Lions' Pride

by Teresa Noelle Roberts

The sun reflected brightly off the new snow, but the world turned dark…

  Demons and devas, that bastard was trying to do it again. That he got so close when she was prepared and shielded not only proved he was powerful, but that she was…

  Distracted and fucking terrified, she told herself firmly, before she started another downward spiral.

  A cold wind blew through the broken window. It cut through the crap in her brain, both Shaw’s spell-tendrils and her own insecurities, cut straight through to the problem.

  Rafe was out there, putting himself between them and the bad guys like the cop he was. Only these bad guys were far beyond the average criminal.

  “The idiot left his gun behind,” she muttered, snatching it up from the broken table where Rafe had left it, holding it like it might bite her. She handed it to Jude. “You know how to use this thing? Or do we hold onto it until we can give it back to him?”

  “Fighting. All right!” He cracked his knuckles. His pecs moved distractingly as he stretched. His eyes gleamed, a lion on the hunt. Her lion. And she’d be the lioness at his side.

  “Fighting, then running.” She started haphazardly shoving clothes and food into the big backpack, including a dirty pan complete with dried-on dollops of oatmeal. “We can’t stop the Agency, just this bunch of them. And we’ll need our stuff while we’re running. But we can’t leave Rafe out there alone.”

  Jude nodded and got to work.

  They were packed in under a minute.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Rafe’s tracks led down what had been a secondary driveway but was now just more of the snowfield surrounding the house, distinguishable only by the tall pine trees bordering it, a once-neat hedge that was now an overgrown mess.

  The overgrown mess made good cover, though, with snow-laden branches curving down to the ground in some places. Fortunately the air held no human scent other than Elissa’s.

  Rafe had been bounding, Jude could tell, big, quick leaps through the deep snow.

  Almost looked like he’d been having fun despite everything. Which he might have been. Once in cat form, worry and anger and everything else tended to dissipate in favor of the moment.

  Lucky bastard. Cougars were built to move through snow. Lions, not so much.

  And humans? Forget about it. Call it a slog. Elissa, at least, had it a bit easier than she might have—he was breaking trail for her.

  They’d slogged a short distance when Rafe slipped between the trees. Elissa squeaked and jumped, which would have made Jude laugh if he hadn’t been startled himself. Damn, a cat that big shouldn’t just…materialize the way Rafe just had.

  Rafe shifted, seemingly unbothered he was naked and barefoot in the snow. “I’ve scouted them out. The side road’s blocked. There are scouts all around—I took out two. But the main force is at the end of the driveway, getting ready. The cold-eyed bastard’s with them. I could feel his cloud of doom and gloom.”

  Elissa nodded. “He was messing with my mind when I got so crazy before, and if he can do that to a witch, you guys need to be extra careful.”

  Jude snorted. “You’re the one who needs to watch out. As long as we’re animalside, I’d think we’d be pretty safe.”

  “He’s got a line into you, Jude.” Elissa’s voice was tight. “I think I blocked it, but you should still be cautious.”

  He nodded. “But Rafe should be all right. Shaw’s human. He thinks like a human. How’s he going to know what scares a cougar or a lion?”

  “Being alone.” Rafe’s voice was softer than usual. “Alone without a mate, without your family… Deserted.” He took a deep breath then expelled it in a whoosh, forming a white cloud in the cold air. “That was what I was picking up, what he was trying to make us feel.”

  Jude shuddered visibly, pulled Elissa close.

  “Good thing he doesn’t know much about cougars. We’re comfortable alone.” Rafe’s voice was studiedly nonchalant.

  Something twinged inside Jude. He wouldn’t blame Rafe for backing away, not after having fireballs flung at him, but Jude wasn’t about to let him. Not unless it was truly his choice. Cougars might be comfortable on their own, but why settle for comfortable when you could be loved and happy?

  The lion chimed in with his own images: hunting together, lounging on rocks in the sun, watching clumsy, huge-pawed cubs tumbling over one another.

  Silentspeaking those images, although he wasn’t sure how well Rafe would pick them up, Jude reached out his hand to Rafe and Rafe allowed himself to be reeled in. Rafe, naked but still radiating heat, settled against him, snuggling against his side like he’d always belonged there. “Comfortable alone?” Jude said out loud. “You feel pretty comfortable right here.”

  “Doesn’t mean we prefer being alone, just that we can handle the idea better than some. Doesn’t make the idea of losing your friends any easier.” He buried his face against Jude’s chest, a brief gesture that told Jude just how well he had—or more to the point, hadn’t—handled Shaw’s emotional assault.

  Around Jude’s stomach, Rafe reached out to Elissa, who clasped his hand and said, “I’m sorry. I…”

  “Blame Shaw until proven otherwise. We already know he’s fucking with us,” Jude cut in.

  He couldn’t actually hear the forces massing against them, but the fur hidden inside his wordside form was standing on end. “No time for this. Rafe, you want clothes and your gun?”

  Rafe shook his head. “The cougar feels right. But keep the gun handy, Elissa.” She touched it like it might bite. Smiling, he instructed her how to stow it so it would be both safe and easy to reach.

  He pulled away from Jude, getting ready to change again.

  There might be no time for words, but there was always time for the important things.

  Jude pulled him back.

  Kissed him, trying to convey trust and apology and forgiveness and all the tangled feelings he hadn’t had a chance to sort out—that he could only pray he still would have a chance to sort out.

  Rafe wrapped both arms around him and melted into the kiss.

  Lord and Lady love Trickster, the man knew how to kiss. Knew how to fuck, too, but this kiss was really getting under his skin, opening up something inside him. Rafe’s tongue was whisky and velvet, and his lips were shockingly hot—his whole body, for that matter, as if he wasn’t naked in the snow.

  Delicious.

  Jude’s body sent urgent messages that wanted to override his brain’s insistence they keep this quick. The snowy world brightened, even though dusk was fast approaching, and he could see shades and colors in what had looked all white and brown and gray.

  Oh, yeah, time to pull away. This was the kind of stuff that happened when he was with Elissa and her red magic was kicking in—unbelievably good, but not something he had time for.

  He let Rafe go, reluctantly—and basically shoved Elissa into Rafe’s empty arms.

  Elissa sputtered. Froze. Started to say something. Then she pressed herself against Rafe’s naked body, on tiptoe in the snow, and kissed him like it was the end of the world.

  Jude tried not to think too much about that simile.

  She turned to Jude once she let Rafe go. Her eyes were smoked over as she said, “Your turn, my heart.”

  She felt so small in his arms, but at the same time so strong. She still sported the ridiculous hat, but paradoxically it added to her beauty. Her body quivered, not, he thought, from cold or fear, although either would make sense. Something tugged inside him, as if that silver cord she talked about was swelling, twitching, making it clear they were bound together. “Now and forever,” he whispered, his lips against hers.

  He heard her in his head. “This life and always, my heart. No matter what.”

  His cock twitched, and she tilted her pelvis against it.

  Fire lit. Colors surged. His senses sharpened so he heard the snow creaking, heard a stream flowing nearby, hidden under ice but moving. Birds twittered. He hadn’t noticed birds until
now.

  Common sense fled, pushed aside by images of taking her now, taking her in the snow, with Rafe there, too, loving them both. He groaned, ground against her, gripping her so hard he half-feared, half-hoped he’d bruise her even through the many layers she wore.

  He smelled heat, smelled her herbal smell and under it her arousal. Wet. She was wet, ready for him. Ready for him and Rafe.

  And, he realized as she reluctantly pulled away, ready for them as well. Power scented the air around her.

  “Let’s do this,” Jude said. “I’d rather choose my ground, but…”

  “Something you should know,” Rafe said, directing it more to Elissa than to Jude. “There’s a graveyard at the edge of the property. It’s pretty overgrown—big shrubs and what look like big old-fashioned rose bushes and wild grape vines all tangled in the trees.”

  Jude held his breath. The plants, human-oriented plants gone wild, some of them with their own defenses she could turn to her need, would be invaluable, but the graveyard… She’d always rejected that side of her power.

  “I think,” she said, her face set and hard, her eyes narrowed with determination, “we’ve found our ground. Can you work with it?”

  Jude’s heart swelled with pride in his brave lioness. He took her hand between his. “I’ll stand wherever you need me to, my heart.”

  Rafe laid one hand over their clasped ones. “Me, too.”

  For an instant, they were all silent. Jude couldn’t read minds, but he knew what he dreaded, and he was willing to bet the thoughts of the others followed a similarly dark path.

  Rafe pulled away. “Let’s go, then,” he said, his voice almost cheerful. He shook himself. He shimmered strangely. A cougar stood where the man had been.

  Jude took the seconds of Rafe’s transformation to steal another kiss from Elissa before letting his own lionside out.

  Two big cats and one human headed for the old graveyard.

  Chapter Forty

  Weathered headstones poked through the snow at drunken angles. Elissa didn’t take the time to look at them closely, and in any case the light was fading. Before she’d fallen into this madness—was it only a few days, give or take a century, since Rafe had been sucked into her kitchen?—Elissa had gleefully noted the lengthening days, counting down to the balance point of the vernal equinox when her power would strengthen with the turn of the season.

  Now all she saw was the gathering dusk, and all she felt was the wintry chill in the air.

  A warm image entered her mind: three big cats snuggled together, and she was the one in the middle, the female sandwiched between two big males.

  She looked from man to man—or rather from lion to cougar—but neither of them displayed the telltale feline-being-nonchalant signs that would help her peg the party responsible. Most likely it was Jude, because it took skill and a close bond to use silentspeech or something akin to it with her human mind. But Rafe was a special case. He didn’t have a handle on some ordinary dual abilities, but at the same time he had tricks most of his kind did not.

  “I got the point,” she said out loud, figuring they’d probably been “chatting” outside her range of perception all along. “We’re in this together. We’re a team. Think positive thoughts. Think family.”

  Family.

  Where family was, heart was. From heart, Grandma Josie always said, you got hearth and home. It wasn’t orthodox Donovan teaching, but Grandma had been an avid traveler and had figured out tricks to keep herself safe on the road.

  You couldn’t exactly ward the great outdoors, but the graveyard had boundaries delineating it—a fence and even a gate, although it hung by only one rusty hinge.

  Elissa pulled on the cords, the silver and the copper, calling upon the power implicit in their connection.

  Hearth. Home. Heart. Lord, Lady, let all that is mine be encompassed, enclosed, under your protection. Safe. She added a prayer to Trickster for good measure.

  She set bubbles of protection around each of them, bubbles that would move with them as they moved. Imperfect shielding, only marginally useful against bullets, but better than nothing. She charged the fence, turning it into a barrier against ill will.

  It wasn’t much. It wouldn’t slow a powerful magic-user like Shaw, and wouldn’t do much to a real fanatic who had no doubt about the mission. But anyone reasonable would be blocked, at least for a little while, forced to stand outside and think of their own family.

  Family. This must be a family burial plot. On this isolated farm, what else could it be? There had to be a way it could help her.

  She glanced at one of the gravestones. Most of it was hidden under snow, but the bit she could see bore, instead of an angel or a weeping willow or any of the more typical antique-gravestone imagery, a distorted androgynous face, smiling and crying at the same time—Trickster, seeing his/her children home.

  It wasn’t just any family buried here. It was a dual family.

  That might make her work harder. Duals, with their more direct connection to the Powers, didn’t linger as ghosts, unless they’d died hard, like Patti had, or left young children behind. But if generations of a dual family had lived and died here on this land, something would linger. Call it a collective unconscious. She didn’t know if she could tap it, but she could damn well try.

  This land, the trees and shrubs and vines, had been nourished by the flesh of duals, perhaps planted and nurtured by duals. There had to be something here she could use.

  Elissa closed her eyes, reached deep inside herself, tapped into that seed of hot desire sprouted by kissing Jude and Rafe.

  Warmth surged through her, a fluttering of red magic. It needed more force behind it, but it was something.

  She tapped into the land, and reached. Reached for the plants, reached for the dead resting in the frozen earth—for their not-quite-human bones, their animal-tinged memories.

  The world blurred around her.

  Heat rose inside her, but at the same time the cold of the grave circled her. It wasn’t menacing, more like pups investigating, sniffing at her and the two felines, but it smelled like old bones and half-frozen soil and ancient rot.

  Rafe wailed.

  The sound was enough to make her want to fall to her knees and cover her bleeding ears.

  She’d heard tales of cougars screaming, how it could be mistaken for a woman being tortured. It didn’t sound like a woman, didn’t sound like anything human, but it certainly sounded like something being tortured in body and soul.

  Half her instincts shrieked to go comfort him. The noise was almost unbearable, the fear he was falling apart worse. But she didn’t dare. The magic required all her concentration now. Not to mention that if Rafe lashed out in his panic and anger, acting from instinct like a real cougar, no amount of magic would save her.

  Still Rafe screamed, grating her nerves, jarring her concentration, underscoring her own barely calmed fears about dealing with the dead.

  To her relief, Jude moved closer to Rafe, his immense black-maned body pressing close to the cougar.

  She held her breath for a second. Were they actual big cats, she couldn’t imagine contact doing anything other than provoking violence from the enraged cougar.

  But Rafe fell silent. His fur still stood on end, his tail still twitched violently, but he seemed visibly calmer.

  If she stretched, she could have heard their silentspeech, or at least enough of it to get the gist of how Jude soothed him. But she resisted the urge.

  The dead—wolves, she thought—crowded around her and they needed her attention.

  Something brushed against her. It wasn’t cold anymore, but a breath of faint warmth in the cold air, as if they were starting to remember life, remember they were supposed to be warm. Images half-formed, blurry shapes neither humanoid nor lupine, but wavering between both.

  She sensed sullen curiosity, as if the dead duals resented being called forth yet wanted to know why she was here, here with two who were almost but no
t quite their kind.

  They sniffed at her. It was enough to set off waves of near panic. Enough that her heart beat seemingly hard enough to bruise her ribs and her gut wrenched and she wanted to scream like Rafe had. Wanted to run. Wanted at least to send them back to earth and try to find another way.

  Snowmobiles roared in the distance. They were closing in. No time to come up with another way. Better do it, then, and figure out how she’d done it later. Always worked for Grandma Josie.

  Except for when it didn’t. She wasn’t going to think about those times now.

  She opened her mind, tried to lock wills with the swirling forms. She found nothing coherent to lock on. They were memories and impulses with no real mind or personality remaining.

  How the hell did you work with that? Aunt Bath might know, but Aunt Bath was on the other side of the country.

  The snowmobiles sounded closer. She couldn’t see them, but maybe that was part of their damn technomagic.

  Maybe Aunt Bath could explain by cell phone? If she hadn’t left her phone charging on the kitchen table in her hurry to get to Jude, she was desperate enough to try it.

  To Elissa’s astonishment, Rafe shook himself and stepped into the swirling mass of spirit energy. His fur stood on end, his tail slashed the air, but he forced himself forward until he stood next to her, his flank pressed against her side. The fine, energetic tremble of his big body shook her.

  She tasted clean, pine-scented power.

  Tasted it and grabbed a tendril of it—it was so healthy and green-smelling she had to be able to use it, even if she had no idea where it came from—and shoved it into the dormant shrubs and vines in the graveyard.

  —

  Rafe had always thought ghosts were cold as the grave, but these weren’t. Cooler than life, but warmer than air. That was the first surprise.

  No, make that the second. The first was that as soon as he yielded to the compulsion to try to communicate with the spirits, blind terror lost its hold on him. He felt yoga-calm, like he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing and he knew every step of his path, which was damn weird considering he was pulling all this out of his furry ass.