by Bianca D’Arc
She glanced at all the men and saw the shadow of their beast halves. If she looked close enough, she could see their souls.
That was a knowledge she didn’t necessarily want to have, but was bestowed on her by the Mother of All in the timeless moments between one word of her chanted prayer and the next. Time had slowed. The angry flailing of the evil creatures in the ocean went into slow motion as Urse spun out her spell, each word dragging a new aspect of her magic, and the ward she wanted to build, out of her being, with the support and power of those gathered around.
She could feel it. The ward was taking shape, but her power was failing. She’d bit off more than she could chew. Panic gripped her for a split second…
And then, John was there. He’d reached behind him to take her hand, and his calm strength flowed into her.
Then Cam followed suit on her other side, taking her other hand. The power that flowed into her was the golden Light of the Goddess Herself, nearly overwhelming in its intensity.
Then she knew. It was time.
She raised her hands—John and Cam’s hands too—toward the sky, and the power poured forth, racing up to the moon and ricocheting back down to the cove and the surrounding waters.
The leviathan screamed an inhuman sound, unable to withstand the searing magic. It fought against the goodness of Urse’s spell with its own evil magic. The smell of ozone filled the air as energy clashed in the air all around them.
Urse felt her hair lifting, forming a halo around her head as the magic battle generated a massive static electricity charge. The stones of the circle glowed as the evil tried to overcome the Goddess’s ring of protection.
Urse poured on the power, calling on the men all around, Cam’s seemingly limitless strength, and finally, the earth itself. Giving all she had of her own energy, Urse screamed the final words of her chant, sealing the spell with the last of her strength.
The moon glowed brighter for a moment, and then, the lightning was released. The static charge reversed and went from the land to the sea, lighting up the leviathan and hundreds and hundreds of smaller evil creatures that flanked it in an army of tentacles and menace.
But it was an army that was on the run.
Urse gasped as she got a good look at what was in the water. Lightning danced over and inside the waves, lighting the water from below, giving everyone a good look at the sheer magnitude of the enemy.
She was glad she hadn’t known how many were out there before she’d started setting her wards. Even now, she couldn’t quite believe the sheer numbers of unearthly creatures the leviathan had managed to rouse for its water-bound army of darkness.
With her last conscious thought, Urse smiled. She could see the boundaries of her ward. They extended even farther than she had hoped. The leviathan and its minions were fleeing as fast as they could move, and the odor of burnt seaweed and ozone filled the air.
“Honey?” John’s voice came to her as she started to sink, letting go of his and Cam’s hands. Her strength was gone. Given gladly in service to the Light, in setting a permanent ward that would protect this land and coast for generations to come.
“Love you,” she whispered, even as John’s arms came around her. He held her tight against his chest, and she was glad. She wanted her last thought to be of him. Her last moments to be with him.
John felt the breath leave Urse’s body, and his bear roared in his skull. John was hit with a jolt of pain as he’d never felt before. His mate was dying?
No way would he allow that.
John turned angry, glowing eyes on the fey.
“Cam?”
“Put her down on the ground and stand back,” Cam instructed, looking weary but determined. “Your lass gave her all for this place, but if I have anything to say, she will not leave it this easily.” Cam looked up at the circle of shifters who were all gazing at them with concern. “Hold your positions and join hands. Pray as you have never prayed before for this selfless woman who was willing to give her life so that you all could be safe.” Cam’s impassioned words were fast and filled with emotion, which John saw repeated on every face of every man around the circle.
John dropped to his knees, placing Urse’s near-lifeless body on the ground in the center of the circle. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it, beseeching the Mother of All to take him instead. If someone had to leave this realm, he prayed, let it be him, so that Urse might live. She was too good to let pass this way. Too loved. Too kind.
Cam stood on the other side and began to whisper words of high magic. John couldn’t hear exactly what the elf said, nor did he really care. All that mattered to him in the world was lying before him on the ground, pale and growing cold.
He felt the tears falling down his face and knew he was crying for perhaps the first time since childhood, but he didn’t care. His mate—his mate—wasn’t in her body where she was supposed to be. He wanted her back. He needed her back!
He lifted his face to the sky and allowed the bear to roar its agony out of his mouth. Both halves of his soul were in mortal pain.
And then, the earth moved.
John felt the earth beneath his knees tremble and heard it groan, and then, the hand he was holding—Urse’s hand—rose in his grip. He looked down again to try to figure out what was going on. Was she getting up? Was she alive?
But it wasn’t her moving. It was the ground itself.
A slab of rock was rising. An altar was rising. In the center of the sacred stone circle, an alter of living rock rose to their call, answering their prayers. John knelt on one side, Cam stood on the other, his hands outstretched, his body glowing with the magical armor of his calling.
John didn’t question it. A Knight of the Light was bringing forth the magic of the earth. He was expending his energy to try to save John’s mate. John had no doubt that if the Goddess willed it, Urse could come back to him.
It would be a miracle of the highest caliber, but John had to believe that the Goddess he had served all his life would not break his heart. She would not have brought them together only to part them so soon.
Would she?
John stood as the altar kept rising. The stones of the circle, too, seemed to grow from the short stumps they’d been into taller, more defined standing stones. And they were glowing, swirling with energy in a slightly different way than they had when Urse had used their power in her ward.
The colors were different. Before it had been pure white, icy moonlight. Now it was green and gold, the colors of forest and fey, earth and sun. Cam’s golden armor shone with the same pure gold light.
And as John watched, the altar lit up, surrounding Urse’s limp body in the same golden glow, tinged with the grey and brown of the earth and the green of growing things. The glow bathed her body, filling it and bringing color back to her cheeks, and finally, as a blue wisp of magic from the sky came into play…air back to her lungs.
She was alive.
Dear, sweet Mother of All. Urse was alive!
Chapter Sixteen
Urse woke in John’s house. In John’s bed. But John wasn’t there.
She sensed him though. He was just outside, in the living room, with Cam and the three shifters he’d brought to town. How exactly she knew that, she didn’t quite know, but she was aware that things had changed for her.
In a rush, everything that had happened at the stone circle came back to her.
Judging from the sunlight behind the curtains, it was daytime. She knew her ward was set. She’d seen that with her own eyes before she collapsed.
And then…
Urse sat bolt upright in the bed, then grabbed her forehead. Damn. She had a hangover. Or something that felt a lot like it.
She gingerly swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was dressed in loose pajamas. Fleece. They were hers, from her apartment. Somehow she knew that Mel had brought them over, but was no longer in John’s house.
Mel had been in the room though. She’d checked on Urse, whic
h touched her greatly. Her little sister was the best. Even when she was being pesky, she always meant well. Urse loved that about her.
Judging herself presentable enough, Urse padded in sock feet toward the hall that would lead her to the living room…and her mate. Mmm. She wanted nothing more than to see John and get one of those hugs that made her feel as if nothing bad would ever happen to her as long as he held her in his arms.
John heard his mate walking down the hallway and moved to intercept. He’d worried over her deep sleep, but Cam had assured him, over and over, that she’d be fine after she slept off the effects of her power expenditure.
The guys had finally convinced him to leave her side by sending the visitors to him bearing gifts—a gourmet meal packed in to-go containers. His men were guarding the perimeter, but they knew John wouldn’t snub the visitors by telling them to take a hike. Not when Steve Redstone was in the group. Or the Jackal. Or Joe Nightwing. Or Cam, for that matter.
All three shifters were strong Alphas, and Cam… Well, Cam was something akin to an angelic being as far as John was concerned, now that he’d seen the Knight of the Light in action.
John went into the hall, running into Urse and catching her in his arms. She wound herself around him, snuggling close.
“This is just what I wanted. A bear hug,” she whispered, her face against his chest.
“How are you feeling?” He couldn’t express the relief that flooded him just knowing she was alive and coherent. And standing! He hadn’t expected that so soon.
“Like I’ve got the hangover from hell. Don’t talk above a whisper, and we should be fine. Do I smell coffee?” She didn’t move from his arms, for which he was grateful. She was in a lazy, kittenish sort of mood that suited him just fine.
With every word she spoke, he began to believe that she would come out of her near-death experience unscathed. Goddess be praised.
“Yeah, the guys sent food over. I sort of refused to leave your side.”
“Well, good for them for looking out for you. And I love that you stuck by me.” She lifted her head long enough to place a little kiss on his cheek. “But you really have to look after yourself too. You have to eat, John.”
“So do you. Are you hungry at all?” He liked that she worried about him, but she was the patient here, not him.
“Hmm.” She seemed to think about it. “Yeah, I could eat. That was some night last night, huh?”
“Last night?” John took her by the shoulders and drew back so he could look into her eyes. “Honey, that was two days ago. You’ve been asleep for almost sixty hours.”
Stunned disbelief entered her eyes slowly. Her reaction times were off, but then, she’d been dead for a good few minutes there, just two and a half days ago. She had a right to be a little sluggish.
“Seriously?”
He nodded, releasing his grip on her shoulders to rub her arms lightly. He was so glad to be touching her. Talking with her. It was a miracle he would never take for granted.
“Seriously. I brought you here after the moon ceremony and haven’t left your side. Cam’s been here off and on too. He kept telling me you just had to sleep it off, but I didn’t truly believe him until just now. How do you feel?” He knew he was gushing a little, but the cautious joy inside him demanded expression.
“Like I said, hungover. And very sensitive.” Her brow drew together in a little frown. “I could tell who was in the house from inside your room. And I knew Mellie had been there, but wasn’t in the house any longer.”
“She left about an hour ago, when the guys showed up with the food. She said she was leaving me in good hands.” He was intrigued by what Urse was describing. “Who do you think is here?”
“Cam, Joe, Steve and Seth,” she answered, without hesitation.
“On the nose,” he told her, bending to place a little kiss on the tip of her nose.
He was interested in why she could suddenly know things about who was where, when she apparently couldn’t before, but it might just be a temporary side effect. Cam had warned him that she might be a little different for the first week or so after she woke up. It was to be expected, he’d said rather mysteriously.
John was too happy to just have her up and around and speaking coherently to delve further into the phenomenon now. If it lasted, he’d ask her more about it later. If not, it wouldn’t matter anyway.
What mattered most in this moment was that she was here. She was alive. And she was in his arms. Everything else could wait.
He held her as time stood still, offering a silent prayer of thanks that she was alive, here, now, in his arms, where she belonged. They had both been forever changed by the ordeal they’d been through, and only time would reveal the full extent of the change.
But it was all good, as far as John was concerned. He’d come out of this adventure with a beautiful, smart and talented mate who would make his life fuller and happier than it had ever been. His people not only accepted her, but respected her abilities with a fervor that bordered on awe in some cases. She had pushed back a monster that none of them had ever even contemplated. She had done something none of them was capable of doing, giving of herself—almost too much—in the process. She had earned their esteem, and their love.
“One thing I’m still wondering about.” Urse spoke softly as she drew back a short way to look up at him.
“What’s that, honey?” He could deny her nothing. If she asked for the moon and stars, he’d start working on a way to get them for her.
“The other day when you and Cam had your little private meeting. What was the big secret? What did you guys talk about?”
“Hmm.” He thought about what he could divulge. “Well, I can’t tell you everything because I promised Cam I wouldn’t until after certain events had happened, but I think it’s safe to tell you that Cam is gathering intel from multiple sources, including someone—and I don’t know exactly who his source is—that can see the future. One of the things he told me, though to be honest, although it made me happy, it didn’t matter as much as he thought it might, is that our children will be able to shift.”
She placed one of her hands over his heart, happy surprise clear on her lovely face. “They will? I mean… We’re going to have children? Plural? More than one?”
“Apparently so,” he agreed, covering her hand with his, holding her touch close to his heart. “It was foreseen that we would have cubs who could shift and would have a lot more magic than most bears.” Cam had specifically told John that he could share this bit of intel with Urse, so he wasn’t breaking any confidences.
“I’m glad, though I hadn’t really thought about it with everything else that was going on,” she said, her gaze soft. “I like children.”
“I like you, my mate,” he echoed her words, smiling. “In fact, I love you, Urse, with everything I am. You make my life whole.” His voice dropped as the declaration left his mouth. The moment felt incredibly special.
“I love you too. And if I could see the future right now, I’d predict a happy, love-filled life together for the rest of our days.” She smiled, reaching both of her hands around his neck and drawing his head downward for a kiss.
“I like the sound of that,” he whispered against her lips, smiling as he deepened the contact and kissed his mate.
The times ahead might be interesting and unpredictable, but he knew now that they could face just about anything…as long as they were together.
He wasn’t at liberty yet to tell her everything Cam and he had discussed the day before her final spell, but that was okay, for now. Nothing Cam had said would hurt her in any way, and all would be revealed in time. Cam had taken John into his confidence, showing a respect John had never expected, but was honored to receive from the fey knight.
John’s Army days might be behind him, but his mind was already working out strategies based on the information Cam had shared. Strategic planning was John’s talent, his avocation and his sharpest skill. He was pleased
to be able to use all his training and experience in the battle everyone was expecting would soon be coming to the mortal world.
The past few days had brought John into a small group of those who were actively planning to fight the evil that was working against them. Although he’d come to Grizzly Cove to retire and start a family, he found that he couldn’t quite turn his back on the danger that was, in all likelihood, headed their way.
The leviathan might be only the tip of the iceberg. In which case, John couldn’t ignore the protective instincts inside him that had pushed him into the military so many years ago. He was a man of action, and of duty. He had skills he had to use to help the world stay free of evil. If he simply shut himself off from the outside world and hid up here in Grizzly Cove, he wouldn’t be able to look himself in the mirror each morning.
When Cam had asked him to put his talents to work once again, collating intel from all over the world and devising strategies, John couldn’t in all good conscience, say no. On the contrary, his bear prodded him to get back in the game—if only in this small way. He wouldn’t be fighting on the front lines unless, and until, they needed him, but he could easily use his brain power and experience on behalf of the good guys.
A conduit was open now between Grizzly Cove and the outside world. Things had changed. The town could no longer hide in obscurity. The leviathan’s presence had outed them, for lack of a better description, to the Others in the area. Their secret was no longer a secret, and they’d have to deal with the repercussions of that in the coming days, John was sure, but he was still proud of the town he had helped build. He knew his people could handle what was coming. They were all highly capable and Ursula’s contribution these past days could not be discounted. She’d given her all to help protect them, which would come in handy now that they were on the supernatural map, so to speak.