by Sara M Zerig
“He does not believe you?”
“He can only bear witness to what he has seen himself,” Dane explained. “His testimony will go further with the elders than our sending a message alone.”
Kale rematerialized before them. “I will send word that I have witnessed Chloe and that she has been marked by her mate.”
Kale eyed Kimi then. Dane hadn’t marked her yet, but it was clear the other shifter was putting two and two together. Otherwise, he would have asked why Kimi was also brought along.
“When do you intend to alert the St. Cyrs?” Kale asked.
“Tonight, once we have confirmed the support of the other dwellings.”
Kale nodded and disappeared again. Kimi looked up to Dane. “Can all the shifters here do that?”
Dane peered down at her, thinking how much more there was for his Earthen mate to learn. “Come, there is more to see before we head home.”
Home, Kimi thought. How was it that she so instantly felt at home in this strange place, with this strange shifter? Simple: He was her mate.
In about a day’s time, Kimi had learned that her son’s mate wasn’t human, and other worlds existed outside of the only one she had ever known. Her own world had melted away, and she was transported to the shifter’s paradise. And with all this, the most shocking news of all was that she, Kimi Carter, did in fact have a mate.
She knew it the moment he took her hand at the ranch. Kent was right, shifters weren’t wrong about their mates. It was not that she had ever consciously doubted it, but like motherhood, you had to experience some things firsthand to truly understand them.
If he was anyone other than her mate, she would have run for the hills when he reached for her. He was a frightening beast even in his human form—over seven feet tall, huge with muscle and scarred all over. Despite his alarming appearance, it was the first time she could remember since the rape that she hadn’t been repulsed by an innocent touch from a male. In that moment, she was sure that Dane would let no harm come to her.
It wrenched her heart to know that Dane had existed all this time. If only things could have been different, she thought. But, no, then she would not have had Ritt.
Continuing through the market by his side, Kimi marveled that the feel of her hand in his did not bring her anxiety. She watched Dane’s lips as he spoke. She imagined what it would be like to feel them on her own.
Kimi wasn’t delusional; she knew Dane was a fighter. All shifters were, to varying degrees, and his scars indicated Dane had been in violent battles. But there would be no violence when he touched her. He would not hurt her, could not hurt her. They were mates, and they would protect each other, always.
Having made their way through the plethora of carts, Chloe and Ritt followed their host along one of the red dirt paths that wound up the inside of the walls. Catacombs of caves housed the shifters of the dwelling high in the wall of the red rock barrier. They were about eight flights up to the top ledge when Stevie waved toward one of the stone carved entryways.
“Our home.”
Turning toward the archway, Chloe halted as a shifter materialized only a few feet from her. There was something in his gaze that was different from the way others had been looking at them. He appeared to be studying her and then Ritt in turn. Then, he ghosted away. Ritt had not seen the curious shifter, still searching the marketplace below for his mother and Dane.
“Chloe? Ritt?” Stevie prompted.
Chloe and Ritt moved behind Stevie into the short tunnel. The rock opened to the rich blue sky. A wide fire pit lay at the center of the open space, with wide wooden chairs all around. At the far end of the space, a large copper bucket hung from a rope over a well built into the ground.
“This is where you eat?” Chloe asked.
Stevie nodded, leading them across the space and into another tunnel. The air was cooler here, much to Chloe’s relief. Sconces of glowing rocks lit the way. They came to a large domed area that broke off into multiple passageways. Stevie pointed to a stone path that arched up to the right. “Colton and I, here.”
“You two, here,” Stevie said, pointing straight ahead. Gesturing to the left, she said, “Kimi, here.”
They continued forward to a spacious room with a few windows cut high into the walls—small enough to let in some light from outside the dwelling while keeping the room cool. The stone floor was covered by an area rug of stitched-together animal pelts. An oversized bed along the far wall was covered in thin, gold silk blankets. Or maybe it wasn’t oversized, Chloe considered, relative to the people of this realm. A dresser made of an ashy gray wood sat across from the bed.
Stevie pointed out an entryway to a bathroom. Then she pointed to skins of water on the bedside tables. “Drink water.”
Chloe thanked Stevie for her hospitality, and Ritt nodded in absentminded agreement. She knew he was worried for Kimi. His mother was off with a strange shifter in a strange land.
“Am I safe here?” Chloe asked Stevie. “From my parents? From … anyone?”
Stevie was quick to assure them both. “Yes. Safe here.”
Chloe touched Ritt’s arm. “Then go find your mom.”
He frowned at her. “Come with me.”
“It’s too hot out there. I’ll be fine.”
Ritt searched her eyes as if to confirm she really meant it. “Promise me you won’t leave this room.”
“I promise.” She held up two fingers in a scout’s honor sort of way.
Stevie led Ritt out, and Chloe took in the room again. She stepped through the tunneled entryway to the bathroom and found it to be like a bathroom from back home. There was no shower, but there was a porcelain toilet, a copper sink, and a copper bathtub. All of it looked to be equipped with modern plumbing. She turned on the faucet at the sink, and the water came out steady and clear.
She moved back to the bedroom and sat on the bed. New information tumbled about her brain, tainting everything she thought she knew, like a red sock in a laundry load of whites. Ritt was half wildcat. She wasn’t human. Other worlds of inhuman people existed. Her birth parents were alive and searching for her.
Noble people, Dane had said. She wondered how well he actually knew her parents. They came from the Coven Realm, Colton had said. Coven … like a coven of witches? She supposed it didn’t have to be witches.
Nikki will never believe this, Chloe thought. An unwelcome thought tugged at her, but she pushed it from her mind. Of course, she would see Nikki again. And Alan and Margie … they were her parents, after all. They were the ones who had raised her. She couldn’t just disappear from their lives.
Chloe fished her cell phone out of her pocket, but it was dead. She had forgotten to ask about borrowing a charger at Nathan’s ranch. Would it work here anyway? If she could call Nikki, what would she tell her?
Kicking off her shoes, Chloe dropped back to her elbows and reveled in the cool softness of the covers. She stared up at the red stone ceiling. She was mentally and emotionally exhausted, but she couldn’t possibly fall asleep in this strange place.
Chapter Fifteen
Chloe awoke to the sound of Ritt’s return. She recalled where she was; there was no panic or nervousness. That strange calm that had settled in her earlier, remained. She left the bed and hugged Ritt tightly. “You and your mom are all right?”
“I’m fine.” Ritt stepped away from her and sat back on the bed with a thud, looking anything but fine. “But my mom is a completely different person.”
Chloe guessed, “With Dane, you mean?”
“She thinks he’s her mate.” Ritt’s reply was monotone.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“She’s my mom.”
Chloe couldn’t stop the quiet laughter that bubbled forth. Her fierce wildcat. Whining like a little boy.
“It isn’t funny.”
“No, it isn’t,” she agreed. “It’s wonderful, and you should be happy for her.”
He rolled his eyes.
&nb
sp; “I know she’s your mom, Ritt, but she’s also a—” Chloe decided against the word woman, “—well, a female.”
“Oh, stop!” he groaned, grabbing a pillow and pulling it over his head to drown her out.
Chloe laughed so hard she was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes when Colton’s baritone voice carried through the tunnel. “Dinner.”
“We’ll be right out,” Chloe called back. “Do you think you can eat if your mother and Dane are around the same fire pit with us?”
“No, I don’t,” came the muffled reply.
Still giggling, Chloe pulled the pillow off his face. “Well, I’m hungry, so get over it.”
It was still hot outside; Chloe estimated it was in the low eighties. The sky was a darker blue over the outdoor eating area as the sun made a slow descent. A large copper wok sat atop the fire pit with meat simmering inside it. Colton and Stevie sat between Dane and Kimi and another couple. Standing as they approached, Colton said, “Chloe, Ritt, these are my parents, Lok and Pali. Lok and Dane are brothers.”
Like the other shifters they’d seen, the couple was tall and solidly built. Pali was nearly as tall as her mate and only slightly thinner. Her sunlit hair cascaded around her shoulders in the same thick mass of waves her son had. Lok’s black hair was cut very short and brushed forward, accentuating the severity of his sharp features.
“Welcome,” Lok said, handing three large skins of water to Ritt. “One for you and two for your mate. She will need more water here.”
Chloe wasn’t sure she could finish even one of the skins but appreciated the concern. “Thank you.”
“All shifters and their mates are family,” Lok said simply.
Accepting the plates of meat and herbed rolls that Stevie offered them, Chloe and Ritt took their seats in the low wooden chairs around the fire. Kimi was curled up at Dane’s side across from them, and Chloe caught Ritt frowning at his mom. She tapped his foot with hers discretely.
As they ate, their hosts told them of the other “magic” realms. Chloe grasped that there were four realms in total: Earthen, Coven, Shifter, and Elven. These realms weren’t like planets in any solar system in space, but they existed in separate dimensions entirely.
There was a hierarchy to traveling—or as they referred to it, transferring—among the realms. Humans and Earthen shifters could not travel to any other realm on their own. Travel by other races to the Coven Realm was only upon escort by a Coven person. Elves and shifters could travel to each other’s realms and the Earthen Realm unescorted, but there was a general distrust of most elves by people of the Shifter and Coven Realms.
The Shifter Realm was made up of tens of thousands of people, organized into sixteen dwellings. Shifters here were larger than any other race and possessed exceptional strength. The people shifted into either wildcats or wolves.
“Dragons are only found in the Earthen Realm, but they are a dying breed,” Lok said.
“Told you they were real,” Kimi teased Ritt. Ritt shook his head at her.
Chloe digested all the information a little slower than the food. She looked from Lok to Dane. They did have some similarities, as brothers by blood would. But then, Ritt referred to shifters who were not blood related as “family,” and Colton referred to Ritt as “brother.” She asked Lok, “Do you have last names?”
“We use our dwelling name as our surname,” Lok explained.
Chloe contemplated that a moment. “There’s no other Colton or Dane in this dwelling?”
Colton answered, “If the name is already in use, a younger shifter hyphenates their name. I introduced myself to you as Colton, but my full name is Colton-Daniel of the First Dwelling.”
“And you’re Dane-what?” Kimi asked Dane.
Dane gave her a wolfish grin. “Just Dane.”
“Because he’s old,” Lok ribbed, eliciting an amused snarl from Dane.
“If a female marries into another dwelling where there is already a female with her name, her mate’s name is hyphenated with hers,” Pali added. “So, if there had been another Stevie in this dwelling when they were mated, Stevie’s name would have become Stevie-Colton-Daniel of the First Dwelling.”
“But no,” Stevie declared, “just Stevie.”
Pali addressed Kimi then. “It is unusual that you would have a child but not be mated, Kimi.”
Dane seemed curious to know more about that as well. Kimi was unruffled by the question. “Ritt’s father died before he was born. And, no, he was not my mate.”
Ritt dropped his eyes to his plate, and Chloe suspected he had heard that statement many times. Dane leaned down to whisper something in Kimi’s ear that left her smiling warmly up at him. Chloe sought to change the subject. “Are there different languages in different dwellings?”
“Purebloods from the magic realms—Shifter, Coven, and Elven—speak a common language,” Pali explained, “and understand all languages. But speaking to Earthen people takes practice.”
Stevie raised a hand humbly. “Out of practice.”
“I took French for two years, but I only remember a handful of phrases,” Chloe offered.
“No, no.” Stevie shook her head. “Different.”
“We aren’t actually speaking your language,” Colton elaborated. “We focus on our intention that you will understand.”
“A learned skill and a bit of magic,” Lok put in.
The reference to magic cued Chloe to ask, “You said my parents are from the Coven Realm—the realm of witches and warlocks.”
At Colton’s nod, Chloe said, “But, I’m not a witch.”
“You are,” Dane countered bluntly.
She was? She didn’t feel like a witch. She couldn’t fly, with or without a broom. Maybe she could learn to fly, though. That would be cool. Would she learn to cast spells? Would she have to wear a black cone hat and make brews in a bubbling caldron? Chloe shook her head as if she could physically clear the crowd of random thoughts.
“How did this happen?” She wasn’t sure why she directed the question to Colton. He seemed friendlier than Dane, she supposed. “How did I get to Earth—the Earthen Realm—if I was born in the Coven Realm?”
“You were stolen at birth, and your parents were deceived into believing you were miscarried,” Colton answered.
That didn’t add up for Chloe. How did you trick someone into thinking they had miscarried and make off with a baby? Magic?
She asked a simpler question. “My parents … what are they like?”
The good-natured vibe in the group plummeted. Stevie and Colton shared an uneasy look. Dane set his plate down and stood.
“Powerful,” he said resignedly. “And we cannot put this off any longer. Come.”
Cara kept Aidan company in his study. It was her husband’s shift to watch the scrying mirrors. There were two now: one for the dance club where Chloe had been spotted and the other for Chloe’s home. It was morning where Chloe and her roommate lived. Wyatt had cast a shield over the residence meant to allow all but a realmless to pass through. Should the realmless make an appearance, they would see it through the mirror. There had been no activity yet.
Abby had not been able to get a read on Chloe’s current location, even after casting an expanded search to the entire state of Colorado. It was possible that Chloe had taken a trip by plane somewhere. Abby offered to start over with the spell for the whole Earthen Realm, but Cara had insisted that Abby rest first. Chloe’s belongings remained at the residence that Aaron had discovered, so she would likely be returning soon.
Cara found herself staring at the photo from the Earthen cell phone Aaron brought them. She wished the image was sharper but was grateful to have it at all. The daughter she had thought dead as a baby was full grown now, living the life of a human.
Their correspondence box glowed with the receipt of a message from the Shifter Realm. Aidan opened the letter with a wave of his hand. An image of a scroll floated up and unrolled in a soft glow. Aidan straightened as h
e read, then his expression began to darken.
“What does it say?” Cara asked.
She came around the desk to read the message. It began remarkably well. Chloe had been found, healthy and safe. They had information on the shifter and realmless who may have been responsible for the abduction; both were dead. Then, an unfathomable statement: Chloe was mated to an Earthen shifter, and the elders of the Shifter Realm recognized the mating under shifter law. Chloe and her mate were staying in the First Dwelling, and they wished to arrange a meeting there.
Mated to a shifter? Witches did not mate; witches married. And witches married warlocks, not shifters. Although, Cara considered, Chloe had been raised Earthen and so had this shifter. Perhaps it was not inconceivable, then, that two non-humans in a human world would find each other and fall in love.
“Has Dane lost his mind?!” Aidan’s voice exploded through her thoughts. “We are bringing our daughter home!”
Cara all but tiptoed back to her chair. Her husband was not thinking straight. It was understandable, but one of them needed to stay calm and think through next steps. Clasping her hands in her lap, she bowed her head and sent a silent prayer to the stars for strength and clarity. She lifted her gaze to Aidan. He was still standing at his desk, as she knew he would be, too emotional to understand why he could not transfer.
“Chloe’s mating is protected under their law, and your intent is to take her from her mate. Their wards will not allow you through.” Cara explained what her husband was too angry to recall.
Comprehension dawned in those blackened green eyes of his before his fist smashed into the desk, cracking the solid wood frame down the middle. The chair went flying next, lodging into the wall behind him. She would be entertained if the fit were over anything but one of their children.
Having nothing else to launch but two halves of the desk, Aidan raged, “How can you be so calm?!”
“I am relieved that our daughter has been found safe,” Cara pointed out. “And calm is necessary now. If we want to see Chloe, we must be mentally prepared to leave without her.”
