by Mia Marshall
“I’m fine,” I muttered, irritated. “Can we just once not worry about me going off the deep end?” My aunts looked at each other in confusion, but I was too exhausted to speak in code. “What the hell happened here?”
Josiah stared at what had once been a house, his face ricocheting from anger to confusion to doubt, none of which comforted me. If Josiah didn’t know what was happening or why, there was little hope for the rest of us.
Sera stood shakily, but once she was upright she gained strength by the minute. She continued to feed on the fire, walking in slow circles around the flames. Sera always thought best when she was moving, so I took this as a good sign.
“It happened so fast. I was in the kitchen, getting something to drink—”
“The wine!” Marie interrupted, her face horrified at the loss of so much quality booze. “Is it all gone?” Tina wrapped a consoling arm around her in a moment of shared and inappropriate grief.
“—And there was a loud noise. I thought it might be a gunshot at first.” She swallowed, and she wasn’t the only one who looked nervous. Elementals lived exceptionally long lives, but our magic had its limits. We’d been born from the union of magic and humans. It was our origin story, and our weakness. It was why we looked human, and it was why a gunshot or knife wound or explosion would kill us as easily as it would any human.
Suffice it to say, elementals donated a lot of money to gun safety groups and spent little time at firing ranges.
Sera shook her head to clear it. “My father was in the living room, and the blast threw him backwards. He slammed into the kitchen counter.”
Josiah rubbed the base of his spine. “The force was strong enough to break my back.” He said this the way a human might say they stubbed their toe. “Fortunately, by this point the house was already catching fire, so I was able to heal it before the second blast.”
Sera looked at the ruined house. “The second was in the bedroom.”
“Which one?” I interrupted.
“Yours.” We exchanged a long look, one full of questions. We didn’t know if the bomber thought I was still there, or if they’d been informed Josiah would be staying in the house. Though someone new might be trying to kill me, I felt only relief that Sera wasn’t the target.
Josiah didn’t share my relief. His face darkened at the mere possibility that someone might want me dead. “We didn’t want to see if the third time was the charm, so I grabbed Sera and jumped through the new hole created in the living room floor. We landed in the ocean, and I tried to swim toward the shore, but the third blast pushed us the other direction.”
Sera stopped pacing, and her voice was so tightly controlled I could only guess at the turmoil below her words. “And then I don’t remember anything. The third one knocked us out, at least until you found us.”
I released a ragged breath. She was alive. Logically, I knew this. She was right before me, breathing on her own, her wounds from the explosions already healed by the fire. Somehow, it wasn’t enough. Part of me, that place far below the conscious mind, the part that rejected rationality and empirical facts, refused to believe Sera and Josiah were safe.
If they’d been in the bedroom when it exploded, they wouldn’t be. If I’d been a few minutes later, they wouldn’t be. If I hadn’t accessed my fire side to find them, they wouldn’t be.
It was pure dumb luck that they were still here, and I wasn’t ready to count on our luck holding.
I stood and faced the island residents, looking at each one in turn. Everyone was present. My extended family. Lana and David. The council. Whoever had done this, they were here, watching.
One by one, their gazes dropped. I doubted it was guilt that caused them to avoid my stare. I could feel the rage and anger in my eyes, the gray hardening to steel. My face didn’t feel fluid and expressive. It might as well have been sculpted from granite. I didn’t show them anger, for that’s not what I felt. I felt cold.
“Someone on this island did this.” My voice was clear, the words carrying with no effort to every witness. “Someone attempted to kill my best friend and her father. I do not care that Josiah confessed to all the murders. I do not care that the fire elementals are strangers to most of you. I really don’t care about anything right now, except finding the person who did this and making them pay. You may think Josiah had it coming, but you are wrong. He is innocent, and only confessed to spare his daughter. I am absolutely certain of this.” The crowd started at my proclamation, and behind me Josiah protested. I ignored them all. I was so tired of lies and half-truths and secrets. “If you take two seconds to think about it, you’ll know I’m right. This was an explosion, same as the one that killed Edith Lake. Whoever created that explosion did this one, as well, and Sera and Josiah sure as hell didn’t try to blow themselves up. Someone else did this, just as someone else killed Edith.”
I paused letting my words sink in.
“What about Rachel?”
I sought out the speaker, finding him standing between the two remaining council members.
“Do you really want to discuss why Josiah killed Rachel at this particular moment, Michael?”
He held my gaze for only a second before dropping his eyes in defeat.
The crowd murmured questions, and I spoke again, refusing to allow them to be distracted.
“Sera and Josiah will be staying with me tonight, on a houseboat anchored to the west. I am giving no one else a chance to hurt them.”
I stared at the three remaining council members, daring them to disagree. They no longer looked like powerful representatives of one of the elementals’ oldest bodies. They looked scared and uncertain, willing to hand over control to someone else if it meant they could live long enough to get off this island. One by one, they nodded.
“No one on this island is safe. We may not understand what is happening, but we know that much. Don’t be alone. Call on your element often, to stay strong.” As I spoke, I sent out my own magic, knowing every scared water on the island was doing the same. My magic intertwined with my aunts’, my mother’s, my grandmother’s. It found Lana’s, splashing in a nearby canal, and circled to my extended family, people I hadn’t seen in years but whose magic I still knew. I even sent it toward the council. I danced between them all, reminding them what we shared.
It was what connected us to the land and the water, but it was also what connected us to each other. As our power greeted one elemental after another, tension disappeared from shoulders and faces lightened, distrust easing with the reminder of what we meant to each other.
When I spoke again, I found my anger and coldness had vanished. “We will solve this, but we must work together. No more secrets. If you know anything you believe will find the person committing these awful crimes, you must tell me. For all our safety, we must end this.”
The group nodded. I knew there were holes in my argument, and it wouldn’t be long before people thought to ask questions to which I didn’t have the answers. For now, though, they were caught in the spell of shared magic and my absolute certainty.
Then, the spell broke.
“Who are they? What are they doing here?” Michael Bay pointed one shaking finger toward the water, and the entire island turned to watch three shifters pulling to shore in a battered old rowboat.
Chapter 20
“A welcoming party? How thoughtful of you.” Simon sounded entirely sincere, and only the glint in his green eyes gave any hint that he sensed the animosity rolling off the elementals in waves.
He stepped lightly from the boat, every movement precise. Simon was always graceful, but I thought he was emphasizing it now. The slit pupils he’d learned to hide during his time with Carmen had returned, and even his canines appeared a bit longer than usual.
He would not hide what he was, and he would not apologize for it.
Miriam stepped out next. She didn’t possess Simon’s grace outside the water, but she had at least twice his attitude. She looked at the elementals li
ned up before her, pale and reed thin, and the devil’s own grin appeared on her face. If I was translating otter to English, I’m pretty sure the message would be “bring it.”
Mac was last, and there was an audible gasp as he unfolded from the boat. Waters might be a tall group of people, but we had nothing on bear shifters. While anyone standing on that shore was powerful enough that, if unopposed, they could send him out to sea on a large wave, it was hard to remember one had the upper hand when faced with a man-shaped wall of pure muscle.
Part of me wanted to throw them into the boat and send it careening back to the houseboat. I was sure the waters would all be happy to pretend this visit had never occurred.
A bigger part sighed in relief, both at the sight of my friends and at the knowledge that one more secret was revealed. Besides, their presence posed no real danger, other than to the elementals’ understanding of the world—and if there was one group of people in the world that needed their preconceptions challenged, it was the people on this island.
Michael found his voice first. “What is that?” He pointed at Mac. I could practically see Mac’s hackles rise. I wasn’t sure if I had hackles, but if I did they were rising alongside his.
Josiah, Sera, and my close family stood behind me, lined up where the water met the shore. The rest of the island stood to the east in a large clump of prejudice and fear. The three shifters had landed about fifty feet to the north.
I stood between them all.
I suppose I made a choice, though I don’t recall doing so. I only knew that I walked to Mac, taking long, confident strides, until I was at his side. “I guess the council isn’t invited to the wedding.” I winked at him, letting him know I was teasing, but I saw no humor in his eyes. Only heat mixed with relief and something close to gratitude.
The rest of the island didn’t find the joke funny, either.
A moment ago, they’d all been ready to link arms and sing songs in the name of magical unity. Now, they looked like they were ready to fire up some torches and go in search of pitchforks.
Not all of them. A few looked surprised, even curious. My aunts studied the newcomers as if they were an unexpected specimen in a biology textbook. Grams glanced between me and Mac, likely making all the right connections.
I was thankful my great-grandmother wasn’t here to witness this. She was the one who’d raised me to believe shifters were nothing but myths, and I doubted her presence would have smoothed the current tensions.
“Everything okay?” Mac asked in a low voice.
“More or less,” I assured him. “Everyone’s alive, at least.”
I turned from him, needing to calm the side of the island that looked like they shared Great-grandma’s opinion. “So, these are shifters. They exist.” It seemed obvious to me, but there were still so many doubtful expressions I wanted to be extra clear. In addition to doubt, I saw anger and outrage, shock and disbelief. Basically, all the shades of horror one would expect from a group who would rather deny shifters’ existence than acknowledge we shared our magical heritage with those who possessed animal DNA.
“It’s bad enough that you allow three humans on the island, Ms. Brook. To lie about their origins is a step too far. We all know shifters are a myth.” Deborah Rivers wouldn’t even look at my friends, addressing her words to the waters gathered around her. Still, no one watched her. They couldn’t take their eyes off our visitors, trying to reconcile years of lies and denial with the counter-evidence standing on their shore.
They might have clung more stubbornly to their disbelief if Simon hadn’t chosen that moment to turn into a cat.
As one, the crowd gasped, then subsided into silence as the small black creature walked toward them. He kept his distance, giving himself space to run if necessary, but to look at him, he was the pinnacle of feline confidence. He strutted down the line of gathered waters. Once he was convinced they’d all seen him, he returned to human form and strolled buck naked back to the clothes that had fallen from him when he changed to the smaller form. In no hurry, he pulled his jeans back on, then turned to face everyone with a smug, close-lipped smile.
While the elementals gaped, Miriam smacked Simon’s ass. “Drama queen,” she said with a chuckle, loud enough for everyone to hear.
That broke the spell. At once, everyone had something to say, a question or protest or, in some cases, panicked nonsense. I let it go on for a few minutes—sometimes, waters just need to get the words out before they explode—then nodded to Sera.
She put her fingers to her lips and gave a loud, piercing whistle, the kind I’d never figured out how to do myself. It caught everyone off guard, and I stepped into the silence.
“Once again, for the record: these are shifters. They exist, and despite what some will try to tell you, they are not our enemy. We have people and houses exploding, or being burnt to a crisp, and that happened long before these three stepped foot onto the island. So, you know, deal.”
It didn’t seem worth mentioning that Miriam and Simon had been hanging out on the island for days.
Sera snorted. It seemed she was improved enough to find my tactlessness amusing.
“This isn’t the big deal you all seem to think it is. There have always been shifters, and if you were unaware of their existence, you should probably make more of an effort to get off the island from time to time. So go home, open a bottle of wine, and know that reality hasn’t actually changed. Just your knowledge of it. Sera, Josiah, the shifters and I will all be heading out to the boat, unless someone offers their guest room to two fires and the three shifters you want to pretend are figments of your imagination. Anyone?” I finished with a bright and wholly insincere smile.
To no one’s surprise, my offer fell flat.
“Fine. We’ll see you in the morning.” With that, I turned my back on the waters who’d once called me family.
Tomorrow was going to be a bad day. Once the island had time to process what they’d seen, to fit it into their understanding of the world and start looking for someone to blame, things would get complicated. That was tomorrow, though. Tonight, we all just needed to sleep.
Sera and Josiah climbed into the boat with the shifters. That left no room for me, particularly as the tension that still existed between my father and Mac practically required its own seat.
Miriam glanced at the overcrowded boat and started undressing. “I’m counting on you to be on orca patrol, Brook. I don’t plan to meet my maker anytime soon, and I intend to do so while riding some pretty young thing, not as a midnight snack for some fucking oversized fish.”
I grinned, taking a moment to let go of all that day’s horrors. “Like I’d deny any of those pretty young things the glory of your presence, Miriam. Let’s go.”
She stepped into the surf, and a second later an otter poked its head above the water, waiting.
For the final time that day, I jumped into the surf and headed toward the houseboat, pulling a rowboat and its motley crew behind me.
It wasn’t late, the sun only just setting, but no one seemed interested in staying up and talking. It had been a long day, and we were too exhausted to do anything but sleep.
The houseboat didn’t have room for all of us, particularly as I was unwilling to share Mac’s bed with Josiah nearby. Shifter ears only meant we risked embarrassment. Having an overprotective father on board meant we risked Mac being set on fire if Josiah felt he crossed some line.
Instead, Simon and Miriam took blankets to the roof. They muttered something about a clear night and the stars, but since the sky was still covered with heavy clouds, I suspected they really wanted to put as much distance between themselves and Josiah as possible. Josiah was many things, but a paragon of elemental tolerance wasn’t one of them. He would always believe shifters were inferior to elementals, and he made little effort to disguise this fact.
Sera and I agreed to share the second bedroom, leaving Josiah to the couches.
Silently, we prepared for bed, w
ashing our faces and raiding the houseboat’s limited food supply. Despite everything that happened that day, I felt no desire to sleep. I was too wired, too aware of Mac’s presence just a few feet away.
At least I had an excuse to visit him once before bed. I closed the door to his bedroom, needing at least one private moment, even if I had to resort to mime to get my message across without anyone eavesdropping.
“Do you have a t-shirt I can borrow?” All our belongings were either burnt or in pieces, so it seemed a reasonable request. At least it did, until he removed the shirt he was wearing and held it out to me. Reason pretty much disappeared altogether.
“Thanks.” I took it and pressed it against my chest, as much to feel his warmth as to create a highly ineffective barrier between us.
His eyes slid toward the door. “Why is Josiah here?” He pitched his voice low. The shifters above us might be able to hear, but elementals were stuck with standard human hearing.
I shook my head, trying to clear it of the fog caused by his half-dressed status. “His house exploded, and no one else would take him. Or if they did, that house might blow up next. I couldn’t very well leave him to sleep on the beach.”
“Why not? You hate him.”
“It’s complicated.”
“And yet, I’m capable of holding more than one thought in my head at a time. What’s going on?”
“It’s not that you won’t understand. It’s more that they’re words I’m not ready to say out loud.” I stared at him, begging him to allow me this moment.
He shook his head, and though his voice remained quiet, the words held an edge they hadn’t before. “That’s not good enough. You’re off, Aidan. There’s this energy coming off you, this manic desperation. It was there earlier, when you came to me. I wanted to believe it was because you stopped fighting this thing between us, but there’s more to it, isn’t there? A man you’re supposed to hate, a man who actively despises me, is just outside that door, and you’re acting like you’re okay with this.”