by Kari Gregg
“All the more reason for you to avoid the pass to Bitter Creek.” Walking through the woods beside him, his sister settled a hand on his arm and squeezed. “Ian would’ve wanted you to be safe.”
“You’ve heard of plentiful successes in diverting or avoiding prophecies? Making sure they don’t come to fruition.” He side-eyed Lisa. “What’s foretold can’t be changed. Countless generations have tried, but what the seer sees invariably happens. You know it.”
“Why not try to hold it off until you are at least better prepared?” His sister grimaced. “Ask Kenneth to spar with you. He’s desperate to help. Or ask one of the others, any of them. Devon, if he’s the lone packmate you’ll tolerate. He isn’t our best fighter, but he’s more skilled than Ian ever was, flexible and quick. If Devon knew what was at stake, he’d train you and tailor the tactics he taught you specifically for what’s most useful against mountain lions.”
The idea that his sister might have kept Jamie’s prophecy private slowed his feet. “Devon doesn’t know?”
“I only told Kenneth.”
Jamie stumbled to a halt. “Why?”
“He’s your mate and will rise to become our next alpha. Whether the Goddess revealed him to me in your prophecy or not, he was involved in it. Your love for him drives your fight with the cat.” Lisa smacked Jamie’s shoulder. “Of course, I told Kenneth.”
“Not him.” He arched an eyebrow. “Devon. The pack. Why didn’t you tell them?”
“Seers exercise discretion about sharing what we see, you know.” Lisa rolled her eyes. “When the Goddess gave me the prophecy, Momma was still alive, acting as pack seer and training me to take her place. I discussed the potential ramifications with her; learning from her. We both agreed you had enough to cope with and the prophecy should be withheld until the time seemed close.” She squared her jaw. “You’ll be on your guard now at least. Ian didn’t know what to expect, when tragedy would befall him or how. We simply didn’t have any details to go on to help him, but that’s not the case for you and this prophecy. You can ready yourself against what’s to come.”
She walked slowly and Kenneth’s den appeared through the greenery of the woodlands ahead. She tugged Jamie to match her pace. “We may not be able to circumvent prophecy, but the Goddess gives us warnings to prepare us.”
Jamie patted the hand gripping him. “Maybe the Goddess isn’t warning me. Did you think of that?”
A consternated line grooved her forehead. “What?”
“My birth prophecy.” He jerked his chin toward Kenneth’s cabin. “Because of it, we knew Ian must die, for how else could I mate another? That ugly truth wasn’t intended to save Ian or prevent his death.” He blew out a long, tired breath. “Maybe this new prophecy isn’t mean to keep me alive either.”
“I saw you fighting a cat, but in the glimpse the Goddess gave me, you weren’t injured. You’d barely broken a sweat.” Lisa scowled. “Go. Talk to Kenneth, get to know him. Who knows, you might learn to like him a little.”
“I don’t want to learn to like him a little.”
“Then learn to like him a lot.” Lisa glared at him. “Kenneth is a good guy. He’s been wounded by fate too. You have more in common than you realize.”
Jamie snorted ripe disbelief.
“He left his pack and traveled across the country to find the mate that his birth prophecy promised him, Jay. He lost his family, same as you did. At least the prophecy gave you hope that one day you’d reconcile with us. Kenneth never enjoyed that luxury. Ask him the last time he saw his parents and grandparents, his siblings. I dare you.” His sister jabbed an accusing finger at him. “He gave them all up for you.”
Trembling, he blinked at his sister. “I never wanted any of this.”
“Neither did he.” Her mouth pressed to a thin line. “Yours isn’t the only life that’s been upended and destroyed by prophecy. Kenneth’s has too and you’ve done nothing except hurt him for two years solid.”
Shamed, Jamie rubbed his burning eyes. “I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”
“I know. For all your sins, you have a big heart. It’s your one redeeming quality.” She chuckled, then sighed. “Kenneth is your chance at a new beginning. Getting to know him isn’t a betrayal of the love you had with Ian. He would’ve wanted you to be happy and that won’t happen while you’re working hard at driving away Kenneth. That isn’t fair to him. It isn’t fair to you either.” Her smile wobbled. “As for the cat, don’t be in such a hurry to die. The Goddess will come for you in Her own sweet time.”
Chapter Seven
THE STEADY THWOCK of an axe blade splitting wood met Jamie’s ears before he reached Kenneth’s den after leaving his sister on the path to the creek. Unlike Jamie’s own cabin, the land surrounding Kenneth’s home hadn’t been cleared yet, just a sparse front yard free of brambles and, when Jamie circled the place to the rear to follow the noise of the swinging axe, he found an even smaller area empty of trees and brush, space the next alpha had set aside for cutting firewood. The scent of fresh sawdust dizzied Jamie, woodchips and dust like drifting snow around a stump upon which Kenneth worked. A felled walnut tree trunk as wide as the barrel of Jamie’s chest rested on the loamy ground, already sliced into chunks.
Swallowing to wet his dry mouth, Jamie drank in the taut muscle of Kenneth’s broad shoulders bared of a shirt as he swung the axe. Only the crack of the wood broke the quiet.
Jamie wanted to end the awkward silence, but didn’t know what to say. He walked to the wood waiting to be split. After he’d shoved and kicked a piece of the trunk free, he bent to sit on it. He settled his bundle of damp towel and razor on the ground next to him and watched Kenneth work. Thanks to Lisa, he stared at Kenneth anew, as a fellow victim of prophecy.
As walking wounded.
Jamie hadn’t asked and Lisa hadn’t said, but Kenneth must have traveled for years searching for the mate promised to him to have canvased the country from coast to coast. Maybe a decade without a pack, as long as Jamie had been without his own family, but at least Jamie’d had the love of Ian. Kenneth had enjoyed the companionship, support and comfort of no one.
Rogue wolves who had left their packs or had been rejected by them regularly wandered the lands, but shifters were social creatures by nature. Few could tolerate solitude long. Rogues either drew other rogues to them, creating new packs by picking up stragglers, or they found another pack to accept them. Jamie’s heart lurched at the loneliness Kenneth must have endured, the innumerable trials and tests he would’ve faced alone.
“Da cut his own firewood too,” Jamie finally said. “Ours and Natalie’s.”
With a nod, Kenneth set the axe aside. He grabbed a sledgehammer and an iron wedge. “Her son has grown enough to take care of their winter supply. Everett? You must have trained him in shifter craft.”
Surprise swamped Jamie. He had trained Everett, several summers ago. He belatedly remembered taking extra care with the boy who’d lost his father in a hunting accident when Everett had been small “He’s old enough to mate, I guess.”
“Last winter. Young woman from Bitter Creek named Lucy.” Kenneth placed the wedge and gave it a few taps with the hammer to lock it in place. “She and Everett raise alpacas for wool to sell as trade goods, started building a starter den near Nat’s.” He straightened and then swung the hammer in a wide arc, striking the wedge with a resounding metallic twang. The wood fractured, splitting but not quite breaking away. Kenneth gave the wedge another whack. “Anyway, I cut logs for your Da’s den plus two others. Widows like Nat, except older.”
Jamie’s eyebrows winged up. “We have widows? Plural?”
“Coping with Ian’s loss provided a positive example for your people. Grieving mates have reasoned that if you could stick it out on your own, with no pack support, they ought to be able to withstand a mate’s death too. They chose to survive to help raise their grandbabies.” Kenneth smiled as he set the wedge for his next strike. “It’s only been a couple
of years, but now that the rest see widowed mates like your father and you still leading productive and fulfilling lives, I have hope that this pack’s pool of experience and collected wisdom from elders will strengthen.”
Jamie blinked. Mated pairs died together, always had, and that wasn’t a peculiarity of Burnt Fork, a pack most recognized as old-fashioned and hide-bound to tradition. Jamie lived in the Between and treated often with Bitter Creek pack. He didn’t trade with other packs in the region, but shifters liked to gossip as much as anyone else did. Closer to the cities, Bitter Creek and other packs nearby tended to be more progressive, but even Bitter Creek’s fated mates died together, surviving mates usually giving up and dying within days of losing a partner. Young children inspired some, like Natalie, to rise above the heartbreak and grief’s physical toll on shifter physiology, but only sometimes. The tragic deaths of both in a mated pair destroyed too many families and eroded population so much that government agencies placed shifters on localized endangered species lists when epidemics and natural disasters dragged their numbers too low. The double losses the deaths of a fated mate couple also inflicted untold damage in lost skills, experience, and wisdom in shifter communities that occasionally required emergency intervention: new shifters brought into a pack from afar. The passing of a healer, a seer, or a skilled craftsman could set a pack back an entire generation even with outside help.
Shoulders slumped, Jamie fidgeted. “Lots of changes.”
“For the good, I think.” Kenneth tossed the firewood he’d split onto a mound at his side. He jerked a chin toward the woods. “You talked to your sister. I’m glad.”
“There’s no preventing a prophecy from coming to be.” Jamie frowned. “You do realize that?”
“I know.” Kenneth leaned the sledgehammer against the stump. He pivoted and bent to grab another section of walnut, his muscles straining.
Jamie’s pulse hummed, his traitorous stare taking in the tight bunch of muscle as Kenneth moved the wood into place on the stump.
“It’s good that you’re talking to her again.” Kenneth smiled. “Better that you’re interacting with the pack beyond Devon alone.”
Jamie pressed his mouth into a grim line. “You’re not concerned about her prophecy for me then.”
“I care about the grave peril she foresaw for you. Very much.” Snickering, Kenneth retrieved the iron wedge and set it in the wood with a few judicious taps. “I also believe reintegrating you with the pack is the most effective way of preparing you for that danger.”
“Reintegrating,” he echoed, wrinkling his nose. “You sure don’t talk like we do.”
Kenneth laughed. “I guess not.” He planted the head of the sledgehammer on the ground and rested against the handle. “Is my being different bad? All things considered.”
Probably not. Jamie couldn’t imagine mating again in the first place, not after losing Ian, but mating a shifter who’d participated in his shunning? Who had fundamentally betrayed him and Ian? “You’ve made other changes too, while Da’s been sick.”
“Oh?” Kenneth arched an eyebrow. “How do you know what I’ve done with the pack, shut off as you’ve been in the Between?”
“The kids mentioned some of it. Before I visited Da.” Jamie settled his elbow on his thigh and leaned forward to brace his chin on his clenched hand. “Allowing boys to become seers, permitting healers to train with humans in the city…” Jamie made tsk’ing sounds. “I’m surprised pack elders haven’t run you off.”
“Who else will glue this pack together again if not me?” Kenneth beamed a wry grin as he lifted the sledgehammer to set the wedge in the wood. “Besides, after what they did to you and your mate…They recognized the need for new ideas, including your father who pushed the others into accepting the will of the Goddess in bringing me here to lead them. That’s not to say a few packmates didn’t balk or present challenges in the beginning.”
“They challenged you?” Jamie’s heart stopped. “Before you’d even succeeded to take Da’s place as alpha?”
“You aren’t the only member of this pack mad at the Goddess for her prophecies and convinced Her will can be, if not circumvented, at least massaged a little.” Kenneth’s grin flashed sharp white teeth. “I persuaded them otherwise.”
“When?” Jamie asked, belly roiling at the notion that challenges might have happened without his knowledge. “Who?”
“While you were lost in your grief.” Kenneth waved that away. “Who doesn’t matter. The point is everyone climbed on board once the changes I implemented went into effect and my succession to alpha as soon as your Da gives up the mantle should progress smoothly.”
The unspoken if we’ve mated hung in the air between them like a lead balloon. “I don’t want you to fight challengers.” He glanced down, unable to continue meeting the aplomb in Kenneth’s gaze. “It’s not right.”
Jamie startled at Kenneth’s big hand settling on his shoulder. “The resistance to and defiance of my leadership is over, has been for many months,” he said, voice pitched low and soothing.
“I can’t believe you’re trying to comfort me. You gave up your family too.” Fidgeting, Jamie swallowed the boulder trying to lodge in his throat. “For what? A broken, hostile pack and a broken, hostile mate.”
“If you’re finally talking to me, you aren’t as hostile or as broken as you believe and the pack has largely accepted me,” Kenneth pointed out. “Do you regret mating Ian?”
Whipping his stare up to greet Kenneth’s, Jamie gawped. “What?”
“Knowing how agonizing losing him has been and the hardships you endured while he was alive as well as your suffering since he passed, do you wish you hadn’t loved him? Of course, you don’t.” Kenneth shrugged a massive shoulder. “I have no regrets either.”
“I had Ian.” Jamie frowned. “I had over ten years with him as recompense.”
“For which I’m grateful.” Then, Kenneth winked. “I’ll have you the rest of our lives.”
“But the cat—”
“You’re one of the strongest, most stubborn shifters I’ve ever known.” Kenneth shrugged away Lisa’s prophecy. “You’ll survive the attack.”
Jamie was far less certain. “If I don’t set snares to catch game, I would starve. I’m that bad at hunting, forget fighting.”
Kenneth squared his jaw. “You’ll beat the cat.”
The confidence glittering in Kenneth’s gaze humbled Jamie. “What if I don’t?”
“Then you won’t.” Kenneth sighed. “I’ll have whatever time with you until it happens.”
Jamie arched an eyebrow. “That’s enough for you?”
Tipping his head back, Kenneth let loose a resounding laugh that startled wrens from the trees. Squinting at the feathered flight soaring into the blue sky, he rubbed his eyes. “Was ten years enough time with Ian?”
“A thousand years would have been too short.” Jamie scowled. “We won’t have a decade. Lisa says the cat will ambush me any time.” He dug his toe into the rich, damp ground. “I could be dead in a week.” He gulped, his stomach knotting. “If we’ve mated when I fight the cat, you could die.” Then he ripped his gaze up to glare at Kenneth because the notion of Kenneth dying bothered Jamie worse than his own peril. “You have to be like the widows you’re chopping firewood for. When the cat kills me, you must survive.”
“Oh, must I?” Kenneth’s lips twisted into a wry grin.
Jamie nodded. “There’s no other alpha to succeed my father. The pack needs you.”
Chuckling, Kenneth shoved his weight off the sledgehammer handle. “Someone will come along.” He chocked the grip and braced the wedge against the log he’d been splitting. “Plenty of alphas would race to Kentucky at the opportunity to lead a pack, even one as dysfunctional as Burnt Fork. I believe the pack would do fine without the both of us, if necessary.” He tapped the wedge with the head of the sledgehammer and had the audacity to waggle his eyebrows at Jamie. “Be careful. Your worry about my surviv
ing your fight with the cat could give me the crazy idea you care.”
“Prophecy says I’ll care. Biology demands it.” Jamie glared at him. “And I’m not worried,” he lied.
“Of course, you aren’t.” Kenneth glanced at the sun setting in beautiful oranges and golds on the horizon. He sighed. “Getting late, be dark soon.” He gave the wood a final tap with the sledgehammer and once he’d tossed the pieces toward the pile, he bent to grab the wedge from the pile of sawdust into which it’d fallen. He hefted the hammer to his shoulder and grabbed the axe. “Would you like to stay tonight? At my den.”
Jamie wrinkled his nose. “I have a choice?”
“If you need to return to your den Between, you’re steadier. I won’t stop you.” Kenneth shrugged. “You should eat more after shifting, give your body fuel to recover, and like I said, I earnestly believe reintegrating with the pack is your best shot at surviving the cat.”
“Maybe.”
Kenneth shuffled his feet. “Getting to know each other would be wise, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Jamie made the decision to try, but nervous anxiety nevertheless curled in his gut. “It’d help.”
Kenneth wagged a disapproving finger. “No tying.”
“Okay.” Gulping in equal parts regret and relief, Jamie shook his head. “No sex.”
Nodding, Kenneth smiled. “All right then. Let’s go finish dinner.”
“I hung dry wall in Phoenix.”
Jamie snorted ripe disgust.
“What?” Kenneth protested, tipping his jaw to a stubborn angle as he bent over his bowl of roasted venison across the table from Jamie. “Humans think shifters can tolerate extreme conditions. The part of the high-rise my crew worked on wasn’t air-conditioned yet. Do you have any idea how hellish Arizona is without AC in August?”
Unsure of what drywall and AC were, Jamie at least knew where Arizona was thanks to Momma’s determination to educate her children. Basic geography, he knew. “Why do humans live in the desert? They aren’t biologically equipped to cope with scorching heat.”
