by Petra Landon
Tasia agreed silently with him. It was part of what terrified her about the Archmage — his success at evading the Lombardis. The Blutsaugers might have little magic in them but they’d mastered the art of preying on more powerful Chosen as a pack.
“I have a better sense of the rainforest around the resort, after today” he continued. “If we assume that the second site, with spent magic, is where they set out on their journey, I might get lucky and come across some tracks.”
If he did pick up a trail, it would be the icing on the cake, Tasia reflected. The chances of tracking anyone through the rainforest was an ambitious and challenging quest. And the likelihood of it with a Mage who’d split a building in half like it was child’s play, before vanishing into thin air with a Vampire prisoner, was an impossible order. But they were at an impasse while Roman worked on the Setik owners. Thus, the Shifters had plenty of time to search the forest. Her magic senses had already been exhausted in the crusade to find a lead — Duncan and she had scoured every inch of the resort’s perimeter.
Silence fell between them again, but not an uncomfortable one, by any means. Tasia relaxed against the trunk, to soak in the sights and sounds of the rainforest. This was a thriving biosphere and though the night was still, the buzz of insects and the soft rustle of leaves made the forest come alive.
Above her, hung the rounded moon, glowing against the dark sky while it peered through the branches of the tree that provided them sanctuary. The same thick branches, laden with leaves, that kept the ground dry under it also blocked the starry heavens. This particular location was his way of seeing to her comfort, she recognized. The realization spurred a sense of gratitude towards her enigmatic companion. Had he been by himself, she knew the Alpha would have happily laid claim to the moist hard ground bathed by silver light. But now, he played hide and seek with the moon, to catch stray slivers of its lavish bounty.
Though most of him lay in darkness, his face radiated with a silvery glow. The moonlight danced on it, casting mysterious and undulating shadows. The silence, his reclining form and the ghostly light, rendering the hard angles and planes of his face, reminded Tasia eerily of their time in the cage. Except then, he’d been under tremendous assault from the poison sloshing in his blood, the claustrophobia induced by the inadequate coop and the demands of his surging beast awakened by the silver. Tonight, amidst primordial nature under the moonlit sky, enveloped by the darkened rainforest, there was little evidence of any strain on him. Instead, he seemed to quietly savor it.
He revels in the moonlight, she brooded, watching him. Like a large sleek cat basking under the moon, the long limbs stretched and his big body relaxed gracefully, despite the hard ground he lay on.
“I missed it” he said softly, startling Tasia.
She guessed that he’d read her thoughts through their strange bond. For once though, it did not disquiet her. Perhaps, the advent of an Archmage had changed her perspective on the matter. Or perhaps, it was the moonlight and the rainforest weaving their magic, to make her conclude that in this untouched private cocoon, such concerns were of little import.
“In San Francisco?” she inquired, a little confused by the remark. The city by the bay occasionally lacked the bounty of the sun, not that of the moon.
“When the witch held me captive.”
Despite prior knowledge of his ordeal, the prospect of this larger-than-life, vibrant and strong-willed man penned in and confined had Tasia’s hand clenching into a fist.
“How long … ?” she asked hesitantly.
“Ten months.”
Her eyes drank in the handsome face bathed in pale light. The moonlight, and the shadows it cast, made him appear mysterious and other-worldly. Yet, for once, he seemed serene and at peace, the uber self-control and the air of leashed aggression absent. Something hurt deep in her chest at the very idea of him imprisoned, deprived and tormented.
“You’re recalling the cage” he murmured.
Oh yeah, he’s reading me alright.
Tasia indulged her curiosity. “Duncan said you gave the Shifters free rein of the forest.”
“I did.”
“What about you?”
“My beast and I have a complicated relationship” he admitted, after a pause.
Tasia hesitated, before plunging into the water. This was no time to be squeamish. She was debating the wisdom of breaking a precept that had been drummed into her since birth. At the very least, she should understand the motivations of the man she contemplated endangering the peace between the First Ones for.
“You talk of your beast as if he is separate from you” she expressed.
“He is a part of me. And yet not” he acknowledged. “Like I said — it is complicated.”
Tasia was reminded of his struggles on Russian Hill. He’d implied that the past had affected that tussle with his beast.
She chose her words with care. “Because of what happened before?”
For a moment, he was silent. “For a Wyr, the man and beast are merely extensions of each other. But upholding the knife-edge equilibrium between the two is a lifelong and ever-present challenge. Mine was fractured and cannot be mended.”
The remark, delivered matter-of-factly, jolted Tasia. It was contrary to everything she’d ever been told about Shifters, and her own observations of the Pack.
Tasia tried to make sense of his statement. Every Chosen precedent in their long history suggested that no Shifter could survive without a solid bond with his beast. “Fractured” she repeated cautiously.
“He betrayed me once, when I was at my weakest.”
“You can’t forgive him” she said quietly.
The gold eyes opened to study her silently, a mere gleam in the darkness. Tasia sensed that they stood at the threshold of another invisible obstacle, one of many separating them. Consciously or not, they were embroiled in a subtle game where they took turns to offer tantalizing glimpses of what lay beneath to the other. This was their dance — he’d called it correctly at the Embarcadero. Two fiercely-guarded individuals learning to trust by leaving a trail of breadcrumbs that led to their respective doors, in an arduous campaign that came naturally to neither. Yet, the very fact that neither had abandoned the effort, despite the challenges, spoke volumes of the importance both attached to this complicated dance of theirs.
“Oh, I’ve forgiven him” he conceded. “The witch dangled the world before him, tempting him until he lost his head. She wanted him to overpower me, so I would become the beast she taunted me as. It’s not forgiveness that’s the problem, witchling.”
Tasia stared at him. She was not the only one with scars from the past. Just because he garbed himself in more effective camouflage didn’t mean that his wounds did not fester. In many ways, his scars ran deeper. After all, her scabs came from a tangled heritage, history and circumstances, while his were the result of his own experiences.
“I can’t forget that, when it mattered the most, the lure of being the one in charge was too hard for him to resist” the Alpha averred quietly.
Tasia, forced to live a life where the only person she could count on was herself, wondered what it was like to not have even that — to battle himself constantly, his back to the wall. It sank in that this might go a long way in unraveling the enigma of this complicated man — his obsessive need for control and his issues with trust.
Some of his deviations from Wyr traits, that had puzzled her, now fell into place. Tasia wondered if he denied himself the joy of freedom in the rainforest to punish the part of him he could not count on.
“Is this why you did not shift after the silver poisoning?” she asked.
He sat up to unfurl the powerful body, his eyes meeting hers.
“It is said that Shifters heal faster in their beast form” Tasia remarked.
He did not deny it. “That is true.”
“Yet, after the cage, you did not shift.” Tasia had speculated whether it was a question of privacy. With her to guard, h
e’d been unable to shift in her presence. Now, she wondered if it had been a result of his estranged relationship with his beast.
He opened his mouth to respond, just as Tasia’s magic senses kicked in.
“Sienna” she warned him, even though she was sure his Shifter faculties had picked up on the interlopers’ presence.
A short distance away from the Chosen negotiating the terms of surrender, the Magicks that had already succumbed to each other trudged through the forest.
“Are we lost, lover?” Sienna inquired.
“Have some faith, woman” Jason retorted. “We aren’t that far from the resort.”
“Good, because I’m not looking forward to spending the night out here.”
He flashed her a grin. “Here I was under the impression that you were the adventurous sort, Sienna.”
She flushed at the look in his chocolate eyes, bright under the moon. “I’m too old to be adventurous in a forest” she protested laughingly.
“Thought it might remind you of high school” Jason quipped.
Sienna rolled her eyes.
“Unless, of course, you don’t mind the Shifters listening in on us” he pointed out.
She wrinkled her nose at the remark. “Isn’t there like a code they follow about such matters, Jason? Close their ears or something.”
The Guardian chuckled. “You live with them now. What do you think?”
Sienna’s eyes widened.
“They’re primal and instinctive, like their beasts” he reiterated. “They follow a code all right, but it doesn’t involve shutting down their senses. The way they look at it, it’s up to us to ensure that we’re private.”
She looked aghast, as Jason’s words sank in. They were not likely to complete the investigation any time soon. And that meant proximity to the Shifters.
“Jason …” she started, only to stumble to a stop.
A remarkable sight greeted them. In the darkened forest, under a tree, two people sat on the hard ground, watching them.
For once, even Jason was nonplussed.
It was the Alpha who was the first to break the silence. “LaRue, Sienna” he greeted them, as if it was every day that they came upon him in the rainforest idling with a Wizard.
The greeting seemed to shake Sienna out of her stupor. She took a hasty stride forward. “Has something happened, Tasia?”
The Wizard looked surprised by the question. “No, Sienna” she made haste to assure her friend.
Raoul stepped in smoothly. “If it is privacy you desire, the lodge is free of Shifters tonight.”
Sienna, much too engrossed with other concerns, did not catch the inference. But Jason’s eyebrows shot up. He took the hint. “Come on Sienna” he urged her.
The Alpha pointed to a path behind their tree. “That will lead you towards the lodge.”
With a last glance at the duo under the tree, Sienna followed Jason onto the path. He was silent until they emerged out of the thick woods to glimpse the lodge, silhouetted by the faint lights on its perimeter.
Jason turned to Sienna, only to note her expression. “What?”
“I was so surprised to see them that the Alpha’s words didn’t quite register, until now” she admitted to him. “He told us the lodge is free of Shifters tonight, Jason” she whispered.
The Guardian grinned. “Felt very pointed to me, Sienna.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “He knows about us.”
Her companion shrugged. “He’s a Shifter. All his senses are jacked up. You know what that means.”
Sienna said nothing, merely meeting his eyes.
Jason cut to the heart of the chase. “All I saw was harmony between them, Sienna. Did you note something different?”
She shook her head mutely, all trace of levity absent.
“Then, leave it be” he advised her. “Faoladh’s reminiscences have made me realize that it might not be a bad idea to follow the Oracle’s philosophy. Until you’re sure what the future will look like, let’s make no assumptions and no attempts to interfere with it. We could make things worse by charging into matters we don’t understand.”
For a minute, she said nothing. Then, she nodded, silently agreeing with him.
“The way I see it, we could do a lot worse than follow your Da’s example” he restated.
She sighed. “There’s something else I must tell you about Da, Jason” she said slowly. “I’ve been trying to make sense of it.”
“Tell me when you’re ready.”
The advice seemed to reassure her. Sienna linked her arm with his. “Come on, let’s not waste our Shifter free time at the lodge.”
Back in the dark grove, silence reigned. The Alpha reclined on the ground, as before, to lounge and catch the silver rays, while Tasia ruminated on what she’d discovered about Raoul Merceau. If she were honest, there had been hints galore about his conflict with his beotan before. But blinded by her goal to steer clear of him, she’d ignored the clues. His confession on the night he’d called her out at the Embarcadero echoed in her head. It had been about his beast.
“We don’t agree on much but we both want you.”
Then, she’d paid scant attention to the admission, with her heart and mind in turmoil over the larger question he’d forced her to confront head on. But now, she wondered at it. Like everyone else, he too had been shaped by his past. In his case though, the wounds went much deeper than she’d guessed. It hit Tasia, like a ton of bricks, how much this self-assured and confident man struggled with his alter ego. A Wyr’s beast was co-equal to his other form. She’d assumed that a Shifter whose doppelgangers were in constant strife would never survive. But instead, the Alpha had thrived despite the inner struggle, to become a formidable Shifter, his name often bandied about as Faoladh’s heir. The man before her, soaking in the sparse moonlight on offer, was tenacious, resilient and tough, with a determination and strength that awed and shook her.
If ever, there was a Chosen to risk everything for, including my heart …
Of their own volition, her eyes wandered to him, to take in the quiet pleasure and tranquility in him; the formidable intellect temporarily at rest. Even the daunting self-control and the tightly-leashed violence that clung to him like second skin was missing, melting away as if he no longer felt the need to insulate the beast in him. The recognition seeped into her that, for him, there would be a lifetime of playing defense. There was no other way to reconcile not trusting his alter ego.
Perhaps, due to her intimate experience with a Shifter’s terrifying inner struggle for dominance over his beast, or perhaps, because it was he who suffered, Tasia felt her heart swell with emotion. She wanted very much to extend this moment of solitude and freedom for him; a gift to him from someone who, on multiple occasions, had benefited from his thoughtfulness, assurances and generosity.
She glanced around her, pondering her options. This night had revealed more about the man under the mask. With every layer that fell away, Tasia found herself drawn even more to the very Chosen she’d been determined to keep her distance from, since the night she’d walked into his Pack Room to confront the aggressive Were-Alphas and their terrifying Alpha. As she studied the thick overhang of flora that shielded the moon from its ardent devotee under the tree, the idea of what she could offer him came to her. Her sixth sense would always let her know if a Chosen approached their little grove. Thus, there was little risk to blowing her cover.
Relaxing against the trunk behind her, Tasia set to wielding her magic. For her, this was also cathartic; not only because this would bring him pleasure, but also because working magic gave her the same sense of freedom and joy, she aimed to give him. All magic was perception, her father had taught her. A brilliant Chosen was the perfect cross between a polished performer, able to stupefy his audience with amazing sleights of hand, and a tempered warrior, capable of intimidating his adversaries with the merest suggestion of deploying a powerful artillery against them. With that in mind, Tasia took
her time to build the chimera, brick by brick, without ignoring the fine details that could make or break the fantasy. Once complete, she took a last critical look at it, to add the final flourishes.
“I have something for you” she said to him, once she was ready.
“Hmm?” he murmured, without altering the tilt of his head.
“You’ll have to open your eyes to see it” Tasia suggested.
He didn’t cavil, following her suggestion to stare up at the sky. It took him a few seconds to register the changes. But his reaction was all Tasia had hoped for. He shot off the ground, to stare at the luminescent moon and its unimpeded light that now silhouetted him in a pale halo where he sat.
“What the fuck!”
The gold eyes flashed to her, before returning again to the jagged gap in the thick overhang above him, through which the clear starry sky, with the rotund moon, gleamed down.
Tasia observed him silently, a small smile playing about her lips. It was fun to see the confident bordering-on-arrogant Alpha be caught unawares.
He stood up, his eyes on the unobstructed moon, to stride away and scrutinize the jagged hole in the branches from a different angle. Tasia said nothing, merely watching him take stock. But when it looked like he might take very Shifter-like measures to solve the mystery, like leap for the gap in the branches to check it out closely, she thought it prudent to enlighten him.
“It’s a mirage” she said.
The remark astonished him. He cocked his head, to study the phenomenon.
“But the moonlight comes through it.” He gestured at the spot under the tree where he’d reclined before, highlighted now with a silvery mist.
“A very good mirage” she offered, unable to refrain from teasing him.
After a moment of reflection, his brows drew together in speculation. “Spell Caster magic?” he asked her.
“Very much so” she affirmed.
Tasia let her answer sink in, before plowing ahead. “This is why I urged you to not sell Spell Caster powers short.”
