by Nara Malone
We have to wait for Ean.
Ean. Reality penetrated his romantic mood. Something’s up with Ean, love. He’s closed up, guarding some secret.
She turned, licking him under his chin, a spot that could turn him from mighty, black tiger to mewing cub.
Call him. Her words purred down his spine. I can make him talk.
Adam sent a call.
He says start without him. He’ll be along soon.
We’re not starting without him.
Since Marie couldn’t send thoughts more than a few feet, Adam relayed the message and turned his attention to changing her mind.
You can practice your interrogation technique on me while we wait.
Marie purred. Brave boy.
* * * * *
Marisa fretted in her grandfather’s arms. Ean paused to touch her cheek on his way to collect Aleah. The baby went still under his touch. Her eyes focused on him, intent blue-black pools, almost as if she knew. Guilt, he decided. His own guilty conscience pecked at him over taking the coward’s way out and slipping off without saying goodbyes—or getting tangled in all the arguments they would throw at him. The babies had a way of looking wise, like they knew secrets, and Ean shook off the feeling, turning to lift Aleah and then scooping up Lara in his other arm.
A row of bassinets lined one wall, a row of rockers the other. Ean dropped into a chair next to the magus, nudging a carton of diapers aside with his foot to gain legroom. In the month since the births, gear had accumulated in heaps around the tidy nursery. Even Adam’s powers of organization failed under the combined force of seven little girls.
The moon illuminated the nursery, milky light casting the room in shades of blue. Jake would put in an appearance soon, but for now, there were only three on duty. Maya was walking the floor with a baby on her shoulder. She grabbed two bottles from the warmer and helped Ean juggle the task of getting bottles into two mouths at once.
Aleah fixed him with a dark-eyed stare while her mouth worked the nipple. He hadn’t thought there was a power on earth that would move him to resist Marie’s tongue against his ear, or a seductive invitation whispered to his mind. The distressed whimper of his daughter was a force—one with potential the girls had barely tapped—beyond any he’d encountered. It was for them that he would go now. Of everyone here, he was the most likely to draw the trouble stalking them.
This would be his last time rocking babies in the nursery. He lifted his head breathing the scent of milk and baby powder and new babies. Even Marisa’s fretting, a background noise like static on a radio, would be missed.
Her grandfather never lost patience with her constant need for attention. She was rarely out of his arms. He’d ruin her, but Ean left him to it. Adam would intervene before she was hopelessly spoiled.
The slightest hum of tension disturbed her. Ean was still giving serious thought to a tinfoil liner in the bassinet, or maybe a foil nightie. Only the magus, with an aura that could shield her from a nuclear blast, could coax those little blue eyes to close. He was just the security blanket she needed while adjusting to life outside her mother.
Ean could sympathize with Marisa’s clinging. The current discussion had him wishing he could go back and tuck into the safe harbor of his family. But the isle of Pantheria was not the paradise it used to be. And his family couldn’t shelter him from choices made and results reaped. Ean shifted his weight as gently as he could, Lara already asleep in the crook of his right arm and Aleah inching toward sleep in his left.
“It has to be a clean break,” the magus was saying. He spoke in the hushed tones drowsy babies inspired. “The law demands custody of the children go to the tribe when you break the reproduction mandates. You can’t respond to any queries or contact any old friends. No one knows where the two of you are and Adam keeps to himself. No one will discover the girls or Marie if we keep it that way.”
“Suits me just fine,” Maya mumbled. She plunked down in a chair next to Ean.
“It’s easier said than done. You don’t appreciate the network of support you had. Friends and relatives have always been there if you needed advice, needed a hand. You’re stepping into a life that has no safety net, save the one we weave here, between the six of us. It will be like walking a high wire, with only a spider web to catch any misstep.”
“It’s not like we have a choice,” Maya said. “It’s done.”
“I wouldn’t change what’s done.” Ean paused to plant a kiss on Aleah’s forehead. Startled, her foot kicked out and thumped Lara’s elbow. Lara wriggled, her fists opened and closed. When she yawned, a tiny milk bubble formed between her lips. So of course, Ean had to kiss her too, a soft touch of lips to the fluff of red hair, before he picked up his thought. “The sacrifice is worth the reward.”
Homesickness tightened his chest. Never seeing Pantheria again was a high price. He looked into his daughters’ faces, ready to pay a higher price to keep them. The magus was wrong. Pulling together wasn’t what they needed now. He was first on the list of people Maya would contact for help. If he vanished, lived wild in the deep forests of the Blue Ridge, they’d never find him, couldn’t peel truth from his mind that would lead to his forbidden family.
“We don’t need them,” Maya said. She was rocking so hard Elise threw out both tiny arms as if she expected to take flight. “I’m looking forward to having my own place, having a job.”
“What?” Ean stopped rocking.
“Marie said I can live in her old apartment and Jake has a job for me.”
“No he doesn’t, and no you won’t,” Ean said. Impossible. Had they lost their minds?
“It’s really not up to you.” Maya’s tone dismissed him.
“Magus, make her understand. This world doesn’t value females. It is nothing like what she is accustomed to. It will eat her alive!”
“Despite what your superior maleness may think,” Maya spat, her whisper fierce, “I am not some ignorant child that needs things explained to me.”
Marisa waved her arms and whimpered. The magus put her to his shoulder and patted her back. “Enough,” he told them. “Ean, she has to make her own life.”
And wasn’t that what he was about to do? Ean opened his mouth to argue anyway, but couldn’t dredge up a good rebuttal. The Magus had an annoying habit of being perpetually right.
“Yes sir,” he mumbled. And to Maya, “Sorry.”
“I don’t suppose Adam mentioned that Jake and I are living in the area.”
The magus meant it as a comfort, Ean was sure. Somehow, he wasn’t comforted by thought of Maya involved in their oddball experiments.
Maneuvering carefully, so as not to disturb the sleeping girls, Ean rose. He settled Aleah in one bed and Lara in the next, going back to tuck each in when his hands were free. Erin was awake, sucking her fingers, waiting patiently for someone to produce her dinner. Ean lifted her to his shoulder and grabbed a fresh bottle from the warmer. The baby’s breath was warm against his neck. It softened the tight knot in his belly. He nuzzled the soft spot in her head, breathing the flowery little-girl scent. Did anything smell as sweet?
“No, Adam didn’t mention it,” Ean said, settling into the rocker and tucking the bottle into Erin’s rounded mouth. “I guess we haven’t had time to catch up on the social news.”
He was pouting. He hated the petty feeling, but he knew, without hearing the arguments, that Maya would win and would wind up someplace with no one to look out for her. And yet, Maya with the magus was an arrangement that would cushion Adam, keep attention from wandering in his direction.
“Males are strangling the female force, Ean,” the magus continued. “If we’re to discover a cure for the wasting, it has to be approached in a non-traditional way. That starts with letting go of traditions that stifle females.”
“So, we just let the maniacs roaming the streets have at her?”
“How about,” Maya said, rising and carrying Elise to her bed, “we trust her wisdom to guide her. Maybe we co
uld even include her in the discussion instead of talking around her.”
The magus closed his eyes, still patting Marisa’s back, still rocking.
With the last baby tucked in, Maya kissed Ean’s cheek and headed for the door. “I love you too,” she said, “but I can’t live with you.”
Seven daughters. One mate. One sister. It hit him then, for the first time in his life, he was in a place where females outnumbered males. How long would the numbers hold?
“They are healthy girls, Ean,” the magus said breaking into his thoughts. “There’s no sign of wasting sickness in any of them. The mutation that produced Marie protects them all.”
“So you and Adam have concluded Marie is a genetic aberration?”
“There are no genetic engineering facilities capable of producing Pantherians. They can produce chimera, a hybrid of animal, but not Pantherians. The ability to shift between species eludes them. At the time Marie was conceived, they hadn’t even mastered cloning.”
“Then she would have to have come from Pantheria. But there is no record of her birth.”
Marisa’s fretful wail interrupted. The magus cupped his hand behind her head. She sighed nuzzling into his neck.
“Having studied this teleporting and shifting skill that Marisa displays, I suspect some similar situation separated Marie from her family. My best guess is that someone broke reproduction mandates and tried to conceal the offspring. Perhaps the trauma of losing her family caused Marie to suppress her tiger nature and unique talents. Or, it may have been the need to conform to human expectations. We can only guess at the details.”
The conclusions made sense. If Marie’s genes protected the girls from the wasting, and every force their grandfather could call up would be enlisted to make them safe, nothing else mattered. The shadow that haunted Ean lifted. Maybe Maya was right. They’d used up all the bad karma life had stored up for them and were turning the corner into the good times. Ean intended to make sure of it.
Marisa moved from fretting to wails that wrung Ean’s heart. The magus hustled to the door, his tone a rushed whisper. “I’ll take her downstairs where she can’t wake the others.”
The change in scenery quieted Marisa. Ean listened to the magus’s light steps descending, replaced by a heavier step ascending and the scrabble of Lilly’s paws close behind. Lilly waited for Jake’s arrival each evening. The night shift was here and Ean had a journey ahead. He looked around the quiet nursery, pain swelling in a tide that squeezed his heart into a small corner of his chest. A tiger called from the forest—Marie, tempting him with a feline love song.
Chapter Sixteen
They were nose to nose, the river running cold fingers through their fur. Marie’s warm breath mingled with Adam’s. Nothing could feel as perfect as this letting go, eyelids half closed. A frog watched them between blades of grass a few feet away. And a doe had gathered the courage to graze on lush grass between river and wood, a pair of fawns close to her side.
Marie lifted a paw and batted gently at Adam’s head. He growled softly and bumped her chest, sending her backward into soft fiddlehead ferns along the bank. She rolled to her back, her head resting in the ferns while her body floated in water. He took advantage and pinned her under him while she continued to bat at him.
He licked her chest, his tongue savoring the taste and glide of fur. His eyelids drooped and his purr flowed over her. He was thinking that Ean was going to miss out when Marie went rigid under him. Her head snapped right, connecting with his so hard he saw stars. It happened so fast. He hit river bottom and was inhaling waterweeds before he understood she was gone.
He lunged for the surface, sending the frog diving for safety and the doe leaping into the forest.
No Marie.
He blew water from his nose and sneezed twice. It still felt like he had a thousand needles stabbing his nasal passage. The night had gone quiet, all the creatures hidden in the greenery cautious of him. Or was it something else they feared? He couldn’t catch her scent and called out telepathically.
His father responded. Is Ean with you? Adam could feel the desperation attached to inquiry crawl through his brain.
No. And Marie just vanished.
So has Marisa. I can’t call Ean. He’s been guarded all evening, but now he is shut tight. I can’t even feel a glimmer of Marisa’s presence.
Adam tried calling Ean, a panicked vibration hammering the thought plane. No response.
With a leap and a shake that showered the shrubbery, Adam exited the river.
I’ll check the yard. You check through the house.
Stripped of all the extrasensory ways to connect, they were reduced to searching on foot, with the basic five senses.
* * * * *
Ean strode along the road’s edge, each scuff of his boot sent white stones skittering across the smooth asphalt. This section leading to Adam’s house was deserted, but when he hit the main road he could hitch a ride. It was a perfect plan. Everyone was distracted. No one would notice his absence until he was safely away.
Then a snow-white cub materialized like a ghost, right in the center of the road. Terror punched through him.
Marisa. He dropped his bag and lunged for her, his hands closed around empty air. A rustle behind him spun him around and there she was at the roadside, laughing eyes, batting the air with one paw.
This time Ean inched closer. “You know Daddy doesn’t want you shifting. It’s not good for little girls.”
A giggle rippled through his mind and she vanished again. Ean threw up his hands. Telepathy at her age? Telepathy that could penetrate the lock he’d had on his thoughts, apparently. How were they supposed to keep a child like this alive?
“Marisa,” he said aloud, “you’re scaring the life out of me. Show yourself. Right now!”
Another giggle. It was such a light happy sensation it almost pried a smile from him. He was not going to think of the implications. She could not manipulate his mood!
A branch rustled above his head. She was walking along a limb that didn’t look sturdy enough to suit Ean. This was why shifting was a skill that came with adolescence. Power without wisdom to control it could be deadly.
“Marisa, come down,” Ean pleaded. She stretched out on the branch, chin resting on a clump of tiny oak leaves, paws dangling.
Ean studied the tree. There was no way the limb would hold if he went after her. By the time he got halfway to her, she’d vanish again.
“Marisa, Daddy has to go somewhere very important. You’re making him late.”
An energy burst behind him, knocked Ean flat on his face.
* * * * *
Nothing. Not a trace of either one, Adam called to his father.
Panic turned his legs to water and his brain to mush. Why would they vanish? Why wouldn’t they answer?
Reach for your center, son. You need a clear head.
His father was right. But Adam’s family was his center now. How could he find balance with part of it missing?
Have you found anything?
No sign. Unless the rabbit counts.
Has Lilly vanished too?
No, but she’s planted herself at the front window and she keeps thumping her foot.
I’ll check the front yard again.
He hoped he wasn’t wasting precious time. Lilly could be spooked by a circling owl. It wasn’t like he could have overlooked two tigers in his first pass, but there was nothing else to go on.
* * * * *
Marie could have knocked both their heads together.
Ean picked himself up from the ground, holding his nose with one hand, brushing his clothes off with the other.
Come down, Marisa.
Marisa scrabbled and gained her feet, swaying on wobbly legs for a heart-stopping moment before she righted herself and launched from the branch to Marie’s back.
Only when she felt the pad of small paws up her spine, the wobbly balance of her daughter making her way to her shoulders and th
en up onto her head, did Marie relax. It nearly stopped her heart when she felt a stab of pain in her brain, a picture of Marisa in tiger form piercing her awareness and then blinking out. She’d latched onto that signal like a homing device and come close to materializing inside Ean. The baby was licking her ears, an attempt to soothe her mother.
Go to Grandfather, sweetie. Understand?
Pop Pop.
Ean let go of his nose, it had a bloody scrape along the ridge, but his smile told Marie he heard too. Marisa’s first word.
Yes, Pop Pop. Go now.
In a flash she was gone.
Ean tipped his head sideways, listening. “He has her.” Ean winced. “He has a lot to say about all of us leaving without a word.” And then he added, “So does Adam.”
So did she, but communicating mentally frustrated her. Ean wasn’t capable of shifting her. And while she didn’t doubt Adam would appear within a few minutes, there were things Ean needed to know now.
She stalked toward him, tail whipping back and forth like a snake. He held up a hand. “This was not my fault. I did not bring her out here.”
He was exactly the reason Marisa had come, but that wasn’t the issue she needed to tackle now. Marie rose up on her rear legs, wrapped her forepaws around Ean’s neck and rested her chin on his shoulder. Was it possible to will his mind to open to her love? He swayed a bit under her weight. His arms stayed at his sides.
Love you, Ean.
Marie—
Love you, Ean. Don’t leave me.
His arms went around her. She angled her head, licked his battered nose and licked tears from his cheeks.
“I just want you safe, sweetheart.”
Only together. We’re only safe together. Even the baby knows that.
As soon as she materialized to find Ean on the road and the baby trying to delay him, Marie understood the true source of the problem. She’d only just managed to convince Adam that she needed both men in her life. Now Ean. Insecurity wasn’t something she’d expected from her big, bad tiger-men.
“Marie. Sweetheart…it’s complicated.”
