by Cara Wylde
The shift didn’t take more than a minute. Where Tristan had been, now stood a gorgeous, mighty lion. It was the most beautiful creature Olivia had ever seen. Rich, soft mane, intense blue eyes, huge paws… It was also taller than the average lion, which signaled it wasn’t exactly… a lion. It was much, much more than that.
“What the…”
Oh, so she hadn’t lost the ability to speak. Only the ability to form coherent sentences.
“A lion-shifter,” whispered Camille.
The blonde girl was just as entranced as Olivia, although she had seen Tristan in his lion form countless times.
“Lion-shifter,” repeated Liv. She felt her knees give in. Normally, she would have fought the sudden weakness, but it was all too much. She let herself fall to the ground, her shoulders slumped, her fingers digging into grass and dirt.
Camille sat down next to her. She had stopped crying long ago. Her tears had dried out, and all she could do now was try to help Olivia cope as best as she could. Tristan’s mate was clearly in shock, otherwise she would have pushed her away.
“Yes. Shape-shifters are real. Not just lions. There are many kinds: bears, wolves, tigers… Even more mythical ones: phoenixes, dragons, thunderbirds.”
“Thunderbirds.” Liv wasn’t sure she knew what a thunderbird was. She remembered Kassandra’s necklace, though.
“And they aren’t the only supernatural people in the world. There are also vampires, fays, witches…”
Olivia had the impression that Camille’s voice came from afar. She couldn’t look away from the lion. The gorgeous beast had Tristan’s eyes. He stepped closer to her and Camille, and Liv didn’t find the strength to react. Maybe she should have gotten up and run. That was what a sane person would have done, right? Instead, she allowed the animal to get even closer, so close that she could feel his warm breath on her face.
“You can touch him,” Camille encouraged her.
Liv’s brain screamed “No!”, but her hand reached for the lion’s snout. Slowly, she pressed her fingers to his cold nose, and gasped when the animal closed his eyes and sighed. She couldn’t believe it! This huge, incredible beast sighed under her touch, as if she was the only person in the world who could tame him. A smile started to grow on her face, all her worries fading to the back of her mind. This moment was too unique and amazing to drown in all those thoughts and questions still plaguing her.
“This is…”
“Wonderful?” offered Camille.
More bones started snapping somewhere behind the two women, then a second lion stepped next to Tristan. Liv didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that was Gideon. His fur was darker, and he was a bit smaller than Tristan, but just as impressive.
“Tristan is the Alpha,” said Camille. “He’s probably the only Alpha lion-shifter in the world who still has a pride and manages to keep it safe from the Assassins’ Guild. Gideon is his Beta.”
“This means… all the people living here are lion-shifters…”
“Yes. It’s hard to hide from the Guild, but Andes is a pretty good place. Of course, Tristan could have never done it without my help.”
Olivia started running her hands through the lion’s mane.
“Are you a lion-shifter too?” she asked the girl.
“No. I’m a witch.”
That made Liv finally turn to face her. “Say what?”
“I’m a witch. I use protection spells to keep the assassins away.”
“The Calimala you were talking about are the assassins.”
“Yes. Arte di Calimala. They’re an old Medieval Guild which started hunting supernatural people because they believed we’re a threat to humans. We’re not. We could all live in peace if only we could reach an agreement. They’re very strong, and have grown over the ages. First, they enslaved the witches, then they used them to track down supernaturals to capture them, experiment on them, then kill them. I’m one of the few witches who don’t work for the Guild, but that’s only because Tristan found me first.”
“And took you in…”
“Yes.” Camille sighed. “I was 14 when he found me. I was just starting to discover my powers, and my little experiments were causing trouble at the orphanage where I was living. That’s what got Tristan’s attention. He was looking for a witch who could help him protect his people. Now, thinking back to those years and all those stupid things I was trying, it’s a miracle that he found me before the Calimala. I was really careless, but no one could blame me, you know? I had no idea who I was, why I could do those things… Tristan opened my mind. He told me about shape-shifters, the assassins, and why I was in danger if I didn’t use my powers to protect myself and his pride. Later, when I became more skilled, I managed to find out why my parents had chosen to abandon me.”
“Whatever it was, there’s no excuse…”
“Actually, there is. My mother is a witch. Or was. I don’t know if she’s still alive. If she is, then she’s hiding herself well, because it’s impossible for me to detect her. She worked for the Calimala, but she didn’t want me to end up like her. She managed to hide her pregnancy and left me at the orphanage right after I was born. Maybe she believed that if I didn’t grow up among witches, if I never learned how to practice magic, then I’d be safe. Maybe she thought she was giving me a chance at a normal life. Well, she was wrong. I’m a natural.”
Gideon was pacing around, but Tristan had lied down next to Olivia. He was listening to Camille’s story. She wasn’t telling Olivia everything, and his heart ached when he realized she was avoiding some details because she wanted to protect him. She didn’t tell her how he had, in fact, kidnapped her from the orphanage. The truth was that he had wanted to adopt her, but that would have meant leaving a trail. 14-year-old Camille hadn’t liked him in the least. He remembered how scared she had been of him, of his tall stature and harsh attitude. No, she hadn’t felt safe with him, and she hadn’t gone with him willingly. For weeks, he had kept her locked in a room, and she had tried to escape a couple of times. No, he hadn’t been nice to her. He had told her all about supernatural people, the Calimala, and how witches were enslaved by the assassins because they were the only ones who were human enough to be accepted by them, but supernatural enough to be useful to them. Still, it took him months to gain Camille’s trust. When he did, and Camille finally accepted to work for him, he realized that she had actually fallen in love with him. What happened next? He started treating her badly in an attempt to make her see he wasn’t the right man for her. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be, but Camille simply wasn’t his mate. He could feel it, and he didn’t want to take advantage of her. Now, listening to her voice, his anger towards her started to fade. Yes, he would never forgive her for having tried to poison his soul mate and sell him and his people to the Assassins’ Guild, but he wasn’t so stupid as to not understand why she had gone so far. He had pushed her. She was 23 now. That was 9 years of treating her like she was nothing, like she was a witch who could betray him at any moment. And she did betray him, but not because that was what she had always wanted. It was because he had pushed her far enough that she eventually snapped.
Meanwhile, Camille told Olivia everything about her plan. She told her about Nathan Moore and how she had met him. In fact, she had never met him in person. A door had separated them when Nathan had come to help Tristan and his two allies, the wolf-shifter Emil Severin and the bear-shifter Tyler Atwood, when they had managed to capture a member of the Guild. Instead of helping them, though, he had killed the assassin so he wouldn’t give them any information about the Calimala. Neither Tristan, nor his allies had realized then who Nathan Moore was, that he had just been recruited by the Guild to do that one job. Camille had sensed him, though, then she had used her powers to figure him out. As isolated as she was, Nathan had been the only member of the Guild she had known well enough to contact. Now, it had all gone to hell. She knew for a fact that Nathan was the one who had kidnapped Liam, and she was sure his int
ention was to take him to the assassins so he’d get a promotion. She was pretty sure the Guild had never had the chance to study a baby shifter.
“What do we do now?” asked Olivia when Camille finished her story.
“Now we find him.”
“How?” She was starting to panic again, and for good reason. Liam hadn’t been kidnapped by a random lunatic. He had been kidnapped by a guild of assassins, and those people wanted to conduct research on him as if he were an animal. It didn’t help that he was half that. Her baby boy… half human, half lion-shifter. His weird behavior made all the sense in the world now.
Camille stood up and dusted off her clothes.
“By using a tracking spell.”
“You can do that?”
The girl smiled faintly. “Yes.” She didn’t mention that there was a good chance she would die performing it. She was a skilled witch, yes, but she was only one. The Calimala had dozens of witches protecting them and their quarters all over the world. Finding Liam would most likely drain her of energy. Forever.
CHAPTER SIX
It wasn’t that Tristan didn’t have enough lion-shifters to try an attack on the Calimala, if they proved to have his son. When the members of his pride found out what was happening, they all wanted to help. They were ready to die saving their Alpha’s heir, but Tristan didn’t want to endanger any of them. He had worked too hard on building their small community and offering them a peaceful life away from humans, close to the mountains, where they could shift at will and run through the woods. Their lives were his responsibility. He wasn’t about to risk them when there was another solution. As proud and stubborn as he was, Tristan Ward knew when he had to call his old allies and apologize for having been a douche.
Emil Severin picked up after the second ring. He and Tyler Atwood were in Andes in a couple of hours.
A few months ago, Tristan had helped the wolf-shifter and the bear-shifter capture an important member of the Guild and interrogate him. Things had gone sideways when said member died unexpectedly and Tyler accused Camille of having poisoned him with shifter venom. To accuse the witch under his protection of something like that was the same as accusing him, and Tristan got mad and walked out on them. He didn’t only walk out on two friends and allies, but also on the small organization they were trying to build. The assassins had a whole Guild which dated back to the Medieval Ages, but the supernaturals had never been able to unite and organize themselves so they could retaliate as a joined force, until Emil Severin created the Order of the Severins. His intention was to convince as many shape-shifters and supernatural people of all kinds to join him and work together to finally fight against the Calimala. Tristan would have been the third member if the three of them hadn’t fought and threw accusations when their plan had gone wrong. Alas, they were shape-shifters, and shape-shifters were well known for their quick temper.
No, Camille hadn’t killed their prisoner then. Tristan had been right to get mad when Tyler, the bear-shifter, had accused her. However, he now knew that even if she didn’t kill him, she had known who the culprit was all along. Nathan Moore had been alone with the prisoner for only a couple of minutes. But before that, he had had enough time to replace a vial of bear-shifter blood, which was supposed to keep the prisoner alive, with a vial of shifter venom, which killed him instantly later, when Nathan Moore was already far away. Camille had figured him out, yet she hadn’t told anyone, not even Tristan. Now he knew she had kept this information to herself so she’d have a way out if she ever decided to run away again. This time, Nathan Moore would have ensured the success of her plan.
Tristan took Emil and Tyler to Camille’s house, where Gideon was keeping an eye on Olivia and the young witch. He told them everything and apologized for his behavior. In his own way, Tyler had been right, after all. His witch couldn’t be trusted. As he watched her prepare for the tracking ritual, Tristan wondered if he could trust her now, after she had cried and begged for his and Olivia’s forgiveness. He didn’t have a choice, though. She was the only one who could find the Guild, the only one who could offer them the slightest chance to save his son and finally bring him home, where he belonged.
“You said you need to track down the Calimala,” said Olivia, hesitantly. “But what if this Nathan asshole hasn’t taken Liam to the Guild yet?”
Camille sighed. “I doubt that.”
“At least try to track down my son, first? Who knows? With a bit of luck…”
“I don’t believe in luck.”
Luck didn’t exist, in Camille’s opinion. The only thing she believed in was her power to do what needed to be done.
“But I’ll try,” she added. “For you.”
Liv smiled faintly. It made her uncomfortable to think that the woman who had tried to kill her just a few hours before was now her only hope.
“What do I have to do?”
Camille had drawn a number of mysterious symbols on the floor, in the middle of her living room, after she had pushed the carpet and all the furniture away. She had taken a huge map of New York and had placed it in front of her, then knelt above it. She knew for a fact that Nathan was in New York. He couldn’t have gone anywhere else in such a short time, which meant that the Guild had one of its headquarters in the city. She turned to Olivia:
“I’m going to need a bit of your blood. And Tristan’s.”
Tristan heard her. He left Gideon, Emil, and Tyler and stepped closer to the two women. He and Olivia knelt next to Camille, and she pricked their fingers with a long, beautifully ornate needle, while murmuring something in a strange, unrecognizable language. Olivia thought it sounded like a combination of Latin and Old Greek, but it was none of the two. In reality, it was a unique language only witches knew and used. Entirely formed of words of power, it could cause horrible disasters if used by someone who had no idea what to do with it. Knowing this, the witches had protected their language by casting a powerful spell which made the words sound like something familiar to the listener, but not quite. Neither humans, nor other supernatural people could learn it simply by hearing it.
Tristan and Olivia watched Camille let their drops of blood mingle on the map, then move them with her mind. Or, maybe, her incantation. The blood took the form of a thin rivulet that moved around for a bit, stopped in two or three places, but eventually kept moving aimlessly.
Camille shook her head.
“I can’t find him.”
“What does that mean?” asked Olivia.
“He’s already on Calimala territory, and the Guild is protected by powerful witches. More powerful than me.”
“Of course,” said Tristan. “That bastard took him straight to the Guild because he knew I have a witch who can easily track him. He’s smart.”
Liv covered her face with her hands. “What now?” she cried. “What do we do?”
Camille sighed and stood up. “I’ll have to detect the witches’ shield, break it, and reveal the Guild’s location. I’m going to need more space.”
Tristan helped Olivia stand up. He enveloped her in his arms, kissed the top of her head, and gently combed her hair with his fingers.
“Shh… it’s going to be fine. Camille will find him.”
“I don’t know,” whispered Liv. “I don’t know. Tristan, I’m so scared!”
“Me too, baby. Me too. But we have to be strong. For our son.”
“Space, please,” repeated Camille.
Tristan nodded and took Olivia to Gideon, Tyler, and Emil. They had to come up with a plan, and he wanted Liv involved. After all, she was the mother. It didn’t matter that she was only human. Her love for Liam made her just as strong as any shape-shifter.
Alone in the middle of the room, surrounded by her symbols, Camille closed her eyes and used the needle to draw a considerable amount of her own blood. The red liquid fell on the map and started moving almost immediately. It didn’t seem to be any more effective than Tristan’s and Olivia’s. She let even more drops fall, all the wh
ile repeating the same incantation ad nauseam, putting every ounce of her power into the words.
Liv listened to the blonde girl for a few minutes, then turned to the shape-shifters around her. She couldn’t believe these men could turn into beasts. Tristan was seated beside her, holding her hand. Gideon was standing behind them, his bulky arms crossed over his chest. Tyler and Emil both occupied the two armchairs across from them. It wasn’t the right time to notice how incredibly handsome they were, but she couldn’t help it. Emil Severin was tall, well-built, with messy blond hair, and penetrating green eyes. He was dressed casually, in a black T-shirt, leather pants, and mountain boots. All that black made his white skin and dark blond hair glow eerily. He wore a thin wedding band on his finger, which meant he had found his mate. Liv couldn’t help but smile thinking how lucky the woman was. Tyler Atwood was also tall, but his muscles were leaner and more elegant, which was weird since he shifted into a brown bear. He had raven black hair and intense brown eyes. He, too, was wearing a wedding band. Olivia couldn’t complain, however. Her own man was just as perfect as the others and, more importantly, he was madly in love with her. And she was madly in love with him. An encouraging thought crossed her mind: this was why they were going to find Liam and bring him home – because they loved each other.
“It really depends on how many they are,” answered Tyler to something Tristan had said.
“Camille said Nathan was going to meet some very important members,” Tristan explained. “He hasn’t been in the Guild for long enough to raise an army at a snap of his fingers, so it’s very likely that we won’t have to deal with a large number of assassins.”
“We still have to be prepared, though,” said Emil.
