We locked Conlan in the bedroom and went downstairs. I got out two bottles of sangria and poured Andrea a glass. She tasted the wine.
“Mmm, I can’t understand why you won’t drink this stuff.”
Because at some point in my life, I was a borderline alcoholic. “Why do you drink it? You can’t even get a buzz.”
“Because it’s delicious.” Andrea pulled one of the bottles to her and refilled the glass.
I left her in the kitchen to get the box. It still sat where I’d left it. I picked it up and walked back to the house. The moment I stepped through the kitchen door, Andrea put down her drink. The content smile melted from her face.
Something thumped upstairs, followed by a loud snarl.
“What is it?”
Andrea bared her teeth. “I don’t know. It smells bad.”
“How bad?”
“I can’t explain it. Bad like something really big that could eat you. Like something you should get away from. I’m a former knight of the Order and I really want to go back to my vehicle and take off just so I don’t have to smell it. No wonder the little guy flipped out.”
Andrea flicked the box open. Her expression grew long. She took the rose out and waved it at me.
“I know,” I said. “It may or may not be romantic.”
“It’s red.”
“Yes, and some cultures believe that red roses sprang from spilled blood.”
“Aha, keep telling yourself that.”
“That’s my line.”
Andrea whipped toward the door. “A car is coming. Sounds like one of your Jeeps.”
Curran. Finally.
Something crashed upstairs. It sounded like splintered wood. Not good. I walked to the stairs. “Conlan, your daddy is home.”
A thing perched on the stair rail. It was furry and upright, with oversized arms and curved black claws. Gold eyes stared at me from a face that was half-human, half-lion.
“Holy shit.” I stumbled back.
“What is it?” Andrea reached me and saw the thing. Her eyes flashed red. A shrill hyena laugh broke out of her mouth.
The small fluffy monster with Rottweiler fangs gathered himself for a leap. This should not be happening. Toddlers couldn’t maintain half-form. That was not a thing.
Calm and soothing. Calm and soothing. Mother-of-the-year voice.
“Conlan.” I started toward him one step at a time. “Come here. Come to Mommy.”
Andrea moved into the foyer from the kitchen, slick and quiet, ready to cut off any attempt at escape.
Step. Another step. Another foot and I could grab him.
The front door swung open and Julie stepped inside.
“Shut the door!” I barked.
Conlan sailed off the rail, bounced onto Julie, knocking her down, and shot outside.
Damn it!
I ran after him, leaping over Julie, and almost collided with Curran. Grendel bounced around us, barking up a storm, because my life required a giant hyper poodle right this second.
“What the hell was that?” my husband snarled.
“That was your son!”
“What?”
“Which way did he go?”
“Into the woods.” Julie rolled to her feet.
My aunt manifested next to the Jeep, a slightly translucent apparition in blood armor. “I told you,” she said. “I told you not to marry a shapeshifter. You did it anyway. Now this happened.”
“What do you mean, it’s our son?” Curran demanded.
“What is going on with this family?” Julie brushed off her jeans.
Derek sprinted into the driveway. “I heard yelling.”
“Will everyone shut up!” I snarled.
Sudden silence descended on the driveway.
“There is an eighteen-month-old running around in the woods in half-form. I’m going to get him. Help or get out of the way.”
I turned and ran into the woods to find my baby.
CHAPTER
4
“SHAPESHIFTERS HAVE PROBLEMS,” Erra said.
I used tongs to grab the meat off the grill and deposit it onto a platter. During his hunting expedition, Curran had caught and butchered a deer, which I found in the cooler in the back of his Jeep, which was a good thing because I was starving, and I was pretty sure he was, too. It had taken him approximately thirty seconds to catch up to and apprehend our son. Once I was sure that everyone was okay, I left them in the woods and went back to the house. They had been gone for about an hour now, and I had a feeling they would be back soon, looking for food.
“The Wild is unpredictable,” Erra said.
“I’ve had a trying couple of days,” I told her. “Normally I love listening to a blistering lecture on my failure to choose a proper husband. It’s my absolute favorite. But if you don’t stop, I will put your dagger into the stables.”
Erra fixed me with her stare. “Sometimes I despair at your lack of respect.”
“I had the best role model. She once punched the head priest of Nineveh when he told her to bow. Maybe you’ve heard of her?”
She snorted. “He was an insufferable prick.”
“Takes one to know one.”
“Your husband loves you,” she said. “I suppose you could’ve done worse.”
I stopped what I was doing and did an exaggerated double take.
My aunt rolled her eyes. “Yes, you could’ve done worse.”
“Be still my beating heart. How will I ever deal with such faint praise?”
Andrea snickered. We both looked at her.
“I love the Kate and Erra show,” she said. “You should take it on the road.”
I picked up my platter of barely seared venison and carried it inside. Andrea held the door open for me.
“As I was saying,” Erra continued, “there has never been a child of the Wild within our bloodline. I was hoping that the Wild wouldn’t manifest, but it did and now it coexists with our powers inside his body. The might of our magic fuels him. I fear for my grandnephew, for he may be capable of terrible things.”
My aunt, the party pooper. “Why should he be any different than the rest of us?”
My aunt opened her mouth and closed it. “Good point.”
In the kitchen, Julie pulled three loaves of bread out of the oven. She’d taken over the baking a couple of years ago and always had starter dough on hand. The bread smelled like heaven. Andrea snuck toward it.
“You’re not invisible,” I told her.
She stopped and gave me an injured look.
I turned to my aunt. “Have you ever heard of someone killing a large number of people and then extracting their bones?”
“How large?” Julie asked.
“About two hundred.”
Julie blinked. “That’s a lot of people.”
Erra mulled it over. “Your grandfather did it once.”
“What?”
“The tribes of Hatti had gotten themselves a particularly persistent chief called Astu-Amur. Big on balls, short on brains. He invaded us seven times over a forty-year period. Each time we beat them back, but your grandfather, Shalmaneser, finally had enough, so he ordered the heads of their fallen gathered, cleaned, and piled into a large mound so the next time they came to invade, their army would see what happened to their predecessors.”
“Why clean the skulls, though?” Derek asked. “Wouldn’t the severed heads be more effective?”
“Because scavengers are less likely to nibble on a clean human skull than on something with flesh still attached. Besides, having a pile of rotting human heads is unhygienic,” Erra said.
Of course. When making monuments of human skulls, one must always keep hygiene in mind. “How did he clean the skulls?”
“Dermestid beetles,
of course,” Erra said. “Fast, thorough, and the flesh is returned to nature.”
Scratch dear Dad off the list.
A door swung open. My son stumbled in, still in half-form. Relief washed over me. I hadn’t realized I had been that worried.
Grendel got off his pillow, his tail wagging. Conlan shuffled over to the mutant poodle and crawled onto Grendel’s pillow. The big black dog flopped next to him. Conlan hugged Grendel and closed his eyes.
Curran followed, still in human form but without shoes. He must’ve shifted into a lion, then shifted back and put his clothes on.
“Did you have fun?” I asked.
“Yes, we did.” Curran grinned. “Our son is a shapeshifter.”
He was so happy. I almost laughed.
“Your son is a freak of nature,” Andrea offered, munching on a slice of bread. “It’s not natural for a toddler to have a half-form.”
“He’s a prodigy,” Curran told her.
The prodigy made a quiet whistling sound. He was snoring. Grendel lay perfectly still, panting, his eyes shining, and generally acting like being hugged by a sleeping monster-child was his highest aspiration in life and now that dream had been fulfilled.
“Freak of nature,” Andrea said again.
Curran looked at her.
“Fine, fine.” She waved her hands around. “I’m leaving.” She grabbed a loaf of bread, snagged a venison steak, and swiped a bottle of sangria off the counter. “I know when I’m not wanted. Kate, you still owe me lunch. I’ll let myself out.”
She disappeared into the hallway. Our front door clicked closed.
Curran frowned. “Did she just steal our food?”
“You’re welcome to take it up with Clan Bouda,” I told him. “But since our son bit their alpha today, I don’t know how much ground we can gain there.”
“He bit Andrea?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Ankle?”
“Shin, actually. She said his teeth scraped bone.”
“Good bite,” Derek said.
Curran grinned wider. It was good that Jim wasn’t here. They would probably high-five.
I glanced at Conlan. He was asleep without a care in the world. My life had irreparably changed today. Nothing would ever be the same. I had to figure out how to roll with it by the time Conlan woke up.
Curran wandered over casually and snagged a chunk of Julie’s bread. “What set him off?”
I wiped my hands on a kitchen towel. “Do you want to eat first or see the box?”
“What box?” Derek asked.
Curran glanced at my face. His expression hardened. “The box first.”
* * *
• • •
CURRAN LEANED TOWARD the box sitting on the porch table. His nostrils flared. Gold rolled over his gray irises.
Derek’s upper lip rose, baring the edge of his teeth. He looked like a wolf now. A sharp, feral wolf.
“What does it smell like to you?” I asked.
“A predator,” Derek said. “Never smelled anything like that before.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“It smells like panic and running for your life,” Derek said. “I would remember this.”
“Smells like a challenge,” Curran said.
Julie frowned at the box.
Curran opened it and took the rose out. His voice took on a quiet measured tone, as if he were talking about the weather. “Interesting.”
My aunt focused on the box. “I’ve seen this before.”
Oh goody. “What is it?”
“It’s an old way to declare war.”
Great.
“It was used to overcome the language barrier. No translation needed. Submit to our demands or . . .” Her translucent fingers brushed the knife. “We’ll cut your throats and turn your world to ash.”
Better and better. “Would Father . . . ?”
She shook her head. “This was the way of the uru. The outsiders. Barbarians. Your father is a civilized man. If he were to declare war, he would call you first.”
Well, at least I could expect a phone call before Roland unleashed Armageddon and murdered everyone I loved.
Julie went inside.
“What about the rose?” Curran asked.
“I don’t know,” Erra said. “Sometimes they put a bag in the box to symbolize tribute.”
“Pay us and we’ll go away?” I asked.
“Essentially. I’ve never seen a blossom like this. The rose is the flower of queens. When your grandmother built the Hanging Gardens, she filled it with roses.”
And that was precisely the problem. We knew what a rose meant to us. We had no idea what it meant to whoever sent the box.
Julie came back out with a piece of paper and a pencil.
“How do we know who sent it?” Derek asked. “Why declare war and not identify yourself?”
Erra turned to me. “Did you see the messenger?”
“No.”
“If we wait long enough, we’ll find out,” Curran said, his gaze dark.
“They signed it,” Julie said.
Everyone looked at her.
“The box glows blue,” she said, drawing. “There is a lighter blue symbol on the lid.” She held the paper up. Two circles joined by two horizontal lines. It looked like an old-fashioned barbell.
“The alchemical sign for arsenic?” I frowned. That made no sense.
“Could also be the astrological symbol for opposition,” Julie murmured.
I glanced at my aunt. Erra blinked. “Izur?”
“What’s Izur?” Julie asked.
Erra stepped down into the yard, where the first stars dotted the darkening sky and pointed in the direction of Ursa Major. “Izur, the twin star.”
Julie’s eyes lit up.
“Don’t do it,” I told her.
She held her hands out. “Aliens.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on, why can’t it be aliens? Ooo, maybe your whole family is aliens.”
I turned and went back to the house.
“Where are you going?” Derek called after me.
“I need a drink.”
I walked into the kitchen. Conlan was still on the pillow. Still in half-form. Julie’s mangled body flashed before me, half-human, half-animal, trapped in a hospital bed, sedated to the point of comatose, because the moment Doolittle took her off the sedatives, she would explode into a loup.
Anxiety stabbed me, cold and sharp, in the pit of my stomach.
I opened the bottle of sangria with a jerk, poured a glass, and drank it down.
Curran came through the door. He moved in complete silence. If my peripheral vision were worse, I would’ve never known he was there. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him. I leaned into him, feeling the warmth of his body. I’d missed this so much. I’d missed him.
He breathed in the scent of my hair. “What’s up?” he asked, his voice quiet.
“What if he can’t shift back?”
“He’ll shift back. It was an exciting day for him. His hormones are high. He’ll burn it off in his sleep.” He kissed my hair.
“What if he doesn’t? My blood is really potent, and the concentration of Lyc-V in his bloodstream is off the charts. What if he goes loup?”
Curran turned me toward our son, hugging me to him. His voice was calm and soothing. “He won’t. Look at him. He’s proportionate. Look at his jaws. They fit together, they are well formed. The length of his legs and arms is perfect. He did it instinctually. He didn’t struggle; he just did it. With loups, there is a stench. He smells clean.”
He rubbed my shoulders.
“He bit Andrea. He’s known her since he was born.”
“He was scared. That’s good.”
It sank in. “Loups don’t get scared.”
“No, they don’t. They blindly attack. The adults can be cunning, but when children go loup, they turn feral.” He kissed me again. “You should’ve seen him in the woods. He splashed through the creek. He climbed everywhere, sniffed everything, like someone took his leash off. He’s our kid. He’s got this.”
We stood together, wrapped up in each other, watching our son sleep.
“Andrea called me a helicopter parent.”
“Andrea needs to shut the hell up sometimes.”
“I don’t have anyone to measure myself against,” I told him. “I didn’t know my mother, and Voron wasn’t exactly a model father.”
“Baby B is a beautiful baby,” Curran said. “But she’s a bouda. She smells like a werehyena, she acts like a werehyena, and other werehyenas know exactly what she is.”
“What’s your point?”
“There are no surprises there. He”—Curran pointed at Conlan over his shoulder—“is full of surprises. It will be fun.”
“I don’t want him to end up with my childhood.” Where did that even come from?
A hint of a growl slipped into Curran’s voice. “He has me and you. He won’t end up like us, and we are not going to end up like our parents. History isn’t going to repeat itself. I won’t let it.”
History had a way of rolling over the best-laid plans like a runaway bulldozer.
“Does he know I’m his mother when he’s in his animal shape?”
“Yes. I knew my parents were my parents.”
“But does he know?”
“He recognized I was his father.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I told him to stop and he did.”
“Maybe he just thought you were a bigger lion.”
“Trust me, he knows us. Our scent, the sound of our voices. He knows we’re his parents.”
He knew who I was, he knew who Curran was. Okay. I could do this. I’d done harder things before.
The phone rang. I picked it up.
“Yes?”
“Good evening,” a familiar voice said. Robert served as Jim’s chief of security. Today was a gift that kept on giving. I put him on speaker.
“What can I do for you?”
Magic Triumphs (Kate Daniels) Page 7