The Hollywood sign loomed before them and the huge white letters were amber colored now as the glow in the hills crept closer. It was only a sign, a landmark, Sam knew that. But there was a kind of horror in the idea of Basil destroying something so iconic.
The lions were coming from everywhere now. Sam smelled them close and just as quickly he heard the pounding of their feet; hundreds of them were running up the hillside, escaping the encroaching fires and making their way toward the Observatory en masse.
Sam had never seen so many shifters at once as they swarmed the expanse of asphalt, and some shifted back into the human form as they looked around for some kind of sign of where to go to and how to stop the fire. Only then, did Sam realize that many of them, or perhaps most of them, hadn’t come for the solstice. They had come because Sam and Gwen had put the call out and warned them of the danger. But instead of being scared away, they had come to defend their fellow cougars.
It was the call of guardians they had heard, Sam realized. Even lion shifters who were as assimilated to the human world as Gwen and perhaps some who didn’t even know anything about their legacy as guardians had somehow felt a natural urge to come out and protect their city instead of hiding from the danger. The thought made Sam proud, and he wished the rest of his pride was there to see it.
The air felt too hot and dry as the glow spread outward from the Observatory itself; the amber glow bright and orange, spilling from the dome of the planetarium and oozing like liquid down the hillside. The roar of helicopters overhead signaled that the firefighters or the police or at least the news people would be on the scene soon. But Sam knew what they didn’t; firefighters wouldn’t be able to put out this flame. The humans would only be hurt. It was up to the lions to fight for their territory and for the very life of the city.
Sam ran to the top of the steps and all the lions were waiting, watching him and Gwen, somehow knowing that he was the leader. He didn’t shift back into his human form. There was no need for words now. Sam stood on the top step, his head low, his tail whipping back and forth and looked out on the hundreds of lions swarming the huge front lawns in front of the museum, the few of them who had shifted into human form quickly shifting back. He threw his head back and yowled into the night and a chorus of shifters joined him, roaring their determination to defeat the one who threatened them. He looked to Gwen who was yowling too, her every muscle flexed. She was so beautiful, he thought then. His mate, his partner.
He turned around and ran and Gwen followed. The front doors were glass but decorated with rectangles of iron work and Sam pounced, aiming for the glass around the doors and with a great shattering, he plowed through, ignoring where the glass cut him, Gwen and his fellow shifters following without hesitation.
The place seemed dark and empty but the scent and power of strong magical energies was powerful in the air. Sam and Gwen followed it as the lions invaded the place, running over small displays and making a mess as they all pounded through, in search of Basil. Gwen ran ahead of him and looked back with bright eyes as he followed her to the planetarium doors. He felt stupid then. He should have directed them all there first. The fire was spreading from the dome after all and not only that, but it was a good place for that kind of spell. The magic would bounce around inside the dome, yet close to the power of the night skies and concentrate itself.
The doors of the planetarium were open, and they ran inside and the power that burst out hit Sam like a wall and sent him reeling back before he composed himself and adjusted to it. It was a little like coming up against a wall of heat or cold air except that it felt electric and made his head a little fuzzy.
Basil was levitating. The planetarium was a huge auditorium in the round with a gigantic dome-shaped screen overhead and it was turned on, visions of the night sky, of stars and comets and galaxies spinning across the darkness of space, constellations forming and forming, as a voiceover thundered the lecture that accompanied the show that went unwatched above the hundreds of empty theater seats. Basil was shouting over the din. He wasn’t wearing a polo shirt now. Now he wore a navy blue robe so long that it hung well past his feet, making him look like some otherworldly spectre, enchanted flames projecting from his hands and through the ceiling of the dome. He ignored the shifters, or appeared to, but Sam saw his brow furrow and his mouth turned down into an expression of rage as he kept chanting his spell.
Sam’s eyes went to Basil first but as he looked around, he saw several lion shifters who appeared unconscious, floating in the air around Basil as if in orbit.
“Take these guardians, gods of fate and merciless wonder! Slay those who would oppose my will! Let my power burn their lands on this solstice!”
He went on and on like that and started over again. The words meant little to Sam except death. Basil was levitating high above them and the shifters were storming the place, attempting to jump and climb walls to fight back any way possible. Some jumped toward the unconscious shifters in mid-air and only succeeded in prodding them gently out of orbit and back in again.
Sam shoved through the shifters and ran to the end of an aisle that inclined up toward the center of the dome. He ran back as far as he could to get a running start, having no idea if this would work. All the shifters that Basil wanted so badly to destroy seemed to be here in the planetarium but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Basil would only let the fire consume the Observatory itself if it meant he could kill them all. He looked toward Gwen who looked fiercely back at him and nodded once and then he reared back and began to run with all his strength, calculating on the fly exactly where he needed to pounce to get the most height. He felt every muscle flex as he sprang from his rear legs and flew high into the air and forward, his heart pounding as he saw Basil’s eyes go wide and he was trying to move, to project the fire straight into Sam. But the power he wielded was too momentous, and it held him in place so that now as he tensed for the inevitable collision, he froze up. His mouth went wide, his recitations breaking off into a horrified scream as Sam tackled him. Just that break in concentration interrupted the spell, and the fire went out all at once, the amber glow inflaming the dome cutting out abruptly and leaving them in the glow of the planetariums show still projected on the screen.
All the unconscious shifters floating in orbit now dropped like rocks to the floor but they woke now, jolted into life, and other shifters came running over to them to see if they were alright. But Sam was hardly aware of it as he wrestled with Basil who was fighting him with some silent magic through his fingers that sent spasms of pain through Sam. There was no use attempting to take Basil out of commission without killing him, Sam quickly realized. He caught Basil’s throat in his jaws and locked on, his blood acrid with the poison of dark magic in Sam’s mouth. Basil screamed and yet his cry died in his mouth as life quickly left him, blood gushing from his throat. He was dead and now he lay, limp and bereft of all power on the dark carpet of the aisle as constellations spun on the screen above his head.
They had done it, Sam thought. They had defeated Basil. Gwen was alive and he was alive. All the mountain lions had been saved but Sam relaxed only for a moment before sirens screamed outside the Observatory. The humans were coming. The fire was out but they would find the Observatory in chaos with a dead man in the middle of it. Humans meant, at best, tranquilizer darts. He nudged Gwen who nodded, and the two of them ran out of the planetarium along with all the other lions, making their way out the way they had come in.
The fire, Sam now saw, was not out. It had only become real fire instead of enchanted fire. That was still good, as real fire could be put out by human means and enchanted could not. But it also meant that the hills of Griffith Park were all aflame. There was no pretty yet haunting amber glow now, but a massive angry crackling blaze that seemed to come from everywhere as fire engines and choppers came roaring in their direction. The shifters ran away from hillside now and headed toward the road, everyone running back to their homes or wherever they had com
e from. They veered away into the woods below back toward the city, avoiding the oncoming trucks that started and stopped, likely driven by astonished humans who didn’t understand where the hundreds of mountain lions had come from.
Sam and Gwen led the way, heading east and away from the Observatory toward the park proper where the fire had not yet spread and now they all ran off in different directions. Gwen and Sam made their way toward the Boulevard in Los Feliz near Gwen’s apartment and ran across a couple of terrified humans on e-scooters before they finally found a hiding place, shifting back behind a neighbor’s garage before they went out to the sidewalk.
21
Gwen
Gwen and Sam stood dumbly on the corner of Los Feliz and Griffith Park Boulevard for a moment as the traffic whipped by, cars only immediately stopping as traffic from the huge fire backed them up.
They had lived, Gwen thought. They had faced the danger and won out. Although she knew that they had only won with the help of some mysterious force. But there was some peace in that. Sam hadn’t shared any idea of who might be their little guardian angel and she had no idea either. But she didn’t mind the thought that somebody out there might be looking out for them. It was a comforting idea in a world that could sometimes be too full of darkness.
Sam turned to her, his brow furrowed, and cradled her face in his big hands. “Are you alright?” He asked, his voice rough and a little hoarse. “Are you hurt in any way? Are you-”
“I’m fine,” she said, but immediately started to cough. She’d inhaled a little smoke maybe, and they were both bloodied, bruised and scratched. But she wasn’t badly hurt beyond that. She looked up at Sam and saw the adoration in his eyes and felt, once again, the absolute confidence that he was her mate. They were meant to be together and fate had brought them together. Where exactly the forces of fate came from to pair them up, she didn’t know. And she found she didn’t mind not knowing. Maybe it was the same force of fate that had clued her into the cure for his curse and told her to read the diary and directed Sam toward Basil. That was fine. That was the mystery of magic, the mystery of a world beyond theirs that, as shifters, they had only a little piece of.
“Are you sure?” He pressed.
“Sam, I’m fine.” She stood on her toes and reached to wrap her arms around his neck and he lifted her up, embracing her in his arms as they stood on the corner of the busy intersection under the light of a streetlamp. “We made it. And I have you. Of course I’m fine.”
“Oh, sweetheart…” He whispered in her ear and held her like that, swinging her around once so that she laughed.
“I thought we might be doomed,” he muttered in her ear. “Honestly.” He had a day’s growth of stubble growing on his chin and the bristle of it tickled her cheek and her neck and she shut her eyes, basking in the warmth and strength of him. “But you were with me. You were by my side…”
“I’ll always be by your side,” Gwen said around the lump in her throat.
“But it’s dangerous,” he said, leaning back now to look down at her. “My life as a guardian? There will always be another Basil around the corner. There will always be something. If anything ever happened to you-”
“We’ve been through this,” she said lightly, swatting his shoulder. “I get to choose. And I choose you. And everything that comes with you.” She hopped back down to the ground and leaned her head on his shoulder, reaching out to grab his hand and squeeze it. “Come on. Let’s go to my place. We can walk from here.”
Sam wrapped his arm around her and the two of them hiked up the boulevard as the traffic blurred past them and the fire engines and choppers thundered from seemingly every direction. She worried about the fire, even if the firefighters now had a much better chance of putting it out. It would probably be a scourge on the hillside but she was confident that the shifters, anyhow, would be safe. She hoped no one else would be hurt.
“Oh, what about your house?” Gwen asked suddenly, as Sam clasped her hand in his while they walked. “Aren’t you pretty close to the fire?”
“Close enough,” Sam muttered, but he looked worried. “But we might be alright. It’s just a house anyway. Arthur will know when to leave if he has to.”
“You’re so stoic,” Gwen said, rolling her eyes. But she squeezed his hand back. They walked on and she was a little sleepy but she had no intention of resting any time soon. She was starving, and she hoped they could eat at her place, though she found herself craving some served to her; something hot and fun like breakfast for dinner.
“I’ve never seen your apartment,” Sam said, when they finally reached it. They hiked up the short staircase to her door and Gwen smiled at him, feeling a little nervous at this new introduction to a part of her life. But when she opened to the door she grinned, seeing his eyes light up. Her place wasn’t that special, at least not to her. But it was bright and full of knickknacks, books and plants, and nearly every inch of the walls was covered in framed art prints and photographs. It was just about the polar opposite of Sam’s place but she saw him smiling as he walked around, taking it all in.
Gwen resisted the urge to collapse on her coach and instead went around the counter into her little kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.
“You should decorate my place,” Sam said, as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her little waist. “It would do me good. Assuming my house survives the fire.”
“I fully plan on helping you decorate,” Gwen said. “But it should look like you, not me. You just need a little...encouragement.”
“The place should look like us,” Sam whispered in her ear. She turned in his arms and looked up at him with shining eyes as if in question and he beamed down at her, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “What did you think? You’re my mate, sweetheart. Of course, I want you to move in. I need you. I need you with me always.”
“I think I want to learn more about being a guardian,” Gwen said, blushing as she admitted it. It felt like such a foolish thing to say to a man who had been doing it his whole life. Yet she was a mountain lion shifter, and their kind was called to that vocation. That had been proved by all the hundreds of shifters coming out to fight.
But Sam didn’t laugh. He didn’t even look displeased. He smiled down at Gwen and said, “Really? Are you sure? What about your physical therapy work?”
“I still want to do that,” Gwen said firmly. “As a job. But I think you should...train me. Something like that. That would way I could help you at least. Be of use. If you need me. We could be like a badass shifter guardian couple, yeah?”
He hugged her tight and kissed her hair, burying his nose in and she giggled as his stubble tickled her. “I think that would be amazing. I think you’d be a wonderful guardian. You’re certainly brave and strong. And you’re a mountain lion. My brave lioness. I think you’re plenty qualified.”
“That’s good to hear,” Gwen said, pleasantly surprised. “I thought you were going to say it’s too dangerous yadda yadda…”
“If I did, would it stop you?” He asked wryly.
“Absolutely not!”
He laughed and hugged her again and when the coffee was done she poured them two mugs and they leaned on the counter in their kitchen, trying to revive themselves. There seemed to be an unspoken agreement between them that the night was far from over. After so much excitement, it felt as if they needed to grapple with everything that had happened.
It occurred to Gwen finally that they should keep tabs on the fire. She brought out her laptop and found a live stream of one of the local news stations that were covering the blaze. They’d pushed the fire away from the Observatory at least and they were trying now to keep it away from residences including Sam’s. Though Sam seemed unworried and once he’d received a text from Arthur saying he’d evacuated just in case, he relaxed.
“It’s only a house,” he said again. “And I have money. We could live here. We could live anywhere. You’re home to me now, Gwen.” She had to kiss h
im when he said that.
“We have to keep Arthur though,” Gwen said firmly. “He’s your home too, Sam. Even if you somehow lost all your money. You would still always need to keep Arthur. He would just live with us and dust occasionally and I could make him muffins.”
Sam snorted a laugh at that and when there was a rap at the door, Gwen jerked, tensing up reflexively after everything they had been through.
“Gwen!” It was Olive’s voice shouting through the door and Gwen relaxed again, going to answer it as Sam followed.
She threw open the door and Olive surprised her, lurching forward and throwing her arms around Gwen who said, “Oof!” before hugging her back.
“Jesus, I was worried!” Olive said, squeezing her tight. “I heard all this shit about some wizard trying to kill all the lion shifters and then I saw that enchanted fire up in the hills and then it turned into real fire and I can’t even imagine what those firefighters are thinking and those news people are all confused I’ll bet-”
“We’re fine, Olive,” Gwen said, patting her back. “It was hairy for a while there but we got out.”
“You were there?” Olive said. “Damn.”
“It was Basil,” Sam said, shrugging. “Couldn’t have done it without your intel.”
“Sam took him down himself,” Gwen said proudly, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning on his shoulder. “After we were held prisoner in his lair, that is. But we got out...somehow. Long story. I don’t understand it, to tell you the truth.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Olive said. She was in her signature flannel again. “Thank God we have guardians like you guys around, right?”
Awakened Alpha Page 14