by Ann Gimpel
“Show some respect.”
Jeremiah tossed his head back, liking the way his lush mane fell around his shoulders. “I would request the same. Most shifters find their animals when they’re what? Ten? Twelve? I’ve been a mage for over three hundred years.” He inhaled, trying not to get sidetracked by the luxuriant variety of scents. “If there’s some trick, or some clue, I would tell my kinfolk so maybe some of them might—”
“We decide. Not you.”
Jeremiah thought about it. “For shifters as well?”
“Of course. Not every shifter ends up bonded.”
He tried a different tack. “When I return to my kinsmen, may I tell them about you?”
“I would be offended if you kept me a secret.”
“When I tell them, they’ll want a bond animal too.”
The lion hooted and howled. “Wanting and having are not the same. Enough talk. Let us run. And hunt. Dusk is nigh, and game plentiful beyond our cave.”
When Jeremiah picked his way back to his car around midnight, his mind and heart were filled with wonder. And his belly was full of a tender, young buck. He’d tried to engage the lion in further dialog, but without success. He’d never understood the relationship between shifters and their animals, but apparently the bond wasn’t built on conversation.
He nosed the Corvette back onto the highway and turned east. He’d take the pass route. It was shorter than backtracking to I-70. Sensation ebbed and flowed within his chest, sometimes oozing out in a purr, sometimes in a muted—or not so muted—roar.
After another lusty roar blatted through the passenger compartment, he dug his phone out of the console and dialed Niall’s number. The jaguar shifter might be sleeping, but Jeremiah bet not. He needed a CliffsNotes version of how to control his animal side. Roaring in the middle of downtown Silverthorne would get him tossed in the drunk tank—or the local looney bin.
He could kick the problem around with other mages, but nothing like culling knowledge directly from the horse’s—or jaguar’s—mouth.
He broke a few laws by not switching the phone to Bluetooth, but it was late. The odds of a not-so-friendly cop apprehending him were slim. He waited through three rings before Niall picked up.
“Jer? What the fuck, buddy? It’s like one in the morning.”
“You don’t sound the least bit sleepy,” Jeremiah observed snidely. “I do apologize for interrupting you and Sarai, though. Wouldn’t have, but this is important.”
“What’s important?” The phone made a few clicking sounds.
“Hi, Jer. Sarai here. What’s going on? Apologies for my mate.”
Niall growled, sounding like the cat he turned into.
Much to Jeremiah’s dismay, he growled back.
“What was that?” Niall demanded.
“Where are you?” Sarai chimed in. “What’s up? Do you need us?”
Jeremiah ground his teeth. “I’m in my car. I have a problem—” The rest of his sentence was obliterated by the lion, who apparently resented the hell out of being labelled a problem.
“Listen up.” Niall’s tone was all business. “Do not turn your phone off. Pull to a shoulder. I’ll find you.”
“I don’t need to be rescued,” Jeremiah blurted. “I—I’m a shifter now. I have no idea how it happened, or what to do about it”—another roar, louder this time—“but I need information. For starters, how do I control it?”
More roars blatted from him. He was on the eastern side of Gore Pass and pulled off onto a side road, killing both lights and engine. He wasn’t at all certain how safe it was to keep driving with a rampaging lion on the loose. One who could force a shift exactly like it had in the cave.
“What?” Sarai shrieked.
“You heard him,” Niall cut in.
“Yeah, but how could something like that happen?” Sarai was back.
“Can we sort the fine points out later?” Jeremiah spoke over both of them. “How do I make peace with my, er, bondmate? Everything I do pisses it off, and then it roars. I’m afraid I may end up shifting inside my car, which would be a disaster. The lion won’t fit.”
“Oooh, a lion,” Sarai purred, followed by, “What sign are you? You’d almost have to be born under Leo—”
“Which lion?” Niall spoke over his mate. “I may know it.”
Jeremiah pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. So far, these two weren’t any help at all. “Focus. Please. What’s the first thing you learned after your animal picked you?”
“We pick each other,” Sarai said. “We dream them when we’re young, get to know them. By the time we finally shift, they’re like an old friend.”
“Not exactly what my lion said,” Jeremiah muttered.
“Ohohoho.” Niall stretched the single word out until it had a dozen syllables.
“What exactly does that mean?” Jeremiah loosened his death grip on the steering wheel, but his stomach twisted into a hard knot.
“You’re incredibly lucky,” Sarai spoke up. “One of the old ones selected you. It’s a fantastic honor, and I can’t wait to meet it. Give me your birthdate and time, so I can pull your chart together.”
“Save the astrology for later.” Niall shushed his mate and aimed his next words at Jeremiah. “First off, thank the lion for choosing you. Heartfelt thanks. If you can gin up a gush—and it’s genuine—do it.”
“But of course, you already did that, right?” Sarai broke in.
“Um, no. I didn’t, I’m afraid. This whole thing caught me unaware. I’m sure there’s protocol, but it’s not something taught to mages…” He was babbling, but he had a tough time stopping the word salad spewing from his mouth.
“Never mind. It will be all right,” Sarai said, adding, “It will, won’t it?” directed at Niall.
“Probably.” Niall’s words were gruff. “I’ve never known anyone who bonded at Jer’s age.”
“Doesn’t make it impossible,” Sarai argued, “but I’m standing by with the tarot and crystals and my offer to assemble his chart.”
“I’m still here.” Jeremiah could have throttled both of them. “Don’t dissect me like some oddball object.”
Breath whistled through Niall’s teeth. “We’re going to hang up. Thank the lion for choosing you. It should help smooth the waters, so long as you’re sincere about it. Never underestimate the animals. They’re wise in atavistic ways.”
“And they read your thoughts,” Sarai tossed in. “You can’t ever hide anything from them.”
“So it’s best if I’m honest, right?” Jeremiah hunted for corroboration.
“Depends where honest takes you,” Niall said bluntly. “If you swung by Stephan’s ranch, we could approach your bondmate together.”
Stephan was Sarai’s uncle, who lived on a ranch north of Denver. Jeremiah had a lot of respect for the mountain lion shifter who’d just lost his mate to vampires. “Thanks for the offer,” he replied, “but it’s too far for tonight. I’m still an hour from home as it is.”
“You could visit tomorrow,” Sarai said.
“Or meet us back in Glenwood to finish clearing out the rest of my house,” Niall cut in.
“You are such a self-serving oaf,” Sarai muttered.
“Sure and I’m not,” Niall protested, his Irish brogue thicker than usual. “It would kill two birds with one stone. We could provide a crash course in shifterdom while he—”
“I’ll get back to you in the morning.” Jeremiah tapped the end call button and slumped against the leather upholstery. Maybe he shouldn’t have disconnected so abruptly, but he didn’t have the energy to listen to Niall and Sarai squabble about the best way to approach things. Besides, the lion was his bondmate, not theirs. This was one problem he needed to approach alone.
He dug deep, accessing memories he hadn’t dragged out in many hundreds of years.
Once his thoughts were as organized as he could manage, he said, “I’m not sure how to talk with you, but according
to Sarai, you can read my mind. If that’s so, then you know I longed to bond with an animal when I was a child. What young magic-wielder wouldn’t?
“Those older and wiser assured me every fledgling mage wanted an animal bondmate, and that I’d get over my yearning given time. They also told me accepting the magic the goddess had given me would go a long way toward easing the sting of not being a shifter.
“I took them seriously and did my damnedest to embrace my mage ability. I grew powerful in my magic, one of the strongest of my kind. And I was grateful for my linkage to plants and birds.”
A roar filled the car, probably his cat’s annoyance he’d brought up anything avian. Undaunted, he soldiered on.
“Just because I never expected to be a shifter doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the miracle of you joining your nature with mine. I’m deeply pleased and more than a little overwhelmed. You’re amazing, probably far more than I deserve. I will do whatever it takes to be worthy of you selecting me.”
More words tumbled through his tired brain, but he stopped there. He wouldn’t grovel. Any partnership worth its salt was driven by mutual respect. The lion had chosen him for his strength, not his weakness.
Jeremiah waited. When a low, rumbling purr filled his chest and found its way out his mouth, he took it as a good sign and started the car. Miles clipped by. After ten, he felt hopeful. After twenty-five with no roars and not the slightest indication shifting was imminent, he was confident he’d hit the right note.
He had half an hour before he’d be home and wanted to use the time well.
“Since we’re a team now, and I’m fighting vampires, I bet you have ideas to help vanquish those bastards.”
“I thought you’d never ask.” Another purr warmed him. “First, a little history is in order…”
Chapter 2
A staunch shriek from her eagle ripped Renee Jamison from an uneasy sleep. Censure crowded the back of her throat, hot words that died before crossing her lips. She loved her bondmate, but she hadn’t slept worth a shit for the last two weeks. Tonight had been an exception—because she was dead on her feet—and she’d been deeply asleep when the bird woke her.
Her head pounded, and her eyes felt gritty and sandpapery. “What?” She slurred the word as she clawed her way back from an X-rated dream. Sex had been even more elusive than sleep in her life. Only difference was her current dry spell had lasted far longer than two weeks. Try two years, and then some.
“Get up. We have to leave.” Even in telepathy, the words were too loud for comfort.
Renee struggled to a sit, the bedclothes tangling around her limbs. “It’s the middle of the freaking night. Where are we going?”
“Why aren’t you on your feet?” the bird demanded.
“Because I’m tired.” She resisted the temptation to spell out t-i-r-e-d. Eagles didn’t deal in subtlety. No raptor did, and her bondmate was one of the older animals and set in its ways. “Where are we going?” she repeated and tugged her legs out from beneath the sheets and blanket.
“South. We’re shifting. We’ll make better time in the air.”
She shivered. It was cold in her bedroom. Grabbing a sweater, she wrapped it around herself. “Slow down. If we shift, I’ll be stuck in your form wherever it is that has you so spun out. I need information before I fly out of here with nothing but feathers at my disposal.”
Magic jabbed her just beneath her breastbone, prickly and insistent. “Stop it.” Renee marshaled power of her own. “You can probably force a shift, but why would you want to piss me off? Talk with me, instead.”
“For once, just do what I say. When have I ever led you astray?” The bird had switched tactics. Compulsion ran beneath its words, slick and sticky as sweet syrup.
“You don’t really want me to answer that.” She made her words just as saccharine. Her bondmate saw itself as invincible, but its tendency to forge ahead without thinking things through had created more than a few problems. Ticking them off on her fingers would only put the bird on the defensive.
After a flurry of beak clacks and annoyed bird noises, the eagle said, “We must travel many leagues to the south. One of the oldest of us has bonded, and I would confer with it.”
Renee switched to telepathy, hoping to encourage more information. “How many leagues, and will we be staying wherever this is?”
“Many leagues, and of course we’ll remain. Why wouldn’t we?”
An image swam across Renee’s visual field. She peered intently at it, recognizing Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. Colorado was a big place, and it was hundreds of miles from her current location in Glasgow, Montana.
“What about my job?” she countered. “I can’t take off in the middle of the night without telling anyone.”
“Why not?”
Breath hissed through her teeth. “Because we live in a human world. They all think I’m like them. It’s how we survive. And it’s not just my job. What about my home? All my things?”
“You wouldn’t be gone forever.” No longer trying to convince her with magic, the eagle was being reasonable.
Renee floated some reason of her own. “If you want us to remain in Colorado for any amount of time, I’ll need clothes. I’ll need my car and all the accoutrements of my human form. If we go—and it’s still an if in my book—I have to do this right.”
“Right is shifting and flying out the door.”
“No. Right is calling the hospital, giving them some excuse why I need time off, and paying an extra month’s rent so the landlord doesn’t lease this house out from under me.”
“All that will take too long.”
“But you said this elder animal had bonded. That means it’s not going anywhere for at least the shifter’s lifespan.”
More clacking and squawking joined the wheezy sound the eagle made when it was pissed. Renee flicked on a bedside lamp and got up. No more sleep for her tonight, no matter what else transpired. She grabbed her tablet and began jotting down a to-do list. If she really was leaving for a while—and it appeared she was—she didn’t want to forget anything.
The tablet’s clock said it was four in the morning. Too early to ring up hospital administration and tell them she had a family emergency on the East Coast—or better yet in Europe. She’d lived through several human lifespans. Every time she resurfaced, she crafted a slightly different story. Modern life with its emphasis on identifiers like social security numbers and DNA had made things harder to finesse, but not impossible.
The bird had fallen silent. She took it as a good sign. Compromise was the hallmark of all long-standing partnerships. By the time dawn was breaking, she’d tossed clothes into a duffel bag, showered, washed and dried her long, wheat-colored hair, and made some electronic deposits, including one to her landlord.
After a few calculations, she paid her utilities ahead and carted the duffel into the garage where she chucked it into the boot of her SUV. She hadn’t been in northeast Montana long, only a little over a year. Her current life story, which she’d held onto through nursing school and the advanced degree that allowed her independent practice status as a family nurse practitioner, was a variation on her usual theme.
No immediate family. No ex-husbands. No children. The occasional well-meaning soul would suggest she get a pet, perhaps a nice, well-behaved dog or a cat. She always demurred. Too busy. She wasn’t home enough to do much more than clean up and return to work.
The poor neglected canine would develop serious issues, but they’d be nothing compared with its major meltdown once it sensed her dual nature.
She glanced at her tablet, checking off items on the list she’d thrown together. It was seven. Time to call the hospital. They wouldn’t be pleased because they didn’t have anyone who could replace her. She was a cheap alternative to an MD. Not that Valley General had come out and couched it in those terms, but they knew it, and so did she.
She dialed the number for hospital administration and stumbled through a half-ass
ed excuse.
The personnel clerk just coming on shift hesitated before saying, “Sorry to hear about your aunt. Not that it’s exactly my business, but I didn’t realize you had any close family members.”
“Not along the lines of a husband or parents or kids,” Renee replied, “but Aunt Denise raised me after my folks were killed in a car crash when I was fifteen. She’s not doing very well, and I’d have a hard time living with myself if she died without me seeing her one last time.”
“Sure. Of course. I understand.” The sound of clicking keys followed. “You have two weeks and a day of accumulated paid time off.”
“Should be plenty. I’ll be in touch.” Renee rang off, not wanting to deal with any more awkward questions. Like where exactly in Munich her aunt lived, which airport she’d be flying out of, or if she needed any assistance taking care of her house while she was gone.
She peered into the fridge and dropped a block of cheese and a package of salami into a plastic shopping bag. Everything else went into the dumpster in front of her house. As ready as she could be, she collected her tablet, her laptop, and her phone. Once she’d checked all the doors and windows, locking everything, she took a last look around before hurrying into the garage and sliding behind the wheel.
She loved dawn but loving the promise of a fresh new day wouldn’t keep her awake. She felt the eagle’s restless presence within her, but it had won and probably wouldn’t exert any further pressure.
Not until they got closer to their destination. She nosed the car out of the garage, hit the clicker to close the automatic door, and said, “I’ll just stop for coffee and breakfast, and then we’ll kill off some miles.”
“I still think we should have flown,” her bondmate mumbled.
“We can fly all you want, once we’re there.” She tried for a conciliatory tone, but the bird didn’t reply.
After hitting the drive-through at Grind Away, her favorite coffee shop, she queried her Nav program and selected a route. It was over 800 miles, not likely she’d arrive today, but certainly by the middle of tomorrow. It would be soon enough. She’d caught wind of disturbing news and didn’t want to drive so long she couldn’t maintain a vigilant attitude. Vampires were on the prowl. If the rumors were to be believed, rogue mages had allied themselves with vamps, and the combination was a threat to shifters everywhere.