by R. E. Butler
Shy smiled but didn’t respond, and neither did Teck, who hugged her quickly and stepped aside for their sisters to get a chance to say hello.
“When are you due?” Elizabeth asked as she kissed Daeton on the cheek.
“Four months. It’s Ekho’s baby, and leoneman births are eleven months instead of nine.”
“How do you know it’s Ekho’s?” Aiyana asked, eyeing her aunt’s rounded belly.
There was a brief pause, and then Daeton chuckled. “I had a vision, actually. I know I’m having a girl who takes after her cat papan. But I’ll leave it up to your parents to explain things to you, another time.”
“Thanks,” Axe said dryly.
The rest of the family piled out of the other van and greeted Daeton, who was happily weeping by the time she got to hug Rysk and Tyrant. They had been her protectors when she left for the Medes Realm twenty years earlier.
“Adi’s talked for days about seeing his other family. He’s so excited to get to spend time with his cousins.”
They walked up the hill to where Perseus, in his fully human form, stood holding the hand of his son, Adi, who also held Ekho’s hand.
The small Centaur trotted over to Shy. He grinned and squatted down. “Adi! Look how big you are!”
“You’re…Bo-da-way?” Adi said, speaking slowly.
He chuckled. “You can call me Shy.”
His young cousin was two years old now. His horse body was black like his father, Perseus, but he had Daeton’s coppery skin and onyx hair. He stood and Adi grabbed his hand. “My moman is going to have a baby.”
“I heard,” Shy said, smiling as Daeton turned to face him.
“We haven’t picked a name yet,” Daeton said.
Ekho said, “I’m sorry you won’t be able to meet her until the next visit.”
Daeton said, “King Arsen and Queen Sophie have prepared a feast for your visit. We’ll show you to the guest houses so you can clean up and rest for a while.”
The large group, escorted by the Centaur males who had driven them in the vans, walked down the hill toward the Centaur city. Grassy hills dotted with large trees surrounded the city, with a lake and forests providing meat and fish. The Centaur homes were trailers of various sizes, from the simple single-wide models to the more elaborate ones that looked like log cabins. The homes were all arranged in concentric circles around a central marketplace.
Daeton opened the door to one of two large trailers and said, “There are four bedrooms in each trailer, plus the couches pull out. We also have cots, bedrolls, and tents if any of my older cousins want to camp.”
Shy knew she was talking to him and Teck. He didn’t mind sleeping outside, and he doubted his brother would either. Shy followed his parents and sisters into the trailer and looked around. The small kitchen had a gas stove and a water pump at the sink. There wasn’t any indoor plumbing, but they used cisterns to catch rain and snow. This lifestyle was a little rougher then he was used to – at least the underground bear den had running water and electricity – but they were only going to be in the Centaur city for four days, and then another decade would pass before they could meet their newest cousin.
When it had been decided that the girls, Shy’s parents, Shy’s grandparents, and Rysk would each take one of the four rooms, with the others splitting up the rooms in the second trailer, Daeton and the adult females sat down in the family room of one trailer to chat. The males moved outside to talk while the kids played with Adi.
It was as if no time had passed, and the families picked up where they’d left off ten years earlier. Family was supposed to be like that. Accepting.
The afternoon passed quickly, and by the time his stomach was grumbling, the whole family was dressed in their finest clothes and on their way to a special dinner. Perseus was in his human form, but every other Centaur was in what they referred to as their half-form – the horse body and human torso. The dinner tables placed on the lawn in the center of the city were tall so the Centaur men didn’t have to bend over to eat. Tall stools had been provided for everyone else.
In the very center of the group of tables, four people stood waiting. Shy recognized the king and queen of the herd, but not the other male and female. Shy followed his family as they moved toward them, and the Centaurs and the mates all waited at the tables for the commencement of the meal.
Daeton introduced her parents first. “King Arsen and Queen Sophie, I’ve brought my parents from the states. My father, Adriel, and my mother, Filene. Mom, Dad, you remember King Arsen and Queen Sophie, the rulers of this herd. This is their adopted daughter, Kaya, and her escort, Commander Bry.”
The king was a regal man, who wore a crown made of twisted leather with a medallion in the center. The bronze medallion displayed the image of a dancing horse. His torso was bare, and Shy suspected it was to show off his many battle scars.
The queen’s long red hair was braided and tied with ribbons and flowers, and she smiled kindly. Kaya, who stood next to the king and queen, kept her head bowed. Her hair was a waterfall of the lightest shade of blonde he’d ever seen, bordering on ivory, and it was pulled back in a complicated braid with ribbons and flowers. The loose sections that had slipped free looked gloriously soft but partially hid her face from view.
Shy glanced at the male next to her. The Centaur had a blond horse body, and his feet stamped on the ground from time to time as if he were aggravated. Twin swords were strapped across his back, and the hilts with silks tied on the ends looked like wings behind him.
Kaya suddenly turned and moved away. The commander grabbed her roughly by the arm, and Shy’s protective instincts rose. He and Teck both took a step forward, but the young woman wrenched her arm free with a soft curse, gathered up the skirts of her dress, and ran.
The queen’s gaze followed Kaya, but she shook her head at the commander, who stamped his hooves impatiently.
Shy wanted to go to Kaya and comfort her. He’d never felt so strongly about a female before. He was overcome with the need to find her and make sure she was okay. Could she be his mate?
Absently, Shy shook the king’s and queen’s hands and bowed his head slightly, but his mind was not there with them; instead, he felt focused solely on Kaya. Where had she gone? What had made her cry? He’d never been very aggressive, but he wanted to rip off that Centaur guard’s hand for grabbing her the way he had.
When his family was finished walking down the receiving line, they were led to their table. Shy sat between his mother and brother, with his eyes glued to the trees that surrounded the city and in the direction that Kaya had gone. Unease welled inside him. He felt his bear prowling in his mind, growling for him to go to her, to gather her petite body in his arms and kiss away the shining teardrops from her cheeks.
Shy stood so fast that he knocked the wooden stool to the ground. He reached shaking hands down to right it and said, “I’m going to use the restroom.”
His mother looked at him curiously, and he had the distinct impression that she could see right through him. He couldn’t hold her gaze, so he pushed the stool beneath the table and walked quickly toward his family’s trailer. He walked straight through the home and out the back door toward the trees. He didn’t skirt the front of the trees because he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, so he moved deeper into the forest and then cut to the right.
When he was young, his father Axe had taken both him and Teck into the woods that made up the bear den’s territory and taught them to track. In bear form, they were naturally talented at tracking game. But in human form, it was an art form and required training and dedication. Teck was a better tracker, but Shy could hold his own. He’d caught a scent of a sweet-smelling flower when Kaya turned and ran away. He closed his eyes and centered himself, drawing on his superior powers to sift through the scents around him and find the trail that would lead him to her.
The smell of trees, earth, rotting leaves, and various small animals invaded his senses, and he filtered t
hem out one by one, until all that was left was a floral scent, and underneath that, the sweet natural scent of a female. Kaya.
He let his skills guide him, following her scent as if it were a trail of breadcrumbs scattered in the mossy undergrowth of the woods. He walked for several minutes as fading sunlight filtered through the canopy of trees. He caught sight of the lake through the trees, but he didn’t see Kaya. Then he heard a quiet sniffle to the left and turned toward the sound, finding a small stand of trees with low hanging branches that reminded him of willows. His long legs closed the distance as he walked toward the trees, and he found her sitting on the grass with her dress pooled around her.
Her hair was disheveled. Flowers and ribbons lay scattered around her as if she’d yanked them out. He’d been moving silently because that was part of his training and a long-buried instinct, but he didn’t want to frighten her, so when he saw her, he purposely walked heavily, scuffing his moccasins through the grass to make noise.
Her white-blonde head raised slowly. Her cheeks were wet with tears, and her eyes were bright. He dropped to his knees in front of her as nerves skated through him. His desire to take care of her and comfort her overrode his nervousness, and he reached out and brushed the tears from her cheeks with his thumb.
She shivered and held his gaze. Her eyes were beautiful and unique. One blue eye the color of a summer sky and one green eye bright like spring grass. It reminded him of the flag on his tattoo, the two colors he’d always been partial to.
“I’m Shy.”
“You don’t seem like it,” she said, her voice raw from crying.
He smiled, relaxing. “No, my name is Shy. Well, actually, it’s Bodaway, which means shield. I picked the nickname Shy because of the meaning of my name, and I’m rambling. Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Why are you so sad, Kaya?”
Being so close to her made his bear insane. His heart pounded, his muscles twitched, and his beast struggled to bridge the gap to her.
She brushed shaking fingers through her hair, and he caught a glimpse of something dark underneath a tied section of sash around her right wrist. Without saying a word, he untied the knot that secured the sash to her wrist and gasped.
Tattooed on her wrist was the symbol their people used to write Teck’s given name, Setimika. He reached for her other wrist in silence and untied the sash, finding the symbol for his own name.
He cradled both wrists in his large hands and ran his thumbs across the tattoos. When he touched her, his bear roared in his mind.
“Where did you get these, sweetheart?” he asked hoarsely.
She swiped her bottom lip with her tongue, and he had to stifle a groan.
“I had a dream.”
Shit.
“Tell me about it.”
“I was in a strange forest with two men. They took me to a red-barked tree that had a slice of the bark stripped away. Then they carved three symbols into the bare wood and put their fingers on the top and bottom symbols. I put my finger on the center symbol. I don’t know what the symbols mean, but I know that they’re important. The men from my dream,” she tilted her head and ran her gaze over him, “they’re mine. I’m sure of it.”
His hands tightened on her wrists. “These symbols, sweetheart, one of them is the symbol of my name.”
She drew in a sharp breath. A branch snapped behind Shy, and he knew who it was before he spoke.
“The other is Setimika. My name.”
Chapter 4
Teck had been several paces behind Shy as he wove through the woods. He didn’t have to ask to know that he was searching for the white-haired beauty. The moment that Teck had seen her gorgeous head of pale hair, he’d immediately known that she was his truemate – the female from his dreams. Shy reached Kaya first, and Teck had watched from the shadows. But after seeing the tattoos on her wrists and knowing she’d chosen the images because of the mate-dreams, he couldn’t keep his distance any longer.
Joining them, he dropped to his knees and said, “Let me see, brother.”
Shy moved his thumbs from her silky flesh, and Teck leaned forward, his long hair slipping over his shoulder. She pulled her wrists from Shy’s grip and slid them around Teck’s back, pushing them inside his vest. She touched the long scar on his back that he’d gotten when he was ten.
Her mouth fell open, and she whispered, “It’s you.”
She removed one hand from Teck’s back and traced the edge of Shy’s jaw with her thumb.
“Oh! It’s both of you! H–how did you know where I was?”
Fresh tears spilled from her cheeks, and they both reached for her. The moment that their hands touched her flesh, Teck felt the snap of a connection between the three of them.
His mind flooded with images, of Kaya between him and Shy, the two sharing her as twin bear shifters were meant to. His heart was heavy with emotion as he realized he hadn’t been seeing the dreams in their entirety.
Teck looked at his brother, but Shy’s eyes were closed. Shy grimaced as a low growl rumbled in his chest. Her soft crying brought Teck’s attention back to her, and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. She crawled into his lap and buried her face in his neck, wetting his skin with her tears.
“It’s going to be okay, Kaya,” he murmured. “We’ve got you.”
She reached behind her and grasped Shy’s vest, tugging until he pressed against her back. Shy rested his head against her and wrapped his arms around her waist.
“I don’t understand what happened,” Shy said. “But I saw the dreams. They were really fast, but I know what you were seeing now.”
“I never saw you in the dreams, Shy, I swear. If I had, I wouldn’t have shut down like I did. I didn’t want to hurt you when I found her.” His hands tightened against Kaya as he struggled with his emotions.
She lifted her head and looked at Teck.
“Hi, sweetheart. I’m Teck.”
She smiled, and more tears slipped over her cheeks. He brushed them away with his thumb.
“Teck. It’s nice to finally have names to put with the dreams. But why didn’t you both have the dreams?”
Teck shrugged. “We’re the children of a powerful Wiccan and were-bear shifters. It’s possible that because I’m more in tune with my Wiccan nature that the dreams came to me and not to Shy.”
“Bears don’t mate-dream?” she asked.
“Not traditionally. Some Wiccans mate-dream, though, but it’s rare.”
She slipped from his lap and faced them, linking her hands with theirs. She looked at Shy. “If you didn’t dream about me, why did you follow me just now?”
“I felt drawn to you. You were crying and I wanted to comfort you. It wasn’t until we touched that I knew for sure you were my mate.”
She looked at the tattoos on her wrists. “Where was the place with these symbols that I dreamed about?”
“It’s in our home territory,” Teck answered. “A redwood forest that’s hundreds of years old. When our people find our mates, there’s a ceremony that’s performed in the woods. The bark is stripped, and the symbols for our names are carved into the wood, then the bark is burned, and the mates are marked with the ash.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, and Teck opened his mouth to ask if she was okay, but Shy said, “I hate to ruin this idyllic scene by pointing this out, but I think we need to go talk to Mom.”
Teck chuckled. “I agree. They’re probably wondering where we went anyway.”
“What’s going to happen now?” Kaya asked.
Teck and Shy stood, and both helped her to her feet.
“We’ll talk to our parents and yours to announce that we’ve found one another,” Teck said. “Then we’ll…see where the day takes us.”
He didn’t voice that he wanted the day to take them straight to bed so they could mate her properly. Her gaze pinged between him and Shy, and her cheeks pinked. Immediately, he wanted to know what thoughts were causing her to blush so sweetly. H
e tugged her hand, and she moved close, staring up at him with her lovely blue and green eyes. To be in her presence now, after so many fucking years of dreams filled him with an emotion he couldn’t even truly articulate. Need welled inside him, so hot he thought he’d be burned alive if he didn’t kiss her.
As he lowered his head, the sound of pounding hoofbeats filled the air. His bear grumbled in annoyance at the intrusion.
Kaya tensed, and he scented the subtle tang of her fear in the air. The guard, Bry, who had grabbed her so roughly earlier, was in front of a group of three other Centaurs. Their hooves kicked up clumps of dirt as they navigated easily among the trees. Shy moved next to Kaya so she was between the two of them.
Bry and the others skidded to a halt a few yards from where the trio stood. “I’ve come to bring you back to the king and queen.”
Like hell. “We’ll take her back,” Teck said.
Bry’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll do no such thing. I’m her escort, and soon, when the king approves, she’ll be my mate.”
Teck let out a low, warning growl. “That won’t happen. Kaya is our truemate, and we mean to keep her with us, no matter what.”
The Centaurs behind Bry scowled. Teck could see the solidarity between them, and he knew that the four males were not the least bit interested in what he and Shy wanted.
Teck glanced at Shy over Kaya’s head. He met Shy’s gaze, and he could see the steely determination in his brother’s eyes. Without speaking a word, he knew that Shy would do whatever necessary to help keep Kaya safe. Lifting her hand, Teck kissed her knuckles and then released her as he stepped in front of her and Shy. Inhaling a slow, even breath, he drew on his Wiccan power. The power filled him slowly until he felt it course through him like an electric pulse.
Bry looked down at them. In their half-forms, they were several feet taller, but it didn’t matter to Teck what form they were in. He was going to keep Kaya and Shy safe at all costs.
The dreams made so much sense now, even as finding Kaya raised more questions. He’d always felt like something was wrong with the dreams because Shy had never been part of them. He knew he wasn’t much for tender things, like romance and wooing. He’d spent too much time honing his fighting skills. But Shy was everything he wasn’t. Teck had always thought they would fit well together sharing a mate, but the dreams had never led him to believe that would happen. Now, after seeing the full dreams in his mind’s eye when the three of them touched, he knew he’d only been seeing part of the dreams. Perhaps it was because they needed Kaya to connect them. Or maybe Shy wasn’t as attuned to his Wiccan nature as Teck, and that was why he’d never had a dream about her. Either way, the only thing that mattered now was that there were four angry Centaurs intent on taking their mate, and Teck was going to make sure that didn’t happen.