by Jory Strong
The grand matriarch waved the words aside with a pale hand. “Since you are owed Pride thanks, I will speak to you on this matter. We mourn the loss of the one you praise. But we no longer say his name out loud for fear of drawing evil fortune to ourselves. He is dead to all except his pride family, and in two days’ time, after they have performed certain rites, even they will no longer see him.
“If he lingers among us beyond that time, he will be seen as a malevolent spirit bent on causing harm to the Pride. He will be hunted, and the physical body holding him to the land killed by those who have apprenticed themselves to Hotah, our shaman. The world of the dead is Hotah’s to navigate. Upon Cyrin’s return, he approached the ancestors, hoping because of the way Cyrin’s brother lost his life among us, it could be restored through purification and judgment. They spoke plainly on the matter.”
The grand matriarch paused and, with a slight tilt of her head, indicated the woman next to her. “The ancestors said that for Magena’s grandson, whose soul has already been sundered and cast from the shadowlands, only death of the body will come if he presents himself to them.”
Even though Rebekka expected as much, hearing the words added to the sense of inevitability she felt bearing down on her. If Levi was to be made whole, she had to become a healer like the ones Annalise Wainwright spoke of, which, in the end, meant she would have to do her demon father’s bidding.
Her hands tightened on the journal, and feeling the leather beneath her palms reminded her of earlier thoughts, and her plan to return to Oakland without going back to the Jaguar lands or seeing Aryck again. It took only moments to tell the Lions of her promise to Phaedra and to convey the value of the information contained in the long-dead Jaguar’s recordings. The grand matriarch was nodding her approval even before Rebekka asked if she could remain long enough to speak to the healer and pass on what she hadn’t yet shared with Phaedra.
“Magena is our healer,” the grand matriarch said, naming Levi’s grandmother. “Go with her. You will be welcome in her pride home.”
Rebekka relaxed her grip on the journal. At least for the next two days, Levi would be welcome as well.
ARYCK returned to camp chafing under his father’s edict to stay away from Rebekka. His insides felt raw, shredded by Jaguar clawing and his own frustration.
Not for the first time, he worried about what she might be thinking. He’d been gone much longer than he intended.
No sign of disease or proof of human involvement had been found. He’d managed to draw out both Coyote and Hyena enforcers, and both had held off attacking in favor of listening to his thoughts on the wisdom of alliance. But had he known so much time would pass, he would have paused long enough to get word to Rebekka before leaving camp.
Now the delay stretched longer out of necessity. It couldn’t be helped.
Aryck rubbed his hand over his bare chest, trying to smooth away the misgiving building there. He turned onto the trail that would take him to Nahuatl’s cabin.
The shaman was outside, pulling a deer hide from a soaking barrel and placing it flesh side up on a flat table. “You wish to speak to me about the healer,” Nahuatl said, choosing a knife and putting the back edge against the skin, skudding away the dirt and fatty tissue that still remained after the initial scraping.
Aryck bridled, though he’d expected his father’s interference. “The alpha told you I believe the ancestors want her to remain here, as my mate?”
“He told me.”
Aryck’s heart tripped into a fast, pounding beat. Even the Jaguar, for all its confidence, felt nervous about stepping into a realm where allies and enemies could be neither embraced nor fought. There was risk involved in approaching the ancestors directly, which was why most sought out the shaman rather than chance being made outcast, or gain an answer but at the cost of taking on a task named by the ancestors.
For Rebekka he would take the risk. “I wish to go through a Petitioner’s Rite.”
Nahuatl looked up from the hide. “It will gain you nothing. Because it suited them, the ancestors have spoken on the matter.”
Aryck’s uneasiness heightened. “And their answer?”
“If you wish to make her your mate and have her remain here, they will judge her as they would an outcast, through Rite of Trial. If they find her worthy, then they will mark her as pack.”
“My father knows this?”
Nahuatl laid the knife aside and picked up the hide, taking the few steps necessary to submerge it in a barrel of water warmed over a low fire. “Yes.”
Aryck turned away, his thoughts in turmoil, his chest tightening as he imagined Rebekka going through the ritual preparation that included three days of fasting in seclusion followed by a full day of purification in a sweat lodge built near the entrance to the cave where the bones of the dead were placed.
There were stories told of Weres who survived the trial, but in Aryck’s lifetime he’d stood witness once as a child and once as pack enforcer, watching as an outcast emerged naked from the sweat lodge at sunset and willingly entered the cave to withstand the torment of the ancestors until the sun rose.
One of the outcasts never left the cave. His body rotted and his bones joined those of the pack dead.
The other met his death underneath the night sky. Killed by those gathered as witnesses when he fled the cave in terror.
Aryck rubbed at the ache centered in his chest, fought against the fear whispering through him, that he was doomed to lose her—to Oakland and the outcasts or to death.
The thought of leaving his father’s pack and starting his own flickered in his mind but found nothing to hold it there. Without the sanction of the ancestors, who would follow a Were with a human mate? And without a pack, there was no way to carve out territory and defend it.
Aryck came to a place where the paths crossed. The instinct to return to his cabin until he’d found a solution, something to offer Rebekka beyond a message saying he was forbidden to be in her presence, was strong. But worry over what she might be thinking in his continued absence was stronger.
He couldn’t risk going directly to Phaedra’s cabin. In all likelihood Rebekka would be there.
Aryck headed toward the clearing where pack members gathered as a community. Melina was there among several suitors.
As soon as she saw him she left the other males, coming to him smelling of sex and satisfaction, though he doubted she’d let any of the other males penetrate her vaginally and fill her channel with seed. This deeply into heat, she wouldn’t risk being mated to a beta male.
When she would have rubbed against him, the Jaguar rose in Aryck’s eyes, reminding her of the promise made in the Barrens. Anger joined the other scents pouring off her. Aryck wondered what it would take for her to move on and hunt for a mate among the males of a different pack.
A smirk marred features he’d once thought beautiful but that no longer held any interest for him. “I don’t know why I still want you after you’ve been with that whore. Fucking a human is revolting, though I guess you’re not alone in that perversion. She was quick enough to go to the Lion outcast when he came sniffing around for her.”
The Jaguar erupted in possessive fury, becoming a distinct entity and trying to force the change so it could savage Melina and then hunt down the outcast and slay him.
Aryck’s emotions matched the outraged jealousy of the beast, melding human and Jaguar souls together a heartbeat after they’d separated.
He retreated to the forest, recognizing he was too dangerous, too volatile, to question Melina or anyone else about Rebekka.
He seethed. Cursed. Snarled in rage and defiance and frustration, only barely aware of his surroundings as he walked.
Images superimposed themselves one over another. The closeness he’d witnessed between Rebekka and the Lion in the Barrens and as they’d traveled. Their quiet conversations and easy touches.
On the heels of reality came tormented imaginings, of Rebekka and Levi together,
their bodies joined, slick with sweat as they strained toward release.
Aryck’s fingers flexed, phantom claws emerging. She was his and he wouldn’t let her go without a fight.
The resolve cooled the rage boiling through him, allowing him to glimpse the pain underneath before he brought his emotions under control.
With a start he realized he was well on his way to Lion territory. He kept moving forward, his father’s command replaying in his mind, providing an opening for him to do as he pleased and go to Rebekka.
The alpha had forbidden contact while on Jaguar lands. He’d warned against loss of pack and position if Aryck followed her to Oakland.
There was nothing to prevent him from going to Lion lands. And given the need to speak to their enforcer about alliance among the Weres, he had every reason to go there.
Those thoughts blocked all others for a mile. But slowly, with each step, truth chiseled away at them, exposing them as rationalizations and sickening Aryck so his skin crawled and became clammy.
He stopped, touching his forehead to the smooth maroon-colored bark of a madrone tree and closing his eyes. A breeze swept over him, emphasizing the chill at his core.
This was the path to being made outcast. Not the desire for a human mate, but the slippery twisting of words so he could justify his actions even as he knew deep down he was violating a trust.
The alpha’s will was pack law, and though his father hadn’t specifically forbidden him from being with Rebekka on Lion lands, the intent behind Koren’s edict was clear.
Frustration and longing and the sharp-edged threat of returning jealousy made Aryck push away from the tree. He turned back toward Jaguar lands and a second confrontation with his father.
Koren was waiting for him in the same place they’d argued the day before. His arms hung loosely at his side, his expression grim and his feet bare.
“Rebekka is in Lion lands,” Aryck said, more statement than question.
“Yes.” An image came with the answer, the outcast’s arms enfolding her while tiny tremors wracked her body as though she cried in joy at being reunited with him.
Aryck’s control over his emotions nearly slipped. To keep the Jaguar from capitalizing on the weakness and taking over to challenge the alpha, Aryck launched a verbal argument.
“I spoke with Nahuatl. If the ancestors are willing to allow Rebekka to come before them, then there is no justification for banning me from her presence. Without a chance to speak together, how can she make a decision about undergoing the trial so she can join the pack and become my mate?”
Koren’s hands opened and closed as if he fought himself. The father whose love and fear had put the edict in place versus the alpha, who knew there were no stories told by the Jaguar elders of another human being allowed the chance to go through the rite.
To stand in the way of whatever destiny waited for Rebekka and, because of her, Aryck, was to risk offending and enraging the ancestors.
A muscle spasmed in Koren’s cheek like a final protest before he said, “Follow her into Lion lands if you must. Ensure whatever knowledge she hasn’t shared with Phaedra is passed on to the Lion healer. But unless she is willing to turn herself over to Nahuatl and begin the three-day fast, she is not to step foot in Jaguar territory again. She can remain with the Lions if they allow it or return to Oakland with the outcast. The Wolves can see her safely through their lands as they’ve already agreed to do.”
Twenty-four
THE Jaguar seethed and writhed in fury, barely controllable by the time Aryck tracked Rebekka to a building that smelled of the outcast and those related to him. Phantom claws raked through his belly and chest. If he found them together, limbs entwined, there would be no stopping a shift in form and an attack.
Cyrin roared from his lounging place above the doorway of the dwelling, as much of a greeting as a warning. He jumped down, barring Aryck’s path for an instant before turning and serving as a guide through the maze of rooms.
Aryck’s fingers flexed and unflexed as he heard low murmurs coming from deeper in the pride home. Jealousy built with each step as over and over again the image his father had shown him played through his mind, Rebekka in Levi’s arms, crying in joy at being reunited with the outcast.
He reached a doorway and saw her sitting cross-legged, the journal in her hands, her head bent as she studied it. The Jaguar stilled as it drank in the sight of its mate. The man grew more furious when she refused to look up, refused to acknowledge his presence even after Caius, who sat at her side with Canino serving as a backrest, yelled, “Aryck!”
He managed a smile for the cub. A polite nod to the older woman also sitting in the cozy circle. Growled, “We need to talk,” to Rebekka, the Jaguar’s calm ebbing in equal measure to the man’s rising temper at being ignored.
It was all he could do not to stalk over and jerk Rebekka to her feet, to make her look at him before he carried her out of the dwelling if she refused to go willingly.
Neither he nor the Jaguar liked the way the Lion outcast was sitting close to her. It was almost too much when Levi leaned into her and murmured, “If you want to speak privately with him, you can use my room. If you don’t, I’ll see him out.”
“Try it,” Aryck said. He’d take great satisfaction in beating Levi in a fight and clearly demonstrating to Rebekka who was the better choice.
He bared his teeth in warning and fury when she reached over and touched the outcast’s forearm. Managed not to attack only because she said, “I’ll talk to him. Between what I’ve already read to Phaedra and your grandmother, there’s not much of the journal left to share. Will you finish reading the last of it? And help Caius with his letters and words?”
Lion gold eyes sent their own challenge to Aryck. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” she said, handing him the journal and ruffling the cub’s hair before standing.
Rebekka glanced at Aryck then, and the pain in her eyes was like a lance through his heart. She turned her back and walked away without a word to him, bringing a renewed surge of anger, only this time it joined a churning mass of confusion and worry and doubt.
He had only one cure for it. The moment she stopped, signaling they’d reached their destination, his hand curled around her arm, forcing her to face him.
His lips slammed onto hers in a fierce claiming. And when she went rigid, refusing to open her mouth, he didn’t relent, didn’t let her deny the heat between them.
His hands swept over her back, her sides. Around to cup her breasts. His tongue battered at the seam of her lips, demanding entry until they parted willingly and she softened against him.
No! Rebekka screamed silently, but her body betrayed her with the desperation of a junkie getting a fix.
Despite the pain he’d caused her she grew flushed and ready, felt need coiling in her belly and sliding downward, desire filling her breasts so they thrust in invitation against his palms, chafed at the clothing separating them from the feel of his skin against hers.
When he started unbuttoning her shirt, she dredged up the image of Melina standing in the doorway of his cabin, forced herself to remember the Jaguar female’s hateful words.
“No!” Rebekka said, jerking out of Aryck’s arms and stumbling backward, away from him.
He snarled and came after her, trapping her against the smooth adobe wall. His body vibrated fury. “Forget him, Rebekka. If the Lion outcast was right for you, then the two of you would already be a mated pair. You’re mine. The Jaguar chose you the day you healed me and I agree with the choice.”
His declaration cleared Rebekka’s mind. She searched his face and saw possessiveness there.
A part of her wanted to believe it meant something, but she steeled herself against false hopes and additional betrayal. No doubt the married men who frequented the brothels looked at their wives the same way, expecting them to remain faithful even as they broke their vows.
“And Melina?” Rebekka spat, putting her hands
against Aryck’s chest and pushing with all her might.
He didn’t budge.
“What about her? She means nothing to me.”
He lied. Or maybe he told the truth. Maybe he cared only about having what seemed unattainable.
The misery she’d experienced since he left her the day before returned in a rush. She battled it with a fury matching his earlier anger.
“I won’t be used by you or made part of some game of jealousy you play with Melina. She wanted me to find you bathing in the stream after you’d been with her. She—”
“What are you talking about?” Aryck interrupted, voice harsh with demand.
Fury blazed in his eyes, and his body was rigid with it. “It’s been years since I touched Melina other than to warn her away from me. I regret ever having been with her in the first place. Even then it was casual between us. If she told you otherwise, she lied.”
His hands curled around her upper arms, yet despite the iron in his grip he wasn’t hurting her. “Now tell me what you’re talking about,” he demanded again, outrage battering against her empathetic senses. Confusion. Frustration.
Was she a fool to think his emotions were genuine? To give him a chance to convince her that what she’d seen and heard was a lie?
Part of her wanted to cringe away from anything that would cause additional pain. She refused to allow it. She hadn’t cowered when Abijah caught up to her. She hadn’t taken up her mother’s faith when she learned her father was a demon.
“I went to your cabin to tell you I was leaving with the Lions. Melina was there, naked and looking like …”
Aryck’s eyes darkened with deadly savagery. “She must have known you were on your way there and set out to drive a wedge between us. She’s my father’s choice of a mate for me, not mine. I haven’t been to my cabin since you left me outside the alpha’s home. I’ve been gone from camp on pack business.”
Aryck leaned in, searing her with the brushing of his lips against hers. Burning away her anger and distrust by saying, “There’s been no other female for me since the moment in the Barrens when the Jaguar saw you for the first time. I tried to fight it. But now I believe we’re meant to be together. I want you as my mate.”