Triumph

by Mazzy J March

  Escher leaned back in his chair, arms folded over his chest, and I could feel the sadness coming from him, pulsing toward me.

  Sometimes people put on a front to protect themselves, and that’s exactly what Mirella had done. Now, don’t get me wrong, I thought the woman had been spry and spunky all her life, but she used it doubly around me to protect herself from my rejection.

  “Mirella…” I began but now calling her by her name seemed all kinds of wrong. “Can I call you something else?”

  She laughed, clapping her hands. “You can call me Gram if you like. Never had anyone call me that.”

  “Gram it is.”

  Although she smiled, two tears fell down her face. “I called the council when you got here. I knew what you were. I would recognize one of my descendants in a heartbeat. But they had poisoned you and made you weak, when what you were born to be is a force to be reckoned with. They didn’t believe me, of course, not until you saved your mate. They believe the old biddy now.”

  Even Escher chuckled.

  “No wonder you can train me,” I said with some awe in my tone. There was no one better to train me than her. Duh.

  “Yes. Have you been practicing?”

  I nodded but tossed myself back in the chair out of frustration. “I tried to help my bleeding mate—not this one, Cash—but…I suck.”

  “My great-granddaughter doesn’t suck. Don’t let me hear that again. Come on. Let’s go out back and practice. Remember, your gift is about taking. We take inflictions and pain from others.”

  We walked outside, and she took Escher’s arm to get down the stairs but didn’t relinquish it until we got partway across into the yard. As I looked at her, I imagined she once had black hair like mine, though now it was silver.

  Still, I could see the resemblance.

  “Taking,” I repeated her words but without someone hurting in front of me, I didn’t really know how to practice.

  “That word is the double-edged sword. Remember. Every gift on this Earth is a blessing and a curse. Don’t ever think the darker side of things isn’t wanting to persuade you to use it for its own good. We use it as a healing power, so to speak, but it is the Taking.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t…”

  “If we can take pain from people, what makes you think we’re not powerful enough to take something else that belongs to them? Something dear to them? Take it as our own or simply rob them of it.”

  Oh…

  “Now, I’m going to cut your mate’s hand.”

  “No!” I yelled, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Yes. He’s a strong one and he will heal in minutes anyway. You have to practice.”

  I lifted my gaze to Escher and pouted. I was sure this wasn’t what he had in mind when he insisted on coming with me.

  “It’s okay, mate. If this will help you, then I invite it.”

  I slapped my forehead. Of course Escher would invite being cut to help me. Gods alive.

  “Good man.” Mirella…or Gram produced a knife from her skirts because of course she did, but Escher took it from her. He gripped the knife around the blade and pulled it though his palm. I hissed through my teeth as he did though he showed no signs of distress. “Now, take the pain from him. Reach inside him and pull it out like a string that doesn’t belong there. It’s threaded with his very veins, but you can release it.”

  I grunted as I closed my eyes and did as she told me. I went back to the night I’d healed him before. Reaching out, I grabbed his wrist but couldn’t connect to the pain.

  “Should I slit open his throat next? You’re trying. I feel it. I know it. But try harder. You’re relying on your body when you should be relying on your soul. That’s the part of you with the gift.”

  Six more times this happened, and I almost gave up.

  “Oh no, you don’t. We don’t give up. We’ll stay here re-cutting him over and over until you get this right. Remember, you were born for this.”

  Crap.

  I decided not having a great-grandmother might be better if she was going to be this sassy.

  I let my shoulders relax and closed my eyes. Picturing the string of pain, I let the rest of the world fade away until there was only me and Escher. An energy, my energy, expanded inside me. With an exhale, I imagined it reaching for Escher’s. It tangled with his and searched for the pain, the string that didn’t belong in his being.

  “There it is. You’ve found it. Now take it.”

  My energy became a hand in my mind and with the forefinger and thumb, it plucked the string from where it was tangled with my mate’s body. I tugged at it until it unweaved itself from him.

  I cried out as my soul took it into myself.

  Next thing I knew, I was flat on my ass with Escher crouched next to me.

  I scrambled to unfold his clenched hand to find he had healed. “Did I do that, or did your shifter ability?”

  Gram rolled her eyes. “Maybe I need to use the last of my powers and take away all of your doubt. That aunt of yours really did a number on you. Of course it was you. Tell her, you big oaf.”

  Escher laughed and cupped my face with his hands. “You did it. It was all you. I felt you inside me, moving through me. It was like before. I thought it was a dream or some near-death hallucination. It was you.”

  Escher stood, pulling me with him. Gram latched onto his forearm. “I think that’s enough for today. It’s time for this old woman to rest.”

  “Gram?” I asked as she began to go toward the house, Escher her crutch.

  “Yes?”

  “Am I hurting you?”

  She turned and winked at me. “It is as it should be. You get stronger, and my powers fade. I’ve hoarded them too long as it is. I’m ready to rest.”

  Chapter Twenty

  My mates insisted on me taking the rest of the day off. After seeing Gram and healing Escher, we went back home.

  My dark-haired, brooding mate spent the next hour gushing about how he felt my presence inside him and how I healed him.

  They spoiled me for the rest of the evening like I’d won a trophy or something.

  “I’m coming with you to school and work tomorrow,” Moss whispered in my ear as we watched some show. I was only half paying attention as my eyes were closing on me.

  “Good. I haven’t seen enough of you,” I answered and nipped at his ear, something I knew he liked.

  “I agree. Let me bring you to bed. Your tired is making me tired.”

  “Sorry,” I said and made a move to get up but Brandon scooped me up before my feet could touch the floor.

  That was the last thing I remembered until waking the next morning, my pile of men surrounding me.

  Since they had been making me breakfast nearly every morning and truth be told, I missed cooking, I decided to whip up a huge batch of chocolate-chip buttermilk pancakes along with ham.

  They say the smell of coffee wakes people up, but those people must’ve never smelled pancakes first thing.

  I got out the big griddle and, after about three rounds, I heard the stirrings of my mates. I giggled to myself thinking they must’ve been confused all waking up in the same bed but noticing my absence.

  “Wendi, that’s not very nice.” Brandon was first to comment as footsteps sounded above me. Then two showers turned on….then stopped….then started again.

  Two showers for five people. No wonder they were building a huge house.

  By the time they came down I was already through my second cup of coffee and my first stack of pancakes.

  Escher grunted as he picked up pancakes.

  “What’s up your butt?” I asked, kissing him on the cheek.

  “I woke up in bed with three men and no mate. I thought I was having a nightmare.”

  “You think it was my fantasy to wake up next to you?” Cash asked, tossing a piece of ham at him. He caught it mid-air and put it in his mouth.

  They went on about the horrors of waking up without me for the next ho
ur.

  “Okay, okay, I get it. No more sneaking out of the bed. But my pancakes are amazing, right?”

  Brandon kissed me on the forehead and hugged me tightly. “You and your pancakes are amazing, mate. Just wake us up next time you want to get out of bed, okay?”

  “Deal. Moss, you about ready? I just have to go throw on some clothes.”

  “I’m ready.”

  While I worked, Moss sat at one of the tables and studied. More like pretended to study. Every time I passed the man gave me the eye, and all it made me want to do was forget the books and pull him into the nearest nook so I could have my way with him.

  “I need a new series,” I heard before Christie poked her face through the bookshelves from the other side of the aisle, about scaring me to death. I jumped back, slapping one hand over my mouth and the other over my heart.

  “You need a new way to approach me. Goddess, I almost peed my pants.”

  “Shit. Sorry. I scared Tris the other day, too.”

  She moved and came around to my aisle. “Tris?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Her blush grew furious.

  I checked my watch. “I get off in six minutes. I think we need coffee and a talking about boys date.”

  “What about your bodyguard?” she asked, hooking her thumb over her shoulder.

  “He will keep a good distance. It will be okay. And there’s a good series under the last name Ashley. Trust me, you will find it.”

  She darted toward the A rack while I finished reshelving a few books. After we talked to Moss, he said he would go to a nearby store so we could chat but he would be near.

  Christie would eat someone whole if they tried to mess with me anyway.

  “So tell me everything about Tris,” I said as we sat with lattes warming our hands.

  “He’s gorgeous, and he’s the bad boy of the family. But he hasn’t made a move. I don’t know why.”

  “You make a move then,” I suggested and then proceeded to burn my lips on the coffee.

  “I might have to do…oh gods!’ She shouted, tapping her feet furiously.

  “What?”

  “I knew there was something different but I couldn’t put my finger on it. But it looks like one of your mates has. Which one. Spill your guts, woman.”

  My mouth gaped. “How did you know?”

  Her smile grew. “It was a guess. But you just confirmed it. Which one? Wait, how many? Give me details.”

  I scoffed. “ I will not. But two of them.”

  “Which ones? They are all so yummy.”

  She wasn’t wrong. “I’m not telling.”

  She kicked me under the table. “You’re no fun. So…how was it?”

  Movement caught my eye, and I saw Moss at the shop across the street, peeking through the window at us. Goddess, I loved the man.

  Sexy mate of ours.

  “They were incredible. Both of them. So different and yet, each one so perfect.”

  She sighed. “I wish I had that.”

  I hugged her around her shoulders. “It will come in time. And trust me, it will be worth the wait.”

  For the rest of the day, we gossiped about my house, and I told her about Gram. She accused me of having a dramatic life and, while I hadn’t planned it, right now, it was kind of drama-filled. We got refills and caught up on everything including a full-scale report on Tris and everything sexy he did

  That girl needed a mate, like yesterday.

  I watched Moss cross the street, admiring every move he made. As he passed, he put his hands up. “I’m getting coffee, not intruding.”

  We both laughed, but Christie had to go anyway. I waited outside for him to emerge, and he pulled me against him with one hand. “I wasn’t trying to listen in…”

  “But shifter hearing. Is there something you want to ask me?”

  He leaned down and kissed me senseless. “No, but I appreciate the discretion. And I hope our time is just as perfect.”

  “It will be. We’ll know when the time is right.”

  He nodded. “I know we will.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I went back and forth from work to school to meals with my mates and to Mirella for training. Although I felt awkward I’d been intimate and mated with two of them and not the others, I was exhausted by the time I dragged myself back to the house at night, and it was all I could do to eat dinner and fall into bed.

  They did sleep with me, one or more every night, but none of them made a move. I was starting to feel unattractive but too exhausted to even ask. School was busy, and we were shorthanded at the library, but those things weren’t really having much to do with wiping me out. And of course having meals with the guys and/or Christi was totally relaxing.

  What was not relaxing was learning to access my gifts. Healing. I didn’t have to let any of my mates cut themselves again, which was a relief to say the least, but I spent hours pouring over old manuscripts, scrolls even, and assisted Gram in her role as healer to any who showed up at her door. She didn’t ask what pack they came from or how they found her. And although she was well over a century old, and would not be more specific, her frail form held more power than anyone I’d ever met. And she claimed it had been waning.

  What had she been like at her peak? I couldn’t even imagine. At first I sat back and watched Mirella do her thing, for the most part, and she helped everyone who asked. Most of the requests were not as simple as a knife wound, and I was able to observe Gram working with diseased tissue deep in the body of more than one shifter. She was amazing.

  But as time went on, Gram handed over some of the simpler cases to me, and gradually increased the difficulty, teaching me the human anatomy in a way I’d never have learned in school. As I used my abilities, it became easier to achieve healings, although at first I needed quite a bit of help. I had so much admiration for the patients who allowed me to work my beginners magic on them. And nobody went away without every bit of help we could both give them.

  “Gram,” I asked one day, “I’m so tired by the end of the day, I can barely hold my head up to eat dinner. Maybe I should give up school. I can’t quit the library because it’s the only way I make money to contribute.”

  “I thought you’d rented out your home,” she asked, bent double to dig to the bottom of a deep, ancient chest of teak banded with steel. “Ah, here it is!” She straightened up, holding a scroll. It was probably a millennium old and while I wouldn’t say she was rough with it, neither did she treat it like a delicate object to be admired. The texts of various sorts were tools to my Gram, to be used for the good of the pack and I supposed if they’d held up this long, they weren’t going anywhere soon.

  “I did, rent the house but to Christie and she, ummm…” I tried to think of a tactful way to say it. “She doesn’t have…”

  “Money, dear. She doesn’t have much money. But she’ll be fine.” Gram was scanning the unrolled scroll, muttering under her breath and I realized she hadn’t made a suggestion about where I could cut back on energy expenditure. But maybe that was on purpose. I had to make decisions for myself. Suddenly having a living ancestor did not mean I had to give up my own counsel. As a grown woman, and a healer, I should be able to figure out what to do. “So here is what I wanted to show you.”

  I followed the direction of her bony finger to the line she pointed to. “What is that?”

  “Why it’s the ceremony. I thought we’d do it tonight. Can you come back at about eleven? It’s best to conduct the rite at around midnight.

  And of course I’d said yes, which was why I found myself in a cave on the border between our lands and Rattlecreek, late at night, alone—which she’d insisted on—and on my knees. Gram appeared from the depths of the cave, wearing a long filmy gown of many layers, pure white and immaculately clean.

  But old. I didn’t have to be told. She carried the scroll and let it unroll, fall to the rock floor under her feet as she began to intone words in a language I didn’t understand, but I
didn’t have to. As she spoke the words swirled inside me, the way I found the pain in others, it found the pain in me, and something else I sensed was my talent. She called it forth, her words echoing off the cave walls, and all around me until I, somehow, joined the chant, repeating the strange phrases over and over in the same intonation Mirella used. A fire burned in the middle of the cavern and I spun and danced around it, faster and faster, chanting faster and faster, spinning and twirling—are those things different?—bowing and dipping and shaking my hips like a belly dancer on speed.

  Mirella stood on the sidelines and after a while stopped speaking and it was only me, swirling and executing a complicated series of steps in time with the chant, around and around and around until dizziness overwhelmed me and I tumbled to the hard floor next to the fire. Then nothing.

  “Granddaughter!” The voice cut into the darkness, tugging at my mind. “Come back. It’s time to return to our homes and sleep for a while.”

  I blinked but the fire had died, a chill seeped into the encroaching darkness. “I tried to stand, wanting to tell Gram everything I’d experienced, how I’d gone inside myself all the way to the cellular level, but I couldn’t seem to speak at all.

  “You’ll need to stay in silence for at least twelve hours. And then the gift is yours. I will no longer be healing, although for a while I will stay here in case you need me. But I would like to go away, and finally I have the opportunity.”

  Finally, she could leave me behind.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Moss and I spent the night together and while lots of things happened, it wasn’t time for us. I wasn’t sure why, but the timing seemed off.

  Trust me, I was plenty satisfied, but we didn’t mate fully.