This was insanity. Finn was a prince. He could not stay alone on Earth for a year.
“I’m not leaving you behind.” Ivar frowned, ready to throw Finn through to the other side if he had to. “How will you survive on this planet? I am looking around, and they are a primitive, strange people. They do not even acknowledge the existence of beings beyond their skies. How vain are these humans to think they are the only ones to crawl out of the infinite?”
“Your feelings are exactly why I didn’t tell you my intentions. I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but the gods are not smiling upon us.”
His intentions? This had been Finn’s plan all along? To trick him back through the portal if they didn’t find women, and to stay behind? What would Ivar say to the Draig queen and king? It would look like he abandoned the dragon prince.
“We don’t have time to debate.” Finn held open the satchel he carried. The evening light cast them into shadows, but the artificial lights illuminated just enough of the alleyway that someone might see them arguing. “I assure you I have thought this through. I will be fine. I brought supplies. I have Earth cash-money papers, dried meat, clothes—”
“Unacceptable,” Ivar broke in. “I forbid you from staying.”
“You have no authority over me. You can’t forbid me from doing anything. This isn’t Var territory.”
“And you’re not a prince here, dragon,” Ivar insisted. Did the man not realize the stupidity of what he was proposing? “You have no protection, no way of calling for help.”
“Nobility does not change with location,” Finn argued.
“Your royalty is not recognized here.” Ivar snatched the satchel of supplies from Finn, and demanded, “Get in the portal, or I will throw you in. I will not leave you.”
“I left a note explaining this to the king and queen, in my room at the palace. Now, go and be well. I’ll be here in a year,” Finn promised. He grabbed his supplies back.
There was clearly no reasoning with him. Ivar surged forward and took hold of the dragon prince, grabbing him by his shirtfront.
“You’re going home,” Ivar commanded, trying to drag him to the opening. Finn’s shirt ripped in their struggle. “Get in the portal.”
“No.” Finn swept his hand to get free as Ivar strengthened his hold.
“Get in the portal.” This time Ivar punched. He was done playing around.
“No.” Finn made a sound of defiance and ducked before Ivar’s fist could make contact. He pushed at Ivar’s waist, trying to force him through.
Ivar resisted, spinning Finn around. The man bounced close to the opening, but brick stopped him from going anywhere.
Finn charged, trying to knock the bigger man off his footing. It didn’t work. His attempts only annoyed Ivar.
A shift threatened to ripple over Ivar’s flesh, but he didn’t care. Claws grew from the tips of his fingers. Finn needed to get into that portal and Ivar was going to make sure the prince made it home—conscious or not. They could spar it out on their home world later.
Finn tried to growl in warning, but Ivar wasn’t scared of dragons.
“Get in the portal, Finn,” Ivar said, louder than before.
Finn punched. Ivar let the man land the blow against his jaw. A jolt of pain worked its way over his face as he absorbed the attack, but the fact he didn’t dodge made Finn lose his footing.
“Stop, or I’ll call the cops!” The feminine cry distracted Finn long enough for Ivar to gain the advantage. A bright light moved toward them. The woman approached holding up a rectangular Earth communication device.
Ivar didn’t hesitate. He punched, knocking Finn senseless. The man could be angry with him later. But Finn was going home.
Ivar tossed him at the brick wall. Finn disappeared inside the portal with a flash of purple light. The woman screamed.
Ivar turned his attention to her. She stood, eyes wide in fear as she stared at him. It was then he realized that he was half shifted, and she’d just witnessed portal travel. Fangs protruded from his elongated mouth, and tiger fur covered his face and hands. His vision was sharp, and he knew his eyes would be glowing in the darkness from the power of the shift.
Sacred cats!
This wasn’t good. He couldn’t leave a witness behind.
Ivar held up his hands in an effort to keep her calm, but she screamed and tried to run. He panicked and gave chase. It wasn’t hard to catch her. She moved like a human and was no match for his speed and agility.
He covered her mouth to keep her from making more noise and drawing attention. Humans were so delicate, and he had no desire to hurt her. Yet he couldn’t let the humans find the way to his home planet.
She kicked her legs, and he regretted her fear. The gateway would be closing soon, and he needed to make a decision.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, hoping she could register his apology and forgive him for what he had to do, “but this secret can’t be revealed.”
Ivar pushed her into the portal after Finn. He’d have to make it up to her on the other side. Once they explained and made her understand, they could return her. Or, perhaps this was the gods telling him to take the woman home. He did not feel like she was meant to be his mate, but then he wasn’t looking for a true mate. She could be his princess, and he could fulfill part of their plan to save the future of the shifters.
Ivar waited a few seconds to give her time to pass through before jumping after her. He was ready to get off this floating rock. It was time to go home.
He closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting for the sensation of portal travel, that painful moment when everything collapsed in on him, and he couldn’t breathe. Sound would become a deafening roar. Instead, sharp pain radiated down his arm as he crashed into a hard surface.
Ivar opened his eyes to see he was still in the alleyway. This time he watched as he jumped toward the place Finn and the woman had disappeared into. He again slammed into the wall. He tried a third time, and a fourth, then a fifth and sixth, beating himself against the brick wall in desperation. When that didn’t work, he struck his hands against the stone.
Nothing.
He hit the brick harder, trying to break through. All traces of the portal light were gone, leaving him in shadows. Blood smeared the white paint covering the brick. He breathed harder, desperation turning to despair. His forearm bled from where he’d scraped it, blood dripping onto the ground at his feet. He ignored the pain.
No. Not this. Anything but this.
He couldn’t be trapped on Earth. Alone.
Not this.
Not this.
His hand pressed into the hard surface until the rectangle shape was embedded into his skin. For a long moment, he mentally willed his hand to fall through, to give him a safe journey home.
“Finn?” he whispered as if his friend could hear him and somehow reopen the portal to let him pass. Unfortunately, that was not how the Qurilixian portal worked. It would only open to this location once every Earth year, and only for a short period of time, and only if someone from the other side activated it first. He had no choice but to find another portal opening on this alien world, or wait a year.
A year on Earth.
Alone.
Ivar could only remember a handful of times when he felt real fear. First, as he watched a spaceship land like a giant fiery saucer from the sky and he met his first alien visitor as a boy. The day the scientists announced there was nothing they could do to help the cat-shifter population reproduce more female children. When his brother’s wife had been kidnaped by the Nutef faction, and they’d almost lost her. And this moment right here.
Ivar did not know his way around Earth. When the shifters visited, it was only for a few hours, and they always left the way they came. He looked up, unable to see the sky from his place within the narrow corridor between buildings. How was he supposed to find a location when the stars here made no sense? On Qurilixen he could track anyone or anything. He read the natural sig
ns in the shadowed marshes and in the forests as clearly as if he looked at a map. No matter where he was on his home world, he could find the Var palace.
“Finn,” he said again, knowing it was pointless.
His heart hammered violently. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, a residual effect from having thrown Prince Finn—and the woman who had the misfortune of coming through the alley during their argument—through the portal. His knuckles stung from where he’d punched the man. Ivar should have known that Finn was up to something when the mischievous dragon-shifter invited him on a secret trip to Earth.
“Stupid dragon, what were you thinking? You knew I would not allow you to stay here alone. You should have just gone through the portal, instead of making me throw you through. We would have figured out a better way to convince the elders to keep the path open.”
The metal skull on the black door next to the portal entrance seemed to mock him. Ivar should have heeded the warning the second he saw it. The gods had been telling him to turn around. He dared to defy them by planning to take a bride before they deemed him worthy. This was his punishment.
Earth was strange, and the Earthlings who inhabited it even stranger. Ivar wanted to go home. He couldn’t be trapped here.
Ivar slammed his hand against the wall. His claws chipped at the line of mortar between bricks. In his heightened state, he had forgotten he was partially shifted. A half cat, half man would surely send a panic through the city, and with no escape, he could imagine what kind of welcome the locals would give him. He’d heard stories from the elders. He’d seen the films.
“Whoa,” a young human male called out in surprise, looking down the corridor at him. “Dude, check this out.” He waved, and another young man appeared next to him. Lifting his voice, the first man said to Ivar, “Hey, are you like doing a movie or something? Cool costume.”
A small growl left Ivar’s throat instead of Earth words. The noise only seemed to delight the humans, and they began laughing and telling each other how “freaking cool” the “dude” was.
Ivar touched his fur-covered arm. Heat radiated from his skin. He was not cool. In fact, he was quite the opposite.
Ivar pulled into the shadows, thankful that the planet had darkened. He shifted to human form before coming out of the corridor onto the street. He rushed down the sidewalk so the bizarre dude-humans couldn’t follow him.
The satchel he carried only had a little food and cash-money. It wasn’t enough to last him an entire year. Back home, he might be a prince, but here he was nobody. No one would know who he was, or be compelled to help him. Ivar would have to fend for himself. He’d have to forage for strange foods and hope they were not poisonous. He needed to find shelter nearby to stay close to the portal.
The crowd had thickened with the evening hours, and they flowed past him like water around a stone. Their Earth words were a jumbled sea of white noise, and even though he could speak the language, he was having a hard time understanding them.
Where should he go? What should he do? He did not want to be here. His thoughts traveled too fast. He needed to apply reasoning and come up with a plan of action.
Ivar found himself walking with the crowd, unsure where he’d end up. He wanted to go home. How could he get home?
For a brief moment, he paused and closed his eyes. The sound did not stop. The air did not change. Movement continued all around him.
As he made his way along the sidewalk, he found himself in an open courtyard. A metal statue had been mounted on a bench, forever posed as if ready for conversation. Ivar ducked off the main path, out of the crowd, and sat down beside the statue. He didn’t move as he studied the Earthlings. It was hard to believe this planet had once been home to cat-shifters. There was nothing familiar about it, no castles, and no ceffyls grazing in a field.
He was unsure how much time passed. The crowds surged and then lessened. A white skirt caught his attention. He held his breath as a woman moved past. It was the same skirt he’d seen when they first arrived. His eyes swept upward, along her body. The streetlights revealed the shadowed shape of her legs beneath the material. It was enough to tease but not be inappropriate. She stopped to talk to someone on the sidewalk. Full lips parted slightly as light brown eyes glanced in his direction. She reached into a bag she carried and pulled out a peculiar device.
The predator within him surged, wanting to claw its way out. Is that what the device did? Made him reveal his true self? There was still so much he didn’t know about Earth.
Ivar forgot his troubles as he watched her. She entranced him like a powerful gullveig. It became apparent at that moment humans had not lost their supernatural roots. How else did he explain the spell this woman cast on him with her magical device?
He fought the shift, forcing the wild beast back down. But, keeping the physical transformation at bay did nothing to stop the need he felt to go to her. He pushed up from the bench. He used his enhanced sight and hearing to focus in on her from across the distance.
The woman took a step back, bumping into a man in a white suit passing behind her. The man had a long, white mustache that stood out from the facial hair of other humans. If he spoke, the words didn’t register for Ivar who was concentrating on one thing—getting to the female.
“Excuse me.” She didn’t talk to Ivar, didn’t even appear to see his approach, but that didn’t matter. Her voice was soft, and it called to him like a comforting song. He had to get to her.
Ivar moved to follow her, enthralled to hear more. This woman in white sent him a wave of hope in an otherwise bleak world. He had to talk to her, to touch her, to…
“Pardon me, ma’am,” the man answered, lifting a hat from his head as he stepped aside. He blocked the woman from Ivar’s view and cut off the stream of the prince’s frantic thoughts. Ivar stopped, realizing what he was in the process of doing. He had been on the verge of grabbing the woman and dragging her to…
To where? He had nowhere to go. Nothing to offer a woman.
When the mustached man stepped aside, Ivar expected to see her. His heart beat as if he’d just run the entire length of the shadowed marshes. But she had disappeared. There was no trace of her within the groups milling about.
That didn’t stop the prince from trying to find her. He scanned the street for a white skirt and silky brown hair. He rushed down the walkway, wanting just one more glimpse.
She was gone.
For that single instant, he’d forgotten where he was. When he had looked at her, everything that happened made sense. However, the moment was fleeting and could not last as reality once again intruded.
What would he have done if he caught up to her? What life could he have offered her? He had nothing, not even his name or title, to trade upon. He had tried to betray the gods by attempting to take matters into his own hands, and this was how he was to be punished. The woman in white was a sign, a reminder that he had no control over what the gods chose to bless him with.
He returned to the bench next to the statue and watched across the street, hoping for a purple light to show him the way home. The only other option was to hunt down the missing dragon-shifters in the place Finn called New Orleans. Perhaps they could help him? Maybe together they could all go home?
Ivar frowned. He was a cat-shifting prince. He would be the last person defected dragon-shifters would want to show up, learning their secrets to survival—if they had even survived. No one knew for sure.
He felt even more alone.
4
Beth rubbed her arm where the man bumped her and made her way back to her car in the free parking lot. She had to wait as a group of college kids blocked her way down the stairs leading behind the shops. She instantly recognized Jenny and Stacy and the two boys that had been following them earlier.
“I’m telling you, we saw a cat-man,” the frat boy said with obvious enthusiasm.
“Ok, so show us. Where’s the proof?” Jenny demanded.
“He got away befo
re we could take a video of him,” the boy explained. “Tell them, Joe.”
“Clint’s right,” the second boy, apparently named Joe, answered. “He has to be here somewhere. This guy had tiger fur everywhere. Like a fuzzy shape-shifter man-cat.”
“Exactly, a shape-shifter,” Clint exclaimed.
“Cat-man? You two have been watching way too many superhero movies,” Jenny dismissed.
“You like cats, Jenn, you’d probably want to take him home as a pet,” Clint teased.
“Probably. Was he cute?” Jenny countered.
“I’ll let you pet me.” Joe pulled down his neckline to show his somewhat hairy chest.
Jenny reached over and plucked out one of his hairs.
“Ouch!” Joe swatted at her hand.
“My aunt told me that lizard men were living down in the bayou,” Stacy offered.
“I heard about that urban legend on the internet.” Jenny nodded. “They debunked it. Some hotel in the swamps made it up to draw tourists.”
“No, it’s true. My aunt’s neighbor, Ursa, told her that they like to wrestle with gators in the swamp,” Stacy said. “And they skinny dip in the water. So if you’re lucky you can see a sexy naked man—”
“No,” Joe and Clint said in unison, pretending to be dramatic.
“We don’t want to hear about naked lizard men wrestling alligators,” Joe said.
“Alligator Man isn’t real. Cat-man is,” Clint insisted.
“Excuse me,” Beth politely tried to inch past the group when it became evident they weren’t in a hurry to move out of the way. As much as she’d like to hear about the mythical cat-man legend these kids were trying to spin, she needed sleep.
They all glanced at her and finally began to move toward the parking lot. Beth watched them walk away as Jenny started complaining about not wanting to share a bathroom with her three roommates during the upcoming school year.
Headstrong Prince Page 3
