Two Fates

by Kari Gregg

  Waving away Jason, Jamie stiffened his spine and marched through the milling crowd alone. He stopped in front of Kenneth, whose stare glittered with pride and naked appreciation. Jamie dropped to one knee among the collected gifts and bent his head to expose his nape, his heartbeat wildly fluttering.

  “Jamie,” Kenneth said, his voice husky and approving.

  He glanced up, staring at his mate beneath his lashes. “Burnt Fork waited for years for you.”

  “I waited too.”

  Refusing to resist, not today, Jamie beamed and lifted the knife to Kenneth on his flat palm. “Not anymore.”

  Smiling, Kenneth reached for Jamie’s gift to his new alpha. He examined it carefully while Jamie’s heart beat a rapid staccato. Kenneth squinted to study the blade as he slowly withdrew it from the sheath. The others surrounding them quieted, seeming to hold their collective breath until Kenneth brought the edge of the knife down to slash his open palm. The crowd gasped as bright red blood spilled from the wound. Wincing, Kenneth turned his palm down and offered his injured hand to Jamie, wagging fingers dripping wet crimson to urge Jamie to stand.

  Pulse thrumming, shaking, Jamie rose from the dirt, his palm still outstretched.

  Bracing for the pain didn’t help. Jamie hissed out a breath when Kenneth drew the knife across Jamie’s palm as well. Kenneth flinched too. Already mated in every way that mattered, the alpha shared the sting of the second injury as Jamie had sensed the hurt when Kenneth had cut his own flesh.

  Kenneth clasped Jamie’s hand in his grip, the heated slick of their spilled blood mixing. Accepting his role as the pack’s new alpha, Kenneth drew Jamie to his side and together, he and Jamie raised their threaded fingers high. Unbearable lightness and relief coursed through Jamie as he studied the smiles of those gathered to honor the new alpha pair. Even Black River pack’s alpha mates nodded their approval.

  Short generations ago, the Gathering’s attendees would have formed a line in order of status and position to clasp the bloodied hands of the new alpha couple, but as physically invincible as humans believed shifters to be, that was only true against human illnesses. Wolves boasted a stronger immune system than their genetic cousins, but were no less vulnerable to an albeit more limited range of viruses that specifically attacked shifters. That ugly reality had been learned the hard way, when Da was young. A pack in northern Virginia had been decimated by a lethal microbe hidden within the blood representing the renewing life of the pack during an alpha ascension ceremony. Because later investigation had proven the pack had been disgracefully lax while preparing for the ritual, authorities had judged a contaminated blade as the likeliest culprit, but the tragedy had been so severe, elders across the East Coast had shied from risking another pack to a similar doom. Sharing the blood of the newly risen alpha mates faded into history.

  The line nevertheless formed. Visiting alphas, seers, and pack trainers came forward and instead of shaking the bloodied hands of Kenneth and Jamie, the dignitaries leaned forward to embrace them, first Kenneth, then Jamie. Heart thudding, Jamie tipped up his chin to bare his throat.

  Bitter Creek’s alpha bent to brush a kiss over the exposed and unguarded stretch of Jamie’s neck and then straightened to grin at Kenneth and Jamie. “May the Goddess bless and guide you,” she said with a grin before her mate repeated the gesture, echoing the same words.

  “May the Goddess bless and guide you as well,” Kenneth replied, squeezing Jamie’s stinging hand.

  Jamie also mumbled the greeting and after Bitter Creek moved aside, the next pack’s alpha mates stepped forward to repeat the hug, kiss, and blessing. Jamie awkwardly tipped up his chin, eternally grateful this was the only time an alpha mate was required to make the gesture. Not that Jamie feared any of the pack leaders might rip out his throat. With Kenneth standing beside him, hand firmly clenching Jamie’s, and the obvious support of Burnt Fork families, no one would dare such a dangerous power play. The pack’s library and notations in journals Jamie had obtained while he’d lived in the Between had noted occasions when the ascendance of an alpha devolved into war and chaos with the murder of the alpha mate during the new alpha’s ascension. Jamie knew it happened, but packs in this part of Kentucky had maintained peaceful alliances for over a hundred years. None here longed for war. Making himself deliberately vulnerable was counter-intuitive to everything Jamie had ever been taught, though. The gleams in the welcoming stares of the other alpha mates told Jamie they empathized, but it still rankled.

  At least few packs had settled in the harsh and unforgiving mountains. This part of the ritual didn’t drag on. Jamie’s shoulders drooped with his relief as the last of the visiting pack leaders collected on either side of Kenneth and Jamie to allow room for the families of Burnt Fork to greet their new alpha pair. These hugs were accompanied with affectionate squeezes, a wide palm thumping Jamie’s shoulder, giggles from the children. Even better, Jamie was not expected to bare his throat to his own people. The kisses were bussed across his cheek, his temple, his chin. Despite his anxiety at interacting with the pack again, the tension that had coiled inside Jamie eased.

  “When I arrived at Burnt Fork, I’d travelled long and far without a pack of my own because of my seer’s promise of what I’d find at journey’s end,” Kenneth said once everyone had formed concentric circles around the firepit’s tower of split oak. “Frank was the first here to greet me. He invited me into his den, gave me a pair of squirrels he’d roasted for his own dinner. We talked. And talked. And talked.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Frank never shut up.”

  Burnt Fork families laughed, even as a few wiped away tears.

  Jamie sucked in a shuddering breath.

  “The more nervous Frank was, the more he talked and let me tell you, the night I came to Burnt Fork, I’d never known anyone to talk so fast. He was afraid, you understand. Scared for his son. Ian had been killed only a few days before I arrived and I quickened for Jamie as soon as I saw him. Any parent would have been nervous.”

  Several gasps resounded in the shocked silence, but Jamie clutched Kenneth’s hand in mute gratitude that Kenneth, as their new alpha, had broken the habit of never speaking of Ian. As though mentioning him would remind Jamie of the mate he’d lost and rake up his grief as well as the pack’s guilt? Speaking of Ian, especially during such a significant moment, signaled the others that talking about him was okay.

  “Two of your seers had already told Frank that Jamie and I would love each other, though. More than a single prophecy assured him that his son would heal and recover from his grief, that one day he would be happy again.” Kenneth continued, gaze sweeping the crowd, lingering on the members of his pack. “Mostly, he was terrified for you.” He squared his shoulders. “No one knew me. I had no reputation upon which the pack could rely and none were more aware than Frank of your pack’s troubles, problems of which the fumbling of Ian and Jamie’s mating had only been a symptom. Resolving the shattering trust and weakening bonds in Burnt Fork would require patience, determination, and grace, qualities Frank was uncertain I possessed.” Kenneth’s mouth quirked. “He welcomed and fed me anyway.” He turned to smile at Jamie. “Took me to his son anyway.”

  Clasping Kenneth’s blood-slick fingers with his own, Jamie curved his mouth.

  “For all his faults, which Frank would list for anyone who could be induced to listen, he was a good man. He tried. Sometimes he succeeded. Others, he failed, but he never stopped giving everything he had to his family.” His stare found Jamie, then Lisa. “To this pack.” He tipped the torch in the hand not tethered to his mate, sweeping the flame to indicate everyone assembled. “Frank loved you. He didn’t prove his dedication in pretty words. He showed his love with his steadfast leadership, his inherent kindness to lend aid to any who needed help.” He turned to Jamie. “His willingness to confess and repent the wrongs he’d committed.”

  Jamie bit his lip, his sister’s soft weeping reaching his ears.

  “He taught us by example
that, despite our many faults and failures, we are strongest when we love each other and for that, we remember him.”

  “We remember,” the group echoed in unison.

  Nodding to the other alphas, Kenneth raised the torch high. “He showed us we are at our best when we value trade agreements and curate alliances that encourage friendship instead of war and for that, we remember him.”

  “We remember.”

  “Most importantly, Frank gave us hope for a brighter and better future by surviving the death of his mate, when too many of our kind join their beloveds in the everlasting and thereby double the tragic loss to families, packs, and the whole shifter community. He mustered the courage to go on, bade the healer’s aid in strengthening his grief-weakened body to continue his life, and set the standard for ensuring his son endured the same traumatic loss a year later.” He pointed to Jamie with the torch. “Without the experience gained by treating Frank’s shock during his bereavement, the pack might have allowed Jamie to remain a wolf abandoned to wounded instinct instead of forcing his human mind to begin processing his grief. The kids might not have known to keep him warm and surrounded by touch to ground him.” Kenneth swallowed. “Because Frank loved his son enough to learn whatever he could to increase Jamie’s odds of surviving his mate’s death, I didn’t lose Jamie before I ever found him. That is a debt I can never repay and will never forget.”

  “We remember.”

  When Kenneth stepped forward to the firepit, Jamie shuffled beside him. Kenneth lowered the torch to the kindling. Because the fire had been prepped with beeswax, flames soon licked at the tinder and kindling closest to them. For the first time since they’d joined hands, Kenneth released Jamie to move around the stacked wood to set several sections alight. Once the blaze had built to a scorching conflagration, Kenneth tossed the torch into the flames and from the other side of the fire, he tipped his head in acknowledgment at Jamie who spoke the single and last, “We remember.”

  Leaves scattered under Jamie’s paws. The sun high over head warmed his fur and he panted, tongue lolling as he raced through the woods. With so many visitors attending today’s ceremony, they’d split into groups once the pyre had consumed the wood-covered mementos celebrating Da’s life. Kenneth had assigned Jamie, who excelled at snaring and trapping prey, to lead the bunch tasked with obtaining small game like the territory’s plentiful rabbits, squirrels, and possum for the ascension feast while Kenneth organized more skilled hunters to work together to bring down larger game. Jamie hadn’t argued. By his own admission, Jamie was a poor hunter. He hadn’t hunted with a pack in years and would have been no use to one in today’s festivities. Kenneth believed Jamie best served Burnt Fork by leading the young and elderly as well as other less experienced hunters to the forest to chase and snatch up small prey. That Jamie would at the same time steady relations with the visiting dignitaries who accompanied him while strengthening his bond with his until recently estranged pack members sealed the bargain.

  Jamie wasn’t stupid, though.

  True, Jamie staying behind made sense for political reasons and best fit Jamie’s skills set, but Kenneth wasn’t just leading the main group to take down bigger game, though. This was Kenneth’s ascension feast, after all. Wily and astute, Kenneth would use the opportunity to prove himself a fearless and capable alpha by taking pack hunters into the mountains to hunt a cat…and the new alpha wanted his prophecy-doomed mate nowhere near that danger.

  As if anyone knew the pass to Bitter Creek better.

  As though keeping Jamie away from the mountains would stop the prophecy’s fulfillment.

  Jamie obediently guided his charges into the forest, though, and soon lost them in a mad yipping sprint among the trees as their noses and the shuffle of disturbed bushes revealed the game every attendee of the ascension ceremony was expected to provide for the feast. Parents helped younger whelps catch trout and catfish from the creek winding through the woods while the elderly harvested rabbits from snares Jamie had set that morning.

  None of them noticed Jamie slipping away.

  Happy, free as he could never be in his human skin, Jamie darted up the sloping ground toward the pass to Bitter Creek. His ears pricked at the yowl already resounding ahead of him. Kenneth’s group had found the momma lion quickly. Jamie ran, shooting through the familiar underbrush, his footing certain, his fear that ignorance of the cat’s cubs risked their hunt driving him faster and faster.

  Fortunately, Jamie had marked the lioness’s den and need not search that area of the mountains. The fierce growls and hisses of the cat defending her children guided him to the precise point the pack would be.

  Should be, but weren’t.

  When Jamie raced around jumbled boulders, heart thumping, only Kenneth’s massive black beast crouched on the granite, paws digging into the grit to brace to strike again. Blood reddened his maw, teeth snapping while a ferocious growl thundered in Kenneth’s chest, but Jamie also noted the drip, drip, drip of crimson spilling from gouges at Kenneth’s haunch.

  Where were the others? Why hadn’t the rest of the pack hunters circled the lioness, who had claimed the high ground of jutting stone and poised, tawny back arched and ass wriggling, to strike again?

  Jamie barked, sharp and threatening, at the cat.

  Body stiffening, Kenneth turned his attention from his prey for the span of a heartbeat to glare at Jamie and snarl a warning that Jamie could and would not heed.

  That brief moment of distraction was an invitation the cat couldn’t refuse. She leapt from the rock—

  At Kenneth.

  Fear screaming inside him, Jamie jumped too.

  Not again. Jamie would lose no more beloveds to the predators of the mountain pass, not one more. Never.

  Desperate determination and luck more than skill guided Jamie’s snapping jaws to the cat in mid-air. Her claws sliced into Jamie, the fierce burn of the wounds almost diverting Jamie from his purpose, but he closed his teeth around the cat’s throat anyway. He hung on, smelling the copper of fresh blood and tasting it in his mouth as the two of them fell to the rock with a tangled thump that robbed the breath from his lungs. Kenneth’s barks warred with the cat’s guttural snarls. The agony of her claws stabbing into Jamie’s flanks in her death struggle a misery to him, but Jamie had her by her throat. No matter the damage the cat might do to him, her death was assured by the hard jerk of Jamie’s snout, which ripped out her neck.

  Blood flowed thick, hot, and salty into Jamie’s mouth, down his chest. It gushed too from the deep punctures of the cat’s claws into Jamie’s flanks, but when he’d jumped, he’d angled his body to protect his belly, his nape, all the vulnerable places that could have made the cat’s death throes mortal for Jamie as well. He hurt. He’d live, though.

  The mountain cat did not.

  Weakening as her life painted the stone rich, slick red, her grip on Jamie slackened. Her snarl resounding in Jamie’s ears cut off, replaced by a whine that in no way drowned out Kenneth’s furious growl and the confused barks of the other wolves hunting with the new alpha, who damn well should have leapt forward the moment the cat had wounded Kenneth.

  Jamie ignored the chaos and confusion surrounding his clench with the cat. He focused on wildly jerking his head to continue tearing and ripping out the cat’s throat until the predator slackened, its claws slipping from his flesh and the cat’s paws dangled loose and boneless. He didn’t attend to Kenneth’s shouts or his hands instead of paws pulling at Jamie. Jamie knew, felt, heard, and smelled nothing, even his mate’s shift into his human skin distant and removed from him. Jamie focused on the cat until the rattle in its chest quieted, the weakened cries tapered to silence and Jamie was positive the cat was dead.

  Dead, dead, dead.

  “Let go,” Kenneth yelled, shaking as he yanked Jamie’s suddenly lax body away from the mountain lion. “You silly, stupid son of a bitch.”

  Gazing up at his beloved with wolfen eyes, Jamie’s breath hitched, the mise
ry of his clawed flanks suddenly registering in his befuddled senses.

  “Shift,” Kenneth ordered him.

  The pain washing over Jamie in waves signaled how much retaking his human skin would hurt, even if shifting would quicken his healing and recovery, and if that anticipatory agony didn’t argue enough against shifting, the scared fury in Kenneth’s tone made the idea of speaking to him while his mate was upset unwise. Whining, Jamie shook his head.

  Nope. Not gonna happen.

  Kenneth growled his name.

  Eyes narrowing, Jamie growled right back.

  “You weren’t supposed to—” Devon pushed his face near, crowding Kenneth. His dark eyes—Ian’s eyes—glittered with worry and abject terror. “During his ascension hunt and you’re no fighter, Goddess knows. The cat could’ve gutted you. Should have. Are you crazy?”

  For Kenneth, Jamie would not shift, but to reassure Ian’s brother, who shared fully and entirely Jamie’s grief at the close a reminder of Ian’s death not far from these rocks, Jamie sucked in a bracing breath and shifted, forcing his bones to reform and his muscle to retake his human shape. Naked and bloody, Jamie nestled in Kenneth’s tight grasp and panted. “Me? Are you nuts?” He glared at Devon. “How could you, of all people, one of the few who had been told Lisa’s prophecy for me, let my mate anywhere near that cat?”

  Devon glowered at him. “He’s the alpha, moron.”

  “I lead. The others follow.” Kenneth’s jaw tightened. “You’re the only one who seems to have trouble with that.”

  “Jamie is your mate.” Devon said, panicked gaze swinging to Kenneth. “The alpha mate is duty bound by the Goddess to challenge the alpha in the pack’s stead when that alpha is wrong.”

  “I’ve cleared the pass of predators for two years solid, without a whisper of objection from anyone, including Frank. Today simply continued that habit and was safer, actually, being that I usually hunt alone.” Kenneth scowled. “I would never ask any I was responsible for protecting to act as bait to draw out the target of a pack hunt if I was unwilling to do that job myself.”