CAT SHIFTERS OF AAIDAR: ENDINGS

by Laney Kaye

  My gaze dropped to our leader, Herc. With Khal and Leo ranged on either side of him, across the table from me, the absence of our fifth squad member, Spike, was all the more obvious. I still hadn’t come to terms with the way he’d betrayed us, though Khal insisted there’d been reason for it, and that Spike had made good by sacrificing himself so he and Lyrie could escape the Regime.

  I sighed again, and Herc chuckled. “What is it, Jag? Seems the thought of surgery to alter your physical form should be enough to make you think twice about this scheme of Aren’s, but you’ve something else on your mind?”

  I groaned. Nothing for it but to share. “She’s a virgin.”

  Leo whistled, long and low. “Nice work if you can get it. So I hear, anyway. Prefer a woman with a bit of experience myself.”

  “Near a decade of experience, isn’t that?” Khal snorted. Janie was eight years older than Leo, a cougar of the non-shifting variety to his Lionkin. I’d never seen the guy so happy.

  “Yeah, well I prefer a woman who isn’t going to get clingy.” I reached for my cup of cava, found it empty, and slammed the mug on the rough-hewn slab of rock that served as a table in the smaller conference room. Weeks ago, the guys and I would’ve shared quarters and had our meeting there, around an open bar, most likely. But they were all busy being holed up with their bondmates, now. And I wanted no part of that action. I hiked a thumb at my chest. “Jaguarkin, remember? Deal is fucking and freedom, not screwing and stability.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing, man,” Leo said, a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

  Hells, that attitude could get old quick. “Really? You guys that pussy-whipped you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be free?”

  Not one of them had the grace to look jealous. I shook my head. “Look, I get it. Good luck to you all with your bonding and playing happy families and shit, but that’s not the life for me, okay?”

  Herc leaned back, stretching his shoulders to crack them. “And that’s what Aren’s after? Happily ever after?”

  Leo drummed his fingers on the stone surface. “She sure didn’t come across as that type when we found her. Or…later.” I knew by the tight set of his jaw that he was referring to when Aren had gone into the desert and talked him down from his determination to head out on a suicidal mission, when he’d believed Janie was better off without him. “Actually, I doubt she’d even tolerate a guy, never mind cling to him.”

  “You know what I don’t get?” Herc said.

  “A virgin,” Khal snorted, his dark eyes glinting with amusement. Clearly, he wasn’t letting my revelation go anytime soon.

  “Yeah, that.” Herc agreed. “But also, as Maya pointed out, that although it hadn’t clicked because Aren looks so different now, we both saw her picture in Smithton’s office.”

  “That’s it!” Realization smacked me up the side of the head; that was why Aren had always seemed kind of familiar. She’d been in the portrait Herc held up to the vidcom when he was searching Smithton’s office. She’d looked astonishingly different; well dressed and definitely better fed, but the striking bone structure and spectacular teal eyes were the same. I shrugged. “What’s weird about him having his daughter’s picture?”

  “Well, according to Aren, there’s no love lost there.” Herc said. “Yet Smithton had that picture and a huge portrait of her taking up half his wall. Seems an odd way to memorialize the daughter who loathes you. Not only that, but when we, uh, chatted” —his chat had involved blood, despite my cautions—“Smithton was swearing vengeance on the Resistance for killing her. Seemed he was more motivated by seeking revenge for that, than a desire to attack the rebels to acquire subjects for Hartlin’s DNA projects.”

  “Apparently, Smithton planned to tie her to Tennant. As in, marry her off. I’m guessing he figures the Resistance cost him the advantage that union would’ve bestowed, so he’s got a vendetta against them.”

  “Good thing she ran, with both Smithton and Tennant lining up to be her family.” Khal leaned his chair back on two legs, resting his head on the rock ledge behind him.

  “Except now she’s going to end up with Jag, instead,” Leo teased. “Not at all sure she made the right call, bro.”

  I couldn’t blame the guys. Hells, I’d sure stuck it to them when they were bonding. But this was different. No bonding involved, but…a virgin. Man. I shook my head again. Not that I had anything against virgins, hell, I’d been one myself, way back when. But I didn’t want the…responsibility.

  Though I’d been teasing Aren in her room, before she dropped her bombshell, I knew I could show her a good time. She’d have no cause to regret her choice, so I had no reservations there. And it wasn’t like my cock hadn’t hardened at her invitation, my mind moving instantly to the creamy thigh revealed by the slit in her tunic—and beyond, following the delicate tracery of the enticing veins in her legs, up toward…Yeah. Wherever. But she could have felled me with a dria feather when she’d thrown in the virgin thing. That whole taking a girl’s first time, when I had no intention of being around for a second time, didn’t sit too well with me. Like all Jaguarkin, I was into love-em-and-leave em. But I wasn’t into use or abuse.

  Except, the way Aren had propositioned me, I wasn’t entirely sure who was using whom.

  Leo clapped me on the shoulder, the lightheartedness dropping from his voice. “Sorry, dude. I know this is serious stuff. What I don’t—” He broke off, a smile lighting his broad, tawny face as two women entered, the taller one’s purple-eyed gaze skimming the gathering before landing on him. “Janie! Shift finished?”

  She crossed the cave and flopped into his lap, winding her arms around his neck. “At last. I’m off for two days. Got any plans, lover?”

  He brushed a hand through her silver hair, capturing the back of her head and guiding her lips to his.

  “Get a room, you two.” The other woman laughed, moving to stand alongside Khal as he dropped his chair to the floor. One thin, scarred hand rested on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her waist and stroked a hand over the tiny protuberance of her belly. They’d not announced yet, but it was pretty clear that Khal and Lyrie were building their pride. That didn’t weird me out any less than the fact that Lyrie and Janie had struck up an immediate friendship…despite the fact that Lyrie had ripped Janie’s father’s head off. She’d been in her griffin form, but still…Chicks.

  “It’s okay, don’t mind us,” I grumbled. “Just, you know, life-changing—literally—decisions being made here.”

  An attractive flush shaded Janie’s high, angular cheekbones. “Sorry, Jag. Guys. What’s going down in the secret bro business?”

  Back to being serious, Herc blew out a long breath. “Actually, we need your input on this, Doc.”

  Janie straightened, the use of her professional title removing all levity from the situation. Though it didn’t remove her from Leo’s lap. “Spill.”

  “You were filled in on the Council meeting, where Aren proposed she go back into the compound to get the tech Leo needs to contact Aaidarian High Command? And the need for Jag to accompany her?”

  Janie nodded, though her hand tightened on Leo’s. They’d not long ago escaped the compound themselves. “Lyrie filled me in, but I don’t see how it’s possible. You know what the cost was for her and Khal to get out.” Spike’s life.

  “That’s where you come in,” Herc said. “Apparently, Aren needs Jag surgically modified to look like her dead Dragarian husband, Tracin. They’ll pretend to have been held in isolation by the Resistance for the last two years, with Tracin having conveniently lost his memory so he has no recollection that Smithton tried to annihilate the Dragarians. Aren figures Smithton will welcome them with open arms, as Tracin could be the last Dragarian who can lead him to the dragonstone. So they should be safe, short term, while they locate the tech and get it out of the compound.”

  Janie waved aside the details of the plan, honing in on her specialty. “Surgical modifications? What
are we talking? And how? Healing could put the plan back weeks. Do we have that much time before the Regime mounts an attack?” She thrust up from Leo’s lap. “Or are you figuring the Felidaekin genes will make for quicker recovery from the surgery?”

  “Hanging our hopes on the Felidaekin genes, because we’ve got no time for a plan B.” Hells, I hoped my genes would kick in. Though we were far from immortal, in cat form we healed fast. Probably part of that whole nine-lives deal. Best I didn’t count how many I’d already run through, in that case. “But also, this woman that Aren’s got working with her,” I snorted, resenting the ridiculousness of the next words before I even spoke them. “She seems to be some sort of witch. Apparently, she can perform the surgery and a ceremony to make the bond knife recognize me as Aren’s partner. Or some such shit.” My brain hadn’t had a chance to move much beyond the idea of surgery, and besides, science made sense to me. Not fantasy.

  “Witch?” Janie snorted. “What kind of surgery are we talking?”

  “Beyond my ears, I don’t really know.”

  Her lips tightened as she frowned, then she moved to stand beside me. “Have you ever seen a full-blood Dragarian?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Or maybe make that yes, as I guess this witch is, given that she’s Aren’s husband’s mother.”

  “I only know what the medical textbooks detail, but women and warriors are different.” Janie crossed her arms over her chest, a scowl marring her pretty face. The negative vibe she was putting out was enough to suck the power from a laserblade fence. “The men have pointed ears, almost to the top of their heads. Years of genetic adaptation, so they can locate the scant prey to be found on the ice floes.” Her hands moved over my ears, and I flinched, like she was already hacking. “That’s cosmetic, I can take care of otoplasty easily enough. But Dragarians have two other striking features.” She pointed at the deep tan of my arm, where it rested on the stone table. “Beside the white blond hair, their skin is pale. So pale it shines blue, like the thickest ocean ice.”

  “Guess I’m gonna have to stay out of the sun?” No one laughed at my joke. Tough crowd.

  “And the other feature,” Janie’s eyes moved to Herc, knowing that, though we discussed everything as a team, ultimately, he was my boss and would have the final say on whether we proceeded. “Dragarians got their name from their heritage. They’re descended from dragons.” She ran a hand down my spine. “They have a very prominent ridge, here. Razor sharp, harder than sirdar, both a weapon and a defense. You’ve seen the lorgar hilt on Aren’s blade? It’s made from the spines of Dragarian ancestors. Lorgar literally translates as ‘Carrier of the Past’. The blade is dragonstone, petrified dragon bone. Pluvar dragaris. It means ‘Ender of the Future’.” She shook her head. “Jag, this ridge. It’s not something I can engineer. It’s not something science or medicine can create.”

  “Well, at least it’s spines, not wings,” Lyrie spoke into the sudden silence, the twist of her mouth revealing her sympathy. “They can be kind of tough to adapt to. Totally ruins the line of a nice gown.”

  I’d not seen her in her griffin form, but Khal had described it. Repeatedly.

  I faked taking a deep draught from my empty cava cup, simply to have something to focus on, steady my nerves. “The way I see it, we’re outmanned in terms of the superiority of the forces camped at our gates. We could survive down here for an unknown length of time, as long as the Regime don’t find a way to tamper with our water supply, but we’d start eating each other, right?” I waved aside Leo’s pedantic correction. “Not literally. I mean we’d go nuts. Too many people, trapped underground like lorkus. So, like we agreed, offense is the best defense.” I flicked up my fingers, enumerating the facts. “We need reinforcements, and the only possible reinforcements are from Aaidar. To summon the reinforcements, we need the tech. To get the tech, we need to get into the compound. To get into the compound I need to look like Aren’s dead husband. To look like Aren’s husband, I need surgery. But the problem with all this is that medicine can’t effect the change, except to pretty up my ears. So,” I blew out a heavy breath. “I guess that means we’re out of options.”

  I caught Leo’s huff of relief at my words, and Khal’s tense shoulders relaxed. Herc kept his eyes on me, though. He knew me better.

  I met his gaze and forced a grin. “It seems I have to put myself in the witch’s hands.”

  #

  Scrubbed and gloved, Janie held a syringe to the light, tapped it, then bent to give me an anesthetic shot before she started work sculpting my ears. Herc stood with his back to the cave wall, one booted foot hooked on the rock, his arms crossed on his chest. I could feel the tension emanating from him.

  “No. Must not.” Terra hissed, slapping at Janie’s hand. With her own ungloved and far from sterile-looking one. “This must be his free will to work. Blade will know if he corrupted.”

  “Preventing pain is hardly corruption,” Janie’s purple eyes flashed in anger. “What sort of antiquated notion is that?”

  “All Dragarian practice antiquated. Old. Because we have history.” Terra poked herself in the chest with a gnarled finger, then tapped her forehead. “And we have knowledge. This as must be done. Only one way. Only way.” She squinted at me. “And still may not work.”

  “Fabulous,” I growled. Truth was, if Aren hadn’t been standing beside me, her gaze fixed on my face, I might’ve called the deal off. But she wore what must pass for a Dragarian ceremonial gown. Hells, for all I knew, it was her take on a wedding dress. The only part that mattered to me—or at least, the only thing I’d let myself focus on, having caught a glimpse of Janie’s steel tray full of surgical instruments and the witch’s burlap sack of Gods-only-knew-what—was the fact that the dress was split down the front, clear to below Aren’s navel. Each time she shifted, I caught a vague scent of something musky and enticing. And, more importantly, the fabric moved, revealing the rounding of her breast and, if my prayers were ever gonna be answered, a nipple.

  Not that even a flash of nipple was enough to give me a hard-on, right now—not with that damned pair-blade lying on the table next to my head.

  Aren’s voice though, that was another matter. She bent over me, her breath fresh on my cheek, cooling my sweat of sheer terror. “I’m really sorry, Jag. But it’s the only way.”

  “It’ll work, right? And I’ll be able to change back no problem, once we’re out of the compound.”

  Hells, I did not like the way she bit at her lip, her gaze sliding to Terra.

  The older woman shrugged. “Work? We see. Can only try.”

  “Wait.” Janie practically shouted. “You mean you haven’t done this before?”

  “Not me.” Terra dug her hand in her bag of half-rotted witchcraft. “But I hears about it long ago.” She blew a handful of dust in my face. “And we see.”

  Herc strode forward and thrust a protective hand across my chest as Terra held aloft the Dragarian pair-blade. “Wait. Nope, this is not happening. I’ve already lost one man.”

  I crushed his wrist in my grip. “Cap, we have no choice. You know I’d generally be the first to urge caution, but we’ve less options than a teromotan in a turgurken nest.”

  His forearm flexed under my grasp, as though his muscle could find us a way out of this mess. “Jag, you could die.”

  “Yup. Figured that. But I also know that if I don’t try this, we’re all dead, right? So, mathematically, I’m not actually risking a damn thing.” I released his wrist. “And, y’know, there is that whole sacrificial virgin promise as pay-off.” I expected Aren to give me a mouthful for that one, but instead she shot me a tiny smile, almost apologetic.

  That was worse. In that instant, she looked vulnerable and afraid.

  But at least that made me man up. I nodded at Janie. “Get to work, Doc.”

  Every Felidaekin knew that shifting hurt.

  Not like surgery without anesthetic hurt, though.

  A piece of cucua wood clenched be
tween my teeth so I wouldn’t bite off my own tongue, I gripped the edges of the sirdar surgical bench as Janie scraped a scalpel across my ears, removing skin and exposing cartilage so she could create the distinctive, high, pointed feature of the Dragarian warriors by grafting flesh onto my ears.

  Flesh she’d carve from my thighs.

  Cold sweat trickled down my spine. Damn. My spine. Gods knew how the witch intended to modify me to create a giant ridge of dragon spines.

  At least the dust she’d blown into my face proved to be tamus root. Not enough to stop the pain, but enough to distance me from the proceedings, to lend an odd sense of unreality to the scene. I could almost imagine that the sticky flow of blood over my legs was water, that the dragging, gouging pain across my thigh was…hells, no, I couldn’t imagine that was anything other than what it was; Janie slicing a lump of my flesh free.

  I groaned against the wooden gag, and Aren leaned over me, her brow furrowed. I didn’t even give a damn that her gown fell open, I was too absorbed in gripping the sides of the bed, trying not to scream my agony.

  “Swab.” Janie sounded like she spoke through gritted teeth. “Quickly. Stem that blood flow.”

  My legs jerked uncontrollably.

  Herc pressed his weight on my calves to hold them in place. “Hold on, man. Nearly done.”

  “Nothing like done.” Janie’s words came on a sob.

  Aren’s breath ragged, she lay across my torso, as though the warmth from her naked chest would somehow stop my trembling. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  Then everything was gone.

  #

  The witch hovered over me. I tensed. But the pain in my legs and ears had disappeared. I reached a tentative hand to my thigh. No dressing, no scar. I’d already healed.

  More slowly, I reached to my ears. And up. And up. Fuck. How ridiculous did I look with ears like the Elfinkin of legends? Still, at least they didn’t hurt. In fact, nothing did.