by Ann Gimpel
Viktor wrapped an arm around her waist, hugging her. “I’m guessing this means it worked. Your incantation worked.”
A broad smile lightened her features, accentuating her exotic beauty. “Our incantation. It appears so. Look.” She pointed at the spot where they’d squared off against the Cataclysm. Shifters and Vampires milled around the edge of the mesa, thrusting fingers, hands, and arms at the sky and downward, presumably at the ocean.
“Come on.” He laced his fingers with hers and started across the mesa. Boulders that hadn’t been there before dotted the broad expanse. Otherwise, it looked much as it had the day he’d discovered it.
Juan loped toward them; when he got there, he wrapped his arms around both of them. “Damn, it’s good to see you! I was sure you two got sucked into the Cataclysm. Aura said no, but the rest of us assumed she passed out when the earthquakes rolled through and missed something—”
Aura reached them next and shoved Viktor aside to latch onto Ketha. “There you are. I told everyone you weren’t dead, but no one believed me.” Tears ran down her face. “I don’t know if I’m more relieved to see you whole and hearty or that now everyone will stop telling me I’m nuts.”
“It doesn’t matter, sweetie.” Ketha moved her hands to Aura’s shoulders. “You were amazing back there. I couldn’t have asked for a stronger, more capable partner.”
“You too.” Aura’s cheeks turned bright red at the compliment.
“Come on.” Juan beckoned. “Everyone’s accounted for except Raziel.”
“You won’t find him.” Ketha sounded certain.
“Why not?” Juan glanced her way as they walked toward the rest of the group.
“He redeemed himself by his actions today. I bet his master finally allowed him to return home.”
“Do you mean God?” Viktor asked.
Ketha shrugged. “There are a whole lot of gods—and goddesses as well. Raziel serves one of them. It’s not who I’d have chosen, but I can’t fault him for following his heart.”
They reached the others in a flurry of high fives and greetings. “Look!” Rowana pointed downward from the mesa’s edge. “The ocean’s not perfect yet, but that hideous red color is receding. Parts of the water are blue, and the sky is right again. Finally.”
She shook long, matted silver hair over her shoulders. Her face was streaked with dirt, blood, and soot, but an inner knowledge shone through as she skewered Ketha and Viktor with her intense, dark gaze.
“What?” Ketha asked, standing straight under the other Shifter’s frank appraisal.
“It was you two. Or more likely, you two in conjunction with everything we did earlier. Some magics are additive like that.”
“Rowana.” Ketha’s tone was sharp. “You’re babbling.”
The other Shifter shrugged. “Probably. It’s been a big day. Blew through way too much magic for an old woman. You and Viktor made love. I recognize the luminance streaming from you, and all this wonder”—she spread her arms wide—“might be linked to that. Maybe. My guess is you went to ground in one of the caves, decided nothing much else mattered since the world was ending, and you thumbed your noses at the ancient prohibition against Shifters and Vampires having sex.”
“I’m happy for you”—Aura bent close to Ketha—“but you and Viktor weren’t part of the prophecy, so I disagree with Rowana. We broke the Cataclysm, but it took its sweet time receding.”
“Not an unfinished prophecy anymore?” Viktor asked.
Aura shook her head. “I need to write everything down. It’s how those who walked before me did things, and I have no idea if I’m the only Shifter left who deals in prophecies.”
Glenn capered forward, grinning like a loon. “My fangs are gone. I can’t make them drop anymore. If I’m going to turn Shifter, it hasn’t happened yet, but I say bring it on.” He caught Viktor from the side and hugged him. “Thanks, dude. I’m going to go find Bridget.”
Viktor grinned, delighted by the other man’s joy. “Your wife?”
“Who else?” Glenn raced away, but at human, not Vampire, speed.
“It’s going to take time for things to normalize,” Ketha warned. “We have good water here, and a food source and shelter.”
“Maybe we should stay on the mesa for at least a week,” Aura murmured.
“No reason not to.” Rowana smiled. “It’s not as if we have anything to go back to down there.”
“Maybe not right now,” Viktor said, “but we can rebuild. All the infrastructure is still there. We’ll have to figure out who has specific skills and deploy them accordingly. The humans will help—once they understand Vampires won’t be hunting them anymore.”
“Oh-oh.” Juan punched him lightly. “I worked with you for too many years not to recognize that tone.” He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Anyone who’s afraid of hard work”—Juan swung in a circle broadcasting his voice—“leave now. Don’t just leave. Run. Viktor’s a total slave driver.”
“Thanks, mate.” Viktor punched back, but Juan feinted out of the way.
“Do you suppose what we did freed the rest of the world too?” Daide asked.
Ketha drew her dark brows together, thinking. “I don’t know, but maybe my sisters and I can figure that out. My magic is growing stronger, and my wolf is howling from the sidelines exactly like it used to.”
“It’s a plan.” Rowana clasped her hands together. “My eagle is back too. Now, if it’s all the same to everyone, I’m going to retire to the cavern where we plotted everything out and sleep until I’m not tired anymore.”
A chorus of, “Great idea,” bloomed around Viktor, and people padded off in groups of twos and threes, heading for the caves.
“Get good rest. You earned it.” Ketha patted Rowana’s shoulder and then walked to the mesa’s edge.
Viktor joined her and looked at the ocean that was indeed shading to blue. “Not right away,” he said, “but once Ushuaia is functioning like a city again, how would you feel about sailing away from here?”
She turned to face him, her expression serious. “On Arkady?”
He nodded. “She’s a sound ship, and it would give us a way to see if any of the rest of the world is even still out there.”
Ketha spread her hands in front of her and tilted her chin to meet his gaze. “Your powers may well change. What if the animal that bonds with you isn’t fond of water?”
Understanding hit him hard. As much as he’d hated being a Vampire, turning into a Shifter could create problems of its own. “We’ll cross that bridge when—and if—it happens. I can’t imagine an animal that didn’t like water wanting to join its essence to mine.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Is it important for me to become like you?” He articulated what he was certain had to be in her heart.
She hesitated for long moments before her golden gaze turned soft, liquid. “No. I fell in love with you when you were a Vampire. You’ll still be you no matter what happens.”
For the first time since he was small, he felt the quick, hot bite of tears, and he vowed to be worthy of the woman standing before him. He folded her hands in his. “Ketha. Darling.”
“You’re my darling too. Magic will never vanish from the world. We’ll embrace it, no matter what form it takes. The best part is you’ll be by my side.” She smiled, looking young and carefree and happy.
“It’s a deal.” Bending his head, he nuzzled her neck, drinking her in.
“What’s next?” she asked.
“How about this? We’ll collect your backpack and spell book. Then we can make ourselves a temporary home in the spot where we made love.”
“Perfect. I like it. Except the pack and book can wait. Rowana’s there, and she needs her rest.” Ketha untangled her hands from his and threaded an arm around his waist.
Together, they started across the plateau.
“It’s a whole new world out there,” he said.
“And I can’t think of anyo
ne I’d rather share it with,” she replied, leaning into him. “I can’t quite believe we defeated the Cataclysm.”
“Me, either. That will take a while to sink in.”
“We’ll have time. All we need.”
He threaded an arm around her waist. “Tell me about being a Shifter. Just in case...”
“Nothing I’d like better.” She bent and entered the cave where they’d been earlier. “Back in the beginnings of the world, powerful shamans wished to become even stronger. They summoned a trance state and found the border of the special world where our animals dwell, but they couldn’t break through. Not at first. They cast stronger and stronger spells until the barrier crumbled. The animals were angry and tried to drive them away, but the shamans humbled themselves—”
“I thought you said you couldn’t go to the animals’ world,” Victor broke in.
“We can’t. Not anymore, but that came from the agreement between us and our animals. I haven’t gotten to that part yet.” She hip-butted him and moved ahead into the secluded spot where they’d lain while the fortunes of the world changed.
Viktor wrapped her in his arms. She felt perfect. Right. “Go on,” he urged. “I won’t interrupt again.”
She snuggled into his embrace. “Years passed before the animals agreed to share their power. It’s how the first Shifters came to be...”
He drew her down onto the sand, never letting go, fascinated by the tale and her melodious voice. Before she was done, something stirred deep within him. He tried to focus on it, hoping against hope it was an animal knocking at the gates, but the harder he tried, the faster the faint presence skittered away.
Ketha broke off her recitation and moved back enough to look at him. “You can’t force it.” Her voice was soft, and she cupped the side of his face in her hand.
Her mouth was impossible to resist, so he closed his over it. Years of long-denied emotion streamed through him, but he welcomed the sensation sluicing from his head to his feet. Ketha kissed him back so fiercely, she tumbled him onto his back.
Viktor sank his hands into her thick hair, reveling in its silky strands. She could finish the First Shifter tale later. Thanks to today, they had time.
For everything.
Chapter Twenty: Bold New World
Two-and-a-half Weeks Later
Ketha stretched her body one paw at a time, and then arched her back. She’d been running through the forests north of Ushuaia in wolf form, catching and eating rodents until her stomach was distended. It felt damned good to let the animal side of her nature roam free.
She and Viktor had come down from the mesa three days before, and this was the first break they’d taken. Their initial task had been stopping by all the human enclaves and reassuring them it was safe to emerge from hiding—finally. Many of the humans had been skeptical, but Viktor’s reassurance about no longer being a Vampire quelled the worst of their fears.
Beyond that, simply clearing out a place they could live temporarily had been back-breaking work since earthquakes spawned by the Cataclysm’s departure had flattened still more buildings. They finally gave up on the wreckage that used to be Viktor’s room and ended up in her old quarters next to the Shifters’ last hideout. They’d considered Arkady, but both of them wanted to be closer to the center of town to assist with whatever needed doing.
Viktor had been shocked by what remained of his sub-basement room. He’d thought it was bombproof, but huge chunks of mortar had punched through the ceiling. The building had creaked and groaned while they tried to clear hundred-pound hunks of material out of the way. Viktor finally dragged her into the tunnels, muttering about not wanting to be there when the whole mess collapsed on their heads.
Her wolf dropped back onto its haunches, lifted its muzzle, and howled. Answering animal cries—some from Shifters, some not—rang from several sides.
The wolf’s joy was contagious, and deep affection for her bondmate filled Ketha. “I missed you.”
“I never went anywhere,” the wolf replied.
“I know, but I missed us being like this. Running and hunting in your body, not mine. You don’t have to answer this, but did the animals have a fallback position?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something you would have done if the world truly ended?”
The wolf didn’t answer for so long, she figured she’d probed into an area the bond animals considered private, reserved for themselves. They loped along, stopping to sniff here and there and enjoying the scents of prey on the wind. Ketha had almost forgotten her question when the wolf began talking.
“We waited too long.”
Ketha mulled it over. “What do you mean?”
“Early on after the Cataclysm, we—the animals—talked about leaving and resurrecting the barrier around our world. It wasn’t affected by the Cataclysm. We could have retreated to what we were before the shamans breached our border.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“We needed to agree, and we couldn’t. Many of us—me included—didn’t feel right abandoning our bondmates. It was an all or none decision because once we resurrected our border, no one would have been able to leave our world. We would have lost all access to our bonded ones.”
If she’d been in her human form, holding back tears would have been a struggle. “Thank you.”
“No need for thanks. Our bond is for a lifetime. Only a selfish coward opts to save his own hide. Anyway, by the time things got truly bad, none of us had enough magic left to do much of anything but hang on by our claws or talons.”
“I was truly blessed when you entered my dreams.”
“How could I have resisted?” the wolf countered. “You were such a bright, precocious little girl. So sure of yourself and overflowing with your gift.”
“And you were everything noble about bond animals. It would have been far more difficult living out the years of the Cataclysm without you—even if we didn’t access the shift magic very often toward the tail end of things.”
“My powers were fading, but I still made you stronger.” The wolf stated it as fact.
As always, the wolf’s observations were spot-on. “You did indeed, dear heart. Without you and the other bond animals, we probably wouldn’t have defeated the Cataclysm.”
The wolf whuffled low in its throat, pleased she’d acknowledged its importance.
The cries of a raven on the hunt made her smile, and Ketha glanced skyward. Viktor’s bird had taken two weeks to make its presence known. Before that, it had flirted with him, moving close and drawing away. Ketha had watched the process with interest. She had no idea how bonding would happen for someone who didn’t dream their animal as a child and get to know it that way, solidifying the bond once puberty hit.
It had been damned hard not to intervene, try to hurry the process, but the bond was a deeply individual thing. Nothing she could have done would have made the slightest difference, and Viktor’s raven might have resented her interference.
The bird spread its wings and plummeted downward, landing right in front of her. “The hunt was good,” it informed her wolf. “How was yours?”
“Excellent.” The wolf punctuated the word with a tail swish.
“How are things going?” Ketha aimed her mind voice at Viktor.
“Better than good.” Enthusiasm underscored his words. “I’m entranced. Enthralled. I love being a Shifter almost as much as I love you.”
“Ready to be human again?”
Light flared around the raven, so Ketha called shift magic too. They’d left their clothes in the gnarled cypress grove, and it wasn’t far. The day was brisk, but the cold wouldn’t kill them.
Viktor wrapped his arms around her. “Your wolf is beautiful. One of these days, I want to run my fingers through your pelt.”
Ketha tipped her head back and laughed. “Sounds kind of smutty.”
Viktor grinned. “When I was a boy growing up in the Black Forest, a wolf used to show up from time to
time at our cabin. My father always put food out—usually bones or other meat waste—for it. I loved to watch it slink close, grab the food, and make a run for the woods. One day, I had an idea, and I followed it.”
“It must have known you were back there,” Ketha said.
“Probably so, but at the time, I convinced myself I was a great tracker.” He tightened his hold on her. “The wolf turned out to be a mother with pups. I followed her to her den. I never saw her young, but I heard them. They were absolutely silent until their mother was close, but then they yipped and squealed.”
“They knew food was close.”
“Probably so, but it was the oddest thing. The wolf ducked into her den to drop the food, but then she returned and stood staring at where I’d hidden myself. She didn’t attack me. Didn’t raise one hackle. Just leveled these lovely amber eyes my way.”
“What’d you do?” Ketha asked.
“I told her she was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on and that I’d make sure to put out extra food for her now that I knew about the pups.” He slanted his gaze away for a moment. “I felt kind of silly, talking to her like that. She stood there like a sentinel until I turned and threaded my way back through the forest toward home.”
“You’ve always had a good heart.” Ketha leaned into Viktor, loving the feel of his nakedness against her body. “We need to get moving. You’re shielding me with your body, but you must be freezing.”
He dropped his hands onto her shoulders. “Shift for me, Ketha.” Longing burned in the depths of his emerald eyes. “When you asked if I was ready to be human again, I was hoping you’d stay a wolf long enough for me to get to know that side of you better.”
Ketha understood. She’d nurtured dreams of his raven perched on her shoulder where she could smooth its feathers and lose herself in its avian presence. She opened a channel to her magic and let the transformation take her. It felt right in a way not much had since the Cataclysm started sucking life out of the world. The wolf’s pelt was welcome; so were its study pads. When she blinked to clear the visual transition from her human eyes to her wolf ones, Viktor was squatting on his haunches with his arms open.
