Second Nature

by Jae

  "If you are a saru, there is no good reason for refusing to follow an order!" Jeff Madsen snapped.

  "Yes, there is," Kylin said. "No soldier should have to follow an order that is morally and lawfully wrong. We can't go on killing humans left and right."

  Madsen frowned. "Wrong? The kill order was based on Griffin Westmore's reports. She repeatedly told us that the human is a threat that needed to be taken care of."

  "No," Ky answered. "Griffin never told you that. It was Jennings who reported to you — and he lied. He was the one who wanted Jorie dead, so he forged her reports. These are Griffin's original reports." She slid a small stack of paper over the table, then looked at each of the councilors in turn. "Did one of you ever hear Griffin say that she wants Jorie Price dead?"

  Ryle Kendrick started to shake his head but stopped when Madsen glared at him.

  "Griffin wanted Jorie Price to stay alive," Kylin continued, refusing to duck down under Madsen's disapproving stare. "And she had good reason." Her muscles tightened, and she took a deep breath. "Jorie Price is a maharsi."

  A rare moment of silence settled over the council chamber. Even the foxlike Rtar councilor stopped rustling the stack of paper in front of him.

  Then noise exploded all around Kylin. Thyra Davis pounded her fist on the table, almost making it collapse. The Ashawe councilor laughed, and two of the other manarks shouted at Kylin across the table.

  "What kind of nonsense is that?" Jeff Madsen's voice drowned out all the others. "You know better than anyone else that your grandfather was the last dream seer. And now you want me to believe that a human has these sacred skills?" He snorted and looked as if he wanted to spit at her for such blasphemous words. Jeff Madsen was known as a spiritual man. Kylin's assertion that a human shared the sacred Wrasa gift had to be an insult to him and everything he believed.

  Not that Kylin could blame him. When Griffin had first told her, she hadn't believed it either. A bit of doubt still lurked inside her. She had never met Jorie Price, had never witnessed her dream-seeing skills with her own eyes. But she knew her sister. Griffin wasn't easily fooled. If Kylin couldn't completely believe in Jorie Price and her skills, she could at least believe in Griffin.

  Backing down was not an option. She looked Madsen right in the eye, forcing herself to meet his challenging gaze. "I know it's hard to believe, but it's the truth. Her dreams about the Wrasa were what enabled her to write a book with such accurate information about us. They also saved her life when Jennings tried to hunt her down."

  "Humans can't be maharsi!" Madsen snapped. "It's a skill that the Great Hunter only gave to us Wrasa, not to the damn Se-asrai. If Jorie Price knows about our existence, she learned about it another way, not from her dreams. She's not a dream seer, and that's that!"

  He doesn't want to believe it. Under normal circumstances, she would have respected Madsen's wishes and changed the topic.

  Not this time. This time, she was fighting for Griffin's life and for the Wrasa's future.

  "Then maybe we need to re-evaluate our beliefs and our worldview," she said, staring him down in a silent challenge. "Yes, we always assumed that only Puwar, not other Wrasa and certainly not humans, could be maharsi, but we have to face the facts. Jorie Price had several precognitive dreams about us, and they all proved true. Stomping our feet like defiant children and declaring that it isn't so won't make it any less true. Maybe it's time that old-timers like you reconsider their opinions and stop standing in the way of progress."

  A gasp echoed through the council chamber.

  Anger curled Madsen's upper lip as he rose from his seat. He wasn't used to Kylin — or anyone else — openly confronting him. In the past, Kylin had always operated in the background, had been the gentle but tireless negotiator, and had worked to reach compromises and find allies from behind the scenes. She had never raised her voice, demanding to be heard like this.

  "How dare you!" Madsen's voice boomed like thunder, echoing through the chamber so loudly that Kylin wanted to duck and cover her sensitive ears, but she didn't. "How dare you little antapi cub waltz in here and —" He stopped and whirled around when he noticed that several other councilors were no longer looking at him. They were staring at something behind him.

  Kylin turned too.

  Standing in the doorway, hesitating with his hand still gripping the door handle, was Rufus.

  Great timing, Rufe. I could use some backup. So far, things weren't going any better than expected.

  "I'm sorry," Rufus said, ducking his head with the practiced submission that only Kylin recognized as an act. "There's someone here to —"

  "Rufus Tolliver!" Anger cracked in Madsen's voice. "This is a council meeting. No visitors allowed."

  "Then it's a good thing that I'm not a visitor. I'm here to support what my daughter just told you," Nella said. She moved Rufus out of the way and entered the council chamber, not even looking back as Rufus left and the door shut behind him.

  A murmur went through the room. Nella had once represented the Puwar in the council, but she hadn't set foot into the council chamber for thirty years. Now she strolled into the room as if she hadn't been gone for more than a day.

  Emotions swept through Kylin, finally forming a tight ball that settled in her throat and made her swallow. She had never admired her mother more than at this moment.

  "Nella." Jeff Madsen gave her a grudging nod but then said, "You're no longer a member of the council."

  "Then let me speak not as a manark, but as the daughter of the last maharsi we had. I'm the only expert on dream seers you have, so who better to ask for her opinion about Jorie Price than me?" Nella asked, taking a challenging stance in the middle of the room.

  "She's right," a timid voice said. "Nella and her ancestors have served this council well for many years, and she knows more about maharsi than anyone else. We owe it to her to at least hear her out."

  Kylin's surprised gaze searched out the owner of that voice. Kendrick Ryle, the Ashawe councilor.

  She had spent a lot of time trying to get the representative of the coyote-shifters on her side and the side of progress. While he shared most of her views, he had never dared to voice his support so openly.

  The representative of the Rtar, the fox-shifters, nodded. "Yes. Let her say what she has to say, and then we can move on and make an informed decision."

  "I've met more dream seers than any other person here," Nella began before one of the more conservative councilors could protest again. "My father's mentor was present at my naming ceremony, and he was the one who tutored me when I was going through the Awakening. While I was growing up, I heard a lot about how dream seeing works and how to recognize dream-seeing potential in a young Puwar."

  "That's all very interesting, Nella, and you know I love stories about the good, old days, but we're here to make a decision," Jeff Madsen said. The tightening of his lips revealed his barely concealed impatience. "It's time to act."

  Fear tightened Kylin's throat. Time to act meant time to kill Jorie and Griffin and maybe even everyone who had helped them.

  Nella's amber eyes calmly glanced at him. "Acting before you know all the facts is a dangerous and foolish thing," she told him. "You've made this mistake once when you believed Jennings's lies, and this council, who is responsible for the survival of our species, can't afford to make the same mistake twice."

  The regal superiority almost made Kylin chuckle despite her tension. She knew that tone all too well from her childhood.

  "I'm not just spinning tales because I'm bored," Nella continued. "I want to show the younger cubs in here that I know what I'm talking about. I recognize a maharsi when I see one — even if stubborn prejudice almost prevented me from accepting it."

  Pride straightened Kylin's shoulders. She stepped next to her mother.

  Nella waited until a few of the councilors nodded in acknowledgment before she continued, "I'm convinced that Jorie Price is the real deal. Her skills as a maharsi are as true
as my father's."

  A few of the councilors mumbled and blinked at her.

  "How can you say that?" Jeff Madsen, the most religious and traditional man among them, shouted.

  "She's not even one of us," the representative of the Pako said, earning him a pat on the back from Madsen. "She's human, and you want to lay the fate of our species into her hands?"

  "I'm not saying we should make her a consultant of the council, like my father was, or that we should base all of our decisions on her dreams without thinking twice," Nella said, raising her voice to be heard over the grumbling and the objections of the councilors. "Jorie Price isn't ready for that, and neither are we. But that doesn't change the fact that she's a maharsi."

  "She's human!" Jeff Madsen said again as if he couldn't think past that simple fact.

  Nella's lips tightened into a grim line. "Do you think I wanted to believe it? Do you think I was happy to realize that a human had the gift that I hoped to pass on to at least one of my children?"

  Kylin sucked in a breath through a mouth that suddenly held a bitter taste. Whenever her mother was talking about that, she felt like a complete failure even though she knew the circumstances of her birth had been out of her control.

  Reluctantly, she met her mother's gaze. Sadness glistened in the amber irises, but there was also a newfound pride.

  A weight lifted off Kylin's shoulders.

  "You're just saying that to save your daughter's life," the representative of the cougar-shifters said. "You know that if you don't find a plausible-sounding reason for why Griffin Westmore saved the human's life, her life will be forfeit as well."

  "I'm saying it because I believe in it. I swear it on my father's name." Nella looked at each councilor in turn. "I can understand that you're reluctant to believe it. I didn't exactly bid Jorie Price welcome as the Wrasa's new dream seer either. I was the last person on earth who wanted to believe that a human could be a maharsi. I struggled with it, tried to deny it, but finally, I just had to accept that it's the truth." Nella's determination, the force of her belief filled the council chamber.

  Madsen took a step forward, right into Nella's personal space.

  Kylin tensed, ready to defend her mother should the council speaker lose control. Attacking him would be suicide, but she would do it if necessary.

  "You let yourself be suckered into thinking —"

  "No," Nella interrupted him. "I didn't let myself be suckered into anything. I saw it with my own eyes. Jorie Price dreamed about a wolf with white fur and blue eyes chasing her and a big cat rescuing her, and what do you know... my daughter rescued her from Jennings's attack."

  A few of the councilors whispered, knocked off stride by that information, but Jeff Madsen dismissed it with a disdainful, "Coincidence!"

  "She also dreamed about climbing on a tree with a three-legged cat, and it turned out that hiding on a hunter's lookout with Griffin, who had injured her arm, saved both of their lives," Nella continued as if Madsen hadn't even spoken. "And finally, she saw my daughter die when a Syak attacked her from behind." Her gaze drilled into Madsen. "She acted just in time to prevent it. The power of her dreams saved Griffin's life."

  A few of the councilors shuffled their feet under the table.

  "It's easy to make up dreams to fit her experiences," Madsen said.

  While Kylin had always possessed the patience of a cat, it was running thin now. Not Nella, though. Calmly, as if talking to a small child, she answered, "She didn't make them up. She told me her dreams before they ever happened in reality. She also dreamed about walking through the forest with an old man and stepping into a spiderweb — it was what happened to Griffin when my father took her to be tested for her dream-seeing abilities."

  "So what?" Madsen shrugged. "Maybe Griffin told her about that, and her overactive imagination used the scene in a dream. Similar things happened to me, and the Great Hunter knows I'm no maharsi. I once dreamed about a giant apple pie after my mate told me she wanted to bake one the next day, but that just makes me a hungry wolf with a sweet tooth, not a dream seer."

  One of the councilor giggled.

  The sound stopped abruptly when both Madsen and Nella shot him a sharp glance.

  "Griffin didn't even tell me about that day," Nella said. "When she came back from being tested, she didn't speak for three days. Only later did I learn that my father had told her that she doesn't even have the dream-seeing potential of an amoeba." A bitter snarl lifted Nella's upper lip.

  Lost in her own memories of her childhood, Kylin winced. Her grandfather had said something very similar to her when it was her turn to be tested. It still hurt to think about it and to remember the disappointment on her grandfather's face.

  "Griffin isn't the trusting kind. Wrasa prejudice, my own included, made sure of that," Nella said bitterly.

  Kylin blinked in surprise. Never before had she heard words like these from her mother, and now Nella openly said them in front of the High Council. Before, when Nella had talked about the mistakes she had made in her life, she had always meant having an affair with Brian, but now she was talking about the way she had raised Griffin and her. Shame and regret had ruled their relationship for too long.

  The whole world is changing, even my mother, Kylin realized. Joy replaced her fearful desperation. And all because of one human dream seer. Not even a bunch of conservative councilors can stop it forever.

  "Whatever Jorie Price wrote about us in her novel, whatever she knows about Griffin and about us," Nella said, letting her gaze wander from councilor to councilor, "she knows it because she's a dream seer."

  * * *

  Sweat dampened Jorie's palms, and she wiped them on her jeans while they waited. "Are you sure it was a good idea to let your mother go in alone?" she whispered to Griffin.

  They were standing in the foyer of what looked like just another one of Boise's office buildings. Jorie's nervous gaze darted over the tall, grouchy-looking woman behind the receptionist's desk and the two men standing near the elevators. Two more guards had taken up position behind them, blocking the exit. Apparently, they knew who Griffin and Jorie were and wouldn't let them leave.

  "It's better this way," Griffin said. "Even after centuries of civilization, we Wrasa are still predators, and we don't want one of the councilors to lose control and attack when we reveal what you are. Let them calm down some before we go in." Her voice was calm, but her usually graceful posture was stiff.

  Griffin's tension multiplied her own. Jorie felt herself shaking. An iron fist clamped around her stomach. Never before had she put her fate in the hands of others, and yet here she was — walking into the proverbial lion's den, putting her life into the hands of shape-shifters who had ordered Griffin to kill her.

  Jorie's survival instincts were screaming at her, telling her to run as fast and as far away as possible. But the past week had taught her one thing: running from a predator was a stupid thing to do. Even if she made it out of the city, she would be running for the rest of her life. Her only hope of ever leading anything close to a normal life again was to march into the council chamber at Griffin's side and give them a good reason for not killing Griffin and her.

  She wiped her palms on her pant legs again. Another terrifying thought shot through her adrenaline-drunk mind. Oh, God, can they smell it? Can they smell my fear?

  "Relax," Griffin murmured next to her, confirming Jorie's suspicion. Her hand soothingly brushed Jorie's arm. "Just stay close to me; don't encroach on anyone's personal space, and don't trigger their hunting instincts by running or moving too quickly."

  Blood rushed through Jorie's ears. "Okay," she croaked.

  Griffin stepped up to the two men lurking in front of the elevator. "Excuse me," she said politely, but with confidence. "We're here to see the council."

  The men turned. Their sharp gazes slid over Jorie, dismissing her, and then fixed on Griffin. "You have to wait down here until the meeting is over," one of them said.

  "N
o," Griffin answered. "I have important information. The councilors need to have it before the meeting is over."

  "You have to wait down here," the man repeated. A growl resonated in his voice.

  A third man appeared at their side, seemingly out of nowhere. He was as different from the two men guarding the elevator as Jorie was from Griffin. Instead of arranging his body in a threatening pose in front of Griffin, he stood with his shoulders slouching. His gaze darted across the foyer, never directly looking at anybody.

  The two tall men ignored him, dismissing him as unimportant.

  The fine hairs on Jorie's neck tingled. Despite his harmless appearance, her instincts were telling her that this was a predator too — and maybe much more dangerous than the two threatening, growling men in front of her.

  The stranger's gaze collided with hers, and under the cover of a thick shock of brown hair, he winked at her. "Oh, there you are." He grasped Griffin's arm with one hand and Jorie's with the other and pulled them forward. "The councilors are already waiting for you. Come along quickly."

  "Stop!" one of the men barked.

  "I was sent to bring them to the council, Blayne," the smaller man said, his voice soft, but insistent.

  Blayne didn't move an inch, still blocking the way to the elevator. "We have orders not to let anyone interrupt the council meeting. It's bad enough that Nella Westmore talked her way into the council chamber. We're sticking to our orders now."

  "Well, orders can change, can't they?" the smaller man asked softly. "You could call up and have Jeff Madsen confirm, but of course then you would interrupt the council meeting... and, boy, would that annoy Madsen. He's not in a good mood today." His slender body shivered.

  The two guards exchanged a glance, then hesitated. "If you're lying, antapi..."

  "Then it would be my head that will roll," the slender man said, "and I'm quite fond of keeping my head firmly attached to my neck, thank you very much."

  One of the guards gave him a shove. "Get them out of my sight."