by Sara M Zerig
“They say she hasn’t found her talent yet? As a seer or a healer?”
“It will emerge any day now,” Cara said, unconcerned. “On the subject of talent, I have been putting much thought into yours. You said you feel others’ emotions and can see significant events in their past. Have you attempted to share your own memories with someone else in this way?”
Chloe didn’t have to think on that one. “No. Why would I do that?”
“To test if the gift works both ways, for one. But it could also have a practical application. Sometimes, when we try to convey a personal experience to someone else, we struggle with putting it into words. This would be a way to show someone what you had experienced. Would you like to try?”
Chloe pondered that, thinking on times when what she experienced was difficult to describe. Trying to explain to Nikki how she felt about losing her virginity to Ritt came to mind, but that wasn’t a memory she’d care to share with her birth mother. She thought of the school yard memory that had recently come back to her. It was simple enough, harmless, but clear and tied to emotion. That could work.
Cara watched her intently. “You have thought of something.”
“Yes, but I’m not sure how to share it with you.”
“You said that you see more when you touch the person. Try this: close your eyes and focus on the memory in detail. Think about your surroundings, what you are wearing, who is with you, what you are thinking and feeling.” Cara reached one hand across the table. “When you are ready, take my hand.”
Chloe closed her eyes and conjured up the memory. Her nose was numb from the cold, but she was having fun, running behind a friend across the blacktop. She was wearing her red coat with the gold sailor-like buttons and a white knit hat pulled down over her ears. She had forgotten her gloves that day; her hands were bare, very cold, the skin ashy and dry. A classmate had called her name from somewhere behind her.
Chloe grasped Cara’s hand then, eyes still closed, the memory clear in her mind. She had turned, catching the hard rubber ball smack in the middle of her numbed face. It was the initial shock of the moment that knocked her off balance, tipping her all the way back on her heels. Her elbows and spine connected with the asphalt first, then her head hit too, with a resounding smack that echoed in her ears.
It hurt, but the pain took a backseat to the fact that she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs wouldn’t expand to accept the air, ribs feeling tight around them. Tears sprang at the corners of her eyes as she tried again and again, finally gasping in a breath of cold air, rolling to her stomach to gulp for more.
Chloe opened her eyes then, releasing Cara’s hand. Cara stared, stunned, back at her. The expression on her face was all the confirmation Chloe needed that the images had been received.
“What was it that hit me? I mean, you? How old were you?”
“It was a play ball from the school. I think I was six or seven.”
“I understand what you mean about what you feel and what you sense. I sensed it was cold, that the ball hurt, that hitting your head hurt.” Cara said, amazed, “But I could feel your shock and your fear. I could feel how scared you were when you could not breathe. I felt scared.”
“Yes,” Chloe sat forward, “yes, exactly. That’s what my visions are like.”
“Do you feel differently? Having shared it with me?”
“No, but I had forgotten all about it. At the time it was scary because I was little and had never had the wind knocked out of me before. The visions I see are of traumatic events that the person thinks of often. Until recently, my life has been pretty uneventful.” Chloe reflected on her ‘gift’ a moment. “There aren’t other witches who can do this?”
“Not that I am aware of—not quite like that. But it is an unusual time.” A sparkle in her eye, Cara inquired, “Has anyone here told you of the legend of the Xxyryn?”
Chapter Eighteen
Chloe opened bleary eyes and focused on Ritt. He was dressed already, excitedly shaking her awake like a kid on Christmas morning. She forced herself out of the bed and sleepily shuffled into another too-small shifter dress. She dragged a comb through her hair and brushed her teeth. Morning outings left her sticky with sweat, so Chloe bathed in the evenings.
They assembled with the group just outside Colton and Stevie’s home. Lok and Dane hoisted a long, thick wooden rod atop their shoulders. Stevie carried a wheel of rope to tie the kill to the rod, and Pali carried the water skins—two full ones for Chloe and two empty ones they would fill with fresh water after the hunt. The shifters usually walked the few miles to the hunting grounds, but today, they would transfer there.
Colton transferred Chloe and Ritt, and this time, Chloe tracked more of the process. As Colton’s flesh turned to the translucent, mirage-like version of himself, Chloe saw that Ritt also turned ghostly for a few seconds. A glittery glow appeared at her chest, like the glow she had seen when Cara transferred into the realm. The dwelling walls seemed to disintegrate around them, giving way to open desert.
They arrived before a small throng of trees, the navy sky steadily brightening in anticipation of the sunrise. Stevie promptly pulled her dress off over her head and flung it onto a tree branch. Chloe spun away, but Dane and Kimi were also undressing. She spun again and caught a glimpse of Colton’s bare backside. Ritt growled at her. He seemed to do that a lot lately. Squeezing her eyes shut, she felt him come up beside her.
“Good witch,” he teased.
“Don’t you people have any modesty?” she said quietly to Ritt. A rumble of laughter came from the lot of them.
“Not even in the Earthen Realm, Chloe,” Kimi informed her. “We can’t shift with our clothes on!”
It was logical, sure, but Chloe didn’t know how Kimi could be so comfortable standing naked in front of everyone. She felt a rush of air as Ritt left her side and popped one eye open to see they had all shifted into their animal forms. The wolves’ eyes were a darker version of their human-form eyes, while Ritt and Kimi’s eyes had turned to yellow.
Chloe could still identify each of them. Lok was the only silver and black wolf, Dane was just a shade lighter than Lok, and the other three white and tan wolves could easily be distinguished by size. The she-wolves were still feminine somehow, even in their animal form.
All of the wolves were huge—as large as bears. Ritt’s cat was small by comparison but sleek and muscular. Kimi’s black cat, smaller than Ritt’s, was tiny next to Dane, who nudged her playfully with his muzzle. Their clothes hung across the branches of a tree, offering better shade than the tree alone. As one, all animal eyes rested on Chloe.
“Go hunt. I’ll be fine.”
Colton let out a yip of satisfaction, and the beasts headed out. A sliver of sun crested at the horizon, and the shifters appeared smaller and smaller in the distance. There was a large drinking pool and spring just out of sight, they’d said, where the prey gathered. The elders didn’t want Chloe too close to the herd, in case they came charging in her direction.
Chloe fished her cell phone out of the skirt pocket of the shifter dress. She swiped her fingertips over the glass, knowing it was dead. Pali had told her it would not work here but said she may be able to use it from the Coven Realm. Chloe made a mental note to ask Cara about that.
She pocketed the phone and stared out at the empty plain, thinking back on what Cara had told her of the legend of the Xxyryn. Cara had referred to it as an exciting time, but Chloe imagined it was also nerve-racking, not knowing who the next Xxyryn was and how they would use their powers. The first Age of the Xxyryn hadn’t gone well. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Chloe thought.
The creation of the magic realms was sensible on the surface, and it wasn’t as though Chloe had a better solution, but cutting themselves off from the humans felt wrong, somehow. The magic Cara had described could help so many people in the Earthen Realm. People she loved, like her adoptive parents and Nikki.
It was also troubling to think that, if she hadn’
t been abducted from the Coven Realm, Chloe would have never met Ritt. She might have married a warlock, never knowing that she had a true mate in another realm. If she had never known Ritt, would she have found happiness anyway, or would she be living with an uneasy sense that something crucial was missing from her life?
“The latter, most certainly.”
Chloe got to her feet. It was the voice from her head. Except that it wasn’t.
“Oh no, do not get up for me. You sit and rest. You will need to conserve your energy. Yes, yes this is for certain.”
The elderly lady was small for a shifter, shorter than Chloe. Her silver hair was weaved into a multitude of braids of various thicknesses. She dressed modestly in a long, blue robe. They do have robes, Chloe thought.
“You’re the voice I’ve been hearing,” Chloe said, “since I met Ritt.”
“Well, sometimes it was me, yes. Sometimes, I was just the translator for the ancestors.”
“The ancestors?”
“Yes, it was a big journey for you from the Earthen Realm to here. Not every day that a shifter is mated to a stolen witch, you know! Some guidance was necessary, you see.”
“Who are you?”
“My people call me Wisp, for I am the only one living amongst them who walks in the spirit place.”
“Walks in the spirit place …” Chloe tried to decode what that meant. “You mean, like a medium?”
Wisp laughed. “Yes, that will work. That will work fine.”
“I haven’t heard you in my head since I’ve been here,” Chloe thought out loud.
“Because you are here. You do not need us … not right now.” Wisp began to ghost away.
“Wait!” Chloe stopped her, asking, “I need to know, do I belong here?”
“You belong with your mate,” Wisp returned unhelpfully, “and he with you.”
It wasn’t exactly the clarity Chloe had hoped for, but Wisp was gone. Chloe squinted and blinked at the empty space, wondering if she had imagined it all. It was hot again. Maybe the heat was affecting her mind.
Chloe polished off the water skins Stevie had left her. The horizon became watery before her eyes. Pangs of hunger riddled her stomach, and she was feeling dehydrated already, when she made out the shifters coming toward her.
Still in animal form, they traipsed forward triumphantly, a slain antelope draped across Dane’s massive back. Kimi and the she-wolves carried large birds in their mouths. Two full water skins hung around Ritt’s neck. The big black cat bowed his head before Chloe, dropping the skins at her feet. She reached forward to touch his head but then covered her eyes as the others shifted back to their naked human forms.
Ritt swept her up into his arms, shifted and clothed. He spun her around, and she laughed. He was so thoroughly enjoying it all, reveling in the freedom of his shifter’s paradise. “Is that an antelope? It’s huge.”
“Colton and I cornered it, and Dane came in for the kill,” Ritt told her.
Lok shook his head. “I almost had that other one. I should have stuck with the young ones … and Dane.”
Dane snarled something offensive at his brother, and Pali laughed. “That kill’s plenty big for all of us. Plus all the birds Kimi caught.”
A pile of light brown birds as large as geese lay at Kimi’s feet. Dane pulled her to his side. “You are a stealthy cat.”
“That I am,” Kimi concurred.
Stevie helped Chloe set out the food they had packed for the picnic while Dane and Colton tied the antelope to the rod. Pali and Kimi bagged up the birds. The shifters carried on about the hunt. Ritt and Kimi were especially energized.
Stevie picked up the empty water skins at Chloe’s side, her face full of worry. “Hot?”
Ritt captured her chin in his hands. “You look flushed. Your lips are dry. We should get you back to the cave.”
“I’m OK, really,” she insisted, embarrassed. “All I did was sit here. You all should be overheated.”
“We’re made for this kind of heat,” Kimi told her. If Chloe didn’t know better, she’d swear that was genuine concern coming from Ritt’s mom. “You aren’t. We need to get you home.”
Home, Chloe thought. This isn’t my home.
Chapter Nineteen
Aaron performed a cursory check of the area around Nikki’s townhome through the scrying mirror before he and Will transferred in. They were halfway through a task that seemed simple on the surface: to protect Chloe’s parents and plant memories in three human heads that would alleviate any concern over Chloe’s sudden disappearance. Although humans weren’t particularly hard to fool, the prep-work had taken them all day.
The Earthen shifter elders supplied recent photos of Ritt. Aaron liberated photos of Chloe from the townhome while Nikki was out and used human technology to produce pictures of Ritt and Chloe together in Australia. Cara had chosen Australia; it was pleasant and recognizable but far enough away that visits to or from the U.S. would be infrequent. They made two photos for the parents and one for Nikki. The photos would act as visual prompts to the memories they were planting, keeping the spell alive.
A sheet of parchment paper that had been spelled and reinforced with a bit of Elven dust contained the “memories” they wanted the humans to recall. They would remember only the information from the sheet, not the sheet itself or the encounter with Will. Will had been powdered with the Elven dust too and spelled to appear about a head shorter than he was, so as not to be alarming to the humans. Will would deliver the spell, and Aaron would stay close but out of sight in case Will needed backup. The spell they were attempting was uncommon and could take a few attempts to work.
Conveniently, they found Alan and Margie Saville at home, taking a respite from their travels. Earlier in the morning, while the couple slept, Wyatt had worked the same shielding magic he had cast over Nikki. The realmless who had taken Chloe was probably dead, but Cara insisted they be protected anyway.
Things had gone better than expected with the adoptive parents. Aaron had thought the tailored gray suit Will chose was a little over the top. With the expensive suit and his golden locks slicked back, he looked more like a GQ model than a travel agency representative, but the older couple hadn’t batted an eye.
Will told them he had come personally to extend a special offer for a cruise. When he handed the parchment and photographs to Margie, Alan read along with her over her shoulder. Aaron and Will would have stayed for as long as it took for Chloe’s adoptive parents to re-read the enchanted memories and review the pictures until they accepted them. Surprisingly, it only took the initial read-through for the sweet couple to accept that Chloe was happily relocated to Australia, where she had always dreamt of living.
Now at Nikki’s front door, Aaron smiled, thinking back to the scene of the feisty human with her date, Tad, outside the club. Then he sobered as it occurred to him that Tad might be inside now. No, she was annoyed with him. She wouldn’t invite him back, would she? Were they a serious couple? Why did he care?
“Are we going to do this?” Will asked, looking pointedly to one side of the door.
Aaron stepped to the side, out of view from the front door, and Will knocked. A minute later, the door opened with the security chain firmly in place. Will flashed his winning smile. “Nikki? I have a message from Chloe.”
A fair-skinned, manicured hand reached out to take the paper and picture from Will, and Aaron was almost disappointed. Having raised Chloe, the adoptive parents would be harder to convince than her friend, and that had gone quickly. Once this was over, he would have no valid reason to see the curvy redhead again. Not that he was really seeing her now.
Nikki closed the door to remove the security chain and then re-opened the door to Will. “I don’t get it.”
Will’s bright smile faltered. “What do you mean?”
“The joke,” she explained in a bored tone. “I don’t get it.”
Will glanced at Aaron, and Aaron grimaced, knowing Nikki would notice. Aaron s
ilently cursed himself for skipping the hassle of appearing shorter and dressing in Earthen clothes like Will. He hadn’t intended to be seen.
Nikki marched out onto the porch like a tiny soldier going into battle. She was dressed in a skimpy, floral print romper with thong sandals on her feet. Her face was made up, and her hair was curled. Aaron wondered idly if she lounged around the house like that or if she was on her way out somewhere. His curiosity was cut short when Nikki faced him. Her big blue eyes flared and then narrowed; it was almost as if she recognized him.
“Who are you?!” she demanded, escalating from annoyed to angry.
“Nikki,” Will began before Nikki cut him off.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, but this picture is a fake, and I want you off my property. Now.” Nikki raised her hand and made a menacing gesture with a keychain. Aaron and Will shared a look. Was she threatening to throw her keys at them?
Will tried again. “Read the message again. It will explain everything.”
Nikki stepped backwards into the townhome, her gaze shifting between Aaron and Will. She was not going to turn her back on them. Will shot a hand out when she attempted to close the door. “Wait, Nikki—”
Nikki aimed her keychain at Will’s eyes and let loose a stream of spray that dropped the warlock to his knees, crying out in pain. She took advantage of Aaron’s shock, spraying him too, but the small canister was too far from his face to take full effect. It burned and inhibited his vision but didn’t debilitate him like it had Will. Aaron wiped at his eyes with one hand and reached for Nikki with the other, but she sprinted by, flying down the front steps.
Will propelled himself across the porch and collided with Aaron. They tumbled together down the cement steps in a blur of tangled limbs, landing in a heap on the sidewalk. Aaron shot to his feet and rubbed at his eyes again. He made out a blurry car pulling away from the curb. Aaron reached down to help Will up from the ground. They stood reeling a moment, waiting out the temporary impairment.