Goddess Rising, page 17
He didn’t make a sound as I squeezed his hand, hoping to break bones like Lara’s fathers had merely a quarter century ago. He would heal as I had.
“I still can’t believe your parents named you Jacob. Like, why? Don’t think I won’t ask them,” Lara muttered, causing Aurora to huff.
“Really, Mom? That’s what matters here?”
I wondered about their back and forth but said nothing, not wanting this kid to catch any break from my attention. My eyes never wavered from his, and I saw the strength of steel in their depths, liking him only a smidgeon for it.
Until I saw the bite mark on the base of his neck, the impression of eighteen perfectly human-looking teeth marks lowered my fangs to their base and had me baring them at the wolf-child in front of me.
I jerked him to me, banding an arm around his back, “The only reason you are not dead where you stand is because my wife seems to think it might affect Aurora negatively if I were to kill you. You took something that was not yours to take, Wolf,” I whispered, letting my killing voice come from deep within as I spoke.
Wolves and vampires were natural enemies and always had been. It goes back to wars fought long ago to control the same resources both groups needed to survive before our presence was known, but it didn’t end there. An uneasy peace kept us from killing each other, but it existed only because of Noah and me. And this was another reason the situation was bullshit, pardon my colloquialism.
“I do not care about you as her mothers might, and I do not care about you as her father might. All I care about in this situation is Aurora, make no mistake. I am watching, as are two Goddesses who are decidedly not on your side. Do you understand?” I hissed, raking my teeth over Aurora’s claiming mark and making him bleed, only he didn’t flinch. Standing immobile in the face of such an attack was an acknowledgment of my right to attack him, which upped my estimation of the boy, if only slightly.
The other thing that raised my estimation of the boy was the whisper of power in the drops of blood I licked from my fangs. The boy would be something one day. But that day was not today.
“Oh,” my daughter said as she and Paul walked through the door. “I see we missed introductions.”
“We were in the middle of them; you haven’t missed everything,” Lara said, her voice lilting and her southern accent deep, which only happened when she was emotional.
“I see,” Grania replied, her ice-blue eyes nearly white as she tried to hold herself from snapping the skinny kid’s neck.
Dropping his hand, I stepped back as they moved forward to greet the wolf-child, and where I thought Paul might be the one to give the wolf some slack, he was the one to audibly break his fingers when their hands met, making me grin and my fangs glint in the light.
It did not go unnoticed.
The kid said nothing about his fingers or my fangs as his eyes caught on the powerful people assembled in the room. He would have to shift to fix the bones, but he pretended nothing was wrong as he returned to his seat next to Aurora, who had silent tears streaming down her cheeks as she took his uninjured hand in hers.
Having seen the game between my in-laws and me, she would have known this was how it would be, and I did not pity her.
She had tried to cover the marks of his savagery with a high-collared shirt, but I saw them, wanting all the more to rip his head off.
Lara sighed, rolling her eyes but kneeling at Jacob's feet, placing a hand on his, and fixing the bones in the span of five seconds. And if nothing else had gotten his attention, that certainly did, and his eyes widened briefly before he dipped his chin, saying, “Thank you.”
“We’ve spoken to your Goddess,” Dani started. “We understand that you couldn’t help the result of this situation.”
“But you could’ve changed the beginning,” Lara picked up seamlessly as she stood, their auras of anger and pity closely matched.
“You made bad decisions worse and a delicate situation more volatile. You understand,” Grania picked up.
“Were her grandfather and I not better people, you’d be dead, and Aurora would survive to find a mate more deserving and one of her choosing,” Paul added, and around the room it went.
“We would never let her suffer your death, child. Regardless of what your wolf Luna wants, I am her Goddess, not the other way around. I will protect my granddaughter in all things,” Dani said, and I enjoyed watching the blood drain from the kid’s face as he realized exactly who and what he had crossed. His eyes scanned the room with heightened awareness.
“I couldn’t help it,” he tried.
“And that lack of control and foresight almost got you killed,” I said. “At a minimum, you should have wooed our child. Dated her. Appreciated her. Made yourself known to this family, and taken some time,” I spit as I felt my eyes bleed lighter and lighter. “You did none of those things.”
“Grandfather,” Aurora tried.
“Silence,” I hissed, baring my fangs in her direction because I was just that angry. Aurora was no innocent here. She paled, flinching from me, and I did not regret that either. As I had wanted to show, we are all more than one thing, and she needed to see that, too. There is a price for every decision.
“What are your plans now,” Lara asked, absorbing some of the testosterone in the room with her question.
As if we might let him live.
As if we might let them plan.
I was still unsure of those summations, as was my son, judging by the glint in his eyes when I met them over the heads of those seated.
“I’m a contractor, a successful one,” the wolf started. “I have a house and the means to care for my…” he thought better of saying what he’d first planned. “To care for Aurora. She has her plans and her job. Nothing will change if she doesn’t want it to. She’s my fated mate, and despite our beginnings, I have a lot to offer, and all of that is hers now,” he said, glancing hopefully at my granddaughter, who refused to meet his eyes yet held his hand tightly. “It’s new to us too. Unexpected even. We’ve got a lot to work out.”
“And when your peers begrudge this pairing and come for my daughter,” Grania deadpanned, emotionless, seething, and burning in her soul because I felt it too. She is also more than one thing and not an insignificant power, not even close. “Because they will.”
“I’ll kill them,” he matched, his dark eyes turning amber as his wolf flashed behind them. And I believed he would. I believed he would try to protect her, but I was unsure he was up to the task because it was huge. Add who Aurora was into the mix, and it was nearly impossible, and entirely the reason that Sephone was tucked safely in Talamh na Sithe.
Lara nodded once in satisfaction, her arms uncrossing.
“I’m not convinced, wolf,” Paul argued.
“My name is Jacob, Sir. And I understand your discomfort, and I’ll play your games, but Aurora is my mate, and my dedication to that bond is not in question, and neither should my dedication to her be,” he said, showing the spine I saw in his eyes from the first moment they met.
“And know this, Jacob the Wolf,” Lara paused to smirk to herself while Aurora rolled her eyes for reasons I still did not understand. “We’re watching. All of us. And that includes Airmed, Queen of Talamh na Sithe, and Aurora’s other four grandfathers with whom you should not want to mess. Any one or all of us combined will set out to destroy your people, take your legacy, and end shifters permanently should this go sideways, you need to realize.”
“Noah will open his borders to us, and we will come and go as we please; this is your fight with him, not ours, but we will have open access. Your people need to understand who we are, where we stand, and that we are united,” Grania started. “Again, your fight.”
My wife picked it up, saying, “You’ve read the room, right, Jacob? You understand who you’re dealing with now if you didn’t before, correct?” she asked. “If Rora kept you in the dark about her genetics, you are now aware.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered immediately, glancing at Aurora so that she knew there’d be further conversation.
“Excellent,” I said, stepping forward. “Make it so.”
“But one more thing,” my mother co-opted, her hair raising with power and eyes narrowing on the young wolf in a den of lions.
A small gash opened on his arm, blood welling up, instantly healing. Dani pulled the droplets to her, absorbing them through her skin. Her voice became layered, and she used God magic to say, “You are my child. Mine. Know this. Where you go, I can find you. You’ve never been safer, but you’ve also never been in more danger because your Goddess knows you.” And then she sifted away, leaving the wolf boy and his mate stunned to silence.
Lara sifted without a word, and after I gave one final glare at the currently unhappy couple, I followed, leaving them to iron out the details of their relationship with their biological parents.
Chapter 23
I probably should’ve stayed and at least offered to take Coi home so he didn’t have to go to Scotland a few times before arriving wherever he’d intended. But, nah. He’d gotten to Maryland just fine; he could get out of there, too.
It almost made me mad how good he looked when he showed up. How dare he? He could’ve had the decency not to look like the perfect monster he was, even if it was only for my benefit.
Instead, I returned to the lake I used to think was in Talamh na Sithe but that I now knew was in another realm. They connected if you knew how to navigate it, but they were not of the same world. Once my feet hit the sand by the shore, I magicked the dress off and jeans and a tee shirt on. Instead of flats, I had square-toed cowboy boots. My oldest and dearest friend and childhood love, Tuffy, or T4 as he was known, waited patiently, munching hay.
“Took you long enough,” he said, swishing nonexistent flies from his burnished red-gold coat because some habits are hard to break. Too Tuff To Tame, my Quarter Horse, my savior, my soulmate on four legs, and my true heart horse, was long dead in the mortal realm, but here? He would live forever here, thanks to The Great Goddess of The Universe and The Maker of All Things.
Tuffy had once been my Guardian, protecting me from the threats he could, guarding the secret of my magic, and keeping me sane as an orphan in a world gone mad.
All this was way before I knew my parents weren’t dead and that I was what I was. He was my OG best friend and the one creature I was sure I’d die without.
“Are we going to do this or not?” he asked, stomping an impatient hoof and tossing his shoulder-length mane over his neck.
“Impatient?” I laughed, popping onto his bare back and burying my hands in his mane. I lay across his neck, inhaling the scent of love, sunshine, and horse that wafted from his pores.
“You need to stay here more,” he chastised. Galahad comes to visit, but I get lonely,” he said, breaking into a swift run with a toss of his head.
“I come almost every day,” I shouted, laughing as the sun warmed my face. It was always sunny on the lake unless I was sad, and then it rained. It didn’t rain very often. “And, I know for a fact that Dani and Teagan come. Probably my mother when my dads get on her nerves.
“That happens a lot,” he chuckled.
“Of course it does,” I shouted as he found another gear, making my words lose themselves to the wind.
“You’re spoiled,” I chuffed when eventually he slowed, snatching knee-high white clover growing especially for him as he walked toward the water’s edge.
He took a page from my second Guardian’s playbook, playfully dumping me into the water as I cursed him for bucking.
Both Guardians had been a gift from Dani well before I knew she existed. They’d helped me survive the awakening of my magic and many rough years before and after, but those are older stories to tell.
“You’re my human,” he said, ducking his head in embarrassment when he realized what he’d said. “Well, not human anymore, I suppose.” Because sometimes he forgot. T4 was over fifty years old and kind of set in his ways.
“I guess I never was human,” I added, magicking my jeans off and a bathing suit on. I ducked under the water, emerging to let it flow off my face and slick back my hair.
T4 waded beside me, sticking his entire face under the water and blowing bubbles from his nose like he’d done since babyhood. He’d been born during a Cat Five hurricane, and his personality reflected that. He had all the saucy attitude and spiciness you expected in a red horse, and I was the only one who could get near him from birth. I’d been tasked with his training from minute one as a broken teenage girl, and somehow, those broken pieces smoothed a bit just from having him in my life.
It made sense once I found out what he really was since he’d been made for me. It broke me when he died in the mortal realm, and I missed seeing him out my window every time I looked.
But time never stops, and neither do the winds of change. I’d take every second of every minute I could get to be with him.
“You need to stay more and not just drop in,” he said, snorting through his nose and spraying me with water.
Ducking under the surface, I filled my mouth, spitting at him when I rose again. “You’re not wrong,” I agreed as he pinned his ears at me.
“I need more downtime, and the great thing is that hours and hours spent here are only minutes in the mortal realm.” I kicked back, floating lazily on the lake's surface with water so clear that I could always see the bottom.
“He’ll survive a bit without you,” he growled as much as a horse can,
“Oh, I know,” I chuckled because T4 had never really liked Coi, though that had more to do with his undead vampiric nature than his personality, although they would butt heads on that level too. Being somewhat undead himself had not softened Tuffy toward the millennia-old vampire one bit.
Tuffy was my original protector and the first love of my life, taking a position in my heart that Coi wished to occupy but could never steal from the snarky old sorrel gelding whose bones lay buried under a Carolina oak tree.
I floated on, watching the unnaturally large scarlet heron circle high above the trees. The heron that was Dani enjoying a crosswind in bird form. I hoped to have a bird form someday so I could stop tasting fish when the gulls I occupied caught them. I sighed, flipping over and diving like a dolphin to check out the colorful fish hovering above the sand and rocks below. This place was paradise.
Surfacing with a sigh, I looked on as T4 sank to his knees before stretching on his side to dry in the sun. He dug his neck into the sand, dark eyes closing, and inhalations evening to a soft snore. It really was paradise as long as he existed here.
I walked out of the water, settling on the sand with my back on T’s side and crossing my arms over my middle to dry, nap, and love my oldest friend. He sighed so deeply it changed my position, and I snuggled into his shoulder to run my hands through his long mane. I wove a brush out of the universe and desnarled the thick red mass of hair until it was smooth and tangle-free.
I wasn’t sunburned when I awakened, still curled into T’s side. The sun hadn’t moved either, which was the magic of this place. The realm gave me what I needed, and what I needed was a break. What I hadn’t needed was to run away, and I doubted that more than a few minutes had passed back home. Still, I felt I needed to go in the way I often felt things that I didn’t understand.
I rose quietly, hoping not to disturb the sleeping horse, only to hear him say, “Sneaking away?”
“No, T. I am not sneaking away, but I do have to go,” I sighed. I’ll see you tomorrow and miss you until then. Love you.” He raised his head, and I kissed his nose before ruffling his forelock and sifting away.
The air conditioning was on in the Irish castle when I appeared in the bathroom and turned the shower on. The chill hit my sun-warmed skin, raising goosebumps and the little hairs on my arm. It was a rare occurrence that the air was used because it didn’t often get hot enough that opened doors and ceiling fans didn’t cool the house.
I stripped the conjured bikini, dropping the blue fabric to the floor before stepping into hotter than the sun on mercury hot water. It slooshed over my sandy legs, rinsing the lake water and horse hair remnants down the drain. Coi was home. His heavy blood, honey, and fall leaves scent carried through the vents, as did the smell of coffee.
I washed quickly, toweling off and dressing in magic and cotton since I was on a roll with both. I didn’t gratuitously use magic, but there were times it came in handy, and this was one of them. I swept my wet hair into a high ponytail before opening the door to let the steam escape the confines of our wonderfully modern bathroom.
Only to be blocked at the door.
My husband’s eyes were a shade yellower than their standard whiskey hue, showcasing his agitation and his monster beautifully. And he was most definitely a beautiful monster.
“Hi,” I said, keeping my voice low and my eyes on his like I would a wounded animal or an angry vampire. It wasn’t a challenge to him per se, simply a reminder.
“I apologize for leaving you to handle the shifter situation,” he grunted, backing me into the bathroom and pinning my hips against the vanity with his muscular frame. He didn’t sound even a little sorry, and his eyes bled a shade paler, proving he lacked contrition. Needle- sharp fangs snicked free, knicking his fat lower lip and drawing two drops of blood with their length.
My eyes caught those liquid ruby-colored jewels as they glistened in the overhead lighting. He ran his tongue over those plump curves, tasting the blood, and I couldn’t look away from the motion.
The scent of questionable decisions and risks overwhelmed the others as he grabbed my wrist and lowered his lips to mine, taking my mouth with a hunger that belied the danger and raising the hair on my arms once again, but they certainly can be the same. Hunger and danger go hand in hand with the creature in front of me.
