by Bianca D'Arc
“Looks like it’s doing something.” Peter’s voice sounded at her side. She glanced over to find him watching the water, as she had been. Gus was next to him, doing the same.
“It appears to be pushing the smaller creatures back,” Gus put in. “And the ward is holding, not that there was much doubt about that.”
Of course not, Mellie thought carefully to herself. Urse was a real witch. One of the most talented of their generation—or so Nonna said. She’d always included Mellie in the praise, but Mel was beginning to think she’d done so only out of kindness. Urse had proven her skills. She’d warded an entire town and part of the coast with permanent wards. That wasn’t something just anyone could do. Permanent wards were rare. So rare, not even one witch in every generation could cast them. It was more like one witch in ten generations. And they usually cost the mage greatly in personal power to cast them, so it wasn’t something ever done lightly.
There were few permanent wards in existence in the world today, even though mages had been trying to cast them for eons. Urse’s wards would stand the test of time. They would be there long after she and her sister were merely memories. The ability to cast permanent wards was sort of Urse’s superpower.
Mellie had always been told she had a destiny as bright as her sister’s, but she was seriously doubting herself and her supposed power at this point. Mellie wasn’t used to failure on this scale. Sure, she’d made the usual mistakes young witches make as they learn their craft, but she hadn’t messed up this badly—over and over again during the past few months—since she was a kid.
“It’s having a real effect,” Gus said at her shoulder. He’d moved closer without her being aware of it. Bears were stealthy, so she’d gotten used to people sneaking up on her since moving here. Gus pointed, and Mellie followed the direction of his lifted arm. “Even the larger ones are scattering now.”
Sure enough, Mellie could see that among the flailing tentacles, some were of a much larger size now. The little ones had scattered first, but as the potion wove its way out into the ocean, the larger minions were fleeing from it too. Mellie felt a sense of accomplishment. This might not be the permanent solution she was seeking just yet, but it was certainly a big step forward.
“I may not be much of a dragon, but the bear blood is strong,” Peter commented with a bit of smug satisfaction in his tone. Mellie figured he was entitled.
“Yes, it is,” she agreed with him, turning to give him a smile. He was looking at her, too, and their eyes met…and held. Time stood still as they shared a moment.
“Wait,” Gus said, recalling them both to the present. “Here comes the big guy.” His tone was ominous.
Mellie looked out in time to see the behemoth of sea monsters approaching. It was near enough to the surface that they could make out the top of its massive tentacles. This was the leviathan itself. It had already tried and failed to cross Urse’s ward many times, according to the mer who patrolled the ward every moment of the day and night. Its smaller minions were fleeing away from Mellie’s potion, but the big guy…
Damn. The big guy was sailing right through as if nothing much had happened. Mellie’s spirits fell. It didn’t look like her newest potion had any effect at all on the biggest problem they faced. The leviathan was just too strong.
CHAPTER FIVE
Peter escorted Mellie back to town. Gus had opted to stay behind to observe the potion’s effects more closely. He was watching, in particular, to see if the effect dissipated and the smaller minions were able to return closer to the ward. For all they knew, the effect might’ve been just a temporary thing.
Peter hadn’t voiced that concern where Mellie could hear. She was down in the dumps enough already. He hated seeing her so miserable and wished there was something he could do to raise her spirits. He just didn’t know what.
When they arrived back at the bookstore, Urse was waiting for them. She instructed them to head directly over to the mayor’s office where her mate, John, was waiting for them along with Nansee, the leader of the mer pod that now lived in the cove. They’d received early reports from the scouts along the ward on the potion’s effect in the water, and John wanted to talk to Mellie about it.
Peter went with her. He wouldn’t be separated from her when she had to face the Alpha bear in his den. Office. Whatever. John’s inner sanctum at town hall might as well be his secondary den. He spent enough time there running the town.
Peter was glad he’d decided to stick with Mellie, because when they got to town hall, it wasn’t just John and Nansee waiting for her. No, there was a full-fledged council meeting happening in the big conference room. Peter would have been invited anyway, since he was part of the core group that had founded the town and therefore on the council, but even he had to admit, facing down a room full of bear shifters had to be a little intimidating for a petite human mage like Mellie.
She walked in, her spine straight, her chin lifted as if daring the bears to criticize her recent performance. He knew she wasn’t happy with the results. He knew she was having doubts about her own power, but she didn’t let it show to this room full of predators. Good girl. She was as smart and courageous as she was beautiful.
Peter stayed right at her side, growling at the bear shifter who was sitting next to the seat they’d left open for Mellie until the other man moved to Peter’s seat across the room. Peter was going to stand at Mellie’s side no matter what.
“First, let me thank you on behalf of the entire town for the work you’ve put in on this project, Amelia,” John said formally, opening the meeting. “Urse told me how conscientious you’ve been and how difficult your task.”
Peter was pleased with the way the Alpha bear talked to Mellie. John was a good leader and knew how to motivate people and make them feel their worth. It was why he’d followed John as his Alpha for so long.
“Now, let’s hear from the mer leader,” John proposed. “Then, perhaps Peter will be kind enough to provide observations from land.”
Peter nodded in accord with John’s plan for the meeting and deferred to Nansee, who sat next to John. The mer leader and the bear Alpha had developed what looked like a good working relationship, especially since Nansee and Urse had become close friends.
Peter wondered how Mellie got along with the mer leader. Urse had status as John’s mate. She was Alpha female, for lack of a better term, and Nansee and she were about equal in rank, though, of course, the land-based shifters took precedence in the town. Nansee was still in charge of her pod, even while they were on land, but they came under the Alpha bear’s protection here, and he was considered the higher power here in town, while Nansee still ruled under the water. So far, the arrangement had worked out well, mostly because the two leaders were willing to work together and Nansee was able to defer to the Alpha bear who had offered her and her pod sanctuary in the cove when the leviathan had threatened them.
Still, Mellie’s place in the hierarchy wasn’t entirely clear. She was sister to the Alpha female and supposedly a powerful witch in her own right, but there hadn’t been much evidence of her strength to date, and some of the men didn’t quite know what to make of her. The rules of dominance were clear, and it was important to shifters to know where everyone stood in the Clan. It made for greater harmony, and dominance battles were often used to settle things.
But nobody was going to challenge Mellie to a fight anytime soon. She had to do something to demonstrate her power or she would continue to make the shifters uncomfortable. They’d do their best to hide it, but it might cause folks to avoid her, which would hurt her feelings. Peter didn’t want that. Mellie was dealing with a lot of uncertainty already.
If only her potion would work. Then, her power would be proven, and everyone would know where she fit into the Clan dynamic.
“The magic working done today by Amelia was quite potent,” Nansee began her update. “The sentries reported feeling the potion wash over them in a mighty wave of intense magic that felt both benevolent and protec
tive, in the extreme. One said it felt almost exactly like the ward magic, though of a slightly different nature. It seemed to reinforce the ward in some way, sliding along the length of the entire ward wall and creating a larger barrier outward. In other words, it pushed the creatures on the other side of the ward back a great distance, though some of the larger minions and the leviathan itself seemed able to brave the new no-go zone. However, all of the smaller creatures are now much farther away and seem unable to approach, which is a very good result. Sentries will continue to watch and report, but as of the last word, the new barrier is holding strong.”
Good news. Peter felt his chest swell with pride on Mellie’s behalf. She’d accomplished something with the potion they’d brewed together. He might not be dragon enough to fulfill the letter of the recipe from that old book, but they had managed to accomplish something good together. He liked that idea a lot.
Nansee went on a bit longer, but for the most part, the observations had been very positive. The potion had worked to push the smaller creatures away, which was at least more than they had yesterday. Nansee even thanked Mellie for her work and was very gracious about it, which Peter thought was very decent of the mer leader.
Nansee turned the floor back over to John, who looked at Peter with expectation. Summarizing what they had seen, Peter reported what Gus had said and what Peter, himself, had observed and let the council know that Gus continued the watch from on shore. John arranged to have someone relieve Gus and decided they would share out the observation post among several bears for the next day or two until they knew exactly what effects the potion would have long term.
Peter was about to bring up a new topic when Urse burst into the conference room. She was out of breath as if she’d run all the way from the bookshop.
“There’s an absolutely giant bear on the beach,” Urse said, meeting her mate’s gaze. “She’s in full view of the street, and I don’t recognize her.”
“A female?” John asked quickly, his brows drawing together. There weren’t a whole lot of female bear shifters in town yet. “Are you sure she’s a shifter?”
Urse squinted in thought. “She’s so huge, I doubt she could be anything else.”
“What does she look like?” Brody, the sheriff, asked from his seat next to John.
“She’s gorgeous. Huge. And her fur is sort of…burgundy-colored,” Urse told them.
Peter shot to his feet, and every eye turned to him. “It’s all right, my friends. Unless I’m mistaken, my babushka has arrived in town. I’ll go tell her the rules, but it’s anybody’s guess as to whether she’ll obey them. My grandmother is a law unto herself.”
Peter’s smile was wide as he trotted out of the conference room, heading straight for the beach. It wasn’t hard to spot the giant bear he hadn’t seen is far too long. Peter broke into a jog, then a run.
The bear’s head turned and spotted him, and then, she began walking in her stately way, away from the shore and toward her grandson. Time was when his grandmother would have run him down, but she was very old now and moved a little more slowly than she used to.
He was so happy to see her, he ran right up to her, then stopped short.
“Babushka?”
The bear stood on its hind legs and grabbed him in the furriest, most comforting, powerful embrace. Just like he remembered. Peter hugged her back, so happy to have his grandmother near once more.
Mellie squeaked when the massive bear rose on its hind legs and enveloped Peter in enormous paws. Peter was a huge man, but the giant bear made him look small by comparison.
“It’s okay. She’s just hugging him, not crushing him,” John said from Mellie’s side.
He’d come outside with the rest of the town council to see what the big Russian female bear looked like. Bears were curious creatures, Mellie had learned. And, when it came to females—even really old ones—they were even more inquisitive.
“She’s huge,” Mellie whispered, perhaps not all that politely, but she was astounded by the sheer size of the female bear and Peter’s ease with her. Mellie could see the affection between them, now that she understood the large bear hadn’t been attacking, but welcoming.
“She and Peter are Kamchatka brown bears. The wild ones are nearly as big as Kodiak’s, but the coloring is unique. They have that almost violet tint to their fur,” John observed. “Of course, Kodiaks are huge in the wild, and the shifter equivalent is even larger. Same goes with Peter’s people. But, even among their Clan, his babushka and all her descendants are something special.”
“Have you met Peter’s family before?” Urse asked her husband.
“A few of them, but never his granny. He’s told us all stories about her for years, of course. She’s quite a character and very protective of her territory and kin.” John looked on in approval as the bear and man broke apart and started walking together down the beach toward the far end of the cove where Peter’s den was located. Everybody turned back toward the town hall, now that the show was over, and Mellie followed along with her sister and John.
“Peter told us about how, a decade or so ago, some humans wanted to set up a platinum mine on the edge of her territory. Not sure what they did, but it was something really bad, and two of the human guards ended up dead. Then, the Clan—about thirty bears strong—besieged the compound and wouldn’t let the humans out for weeks.” Brody chuckled, as did the others within hearing.
“That mining company lost a lot of money when the workers couldn’t leave their homes to work for weeks on end,” John elaborated. “Finally, they relented and stuck to their original agreement with Peter’s grandmother. She’d signed a contract with them in human form as the land owner, but the mine bosses had taken shortcuts that were detrimental to the land. When Granny had no luck making the miners stick to the contract terms, she went bear on their asses until they gave in. Very effective negotiating strategy.”
“It’s funny in light of the fact that the Kamchatkas are usually seen as teddy bears. They rarely attack humans—probably because most of those that interact with humans are shifters. The true bears are more elusive because of hunting. They’ve learned to evade humans,” Brody said conversationally. “The shifters could evade the hunters, too, of course, but they run interference, trying to protect the wild bears.”
Mellie felt for the helpless bears, even if they weren’t shifters. It sounded like they just wanted to live their lives in peace and weren’t a threat to humans, so the idea that humans hunted the bears for sport really irked her. Some people were just cruel.
Mellie went home with Urse and John after the meeting broke up, joining her sister and the Alpha bear for dinner. The afternoon had slipped away from them, and the bookstore had been closed since Urse came running to town hall. It could stay closed for the rest of the day. It wasn’t like Grizzly Cove was bustling with tourists yet. They would come…eventually. When the town—and the bear shifter population—was ready for them.
*
The next morning, Peter was feeling eager. He wasn’t sure how the day was going to go, but he had a plan, and he was going to put it into motion. Babushka had settled into the guest room in his den he had prepared with her in mind, and they had spent the evening catching up on news from the family and the Clan back in the old country.
She’d also told him all about her trip here. She’d come to the States in the company of three of his cousins. They had wanted to see her all the way to Grizzly Cove, but she had demurred. She hadn’t wanted to descend on the American bears en masse. It wasn’t polite, she’d insisted, so she’d had them drop her off in Seattle, and she’d made her way here by herself. That included renting a four-wheel drive vehicle, that she’d parked on Main Street when she’d felt the need to go furry.
Peter had retrieved the rental car and parked it in his drive. He’d also retrieved all her luggage and carried it into his den. He couldn’t explain the feeling of home his grandmother had brought with her, but with her in his house, it tru
ly felt like a home for the first time. Only one thing was missing…and he hoped to settle that to some extent tonight.
He left his grandmother at the den. She was sleeping late after her travels and had all she needed in the house for when she rose. Bears were independent by nature, and he knew she wouldn’t appreciate him hovering over her. Giving her some space and time on her own was probably the best thing he could do at this point.
That in mind, Peter headed for Main Street, stopping off at the bakery to get some treats on his way to the bookstore. He had to open the butcher shop later. He’d been letting the guys in town take stuff on the honor system for the past few days—as he often did—but every once in a while, he had to do paperwork and place orders from some of his suppliers.
First, though, he had to complete his self-appointed mission. He headed for the bookshop, bakery box in hand. When he walked in the door, the little bell above it tinkled his arrival, and Mellie looked up from her seated position at the desk in the back of the shop. She’d been working on the computer, and the soft glow of the screen lit her face in an ethereal light. The smile she sent him warmed him from the inside out.
“Good morning,” she said, rising from her seat and moving toward him.
“These are for you,” Peter said somewhat awkwardly, raising the box in his hand to bring her attention to it.
Mellie’s eyes widened. “What did you do? Clean out the bakery?”
He looked at the large box and wondered if he’d overestimated on the number of pastries to order. “Is it too much? This is the size I usually get.”
Mellie chuckled. “Bear size,” she told him, but didn’t seem upset by his mistake. “There’s plenty to share, if you can spare a few minutes. Or have you eaten already?”
No way was he going to admit to having eaten anything this morning, even if he’d been up since dawn. “I would be happy to join you,” he said, following her toward the countertop where she usually rang up purchases.