by Jenna Kernan
babies, and they do nothing.”
“What?” Shock struck him still.
“The Niyanoka chief said so. Sanctioned was the word they used.”
Alon shook his head in denial, knowing in his heart that her words were true. “Does father know?”
“I don’t have the heart to tell him. The Spirit Children say they will ignore the hunts. That way they can keep their hands clean, maintain their smug superiority and have the Skinwalkers remove the troublesome problem.”
He pictured a pack of Skinwalker wolves finding his sister sleeping. The image iced his blood. He thought of their new guest and hardened his heart.
He had to keep Samantha safe and he had to keep Aldara safe.
“We’re out of time,” said Alon. “No more persuasion. We’ll use the Beta and Gammas to force the Deltas to come with us.”
“You kissed her.”
He glared. “So?”
“There are plenty of girls back at the school. But you kissed a Skinwalker.”
He snorted and then realized his mistake as Aldara’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, right.” She swept back her silvery hair and glared. “We’re not good enough for you.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your actions do. Her kind is killing our people. How could you...you...kiss a beast?” Her words turned into a series of snaps and growls as her mouth began to contort with the change again. She rounded on him. “She won’t want you, you know?”
Her words hit him like a blow, echoing the truth he had already accepted. Samantha was not of his race, and some of her people were trying to exterminate his. How could she ever understand him, and why would she want to?
“For a moment I forgot what she was. A mistake. It won’t happen again.”
* * *
Samantha stood in bear form with her back pressed to the tree hidden just upwind of the place where Alon and Aldara spoke of Skinwalkers as the enemy.
Vigilantes. Could that be true? Did her dad know?
No wonder Aldara hated her on sight. Her people were hunting infants. It was too terrible.
Sebastian’s instructions echoed in her mind. If you see a Toe Tagger kill it, and she knew Aldara’s words were true.
She closed her eyes as his sister had called her a beast and rather than defend her, he’d agreed. That hurt so much she had to hug the tree for support.
Alon admitted that kissing her had been a mistake. Her head drooped, suddenly too heavy for her to hold upright. Her heart pulsed with her shame.
To know exactly what he thought of her was hard. She understood that there were many who thought Skinwalkers less than human. It was what all the Niyanoka believed. But to hear this from Alon’s mouth somehow felt like a slap across her face.
She winced. Letting him kiss her was nearly as stupid as sending that evil ghost for judgment.
Regret and shame rolled into an electric ball of anger that rumbled through her like thunder. A Toe Tagger calling her a beast. It wasn’t as if he had a glowing lineage. His father was trying to take over the entire living world. She knew that and still she had been lured by Alon’s handsome face and raw sexuality.
What did she care if he belittled her? She knew what she was and where she belonged. But her defense fell flat. The truth was that she didn’t know where she belonged or what she should do. Blake and his mother were to rally the Niyanoka. Her dad would gather the Skinwalkers into an army. And her job was to try not to get eaten by yearling Toe Taggers and wait around for Alon to have time to bring her to Bess. Her head sank even lower as Alon’s words echoed through her like an emotional earthquake.
A mistake.
Yes, that it was. He made her ashamed of her weakness for him. Ashamed to let herself want a Halfling who found her attention a disgrace.
To the Toe Taggers she was a beast. Both the Dream Children and the Skinwalkers saw her as a half-breed born of the enemy race.
In her heart she was torn in two. Straddling two races, she felt wholly a part of neither.
Just then a feral scream came from a place beyond the clearing where Alon and Aldara stood.
“The babies,” said Aldara, already turning toward the sound. “Something is attacking the babies!”
Samantha’s heart pounded in fear as she peered around the mighty tree. There was a discharge of green light, and then Alon and Aldara stood eight feet tall in their third form. She shrank back at the sight. These were the creatures that attacked her dad. Long silvery hair, a ridge of spines down their backs, long apelike arms and vicious claws.
They charged toward the sound as more screams reached Samantha. She pressed a paw to her chest, trying to ease the pain of her pounding heart. Should she follow or run?
She turned to move in the opposite direction when something occurred to her. What if it wasn’t Nagi or his Toe Tagger army? What if vigilante Skinwalkers were attacking the infants?
Samantha’s scalp tingled. She couldn’t let her own kind kill those little ones. It was wrong—so wrong.
She charged after Alon, following his scent as she plowed through the undergrowth toward the unknown.
Chapter 9
Samantha caught up with Alon and Aldara before they reached their objective. Alon turned to face the threat coming from behind and stopped the instant Samantha appeared.
Aldara bared her fangs. Samantha reared up to face this threat, but Alon extended a hand to stop Aldara. Samantha couldn’t hide her distress. They faced her together with huge yellow eyes, gray, pointed, batlike leathery ears and those terrible spiny teeth. They were near identical except Alon was larger and Aldara had fur-covered breasts. They were the most frightening things she had ever seen, and her body began to tremble even as she reared to her hind legs, rising to her full nine feet.
“It’s Samantha,” he said, his words slurred by his fangs.
“She’s a bear?” hissed Aldara.
“A healer, like her father. We might have need of her.”
Is that why he stopped the attack? Because she might be useful?
Aldara lifted her chin as if listening. A moment later she shuddered.
“They’re here. I can feel them on my skin,” she whispered. “Nagi’s forces.”
Alon went still and then the skin on his shoulders quivered like a horse chasing off a fly. “Yes.”
“What do we do?” Aldara’s huge, bulbous eyes were wide with terror.
“Kill them before they can report back.” His words were hushed, slurred and sinister. The harsh, guttural tone sent a shiver through Samantha.
“He’ll know. He’ll see them in the circle. They’ll tell him where to find us.” Her words were an urgent whisper.
Alon raked a hand through the long silvery fur on his head. It was so fine that the tracks of his fingers remained for a moment.
“Kill them quick. Get the Beta, Gamma and Delta packs and run.” He turned to Samantha. “They will kill you if they see you. You can’t defeat them alone. Your best chance is with us.”
Best chance. Her ears began to buzz.
She growled in acknowledgment as she could not speak in this form.
Aldara leaped away, running on all fours like a baboon. Alon glanced back at Samantha and then raced after his sister.
Samantha dropped to all fours and charged after the twins, who left a wide path through the undergrowth. Before she reached them, the terrible howling erupted again and then a roar. She broke from cover to find two Ghostlings locked together in combat. Alon, she realized, with an intruder.
Aldara scrambled from one small Ghostling to the next, stopping briefly to emit a high-pitched cry before moving on. Six small bodies littered the ground in bloody contortions. Four had been torn open in the middle and two had had their throats ripped out. The Delta Pack, Samantha realized.
She heaved with a wave of nausea at the carnage. Aldara finished her survey and roared. It was a sound that Samantha would never forget, full of pain and wrath and the need for revenge. Aldara le
aped on the back of the intruder, heedless of the spines that punctured her, and sank her fangs deep into the juncture of its shoulder and neck. Alon released his foe, and Samantha now saw it was a female. The Toe Tagger twisted and howled in a vain effort to shake off her attacker. The Halfling’s movements seemed to drive Aldara’s fangs only deeper into the vessels and tissue at its throat. She could not shake Aldara off. Finally the Ghostling staggered and dropped to her knees. Only then did Aldara release it. Her bloody mouth gaped and she gnashed her teeth as she stood over her fallen foe.
Samantha caught movement from the corner of her eye. Alon and Aldara faced the female, so they did not see the second Halfling attacker streak from the cover of ferns. But Samantha did.
It came so fast she did not have time to think. Instead, she charged, meeting the thing in midair as it tried to tackle Alon. Her block drove it off course, and they both hit the ground.
The ease with which it knocked Samantha down both shocked and terrified her. The male Ghostling raised a claw that glistened with the blood of the Delta Pack. But his blow never landed. Alon grabbed its raised arm and sank his long, spearlike talons deep between the male’s ribs.
Her attacker gasped as he sank to his knees. Alon withdrew his talons, and red, frothy blood bubbled from the Ghostling’s mouth. It fell forward and lay still.
Alon glanced at Samantha and then turned back to Aldara, who tried and failed to rise as she gripped her chest and abdomen. Blood seeped between her fingers.
Samantha bellowed.
“They’re gone,” Aldara said to Alon. “Their souls have already fled!”
His gaze darted here and there, sweeping the ground. Did he search for the souls of the young ones? The fur on Samantha’s neck lifted as she watched him hunt for what she could not see. She could see ghosts, but not the escaping souls. What was the difference?
She placed her paw over her heart, closed her eyes and concentrated. An instant later she felt the flash of energy and the zip of power as she shifted forms. For one moment she stood naked in her long bearskin cape. She stroked her shoulder, summoning another flash of light. Now she stood dressed in sneakers, jeans and a clean white T-shirt.
Alon did not shift. Neither did Aldara. But Aldara did topple sideways before Samantha could reach her.
Alon charged away. He returned a moment later with a pile of stones.
“I have to check for other intruders,” he growled and was gone again.
Samantha placed the stones in a circle and motioned Aldara to the center.
Samantha tugged the crow feather free from her hair. Aldara closed her eyes as Samantha began to chant.
The wounds healed from the inside out. First the blood ceased and finally the tissue knit. She finished her work and discovered Alon there guarding them both. Still in his third form, he now seemed more imposing than terrifying, and the sight gave her an unexpected sense of ease.
“No others,” he said.
“None of the souls can be saved?” she asked.
He shook his head.
Aldara curled into a ball and wept.
Alon knelt beside her, resting a hand on her silvery back.
“Aldara. We need to find the Beta and Gamma packs and we need to run.”
She lifted her damp face. “What about them? We have to bury them.”
“I’ll do it,” said Samantha. In her bear form the digging would be no trouble.
They both stared at her with those terrifying jaundice eyes. She nearly succeeded in repressing a shiver.
“You both go after the others. I’ll bury them and meet you at the house.”
Alon shook his head. “We can’t leave her.”
“You said there were no more intruders,” reminded Samantha.
“Bury them, please,” said Aldara. She staggered to her feet.
Samantha knew that Aldara would feel dizzy and weak after the healing. But still Alon’s sister dropped to her knees and began to dig. Her long talons tore through the packed soil like steel through sand.
Samantha shifted and joined Aldara. A moment later Alon added his efforts. The result was one long deep grave for the six twins to rest side by side. Aldara made a bed of ferns and blanketed their desecrated bodies with the same. Together they filled the grave, covering the little twins who had not survived their first year. This was what Nagi did to his own kind.
She stilled as she realized this was also what her kind were doing, hunting the infants. Killing them while they were small. Samantha felt sick and ashamed. No wonder Alon and Aldara both hated her.
Samantha shifted back to human form to say a blessing.
“We have to find the rest,” said Aldara.
They did not have far to look. The Gamma Pack had also sensed the intruders. Samantha did not understand it. Alon said they could feel others of their kind on their skin just as they could feel ghosts.
The group of twenty all hid in the cover of thick fern and brush. Alon sensed them first. Aldara met them with open arms.
It took a moment for Samantha to realize that the yipping and snarling was weeping. The Gamma Pack members were mourning for their lost siblings.
Samantha wept, as well.
She felt Alon squat beside her and glanced down to see his elongated foot covered with silvery-blond fur, the nails just as terrible as a grizzly’s claws.
“Are you surprised to see that we can feel?” he asked in that strange guttural voice.
“No,” she said, her denial quick and defensive. She let her shoulders droop. “Yes,” she whispered. “You aren’t what I was taught to expect.”
He left her there and joined his sister, who was trying to explain what had happened to the youngsters. They could not understand why two of their own kind would attack them. Every adult Ghost Child they had ever met had been kind and nurturing.
These Ghostlings were bigger, nearly half Aldara’s size, and imposing in such a large group. Still Samantha did not feel afraid. She listened when Aldara explained about her but could not really understand what was said.
“They know where the Betas are,” said Aldara. “And they’ve agreed to leave with me. To find our parents.”
Samantha glanced to him and found his gaze pinned on her.
“I can’t leave her,” he said, speaking to Aldara while looking at Samantha.
And then she understood. Aldara and Alon, even these little ones, could all fly. She was holding them back and endangering them all.
“But there may be more of them,” said Aldara.
“More reason to stay.”
Aldara glanced from her brother to Samantha and sighed. “You will follow?”
He nodded. “As quickly as we can.”
“We’ll go to the Beta Pack first. Then find our parents.”
She stepped forward to hug her brother and then turned to face Samantha. “Thank you for healing my wounds. I owe you a favor, but if you get my brother killed you answer to me.”
With that mixed message delivered, Aldara made a clicking sound in her throat. The Gamma Pack gathered about her. She pointed to the sky. They nodded their understanding.
Then, right before her eyes, Aldara evaporated into billowing gray smoke and rocketed into the blue. Each of the Gammas poofed into smoke and followed their half sister.
Samantha gaped in wonder as she witnessed their retreat. They could fly!
Alon watched them until they disappeared.
“I’m sorry,” Samantha said.
“We have to hurry,” he said.
How long until the souls of the Ghostlings walked the Spirit Road and reached Nagi in his shadowy realm?
How long until her enemy found her?
* * *
Alon wasted no time getting Samantha back to the house. Fifteen minutes later he was back in human form, dressed in boots, creased trousers and a gray pinstriped shirt with cuffs rolled to the elbow. His mussed hair and untucked shirttails spoke of his rush. He hustled her out to the garage and threw a small
duffel into the bed of a red Ford pickup truck. She strapped on her shoulder restraint and he led them out of the mountains, driving as fast as the twisting switchbacks would allow. Samantha had never learned to drive and was relieved that Alon had.
Twilight painted the sky purple. Samantha held on to the armrest and braced her feet on the floor, trying unsuccessfully to keep from banging into the door frame. Many switchbacks later, the road, and Samantha’s stomach, leveled on the valley floor and the sky opened above them, giving her a view of the stars emerging one by one. First the Holy Star, Venus, twinkled bright and then Winter Maker, the cluster called Orion by many, appeared, still clinging to his place in the heavens.
As Alon drove, Samantha told herself to keep her attention out the window, but she could not resist snatching quick glances at him. He was handsome again. She could not get her mind around the reality that this stunning, sexy man was that terrifying, vicious creature who had so effectively used his claws to puncture the heart and lungs of his challenger.
His third form called to mind the ones who had attacked her family. It was a comparison that lifted the hairs on her neck. Had they done the same to her father? Alon thought so.
He wasn’t one of them. This was Alon. Still she inched farther from him and clung to the armrest.
He had been right not to show her his third form. How had she ever kissed him? How could she have fallen for his looks when she knew what he was inside? He’d been born that way. This, what she now saw, was not his natural form. She, on the other hand, had been born human and only later grew into her second shape.
Her entire life had been filled with the terror of being found by Nagi. Always she feared his ghosts and lately his evil monsters. Alon was one of them.
She had not always balanced her fear for her family’s safety and the urging of her heart to do what she was meant to do. What would Alon do with her if he knew that she was also a Seer, one of the three Halflings whom Nagi most wanted dead?
She shivered.
“Cold?” he asked and fiddled with the air system.
She was cold right through to her heart. What did she do now?
She closed her eyes and wished for the kind of life many took for granted, one of peace, security and purpose. Would she ever have that?