Gia suppressed an eye roll. “Of course not.”
John’s face went from a pleased gloat to a sneer. “She gave it all to you, didn’t She?”
“The Mother did what She has always done—She left the world in Her chosen’s hands.” And what Gia and her sisters did with it was not his concern.
John’s round face scrunched. “What does that mean? Are you the Mother now? Do you get to pick and choose who is magical and who isn’t?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not to you.” She flicked her fingers at the cavern. “This is your world now. But I have good news.”
Gia beckoned, calling the hyphae to come to her. All around John’s feet, the psychedelic mushrooms that had put her and Salvador through the wringer sprouted. As one, the puffballs ejected their spores, covering him.
“What the f—” Coughing, John wiped his face and arms. He swore, his puzzled expression fading as his mouth slackened and his eyes glazed over.
“Now the world will be exactly what you make it,” Gia whispered.
Then she pivoted on her heel and left him there, alone.
45
Gia rose from the depths, shaking off her encounter with John. In her mind, the punishment fit the crime, but a tiny part of her regretted not lopping off his head. That would have made Alec happy.
The remnants of John’s ragtag army had run away—those who could. The rest, mostly humans, were being treated by the Maitland pack medics. The black shifters were mostly dead, along with one of Douglas’ own, an older wolf she’d met years ago but couldn’t name. No doubt there has been other losses, but she would seek that knowledge and get a true accounting later.
She had no idea what happened to the black Fae, but it had been messy.
Dalasini and Caiman floated through the litters that held the human mercenaries, wrapping whatever limbs were free with their special memory-altering bracelets.
When Dalasini saw her, she broke away. “Is it over?”
“Yes,” Gia assured her, touching her shoulder. John had deceived the T’Kaierian elders for decades. They had believed he was one of them. She didn’t need to ask any questions to know how deeply Dalasini had been hurt.
Dalasini swallowed. “Thank you. Again, I’m sorry for letting him get so close, for trusting him.”
Gia shook her head. “It wasn’t your fault. It was no one’s fault. I don’t want you to worry about him anymore. It’s done. It’s taken care of.”
Nodding and blinking back tears, Dalasini whispered her thanks, resuming her work.
Gia started searching for Salvador and her sisters. She spotted Diana’s bright hair at the top of the hill where a knot of people stood or knelt. Mara and Douglas were there with her sisters and most of their mates. Concerned to see them so close together, Gia hustled up the hill, letting the wolves and assembled T’Kaierians do their work.
“Oh, cr—” Gia bit her tongue to keep from swearing aloud when she got to the top.
Connell lay on the floor, his leg below the knee gone. Logan, who was covered in blood, stared up at Gia anxiously. “He’s going to be fine,” she said in a hard voice.
“Of course he is,” she said, widening her eyes emphatically at Salvador, who was on Connell’s other side, tightening a tourniquet over the stump. He fished an envelope out of his pocket, then sprinkled the contents over the ragged tissue. His expression was grim.
“How did this happen?” she asked.
Connell answered, his voice thin and strained. “One of those fucking witches got a lucky shot.” He side-eyed the man treating him. “Sorry,” he added with a pant.
“I’m fine,” Salvador said. His tone was cool and matter of fact, but his eyes were stark.
She glanced at Douglas. “Can you…” she began.
“No.” The chief’s face was set. “Pack magic can heal, but it can’t regrow entire limbs.”
Fuck. Then it was real. Connell had been compromised.
Losing a limb wasn’t the death sentence it was in the old days, but Connell’s position as the next pack leader was now in jeopardy. Other wolves would see his missing limb as a sign of weakness. He would be challenged again and again. Sure, most challengers would hesitate to take on a wolf mated to an Elemental, but pack politics prohibited a mate from interfering in fights for dominance.
Gia knelt. Her hand shot out, grabbing Logan’s fingers, the ones covered in her mate’s blood. This was not happening. Logan had come close to losing Connell once. Gia would be damned before she let it happen again.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I think She owes us one.”
Logan blinked, trying not to cry. “How—”
Gia waved her into silence. She had no idea if this would work, but she was seeing something unbidden—as if the idea hadn’t come from her own mind.
When she held out her hands, the Elven sword appeared. Someone sucked in a loud breath.
Gia winced. Damn, she was going to hate this part. Connell wasn’t going to love it either.
No help for it now. Gia dropped Logan’s hand, then latched onto the stump with a hard grip while holding up the sword in her free hand. She closed her eyes, blocking out Connell’s strangled scream. He stopped almost immediately, but it didn’t help.
“Gia? What the hell are you doing?” Salvador hissed, holding the patient still.
“Other than hoping someone is holding Mara back, you mean?” Gia asked, not opening her eyes.
“Yes.” The anxiety in his voice told her the female enforcer wasn’t the only one having a problem with what Gia was doing. Connell’s breath came fast and hard enough to feel it spilling over her hands.
Someone put a hand on her shoulder. From the heat, she thought it was Diana, but Gia nudged her off. “Sorry, love, but I have to focus.”
“On what?” Salvador whispered.
Making something from nothing. Except that wasn’t strictly true. Tightening her grip on the sword, she focused on it.
You have only served me a short time, but I need your help. This is a just cause and a just man… and you will probably enjoy this.
The metal of the Elven sword was imbued with magic. It would be malleable enough to do what she asked—if she could convince it to cooperate. That and Connell was one of the crystal’s repositories, so pure magical potential rested in his body. Combined, those would be more than enough.
It has to be. She peeked at the stump. There was no change.
Okay, any time now.
Sweat began to drip down her spine. Time passed. She was starting to have serious doubts, but Gia finally felt a change under her hands.
There was a startled exclamation. But she knew she wasn’t getting it right. The leg lacked the proper conformation. “Salvador, a little help here,” she said, not opening her eyes.
“What do I do?”
“Help me shape it,” she said. He might not have been a traditional doctor, but he had more knowledge of anatomy than anyone else here.
“Well, you need—”
“Not out loud,” she cut him off, reaching for his hand. She didn’t need to see it to know where it was. “Picture it.”
There was a beat of silence, but their connection was already there, very new but oh so strong. The mental images began to trickle in, strengthening and smoothing. When she finally opened her eyes, it was to see a shiny new leg where the stump had been.
“It’s…”
“Awesome,” Logan finished in a whisper. The leg wasn’t as bright as the Elven sword’s metal. The surface was duller, something that wouldn’t catch the eye in the moonlight. But the magic was still there, humming in tune with the crystal in Connell’s chest.
“Thank you,” Gia said aloud, tipping her head toward the newly formed limb.
“Are you talking to the foot that used to be a sword?” Salvador asked.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” she said quickly, hurrying to stand. Connell didn’t need to know that his new appendage was over a thousand years old and sentient. There wou
ld no doubt be some issues later, but that was tomorrow’s problem.
“Uh, no offense, but how is this metal foot supposed to help?” Mara asked, peering at it with a frown. “Won’t it break or drag behind him when he shifts?”
“No,” Connell burst out excitedly. “I know it looks like metal, but it’s alive. I can feel it. I think I can work with this.”
“Really?” Douglas’ face mirrored his daughter’s skepticism.
“Shit. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.” Connell wiped the sweat and blood from his face. He started to stand but hesitated, giving her a questioning glance.
Gia waved him on. “No sense in waiting. Give it a whirl.”
Everyone stepped back as Connell rolled, shifting as he went. Gia held her breath, but then Connell shook his muzzle, twirling to display his lupine leg and paw.
“Damn, it worked,” Alec whispered under his breath.
“Like I said, She owed us one.”
Salvador’s handsome face appeared serene and confident. “I never doubted you for a second.”
She laughed at the outright lie.
“Yes!” Logan jumped, leaping onto Mara’s back. Holding on with her knees, she threw her arms in the air, whooping in victory.
Smile growing vague with fatigue, Gia sat on the rock that had cropped up for her convenience. Salvador squatted in the dirt next to her. She leaned to the side, allowing some of her weight to rest on him.
Drifting slightly, Gia tracked the movements of everyone around her, but she let the others take the reins. New arrivals from T’Kaieri brought in supplies. The hired soldiers and allied Supernaturals were taken away. She was too drained to ask where.
Once they were gone, the atmosphere changed, kindling into celebration. Serin and Logan gathered broken branches, which Diana lit to make torches. Someone cracked a barrel of T’Kaierian ale, and Alec made a call. Expensive bottles of wine appeared and were passed around as if they were beer, along with food that smelled incredible, but she was too tired to eat.
Connell played with his new limb. He soon discovered it responded to him in either of his forms, turning into whatever shape he wished.
A snort escaped her when he turned it into a pirate’s peg leg. He imitated a rum advertisement, posing like pirate over the barrel of ale, before chasing after Logan, threatening to make her walk the plank if she didn’t kiss him.
After that, it only took him a few minutes to realize he could fashion it into a weapon. “I’m the freaking Terminator,” he shouted across the hill as the peg leg morphed into a spear. He kicked out at a tree, promptly getting the point stuck in the trunk.
Logan hurried past her. She shook her head and shrugged, laughing. “At least he’s pretty.”
Salvador rose briefly, going to fetch them both drinks. She took the bottle from him, not bothering to ask what it was.
“You took John to the Mother’s chamber, didn’t you?” he asked as they watched Caiman pull Serin into an unfamiliar Caribbean dance.
Content to watch her family, Gia merely nodded.
He nudged her. “The spores?”
She huffed. He knew her so well already. “The spores,” she repeated.
“I like it.”
She shifted, watching his face. “I thought you would.”
“So, what happens now?” he asked.
“Besides a massive cleanup?” She gestured at the battlefield below.
“Yes, besides that.”
Gia tipped her face to the stars. A star streaked past. Where is the Mother headed next? And what would She do when She got there?
“We get ready,” she replied. “We get everyone ready.”
46
Rhys, the Draconis Imperia clan leader, had unwittingly chosen one of the Mother’s favorite places for their meeting—the Coyote Buttes in northern Arizona. The local government allowed very few people to visit these days, intent on preserving the unique and delicate conformation of the sandstone that made it an out-of-this-world landscape here on Earth.
She and Salvador had arrived early, but the dragon was already there. Rhys waited at the top, of course. Below him, the swirling sandstone ‘wave’ undulated.
The dragon smirked, as if he were daring her to scramble up there, potentially damaging the stone. Rhys could never let anyone else have the high ground, even if they weren’t enemies.
Salvador gazed up the hill, laughing under his breath. He still traveled with her—probably would for the rest of his life.
Surprisingly, it was working out well on multiple fronts. Gia encountered many people who required a healer in the course of her work. Salvador’s skill was constantly tested by these cases, but he was rising to the challenges. And if it took her a little longer to wrap up each case… that was fine with her. Having company in the form of a handsome man who could cook had restored something in her nomadic life she hadn’t realized was missing.
Salvador had even found another curandero to take over his Costa Rican practice when he wasn’t there, so his regular patients weren’t left without care. His consideration of others was unfeigned. She knew that now and appreciated it. She appreciated him. And returned the sentiment ten-fold.
She and Salvador were the strangest of bedfellows, but her many years of service had taught her to accept the gifts she was given. Gia was feared by her enemies and loved by her sisters, but now she felt cherished again.
“Someone likes to put on a show, huh?” Salvador remarked, the corner of his mouth pulling up as he took in the hyper-masculine figure highlighted against the full moon. The dragon was bipedal. His wings weren’t out, but his aura blazing like a torch, projecting testosterone and machismo, and yes… the pose looked staged.
“He can hear us, you know,” Gia warned her mate. A dragon’s hearing was as good as a wolf’s. Maybe better.
Salvador grinned. “I don’t care. As for the rest of our audience…” He gestured to their empty surroundings. “I guess bumping into the odd hiker isn’t a big concern at this time of night.”
“Not at this hour, or when it’s this cold,” she conceded, eyeing his outfit critically to make sure he was warm enough.
Salvador had made a few concessions to the freezing January weather—namely boots and a down parka. But he insisted he wouldn’t need those once his blood ‘got all the Costa Rica’ out of it.
“Why don’t you wait here?” she suggested, rubbing the leather and bead string around his wrist. It was the necklace her father had crafted for her mother. Gia had given it back to Salvador a few weeks ago—permanently this time. He wore it as bracelet, looping it around his wrist instead of his neck.
Salvador’s face tightened, clearly unhappy at the idea of her going alone. “Only because it would get us out of here faster,” she assured him. “I did promise you a wood fire and bottle of cognac at the stash house, didn’t I?”
“Well, if it helps get us home faster, go give him hell,” he relented with a grin, waving her on.
Turning to her last task of the night, she hailed the dragon, who had no doubt flown to the top of the butte. Sinking into the ground, she rose up through the rock,
She appeared next to Rhys with a whisper of stone, taking extra care not to disturb a single undulation.
The shifter’s innate heat made him impervious to the weather, and he’d dressed accordingly. He wore a vest the color of dried blood with black pants. Both were leather, although she suspected the hide wasn’t domestic. It looked like something that would have put up a fight.
“Gia.” The dragon lord inclined his head. “I trust you are well.”
His deep voice rumbled along her spine. It was a sound that would have intimidated a lesser soul, no doubt by design. I bet he practices the frequency. “I’m quite well, thank you,” she replied with equal formality.
“So, is what I’m hearing true? Has your Mother abandoned you?” He didn’t tack on ‘little girl’ aloud, but she heard it, nonetheless.
It was why she hated dragon shi
fters.
“The Mother has… retired,” Gia confirmed. “But She took steps to ensure her legacy before she left.”
“What does that mean?” Rhys asked, eyeballing her from under his stupidly long lashes.
“It means don’t test me, asshole. I can still take you.”
Laughing, Rhys threw back his head. “I have no doubt that is true.”
Subsiding, he stared up at the sky. So far from civilization and the light of the nearest city, it was a blanket of stars as far as the eye could see. But the beauty held peril, too. No one knew that better than Rhys.
“There will be trouble,” he said.
“I’m sure there will be,” Gia acknowledged. “Are you going to be a part of it?”
Rhys retreated a step, putting his hands behind his back. He began to slowly pace in a circle. Gia tapped her foot, resisting the urge to roll her eyes as she waited for him to say what she already knew—the dragon shifters would remain neutral.
“Should the worst come to pass, the Draconis Imperia will be ready to fight alongside you, should you call our banners.”
“Ah.” Well, that was a surprise. In a way. “I see. I guess that answers my other question about why in the hell you were in Sheol. You obviously found what you were searching for over there.”
And it had given him something he’d lacked for the last few millennia—a reason to stay on Earth. Sure… he’d had to before, but now he wanted to. It had taken her a while to put the pieces together, but she was ninety-percent sure now. Rhys had someone to protect.
The dragon stopped pacing. “What do you know?” he growled.
“I know that someone we watch regularly fell off our radar for a while. I also know she is back now.”
Rhys grunted, giving her the evil eye. “If you were tracking her so closely, how in the hell did she end up in Sheol?”
Gia lifted a shoulder. “Some stuff went down. I maybe got a bit dead, but good news—I’m back now, the apocalypse was averted, etcetera, etcetera.”
The dragon shifter snorted. His eyes fell on Salvador. “Interesting choice of a companion.”
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