Healing of the Wolf

by Cherise Sinclair

  “The world is changing. We have humans in our towns. The Scythe are searching for us. There will be more battles, and I have to be ready.”

  When it came to dedication, they were much alike. Tynan’s worst fear was that he’d fail in protecting others.

  His littermate dreaded losing someone to death. His healing skills and power were unsurpassed among the Daonain, but he was still only mortal.

  “I can follow the logic, Donal, but I question your taste in females. Did you really mate with Sarah last night?”

  “She has an adequate pool of energy—and she tends to be around when shifters get hurt, although it sure isn’t because she’s there to help.” Donal looked slightly sour.

  Tynan snorted. “The female’s a lookie-loo.”

  “A what?”

  “Human term for the snoopy onlookers at accident and crime scenes.” The idiots would mess up a crime scene or jam traffic by slowing down to gawk. He frowned at Donal. “Didn’t you mate with Sarah in December. Why again?”

  Donal shrugged. “I can pull energy through a mating bond—like drawing water from a well—but the bond thins as time passes. Usually after three or four months it’s gone.”

  “So, you rotate through females each Gathering. That must take a lot of the joy out of mating.”

  “Aye.” Donal took a bite of the sandwich. After swallowing, he added, “I had a female move in once—not for lifemating. Just a relationship.”

  “And?”

  “Didn’t work. She wanted more.”

  Tynan studied his littermate’s disgruntled expression. “More what?”

  “More time, more attention. An injured shifter who’d been gutted by a boar was brought into the clinic. She yelled at me because we were supposed to meet people at the diner for supper.” Donal’s jaw went tight. “Did she think I’d let him die while I ate pizza?”

  “She did realize you’re a healer, right?”

  “By Herne’s holy prick, yes. She kept telling me how sexy healers were.” Donal rubbed his jaw. “It seems we’re not so sexy when covered in blood and guts.”

  Tynan snorted. For someone so perceptive about his patients, Donal could be stupid-blind sometimes. “Someone whose priority is status probably isn’t a good fit for someone whose priority is saving lives.”

  “I figured that out. Eventually. I’ll stick to mating the females at the Gatherings.”

  Tynan started to speak and stopped. He’d assumed they’d find a mate at some point. Together.

  But Donal wasn’t thinking that way.

  On the other hand, Donal changed his mind faster than the wind changed on a mountaintop. He didn’t like pizza until Tynan talked him into trying it. Thought flannel shirts were unprofessional—and look at what he wore now.

  If they found the right female…

  Glancing at the clock, Tynan grabbed his jacket off the chair. “I need to head out.”

  Donal rose. “Where to?”

  “Calum sent a message he wanted to speak to me.” A small worm of worry crawled into his gut. A Cosantir held the power of life and death over all the shifters in his territory.

  Tynan didn’t know the Cosantir here all that well. When a cop in Seattle, he’d had contact with Calum only when shifters visiting the city got lost, arrested, or died.

  Donal’s black brows drew together. “What’s he want with you?”

  “No clue.”

  Donal scowled. “No more separations. I couldn’t follow you to the city”—The God-called were damaged if they lived outside the God’s influence—“but you’re not leaving again. You tell Calum if he thinks to send you off somewhere, he’ll be looking for a healer, too. This time, where you go, I go too.”

  Defying a Cosantir was a quick way to the grave, but a Daonain did have the right to decide where he lived, and healers were valued everywhere.

  Tynan clapped his brother on the shoulder. “If it comes to that, I’ll let him know. It’s probably nothing.”

  “I’m not an optimist.”

  “Really? I had no idea.” Tynan dodged the punch and headed out the door. Behind him, Donal was muttering about mangy, flea-ridden brothers who were wolves.

  Tynan grinned. Could two littermates be more different? His brother was a werecat, an introvert, and as volatile as a pixie.

  Their mother had called Donal her air elemental whereas Tynan was pure earth—stubborn and unyielding as the mountains. As a healer, she hadn’t been the most loving of mothers, but she’d been pretty damn observant.

  Once through downtown, Tynan strolled up the hill toward the Wild Hunt Tavern. The air held no stink of concrete and metal; it was crisp and fragrant with the moist scent of new growth. Although the mountains still clung to their snowy blankets like wizened old men, here in Cold Creek, the white was receding to expose brown earth and green sprouts. Up in the trees, pixies chittered while nibbling on the tender leaf buds.

  At the tavern, he pulled open the heavy oak door and stepped in. Warmth surrounded him along with the aromas of beer and popcorn.

  Behind the long bar at the back, Calum motioned toward a corner table where his sandy-haired littermate sat. Alec was not only a cahir—protector of the clan—but also the sheriff of their small county, serving as law and order on the human side.

  Cosantir and sheriff. The brothers made a powerful team.

  “Good to see you, Tynan.” Alec rose and held out a hand to shake. The blade-shaped blue scar on his cheek marked him as a cahir as did the extra height and heavy musculature. Herne’s gifts to better enable his cahirs to fight for the Daonain.

  After shaking hands, Tynan took a chair across from the sheriff.

  Alec studied him with a smile. “You’re looking healthier these days, not so much like a rubber band that’s been stretched too tight.”

  “The city isn’t a beneficial place for shifters. It’s good to be back in the mountains.”

  “Does that mean you’re planning to stay in Cold Creek?” Alec asked with his slow southern drawl. Odd how Daonain clung to habits absorbed after coming into their natures. Alec had been fostered in the south; Calum spent his teen years in England, Tynan in Ireland. Their acquired accents lingered on.

  “I, too, would like to hear the answer to that.” Calum placed a cup of coffee—black—in front of Tynan before sitting. A couple of inches shorter than his littermate, the Cosantir had an olive complexion, dark gray eyes, and black hair pulled back in a leather tie. As reserved as his littermate was sociable.

  “I’d like to stay.” Tynan took a sip of coffee. The fragrant dark roast was prepared exactly as he liked it.

  The Cosantir had a reputation for discovering everything about the shifters in his territory. He was also known for being fair, although not easygoing in the least. He’d banished quite a few shifters, including a male who’d caused permanent damage to another during a Gathering fight.

  Calum’s smile was worrisome. The Cosantir was a werecat—and panthers played with their prey. “In that case, I’d like to hear how you came to be in Seattle. Unless it’s a secret?”

  Tynan’s gut tightened. The reason he’d been in Seattle was an ugly part of his past. Calum might not want a shifter like him in his territory—which would be hard on Donal.

  Damn. He stared down at his coffee. Words had come easily to him at one time as had sharing his emotions. No longer. Not after hiding his very nature from the humans in the city. After guarding each word that came out of his mouth.

  “It’s not a secret as such.” But he’d buried the painful past deep in his soul. He looked at the Cosantir and knew he had no choice. “After I returned to the States from fostering, Donal and I traveled. Settled here and there. Traveled more. The way single shifters do. One night, we attended a Gathering where—”

  A fist seemed to squeeze his chest, locking the explanation within him.

  Alec frowned and pushed Tynan’s coffee closer. “Take a sip of that and try again.” The sympathy in his voice sang beneath
the order.

  Tynan took a drink. “It was a rough Gathering. Unsupervised. A male attacked me when I was taking a pretty female to a mating room. I struck him back. Hit him hard. No question about that.”

  He could still feel the impact of his fist on the male’s jaw, and the familiar self-reproach swept through him. Admittedly, the male had been an asshole. Tynan hadn’t wanted to fight; it wasn’t his way—yet backing down wasn’t in his nature either. “He tipped backward over a table, landed wrong, and broke his neck.”

  Tynan had stood there. Waiting to continue the fight. Why didn’t the male rise? Walking around the table. Seeing…a body. The face turning a bluish-gray. The chest so still, not rising.

  How long had he stood there in disbelief with horror growing within him? He’d looked for his littermate. But Donal had been called away for a healing.

  Brawls happened at Gatherings. The air was filled with testosterone and the scents of aroused, willing females. Males showed off their prowess for the favor of a female. But the Daonain Law stated a male must cause no permanent harm to his opponent.

  Death was very permanent. “I was banished.”

  Alec tilted his head. “The Cosantir accused you of breaking the Law of the Fight?”

  The Cosantir of that territory had slashed his claws across Tynan’s face. “Outcast you are, to be shunned by shifters and OtherFolk until the marks of banishment are gone.” Eventually, if a shifter repented, the Goddess might forgive the transgressor and turn the black scars to white.

  “For an accidental death?” Calum frowned.

  “The male was dead.” Tynan’s throat was tight. “And I was from out of territory. Not one of the Cosantir’s clan.”

  “How long were you outcast?” Alec’s expression made Tynan stiffen. He didn’t need or deserve pity.

  Although the banishment had been hard. To be shunned by the clan, family, and even OtherFolk like dwarves and pixies… It lacerated a shifter’s soul. Often, the banished simply gave up and died. Tynan had approached that point. He’d caught himself stalking a grizzly, thinking suicide by bear was an honorable enough ending. But, thinking of Donal, he’d pulled himself back. And survived.

  “How long?” He took another drink of coffee to erase the taste of those days. “A month—maybe less. It’s not like I was looking in a mirror to see when the marks disappeared.”

  “A month?” Calum shook his head. “Banishment for breaking the Law will last years, Tynan. I don’t think the Mother agreed with your sentence.”

  Tynan sighed. “I caused a death, Cosantir, however it happened. Forgiveness wouldn’t be right. Truly, I was surprised when I saw my reflection in a lake and realized the black scars were gone.” All the scars had been gone, in fact, as if they’d never been.

  Yet he’d remained in the wilderness for months after that. He’d killed someone.

  The Cosantir’s eyes met his in understanding. “The Mother forgave you, but you couldn’t forgive yourself.”

  “I felt as if I owed more.” Tynan rubbed his jaw where the scars had been. “I underwent the ritual to speak to the God. To Herne.”

  The God was not to be called upon lightly. In wolf form, he’d run for days, no food, no water, no rest, leaving everything behind him except the need in his soul. Finally, legs shaking, he’d scrambled up to an overlook and had stood there, wavering with every gust of wind. Too stubborn, too stupid to leave.

  Herne had heard him.

  Alec’s eyes narrowed. “Herne sent you to Seattle?”

  Tynan nodded. The God didn’t exactly speak words, at least not to anyone who wasn’t a Cosantir. “The Hunter gave me the knowledge there was a wrongness in the city. Something to do with the Daonain. I was to wait there until he needed me to act.”

  For a fecking decade he’d waited.

  “You were there a long time,” Calum murmured as if he’d heard the thought, “but to the immortals, time is an ocean, not an hourglass where each grain of sand is a moment of life.”

  Tynan sighed. “So I came to realize.”

  “No matter how long, you were there as needed when needed.” The Cosantir’s gray eyes darkened. “Without you, the Dogwood females would still be imprisoned—and dying—and the male shifters would be weapons in the hands of the humans.”

  Payment for a death couldn’t be measured out like so much flour, yet Tynan’s presence in Seattle had helped save dozens of young Daonain. The knowledge had released him. “I wish I could have found them sooner.”

  “Hard to do when you didn’t have any information to act upon.” Alec’s voice held a snap. A cahir and a sheriff would know all about not clinging to guilt.

  Tynan nodded an acknowledgement.

  “I’m surprised you managed to survive in the city as long as you did,” Calum said. “A wolf without a pack tends to have problems.”

  “Human police form a kind of pack. It’s not the same, but…it helped.” The longing to run with other wolves had grown greater with every year that passed. For security, he’d kept his visits to Cold Creek few and far between.

  “Shay’s pleased to have you in the pack,” Alec said.

  Shay was the alpha of the local pack—a damn fine alpha—and his littermate Zeb was as tough a beta as anyone could hope to find. “It’s a solid pack.” Despite a few problems remaining from the previous alpha’s mismanagement.

  He had to admit, he still didn’t feel completely part of the pack. Unlike when he’d been a young male, he stayed on the outskirts. Maybe he’d lived with humans too long.

  The air in the tavern stirred slightly—someone had opened the portal to the underground caves in the back—and Tynan caught a whiff of minerals, then saw three stout dwarves walk into the room. “Dwarves. In a bar?”

  Calum’s quick grin was white in his tanned face. “They’ve learned they like beer fresh from the tap. I keep a table reserved in the back corner.”

  Welcoming OtherFolk? This was a quite different Cosantir from the ones he’d known growing up.

  “Excuse me.” Calum rose, paused, and looked back at Alec. “I approve.” He headed for the dwarves, moving with the prowling gait of a mountain lion.

  Assuming the Cosantir meant he could stay, Tynan started to rise. “Right then. Can I assume we’re done here?”

  Leaning back, Alec stretched out his legs. “That would be a nope.” The sheriff’s dark green eyes were sharper than his slow drawl and easy manner suggested. “Would you happen to be getting bored with your day-to-day life here?”

  Sharp, indeed. “Aye. As it happens, I am.”

  “Good.” Alec smiled. “Azure is an exceedingly small county, and during the winter, the demand on law enforcement isn’t strenuous. Trouble is, as the weather warms, the human traffic increases. We have more shifters traveling through the territory and more hellhounds.”

  “Makes sense.” Where is he going with this?

  “I have two deputies. A still inexperienced male and my mate. Our cubs were born last fall, so neither Vicki nor I want to work full-time.” Alec paused and met Tynan’s gaze. “I could use another deputy, if you’re interested.”

  Law enforcement suited Tynan from snout to tail.

  And Cold Creek was Donal’s choice for a home. “I’m interested.” He glanced toward the back where the Cosantir was serving the dwarves. “That was what he approved? For you to offer me a job?”

  “Very good. Yes.” Alec smiled. “I checked you out with the Seattle PD; your captain and fellow officers think very highly of you. But Calum wanted to know what drove a wolf to the city.”

  Tynan blew out a breath.

  Alec’s eyebrows rose.

  “Sorry. To you, he’s just your littermate. For the rest of us Daonain, being summoned by the Cosantir has a shifter wondering what he fucked up. Then you offer me a job. It’s like falling off a steep cliff, expecting to be splattered on the rocks, and landing in a lake instead.”

  “Well, hell, sorry about that.” Alec grinned and rose.
“If you’re not too badly drenched, let’s go start on the paperwork to make you official.”

  Tynan grinned back, even the thought of paperwork not a deterrent. “Let’s do that.”

  Oh, gopher-guts. Angie hadn’t lied, had she? Unable to move from the doorway, Margery stared into the house that she was supposed to live in. And clean.

  Angie had planned to be here, too, but her daughter, who lived in a nearby town, had called for her help.

  Hoping not to wait until she returned, Margery had asked for the key. She could manage.

  Or so she’d thought.

  The small house on Cumberland Street was filthy. An offense to her sensitive wolf nose.

  Still…

  Margery gave a happy hip-wiggle—the human equivalent of a tail-wag—and walked into the house. Mine, all mine. No one would yell her name with demands that she clean up their messes or their pups. No pushy males. No one expecting her to tend their injuries even as they called her gimpy and ugly.

  She rubbed her face and dragged herself out of the paw-sucking swamp of pity. Part of her unhappiness there had been her own fault. Her cubling memories had turned Dogwood into a glowing haven of peace and belonging. The other captives had done the same.

  The reality was that all villages had good and bad people, whether shifter or human.

  Nonetheless, Cold Creek would be better for her than Ailill Ridge. Here, she’d be a waitress, not a banfasa. Here, she had her own house.

  In her heart, she lifted a paean of gratitude to the Mother for the chance to start again. For being alive. For spring.

  Smiling, she looked around the open living room. Brown carpet, off-white walls, dark blue couch, two comfortable-looking armchairs, and lamps on the end tables. A bookcase covering one wall indicated the previous owner had been a reader.

  Story-hunger squeezed her heart. There were books to explore.

  Later. Cleaning first.

  An island with three tall stools separated the kitchen from the living room. The kitchen was a celebration of wood, from maple farm-style cupboards to butcher block counters. Off to the right, an oval table with ladder-backed chairs formed the dining area.