by D. Fischer
“Aiden,” Eliza screeches. Her scream makes me half-crazed. Are there more of these creatures? Is the owner of the whistle a threat? I whip around, believing her to be in more danger than what currently presents us.
When I turn, my face contorts and warps before it smooths with recognition. A substantial boat with no sails float in the river. A smaller boat - a raft with railings - and its passengers - horned, tattooed men and women - row our direction.
Elves, I realize, recognizing the pointed ears from my youth’s fascination with fantasy legends and books. They are quite different than what I imagined could be real, and in a moment of awe, my shoulders relax.
Their tattoos are red, striped to the same pattern as zebras, and the exact shade of the sand at the bottom of the river. A maroon patch surrounds each eye socket, like a racoon’s mask. They’re all the warrior Ferox told me they’d be, roped with the kind of muscle only the test of nature could develop.
The front elf lifts his foot and perches it on the ledge of the boat. He peers at me, his face carefully blank as he tightly grasps his long wooden spear tipped with an arrow the size of my hand.
Internally, my emotions dance with glee. This wasn’t the way I’d hope to gain the attention of the guardians, but it’ll do.
“Don’t worry,” I say to Eliza, palming the cotton of my shirt to straighten the wrinkles. “This is our ride.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
DYSON COLEMAN
GUARDIAN REALM
A shiver stirs me from a deep, comforting sleep. The air is bone-chilling cold, but despite the temperature, I feel different. Restful, and trouble-free.
My heart beats rhythmically and layers me in a sense of internal warmth, something I haven’t felt in a very long time. Keeping my eyes closed, refusing to fully wake with every intention of falling back asleep, I scrunch my eyebrows as I wonder what changed to cause me to feel this different, knowing it can’t possibly last. Anything that feels like this doesn’t last. Not with me - a magnet for trouble.
I pull the blanket I’m tangled in tighter around me. If I go back to sleep, this new sense of protection won’t flee the moment I fully wake. But my clutched fingers tighten when I realize what they’re touching. The blanket is soft, the strands long and thick. Fur.
Slowly, I open my eyes.
At first, my vision is blurry and fixes on the leather walls sprawling to a triangular point. There’s no square, cornered ceiling like a normal roof would have, and the walls come to a point, a circular opening at the top. The weathered and cracked leather-like walls flap in a breeze and a few flakes of snow drift down from the opening, lingering with a rising smoke.
A teepee.
A crackling fills my ears, the sound of fire being fed, and the unmistakable smell lingers in my nose. Some of the smoke loiters in the large space between slanted walls, creating a hazy glow with the minimal light filtering in before it exits the hole.
I blink and lick my chapped bottom lip.
Memories surface. Memories of the battle, my mate, and the place she took us. Where did she take us? I remember the feathered people. Is this where I am? Their realm?
This structure looks vastly different than the massive room of black marble floors and pillars fit only for a god. I remember the angels had surrounded us, but it wasn’t them nor their infuriated glances who I had paid attention to. It was seeing Kat, her dragon form, calm and peaceful instead of the beast she had become. In the arena, she was frightening and deadly. But, as she stood in the big room, she was a creature worth marveling.
Each scale had reflected the stars, and her intense eyes had met the gaze of each warrior without an ounce of fear. She had prepared herself to defend her friends in the face of their hostility. Her beauty and bravery is truly one of a kind.
My heart thuds faster, my wolf stirring inside me, interested in my train of thoughts. His ears perk, and he internally nudges, urging me to seek our mate. It’s different, this reversal of roles. Normally, a male shifter fiercely protects his mate, not the other way around. He’s stronger than she is, more capable of defending. But this is not the case with my Katriane DuPont. Nothing is ordinary when it comes to her.
Ignoring him for now, I begin to stretch but then freeze. Kat has no idea she’s my mate. With everything that’s happened since I discovered it myself, I haven’t had time to tell her. What will she do when she finds out?
It’s different for pack members. We actively seek our mates and easily accept it. For an outsider, the idea, the very notion, will be difficult to even consider.
I mumble curses, my voice harsh.
“Are you going to wake, sunshine? Or do you need another hour of beauty sleep.”
My eyes widen, and I nearly jump from my skin. The voice, that wit-laced personality, is one I could never forget.
Slowly, I turn my head, coming face to face with my best friend, the one I had thought I lost forever. Shades hold no hope of ever seeing loved ones again, and we accept our limitations for what they are in hopes they’ll find us after their death.
Sandy brown, close cropped hair, a half-cocked grin, Flint sits on a fur-carpeted floor, one knee propped to support his elbow. His other hand holds up his top half, sustaining his posture behind him while his coat billows around his torso. The smirk pulls at the skin on his chin, the famous look that has most women falling head over heels for him. I used to envy that.
“You should learn to muffle your ear-splitting snore,” he jokes. “There’s no telling what the freak-show outside will do if they hear it.” He raises a hand, shaking it, closed fist in the air, and mocks. “Gather your torch and pitchforks!”
“Flint,” I croak.
“Dyson.” His grin widens, and he nods toward me. “You’re looking pretty good for a dead person.”
My lips twitch, and tears well in my eyes. “You’re here.” I frown, blink, and a tear tumbles down my cheek. Pushing back the fur blanket, I sit upright. “Where is here?”
Flint looks around. “I was told this is the Guardian Realm.” He shifts, finding a more comfortable position, and flicks his thumb behind him. “Dude, you wouldn’t believe what kind of Ozzie shit is going on out there.”
He reaches forward and slaps my shoulder. I grab his arm, gather myself to my knees, and wrap him in a hug. It’s a warm embrace, disrupted by the crinkling of his coat.
“I’ve missed you, man,” Flint mumbles over my shoulder.
I sniff and match his tone. “I was never really gone.”
We part, and he helps me to my feet. My knees shake, and I mentally question how long I’ve been out. His calloused hands hover at my sides to make sure I don’t collapse.
I roll my shoulders to work out the kinks, and my mind returns to his earlier statement. “What do you mean? What’s going on out there?”
Flint flings an arm in the air, sweeping the expanse of the teepee dramatically. Everything he does is dramatic, and the familiarity is comforting. “Elves, man. Elves everywhere. It’s a mythical wonderland, without the wonder. There’s even an angel with these weird wings.” He shakes his head in exaggerated disbelief. “It’s a horror show.”
“Wait.” I scowl and cross my arms. “How did you get here?”
Flint’s chest puffs, and he sighs through loose lips. His sweeping arm reaches up and over his shoulder, and he scratches the back of his neck. “The night you . . .”
“Died?” I supply, my eyebrows flicking once.
“Yeah.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Kat had told us about the fee the night you died. It was almost unbelievable, but well . . . you know how the witches are. Half mad but deliciously wise.”
I curtly nod. Flint has never been a fan of witches, but Kat was his mate Irene’s friend. She had performed the mating ceremony between Brenna and Ben, and Kenna and Evo, the Beta and Alpha couple of the Cloven Pack. It was the first time I had met her, and even then, I didn’t stick around to introduce myself. If I had, I would have known she was my mate, and the ent
ire course of my following history would have been changed.
He drops his arm with a slap to his thigh. “Mother Nature herself swooped in like a damn tornado, right in the living room, and demanded we gallop into the night by swirling vortex.”
“Is that so?” I grin.
Life-like scenarios of Kenna verbally assaulting Erline to high-heaven over a broken vase would be a laughable experience. You don’t tangle with my old Alpha female, tornado or not. She could make a titan cower.
He frowns and smooths stress wrinkles above his eyebrows with his fingers. “I wonder if now would be an appropriate time to bring up the weird virus spreading among the humans to Queen Earth.”
I pucker my lips. “She’d probably send you flying through another portal. The fee don’t take orders well.”
He locks on to the fur below his feet, the strands in disarray due to pacing and foot traffic, and his face turns a shade of green. “Portals are like being flushed down a toilet. I feel sorry for the fish I returned to the sea when I was twelve.”
I know the feeling, the wave of nausea which accompanies traveling through a portal. I felt it when Kat’s dragon took us through one, a swirling vortex of wind. It’s not an experience I wish to repeat if I don’t have to.
“What’s wrong with the humans?” I ask while reaching over and stroking the leather walls. They’re as rough as I thought they’d be, ruined by the chilling elements outside.
“Flu-like symptoms. Unexplainable blood loss,” he divulges, ticking off his fingers.
“Vampires,” I grumble and slowly drop my fingers from the wall.
He scratches his chin, and the sandpaper sound accompanies the soft smoldering crackle of fire as his nails rub against short and thick brown stubbles. “Can you believe humans fantasize about these creatures that are currently killing them? And they don’t even know.” When I don’t answer, his voice sobers. “We can’t really go to the humans and say they have blood loss because two-legged leeches are strolling through the night and sucking from their veins.”
“No.” I sigh. “You can’t. The vampires are looking for Kat. Probably all of us now.”
“What would they want with a witch?” Flint asks, his top lip curling.
I avoid his gaze by pretending deep interest in the structure of this shelter. “She’s not an ordinary witch.”
I’m not sure how much I should tell him, nor how much Erline did. A part of me wants to keep the information to myself in hopes of sparing him the details of my problems. The game we are playing - the rebellious streak - it may very well get us killed in the end. The last thing I want to do is bring Flint down with me.
Kheelan has us marked. It’s better to leave my old pack out of it than to drag them in just to lose them all over again.
I suck in my cheeks as their imaginary death scenarios plague my thoughts.
Part of the beginning of our conversation floats back into my head without being called upon. My eyes widen, and I snap my head back to Flint. “Who else came with you?”
Flint smirks again as if to tease me about the late revelation. “Us.”
The one worded answer is almost drowned by a song, the villagers chanting a catchy tribal tune not far from my teepee. It’s a hauntingly beautiful melody, their voices bouncing precariously like the dance of fire itself. A few bouts of child laughter accompanies it and the beat of a steady, tight drum.
I tuck my chin and blink hard. “As in . . . us?”
“Yep.” He pops the ‘p’ just like Brenna always does, and my heart pings with excitement in an uncanny resemblance to the music outside.
Brenna is another packmate, Beta Female to the Cloven Pack. Out of them all, she’s the most loving and motherly. I’ve missed her kind words and gentle smile.
“I practically had to tackle Brenna to be the one waiting by your bedside.” He shakes his head slowly. “That girl is stronger than she looks, and Ben has taught her too well in the art of Krav Maga.”
Rubbing his arm, he frowns at a memory of Brenna besting him.
A dull light enters as the flap of the teepee is pushed aside, casting deeper shadows inside. One by one, Evo, Kenna, and Brenna duck through, allowing snowflakes and a gust of wind into the barely warm space. Goosebumps riddle my skin, and the fire crackles its displeasure, outraged by the disturbance to its gentle roar. All three have arctic winter gear strapped to their bodies, the cloth swishing as they close the distance.
I smile. “This is the last thing I’d ever expect,” I mumble, my voice choked.
With determined long strides for such short legs, Brenna shoves Flint aside with her shoulder and wraps her arms around my middle. Her sharp chin digs into my chest when she laughs with melodious joy. Evo slaps my shoulder, jostling my sturdy stance. My lips catch a few stray yellow hairs, and I wiggle my cheeks to free the strands. Her hair is much longer than the last time I saw her, and my stomach churns with grief for all I’ve missed. Life continued on while I was dead. It unsettles me how much it hurts.
Brenna pats my back and carefully peels herself from me as though I have brittle bones and may break by a single gale of wind.
“You’ve lost weight, Dyson,” she declares, accusing. “How do the dead lose weight?”
I clear my throat and stretch the sting from Evo’s slap by arching my spine. “I wasn’t dead for long.”
I’d rather not tell them the specifics. They don’t need my past’s situation distorting this happy moment. My past is my burden to bear, and if I told them, they’d feel the urge to help shoulder it. It’s what packs do, and they’ve been through enough.
Kenna folds are arms across her chest with much difficulty, due to her puffy coat, and cocks a foot out in front of her. This is a legendary Kenna gesture, which states she isn’t buying anything I’m saying, and she’s prepared to beat me to a pulp for it.
Not only is Kenna Alpha female, but she’s a Queen Alpha. Every Queen Alpha has a gift, a supernatural ability above all other shifters. Kenna’s gift is empathy. She can feel what others are feeling and spot a lie faster than the whack of a fly swatter.
“Sweet baby Jesus, Dyson,” she swears, incredulous. I mentally prepare myself for the tongue lashing. “What kind of crap have you gotten yourself into? The wench wizard said you’ve been in the Dream Realm, starting trouble. The entire circus village wants us dead. An angel is pining for her creator, as if that’s not disgusting enough - I mean, that’s basically her mother, right? And now, you’re telling me you weren’t actually dead this entire time?”
Flint hums happily. “I was wondering when you’d burst,” he says to Kenna. “Angels aren’t born, they’re made. I think what you’re thinking is wrong thinking.”
Internally, I sigh with happiness despite Kenna’s meltdown. I’ve missed them.
With a deep sigh, knowing she’s hurting under her charging exterior, I grasp a handful of her coat and wrap her in a hug. Her coat is chilled, and I shiver despite my best efforts.
By not returning my embrace, Kenna deflects my affection, but I can feel her lean into me. Her crossed arms fidget between us. I rock us side to side, knowing it’ll make the interaction less comfortable for her but unable to resist coaxing her present irritation.
After a bit, she mumbles against my sternum. “Where the hell have you landed us? Have you seen it out there?” Her voice cracks at the end.
“I was just telling him about it,” Flint states. He takes two long steps and stands next to Evo. As Brenna’s brother, Evo shares the same hair color, and just like his sister, it’s cut differently than when I last saw him.
Sharp Alpha eyes roam my body, looking for obvious injuries.
Ever the protector, I think to myself. My wolf perks and yips inside me. I deny his request to be let loose by a quick swipe in my mind, and he growls in response. Now isn’t the time for a frolicking wolf pack.
With a nod to Evo, I silently tell him I’m unharmed.
It’s an Alpha’s job to ensure his wolve
s are cared for, but I’m not his wolf anymore. I don’t feel the mental connection I once had, though I’m a little surprise it hasn’t clicked back into place. Maybe it’s because I’m also not the same man I once was, but even thinking that’s the case rings false in my own assumptions. This is something more. I can feel it. Like a second beat of a heart, my life is tethered to another in the similar way it was with my old pack. It’s as though invisible strings are tied around me, guiding me to the one who holds the ends.
I release Kenna, her long brown hair catching on the stubble of my chin. Stepping back, I place my hands on my hips wearing a boyish smile, and glance back at the door.
“Where’s everyone else?” I ask, my grin faltering. This group gathering is missing several of my old pack, and for a moment, I worry something terrible has happened to them.
Evo shifts his large frame from one foot to the other, and a joint pops. “At our territory. We couldn’t leave it unattended. You know that.”
Closing my eyes, I feel a sudden ache throb behind them. I raise my hand and rub in hopes of relieving some of the pressure. My joy flees as quickly as it came, and the weight of my responsibilities heavily returns.
It’d be unwise to leave an entire pack territory unattended, especially with an increasing number of vampires roaming the Earth Realm. He’s right, I should have known that. With everything going on, with my mind in a million places, it had slipped through the cracks.
“Right. Of course.” I drop my hand and look at my old packmates. “Where’s Kat?”
Kenna frowns and wrinkles her nose. “The witch? The gothic-looking one?”
“She’s not a witch,” I correct, quickly coming to Kat’s defense with a series of ramblings. “Well, she is, but it’s more complicated than you think. She’s pretty cool once you get to know her. Amazing, actually. You’d like her.”
At Kenna’s scoff of disbelief, Flint tucks his chin, crosses his arms, and widens his stance. “Spill.”
