The Jaguar screamed to life, flashing in Aryck’s eyes. He didn’t try to suppress it or hide the truth from his father, that man and beast were unified in their desire for Rebekka as a mate. “And when she leaves our territory?”
“Then you will have to decide how badly you want her. Whether you desire her enough to follow her to Oakland and lose your position as enforcer, and very likely your place in the pack.”
The threat shocked Aryck, making it feel as though ice coursed through his bloodstream and settled in his core. His mind froze for an instant but thawed with the recognition of scent. His father’s worry blended with the sharp tang of anger and frustration.
“I intend to speak to Nahuatl.”
It couldn’t be forbidden.
Koren shrugged, and his emotions fell away. “Do so. If the ancestors have plans for the healer, then they will make them known. Until then your first duty is as enforcer. Or do you wish to step aside and let another claim the position?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what happened in Wolf territory.”
They’d reached a place of both stalemate and compromise. Aryck accepted the opportunity to move past the issue of Rebekka—for now.
“It’ll be easier to show you,” he said, and, with the touch of his mind to his father’s, condensed the important images and conveyed them in a brief stream of information.
When it was done Koren said, “You did well to take the initiative and suggest the possibility of alliance. I will speak to Nahuatl and Phaedra first, then to the elders individually, sharing this information with them and drawing on their memories. Take a few others and swear them to secrecy. Search our lands for signs disease has spread here, and for evidence the humans might be responsible for what happened in Wolf territory. Then see if you can draw the attention of the Hyena and Coyote enforcers, and if they, too, might support alliance.”
It meant a delay in speaking with Nahuatl about Rebekka. It meant his father would speak to the shaman first.
Aryck pushed away his uneasiness that the ancestors would be influenced or change their minds before he could make his case to the shaman and ask for Nahuatl’s intercession with them, or the guidance necessary for him to face them himself in a Petitioner’s Rite.
He glanced in the direction Rebekka had gone. When he returned, he’d speak to Nahuatl and, if it was still necessary afterward, get word to her about his father ordering him to stay away from her. There was no time now. More was at stake here than his desire to take her as a mate. “I’ll leave immediately.”
Twenty-one
REBEKKA wrung her panties and bra out one last time before turning toward the place where the rest of her clothing hung draped over low branches. She glanced around, feeling self-conscious at the prospect of leaving the deep pool.
Her hand slid over her belly, trailing heat in its wake. Her channel clenched as she remembered the hot spray of semen jetting from Aryck’s cock, the look of sublime pleasure on his face, and the heady feeling that had come from making him lose control.
Her clit stiffened with the memories and she played with it, stroking the underside and across the tip, imagining it was Aryck’s fingers, Aryck’s tongue.
A blush stole up her neck and across her cheeks as she pictured him between her thighs, black hair whispering across her skin, his mouth doing exquisite things and making her feel feminine and desirable.
Twice she’d told him no.
She wasn’t sure she would give him the same answer the next time.
Was it love?
Or simply lust?
Was there any way to know for sure without risking her heart? Without yielding her body?
Her fingers left her clit and settled on the tattoo, tracing it without looking down at the ugly mark. Her heart thundered at the very prospect of revealing it and witnessing his reaction.
She’d half hoped Aryck would join her in the water, his arrival forcing her to let him see the tattoo. To tell him about the laws still upheld in places in the San Joaquin and about stepping out of the caravan bus when the settlement police were there to collect the sin tax. He’d listened as she told him about life in Oakland, though she’d only told him about her life among outcasts, not about her mother. Or her father.
Fear threaded through her heart. She had other secrets to reveal.
Soon, she promised herself. Once she was more certain of him.
Weres were physical, earthy beings. He might be acting on lust alone, with no thought beyond experiencing shared pleasure.
Rebekka left the water, grabbing up the towel on the bank and hurriedly drying herself. A few steps took her to her clothing.
She hung the wet panties and bra on a branch, then dressed. The weight of the journal against her thigh reminded her of the promise to Phaedra.
Was it only this morning she’d agreed to share the knowledge contained in it? So much had happened since then.
She pulled the book from her pocket, wondering if Phaedra had gained permission for her to remain with the Jaguars. Doubt crept in as Rebekka remembered Koren’s expression when he’d stepped out of his cabin. The alpha didn’t approve of Aryck being with her.
A chill swept through her. What if Koren sent her away this very night?
It wouldn’t come to that, she realized. Ice replaced the chill as dread returned.
He wouldn’t send her back to Oakland, not with disease threatening. She was needed here, more now than before—even if she’d brought the devastation with her.
“There’s no proof I did,” she whispered, speaking out loud to give the words the ring of truth.
The healer’s journal documented the horrors of biological and germ warfare let loose during The Last War. The Jaguar cubs had already stumbled on one weapon; who was to say there weren’t more on these lands?
The knots of fear and worry and dread loosened as Rebekka saw a different possibility. She was here when she was needed the most, with the journal and the amulet, both given to her by the Wainwrights—her father’s allies.
If war was coming, as the witches claimed, then what side would the Weres stand on?
She couldn’t suppress a shiver as she remembered those moments when she healed the Wolves, when she’d heard the drumbeats of the Were ancestors. Hope slipped in as she thought about her argument with Aryck and his claim that being made outcast was the result of having the eternal soul cast from the shadowlands.
If there was any truth in it, then shouldn’t the ancestors be able to restore those in the brothels, so they could shift fully between forms? Shouldn’t she be able to gain intercessions on the outcasts’ behalf as a result of the healing she did here? If she could, then there would be no need for her to return to Oakland. A future with Aryck would be possible—assuming that was what he wanted.
Old insecurities resurfaced. She wasn’t sure a man was capable of being faithful to only one woman over the course of a lifetime together. Wouldn’t the temptation to stray grow more acute the longer a Were was with someone who had only one form? Was it even possible for the permanent bond both Phaedra and Levi spoke of to exist between a Were and a human?
Rebekka’s elation tumbled away with the thought of Levi. If the Were ancestors could restore those viewed as outcasts, wouldn’t the Lion shaman have already approached the ancestors on Levi’s behalf?
He couldn’t be blamed for being twisted into a monstrous shape by a human using witch-charmed silver. Instead of being exiled from the pride, Levi should be rewarded for choosing a human shape so he could work to keep others from ending up in the maze as he waited for the chance to free Cyrin.