Kellen released her before placing three on her lap. "Look at this one with your grandfather and Josiah. Josiah is looking at the camera because he knew it was there, but your grandfather's torso is turned away from the camera. He's looking at something else. The background looks like a fair, so he's not focused on Josiah at all. I believe the pictures where the two of them appear, Josiah arranged for a photographer to take it without your grandfather realizing it.”
He tapped on another one.
"The notes continue detailing some of the spells Josiah was learning to use from someone he refers to as a sorcerer. Then there's an angry rant about your grandfather disappearing. Some of these pages were ripped apart and reassembled later with glue, but there are still pieces missing."
"Josiah must have had one of his fits when he lost your grandfather and ripped apart the notes," Grace commented.
A snort came from Leo as he started packing up the canvas bag with artifacts they weren't studying. "Sounds like something he would do."
"Agreed," Kellen said, "but reading what is there and extrapolating the words that are missing..." He stopped for a moment to just look at her and for once neither Stephen nor Leo could finish his sentence. "Samara, wolf shifters live an average of five hundred years, give or take a hundred. After that we die of plain old age, if nothing else kills us first, just like humans. One of the words here is torn in half, but according to Josiah your grandfather is Primum Genus Suum, the first of his kind."
"Of course, you understand Latin too," Samara muttered because the rest of her was frozen. In order for her to ask questions, she had to force her anger and fear and disgust so deep inside her so they couldn’t control. "So, my grandfather was what? The first wolf shifter to ever exist? That’s why he’s so much older than any other wolf shifter?"
"Well, yes." Kellen closed the notebook. "At least Josiah thinks so."
"Good Lord." Stephen lay back and rubbed his tired eyes. "That explains why Josiah had a book with your grandfather's family trees. He somehow figured out that your grandfather was older than any other wolf shifter and tracked his movements all the way back to the time of Canute the Great, King of England, Denmark, and Norway—the North Sea Empire. I mean, I'm going by what I know about wolf shifter folklore, which is not exactly an accurate science."
"Let's not get off track here," Samara interrupted, praying that the others couldn’t see her shaking. "Assuming for a moment that Josiah's notes are correct and my grandfather was over a thousand years old, then why was Josiah stalking him? I'm sure it wasn't for ancient Roman recipes."
"That's where these spells come in." Kellen picked up the spells and looked them over one at a time. "Judging by the paper and ink, the oldest three spells are for immobilization, transference, and ingestion. Josiah wanted to immobilize your grandfather so he couldn't fight back, pull his wolf shadow out of his body, and ingest it into himself. From what the spells suggest, this would more than double Josiah's own life span if it worked."
Leo tossed his hands in the air, letting his frustration loose. "Oh, for fuck's sake, that's what this is all about? He's screwing with our lives and the lives of our packs because he's too scared to die?"
Sighing, Grace shrugged. "He is a coward, for certain. But he also wants power. My guess is that he wants to rule, become a king if not the Primum Genus Suum himself by possessing your grandfather's wolf shadow."
"How is that even possible?" Stephen whispered.
Kellen pulled out the newer two spells.
Swallowing hard, and taking an extra deep breath, Samara used a forefinger to lower the paper in Kellen’s hand so she could read them too. "I'm assuming those spells were what he used to capture me."
"I guess so,” Kellen said. “What do you remember about the day that your grandfather died? Where were you? What were you doing?"
"I was at work at the fire station."
"Did you experience anything unusual?"
After everything she'd been through, she had to scrape through her memory to remember anything out of the ordinary. "I don't think so. There were no emergencies to respond to. I inventoried the medical equipment inside the ambulance, then had lunch....” Then a memory came to her. “Wait, hang on. I was eating lunch when I got a crushing headache. Worse than a migraine. My eyesight became cloudy, and my blood pressure crashed. If one of the guys hadn't caught me, I would have fallen off the bench and hit the floor hard."
"Did you go to the hospital?"
"No, but my partner gave me a full exam complete with a portable heart monitor. For a while she thought I might have had an allergic reaction to a spider bite, but she found nothing. By the time she was done, my blood pressure was back to normal, the pain had passed, and my eyesight returned. I didn't even need an aspirin. The chief still took me off duty and threatened to fire me if I didn't go home, so I did. That's when I found grandpa, slumped on the floor. I knew before I made it to his side that he was gone."
Damn it, not now. She blinked back tears that were threatening to flow. I need to control this. I cannot afford to lose myself in self-pity.
Kellen finally asked a question, his voice soothing as if he were trying hard not to upset her further. "As a paramedic, can you determine how long your grandfather had been dead by the time you found him?"
"Not really, but my best guess would be an hour."
"Around the same time you got that headache?"
Samara blinked. "I guess so."
Kellen looked at the pile of papers. "The last two spells are spell breaking and compliance. My opinion is this: Before Josiah could complete the ingestion spell, your grandfather performed his own transference spell. He sent his wolf shadow to you, and he forced you to ingest it. That's why he died, and you got the migraine." He paused, no longer looking at her.
Gaze going distant, she stared into nothingness. The wolf shadow in her was thousands of years old? It was just too much for her mind to grasp.
Kellen went on not recognizing her distress because she managed to hide it. "I also think you felt as if you were being torn apart by your wolf shadow because it wasn't just your wolf shadow. You have two wolf shadows inside you: yours which was freed when Josiah used the breaking spell on you, and your grandfather's which was forced on you by him in order to save his shadow from Josiah. That's why you felt as if you were being forced to stay with the Riverstone Pack. Your grandfather's shadow more than likely wanted you to kill Josiah, but your wolf wanted you to escape to save yourself."
