Guardian’s Bond

by Morgan, Rhenna

  “You just...” Elise slowly shook her head. “It still doesn’t make sense. It can’t be possible.”

  “I thought that, too,” Katy said. “Our father never told us about our clan. He was too afraid of our magic and our history. But our grandmother intervened and showed us who we are.”

  Finally breaking her gaze from Alek, Elise took a shaky step back and turned her big eyes on Katy. “If he’s a warrior and a wolf, what are you?”

  Not once since Katy’s lion had padded toward her in the Otherworld had she wished for a different companion. But staring back at Elise’s fear-stricken face, she’d have given a lot to be something more innocent. Less threatening. “My companion is a lion. She’s strong and beautifully protective.” She smiled at the memory of the girls who’d preened over her after her first shift. “There are two little girls in our clan who told me they wanted to take me home with them, but didn’t think their father’s bear would appreciate cat hair in their house.”

  Elise frowned and glanced at Priest like he might have some explanation. “Their father has a bear?”

  “Their father is a bear,” Priest said with a low chuckle. “To the girls, shifting is normal. An everyday part of their life.”

  Shifting her gaze back to Katy, Elise swallowed and dipped her head Katy’s direction. “And your magic?”

  Logic insisted she answer with words, but the still foreign push from her instincts prodded her to go with action instead. Considering the power behind her magic, it was a bit of a risk. Though, with all the work she’d put in the last few days, she’d at least managed to keep herself in check more than half the time. The other times...well, eventually the trees she’d topple in the clearing behind Priest’s house would grow back.

  Holding her hand palm up in front of her, she concentrated on her magic and slowly gathered it in the palm of her hand. Tendrils with an almost smokelike quality swirled and thickened in her hand, the rich plum color of it mingling with bright sparks of energy as the power leaped from one fingertip to another. She molded the power. Forced it into a tight ball and guided it higher and higher into the air.

  “When my Nanna first told me, I kept thinking there had to be a trick behind it all,” she said, keeping her eyes focused on the rising power. “That it was a dream I’d wake up from. Or a prank instigated by my family. Even after I realized that wasn’t the case, I was still too stubborn to admit there might be truth to it all.” She dared to meet Elise’s wide-eyed gaze. “But I assure you, it’s very real.”

  With that, she loosened her mental hold on the tightly coiled energy and let it zing toward the trees in the distance. It slammed against a smaller tree along the front line and rocked the clearing between them with a sound on par with a gunshot. By the time the ricocheting sound settled, a solid plume of black smoke drifted up into the cloudless blue sky and the top half of the tree was missing.

  “Oh, my God.” Mindless of Alek still in her path, Elise took a handful of steps toward the woods, then staggered to a stop. “How did you do that?”

  “I’m a sorcerer. My grandmother is a seer and my grandfather was the warrior primo before Alek.”

  Elise studied Katy for a beat, then Alek, then turned her sights on Priest. “So, what do you do?”

  With far less of a light show than when he’d shifted into his wolf, Alek changed back to human form, thankfully with all of his clothes in place. “He’s our clan’s high priest. He can do everything any of the houses can do.”

  “I hold the same magic,” Priest clarified, “but not always as powerfully as my primos. My job is to teach and guide the clan, but I’m strongest in warfare. I’ll be the one to guide you when you’re called on your soul quest.”

  “You shift, too?”

  “We all shift,” Priest said. “The Keeper gives us each a companion best suited for who we are. A partner to face our destinies with us.”

  “Your grandmother was a falcon,” Jenny offered quietly. Almost as if she were afraid her foray into the conversation might jinx the progress they’d made in reaching Elise. “My dad said she loved to fly. That most of her body was a snowy white with soft mink-colored specs scattered down her back and wings.”

  Elise frowned and zeroed in on her mother. “I don’t get it. Why would you walk away from who you are?”

  A sad smile tipped Jenny’s lips, the pain and remorse behind the action reflected equally in her beautiful eyes. “Because your father didn’t believe me either. I thought the only way I could be with him was to give my heritage up. To be like him.”

  “And you still didn’t end up together.”

  “No.” She paused long enough to suck in a bracing breath. “I realized too late that we were vastly different people. But I don’t regret my decision, Elise. I can’t. If I’d walked away from him after he ridiculed my stories about our clan—if I’d not surrendered my gifts and stayed with him—I wouldn’t have you. No companion or power would ever be more precious than having you in my life.”

  They stood in silence, Priest, Alek and Katy respectfully motionless on the sidelines while something both beautiful and fragile blossomed between Elise and her mother. Understanding. Hope. Forgiveness. Even surrounded by vast beauty, the three emotions pulsed as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

  “I should have listened to you,” Elise whispered, a fragile request for forgiveness woven in the careful words.

  “You did the best you could with what I had to show you, sweetheart. I don’t blame you for your response any more than I blame your father.”

  Elise’s eyes welled with tears, the shine making the hazel color so like her mother’s glisten in the sunlight before they gently spilled down her cheeks. “Will you tell me about them? Your parents and what you know about our heritage?”

  “I can tell you what I know,” Jenny said. “But honestly, these people will be able to tell you more than I can. They took the path I didn’t. They know our clan in a way I could never describe.”

  One by one, Elise scanned the rest of them, ending with Priest. “Whatever you can tell me, I want to know. All of it. This time I’ll listen.”

  It was all the opening Priest needed. With the same unwavering confidence he’d shown Katy and Alek those first few days, he motioned everyone to the comfy patio furniture on the shaded back porch and dug into the basics. The houses. The age spans most common for a soul quest to happen. How every quest and every person’s magic had its own nuances. Every detail—every unique aspect of their nature—he covered with both pride and patience.

  Nearly an hour and endless questions from Elise later, the sun kissed the treetops along the edge of the property, beginning its soft descent into night. The strain and awkwardness that had come with their arrival and subsequent show-and-tell was long gone, replaced with a tentative, yet open curiosity from both Elise and Jenny that flowed as soft and comforting as the evening breeze across the clearing.

  “So, the primos for each house are leaders,” Elise said with a quick glance at Alek. “Like a council that works with you to lead the clan.”

  “Exactly like that.” Priest set the now empty glass of lemonade Jenny had made for him on the wicker and glass coffee table, anchored his elbows on his wide knees and clasped his hands between them. Had Katy not felt the creeping dread through their bond, the way his thumb subtly shuttled back and forth would have been her only clue to where the conversation was headed. He focused on Jenny. “Your mother was our healer prima.”

  The shock on Jenny’s face said the information was the last thing she’d expected. “My dad said she was powerful. More powerful than he was, but he never said she was the prima.”

  “She was,” Priest said. “She’d led the healer house for at least ten years before the Keeper named me high priest, but the whole clan loved her. Respected her magic and her sense of fairness and goodwill.” He paused a beat and tightened hi
s clasped hands. “Her loss is one I blame myself for.”

  “You were there when she died?”

  More than anything, Katy wanted to intervene. To interrupt the conversation and divert what he was about to share even if it would only delay the inevitable.

  But Priest being who he was, he pushed forward. “Yes, I was there. More than that, it was my lack of attentiveness that caused her death.”

  “Oh, no,” Katy stood and blurted before he could say more. She might not be able to convince him to let go of the responsibility he felt, but she’d be damned if she let him set himself up to take the blame with everyone else. “You’re high priest. Even with some seer magic, you’re not omnipotent. You learned what you were supposed to learn when the Keeper wanted you to. You acted as fast as you could. The only one to blame for those deaths was your brother.”

  “Deaths?” Elise asked, volleying her attention between Katy and Priest.

  Priest frowned up at her. “Let me handle this, Kateri.”

  “You’re not handling it, you’re taking the blame for it. Again.” She spun to Jenny. “Priest has an older brother named Draven. A sorcerer like me. Only apparently, he’s a greedy ass and the Keeper knew that, so she named my mate high priest instead of him. That pissed Draven off enough to go against the law of ultimate good and started twisting his magic. Doing things with it he shouldn’t.”

  “Kateri—”

  “He wanted to overthrow Priest,” Alek cut in, “but the primos wouldn’t go against him. So, at presect when everyone was gathered in one place, Draven tried to steal their magic from them. Priest diverted things before Draven could finish the deal, but the primos died in the process. Priest almost died, too, and probably would have if some of the clan members hadn’t healed and protected him.”

  Mouth tight as though he couldn’t decide whether he should thank Alek or rip out his tongue, Priest paused long enough to take a few breaths before continuing in a low, steady voice. A confession wrought with regret. “I knew my brother was angry. I knew he hated my plans to modernize our race and intermingle with the singura, but I thought I could work him through it.” He sucked in a long breath. “Your mother and the other primos paid the price for my overconfidence.”

  Still stunned, Jenny said nothing. Just sat beside Elise on the wicker couch with her daughter’s hand gripped tightly inside hers.

  Elise didn’t miss a beat. “What happened to your brother?”

  “Up until a few weeks ago, I thought I killed him.”

  She looked to Alek and Katy. “You said you found out about our race two weeks ago.”

  And there it was. The slow pitch that would lead to an even bigger strike against life as they knew it.

  Priest opened his mouth to speak, but froze before any words came out, his head cocked to one side as though he’d heard something nearby.

  Alek forged ahead. “About a month ago, Katy and I found our parents murdered. My grandmother was with us, too, and found one of the medallions Draven used to wear beside my dad’s body.”

  “He’s still alive,” Elise said.

  “Alive and trying to finish what he started,” Priest said, but the tone behind it was as distracted as his attention. He stood and paced to the edge of the wood porch, scrutinizing the woods in the distance.

  Kateri followed him, studying the tree line for any clue as to what had caught his attention. “Priest?” She laid her arm on his shoulder and nearly winced at the tension straining the muscles beneath her palm.

  She heard more than saw Alek stand and move in fast behind them. “Male. Somewhere just to the south.”

  “What?” Katy twisted to her brother, then up at Priest. “Who?”

  “Get them out of here,” Priest said to Alek, ignoring her questions completely. “Take Kateri, too. All the way back to my house, if you have to. Don’t stop until you know they’re within protective wards.”

  Alek didn’t so much as blink before he went into motion, gripping Kateri’s shoulder and steering her toward the house.

  But Kateri wasn’t so easy to stop anymore. Particularly when the bond between her and her mate pulsed with a dark and disturbing buzz. Using her magic, she broke from Alek’s hold and hurried after Priest, striding toward the woods. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

  He stopped so short, she nearly plowed into his back, but the pain and wildness etched on his face made her take two startled steps back.

  “He followed us. Probably found you before I’d marked you and trailed us all the way here. It doesn’t smell like him. Doesn’t feel like him. But the darkness is awake and one way or another, I’m bringing this to an end.”

  Chapter Thirty

  In panther form and moving faster than any normal cat could run, Priest gave his beast free rein and prayed Alek had somehow managed to wrangle Kateri to safety. The darkness stirred and prickled inside him, agitated to a degree he’d not felt since the night of his brother’s betrayal. An almost magnetic tug that insisted on finding whatever or whoever had awakened it.

  One thing was without question. If he made it through the next few minutes, hours, or however long it took him to track whatever stirred his darkness, he’d be kissing ass a good long while where Kateri was concerned. The look on her face as he’d used his powers to temporarily stun her gifts and tethered her to the earth had been nothing short of raw feminine fury. One that promised she’d not only flay him alive the second she caught up with him, but would likely commandeer reinforcements to help.

  But taking her with him on this hunt wasn’t an option. If Draven ever captured her, there’d be no limit to what Priest would do to earn her safety. Even sacrifice his life and every living member of his clan.

  The vibrant terrain of Bayou La Rose blurred on either side of him. Where the cypress trees thick with moss had seemed welcoming before, now they were nothing more than a swath of rich green. On the bayou, the cypress knees that peeked just above the water’s surface flew by like dotted lines on the highway at high speed. But the scent that held his beast’s focus was the one floating just above the moist, muddy scent that encompassed the land. The same acrid bite that had overtaken all his senses the night he’d taken Draven’s black magic inside him.

  Within seconds, the compulsion dragging him forward circled, shifted directions, then came to an abrupt halt.

  Priest stopped, lungs heaving from the open sprint he’d put his beast through. A misshapen clearing stretched directly in front of him, no more than twenty-five feet in circumference. To his left, the bayou’s soft trickle barely registered above the sound of his labored breathing, and only the wind whispered through the willows and cypress on his right.

  A trap?

  Maybe. Though, if it meant dealing with his brother once and for all and ensuring the safety of his mate and clan, he’d happily walk into it.

  Overhead a deep squawk rang out, the mere challenge of it making his panther’s hair bristle from shoulder blades to tail. All too easily, his beast locked onto the source. A great horned owl large enough its wingspan would reach well over six feet. Unlike the standard coloring of most, the one staring down at him strayed more toward black than whites and browns. A deep purple aura surrounded it, one as thick with magic as Kateri’s though marred with a black halo. The same black halo that had surrounded his brother.

  The owl watched him. Taunted his cat with its calm stillness.

  It didn’t make sense. Draven was a cougar and companions didn’t change. Not only that, the scent his beast detected from the owl was all wrong. Definitely not his brother’s, but tainted by the same caustic scent of his brother’s black magic.

  Gaze locked on the owl and braced for action, Priest shifted and paced to the edge of the clearing. “You’ve got my attention, so shift and tell me what you want.”

  No movement. Not even a blink
of its golden eyes.

  The darkness strained beneath his skin, a compulsive reach toward the owl that nearly pulled Priest off center. But why? Unless the person they’d been chasing all along was a completely different sorcerer gone rogue.

  No, that didn’t make sense either. Their clan had no living sorcerers save Kateri. He’d have known it when they were called to their soul quest. Would have been there when they earned their magic.

  The unexpected summons to the Otherworld.

  The darkness.

  The unfound soul.

  Maybe he had been called, but someone else had beaten him to whoever waited. How, he couldn’t fathom. No one but the high priest was ever allowed into another person’s soul quest.

  Unless Draven had found a way to intervene, or even force a Volán’s quest. Given Jade’s vision of someone from the sorcerer quest being hunted, it made sense.

  He pooled his magic, drawing from the Otherworld’s pure source and mingling it with the unique gifts granted him as high priest. He might not get answers from an owl, but he’d get them from a human—no matter what it took.

  Out across the clearing and up the thick cypress trunk the owl had chosen for its perch, Priest carefully cast his magic, its presence hidden by the wind and guided by his command. “Who guided you with your quest?” While he was almost certain he knew the answer, his question was more for distraction than confirmation.

  The owl quirked its head. More of a flinch than anything based in comprehension. As if it wanted to answer, but was held within too tight of a mental grip to do otherwise.

  Priest’s magic resonated up through the top of the tree, whispering through the leaves and up above the owl.

  The bird rustled its feathers and stretched out its wings, either instinctively sensing danger or feeling the subtle prickle of power around it. It leaped upward, ready to flee, just as Priest’s magic coiled around it, the inescapable power wrenching around the owl’s body like an iron talon.

  Careful not to injure the bird, Priest levitated the creature closer.