Shifter Origins (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 1)

by Aimee Easterling

  "You're back," Ixchel said after a long moment lost in each other's bodies. Then, less certainly: "For good?"

  "Is that an invitation?" Finn asked. He hated to admit it, but Tezzie had been right. He didn't know the first thing about where to put his feet in this human mating dance. If he wasn't careful, they always seemed to end up in his mouth....

  But Ixchel made it seem easy when she grabbed his hand and pulled him around to the back of the practice and up the stairs to her apartment. His mate fed them both a quickly-constructed meal of tuna salad and broccoli while Finn poured out all the events of the last four weeks into her studious ears.

  They'd talked on the phone occasionally, of course, but the walk to a spot where he could get cell reception had taken hours that Finn didn't often want to waste. And it had also been hard to know what to say with Ixchel so distant and with their future so tenuous, especially without being able to sense his mate's mood through subtle shifts in her posture. Plus, both were-jaguars were in limbo, not sure where they stood while Maya's fate had yet to be decided. So they had hesitated to talk about their prospects.

  But now Finn had no responsibilities left except bringing that smile back onto his mate's face. So as he told Ixchel about his adventures, he stuck to the stories guaranteed to make her laugh. Like the time Maya had made Finn scream like a little girl in front of a busload of tourists when his twin had stuck her cold, wet nose abruptly against the bare skin between his shirt and pants. He hadn't even known his sister had followed so far into the human-inhabited zone, and, at the time, Finn had been both terrified and angry. Now, though, he was glad of an experience that brought color to Ixchel's cheeks and joy to her guarded eyes.

  "What aren't you telling me?" Finn said at last, realizing later than he should have that, although his mate seemed glad to see him, she was still holding something back. Perhaps Tezzie was an issue after all, even though Ixchel had assured him they'd simply had dinner together a few times as friends. The god was having trouble integrating into the human world, and Finn's favorite vet was never one to let a stray go unaided.

  "It's more what you aren't telling me," Ixchel said, her eyebrows pinched together and her voice less cheerful than before. "I love hearing about your exploits, and I hope I can meet Maya someday even though she chose to stay in jaguar form." The vet paused and rubbed her brow as if unsure whether to go on, and Finn did his best to relax his face into the human version of open expectation.

  "But..." he prompted.

  "But I don't know where the two of us stand. You've never even told me why your backpack was full of spy paraphernalia, and I don't have the foggiest clue what your routine consists of when you're not running around Central America after gods and jaguars." Ixchel smiled then, but it was a pinched, pained expression that made Finn cringe. "I don't know what your regular life is like, and I don't know if it's a life I can be a part of."

  Ah, the elephant in the room at last. And perhaps the sticking point for a woman who had lost a brother and two parents to criminal elements, then had devoted all of her energy afterwards to turning herself into a fine, upstanding citizen whom Finn could barely begin to emulate.

  But he was willing to try. In fact, the shifter had already made movements in that direction, knowing that a career of antiquities theft wasn't going to mesh with Ixchel's honest nature. Luckily, the were-jaguar had plenty of funds socked away to carry him through until the two of them figured out what they wanted to do with their lives.

  Assuming Ixchel was willing to become part of the team he envisioned, that was.

  Well, there's only one way to find out.

  So Finn opened his mouth and told her everything. "I was an art thief," he began....

  And when Finn's story was over, he and Ixchel were both crying. But her hand was still firmly holding his and Finn knew that Tezzie had been true to his word. The god, or fate, or some other element beyond Finn's control had created this astonishing were-jaguaress who was beautiful both inside and out. And that same responsible party had put this glorious creature right into his lap—quite literally since Ixchel now seemed willing to fuse her body with his own.

  When they were able to breathe easily and to speak once again, Finn finished what he'd started. "You once took in a stray cat who had nowhere else to call home," he said tentatively. "And I'm hoping you'll be willing to accept that stray again, even if I'm slightly larger than the house cat you initially envisioned. So what do you say—am I back for good?"

  "I think we can work something out," Ixchel promised, stroking his hair just the way he liked it. "And, this time, I won't even threaten to have you neutered."

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  Historical note

  Before any historians start throwing rotten eggs at me, I hope you'll accept my apologies for playing fast and loose with the mythology of pre-Columbian Mexico. I'm well aware that Tezcatlipoca was an Aztec god and thus would have been worshiped around 1000 AD, fifteen hundred years after the last Olmecs had perished. On the other hand, the earlier Olmec civilization that thrived from about 1200 BC to 400 BC along the southern Gulf coast of Mexico shared many common features with the later Aztecs, so I don't see why Tezzie couldn't have started with the Olmecs and come along for the ride into Aztec times as well. After all, jaguars were an important cultural feature of both civilizations and Tezcatlipoca was sometimes portrayed with a jaguar as his animal nature. Plus, who wouldn't want to write fiction about a deity who is said to embody change through conflict and whose name is sometimes translated into English as the enemy of both sides?

  And, no, there isn't any evidence to suggest that the Olmecs traveled north to hang out with the Native Americans in what is now Ohio and West Virginia. However, Adena moundbuilders were roughly contemporaneous with the Olmecs, so it's possible that a very adventurous Olmec might have made the journey north from Mexico in order to be involved in the construction of one of the Adena mounds. Once again, I'm playing very fast and loose with history here. But around the time Aztecs ruled over Central America, maize (corn) made the same journey to transform the lifestyle of people in eastern North America. And archaeologists have found art buried in Adena mounds that suggests people of that time had beliefs revolving around the transformation of humans into birds, wolves, bears, and deer.

  Moving on to more modern flights of fancy, Ixchel (or more commonly Itzel) is a common girl's name in Mexico today. On the other hand, I'm playing fast and loose with history once again by supposing that Ixchel was Tezcatlipoca's sister god since the jaguar goddess was worshiped by the Mayans rather than the Aztecs. However, if you accept that an Olmec jaguar god might have given rise to the Aztec Tezcatlipoca, it's not that much of a stretch to think that Ixchel may have been around during Olmec times as well.

  As for cenotes, these sinkholes are very real and are a tourist attraction in modern-day Mexico. The Yucatan peninsula overlays a tremendous cave system, with the result that most streams quickly sink down into the ground to join seawater-filled cavities tapping into the nearby ocean. When cave roofs collapsed and created holes between the earthen world above and the watery world below, these cenotes gave native people access to fresh rainwater, which just happens to float atop the salty liquid further beneath their feet. No wonder cenotes were sacred to native people, with Mayans believing that the holes were doorways to the underworld. As Ixchel read in her guidebook, sacrificial pottery, animals, and even humans were tossed into the watery depths as offerings, and
skeletons have been found at the bottom of many cenotes in the Yucatan.

  I hope my mixing and matching of pre-Columbian history and mythology has intrigued you rather than annoyed you. Thanks for bearing with me as I combined Olmec, Adena, Aztec, and Mayan cultures into one.