Healer's Choice

by Jory Strong

  The drums called and she willed herself toward them, felt a spike of primal terror when out of nothingness an opening formed in front of her, a yawning chasm filled with howling, shrieking wind, a place symbolized in the physical world by a dark cave filled with sun-bleached bones.

  She entered it and took form. Became transfixed in horror, unable to look away from the throbbing, pulsing heart she held in her hand. Levi’s.

  The sound of chanting joined that of the drums, broke her trance and pulled her deeper into the cave until she reached a fire, and around it men and women representing Weres of more species than she could count.

  Some wore headdresses and capes, as Nahuatl did. Others were marked by facial brands, as the Lion shaman was. Still others wore beads of bone in their hair and bore scars across their chests as she’d seen on the Wolf shaman.

  Rebekka became aware of her own nakedness then. She wore nothing except for the amulet resting against her illusionary flesh. And as the fire glinted off the ancestors’ eyes, she knew instinctively that without her father’s protection she could be harmed in this place.

  The chanting stopped. The beat of the drums faded to the background as did all of those gathered except for a man draped in the pelt of a bear.

  His face was hidden, though yellow eyes shone through the snarling headdress. His human arms disappeared into folds of fur so his hands and fingers become bear claws. “You ask us to render a judgment?”

  His voice was a deep growl that seemed to be picked up by wind and carried throughout the cavern. Yes was on the tip of Rebekka’s tongue, but unbidden she remembered the argument she’d had with Aryck, her claim that not all outcasts became so because of the ancestors, and her belief that Levi didn’t deserve this fate, not when he could have chosen a lion’s form as Cyrin had and been free to live among the Were.

  Hoping in being bold she wasn’t damning Levi further, Rebekka said, “I’m here to heal a soul.”

  Yellow eyes gleamed. “As long as your gift remains untainted by evil, you have that power.”

  A furred arm lifted and pointed to the opening behind her. “The part of the Lion’s soul once living among us now roams the ghostlands. If you choose healing over judgment, then you must be the one to suffer the pain that comes with bringing it back to our world.”

  The conversation with her father whispered through Rebekka’s mind. The remembered shine of approval in his eyes when she’d asked, “And the cost to me of making a Were whole?”

  No more than you can bear. Nothing the life you’ve led hasn’t prepared you for.

  Since accepting the amulet she’d endured pain, accepted it as the price to be paid for the use of her gift. “I choose healing over judgment.”

  The drums grew louder in response. Their beat was joined by human voices, rising and falling in a chanted song as the Bear ancestor stepped forward.

  “Know this, then. Those you stand with draw our attention to them by accepting what you offer. You might come before us by your own choice to heal, but there are others who come at our bidding, and kill at our command. Pass this warning on to the ones who would benefit from your gift, so they can understand the risk accompanying their redemption.”

  He jabbed one end of the staff he carried into the fire then touched the other to Levi’s heart. Flames engulfed it, a searing agony Rebekka felt not in her hand, but in her chest.

  She fell to her knees, screaming as her heart burned. Her voice blended with the drum and song, becoming part of a spirit wind that poured from the darkness and plunged into the ghostlands in search of Levi.

  She knew the moment he was found because with the pain came images from his life since being made outcast. Terrible scenes of being tortured and twisted into a monstrous shape.

  With it came the horror of witnessing the same thing happening to Cyrin. The cruelty perpetrated on them both and that Levi had perpetrated in turn, when insanity and hate made him truly soulless as he hunted those who ran the maze.

  Tears streamed from Rebekka’s eyes. She fought the urge to curl into a ball, to hide from the dark evil that could find its way into even the best of hearts.

  She was struggling to breathe when the pain stopped abruptly, the fire in her chest and hand suddenly doused. She felt wind on her face and saw through puffy, swollen eyes a figure coming toward her, man shifting to lion and back again in endless succession. Levi.

  He reached her and took her hand. The drums ceased, as did the world around them.

  Rebekka opened her eyes. A lion lay next to her, his breathing as fast as her own, his heart pounding against her palm.

  “Levi,” she whispered through parched lips, hardly daring to believe it had been real and they’d both survived the attention of the Were ancestors.

  She rose to her feet when he did. Felt herself calming as he shook and stretched, padded around the room and pounced, barely missing a scurrying mouse. A smile formed, his happiness in wearing fur again after so long making the memory of the pain she’d endured fade along with the scenes she witnessed.

  He returned to stand in front of her. Changed. The transition seemingly easy.

  Joy lit his face and he hugged her to him. His tears wet her neck. “I can never repay you for this, but I’ll spend a lifetime trying.”

  She hugged him back. “Not a lifetime. Help me in Oakland. Then go back to your pride.”

  There would be other places; she knew it with certainty. Her father hadn’t created her to help those in Oakland, only to turn her back on Weres elsewhere by returning to Jaguar lands and becoming a mate and mother.

  Sadness threatened to eclipse joy at the thought of Aryck. She suppressed it ruthlessly.

  Even if she could go back in time, she’d make the same choices if they led to this moment. “If we hurry, we can get back to the brothel before dark.”

  “Not the brothel,” Levi said, releasing her and getting dressed. “Araña’s boat.”

  Rebekka frowned and followed him out of the room, once again moving slowly down the staircase and through the narrow, twisting passageways. “I could start with those who look human and have earned the right to work more flexible hours. They could slip away at dawn and not be missed for a while.”

  Levi shook his head. “It’s too risky to go to the brothel and be trapped there by the night. I can’t hide my scent. The longer I’m there, the quicker the change in it will be noticed. Those who know about the Rite of Trial will guess I’ve gone through it and wonder why I’ve come back. The reason will become obvious when the brothels start emptying.

  “Keeping what you’re now capable of a secret will be impossible. We can’t know for sure who spies for Allende. We need to be in a safe place. The outer harbor is Rimmon’s territory. He might not protect anyone on board the Constellation while she’s docked but he won’t allow other boats near her if she’s out in the water.”

  Rebekka considered enlisting the aid of The Iberá, as well as the Wainwright witches, then dismissed the idea. Maybe later. The witches would take payment in favors owed, and beyond that, the outer harbor was closer to the brothels and didn’t require Weres to pass through the wards into the area set aside for the gifted—and more important, trust witches or one of the Founding Families.

  “You’re right. We’ll go to Araña’s boat.”

  Rebekka thought of Feliss as she’d see her last, broken and bloody, doe eyes holding so much pain, and knew she couldn’t bear the thought of her friend being locked in the brothel for another night when freedom was so close. “Will you bring Feliss to the boat tonight?”

  Thankfully she wasn’t one of those restricted from leaving or requiring permission and a guard. Given Levi’s absence, and the rumor circulating about him wanting to buy out Feliss’s contract, his taking her away wouldn’t rouse any suspicions for a few days.

  “Yes. Just her tonight. Tomorrow I’ll go back for others.”

  Thirty-two

  ARYCK prowled around his home. Melina’s scent lingered the
re like a malicious spirit taunting him, reminding him of his furious rush to Lion lands when he’d learned Rebekka was there with Levi. Tormenting him with images of them together now because he’d lacked the courage to go with her, because his pride had prevented him from considering what he was asking her to give up to remain in Were lands.

  She was a healer filled with compassion, with the need to help others regardless of species or circumstances. From the very first she’d railed against his attitude when it came to the outcasts.

  He’d become more flexible in his thinking. Yet at his core he’d still believed their fate was their own. He’d considered it enough to offer them a chance to come into Were territory and face the ancestors.

  But how many of them were as Rebekka claimed, caught between forms without knowledge of the Were culture or the existence of the ancestors? How many would trust those who’d always reviled and excluded them? How many would come on what could easily be a rumor?

  There’d been no guarantees of safe escort. No offer of protection or help extended to those who might desire to flee the brothels of the human world.

  Aryck rubbed his hand over his bare chest, massaging the ache radiating from his heart as he remembered the trek through the Barrens that would have ended in his death if Rebekka hadn’t come to him. The image of her tear-streaked face was a fist to the gut.

  Come with me. At least for a little while, she’d said on a broken voice, and he’d refused, hadn’t even stopped to fully consider her request.

  Despite his arguments to his father about the ancestors favoring his taking Rebekka as a mate, he’d turned his back and walked away from her, wrapping his pride around him like another skin.

  The bitter taste of self-recrimination and remorse filled his mouth. Was she meant to be his mate only if she chose him over those who desperately needed her? Was she meant to be his lover and the mother of his children only if she turned her back on the outcasts who were her friends? Left her world for his?

  Was all the sacrifice to be hers? All the risk?

  He’d failed her again, proven himself unworthy not just in protecting her physically, but in the safekeeping of her heart.

  Resolve forced all other emotions to recede. The Jaguar, crouched in shame and sorrow deep within Aryck’s psyche, rose, adding its strength of purpose to the man’s, both of them finally fully accepting the risk, the necessity of possible sacrifice that came with tying their life and fate to Rebekka’s.

  She was their mate and no other would do. They would challenge the ancestors themselves to have her. They would go to Oakland and beg for her forgiveness, then spend a lifetime proving they were worthy of her trust and love.

  Aryck left the cabin, sending a quick mental probe and locating his father at Phaedra’s house. He found Caius sitting on a log there, drawing in the smooth dirt while Phaedra cooked the meal and Koren spoke with Nahuatl a few steps away.

  Caius looked up as Aryck approached. His lips trembled despite the straightening of his spine. “I’m going to visit her when I get old enough,” he said. “She’ll see I still know all my letters, and she’ll teach me how to read like she said she would.”

  It wasn’t the way Aryck had meant to tell his father. If he’d wanted to avoid doing it face-to-face, he could have done it mind-to-mind instead of coming here. But Caius hurt too, and so Aryck knelt in front of the cub, pausing for a moment to look at the alphabet spread out between them. “I’m leaving for Oakland now. I’ll tell her you’re practicing. It’ll make her happy.”

  “Are you going to bring her back?” The cub’s face and voice held a wealth of hope.

  “Maybe not right away, but in the future,” Aryck said, ruffling the boy’s hair before standing and facing his father and Nahuatl.

  As if his father had been expecting it all along, Koren said, “You’ve made your choice. Go.”

  Addai

  THE Were might yet live up to the expectations of his ancestors, Addai thought. He hadn’t been certain the enforcer would follow Rebekka.

  Of course, now that the Jaguar had finally made his choice, time worked against him. It was entirely possible he would arrive in Oakland only to find Rebekka dead.

  Into the silence following the enforcer’s departure, the shaman spoke, delivering lines crafted for him but forbidden until this moment. “If Aryck returns with Rebekka, it is because he has been judged worthy to serve more than a single pack. He is meant for greater things. The ancestors speak of a war coming for rule of the Earth. If the Weres are to survive it, there must be those who will lead us in a new direction, away from the past and into a future where we are united. The alliance with our neighbors is just the beginning, as is change when it comes to dealing with the outcast.”

  Addai smiled, satisfaction filling him, though this had yet to finish playing out. With Caphriel gone, and the delivery of the ancestors’ message witnessed, his business here was done.

  His focus shifted to the city. But unlike the Were’s journey there, for Addai, Oakland required only a thought coupled to his will.

  He chose the brothel, curious as to whether Rebekka remained free, or if the last of her father’s testing had finally claimed her life.

  He chose to wear flesh because it amused him to wander unstopped and unmolested among the prostitutes and their clients. And because the hot energy of the Were reminded him of what it had been like to live among Sajia’s people, Djinn who were mārdazmā, able to change shape but who had no noncorporeal form.

  On a catwalk above the dungeons Addai stopped to watch a scene unfold. A Were female was led into one of the open playrooms on a leash.

  She wore nothing but a collar and tight clamps attached to her nipples. Luxurious black hair shimmered in waves down her back, not stopping until it curled around her buttocks and brushed against her bare mound.

  The man who’d paid to own her for the session was wealthy. The cut of his clothing and the rings on his fingers made it evident.

  He ordered the female onto a piece of equipment allowing him to bind her spread-eagled so he could step between her open thighs and fuck either orifice, or position himself next to her head and command her to take him into her mouth.

  The slap of his hand against her bare cunt sent a door crashing open in Addai’s mind. Memories flooded in and he hardened in a heartbeat, his cock swelling along with his need for the woman who had once been his.

  Thousands of years should have made it easy to keep her from his thoughts, but now that he was close to possessing her again, she was never far from them. A hot wash of anticipation slid through him at the prospect of meeting her for the first time, of their being strangers again. It built as he imagined seeing a hint of fear in her eyes, instinctual on her part at being given over to a being who was her natural enemy.

  Those feelings would soon be turned into something erotic. She would grow wet and ready as she knelt at his feet, her hands clasped behind her back, long black hair caressing her dusky buttocks as she looked up at him, pleading silently for him to allow her to worship him with her mouth.

  Fantasizing about her was a sweet torment he knew better than to indulge in, a distraction he didn’t need as this thread woven to solidify alliance grew close to being judged a success or a failure. He ached for her, dreamed of her, but in the end, there was no hurrying her arrival in his life. It would come, soon, and he would never allow her into the presence of danger again.

  With great effort Addai closed the door opened by the carnal scene taking place in the dungeon beneath him. He forced his thoughts away from Sajia even as his gaze lingered on the darkened, flushed skin of the prostitute’s bare mound before moving up to the still-clamped nipples.

  His will betrayed him with the memory of other nipples, gripped long ago by delicate clasps shyly left for him to find. His cock throbbed, begging for relief.

  He turned away from the sight of the dark-haired Were and left the catwalk, knowing he would seek neither companion nor even a release granted
by his own hand. Only Sajia would satisfy him.

  In the corridor between brothels Addai gave up the illusion of flesh and the temptations that came with it. He used his will to move to the building Rebekka lived and did the majority of her work in.

  He sensed the hushed excitement immediately and saw the Lion, Levi, soon after. His manner said Rebekka was well, and though Addai could not see the Were’s soul as some of the Djinn were said to be able to do, he could feel its completeness, its binding to a place even the angels given charge over the spiritlands didn’t enter.

  She’d healed him, as she’d been created to do. It won’t be long now, Addai thought, watching Levi move among the outcasts. A touch here, a nod there, the signs as subtle as the slow exodus of the chosen. By his reckoning, Levi and Rebekka had been back at least a day or two, and if they were smart, the first to be freed were those who’d earned time off and wouldn’t be missed for a while.

  He wasn’t the only one to notice. Two others did as well. Addai watched as Dorrit, the madam, busied herself, turning her attention to other matters, ignoring those who were slipping away. Far more interesting was the Lioness, Kala, who found a reason to be near Levi as he made his rounds through the brothels before exiting himself.

  Addai lingered outside, curious to see if Kala would emerge after Levi had disappeared from sight. When she did, a small smile formed on his lips at having guessed from the outset she would be the one. Betrayer.

  No doubt she would scream in fury to know she served the very ancestors who’d seen the darkness in her heart and marked her as outcast. Or perhaps the Djinn had a hand in her making. Addai didn’t discount the possibility.

  He followed the Lioness as she tracked Levi by scent, and wasn’t surprised to find the trail led to Araña’s boat. Rebekka stood on its deck, greeting each of the outcasts by name as they climbed aboard. Her friend, Feliss, jumped easily to the dock, going to Levi and shyly taking his hand.