He put an arm around me in comfort and moved me toward the entrance. “We will figure it out. We will just have to try something else.”
Something else?! This was supposed to be the thing. The onetime deal. Did he lie to me? I shouldn’t trust anyone so comfortable not wearing pants. I didn’t trust a giant man who kept saying I, of all people, was his Fated one and only. Next step had to be betrayal. His face screamed ‘secrets’. The frown on his mouth etched too deep.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing. I have it handled,” he said.
My stomach bottomed out, and my scales spontaneously struck the floor again. When would men ever learn those were the scariest words they could say?
Chapter4
Ward
The band of shifters that filtered out of the temple and into the too-bright sunlight kept nudging each other out of the way so they could reach Evie. Many had grown up on the stories of the Goddess Veretis but, with the Godds dead, proof of her power had long been missing from the world. Excitement filled the air. I didn’t let any of them actually touch her. She clung to me as tightly as she could as we walked around the lake again. I couldn’t say the fight relieved her of her fears over shifters in general. While I appreciated the clinging, now that the danger passed, a crowd wasn’t the most conducive scenario to convince her mates were real and we very much needed to be together.
“Will you become a shrine maiden?” a fox asked, breaking through the pack and traveling down the rocky bank of the lake.
“A what?” Evie looked at me with gigantic eyes and I wanted to scoop her up against me. We were past the kidnapping, right? I heard when you did activities together, your bond grew stronger. A quest was an activity.
“The rule of Kings would have something to say about that. There haven’t been shrine maidens for five hundred years with the Godds dead. Let’s not start again,” I said. “Give her some space.”
These shifters better not tell Evie shrine maidens ended up regularly sacrificed to their Godds. At least the Kings and Queens of the Harrowlands had mostly done away with that grisly ritual.
The smart vixen pulled back at my snarl. Evie’s look of relief was almost comical. The quicker we made it to my keep, the better.
“Will you bless my kitten?” a panther shifter asked as he ran up beside us.
This was getting out of hand. I shot a pointed glare at the panther. Veretis’ call must have ranged into the next town of Clarus.
“Queen Margory can bless your kitten.”
The stubborn panther only turned back to Evie with expectations.
“A Queen can't compare to a Goddess’ chosen,” the panther said.
Evie walked faster, but wouldn’t outrun people used to running on four legs.
“Really? I bet she'll do a great job. Sorry. I have to get back and… wash my hair?”
I don't have any magic!Evie’s panicked static filled the weak bond.
I glared at the panther, who finally sensed my bear under the surface, ready to claw and maim. I pulled Evie a little closer, and some color came back into her face until another shifter bounded forward.
“Can I have a piece of your hair?” No one needed to collect pieces of my mate like a relic. Veretis' relics got us into this in the first place. The stag shifter reached for her and that was about enough.
My bear took over my voice without my permission and my roar echoed over the glacial lake. Everyone stepped back. I didn’t like the fear in their eyes, but my bear didn’t care. They deserve to fear us when they crowded our mate. I looked over at her to see if she was horrified by the aggression that proved her fears right about all of us and found her choking back a laugh. A chunk of my heart loosened.
“Sorry everyone, his blood sugar must be a little low.” She giggled.
The joint activity really worked. I would gladly let her make me the bad guy when her skin wasn’t so pale. I wrestled with my bear, trying to make him give up the partial shift. He was a danger to every shifter here if he came out again. They were too close, too curious, too easy about touching our mate. He roared at the assembled shifters one last time, daring anyone else to bother her, before he retreated to the back of my mind. As long as Evie stayed with us, he would let me have control.
Don’t make me regret it.
I stumbled. My bear remained mostly silent for years. Luckily, Evie didn’t ask about me staggering around like a cub. Why did he have to pick this moment to make an appearance?
Everyone kept a respectful distance after that as we ambled down the mountain. The walk back gave me plenty of time to think about how I was going to get my bear to leave his mate. Something was wrong in the Harrowlands. As Evie consumed the relic, a flood of magic rushed through the bond, cresting in an intense wave that overcharged me. The Goddess strengthened me beyond anything I'd ever been. That's when it shivered through me.
Evie kept pace, but we spoke little on the way back. I had a hard enough time wrestling my bear into accepting the bad news of us leaving her. He threw himself against my mind with anger. No talk of the greater good soothed him. He only understood we would be without our mate. The one trying to climb our body to safety with the thick thighs he hadn’t even tasted yet.
