“No, you’re not.”
“Listen, I don’t know what they told you, but I’m a Shifter. Do you know what that means?”
“That you require the occasional flea bath?”
“It means I can break every bone in your body before you can even think about defending yourself.”
Joshua looked at Talley. “He really believes that, doesn’t he?”
“We want to talk to Sarvarna,” she said instead of answering his question.
Again, he waved off the request to speak to the Alpha Female. “No, you don’t.”
“We don’t?” Jase asked. “What exactly makes you think that?”
“Because you hate that bitch almost as much as I do.”
Chapter 11
Joshua was genuinely happy for the couple sitting on the bed. When he’d first hacked into the school’s network and made certain he ended up sharing a room with the person everyone assured him was the most conceited Shifter in the Hagan Pack, he thought he was setting himself up for weeks of misery. The first day had tested his patience, but then Talley had shown up with a box full of gourmet cupcakes and enough goodwill to light up even a dank dorm room. The surly, self-important roommate he’d been trying to start a conversation with for the past hour changed in the blink of an eye. His sarcastic comments went from mean to witty, and the apathetic expression on his face was swept away by pure adoration. From then on, Joshua got his daily entertainment watching the two of them flying towards the inevitable. Along the way, he’d learned that Jase wasn't quite as annoying as he originally thought. In fact, he was starting to see why most people couldn’t help but smile when they said his name.
“W-we don’t hate Sarvarna.”
“You don’t hate the woman who tried to kill your best friend?” Knowing Talley, she really didn’t. ‘Hate’ didn’t seem to be a word in her vocabulary. “You’re a better woman than I, Miss Matthews.”
“We’re Alpha Pack Potentials,” Jase said, his eyes weighing Joshua’s response. “We serve Sarvarna and trust her judgment in all things.”
Jase’s tenacity in not blowing his cover would have been admirable if it wasn’t so damn annoying. “You can drop the act. I’m no more an Alpha Pack loyalist than you are.”
A movement just out of his line of sight caught his attention. Joshua shifted his gaze just enough that he could watch Talley’s foot inch towards his without giving away where his focus had gone.
“Talley, I don’t think it’s appropriate to play footsie with your boyfriend sitting right there,” Joshua said when her foot finally touched his own.
“Sorry,” she said, jerking it back under the covers. “I- I-”
“You were just trying to See if I was telling the truth.” He kicked off his flip-flop and stuck his foot up next to hers. “It’s okay. Footsie away.”
Instead of attempting another foot-to-foot contact, Talley reached out and grabbed onto his ankle with her hand. He felt a push of… something in his mind, but then it was gone. Talley’s eyebrows were knitted together when she looked up at him. “You’re blank.”
“Blank?”
Jase’s fingers visibly tightened around the hand she wasn’t using to latch onto Joshua’s ankle. “What do you mean ‘blank’?” he asked.
“I mean, I can’t get a read off of him. It’s like hitting a wall.” Her forehead crinkled. “No, that’s not the right analogy. There is something there, I just can See it clearly. It’s like he’s hiding behind a thick fog, kind of like Walker…” Her eyes flew wide open. “Thaumaturgic?”
“Immortal.”
She and Jase looked at one another, and he fully expected them to turn back around and tell him they didn’t believe in immortals, but to his surprise when Talley looked his way again she asked, “Can you project?”
Joshua took a deep breath, and then using a voice he was sure they could hear at the end of the hall, said, “Four score and seven years ago…”
Jase glared, but Talley giggled, confirming his belief that she was the one with the sense of humor in the relationship.
“Wrong kind of projecting,” she said. “I can See thoughts and emotions. You’re closed off to me now, but I think if you tried to project them into my head, I would be able to See you.”
“That doesn’t sound like a very good plan. What if I project lies?”
“I’ll know.”
“Are you sure?”
Talley leaned in and met his eyes. “If you want to try lying to me, fine. Try it. But I’m warning you right now, it’s not going to work.”
He almost wanted to try it to see if she was really that good or if she was bluffing.
“Have I mentioned yet this morning that I love you?” Jase was apparently admiring her power play as much as he was.
“What’s it going to be, Joshua?” She squeezed his ankle. “Are you willing to let me in?”
He’d never projected his thoughts to anyone before, but he figured it was just like projecting your voice. He took a deep breath and then thought with as much clarity and force as he could, “I’m an ally, Stella Polaris. You can trust me.”
“Did you just call me the North Star?”
Jase cocked an eyebrow. “Since you didn’t ask me to forcefully remove his limbs from his body, I’m guessing that experiment went well?”
“Oh yeah. He’s good people,” she said with a wave of her hand like it was a foregone conclusion. “What did you mean by Stella Polaris?”
Taking Talley’s word as to Joshua’s standing as a non-enemy as gospel, Jase crashed back against the wall, no longer battle ready. “Stella Polaris? What does Paul McCartney’s daughter have to do with anything?”
“Stella Polaris is Latin. It means ‘pole star’, which for us, is the North Star,” Talley calmly explained to Jase. “And Joshua acted like it was my name. It had the timbre of something meaningful.”
His thoughts had a timbre? And Talley could tell what it meant? Joshua realized he might be underestimating the scope of Talley’s power, which he already knew to be considerable.
“It’s not a name, but a position. The Stella Polaris. The Brightest Star. The Ruler of the Seers. A long time ago, in a galaxy not so far away, the Stella Polaris was a position equal to that of the Alpha Female.” He didn’t have to explain to them that this was a time when the Alpha Female wasn’t a Seer herself. From all the information he’d gathered from his sources, Jase and Talley knew exactly what, and who, the true Alpha Female was. Many people thought the two of them had turned their back on her when she had faced off with Sarvarna and Stefan, but Joshua’s gut told him they were doing what they could to protect her. It had only taken a few nights’ worth of surveillance to be proven correct.
“How does an Immortal know about stuff the Alpha Pack will kill to keep secret?” Jase asked.
“Well, it helps that I can’t be killed.” Not that they hadn’t tried. He still felt queasy when anyone mentioned Rome, and he had developed a pathological fear of the Bee Gees. “It’s taken a lot of digging, and I don’t have anything even close to resembling the full picture, but there are a group of nuns in Chile who have existed for hundreds of years. They claim to be the descendants of great Seers, and they worship the Stella Polaris in the way other orders worship the Virgin Mary. They pray incessantly for her return. When I visited them, they said a Future Seer in Canada wrote to them and proclaimed the Stella Polaris was once again walking the earth. The Future Seer talked about great changes coming to the world of Shifters and Seers, and said the Stella Polaris would be part of the rebellion, bringing equality back to her people.”
“And this letter named Talley specifically?”
“No, but it did mention that the Stella Polaris was born on a windy March night and referred to her as having dual Sights for her positions in dual packs.” Joshua rubbed his chin. “Which pack do you think gets credit for your visions?” he as Talley. “If you ask me, that’s a Matthew’s talent. The Hagans seem more like get-inside-your-head k
ind of people.”
Talley looked a little shell-shocked. “I was born in March.”
Joshua tapped the side of his nose. “Right you are.”
While Talley seemed to be handling the news in the same way she might handle having a nightly news correspondent tell her aliens had just landed in New York City, Jase seemed to find the fact that she was a long-lost supernatural deity fairly normal. “Did this letter say anything else?” he asked while Talley had a staring contest with the wall.
“Well,” Joshua said, “it did mention one person by name - Liam Cole.”
“Is that why you want to find him? Because you want to be part of the rebellion?” Talley asked, snapping out of her trance.
“Or because you want to stop it?” Jase added on.
“If he can bring down the Alpha Pack, then I will swear my eternal allegiance to Liam Cole,” Joshua said. “And when I say ‘eternal’ allegiance, I mean eternal. I don’t die, and neither do my loyalties.”
“Why the Alphas?” Talley’s hand squeezed his ankle slightly as if she didn’t fully expect him to answer her question truthfully without the reminder that she would know if he lied. “Shifters and Immortals stay so far out of each other’s politics that most of us don’t even believe you guys exist. Honestly, even though they accused Scout of being a Thaumaturgic, I’m not entirely sure the Alphas themselves believe in you.”
“Her name was Evelyn Marie Northcutt.” It was as if saying her name conjured her ghost. He had purposefully not thought of the specifics of her in years, yet with those three words every detail of her was called to mind as if his memory refused to let go despite his strong desire to forget and escape the pain thinking about her brought. “She was the most beautiful girl in Asheville, North Carolina. Her eyes were a kaleidoscope of colors and there were more freckles on her skin than stars in the sky.” I’m just tracing the constellations, he told her as his fingers tickled across her bare skin. “And she was talented. There wasn’t an instrument she couldn’t play, and her voice was enough to make grown men cry. For reasons that never made sense to anyone, including my parents, she agreed to marry me.”
Talley’s eyes glittered with unshed tears. “She was a Shifter.”
“No, not a Shifter. Evey was a Seer.” He hadn’t known until he’d been drowning his grief in the infinite supply of moonshine he'd lifted from his parents’ storage building. Benjamin had found him literally face-down in a ditch just outside the city limits. Once he was hosed down and sober, Benjamin explained how the world wasn’t quite as cut-and-dry as most people suspected. He told him about what Evelyn really was and why she was murdered. And then he’d offered Joshua the chance to make it right. Joshua didn’t even think about it. He just accepted the offer and spent every day since in his quest to destroy the Alpha Pack. “Did you know that once you’ve been claimed by a Shifter there is no going back?” he asked Talley. “It doesn’t matter if he’s a fifty year old man who has tried to grope you ever since you turned twelve and grew breasts or not. If he wants you and the Pack Leader accepts his claim, you’re his. And if you refuse to be with him and he finds out you’ve gone and given yourself away to some local boy you fell in love with, he can petition the Alpha Pack to have you punished.” Joshua had found her a little over an hour after he they had finished whipping her. By then, it was too late. He’d tried, loading her into his car and driving like a bat out of hell into town, but she was dead by the time they found a doctor.
Talley’s face was ashen, and Jase was protectively holding her against his side.
“I’ve been trying to find a way to bring down the Alphas for seventy years, and this is the first time I’ve ever believed it can actually happen. It’s why you have to get me to Liam. I have to be there when they fall. If not, all this time, all this pain, was for nothing.”
Jase scrubbed a hand over his face. “Listen, man, I get it. Seriously, I do.” He pulled Talley against him even tighter. “But you have to understand, this isn’t going to be pretty. There really isn’t any way this isn’t going to end without bloodshed, and if Talley’s visions are right, a hell of a lot of it.”
“Have you forgotten the part where I’m Immortal? I did mention that I’ve been in the vengeance business for seventy years, right?”
Talley’s eyelids fluttered, releasing some of the moisture building up in her eyes. “So you can’t die? At all?” Joshua hadn’t told many people the truth of his existence. Actually, Jase and Talley pushed the grand total up to three, but he’d never expected anyone to ask those questions with sympathy instead of amazement. If he wasn’t certain Jase would try to kill him, he would have proclaimed deep and beautiful feelings for the Seer.
“I’m indestructible. Rip me from limb to limb, and I’ll simply come back together.” Not that it had ever gotten that bad before, but he’d done more than his fair share of mending over the years.
Talley tilted her head, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “But you’ll still feel it, won’t you?”
“A paper cut won’t kill you, but that doesn’t stop Jase from crying like a baby when he gets one.”
“I did not cry.”
“It’s okay,” Talley said, patting his knee. “It was a really bad paper cut. I would’ve cried, too.”
“I didn’t cry! I may have cursed every human to have ever worked for the paper industry, but I didn’t cry.” Jase tried to glare at Talley, but it’s hard to pull off a good glare when your eyeballs turn into little animated hearts every time you look at someone. “And don’t think I don’t see what you did there, He-Who-Can-Not-Die. I’m the king of distracting statements, so they don’t work on me.” The glare he threw Joshua’s way was a bit more effective, but Joshua wasn’t easily cowed by disapproving looks from teenagers. “Walking into the middle of Shifter war will cause you enough pain to wish you were dead. It’s no place for a civilian.”
“To stick with the lovely armed forces metaphor you’ve obviously worked so hard on, I’m not a civilian.” Joshua jumped up, lifted the mattress off his bed, and grabbed the scabbard hidden underneath. “You might consider me part of the special forces, like an Army Ranger or Rambo.”
“Or Conan the Barbarian.” Jase climbed off his bed to further inspect the sword Joshua had pulled free of its sheath. “Dude, you were sleeping with a sword hidden in your bed every night? Do you have any idea the number of jokes running through my head right now?”
“I’m sure they’re all as clever as they are inappropriate,” Talley said, eyeing the gleaming blade warily. “Joshua, you do know how to use that, right?”
Joshua smiled and rotated his wrist, causing the blade to whoosh by Jase’s head, missing his ear by less than an inch. “I’m getting the hang of it.”
“While your sword is very impressive, as I’m sure was the Renaissance Festival where you bought it, it doesn’t change the fact that you want to bring sword to a Shifter fight.”
“I don’t see a problem with that,” Talley said.
“I just don’t think—”
“How about a wager?” Joshua said, cutting Jase off. “Single elimination arm wrestling match. I win, I get to be part of this. You win, I leave you alone and stay out of it.”
“Just to be fair, you do realize I’m a Shifter and the full moon is only a few days out, right?”
Joshua slid the sword back into its scabbard. “So you turn into a coyote in a few nights. Can’t make that big of a difference can it?”
It took a few minutes to clear off a spot big enough for them to actually have a fair match, and then a few more for Talley to locate a can of Lysol so she could spray down the surface of the desk to “kill off whatever disgusting things were growing there”. Once they had a germ-free, uncluttered space, the two boys clasped hands, and Talley placed hers on top.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked Joshua. “I know how important this is to you.”
He met her eyes with a smile. “That’s why I plan on winning.”
Sh
e didn’t look so certain, but she said, “On the count of three then. One… two… three!”
She let go, and immediately Joshua’s hand sailed back towards the desk. It was only an inch from hitting the faux-wood surface when its downward descent came to a halt. “I think it’s sad how little your kind knows about our kind,” Joshua said as his hand slowly stared rising. “If you weren’t so sure that you’re the most powerful and amazing creatures in the world and took the time to find out what other supernaturals are out there, you may learn a few things.” The hands were now back to their original position, and Jase’s face was showing signs of strain. “For example, you might discover that what you call an Immortal, is also known as an Er’el and is blessed with the strength of Samson himself.” And with that, Joshua slammed Jase’s hand down onto the desk.
“Samson-like strength, huh?” Jase asked through teeth gritted in pain.
“Bring on the lions.”
Jase looked to Talley, who gave a slight nod. “Well, then,” he said, offering his non-injured hand to his roommate. “Welcome to the rebellion.”
Epilogue
One year later…
“Fine. I hereby declare you mates.” Scout crossed Talley as if she was a Catholic priest giving a blessing. “Go forth and mate.” It only took her a millisecond to realize what she said. “Ignore that last part. Please, don’t mate. Like ever. Because it’s Jase, and that’s just gross.”
Talley hooked her arm around Scout’s and patted her bicep. “You do realize that isn’t going to work, don’t you? The mating ceremony is a… thing.”
“I don’t want to do a thing.”
“But you have to. You’re Alpha now.” Talley wasn’t sure exactly how that statement could seem so strange and so right at the same time, but it did. Two years ago, Scout didn’t know Shifters existed. Now, she was the first Shifter Alpha Female in two millennia. It was pretty unbelievable until you actually took the time to look at Scout and see how she interacted with others of their kind. Once you saw her putting a thirty year old Pack Leader in his place, you knew she was where she was supposed to be in life. So what if she was only nineteen years old and didn’t have a clue about Shifter and Seer customs?
All We See & Seem (Timber Wolves) Page 9
