The heavy weight of choice settled on her shoulders. She could have a mate, children, friendships extending beyond a single group of Weres. Safety unlike anything she’d ever known and a life full of love and happiness. But at a cost.
With the threat posed by the encampment gone, there would be little need of her gift among the pure Were. Most of their injuries could be cured by a shift in form. What little sickness befell them naturally could be treated with remedies.
To accept this life was to be defined as mate and mother instead of healer. Her heart craved it, yet at the same time, it seemed wrong to abandon those in need, and care only about her own happiness.
Rebekka turned in Aryck’s arms, looked up into the face of the man she wanted to spend a lifetime with. How could she leave him? But what if staying meant her gift would never deepen so she could heal the Weres trapped between forms? What if staying meant their only hope lay in escaping the red zone and surviving the ancestors’ Rite of Trial?
What about those who weren’t Jaguar or Lion, Bear or Wolf, Coyote or Hyena? What about Levi, who would die if he stood before the ancestors? And Cyrin and Canino, trapped in their animal form, not outcast but not whole either?
Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. “I need time alone, to think,” she whispered, touching her lips to Aryck’s in a silent plea for him to understand the struggle keeping her from giving him the answer he wanted.
He crushed her to him, mouth claiming hers in desperation. She responded with like emotion. Opened for him, her tongue rubbing and tangling with his. Their breaths mingling, bodies pressed tightly together, both of them afraid of what would happen once they separated.
Rebekka felt torn apart, bereft when he released her and stepped back. Cold replaced the heat of his body, the burden of conscience leaving no room for passion.
“I’ll meet you back at the Lion dwelling place.”
His expression became that of a protector. “No Were would dare attack you, but I don’t like leaving you unguarded.”
She laid her hand on his chest. “If I’m to live in these lands, I have to be able to survive without a personal bodyguard.”
A muscled twitched in his cheek. Conflict was written in taut muscles and rigid posture.
Aryck covered her hand where it rested on his chest, pressed as though he wanted to anchor her to him. “Be careful.”
Rebekka felt the loss with each step away from Aryck. She knew it was nothing compared to the agony she’d experience if she returned to Oakland.
Why contemplate it at all? a small voice whispered in her mind. Hadn’t she wondered if working in the brothels only perpetuated the misery? Hadn’t she done enough for others?
Memories of lovemaking contrasted against the loneliness she’d known before. Images of teaching Caius his letters brought fantasies of other children learning to read, small boys who looked like Aryck. Didn’t she deserve happiness, too?
Arguments and counterarguments chased themselves around in her thoughts as she walked through the woods until, weary of the battle between her heart and her mind, Rebekka sat on a log beside a dry creek bed.
A male cardinal landed a few feet away from her, a bright splash of color against yellowed grass. Seeing it reminded her of those moments standing in front of the Wainwright house after the dream and the rat in the alley sent her running to them.
The blood red of the cardinal sitting in a nearby tree had seemed like an omen waiting for interpretation. It seemed like a second omen to have the cardinal appear now, at another crossroad in her life.
The thought sent uneasiness rushing through Rebekka. She rose to her feet, only to realize the true source of her sudden nervousness.
A Jaguar watched. It remained crouching just long enough for its fury to reach her, and for Rebekka to recognize Melina before she charged.
There was no time to scream. No time to react.
No need to as the cardinal morphed into a tiger and launched itself at Melina, its weight and unexpected appearance giving it the advantage.
They collided then hit the ground, the tiger landing on top, driving its canines into Melina’s exposed throat and clamping down savagely, cutting off air and sound and delivering a killing bite.
He turned toward Rebekka, and in her mind’s eye she saw him even before the tiger became the man who’d saved her from rape when she was sixteen and sent her to Dorrit.
Her mother’s voice rang through her mind. John. They’re all named John.
Rebekka’s eyes went to his hands, expecting to see wickedly curved black talons. Instead his fingernails were short and clear. Human, not demon.
His sharp features were the same, as was his hair. He wore it in a hundred braids, all of them with black and red beads woven in—a cardinal’s coloration to go with the image of it on his bare chest.
She felt foolish for having missed the connection, for not having questioned how often she noticed a bird not commonly seen.
The fear-spiked adrenaline caused by Melina’s sudden appearance and attack washed away, leaving Rebekka nauseous. Or maybe it was the knowledge that whatever plans her father had for her were about to be revealed.
She studied him as he studied her, was reminded of the raven outside the Wainwright house who’d sat in the same tree as the cardinal before shifting into a supernatural being so powerful at masking his nature not even Levi could see beyond the human facade, of Zurael, the shamaness Aisling’s mate, who had the same otherworld feel.
“What are you?” she asked, hesitating on a breath before acknowledging the relationship between them. “Besides my father.”
“My race is ancient, existing before the birth of mankind. We ruled here once and will do so again.”
“Demon.”
“That name was given to us by our enemy, when the oldest and most powerful of us was twisted into a terrifying shape in an effort to subdue us. Since then we have hidden behind the label and been forgotten by humans even as time and the power of their belief has given birth to a legion of true demons.”
Dread clawed through her but it didn’t stop her from saying, “Abijah said you had no love for humans. What do you want from me?”
Not for the first time since the testing began, Torquel felt regret. Were it in his power, he would prevent his daughter from suffering further. He’d found it unbearable to see her bound and gagged, at the mercy of human trash.
It had been a small transgression on his part to take a mouse’s form and heal her with a quick touch of fur to forehead. A small interference he’d present himself to be punished for should The Prince demand it.
He wished he could reveal the things she needed to know. Bestow the gifts he could on her. But he was as trapped in these proceedings as she was.
“What do you want from me?” she asked for a second time, her courage swelling his heart with such pride that he wanted to embrace her, to become a true father to her, a teacher and confidant.
There wasn’t much time. The enforcer would soon come looking for her.
Torquel asked, “Do you love the Were?”
She stiffened, looking for the trap in his question and, after a long moment, springing it closed by answering, “Yes.”
“Then I’ve come to give you a choice. Remain here and make a life for yourself, or accept my gift and return to Oakland as a healer who can heal not only those Weres caught between forms, but those trapped in only one form.”
Rebekka knew with absolute certainty he could bestow such a gift on her. Deep down, a part of her had guessed it would come to this the moment Aryck spoke openly about her becoming his mate.
“And if Aryck is willing to come with me to Oakland?” she asked, churning with uncertainty, wondering if he loved her enough to enter her world, if he would be willing to risk becoming outcast—