by LeAnn Mason
But was it logic or pride that fueled his unbelief?
“I understand that not to be the norm, but apparently there is some sort of spell that can, under the right circumstances, combine an animal spirit with a human.” She’d told me all about it while I’d picked her brain about all she knew about Shifters late into the night.
The whole thing was fascinating.
“Blasphemy.” The disgust on his face was clear.
He was royalty. I needed to remember that. I’d bet he had very clear thoughts about what should and should not exist in his world. A human probably fell beneath abominations.
“Anyway, the point is that you are not wrangling an entirely separate life-force. You are parts of the same whole and need to learn to function as one, moving fluidly between each of your natural states with purpose and intent.” I felt like I was scolding a child. “Now, a few minutes ago, I upset you, but the lion didn’t force a shift. Why is that?”
“I could rein it in.” He shrugged, again affecting the haughty demeanor he waffled toward and from regularly.
I rolled my eyes. “O-kay.” I tried a different tack. “Why did Allya’s presence here bring out the lion?”
“Allya? The frantic girl who barged in here screaming, you mean?”
“Yep. That’s the one. Can you pinpoint the why of your reaction?”
“She smelled different. Like a wolf but not.” He paused, a thoughtful, searching look overtaking his chiseled features, softening them. “Mae?”
He’d distracted me again. He was way too good-looking for me to be functional around. Clearly.
This is so embarrassing.
With my cheeks on fire, I cleared my throat, centered my frames, and bypassed the obvious. “Is it the animal smell? Her worry? She was ready for a fight; did that impact your reaction?” I kept my head down and pen poised. I didn’t want to miss anything again because I was distracted.
Distraction could get you hurt in a place like this… if not worse. I needed to keep myself focused on my task. I needed to make Rory the master of his baser side. Heck, I needed to be the master of my own baser side, it seemed.
I’d never had the problem, but around Rory? It happened all too frequently. It was disconcerting.
I was disconcerted.
“What pushes me over the edge is… magic.” Bronze eyes cut my way. He looked to be fairly relaxed for the moment. His upper body angled to lean against the bench’s arm at his back. His lower body encroached on where my legs were tucked underneath the bench, only the toes of my shoes meeting the flagstone-clad ground.
I unclenched my teeth from where they’d embedded around the pen I hadn’t realized resided there. “Why would you be affected by magic? I mean, you and everything in Grimm Hollow bleeds magic.” But then… that might just explain things. I mean, he couldn’t be around anyone right now, right? “Maybe it is the magic, but why? How? Wait, I know there’s magic in this garden as well.” I got up to pace again. I thought better when I moved or when I had good music buzzing in my ears—coursing through my body.
As if on cue, birdsong began from somewhere above my head, helping to move my mind into a more clinical headspace. “Our lark?” A smile quirked my lips as I did a quick search. “If people set you off but places don’t… what’s the difference?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, why the people and not the places? Is the magic different? Why would one affect you and not the other?”
“I hadn’t thought about it like that. I can feel magic, but all magic feels different. Does that make any sense?” His eyes burned brighter as interest lit their molten depths, and he licked his lips absently.
Focus, Mae!
“Okay. Good. How is it different?” I stepped back to the bench, grabbing my utensils, ready to add to my notes. Hopefully, a solution was hot on the heels of this epiphany.
Rory took my place as he thought, pacing like the massive feline he hid. Each step lithe and measured, never a stutter or trip. Even when only in his coveted house shoes.
“I guess it’s like the person. When someone comes around, their magic is an extension of them as it is me, and it… reaches. Does that make sense?” He ran a weary hand through his overgrown locks, sending them tumbling back toward his eyes to obscure his vision and start the process all over again. “Like it reaches for me, probes, looks for weakness. Or, in contrast, it shrinks away, timid.”
I thought about what he experienced, about how magic felt to him, and couldn’t help but feel like I missed out on something utterly amazing. Not only having magic of any kind but the complete sensory immersion it evoked. “And your lion reacts the same to both situations? It doesn’t matter if the person, or being, is being aggressive or submissive?”
“Nope. The active brush seems to set me off, not the actual intent.” He paused, screwing up his face in thought. “All I feel is the intense need to prove myself. To be seen as the undisputed alpha. To avenge my father. Worthy.” The last word was nothing more than a harsh whisper. His narrowed eyes flashed before a bland mask of indifference descended, closing his features. Hiding his worry. “I am the Shifter Heir Apparent of Grimm Hollow. Of course, I’m the strongest, but I need to be able to function around my people to be effective.” Rory’s back was to me by this point, I assumed, in a show of dismissal. For me or the situation, I didn’t know.
Time to get back to the point.
Delicately.
“When did your ability to handle your… urges, fail?”
“Fail? I don’t fail. At anything,” he growled, whirling on me.
I thought I saw pointy tips protruding from between his lips. “Uh, you spontaneously combust into a giant man-eating lion whenever anyone magical enters your sphere,” I deadpanned. He flipped from approachable to haughty and defensive in a blink. I needed to stay… clinical. He was too volatile to invest in emotionally. I hoped his crankiness had more to do with his frustrations with himself than as a symptom of his status, but my experience concerning those with status was that they were jerks.
I wouldn’t hold my breath that Rory, an honest to goodness royal, would be any different. He’d probably end up showing his true colors—the same ones shown by his mother—once he didn’t need the company of a plain-old human. Guess I’d better get back to what I’d been threatened to do. Pushing up my glasses and clearing my throat, I dove back in. “So what changed?”
His throat worked, jaw clenched, a crease developing between his thick brows. I didn’t know whether to let him work through it or if he’d need a nudge.
I waited.
“It started the morning I found out my father was in a coma, that he’d nearly died.”
Oh… crap.
CHAPTER 16
“What? Not the answer you were expecting,” he sneered after a pregnant moment of silence. The garden, in all its magical glory, continued to chirp, rustle, and gurgle. It served to further highlight the lack of voices.
“Uh, I-I’m so sorry.” What else could I say? It’s my fault. “How… is he?” I’m the reason he got hit. His jaws were clamped around my shoulder… A hand gravitated to grip the newly remembered ache.
He didn’t miss the movement. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Of course. Why?” I pulled my hand back to my lap and the notes thereupon.
“Your scent changed, and your features pinched,” he noted.
“I was saddened to hear about your father.” Truth.
“I miss him. He’s supposed to live a long and healthy life. I’m not supposed to be king.” He collapsed heavily to the flagstone path between my bench and the dreaded rose bushes as if the admission was too heavy a weight to stand beneath. “He can’t die,” he whispered, head between squeezing hands. Like he tried to punish himself for something.
I swallowed thickly before forcing myself to go to him. Gingerly, I laid a hand to his shoulder. “It’s not your fault.” It’s mine. The lark began its beautiful song almost as if giving
permission, a segue… “I was there.” I chickened out.
Turbulent, dark eyes met mine. “What were you doing there? I heard it was an operation to eradicate a rogue Warlock and his coven.”
“So your mom didn’t fill you in on all of the details?” I asked, simultaneously shocked, and not, that she hadn’t given Rory more information. Information was power, and the queen had both in spades. “The rogue Witch was Allya’s father. His son was supposed to kill Allya—a close blood relative—thus granting himself the dark power to take the form of a wolf.”
“That’s how they did it?” The disgust on his face said what his words didn’t.
“Don’t you go thinking badly of Allya. She didn’t want to kill an animal and force it into her mind and body. She was as much a victim as the wolf. More so even.” I couldn’t fathom how my friend had endured life among a group of such sadistic minds for so long. She’d hidden the horrors of her life well. I’d had zero clue. Well, maybe a small clue. I knew Griffin was bad news but…
“She survived. I get it. So how did you end up in the middle of the operation?” Rory appeared genuinely interested in the story now. If only because it would give him insight into the last night of his father’s conscious life or some other random reason, I didn’t know. It didn’t matter. If it made him feel better, more connected, I’d tell him what I knew. Even if it hurt.
Not that I knew much. Yet. Given a little more time in the Archives, I’d find my own answers.
“I guess he decided he wanted Allya back after she’d taken on Ebony, thought she would become his second and heir since she’d survived.” I shrugged. “He thought I was the best way to get to her, I guess.” The lifeless eyes of my mother and watching my father’s life begin to bleed from him sprung unbidden to mind. I hated that’s how I thought of them now, how I pictured them. In their broken state. I’d rather remember them any other way. Even when they were making me hopping mad, refusing to let me apply to colleges in New York or California or embarrassing me with naked bathing stories in front of their friends—who sometimes happened to have hot sons in tow.
Any other way. On any other day.
“I’m sorry you were put in that position, but I’m glad my dad and the others were able to save you.”
Guilt burned like bile up my throat. I swallowed several times in an attempt to clear myself of the phantom acid eating at me. I’d been the last thing he’d seen. His teeth and claws had felt my flesh, nearly crushed my bones before he’d been hit with an arrow by Allya and then by a spell meant to kill him. He’d survived, which I’d guess attested to his strength, but it seemed he wasn’t out of the figurative woods just yet. “Thank you. Me too,” I parroted dutifully.
“I’m glad you’re here though I’m sorry for the circumstance.”
I nodded curtly. I just wanted a change in subject. Shift it back onto him. I was much more comfortable with that arrangement. Rory didn’t need to know more about me. I needed to know more about him. So I could fix him and get out from under his mother's thumb. If I was stuck living my life without leaving Grimm Hollow, I wanted it on my terms. “Let’s get back to our goal. We need to make you safe to be around.”
He leaned forward. So close that his chocolate eyes, now swirling with flecks of gold, held my full attention, squeezing the air from my lungs and refusing to let them refill with his thrall. Satisfied he held me captive, he growled through clenched teeth, “I’ll never be safe to be around. I’ll always be a threat. I may play the diplomatic heir or even King, but I will always be one step from tearing out the throats of my enemies.”
“And who are your enemies,” I whispered, nearly panting with the effort to speak.
He broke contact, releasing me from my enslavement and, in one swift movement, rose from his crouch and strode purposefully back toward the terrace.
Just as I resigned myself to not receiving an answer, he paused at the lion statue, gingerly placing a hand on the regal animal's forehead. A single rumbled word echoed in my straining ears long after he was gone…
Everyone.
With my “tutor” job obviously at a halt for the day, I took the opportunity to go somewhere I felt comfortable. Pushing through the closed wrought-iron gate, I exited the Leone garden with a destination in mind. I turned right and shuffled quickly down the street. The Archives would be a great way to spend the day. I was much more comfortable around books than people anyway. I knew I hadn’t told the queen of my intentions, but honestly, she could suck it.
She wouldn’t do anything but berate me, possibly worse. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, but informing her could very easily cause me injury. Reaffirmed in my resolve not to explain the morning’s events, I ascended the grand stone steps and pushed open the heavy mahogany doors.
The moment the door thudded closed, the cool, arid air enveloped me, encircling me in a bubble tinted with one of my favorite smells: books. The heavy scent of leather, parchment, linen, and various types of ink derivatives almost like a drug, I inhaled deeply, getting my fix.
So good.
Calm flooded through me. This is where I should be. This was what I was good at. Being by myself, teaching myself the ways of the world around me… I was meant to observe, not interact. I was pretty convinced of that fact.
Opening my eyes, I pulled out my new-to-me phone and shot off a quick message to Allya. Now that I wasn’t sequestered within the Leone estate for the day, I wanted some girl time. I knew she wouldn’t be able to spend all day keeping me company, but lunch and laughter sounded amazing. I wasn’t good with people, but Al? That girl was just as awkward and distant as me, only she was stronger. So much stronger than anyone knew.
I’d forever be grateful she didn’t push me away the one day I decided to be a brave little girl and approach her.
Would my life be different had we never met? Yes. Would my parents still be alive? Most likely. Did I regret our friendship? No. Did I blame Allya for the loss of everything I knew and loved? No.
Should I? Maybe, but I just couldn’t. She was my only friend in the whole world and a victim to the same sadistic man as I had been. Only for so much longer.
The phone dinged a reply, pulling me from my spiraling thoughts.
It's a date.
And just like that, I could breathe again. That's why I would never pin my losses on Allya. The girl always had my back and made me smile. So no, I'd choose to place the blame squarely on Seth Morgan's mangled corpse.
It helped when I remembered that my parents had been with me… after. I'd been able to feel my mother's touch and say goodbye. I still selfishly hoped they'd be around again, maybe I could see them one last time. Maybe that would help lessen the grief; the guilt.
Clearing my throat, an act that echoed a bit too much, I shook off all the bad juju and continued toward Marie's desk.
“Able to sneak away this morning, hmm?” The archivist smirked, her focus never leaving the open tome on her desk, fingers barely skimming the surface. Her dark eyes, hidden behind frames quite similar to my own that had fallen down the bridge of her nose, like mine also often did, scanned along behind at a sedate pace.
Whatever she was doing, she wasn't in a hurry to finish.
“Yes, ma'am. Would you mind if I spend the day here? I don't mind working, but if you don't need anything, I'm sure I could find something that might be useful for my other… job.” The word wasn’t appropriate for the task, let alone the taskmaster.
“Of course,” the older lady chirped. You do remember the locations of the species?" At my nod, she continued, “The books at the circulation desk need to be reshelved. Once you find the appropriate designation, the subcategories can be found labeled within.” I nodded again after it seemed she was done explaining—again, not looking up—and turned to retrieve the cart where the books were most likely waiting.
“Miss Randall,” Marie called before I could get too far. “I forgot to mention I will be your mentor on the things you need to know abou
t living in Grimm Hollow. For both you and Miss Lightseeker. Your first session is this evening, so I'm glad you stopped by.” Looking up briefly, she smiled before again returning her eyes to the pages.
Huh? “I'm sorry, what?”
“It was decided that due to your educational prowess, there'd be no reason to have you attend formal schooling here. However, you still need to be made aware of what makes Grimm Hollow unique and what to expect of its citizens. It was decided that Allya could have until things returned to normal to begin her formal lessons. It just so happens the time is now. For both of you.”
“She didn’t mention it,” I hedged. I didn’t mind the one on one sessions, but I thought Al might.
“I only just informed her this morning. I know your schedule might not allow for the same sessions, but we can work it out as needed.” I nodded. “Good. Then please put the books up, and let me know when you are leaving for lunch so I can make sure you get your day’s wage.”
“Day’s wage?”
“I assume you’d like payment for your efforts, again, yes?”
My cheeks pinked. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you,” I sputtered before beelining for the handcart. I hated when simple and obvious things eluded my initial cognition. I prided myself on my intelligence, almost defined myself by my ability to learn what I needed to in order to achieve a goal. My current objective was to determine the best way to keep the level, logical, human side of Rory Leone in control. Not to imprison the beast but to be able to decide when to use him. More mindful and less mindless. I’d use my time among these compilations to formulate a hypothesis and then experiment until a viable, sustainable solution could be attained and replicated.
Putting the books back in their respective homes gave me further knowledge of how the Archives were oriented and cataloged. So, once all items had been reshelved, and Marie had given the go-ahead, I made my way back to the Shifter alcove to see what might be useful to my Rory situation. Thumbing along the exposed spines in the “behavioral” section, I pulled out a volume titled Lion Prides and headed to a leather-bound chair in the nook of the alcove, a quiet spot with plenty of light from the window just next to the seat. I sighed as I sank onto the too-comfy lounge, wiggling until the spot was just right. “Let’s see how I can fix you, Rory.”