by Anh Leod
An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
www.ellorascave.com
Bijou’s Bonds
ISBN 9781419912238
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Bijou’s Bonds Copyright © 2007 Anh Leod
Edited by Helen Woodall.
Cover art by Syneca.
Electronic book Publication September 2007
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Bijou’s Bonds
Anh Leod
Dedication
For Leander.
Nine of Swords
Bijou, a shape-shifter, is Cere from Lucky Number Seven’s sister. In this universe shape-shifters have “true mates” they are fated to be with so it makes sense that a tool like the tarot could provide real warnings and help to them.
Bijou is the historian of her clan and couldn’t have been saddled with a less appropriate true mate than the alpha of the rival Legion clan. Bijou’s entire life revolves around her clan and the process of being forced to leave it was going to create sadness, despair, shame and disgrace, some of the themes of the Nine of Swords card.
In addition, various sources tell us this card signifies anxiety, misery, hopelessness, panic, illness, cruelty, violence, martyrdom and an undesired pregnancy. The good news is a new life comes from all this suffering, making the card a positive picture rather than a bleak one.
In addition to the themes of the card itself there are a couple of tarot readings in this short novel. I took the reading formats from Illustrated Tarot Spreads by Heidemarie Pielmeier and Marcus Schirner.
I had a lot of fun continuing to develop my shape-shifter universe in this story. Since both romantic partners this time are werewolves that moved the sex down darker paths. The clans used to have magic and hid it away. This secretly magical clan past comes into play along with the tarot.
Prologue
Until this night, Nana had always been a comfort to her.
“So you want to play the game of fate, do you?” Nana asked, her wrinkled face holding a sly expression as she unwrapped the red silk from her worn deck of tarot cards.
Bijou leaned over the picnic table on her deck. She had just finished clearing the plates from dinner. The hot July sun was sinking on the horizon. It had been a perfect day but still, a feeling of unease had steadily crept over her as the day progressed.
She only had one goal in life, to translate the ancient scrolls of her clan. As historian of the Brotherhood she had the right, but the Council was convening soon and they might decide the lost history and knowledge of their ancestors was better left to the ages.
Nana’s cards would tell her what she faced. Bijou would rather be forewarned than in the dark. She would arm herself against the future with the insight of the tarot. All shape-shifters respected the cards.
Nana was a clan elder, and Barkley’s, the alpha’s advisor, mother. She had a touch of the far sight. In all Nana’s long history, Bijou had never known her to be wrong, whatever divination tool was used.
“What is your problem, child?” The steel gray bun on the top of Nana’s head bobbed as she spoke. Despite her air of mystery, Nana had always been kind to Bijou.
“I want to see history,” Bijou said firmly. “I want to open the oldest scrolls of our clan.”
“How is that a problem? What lies underneath your desire?”
“A quest for knowledge, I suppose.” Bijou moved her claw-tipped finger swiftly through the flame of a lavender-scented candle and felt the same childish sense of wonder she’d felt when first seeing the trick as a child. Though humans could do the trick too, her tougher skin made it less risky.
“You want knowledge but you fear. Why?”
“I may be thwarted.” She imagined the steel door of the archives being locked in front of her, the key being taken away forever, and shuddered. “The clan needs the information I can find.”
“Place your hand on the cards,” Nana requested.
Bijou did so while fixing her thoughts on her question. What lay ahead on her quest?
“Not all in the Brotherhood agree with you.” Nana flipped through the cards, her speed belying her gnarled, hairy hands.
Did Nana? Bijou wondered. Did she agree that the archives should be opened?
Nana placed a card on the scarred wooden table.
“The Fool?” Bijou asked, distracted.
“We search always for wisdom, child,” Nana said. “Now let us see what you cannot change.” She held out the cards for Bijou to cut them, then stacked them together again after Bijou lifted the first seven cards and placed them on the silk cloth.
“Ah,” Nana said as she placed the Page of Pentacles on the table to her right. “This is who you are. A persevering young scholar.”
“I can accept that,” Bijou said. “Now what?”
“Your task,” Nana said. “Let us see.”
“I know the answer to that. It’s translation. My life’s work.”
“You think so?” Her fingers plucked the top card, which showed a wheel surrounded by Egyptian symbols. “The Wheel of Fortune.”
“What does that mean? I expected a scholar’s card.”
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself, you must learn to adapt.”
“Is that what the card means, or is that your counsel?” Now Bijou was confused, never having studied the tarot herself. She specialized in ancient languages and arcane history older than the tarot.
Nana raised a hand. “Let’s finish, so I can read the spread.”
Bijou bent her head, pursing her lips as Nana picked the next card and placed it at the bottom of her formation, making a cross.
“Your alternative card,” Nana mused, placing Temperance on the table. The card showed an angel, pouring something from one chalice to another.
“Okay?” Bijou had no idea what that meant, other than the word temperance itself, which meant moderation.
“And the last card, your immediate future, is this.”
Bijou heard a sharply indrawn breath, and moved her candle close to the cards. “The Nine of Swords?”
Her phone rang as the candle guttered, sending up a plume of smoke.
“Don’t answer,” Nana hissed, waving the smoke away from her face. “Oh, you poor child.”
Bijou frowned. Nana had gotten a little theatrical in her old age, which, as a long-lived shape-shifter, made her a childhood survivor of the American Civil War. “I have to get it. It might be my brother, Cere, back from his honeymoon.”
“But this card means sadness, despair,” Nana whispered. Her voice, already thin, lowered. “Shame, disgrace.”
Bijou didn’t really listen as she hit the talk button on her cell phone. “Hello?”
“You’d better come to the state park fast, Bijou,” an excited young male voice said.
She couldn’t identify the voice because of a number of other excited voices making noise in the background. “Why?”
“We’ve cornered an alpha.”
Chapter One
Bijou would see a man’s silhouetted figure writhing on a distant cross for years to come.
Tuesday, July 3rd. Nearly ten p.m., she recorded mentally. The sticky air had a light breeze now, as wind rustled through the trees in the park. The gentle crackling signaled a perfect summer night for all shape-shifters to leave their homes and enjoy nature, even though the full moon was ten days away.
Unfortunately, da
nger lurked in the night for some. A pack of Brotherhood of the Dog youths had caught the alpha of the Legion werewolf clan dawdling in the summer breeze alone, in human form no less. For alpha Magnus Pompey, it was a recipe for disaster.
The phone call had prompted immediate action for Bijou. She had shifted to wolf form instantly, leaving her clothes torn and forgotten on her porch next to the picnic table where Nana sat with her alarming tarot cards.
This scene in the park could not to be missed or left undocumented.
Unlike the Brotherhood shape-shifters, their age-old enemies, the Legion clan, were only able to take their animal forms with the moon cycle. Even an alpha was no match for werewolves when he was in human form.
Bijou tore through the fields between her home and the park at top speed, the breeze rustling the copper tips of her brown fur. Her heightened senses picked up smells of rabbit and raccoon. Her wolf mind wanted to hunt. The human side of her knew she had more important things to do.
A primitive sight arrested her when she arrived. The day’s light had mostly fled and the teens had idiotically shifted to human form to raise a bonfire in the dry grass. Across it, she saw they had built a cross from sturdy young trees and tied the rival alpha to it. He bled from several wounds, some potentially serious in his human form.
Her mind captured everything automatically, her senses trained over her lifetime to perfect recall. In Council, she, the only woman present, would convert her memories to stories that would be shared among the clan.
The teens were fools to be so unguarded around a fully-grown male, even if he couldn’t shift. She knew very little about the darkly handsome shape-shifter other than that he was mayor of nearby Cherry Blossom as well as the Legion clan alpha.
In front of her, several of the youths argued hotly over a limp body. Forgetting Pompey for a moment, Bijou leapt forward, knocking her youngest brother Duke onto his butt next to the fallen teen.
“What have you done?” she growled.
The nineteen-year-old bent his head, making sure to keep himself lower than Bijou. “Pompey went nuts when we tied him to the cross. I’ve never seen anyone so strong in human form. He coldcocked Shamsky.” Duke’s eyes were bright with appreciation. “We got him, but we’re all a little beat up.”
“Boys,” Bijou snarled, her words muffled in her wolf form, but still intelligible to a shape-shifter. “I’m impressed with your skill but as your clan sister, I don’t like the risk you took.”
“It didn’t seem like a risk at all,” Duke argued. “All of us against a Legion weakling who can’t shift except under the moon?”
A couple of the boys laughed derisively. With the invincible sense of youth, they didn’t understand. The Brotherhood’s genetic mutation had made them more flexible as a clan, but it didn’t mean other shape-shifters were weak.
“What are you going to do when there is a full moon and Pompey catches sight of any of you?” Bijou asked. “You think you can defeat him then? He knows both your wolf and human faces now. The man is powerful, both in human and shape-shifter spheres.”
“We’re going to shame him,” Duke said, ignoring her concern. “But he’s fighting so hard we can’t make him stay still long enough to brand him on the ass.”
“Release me!” Pompey ordered. His tone was commanding, menacing, but he was the one tied up, not them.
Bijou ignored him for now, though it was hard. He really did have an air of command. Plus his long, muscular body was deliciously naked, since the youths had shredded the clothing from his body. From the look of things, he hadn’t been wearing much, just a pair of shorts and a shirt, plus running shoes and socks.
After luxuriantly stretching her back to show her lack of fear, she padded around the campfire, digging up the grass around the fire to create a safe zone. She didn’t want it to jump to the nearly dead vegetation and spread. Her brother might be acting foolishly tonight but he was right. If they successfully shamed the alpha, he’d probably leave the area, his clan leadership transferred to a different male. This would not be a bad thing, since Pompey was the strongest man in the Legion clan. The group would be weakened for years. Though if they failed, they were all at risk of further repercussions since no one in the Legion clan would really know what transpired except Pompey.
Especially since Pompey was a force in the human community. Who knew what kind of revenge he’d come up with if the boys ever set foot in his town after this?
She appraised the figure on the cross. Pompey’s normally ice-crystal blue eyes were blackening with rage and his powerful hands were bent at the wrist so his claw-like fingernails could grate at the rope holding them to the tree trunk. His potent legs pulled at the bonds there. Eventually he would free himself, assuming the loss of blood didn’t weaken him. He might escape without the brand. Very bad idea.
When she caught sight of his mouth-watering phallus, huge despite its flaccid state, she knew what she’d have to do. She stretched one last time, enjoying the greater range of her wolf body, then shifted to her human form.
A gasp came from behind her, when she came up from a crouch as a human woman.
“Damn, you’re hot naked, Bijou,” said one of the boys who’d shifted back into human form.
Bijou glared at the boy, then quickly turned as she saw his penis bob up to a full erection. At twenty-four, she was far too old to mix it up with Duke’s age group. Theoretically, of course, the Brotherhood was accustomed to nudity, but teenagers weren’t known for their self-control.
“Take Shamsky and get out of here,” she ordered. “Duke, pick two of your more mature friends to stay with you.”
“Are you sure? Pompey’s a badass.”
“That’s all we’ll need,” she said, licking her lips to moisten them.
“Bijou? What are you going to do?” Duke sounded nervous for the first time.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said absently, walking in front of Pompey. “Put the fire out. And don’t watch. It’s rude.”
The breeze caught a strand of her long fall of coppery hair. She pushed it out of her eyes impatiently, wanting a good look at her quarry.
The shape-shifter was all muscle, she’d have to give him that. Every inch of his luscious form strained for release, though his eyes, now that they met hers, were strangely calm. The black in them would have given away his true identity to any shape-shifter, but to a human he’d simply look extremely angry.
“Untie me, bitch,” Pompey ordered.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked, letting a smile dance on her lips.
“Bijou,” he said. “The Brotherhood’s—”
She smiled wider as he swore. “That’s right, I’m the historian. I’m here to record this splendid moment, when a bunch of teenagers took down the Legion’s alpha.”
He spat. She stepped back neatly.
“Don’t wear yourself out, Pompey.”
He swore. “No one will believe even you over an alpha’s word.”
“They will when you’re marked,” she sang.
His eyes went completely black. “I won’t allow it.” His tone would have quelled a lesser woman, but Bijou knew she was anything but lesser.
“Yes, you will.” She took a step forward, letting him see how her nostrils flared. “I can smell you. You want me.”
A little of the black left his eyes as he swallowed hard. Good, she needed him to lose a little of that control that even a moon-bound shape-shifter exercised over their body.
She touched his thickly muscled thigh with one long painted fingernail. It was the only way to hide the somewhat clawlike nails of a shape-shifter even in human form from prying eyes. She could feel his vastus muscles contract even under her nail. He had amazing control.
He strained against his bonds again and she could hear the shifting, snapping sounds of one of the ropes holding his arms. She’d have to act fast.
“Stay away from me,” he demanded.
“I’m going to make you beg,” she said,
running her fingertip down his thigh, around his kneecap to his shin. “I’m going to make you scream.”
“Don’t.”
She smiled, showing her long canines. Her nipples pebbled, demonstrating she was enjoying this as much as he would when he was forced to relax.
“I know you want it.” Fast as a speeding werewolf, her hand was behind his penis, capturing his ball sac in a firm grip. She gave it a rolling twist in her fingers, then squeezed gently.
“Don’t,” he repeated, but he didn’t strain against his bonds this time.
She glanced up at him and let her tongue caress her lips. A little more of the black left his eyes. “This can be good or it can be bad. Which do you want?”
“I want you to leave.” His voice had a hoarse quality now.
She shook her head. “No, you don’t.”
“You’re wrong,” he ground out.
She glanced down, then back up to his eyes. “Your erection tells me otherwise.”
His huge cock had inflated as she caressed his balls. The plum tip was pointing straight at her breasts. Bijou’s mouth felt dry and she longed to suckle him, caressing those first few drops of pre-cum from him.
Why was she enjoying this so much? she wondered. Suddenly self-conscious, she turned.
“Leave,” she ordered again, since none of the teens had moved. One of them even had his cell phone in his hand. She saw he’d kept it in a pouch around his neck, even in wolf form. Was he snapping pictures of them? She raised a clawed hand and made a raking motion.
All but three boys scattered. She growled in satisfaction and turned back to her prey.
“Untie me and I’ll give you the pleasure you desire,” Pompey said. His blue eyes glittered now.
She smiled. “No, this is all for you. We’re going to do it my way.”
“I can smell your excitement.”
She tossed her head. “My excitement is that of a stalker after prey.”
