by Jory Strong
It should have sent relief spiraling through her. Instead it felt as though a heavy weight of sorrow encased her heart.
It’s better this way, she told herself, hoping if she repeated the words enough, she’d truly believe them.
She willed herself to wall off all thoughts of Aryck—without success.
Images crowded in.
Of Aryck injured, risking death to come to Oakland and find a healer for the cubs.
Of Aryck with Caius, gently smoothing the wash over ravaged flesh and muscle.
Of Aryck standing with the Wolf enforcer and suggesting alliance.
And though she tried to suppress it—of the look in Aryck’s eyes. The heat of his hands on her, making her feel beautiful, feminine, wanted.
Remembering it made her skin flush and her breasts swell with the phantom touch of his lips and fingers on her nipples. It made desire pool in her belly and threaten to slide lower, between her legs.
Knowing her companions would scent her arousal gave Rebekka the strength to push the memories back. Coming into sight of the pride’s home helped erect a barrier against their return.
It’s better this way, she silently repeated, forcing herself to give this world she would most likely never visit again her full attention.
Where the Jaguars lived in cabins and the Wolves lived in a tentlike village made of animal hides, the Lions lived in low adobe buildings built against sloping canyon walls. None of them had wooden doors or shutters, but all had roofs laden with rubble and supporting the growth of scrub, so from above it wouldn’t be obvious they were dwellings.
Lions lounged on the roofs, sunning themselves and watching with interest. More than one cub crouched above a doorway as if preparing to spring on an unwitting playmate or sibling when curiosity drew them outside.
Eucalyptus trees added shelter without eliminating the openness of the area in front of and between the dwellings. The scent of the trees filled the air.
“This way,” Levi said, guiding her toward a building where at least thirty Lions gathered, almost all of them in animal form.
She felt his tension where his palm touched her shirt. It pulsed from him to her in a steady beat echoing with pain. And as they reached the pride members, Rebekka knew its source.
Levi didn’t exist for them. They looked through him, their movements orchestrated so even as they cleared a pathway to the doorway, there was no acknowledgment of his presence.
Her heart ached and guilt washed over her. She’d been so consumed with her own pain as they traveled, she hadn’t noticed that of the Lions, only Cyrin interacted with Levi.
Two men stepped to the doorway opening, blocking it with wide-leg stances and crossed arms. The Lion to the left radiated curiosity while his companion seethed with distrust and disapproval. It was the latter who said, “Only the healer may enter.”
Twenty-three
LEVI’S hand fell away from her back. “I’ll wait for you here.”
She glanced down at Caius. He crowded against her side, unconsciously seeking security. His attention focused on several cubs.
They tussled in lion form, engaged in a mock battle for possession of a dead rabbit. As she watched, one of them snatched it up and bounded close to where they stood, dropping the carcass with a quick look to Caius before grabbing it back and leaping away, only to be tackled by his companions.
Rebekka laughed and ruffled Caius’s hair. “That looked like an invitation. Go play.”
He clung for a moment longer before shimmying out of his clothing and shifting, then cautiously approached the Lions. After some hissing and puffed fur, he was soon rolling and leaping and tumbling.
With a last look at Levi, Rebekka entered the dwelling. There was no furniture, though there were several thick piles of fur scattered around the small room. Given how few of the Lions she’d seen in human form, and considering the open nature of the dwellings, Rebekka guessed that unlike the Wolves and Jaguars, the pride spent most of its time wearing fur.
A young woman appeared and motioned Rebekka forward, leading her deeper into the building. The lighting grew more diffused, coming from the rooms with window and door openings and filtering into those farther away from the outside.
Though they weren’t lit, Rebekka noted squat candles placed on metal sconces set high in the walls. The woman signaled they’d reached their destination by repositioning the furs, pulling them so there were three abreast facing a lone pile, then gesturing to the isolated seat and saying, “Sit. The grand matriarch comes.”
Rebekka removed the journal from her pocket and sat cross-legged with it on her lap. The young Lion female left.
Several minutes passed before Rebekka heard the sound of slow, shuffling footsteps. Instinct and the tenets of courtesy demanded she stand, but her rational mind urged her to remain in a nonthreatening position and not inadvertently issue a challenge.
The grand matriarch entered, a stooped, white-haired elder flanked by a woman of Phaedra’s age and a man Rebekka immediately guessed was a shaman. His hair was worn in dreads, resembling a mane around a face bearing swirling designs branded deeply into it, so even when he shifted form he would be recognizable.
Like Caius, his eyes were blue. But unlike the Tiger cub’s, the shaman’s were sightless.
All three Lions were draped in loose deer hides of varying lengths, giving Rebekka the impression they’d covered their nakedness at the last minute and as an afterthought.
Slowly the grand matriarch lowered herself to the pile of furs in the center. When she was settled, the shaman and older female took up positions on either side of her.
“Word of your deeds has spread throughout the Were lands,” the grand matriarch said. “It stirred my interest and since I had cause to invite you here, I indulged my curiosity. You deserve Pride thanks for returning Cyrin to us. I have heard it said you showed great courage and risked your life on his account.”
It took only the memory of Levi’s pain pulsing through her as he was shunned to make Rebekka speak out on his behalf. “If anyone deserves thanks, it’s Levi. Cyrin would be dead if Levi hadn’t chosen a human form so he could stay in Oakland and work to free his brother.”
The grand matriarch waved the words aside with a pale hand. “Since you are owed Pride thanks, I will speak to you on this matter. We mourn the loss of the one you praise. But we no longer say his name out loud for fear of drawing evil fortune to ourselves. He is dead to all except his pride family, and in two days’ time, after they have performed certain rites, even they will no longer see him.
“If he lingers among us beyond that time, he will be seen as a malevolent spirit bent on causing harm to the Pride. He will be hunted, and the physical body holding him to the land killed by those who have apprenticed themselves to Hotah, our shaman. The world of the dead is Hotah’s to navigate. Upon Cyrin’s return, he approached the ancestors, hoping because of the way Cyrin’s brother lost his life among us, it could be restored through purification and judgment. They spoke plainly on the matter.”
The grand matriarch paused and, with a slight tilt of her head, indicated the woman next to her. “The ancestors said that for Magena’s grandson, whose soul has already been sundered and cast from the shadowlands, only death of the body will come if he presents himself to them.”
Even though Rebekka expected as much, hearing the words added to the sense of inevitability she felt bearing down on her. If Levi was to be made whole, she had to become a healer like the ones Annalise Wainwright spoke of, which, in the end, meant she would have to do her demon father’s bidding.
Her hands tightened on the journal, and feeling the leather beneath her palms reminded her of earlier thoughts, and her plan to return to Oakland without going back to the Jaguar lands or seeing Aryck again. It took only moments to tell the Lions of her promise to Phaedra and to convey the value of the information contained in the long-dead Jaguar’s recordings. The grand matriarch was nodding her approval even before Rebekk
a asked if she could remain long enough to speak to the healer and pass on what she hadn’t yet shared with Phaedra.
“Magena is our healer,” the grand matriarch said, naming Levi’s grandmother. “Go with her. You will be welcome in her pride home.”
Rebekka relaxed her grip on the journal. At least for the next two days, Levi would be welcome as well.
ARYCK returned to camp chafing under his father’s edict to stay away from Rebekka. His insides felt raw, shredded by Jaguar clawing and his own frustration.
Not for the first time, he worried about what she might be thinking. He’d been gone much longer than he intended.
No sign of disease or proof of human involvement had been found. He’d managed to draw out both Coyote and Hyena enforcers, and both had held off attacking in favor of listening to his thoughts on the wisdom of alliance. But had he known so much time would pass, he would have paused long enough to get word to Rebekka before leaving camp.
Now the delay stretched longer out of necessity. It couldn’t be helped.
Aryck rubbed his hand over his bare chest, trying to smooth away the misgiving building there. He turned onto the trail that would take him to Nahuatl’s cabin.
The shaman was outside, pulling a deer hide from a soaking barrel and placing it flesh side up on a flat table. “You wish to speak to me about the healer,” Nahuatl said, choosing a knife and putting the back edge against the skin, skudding away the dirt and fatty tissue that still remained after the initial scraping.
Aryck bridled, though he’d expected his father’s interference. “The alpha told you I believe the ancestors want her to remain here, as my mate?”
“He told me.”
Aryck’s heart tripped into a fast, pounding beat. Even the Jaguar, for all its confidence, felt nervous about stepping into a realm where allies and enemies could be neither embraced nor fought. There was risk involved in approaching the ancestors directly, which was why most sought out the shaman rather than chance being made outcast, or gain an answer but at the cost of taking on a task named by the ancestors.
For Rebekka he would take the risk. “I wish to go through a Petitioner’s Rite.”
Nahuatl looked up from the hide. “It will gain you nothing. Because it suited them, the ancestors have spoken on the matter.”
Aryck’s uneasiness heightened. “And their answer?”
“If you wish to make her your mate and have her remain here, they will judge her as they would an outcast, through Rite of Trial. If they find her worthy, then they will mark her as pack.”
“My father knows this?”
Nahuatl laid the knife aside and picked up the hide, taking the few steps necessary to submerge it in a barrel of water warmed over a low fire. “Yes.”
Aryck turned away, his thoughts in turmoil, his chest tightening as he imagined Rebekka going through the ritual preparation that included three days of fasting in seclusion followed by a full day of purification in a sweat lodge built near the entrance to the cave where the bones of the dead were placed.
There were stories told of Weres who survived the trial, but in Aryck’s lifetime he’d stood witness once as a child and once as pack enforcer, watching as an outcast emerged naked from the sweat lodge at sunset and willingly entered the cave to withstand the torment of the ancestors until the sun rose.
One of the outcasts never left the cave. His body rotted and his bones joined those of the pack dead.
The other met his death underneath the night sky. Killed by those gathered as witnesses when he fled the cave in terror.
Aryck rubbed at the ache centered in his chest, fought against the fear whispering through him, that he was doomed to lose her—to Oakland and the outcasts or to death.
The thought of leaving his father’s pack and starting his own flickered in his mind but found nothing to hold it there. Without the sanction of the ancestors, who would follow a Were with a human mate? And without a pack, there was no way to carve out territory and defend it.
Aryck came to a place where the paths crossed. The instinct to return to his cabin until he’d found a solution, something to offer Rebekka beyond a message saying he was forbidden to be in her presence, was strong. But worry over what she might be thinking in his continued absence was stronger.
He couldn’t risk going directly to Phaedra’s cabin. In all likelihood Rebekka would be there.
Aryck headed toward the clearing where pack members gathered as a community. Melina was there among several suitors.
As soon as she saw him she left the other males, coming to him smelling of sex and satisfaction, though he doubted she’d let any of the other males penetrate her vaginally and fill her channel with seed. This deeply into heat, she wouldn’t risk being mated to a beta male.
When she would have rubbed against him, the Jaguar rose in Aryck’s eyes, reminding her of the promise made in the Barrens. Anger joined the other scents pouring off her. Aryck wondered what it would take for her to move on and hunt for a mate among the males of a different pack.
A smirk marred features he’d once thought beautiful but that no longer held any interest for him. “I don’t know why I still want you after you’ve been with that whore. Fucking a human is revolting, though I guess you’re not alone in that perversion. She was quick enough to go to the Lion outcast when he came sniffing around for her.”
The Jaguar erupted in possessive fury, becoming a distinct entity and trying to force the change so it could savage Melina and then hunt down the outcast and slay him.
Aryck’s emotions matched the outraged jealousy of the beast, melding human and Jaguar souls together a heartbeat after they’d separated.
He retreated to the forest, recognizing he was too dangerous, too volatile, to question Melina or anyone else about Rebekka.
He seethed. Cursed. Snarled in rage and defiance and frustration, only barely aware of his surroundings as he walked.
Images superimposed themselves one over another. The closeness he’d witnessed between Rebekka and the Lion in the Barrens and as they’d traveled. Their quiet conversations and easy touches.
On the heels of reality came tormented imaginings, of Rebekka and Levi together, their bodies joined, slick with sweat as they strained toward release.
Aryck’s fingers flexed, phantom claws emerging. She was his and he wouldn’t let her go without a fight.
The resolve cooled the rage boiling through him, allowing him to glimpse the pain underneath before he brought his emotions under control.
With a start he realized he was well on his way to Lion territory. He kept moving forward, his father’s command replaying in his mind, providing an opening for him to do as he pleased and go to Rebekka.
The alpha had forbidden contact while on Jaguar lands. He’d warned against loss of pack and position if Aryck followed her to Oakland.
There was nothing to prevent him from going to Lion lands. And given the need to speak to their enforcer about alliance among the Weres, he had every reason to go there.
Those thoughts blocked all others for a mile. But slowly, with each step, truth chiseled away at them, exposing them as rationalizations and sickening Aryck so his skin crawled and became clammy.
He stopped, touching his forehead to the smooth maroon-colored bark of a madrone tree and closing his eyes. A breeze swept over him, emphasizing the chill at his core.
This was the path to being made outcast. Not the desire for a human mate, but the slippery twisting of words so he could justify his actions even as he knew deep down he was violating a trust.
The alpha’s will was pack law, and though his father hadn’t specifically forbidden him from being with Rebekka on Lion lands, the intent behind Koren’s edict was clear.
Frustration and longing and the sharp-edged threat of returning jealousy made Aryck push away from the tree. He turned back toward Jaguar lands and a second confrontation with his father.
Koren was waiting for him in the same place they’d argued the da
y before. His arms hung loosely at his side, his expression grim and his feet bare.
“Rebekka is in Lion lands,” Aryck said, more statement than question.
“Yes.” An image came with the answer, the outcast’s arms enfolding her while tiny tremors wracked her body as though she cried in joy at being reunited with him.
Aryck’s control over his emotions nearly slipped. To keep the Jaguar from capitalizing on the weakness and taking over to challenge the alpha, Aryck launched a verbal argument.
“I spoke with Nahuatl. If the ancestors are willing to allow Rebekka to come before them, then there is no justification for banning me from her presence. Without a chance to speak together, how can she make a decision about undergoing the trial so she can join the pack and become my mate?”
Koren’s hands opened and closed as if he fought himself. The father whose love and fear had put the edict in place versus the alpha, who knew there were no stories told by the Jaguar elders of another human being allowed the chance to go through the rite.
To stand in the way of whatever destiny waited for Rebekka and, because of her, Aryck, was to risk offending and enraging the ancestors.
A muscle spasmed in Koren’s cheek like a final protest before he said, “Follow her into Lion lands if you must. Ensure whatever knowledge she hasn’t shared with Phaedra is passed on to the Lion healer. But unless she is willing to turn herself over to Nahuatl and begin the three-day fast, she is not to step foot in Jaguar territory again. She can remain with the Lions if they allow it or return to Oakland with the outcast. The Wolves can see her safely through their lands as they’ve already agreed to do.”
Twenty-four
THE Jaguar seethed and writhed in fury, barely controllable by the time Aryck tracked Rebekka to a building that smelled of the outcast and those related to him. Phantom claws raked through his belly and chest. If he found them together, limbs entwined, there would be no stopping a shift in form and an attack.