by Eva Chase
The fae monarch smiled, looking pleased, and lifted the crystal. Serenity dropped back into her human form, and I hurried forward with the dress my attendant had handed me. My mate tugged it over her head with a swift practiced motion. Her gaze stayed on the fae monarch as she accepted her coat.
“Will you bring it up into the mountain?” she asked. “Or should we find a different place?”
“I think the place of the two peaks still serves well for this purpose,” the fae monarch said. “None go there for any other reason. It will not be discovered unless another like you comes searching, seeking it out. That will be your legacy, to decide what guidance you leave behind. I will see this token conveyed there now.”
“Thank you,” Serenity said before the monarch could go. “This—it means a lot. I hope no dragon shifter ever needs to use it, especially for the reasons I had to, but I’m glad we can support each other enough now to ensure that power will be there if any reason arises again.”
“I’m glad too,” the fae monarch said, her tone unusually soft. She bowed to the dragon shifter a little more deeply than the first time. Serenity dipped in return, and the fae woman blinked out of sight like a flash of light, here and then not.
I blinked as a murmur of surprise carried through the crowd. I was never going to get used to the way the fae could travel like that when they chose to.
My mate turned on her feet to take in the revelers. “To our past, our present, and our future, and all the strength we’ll carry with us!” she called out. “More eating, more dancing. This is a celebration, isn’t it?”
A cheer rang out all around us. The music started again, leaping across the light-strung field. As my kin launched back into their rejoicing, Serenity stepped closer to me. I moved to meet her, looping my arm around hers and squeezing her hand.
“You didn’t tell me you were planning that,” she said, chiding but only lightly. Her face glowed like the crystal had.
“Christmas is a time of surprises, isn’t it?” I said. “Consider it my first present to you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got more than that? I think that’ll be hard to top.”
I laughed. “I think my fellow alphas might give it a try. We’ll have to wait and see.” I leaned closer. “I thought you should know you haven’t taken anything away from our people by claiming that power. You accepted the gift that was there, and now you’ve passed it on.”
Her expression went momentarily serious. “Let’s just hope our people don’t need that gift again for a long long time, if ever.”
“If that’s our goal, I think we’re well on our way.” The melody swept around me, and I reached for her other hand. “May I have this dance?”
My mate’s smile came back. “Please do.”
CHAPTER 3
Ren
LOOKING at the table only half covered with platters, I couldn’t restrain a groan. Nate ambled over with a frown. “What’s wrong?”
“It looks strange. Maybe this was a bad idea.” I turned to take in the rest of the disparate alpha’s estate house dining hall: the polished wood tables dotted with tall candles, the exposed brick walls hung with evergreen boughs to add that Christmas-y smell to the air, the silky red and green streamers that crisscrossed the high ceiling. The dry breeze that traveled through the open windows was warm, because it was never going to feel like my kind of Christmas here in southern California, but I’d tried to recreate some of the atmosphere I loved.
“Are you sure they didn’t think the request was weird?” I asked Nate.
He set his brawny hands on my shoulders. “It’s fine, Ren. Everyone I talked to loved the idea. It’s not as if you put them out. We gave them a stipend to cover ingredients or just buying something outright—and everyone who joined in volunteered. We didn’t put them in any hardship.”
“I just… I’m still figuring out the best way to relate to your kin.” In some ways, Nate’s people were the trickiest, because they were all the shifters who didn’t fit into the neat little boxes of avian, feline, or canine. They’d come together not out of what they had in common with each other but what they didn’t have in common with any of the other kin groups. That wasn’t the best recipe for cohesion.
“I want to make sure I’m recognizing them for themselves,” I added.
“And I think, like I thought when you first talked to me about it, that this was a perfect approach,” the bear shifter said. He dipped his head and nuzzled my cheek with a brief kiss. “You’re doing a lot this week, Ren. You’ve done a lot all year. None of our kin expects that the five of us will never make the slightest slip. Not that I can see any you need to worry about.”
“Okay,” I said, closing my eyes for a second and trying to convince my nerves to settle. “Do you have the list? I want to put out labels for each dish so they know where to put them—and so everyone else knows who to thank.”
I’d just finished arranging—and rearranging, and re-rearranging—the labels when the first of the disparate kin Nate had reached out to arrived. A petite couple I recognized as rabbits from their scent set a sweet carrot-beet salad in the place I’d designated and gave me a shy bow. “Thank you!” I said. “It looks delicious.”
Next came minks and then voles, grizzlies and then boars. All in all, thirty families representing thirty different shifter animals had volunteered to contribute to our sort-of potluck meal. From the way they all deferred to me, you’d have thought I was doing them a favor by letting them help feed the party, not the other way around.
More than one glance dropped to my belly. I’d been resting my hand on it again, just out of habit. My daughter kicked lightly against my fingers. Could she feel my touch already? The thought made me a little giddy.
“Best wishes and safe arrival,” more than one of the kin murmured, as much to her as to me. A couple of the women were growing round themselves and shot me an extra knowing smile.
More and more of Nate’s kin poured into the room. He must have told them they weren’t supposed to eat yet, although I saw a few shooting longing glances toward the platters and serving bowls. I shifted anxiously on my feet.
To distract myself, I mingled, welcoming all of our guests and accepting their good wishes with a grin, making my way slowly to the table at the front of the room with just five place settings, reserved for my alphas and me. Aaron, Marco, and West were already waiting there, the eagle shifter and the jaguar shifter chatting about something that had Aaron looking amused and Marco sly, the wolf shifter standing a little stiffly at the other end. Nate turned up just as I reached them, with a nod to me. That was my cue.
I came around the table and picked up my glass to tap my spoon against it. Nate loomed beside me with a meaningfully cleared throat. The shifters milling around the tables closest to us picked seats and quieted, and then the ones just beyond them followed suit, until the whole room had fallen into a hush. Hundreds of eyes fixed on me.
“Disparate kin,” I said in the queenly voice I’d had lots of chances in the last year and a half to practice. “It’s wonderful to have you all here today as we celebrate the Christmas season and our first full year of peace since the long-ago tragedy that claimed my family.”
Heads lowered respectfully at the mention of the attack that had left my alpha fathers and my two sisters dead, and my mother and me on the run. My alphas and I had taken down the leaders of the rogue group that had orchestrated that attack, and in the months since then, a steady trickle of their followers had come to rejoin the kin groups. Any others who still refused to live under an alpha’s authority hadn’t stirred up further trouble, which I’d take as a blessing.
“It’s also to celebrate you and the way you show right here how different types of people can come together and create a beautiful harmony,” I went on. “I wanted to honor all the many traditions that make up your kin group. So your alpha and I asked representatives from various families to bring a dish they feel showcases their unique sensibilities to
add to our feast. You can find those dishes interspersed with the ones from the estate kitchens all around the room.
The guests craned their necks to peer at the serving tables with renewed interest before their gazes came back to me.
“We shifters have always come together despite our different animal natures,” I went on, “and I think it’s those differences that make us so strong together.”
A shout of agreement carried through the crowd, followed by a few whoops. I had to grin. The anxious twitch in my gut finally settled.
“Now I’d like to give the families who contributed to our meal a chance to stand up and share with everyone the thoughts that went into their chosen dish. Only if you’re not feeling too shy, of course. Who’d like to speak?”
A family of skunk shifters stood up and spoke for a minute about the history of their raspberry-glazed chicken. The brother and sister grizzlies followed, talking about the excitement of fishing their salmon out of the river near their home. Several more said their piece, until no one new stood up. My daughter squirmed, and my stomach rumbled.
“Thank you again, everyone, for making this feast even more memorable,” I said. “Now let’s eat!”
The kin held back as the alphas and I grabbed our plates and made our way to the serving tables along the edges of the room, but as soon as we’d started scooping up food, they streamed over to join us. The sight of so many different dishes, the mingling of all those delicious smells in the air, left me wishing that my daughter didn’t seem to be lying on my stomach right now, squeezing it to half its usual size.
“Eat up, mother-to-be!” Nate said with a wink, nudging me toward a roast pig. I stuck out my tongue at him, but I kept heaping food into my plate. Our little one might move in ten minutes and then I’d be starving twice as much.
“Well,” Marco said, cocking his head as he poked at a dish of shiny noodles mixed with seaweed and pumpkin seeds. “This experiment has certainly given us a wide variety of flavors, hasn’t it?”
“I’m pretty sure there’s enough food here that you can find something that suits you,” I said.
“Or maybe you could experiment a little and open up that refined palate of yours,” Aaron teased.
“I’ll have you know that I’m perfectly capable of experimenting,” Marco said loftily. His nose twitched as he caught a scent. “But not when there are seared tuna steaks to be had. If you’ll excuse me…”
“He’s really never going to get over himself, is he?” West said with what looked like a barely contained eye roll.
“You should be used to him by now,” I said, bumping him along with my hip. “And, I mean, considering the patience we give you and your grouchy moods…”
West glowered at me, but the heat in his eyes was far from irritation. “I don’t recall any recent complaints.”
“Oh, I think you got in at least ten years’ worth of grumbling just in the first month I knew you,” I said, with an affectionate quirk of my lips. “It’s going to take a while to off-set that.”
The wolf shifter made a faint growling sound in his throat, and then he was kissing me, quick but hard. He lowered his voice. “And every day I’m thankful for your patience then, believe me.”
Marco had circled back around. “More eating dinner, less eating our princess?” he suggested in a wry tone as he brushed past us. West muttered something inaudible but clearly scathing under his breath, but he moved on.
When we returned to our table at the front, I sampled everything I’d managed to squeeze onto my plate and then dug back into my favorites. I’d heaped the plate high enough that I only made it through about half of the food before I had to sit back with my hand lower down on my belly, where my stomach was achingly full. My daughter wiggled as if eager to come out and enjoy the offerings firsthand.
Not yet, darling, I thought at her. Your time’s coming soon enough.
I had enough time to settle down from aching to just very full, and then Nate’s attendants started clearing the tables. I stood up again, holding up my arm for the attention of the gathered shifters.
“I think you were all told about the tree,” I said. “I hope you’ve brought your own item to add to it. Everyone and everything is welcome! Please come join me in the back yard.”
Evening had fallen while we were eating. In the fading light outside, the air had turned not cold but crisply cool. Close enough to winter that it wasn’t too hard to picture the massive pine Nate had chosen for our purposes as a Christmas tree. The twinkling white lights that wound around it and the glittering star at its highest peak—courtesy of Aaron—made it all the more fitting.
The shifter kin gazed up at it with gasps and murmurs, and then after a few encouraging gestures from me, they started walking right up to it and picking spots to hang the decorations they’d brought to add to our grand Christmas tree: glinting balls painted with symbols or scenes, toys and figurines hung from loops of ribbon, here and there a candy or a candle. Soon the lower branches were dappled with delights.
“I think it’s still missing something,” Nate said, his voice playful, as he considered the tree. “There’s not enough of our dragon shifter on there.”
I shot him a puzzled look, and he drew something out of his pocket with a grin. It was a silver dragon figurine, rearing on its hindlegs, fire blazing from its mouth. A black cord looped from its back. “For your strength,” my bear shifter said, and moved to add that ornament to the tree.
The other alphas were all pulling out figurines from their own coat pockets. Aaron held a dragon that was glossy white with two amber gems for eyes, its head tipped in an authoritative pose. “For your integrity,” he said, and went to find a free spot to hang it.
The dragon in Marco’s hand had been carved entirely out of a gleaming red gemstone, stretched out in flight with its wings spread. “For your passion,” he murmured, stealing a swift kiss. He hooked its cord over the tip of the highest branch he could reach.
West’s fingers tightened around his for a second before he opened them, as if he were afraid his wouldn’t live up to the others. The dragon he’d brought was whittled from a fine-grained wood, its body looping around on itself as if it were reaching toward something or someone behind it.
“For your compassion,” he said, so quietly no one other than me might have heard it.
All of them in a row and that one at the end in particular left me choked up. “West,” I said.
“You know how much I love you, Sparks,” he said, holding my gaze for a beat before he went to place his ornament alongside the others.
“How much we all love you,” Nate added, hugging me close with an arm around my shoulders.
I dug into the little purse I’d been carrying. My fingers closed around warm copper. “Great minds think alike?” I said, drawing it out.
I’d commissioned the piece, so I doubted there was any other quite like it in the whole world. A wolf, a bear, a jaguar, and an eagle leapt from the design in different directions, but they were joined together in the center by an etching like a flame.
“It’s beautiful,” Aaron said.
“It’s us,” Marco declared.
As West rejoined us, the four of them drew me into a combined embrace. I soaked in the heat of their bodies and their twining scents. I was aching again, but this time with gratitude for the path that had led me here, that had let me find the men I was meant to share this life with.
Please let me never lose them.
CHAPTER 4
Nate
I RAN my thumb over the book’s cover, its new leather smell tickling my nose. It looked well bound to my unpracticed eyes, the pages inside crisp and the black text neat. Of course, the contents of that text were going to matter a hell of a lot more than how the type looked.
I turned to Aaron, who’d left the Christmas celebration outside to come with me to the office that had belonged to every disparate alpha before me. When I held the book out to him, he took it gingerly.
>
“Does it look well put together to you?” I asked. “You’ve got to have a much better eye for this sort of thing than I do.” The eagle shifter had never made any secret of his fondness for books and the information he could glean from them.
Aaron flipped to the table of contents and then through several of the entries. “It’s come together really well,” he said, in a tone that was impressed enough that I relaxed. “She’s going to love it, you know.”
“I hope so.” I swallowed down a twinge of worry as I took the book back from him.
“Why wouldn’t she?”
I grimaced. “I just can’t help wondering if it’ll end up upsetting her more than anything else. All those reminders of the past…”
Aaron gave me a friendly pat on my arm. “Nothing in that book is about the painful parts of the past. Our dragon shifter lost a lot on the day of the attack, and every day after while she was forced into that secret life. This gift is going to take a large step toward replacing things she might never have expected to get back. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cries, but I guarantee they’ll be happy tears.”
“I don’t really want to make her cry at all,” I muttered, and this time he gave me a playful cuffing instead of a pat.
“You definitely know how she feels about you trying to protect her.”
“Hey! I learned my lesson. I’ve been very good about not overstepping.” I tucked the book into a gift bag I’d set aside for this purpose—simple red paper printed with gold snowflakes, too pedestrian for what it contained? But it was too late to find anything else—and pushed away from my desk. “Thank you for all your help with the particulars. I might not have had anything to give at all without your advice.”
I couldn’t say organization was exactly my strong suit, and bringing this book together had required quite a lot, from tracking down the best contributors across each of the kin groups to working out the necessary timelines for receiving their submissions to presenting the stories they’d offered in a coherent way. The eagle shifter had cheered the project on and offered much-valued tips from the start.