by Ann Gimpel
A tear welled. Just one, sliding down Moira’s right cheek. Leif chided himself. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m making a botch of this. I wanted to offer support, but now I’ve only made you feel worse.” He looked away. “I’ll go.”
A harsh, bitter laugh erupted from her, sounding a whole lot like something that might have come from her vulture. “I’m the rude one. You extended yourself, and I’m standing here like a critical bitch, hunting for something I can glom onto to push you away.”
He angled his head to one side. “Why? Do you dislike me that much?”
Breath hissed from between her teeth, and she shook her head. “It’s not you. I push everyone away.” Moira stood back and gestured him inside. “I understand if you’d prefer to leave, but I don’t want to have this conversation in the middle of the corridor, either.” She waited, not looking at him.
Leif scanned her with magic, trying to be subtle. He didn’t want to make things worse. What he found surprised him. Pride. Humiliation. Resignation. Self-loathing. He’d known she was competent and smug, but he’d never have guessed at the negativity running beneath it.
He stepped through the door, pulling it closed behind him.
Moira retreated to a crumpled duvet, the spot she’d probably been sitting on when he interrupted her descent into misery. He glanced around the room, wondering where to settle. It didn’t seem prudent to stand; that made it look as if he were anxious to get this over with and leave. But he couldn’t sit too close, either. He settled for turning the cabin’s desk chair toward her and sinking into it. He waited, giving her time and space to proceed at her own pace.
She studied hands she’d clasped together in her lap. “Sorry. I’m not usually this tightly strung.”
“I didn’t stop by for an apology.” He tried to catch her gaze, hoping she’d take it as an invitation to talk about what was troubling her.
“I’m not sure where to begin.” She raked curved fingers through her black hair, tugging the curly strands into a rough bun behind her neck.
“How about if you don’t worry about making sense and trust I’ll be able to sort through this?”
She glanced up, regarding him speculatively. “You sound like an alpha.”
“Oh, and how’s that?”
Moira shrugged. “Wise. Kind. Even-handed. Supportive. Not that I have any firsthand experience with alphas, but it’s how I’ve always imagined one would be.”
He nodded her way. “Yes. I try to be all those things. Sometimes I succeed better than others, but sometimes I fail monumentally.”
“Oh honey, we all do.” Moira clapped a hand over her mouth. “I am sorry. That was way too familiar. Damn it. From one extreme to the other.”
Leif waited. Not prodding, but hoping if he projected a quiet acceptance, she’d say enough to clarify which extremes she meant.
“On top of everything, I’m not making a whole lot of sense. Christ! I’m a sorry mess.”
He longed to move to her side, gather her into his arms, and cradle her head against his chest. She was suffering, and he wanted to spare her, but the world didn’t work like that. Moira had to find her own way through whatever was tormenting her.
Moments slid by. Misery sheeted from her in palpable waves; he battled feeling helpless. Maybe this had been a bad idea since both of them were tiptoeing around whatever the real issues were.
“I can’t help much if I don’t know more,” he said at last. “Was it Eiocha’s refusal to even consider assisting us that’s bothering you?”
“Yeah. That was the beginning.” Moira clacked her teeth together. “My bondmate was as furious as I’ve ever seen it, which didn’t help matters since our moods overlap.”
“My dolphin wasn’t any too fond of Eiocha’s highhandedness, either,” Leif cut in, hoping she’d feel vindicated that her vulture wasn’t the only pissed off bond animal.
“Like I said, Eiocha was the lynchpin that got my mind rolling.” Moira squinched her eyes shut before opening them and regarding him. Pain swam across her face, distorting its beauty into something harsh.
“Keep going,” Leif urged. “Nothing is ever as bad as we imagine it to be.”
“This is,” she mumbled, “but you’re correct. Cutting through a whole lot of fancy words, the bottom line is I’m a lot like her. Watching some of my less savory traits mirrored in her hurt. A lot.”
“I’m not seeing any similarities. And before you tell me I’m wrong, I’m not trying to be kind. She’s a millennia-old goddess; you’re a Shifter. She has infinite magic. You’re like the rest of our kinfolk, which means you have to take care how you deploy power, or it runs dry.”
“Of course, there are many ways we’re different,” Moira replied. “I was homing in on similar personal styles. We’ve both kept to ourselves. We both push people away if they get too close because we’re afraid.”
“Of?” Leif leaned closer.
“Of the inevitable pain when they disappoint you. Easier not to get involved in the first place.”
She looked so lost and so vulnerable, Leif moved to her side and held out his arms. He gave it fifty-fifty she’d bolt, but he had to try. He couldn’t stand by and allow her to suffer.
Moira’s eyes sheened with tears, and she stiffened. “Do not feel sorry for me. I don’t want your pity.”
He lowered one outstretched arm until his hand settled on her shoulder, hoping to convey through touch what he was failing to get across with words. “It’s not pity, Moira. I care about you.”
“But I’m not a sea Shifter.”
“Does that mean I can’t care about what happens to you? Where is it written my compassion starts and stops with my pod?” He squeezed her shoulder gently. It would have been simple to prod her with subtle magic, just enough of a push to make her want the comfort of his arms, but he resisted.
She had to come to him on her own—or not at all.
Moira scooted closer, and he scooped her against him, holding her tight and murmuring in his dolphin tongue. That way, she’d never know he was saying he loved her, that he’d move oceans to protect her from everything wicked in this world and others.
Slowly, tentatively, she threaded her arms around him, but she held herself stiffly, as if allowing herself to accept comfort was foreign. From what she’d revealed about herself, it probably was. He switched to Gaelic. “It will be all right, Moira. Nothing is ever quite so awful in the light of day.”
She leaned into him, finally relaxing into his embrace. “I was horrible those first few months in Ushuaia. Furious. Frightened. Blaming.”
He smoothed her hair and pulled her head against his chest with one hand. “It’s human nature to look for a scapegoat.”
“I’m scarcely human, and I understood the other women would never have gone on that trip to Ushuaia if they’d had any inkling what was about to happen. Even though my rational mind knew that, it took a long time to get past being angry. I wasn’t really one of them to start with. They’d all put down roots in Wyoming, where I was just another Shifter passing through.”
“Wasn’t Zoe there on some kind of limited teaching assignment?”
Moira nodded. “But she’d been there for months, bonded with the others…”
“Whereas you were used to working alone.” At her nod against his chest, he went on, “Nothing wrong with that. We all find our own niche. The way we can be most effective.”
She tightened her hold where her hands crisscrossed his back. “Thanks, but I’m not proud of how I was. I could have done better, and I tried to make up for my piss-poor showing by doing more than my share of work supporting the humans with magic to keep crops growing.”
Leif didn’t doubt it for a moment. “You’ve always been a hard worker.”
She snorted. “Blessing and curse. I’ve filled in with work when I should have paid more attention to the people around me. Who they were. What motivated them.”
“You can’t go backward.”
“What if m
oving forward is nearly as difficult?” She tilted her head enough to meet his gaze.
“You know the answer. You keep going because you have to.”
“Of course. Wanting to turn the clock back ten years to a time when I picked my challenges, rather than having them stuffed down my throat, is nothing but a waste of energy. It diverts me from where I should be paying attention.”
“Those arguments between our heads and our hearts are never easy.”
“That’s not the worst of it.” Her mouth twisted into a bitter moue. “No matter how they come out, part of me loses. Speaking of losing, what was the bloodsucking horror Lynda referred to?”
Her question wrenched him back to the oddness he’d faced. “I don’t know. Something lured us into one of the strangest places I’ve ever been. The dirt was deadly. It rose around me and dug into my body, feeding from me.”
Moira disentangled herself from his embrace. The spot she’d been curved against him felt cold and empty, and it was hard not to draw her back into his arms. “You mean like a plant wrapping shoots around you?”
“More or less,” he replied. “If the plant then poked those shoots through your skin.”
A shudder tracked from her shoulders downward. “That’s wicked, but these weren’t plants.”
“No.” He inhaled raggedly. “When I located Lewis and Lynda—and I had to use magic to find them—they were already buried.”
“As in not visible?”
“Exactly. They were nothing but long, raised lumps of sand. I tripped over Lewis before I understood the hump was a shallow grave. I dug like a madman, fighting dirt that wanted to shackle me. When I got him uncovered, he had stone shards poking through his flesh. He’s damned lucky none of them punctured something vital.”
“No. He’s lucky he had you.”
Leif shrugged, pleased by the compliment but uncomfortable too. “Regardless. Once I severed the bits of stone holding him in place, both of us went to work freeing Lynda. Even after we were upright, though, we had to keep moving. If we stood still, the sand drilled into our feet.”
“Did you have to employ magic to break the stone shackles?”
He nodded. “Why? Do you know what manner of being captured us?”
“The only stone monsters I know about are golems, and they always report to a master.” She shuddered again. “Jesus, but that’s creepy and horrible. Lost forever in a magical net while some fell creature grows strong draining your blood. It’s like Vampires raised to the tenth power.”
It had been eerie, which was why he’d avoided thinking about it. “All of us will have to be exceptionally cautious. Lewis knew he’d made a mistake as soon as he swam through the gateway—”
“What gateway?”
“Oh that’s right. I didn’t tell you that part. Precursor to Lewis’s misstep was a decision we’d made to swim a grid along the ocean floor hunting for an alternative way to access the ley lines. We’d separated into groups, and I was with Lewis and Lynda. We’d blown through hours, and I was almost ready to order everyone back to the ship when Lewis flashed past, trilling he’d found something.
“It felt wrong to me. Really wrong, but—”
“Sorry to keep interrupting, but what did the thing that snagged Lewis’s attention look like?” She regarded him with an earnest expression.
He drew an archway in the air. “Like that. Maybe six feet tall, glowing, inviting. As I drew closer, musical notes began. That was when I became truly wary, but by then Lewis and Lynda were gone. This will sound odd, but I felt certain if I left to alert others in the pod, the gateway would wink out and I’d never find the spot again.”
“Not odd at all,” she murmured. “It’s how magic works. So you swam through. What happened then?”
“Power pummeled me, feeling wrong, but by then I was swimming through a downward twisting tunnel. Not the kind of thing where a dolphin can turn around.” Reliving the experience made his stomach clench uncomfortably. “I came out in a large pool and knew I had to shift to find my dolphins since they weren’t in the water. Shifting took a long time and hurt like crazy.”
“Something was subverting your magic.”
“My take on it too,” he agreed. “Anyway, we got out of there by teleporting through a spot where many ley lines converged. It led straight to Eiocha’s lair.”
Moira’s eyes widened. “Aw shit.”
“What?” Leif hunted for what she was reacting to.
“Do you suppose the golems were her creations? That they answered to her?”
He started to reply it wasn’t possible, but the words died in his throat. “I have no idea. I don’t know enough about the horse goddess to extrapolate about her motives.”
“Maybe not, but I bet my vulture does. Let me ask it.”
12
Too Many Feelings
Moira turned her attention inward. “Have you been listening?”
“So now you accuse me of spying on you?” the vulture retorted.
“For fuck’s sake, get over yourself. Eiocha may have been your friend, but she turned on you. What else is new? The world’s not a nice place anymore.”
“Vultures don’t do nice,” her bondmate informed her loftily, sounding surly.
Moira inhaled sharply and blew it out. Having Leif right next to her was doing odd things to her body and addling her brain. Being in his arms had been ambrosial, but she hadn’t trusted herself not to push him onto his back and plaster her mouth over his. He’d stopped by to check on her, not be ambushed by a sex-starved woman.
She tried a different tactic with her bondmate. “Do you have any idea what manner of being wraps stone tentacles around you and drinks your blood?”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” the vulture replied, proving it had indeed been paying close attention to her conversation with Leif. “It has to be some iteration of golem, but I can’t envision Eiocha as a golem-mistress.”
“Why not?” Moira pressed, mining for details.
“Because they require an ongoing infusion of power, and Eiocha always had a short attention span.”
“What happens when you forget about them?”
The vulture squawked. “They wither to dust. That was a stupid question.”
“No questions are stupid when I’m trying to get my mind around something. So far, you haven’t come up with much. From what I saw of Eiocha, if an entire golem army died, she’d simply make another and never look back.”
“She felt different than my memories,” the vulture muttered.
“What’s your bondmate’s take?” Leif asked. “I feel the magic from you two talking but didn’t want to be rude and listen in uninvited.”
“May we include Leif?” Moira asked.
“Why not invite his dolphin too?” The vulture’s tone was unreadable, but something lay behind it.
“Sure,” Moira said. “Go ahead. I have no way of communicating with it.”
“What’s going on?” Leif placed a hand over hers.
Moira turned her attention his way. “I’m not certain. When I asked about you, my bondmate said to include your dolphin.”
“Makes sense. They relate to one another differently than they relate to us.”
“If that’s true, why would your bondmate require an invitation?”
“The animals have a complicated social structure—one I’ve never fully understood—but we face bigger problems. I’d already alerted my bondmate, so we’re all present.”
A squawk that could mean anything reverberated through her breastbone. Maybe the dolphin would mitigate the vulture’s foul mood. Or make it worse. She had no idea how one animal would play off the other. It occurred to her the storm buffeting the boat was gone. Maybe it had been part of the enchantment luring Lewis…
She turned toward Leif. “A whole lot of loose ends here. One you’re not aware of is a squall blew through, but it didn’t match up with any of the instruments on the bridge, so it had to be a magical storm. That was
one of the reasons I took a stand about going after you and your pod. I was concerned there was a relationship between the storm and us not being able to contact any of you.”
“Thanks for caring.” He smiled crookedly, and her heart beat faster. “Did your bondmate have an opinion about the stone shackles?”
“Not beyond them being an iteration of golems, but she ruled out Eiocha as their mistress.”
“Why?”
Moira shook her head. “Not much of a reason, really. Something about the stones requiring too much attention.”
Leif turned his hands palms up. “Not buying it. If they withered for lack of attention, she’d make more. She didn’t strike me as being overly attached to anything.” He tilted his head. “Our bondmates are deep in a discussion.”
Moira focused inward but couldn’t locate her vulture. “That’s odd. How come you can sense them, and I can’t?”
“Because my bondmate rarely closes the channel between us. I never figured out if it’s sloth on its part, or if it finally trusts me after five hundred years.”
She smothered a snort. “Vultures never trust anyone. It’s not in their natures.”
“Good you don’t take it personally when your bird carves out a private spot.”
“There’s a saying you end up with the bond animal that’s a perfect fit for you. I never wanted to scratch the surface of that expression too closely. I’m prickly and hard-headed and a loner. Might be why the vulture showed up in my dreams. And why I never told it to go away.”
He squeezed her hand. “Dolphins are only cute and endearing on television shows like Flipper. In the ocean, they kill intruders and ask questions later. Vultures are intensely loyal. They’ll do damn near anything to protect their family flocks. You’re being unreasonably hard on yourself.”
“Viewing the world through an accurate lens isn’t a bad thing.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed. “So long as your execution is balanced. Do you ever rattle off a list of pleasing traits? Or do you stop with ones designed to drive a wedge between you and everyone else?”