by JK Cooper
“The Feral have stewardship over the second key,” he said. Then, he Called the pack to him. Come, you faithful of the Advent. We have won a new lair.
What of the dead, Father? Athena replied through the pack link, but just to him.
They proved unworthy. Leave them for the worm and the raven.
They headed north for more than a mile, around the seam Shelby had opened in the ground, until the silver charged soil was no more. He hated Wiccans and their meddling.
As the light of dawn broke on the eastern horizon, Copeland Manor came into view.
Mareus smiled. It was a fitting lair for the Alpha Prime of the Advent.
Athena, my daughter, you have proven most worthy. The second key of Ascension is at hand.
How, Father?
By plans laid long ago on Alsvoira before coming through the crystal portal.
Shelby awoke to a start. They were in Telluride, Colorado. The soft rush of the stream they slept not far from had finally lulled her to sleep. She didn’t know what time it was, but she could see the silhouettes of the tall trees against a pale sky. It almost looked as if they were scratching the sky. By the smell of the dew on the leaves, the sun would rise soon.
“Kale?” she whispered.
He rolled over next to her, a red leaf in his unkempt hair. It had been two weeks since Kale had become the Alpha of their small pack. From the look on his face, he had not been sleeping. I miss you, she thought, but knew he would not hear it. Their bond had not healed. Only a void remained within her where he had once been. He was her Alpha. She the Omega. She yearned for more, for what they once had—but he did not seem to even try to rekindle the bond. Maybe he couldn’t think of it now, maybe it wasn’t important to him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“There’s a scent,” she said.
Kale looked away for a moment, as if in thought. Then he nodded and sat up. “It’s that way.” He pointed up a small ravine with exposed tree roots and fall leaves. They stood and quietly picked their way from the others who slept. Shelby turned her back once they cleared the perimeter of their small camp, disrobed, and shifted. Kale did the same.
Some of the Advent pack had tracked them, pushing them further north, but the Wiccans wove spells to elude them. The magic worked on most, but some found their way through the spells. Kale killed those who did. His seeming nonchalant ruthlessness bothered her, but he was the Alpha. He would protect his pack mercilessly. She felt that weight upon his shoulders, and he had risen to it.
The dead had been buried and mourned, but a heaviness remained among the pack and those with them. They had found clothes along the way, sticking mostly to small towns as they traveled. As the days went on, they found fewer and fewer people in those towns. Telluride had not produced a single soul.
Grant and Bryanne slept back to back on the ground. Bryanne’s injuries had healed slowly, and she had burned with a fever a week after the fight. Her dad had nursed her back to health with what little they had, and Shelby had helped her draw upon the ley lines. She found she could heal Bryanne, even though she wasn’t part of the pack, when connected to the ley lines. They were a conduit for her Omega abilities, it seemed. Still, the healing went slowly.
Bryanne held the Isluxua, even as she slept. Shelby allowed it, unsure she wanted to read more, but certain she would have to.
Bubba had regained most of his girth but was more sullen than Shelby had ever seen him. Gennesaret spent most of her time quiet, as if in deep reflection. Sean, Chelsea, and Amanda had stayed with them, but Mayor Gittrick had disappeared nine days past. They awoke one morning, and he was gone. Sean had no idea what had become of his father.
A few Hunters even stayed with them, but they slept further afield from the pack. Grant had let them know what would happen if they tried anything, and they seemed to respect him, calling him “Iron Ice,” whatever that meant. Shelby assumed it was something else in his past that he hadn’t told her about, but she no longer held any of that against him.
Iorna was close, the Feral Mystic they had met on their midnight run together. Her scent was just on the other side of the ravine. Was that really only a few weeks ago? It felt like a lifetime to Shelby. Chenoa loped up beside them.
Sorry if we woke you, Shelby said.
I do not sleep much, Eira-mit-Thyra.
Shelby felt Chenoa’s ache for Dakota and sent forth solace. To know someone for three centuries and then to have him gone, so suddenly . . . Shelby couldn’t imagine the hurt that would bring.
But you do know that pain, Eira told her. You have simply forgotten.
They crested the ravine, and Iorna stepped from the shadows, skittery and shy as Shelby remembered her. Shelby poured out trust.
You tracked us, Shelby said, and felt Kale’s agitation that they hadn’t sensed her earlier.
Iorna took a step closer, all shyness or reticence fading. It is time, Thyra. The Goddess gave me a memory when she selected me as her Mystic. I now give it to you.
Much like she had with Rachel, Shelby fell into the memory as if she was living it, but it was far stranger living inside the mind of someone who was neither wolf nor human.
She awoke, eyes opening to golden light, shifting sand beneath bare feet, wind whispering through amber-hued hair, but she had no words for any of these things. Shelby knew the words to describe what she was seeing, but the woman she lived in within this memory did not. She had awoken without name, without memories, without language.
She knew instinctively that she was tied to the world at her feet. She wished to survey it, to see more of her surroundings. Wishing made it so. The sand vibrated at her feet and stone rose to greet her, lifting her high above the plains of sand on a pillar of rock.
When it stopped, she saw she was alone on a world devoid of life, and she wept. Five tears landed against stone. Each transformed into a spring, a torrent of water pouring from the pillar in five directions, forming rivers.
Vegetation sprouted from the banks of these rivers, racing up hills and mountainsides, growing flowers, developing varieties, creating fruit. From the flowers came insects. The fruit birthed small creatures that frolicked and played in the sunlight. She enjoyed watching them, but she knew they would never bring her the joy she craved.
They were not enough. She wanted more. She wanted companionship that was more like her, aware of self, able to alter their world with their will. Wishing it made it so.
From the mists, where each spring fell to the land below, stepped new beings, sentient and aware, capable of great creation and destruction. Each was unique, each new and confused, each in need of guidance. She smiled down on them, but still did not have the words to give them such guidance.
Wishing made it so.
“I am the Goddess of this world. You are my children. Let us build the future together.” And they did. They were perfect and there was nothing but peace. But the Goddess knew nothing else, so she had no word for peace.
She wondered if this was how life on other worlds had come into being, so she took one of her eyes, the crystalline one in the middle of her forehead that let her see the farthest, and placed it at the center of all the rivers, the confluence of her world and her birthplace. She willed it to see farther, to show her other worlds.
And it grew to accommodate her need. And she saw heavens, like her own, and hells, unlike anything she could comprehend, worlds she feared. She was about to take her eye back when she glimpsed Earth and humanity. She fell in love with these broken creatures, so similar and so unlike her own creations. She had not thought to make her companions so flawed. How could she?
As her looking glass bounced through time, she ultimately concluded that humanity was more perfect than her five races. They understood peace, because they knew war. They understood joy, because they had tasted misery. They truly embraced love, because they had touched hate, loss, and loneliness. Her world lacked antithesis, so it could never be whole.
So, she invited
humanity in. With the touch of a finger, a keyhole appeared in her crystalline eye. She then reached inside herself, took a piece of her heart and forged it into a key. She turned the lock.
The crystal became a portal, one on her world, but many, spread throughout time, on Earth. She watched the histories she’d seen change. Her races mingled with humans on both worlds. Other races from worlds she had watched before finding her gateways to Earth. She also saw her death, and closed the door, but she realized she had never truly understood life until the opposite was a possibility.
She called several from each of her five races to be Mystics. They would watch the changing timelines and write paths of guidance for those who would follow. They would need help, especially after she was gone. She reopened the door.
Her heart burst with joy as the first human stepped through, a young girl curious and courageous enough to step into the strange gateway that appeared near her village while she was picking wildflowers.
There was power in the first, in the beginnings of change, power that the Goddess could forge into something of worth. The Goddess embraced her, gifting her with another piece of her heart as their chests met, which would give the girl an unnaturally long life for her kind . . . and much more.
“Welcome to Alsvoira. This can be your home, if you choose it.”
The girl nodded, solemn and sure.
“What is your name, child?”
“Thyra.”
Shelby started. That’s me? How? The memory faded.
Iorna bowed her head. You carry a piece of the Goddess within you. Lycans have too much of humanity in them to feel it, but the four other races will follow you, and the Feral are more wolf than human. They are yours. You just have to call them.
My phone died weeks ago.
Idiot child of modern stupidity. I do not mean with that device.
Shelby blushed beneath her fur. Oh? Then how?
Howl, child. Howl with all your heart . . . and that sliver of someone else’s heart you carry inside you.
I’ll try. Shelby looked inside her. Eira?
I will aid you, yes.
And they howled loud and long, her heart aching for all she had lost, both remembered and not. Eira howled too. Kale and Skotha joined in. Then Chenoa and Jaenu. Shelby thought she felt a reply, distant and wavering, like when she and Kale had first begun to form their bond. Do you think it worked?
Iorna shrugged, an odd expression for a wolf. I have already answered your Call, so I felt nothing. We’ll have to wait and see.
Shelby shared the visions with Kale and Chenoa, then the rest of the pack as they slept, seeping it into their dreams. Perhaps it will mend some of the doubt and strife that remain.
The Feral Mystics hold stewardship over the second key to Ascension, Iorna said. The Immortal Wolves are one of the original five races.
Shelby had seen the page in the Isluxua, five symbols intertwined, forming a wreath around a blazing sun.
Iorna stepped closer. We have waited for the Summer Omega to rise. You must show me the first key.
Shelby shifted. She reached into the earth and drew upon the ley lines. The scythe appeared in her right hand, the stalks of wheat in her left.
Iorna spun in excitement. You must be clothed in the garments of Ascension.
A line of the Isluxua came back to her. “ . . . The Sköllaer, as shepherds of the Five, shall find an One who mends the broken . . . robed in the garments of Ascension by petition, she shall cause the rivers to be confluent, not as five among one, but the birth of a new river. And this river shall shape the world in the image of those who follow her.
Thinking of the five symbols, Shelby’s mind seemed to focus on the one with the helm crowning a wolf’s head. “What is the wolf with the armor?” she asked.
Symbols of the second key, just as the scythe and wheat stalks are symbols of the first, Iorna said.
“What must I do to unlock the second key?”
Petition, Eira said. Simply ask.
That stumped Shelby. “I don’t have to read something from the Isluxua and feel fire racing through my veins?”
Petition Iorna for her consent, Eira said. It is hers to grant. You already are an Immortal Wolf by virtue of our joined essences, as well as one of the Sköllaer, a shepherd of the Five.
Did Shelby want to unlock the second key? The path to Ascension had only brought death and sorrow so far. She remembered what she had seen in Sadie’s memories, the images of death and destruction on Alsvoira. Sadie thought I could have been the cause of it . . .
We failed to bring Ascension to pass, Eira said. You, me, Daeglan, Skotha . . . our pack. And Alsvoira paid the price for that failure. Earth must not. If the Advent goes unchallenged, it surely will.
Eira gave her the words. “Iorna, Mystic of the Goddess, I, Eira-mit-Thyra, the Summer Omega, petition that the second key of Ascension be unlocked, and for all those who follow the true Alpha Prime, Skotha-mit-Daeglan, to be robed in the garments of Ascension.”
Iorna lowered her head. I consent.
Golden light again radiated from Shelby, but not her alone. Kale and Chenoa, still in their wolves, also radiated. Vambraces formed on Shelby’s forearms, gauntlets over the backs of her hands. The Vambraces were black with golden edges, and a spine of gold bisected the armor. The gauntlets matched in a similar coloring and style, leaving her fingers free. Covering her shins, greaves materialized, then a breastplate of the same black and gold styling. It wrapped around her shoulders in slender pauldrons that flared outward, covered her breasts and tapered down to where it met skirted faulds around her waist with armored tassels hanging freely over her thighs. The breastplate had a symbol in the middle: the side profile of a wolf’s head covered by a helm, the same image from the Isluxua. Finally, the helm coalesced from the golden light, forming around her head perfectly.
Shelby Brooks Ascended again, restoring the second piece of the fractured. She smiled in wonder, raising her left arm—the wheat stalks still in her grip—and took in the vambrace and gauntlet. She felt more alive than she had in weeks, the armor seeming to infuse her with energy. As she looked to Kale and Chenoa, still in their wolves, she saw similar armor had materialized upon their bodies.
“These are the garments of Ascension?”
What did you expect? Eira asked.
“I . . . I’m not sure.” She looked like something out of an epic video game. Early morning rays of light raked the forest’s ground amid the trees’ pale shadows, and she spied wispy swirls of evaporating dew. “But I cannot wait to meet Athena again.”
Shelby let the stalks and scythe vanish as she shifted. The armor—light and flexible—molded with her changing body, as if it were part of her, anticipating her movements. Each piece had perfectly morphed to her wolf’s body.
The symbol of the second key of Ascension will come to you at your beckoning, Iorna said. At least we won’t have to fight naked any more, Shelby said through the pack link.
I suppose that is one disadvantage, Kale said.
Disadvantage? What was he—wait, was he joking? Shelby’s heart felt lighter. That had been the first sign of the old Kale she loved since he became the Alpha.
Where did this come from? Shelby asked. The armor?
It was grown for us, Eira said. Nurtured in the sentient fires of Mount Estorathi on Alsvoira by the Fae.
The Fae? Shelby asked.
Yes, Thyra. The Fae are the stewards of the third key, and to whom we must now go.
THE END OF ASCENSION
BOOK 2 OF THE SUMMER OMEGA SERIES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The reception that Awakening received when released was beyond what we could have hoped. Thank you to our fans who took a chance on a new effort in a new genre for us. Thank you to Cassie Foster and Rachel Brown for your eagle eyes. Thank you to Kate Reading for bringing the story and characters to life with your incredible voice talent. For all the hard work from the folks at Audible Studios and Deranged Doctor Des
igns, we thank you as well. Finally, for the unsung hard work of those who labored with us behind the scenes, we thank you sincerely. You know who you are.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JK Cooper is a husband and wife writing team. They write paranormal romance and romantic urban fantasy. After nearly two decades of marriage and four children, they have plenty to write about. When not writing about werewolves and the end of the world, they enjoy spending time with their family, traveling, reading,
making fun of social media, and outdoor power sports
(and watching Glimore Girls reruns … well, K does).
They live in Utah with their four daughters and two massive Akitas.
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