He barked a laugh. “A shy bard. There’s a marvel.”
“She is…” Angie paused, her gaze following the Cosantir as he walked across the meadow toward the trees. “Time for the ritual.”
Emma’s stomach dropped, but she silently followed the others through the forest into a small clearing. Fresh dirt marked a new grave.
The Cosantir, clad all in black, spoke first. “Daonain, we are here to mark the passing of Wesley Tremblay, a werecat shifter. Who among us remembers this lad?”
Shay spoke up from the crowd. “He was a young cahir, still new in his powers, here to learn to kill hellhounds.”
“Down from the Tongass Territory. They will mourn his loss.” Zeb’s rough voice came out even harsher.
“A good-hearted lad, brave and strong. Trying to prove his worth.” Ben’s grief and lingering guilt shadowed his deep voice.
She wished she was close enough to put an arm around him; wished they were close enough friends she’d dare to offer comfort in public.
“He had a sense of humor and loved practical jokes,” Owen added.
“He picked me flowers,” one female said. “He missed his family.”
“He ate more like a bear than a cat,” Angie said. “The boy could inhale an entire chicken without taking a breath.”
Laughter rippled around the clearing before more people spoke, telling their memories of the male, shaping a sense of the hole left by his loss.
Finally, no more spoke.
In the silence, the Cosantir said, “Our young cahir has returned to the Mother.” He lifted his voice. “Wesley, may you refresh your spirit in the Summerlands. Know that you will be missed by your people until you return to us again. The clan mourns.”
The chorus of voices returned like the wind in the trees, “The clan mourns.”
After a slow breath, Calum looked around at the crowd. For her.
This was her moment if she chose to take it. The master bard had said she had a talent for composing, so perhaps…perhaps she could do the young cahir justice.
Yet a song of her own making would reveal her own realities, her insecurities before this community. Baring her soul had never gone well for her in the past. But Cold Creek had welcomed her. They were hurting. A song would give them closure.
The Cosantir’s eyes were still dark with the presence of Herne as his gaze met hers. She felt his grief and her own need to offer something to mark this sad passing of a youth taken before his time. Under the God’s silent call, she could only answer.
The first notes were ascending into the air before she realized she’d begun.
In the thrall of the song, stillness surrounded her, and she could feel each and every person in the clearing. She touched the depth of their loss, shared their sadness, and their emotions filled her voice as she sang the song of Wesley, the brave young cahir who had wanted only to protect.
All day, she’d turned the story over in her mind, swimming in the currents of the river of life, blending together what people had told her. Her duty as a bard was to look beneath the water’s surface, all the way to the murky bottom, and return with treasures others might overlook.
And now, she slipped into minor chords for the dark of the moon. Note by note, word by word, Emma steered her audience into the night, the darkness, the fear. Into the drive to protect, the desire to be a heroic member of the team.
She pitched her voice higher, soaring into the scream of the female in the house and her exhortations to kill, then dropped lower for his surging instincts to prove himself worthy of a potential mate. She laid out how his nature had lured him into error and shattered his hard-won control.
Her hands slapped together with the barking pistol—her audience flinched back—and her arms dropped to her sides as she sang for young Wesley, the despairing knowledge of his failure, of his task left undone.
Her voice was pitched for mourning as the bond between the cahir’s body and spirit broke apart. In notes of sadness, she mourned his shortened life, his unfinished job, tempered by the knowledge he’d someday return to take up his tasks again. That he’d do better the next life around.
Finally, she released the restraints on her voice as joy erased the past, as the young cahir moved toward his forever welcome in the arms of the Mother.
Her song whispered into silence.
No one stirred.
After a time, Emma moved to wipe the tears from her face and saw others doing the same. One person silently left the clearing, followed by another, beginning a slow exodus.
As shifters passed her, most touched her shoulder in formal respect.
Most. Not all. Not the females who’d made fun of her. As they moved past, the buxom brunette glared at her. And the brunette was on the receiving end of a multitude of frowns. Could this be Sarah, the female who’d goaded the young cahir?
A hand closed on Emma’s shoulder, tingling slightly with power. Calum stood beside her. He gave her a faint approving smile before moving on.
The last of the people left the clearing, leaving her standing with…two males and a child.
“Well done,” Ryder said quietly. He stood on her left, Minette on his hip.
“Done here?” Ben asked from her right.
Their strength and support flowed into her, giving her courage.
“Yes, I’m done.” She looked up, studying Ben’s face.
His face resembled stone, his jaw tight with pain and grief. But his eyes were clear, no longer muddied with his guilt. His shoulders didn’t hunch as if awaiting a new blow. Because he had done nothing to be ashamed of.
Not like Emma. In some way, she must be like the self-centered female who’d goaded Wesley. In her own contempt for Sarah’s behavior, Emma could understand how the shifters in Pine Knoll must have felt about her own actions at the Gathering. However, Sarah hadn’t been banished. And the Mother had forgiven Emma and erased the banishment blackness. Now all Emma had to do was forgive herself. It was time to move on.
“C’mon, honey bear,” Ben said softly, tucking his massive hand under her arm and moving her forward.
The meadow was filled with people, sad-eyed, silent. No one seemed interested in food.
“Bard.” Calum’s brother, Alec, was tall and sandy-haired with eyes of a dark green. “The Cosantir requests another song—one that will help the clan move on to acceptance and life.”
“As the Cosantir wishes,” Emma responded with the traditional reply.
Slowly, she scanned the crowd, but her gaze returned to the ones closest at hand. To the tear-stained face of the child she’d come to love—and Emma knew the two songs she wanted to sing. First a song of gratitude to the Mother…and then the very old tune about a young kitten learning the joys—and wetness—of fishing in a tiny stream.
Because sadness should be followed by laughter.
Chapter Sixteen
‡
MIDWEEK, BEN SAT in his office, scowling at the list of things he needed to do. By the God, broken bones were far worse than shredded muscles. Normally, after a healing, he’d be stiff and sore, and weak for only a couple of days. This time, his shoulder still fucking hurt.
Emma hadn’t had a healer right away—no wonder she still walked like an old granny—although she was doing better than he was, what with caring for Minette every day. She’d even started teaching the mite the alphabet.
He pushed his To Do list away with a low growl. He needed to be at work, but Donal had said construction work—pounding, sawing, lifting—might screw up his shoulder permanently.
Being crippled wasn’t on the To Do list. Nonetheless, he couldn’t afford to give his recovery more than another day or so.
“What’s the matter, bro?” Ryder prowled in and set down a coffee cup with a grizzly bear painted on the ceramic. The cup he sipped from was decorated with a cougar. They’d been presents from their Naini.
“I’ve got too much to do and only one arm to do it with,” Ben said.
“You
’re not gonna do squat. Donal said you’re off the job this week.”
“I can’t.” Ben pointed at the two sites where active building was happening, then the two volunteer projects. “They all need—”
“I got them covered. We’re managing all right without you.”
“You have your own work.”
Ryder put a foot up in the chair and leaned his forearms on his thigh. “My woodworking projects can be postponed until you’re back.”
“You don’t like supervising the crews.”
“Not particularly.” Ryder shoved his fingers through his hair. “But we’re brothers, which means I pick up what you drop. Just get your ass back to work in a week or your crew will probably quit on you.”
As the weight lifted off his shoulders, Ben laughed, remembering their first year in construction when Ryder’d taken a turn bossing the crew. Three humans had quit before the day was over. “Just treat them as if they were oversized Minettes, and you’ll do fine.”
Ryder snorted. “So I need to buy them Superman Band-Aids?”
“You can fire them if they start scamming you about their owies.” Minette had been thrilled with her Little Mermaid Band-Aids…and had been pointing out the tiniest scrapes in hopes of scoring more. Ben’s smile faded. “Seriously, thank you, bro.”
“I’m enjoying it. Well, not the bossing, but working with shifters again. And doing charity stuff. Feels good to give something back for a change.”
Ben smiled. Seemed his brother was starting to let go of the hardass finally. “Good to hear.”
Ryder glanced around the piles of paper in the office. “Meantime, you get a chance to catch up with deskwork.”
“Yeah, nothing I’d rather do. Oh, well, maybe snorting cougar piss would be more fun.”
“Asshole.” Ryder smacked Ben upside the head. “C’mon. Donal said you could trawsfur if you didn’t exert your shoulder. Emma said she’d cub-sit, and I need to be a cat for a while.”
Ben studied his brother. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Have you shifted since you got Minette?”
“Nope.”
Hell, for the sake of his construction crews, he’d better get Ryder into fur or he’d be liable to claw out someone’s guts. “Let’s go.”
He led the way to the garden shed, which shared a wall with the back fence. Inside, they stripped and exited through the concealed backdoor. Forest surrounded them. Salmonberry and red-stemmed salal created a dense understory below the hemlock and firs, blocking any access from possible human intruders.
Ben motioned to the right fork on a small deer trail. “I can’t go too far, but that one leads to a small lake within a couple of miles.”
“Perfect.” With a grin showing his relief, Ryder blurred as he shifted to his animal form.
Ben pulled in a slow breath and watched, feeling the thickness in his throat. He hadn’t run with his brother in five lonely years.
The cat had put on muscle and weight. His fur was a tad darker than most golden-tawny cougars before shading to almost white under his belly. With a low purr, Ryder butted his head against Ben’s thigh—a nudge saying to get a move on.
Laughing, Ben trawsfurred, feeling the Mother’s love sweep through him. He dropped onto his front left paw, keeping his weight off his right. He wasn’t going to win any races today, but by Herne’s hairy balls, it was good to have dirt under his paws again.
He huffed and motioned with his head for Ryder to go on ahead. His housebound littermate would need to run for a while, feel the freedom, and catch the scents. Ben could bring up the rear.
With a low yowl, Ryder sprang forward.
Even lumbering along slowly, Ben enjoyed himself. Summer was on hand already, the wildflowers beginning to bud and bloom. Cheeps from fledglings sounded from high nests. He caught the scent of deer and a lone coyote.
The trail ran upward, through stands of towering silver fir, and then switch-backed down a steep slope. Going downhill without a healthy foreleg was a pain in the tail. Ben’s grumbles came out as harsh breaths.
Ryder flashed back to him, rubbed his muzzle along Ben’s head, and disappeared again. The sound of bark tearing said he was sharpening his claws on a tree trunk. A few minutes later, a sharp squeak said a mouse or shrew had met its doom.
There was nothing as tasty as fresh snacks.
The air grew moist and cool as they descended to the alder and vine maples surrounding the small glacier-fed lake.
After a protracted stretch, Ryder shifted to human and sprawled in the sun on a flat expanse of moss-covered rock.
Ben shifted and joined him. “Did you save me a snack?”
“Nope.” Ryder pointed at a patch of monkey flowers and bluebells. “Smells like good hunting there though. I’ll catch you something before we leave.”
“A rabbit would go down good.” Ben tipped his head toward the sun, enjoying the warmth contrasting with the chill of the rock under his ass. “Thanks, bro. I needed to get out.”
“Yeah. You’ve been…off.” Ryder’s gaze was a little too intent. “Must be tough to lose a cahir partner that way.”
“Goes with the territory.” The lazy relaxation slid out of his muscles. Dammit, he didn’t want to talk about the cahir’s death.
Ryder waited silently, tossing blades of grass into the still mountain lake.
Ben caved in. Brothers shared, even the ugly shit. If he and Ryder were to get back to where they’d been, they had to be able to talk. “Wesley’s death…brought back old shit. Fucked me up to be the reason someone died. Again.”
“Again?” Frowning, Ryder held grass up to be ruffled by the snow-chilled breeze. “I’m missing something. Was another cahir killed?”
“Not a cahir.” In the cloudless blue sky, a hawk circled. Hunting. “Didn’t your father tell you? My birth killed our mother. I was too big. Tore her inside, and she bled to death. It’s why your father took you and left town when we were five. I kept getting bigger and he couldn’t stand looking at me.”
Ryder sat up, a scowl on his face. “Where the fuck did you come up with this shit?”
“My sire told me when I visited Texas five years ago.” And ever since, the guilt had flowed through Ben like muddy floodwaters. He’d killed their mother.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Ryder straightened, his face darkening. “Arnold fed you that crap? And you’ve carried this shit around for years? You must have… By the Gods, this is why you said you wouldn’t take a mate?”
“Aye. I’m a grizzly. Any female I mated would risk dying in childbirth the way our mother did. I won’t take that chance.”
“By the God, you are so—”
“Not something we’re going to discuss,” Ben said.
“Shut up, bro. You talked. Now you’ll listen, as I did.”
Ben blinked. His littermate rarely snapped at him. A glimmer of pride ran through Ben. Not many took on a grizzly, but Ryder was prepared to fight to be heard. “Go on. I’ll listen.”
“ ’bout time, yeah?” Ryder said in a dry voice. “First, my father wasn’t mad at you, or disgusted, or anything, bro. But he was damn well furious at your father. He had a hell of a fight with Arnold before we left.”
Ryder’s father hadn’t hated him? Ben’s brain felt as if it was being hammered with a nail-gun. He remembered Ryder’s father—a lanky male with black hair and black eyes—who had never been anything but kind. “Why the anger and why the fight?”
“You were overly large for our dam,” Ryder said, ignoring the question. “She was a cat; you’re not only a bear, but a grizzly one.”
Ben felt his shoulders hunch under the burden of the guilt.
“But, bro—wolves and cats have borne bears for all the generations of the Daonain. A healer told our mother she’d have trouble with the birthing—any birthing. Did you know she’d already lost one litter?”
“No,” Ben said huskily. “And she knew she’d have trouble?”
“Yeah, she’d been warned before eve
n getting pregnant the first time. Her pelvis was narrow. But she favored big males. Wouldn’t have been a problem if a healer had been in attendance, but Arnold…”
“What did my father do?”
“Pa said Arnold was paranoid to the point of insanity.”
Ben rubbed his face. No news there. Most shifters didn’t live so isolated they saw no one for months at a time. “Figured out he was a bit unhinged once I met normal people.”
Ryder leaned back on one elbow. “The story played out like this: Our mother met Arnold and his brother—and my sire—at a Gathering. When she ended up pregnant, Arnold and his brother talked her into living with them, although they never lifemated. When the brother got killed by a feral, Arnold turned into even more of a hermit.
“The way my father talked, I thought she was his lifemate.”
“He wanted to lifemate, but, it never happened, maybe because he wasn’t stable.” Ryder continued, “That’s why our mother had mated with several males on Gathering night, but in such a small town, my sire knew a child with black eyes and black hair was undoubtedly his. After he saw me, he moved next door to Arnold to stay close while I grew up.”
“I never heard any of this.”
“Eh, not something you discuss in front of a cub,” Ryder said. “The split-up was my fault, by the way. Arnold caught me sneaking food from the fridge and walloped me. Pa saw the bruises and yelled at him, and Arnold went batshit and tried to kill Pa. That’s why we left. Pa wanted to take you with us, but Arnold insisted you were his. Father figured he wouldn’t kill his own son, or he wouldn’t have left you.”
“Unfortunately, Arnold found out I wasn’t his when I trawsfurred the first time.” Ben smiled slightly. “We may both have blue eyes, but he’s a wolf. Obviously, our mother mated with a blue-eyed bear at the Gathering.” Yeah, the year he turned thirteen had been when the blame had turned into outright abuse. At least being a big grizzly meant, when he’d run away at sixteen, he’d passed for an adult.
“Oh, hell. Pa shouldn’t have taken that fucking nutcase’s word for anything.”
“Your father couldn’t have known.”
Eventide of the Bear Page 15
