by Lisa Ladew
Crew’s fingers brushed hers, warm and soft. She watched his face but his expression stayed completely blank. He didn’t seem to be moving at all, or even breathing. Too late, Ella realized he was tipping, falling.
Wade shot to his feet as Crew fell to the floor. Ella could feel the reverberations of his big body hitting and she jumped out of her chair, tiptoeing to him.
“What in the world?” Wade murmured as he bent over Crew and touched his forehead lightly. He nodded at Ella. “Go see if you can wake Trevor. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could.”
Ella went to Trevor on the couch and sat next to him, entwining her fingers with his. She bent over him and whispered in his ear, while she watched Wade try to wake Crew.
Trevor blinked his eyes and smiled at her, reaching up to touch her face. “Ella,” he whispered. “How did it go?”
She nodded at the wolfen on the floor. “Not good.”
“Ah damn,” he muttered as he pushed into a sitting position.
Crew’s eyes opened and he stared at the ceiling. In a strange monotone voice he said,
“Life begins anew. Love brings two, then four, then six more. Khain’s downfall lives inside her. She will be queen.”
Ella gasped and covered her mouth with her hand as chills rushed up and down her spine. He couldn’t be speaking of her? Unconsciously, she curled her hand around her belly.
Trevor pulled her close and they watched as Wade continued to speak softly to Crew, placing his fingers at Crew’s temples and jaw line, then chest, then feet, then starting the circuit over again.
It took several minutes, but Crew began to respond. He blinked rapidly and let Wade help him sit up. Ella and Trevor stayed on the couch while Wade sat on the edge of his desk and waited for Crew to be able to speak.
Crew held a hand over his eyes. “I couldn’t understand a lot of it. It came so fast. In a glut.”
Wade held up his hands. “It’s ok, son. Just tell us what you can.”
Crew looked at Trevor. “She is a one true mate, and she has powers that I can’t even guess at.”
Ella felt a strange lightness enter her chest, even though on some level, she’d known it was true since the first time the words one true mate had come out of Trevor’s mouth. But powers?
Trevor spoke, his voice hard. “You said a one true mate? Is she mine? Made for me alone?”
Crew shook his head. “Not until you mate her.”
Trevor growled and Crew shook his head again, holding up one hand. “You asked for the fucking truth. So handle it.”
Wade took over. “So she could mate any shiften? Or just a wolfen?”
Crew tightened his jaw and watched Trevor warily. “She has the seeds inside her to carry any shiften young to term. She possibly could even mate Kh─.”
Trevor’s growling grew so loud, Ella had to cover her ears. He pulled his hand out of hers and stood, and she was afraid he would shift again. “Trevor,” she said, grabbing for him and pulling him down. He came easily and quieted a bit, but his body was still tense.
Crew raised his voice to be heard over Trevor’s growling. “But once he claims her and they are joined in a proper mating ceremony, she can only have his young, unless he dies, and then the claiming is nullified.”
Trevor stopped growling. He stood up, shaking free of Ella, and approached Wade. “We mate tonight. I want you to perform the ceremony. We’ll have it in the woods, with a proper run afterwards. I want Crew and Harlan and Blake to stand for me, and we’ll need to get Ella a dress and flowers. Anything she wants.”
Ella stood up, unable to believe what she was hearing. Wade nodded, not even looking at her. He fired questions at Trevor as Crew looked at the door, seeming about to sneak out of the room.
“Wait,” Ella said, but neither male heard her. She stood up. “Don’t I get a say in this?”
The two males continued to talk over her, not even looking her way. She heard the words veil, claiming, and witnesses thrown about and with each of them, her anger grew. Ella marched into the middle of the room, her hands clenched. She touched Trevor on the shoulder. He held up a finger and continued to talk to Wade.
Ella side-eyed him, unable to believe that a man─ she shook her head-not a man. Unable to believe that some wolf she barely knew and another wolf she had just met were planning a─a shotgun wedding of some sort and not even talking to her about it.
“I will not mate you!” she yelled, and then she turned on her heel and ran out of the room.
Chapter 34
Trevor shot up to his feet, pushed around Wade, and raced out the door, following Ella. “Ella, wait,” he called.
She was to his left, not running but walking quickly and with purpose, tension holding her spine straight. His mind whirled, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. He caught up to her, grabbing her around the elbow and spinning her to face him. Her expression was tight and he realized it was the first time he had truly seen her this angry.
“Ella, I’m sorry. Hear me out, I-I should not have done that. I wasn’t thinking. It’s too much, too soon, right?”
Ella relaxed slightly. “You’ve got to give me a chance to breathe here, Trevor.”
Trevor nodded eagerly. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.” He stared into her eyes and an idea came to him, something to take the pressure off. “Here, let me show you something.”
She relaxed more and twined her fingers in his, letting him pull her down the hallway. She followed him into a dark alcove off to their right where there were no lights. At the very end of it there was a door, which Trevor stepped up to, bending slightly so the cursed retina scanner could scan his eyeball. He felt her shift her weight from one foot to the other behind him. He turned to her “What? What’s wrong?”
A vertical line had appeared between her eyebrows but still she shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
Trevor could tell she was holding something back, but he wouldn’t push her. She had to come to it at her own pace.
He turned back to the door, but it had closed already. He pressed his eye close to the scanner again and pulled her through as soon as the door whooshed open.
The darkness and the coolness of the tunnels soothed him at once, as it always did. They walked slowly on the downward slope, the only sound they could hear their own footsteps. Several small, dim lights above gave the tunnel a warm ambiance.
“What is this place?” Ella finally asked and her voice was small.
“The tunnels. The police station is connected to every important wolven’s house in Serenity. Some of these tunnels go on for miles. Our secret meeting places are down here too, and the prophecy room is this way.”
She seemed to hesitate before she spoke. “What happens if a wolfen dies? Do you die of old age?” Her voice turned little-girl curious.
Trevor stopped walking and turned to face her. “We do, in about the same time as humans do, unless we are mated. Then we live longer.”
“How long?”
“Sometimes two hundred years, sometimes slightly more.”
“Will I live that long?” she asked and her eyes held fear that Trevor could easily see in the dim light.
“I don’t know.”
They stared at each other for a long time before Trevor began to walk again, more slowly this time. That would be a cruel fate, for her to be taken from him early. Assuming he could get her to mate him.
“So let’s say a wolfen dies of old age, or quits police work, what happens to their tunnel?”
“Wolven don’t quit.”
“Never?”
“Never. It’s in our blood, protecting humans and being police officers.” The door to the prophecy room spilled light out into the hallway in front of them. Trevor stopped and faced her. He leaned against the wall and pulled her into him, kissing her once, twice, three times on her soft lips. “Do you want to hear the creation story?”
Her eyes shone. “Yes.”
He pulled her into the prophecy room,
one of the places he loved most of all in Serenity, second only to his own home and the woods. He put her in the softest chair in the middle of the room. She barely looked around, her eyes directly on him.
Trevor took a deep breath. “I’ve told you Khain is a demon─”
She nodded her head, then interrupted him. “Wait, do shifters believe in God?”
“Shiften.” He sighed. “I’m not a philosopher, but I do think that humans tell many tales of many gods that all could be the same being. We refer to this being as The Light. Whether or not they truly are the same? That’s a question for Wade.”
“Is he like a priest?”
“Wade is like a priest, judge, jury, father, and boss all rolled up in one.” He watched her carefully to see if she understood or had any more questions. She nodded her head.
Trevor leaned over the arms of the chair and kissed her on her nose. “Back to Khain. He used to walk with The Light, but he chose to break ties and come down to earth. We aren’t sure what the original reason was but he ended up killing humans for fun or sport or purpose, not that his reason matters. Rhen was sent to stop him.”
Ella shivered. “Rhen. Is she an angel?”
“She is a deae. The word roughly translates into little god or goddess.”
“In what language?”
Trevor cocked his head and smiled. She was like a detective, or a very good lawyer. “I don’t know. We don’t have a written history and since all of our mothers were killed, no one did a very good job of sharing the oral history.”
“What about your father?”
“He died shortly after my mother.”
Ella’s eyes grew big. “Trevor, I’m so sorry.”
He let himself be gathered into a hug for just a moment before he pulled back and knelt on the rug before her.
“Who took you in?”
“I went to the war camps.”
Ella covered her mouth with her hands. “That sounds awful!”
Trevor looked at the wall as memories washed over him. “It was.” He had to pull himself back to the little room, back to the present. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve been studying the prophecies. They are all we are allowed to record.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Two years.”
“Same as me. From where?”
“New York.”
Ella smiled. “I knew it. I can hear the accent sometimes in certain things you say. I thought you had to be from somewhere on the East Coast.”
Trevor did not smile back. “I tried very hard to get rid of it.”
Ella looked confused. “But why?”
Trevor rolled his shoulders, not wanting to think about it. “I don’t exactly fit in here.”
“But you want to,” Ella said softly.
Trevor stared at the volumes and volumes of prophecies lining the walls. His mind dredged up the ones that Wade thought pertained to him. Did he even deserve a one true mate if in reality he was the fraud he believed himself to be?
***
Ella watched Trevor slip away from her. She was beginning to recognize some of his complexities, and there were many of them to deal with. She ran her fingers lightly down his arm. “You were telling me about Rhen?”
Trevor pulled himself back to the moment. “Yes. Rhen. She fought with Khain but could not stop him, and one night after a long and hard battle, she asked for the help of some wolves they ran across.”
Trevor stood and she could see his spine straighten as he lifted his chin and went on. “The wolves fought Khain for her and together, they were able to drive him away, gravely injured. Rhen was also weak from the fight, so she could not pursue him. Instead she decided to enlist the help of the wolves in all future fights with Khain. She put a small piece of herself in the body of each member of the pack and those became the first wolven. The wolves gained the ability to shift into the likeness of Rhen that night. They ran through the forest on a quest to find more animals who Rhen could enlist as a kind of army. She found a bear and her cubs using their paws to put out the fires Khain had started. She gave each of the bears a piece of herself, placing it in their left shoulder, where it became a renqua. With the help of the wolven, she found several male bears and gave them pieces of herself also. They were the first bearen. Again, she ran through the forest with the wolven, even in her weakened state. She pulled them away from their territory, so they did not know where they were going. She ran fast and just before she could go headlong over a blind cliff, a mountain lion jumped out in front of her and warned her away with a scream. The wolven were ready to tear the lion apart, because they did not know what it was doing. But when Rhen saw the cliff, she stopped them. She put a piece of herself in the mountain lion and they found more and she gave them pieces of herself also.”
Trevor’s face shone with the effort of telling the story. Ella thought he had never look so handsome. “These three species of animals became the first shiften — and they were essentially given their jobs that night. They evolved with the humans. As the human population grew, so did their number. They integrated with humans, always living with them, always protecting them, but the humans never knew what they really were. They were unable to shift if humans were around unless Khain was near. Wolven started the first Police Departments, graduating from lone sheriffs and deputies to full departments, while bearen built the fire departments and felen did their own thing. Most of them are mercenaries, some are in the human government, some are doctors, some track Khain where he lives, and some watch Rhen’s body.”
“There are shiften in government?”
Trevor chuckled. “They are the ones always involved in the sex scandals. It’s good to have them there though, they can sway things our way when we need it.”
“Rhen’s body is still around? It’s close, isn’t it?”
Trevor nodded.
“Didn’t this all happen a long time ago, though?”
“It did. Before recorded history. But remember, Rhen is a deae.”
Ella stood. “I can feel her body. It’s like a magnet.” She turned and walked to the door, glad when Trevor followed her. She didn’t want to be in the tunnels without him.
She began to walk towards the right, away from the way they had come, taking another right, and then another, then a left and following a tunnel on a steep incline downwards. Trevor followed, never saying a word. When they had walked for over twenty minutes, he stopped her. “You can’t go any farther, but you are right. Rhen is that way.”
Ella stared in his face. “Why can’t I go any farther?”
“The felen. The ones down here are dangerous. We don’t mess with them.”
Ella turned in a circle. “I can feel her. All I feel is love.”
“She is love. And your father loved her.”
Ella stumbled. “My–” she shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about my father right now. I may be at my limit for weird stuff today.”
Trevor pulled her to him with an arm around her waist, then took her hand and kissed it, directly in the center of her palm, sending chills through her body. “Unfortunately, weird is a daily staple around here.”
Chapter 35
Ella put her head back slightly and closed her eyes, soaking up Trevor’s nearness. This was what she wanted. Simple, uncomplicated. Just to be together.
He nibbled on her fingertips and she smiled. “Mmmm.”
“You like that?”
“I like you.”
Trevor pulled her closer, walking her towards the wall of the tunnel, pressing her body against it with his own. “You don’t think I’m scary?”
She opened her eyes and blinked at him in the dim light. “You are scary, but not to me.”
He leaned in and kissed her neck, his voice lowering. “I’m sorry about what happened in Wade’s office. That wasn’t me acting like that.” He rubbed his chin as if remembering Mac’s blood there.
“Don’t be sorry for something you can’t help, Trevor. I ca
n’t say I enjoyed it, but, in a strange way it made me feel safe.”
Trevor pressed the hardness of his body into her. She ran her fingers over his biceps and up to his shoulders as he continued to kiss her.
“You are always safe with me.”
His soft mouth and scratchy scruff found just the right place behind her ear. She shivered and felt her body respond strongly.
Trevor sniffed her skin. “Ah, you smell so good.”
Ella laughed. “What do I smell like?”
“Cinnamon and sugar and when you get aroused, there is a healthy spray of vanilla in there too.”
Ella put her hands on his chest. “Seriously?”
He smiled and pulled away from her slightly, covering her hands with his. “Yes, it’s a wonderful smell, it’s what first attracted me to you.”
“My smell?”
“Why do you look upset. That’s a good thing, especially to wolven. We care a lot what females smell like. I’ve never smelled anyone who smelled as good as you.”
“I don’t know. I guess women like to be noticed for their beauty, or their minds, but not so much for their scent.” She looked over his shoulder for a moment. “Wait, am I a woman? I’m not a shiften, and I’m not quite human, so what am I?”
Trevor leaned in close, his voice soothing. “We’re writing this history Ella, and I say you can be anything you want to be.”
“I want to be a woman.” She caught his eye and smiled. “I’ve never fit in anywhere, Trevor, not in my family, not at school, not with other kids. I feel like I could fit in here, even if I’m not quite the same.”
Trevor nodded solemnly. “You do fit in. You heard Crew. You are to be─”
She stopped him with a finger over his lips. “Eh. I don’t want to think about that right now. It’s too much.”
Trevor nodded and pressed his lips together, miming locking them and throwing away a key. He closed his eyes and took a big breath through his nose. “Scent is beauty, you know.” He opened his eyes and curled a lock of her hair back from her face. “You are also very beautiful to look at.” He took another breath and smiled wickedly. “Vanilla.”