“There is so much I need to tell you, I’m not quite sure where to begin,” he said.
“Maybe start with the part where Quinn can become a wolf,” she prompted, with a raise of her eyebrows. She still wasn’t sure how her mind had wrapped around that information so easily, but she knew it was true and had accepted it.
“Right,” he cleared his throat uncomfortably, “but, to be clear, it’s not just Quinn. It’s the whole pack.”
Pack.
She paused and laughed, “Of course. I didn’t take it literally, but the she-wolf story... I guess there’s more to that?”
“Yes, that’s a good place to begin,” he said, adding his own short chuckle, and he began talking.
Jaisey sat quietly, listening intently, while her father explained about the different groups of people that had occupied the mountains so long ago. There were Ishaks and Shroud, and of course their ancestors, who were true shifters – only ever shifting to the form of a wolf. The shifters had extraordinary abilities that came with the shifting, and some even had other gifts, like seeing the future and reading thoughts. The Shroud were very like the vampires of myth, using the blood of the Ishaks as their sustenance. It wasn’t until a sort of hybrid came along that the peace was broken. Because that new breed had turned evil, their ancestors had pulled all the power of the valley into the village and built a shield to keep it all contained. As a result, the Shroud all died off because the power was no longer in the blood of the Ishaks.
“If you could see the shield, I would expect that it would look something like a dome covering our little village,” he explained. “When you crossed the threshold of that power the first time, you would have no doubt felt it.”
Jaisey thought back, remembering that first day she’d gone to the village to try and help Seff. “It made me dizzy. I thought it was from lack of sleep or something at the time.”
“So, now that you have been in the power, you will also shift. Soon, I would think,” he said.
Jaisey sat there staring at her father. She was going to become a wolf too. Her mind went blank. Completely unable to process that thought.
She just filed that away to think about later and told him to continue.
Kenyon nodded, “So, once the shield was in place, several members of our pack traveled to the Dragasani village to help them do the same. And so, from that time forward, the powers have been contained in our villages, and the Shroud have been extinct. The Ishaks still live nearby, however, and have crossed our border recently, so we have been keeping an eye on them.”
Again, Jaisey tried to process all the information. It was a lot. Vampires, or rather, Shroud had truly existed. Well… why not? Men that could change to the form of wolves existed. It was all beyond her comprehension in the first place.
“Since the creation of the shield, we’ve needed pack members to keep it in place. To be sure the past never repeats itself. It takes years of training to learn how to help maintain that power. Which leads us to now,” he said.
Jaisey sat dazed, still trying to process the history lesson. Her father watched her closely.
“Would you like to take a break?” Kenyon asked.
Jaisey considered for a moment. “No, I think we might as well get through all of this now.”
“All right, where was I? Oh yes, so when I met your mother, she was staying at the cabin with her parents. She was only a little older than you are now. We fell in love immediately. I went against the elders and left the mountain and married her. We had the boys and then you and your sister were born…” he trailed off, sounding sad.
“Because I’d gone against the elders in marrying your mother, I actually never thought I’d return to the mountain. But then they reached out and wanted us to visit – the mountain, not the village. So, we spent summers here as a family, and I was able to reestablish a relationship with my parents and the pack. It was tentative, and I held a grudge for years and wouldn’t allow them to even talk about my family.
“But then, that last summer when we were all here together, I noticed that the boys were starting to absorb the power of the valley. That didn’t make any sense. They should have had to enter the village as you did to start that process. But apparently, with boys it’s different, and they were able to start the change from outside of the shield.”
“How could you tell they were absorbing the power?” Jaisey asked.
“Well, we’ve uncovered some things our ancestors didn’t know about the power in the valley. For one, we have the ability to see the auras of all living things. Everything has its own color. Typical humans have a pale silvery-blue aura, like the sky, but wispy like a cloud. Our pack members have a golden tone, and so on. Well that summer, when the power touched the boys, their auras began to change. I’d thought that all of you would remain untouched since you hadn’t been raised in the village, but I was wrong.
“It became clear that bringing you up to the mountain each summer was pulling you closer to becoming pack. We decided then that we would stop coming up. It wasn’t a choice we made lightly. Certainly, none of you would have been prepared for this life. And there were a few other reasons to keep you all away.
“But then late that summer, my father passed away. He was an elder that helped protect the power in the valley. And it’s a bit complicated, but there’s something of a succession in the way the power of the valley is handled, and I was next to help protect the power. I’d been taught how to help with the shield, and as much as I wanted to say no, I couldn’t. The people in the valley, they’re still my family. There was no one else that could take my place.
“I wasn’t able to leave the mountain, and we couldn’t have you kids coming up. I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing your mother again. So, she created a reason to leave you kids in the summer and continued to join me here,” he dropped his head in his hands and his shoulders slumped.
Jaisey watched as the grief washed over him, her own heart breaking for her father and his lost love. When he lifted his head, his eyes met hers. There was a deep sadness there.
“Jaisey, I’m so sorry I haven’t been there for you. If I could do it all again, I would do things differently. You need to know that I love you all more than anything. I always have.”
Her own eyes began to fill with tears, once again. This was the man of her memories, not the stranger living on a mountain who had mysteriously left them. Her father.
“And, I’ll admit, I never expected to see you up on the mountain,” he said.
“I love it here. It just felt like this was the place I needed to say goodbye to mom.”
He nodded. “You are so much like your mother. The mountain is in your blood. So, now here you are. You’ve been exposed to the power of the valley. You’ve become pack in the very truest form of the word. And on top of that, having your soul shift to Quinn’s…”
“Wait… what?” she interrupted.
“You’re going to shift...” he started, but she put her hand up.
“No, the part about Quinn,” she responded.
“He’s your soulmate, in a very literal way. Your souls have shifted. You must’ve felt that” he said, though it came out almost like a question.
She nodded and then smiled, loving the way that sounded... their souls had shifted.
“It’s a rare thing, but when it happens it cannot be undone. You’ll forever love only each other, and it will grow even stronger for you, once you have shifted.”
Jaisey sat there, mulling it all over. If there was anything she believed – anything she knew with surety – it was that she loved Quinn. They had a deep, unexplainable connection.
Soulmates.
Yes, that was the perfect description that she wasn’t able to come up with before. She had been able to accept him so easily, in such a short time and now she knew why.
“So, tell me what questions I can answer to help you better understand,” he said.
She took a minute to process the question
s that flooded into her head.
“Do the twins know any of this?” she asked. Regardless of Quinn’s assurance that they didn’t, she had to know.
“No, you are the only one that is aware I’m still around,” he explained. “And no, I don’t expect you to keep this from your siblings. There are, however, a few things we need to resolve before we share all of this with them. Your mother and I planned to tell you all about your heritage once you girls turned eighteen. We figured you could make your own decisions at that point. But then, you were all so busy in your own lives. We kept putting it off, and then…” he trailed off.
Saddened, but reassured, she was quiet for a few moments trying to decide which question needed to be answered next.
“Mom knew about all this, obviously” she finally said. It wasn’t a question. It just felt good to say it out loud. If her mom had accepted all of this, couldn’t she?
He nodded.
“Did you become a… a wolf around her?” she asked.
“More than a few times,” he said with a smile. “She was fascinated by the change. She asked continuously about my wolf-half. And the auras. Endless questions about auras.”
Jaisey couldn’t help it. She smiled. She could picture her mom, and how the situation would have appealed to her. If it had anything to do with nature, she would have been enthralled. And to have questions that could be answered with firsthand experience, it would have been so exciting to her.
She remembered her mom saying how wolves were so misunderstood. Well, that made more sense now, knowing her mom had been given inside information about them. Even as she thought about it, questions began springing to her own mind. How did the scent thing work, and howling, and…
She gasped, “Oh! That’s why there are so many twins!”
Kenyon laughed but nodded yes. He had seen where her mind had taken her and that made her blush.
“Seff?” she asked, just wanting the story there.
“He’s my nephew. His mother, Daciana, was my sister. She passed when he was quite young, and he was left to Ulric. We have followed her wishes to now, but I think we’re done with that. Seff deserves to be with his family. The ones who truly love and care for him.”
She nodded in agreement. Since her first days on the mountain, she’d been making connections. Again, a rightness settled on her for coming to the mountain to heal and say goodbye to her mother.
“Wait,” she said, remembering something her father had touched on, “why did the elders not want you to marry mom?”
He sighed heavily, “I had hoped that wouldn’t need to be explained just yet.”
She looked at him curiously, but said, “You don’t have to tell me.” She was thrilled with all the explanations she had already received.
He shook his head, “No, it’s information you’ll need, but it just requires more explaining, and I’ve already thrown so much at you.”
“Okay,” she said, curious now.
“Remember the Shroud creation I mentioned? The one that was killing humans, and started the shifters down the path of pulling the power of the valley around the village?”
Jaisey nodded.
“Well, that Shroud was the offspring of a shifter and a human with a rare blood type. He’d been bitten and became a Shroud. The elders wanted to prevent me from having children with your mom because she had such a rare blood type. I didn’t listen. I didn’t understand why. I’d never heard of these myths. I thought they were just being selective and didn’t want me to marry an outsider. That's why I went away with her in the first place. I didn’t realize that our children would be at risk,” he explained.
“Wait! I’m one of the Shroud?” she asked, fear creeping into her voice.
“No! It’s just that you have the potential to become one. The elders promised me after I realized you were on the mountain, that they would help protect you by keeping you out of the power of the valley. Until you set foot in that village, you were safe from becoming a Shroud. But now, until you shift, there is that chance that Shroud venom could change you. And with the Ishaks that have been coming across the border, it’s hard to know what their intentions truly are.”
“You think the Ishaks want to turn me into a Shroud?” she asked, horrified.
“Well, that is a possibility, but I believe they’ve already created one. And I think they are in desperate need of power-saturated blood to sustain it,” he said. “If I’m right, then all they need is…” he paused.
“Blood,” Jaisey finished. She shook her head. This was all making sense in a very twisted way.
“Blood from any of the pack members would do, but how much easier would it be to take a younger one?” he asked.
“Seff,” she said with a shudder, thinking back to the attack on the road.
He nodded.
“The wolf that attacked Seff…” she trailed off.
“He was one of the Ishaks,” he replied.
“He came after Seff before, but he was coming after me this time. I’m sure of it. He practically ran down Honi trying to get to me,” she said.
“It’s possible he just wanted revenge against you, for the injuries you caused, or for stopping him from grabbing Seff before. But, it’s also possible that they want you now too. When Seff was attacked, something blocked our power in the forest. We know that a Shroud can’t actually enter the village because of the power, but it could get close. And we don’t really know what powers they might’ve had before – they’ve been gone so long. But I think it was there with the wolf that day.”
“The silence,” Jaisey said looking up at him, her eyes wide with terror. “I felt it.”
Kenyon nodded.
“I followed you back from the bluff to be sure you made it back to the cabin safely,” he began.
“Wait, followed me?” she asked, and then it clicked. “Oh, the brown wolf from the bluff. That was you.”
“Yes,” he responded, with a slight grin, “and when that silence hit, I felt it as well, but I never saw anything. I even tracked the injured wolf back to the border, but it crossed before I could find out if it was alone. I’d hoped they were unaware of your presence here. You should’ve only appeared human. I don’t know if they have a way of sensing ones such as you. If it did recognize your potential, it only needed to wait for you to enter the village.
“And then there you were, sitting right smack in the middle of the power – your aura turned to gold. I cannot tell you how shocked and angry I was that the elders allowed you there. If the Ishaks were to get hold of you now…” he broke off with an angry growl.
“I… this is just too… I can’t do this,” she gasped. Her breathing wasn’t right. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying her best to keep the panic away.
“Listen Jaisey, I know this all sounds bad. But you’ll be safe, down in the valley, in the village. We can protect you there. The Shroud, if they have even created one, wouldn’t be able to pass into the village. And the Ishaks aren’t as strong as we are. They have only the strength of whatever form they’re in – human or animal. We have the strength of the valley in our blood. It makes us stronger and faster. They can’t fight us; they wouldn’t dare. You saw how quickly and easily Quinn killed that Ishak. And we know by the color of their aura the moment they cross our borders. They cannot get to you,” he said trying to calm her.
“But that one was all the way down by the cabin,” she protested.
“We weren’t aware of their aural tone then. Seff figured it out,” he replied.
She nodded. “Of course – red.”
Kenyon nodded. “Nor were we aware that they could shift to other forms – beyond four-legged ones anyway.”
“Birds.” Seff had said look up. Apparently, the pack hadn’t realized the Ishaks could take forms with flight. Seff had paid a hefty price for that information.
Kenyon nodded again, “Exactly. But we will protect you and the rest of the pack, make no mistake about that. They will not
get near my family again.”
Jaisey mind was swimming with all the information and she realized she wasn’t breathing, but she couldn’t seem to get her lungs to suck in any air. A short gasp escaped her lips, and she slipped into darkness.
Twenty-six
Quinn
Quinn knelt on the floor next to Kenyon’s couch. Jaisey was still out; she’d been out all night. The sky was starting to lighten outside. It had been hours since Kenyon told her everything. Quinn had lowered her onto the couch and covered her with a blanket, but so far, she had barely stirred. At one point she had called out saying, “No, Quinn!” He could only imagine the images flitting through her dreams, knowing there were real monsters in her world now.
“Give her time Quinn. Her world was just upended, but she’ll figure it all out,” Kenyon said softly.
“I know. I just feel so helpless. I hate this,” he replied.
“But you are helping. Your presence alone is a comfort for her,” he said.
“I hope so,” he replied doubtfully.
“She’ll find her way through this,” he said. His tone was absolute.
Quinn nodded. He wished he could be so sure. If she woke and wanted to leave the mountain, what would he do? He couldn’t make her stay, but this was the safest place in the world for her. He knew he couldn’t let her leave without him. He would have to leave if she did. But what would that mean for those he left behind? He couldn’t see abandoning the pack during the biggest threat they’d experienced in centuries. A solution eluded him.
So, he sat. And he waited.
They heard the dirt bike shortly after sunrise. Kenyon went outside to greet the new arrival. Quinn watched him go, listening to the conversation. It turned out to be Jei and Randon. Good, the boys were traveling in pairs like they’d been told.
Jei’s voice drifted through the open door. “Caleb is refusing to leave Honi’s side, even though the Healer said she would be fine, so I was enlisted to bring back your bike. Is everything okay?”
“Yes, thank you. Jaisey is just resting, and Quinn is in with her,” Kenyon explained.
Shift (Castlerock Shifters Book 1) Page 22