by Leela Ash
The hurt of that night so many years ago made his heart constrict in his chest and he faltered a little in his narration.
“She was pregnant,” Derek breathed. “Oh my goodness Luke, that means Caily is your—”
“No,” Luke cut in savagely. “She isn’t mine. It turned out Marissa had a fiancé and was pregnant with his child.”
Shocked silence reigned in the room and then Bo ventured, “No way. Babe would never cheat on anyone.”
“Well, she did,” Luke growled, hurt closing up his throat. “She didn’t want a shifter kid. I was just a fling. She used me to cheat on her fiancé.”
“How can you be so sure?” Derek asked.
“Sara told me herself that her daughter was already pregnant when she came to London. Sara showed me a video. Marissa was with another man and he was kissing her and telling her he loved her. Then, when I tried to see her at home, her mother offered me a check to leave her daughter alone. She said Marissa had never wanted a shifter mate. She didn’t want her children to be shifters when they came. She had only taken pity on me. I was to take the check and not tell her fiancé about us.”
“Are you sure Sara told the truth about Marissa?”
“I saw her face in the upstairs window when her mother was giving me the check; she didn’t try to come downstairs. And in that video, I heard her say she loved his size. I left after that. There was no reason to stay.”
A flash of memory intruded and Bo asked, “Did you go to your parents’ burial plot that night? Joshua swore he saw you there but he says you disappeared before he could be sure.”
Luke nodded, “I cried that night. I thought my world had ended. Then I realized it had all been a lie. She’d never loved me and her mother had never liked any shifters sniffing around her kid anyway.”
“Luke—” Bo tried.
“It was all a lie, Bo. From the first hello, to the last; nothing but lies. If it hadn’t been a lie, she would have come downstairs that night to talk to me. But she just stood in that window and watched Sara try to bribe me to stay silent. I told her I didn’t need her check. I didn’t need anything else. I just rushed back to London and stayed away; until now.”
They all lapsed into strained silence, unable to believe what they had just learned.
The herbs they wanted grew exactly where Marissa had said they would be and they plucked them up and headed back home, still in brooding silence.
Finally Luke broke it. “We need to decide on what to do about Nabradia.”
“If she is Nabradia,” Bo grunted.
“Exactly. I mean she entered the Cave of the Birthing Dragons and came out unharmed. No witch is powerful enough to do that. Only dragons or dragon born may do that,” Derek agreed.
“And no dragon born may be a witch,” Luke supplied.
“Luke? Are you still in love with Marissa?” Bo asked.
Derek cursed rapidly, silencing his brothers. “After what she did, she doesn’t deserve anyone’s love. She deserves our contempt!”
Luke sighed, leaned his head against the headrest and shut his eyes.
“Believe it or not guys, I still love her. How pathetic is that?”
* * *
“Caily don’t be naughty. Drop that hat, it’s Joshua’s.”
The eight-year-old brat turned around, hands akimbo, pigtails dancing as she shrilled in her childish voice, “Uncle Joshua says he’s my grandpa and I’m welcome to everything that is his. So, go find your own grandpa.”
“Young lady, get down from that dining table, otherwise you’ll be sorry.”
Caily grinned at her mother, unperturbed. “No I won’t.”
The door opened just then and Luke came in with Derek and Bo on his heels. She looked at them and offered them a cheerful smile. Hard, unsmiling faces looked back at her and her smile faltered.
Derek strode up to her, his face hard and uncompromising, as he hoisted a bunch of herbs clutched in his hand, “These are the herbs you wanted.”
“Right. Thank you.”
What was wrong with Derek? He usually had a grin for her but today he was as cold and distant as the moon.
“Where’s Jeanine?” Bo demanded. He looked withdrawn too but not as cold and forbidding as Luke and Derek.
Wordlessly Marissa pointed upstairs. Bo took the stairs two at a time without another word. What in the hell was going on, she wondered.
“Did you people have a problem finding the herbs? Would you care for some iced tea?” she asked brightly, directing the questions at Derek and Luke.
Derek’s gaze shifted to a point behind her shoulders and a dazzling smile dawned across his face. Only one person could bring such a smile to his face.
He rushed over and caught up Kelly in his arms. He plunged his lips against hers and they began to kiss with deep passion almost as though they were the only ones in the room.
Marissa looked away and her gaze fell on Luke. His eyes were hard and cold and she sighed. She supposed he had a right to be upset at how she had flung the past in his face in the heat of the moment but she hadn’t said anything that was entirely false.
“Look, I’m sorry about what—” she began.
“I don’t want to hear it,” he spat. Then he brushed past her and stalked off.
Marissa sighed as she went into the kitchen and placed the herbs in a pot. Anger began to grow in her like steam.
“I have more reason to be angry at him and he’s giving me attitude,” she grumbled.
Caily dashed into the kitchen just then and flung herself against her mum’s midsection giving her a hug, “I’m sorry I was stubborn, Mummy. Aunt Kelly said I made you unhappy. Sorry Mum.”
She looked so contrite and somber that Marissa’s heart turned over in her chest. She hugged her daughter close and bent to kiss her chubby cheeks.
Caily was all the more precious because every time she saw her daughter she remembered how she had been attacked that night while she waited for Luke in that park. Her abilities had helped her heal; her abilities had protected her child.
Her mother was convinced Luke was her attacker, but try as she might she couldn’t picture him in that role. His touch was different for one. Plus, even though he had turned out to be a weak weasel, he really didn’t have a mean bone in his body.
It was high time they spoke about that night otherwise it would always be between them and would always come out at the worst possible times, to cause problems between them.
Like yesterday. One minute she had been luxuriating in the decadent pleasure of being in his arms and the next she had been ready to bite his head off.
She couldn’t handle harboring a deep-seated anger, despite what Luke had done. She couldn’t face down the next fifty years carrying around a deep rooted sadness and bitterness over the love she had lost.
She needed closure.
She needed … closure.
16.
Nabradia was so happy, it was all she could do not to break out in dance. Every single day brought her closer to her goals. She had worked so well on the Archstones that they now hated the Weirna shifters with a virulence that defied all logic. She’d poisoned their wells and killed a few of them. She had burned down their farms and had infested their homes with rodents.
Most importantly, she had convinced them that these were all the doings of Joshua and his boys. Because of that, they had gladly attacked the Damaged Pack at the Cave of the Birthing Dragons; they had attacked Luke and his white wolf girlfriend and they had attacked the white wolf girl and the mountain lion the other day.
Her eyes gleamed. Of all the shifters in the world, she hated Luke Summers the most and she would not rest until she had destroyed his relationship with his girlfriend and his family.
The more the Archstones ‘retaliated’ against the Weirna shifters, the more the latter hated them and got closer to waging a full-out war against them. Very soon she would have both Tribes so busy they wouldn’t notice when she did what she really came for: crea
ting shifters just like herself.
She leaned back and closed her eyes, a satisfied grin on her lips. She snapped at Palma, “Play that music louder.”
Palma winced, her fingers frozen from the effort it took her to hold a tune in the mere air. Nabradia had taught her this trick thousands of years ago when they were kids and since then Palma and Luferia had been able to play music with no instruments whatsoever. They simply used the wind and their wands.
“My Queen, may I go massage my fingers a little first?” Palma asked meekly.
“You have a damn nerve,” came the answer.
Palma hesitated, “It’s just, my fingers are cramping up. If I don’t do it now, it would affect the quality of the music I play for you.”
Nabradia’s eyes popped open and she looked at the witch, “You have five minutes. Don’t make me wait.”
As the witch timidly slunk from the room, Nabradia wondered how Palma had ever served the real Nabradia without suffering heart failure. The silly witch was so scared and obedient it was almost comical.
Nabradia had the world at her feet. So many things had gone wrong in the past but now she was a hair’s breadth from getting Krilce’s Sobriety in her hands.
Once she had that, everything would be perfect. She had made the effort to try to change some humans into shifters by experimenting with a special poultice she had and dropping it into their water source. But each time, they fell horribly ill, turned part furry and died. The fact that they turned furry at all was consolation enough as far as she was concerned. It was proof that once she had the final ingredient, Krilce’s Sobriety, she would be able to transform all the humans to shifters. But that piece of diamond continued to elude her. It was the missing piece of the puzzle and once she had it, her problems would be over.
The compass had helped her narrow down its location to a portion of mountainous land just beyond Weirna, but in a few days it would show her the exact spot to find it.
Joy coursed through her and she rose from her seat to stand before the only mirror adorning the wall in her room. The need to see her real image for once was overwhelming and as she stared hard at the mirror, her body started to round out and her frame became shorter. Her hair reduced to a short fuzz and she changed completely into her real form. She was a plump, unattractive woman in her fifties and she didn’t have a consistent shifter animal side; she could only shift into any form that suited her. Nabradia’s form had suited her for the past few weeks now, she thought with an amused grin.
It had been so long since she saw this face, she thought as she reached out a hand and touched her face on the mirror. She was so absorbed in staring at her reflection that she didn’t notice Palma, wide-eyed and gaping behind the curtains.
Palma slowly backed away from the curtains, stifling a scream at this confirmation of her suspicions. She had suspected for a while that the woman in the room was not Nabradia, and couldn’t do any magic. That was the main reason she had decided to serve this woman who claimed to be Nabradia; she’d wanted to confirm her suspicions.
And now that she had, all she could think about was how incredibly kind those Damaged Pack boys had been to her. She had to find a way to go to them and tell them the truth.
Her chance came when it was time to pick some herbs for yet another poultice Nabradia wanted. The woman demanded a poultice for just about everything under the sun; even things a green witch could make happen just by waving her wand. It all made sense why she had never seen this new Nabradia perform any magic. She got Palma to perform all the magic she wanted.
Palma travelled at the edge of the forest, unchallenged by anyone. Everyone knew she was Nabradia’s servant so no one asked her what she was doing. She kept going deeper into the forest as she foraged, until she reached the Coyana Waters. Her eyes widened in surprise at how much work had been done there and felt her heart sing when she saw Luke supervising some men in pouring a load of concrete onto a newly chiseled path. She didn’t know his name but she sure as hell recognized all five of the Damaged Pack brothers when she saw them.
She started to go to him when she remembered Nabradia saying something about sending spies to watch the Pack’s every move. If she said anything now, they would report back to Nabradia. Her heart in her throat, she carefully wended her way through a narrow path in the forest, making certain to weave a spell of invisibility just as the real Nabradia had taught her.
She positioned herself patiently beside Luke’s car. Thankfully, he came towards his car within thirty minutes and she carefully slid into the backseat when he left it open for a minute to hand something to his engineers.
Luke started the drive home, his thoughts in a whirl. The day’s work had gone very well, he decided, apart from the fact that his thoughts had kept wandering towards a certain pale-eyed blonde.
Halfway home, a certain glint in the backseat caught his eye and if he didn’t have such steady nerves, he might have crashed his car when he looked in the mirror and saw a witch sitting up from a reclining position.
“Please don’t panic. Just keep driving,” she said in that same smoky voice he remembered so well.
“What the hell are you doing in the backseat of my car?”
“I’ll tell you when we get to the house.”
“If you think I’m going to take you to my family just so you can hurt them, guess again,” he spat.
She sighed, “Your family saved me when Nabradia was after me. I’m only returning the favor.”
He quieted a little after that and drove on. When he got home, she pulled a veil over her features and climbed out after him.
When they entered the living room, everyone looked up in surprise. Derek and the others had been studying the symptoms of the humans who had been falling ill and trying to find a connecting factor.
Palma removed her veil inside the relative safety of the house and their shocked expressions made her smile sadly at them.
“Palma?” Joshua whispered.
“Why have you brought the witch home?” Derek demanded.
“She has something to tell us,” Luke supplied. “Something important, she claims.”
In a halting tone, she began the narrative about how Nabradia had died in that cave and the new Nabradia was an impostor who couldn’t do magic to save her life. She revealed the things the new Nabradia had done and made the Archstone Tribe believe they had all been done by the Weirna shifters. She also told them about seeing Nabradia’s real form in the mirror today which confirmed her suspicions.
When she had finished, Marissa was the first to speak, “Humans have been falling ill. At first we thought it was the effect of the Natura Poison used at the ill-fated witches’ conference but now we’re not so sure.”
“It’s not witch’s magic making them ill,” Palma said carefully. “That woman is a shape-shifter and she is trying into make them shape-shifters too.”
It made sense now, because the arms and legs of the victims kept sporting fur just before they died.
Just then Jeanine moaned and shifted in her seat, her hands cupping her stomach. Palma looked at her, her gaze narrow and penetrating and eerily reminiscent of Nabradia.
She walked up to Jeanine, her attention interrupted. “You’re pregnant. You’re Nana’s granddaughter aren’t you?”
Jeanine nodded wordlessly, still cupping her stomach as the pain lanced through her. The herbs had helped a little but not overly much.
Palma’s gaze cut to hers, “Mind if I help?”
Before anyone could move a muscle, she placed a hand on the stomach, “Kwisa minaya reka.”
Immediately a loud rumbling noise erupted from Jeanine’s stomach and her body started to shake and vibrate as she cried out. Bo shoved Palma away. “Get away from my wife. What did you do to her?”
“I cast a spell to trick her body into thinking she is carrying a human baby,” Palma explained. “She’ll be fine and she doesn’t need those god-awful herbs anymore.”
Jeanine began to quiet do
wn and for the first time in weeks, that shadow of pain vanished from her eyes and she sat straight up, her eyes shining with love and happiness as she looked at her husband.
She turned to the witch, “I feel so much better. Thank you.”
Palma smiled at her and her beauty shone with almost blinding radiance. She included the entire room in her smile, “If you want to thank me, get your act together and find a way to rid this world of that… abomination. Get rid of that shifter masquerading as Nabradia.”
“What sort of shifter is she?” Kelly demanded. “She doesn’t shift into any animal form.”
“She is the very worst sort of shifter,” Luke announced, shaking with fury. “She is the sort we got rid of in Detroit. They can shift form into any form to look like anyone. They are very dangerous and usually bloodthirsty. Shapeshifters.”
“And she is dragon born, which is why she could enter the caves,” Drake chipped in.
“Whatever she is, she’s not Nabradia,” Palma enunciated carefully. “She isn’t here for laughs; she hates the Archstones and she hates you all. She is out for destruction and you must stop her. And to stop her, you need a witch. It would seem I’m the last witch here,” Palma finished, raising a hand and fanning herself slowly. Beads of sweat broke out on her forehead despite the coolness of the room.
Marissa frowned, staring at her.
“Do you know what she wants with the compass?” Derek demanded.
“Krilce’s Sobriety. Only the compass can lead to its location. If she finds the ornament, then she can raise an army of shifters without killing them and perhaps she can kill all the real shifters at once,” she finished.
“The ornament is very ancient and very powerful. Once activated, it emits a strange high-pitched whistle that is supposed to destroy all shifters in the land at once,” she said.
“It could kill us?” Luke whispered.
“Aye. And it is powerful enough to tear the veil between this world and the next,” she answered. “If that happens, the dead will walk among the living. Alabad will be on earth and so will hell and other terrible places that have held the dead captive.”
