by Alyssa Day
"And you're not going to have to," Jake said firmly. "I will reach Griffin, he'll reach Denal, who will get in touch with our healers. You're going to be okay."
They reached the bottom of the stairs and deposited their trash and uneaten food in a giant wastebasket. Still in a daze, Savannah didn't hear Callie calling out for her until the woman was right behind her.
"Savvy, I've been calling and calling you."
A red wave of pure rage washed over Savannah, and she pivoted to face the annoying woman. "Callie. My name is Savannah. If you ever call me Savvy again, I'm going to reach down your throat and rip your lungs out."
With that, she turned and headed for the group that was gathering under the sign that said HANDGUN REFRESHER. She had a feeling, somehow, that it wouldn't hurt to learn how to use a gun, and she was trapped here, anyway.
Falcon. How could it possibly be true? And how did it work, anyway,? A falcon was a small bird – it couldn't weigh more than a few pounds. Where would the rest of her go? Was it magic or was it evil? Under what theology did shape shifting even fall? Could a shapeshifter still go to church? Would she be able to go see her nieces and nephews be baptized?
The questions tumbled through her mind, faster and faster, until she wanted to scream or hit something. Or someone. Jake caught up and started walking next to her, hands in his pockets. He glanced over, and she could tell he was trying not to laugh.
"I don't see anything funny in this situation," she said icily.
"I don't either, which is why I was really looking forward to watching you throw down with that woman."
She glared at him, but then the humor in the thought of her snapping some spinning kicks at Callie the way Jake had with those men earlier caught up to her. She almost smiled.
Almost.
But she had a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach that she would never smile again.
"Weapons training?"
"I may need it in this viper pit," she said, just loud enough for Jake and only Jake to hear.
"Not a bad thought. I kind of had my heart set on the Plastique and You ice cream social at four, but this is good, too."
"Very funny."
He held up a piece of paper and waved it in front of her. "Oh, if only I were kidding. Here. It's on the agenda."
"There's an agenda?"
"It was in the tote bag."
She was a natural.
Whether it was from natural athleticism, innate talent, or simply her fury over the situation finding an outlet, Savannah took to shooting like she'd been born to do it.
"Your form is just a little off," he told her. "If you could move your arm like this and then your hips like this, everything would be a little easier." He demonstrated the correct form, but she didn't quite seem to get it, so he moved behind her to help. The minute he stepped in close to her body, though, and put his hands on her hips, he knew it had been a bad idea. In spite of—or maybe because of--everything that had happened, the sexual attraction between the two of them had only intensified since the night before, when she'd been tipsy and laughing and safe.
Safe had been better.
Her breath hitched a little at his touch, and she leaned back into his body.
"This is the act, right?" She murmured, and a sharp stabbing disappointment pierced him. She was only keeping up the charade.
"Yeah. This is the act," he said gruffly.
She leaned back even further until her lovely round ass was snug up against the proof that, at least on his part, no acting was required, and then she glanced back at him through her lashes. "Sure about that?"
She was a natural at seduction, too. She was definitely seducing him.
"When I get you alone, we're going to talk in much greater detail about your form," he growled, tightening his hands on her hips.
She laughed. "I think you like my form."
But then she grew very still and her smile vanished, and he knew she was remembering that this wasn't a beach flirtation anymore. This was life or death— her entire future was at stake.
One more thing to make sure that B.D. and his friends paid for.
Slowly.
Jake led her away from the shooting when she started flinching at the sound of the gunshots. They were wearing ear protection and goggles, but it was still getting to her, and no wonder. It's not something she'd ever done before. He'd never done much shooting either, because there weren't all that many situations that a good blade and Atlantean magic hadn't been able to get him out of over the years. He knew how, though; it was another tool in the arsenal. Another arrow in the quiver – and he knew how to handle a bow, too.
For a man everybody thought was a lazy slacker, content to lie on beaches, he had managed to acquire many of the tools that one of Poseidon's warriors needed. He would be happy to use them to protect humanity – just not Humanity Prime.
When they walked back into the courtyard, three of the reasons that it was so important for him to finish this mission ran in front of them, their little hands clutching tightly to balloon strings. Just because their parents were prejudiced fools, none of these children deserve to be caught in the crossfire.
Savannah stopped, and watch the children run by, and then she clutched her head and made a little moaning sound of pain.
"I think… I think I need to lie down. I suddenly don't feel very well," she confessed, looking up at him.
In the span of maybe a dozen minutes, she'd gone from being seductive and fierce to looking like she'd had the flu for a week. Lines of pain were etched into the skin of her face, and her beautiful blue eyes were cloudy. He felt an almost physical punch to the gut and actually stumbled back a step before he remembered where he was.
It was like having double vision. His family had looked exactly like that. Everyone who'd had the plague had looked exactly like that--just before they died.
He didn't waste time asking questions. He picked her up, cradled her in his arms, and headed for the room. What worried him the most was that feisty, independent, fierce Savannah didn't even attempt to argue about him carrying her. She just rested her head against his shoulder and lay limply in his arms.
"Too much beer at lunch," he called out in response to a few questions directed their way. "She just needs a nap, and then she'll be perfectly fine."
Everybody nodded and turned back to whatever they'd been doing. He'd noticed plenty of people drinking beer with lunch, so the excuse was plausible.
When they got to the room, he kicked it open and carried her across the room to the bed. Before he put her down, though, he pressed a kiss to her forehead--and then jerked his head back. "Savannah, you're burning up. When did this fever start?"
"Thirsty," she mumbled. "So thirsty."
He gently put her down on the bed, and she immediately grabbed a pillow and put it over her face. "Too bright," she mumbled.
He dumped the tote bag on the floor and grabbed one of the two bottles of water he'd seen earlier. Then he closed the bedroom door and locked it, for all the good the flimsy door lock would do against shifters, and pulled the blinds to dim the room. Then he uncapped the water and knelt down beside the bed.
"Here's some water, honey."
"No. No, no." She pushed him away when he touched her arm. "Too tired."
"Okay, you can rest as soon as you drink some water." He put an arm under her shoulders and helped her sit up in spite of her protests, then encouraged her to drink some of the water. When she finally tilted the bottle up and the water hit her lips, she gulped and gulped it until she drained the entire bottle.
"More," she demanded.
"In a little bit, sweetheart. I don't want you to get sick and throw it all up."
He lowered her back down to the pillows and then went to the bathroom to do the cold-water washcloth trick that she'd done earlier for his bruised face. He came back out and put the folded, cold, damp washcloth over her forehead. She shivered but then gave a sigh of relief.
"That's better
, thank you," she said, sounding coherent again. "I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. It was like a migraine and a fever all rolled up into one, but it seems to have passed now, and I feel much better."
She sat up, still holding the washcloth to her for head, and looked around, almost in a daze. "I didn't even realize we were back in the room. Wow, that was freaky. Do you think they poisoned our lunch?"
He sat down on the bed next to her and wondered how to tell this beautiful, vibrant woman that she was going through the early stages of the shapeshifter Transition, or how to tell her that the Transition was extremely dangerous, especially for women. More than three-quarters of women died in the process of going through the first shift.
He wished, suddenly and fiercely, that life was like a fairytale, and the simple act of killing the shifter who'd scratched her would make all of Savannah's problems go away.
"Jake." She dropped the washcloth to the floor and put her hand on his arm. "Whatever it is, you should tell me. Knowledge is power, or at least it's a shield against terror. I need to know what's happening to me. I can guess and I can imagine, but I think what I'm guessing and imagining may be even worse than the reality. So tell me. Please."
Wordlessly, he reached out to her and, when she didn't protest, he drew her onto his lap and held her – just held her, his face pressed against her hair--for a long moment.
"I grew up in Atlantis," he began. "Until just recently, we lived far beneath the sea in a beautiful city beneath a magical dome. I was a happy child. I didn't have brothers or sisters, but there were so many children that I always had playmates. My life was wonderful and easy and I was so, so happy. The troubles that the high Prince and his warriors had – the battles that Poseidon's warriors fought when they made their trips to the surface – none of that touched me in any way. I lived inside a dream that was wrapped inside a magic dome."
She twined her fingers through his and held tight. "But the dream ended?"
A shudder worked its way through his body. "The dream ended. Plague came to Atlantis, probably hitching a ride on one of the warriors. Maybe some virus that had lain dormant for eleven thousand years. Nobody knew, and it doesn't matter, anyway. But it took so many. My parents. My friends. Their parents. There were so few left of us, it seemed. The healers came and tried to help, but it was beyond their skill. There were people of course. People to take care of those of us who had become orphans. When I walked out of our neighborhood, I realized that not all that much of Atlantis had been touched by the plague. It centered on, and had run its course in and around, my neighborhood."
He looked at her, remembering the naked pleading he'd felt when he'd asked, over and over and over, why? How could this be?
"It wasn't fair," she said, immediately understanding the worst pain. It hadn't been fair, and he hadn't wanted to stay in a place that was so unfair.
"It wasn't fair," he agreed. "I managed to find my way through the portal and spent the next ten years – till now – wandering around the world, exploring all the places I'd only heard about."
"Like me, a little," she said softly. "Since I was eighteen years old, I've been exploring. Wandering. I was searching for something but never quite finding it. I keep hoping that whatever I'm looking for might be found in the next place on the map."
"Was it?"
"No. It never is. The indisputable truth about traveling is that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. Your strengths, your weaknesses; your good points and your flaws. You can never outrun the person you carry inside you. You can only grow and change and try to become someone new. Someone better. Someone more worthy."
He stroked her long hair and sat and thought about that for a while. "More worthy of what?"
She retreated from him, somehow, without moving. And he knew he'd touched a nerve.
"Worthy of love, I guess," she said lightly. "Worthy of being enough for someone to love me unconditionally. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I'm not a child. I know everything comes with strings. I know…"
"You don't know much, if you think that's true. Love should never come with strings. And you're absolutely worthy of unconditional love." He pulled her closer and held her, saying nothing, for a long moment or two.
Finally, he broke the brief interlude of peace. "Truth, then. It isn't fair. You're going through the initial stages of Transition. The fever, the thirst – it's very common. As the full moon approaches tomorrow night, it will get worse, unless we can find a healer or a high priest to reverse the virus."
She shivered and pressed her face against his shoulder. "Transition is very dangerous, isn't it? I watch the news. I read, and I travel. Not only is it very dangerous in general, but women in particular almost never survive it. I'm right, aren't I?"
Her voice had grown so quiet that he could barely hear it, but he forced himself to have as much courage as she did and face this. "Yes. You're right. It's too dangerous. We're going to stop this. Now."
She sighed. "And how are we going to do that?"
He gently moved her off his lap and then jumped to his feet and walked into the middle of the room. "I'm going to call the portal, and I'm going to take you directly to Atlantis."
With that, he called to the portal that had been the only method of traveling to and from Atlantis for all the millennia the continent had been trapped beneath the oceans.
But the portal didn't answer.
8
Savannah's brain felt like it was catching fire – like flames were raging inside her skull, inside her skin, inside her bones. This was fever like she'd never had fever before; fire that was burning her in a forge, in a crucible. Destroying her and remaking her. How could she survive it? And he had said this was only the beginning. The beginning of Transition – a process so dangerous that most women who went through it didn't survive.
She would be damned if she'd be one of them.
"I'm a survivor," she told him.
He stopped what surely had to be swearing in a language she'd never heard before and crossed swiftly to the bed, then crouched down and took her hands. "Damn straight you are. What do you need?"
"Ice. Water. More ice and more water. So hot. So thirsty."
He touched her forehead with his cool fingers and swore again. "Okay. I'm going to leave you alone just for a minute, just long enough to go find ice and water. Don't go anywhere, and don't let anybody in the door. I'll be right back, I promise."
She tried to smile. "I'm not an invalid, it's just a fever. Go. Get the water before my skin catches fire."
Seconds later, he was gone, so fast that she didn't have time to change her mind and call him back to her. She was afraid, and maybe it was weak but if you couldn't be honest with yourself about feeling scared when you were dying, then when could you be? She didn't want to die, especially not like this, alone in this horrible place with these horrible people. She shoved the pillows against the wall so she could lie back propped up against them, closed her eyes, and waited for Jake to return. Strange how he had become such an important part of her life in such a short time.
The door slammed open and Savannah jumped, startled. Why would he…
It wasn't Jake.
It was a woman she'd seen at the edges of the gathering after lunch, a stringy, wild-eyed woman in baggy clothes and ratty hair.
"Wrong room," Savannah said, trying to look tough. It was harder than one would think to look tough when her head was splitting open.
"You don't look like much," the woman sneered, sauntering into the room with a familiar swagger. She walked just like B.D. and his father. Maybe it was a genetic thing.
"B.D.'s mother, I'm guessing?"
"Got it in one, Babe, so you're not stupid, at least."
Savannah struggled to sit up and reached back behind her to push the pillows out of her way. "Get out of my room."
"Big talk for somebody who's gonna be bowing down to me as your alpha in a couple of days – if you survive it. You got some muscle, so maybe
you will, city girl."
Savannah narrowed her eyes. "I will bow down to you when hell freezes over. Get out of my room."
The woman bared her teeth, demonstrating to Savannah that she was really pissed off and also that she'd had a terrible lack of dental care in her lifetime. Neither fact really seemed relevant in Savannah's current condition. Instead, her body was shaking with the effort to keep herself from jumping up and tearing into the woman. A weird territorial feeling was thrumming through her veins, shouting at her to protect her territory. Protect and defend; protect and defend. Oh, God, she really was becoming a shifter.
She'd be a predator, at least. Nobody was ever going to turn her into prey.
The woman, who had no idea what Savannah was thinking, came a little closer. "I got an idea. How about I just take you with me now, and B.D. can try you out while you're still human and get you out of his system."
She reached out in a quick motion to grab Savannah's arm, but Savannah moved even faster. In an instant, she had her hand on the gun she'd taken from the firing range and hidden under her pillow. In another instant, she was pointing it at B.D.'s bitch of a mother.
"I don't think so. Now, for the last time, get out of my room."
The woman looked at the gun and laughed. "You're not gonna shoot me, little girl. You--"
Savannah shot her.
Well, she didn't exactly shoot her, but she shot the floor right in front of her, which was enough to get the woman stumbling and scrabbling back away from her.
At the doorway, she stopped to scream. "You're gonna regret that!"
"I don't think so," Jake said, arriving at a run and shouldering the crazed woman away from the door. "Leave and don't come back."
With that, he shut the door in her face.
"Nice gun," he said, a grin quirking up the corners of his lips. "Take it from the gun range?"
She looked at him and shrugged. "They never gave me a tote bag, so…"
Then another wave of fever came, and she dropped the gun and fell back on the bed. When she could sit up again, she downed three bottles of water, one after the other, until she felt it pass. "So it comes in waves? Like contractions?"
