A sea monster tired of the human world meets a dark elf who wants to keep her in the here and now.
Seerya has lived her life watching over the women who had no one to call on in the face of powerful enemies. Being the greatest sea monster in history, Seerya has a lot of inner strength to call on.
After thousands of years of loneliness, Seerya wants to rest until a few hundred years pass and all of her ties to the human world are severed by time. She needs one more item and she can begin her hibernation. She has to find it at the Crossroads.
Lothan is the current bearer of the Icon of the Destroyer, and when he meets her face to face, he knows that she is the one that the seers sent him for. He needs to convince her that a life with him is better than an eternity alone and he has to work fast.
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Bright Tail
Copyright © 2016 Zenina Masters
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0944-9
Cover art by Carmen Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Bright Tail
Shifting Crossroads Book 41
By
Zenina Masters
Chapter One
Seerya dropped into the wing chair near the fireplace. When the proprietor came over with a cup of coffee, Seerya reached up gratefully.
“Thanks, Nina. It was quite the storm out there.”
“Did you get it?”
Nina took the seat across from her, her white apron gleaming around her hips.
Seerya reached into her cleavage and pulled out the small, carved icon. “Got it. It’s the second to last one, and I must say that I am relieved.”
Nina shook her head. “Can I see it?”
“Sure.” Seerya handed it over and watched her friend turn it in her fingers.
“How did this have a hold on you?”
“It was carved from one of my scales. I gave nine of them out a while ago in exchange for favours done by fishermen and explorers.”
“Where is the last one?”
She sighed. “I gave it to some elves. They needed protection against the light, so I offered it in exchange for them letting some human servants go.”
“Why did you do that?”
Seerya shrugged. “I had friends in the fishing community, and their daughters were being borrowed by the local dark fey. I gave them the light of truth to find mates that they were destined to have. It stopped the random abductions, and when they did find their mates, they interacted with the family so that it was known where the young lady was going.”
“Was it always young women?”
Seerya snorted. “No. It was occasionally a young man, but those occurrences were few and far between. They could find their mates far more easily than a male who wanted to become part of a breeding pair.”
“What was the big deal about breeding?”
Seerya snorted and set the empty cup down. “Have you noticed how many fey have babies?”
Her friend frowned. “No.”
“That is because they don’t. They are a fading species. They need to find the right match at the right time to have even a hope of making it through the next generation. Immortality isn’t as long as they used to think it was.”
“What?”
“You can’t pass something to the next generation if there isn’t a next generation, so the fey became obsessed with finding mates with strong magic and binding them to their sides. The children usually have more power than the parents, but there are fewer children as time goes on.”
Nina blinked. “So, you are going to take the last icon from them? Won’t that decrease their family’s chance to find their true mate?”
Seerya chuckled. “They have other means available to them now. The modern era has many possibilities.”
“Oh. Okay. Do you know where you are heading?”
Seerya wrinkled her nose and nodded. “I do. I am so excited that this is my last one.”
Nina’s expression turned sad. “I am going to miss you.”
“I will find a way to communicate with you if you really want me to.” Seerya chuckled. She rubbed the back of her neck. “After all these years looking for another one of my kind, I am going to be relieved to rest under the sea for a few hundred years. I think the world will be a little different when I appear again.”
“I will be dead.” Nina’s expression was grim.
“As will everyone I know right now, but after the first thousand years, you get used to it. I will miss you, but you will become a fond memory that will make me smile and my heart ache a little, and then, I will swim on.”
Nina’s lips pursed a little, and she nodded. “I guess immortality is less than it is cracked up to be.”
“I promise to come back before I take to the sea.”
“I would like that. I want one final time to walk the beach with you.”
“You took your first steps on that beach.”
“Yeah, my mom still has the picture in a place of honour. You held my hand in yours, and we made footprints in the sand with the waves avoiding them until you said it was okay.”
Seerya sighed. “It was a good day, and the waves were content to wait until your steps were printed in the sand so your first path would remain as a memory.”
“Why were you the one holding my hand?”
Seerya chuckled. “Because I am related to the first being in your family line.”
“What?”
“My brother was the progenitor of your line. He was a normal man who lived a normal life, and I have watched over his family. You and your sister, Lily, are the last in that very long line.”
Nina sat with her mouth open. “Why didn’t you say anything before now?”
Seerya shrugged. “It would have made no difference to your life or mine. I still would have been here when you needed me, and you still would have grown into the competent and charming woman you are today.”
“So, you are my aunty?”
Seerya chuckled. “No, that connection faded after the sixth generation. I am more of a fairy godmother that isn’t a fairy.”
Nina got to her feet and stalked off without another word.
Seerya watched Nina’s mother step out of the nearby shadows. “She took it as well as you expected.”
Irene chuckled. “And better than you expected. She attaches to family so strongly.”
Seerya looked at her cup. “I don’t suppose that I can get a refill on the coffee?”
Irene patted her shoulder and grabbed the cup. “I will be back in a minute.”
Seerya watched her niece walk to the counter and fill her cup, adding the sugar and cream that she prefer
red.
Nina was glaring at her from behind the counter, and it struck Seerya that she hadn’t gotten the icon back. At this range, she could and did act.
She put her hand in the air, twisted her fingers and called the small, carved object through the intervening space and into her palm. She settled the icon inside her shirt and winked at Nina’s shocked expression.
Irene sighed and shook her head as she returned and took her daughter’s place across from the old shifter. “You shouldn’t have done that. She is angry enough.”
“She hasn’t seen anger yet. She has lived her life with everyone around her giving her love and support, despite her poor life choices. She is now settled and stable, and I rocked her little boat. Tough.”
“You are rough, Aunty.”
Seerya smirked and sipped at her coffee. “Generations of practice, pet. So, the last thing I am going to do is sign the coffee shop over to you.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do to keep you in the world, Aunty?”
“No. I am tired, Irene. I just want to find a quiet spot and curl up under the sea.”
Irene ran her hands through her hair. “You are just going to sign the Bright Wave Coffee chain over to us?”
“I am. It will be my last act once I have the final icon. I am so tired, and being this old and alone isn’t a great feeling. I want to be alone by choice and not circumstance.”
Irene sighed. “I actually understand. So, how soon do you leave for the ocean?”
“As soon as the icon is in my hands and my affairs are set in order.”
Irene smiled softly. “Is there time for a beach party before that moment?”
“There is always time for a beach party.” Seerya chuckled. “Do you think she will get over her snit before then?”
“If it is more than three days from now, yes. That is as long as she can hold a grudge.”
“The young are so touchy.” Seerya ran her fingers through her hair.
Irene laughed. “You barely look legal and you are casting aspersions on the young?”
“Appearance doesn’t mean much after the first hundred years.”
“I am not going to learn it. So, what was your brother like?”
“Didn’t I ever tell you?”
“No, I never had the nerve to ask.”
Seerya sat back and cupped her mug in her hands. “Soru was a great hunter, an amazing warrior. All the girls in the village wanted his attention, but he put his family first. My mother and myself were his first priorities.”
“How did he react when you told him what you were?”
“He got the local shaman to try and expel the water demon. When he was told that the water beast was part of me, he accepted it and we became the best fishing team on the coastline.”
Irene smiled softly. “Everyone in our family loves fishing. What did you do when he married?”
“We continued our work to feed the village, and the village’s population swelled, including my first nephew.”
“What happened after that?”
“My brother died when he was seventy. He was one of the oldest men the village had ever seen, but he still went into the ocean every day, and I went with him.”
“How did he die?”
Seerya closed her eyes. “He stood up in his boat, smiled at me with his white hair streaming in the wind, and said, It’s time, Seerya. I will be with you always. Before I could respond, he slumped over and fell into the water, his skin grey and lifeless before he hit the surface. I carried him back to his family, his son and grandchildren gathered around and took him away to prepare him for burial.”
“You make it sound like you hadn’t met your family members before.”
“I had met my nephew, but as time passed, I spent more and more time as a sea serpent. The sea had a powerful pull in those days. I could swim, explore and meet the other creatures beneath the waves. Merfolk are very chatty when they are terrified.”
“What did your family do?”
“My family? My family was my parents and my brother. They were dead. His family prepared him for burial, and I towed him into the deep ocean, calling for my friends to come and strip him down to bones. I gathered his bones and made an altar inside a huge oyster. He is now a three-foot pearl.”
“What about his family?”
Seerya shrugged. “I helped them fish for a century or so before they did the unforgivable.”
“What was that?”
“They sold my niece to the neighbouring clan. Her brother sold her. I walked out of the water and expressed my displeasure. It had been so long that they forgot who I was. I reminded them and let them know that the fish would no longer be forthcoming. My nephew laughed in my face and called me a relic of the past. He considered himself a master of the sea and that all the fish his people caught were due to his skill. I returned to the sea and sought out the other clan.”
Irene was leaning forward. “What did you do?”
“I provided my multiple-times great niece with a dowry that elevated her status and offered my assistance with their fishing for her lifetime. She only needed to come to greet me once a year and I would keep the food coming.”
“What happened?”
“She died in her second childbirth, and instead of my niece, her daughter was placed on the rock to greet me. The poor child was wailing and cold, so I took her away and swam to the Mediterranean and found a family to look after her. She was the point at which I began to pay attention to the human world again.”
“What was her name?”
Seerya glanced at the current matriarch of the family line. “Nina. Her name was Nina, and she lived to be eighty-three.”
Irene’s gaze was over Seerya’s shoulder. “So, that is why you insisted on the name.”
Seerya chuckled. “Call me sentimental, but it was time to put the name back into circulation.”
Nina’s hand settled on her shoulder. “Thanks for that. I guess there were thousands of stories I never got around to asking about.”
Seerya looked at Nina in surprise, but her twentieth-generation niece smiled calmly at her. Apparently, all was forgiven.
“Aunty, can I get you another cup of coffee?”
Seerya nodded and handed her the empty cup. “Thank you, Nina.”
Irene shook her head. “Is there any record of any of this?”
“Oh. Sure.” Seerya fished a USB key out of her cleavage and handed it over. “I wanted you to have this anyway. It will make for some interesting reading and makes for fascinating folklore.”
“Folklore?”
“I am not fey. I am something else. What that is, no one knows, as none of my family had anything of this nature in their histories.”
“Our family.” Irene smiled. “No matter what you do or how long you go, you are still family and we will remember you.”
Seerya grinned. “Thank you, now the only thing that would make my evening memorable would be a third cup of coffee. Ah, thank you, Nina.”
Nina checked the shop and leaned in. “What happened next?”
Seerya looked at them, the bustling coffee shop around them and the slight familiarity with her own features. “I suppose I should tell you what happened to our original clan...”
As her relatives stared rapt at the tale of two dead villages who had forgotten how to fend for themselves, she lost herself in the one place she had promised she would never dwell... the past.
Chapter Two
The Dark Knight Club was usually invitation or members only. When Seerya arrived at the door, she found that wrapping herself in designer clothing as well as an aura of power substituted for an invitation.
Teelion greeted her inside, and he bowed low.
“Lady Seerya, you are looking lovely and younger than ever.”
She inclined her head. “Lord Teelion, I thank you for the compliment. You look the same.”
“Thank you. May I offer
you the use of our private room?”
“It would be welcome, but I am simply here looking for one of your number.”
He offered her his arm, and they walked into the club where layers of magic kept the sound from reaching to the upper levels, but the lower levels were in full party mode.
The private room was set off to one side but overlooked the entire event. She could be part of the scene and above it at the same time.
Seerya looked around. “It has changed.”
“We move with the times.”
She chuckled. “Time moves around me.”
“And yet, you have created a coffee empire.”
She shrugged. “It was necessary, and North America consumes more coffee than anywhere in the world.”
“And it is where your family is.”
She shrugged again. “That could have been a contributing factor.”
He smiled; his rough jaw and bright crimson eyes, his defining features, didn’t soften with his expression.
She settled in a chair and looked out over the party below. “Do you ever want to be one of them?”
“It flares up now and then. Thinking about being human isn’t what has brought you here, is it?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, I need to speak with Lothan.”
He paused. “Lothan?”
“Yes. The icon that I offered his folk centuries ago has run its course. I need it back.”
Teelion ran a hand over his face. “You just missed him.”
“What? When will he be back?”
“He is at the Crossroads. He will be there until he finds a mate, and after that, he might have to go where her family resides. I am sorry, but there is no way to reach him.”
She sat back and drummed her nails against the tabletop. “That is a lie.”
Teelion blinked. “What?”
“You just lied to me. I am a shifter. I am aware of the Crossroads; in fact, I contributed some of my power to the aquatic expansion. I know for a fact that they just hooked up Wi-Fi.”
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