by SA Magnusson
“You’re lucky,” I said.
“Why?”
I shook my head. “I don’t exactly know what I did to restore you, but I could feel the power coming out of you. It was leaking out of your wound.”
He touched his hand to the dressing. “It’s a strange sensation. It’s almost as if it’s not the way it once was, and yet it is.”
“That’s the surgery. I don’t know what the orthopods did to stabilize it, but from what I heard, it was an extensive surgery.”
“I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“What is it?”
He looked up at me. His face changed, rippling for a moment before returning to human form. Had Aron placed a spell on him to prevent him from shifting in my condo? “There’s something different within me.”
“Like I said, that’s the hardware they placed. I don’t know what it will do to you, or whether it will somehow prevent you from changing forms, but the archer seems to believe you will still be able to do so.”
“If I could change forms, I would be rid of this hardware, as you call it.”
“Then change.”
He looked up at me. Pain stared out through his deep brown eyes. “I can’t.”
I’d seen that kind of pain before. It was the pain of loss, and I recognized it from patients who received bad news. It was the sort of thing I hated to give, but in the emergency room, we became comfortable doing so. We had to do it often enough that despite how awful it was to give out, we had to be strong for the patients who had to receive it.
“Maybe it’s my home. The archer placed protections around it.”
Hope crept back into his gaze. “Maybe that’s it.”
I took a seat on the ground, crossing my legs like a preschooler as I studied him. “Tell me what happened.”
“You aren’t of the pack.”
“I might not be of your pack, but your alpha thought enough of me to send you to me when you were injured. How was it that she managed to get you free? And how was it that she was overpowered?”
“She was challenged, but the challenge was not as it should have been.”
“You said that before. What does it mean?”
“Ariel has faced other challenges in the past, and never before has she failed. She has led us for years. She is strong. Powerful. Wise. She is the alpha.”
“Something happened.”
“Morris used borrowed power from one of the Great Ones.”
“How?”
“He shouldn’t have been able to. Their power lies on the other side of the Veil.”
“What can you tell me about the Great Ones?”
“You aren’t of the pack.”
I groaned, staring at him. “Your alpha wants me to be involved.”
Though Ariel might want me to be involved, I didn’t know whether I wanted to be involved. It put me into a dangerous position, the kind of position that ran the risk of exposing me to an even deeper part of the magical world than I had been exposed to before.
The debate warred within him for a moment before he growled softly. “The Great Ones are the predecessors. They came before. They are the ones who revealed power, allowing us to exist.”
“I understand the Great Ones are somehow powerful shifters. What else can you tell me about them?”
“They should not exist on this side.”
“And yet they attacked. Or at least, one of them attacked.”
He growled again. “Through Morris.”
“How? But that’s not all there is to it. I saw one of the Great Ones.” That had to be what I’d seen, even if I didn’t fully understand how I did.
His growl faded and he looked over at me. “You saw one?”
“I didn’t know what it was. When we went to see what happened to Ariel, we were attacked. I barely survived and a massive wolf intervened, drawing two of the others away.”
“What did he look like?”
I ignored the implication that the wolf would have to have been male. “Large. Much larger than any other wolves I’d ever seen before. His fur was gray and grizzled. Like I said, I’ve never seen anything like it before, but then I don’t have a whole lot of experience with shifters.” As I spoke, I realized John recognized the description. “What is it? Who is it?”
“I don’t know,” he answered in a growl. “Ariel recognized there was power, which was why she…”
“She what?”
John looked away.
“What did she do?”
“The only thing she could think of to save the pack.”
“Which was what?”
“She called another.”
“Another?”
He looked up at me. “She summoned another of the Great Ones. The first should not have reached us and she—”
“She decided to bring more of that power here? Why not? One is fun, but two is a party.”
“You don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Yeah. Because I’m not of the pack,” I sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. She failed. That’s why I’m here in this form.”
It surprised me that he would speak with such disgust about his human form. It wasn’t that he was unattractive in human form, but maybe the wolf form was just so much more interesting.
“What did I see, then?”
“Not one of the Great Ones. Possibly Torn.”
“Who is that?”
“Packless. Lives alone. Few ever see him.”
Why would he have come and helped? That was what had happened—I was certain of it—but why?
“Where is Ariel?” I asked.
“Possibly gone already, or nearly so. For me to be here means she lost the challenge, such as it was.”
“What do you intend to do?” I asked him.
He rubbed his good hand over the injured shoulder. Was he working magic into the wound? Maybe he’d be able to shift and restore himself, find a way to get unstuck from here.
“I intend to help my alpha.”
“Is she still your alpha if she lost the challenge?”
John growled softly and I sighed again. It didn’t do any good to anger him, and I might need him to help me understand why Ariel had sent him to me in the first place.
“All I want is to return to the pack,” John said.
“When Aron returns, you can go.” I wished Aron hadn’t left him here in the first place. Now I would have to sit with him until he returned. “Do you like reruns?”
6
It was late in the following day when Aron returned. I had waited up for him, growing increasingly impatient with how long he had been gone, annoyed that he would leave me with this shifter in my home. Fatigue had overwhelmed me and I fell asleep, wishing I had my sword. Instead, I’d closed my door and locked it, trying to find some way to prevent the shifter from barging in on me without any sort of notice.
I woke up only slightly refreshed. I was still tired and expected to feel that way most of the day. I hadn’t slept very soundly, waking up every so often with a start, watching the door for any sign that John might be sneaking in, but it never came. When I went back out into the kitchen, fully dressed and ready for the day, I half-expected to see Aron sitting there waiting for me, but he wasn’t. John sat at my kitchen table, a cup of coffee in hand, suspicion burning in his eyes.
A soft tap at my door caught my attention. Lucy meowed softly and went racing toward the door. I looked down at her. “Some warning cat you are.” She rubbed up against my leg. When I pulled the door open, Aron stood on the other side. “Now you return?”
“I thought you would want a chance to sleep.” He stepped inside, closing the door behind him, sealing it with a spell.
“What I wanted was not to have a strange shifter in my home,” I said, glancing toward the kitchen.
“He was not strange. You knew him.”
I laughed, not bothering to hide my annoyance. “Just because I know him doesn’t mean I want him in my home.”
&nb
sp; “He needed protection, Kate. This was the safest place I could think of to bring him.”
“This?” I looked around, my gaze sweeping over my condo. “You do realize it’s been attacked twice before?”
“That was before.”
“That’s right. Before you placed protections around my home that were designed to alert you of any magical attack. It doesn’t help me all that much, though.”
“If you would prefer that I not have placed them…”
I groaned and wanted to smack him on his massive chest, but he’d probably brush it off. “Now that you’re here, is the plan to go and get Ariel?”
“I don’t think we can. Even John would tell you this is shifter business. We have to let it play out.”
“It might have started that way, but she brought me into it. Ariel wanted outside involvement.” That was the only thing I could think of but didn’t know why.
“She’s been challenged.”
“But not officially. That means that the council can get involved.”
“The council doesn’t want to get involved.”
I cocked my head at him, frowning. John had gotten up from the table and stood in the doorway, watching us. “What do you mean?”
“That’s where I’ve been. I was hoping to get some help, anything that would give us a chance to get to her, but the council isn’t interested in getting involved in this.”
John growled softly and turned, disappearing back into the kitchen.
“We can’t leave her, Aron. Regardless of whatever happened between the two of you, she needs our help. She sent for me and for my help.” I glared at him, shaking my head, coming to a decision I would probably regret. “I’m not going to leave her. If you decide you can’t come along, I’m still going to do this. Your friend in there was telling me about the shifter who helped me.”
“You don’t know that he helped.”
“I do know that he helped. If he hadn’t come along, and if he hadn’t stepped between me and the shifters who wanted me dead, I wouldn’t have gotten away. The other shifters were too much for me. His name is Torn and—”
Aron tensed. “Are you certain of that?”
I glanced at the kitchen. “That’s what your friend seems to think. I didn’t have an opportunity to sit and talk with him, so I don’t really know. Why? Who is Torn?”
Would Aron know anything that the other shifter didn’t? Would there be anything that he would be able to share that might provide more information? Anything that he might know that would be different than what the shifters knew would likely be valuable.
“We have heard the name Torn only a few times. He is elusive, and from everything we’ve heard, powerful.”
“How are you sure that he’s not a Great One? “
“He’s been on this side of the Veil.”
If that was their determining factor, I had to wonder whether that was an effective strategy. I’d already seen other things that could cross the Veil, which meant it was not outside of the realm of possibility for a Great One to do the same.
“What’s going to happen to Ariel? If we don’t help her, what will the shifters do?”
Aron’s jaw clenched. “There are many things they could do, but with the way they treated her already, I suspect they will take the old pathway.”
“And what is that?” Considering the way he said it, I suspected it wasn’t good.
“The old path is one where the replaced alpha is sent across the Veil.”
I stopped in the doorway of the kitchen, dumbfounded. “I didn’t think you could send anyone in that direction across the Veil.”
“The shifters can.” Aron looked over at John sitting at the kitchen table, clutching his mug of coffee. “They have a way of opening the space between our realm and that on the other side of the Veil. When they do it, it requires many shifters of great power, and it’s meant as something of an honor, but instead it’s really a sacrifice.”
“The Great Ones. That’s what you’re getting at. They send the shifters across to be sacrificed to the Great Ones.”
Aron nodded slowly and looked over at John.
“Is that what they were going to do with her?” I asked, taking a seat next to him.
“It’s possible,” he said.
“Why?”
He looked up. “You aren’t a shifter. You would never understand. Going to the other side of the Veil is a sacrifice for most, but for some, there is the possibility that they will be accepted by the Great Ones and given the opportunity to hunt with them.”
“Has that ever happened?”
John didn’t look up. “No.”
My gaze went to the shifter’s shoulder, and I couldn’t help but think about how it had been described as one of the Great Ones attempting to feed on him. If Ariel was pushed across the Veil, and if one of the Great Ones managed to consume her magic, they would grow stronger.
“When they do this, would it be possible for them to grow strong enough to force their way across the Veil?”
“The Great Ones do not want to cross over to this world,” he said.
“I’m not sure that’s true. From what I’ve seen, everything on the other side of the Veil wants to cross over into our world.”
“Kate,” Aron said.
I shook my head. “No. Everything you’ve shown me has been proof of that. Creatures on the other side of the Veil have attempted to cross over. We had to deal with the demon king, and now we have to deal with this. Why? What is it that makes them so interested in fleeing the other side of the Veil?”
“I have told you about what exists on the other side of the Veil.”
“You’ve told me that there are fae and demons and fallen gods.”
“There are magic users of all types. There are those with power beyond what anyone can imagine. There are those who cannot be allowed to cross over into this world.” Aron held my gaze. “On the other side of the veil, there is balance. Magic can counter magic, and those with power find others with power. If they were to cross over to our world, they would come with far too much power and the disruption would be enormous.”
“By disruption, you mean the balance of people who know about magic.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. There have been wars fought thousands of years ago on this side of the Veil, and it has taken enormous power to hold them back. That is the reason for the treaty among the mages, the shifters, and the vampires. All are creatures of power, and all work together to maintain the Veil.”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine how deadly it would be if the things on the other side of the Veil managed to escape. I thought of the demons, even the low-level ones we had managed to overpower. If not for Aron and the other archers, how many people would be harmed by those demons? How many would be killed?
And that was only low-level demons.
Had the demon king managed to get across, that would’ve been horrible, but even worse would have been the gorgon. A creature like that which fed on magical energy escaping in our world would be devastating.
“I want to help,” I said. “I might not know enough about what’s going on, but Ariel asked for my help.”
“She asked for your medical help, Dr. Michaels.”
I didn’t think that was quite it. If all she needed was some medical help for him, he could have gotten that anywhere, even in emergency rooms farther in the north. She had sent him to the cities intentionally, and to me. She had seen something about me.
“Maybe, but maybe it’s more than that.”
Aron stared at me for a moment and then breathed out. “I think it’s time that we go and search for answers.”
“No. I think it’s time that we go and see if we can help Ariel.”
“Not without getting any answers. If it works, we will only need a few hours.” He looked over at John. “Can you wait that long?”
The shifter growled. “I can’t change forms, not here.”
“And you can’t change forms
in the city anyway,” Aron said.
“You would hold me here?”
“I’m not holding you at all. You were offered a place of protection. You were offered the opportunity at recovery provided to you by your alpha.”
The shifter growled again. “I will wait, but I intend to go after her.”
“What happens if you reach her?” I asked.
“Then I will attempt to rescue her before they force the crossing.”
“And if you can’t?”
“That is not going to happen.”
I looked over at his shoulder. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You’ve already been food for someone, and if they come at you again, I’m not sure that you’ve recovered enough to make yourself safe.” John glared at me. “Listen. I know you care about her, and we’re going to do everything we can to help her. I’m not even sure that you coming along with us makes the most sense, especially in your current condition.”
“I will go with you, regardless of my condition.”
I looked over at Aron, searching for help, but he shook his head. “Let him come.”
“That’s not the best idea.”
“We will go for answers and then return here. When we’re done, we can bring him with us.”
“Where do you intend to go looking for answers?”
“The same place I’ve attempted for a while.”
That meant Solera.
“I thought she hadn’t responded to your request?”
“She hasn’t.”
“And now you can force it?”
“Now there isn’t much choice but for me to push the issue, especially with what’s taking place in the north. As much as I would prefer not to do anything, I don’t know that we have such luxury.”
There was more to his hesitation, but what was it? There was something Aron feared by going to Solera, and Aron wasn’t one to fear anything.
“Do you owe her something?”
“No.”
“Who do you intend to go to?” Aron shot John a hard glare, and a wolfish smile crossed the shifter’s face. “Her? If you intend to risk going to her, then you really are a fool, Archer.”
“There are certain things worth a risk.”
The shifter looked over at me before sliding his gaze back to Aron. “I will wait here. If you don’t return in a day, I’m heading north on my own.”