But then the thought scared her, because as she found herself being lost to a kind of joy she’d never believed was possible, it occurred to her that she and Darius could spend all of eternity together here and not even know it. Anything was possible here! She could feel her body and her spirit in perfect balance! She knew they could make love if they wanted! They could roam forests together if they wanted! They could do anything they wanted! Why go back?! The others would find their way to this afterlife paradise too, wouldn’t they?!
But then Lacy looked down at herself and gasped when she saw that her belly was glowing with the same golden light that connected her to Darius. And suddenly she remembered that she was pregnant! She moaned out loud when she realized she could see her litter of kittens forming inside her. It was like a hologram of what they would be, even though they were barely zygotes at this point.
“We can’t stay here,” she gasped out loud, knowing that Darius had been thinking the same thing as they marveled at the splendor of the larger universe which was now their playground. “Darius, if we aren’t back in the world of flesh and blood in time, we’ll lose . . . lose everything!”
But Darius was looking off into the distance, and Lacy frowned as she tried to see what he was seeing. It took her a moment, but then she saw it: It was Everett the Tiger Shifter, and he was alone, in tiger form, roaring out loud as he twisted and turned, clawing at the air, snapping his massive jaws. It looked like he was fighting some invisible demons, and she blinked when she felt Darius being drawn towards his friend.
Lacy looked down at the golden thread that connected her with her mate. It was shining even brighter than before, and she felt a calmness flow through her when she reminded herself that nothing could break this bond. They were mated, and they couldn’t be split apart. They’d come here for a purpose. They were on a mission. They were King and Queen of the jungle, and they were responsible for their roles in this great game the universe was playing.
She thought back to the other couples of what was now her crew: Adam the Dragon and Ash his mate; Bart the Bear and Bismeeta the Leopard; Caleb the Wolf and Magda the Fox. As she blinked she could see all the connections laid out before her like a map:
Adam’s father Murad: The Black Dragon driven insane because he killed his mate!
Bart and Ash’s parents, Bear Shifters who’d killed other Shifters in some misguided attempt to “cure” them!
Caleb the Wolf, who'd been plagued by the guilt of killing his own father.
Magda the Witch, who’d given herself to Dark Magic and was now facing the challenge of balancing her two sources of power!
“There’s someone missing,” Lacy muttered as she recalled that last conversation in John Benson’s office, when he’d explained to them that the only way Magda could harness enough power to stop Murad was by drawing on the combined strength of their crew—their crew of mated Shifters. Shifters who’d created that indestructible bond by finding their fated mates. Shifters who’d found strength and balance in each other and could use that magical bond to bring balance back to a lopsided world! “One missing couple,” she whispered again as she saw how Darius was once again being drawn towards the Tiger Shifter.
And then she heard it again.
Or rather, she saw it.
Lacy! Lacy! Lacy!
The words came through again, and it was more than sound, it was more than sight, it was more than anything she could understand. But then she understood.
It was love.
Multidimensional love.
The fabric of the universe.
The only thing that was real.
The only thing worth fighting for.
The only thing worth dying for.
In an instant Lacy was flooded with sensations of such overwhelming love that she screamed in ecstasy. She could see all the love surrounding her and Darius, and she understood that everything they’d done, everything they were, was defined by love.
The love between fated mates.
The love between members of a crew.
The love between sisters.
And as that ecstasy of pure love flowed through her spirit, Lacy turned to her mate and smiled and nodded.
“Go to your friend,” she whispered to Darius, looking down at the golden rope of their fated bond. “Then come find me.”
Darius whipped his head around, and Lacy saw his lion’s eyes blaze with a yearning to go with her. But then Darius nodded, looking down at their cosmic bond and turning once again to that vision of Everett the Tiger.
And then poof, they were gone.
9
“Poof!” said the female figure bathed in golden light—light so bright that Tracy had to shield her eyes. It took her a moment to recognize the voice, and when she opened her eyes again she saw what had to be an hallucination, a vision, a mirage of the mind.
“Of course it’s a mirage!” Tracy said, snorting out loud as she saw her sister’s familiar curvy shape standing before her in a dragon’s belly. “Poof to you too! Shoo! You aren’t real!”
“What do you mean, I’m not real?!” said Lacy, hands on her hips. “I travel through space and time for you, and this is the welcome I get?! You always were a spoiled brat, and this confirms it!”
“Spoiled?! Spoiled by whom? You?” Tracy shouted, smiling wide as she decided that to hell with it, she might as well have a conversation with a mirage! “Hah!”
“Spoiled by everyone!” said Lacy, hands still on her hips, body still bathed in golden light. “The baby bobcat of the family!”
“What family?” said Tracy. “We barely even knew our parents!”
“This family!” said Lacy, holding her arms out wide. “Come here, sis. Come here.”
Tracy felt her arms open too as she staggered toward her sister and gave her a hug, frowning when she realized that she had clothes on again—clothes that felt strangely familiar. She backed away from the hug and looked down at herself.
“Um, why am I wearing this T-shirt from like thirty years ago?” she said, blinking down at the old Backstreet Boys t-shirt that she could’ve sworn had been ripped to shreds decades earlier. “And how is it I can feel my body again? What’s happening, sis? Where am I? What am I?”
Lacy sighed and shook her head. “You’re dead, hon. We both are. But just kinda dead. Not forever-dead. Just until . . .” She shook her head again, waving her hands about like she wanted to start over with the explanation. “Listen, Tracy,” she said finally, a grave seriousness coming over her round face, “before you died, did you and Everett get to . . . um . . . you know . . . bond?”
“We kissed,” said Tracy. “Just one kiss. Maybe two. Nothing more.”
Lacy looked like she was about to burst into tears, but then she forced a smile. “Was Everett here with you? Have you seen him since you—”
“We died together,” said Tracy, feeling a strange glow light her from the inside—the same kind of glow that was shining from Lacy. Not as bright, though. “We’re mates, sis. We’re connected. Even that one kiss bonded us, though maybe not completely.” She cocked her head and frowned as a quizzical smile broke on her face. “Not as completely as you and the lion, looks like! What’s his name?”
“Darius,” said Lacy, placing her hands on her belly in a way that Tracy couldn’t ignore. “He’s with Everett the Tiger right now.”
“Doing what?” said Tracy. “And what are you doing here? Oh, no! Did you two get killed by the Black Dragon, just like Everett and I?”
“Wait, what? Murad killed you?”
“No, not that Black Dragon!” said Tracy. She waved her arms above her head and then turned on her feet, pointing at the dark walls of living, breathing, dragon-flesh. “This Black Dragon!”
Lacy frowned, looking around her like she was only just noticing that they were inside a sea-beast’s big fat belly. “Ohmy
god,” she whispered. “Murad’s mate? She’s . . . she’s already here? Already emerged? Tracy, we have to kill it! We have to destroy it before—”
But the Black she-Dragon let out that screeching wail that threatened to shatter both sisters’ eardrums even in this weird reality, and Lacy gasped as she looked around once more at their cage.
“Oh, yeah,” said Tracy with a half-grin. “Shoulda warned you: Don’t mention M-U-R-A-D out loud or else—”
But again the dragon let out that mournful cry, turning its body and diving deeper into the dark ocean. Both sisters were tossed around like ping-pong balls until the dragon settled back down, but by then they were both giggling.
“I guess the dragon can spell,” said Tracy, taking a strange delight in the surprise on her twin’s face. “Also, perhaps we shouldn’t talk about killing her, considering we’re inside her belly right now. Kinda at her mercy.”
Lacy looked more confused than ever, and Tracy just sighed and took a breath. Then she told her everything: What had happened on the beach; what Murad’s mate had said to them about going to the Light and finding the human woman who’d been killed; about how there was hope this beast could reunite with its human, perhaps reunite with Murad, which might somehow . . .
“ . . . somehow bring both Black Dragons back into balance,” Lacy said softly, her voice shaking with excitement. “That just might work, Tracy!”
“But how do we find a human woman who’s been killed decades ago?” said Tracy. “This beast said something about how mated Shifters can travel between Light and Darkness, that the human is somewhere in the Light. What is that? Heaven?”
Lacy shook her head. “There’s no heaven. You know that.”
Tracy exhaled slowly, thinking back to what she and Everett had seen and felt before getting pulled down to the Darkness. “I . . . I don’t know that, Lacy. I think there is a heaven. I think I saw it. I think I was in it. With Everett! I saw beautiful rocky mountains, and he saw wide open grasslands. It was like our personal heavens, but we were in it together! I don’t know how to explain it, but it felt so . . . so real!”
Lacy shook her head, pity showing on her face—pity that annoyed Tracy. “Then why are you here, inside a dragon’s belly? Why isn’t Everett here with you? If you and Everett found heaven, then we’d be having this conversation in the mountains, maybe with a bottle of heavenly tequila sitting on a flat rock near our big butts.”
Tracy closed her eyes, feeling that sensation of shame rolling back through her. It puzzled her, like the feeling was coming from somewhere deep inside. Again that memory of the schoolyard incident came back to her, but the shame went beyond that, was deeper than that, older than that.
“The schoolyard incident?” Lacy said, her eyes going wide as she snorted. “You remember that? Oh God, that was so funny!”
“How do you know I was thinking of that?” Tracy said. “Can you like, see my thoughts? And why wouldn’t I remember that? We’re the same age, sis. We’re twins!”
Again that look of pity flashed on Lacy’s face, and now Tracy thought she could see directly into her sister’s mind, her memories, her past. A past that was different from her own. How could it be different?! They were twins! Born on the same day! Right? Right?!
“Right?!” Tracy whispered, finishing her thoughts in words, even though it seemed like there was no difference between thoughts and words, past and present, reality and illusion. “What aren’t you telling me, sis?”
“Something I didn’t even know I knew,” whispered Lacy, shaking her head and looking away. She looked back at Tracy, reaching out and touching her hair. “Tracy, do you remember your parents?”
“What do you mean my parents? We have the same parents, Lacy!”
Lacy shook her head, squinting as if she was looking at something, looking at the past itself. “No,” she whispered. “Our parents—the couple you remember from our early years—weren’t Shifters.” She paused and took a breath. “And neither was I. Not until you Turned me.”
Tracy staggered back, bumping up against the pulsating walls of the dragon’s belly. She could tell that the dragon was listening to everything, soaking it all in as it glided deep beneath the ocean—or perhaps through the clouds—it was all the same in this messed up reality.
“A few days after I was born, my father found you in the mountains, naked and screaming,” said Lacy, her eyelids fluttering as if she was seeing all of this in her mind’s eye. “He couldn’t leave you there to die, so he brought you home.”
“And decided to just keep me? No calling the police? No checking for reports of a missing child?”
Lacy sighed, squinting as if she was seeing all of this on some cosmic screen. “No,” she whispered. “He said it was a sign from God. A test of some kind. Like Baby Moses being abandoned and set adrift. He thought he was meant to find the child and raise it as his own! Raise you as his own!”
Suddenly Tracy could see it, see it all, see them all! She gasped as the vision enveloped them, vivid images of what had happened back then:
“This is a child of sin, not God!” came her mother’s voice, high-pitched with accusation. “You fathered a child out of wedlock, and you bring her into my house with some story of finding her in the woods?! Shame on you! Shame!”
“How can you accuse me of being anything but true to you, true to God?!” snarled her father as the two girl babies gurgled and giggled, staring up as if they were amused by what was unfolding. “How can you doubt the task presented to us by God? Shame on you! Shame!”
Tracy watched the vision as the argument escalated, the accusations flying back and forth like daggers, doubt and fear ripping through the married couple like it was coming from somewhere outside them. Tracy could see herself and her sister, the two babies surprisingly calm, both of them still gurgling. They looked like two peas in a pod, like they were meant to be together, like there was a strand of fate connecting them.
“Lacy, look,” said Tracy softly as she watched the two babies reach out and hold hands even though it seemed impossible for newborns to have that kind of control. “Ohmygod, look!”
Lacy nodded beside her, and as the two sisters watched in awed silence, Baby Tracy Changed.
She Changed into a bobcat kitten, soft golden fur, sharp white teeth, eyes focused and blazing.
She Changed, and she bit her sister.
“I . . . I Turned you,” Tracy whispered in shock as she watched her father and mother leap back in fear, crossing themselves and muttering prayers as if the devil himself had just showed up.
Time flashed forward in their shared vision, and Tracy felt raw emotions of such depth pass through her that she felt like she was nothing but emotion! She watched as her parents dragged her away from her sister, her father tossing the mewling kitten across the room and then jumping back in fear as the mother furiously dabbed at Lacy’s wound.
But Lacy wasn’t crying, and Tracy swore she could see the Turning happening, Shifter blood entering Lacy’s veins, moving up to her heart, getting pumped back throughout her body. Tracy wasn’t sure if it had really happened that fast or if time was just being sped up in their vision. Perhaps the vision was years compressed down to minutes. She couldn’t tell, but it didn’t really matter. It was a true vision. The feelings were so deep that it couldn’t not be true. If this was just an illusion, then everything in the universe was an illusion too.
Tracy’s head spun as the vision sped up, its intensity rising as her parents screamed, Baby Tracy snarled, and little Lacy giggled as her wound slowly closed up like it was a medical miracle.
“What the hell?” Lacy muttered, and Tracy nodded in dumbstruck agreement as they watched their father go down on his knees and begin to sob like he’d lost his mind.
“It’s my fault!” he howled, holding his arms out, palms upturned like he was begging for forgiveness. “I did it! I betrayed my
wife! Betrayed my God! Betrayed myself! This abomination of a child is mine! This inhuman creature, this demon, this monster . . . I created her with my sin!”
The two sisters stared at the vision of their blubbering father confessing his sins. They watched with wide eyes as he talked of meeting an alluring woman in the mountains, naked and wild, with eyes like a cat, hair like golden fur, long, beautiful nails like claws. She’d been in heat, and he’d given in to temptation, pouring his seed into her out in the wild even as guilt and shame filled his own body.
He went on and on, revealing that she’d showed up months later with the child, her once-beautiful body shriveled and racked, like she was dying of something unnamable.
“You are not my fated mate,” she’d whispered to him. “And I now have to pay the price for taking your seed. Do what you will with the child.”
“Oh, my God,” Tracy whispered as she gazed upon the image of her real mother, a cat Shifter who was clearly dying. “What’s happening? Did I do that? Did I kill my own mother by just . . . just being born?!”
“We both did,” came Lacy’s voice, and Tracy blinked as she realized that she and her sister were holding hands as they watched their past reveal itself in the dragon’s belly. “Look. Over there. To our left.”
Tracy frowned as she turned to the simultaneous vision of her father on his knees. Her attention moved on to Lacy’s real mother—the human woman. Tracy felt a chill go through her when she saw that the woman had stopped her accusations and hysterics and was . . . was smiling!
But it wasn’t a smile of pleasure or satisfaction. It was a smile that oozed relief, resignation, a dismal acceptance of fate, submission to the consequences of their choices.
“Stand up, my husband,” she whispered, her lips trembling through that thin smile. “Stand beside me, for we are both sinners.”
Their father shook his head, unable to meet his wife’s gaze. “You have committed no sin other than the sin of trusting your husband.” He shook his head again, his shoulders slumping in despair. “Your husband who lay with an animal! Seduced by the devil in disguise! I can never stand beside you again!”
Taken for the Tiger Page 5