Jacob's Ladder (String of Fate)

by Bianca D'Arc

  “They wouldn’t knock if it wasn’t important,” she said, knowing that duty called—or in this case, knocked.

  Jake sighed and ran his fingers through his hair in an impatient, sleepy gesture. “Okay. I’ll get up and see what’s going on.”

  “You’re my hero,” she joked as he stood and bent, looking for his pants and giving her an excellent view of his physique while he was at it. Her inner cat wanted to purr. Then again, it always seemed to want to purr when she was with Jake. He had a potent effect on both the human and panther sides of her nature.

  As it turned out, there was an urgent call from the Lords—the identical twin wolf shifters who ruled over the vast majority of werecreatures in North America. They had counterparts in many corners of the world. Most of the wolf Packs across Europe and Asia chose to be led by such beings. Identical twins were rare in the shifter world and it was thought that the Goddess chose the next rulers of each group wisely. Once in each generation, a set of identical male twins would be born and they would be raised to rule over all shifters who owed their allegiance to them.

  In North America, that meant wolves, bears, cougars, foxes, various forms of raptors, and many other Tribes, Packs and Clans answered to the current twins. As such, they had a great deal of power, but because the identical twin pairs always seemed to mate with a single priestess of the Lady, they were also well-guided on their path.

  Jake had never met the Lords, but Ria seemed to know them. After dressing hastily, Ria and Jake had been led into the heart of the cave complex where a communications room lay ready for their use. The fox Alpha was already there, as was the company commander of the mercenaries—a pale bear shifter who went by the name Roth—and a few others. Ria took a seat that had been left open for her directly in front of the video pickup and Jake sat at her side.

  He could see the other room on the video monitors. In it were two identical men—had to be the Lords—and a pretty blonde woman who was most likely their mate. There was also a large fellow at their side who might be one of their lieutenants.

  “Milady Ria,” one of the twins began as soon as she was seated. “It’s good to see you again. Kinkaid told us where to find you. I hope you don’t mind the early call. I just remembered what time it is on the east coast. Sorry.”

  Ria chuckled. “It’s okay. And just call me Ria,” she answered with a smile and a casual wave of her hand. “This is my mate Jake.” She gestured toward him.

  “I’m Rafe,” the first man to speak identified himself over the video connection. “You’ve met my brother, Tim, and our mate, Allie. This is Rocky.” He nodded toward the other man on their end. “My apologies, but I didn’t know you had mated. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. It was a recent thing,” Ria smiled and took Jake’s hand on the table, making her position clear. They were a team.

  “What Clan are you from, Jake?” Tim asked in a friendly yet assessing tone.

  Jake shook his head. “No Clan. I’m not a shifter.”

  Everyone on the monitor stilled and seemed to be staring hard at the screen on their end.

  “Well, what are you then? Mage?” The man named Rocky asked in a gruff voice. He didn’t sound unfriendly, exactly.

  Jake shook his head again. “I’m not a mage, but I am a seer. Look, we can establish my credentials very easily. Don’t you know a guy named Slade? Last I heard, he was working for you. Ask him about me. He’ll tell you what you need to know.”

  “Give us a minute.” Tim reached forward and hit a button that muted the conversation from their end.

  He was then seen lifting a phone and punching in some numbers. A short conversation ensued that the folks in North Carolina couldn’t hear and then Tim seemed to make a few comments to the folks on his end that made everyone’s eyebrows rise a bit.

  “I’d love to know what he just told them,” Ria said with a grin. “Who’s Slade?” she asked Jake in an almost purring tone.

  He looked over at her, captivated as always, by her smile. “He’s an old friend from Tibet.” He almost laughed when her eyes widened, making the connection. He had just told her without words that Slade was, in all likelihood, one of the rare, mystical snowcat shapeshifters.

  Tim was seen hitting the button that turned the audio back on. “Slade sends formal greetings to his brother,” he said, then whistled between his teeth. “Someday I’d love to hear how you got adopted into that family.” Clearly, Tim knew a bit about Slade’s background.

  “It’s a long story. Maybe one day, I’ll get a chance to tell it to you. For now, I’m sure my brother told you to listen for the right words, but it beats the hell out of me how I’m supposed to casually work lotus blossom into a sentence.” Jake confirmed his identity with the code words and he saw Tim’s short nod.

  They got down to business after that, discussing the action of the night before and everything that had led up to it. It turned out the Lords were spearheading the North American intelligence gathering on the movements and actions of the Venifucus all over the country. They were also interfacing with their counterparts all over the world to build a cohesive picture of what was going on globally.

  They had several high-value prisoners in detention and were using magical means to interrogate them. Roth reported what they had learned so far from the prisoners they had apprehended last night and the Lords asked if a few of the higher-ranking prisoners might be transferred to their custody. It seemed they had a high-security prison of sorts, all set up and ready to accommodate them.

  Since Ria and Jake didn’t have a home base and the foxes could only handle a few prisoners at a time on an ongoing basis, they agreed to the scheme. Besides, having a priestess in on the interrogations implied a lot of things. First, that the prisoners would not be mistreated. Second, that they would be given the chance to truly turn from the dark into the Light. And third, that every last harmful secret they held would eventually come out.

  After the video conference drew to a close, Ria and Jake went with Roth to look over the prisoners. One thing became very clear from the reports of the interrogations so far—only the so-called Necromancer had known exactly why he was chasing the Nyx. Most of his people saw his obsession with Ria as a personal vendetta. It became obvious that Willard had boasted of powers he never really possessed as far as raising the dead or even communicating with them.

  As a result, his people saw his hounding of the Nyx as his own little obsession because she could apparently do something he had tried repeatedly to do and failed. His people continued to follow him because, for all his perceived failures as a necromancer, he still had a whole lot of very specific magical power. He also held political influence in his position on the Venifucus Council of Elders.

  Knowing they had, indeed, killed a Council member last night was a real feather in their cap. It was something nobody else could confirm having done anywhere around the world and it would most likely have dealt a severe blow to the Venifucus political structure. It was therefore, highly unlikely that anyone would try coming after Ria again anytime soon. If she and her people were able to take down a Council member, they were definitely a force to be reckoned with. It would take a lot of preparation and planning before anyone attempted to come after her again.

  They had earned some much-needed breathing room.

  There was a sense of relief and guarded happiness in the fox den all that day. Most of the foxes had made it through unscathed. They had been able to take cover in their home territory better than everyone else. Only one of the foxes had been captured, and that during the run-up to the battle.

  They had retrieved that scout—a man named Zevon—and were tending to his wounds. He had been hurt badly as the enemy soldiers interrogated him, but he would live. He would need help for his wounds, both physical and psychological, but the fox Alpha had already sent out word that the non-combatants of his Pack should return to their home area. Zevon’s family would look after him, smothering him with love and care, the Alpha ha
d said. Apparently Zevon had quite a large family.

  Many people were sporting bandages of one kind or another and one of the larger caverns had been set up as a hospital. Lots of gunshot wounds, but only a few were truly life-threatening. The fox Alpha had called in a go-team he had set up ahead of time that consisted of at least three doctors and several nurses and medics that were members of the fox Pack. This high up in the mountains, they had to be self-reliant and the Alpha had encouraged any of their young folk who had the desire and inclination, to go to school. As a result, this Pack had several members with advanced medical degrees earned in the human world, which came in really handy at a time like this.

  In fact, the Pack owned and manned a small clinic lower down the mountain, closer to the human settlements that offered medical care for shifters and humans alike. Most of the Pack’s medical personnel worked there, earning a tidy profit for the prosperous Pack and themselves.

  Ria really liked what she saw of the fox Pack and the forward-thinking Alpha. He had taken his group into the twenty-first century and made it possible for them to not only survive, but thrive in the modern world.

  She wondered if she might now have a chance to set up a home base and territory of her own, now that the Venifucus threat had been staved off. Where would she go? How would she gather the members of her Clan together? They were few and far-flung around the world. Maybe she should operate on the old movie premise—if she built it, they would come.

  “You know…” she told Jake as they walked hand in hand up the mountain. It was almost time for the final new moon ceremony of the month and it was going to be done in the stone circle. “The tiger king has a stronghold built into the side of a volcano. And I heard Kinkaid has bought thousands and thousands of acres in Texas for his seat of power. Now that I’m not being hunted…” She trailed off, still hardly able to believe she might actually be free of the constant threat that had hounded her most of her life.

  “Are you thinking about where to build your own nest?” Jake asked in a warm tone that made her feel loved. He was such a good man. So attuned to her moods and needs.

  “Pantera noir isn’t a Clan in the traditional sense. Not like the lions or the tigre d’or. In nature, there’s no real equivalent to us in the animal kingdom. There is not one breed of panthers. Instead, black cats of several different species are called panthers. We’re a little different. Once a big cat family breeds a pantera noir, they’re members of our Clan. In the normal course of business, they breed true and all their progeny will be pantera noir. There aren’t many of us, and it is seen as a mark of the Goddess’s will when new pantera noir lines are created.”

  Jake nodded, seeming to contemplate her revelations. “So your Clan is small and spread out,” he concluded correctly. “That kind of allows you to choose where you want to be, doesn’t it? I mean, if there’s no big concentration where all your people live, you can decide where to make your home more easily.”

  “I want to stay in the States,” she said immediately. “Some of my predecessors lived at Delphi. I think they wanted a way to bring the wisdom of those who had passed to all, not just to shifters. So the Oracle at Delphi was a good place for them, then. The world is a lot different now and the rules around what those on the other side can tell me have changed along the way.” She thought about her mother’s words from last night and paused slightly. “Although…I think they may have just changed again after last night. My mother said as much when she told me to do the ceremony up in the stone circle again tonight.”

  They walked along in silence for a moment, making progress up the wooded trail. Her Guards were with them, of course, but keeping a perimeter that allowed Ria and Jake a sense of privacy. Her people were amazing. Many had been injured in various ways in the battle, but all those who were mobile were already back at their posts—even though she’d told them to take it easy. She’d finally had to ask Master Geir to evaluate everyone personally and order those who needed more healing time to take it.

  “Do you have any particular State in mind for your home base?” Jake asked, restarting the conversation a few moments later.

  “Not really. Do you?” She looked up at him in the twilight. The moon would rise earlier tonight and she wanted to be in the circle well ahead of time to be sure all was ready.

  “Well, my sister went back upstate New York when she married Cade. Since Gina’s folks moved back to Iceland, they might be willing to sell us their place. It’s a fortress, from what I hear, and built to suit cats who like to roam. Plus, Cade and Ellie are already in the area. Maybe more of your Clan could be enticed to join us, considering the tigers did all the heavy lifting creating the place.”

  “That’s a brilliant idea!” She felt joy leap in her heart when she thought about his suggestion. It made a lot of sense and the stronghold she’d thought about building over many years was already there. “We’d make our own changes, of course, but the framework is already in place and the area is already clear for shifters. Plus, I think most of the tigers really just wanted to go back to Iceland. Ellie said a lot of the area was empty now. Could be a lot of tigers willing to sell out to us. Oh, I like this.”

  Ria leaned in to hug Jake around the waist as they walked along. He really was perfect for her in every way. Thanks be to the Goddess that they’d made it through the battle last night and had hope for a better future.

  Ria conducted the new moon ceremony a short while later, surrounded by most of those who were mobile enough to join them. Many messages were delivered to individuals who responded in varying ways—some with tears, some with joy, some with solemn dignity. When the public portion of the evening was over and those who had come to receive messages had taken them and left, Ria had a chance to talk with her mother once more.

  “You are safe for now, sweetheart,” her mother confirmed. “But the entire world isn’t safe yet from the Destroyer. The Venifucus will continue to look for ways to free Elspeth and return her to the mortal realm. You’re going to have to be vigilant. Your mate’s idea about buying the tiger’s former stronghold in the mountains of New York is a really good one. It will be a good place for the Clan to gather. Strength in numbers, Ria. It’s not a good time to be a loner.”

  Her mother imparted a few more words of wisdom before the moon moved on and their time ran out for this month. Ria hoped that by next month, she would be doing the ceremony in her own home. Although…anywhere Jake was, was home. Still, she’d always wanted a stronghold…

  They walked back to the fox den and stayed the night. Jake spent an hour or two talking strategy with Ben, Geir, Seth, and Roth, leader of the company of Moore’s soldiers who had stuck around for the mop up. They were planning to evac some of the higher-value prisoners to the Lords’ mountain in Montana and other places where they could be housed and interrogated more completely over time. The conditions were humane, but nobody was sure yet if these men could be released. They would have to be carefully examined by priestesses and other folk who would be able to tell if the men were simple soldiers or something even more dangerous.

  While Jake was closeted with the military component, Ria spent her time visiting the injured and talking with her friends among her Royal Guard. It was good to be at ease, for once, with no danger breathing down their necks. The mood among her people had lightened, even though many were injured and several would take a long time to heal.

  That the number of deaths on their side was so low was a minor miracle. Then again, they’d had time to prepare and the fox scouts had shared their knowledge of the terrain freely with her people. Though she hadn’t spent much time among their kind before, she had gained new respect for the breed and saw the truth of the old adage about being clever like a fox. Some of the hidey holes they’d revealed around the mountain were downright ingenious, and had come in very handy in keeping casualties to a minimum.

  Ria headed back to the room they’d been given, deep inside the fox den with only a pair of her Royal Guard keeping h
er company. She liked having them around, but now that she was mated to Jake, she craved more privacy to share with her lover. Life had changed in a big way and she was still trying to figure out what it would all mean to the way they moved forward.

  Would she be able to settle down now? Would they have a home of their own? In one place. Not having to flee all the time and stay on the move. It was quite a concept to a woman who had lived most of her life on the run. She craved the stability of a home of her own.

  Now that she was mated, she craved a den. A nest she could feather and prepare for the next generation. She wanted a family. Maybe not right away, but eventually. She wanted to raise her cubs in security and teach the daughter she hoped to have about the responsibility of their lineage.

  It was a nice dream. A simple dream. And one she was finally able to believe in. Since Jake had swept into her life, so much had changed. That they might actually have a shot at the fabled happily ever after was still something that was a bit like a fantasy to her. A fantasy she wanted to reach out and grab with both hands. And never let go.

  It all began and ended with her mate. Jake.

  With a smile on her lips, Ria decided to surprise him as she entered their bedroom. Her Guards would remain in the hallway, doing their duty, but inside this room—and the connecting bath…and the little surprise the fox Alpha had finally told her about a couple of hours ago—they were alone. Man and woman. Mates. Forever.

  It was time to start their honeymoon. Finally.

  Ria shed her clothing and shifted her shape into the other half of her being. The cat who lived within. Feeling rather decadent and daring, she stretched out on the big bed, and waited for her mate to come to her.

  Jake scratched his nose as he opened the door to their bedroom. He stopped short, seeing the giant black cat stretched out across the bed, his hand stilling and then dropping to his side. After a beat, he continued into the room and closed the door behind himself, leaving the two Royal Guards on duty on either side of the portal. He’d have to get used to having them around. Just as he’d have to get used to coming back and finding his mate in her fur coat.