They lay back, the heavens, cloudless, flowing around them. The moon had become a small disk high above, and stars thickly blanketed the sky.
Kendrick pointed straight upward at a very bright star. “The humans call this one Vega. Shifters see it as a mother, a Lupine, who beams her light, looking for her cubs.” Kendrick shifted his arm to the right and Addie snuggled into the curve of it. “The wolf cubs have run away on the back of a dragon. See them there? Their mother chases them across the heavens all night, and they laugh and fly away. Robbie really likes that story.”
Addie ran her fingers across Kendrick’s chest, catching on his soft button-down shirt. “I’m not surprised. What else?”
“That, we call the Tiger.” Kendrick moved his arm to point between two other bright stars. “You call those Deneb and Altair and divide all the stars between into a couple different constellations, but Shifters grouped them together as a tiger, his head turning as he stalks his prey.” Kendrick looked at her. “Then there are the Lovers.”
Addie pretended that heat hadn’t flooded her body. She scanned the sky. “Where are they?”
“Not up there,” Kendrick rumbled. “Can’t see them until winter.”
“Then why bring them up?”
She dissolved into laughter when Kendrick rolled onto her, the weight of him a fine thing. “We’ll just have to make do with the lovers down here,” he said, his breath warming her skin.
“Mmm.” Addie laced her arms around his neck. “Maybe they’ll name constellations after us.”
“Not right now.” The hunger Addie had glimpsed that last night at the diner returned to his eyes full force. “I’m busy. Gonna be busy for a while.”
“Good,” Addie whispered, and sank into Kendrick’s kiss.
A few moments later, she was humming in pleasure as Kendrick stripped from her the light summer dress she’d donned for the ceremony. Addie returned the favor by ripping open Kendrick’s shirt, sending the buttons flying. She kissed his chest, which was whole now, only a few faint scars showing where he’d been hurt.
Kendrick growled, rolling Addie down into the blankets, his bare body on hers. He brushed her cheek with a tender touch, then parted her legs and slid inside her.
“Addison.” His voice shook, rough with need. “I love you. My mate.”
Addie wrapped herself around him, her body hot, full. Her heart tingled with what Kendrick had told her was the mate bond, the true twining of souls. She ached where they joined, an ache that dissolved to pure, ecstatic pleasure as he began to thrust.
“I love you,” she said in a clear voice. “Mate of my heart.”
Kendrick groaned and sped his thrusts.
Addie held him, her hard-bodied Shifter with white-black hair and beautiful eyes. He gazed down at her as he loved her faster and harder, his green eyes outshining the sparkling river of the night sky.
Turn the page for a sneak peek at the next book in the Shifters Unbound series,
GUARDIAN’S MATE,
coming from Berkley in September 2016
Rae’s job on the day of the Choosing was to stand behind her foster father and hold the absent Guardian’s sword. Absent, because the Guardian was dead, had been for months.
The woods were quiet, dark, cold. Any sane Shifter would still be in bed, snuggled under a few blankets, looking forward to a warm shower and a hot cup of coffee.
But no, the Shifters of the Western Montana Shiftertown had crept out just before dawn, following Eoin, Rae’s adoptive father and leader of this Shiftertown, to see whether the Goddess was in a good mood.
Four times in the last six months they’d trudged out here in the gloom and cold, waiting for the Goddess to pick a new Guardian. They’d come at a full moon, a new moon, a waxing moon, a blue moon. They’d turn toward wherever the moon happened to be—above or below the horizon—and wait.
All the young men of the Montana Shiftertown who were past their Transition were required attend. They formed the now-familiar circle around Rae and Eoin. Some were excited, some fearful, some simply wanted to go back to bed.
Eoin, a Feline Shifter who was mostly mountain lion, sent Rae an encouraging smile. Rae was a Lupine, black wolf, but she conceded her foster dad was handsome—for a Feline. He was currently mateless, which made him a target for every female Shifter near and far. What some of them would do to try to sneak into his bed was beyond ridiculous. Rae sometimes felt like his bodyguard rather than his daughter.
“Not long now,” Eoin said softly to her. Even speaking low, his voice was a full rumble.
“Then we can go out for breakfast?” Rae asked. “I could use a stack of waffles. With bacon.”
“Sure.”
He turned to the circle. Beyond the young males, the rest of the Shifters waited, anxious and impatient.
Months ago, their Guardian, Daragh, had been killed by humans, his sword stolen. Rae still fumed over that. The humans had been found, punished, the sword returned by an unlikely messenger, but no new Guardian had been chosen. The Goddess had not answered their call.
The faintest light came through the stand of trees. The mist that had gathered became ghostly white.
The Shifters dropped into silence, and Eoin raised his arms.
“Goddess, mother of us all, lady of the moon,” Eoin began, “we beseech thee. Send us your light to touch the Guardian, the most holy of men, so that he may do thy work.”
Rae loved hearing her father chant in his deep baritone. Her earliest memories were of him reading her books, soothing her to sleep, wrapping her in comfort, knowing she was protected when he was near. The sword, which she held point downward, vibrated with his voice.
The sword gave her the creeps, but no one else would touch it. Even Eoin’s trackers, the bravest of the brave, refused to hold it, so Rae’d had to step up. She didn’t mind so much when it was sheathed, but for the ritual, it had to be naked, the runes etched in the silver catching the dawn light.
She’d done this four times. Rae prayed to the Goddess that the fifth time was the charm, so she could hand it to the new Guardian and never hold it again.
Eoin went on chanting. He repeated his lines over and over, his arms raised.
In the old days, Shifters probably had worn robes and crowns of leaves and crap like that. Today, Eoin wore jeans, sweatshirt, and thick-soled boots, sensible attire in the Rocky Mountain woods. Rae, and every Shifter here, wore something similar.
Maybe they should have donned robes and painted themselves with moon goddess symbols. Or danced naked at midnight. It would make the same difference. The Goddess wasn’t coming. She never did.
“We beseech thee!” Eoin shouted.
His words echoed through the woods as the sun climbed higher, brushing the treetops high above. The mists thickened, the ground becoming colder. Autumn should involve the last of the summer cookouts and playing football, not standing around in the woods in the cold.
The sun kept climbing. The mist turned to fog. The Shifters shivered and rubbed their arms, wanting to shift, cuddle up to something furry, or at least go the hell home.
Eoin finally lowered his arms, letting out a sigh, defeated. A whisper of breeze echoed his sigh, then died.
The Shifters didn’t look happy. Eoin, as Shiftertown leader, was supposed to solve problems like this. Ask the human government to bring in a Guardian from another Shiftertown, figure out a way to use the sword himself, something.
If they got too restless, the more dominant ones would start challenging, and then things could really hit the fan. The human government didn’t allow Shifters to change leaders without their approval, but that wouldn’t matter if Eoin were dead.
Rae picked up the sword’s sheath from the grass, her braid of black hair falling over her shoulder.
A thin finger of light made it through the fog to dance on the blade as
she lifted it to slide it into the sheath. The runes glittered and moved.
They did that sometimes. It was one creep-toid piece of metal.
The tip of the blade jerked out of the leather sheath. Rae stared at the sword in surprise, then let out a cry as the sword shot upward, dragging her arm with it.
Rae tried to drop the sword but her hand was fixed to the hilt, her fingers not obeying the command to open. The sword jerked again, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket.
Rae grabbed the hilt with her other hand, holding on while her heels came off the ground.
“Dad!” she yelled. “Help!”
Eoin, who’d moved off to speak to his trackers, swung around. At the same time the sword yanked itself upward and Rae’s feet came all the way off the ground.
She yelped in terror. She couldn’t let go. What if the thing shot up into the trees, dumping her off when it got twenty feet up? She had no idea what the damn thing was trying to do—return to the Goddess? Fly to the next real Guardian?
Eoin ran for her, his trackers behind him, but before he could reach her, a brilliant shaft of light shot down from the treetops and enclosed Rae, the sword, and the sheath on the ground.
Pain burned through her, as though every cell in her skin, every bit of iron in her blood suddenly began to boil. Her Collar, the metal embedded into her neck, went off, arcs of electricity ringing her throat.
Rae screamed. The sound echoed up through the trees, crescendoed into a piercing shriek, and swooped back down again. The Shifters clapped hands over ears, some falling to their knees.
Rae was lifted a few more feet in the air, then her body crumpled and she slammed hard into the ground. She’d lost hold of the sword, and the blade plummeted toward her.
Eoin dove for it but too late. The sword landed, blade down, straight into the earth between Rae’s outstretched arms. It stilled, the light died, and the pain faded.
“What the hell?” one of the trackers growled.
Eoin halted a few feet from Rae. Rae slowly climbed to her feet, groaning all the way, having to use the hilt of the stupid sword to brace herself.
Eoin’s face was gray, his eyes wet. “The Goddess has Chosen,” he said in a hushed voice.
“What?” Rae tore her hands from the sword, which slowly toppled to the ground. “What are you talking about? There’s no way. It was a lightning strike, or something . . .”
Eoin seized Rae’s hands and turned them palm upward. Burned into her skin was the symbol of the Celtic knot, the sign of the Goddess. Though Rae’s hands were branded, she felt no pain, not even itching.
Her heart hammered. “No way. Dad—no!”
Eoin was openly weeping. “The Goddess has Chosen,” he repeated, his voice breaking. “We have our new Guardian.”
The rest of the Shifters stared at Rae in absolute shock.
An elderly Shifter man gave voice to the thought in the head of every Shifter present.
“But she’s a woman!”
* * *
Zander’s cell phone rang. “Aw, son of a . . .”
Zander vented to every deity, familiar and obscure, as he hoisted himself from the chair at the stern of his boat. His fishing pole, secured to the deck, went on enjoying itself dangling bait in the water, while Zander trudged down the gently rocking boat to where he’d left the damn phone this time.
He should just throw the cell phone overboard. The point of being in a fishing boat all alone off the coast of Alaska was being alone.
He knew why he didn’t toss it even as the thought formed. If someone had dire need, and they couldn’t reach him, he’d never forgive himself.
Zander’s two braids with blue beads woven through them swung against his cheeks as he reached for the phone he’d left on top of the cooler. He figured he might as well grab another beer at the same time, and came up with a phone in one hand, a can in the other.
He thumbed the phone on and put it to his ear. “Go for Zander.”
He stilled as a voice from far away rumbled in his ear. If it had been anyone other than Kendrick, white tiger Guardian, he’d have snarled something and hung up, but Zander glued the phone to his ear and listened. His reflection in the window of the wheelhouse showed his dark eyes growing wider and wider. At the end of the boat, the fishing pole started to buzz, the bait taken, but Zander ignored it.
He yelled, “You want me to what? Seriously, Kendrick, what the fuck? How am I supposed to teach her to be a Guardian. Hello? I’m not a Guardian.”
“I know,” Kendrick said. “But she needs—”
“I’m busy. I don’t have time to babysit a woman who thinks she’s been chosen by the Goddess to be a Guardian, for crap’s sake. There are no female Guardians! I’m supposed to be the crazy one, Kendrick. When you regain your sanity, call me back.”
Zander moved the phone, but Kendrick’s stern voice had him listening again. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
Over the whirring of the fishing pole came the drone of a motor, a boat rushing at him across the deep waters.
“Seriously?” Zander shouted into the phone. “Do you know how much shit you’re in right now?”
Kendrick rumbled something else, not keeping the amused bite out of his voice. The man and his cute little mate must be laughing their asses off.
Zander clicked off the phone and threw it to the deck. The boat came closer. Three figures stood on its deck—the man piloting it, a tall, stern-looking Feline Shifter, and a smaller woman, a Lupine, with a Sword of the Guardian strapped to her back. The sword’s hilt gleamed in the strong sunshine.
“Perfect,” Zander said. “Just effing perfect.”
He squeezed the can of beer until the pop-top burst open, then he poured the cold liquid down his throat, wiped his mouth, and strode to meet the intruders.
Jennifer Ashley, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Shifters Unbound and MacKenzies series and winner of a Romance Writers of America RITA Award, also writes as national bestselling and award-winning author Allyson James. She lives in the Southwest with her husband and cats, and spends most of her time in the wonderful worlds of her stories. More about the series and Jennifer’s books can be found on her website, jenniferashley.com. You can contact her via e-mail at [email protected] and visit her online at facebook.com/JenniferAshleyAllysonJamesAshleyGardner, and twitter.com/JennAllyson.
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