by JK Cooper
She partially shifted and held it, her clothes tight against the beginnings of furry skin. It was way beyond what Dakota did to see, or a Lycan’s brief loss of control when stressed, scared, or angry. She had slipped into such a state before, the day she’d met her pack and lashed out at Chenoa.
What had they said then? Not possible for one so young? I’ll show them what a youngling can do. She pushed the transformation to the brink of tearing clothes once more and held it. She spun, glaring at the pack with hot, amber eyes.
“Like this?” Her voice came out in two tones.
Elias’s wide eyes showed his surprise. She felt a hint that he’d seen such control before, but not for a long time. She glanced around the room. Only Genn, Chenoa, and Dakota seemed wholly unsurprised.
“Okay, we’ll explore that,” Elias said.
Shelby shifted fully back to human.
“Grant, you and Ackerman will oversee the human versus human training. That will include instruction in firearms and hand-to-hand combat.” He looked to Bubba. “You’ll be training in that as well, just in case you didn’t eat well or run out of fuel.”
“Yes, Mr. C.”
“Chenoa and Dakota will lead the werewolf versus werewolf portion. Grant, I will also have you instruct the human versus werewolf training. We’ll explore Shelby’s mid-transition training.” He glanced to Shelby. “You up for that?”
She nodded.
“Finally, I will train the werewolf versus human portion.”
Something you’re experienced in, Shelby thought, catching a small glimpse inside him. And then she felt a soft growl through the pack link. Elias, backing her off her snooping. Oops again. Sorry. She blushed.
Elias then glared at her and pointed a finger her way. Her blood froze. Is he about to call me out? But then he pointed at Kale. “Everyone else may go. You two, meet in my office now. Grant, you’re free to join us.”
Chenoa stepped forward. “I would like to be a part of this too.”
Elias blinked at her. “Very well. Anyone else?” His tone suggested no one take him up on the offer unless they were deadly serious. And something else . . . was that a hint of an accent coming out? Shelby remembered from glimpsing into him the night she joined the pack that Elias was Scottish. Apparently, it seeped through a bit sometimes when he was being all Alpha-mode.
Dakota looked like he might raise his hand, put it back down, and then raised it anyway. “I would like to join Chenoa.”
Elias actually seemed relieved. “Of course. As pack elder, it is your right. Is that it?”
“Can I—” Sadie started to say but Elias cut her off.
“No.”
Bubba raised his hand too. “Um, I wanted to show you some of my new business plan projections.”
Elias’s face softened. “Sounds promising. Wait in the kitchen, feel free to eat anything you like, and I’ll meet with you after. Does that work?”
“Mr. C. don’t mess around. Anything I like, or as much as I like?”
“Anything and as much.”
Sadie gawked. “You’ll regret that.”
Elias had someone bring a few extra chairs into his office to accommodate the addition of Grant, Chenoa, Dakota, and his wife to their private meeting. Elias took a seat behind a massive wooden desk that had to weigh a ton. Gennesaret lowered gracefully into the seat next to him. Everyone else chose a chair, eyeing each other with some awkwardness and confusion. Shelby sat next to Kale and took his hand.
Elias nodded to his wife, letting her take the lead when her tact and delicacy proved better suited.
He really is a good Alpha, Shelby thought. Knows his strengths and allows others to use their own.
Genn smiled at her. “Shelby, you were explaining something about your wolf, and that you and Kale have seen things. Memories?”
She swallowed and nodded. “When I was chained in the warehouse, I was terrified.” Kale squeezed her hand. She could almost feel his strength giving her courage to share what still frightened her at times. “Images came to me. My mother died when I was one, but I saw her and her wolf. Memories seemed to seep into me. Then . . .” She hesitated, feeling like it was a betrayal to her Immortal Wolf to share.
Go on. Your Alpha needs to know who and what we are. Eira prodded her forward.
But he does not have an Immortal Wolf. Will he understand? And was an Alpha that was not an Immortal Wolf an Alpha to her and Kale?
His wolf is still a Lycan, Eira said. And I chose him as our Alpha. Immortal Wolf or not, Elias is powerful. And worthy.
He was powerful. Shelby had felt that awe-inspiring presence when she had first met him. Such command, even now. He was nothing like Nicholas, the first Alpha she had ever met, the night she had killed with her mind. With a thought.
I know that was you, Eira, but—
Not entirely, but now is not the time, Thyra.
“I . . . I called out my wolf’s name, and I shifted. More than shifted, strength, more than I’ve ever known, shot through me. I tore through the chains.”
Elias leaned forward. “Memories of what?”
“Did you miss that part where she said she tore through chains?” Grant asked. “They looked like they had been no more than soda cans when I found them.”
“Another life,” Shelby said to Elias, ignoring her father. “I know how crazy that sounds. I don’t even believe in reincarnation, but here I am talking about it. I saw my wolf healing other Lycans and humans. When Kale was dying, his wolf showed me another memory of our shared past.”
Grant shuffled his feet. Shelby could feel his desire to comfort her, to help somehow, and his feeling of inadequacy at being an outsider who couldn’t do what a father should for his daughter.
Shelby bit her lip and sniffed. Should I be feeling what he’s feeling? He’s not part of the pack. But she had before and recalled that their “bond” as father and daughter had its own sort of magic.
Yes, Eira said. That bond is called family.
Shelby felt the heat of shame on her cheeks for how she had treated her own father. She almost looked to meet his eyes. Almost.
Kale spoke up. “It’s what Skotha, that’s my wolf, had been trying to show me since the day Shelby and I first met.” He fidgeted a bit, but Shelby sent his courage back and he continued. “We met at dinner that night, but I had been feeling things, seeing things, since that morning that I couldn’t explain.”
“What things?” Elias asked.
“Smoke, ashes. A girl disappearing into a fog. That was Shelby, but not Shelby from now. She was wearing a dress of some sort. I’ve never seen her in a dress.”
Shelby thought of the dress she just bought for Homecoming. Oh, just wait.
He smiled for a moment while her message sunk in, then shook his head as if to clear it. “When I met her at dinner that first night, I instantly recognized her from those flashes, memories that Skotha was trying to show me. He sensed Eira, her wolf, I think. And Dad, it wasn’t just hormones, like you thought.”
Elias grinned knowingly. “It’s always partly hormones, but this may count as more.”
“I didn’t see any of the things Kale was seeing until the warehouse,” Shelby said. “But I had been feeling an overwhelming flood of belonging and warmth since that first day I arrived, just before gymnastics tryouts. I know now it was an extreme sense of familiarity. It kinda freaked me out. I don’t really do warm and cuddly.”
“Not after Lucas,” Grant filled in. “She was a cuddly kid before.”
“Like I said, I learned that Eira can heal,” Shelby went on, again not acknowledging her father’s comment. “We all heal fast, but fastest when in our wolves. But Eira’s different. She can heal others. Kale was too close to death, and he had to shift in order for Eira to help. Skotha used the last bits of his strength to show me what he had been trying to show Kale, the world we came from.”
“You mean your wolves,” Elias said.
Shelby shook her head. “Both us and our
wolves.”
“Pay attention, dear.” Genn’s eyes twinkled with interest as she tented her fingers and locked her gaze on Shelby. “What world is this?”
“Shelby’s and my wolf are called Immortal Wolves. They’re from a world named Alsvoira,” Kale said. “Skotha and Eira, as well as others, came here after something happened to destroy their world. Our world, I guess. I think they’re the source of all werewolves.”
“Anything else?” Genn asked.
“They were guardians of a book called the Isluxua. It holds secrets of something called Ascension.”
“It is foretold,” Chenoa broke her stony expression for the first time, “that the Summer Omega will meld the pieces of destruction into one whole.”
Calmly, with the patience of a tender parent, Dakota said, “The legends speak of fragmented destruction being remade, but is that creating new destruction, or undoing the destruction that caused the fragmentation? And what was it that was shattered? We do not have all the answers.”
Chenoa did not respond to her ancestor, but kept her arms crossed with her stare unwavering. Dakota’s eyes burned with their faint amber glow, his wolf eyes, allowing him to see through his blindness.
Shelby’s annoyance must have seeped through as a projection to the pack, because Elias slowly turned to her. “Calm yourself. Let it pass through you.”
In Chenoa’s eyes, Shelby saw the briefest flicker of concern, and her mind remembered the night of joining the pack, and her unintentional mental attack on Chenoa. Her temper tantrums could cause real harm, and she felt shame at the memory. She sent forth soothing, and the room relaxed, but that didn’t remove her own annoyance.
“Are you saying you hear actual words from your wolves?” Gennesaret asked. “Not just feelings or impressions?”
Shelby nodded. “When I said Eira told me Earth had become a gathering place, those were her actual words.”
“Kale?” Elias asked. “Yours speaks to you as well?”
He nodded once. “Yeah. Sometimes. Since the warehouse and Shelby healed me. They seem wary of us.”
Cautious and patient, Eira corrected.
“Cautious and patient. Eira’s words,” Shelby told the group. “She also said five races came from her world, some were here, and others came from elsewhere.”
Gennesaret pulled a notebook out of a desk drawer. “Five. Hmmmm, interesting. I wonder which ones exactly.” She jotted down notes.
Grant tapped his fingers on the chair, his mind on tactical matters. “Five-plus magical races? Even if they all worked together, and it doesn’t sound like they are, I don’t see tanks or a well-placed nuke not settling things.”
“If the Alpha Prime achieves Ascension, it may not matter how powerful the weapons of the world are.” Gennesaret smiled at Shelby and Kale’s surprise. “Yes, I’ve heard the word before you mentioned it. Isluxua too. It’s why I’m quick to believe you. You shouldn’t know such things.”
“It is foretold,” Chenoa said, “that the Summer Omega will wield that which has been reforged to usher in a new season. And the season of dead things always follows summer. She will bring death . . . again.”
“But fall and winter would not be called new seasons,” Dakota said, the ever-present balance to Chenoa’s pessimism. “They are old. Known. This season will be unknown to us.”
Gennesaret blinked at Chenoa, her facial expression curious. “Again?”
Chenoa said nothing, and Gennesaret seemed ready to let it go, but Shelby felt her annoyance tip into anger.
Thyra, no. Eira cautioned her to be patient. It is not your secret to tell.
Shelby ignored the wisdom of her wolf. She had taken enough from this woman who hid behind her legendary predictions and said nothing of her own true feelings, thoughts, and memories. “Chenoa has one too. An Immortal Wolf.” She glared at the woman but kept herself from projecting. “Did you think I wouldn’t feel the difference? Not notice you were more like Kale and me than the others? Not feel the wolf within you, distinct, sentient, aware? And male? That’s messed up. No wonder you’re always so angry and stony!”
Elias and Genn exchanged a look of surprise and concern, before turning back to Chenoa expectantly. Dakota sat back in his chair, a hurt expression on his face.
Chenoa took a long deep breath. “All truth. My Immortal Wolf is Jaenu, apprenticed to Iorna, the greatest of Mystics before Alsvoira fell and the Isluxua was lost. It is why I know what I know about her.” She gestured at Shelby, eyes cold. “Jaenu has shown me much since he awakened within me. We followed you once, and it led to the destruction of our world. I saw what you brought to pass, Eira-mit-Thyra. I saw you over the broken body of our Goddess. I fear you have begun the work of chaos again in this world.”
Iorna? Shelby knew that name. The feral we met in the woods? What I brought to pass?
“And you,” Chenoa said, turning her near-expressionless gaze to Kale. “You, Skotha-mit-Daeglan, defended her. Stood by her while Alsvoira burned—”
She stopped midsentence, but Shelby heard the continuation of her words as they turned to thoughts slamming into her mind. Alsvoira burned . . . at the hands of your son.
Son? What son? She glanced at Kale. By the way Shelby heard the words, she knew Chenoa meant her and Kale’s son.
Mareus. The dream. The wound in his side. Viersin biting him and then becoming Mareus. But not really . . . they had become one. Unifying. And then something dawned on Shelby that now seemed significant. Mareus had been the first. The first Lycan.
Um, Eira? Help?
Chenoa is correct that Mareus wrought much destruction, but her blame is misplaced about the Goddess. Memories of a beautiful woman with angular, alien features came into her mind. The Goddess? She saw water rushing from a stone pillar in five streams. She then saw the same woman at her feet, covered in golden blood as the water dried up and fires sparked in the distance. A sadness filled her. More than the loss of a friend, the loss of everything she had ever known and loved. You did not end Alsvoira, but we are . . . responsible. I will explain more when you are ready.
Yeah, but what about this whole “your son” thing? Skotha showed me—
You are not ready, Eira answered.
Shelby clutched her chest and nodded to her wolf. She wasn’t ready for more of whatever that was. It hurt too much. She sent forth reassurance to those present despite herself feeling quite lost.
Elias rubbed his temples, taking in Shelby’s reaction without comment, instead keeping his focus on Chenoa. “Why did you say nothing?”
Chenoa gave Shelby a sad smile, filled with distrust and ancient, smoldering anger. “Lycans are rare desert flowers, beautiful, wild, claiming the harshest of environments. To be a fire lily amidst apache plume? It is lonely to set oneself apart. I wished to remain one with my pack.” She touched Dakota’s hand. “One with my family. A choice robbed from me now.”
Shelby felt a pang of regret within her anger for saying anything. She had never heard Chenoa speak so much or so clearly, and her heart broke at the centuries of loneliness and pain she must have felt. An outsider for so long, with no one like my Kale to ground her. “I’m sorry.”
Chenoa’s face went stony again. “Death need not apologize to the deceased. It is its nature to destroy. To eat until nothing remains.”
Dakota stepped into his role again. “But death makes way for youth and renewal. Destruction is not always an ending. You have lost a secret but gained reunion. You have two fire lilies here with you now.”
“I’d love to know everything.” Gennesaret said, ready to take notes as she waited for Chenoa to share more of who and what she was.
Elia shook his head. “We will have to discuss this with you further, Chenoa, but we’ll meet with you more privately when you are ready. You have sat with your knowledge for far too long when we could have used what you knew to plan ahead.”
Chenoa refolded her arms but nodded.
Obviously, her wolf chose Elias as her Alp
ha as well and still does. Shelby felt that said great things about Kale’s father.
“Okay, that’s great and all, but will someone please explain what this Ascension stuff is?” Grant asked.
“We don’t really know,” Gennesaret answered. “The Mystics have discussed it as the ultimate self-actualization for Lycans. Some kind of higher union with our wolves.”
“Like being able to speak to them?” Kale asked.
Gennesaret frowned. Shelby sensed she didn’t like not having answers. “We just don’t know. There were rumors of wolves talking. Those are some of the legends I didn’t believe . . . until now. There were so few. I doubt that’s Ascension though, as you two—three—are already there.”
Shelby smiled, but bristled inside. “Do we not seem ascended enough?”
“Not that, sweet child. It’s said only the Summer Omega can bring about Ascension, whatever it turns out to be, but it always sounded universal, something that would affect all Lycans.”
No pressure or anything. Thanks universe. “Is Ascension something that should happen? I mean, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“We do not know if you are the Summer Omega, dear,” Gennesaret said.
“Or if the legends are true,” Elias said.
“But I am, and they are.” Shelby replied. Am I? That statement surprised her. “Or, I think I could become it. Eira is certain.”
“Skotha is as well,” Kale said.
“You sure you’re not just saying that because you want to date the most prophesied Lycan in history, who happens to be my daughter?” Grant asked, eyes full of righteous fatherly protection. Yeah, Shelby finally met his eyes. There was a bit of humor in his question as well. He’s trying, Shelby thought. Why aren’t you?
Kale shrugged. “I’ve been her mate for a long time. Lifetimes.”
Mate. Right. Being a mate means mating. That wasn’t exactly a new thought, but Shelby still felt too young to be thinking about that stuff. Oh, and her dad was right there, looking seriously uncomfortable with Kale’s choice in words. The humor in his eyes disappeared.
“So,” Grant began, “are you—”
