by Ann Gimpel
She was a dolphin.
Swimming for the surface, she expelled air and sucked more, inhaling to the bottom of lungs that could remain submerged for a long time. Around her, the pod capered and frolicked. She dove and resurfaced, and then did it again. Swimming wasn’t flying, but it was wonderful in its own way.
She felt her new bondmate’s energy, gentle but with steel beneath soft edges. “Thank you for bonding with me.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” her new bondmate cooed. “I can’t wait to get to know you better.”
Leif nudged her from the side, stroking her flank with his flipper. “Do you want to swim with the pod for a while?”
She slapped the water’s surface with her tail. It felt so good, she did it again. “Yes. I’d love to swim with my pod.”
“Not too long. Somewhere inside, there’s a bed with our name on it.”
If she’d been human, she would have laughed. Instead, she swam fast. “Bet you can’t catch me.”
“Bet I can.”
Water churned around them as the pod joined in a rousing game of chase. Happiness spilled through Moira, but for once she didn’t question it. She was exactly where she belonged with her mate and her pod. Tomorrow would bring its own set of joys and trials, but for now she ducked and wove and played until Leif swam close.
“Ready?” he asked once they’d surfaced
“Yes, love. More than ready.”
In a blend of teleport and shift magic, she followed him back to Arkady’s deck. Far more than a ship, it had become their home. No matter what happened next, she had a family—and a mate. Happiness engulfed her as Leif gathered her into his arms.
You’ve reached the end of the Bitter Harvest series. Thanks so much for reading through to the end. If you enjoy end of the world urban fantasy tales, you might like my Soul Dance series. A sample from Tarnished Legacy follows.
About the Author
Ann Gimpel is a USA Today bestselling author. A lifelong aficionado of the unusual, she began writing speculative fiction a few years ago. Since then her short fiction has appeared in several webzines and anthologies. Her longer books run the gamut from urban fantasy to paranormal romance. Once upon a time, she nurtured clients. Now she nurtures dark, gritty fantasy stories that push hard against reality. When she’s not writing, she’s in the backcountry getting down and dirty with her camera. She’s published over fifty books to date, with several more planned for 2018 and beyond. A husband, grown children, grandchildren, and wolf hybrids round out her family.
Keep up with her at www.anngimpel.com or http://anngimpel.blogspot.com
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Book Description: Tarnished Legacy
Germany, 1940
Half Romani, Tairin’s no stranger to hiding her mixed blood from gypsy caravans. What she can’t hide is her perpetual youth, courtesy of her shifter heritage. Every few years, she drops out of sight, resurfacing in a new country to join a caravan where no one knows her. She’s overstayed her welcome where she is, but Germany is at war, and travel has become all but impossible for everyone targeted by the Reich.
Elliott’s clairvoyance is strong, even for a Romani. Seer for all the caravans in Germany, he catches Tairin eavesdropping outside their leader’s wagon one night. He should turn her in, but it would mean her execution, and he can’t bring himself to do that. Instead, he interrogates her. Her magic is different, but he can’t figure out quite what she is.
Any association between Romani and shifters is forbidden, and Tairin shields herself from Elliott’s probing. She should leave right now, tonight. It would be easy enough. Shift to her wolf form and run, keeping out of hunters’ gunsights. She’s on the edge of flight when Elliott suggests a covert task to prove her loyalty. Tairin agrees immediately, kicking herself for being weak where he’s concerned. Shifters and Romani have no future together. Zero. Zilch.
She should be smart about this and vanish into the night—before he discovers what she is and destroys her.
Tarnished Legacy, Prologue
January 1940
Munich, Germany
Elliott Brend moved his hands in a circular pattern over three lit candles, the stench of wax made from sheep fat sharp in his nostrils. Patterns danced like mad creatures on the walls of his grotto, and he chanted faster to bring his casting to life.
Darkness swirled, surrounding him. The candles guttered and died, their wicks drowning in pools of grease. Elliott bolted to his feet, hands extended, still working the spell he’d summoned. Fear thickened his tongue, but he couldn’t stop now. Partially cast spells would make it possible for the demon he’d apparently conjured to drag him back to Hell with it. Usually this casting brought visions, not an actual entity.
The temperature in the grotto plummeted until ice crystals formed in the air. Wind wailed, thin and menacing. Shudders racked him.
“Why have you freed me? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.” The words echoed around Elliott, chilling him further. “Speak, human. While you still can.”
Elliott tried. Instead of words, a breathy croak emerged. He swallowed around his dry-as-dust throat. “F-future,” he stammered. “What will happen? Many of the Rom have been captured.”
Unholy laughter drove into Elliott’s brain like overheated nails. It took all his self-control not to clap his hands over his ears, but if he did that, he’d be lost. His spell would falter, as would his tenuous hold on the demon. He’d be damned if he’d cede the upper hand to it.
Who am I kidding? It already has all the power it needs.
“You scarcely require me for future-telling,” the disembodied voice said. At least the profane laughter had stopped. After the briefest pause, it added, “Flee while you can. Or the Rom will die out—here and elsewhere.”
“Why do you care?” The words tore out of Elliott before he could stop himself.
“About your people? I don’t, but magical energy will keep me on this side of Hell. Along with death. Fear helps too.” A low, menacing chuckle punctuated the demon’s words. “It’s a perfect mix. You can blame the Nazis for my freedom. They provided an ideal medium. Coupled with your drawing spell, it allowed me to pierce the veil.”
Elliott gathered power, letting it surge through him. The demon may have ridden in on the coattails of his earlier spell, but he couldn’t allow it to remain. Too much evil was running unchecked as it was. Sparks crackled from his fingertips, burning him until his flesh smoked. The incantation, a surefire way to banish Hell’s minions, crashed to the rotting wooden floor in a shower of glowing embers.
“Don’t waste your magic, human.”
“It’s not a waste to return you to your proper place,” Elliott snarled, wishing he could see the fucking thing.
“Try that last trick again, and you’re a dead man.”
Elliott sucked in a frustrated breath. He’d suspected the Rom were in serious danger. Signs they’d soon be targeted en masse, right along with the Jews, were impossible to ignore. All he’d sought this night was corroboration—and now he had it. He changed the cadence and timbre of his chant, hoping for an end to his spell, the hideous cold, and the abomination that scared the shit out of him. All he wanted now was for it to leave since returning it to Hell was beyond his ability.
“I am not leaving yet,” the voice informed him. “You have no power over me, but you’ve already figured that out. Evil has risen. Rampant. Ubiquitous. As I noted earlier, it feeds me, right along with your magic.”
Elliott clamped his jaws together to stop his teeth from chattering. What had he loosed on the world? “You must return at some point.” He infused compulsion into his words. “If not today, or tomorrow, then surely soon. The dynamic balance between worlds will fail if you remain on Earth.”
Laughter again. This time, it was even more loathsome and obnoxious.
“You haven’t been paying attention, human. That dynam
ic balance? It’s on its way out.” Still laughing, the thing’s foul presence receded.
Elliott sank into a crouch, mostly because his legs shook too badly to hold him upright. He wrapped his arms around himself and rekindled the candles with a jot of magic, welcoming their pools of light. Because it was easier than reconstructing what had just happened—and the wickedness now free because of him—he shuffled through options.
The demon’s advice—if demons even handed out such things—had been to flee. But where? Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia were out of the question. Austria was a German ally. Both Poland and Czechoslovakia had fallen to German occupation a few months earlier. France would soon be under German rule. While his seer skills weren’t absolute, he’d seen that particular event clearly.
Even if they could find a favorable location, how would they move the entire Romani population out of Germany? They still favored wagons, so any kind of stealth exodus was out of the question.
He rose to his feet and shambled to a window, gazing out at a moonless night. The elders from all the Rom groups in Germany had assembled a few days earlier, and they were waiting for him to return. Though they dealt in magic, his particular affinity for the darker side of the spirit world unnerved many of his kin.
Should he confess what he’d done?
He’d loosed wickedness eager to sign on with the blood-soaked Nazi regime, but how much worse could things get? He knew what the work camps really were, and so did the other Rom. None of his people fit the Aryan model of perfection, and their nomadic lifestyle was an affront to neat rows of impeccable houses where blonde wives raised blonde children in perfect obedience to the Reich’s precepts.
Not much leeway for the Roms’ brightly colored wagons or their sturdy horses. Their children who didn’t go to school, or the canvas tents where they revealed futures, healed the sick, and fixed whatever was broken.
Bile splashed the back of his throat; he swallowed it down, and it burned all the way to his knotted belly. He still didn’t understand how the Reich had mired Germany in such a chokehold, but it didn’t matter. What did was ensuring Rom magic survived. It may have provided fodder for the newly released demon, but it also ensured the natural world would continue.
The traveling folk were tied to the world’s beginnings in ways that had faded out of time and memory. They’d been run out of countries before and always endured, retooling themselves and keeping their magic under wraps as the world grew more modern.
If leaving Germany were impossible, they’d have to find a way to conceal themselves. The more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. They faced evil, the likes of which the world had never seen. Evil that believed it could kill whomever it wished under the guise of cleansing the gene pool and producing a master race.
It would take gargantuan effort, but he and his kin could leverage magic to sabotage the Reich. Maybe even free the poor sods in those abominable camps. And make damn good and sure Germany went down in flames it would never recover from. Elliott had no idea if the elders would agree, but he’d float his idea. See if their philosophy, Opré Roma—Roma arise—was more than empty words.
Even if they don’t agree, there’s nothing that says I can’t gather a few handpicked companions…
He curved his hands into fists until his nails cut into his palms. The more he rolled it around in his mind, the better he liked the idea of small vigilante groups that struck fast and hard, while remaining invisible to the SchutzStaffel, Germany’s elite corps of political soldiers.
Determination straightened his spine. He dug a warm cloak out of the clothing chest leaning against one wall and wrapped it around himself before striding out of his well-hidden grotto located beneath the city. Part of a deteriorating tunnel system under a crumbling castle, his hideaway dated back to Roman times. He’d titrate what he told the elders until he saw which way the wind blew. Once he had a sense of that, he could make better plans.
Since none of them had stronger power than he did to banish the demon, probably no reason to mention it at all…
He shook his head. Secrecy was a bad idea. He had to live with himself, which meant full disclosure. No matter how much shit he got for his folly.
Tarnished Legacy, Chapter One
Tairin Jabari prowled from one end of a clearing to the other in a forested glen. Her Rom family group had established a temporary camp here after local authorities ousted them from their previous location inside Munich’s city limits. More than a dozen wagons fanned out in a circle, and horses were hobbled off to one side where grass grew thickly. Cars might be faster, but the smoky, noisy contraptions that always required repair had never appealed to Romani sensibilities.
She rolled her shoulders back to quell the creature sharing her skin. Her wolf wanted out, but it was too dangerous. For all their magic, power they scattered about like so much faerie dust, the Romani were superstitious about shapeshifters.
Worse than superstitious. They hated them.
She pulled her thick, black wool cloak tighter around herself and buried her hands in its thick folds. Her leather boots were soaked through, but it was winter. Short days and wet ground meant they never dried completely. Reaching within, she soothed her wolf, agreed its lush double coat and furred paws were far better suited to damp and cold than their current arrangement.
“Promise me,” the wolf spoke into her mind.
“Anything, heart of mine.”
“Find us an hour when I can run.”
Tairin closed her teeth over her lower lip, not wanting false words to fall between her and her bondmate. “I’ll do my best.” Whether her best would yield the privacy required remained to be seen.
Something mollified the wolf. Maybe her words. Maybe her honesty. It withdrew to the place where it lived when it wasn’t front and center in her mind.
She’d managed to hide what she was from the group she traveled with for the better part of twenty years. Soon it would be time to fade away—to find another country and maybe more Romani traveling companions. As it was, several of the women had made snippy comments about her perpetual youth. Tairin led them to believe she employed a glamour, but no one had the kind of magic to keep something like that going all day, every day, for years.
The sounds of male laughter, boasts, and glasses slapping a tabletop rose from the leader’s wagon. He played host to eleven other elders this week. They’d gathered to discuss the evil that had descended on Germany. Elliott, the group’s seer, was off doing goddess only knew what. Maybe he’d actually have a vision that would galvanize the Rom into something beyond business as usual.
Not a moment too soon, her inner voice muttered sourly.
If the disaster she suspected were imminent fell out the sky and onto their heads, they’d be rounded up. Herded into the death camps sprouting like cancers across what used to be the Prussian empire.
And that would be that.
She’d find a way through. Her wolf form would see to it. She could join one of many packs that howled their way through Germany’s thick forests. But she’d become fond of the Romani after a rocky start. That and shared blood was why she’d traveled with several of their family groups for the past hundred years.
She wove her way into a thick evergreen grove where she wouldn’t have to hide the anger that still filled her whenever she remembered how her people had kicked her out. Looking back was a dead end, yet once she’d begun, it took time to redirect her energy.
She was different from other shifters. And other Romani. Born of a forbidden coupling between a wolf shifter father and a Romani mother, she hadn’t been welcome in either camp once her powers blossomed. Her moon blood presaged her first shift, and her life had turned to warmed over crap right afterward. Shifters might have had more tolerance for how strong her magic was if her blood were pure, but it wasn’t.
That she could shift at all meant the Rom wanted nothing to do with her.
Tairin took to her wolf form after being
rejected by both sides of her kinfolk. She’d lived with local packs in northern Egypt for her first hundred years, give or take a few. Some alphas accepted her; others drove her away. She’d been between packs when a caravan of Romani wagons passing through attracted her attention, alerted her it was time to be human again. As a wolf, she was used to following her instincts without overthinking things. After so long, her animal nature was firmly entrenched.
So firmly entrenched, her first shift back to her human body took days to finesse. A Romani fortuneteller with Runic markings on her face and hands had found Tairin with her arms wrapped around her naked body, crying. After so long as a wolf, speech didn’t come easily, so she’d had a ready excuse not to reveal that her tears were relief she still had a human form. Over the days she’d languished part wolf, part human, she’d been petrified she’d never find the purity of either body again.
The woman who rescued her moved her into the back of her wagon. As Tairin regained her very rusty ability to speak, she discovered the Romani group was on the move, traveling through Pakistan, Persia, and Turkey on their way to Romania. The journey had been hard and taken years. She’d stuck with them throughout, helping as she grew stronger. Though her new family wanted to know all about her, the only part she’d revealed was that she had some Romani blood.
She’d never repeated her past mistake about spending years in a single form. Her wolf had warned her it would be folly, but she hadn’t listened to it. Nor did she assume her adoptive tribe would be tolerant if they knew what she truly was, so she dove headfirst into relearning Romani magic, remembering her affinity for it.
She’d been such an apt pupil she’d hidden just how potent her power was because she didn’t want anyone to guess she was anything other than Romani mixed with human. As she’d developed her skills, she waited for the unknown to rise up and swallow her whole. Surely there was a reason the Rom avoided shifters. A reason why sexual congress was forbidden. Would her use of Romani magic leave her open to some hideous consequences?
