Savage Shifters Box Set, page 37
She spotted Dean first, along with a few of the shifters he brought with him. Some carried bodies, while others urgently herded those that could still walk out. Her mind processed all of this in, but her heart was a different matter as she scanned the faces and couldn’t see the one face she wanted.
A hand clamped on her arm, startling her into a defensive mode. She almost punched, and the woman gave Cassidy a frown.
“Mamsa!”
The woman looked wounded in places, but she didn’t so much as wobble. She was coated in ash, and her hair looked singed, too.
She had three unconscious children in her arms.
Immediately, Cassidy insisted on taking one of them—a little boy who was too skinny and breathing harshly. Cassidy looked the other woman in the eye, reading the weariness there.
Whatever question about Xian she had left her as she nodded her head.
“Come on. We’re leaving.”
She led the way, gritting her teeth at the weight of the boy, who was surprisingly heavy for someone so small. She watched Mamsa stumble every once in a while, and she understood the woman was barely hanging on. Cassidy did her best to be quick, even while the thick smoke was starting to make her dizzy, too, and almost had her losing her way once. Finally, they got past the bridge, got past the trees and into the clearing, where a crowd was gathered now, and the portal was trying to accommodate one exit after another.
Unbidden, her eyes scanned the crowd again until she finally spotted it—silver and white, a head of hair that was achingly familiar. The relief was almost there as she spotted his familiar body, too.
But that relief was popped like a bubble when she saw who Xian had in his arms.
It was his sister.
And she was burned to death.
Chapter 56
The fire didn’t die out, and Xian watched as his world burned in front of his eyes and the feeling of helplessness choked him. But it was better to be choked than to feel the other emotion trying to wrap around him as he held his sister in his arms, her body burned almost beyond recognition and her eyes as open and beautiful as he’d last seen them.
His last word to Xyla before he left was a promise that he was going to succeed and that everything was going to be alright. Now that promise was lost as he watched too many of his people burning and his sister lifeless.
“Xian…”
The familiar voice had him looking up, and blue eyes filled his vision. The sight of her was so out of odds with the situation that he wondered if he was dreaming.
“Cass?”
“I’m sorry. We were too late.”
“We?”
“Your sister asked Cassidy for help, and she contacted us,” Dean said, stepping beside him. “Now, we need to go. There’s nothing more here.”
It was the most practical thing that was ever said, and Xian nodded his head. He eyed Cassidy again as comprehension came and the pieces of the puzzle fell into place.
Xyla had gone looking for him but had only found Cassidy—and Cassidy had done her best to get everyone she could to come and help, but in the process had also accompanied his sister to her death as they came back here when they shouldn’t have.
But it was no one’s fault, and in Xyla’s death, she’d managed to save a couple of children stuck in the river where they last had a heart-to-heart talk. There was supposed to be relief in that, but Xian could feel nothing but agony coat his heart as he stood up. A quick count showed him that there were not enough conscious people to carry the unconscious ones, and the knowledge of that had him saying the words against what his emotions were screaming.
“Thank you. Everyone, please pick up whoever you can. Leave the dead ones behind. We need to leave.” He said it in English, then in their tribal language as murmurs started all over. Fire spit in the background, coming closer, warning them that time was precious and they had none of it to waste.
Dean got moving, and his men moved on, carrying two and three bodies at a time on their way to the portal. The children were prioritized, and Xian counted them in his head as he held on to his sister as long as he could. The dismay was heavy when he realized he counted not even half of their population—in fact, he counted not more than a hundred. He forced his mind to stop thinking beyond the necessary, and he watched as shifter after shifter slipped out through the portal until the clearing became less populated and only a few people were left.
Cassidy stayed by his side, but a fairy was slipping in from the portal and tugging her arm, urging her to her feet. They both carried four unconscious children in their arms, and Cassidy looked back at him with sorrow in her eyes. She opened her mouth, as if she needed to say something.
The smoke got in her nose, and she coughed uncontrollably instead.
“Cass, let’s go,” the fairy urged, glitter falling from her eyes. Tears. “We need to get these children out of here.”
That snapped Cassidy out of her coughing, and she swallowed the rest. She looked at Xian one more time, the apology reflected on her expression.
“I didn’t even ask her name,” she whispered mournfully.
She was talking about his sister.
Then she was slipping out of there, too.
There were only Xian and Mamsa left now, with the tall wolf shifter guarding the portal to keep it open with his presence. He nodded in Xian’s direction, and Xian nodded back as he watched the shifter turn into his wolf form, grab a few unconscious bodies and slip out.
Xian turned to Mamsa.
“How many can you carry?”
“Three.”
Xian frowned. “You’re badly injured—”
“I can carry three, Master,” the woman insisted stubbornly.
He let it go and watched as she grunted at the weight and her injuries. Then she was slipping out, too.
There were eight more bodies left, and the fire crackled and burned, getting nearer. Trees fell all around him, and he had to cover the bodies up and gather those left. A sinking feeling came at him when he realized he only had seconds left, and there were too many of them.
The portal gleamed, and someone jumped in. Dean stared at him and understanding settled between them as they knew what they needed to do.
They took four bodies each. A branch almost fell on Xian’s head, but he turned until it reached his shoulder instead, injuring him. He looked down at his sister one more time, trying to come up with something to say but feeling nothing but numbness coating his throat. Goodbye wasn’t enough, but he knew she would understand.
Dean slipped out.
As the trees gave way and fire soared through the only clearing left, the fuel on the ground encouraging it, Xian slipped out, too.
Goodbye, Xyla. Rest well.
*****
The travel from the river to the gallery required stealth, and so did the one from the marketplace to the shifter world. They did it as efficiently as they could manage, getting more reinforcements until Xian could only say thank you and follow the lead, then lead his people into their new home. There were tents already set up in the shifter land designated for them, along with food. Healers were taken in to help, and they were given instructions to the nearest river for their water supply and to help them heal better because it was the crocodile’s best option to help close their wounds.
The first priority to heal was Mamsa, who collapsed the moment they arrived and had to be revived as her heart stopped. Then she was back on track and helping them as they took care of the other unconscious ones, waking them up one by one and assessing their situation.
The count was done, and he had a total seventy shifters alive, including children. He used to have two hundred shifters in total, but these were all that could be saved, and the knowledge of that had his heart growing heavier by the second. He blocked it as much as he could as he talked to the elders and thanked them, then discussed what went on and what he found when he returned to the jungle to find it on fire.
Most of the shifters had lost their hide, but despite the infiltration being proof enough that a shifter was involved to open the portal, there was no proof that it was one from the shifter world. There needed to be more investigation, one that Dean was already heading, and all they could do at the moment was stew on this and just get whoever they could to safety. Xian tried to process this, even while his mind already told him what their words meant: that they refused to get involved unless it would affect the shifter world directly, and that Xian was on his own in this one.
The nasty words were at the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed them all back, along with the harsh reality that he couldn’t do anything about it—not when he wanted to keep the tentative peace between his tribe and this world. If he didn’t, then his shifters would suffer and be eventually driven away: something he couldn’t afford.
Not when he no longer had a home, and this was their home now.
So he took a step back and gave up his pride, throwing himself into building his new home up and making sure everyone was healed and accounted for. Mamsa took up the brunt of the work, and he watched as she grieved but put all her effort into the role Xyla used to have—guiding, herding, making sure everyone was doing okay. He watched as she put her heart and soul into it, and that made the decision easier for him.
“I need to leave for a bit, and it will be the last time for a while. Then I’ll be with you guys if I can. Can you take care of the tribe while I’m gone?”
Mamsa stared with eyes that knew too much. “I can, Master. But I can’t do it as efficiently as…”
She couldn’t finish the words, but he understood, anyway. Xian tried to fight his own sorrow as he nodded. “I know. But I trust you can in your own way.”
“Thank you, Master. I’ll do my best.”
The tall woman eyed him quietly as he watched his tribe. It was still the wee hours of the morning, and the sun hadn’t risen yet, but some of the women were already up and heading towards the river to gather fresh fish for the babies. That image flashed in his mind before he turned around.
“Master?”
He paused. “Yes?”
“Stay safe. We’ll await your return.”
“Thank you.”
The words were heavy, and the confirmation that he would come back couldn’t be said, not if he wanted to be truthful. He walked away before he could reveal anything else, letting the vision of the sky—a combination of blue, black and purple—be the last beautiful sight he saw.
Then he was heading towards the portal area, ready but not quite prepared to get to the bottom of things.
*****
“No one’s alive. It looks like some of the shifters had been massacred before burned, and the hides…lots of them are missing.”
The words were said in a grave tone, one he wasn’t accustomed to Dean using as he was always so calm and cold about many things. Xian tried to focus on the idea that perhaps there was more to the man than his bossiness, but even that couldn’t distract Xian from the reality he was seeing.
The jungle was gone, and there were no survivors left.
Beside Dean, two other shifters were present: the wolf shifter named Kasper who kept the portal open during the rescue, and a panther shifter named Jack, who was apparently in charge of most in-and-out transactions from SoHo to the marketplace and vice versa. They were all quiet, and no one made a comment as they looked at their surroundings and smelled the strong scent filling the air.
Death, fuel, and burned flesh.
“Any leads?” Xian finally asked.
Dean shook his head. “We’ve gathered some evidence here, and we would need to look into it first.”
“What evidence?”
“A lighter. A gun. Some hunter knives left behind.”
Xian nodded, trying to listen as Dean explained some other things that involved identifying fingerprints on the weapons, or what was left of them. But his body was roaring from the anger and the shock of seeing everything in broad daylight, and the pounding in his heart was something he could no longer take.
“Thanks. Can you handle it from this end?”
The question had the lion shifter looking at him intensely, almost like he wanted to say something else. But he nodded his blond head instead.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be gone for a day. I just need to take care of something.”
“Of course.”
Then, because he was about to lose his mind at every second he was here, Xian slipped back into the portal and the river.
And he didn’t look back.
That Kasper guy had been giving him observant looks since day one, and the judgment was certainly there, as if he knew where Xian was going. Perhaps he did, and Xian couldn’t judge him because the wolf shifter was just looking out for his friend.
When Xian got to SoHo, he tried to stroll around at first, getting himself lost in side streets and parks. But there were art galleries everywhere he turned, and they reminded him of the woman he hadn’t seen since the rescue, the woman who still occupied his dreams at night—dreams he could get lost in when his waking world had turned into a nightmare. The anger and confusion built as he grieved for his sister, as he thought of all the ways he would kill those who killed his family.
As he tried to fight the urge to see the one woman who could perhaps take him away from all of it.
In the end, he lost the fight. He left the park, walking and walking until he reached his destination and was knocking on her door. It opened after a few seconds, and the sight of Cassidy in a cotton top and a black skirt had all the emotions come crashing down on him.
One word was all it took.
“Xian…”
She opened the door wider for him.
And he stepped in and tried to shut the rest of the world off.
Chapter 57
There was something unusually quiet about him, and it wasn’t just the quiet demeanor he always had whenever they were together. Their moments together had always either been companionable or filled with a certain tension that they both tried to fight—sparks filling the space, tiptoeing around them both until it exploded that night in the jungle when they finally touched each other.
Now, there was only silence filled with grief.
It was so…tangible that she could almost taste it on her tongue. His face had been lost and confused when she opened the door, but now it was like the dam had broken, and she braced herself for another kind of explosion as he finally let all of that control go.
Cassidy found herself being picked up, and the door being slammed shut with the kick of his right foot. She gasped, clutching on to his shoulders as he sat on the couch and sat her down on his lap. Arms banded around her waist, pulling her closer until her side was pressed tightly against him.
His head went to her shoulder, and he inhaled her scent. Then he simply settled his head there, as if he was in need of it very, very much.
Something inside Cassidy softened. She found herself staying still and trying to breathe through the hard pitter-patter of her heart. His grief was even more palpable now, a dark cloud that seeped into her bones. She took it all, letting her walls down as she let the man in, wrapping her arms around him and offering as much comfort as she could. He didn’t cry, and perhaps she didn’t expect him to, but his body shook with an intensity that staggered her. She placed her hand on his back, rubbing in soothing motions, not saying a single word.
“We went back to the jungle.”
Her hand froze at that, and she braced herself for what else he would say next.
“There was nothing left. Only ashes. Even the grass was burned. And the bodies…”
There was no need to finish; she already knew what he meant. She wasn’t even there, yet her heart broke as he told her about how he, Dean, Kasper, and Jack went back to survey the place and see if there was something that could be salvaged. The detail in which he told the story formed a picture in her mind of what it looked like, and numbness coated her body and had her hugging him tighter. He hugged her back, continuing with his story until there was nothing to say.
“How’s your tribe doing?” she asked after a while.
The shift of topic was natural, and he kept talking while she listened. The heartbreak turned to a slow, gentle fascination as he detailed how they revived and healed everyone that was unconscious, how they built huts from scratch and started making a home out of the spacious land area that the elders had designated for them. It was near a river and surrounded by a field, then some trees, which made it the perfect location for them to breed and adjust to their new life. Cassidy closed her eyes and thanked the stars that Dean responded like he did because she didn’t think they could have saved as many people had he not brought reinforcements.
She wanted to ask some more, especially about what exactly happened in that jungle, but she didn’t. A certain feeling lingered in the air that told her that question was dangerous, and that he wasn’t quite ready to talk about it yet. Instead, the silence coated them again, the grief and bitterness no longer as intense as they surprisingly found comfort in each other.
After a while, Xian’s stomach grumbled, and Cassidy opened her eyes to find him watching her. Those black, almond-shaped eyes were absolutely beautiful.
“I don’t know your last name,” she blurted out before she could stop herself.
She thought he would frown. Instead, he tilted his head and gave her a thoughtful look. “I don’t have one. We have unique names. What about you?”
“Simpson. Cassidy Simpson.”
“That’s a nice name.”
She smiled. He didn’t smile back, but he didn’t look as miserable as he did earlier, and that gave her hope. “Would you like some food, Xian?”
“Yes.”
*****
He stayed to eat breakfast, and he stayed to hang out, taking an interest in her art collection and asking about the history of each of them. She promptly and eagerly told him what she knew, and he listened intently as story after story unfolded, giving him a glimpse of the world she lived in more than anything. She told him of her parents, of how she never really knew them on a deep, personal level, and how she considered Yeri and Kasper her family more than anyone because they accepted her for who she was and never, ever abandoned her despite all the mistakes she’d made in her youth.
