by Ophelia Bell
The large male body was heavy and clumsy compared to her female body, and it took her several yards of lumbering stumbles before she found her footing. She was used to big, but only when the size also came with four legs, wings, and a tail to help her balance. Still, she set back onto her path, this time taking the main road the last mile through the Windchaser territory right to the front gates of the main lodge. She had her story prepared for any who asked—she was from the Sundance clan and had missed Assana’s visit, so had traveled the two days to get here, hoping to secure a spot before they all left for the Haven. None of the Windchasers would be the wiser, and once she got to the Source where all the males from the other clans would be meeting them the next day, they’d just assume she belonged to a different clan.
The dining hall had been repurposed by the time she arrived, and dozens of ursa males were scattered around the huge room, waiting their turn to speak to Assana and complete their interviews. Aurum took her turn, disappointed that she still didn’t see Nicholas anywhere.
With a heavy weight in her gut, sat down on the wooden bench across from Assana.
“Name and clan,” Assana stated, giving her only the most cursory glance.
“Ah … Anders Sundance.”
Assana nodded. “And you are unpaired and unmated?”
“Yes.”
Assana ticked a box on a piece of parchment lying in front of her. “Are you willing to pledge dual fealty to the Dionarchs of the Haven as well as your own Queen?” Under her breath, she added, “Will you swear your love and loyalty to Calder Thyrsus when you arrive?”
Aurum grinned, the excitement of the moment finally taking hold of her wholesale. “You’d better count on it.”
“Good,” Assana said, giving Aurum a secret smile. She stood up and called out, “Interviews are closed! We are at our limit. If any of you were not chosen, I will return in a fortnight to accept another group of eligible males to accompany me into the Haven. Good luck, everyone! And for those of you who were accepted today—that is to say everyone I spoke to—I will meet you at the Source at sunset!”
Aurum thought a tornado might have hit just then, because a sudden whirlwind of motion filled the entire hall and a stampede of eager bears rushed full-bore out of the building, hurrying toward the road that led down the mountain. Luckily no one seemed to notice that she hadn’t budged from her spot.
“I might be missing something here … there’s no way I can make it there in time without flying.” She gave Assana a worried look. “And I thought it was easily a full day’s trip from any of the lodges. How are these guys going to get there in time, too?”
“They’re Windchasers, sister. They’ll be there. Why do you think I left them for last? Well, besides the fact that the ursa covenants require a certain order to things. Winter comes after Autumn and all that … So, are you ready to go, then?”
Without waiting for an answer, Assana gripped Aurum by the hand, and she was suddenly plunged into what felt like cool, rushing water. The world around her blurred and liquefied, and a strong force pushed at the back of her body at the same time as it pulled at her from her navel. It took her a second to realize the nymph had pulled her into a drift, yet it felt so different from her brother’s version. This time, it was smooth as flowing silk and bordered on an erotic experience. Sweet Mother, she could get lost in such sensations.
Just when she was starting to enjoy it, the passage ended, and she found herself standing on the lapping shore of a huge lake in the crater at the top of a mountain. Low peaks surrounded the body of water, and the loud, forceful rumbling of a waterfall filled her ears. The power of it vibrated up through her feet, mists floating through the air like smoke and nearly obscuring the crest where the waters of Gaia’s Lake dropped off the edge, plummeting down to the river below.
“The Source,” Aurum said, awestruck. She bent down and dipped her hands into the water, wondering if she would feel it.
“Not the lake,” Assana said. “The true power is in the life of the water after it passes beyond the edge of the mountain. The Source is the waterfall itself, and to enter it, you must be willing to commit yourself to becoming one with it. It shouldn’t be difficult for a creature of the air such as yourself, but you’ll have to keep your wings hidden for this journey.”
Aurum frowned and stared off toward the mist-shrouded edge of the lake. “What about the ursa? Aren’t they going to have a little trouble with that?” She stood and walked along the shore, carefully picking her way over huge, mossy boulders until she reached the edge and looked down.
Nothing but white mist for thousands of feet greeted her, the occasional rainbow glinting in the morning sunlight. The river below was so far down it was difficult to see from here. And the idea of diving off the edge thrilled her to no end.
“I’m not worried about the males. Most of them grew up diving off waterfalls. Maybe never this particular one—this place is too sacred to the ursa to allow for more than quiet meditation and rejuvenating solitude. Besides, what awaits them on the other side will be worth it. You aren’t having second thoughts already, are you? I noticed Nicholas didn’t come to the interviews this morning.”
“No, he didn’t,” Aurum shook her head. “And there’s no way he’d be able to go through with that jump, either. How soon until the others come? There has to be another way for him to get in, if he changes his mind.”
Assana shared her worried look. “The other clan males are all camping at the lower falls and won’t be here for a few hours, but we can’t go back for him. As long as he’s inside the Sanctuary, this is the best way for him to get into the Haven, but he has to be on the list. I’ll try to convince him in two weeks if he doesn’t come today. But please, don’t back out now, Aurum. I need you in. Calder and I both need you on our sides—you’re strong enough to change our mother’s mind.”
Swallowing down a fresh knot of emotion, Aurum nodded. “Promise me you will find him when you come back. I hate leaving him behind, but I have to go. I know I have to go.”
“I promise,” Assana said.
Chapter Thirty
Nicholas
For the first time in weeks, Nicholas watched the sunrise without Aurum. A cold emptiness seeped into him that was contrary to the warmth of the morning. This entire place—his rediscovered home—was idyllic. The Sanctuary was everything he had dreamed of and more. Despite his mother being gone, he’d found a family filled with love and acceptance. It was exactly the home he’d always wanted, the family he’d always wanted, but it all seemed meaningless if she wasn’t going to share it with him.
He had hated her for a moment the night before, when he’d put her on the spot. Should he have been surprised that she couldn’t answer the question when he put it to her that way? Fuck, if he’d had the option to go to Calder, wouldn’t he take it?
He had, actually … Assana had offered him the chance to go too, but it wasn’t the same. His time with Calder was over the second they left that prison cell, and he knew it. To show up now would presume too much about Calder’s feelings.
But he would go if he knew Calder wanted him. He would go in a heartbeat.
His gaze remained fixed on the horizon all morning, watching the sky turn light pink, then brighter as the sun made its way up behind the high peaks to the east, the direction the other half of his family resided in. A sharp pain sliced through his chest at the thought of his mother, who had managed to give him the gift of her love in spite of never seeing him again. He pulled her journal out of the satchel he’d packed with water and dried meat, unsure of how long he would hide up here at the top of the world. Long enough to avoid seeing Aurum leave.
Opening the cover, he started to read from the beginning again, needing the comfort of her words now more than ever. He was halfway through when one passage struck him like a lightning bolt.
His mother’s reflections on her
life usually mirrored his own experiences, even as limited as they were. He remembered a period about halfway through his captivity when Calder had seemed irrationally jealous of the time Nikhil spared for Nicholas. When Nicholas threw back in his face the other man’s constant talk of the female he was meant to mate when he was free, Calder had gone dead quiet.
“This is not a relationship of convenience to me, Nicholas,” Calder had said. “It will kill me when we leave here, because despite knowing she is there, it will mean I have to leave you. I would kill anyone who tried to take you from me now, and trust me, when something I love is threatened, I am as dangerous as a mother ursa. But I cannot fight Fate, as much as I wish I could. If I knew you were meant to be mine out there, things might be different, but that’s a current the River won’t show me. All I know of my future is her, but you are my present, and as long as we are here, I will fight for you.”
The River won’t show me …
Calder never knew what Nicholas’s future held. He had never said definitively that they weren’t fated to be together. Only that Aurum was meant to be his.
He got to the end of his mother’s words, and read the last sentence over and over: “I will always be here, my little Raven, because I am your family, and family persists through every turn your life takes. Love is fleeting and tricky to cultivate, so if you find it trying to take root, nurture it. It is the sapling among the ancient growth of the forest, while family are the protective trees surrounding it. Your family is timeless and immortal. We will always be here, so make sure if you find it, let love thrive first.”
She had found love with his father in spite of neither of them planning on it, or even wanting to be there, held prisoner by their enemy. The one thing she had always regretted was that she had failed to keep her promise to Hamish Windchaser at the end—the promise to make sure their son made it home so he could be raised inside the Sanctuary.
But now that Nicholas was here, he realized that the Sanctuary would always be here, that his family was strong and healthy, and at this rate, would keep growing. As a fertile ursa male, he wanted what the others had more than anything. Emma and her two Rainsong mates with their handful of a daughter; Jasper, Autumn, and Gunnar with their son; Jade and her twins, and the three males who had risked breaking ursa laws to be together.
They had all made sacrifices for the sake of love, and for family. Yet they were already here, and whole. What Nicholas wanted most was everything they had that he still lacked, and he knew deep in his soul—regardless of Aurum’s hesitance or Calder’s uncertainty—that the family he wanted was with them.
“Forgive me, sister,” he said, hurriedly rising and staring up at the sun now high in the sky. Fuck, how much time did he have? Assana had mentioned leaving for the Haven at sunset.
He stripped out of his clothes and stuffed them into his satchel, then slung the bag over his shoulder, leaving enough of a strap to accommodate his shifted size. A moment later, he was shifted and on all fours running down the mountain path. Nothing mattered but beating the sun across the sky and reaching Gaia’s Falls before sunset, before he lost his chance to prove to Aurum yet again that they belonged together.
Several hours later, he hadn’t even paused for breath, pushing himself harder than he ever had to get to her. The path up the mountain in the center of the Sanctuary was steep and treacherous. He came out into a clearing and slowed enough to take in the recently occupied campsites where only the remnants of small fires and the smell of smoke dwelled. He homed in on the boot tracks that had climbed the final stretch of path up to the summit and sped up again to follow.
Halfway up the path a huge, black shape barreled at him, roaring. The big bear toppled him over and he fell into the brush on the side of the path, dazed.
The bear shifted into a man with long, dark hair and a scruffy brown beard. “You aren’t authorized to be up here, friend,” he said. “All the males headed to the Haven are accounted for. You’ll have to wait your turn.”
Nicholas roared at him and lunged. Fuck waiting.
The man hadn’t been prepared for a fight, and Nicholas easily bowled him over. He went down with a hard thud and lay still. Nicholas sniffed his head briefly, and when he determined the man was only unconscious, he ran on.
At the top of the path he saw the backs of several men and the curvaceous, dark-haired shape of the nymph Assana, nodding as each one passed.
Scanning the line of people, he looked for Aurum, but she was nowhere to be found. How in the world had she even gotten past those guards? Or Assana, if the nymph was in charge of ensuring only the eligible males made it in?
Then his attention caught on the golden gleam of the sunset casting a halo around the head of the big, blond ursa standing by Assana’s side. There was something familiar about that hair and the man’s golden eyes, the way they seemed to draw in the sunlight. Nicholas’s heart skipped a beat when he saw the worried expression on the man’s face as he said something to Assana, gave the woman a huge hug, and then fell into the group of other males shedding their clothing as they headed toward the water’s edge.
He didn’t know how he knew, but that golden-haired male must be Aurum. She must have found a way to fool the guards, to disguise herself as one of the males to be let in.
Rising up on his hind legs, he shifted into human form and ran toward her, calling her name.
“Aurum, wait! Please, I was wrong. I’m sorry!”
The blond man froze and turned, eyes wide and mouth open. “Nicholas?”
She glanced back at the line of males wading into the water and swimming shoulder to shoulder into the current. Assana had moved up behind the last one and was taking her first steps into the water beside Aurum. She turned, saw Nicholas as well, and frowned. He heard a soft curse come from the nymph.
“Nicholas, hurry up!” Aurum yelled. “They’ll catch you—you shouldn’t be here.”
Assana was shaking her head. A heavy scowl on her pretty face, she waded back out of the water and jogged toward him, but Nicholas was already running again and blew past her, diving into the water and swimming out toward Aurum.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” he asked, breathless when he reached her … him? He wasn’t sure, but when Aurum embraced him and lay a grateful kiss on him, he knew it was her, even if she had a beard.
She laughed at his bewildered expression. “It is me. But don’t get used to this. It’s only temporary. Come on.” She glanced in alarm toward the edge of the lake. “You’ve pissed off a few people, so we’d better hurry if you’re really coming.”
She tugged his hand and Nicholas followed, swimming alongside her. A quick look over his shoulder and he understood her worry. The entire shoreline was lined with bears and Assana was holding up her hands, gesturing rapidly as she seemed to be explaining something to the irate group. One of the ursa shifted into a man and rubbed at the back of his head. Nicholas recognized the man he’d knocked out earlier and grimaced at the look of pure anger on his face.
He swam faster, hoping this wasn’t going to be a problem Assana couldn’t handle. The current grew stronger, pulling him along behind the other males. When he glanced back again, the bulk of the guards were ambling away while the one in human form still stood there, glaring at the water.
A second later, a dark head surfaced directly in front of him. He reeled back, treading water. Assana’s whirlpool gaze nearly skinned him alive with her ire.
“You’re lucky I like you, bear boy,” she said. “I gave you a chance to join the group legitimately. You’d better hope the little miscount won’t raise any alarms when we get to the Haven. Now I hope you’re ready for the fall, because we’re going over.”
The misty rocks ahead of them grew closer, and when he redirected his attention there, he saw male after male launching themselves off the huge rocks, sailing out over the edge like swimmers off a high-dive.
&n
bsp; His blood chilled in his veins and he reflexively started to backpedal, but the current was too strong.
“You can do it, Nicholas,” Aurum said. “You have to!” Her face was filled with concern and she shared a worried look with Assana.
“Nicholas, this is your only chance. If you don’t come, I won’t be able to let you in the next time. Not after breaking the rules the way you did. It’s now or never.”
Fucking now or never? He had to choose between his greatest fear and losing the love of his life for Gaia knew how long?
“I can’t … there has to be another way!” The pounding churn of the falls were in his head, the current steadily pushing at his back, sending him closer and closer to the point of no return. He’d fucking die if he went over. The sky would swallow him whole beyond the edge of that cliff.
Suddenly the golden-haired male swimming against the current ahead of him changed shape, and Aurum’s beautiful face looked back at him, her long hair wet and tangled around her bare shoulders.
“Come to me, Nicholas. I won’t let you get lost in the sky. Soon enough we’ll be at the end and Calder will be there. Both of us will be there.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head frantically. He couldn’t let her help him. Deep down he knew there was no other way, but it would be worse if she forced him, or worse yet, carried him.
The current shoved him violently along until they reached the row of huge boulders at the very edge of the falls. He reached one and grabbed hold, clinging for dear life. Aurum was pushed past too swiftly to grab hold of him or any of the rocks. A second later she was gone, sent over the edge.
“Aurum!” he yelled, his stomach lurching violently at the sudden loss of her. He hauled himself out of the water, ignoring the nymph swimming around him like the force of the current meant nothing to her.
“You have to dive, Nicholas!” Assana yelled. “It’s the only way!”
He crouched on the slick rock, the rapids splashing against his naked legs. He kept his eyes tightly closed, unwilling to look past the edge and down. Aurum was gone, and he had to go too, if he wanted to be with her. It was only a jump, two steps and a leap off the rock. He’d done harder things in his life, endured torture at the hands of his captors for decades. Been forced to do things he hated. He’d found love somehow in the midst of the horrors, and again afterward when he thought that love was lost, there was more waiting for him.
