by Lisa Ladew
Carick’s booming voice rang out from the back of the room, and everyone turned. The Steward stood as close as he could get to the outside door and still be in the room. “You have things well in hand here, Keeper. It is time I sought further resources for The Cause.”
Jameson squinted at Carick, obviously taken aback. “You’re leaving?”
Carick nodded once. From the end of the bar, Bryce added, “I’m going with him.”
Flint started to stand but Bryce met his brother’s eye. “It’s already decided. I’m taking him to meet Hernando’s friend, the power doctor who healed your bloodblade wound, in case we ever need some more of whatever he did. Then we’re going to find the Mountain Man.”
Immediately Flint came all the way to standing, started to argue, but Riot tuned the big bear out. On the couch next to Flint, Darby looked devastated. Not even glancing at Bryce, just staring at her knees with a wrecked expression on her face. Riot sensed trouble brewing. She doesn’t have a thing for Bryce, does she? I know they spend a lot of time together, but it always seemed platonic.
It seemed to Riot that Darby needed someone to care about her as much as Gemma had about him, someone willing to poke past the surface to get to the real shit.
Darby stood up next to Flint, who was still red-faced and arguing with Bryce, and spoke over him. “I’m going with you!”
Dead silence.
Darby looked around, wide-eyed, as if shocked that her announcement had had that effect. Then she lifted her shoulders and filled the room with her presence, broke the silence. “I’ve been training with Shiloh, just the physical stuff, and it’s going good. Right, Shi?”
Shiloh, taken aback, cleared her throat and nodded. “Real good. No glow, still, but she’s strong. Puts holes in the training dummies every pass. If she is a switch, she’ll know what to do.”
Riot looked at Goldie. The blonde switch was literally sitting on her hands, biting her lip, not looking at her sister or her mate. Riot got the sense she was doing her damndest not to interfere.
Darby, still making her case, waved a hand Carick’s direction, then Bryce’s. “The information you’re after, you could run into vampires. If I’m a switch, you might need me.”
Carick growled a reply, his black eyes watching Darby closely. “If you’re not, you might end up dead.”
Darby scoffed and smirked back, “If I’m not, you might end up dead. If I am, I might save both your asses.”
Bryce looked at Carick with hopeful eyes. The Steward nodded at him, then Darby. “We leave at nightfall.”
Darby grinned and sat back down, not meeting anyone’s eye, but practically vibrating with excitement as Jameson got back to ending the meeting. “Let’s get out there and do this ceremony.”
Chapter 45 - Long Live The Revolution
Riot stood in the middle of the clearing, in front of the wooden podium that Gemma told him had appeared yesterday, on the morning of their Breath Coven ceremony. It was obviously a magical spot, the grass shaped into a spiral with green magicks that swirled around their feet, and those of their audience.
The entire Cause, minus Darby, had stayed after the meeting to watch the ceremony. Even Hernando and Molly had come, leaving their employees - the ones not coventwined to The Cause - in charge of the Bear Claw Diner. All the shifters, and Carick, stood at the outskirts of the clearing or sat on the small boulders and felled logs just inside it.
Riot swallowed his jumbled nerves. Or tried to. I know this is where I’m meant to be, but… shit. All this commitment and cooperation were new to him. He was going to have to rely on these shifters and switches, share his life with them, his concerns. They were going to be a team in a way that Riot had never been with anyone but his parents and, after his dad died, with his mother. Letting this many people in… was he going to be able to do it?
He looked across the podium and met Gemma’s amber eyes staring boldly back into his, as if she could sense all of his doubts and didn’t consider them even worth justifying with a glance. You’re enough, her eyes seemed to say, so loudly Riot could hear Gemma’s voice in his head almost as clearly as if he was shifted. You’re exactly who we need.
The six of them - Riot, Gemma, Jameson, Cora, Flint, and Goldie - stood in a circle around the podium, shifters across from their mates. The clearing was silent, but for the chirp of grasshoppers in the tall grass surrounding them. Then a shuffle as the three switches each reached for their Resonant and unsheathed, stretching to place the weapons on the flat surface of the podium, hilts facing their mates, points touching.
Cora’s iron railroad spike, the hilt of it twisted and black, leading to a blade that Jameson had forged himself almost a century ago, but which had been a weight on his spirit until Cora claimed it. The long, curved blade of Goldie’s carving knife with its silver handle, worked into vines and elaborate pumpkin leaves, a keepsake from Flint’s dead family.
And finally Gemma’s knife, smaller and plainer than the other two but tougher, lighter, more agile in a fight. A gift from the best man Riot had ever known, now gifted to the woman who had helped Riot become the man he’d always wanted to be. There wasn’t a doubt in Riot’s mind that his father would be proud, of Riot as well as the woman he’d dedicated his life to. Riot’s chest ached as the switches raised their cupped hands to touch at the sides, over the weapons, and Riot met his woman’s eyes again.
While Jameson had been reading the Keeper’s Book, Cora had been - Gemma called it downloading - another poem, for use in the shifter’s ceremony. Flint had spoken right up as they went over the ceremony plans. “I’m not reciting any fucking poem. Resperanza can hide my favorite spices if she doesn’t like it.” Riot had heartily agreed. No poetry for him, either.
Cora smoothed it over. “Don’t get your drawers in a twist, fellas. We’ll do the talky part, you guys grit your teeth and get through the pain.”
She’d said it casually, but now Riot wondered. Just how much pain we talkin’, here?
Riot focused on Gemma, Cora, and Goldie. The switches leaned slightly forward, blowing into their hands to form the biggest, most effortless ball of Breath magicks that Riot had seen. It swirled with all three switches’ colors and grew rapidly, so that the switches actually had to lift their hands over their heads to keep it from bumping into his, Flint’s, and J’s faces.
As they lifted it high the switches pulled their hands away from each other, lifting their arms straight over their heads and bringing their hands down to rest on the shoulders of the shifter to either side. Riot saw Gemma’s hands land on Flint and Jameson’s shoulders just as he felt Goldie’s and Cora’s hands on his. The bubble of green magicks expanded and engulfed all six of them, similar to how Gemma’s had last night, when she’d shielded him as they’d run from the gold mine. Except no threat of death this time.
Then, hands on shoulders, switch scents drifting around and through Riot with every current of air, the women began to chant in unison:
Switches prowl with seeking knives
Shifters boldly pledge their lives
To the hunt, e’er long it lasts
Bearing marks that bind them fast
Great Hunters, as began this quest
By switches’ sides, the Well’s behest
Standing strong amidst the fight
Hearts bound fast to magic’s might
Guiding Instinct, brain, and brawn
Bid Cause and Coven soldier on
As their voices faded to nothing, Riot and his fellow Breath shifters reached for the knives on the podium. His old blade felt good in his hand, but somehow different, as if it knew it wasn’t really Riot’s anymore.
With a glance at Flint and Jameson to see if they were doing the same, Riot turned the knife on himself. His forearm, a three-inch-square area of free space, just above the blue lines of blood pounding through his veins, seemed the perfect spot. He dug in with the point of the blade.
Every cut he made was cauterized immediately, by lime g
reen magicks that pulled themselves out of the air to Riot’s ruined skin, knitting it back together, but leaving the scar. Somehow Riot knew that, like a bloodblade wound, this one wasn’t going away with a shift. It was here to stay. He gritted his teeth and sweated out three slash marks for the claws of the shifters, one for the switches’ blade, and wrapped a circle around it for the covens they belonged to.
He set the knife back on the podium as J and Flint did the same, their eyes drifting to the tattoos they now shared. Flint, Riot saw, had carved his ingrav on one of his biceps, thick as tree trunks; Jameson had unbuttoned his shirt and dug his into his chest, right above his heart. Now we're brothers. Riot couldn't hold back a grin. He'd always wanted brothers. Good men, like these two.
He searched out Gemma. Her amber eyes were shining with happy tears. His, too.
Small hands left Riot’s shoulders as he watched Gemma lift hers on the other side of their small circle. Riot felt the bubble of Breath magicks recede as the switches brought their hands up and forward. It was like coming out of a pool of warm water, the mountain air rushing in to cool Riot’s lungs. The wound on his arm should have been stinging, but instead there was a pleasant numbness.
Goldie, Cora, and Gemma brought their hands together, the swirling green bauble of magicks shrinking to fit. Riot watched the three sisters smile at each other and then, as if they were blowing out the candles on a cosmic birthday cake, aim their combined breath at the ball they held.
It exploded, green sparkles blasting through the air like fireworks and spreading around, not drifting, but aiming with purpose toward each member of their stunned audience like lightning bugs on a mission.
Shiloh stood, coming off her small boulder and into a fighting stance, as if she had plans to bat the little flecks of light away. But one landed on her head and flitted through her hair, lighting the platinum strands with its soft green hue, and the female's rigid muscles relaxed. Riot saw her smile, the same gentle smile she’d been unable to hide when they found the enormous paw prints in the forest.
All the shifters were being visited by tiny specks of sparkling green light. Dario’s was buzzing by his ear, and his face was a mask of bemused concentration as he seemed to listen intently. Ryder’s swirled around his arms and legs, then spent a few seconds drifting by the pocket of his pants where Riot knew the leopard kept his little notebook, before Ryder jammed his hand inside and the green light went back to swirling.
Aven, Bryce, Hernando, even Molly had a green light flitting around her head, through her long, shiny black hair, making the older woman chuckle and her round face break into a smile. Why is everyone so happy?
Carick made a grumbling, grunting noise. Riot looked at him. He had his own green speck hovering at eye level that didn’t move, didn’t dance playfully around his head or tussle his hair. It only floated there, changing green tones from shamrock to lime to sage. The glittering light reflected in the black of Carick’s hooded eyes.
It dropped to the ground in front of Carick’s feet, suspended only millimeters above the trim grass. And suddenly all the other little flecks of light did the same, leaving the air currents or the shifters they surrounded and joining their companion to clump together. They swirled and tossed, a flock of tiny glowing birds or a school of fish, this way and that, before circling around to form a picture.
It was the ingrav, same as Riot and his brothers had carved into their flesh only minutes before, but made of green sparks of light. They hovered there, throbbing with magic, then slowly sank to the ground, burning the grass as they went. Each light became a green coal that singed a blade down to its root and disappeared, leaving the ingrav behind.
Once all traces of the green sparks of light were gone, Carick knelt. Riot moved closer, along with everyone else. He turned to the side to look for Gemma just as her small, cool hand slid into his. She wore the same look Riot knew he must. What the fuck was all that about?
They surrounded Carick, all of the shifters and Breath switches, as the Steward rummaged in the grass beside him for a twig. He used the thin stick to trace the ingrav, disturbing the ash as his arm moved and he redrew the four slashes, the circle around them.
Carick lifted the stick, and immediately Riot’s ingrav tattoo tingled and he felt a pull behind his breastbone, like he had when he was in his mother’s house and had lit up all over. He sucked in a breath and looked down. The ingrav on his arm was glowing green. A glance to the side showed Riot that Jameson’s and Flint’s were doing the same.
The Steward looked up at the three of them from his crouched position. “There is your communication device.” Carick turned his gaze to the shifters surrounding him. “All of those who are here, perhaps all shifters everywhere, may now draw the sign of the ingrav, and the Covens will come running.”
Beside Riot, Flint snarled. “The Covens? Right now that’s only us.”
Riot agreed with a low growl. Just us, a probably-illegal organization, a tiny secret shifter organization with no authorization, against whatever is out there?
Carick stood, a faraway look aimed at the mountains in the distance, as if he was thinking the same thing. “Indeed.” The Steward cast a dark look in Bryce’s direction. “Gather your belongings and the would-be switch. Pick me up at sunset.”
Bryce nodded, and Carick stalked away from the whole group without even a goodbye, towards Resperanza’s gate and the forest beyond. It hit Riot just then, that he didn’t know when - or even if - he would see Bryce, Darby, or Carick after today.
But even that newly-settled weight couldn’t bring Riot down, nor the rest of the shifters and switches, who all started to chatter with excitement. Riot pulled Gemma to the side, not even out of the circle but just into their own moment of quiet.
So what, if we’re all there is, and nobody knows how much time we have? Riot looked at Gemma and smiled, bringing her close enough to kiss. The fingers of one small hand fisted in Riot’s t-shirt as the other grabbed his left forearm and pulled it away from their bodies.
Riot backed up just enough for Gemma to turn her head and look at his newest tattoo. She rubbed her thumb over the scarred skin, then raised his arm to her lips, pressing them to his mark. “No mistaking you now for anyone but exactly who you are.”
She tucked the palm of Riot’s hand against her soft cheek, and Riot felt his chest fill with pride. Because I’m finally who I want to be.
Gemma’s eyes sparkled with tears, and Riot didn’t look away. He knew she was scared, even with him beside her. Their future was uncertain, but certainly dangerous. Still, as their lips came together in a deep, intimate kiss, Riot wasn’t worried.
Maybe because he’d already lived through so much hell, Riot wasn’t scared of more. Or maybe because now that Gemma was here to fight for and with, even the worst day looked like a slice of heaven. But it was more than that. Something outside of Riot and Gemma entirely, but twined up in the truth of their story.
We’re meant to be. Fated. And that alone proves we’ve got a shot at winning.
It wasn’t much, but at the same time, like the woman Riot held in his arms, it was all he needed.
Epilogue
Aila woke on her hard stone shelf of a bed, in the tiny cave behind The Falls. The rushing water at the mouth of the cave blasted past, catching her eye. Daylight broke through the droplets. She had expected night, because time in The Falls barely moved.
She stood, making her way to the entrance of her cave, out into the wet of the spray and down the rocks to the pool. The mist from The Falls landed in her hair as droplets, against a backdrop of an endless sunset sky, what it always looked like at The Falls. The falls were endless, timeless, distance-less. She could walk for days and never go anywhere.
All Aila had was The Falls, and the pool at the bottom.
The pool should have been a churning sea of air and water, overflowing its barriers to soak the ground around it. Instead the forty-foot pool neatly encompassed the column of falling water without e
ven a splash. This was where Aila watched the world.
She made her way to her favorite spot, where one stone of the pool’s wall jutted out and made a seat just big enough for Aila to perch on, one elbow resting on the wall so she could lean close.
Her eyes flitted across the water, eager for news. Last Aila had seen, disaster had struck. Tragedy. It had been such a blow as to send her into her cave, grief-stricken.
But the surface of the pool was blank. Empty. Nothing to see.
Aila trembled. She strained to see something, anything. A glow in the deep caught Aila’s eye. It was tiny, like a firefly, but pulsing sage green and growing, coloring the water around it. Aila dared to hope.
Another dot of green appeared under the water, close by, this one a clear shade of shamrock. And almost without pause a third, a green so bright as to verge on yellow. Aila gasped. Three lights.
Then she saw a male face that startled and shook her. How I’ve missed you, she thought, as she traced his every feature with her eyes. He looked so tired.
The green lights swirled together, redoubled in size, declared their power, but Aila could not tear her eyes away from that face that filled her heart. He called to her, without word or sound. The green swirls swelled again and Aila’s heart answered.
Her hand drifted toward the water, forgetting for a moment that she should never, ever touch it.
The instant Aila did, she disappeared.
<<<< >>>>
<<<< Aven’s story is next. His old military buddy’s little sister is in trouble, but Aven to the rescue. <3 Coming in fall 2018 >>>>>
Notes from Lisa
Fun! I really, really enjoyed Riot. I never thought I would like a “bad boy” like he was shaping up to be, but Grace proved me wrong. <3 He’s the first big cat shifter I’ve written, although he was much more Grace’s baby than mine, I still feel like I had a part in writing him, and I liked it. Sexy for DAYS.
