Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…
Wulfric loosened his hold on the unconscious female’s throat and she stopped struggling. He changed back into his bear and the two lords glared at each other.
Leonard spoke first. “What has been happening here?” he growled. “My beast is disgusted with me.”
“Well he might be. We seem to have been being manipulated.”
“Manipulated?”
“Yes. Put a rein on your beast for a moment and think.”
The lion shook his mane again before prowling up and down the steps in front of us.
“This could take a while,” Purslane remarked, “Leonard Lyon isn’t among the brightest.”
We waited. Leonard prowled. Wulfric cleaned his claws. The unconscious female muttered and twitched as she dreamed.
All around me, hard-won patience was wearing thin when a lioness came quietly out of the house. She sat down and looked about her in some hauteur. Leonard hustled his golden self to her side and made to rub his face in her fur. She snarled and snapped her teeth very close to his nose before standing up and making the change, albeit very slowly and with an obvious effort.
It was almost as if an older version of the female unconscious on the steps stood before us.
“Well husband,” she said in a voice with quite the cutting edge of my best dagger. “I think you have some explaining to do.”
Leonard struggled back into human form, but he said nothing only hung his head like a child expecting chastisement.
The lioness turned her face to Wulfric. “Perhaps you have sufficient control of your tongue to offer me an explanation.”
He showed his teeth and I scented ancient enmity. “I might,” he replied, “but then again I might choose to spin you a parcel of moonbeams.”
I decided this was going nowhere fast so I took a hand, sticking my head out of the window and whistling sharply. The lioness’ head snapped round.
“I believe,” I said carefully, “that the creature on the floor may hold the answers to both your questions snd my own.”
Lady Lyon stalked over to where beauty lay and stared down at the creature. “It is,” she said, “passing strange to see another wearing your face.”
“I expect it is.”
The lioness looked at the female who was wearing her face with real loathing. “What is it? Is it the True Shifter? She who is the enemy of all lycanthropes.”
Mandrake took the megaphone from my hand before I could blast the lioness.
“Where do you get that idea?”
“Why. From….” Something must have clicked in her brain. “From a young human woman engaged by my husband to teach our cubs the ways of humans. I remember talking with her and sharing wine. Then nothing until I awoke just now.”
“I think you have answered at least part of your own question.” It was Purslane who had stepped out onto the roof of the all-wheel. “Lioness,” she said coolly, “you have choices to make here. You can kill the creature who stole your face without ever letting it wake up. Or you can awaken it and question it closely.”
Leonard opened his mouth, and his mate turned on him.
“You be quiet.”
He subsided into silence, as did Wulfric Bear – although I did spot signs of unholy amusement in the unnatural rigidity of the Bear Lord’s posture.
“How can we safely awaken this creature?”
“You must bind it with silver.”
“We must?”
“Unless you would risk it overtaking your mate’s mind once again.”
The lioness beckoned and Leonard came forward, kneeling on the cold stone at her feet. She put a hand on his head.
‘She listens to his mind,’ Moth was in my head as ever, and she sounded quite impressed. ‘Mothwing does not know that other creatures can make the mind link.’
Mandrake must have heard her too because he explained. ‘It isn’t a real link such as we have. It is to do with the blood bond in carnivorous mates.’
I felt Moth’s revulsion but she made no comment. Mandrake looked uncomfortable. His mind voice was troubled.
‘I worry that beloved fae will suffer when my dragon must feed.’
There was a flutter of wings and Moth leapt from my shoulder to his.
‘Be not worry, loved dragon. Your beast will not link with Mothwing unless danger is known.’
I felt Mandrake’s puzzlement. “The bond is between our human forms and Moth. The reason she remains linked to me no matter what form I take is because I only borrow other creatures’ forms. Underneath I remain myself. Lycanthropes have two true forms which are separate, even if the same entity uses them.”
I hadn’t realised I was speaking out loud until a thickly-built fighter came to my side. He had tears running down his face.
“Thank you,” he said, “you have just explained something that has weighed on my mind for four centuries. My life mate was half-fae, and we had the mind link – even at great distance. But I didn’t hear her dying words. That has haunted me. I was in my dragon form when she died, and I thought myself just too caught up in battle to have heard her last farewell.”
Moth fluttered over to his shoulder. “Not your fault dragon fighter. Will you lend Mothwing your beloved’s name?”
“I will. She was called Horsetail.”
Mandrake gripped my shoulder and I put my hand over his. “Be tranquil, our beloved knows what she is doing.”
I could feel Moth pulling in her Will, then the air was filled with a subtle scent that reminded me of new mown hay and warm lambs. The face that floated on the air was homely enough although her eyes were like jewels. The dragon fighter put out a hand as if he would touch her and, for the briefest instant, a square, brown hand slid into his massive palm.
“Blame yourself no more, beloved. It was none of your fault. Hear me now, though. I love you and I am waiting for you beyond the rainbow.”
Then she was gone.
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