumed her duties of cleaning Ruben’s wounds, a soft, hypnotic chant filling the room.
Sighing, I made my way back out to where the others were waiting for word on Ruben’s progress. I disappointingly had nothing to give them other than what Larissa had said.
“She wants us all to stay until she’s done,” I told them, joining Margot-Celine’s side and taking her hand.
“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Lily agreed, settling in on the grass to stretch into her bear form comfortably.
“Me neither,” Hud agreed. “I want to know where she’s been.”
One by one, the shifters settled, the atmosphere relaxing among them, now that they were certain of their healer’s safety.
Davis and Lowell sank to the ground, their eyes trained on the flames as he wrapped his legs around her and whispered something into her ear which made her smile.
At my side, Margot-Celine tugged on my hand too, pulling me onto the grass to snuggled against my chest and I draped my arm over her shoulder. All around us, mates snuggled while singles shifted to lounge and chat.
All except Emmett and Kea who remained on opposite sides of the fire, unspeaking and not looking at one another.
A part of me should have been happy to see their discord. If they weren’t getting along, it could lead to a breakup and a breakup could lead to Kea return to Hawaii.
Yet as I watched the tension flow freely between them, it wasn’t glee I felt, but a deep pang of sadness. It was as if Kea’s heartbreak was tangible and washing over me.
“Ca va bien, cheri?” Margot-Celine asked me in French. I pulled my eyes away from the unhappy couple and focussed my eyes on her, nodding assuredly.
“Bien sur,” I replied, laying a slow kiss on her forehead as I drew tightly into my arms. I didn’t want to admit to her that I was dreading whatever announcement Larissa had for the group.
19
Larissa
The spell and salve worked in mere minutes. I had expected that much, despite the fact that I had been very concerned during the last two days of our trip. Ruben had fallen in and out of consciousness so many times, I wasn’t sure if he was going to wake up every time he went down.
I’d silently begged him to hang in there and now, as I looked at his face, I realized that he’d heard my pleas. He was out of the woods now—both literally and figuratively.
“Hi,” he murmured, opening his eyes to look at me.
“Hi yourself,” I replied, stroking his cheek lovingly. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I just escaped death a few times.”
I chuckled and kissed his chapped lips softly.
“Let me get you some water,” I said, rising.
“We made it?” he rasped out to my retreating back. “Are we back at your community?”
“Yep,” I replied, smiling at him over my shoulder as the tap ran and I thrust a glass underneath it. “
With real beds and everything.”
His body sank and I read the relief there.
“The shifters are outside waiting for us,” I told him, returning with his drink. “For when you’re strong enough.”
He struggled to sit up and I helped him, propping a pillow underneath his neck as I did. Taking a long sip, Ruben handed the water back to me and I set it down.
“I’m ready,” he told me but I put a hand on his arm.
“Are you sure?”
He nodded, grinning at me.
“Yes. You fixed me up, remember?”
I shook my head, my eyes darkening slightly.
“I’m not talking about facing my community. I’m talking about what comes next. Are you ready for that?”
He paused, considering my face carefully, and I wished I had two minutes inside his head to know what he was thinking.
“You with Kea and the artifact.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes.”
Our gazes held and for a moment. I thought he was going to say no, that he didn’t want to give her the totem after all. His expression told me that was everything he wanted to say.
“I told you I’m ready,” Ruben said firmly, swinging his legs over the side of the couch and rising unsteadily to his feet. “Let’s do this.”
But as we moved toward the door to face the community, I couldn’t help but cast him a sidelong look and wonder if I hadn’t infringed my values on him, the same way I had accused him of doing to me.
* * *
Everyone leaned forward in perfect sync, eyes huge as Ruben described the fight between the bull who had been looking for my affections and I blushed slightly at the memory, feeling foolish that I’d let it happen.
“You followed her?” Lily cooed. “That’s so sweet!”
“I think it’s creepy,” Hud interjected, giving Lily a disgusted look.
“It was sweet,” I confirmed, grinning at my mate who looked abashed by Hud’s comment.
“But where were you going?” Lowell wanted to know, sitting forward from the warmth of Davis’ embrace. “Where did the spirits guide you?”