Fire and Ice

Chapter One

Now

Lina looked out the window at the night as they rode home from Tampa International.

Some fucking vacation.

Definitely not her idea of fun. Starting with a ton of boring meetings, then being abducted by a psychopathic cockatrice, fortunately rescued by wolf shifter Brodey Lyall, except then they were running for their lives from a forest fire and had to survive cold Yellowstone nights, having her binding Ceremony with her two dragon shifter men, then caught up in a criminal investigation when Bertholde, the dragon shifters’ Seer, was murdered…

It made her head hurt to think about it all. In a way, it made her heart hurt, too.

She could still smell Brodey Lyall’s scent on her from when they’d hugged good-bye.

Not that it wasn’t permanently embedded in her soul from their time spent together at Yellowstone.

As she tipped her head onto Rick’s shoulder, she closed her eyes and felt her mind slip.

The scene changed. She stood on a cold, chilly moor, watching two groups of kilt-clad Highlanders gathered around a raging fire and discussing a woman standing to the side.

Ysimel. Lina didn’t know how she knew the woman’s name, but she was certain of it.

When the image ended, Lina’s eyes popped open. Oh, fucking fantastic. This was like having funky cable that blipped in and out without a channel guide.

She stared out the window and watched I-75 slip past in the darkness. She hoped Brodey could hold on to his newly found peace until he and his brothers met their One. Lina would see them again in a couple of days, when she and their whole posse drove down to Arcadia, to the Lyalls’ ranch, for a confab.

Let’s add crazy visions to the discussion syllabus. Just what she didn’t need, more freaky powers. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the energy to think about it. She felt exhausted, and the gentle rhythm of the van proved too much. When she closed her eyes again, she let her mind drift and realized that even though Brodey was heading in the opposite direction with his brother and cousin, she could still clearly sense his presence. As if he were now a part of her, in a similar but different way as her mates, Jan and Rick, were part of her.

The way Zack was part of her.

She loved Brodey, without a doubt. Not the same way she loved Jan and Rick, and definitely not the same way she loved Zack, but what Bertholde told them rang through her memory.

“Before all here, let it be known they are bound. The Goddess and her men, her Watcher and his love, and the protector and friend who returned her safely home. An unbreakable bond, a completed circle. The wolf and his Clan are, from here on, considered part of us and ours.”

If only she could get five uninterrupted minutes and a few straight answers out of that frickin’ Baba Yaga woman. It wasn’t as though anyone had given her a Goddess instruction manual when they dumped this gig on her.

You’d think the damn woman could at least take me out to Starbucks for a latte and tell me how not to randomly blow things up.

The sounds and feel of the van completely melted away around her. When Lina opened her eyes, she realized she sat in a living room, on a simple, but comfortably stuffed couch. The room appeared to be some older kind of cottage, with plaster walls and wood furniture. A cheery fire roared in a large stone fireplace.

Lina heard a noise behind her and turned to look. Standing in what looked like a very modern and well-appointed kitchen was Baba Yaga in her matronly form. “Coffee, Goddess?”

Lina fought the urge to roll her eyes, but she stood and walked over to the counter. “Yes, please.”

Apparently, Baba Yaga had all the modern conveniences. If the outside of this place still looked as dumpy as Lina remembered, it was a great disguise to discourage robbers. No one would ever suspect she had a top-of-the-line Capresso coffeemaker sitting on her counter.

Lina scanned the room. And what looked like a fifty-inch plasma TV hanging on the wall across from the fireplace.

“Wow. You really have all the conveniences…here. Where exactly is here, anyway? I never got that answer last time. I was too worried about getting Zack unkilled and all that.”

Baba Yaga smiled and slid a cup of coffee over to Lina. “Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please. With a side of answers, thank you.”

The woman chuckled as she walked over to her fridge. Also stainless, like the coffeemaker, stove, and dishwasher. “Patience, Goddess. Let’s enjoy our brew. This is far better than Starbucks.”

“Is this some sort of time warp where the guys don’t even know I’m gone? Or am I still physically in the van, but I’m mentally here?”

“Either. Or both.”

“You really know how to confuse the hell out of me, do you know that? It’s starting to piss me the hell off.”

“Then do something.”

“Like what? Blow you up like I did psycho chicken?”

“Cockatrice. Send yourself back to the van if you don’t wish to stay and talk with me.” She shrugged. “You are the one who came here seeking answers.”

“You’re telling me I brought myself here?”

“Now you’re starting to catch on, Goddess.”

“Forgive me, but it’s been a craptastic week.”

She nodded toward Lina’s mug. “Drink your coffee.”

“Is this really coffee?”

Baba Yaga smiled. “Yes. It’s really good coffee.”

“I certainly hope so. Giving me crap coffee would just be adding insult to injury, ya know.” She added cream and sugar, stirred, then lifted it to her nose for a tentative sniff. It certainly smelled like really good coffee. A careful sip proved it was really good coffee. “Thank you.”

Baba Yaga smiled and slipped onto another barstool across the counter from Lina. “I was wondering how long it would take you to figure out you could come talk with me.”

“Gee, thanks for the heads-up.”

Baba Yaga shrugged. “You must be able to do these things. I cannot interfere.”

“Not even little hints? And, oh, by the way, why the hell can’t you interfere? You brought Zack back to life after Edgar shot him.”

The other woman smiled. “Because I brought you and Zack together. It wouldn’t be fair of me not to keep you together when it is meant to be. Especially when I promised.”

“Because you…” Lina had a thought. “Waaaait a doggone minute. You would have saved Zack’s life regardless, wouldn’t you?”

Baba Yaga didn’t answer. She simply sipped her coffee.

Lina spotted the sly smile she tried to hide behind her mug.

“You won’t answer me, will you?” Lina asked.

“Answer what, Goddess? You have the answers you seek. To that question, at least.”

Lina tried to hold her simmering temper in check. “If you won’t give me the answers I do want and need, then what can you tell me?”

Baba Yaga set her mug down on the counter and cupped it between her hands. Lina felt something in the very air of the cabin shift. A sense of deep grief washed over her. Before her eyes, Baba Yaga transformed into her maiden form, appearing close to Lina’s own age.

This woman looked deeply saddened, world-weary, and worn. Without even thinking about it, Lina reached out and touched her hand. A nearly overwhelming wave of sadness threatened to swamp Lina.

Baba Yaga closed her eyes. “There are many entwined threads in this tapestry, Goddess,” she softly said. “They start so very long ago in the past. How much have you willingly recalled in your memories?”

When Lina mated with Jan and Rick, memories of her past lives had flooded back into her brain. Memories Zack, as her Watcher, had consciously held throughout all their lives together. Lina still chose not to actively pursue those memories in her own brain.

Lina sniffled as her own eyes watered. “I remember a lot, but there’s a lot more I haven’t even tried to remember. It hurts too much.” She really didn’t want to think about her previous lives with Zack. While she knew there were lots of happy memories with him, it also meant recalling the sad. People she had known and loved.

Their children…

Baba Yaga sadly sighed. “Let us start at the beginning, then, child.” She gently squeezed Lina’s hand before disengaging herself. She stood and motioned to Lina with her coffee mug. “The sofa will be more comfortable. We’ll be here a while.”

Chapter Two

Then

Two as one, halves of a whole.

Two different minds, one mingled soul.

Love in every life, in every heart, forever,

Until finding of twin love does sever.

Death impermanent, after battle won

With love renewed under future sun.

The lovers three will sisters call

At Goddess’ lead at risk of all.

Etched in stone by sacred well

Her powers scribed in triad spell.

Dark Gods in vain bring forth the fight

Only to fall to Lovers’ might.

Pride and ego and power sought

By Dark Gods for evil purpose comes to naught.

The lovers three will vanquish all

Although two, then one, certainly fall.

Last to sleep, the Watcher lay,

To rejoin his love soon another day.

Life and life and life again,

The two as one always begin.

When two return and Dark Gods wake

With evil intent and lives to take

The two shall find her, in prophecy new

And Watcher again shall step from view.

Until then in every life

Watcher faithful shall claim his wife

After thirty-five years have come and gone

And together, two once more joined as one

Will have their joy, Goddess unaware

That Watcher alone their past keeps care.

—Ancient Slavic Prophecy

The woman held her baby close to her breast as her husband helped her climb the treacherous stone steps. Nine days’ journey on foot had brought them here.

To their destiny. To their son’s destiny.

To, hopefully, their people’s destiny. This was what their Seer had told them. They could not in good conscience refuse the journey.

Thick stands of fragrant pine trees shielded their view of what lay ahead. When they finally crested the valley wall, they found themselves in a clearing. The cottage, primitive, small, and dingy, sat in the middle as they’d been told. Foul grey smoke billowed from the chimney. As they walked toward the white fence surrounding the yard, they realized with chilling fear that the pickets were human bones. Bleached human skulls lit from within by an eerie supernatural flame topped the fence every so often.

The cottage’s rough-hewn wooden door opened, and an old crone tottered out. She wore a black robe of coarse material. The smile on her face sent tendrils of fear through the wife’s heart.

“Ah, good. You arrived on time,” the crone said, smiling. Unfortunately, the gesture didn’t impart any joy or good humor to her features. “That is very good. Is this the little one?”

The wife nodded.

The crone met them at the gate and held out her arms. “Let me see him.”

When the woman hesitated, the crone cackled. “I swear to you I will not eat him. I wish to see if he is as special as I believe him to be.”

After her husband nodded to her, she carefully handed their son over.

The crone softly mumbled something in a strange language to the baby. The baby smiled and reached for one of her fingers.

“Very good. He is the one.” She looked at the couple. “You understand the destiny of your line?”

The couple nodded.

“Excellent. I need to borrow him for a few minutes. I promise you, he will not be harmed. Wait here.” The crone carried the baby inside her house and shut the door behind her. She closed her eyes and transformed into her matron form, appearing to be a beautiful middle-aged woman. Then she disappeared, reappearing inside a room in a castle.

A nursemaid sat dozing in a shaft of sunlight by the open window while dust motes danced on the beams. The woman smiled at the baby boy in her arms as she walked over to the ornately hand-carved cradle in the other corner of the room.

Inside the cradle lay a beautiful, chubby, red-haired baby girl. The girl smiled when she spotted the woman holding the baby boy.

The woman lifted her finger to her lips and smiled. “Hush, little one,” she whispered. “Do not wake your nurse.”

From a pocket in her gown, she withdrew a silver dagger and carefully laid the baby boy in the cradle next to the baby girl. She traced a finger over the girl’s left palm in an intricate pattern as she muttered under her breath. She repeated it with the boy’s right palm then used the dagger to duplicate the pattern in their flesh that her finger had just traced.

Both babies watched her, but because of the spell, neither felt the blade’s bite.

She pressed their palms together and held them in place. “Together forever, little ones,” she whispered. “Eternity. You’ll love each other in every life, in every heart. Forever. Goddess Zaria and your Watcher. You have many prophecies to fulfill together, starting with this life.”

When she parted their hands, the little girl looked like she wanted to sniffle when she realized she was losing her new friend.

“Shh, Zaria, do not fret. You will get him back soon enough. He is your very special friend and he always will be.” She pulled a small stoppered vial of charmed water from another pocket. Using a clean, white linen rag, she wiped their hands free of blood. Only a faint line remained behind on their palms, proof of their joining.

She picked up the baby boy. “Come now, Zachary. Let us return you to your mother before she worries herself to death.”

She returned to her cottage, shifted into her crone form once again, and walked outside to the parents where she handed the baby boy to his relieved mother. “Bring him back here in five years. Meanwhile, go to the flagyer stronghold in Abruzzia. Ask for Donatello Capricci, their leader. Do you know how to get there?”

The father nodded.

“Good. Take him there, and live there with them, tell them Baba Yaga said they are to offer you sanctuary and protection and to escort you back here at the appointed time.”

“He is the one? The Watcher of the Goddess?”

She shifted into her matronly form again because it tended to frighten people less, although people usually took the crone’s words more carefully to heart. “Absolutely. Your little boy will help fulfill not just the most important prophecy, but many others. He will save your people. Not only in this life, but in every life to come.” She reached out and stroked the boy’s arm. He smiled at her.

Baba Yaga felt her heart twist at the sight of his toothless smile. She wanted to cry, but steeled herself.

The mother anxiously nodded and nervously smiled. “He’s a good baby. He never fusses, never cries.”

Baba Yaga forced a smile. “Of course he is a good baby. He is the protector of a Goddess. No mere colic can darken his temperament.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Now go. Straight to Abruzzia. You may never return home or his life might be in peril.”

The parents solemnly nodded and hurried off. As they disappeared down the path, she straightened and shifted into her youngest form, of the maiden. It was most comfortable, a twenty-something body she by all rights should have lost claim to countless millennia earlier.

Perk of eternal life.

As Baba Yaga turned toward her home, she started at the sight of a woman standing behind her. “What was that all about, eh?” the woman asked.

“None of your business, Cailleach,” Baba Yaga angrily said, pushing the other woman aside and striding toward her home. “Why aren’t you busy shagging some poor guy senseless? Last I heard, you and Brighde had some sort of wager. Wasn’t it to see how many men you could use to death before winter solstice?” She had no use for either of her two younger sisters. Neither were sensible nor helpful.

Cailleach followed her into the cabin, which was actually much nicer and larger on the inside than it appeared from the outside. “That sounds intriguing, sister.” She tossed a long, blonde lock away from her forehead. Sometimes the woman preferred to take on the appearance of a ginger-headed beauty to look like a local in the lands she ruled.

Sometimes she just liked to show off her gorgeous looks, like today.

“You have your work to do,” Baba Yaga snarled. “So do me the courtesy to leave me to mine. I have people I tend to and care for. They and their business are no concern of yours.”

Cailleach flopped down into a soft chair and twirled another unruly flaxen lock around her finger. “The more you push me away, the more it interests me. Come on, tell me what’s going on, Babs.”

Baba Yaga spun around, a ball of flame forming in her palm. “Do not call me that,” she said with a growl.

Cailleach’s eyes narrowed as a smile split her face. “It’s got to be about a man, isn’t it? You don’t really care about these people at all. Someone finally breached that damned rocky heart of yours, didn’t he?”

With a howl of rage, Baba Yaga flung the fireball at her younger sister. Cailleach didn’t even flinch as she waved her hand in front of her. The fireball harmlessly dissipated across an icy mist before Cailleach also waved that away.

She stood, her green eyes sparking as she advanced on her older sister. “You can’t fool me, Old One. Just because you are the eldest by quite a lot and then some, it doesn’t mean I don’t know more than you in some things. Who is he?”

With a cry, Baba Yaga burst into tears and crumpled to the floor. After overcoming her momentary shock, Cailleach stooped beside her older sister and gathered her into her arms. No matter what their differences in opinion or temperament, they were still sisters.

“Tell me,” she softly entreated.

Unable to speak his name, Baba Yaga could do nothing but sob her agony against her sister’s shoulder. So many ages of loneliness just to find love and have it snatched away so quickly that even her powers could do nothing to save him. If only she’d been able to reach him sooner.

Finally, she could tell the story. “He was of the dragon line.”

“When did he die?” Cailleach gently asked.

“Over a hundred years ago.”

“You lost him that long ago and never summoned us?”

“To do what? Look at a rocky cairn and talk about a man you never met?”

“Why is that child so important?”

Baba Yaga sat back and wiped her eyes on her skirt. “I made a promise as I buried him. I told him I would not let his line die out. We met when he came to me, entreating me for help to save his people. Willing to sacrifice himself to me to do it. I couldn’t harm him. I fell in love with him.”

Her face darkened. “Those damned cockatrice killed him. Before I realized what had happened, they’d…they’d…” She began crying again, the memory of the horror of the discovery of her lover drawn and quartered too much to bear even this many years past. A drop of time ago in her long life despite outliving many mortals time and again.

Cailleach brushed the hair from Baba Yaga’s face. “There was nothing you could do?” she softly asked. “Even summoning us would not have helped?”

Baba Yaga closed her eyes and shook her head. “His soul had already departed into the Ether.”

“But why is this child so important?”

Baba Yaga couldn’t speak it. She’d already bent enough rules as it was.

Cailleach gathered her close and held her, rocking her. “I’m so sorry, sister. Is there anything I can do to help? I swear to you, if there is, I will give my all to do it.”

For once, Baba Yaga sensed absolute sincerity from her younger and usually self-absorbed sister. “Actually, if you really mean it, yes. There is.”

Chapter Three

Five years later

Zaria looked up at her nursemaid. “Amma, who are all those people?” She pointed out the window to the large party, at least thirty people, who had arrived in the castle’s courtyard.

The old nurse gave her a smile that Zaria saw right through, even though she was only five years old. “It’s a party, little Sunshine. Come, it is time for your bath. We will have guests wishing to see you later.”

Zaria didn’t want any part of a bath but knew the fastest way to get it over with was to cooperate. The little girl obediently let her nurse bathe her. As soon as her bath was over and Amma had dressed her, she raced out of her room and downstairs to investigate the fuss firsthand.

Amma chased behind her down the stairs as fast as her elderly legs would carry her. One of the knights stopped Zaria before she could bolt out the door.

“Where you going, little one?” he asked.

“I want to see what is going on!” Zaria jammed her little hands on her hips and stared up at him with a fierce look on her cherubic face.

He laughed and picked her up as Amma hustled up behind her, red-faced and out of breath. “You will see what’s going on soon enough,” he told the little girl. He handed her over to her nurse. “King Elsleng sent me in to fetch you, as a matter of fact.”

Zaria’s petulant glare turned to one of wonder. “Really? Father sent for me?”

“Really. Follow me.” He led them outside to the courtyard. Several knights surrounded someone, but whoever they guarded couldn’t be seen through their solid wall of manflesh. Zaria’s mother and father stood to the side, talking to someone who appeared to be an old woman, but her back was turned to Zaria.

Amma set Zaria down. She raced over to her father’s side, grabbing his hand and turning to look at the strange old woman. Zaria recoiled at first, until she spotted the clandestine wink the old crone gave her.

There was something familiar about her. Whatever it was, Zaria instinctively knew that while every single adult here feared this woman, she would never hurt her.

“Ah, there she is,” the old woman said. She knelt down and stared into Zaria’s eyes. “Show them your left palm, little one.”

Confused but trusting, Zaria held up her palm. Every now and then she felt a funny tingle in the lines across her flesh, but they never hurt, and she never thought anything of it before.

Her mother, however, gasped with surprise.

“Bring him!” the crone ordered.

The guards led over a young boy about Zaria’s age, followed by a nervous couple that must be his parents. Zaria brightened as the boy smiled at her.

The crone laughed. “See? They know each other. Zachary, hold up your right hand.”

The little boy smiled and held up his hand. The crowd went silent at the sight of an identical sign on his palm.

In wonder, Zaria released her father’s hand and walked over to her new friend. They compared the marks on their hands, then linked fingers. It felt like a missing part of her was now returned.

Her father nodded, stunned. “What exactly is it that you need, Baba Yaga?” he softly asked. “It is yours if I can give it.”

“You have it wrong.” She nodded at Zaria and Zachary. “It is what these two will give your people when they are older. And then again later, eons from now. The prophecies cannot be denied.” From somewhere in the depths of her cape, Baba Yaga produced an ornately carved wooden tube and handed it to him. “I cannot influence the course of the prophecies. You know this. Only humans can do that. What the Seers scribe is not up to me. They are guided by the Universe, the Goddess of all, not by me.”

Stunned, the king stared at the wooden tube in his hands. “But…if this is true, and she is the Goddess, does that not make her more than human?”

“While she is a goddess, she is not the Goddess. The Goddess is eternal. Zaria is human born. Perhaps saying she is ‘human’ isn’t the correct word, then. Let us say she is ‘mortal.’” Baba Yaga sadly smiled down at the two children. “Teach them well. They will be the salvation of your kind several times over.”

Baba Yaga left the king and queen with clear instructions before her departure. Never forcibly separate the two children, even when they were older and others deemed their closeness improper. Train Zachary well, especially in arms and defense, but always return him to Zaria’s side every evening.

To never force Zaria to marry, because she must be free to follow her heart, no matter how improper it might appear to others at the time. Once she found her love, whatever form it took, she must be allowed to pursue it.

Their very survival rode upon their adherence to these things.

As the children grew, it wasn’t difficult to see their close bond. They could even finish each other’s sentences. Both children proved highly intelligent, and schooling them was a pure joy to their instructors. The children excelled in their scholarly studies, becoming voracious readers. Zaria accompanied Zachary to his lessons at the hands of the king’s most highly skilled knights, and she, too, learned how to shoot an arrow straight and true, how to wield a sword, and how to fight.

It was Zachary who comforted Zaria when her mother succumbed to a fever when she was ten. No adult could console her, but she would sit for hours with her head in Zachary’s lap while he softly sang to her. Anyone could see the children were perfect for each other. Some even suspected they might eventually wed each other.

For the most part, peace ruled her father’s land. As the children grew into young adults, rumors of violent attacks began filtering in from the outmost boundaries of the kingdom.

Their eighteenth birthdays, only weeks apart, were celebrated together by the king and his people with a great festival. Both Zaria and Zachary refused gifts, instead asking their people to share with less fortunate citizens in the land. Their generosity of spirit was yet another reason the people loved them.

One afternoon while Zaria napped, Zachary took a walk through the king’s apple orchards. He loved to explore the grounds and took simple pleasure in the peaceful feelings it brought him.

He’d stopped to eat an apple in the shade of a tree when he knew he wasn’t alone.

Turning, he spotted the crone. While she’d never come to him in the flesh before, she frequented his dreams over the years.

“Hello, Zachary.”

He nodded. “Baba Yaga.”

Before him, she transformed into her matronly form and sat on the grass in front of him. “Do you know why I’m here?”

He suspected. He’d seen and read all of the prophecies she’d left with the king, although no one knew he had. He’s snuck into the king’s drawing room late at night when everyone slept and spent hours poring over them. He knew them by heart. “Is it time?”

“You are very perceptive. Time draws quite short. Do you understand your purpose in this life?”

“I am the Watcher of the Goddess.”

“Yes. I know you love her, but she is to be no more than your Goddess in this life. Believe me when I say you will find the sacrifice painful, but worth it.”

He studied the grass in front of him, finding the strength of the woman’s stare overwhelming. “I love her. She loves me, too. I do not understand why I cannot have her.”

Baba Yaga reached over and grasped his hand. “Because for her powers to develop, she must mate with the dragons.”

He looked up sharply. “Dragons? As in more than one? What do you have planned for her?”

Baba Yaga shook her head. “It is not my plan. It is what the prophecy decrees. If it is not fulfilled, the cockatrice will win. That cannot be allowed to happen. It is for a greater good that you must put aside your personal feelings, in this life.”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Saying what?”

“‘In this life.’”

“She will be yours for too many lives to count until the next prophecy. Even then, when that eventually happens, you will still find love and happiness. So please take comfort in that. Great pain precedes childbirth. Consider this a birth, of sorts. You will always remember her and how much you love her. I want you to know that the pain you will feel will soon be overshadowed by all the joy you will reap.”

She released his hand and stood. “Keep her safe and loved, Zachary. She is the key.”

With that, she disappeared.

He leaned back against the trunk of the apple tree. He didn’t want this responsibility. He didn’t want to hurt. He only wanted to love his sweet Zaria.

King Elsleng and his knights gathered in the large drawing room, the blazing fire doing little to take the chill from his heart. Five more villages destroyed in the last fortnight, all of the residents brutally slaughtered.

“Cockatrice,” Sir Ahglad spat. “These heathen cowards must be eliminated.”

The king nodded. “We will,” he said. “The prophecy guarantees it, but we have yet to find the key to their weak spots.”

The door opened. Two young, tall, brawny men were escorted in. One swarthy and dark, the other pale and blond. “Perhaps we can help,” the blond one said.

He stood. “Who are you?”

The two strangers shared a glance before the blond one spoke again. “We ask first, your Majesty, for future amnesty from unjust persecution for our kind.”

Several knights reached for their swords, but the king stayed them with a raised hand. “What is your kind?”

The dark one spoke. “Our people have also been slain by the cockatrice. Not just men, either. Women. Children. Innocent babes. Many of them used in the performance of dark and evil sorcery that is against everything our people believe in. All for the sake of wiping out resistance to their sinister forces so they can take over the land. Take over your holdings. To slay the Goddess Zaria and steal her powers.”

“I’m listening. State your piece.”

“We are dragons, your Majesty. Shape-shifters. The cockatrice have taken up arms against all shifter races who have tried to peaceably coexist with humans for eons. Wolves. Felines. Bears. Selkies. All have fallen before the cockatrice. They are saving humans for last to enslave you.”

An uproar circled the room at this revelation. The blond one held up his hand. “Baba Yaga came to our flagyer’s Seer and told her of the Goddess Zaria and her Watcher when they were born. We were told Baba Yaga can verify what we say is truth. That your prophecy as well as our own bears us out.”

The room went silent and still, all eyes now on the king.

Finally, he slowly nodded. “Before we bring Zaria here, I will know your names. And you will swear allegiance to me.”

Both men, in movement faster than anyone could follow, dropped to one knee, offering their swords hilt first to the king with upraised hands and bowed heads.

The blond one said, “I am Stribog. I hereby pledge allegiance to the death to King Elsleng.”

The dark one followed. “I am Svarog. I hereby pledge allegiance to the death to King Elsleng.”

Stunned, the king took Stribog’s sword and touched the tip to one shoulder, then the other. “I hereby accept your allegiance and decree you to be a knight of my kingdom.” He repeated it with Svarog. “Now stand, both of you. I wish to see proof of your claims of being dragons.”

The men shared a glance. They quickly disrobed and, with a shocked gasp from the other knights, they shifted into dragons before them. Stribog turned into a beautiful bluish-green dragon with a long neck and tail. He lowered his head to the floor, at the king’s feet.

The king smiled, then laughed. Svarog, now a reddish-orange dragon of stouter build, followed suit. “I see what I see.” He looked at his other knights. “Do my eyes deceive me?”

Stunned, the other knights slowly shook their heads.

“Return to us, my two newest knights!”

The dragons shifted back into their human forms and began dressing.

“So now,” the king said, “the question is, do the rest of your kind, and other shifters, pledge allegiance to me as well?”

“We can speak for the dragons when we say yes. We do not speak for other shifters, but it is our understanding that they wish no humans harm. They only wish to live their lives in peace. They will ally with humans and other shifters against the cockatrice threat. There are more on the way, and they can speak for themselves when they arrive.”

“Very good then. I hereby decree that from this day forward, unless proven to have committed a crime, no shifter except a cockatrice shall be molested by humans. They shall be allowed to live in peace as long as they are living peaceably.”

The knights nodded.

Zachary and Zaria were quietly talking in their chamber when her maid knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Zaria called.

The woman walked in, her head bowed. “Beg your pardon, but your father wishes you both to join him in the large drawing room.”

The two exchanged a glance. “Both of us?” Zachary clarified.

“Yes, sir.”

A chill settled over his soul. “We will be right there,” he said.

The maid curtsied, then left them.

Zaria looked frightened. He hated that. He wanted her to feel nothing but joy and love in her life.

He also hated that he felt frightened. Tales of more massacres had filtered to them through the servants’ whispered discussions in the scullery and back corridors. How much truth could be found in the stories had yet to be determined.

He grasped her hands in his and squeezed, raising them to his lips to kiss them. “My sweet, beautiful Goddess. I love you.”

She smiled. Their usual ritual, even though they both knew their love would never take flesh in this life. “I love you, too, Zachary. I always will.”

He nodded. “In every life.”

“In every heart.”

“Forever,” they whispered together.

He helped her stand. “Come. We cannot keep the king waiting.” Arm in arm, they headed out the door to whatever fate awaited.

She’d never seen so many of her father’s knights gathered in one place before. Not even at the annual games.

That they all bore identically grim expressions didn’t bode well.

She squeezed Zachary’s hand more tightly. “Father? You summoned us?”

He nodded and walked over to them, standing behind them, his hand on each of their shoulders. “We are suffering from dire times, my child. Many of the prophecies are finally coming to fruition. There is evil advancing across our lands.” He lifted his hand from her shoulder and motioned two strangers over.

She stared, entranced by the handsome men. One, with blue eyes, blond hair, and a fair expression. The other, exact in build, but with swarthy skin, amber eyes, and brown hair. Her heart fluttered at the sight of them. She’d never seen men so handsome before.

The two men dropped to one knee before her and bowed their heads. “The Goddess, Zaria,” they said together.

With a speed she never knew he possessed, Zachary drew the sword from the scabbard of the knight closest to them and stepped between her and the two strangers, with the point of the sword at the throat of the fair one. He also seemed to have grown nearly a foot in height.

“You get no further,” his voice boomed, “unless you prove to me you are the ones.”

Neither stranger moved, but the fair one spoke. “We follow our prophecy, Watcher.”

“Do you promise to protect her?”

The darker one spoke without looking up. “With our lives. We swear it.”

“Then say it. Speak the words of the prophecy.” He pulled the tip of the sword back so both men could look up at her.

Her heart melted. With a set of blue eyes and a set of amber eyes both impaling her soul, the men spoke in unison.

“Forever in our hearts, eternity in our soul, our one and true we shall cherish and love and defend. Everything we have and are, is yours. But this we swear, our love will never waver, and we will protect you forever and forever, with our lives, we swear to you we will.”

She suddenly felt faint, swooning. Somehow, without losing his sword, Zachary caught her with one arm and kept the strangers away from her.

With her arms draped around his neck, she met his gaze, which suddenly appeared very, very sad. “What happened?” she whispered. “Who are these men?”

He handed the sword off to her father and caressed her cheek. “The prophecy must be followed.” He kissed her forehead. “In every life.”

She closed her eyes and realized that her future lay with these two strangers. Already, the pull of the two strangers in her soul couldn’t be denied. “In every heart,” she responded.

“Forever,” they both said.

Zachary made sure she was steady on her own feet and motioned the two men closer. “What are your names?” he asked.

Neither man looked at Zachary, their eyes only on her. She realized she couldn’t take her eyes off of them, either. Both were stunningly handsome, and taller than her by nearly a head.

“Stribog,” the fair one replied.

“Svarog,” the swarthy one said.

Zachary took her hands in his, and with a final, tender squeeze, he placed her hands in theirs.

The breath rushed from her. It felt…so right. In a different way than Zachary being with her all the time.

She looked at Zachary. He nodded. “It is the prophecy, Goddess.” He stroked her hair, then spoke to the men. “She will take you to her chambers.”

“But where will you sleep, Zachary?” she cried. She’d never spent a night apart from him. The thought frightened her a little, although a new feeling of pleasant anticipation grew deep within her at the thought of these two men being her husbands.

“I will find other quarters. I will have the maid move my things. These are your men, as the prophecy said. If we are all to live, if our race is to survive, then we must follow our fate.”

He turned to the king. “Sire, call the abbot in to bless their union.”

The king looked shocked. “Their union? Surely you can’t mean—”

Zachary stepped in close. “Sire, are you saying you will defy Baba Yaga and the prophecies and condemn us all?”

All the knights’ discontent grumblings over the latest development immediately silenced.

Zaria fell silent, too. That Zachary dared to stand up to her father surprised her most of all. He seemed different, changed. Hardened.

Her father’s gaze narrowed. Then he slowly nodded. “Aye, you are right, Zachary. We were warned of this.” He looked at her. “Daughter. Take these two men to the antechamber hence.” He motioned to a small doorway off to the right that she knew led to his private sitting area. “Talk with them. In ten minutes, I will summon you to give me your decision. You alone have the final say.”

This was racing too fast. “Wedding? To them both?” She studied all the faces surrounding her and felt the world go black as she fainted.

Chapter Four

Zaria came to in Zachary’s arms, aware that she was lying upon the chilly flagstones. “What happened?” she asked.

Zachary stroked her face. “You fainted, Goddess.”

Stribog and Svarog anxiously looked down at her as Zachary helped her sit up. “I’m all right.”

Her father, now standing with the frowning abbot, spoke up. “We need to settle this, Zaria. Are you truly all right?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.” She looked at her two suitors again as Zachary helped her to her feet. “I think we need to go talk.”

Zachary kept his arm around her waist until he guided her out of the room and into her father’s chair in the antechamber. The two dragons hesitated at the doorway. When Zachary tried to step away, she held fast to him.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I do not want to lose you.”

He sadly smiled and stroked her cheek. “I love you, too, Goddess. But there are prophecies to heed.” He knelt in front of her. “Do not fear what your heart tells you. Follow it. Do not worry about me. I will always be here for you. In every life.”

She sadly smiled. “In every heart.”

“Forever,” they whispered together. He stood and kissed her on the forehead. Then he walked to the door and motioned the two dragons in before he stepped out, shutting the door behind him.

She nervously looked at the two dragon shifters. What should she say?

They knelt in front of her, staring up at her in wonder and love. “Goddess,” Svarog said, “we never believed the prophecies until we saw you in the flesh. Please believe it when we say we love you.”

Stribog nodded. “Absolutely. We are rarely in agreement on anything. On this, we agree. You complete us.”

She’d never been with a man before, and yet here were the two most handsome men she’d ever laid eyes upon, and they wanted her. “I’m scared,” she whispered.

They both nodded. “So are we,” Svarog admitted. “We are afraid you will refuse us.”

“What? No! Why would I refuse you?”

“Because we’re dragons,” Stribog said. “We are not humans.”

She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter to me.” She opened her arms to them and they both laid their heads in her lap. She stroked their hair. Stribog’s blond hair was slightly wavy. Svarog’s straight, dark hair felt softer, finer.

A warm wave of energy seemed to wash off the two men, a loving glow she wanted to spend the rest of her life basking in. This felt right.

“I have never been with a man before,” she bashfully admitted.

Both men looked up, smiles on their faces. “We will have fun teaching you,” Stribog gently said.

The men looked up at her. She kissed Stribog, then Svarog. As she looked into their loving eyes, a sense of peace the likes of which she’d never before experienced settled over her. This was her fate.

These men were her fate.

In their hands, they held the future of their people.

She would not refuse them or the task placed upon her by the prophecies. “Let us call Father, Zachary, and the abbot in.”

The abbot’s sour expression didn’t improve during the brief ceremony, which was held out in the main gathering room before all the other knights.

“This is the prophecy,” the king said after the abbot had joined the three lovers. “Regardless of anything else, we must believe in it. It is our future, our people’s salvation.” He took Zaria’s hands and kissed them. “Go with your men, daughter. We shall talk on the morrow.”

She turned to Zachary and hugged him. “I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

“I know, Goddess. As I love you.” He kissed her forehead and gently disengaged himself from her. He offered her a smile. “Your father is right. This is the future. Do not be sad.”

She turned to the two men who were now her husbands. Fear and excitement pleasantly blended with another emotion in her belly.

Desire.

The maid, obviously forewarned, had prepared Zaria’s chamber. Fresh linens on the bed, a hot bath drawn in the washtub, and no trace of Zachary’s things remaining in her room.

On that last point, Zaria felt a melancholy pang of sadness. She could not remember a time when Zachary wasn’t in her life. They’d shared the same chambers since children, never spent a night apart.

As the door closed behind them, she turned to study the men. So alike, yet so different. “What are your powers?” she nervously asked, forestalling the inevitable.

Stribog smiled. “We are dual elemental dragons,” he said. “I am ice and water, along with earth.”

Svarog nodded. “I am air and fire.”

“May I see what you look like as dragons?” she timidly asked.

“Of course,” Svarog said. The men quickly stripped. Zaria blushed at seeing their manhoods, which looked ample in size. But before she could spend too much time considering that, both men transformed into dragons before her.

Fortunately, she was standing at the end of her bed. Her knees gave out and she sat, her breath shallow and limbs shaky. Before her stood two magnificent beasts approximately seven feet tall, beautiful creatures that looked nothing like the maligned monsters of the myths.

Stribog’s blue and green scales delicately shimmered like rainbows across his smooth body. His neck, longer and more graceful looking than Svarog’s, arched as he lowered his head to the floor and made a sound not unlike the purring of a cat.

Svarog’s stouter body was covered in reddish-orange scales in all the hues of a beautiful autumnal forest. With a powerful body she could easily imagine spouting fire, he, too, lowered his head to the floor and purred.

When she felt she could stand without fainting, she stood and slowly approached them. Then she sat on the floor before them, carefully reaching out to pet their heads. Neither dragon moved. In fact, they both closed their eyes and continued their contented purring.

Svarog’s flesh felt far warmer than that of his brother. Neither felt slimy, like a fish. Both felt smooth and silky on the surface, but with an underlying strength and a rippling of well-defined muscles beneath.

After a few minutes, Zaria nodded. “Please, change back.”

Almost before she could finish the statement, both men knelt before her.

Naked.

She blushed.

“Can you also fly?” she asked while trying very hard not to stare at their cocks.

“Yes,” Svarog said. “That is our smallest dragon form. In our largest form, we have wings and can fly.”

Perhaps Stribog sensed how nervous she was. “May we bathe you, Goddess?”

She blushed again, but nodded. Not that she didn’t want to sleep with them, because she felt pleasant tingles in her nipples and clit that she’d never felt before. However, she was nervous.

Not bothering to don clothes, the men stood, helped her to her feet, and led her over to the bathing tub. She closed her eyes as they helped her disrobe and carefully step into the perfectly warm water.

As she sank below the surface up to her neck, she looked at them again. They knelt on either side of the tub, Svarog on her left, Stribog on her right. As Stribog kissed her, Svarog picked up a washcloth and soap and began to bathe her. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the taste of Stribog gently exploring and tasting as he kissed her with deliciously cool lips.

Svarog’s warm, strong hand tenderly stroked her flesh, slowly, getting her used to his touch. As she relaxed and her body responded, Stribog also slipped a hand beneath the water and caressed her.

Never in her life had she felt like this. Now she understood the meaning of desire. Her body felt alive in a way she’d never known. Instinctively, she reached up and hooked her arm around Stribog’s neck, holding him close, holding on to him.

Svarog cupped and caressed her breasts under the water, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her nipple and making it tightly peak.

She softly gasped at the sparks surging through her body at the sensation.

Stribog reached lower, his hand caressing her belly, lower. As his fingers slipped between her legs and through the soft nest of curls at the juncture of her thighs, her legs opened wider for him.

He parted her labia and found her swollen clit. Gently, he began stroking it with his fingers as she moaned into his mouth.

Svarog’s hand also stroked lower, caressing down her thigh and back up, one finger gently working between her labia and into her virgin pussy.

Stribog turned her slightly in the tub, relinquishing her mouth so Svarog could kiss her. His mouth, as did his touch, felt far warmer than his brother’s. Zaria felt her hips involuntarily begin to thrust against their hands. Stribog was doing delicious things to her clit, making her want more, want everything.

Svarog’s finger explored deeper until he worked it inside her tight channel. Slowly, gently, he began to thrust it back and forth inside her until a sudden explosion rocked her body. She cried out as pleasure, the likes of which she’d never experienced before, engulfed her.

When she could open her eyes and look at them, both men bore identically pleased expressions. “Did that feel good, Goddess?” Svarog asked.

She blushed, but nodded.

“Good,” Stribog said. “Let us do it again.”

She wasn’t sure she could survive another one, but this time, Svarog worked his finger even more deeply inside her, eventually adding a second. As Stribog rubbed her clit, his other hand began tweaking her nipples and as her next orgasm hit her, Svarog suddenly plunged his fingers hard and deep inside her. She felt a moment of excruciating pain, which was overtaken and pushed out of the way by endless waves of pleasure.

“That’s it, Goddess,” Stribog whispered. “Let us please you.”

She could barely think, much less move in the water as the orgasm after orgasm swept over her like winter squalls. When the men finally let her relax, she remembered the pain. “What was that?” she fearfully asked. “Why did it hurt?”

Svarog kissed her. “We took your maidenhead, Goddess. Now, when it is our cocks inside you”—he wiggled his two fingers, stirring another flutter of pleasure deep inside her—“we won’t hurt you.”

Stribog moved his hand, making her whine in disappointment. He chuckled and kissed her. “I am not going anywhere, do not fret.” Svarog’s thumb took up where Stribog’s fingers had played with her clit. His warm hand soon had roused her passion again, her hips rocking in time to his movement.

Stribog changed position and reached into the tub again. This time, he pressed lower, pushing her legs open as far as the tub would allow, his cool finger searching for entrance in her virgin ass.

Zaria froze, but Svarog reassured her. “Please relax, Goddess. This will feel good.” Well, so far everything else had. She closed her eyes as Svarog’s tongue stroked her lips. Her mouth parted for him.

Stribog slowly circled the tight rim of muscle with his finger, occasionally pressing against it, relaxing her and adding a degree to the pleasure Svarog’s hand in her pussy was reviving in her once again. Would this ever stop?

She prayed it never would.

Zaria arched her back, giving both men’s hands better access to her nether regions. When Stribog slowly pressed for entrance, she instead focused on the relentlessly slow circles Svarog’s thumb was now drawing around her clit.

Stribog’s finger fucked her ass in time with Svarog’s fingers in her cunt. As one would press in, the other would withdraw, creating a delicious seesaw that soon had her cresting the edge of another glorious climax that they wouldn’t grant her.

“Please!” she gasped. “Let me come!”

Svarog chuckled. “Not yet, Goddess. I feel how your body is grabbing at my hand. Hold it and wait for just a moment.”

Stribog’s hand withdrew, making her whine in complaint until it quickly returned, this time with two fingers. Her desire ricocheted, climbing, straining. It wasn’t until Stribog had worked a third finger deep inside her ass that Svarog did something magical with his fingers inside her body, hooking them up slightly and hitting a sweet spot she never knew existed. At the same time, he rubbed her clit faster.

“Come for us, Goddess!” Stribog said.

It felt like her body unhinged. Her back arched as she cried out in pleasure. And this was only their hands and not their cocks? She sobbed with the exquisitely delicious sensations rolling through her, the wonderfully full sensation of their hands on and in her. When she finally came back to her senses, she lay limp in the water, panting and trying to regain her mind.

Svarog scooped her out of the tub as if she weighed no more than a wet cat. Stribog swaddled her in dry towels and they carried her to the bed. They dried her off then stretched out on either side of her, both of their cocks now hard and jutting from their bodies.

She closed her eyes as Stribog kissed her. Svarog’s hot mouth did delicious things to her nipples as his brother’s cool kiss stoked her fires. Then Svarog sat up and worked his way lower, until he pushed her legs apart and bent his head to her pussy.

If she thought their hands were skilled, that pleasure paled in comparison to their mouths. His lips and tongue teased and swirled around her clit, flicking at it and quickly driving her passion again until she screamed into Stribog’s mouth as another orgasm ripped through her.

How could any one person survive this kind of pleasure? Would it kill her?

What a glorious death that would be!

Zaria lost track of time as the men took turns worshipping her body with their hands and mouths, refusing to rush, giving her too many releases for her to keep track of. Finally, she got to a point where she would be refused no longer. She rolled Stribog onto his back and straddled him, his stiff cock rising from his body.

With her juices dripping from her body, she carefully eased herself down onto his shaft, moaning with pleasure as he stretched her in a way Svarog’s fingers had not.

Now I understand why they prepared me.

Svarog grabbed a jar of lotion from the table and began to work it into her ass. First one, then two, and three fingers deliciously stretched her rear passage as Stribog’s cock impatiently twitched inside her pussy. She wanted to ride him, but the men forced her to be still. Svarog slicked his cock with the lotion, then knelt in position behind her.

When the hot, engorged head of his cock pressed through, she gasped as a wave of pleasurable pain bit through her orgasmic haze. As she adjusted to him there and he started to move, she relished the full sensation of them both inside her.

Once they were both fully seated inside her, they took over, repeating the seesaw rhythm their hands had earlier used to bring her to passion. As she felt her body taking over from her brain, she closed her eyes and relinquished all control to their lead.

“Yes!” she gasped.

“Come for us, Goddess,” Stribog said. “Let us feel you.”

Svarog nipped the back of her neck. “We want to feel your body’s pleasure.”

They didn’t have to wait long. A rapid ascent into a pleasure akin to madness took her over the edge. It felt like white-hot energy exploded from them, engulfing them in a cloud of orgasmic sensation that bordered on pain in its intensity.

Both men let out loud shouts of pleasure as their cocks reacted to her body’s grip on them. She felt them, Stribog’s cool release in her pussy and Svarog’s hot seed in her ass, and yet another orgasm slammed into her like a landslide.

The world changed. Zaria saw a series of images flash through her brain. Baba Yaga and two other women…a battlefield…a victory.

Her eyes popped open as one more climax made her entire body shake before she collapsed on top of Stribog.

They tumbled into sleep as a tangled pile of limbs.

Chapter Five

Zaria stood at the window and shivered in the early-morning chill. Their slumber had been disturbed the night before when a wounded rider had arrived late, bloodied and exhausted, his mount lathered and trembling. The injured man had collapsed into the arms of the guards at the gate and reported on the latest siege, less than a day’s ride away.

Cockatrice.

Their dark army included not just the cockatrice’s kin, but some renegade creatures as yet unidentified. Some rumored demons, some claimed orcs or goblins. And humans who had allied themselves with the horrific forces with promises that they would reap the rewards of the battles.

“What troubles you, Goddess?” Svarog softly asked as he stepped in close and enveloped her in his arms.

She held on to him tightly. “Our people are dying. And yours. How can you ask me that? Is it not obvious?”

He kissed her neck. “Aye. That is why we must defend the lands as best we can. To the death.”

“I know.” She sighed.

He turned her in his arms. “Come back to bed and love us. Today, we plan. Tomorrow, we do battle and win.”

“And then we celebrate,” Stribog sleepily mumbled from the bed. “Come, lovely. Join us. The sheets are warm, the bed is soft. We do not have to arise yet.”

She managed a smile. “Even in the face of possible death, you cannot manage to quell your libido?”

Svarog nipped her shoulder. “Not when you are near, we cannot.”

“Later. We must go.”

“Go where?” Stribog asked, looking a little more awake.

“To the sacred spring. The one called Rachel’s Well.”

“What are we going to do there?” Svarog asked as she slipped from his grasp.

Zaria turned to them. “We have things to do. We are going to fulfill the prophecy.”

“You aren’t going to let us sleep in, are you, lovely?” Stribog asked.

“No. Sorry.”

“Ah, oh well.” He climbed out of bed. “What are we to do?”

She smiled at him. “We will ensure the cockatrice cannot get the upper hand. If we follow the prophecy, we shall vanquish them.”

Zachary was in a near panic when he couldn’t find the three the next morning. The news of the latest attack had reached him. He was nervously pacing in front of the stable when Stribog and Svarog returned at midday…without Zaria.

“Where is she?” Zachary demanded.

Both men looked troubled. “She would not tell us where she went,” Svarog said. “She sent us back to the castle.”

“She said we could not follow her,” Stribog said.

“And you let her go?” Zachary asked incredulously.

“What were we to do?” Svarog said. “She is the Goddess. Her word is law!”

“Idiots!” Zachary muttered under his breath. “Go see the king,” he ordered. “He is preparing the plans for battle.” He ordered a horse be readied for him and set off in search of Zaria. After ten minutes of riding, he caught sight of a flash of fabric at the edge of the woods and changed his course. There she was.

He pulled his mount up short beside her. “What in the name of Heaven do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. He jumped off and quickly examined her for any sign of injury. “Are you all right?”

She looked startled to see him. “I’m fine. Did the men return safely?”

“Yes, but what did you think you were doing going off alone?”

“I had something important to do.” She grabbed his arms before he could object. “We had to fulfill the prophecy.”

He wanted to object, but he let out a deep breath and nodded. There was something different about her, something changed, and not simply because she now belonged to her two dragon lovers. “Let’s get you back to the safety of the castle. Now.” He mounted then helped her swing up behind him.

Ignoring the sad pang inside his soul over countless memories of them riding like this in the past, he turned his horse back toward home.

Zachary followed Zaria into the hall where the king and his men had gathered. Not a single smile could be found, although there appeared to be more than a little relief when Zaria took her place beside her men.

“We have received unsettling news, Zaria,” the king said. “Scouts have returned with word that the cockatrice and their forces are on their way here. They are laying waste to everything in their path. They will reach our outer boundaries by morn. We have sent out riders to warn our villagers to flee the area.”

“Do we have reinforcements coming?” Zaria asked.

The two dragon men nodded. “They are on the way and will be here before sunset,” Svarog said.

“Good,” she said. “We have a lot of planning to do.”

Zaria felt recharged. She couldn’t explain what happened earlier. It was as if during the ceremony by the sacred spring another presence, wiser than herself, had taken residence inside her soul. It wasn’t until after she returned to the castle that she felt as if she was once again alone in her own body.

Not that she’d ever tell anyone about the experience. Not even Zachary. She didn’t know what had happened or how to even explain it. Perhaps it was simply a result of now being mated to her men.

It didn’t matter. There were more pressing matters to attend to if they were to survive the morrow. Unfortunately, she suspected the prophecy already foretold their fate.

Chapter Six

A phalanx of sixty dragons arrived early that evening, before dark. They caused quite a stir when they all landed in the castle’s courtyard, each dragon clutching a large rucksack, which held their belongings and weapons, in their talons.

Stribog and Svarog greeted their kin and made introductions. The leader of the group, Rossleo, knelt before King Elsleng. “We pledge allegiance to you, Your Majesty.”

The king smiled. “Up. I declare you all my knights. Now, let’s prepare our battle! When can we expect the others?”

“The wolves,” Rossleo said, “are on their way, perhaps a few hours behind us. They are travelling on horseback. They can’t shift and carry their belongings like we can. There are also bears and some felines with them, as many as we could all summon. And quite a few humans, as well.”

The other forces arrived as expected, and were updated on the plans. Zaria had exchanged her usual garb for one of Zachary’s shirts and a pair of his trousers. When her father protested her intent to join the fray, she once again reminded him of the prophecy.

“My power comes from my men,” she said. “I will not send them and our allies out to fight a battle that is every bit my war to wage as well.” She patted a sword sheathed on her hip. “They will find me every bit as fierce as any man out there.”

The king loudly sighed, but with a proud smile. “I cannot fault your logic, daughter.”

Two scouts returned before dawn the next morning to sound the alarm. They’d spotted the approaching dark army. With no people to kill, they were making faster progress. The good news was that the warnings to evacuate had been heeded by nearly all the residents, greatly lessening the loss of life.

The king stood before the gathered forces, human and shifter alike, and raised his sword to call for silence.

“We face a great foe,” he said. “There is no guarantee any of us will be here by the time the sun sets tonight. However, regardless, we will show them how fierce we are, and how they cannot expect to take our land, or our lives, without dire consequences.”

A roar of approval went up throughout the warriors. When they quieted, the king continued.

“We have the Goddess above on our side,” he said. “We have the Goddess Zaria on our side. We have the prophecies on our side. We have right and decency on our side. We only want peace, but if our foes wish a fight, we shall bring it to them!”

Another roar of approval rippled through the forces.

“It is a shame that it has taken sorrow such as this to bring all our peoples together as a united, unstoppable force. I pledge that from this day forward, we shall all be brothers, united and living peaceably together. Be they human, or wolf, or dragon, or other peaceful shifter, we shall all be kin.

“So to all of you, I say, ‘Merry meet.’ And good luck to all of us. We shall all assemble here upon the completion of our task, upon the defeat of the evil which seeks to destroy us. Then, we shall celebrate. I cannot see how such a great assemblage of spirit and strength cannot do anything but vanquish our enemies.”

They set up their positions. The smaller, swifter shifters were sent to the north and south, to help pen in their opponents, who were marching in from the east. They would close in behind them, and upon commencement of the attack would begin taking apart forces from the rear, hopefully dividing and slowing their advance. From what they could tell from the scouting reports, the weaker humans and other beings were trailing at the back of the forces.

They would also slaughter any who decided to retreat from the battle.

There would be no quarter given, no surrender accepted.

There would be no mercy given, since they gave none in return.

They would battle to the death.

Zaria took her men by the hands. “Join hands,” she softly said.

“What are you doing?” Svarog asked.

She closed her eyes. “What I feel is right. Join hands,” she repeated.

The men complied. Zaria felt it when the brothers joined hands, like a circle completed. As the earliest traces of dawn kissed the skies to the east of the hills behind the marauders, Zaria pictured the tablet they’d created the day before, as if it hung in the air before her face.

“Goddess above, Goddess below. Goddess within, Goddess without. Cast clouds of doubt across the skies behind our foes, and cast into their minds the feeling of woe. Remove from them their spirit strong. Replace their will with our victory song.”

She raised her arms to the skies above, still holding their hands and feeling power building amongst them, circling, flowing, growing.

“Goddess of All, Goddess of Light. Take from them their power and feed well our might!”

She felt a fireball of brilliant, golden energy explode up from the center of their triad.

Around them, she heard everyone gasp, but no one fled. As she opened her eyes, she watched as the fireball arced over the countryside, falling back to earth beyond their view, behind the tree line. A glare brighter than the sun blossomed across the distant land, growing and coalescing. Before their eyes, the skies behind the hills clouded over, concealing the sun and preventing them from being blinded by the glare of sunrise over the trees.

An earth-shaking explosion made the ground tremble as a thunderous crack ricocheted back to them. A blue energy wave struck them, knocking them all to the ground.

As Zaria regained her footing, she felt stronger than she ever had in her life. In amazement, every warrior stood, stretching and smiling as their fear quickly turned to wonder and determination.

Stribog looked at her, then grabbed her and kissed her long and deeply. “It worked! I feel it! They all do!”

Svarog next grabbed and kissed her. “We shall vanquish,” he said. Then, with a loud, echoing cry, he lifted his sword and rallied their forces.

The warriors lifted their weapons in a responding cry and began their charge to the east.

Zaria held back for only a moment as she watched their forces advance. Zachary made his way to her side. “This is how it ends?”

She sadly smiled and kissed him deeply, in a way she’d always wanted to and knew she’d never have a chance to again. “Forever,” she whispered.

He smiled and nodded. “Forever.” Then he drew his sword. “Shall we, my sweet Goddess?”

She drew hers and grinned. “With pleasure.”

Together, shoulder to shoulder, they turned and followed their fellow warriors.

It didn’t take long for the first of their enemies to fall. Most humorous, as well as a huge ego boost to their forces, was the fact that when one of the lead cockatrice tried to transform, he was unable to shift into his more powerful guise.

Startled, several of his comrades fell back as the dragon forces fell upon the hapless cockatrice and quickly killed him. When other cockatrice tried to shift, they, too, were unable. As they turned to flee, they were slain.

“We have them outmatched!” Stribog yelled, rallying their forces as they waded into hand-to-hand combat.

Zaria stayed on the outskirts of the battle, slaying stragglers that tried to escape through holes in their defenses. As the morning wore on, it was obvious that while the cockatrice were fierce fighters, without their ability to shift they were no match for the dragons and other shifters.

The still-obscured sun lay high in the sky when two groups of dragon warriors shifted and took to the air, using their powers to divide sections of the cockatrice combatants and turn them toward awaiting allied troops to either side. Fires broke out as the fire dragons used their natural weapons against their prey. Smoke and the smell of roasting flesh drifted across the countryside.

It wasn’t until Zaria felt a darkness descending that she realized they had a big problem.

Cries of agony from some of their own troops reached her ears. She turned to find a dozen demons had joined forces, formed a circle, and were attempting to use their dark skills to take out shifters one at a time. Though weakened, combining their energies they still proved themselves a powerful force. Any fighter that reached the outer ring of their powers was struck down immediately. Orcs, humans, and ogres used the diversion to trap shifters between their physically greater force and the demons’ metaphysical one.

“Stribog! Svarog!” Zaria cried out. “Come here!”

Her two men finished off a huge orc they’d been battling and raced to her side. “What is it?” Stribog asked.

“Join hands, quickly!”

They did, and she focused the force of her powers into her men.

Goddess of All, please guide my way.

She closed her eyes and envisioned feeding all of her energies into her two men, to form a protective shield around them. Despite her earlier power surge, she realized the extended fighting had taken a greater toll on her than she first realized. Ignoring that, she thrust every bit of power she possessed into her men.

Releasing their hands, she screamed, “Go! Now!” They turned and attacked the demonic circle. As she sank to her knees, she lost sight of them as other shifters poured into the breach behind them.

The entire war now seemed centered on this battle. Shifters forced their way through behind Stribog and Svarog, with blood-covered swords hacking away at the dark forces.

Then she felt the first blow to her men, as if her own shoulder had been struck.

“Stribog!” she screamed. Another pain in her neck nearly made her black out as she felt his energy snap back into her.

“No!” She dug her fingers into the ground and struggled back onto her knees, desperate to get to her men. Several shifters surrounded her, facing out and protecting her from attack, but blocking her view of the nearby struggle against the demons.

Then, just as she’d nearly regained her footing, she felt a pain in her gut as Svarog fell. Her visceral scream rent the air as she collapsed to her knees again, driven down by the force of Svarog’s energy also rebounding into her.

Fortunately, it seemed the two men had done enough damage to the demons’ cabal that the other shifters were able to break them apart and began slaughtering them.

Zaria’s heart and mind shattered. Sitting back on her heels, she looked to the heavens and let out an echoing, thundering roar of rage and grief that stopped everyone in their tracks. She raised her hands to the heavens.

“Goddess Above,” she screamed, “I give my all! Take from me, make our enemies fall!”

Zachary used the distraction to run his sword through a human that stank of the cockatrice before turning to view the brilliant light emanating from Zaria. It flowed from her and spread out amongst the warriors, striking dead their enemies while leaving their allies untouched.

A high, keening wail of anguish rolled from her like the scream of the wind in a hurricane. The impact knocked him off his feet as he tried to make his way to her side. He looked around, trying to locate Stribog and Svarog. Then he spotted their still forms strewn amongst the carcasses of demons, cockatrice, and other dark forces.

After what felt like hours but was only a few minutes, Zaria let out a final, gasping cry. As the light flowing from her died, she collapsed to the ground. Stunned, he stared at her as their dazed comrades slowly climbed to their feet and began cheering when they realized all their enemies lay dead around them.

With a choked sob, Zachary stumbled to his feet and ran to his Goddess. He dropped to his knees beside Zaria’s still form. He felt her dying, her immense expenditure of powers saving them all, but ripping her apart without the dragons’ supporting energy to feed her.

He ignored the tears rolling down his cheeks as he gently cradled her in his arms, rocking her, brushing the red tresses from her forehead.

“Zaria,” he whispered, kissing her lips, her cheeks, her forehead. “Zaria, my sweet, beautiful Goddess. Please don’t leave me.”

Her eyes fluttered open as more pain rent him from the inside out. He ignored it as he stared into her gorgeous green eyes. “Did we do it?” she whispered.

He nodded. “You did it. You beat them. You saved everyone.”

“Not everyone.” Her eyes teared up. “I could not save…”

He choked back his sob. “They sacrificed themselves to save you. To save us all. You saved our people, Zaria. My sweet, beautiful Goddess. I love you.”

A faint smile curved her lips. He grabbed her hand and pressed it to his lips, kissing it.

“I love you, too, Zachary. I always will.”

He tearfully nodded. “In every life.”

“In every heart.”

“Forever,” they whispered together.

Zachary saw the shadow fall across them both but didn’t look up from Zaria’s face. He didn’t want to miss a single breath.

“Well done, my children,” Baba Yaga’s matronly voice softly said. “Rest, Zaria. Your job is done. For now.”

Zaria nodded and saved one last smile for Zachary. “Forever.”

He nodded, this time sobbing aloud. “Forever, Goddess.”

Her eyes fluttered closed. He was aware of crowds of cheering warriors running across the battlefield toward them, yet already he felt the end coming soon for him.

Baba Yaga knelt beside him as he couldn’t take the pain and grief anymore. With Zaria clutched to him, he fell to his side on the ground, screaming Zaria’s name as his tears flowed unabated.

“Zachary,” Baba Yaga soothed, “do not fret. This is not the end. This is only the beginning. From now until the next prophecy is fulfilled, she will be yours in every life. You are still, and always, her Watcher.”

He listened, but couldn’t quit crying. The agony in his heart and soul crushed him under its weight. How could he ever live without her?

He didn’t want to live.

“Shh,” Baba Yaga soothed, pressing a comforting palm to his brow.

He was vaguely aware of the King, bloodied but not mortally wounded, running up and pushing through the crowd with several of his knights. He pulled up short when he saw Zaria’s still form and Baba Yaga kneeling beside them.

“Is she…”

One of the knights placed a staying hand on his king’s arm. “Aye, Sire,” he sadly said. “She is at peace. I suspect brave Zachary joins her and her dragons soon.”

Zachary’s vision swam, colors fading as he stared at Zaria’s closed eyes. Sounds from the crowd faded out of his awareness until only Baba Yaga’s voice filled his ears.

“Fret not, Zachary. In every life until the next prophecy, she will be yours until she is reunited with her dragons. Even then, she will still be in your life. You are always her Watcher. I swear it.”

He was vaguely aware of Baba Yaga pressing his and Zaria’s hands together, as she had when they were babes. “You will always remember, in every life, although she will not until she is reunited with her dragons. So fret not and rest now, child…” He felt the warm tingle between his palm and Zaria’s as the last breath left him and his world went black.

Chapter Seven

Six years later

From the deep shade of the willow tree, Zachary watched the little red-haired girl playing by the creek. He knew her name to be Zarina, even though he’d never met the redheaded child. He knew her age to be the same as his—five.

He opened his right palm and stared at the faint lines embedded there in his flesh. He also knew the little girl bore the same markings, only on her left palm.

When he felt the presence behind him, he didn’t need to turn to see who it was. “Hello, Baba Yaga.”

“Hello, Zachary.” In her matron form, she settled onto the ground beside him. “Did I not say it would be true?”

He nodded. “You did.” His earliest memories in this life were of wondering how long until he found his sweet Zaria again. Now he had, although her name was slightly different.

“Just remember, thirty-five years. Then you will get to be together. Until then, be her friend. Encourage her. Look after her. Protect her. She will love you.”

He felt so much older than his youthful body. “Does this get easier?”

She smiled. “You cannot tell people you remember past lives now, can you, little one?”

He glared at her.

She obviously didn’t care. “Now, now. Such a look you give me for one your age. And remember what your age should be. Just because you will have your memories doesn’t mean you shouldn’t embrace your current life.” She took his right hand, turned his palm face up, and traced the markings with her finger. “Live for now, Watcher. In every life. Enjoy your life. And trust that you will have more than your fair share of joy now and in the future.”

He nodded before turning to the creek again. He watched the girl lose her balance, her arms pinwheeling as she gave a little shriek and fell into the water with a splash.

Like a shot, he raced down to the edge, reaching out and grabbing her arm to safely pull her back to shore.

The little girl clung to him and sobbed as he held her, consoling her. “It’s okay, Zarina,” he soothed. “I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”

Baba Yaga watched the two children huddled on the shore. She heard a man’s shout and several villagers ran up, praising the boy for saving the girl. Zarina was the village leader’s daughter, and the cherished little girl of a very large family of boys. When both children’s mothers soon joined the crowd, the girl’s mother embraced first the boy, then the boy’s mother.

Baba Yaga smiled. Sometimes, it would be Zachary born to privilege and wealth. Sometimes, it would be the Goddess.

She was a patient woman. These two had nearly completed her oath to her own deceased love. One day, they would finally carry out the last of the revenge. As she stood and brushed the dirt off her skirts, she watched the villagers carry the children back up the road to their houses to get them dried off.

She sighed. “Live well, my sweet Zachary.” Never again would she hold him in her arms. In some ways, it saddened her that he would never have memories of their time together, when he first came to her looking for a way to save his dragon kin from the cockatrice.

The least she could do was to give him as much joy and pleasure as she could now and in the future to make up for not being able to save his life.

She took some small comfort in that.

With the villagers gone, Baba Yaga disappeared and reappeared before a stone cairn. She dropped to her knees in her maiden form and placed her hands on the rocks that she’d laid herself. “Zachary,” she whispered. “I promised, and I shall make it so.”

As always, her tears fell, staining the rocks until she cried herself to sleep there by her deceased lover’s final resting place.

Chapter Eight

Almost now

Lina looked up as her mom called out to her from the front porch. “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

“There’s new people next door, Mommy!”

Her mom walked down to the curb to join her. Sure enough, a moving truck and strange car were parked next door. A frazzled-looking woman directed the movers, while a young boy about Lina’s age played around the front of the garage.

“Can we go meet them?” Lina asked.

Her mom indulgently smiled. “Sure. Why not?”

Lina raced ahead to meet the little boy. Something about him drew her. He looked special. She’d been looking for a special friend for as long as she could remember. She didn’t know why, and both Mrs. Jones, her teacher at kindergarten, and her parents scolded her for being choosy, but she couldn’t help it.

Something inside her always said she needed a special friend. One who would be with her for the rest of her life. That’s what the old lady’s voice always told her.

But she’d learned early not to mention that. It made her mom look frightened when she talked about the old woman’s voice.

The little boy looked up. He had brown eyes. She skidded to a stop in front of him with a happy smile on her face. “Hi! My name’s Lina. What’s yours?”

He smiled back. “Zack.”

“I’m five. How old are you?”

He dropped the car he’d been playing with. “I’m five, too. Can I be your special friend, Lina?”

She gasped, happy shock making her squeal with excitement. “Yes! Yes, you are my special friend!” She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly as she jumped up and down.

By the time their moms found them in Zack’s backyard ten minutes later, Lina knew for certain this was definitely her very special friend. She kicked and screamed and cried when her mom said they’d have to go back home. Fortunately, Zack’s mom welcomed Lina’s mother’s invitation for Zack to come over and play while the moving continued. Hearing that, Lina grabbed Zack’s hand. Together the kids ran to Lina’s house and upstairs to her room to play.

Zack’s mom, Martha, watched them go. “Thank you so much, Karen,” she said. “I’m sorry about the intrusion.”

“No, not a problem.” Karen shook her head. “Honestly? I’ve never seen Lina so excited to meet another kid. She’s usually really standoffish and doesn’t make friends very well. I think Zack will be good for her.”

“Zack is an old soul. I thought maybe it was because of his deadbeat dad up and leaving when he was born.” She leaned against the fence. “If he’s a bother, please, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

Karen waved her off. “It’s okay. My husband will be home in an hour. He’s great with kids. He’ll keep them busy all evening. Hey, listen. I have lasagna in the oven. More than enough. Why don’t you and Zack join us for dinner?”

“Really?”

“Really.” She smiled. “You and me can come back over here with a bottle of wine after dinner, and I’ll help you unpack while we escape all of them.”

Martha laughed and gave her a high five. “You’re on!”

Lina and Zack played upstairs in Lina’s room. When she heard her mom call them down for dinner, Lina grabbed Zack’s hands. “Are you still going to be my special friend tomorrow?”

He smiled. “Of course. In every life.”

Lina’s mind felt a little fuzzy, but she said without thinking, “In every heart.”

Together, they both said, “Forever.”

She slung her arms around him. “I love you, Zack.”

“I love you, too, Lina.”

Somewhere, Lina was sure she heard the old woman chuckling. She noticed Zack looked up.

Lina gasped. “Did you hear her?” she whispered.

He smiled. “I hear her.”

Lina squealed. “You are my special friend forever!”

Together, they jumped up. Holding hands, they ran down the stairs to the kitchen.

Over the years, Lina eventually stopped hearing the old woman’s voice. By the time she was a teenager, she’d forgotten about her altogether, and barely had any memories of how she and Zack first met. It felt like Zack had been in her life forever.

But Zack still stayed her special friend.

Chapter Nine

Now

Stunned, Lina sat on Baba Yaga’s couch. It felt like she’d sat and listened to Baba Yaga spin her yarn for days. Yet she knew if she wanted to, she could open her physical eyes and find only a few seconds had passed in the van carrying her and her men home from Tampa International.

She stared at the faint, ancient scar etched into her left palm. She knew Zack bore an identical one in his right hand. How in all these years had she never questioned that? And despite all this knowledge, it still felt like she was missing something. Like there were a couple of huge, gaping holes she should be seeing in that tale, but wasn’t.

“In all lives?” Lina asked.

Baba Yaga nodded. “In all lives. Now the threads in your tapestry have merged again, from where they were scattered in the past. You are here, able to face down the threat. Your men will stand strongly beside you.” She smiled. “Even the wolf and his clan.”

Lina felt herself blush despite not really being there. “Brodey, you mean.”

“Yes. And others. Although they do not know it yet.”

Lina had a question she really wanted answered and hoped Baba Yaga would…or could. “When Brodey and I were overcome by the fire at Yellowstone, when I built the ice shell around us? I saw something. A vision or a dream, I don’t know what. I saw him and his brothers find their One. Was that true?”

Baba Yaga nodded. “If you saw it, it is true, or will be. Such are your gifts.”

She let out a deep, relieved sigh. “Then they will be happy?”

“That I cannot guarantee or promise for their future. But in that instance, yes, they will happily mate with their One.”

“Good. They deserve happiness.” There was more, so much more, that she wanted to ask. She now understood why Baba Yaga couldn’t tell her all she knew.

But perhaps…

“You don’t have a problem showing me things that have already happened.”

The other woman tipped her head in curiosity. “Some things, Goddess.”

In a quiet voice, Lina asked, “Can you show me how my parents died?”

Baba Yaga’s gaze narrowed. “I can. But are you sure it’s something you truly wish to see? Things such as that cannot be unseen.”

Lina picked at her cuticles. “I know Edgar killed them. I want to know exactly how. I want to see how someone who pretended to be my friend and care about me all those years could do something like that.”

“You want to fuel your rage.” Her lips curled in a knowing smile. “Do not lie to me. I have seen far too much in my life to be taken in by simple artifice.”

Lina met her gaze. “I want to make sure there’s no way in hell I will ever forget what those bastards are capable of. I want to make sure that I don’t misplace my mercy when the time comes.”

An amused grin crept across Baba Yaga’s face. “My dear, you are wiser than your years.”

They were suddenly standing beside a desolate rural road, just after dusk, but before full dark had settled in. A dense, purple light clung to the landscape. The air felt thick, soupy, still.

A typical August night in Florida, much like the night her parents died.

She turned, studying the area.

It was where her parents died. She knew the road, had struggled for years to take any possible route to avoid driving past the spot.

“How soon?” Lina asked her.

She nodded. “Very soon. We are just observers. We cannot interfere.”

“I understand.” The evening settled around them. “Why can’t I just figure everything out at once if I’m a goddess with all these powers?”

“You cannot harness what you don’t understand. And you are mortal-born. Goddess, yes. Powerful, yes. Omnipotent and omniscient? No. No one being, mortal or not, has all those powers. Only the Goddess of us all, and she’s not about to share her powers, I’m sure.”

“That sucks.”

“Yes, it does. Unfortunately, it is life.”

“So what was that vision I saw first before I came here? Those people on the moor. Who the fuck is Ysimel, anyway? That woman in my vision?”

Baba Yaga smiled. “Information for you to store away for later, Goddess.” Her expression hardened. “Forget nothing.”

They waited. A few minutes later, Lina spotted a large, beat-up, four-door land yacht of a sedan, a huge clunker that looked three feet from being ready for a crusher. It pulled up, turned in at a dirt crossroad, and turned around. It stopped a few yards short of the road, where it couldn’t be seen by any vehicle coming around the turn.

Lina took a deep breath and waited. She knew the driver.

Edgar.

When she saw headlights sweep over the trees lining the curve, she knew it was about to happen. Steeling herself, she watched as Edgar gunned the engine of his car, which weighed at least three times as much as her parents’ small two-door Honda.

Then his back tires kicked up a rooster tail of dirt as he pulled out and hit them at a sharp angle on the driver side, sending the small car rolling.

Lina choked back a sob. Despite her parents’ car being totaled, Edgar’s car was still drivable. He put it in park, got out, and walked over to the Honda, which now lay on its roof in the ditch, crushed against a tree.

That was one thing the FHP could never figure out, how another car could hit them and still get away.

Now, she knew.

Baba Yaga softly spoke in her ear. “Do you wish to go see them?”

She shook her head. “No, this is close enough.”

Edgar stooped down and reached into the driver-side window. After a moment, he nodded and went around to the other side.

She couldn’t help but see as he passed through the beam of his own remaining headlight that his hand was covered with blood.

After checking on her mom, Edgar wiped his hand on the grass, got back in his car, and left.

Lina took a long, shaky breath and slowly let it out again.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ve seen en—”

She opened her eyes and found herself in the van with her men. When she looked out the window, she realized they’d driven less than a mile from when she first joined Baba Yaga in Wherever-the-Hell-That-Was-Land.

She closed her eyes again.

When they reached the house, the other men started hauling their bags inside. Zack grabbed Lina’s wrist and arched an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

She let out a sigh. She never could keep anything from him.

No wonder. He’d seen all her moods countless times, throughout many lives. She tipped her head toward the house. He followed her inside, through the house, and out the kitchen to the back patio to what she was beginning to think of as their “talking bench.”

She leaned against him, and he slung an arm around her, pulling her close.

He kissed the top of her head. “Paid a visit to old Baba Yaga, did you?”

“How’d you know?” His insight didn’t even surprise her anymore.

“I felt you check out there in the van for a little while. Did she bring you there, or did you go on your own?”

“She says I went on my own, but I’m still not quite sure how.”

She sensed Jan stick his head out the back door. Upon seeing her sitting there with Zack, he quietly retreated.

They did learn fast, she had to hand it to them.

“Aaannnd?” Zack asked.

She choked back a sob. “She told me the whole story. About our first lives and the cockatrice and the dragons. Everything. And she showed me how we died. How they died.”

He nuzzled the top of her head. “And?”

She quietly said, “I asked to see how Mom and Dad died. I wanted to see for myself how Edgar killed them.”

“Oh, sweetie.” He held her tighter as the floodgate exploded. Her grief and agony and pent-up anger, her loneliness without them and their love.

After she cried herself out, she asked a question she hoped didn’t come out wrong. “Why couldn’t you tell Edgar was one of them? Or Lenny?”

He shrugged. “I’ve been asking myself that question, too, sugar. Kael thinks maybe it has something to do with that book. Maybe they’re using spellwork, or dark sorcery, or something. I sure as shit didn’t like Edgar from the moment I met…” His voice trailed off.

“What?”

“Oh, shit,” he whispered. Then he bolted to his feet and ran into the house.

Slightly irritated, she followed. He was yelling for Kael, Jan, and Rick to join him in the kitchen. He pulled the ancient book out of his carry-on and laid it out on the kitchen table, open to the dog-eared page they’d discovered in Yellowstone.

The page that marked the ritual used to murder Kael’s family.

“What?” Lina asked again.

He shook his head as the other three men entered the kitchen. Zack’s finger scrolled down the page as his lips silently moved while he read. When he reached one passage, his jaw dropped in shock.

“Holy fuck.”

“Zack, please,” she said. “What is it?”

He looked at Kael, then Lina. “Edgar and Lenny used Kael’s family for an occlusion spell.” He slammed his fist against the table, making the large, heavy piece of furniture shake. “That’s how they did it. The fuckers used Kael’s family for the occlusion spell. But they needed one more victim to do a third person.” His gaze once again fell on Kael. “There was at least one more person in on this. Were you supposed to be home that day?”

In obvious shock, Kael nodded. “Yeah. I’d gone out hunting with some of my friends. But I was supposed to be home. Normally would have been home.”

“Son of a bitch,” Rick said, sitting at the table and spinning the book to get a better look at it. “So they had at least one accomplice.”

“Yep,” Zack said.

Lina reined in her irritation. She refused to lose her cool when they were talking about Kael’s family. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make heads nor tails out of the book’s text. Although most of the pictures were fairly gruesome and gave her a pretty good idea of the meaning of the accompanying text.

“What is an occlusion spell?” she asked. “What did they do to his family? How do you know for sure there’s another accomplice?”

Zack glanced at Kael, who nodded. In a soft, sad voice, Zack explained. “The spell they used—the whole book, really—isn’t just black magick or dark spellwork. It’s evil sorcery at its worst. When Jan said this was like a metaphysical cookbook from Hell, he wasn’t far off.”

He took a deep breath. “An occlusion spell allows someone to pass themselves off as someone or something else. It might not make them totally look or smell or whatever like their intended target, but at the very least it nullifies them so that they appear ‘normal’ to whoever it is they’re trying to fool.”

“Okay.”

Zack took another deep breath. “I’m guessing, based on their victims, that they were trying to pass for dragons. Or at the least, to pass the sniff test with dragons. This spell requires an equal exchange of an adult for an adult, or if it’s a child victim using more than one, for the spell to be effective. They killed them, and then both drank and bathed in their blood.”

Lina felt the world spin. Jan and Rick rushed to her side and helped her into a chair.

“Get her a bucket,” Zack told them. “Looks like she might urp.”

She felt like she might urp. When she got hold of her nervous stomach, she looked at Zack. “Okay, so how do you know there were three murderers?”

Kael heavily sat in another chair and scrubbed at his face with his hands. “Because those notes they made in the margin to modify the spell is to occlude three people, using not just my sister, but me, too.”

Chapter Ten

Zack watched as Kael composed himself. He finally sat up and shook his head. “I think we now have a prime suspect in Bertholde’s murder,” Kael said.

Not wanting to disagree with him, but knowing he had to speak up, Zack stepped behind him and put his hands on his lover’s shoulders. “But not the only suspect, unfortunately. We don’t know if Lenny had help or not in Yellowstone. The fire destroyed his camp and his truck, including all evidence except for what Brodey and Lina brought back with them.”

Kael laid a hand over Zack’s. “I know.” He sounded beyond weary. “But I can hope. How many of these fuckers can there still be in the world? They’re antisocial as fuck, normally. Their powers are diluted from years of inbreeding with each other and breeding with humans.”

Lina nodded. “Lenny was already dead when Bertholde was murdered. It can’t be coincidence that the knife she was stabbed with is identical to the one we brought back.”

Zack, playing Devil’s advocate, shook his head. “It doesn’t mean the third conspirator was the one with the knife, or that they were working in tandem with Lenny. It could have been a coincidence. He never said anything to you about it, did he?”

“No.” She let out a frustrated scream. “I want these assholes found!” Lina exclaimed. Then, her face went blank.

Zack watched as Lina closed her eyes. With her elbows propped on the table, she clutched her head in her hands. Jan and Rick started to intervene, but he stopped them.

“No, wait. Leave her alone for a minute.”

She sat there, slowly swaying back and forth for several minutes. When her eyes popped open, she looked around, startled. “What happened?”

“You tell us, babe,” Zack said. “Was that a vision?”

She slowly nodded. “Everything looked blue.”

“Something to do with the cockatrice?”

“Yeah. I think so. I’m not sure.” She reached for the book and paged through it, pausing near the back of the book. She pointed at a drawing. “There. That. I saw that. It was etched in a flat rock.” The illustration showed three spirals interlocking with each other and surrounded by various arcane symbols.

The men gathered around the book. “What the fuck is that?” Jan asked.

Rick shook his head. “Damned if I know.”

Kael smiled. “I know exactly what that is. It’s the Tablet of Trammel.” He reached across the table and squeezed Lina’s hand. “And better yet, I think I know where it is. Or, at least, I know how to find it.”

“Well, do you feel like sharing?” Rick asked.

Kael leaned back, looking happy for the first time since they found out who was responsible for his family’s murder. “I need to make a phone call and track down my old drinking buddy, Blackie.”

Lina had a thousand questions more, but Jan, Rick, and Zack insisted it could wait until morning. Jan and Rick herded her upstairs, while Zack followed Kael to their wing in the house.

“Drinking buddy, huh?” Zack teased Kael once they were alone in their room. “Is that code for ‘fuck buddy’?”

“No.” Kael unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it in the hamper. “He’s a wolf. I haven’t seen him since a little after…” His expression darkened for a moment before he shrugged. “He was one of my hunting buddies back in the old days. When we couldn’t find them, I went to Ireland for a while before coming here. I lost track of him and the rest after that.”

Zack suspected the “since a little after” thought Kael didn’t finish was his family’s murder. “I thought you said he was a drinking buddy?”

“That, too. That wolf could drink nearly everyone else under the table, no shit.” He pulled Zack into his arms. “But he was also arrow-straight, my man.” Kael kissed him. As always, Zack felt like the world melted away around them. “He could never hold a candle to you,” Kael breathed in his ear. “No one can.”

“Then take me to bed and show me.”

“Gladly.”

He fell backward onto the bed, pulling Zack with him. Zack laughed. “Should we get naked first?”

Kael laced his hands behind his head. “Be my guest. You know I love watching you unzip me.”

“Mmm.” Zack sat up and worked on Kael’s belt, then on the button and zipper of his jeans. Kael wore boring tighty-whities. They perfectly highlighted the prominent bulge of his hard cock straining against the fabric.

Zack bent his head to the bulge, gently nibbling on him through the fabric. Kael’s head fell back onto his pillow as he softly moaned. He stroked Zack’s head. “Don’t tease me.”

“I love to tease you. You know that.” He didn’t stop, running his teeth over his cock through the fabric and driving Kael frantic.

“Please, Z. Do it!”

With a chuckle, Zack hooked his fingers in the waistband of Kael’s briefs and slowly pulled them down. His cock, now freed, sprang up, rigid and engorged. A single glistening, pearly drop of pre-cum dotted the head of his cock.

“Mmm.” Zack’s tongue flicked at his slit, scooping up the drop. “That’s what I like.”

Kael’s cock jumped. Zack wrapped his fingers around the thick member and slowly started circling the engorged head with his tongue. Taking his time, he swiped his tongue over the smooth head, along the sensitive ridge, lightly flicking at his glans.

“Yes!” Kael breathed.

Zack shifted position so he knelt between Kael’s legs. He still hadn’t pulled his jeans off him. “Tell me what you want.”

“Jesus, Z, I want you to suck my cock!”

Zack wrapped his lips around the head of Kael’s member, swirling his tongue around it as he took it deeper into his mouth, until it hit the back of his throat. He bobbed his head up and down slowly, using his tongue as well as his lips to massage every inch of his flesh. With his left hand, he reached between Kael’s legs and cupped his sac, gently squeezing and massaging his balls the way Zack knew he loved.

Kael moaned and tried to thrust his hips up to force his cock faster and deeper into Zack’s mouth. When Zack pinned his legs down, he grabbed Zack’s head and tried to take control.

Zack reached up and pushed his hands away. “Stop it. I’m driving. I can make this last all night.”

“I don’t want to wait all night!” Kael’s plaintive tone made Zack chuckle. “I want to come!”

“You will, baby. You will.” He knelt back to his work, enjoying the warm, tangy taste of his lover’s pre-cum. Kael’s cock grew even more rigid under firm strokes from his tongue and the suction of his mouth. He loved making him come. Even more, he loved drawing it out, tormenting him in the best way possible, until Kael was frantic and begging for release.

This time was no exception. Zack’s own cock throbbed, almost painfully, inside his jeans as he worked over Kael’s member. His lover moaned and squirmed and tried to wriggle free, but Zack relentlessly kept him pinned to the bed as he used his lips and tongue on him.

Finally, as he felt Kael’s cock grow even harder and his sac draw up tight. Kael’s entire body stiffened. Zack went deep and long, ready when Kael’s juices exploded into his mouth. He swallowed every drop of his hot stream of cum as it shot down his throat.

As Kael trembled, Zack continued gently licking and sucking until he rested his cheek on Kael’s abs and held his softening cock in his mouth.

Kael stroked Zack’s hair. “That was fantastic,” he whispered. “That was absolutely fantastic.”

Zack smiled and lifted his head after applying a last kiss to his lover’s cock. “Now we can get naked.”

Kael laughed. “Yep.”

They shucked their clothes and climbed back into bed, this time with Zack on the bottom and Kael between his legs. Kael immediately swallowed Zack’s rigid cock deep into his mouth and enthusiastically began to suck on him.

Zack happily moaned. “Yeah, that’s right. Hard and fast, baby. Hard and fast.”

Kael knew better than to try to drag it out for Zack too long when Zack was this horny. If he made him come hard and fast, he nearly always regrouped in a few minutes for a second round…with his cock buried deep inside Kael’s ass. Which was exactly where Kael wanted it.

He paused just long enough to wet one finger and press it against Zack’s ass. That’s when the fireworks happened. Zack let out a loud, happy groan, roughly grabbed Kael’s head, and took over driving. He started fucking his cock deep into Kael’s mouth, faster and harder, until his orgasm took him and he rewarded Kael with a mouthful of cum.

They lay there for only a moment. “That was great, but I bet I know what you want, don’t I?” Zack asked in a teasing tone.

Kael laughed. “Um, yeah.”

Zack let go of Kael’s head and laced his fingers behind his head. “Then get me hard again, baby, and I’ll fuck that sweet ass of yours.”

With a grin, Kael started going down on him again. It didn’t take him long to get Zack worked up and hard again.

Zack sat up. “Get in position,” he said. “I’ll get a towel and the lube.” He lightly smacked Kael’s cute ass as he rolled off the bed and headed to their bathroom for a towel. When he returned, he found Kael crouching on all fours in the middle of their bed, cute ass in the air.

He wiggled it at Zack. “Like this?”

His cock twitched. It wanted to be buried inside that ass. “Oh, yeah. You’d better believe it.” He climbed up on the bed and knelt behind Kael. After lubing him, he started working first one, then two fingers into him.

Kael dropped his head to the bed and moaned.

“You like that, baby?”

“Uh-huh!”

With his other hand, Zack reached around Kael and slowly pumped his cock. It only took seconds for him to be throbbingly hard in Zack’s hand. Kael flexed his hips against him, trying to work himself back and forth between the dual sources of pleasure.

Zack squeezed him hard with his hand. “Gonna fuck you hard, baby. Just like I know you want me to.”

Kael moaned and wiggled his ass in response, making Zack laugh. When he knew Kael was ready, he withdrew his fingers and replaced it with his cock. He slapped Kael’s ass. “You know what to do.”

With another happy moan, Kael arched his back and thrust against Zack, impaling himself all the way on Zack’s rigid cock.

Both men let out groans of pleasure. “Oh, yeah,” Zack said, his voice hoarse. He grabbed Kael’s hips and started slowly fucking him. This way, since he’d already shot one load, he could last as long as he wanted.

And he wanted his cock buried in his lover’s warm, tight ass for a while.

He fucked Kael, sometimes hard and fast, sometimes long and slow, interspersing it with slaps on either side of his ass. When he finally had Kael begging him to make him come, he reached around and grabbed Kael’s dripping cock. “Go ahead and come for me, baby.” He didn’t get more than three good pumps in before Kael’s cum covered his hand. Zack didn’t stop, using the extra lubrication to tease and torment his lover’s sensitive member until he knew he’d coaxed every last drop out of him.

He paused to wipe his hand on the towel. “My turn, baby,” he said in a growl. Kael’s hands fisted the sheets as Zack dug his fingers into Kael’s hips. He started slow, bottoming out at the end of every stroke and withdrawing until just the head of his cock was still tightly fisted by Kael’s ass. Then he picked up speed, harder and faster, until his balls slapped against Kael’s rump with every stroke.

“You want it?” Zack asked.

“Yes!” Kael gasped. “Give it to me!”

Zack pounded into him, holding back as long as he could, until his cock practically ached from the strain. When he let go, he slammed hard and deep into Kael one last time, happily groaning at the satisfaction of shooting his load deep inside him.

Both men collapsed onto the bed. Zack didn’t want to move. “You okay?” he mumbled.

“Uh-huh. I can’t believe we haven’t fucked each other’s brains out yet.”

“I thought we just did.”

Kael chuckled. “I meant completely out of our bodies.”

Zack kissed his shoulder before slowly rolling off him with a grunt. “Now I’m ready for bed.”

Kael kissed him, then left the bed to clean up. He brought back a washcloth for Zack, and then they curled up together, with Kael spooning Zack, his arm thrown around his waist.

“I love you,” Zack mumbled.

Kael smiled and nuzzled his ear. “I love you, too.”

Kael lay there long after Zack fell asleep cuddled against him. He couldn’t help but smile at his lover. Their relationship had too many dynamics to begin to count. Although he was physically older than Zack, and a dragon, Zack was mentally and emotionally far older. They switched back and forth in bed and in life, each seamlessly taking the lead when necessary. Like tonight, he knew Zack had wanted to do the driving, and he was happy to give it to him.

He also didn’t begrudge a second of the time Zack spent with Lina. Zack had a calming, soothing, peaceful aura about him. Just sitting with him and talking always relaxed him.

He could only imagine how much of that calming presence Lina needed on a daily basis to keep her from losing her mind over the recent events.

Zack let out a soft snore and shifted position, snuggling even closer to Kael.

Kael had given up on ever finding love. If it wasn’t for Bertholde insisting that Andel send him to Rick and Jan to help out with the prophecies, he might never have met and fallen in love with Zack.

Given the recent events, he suspected that’s exactly why Bertholde insisted specifically on him. Not just because of his past experience with hunting the cockatrice, or his translation skills, or even because he was cousins with Jan and Rick through their mothers, but because she’d seen in a vision that he’d fall for Zack.

He smiled. I wish I could thank her.

He’d spent the first decade after his family’s murder seething with rage and hunting down the people who had killed them. Too wrapped up in his anger to even think about really grieving. Then as it became more and more clear that unless something changed he might never find the killers, depression set in.

He wouldn’t deny he’d even considered killing himself a time or two just to be out of misery.

Finally, it was Bertholde who’d slapped some sense into him, literally, at a small dragon Gathering at her home. She’d cornered him in her kitchen and laid into him about how his parents wouldn’t want him to end his life or spend it entirely in search of their killers.

Then she’d slapped him. Hard.

With her eyes glittering in anger, she said, “You dishonor their memory by simply giving up! You let the killers win if you do not live for happiness. I’m not saying do not remember them or grieve for them or sometimes feel sad. But to waste your life because you are too entrenched in grief to find your way out is not what they would have wanted!”

He’d barely heard her words, because the slap, while not terribly painful, had shocked the crap out of him. As had her harsh tone. Bertholde, while feisty, never acted like that.

As he tried to recover, she grabbed him, pulling his head down and cradling it to her chest. “Grieve, but live.”

Just as shocking, he burst into tears. She sat with him there in her kitchen, holding and rocking him as he cried in her lap while she softly talked to him in a loving, soothing tone. Finally, when he regained his composure, she’d wiped his tears away and offered him a loving smile.

“There is my sweet Kael,” she said. “You are a good man with a loving heart. You will find the man you are destined to meet. Have faith.”

That, alone, had shocked him more than anything. He’d assumed he’d hidden his sexual orientation from everyone. She smiled. “You hide nothing from me, little dragon,” she said. Then she kissed his forehead. “Your mother and father loved you very much, and they would not have cared one bit about that. Anyone your heart told you was your mate, they would have welcomed him in.”

From that moment on, even though he didn’t get to see her very often, he’d made a point of giving her a big hug every time he did.

Wiping away his tears, he let out a sad sigh, rolled over, and tried to go to sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Lina stood in the shower under water as hot as she could stand it. Jan couldn’t stand it for long and quickly lathered, rinsed, and escaped with no repeat after giving her a quick kiss.

“I’ll wait for you in bed, lovely.”

She smiled. “No problem.”

Rick, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the hot water or his showering companion. He wrapped his arms around her and nibbled on her neck. Her fiery dragon loved the steamy heat. “Want company, love?”

She sighed, leaning against him. “Yes, but just company for now.” Her mind was too full of everything she’d learned at Baba Yaga’s to think about being romantic right at that moment. “Nothing personal.”

“Fair enough. Care to share what your talk with Zack was, or was it personal time?”

The twins had quickly grown to not only like Zack, but trust him. They also trusted that Lina needed her personal time with him, both as Lina and as the Goddess. She had an unbreakable bond with Zack that only strengthened her love for her men without threatening them in the slightest.

“It was Goddess stuff, but I don’t mind sharing.” She turned in his arms and looked up into his face. Now, with the old memories called to the surface, she realized he looked nearly identical to how he had in his first life.

He just couldn’t remember their life together before this one, even though it was fleetingly short before the battle with the cockatrice.

“You look troubled, love,” he said, his own brow furrowing. “Anything I can do?”

Might as well fess up. “I paid Baba Yaga a visit.”

He frowned. “When?”

“While we were in the van. I closed my eyes and found myself there.”

“But you never left the van.”

“It was in my mind. But it was real.”

“Ah. And?”

She rested her head on his strong shoulder. “We have to stop the cockatrice,” she said, her tears flowing. Would she ever stop crying? She hated feeling helpless. “We have to stop them this time, or they will kill us all. Along with a lot more innocent people, like Kael’s family.”

He tried his best to console her. “We will, love. I swear we will.”

“It’s going to get really bad,” she said, sniffling. “And it’s going to involve a lot of others, too. The worst thing of all is I have no idea how to stop any of it. I have all these powers and not one single freaking clue on how to use them.”

He kissed the top of her head. “You worry too much. According to Brodey, you were perfect when it came to saving you both from the fire in Yellowstone.”

“Ahem. Pine tree flambé strike a memory?”

He smiled. “That was an aberration, I’m sure. Besides, you were mad at us for arguing. If you haven’t noticed, we’ve made a distinct point of not arguing.”

“Around me.”

“Well, we are brothers, love. Don’t expect perfection from us.”

She giggled. “Sometimes I enjoy your arguments. Not all of them. Just sometimes.”

“Oh? Do tell. Which ones?”

She wiggled her hips against him, stirring interest from his cock in the process. “Like when you two argue over who gets which end. Or which side.”

“Mmm. That sounds like an invitation.”

“Take it however you want.”

“I’d rather take you.” He nipped her ear.

“Go ahead.” Heck, maybe getting laid was exactly what she needed to take her mind off of everything she’d seen.

Sure as hell couldn’t hurt.

He kissed her, taking his time, refusing to rush. As she melted into his embrace, she felt his cock hardening against her hip. She absorbed his natural scent, which always reminded her of sandalwood, for some reason. Jan’s scent always invoked mental images of an evergreen forest in spring after a cleansing rain.

Rick’s hands slowly skimmed down her wet back until he spread his fingers across her ass cheeks, squeezing hard and digging in, bordering on painful pleasure as he kneaded her flesh. He spread her ass as he massaged her. “Are you saying you want my cock…here?” He slipped one finger between her cheeks, pressing against the puckered rim of her ass, teasing but not entering.

She moaned against his neck. Her clit throbbed as moisture soaked her pussy. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Tell me.”

“I want your cock there.”

“Where?” He nipped her earlobe again. “I want to hear you talk dirty. I want you to beg for it.”

Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she prayed her knees didn’t give in. “I want your cock in my ass and Jan’s in my pussy at the same time.”

“Oh, baby!” He groaned, his cock twitching against her leg. Then he chuckled. “Why don’t you want my cock in your pussy?”

“I don’t care whose cock is where as long as one of you is in my ass and the other is in my pussy!”

“That’s my girl. Let’s get rinsed off and hit the bed.” He let go of her, and she nearly fell. Her wobbly legs didn’t want to hold her as passion had diverted nearly all her blood flow to her pussy.

He chuckled and reached out to steady her. “Hold on there, slugger. We don’t want you getting a concussion.”

“Don’t they say most household accidents happen in the shower?” she joked.

Lina thought a smile that sinful shouldn’t be outlawed, it should be made mandatory for every man’s facial expression repertoire. “I can’t imagine how.”

“I think I just found out how.” She finished rinsing, stepped out, and grabbed a towel. “From getting mauled by a horny dragon.”

He shut the water off. “Hmm. Must be a lot of horny dragons in the world. I didn’t know we were so prevalent.” He stepped out and dried off. When she tried to leave the bathroom, he dropped his towel and snagged her arm to scoop her up and carry her into the bedroom.

“I can walk, you know.”

“This is far more fun.”

He dropped her onto their bed, where Jan was stretched out, naked, and watching The Big Bang Theory. “There you are. I was beginning to think he was going to hog you all night.” He put the TV remote on the bedside table and rolled over to face her. “Hi.”

She giggled. “Hi.”

Rick climbed into bed behind her. “Guess what our naughty girl told me in the shower?”

She felt her face flush, but Jan grinned. “What did she tell you?”

Rick trailed his hand down her belly, letting it come to rest on her mound, where he cupped it, his fingers deliciously brushing against her clit. “She told me she wants to be the filling in a dragon sandwich tonight.”

Jan’s grin widened. She suspected if he got any happier his face would freeze like that. Not to mention his cock might explode. “Oh, reeeeallly? Well, I say we take care of that for her, brother.”

“Just what I had in mind.” Rick brushed her damp hair out of the way and nibbled the back of her neck while his fingers played with her clit.

She moaned, spreading her legs to give him better access. Jan bent his head to her right nipple and sucked it between his cool lips. It immediately drew into a tight peak in his mouth. She grabbed his head, weaving her fingers in his hair.

“Oooh, please don’t stop!”

“Who are you talking to?” Rick asked, his voice full of humor.

“Both of you, dammit! Don’t stop!”

Jan responded by gently biting down with his teeth and flicking her nipple with his tongue. That only served to inflame her need, each pulse of sensation sending an electric jolt of desire straight to her clit.

Rick slipped two fingers inside her cunt and slowly started stroking them in and out. “Wow, you should feel how wet she is already, and we’ve barely started the foreplay.”

Jan lifted his head from her breast, releasing her nipple despite her vocal protests. “I’ll get there eventually. I’m not done here, yet.” He leaned down and took her left nipple into his mouth and began giving it the same delightful torment he’d bestowed upon her right one.

Lina rocked her hips against Rick’s hand. He wasn’t thrusting hard or fast enough to get her over, just enough to tease her into a frenzy and get her even wetter.

He pulled his fingers from her drenched channel and touched them to her lips. “Open, lovely.” She did, licking her juices off his hand. She felt his cock throbbing against her ass. “Oh, you are so sexy when you do that!” He grabbed her chin and tipped her head back. His lips crushed hers, his tongue rasping against her lips until she gave way and he thrust it into her mouth, exploring, teasing, tasting.

With her mouth busy, he let go of her and returned his hand to her pussy. This time, he didn’t stop. He finger-fucked her until her body tensed between them. Then he rolled her clit between his fingers, sending her over the edge.

She moaned into his mouth as she ground her ass against him. He pinched her clit harder, intensifying the electrifying orgasm rolling through her. She tried to wiggle away from him, but he wouldn’t let go until he knew he’d wrung every ounce of climax out of her.

When he finally released her, he laughed and rolled her on top of him effortlessly, impaling her with his cock. With her swollen and oversensitive clit still throbbing, she moaned as the base of his cock rubbed against her.

“Get the lube, brother,” he said to Jan with a sly grin on his face.

Jan had already rolled over to the side of the bed. “I’m on it.”

“So am I,” Lina managed to mumble with a giggle. She wiggled her hips.

Rick lightly slapped her ass. “Hold still or he’ll miss the target.”

“Since when. He’s got the accuracy of a heat-seeking missile.”

“I’ve got your heat-seeking missile right here,” Jan quipped.

“Oh my god, I’ve fallen into a bad romance novel.” She groaned. “Hurry up and fuck me senseless again before your purple prose kills me.”

He drizzled lube down the seam between her cheeks and started working it into her ass. “Quit complaining. You don’t mind it when we skewer you with our purple swords.”

She lifted her head. “Keep talking like that, buster, and when I learn how to not-so-randomly blow shit up, your ’nads will be first on the list.”

“One thorough fucking, coming right up,” Jan said.

She moaned as he worked one, then two fingers into her, effectively silencing her. Well, silencing her speech, although the incoherent sounds of pleasure rolling from her were anything but quiet.

“That’s it,” Rick said as he took a long, slow stroke inside her. “You just lie there and enjoy it. We’ll do all the work.”

That was fine with Lina. Her tender nipples rasped against the fine, dark hair dusted across Rick’s chest. All she wanted to do was lie there and enjoy the feeling of two cocks inside her.

As soon as Jan hurried up and got his inside her.

She felt him spread her cheeks. Then the head of his cock pressed against her rim. “Is this what you want, lovely?” he asked her.

“Uh-huh!”

Rick’s fingers dug into her ass, holding her still and spreading her wide. “Tell us,” he ordered in the sexy Alpha tone that always melted her.

“I want your cock in my ass, Jan!” she gasped. “I want you both fucking me!” She already felt more pleasant tingles in her clit as she tried to rub it against Rick’s body. Hot and cool, she knew the contrasting sensations would send her skyrocketing into another powerful orgasm without any assistance from a tongue, finger, or battery-operated boyfriend.

“Hold on, I’m working on it,” Jan said. He slowly pressed forward, hesitating as his cock passed through her tight ring of muscle.

She moaned against Rick’s chest. “Do it! Please, fuck me!”

“Better do it,” Rick teased. “She sounds serious.”

She tried to hump their cocks, but Jan pressed a hand down in the middle of her back, holding her still. “Just wait, baby. Give me a minute.” He slowly worked his cock in deeper. She loved the sensation of one of them in her ass. Being impaled between them was a delicious sensation she wished she’d indulged in sooner.

When he bottomed out inside her tight ass, he sat up and grabbed her hips. “You feel so good!” He gasped as he took a long, slow stroke.

She moaned, squirming between them, wanting more, wanting to be fucked hard and fast.

Beneath her, Rick started thrusting, picking up a rhythm that hit her clit perfectly every time as he drove his cock hard and deep inside her pussy. Lina felt time slow and stretch. It felt like every nerve ending in her body had lit up.

As her climax approached, she threw her head back and moaned. “Yes!” When the first tingles started, her vision went blue.

Suddenly, she was no longer in bed with Rick and Jan. She was standing in the doorway of a small shop on a narrow, cobbled village street. She couldn’t read the signs around her, but they looked like they were in French.

A heavyset, older man wearing a dour expression emerged from one of the shops on the other side of the street. She couldn’t clearly see his face due to the hat smashed down on his head. He headed off down the sidewalk. Lina knew she had to follow him, but didn’t know why. As she stepped down from the sidewalk to cross the street, her climax slammed into her, ripping her from the vision and pulling her back into her body.

“That’s our girl,” Rick said with a grunt as he picked up the pace. Above her, Jan pounded into her, drawing out her orgasm until she finally collapsed on top of Rick, feeling like a puddle of melted flesh.

Rick came first. Lina shivered at the delicious sensation of his hot seed filling her. When Jan came, she shivered again at feeling him empty his coolly soothing load in her ass.

As they all lay there catching their breath, Jan leaned forward and kissed the back of her neck. “You still alive, lovely?”

“Mm hmm. I had another vision.”

“We make her see stars,” Rick joked.

“No, I’m serious.” She lifted her head. “I had another vision. I saw an older guy in some foreign city.”

Rick frowned. “I’m not sure I like triggering that in you. I’m afraid it might hurt you.”

She shook her head. “No, don’t feel like that. I like it. It’s like it’s allowing me to open a different energy channel.” She reached behind her and patted Jan’s side. “Not to mention it feels sooo good.”

Jan carefully withdrew from her and went to the bathroom to clean up. He returned with a warm, wet washcloth and a towel, cleaning her up before she rolled off Rick.

“Feeling a little better?” Jan asked her.

She nodded as she wiggled into a comfortable position next to Rick. “Definitely. I needed that.”

Jan returned to bed. “Rick has a point. We need to be careful. I would hate to trigger something in you that you can’t control that harms you.”

She grabbed his arm and laced her fingers through his. “Don’t worry about it. What Goddess says goes, right?”

Rick snorted with amusement. “Right. That’s probably safest for everyone involved.”

Chapter Twelve

Physically sated and totally exhausted, Lina crashed into sleep snuggled safely between her two men. It felt good to be home, in her own bed. A little normalcy in a wacked-out week. She just wished she had definite proof of who killed Kael’s parents, and Bertholde.

Alas, she opened her eyes in a forest clearing.

Fuck.

She immediately knew this had to be another…well, she didn’t know what the fuck to call them. The visions made her sight go blue. This was different, like replaying the things she saw from the past while with Baba Yaga.

A well-trodden path led from the clearing. She suspected this was the way she had to go, although every cell in her body told her she wouldn’t like what she found on the other end. She reached out to touch a tree alongside the path and her hand brushed right through it, although to her, she looked solid.

Alllrighty, then.

The path wound through the woods, ending at another clearing that opened onto a pasture behind a small stone house with a wood-shingled roof. Next to it was parked an old pickup truck. Well, it looked new, but vintage. A gravel drive led down to a dirt road about a quarter mile away. She watched as an old-fashioned milk truck drove past.

Okay, so I’m in the past. The front door of the house was closed, but that didn’t stop Lina. She walked right through it.

She wished she hadn’t. Inside, three robed, hooded figures had the occupants tied up. A man, a woman…

And a young girl.

Panic set in. Lina raced over to the captives and tried to untie the ropes, her efforts futile. Two of the robed figures turned from where they’d been kneeling in front of the hearth. They dragged the man, who started screaming, over to the hearth. Lina tried to free him from their grip, but her hands passed through the attackers with no effect. Two of the figures held his arms down while the third plunged a knife into the struggling man’s neck.

The woman and little girl screamed, crying for him. His eyes went wide then glazed over as the killer pulled the knife from the victim’s neck. One of the other figures held a pewter goblet under the man’s neck to catch the flow of blood as the killer shed his robe, revealing him to be naked underneath.

Edgar.

Lina watched as he drank from the goblet. Then, reciting a spell she couldn’t understand, he smeared his body with the dead man’s blood.

Repulsed, Lina looked away.

That’s when she got a good look at the knife lying on the floor next to the victim. The ornate handle was the same as the two knives from Yellowstone. Trying to avoid looking at the victim, who was now in the process of being eviscerated with Edgar’s bare hands, she realized the other two killers also had knives tucked into the rope belting their robes shut. As best she could tell, they bore the same pattern of engraving on this one.

Okay, at least it’s proof.

She still couldn’t make out the other two killers’ faces. When they finished with the man, they pulled him away from the hearth and discarded his body in the corner. Edgar stood, smiling in evil glee and stretching as he pulled his robe on.

Anger surged within her. She rushed him, screaming, and tried to hit him. Except for a flicker across his expression, her efforts proved useless.

Meanwhile, the other two men dragged the screaming, struggling woman over to the hearth as the little girl plaintively cried for her. The second attacker, who turned out to be Lenny, repeated with her what Edgar had done to her husband as Lina screamed and cried, helpless to stop it, helpless to look away.

When it came time for them to kill the little girl, Lina felt like her sanity would come unglued. She recognized the older man who raised the knife, even though in real life she had never seen him before.

He was the man from her earlier vision, the man she saw in the street. Only he looked a little younger and a lot thinner.

Lina tried placing herself between him and the little girl, and his hands plunged through her without effect. But when he raised the goblet to his lips to drink, Lina screamed at him, swatting at the goblet.

To her shock and his, the goblet flew from his hands, blood spraying from it in a ruby arc, splattering the wall while the goblet bounced off an old-fashioned floor radio and hit the hardwood floor with a clang.

Lina froze, as did the three men.

Edgar and Lenny proved to be as spineless and self-centered in the past as they were when she knew them. “We need to leave. Now,” Edgar said.

“But the ritual!” the third man complained. She detected a slight accent in his voice, but wasn’t sure what.

“Forget it!” Lenny said. “It wouldn’t have worked anyway! She was just a child. We needed the son. It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to fool the dragons or the wolves like we do. Let’s get out of here!”

They gathered up their stuff, including the spell book from Yellowstone. They cleared out, leaving a sobbing Lina kneeling over the girl’s body. The child looked so much like Kael.

“I’ll figure it out,” she promised the little girl. “I will, I swear.” She reached out, even knowing she couldn’t touch the child, to close her eyes.

To Lina’s shock, she could feel her. When she lifted her hand, she realized it was now covered with the girl’s blood. Lina started to scream when Jan shifted in his sleep next to her, accidentally bumping her with his elbow and startling her awake.

As she tried to calm her racing pulse, she looked at her hand.

Clean.

With tears drying on her face and her heartbeat slowing, she settled between her men tried to go back to sleep.

The next morning, Lina stumbled downstairs while her men still slept. Zack was already in the kitchen, the delicious aroma of coffee brewing making her sigh with relief. She plopped down at the table without a word while Zack poured her a mug, fixed it the way she loved, and slid it in front of her.

“Thank you,” she said with a content sigh. She wrapped her fingers around the warm mug and lifted it to her lips for a sip.

“Of course, sugar.” He joined her at the table with a mug of his own. “Anything wrong?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What’s got you frowning, girl?”

“This seems so unreal.” She looked at him. “How does your mom handle all of this?”

“All of what?”

“All the prophecy crap?”

He laughed. “Honey, she doesn’t know.”

“But before Edgar attacked us at my house last year, you said you came from a long line!”

He nodded. “I did. Just because we’re a long line, doesn’t mean she knows anything about it. I’m the one with the memories, not her.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “Now, you have your memories, too. The boys up there still don’t remember shit, but you know as well as I do they are the spitting image of what they used to look like.”

“How is your mom, anyway?” Soon after Lina had met her men, Zack’s mom had gotten a promotion and taken a transfer to Los Angeles, a dream job for her.

“She’s fine, Little Miss Avoiding-the-Subject.” He arched an eyebrow at her.

Lina felt heat flood her face. She suddenly found her coffee mug very interesting.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well what?”

“You so cannot lie to me, Lina. Spill it.”

She didn’t want to think about the nightmare. Her stomach flipped at the memory. “I saw…something bad last night.”

“Bad how? Missed a Best Buy sale bad, or ran over a blind kid with a Seeing Eye dog bad?”

“Bad.” She sipped her coffee, not wanting to revisit the scene, even in her mind. She looked at her hand. Clean, not a trace of blood. “I saw Kael’s family get killed.”

His mouth gaped. “Holy shit,” he whispered.

She started to cry. Somehow, he made it around the table before she could blink. He cradled her in his arms as she let out her grief on his shoulder. “I couldn’t stop it,” she moaned. “I saw it all, heard it…I couldn’t change it!”

That’s where the three dragon shifters found her moments later when the sound of her anguished wails reached them all. Jan and Rick nearly collided with Kael as they all tried to race into the kitchen at the same time.

When Zack finally got her calmed down, he said, “Okay, sweetie. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but you need to go back and tell us everything.”

“It was just a bad dream though, right?” she asked them all more for her own comfort than anything.

“Maybe,” Jan said, “but maybe not.”

Kael patted her shoulder. “It’s okay, Lina. We need to hear it.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath and related what happened. As she got to the point where she knocked the goblet from the third man’s hand, Zack stopped her. “They said he didn’t need to fool the dragons or the wolves?”

“I think so. I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that’s what Lenny said.” She didn’t want to think about the gory scene.

She didn’t want to rehear the screams and cries.

The sound of the knife plunging into their bodies.

The sound of their guts being ripped out.

At least the third killer hadn’t gotten that far, his ritual interrupted. He certainly hadn’t aged well, if she could believe her other vision of him.

“Would you recognize the third man if you saw him again?” Kael asked.

“Absolutely,” she said. “He looked like he was in his fifties or sixties. He had mostly grey hair and brown eyes. But…” She did the math in her head. “Wouldn’t he be dead by now? That happened eighty years ago.”

“Not if he’s a shifter,” Kael said. “And I’d bet money on that. And the fact that you saw him in another vision lends credence to that theory.”

“Could you tell if the third man was the same person who killed Bertholde?” Rick asked.

“No. In that vision, I never saw his face.” She went quiet, a thought hitting her. “Hey, wait a minute. My vision at Yellowstone was blue. Like I was looking through a filter. And so was the vision last night about the tablet. And about the third guy.”

“So?” Jan asked.

“When I was with Baba Yaga looking at the past, and again with my nightmare, they looked normal.” She stood up, disengaging herself from Zack’s protective embrace. “If something’s already happened, I’m just seeing it. But if it hasn’t happened yet…” She went quiet, thinking.

Her men learned fast. They remained silent while she circled the kitchen, pacing, her concentration intently focused inward. They stayed out of her way until she stopped and looked at them. “We haven’t found the tablet yet. I wasn’t seeing the past, I was seeing the future. We will find it.” She walked to the table, where the book still lay in the center and flipped it open to the page with the drawing of the tablet. She turned the book to face Zack and pointed to a few passages next to the picture. “What does that say? Read it to me, please.”

He pulled it closer. When he stumbled over a word or phrase, one of the three dragons helped him. “The artifact of Trammel was spirited from the battlefield of Hilmelgamos after the defeat of our forefathers. It is said the three crones helped the adversaries capture our life force with it, dispersing it across the Ether, beyond our reach, robbing a number of us of the mighty abilities we once had. Recapture it at all costs.” He looked up at her. “What is it?”

Lina slammed her fist on the table. “That fucking bitch!” She looked up at the ceiling. “All right, lady! I want a fucking word with you!”

Chapter Thirteen

Lina literally blinked and found herself in Baba Yaga’s garden. The woman, in her matron form, knelt weeding a small patch of lettuce. Lina stormed over to her. “Okay, spill it, lady!”

“Spill what, Goddess?”

“The rest of the story. The parts you left out from yesterday’s little blast from the past about what happened when the cockatrice were defeated the first time. I knew there were some holes in that narrative. Not to mention, what’s the deal with the tablet?”

“I keep telling you to follow your instincts. When will you listen to me?”

“Why the hell didn’t you just tell me!”

She brushed her hands off, pulled off her gloves, and sat back on her haunches. “You needed to figure that out for yourself. My sisters and I sorely strained the patience of the Goddess as it was by interfering as much as we did.”

“Well, this is one goddess right here and now that’s pretty pissed off and impatient, too, ya know.”

Baba Yaga smirked. “Nice pajamas.”

Lina looked down. She was still wearing the lavender Eeyore pj’s she’d slipped on before heading downstairs to the kitchen that morning. Lina let out an irritated scream and jabbed a finger at her. “Now, you look here, quit changing the damn subject! Why didn’t you tell me about the tablet?”‘

Lina didn’t know if the smirk or Baba Yaga’s calm voice infuriated her more. “What have you learned since we last spoke, Goddess?”

“What?”

“What. Have. You. Learned?”

Lina took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay, fine, Obi-Wan. I learned that blue visions haven’t happened yet. Any dreams that look normal are in the past.”

“Very good. What else?”

“That there was a third person at the murder of Kael’s family, and they’re probably the person that murdered Bertholde. I also saw him in a blue vision, so that means I’ll probably run into him again.”

“That’s not what I meant, but all right.”

She thought for a moment. “That’s all I’ve got.”

“How did you get here, Goddess?”

“I—” She pulled up short, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “I brought myself here?”

Baba Yaga nodded. “Now you’re getting it.”

“I brought myself here, huh?” She plopped down on the grass, allowing herself a moment to bask in her success, however small it might prove to be. “Cool.”

“Yes. To answer your question, I left that part of the story out on purpose. I am not allowed to force events to go a certain direction. Especially since you bear the memories in your mind, although Zachary does not because he was not present when the tablet was created. Now that you have discovered the existence of the tablet, I can tell you about it. Unless you’d rather look back at the memory.”

Lina started to say lay it on me, then thought for a moment. “You’re saying I have the answer about the tablet?”

Baba Yaga nodded. “You just need to find the strength within yourself to revisit the past. It will hurt, I won’t lie to you. But that kind of pain only makes you stronger in the long run.”

Lina sighed. “What you’re saying is that I should put on my big goddess panties and get it over with?”

“Yes. Eloquently stated.”

“Sarcastic bitch.”

The other woman laughed. “So say my two younger sisters. Hasn’t stopped me yet.”

Lina closed her eyes. At times like this, it was hard for her to garner any kind of positive feelings for the woman despite her saving Zack’s life. “Then I need to get home.” She opened her eyes and found herself sitting cross-legged in the middle of the kitchen table. The men all jumped back.

“Holy fuck!” Rick said. “How the hell’d you do that?”

She extended her hands to Jan and Zack for help getting down. “I’m thinking about taking the act to Vegas. Open for Penn and Teller.” She headed out of the kitchen. “I need a few minutes of alone time, boys. I’ll be right back.”

Upstairs, she closed their bedroom door and plopped down into the center of the unmade bed. With a deep breath, she closed her eyes and let her mind drift, not sure how to go about finding the memories she sought. Eventually, fuzzy images swam into clearer focus as she made herself face the past. She thought about the trip down memory lane the night before with Baba Yaga on the way home from the airport.

Then she realized she’d found the missing part.

The morning after her first night with Jan and Rick—Stribog and Svarog, she reminded herself—the three of them met with Baba Yaga beside a sacred spring. Lina stood in the cool shadows at the edge of the clearing and watched her past self, much as she had the night before with the retelling, instead of experiencing it as an actual memory.

It made it easier to bear, somehow.

Lina remembered. She’d gone through the prophecy for any clue to defeat the cockatrice and called upon Baba Yaga for assistance. She watched as her past self talked with Baba Yaga.

“What is the stone?” she asked the crone.

The crone smiled. “It is whatever you want it to be, Goddess. You have powers beyond your ken. Unfortunately, you do not have time to adequately develop them.” The crone glanced at her two men. “The three of you prove a powerful triad.”

“Is it your sisters I need to call upon?”

The crone smiled and transformed into the maiden. “If it is your will, Goddess.”

Lina watched her past self straighten. “I call upon you and your sisters to assist us in making the…tablet.”

Baba Yaga raised her hands to the sky and chanted, calling forth two swirling pillars of cloud and light that took form on either side of her as women. Once they had completely materialized into solid flesh, she introduced them. “Brighde, Cailleach, meet the lovers three of the prophecy.”

Lina watched as she and her two men sat, a blank stone tablet appearing in the center between them. “What do we do now?” her past self asked.

Baba Yaga smiled. “You are the Goddess. You will feel it. Draw upon your men. Call upon the strength you know to be…present.” Lina could swear Baba Yaga turned around and winked at her, where she stood at the edge of the clearing.

Like belly flopping into a pool, Lina now sat in the circle, her past and present selves merged. She remembered. She remembered seeing Baba Yaga turn, as if looking at someone else they couldn’t see.

And deep inside her, she knew. Ignoring the fact that she was about to commit a temporal anomaly that would make Carl Sagan’s head explode were he still alive, Lina closed her eyes as the three women surrounded them.

Memory and vision merged as one. “Put your hands on the tablet,” she said to her men. She felt them do it. She laid her own hands on top of theirs, the blued image of the tablet of her vision fixed in her mind.

“Goddess within, Goddess without,” she chanted. “Goddess above, Goddess below. I summon Baba Yaga, Brighde, and Cailleach, hear our plea.” Her hands tingled. She imagined channeling the energies from the Universe down through the sky, through the three women now circling them, through the hands of her men, her energy merging and mixing with theirs, down into the tablet. “The power of three, past, present, and hence. The powers of these three, and evil banish hence. With every drop of blood that I pour into the ground, may the Goddess of all take heed to this sound. As strong as this stone, unbreakable cast, this spell guarantees our strength o’er evil, long may it last.”

She felt the wind pick up around them but didn’t open her eyes. She knew the three incarnations still circled them, feeding their called-upon powers into the stone.

Lina’s voice grew stronger, surer, more confident. “Goddess above, Goddess of all. We take now their evil and banish it all. The evil they sowed, the results shall they reap. We so do will it, so shall mote it be.”

White-hot lightning impaled her from the crown of her head, through her arms, into the stone. She opened her eyes and saw nothing but the negative-light image of the tablet from her vision. Then, like that, the feeling disappeared. Her body went limp as she collapsed backward onto the grass.

She heard the anxious cries of her men as they crowded around her. When she finally could open her eyes again, she saw the three of them were once again alone in the center of the clearing. The plain stone tablet now bore the same markings from her vision.

Lina didn’t stop to consider the ramifications. Her body felt like it would explode, sizzling nerve endings on fire in a good way. She grabbed Stribog and planted a kiss on him. Startled at first, it only took him a moment to return the kiss as Svarog nibbled on the back of her neck. “Take me, now!” she gasped. “Both of you! I must have you both!”

She struggled to remove the tunic she wore. Finally, the two men helped her out of it and quickly shed their own clothes. There beside the spring, she pushed Svarog onto his back and fiercely kissed him. She barely had time to think about how they even tasted and smelled the way they did in the present before she shoved rational thought out of the way.

With her pussy already drenched with her own juices, she impaled herself on Svarog, moaning as his hot cock drove deep inside her. She rode him only for a moment before Stribog grabbed her hips and forced her to relinquish his brother’s cock. “Wait for me,” he said, driving his cool shaft deep into her pussy and making her moan. He only thrust a couple of times, enough to coat his cock in her juices before he withdrew.

Using a finger, he scooped her moisture onto her rim, getting her wet there before allowing her to once again ride Svarog’s cock.

Stribog gently entered, stopping as she adjusted to his size. In this way, it didn’t feel like it did in the present. She frequently took her men in the ass and loved the feel of anal sex.

With both of them inside her, Lina closed her eyes, threw her head back, and howled at the sky as she fucked them hard and fast, her body out of control and her mind teetering on the edge of madness. The electricity inside her flowed between her pussy and her men, back and forth, to her nipples, to her fingertips.

As her orgasm swept over her, she cried out to the Goddess, the men’s groans of pleasure as their cocks emptied inside her sending her into a new plateau of release she didn’t know if she could survive.

The burst of energy now gone, she collapsed onto Svarog and blackness took her.

Lina extricated herself from the men and pulled on the old-fashioned tunic. At first confused with the laces, she finally figured out how to make herself presentable. She had to deliver the tablet.

Now.

She kissed her men. Svarog stirred and tried to stand, but she stopped him. “You cannot follow me. Meet me back at the castle.” She grabbed the tablet and ran for the horses, fumbling a little as she mounted without dropping the bulky stone. Then she raced through the woods toward the only person she knew she could trust as much as Zachary and her men.

Her old nursemaid, Trammel.

Lina smiled, a near-hysterical laugh escaping her…

And she opened her eyes to find herself sitting in the middle of her bed at their house in modern-day Florida. “Amma,” she whispered. That’s what she’d called her nurse when she was a young child, because she couldn’t say “Trammel.”

Lina flopped back on the bed, laughing and crying at the same time. The old woman hadn’t let her down. She’d been barely able to walk, but she quickly packed a small satchel while Lina had rigged up a saddlebag to hold the tablet. Then, with some tearful laughter between them, Lina had forcibly hoisted the woman onto her own horse.

“Take it far away, Amma,” she’d said. “To lair of wolf, or flagyer of dragon, or den of bear, it matters not. But keep it safe and deliver it into the hands only of someone trustworthy. If it falls into the hands of the cockatrice, we are all lost.”

“Aye, you can count on me, Goddess.”

Lina had watched the woman ride off into the woods before she herself turned and hurried, on foot, through the woods and back to the castle.

And then by late the next morning…

She sighed.

The next day, they had defeated the cockatrice. And all four of them were dead.

But how the hell had an illustration of the Tablet of Trammel ended up in a hellacious book belonging to the cockatrice?

Chapter Fourteen

Lina walked back downstairs. The men immediately stopped talking as soon as she appeared in the kitchen doorway.

“Oh, quit doing that, would you?” She grabbed her coffee mug and took it over to refill it.

“Sorry,” Zack said. “Force of habit. Well?”

She waited until she’d refilled her mug and got a sip of coffee before answering. “How old is that book?” She tipped her head toward the table, where the ancient spell book lay.

Zack shrugged. “I don’t know. At least four hundred years old, but there are newer notes in there, written in ballpoint pen. Why?”

“They had the book with them when they killed your parents, Kael.”

He grimly nodded. “I suspected that.”

“And that picture,” she pointed, “was from my vision.”

“Yeah? So?” Zack asked.

“I know how the tablet was created. I know when it was created. I also know how it was sent away to safety before the battle. The cockatrice got that part of their story wrong.” From the change of expression on Zack’s face, she knew she didn’t have to explain which battle.

It still didn’t answer all his questions. “But I don’t know anything about the tablet.”

“Who was Trammel?” she asked him.

He thought for a moment while Jan, Rick, and Kael silently looked back and forth between them during the exchange. Confused, they wisely chose to keep their mouths shut.

He finally came up with it. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “But I thought she died before the battle?”

“A lot of people did. She was old enough to be dead. She lived outside the town. And the morning before we all…” She couldn’t say it. “Before the battle. I called upon Baba Yaga, Cailleach, and Brighde to help us overcome the cockatrice.”

Rick’s eyes squeezed shut in confusion as he rubbed his forehead. “What battle?”

“Shh,” Jan said, slapping his arm. “Let them talk it out.”

“And that’s when the tablet was created?” Zack asked.

“Yep. Hence the three spirals.” Now, with the memory fully restored, she knew what the symbols represented. She walked over to the table, turned the book to face her, and traced the picture with her finger. “The elements. The Horned God and Goddess. The spell we used to remove the cockatrice’s power and bind them. It didn’t work totally, only on the forces that attacked. Which, fortunately, were most of their strongest fighters. Meaning the good genes died that day, leaving only the weakest ones. It also took out some other species that were with them that day, which explains why some of them faded from memory.”

“And they think finding that tablet will help get their powers back?”

She nodded. “Yep. I think so.” She looked at it. “That’s why Edgar and Lenny were both hot to get into my pants. They thought that would help reverse the spell and take the power of the triad.” She looked at her men, then Zack. “We have to find that tablet.”

Zack frowned. “How do they know what the tablet even looks like?”

She touched her finger to her nose then pointed at him. “That’s the million-dollar question.”

After breakfast, Lina grabbed a shower and changed into shorts and a T-shirt. Just her luck, the PMS she’d suffered in Yellowstone had finally delivered. Her period had started.

Well, at least I had a good night of hot sex before it did.

Even though it was Monday and they’d already planned to not go into the office, she had things she wanted to get done before the men remembered Brodey’s warning that they should keep her locked up tighter than a virgin on her first spring break at Mardi Gras.

She grabbed her purse, keys and sunglasses, and shouted, “Going to the post office. I’ll be right back!” over her shoulder before bolting out the front door to her car. Sure enough, when she glanced in her rearview mirror halfway down the drive, she saw Jan and Rick standing outside the front door.

Most likely debating the wisdom of chasing me down. She hoped they were smart enough to keep their asses home. Especially since the post office was only five minutes away. She arrived there close to ten and waited in line to collect their mail and cancel the hold they’d placed during the trip to Yellowstone. The clerk frowned when she looked at Lina driver’s license.

“What’s wrong?” Lina asked.

“So that package is for you.” She returned Lina’s license.

“What package?” Her Spidey senses weren’t tingling. She hoped that meant it wasn’t bad.

“An overseas package arrived for you today. Let me go get it, and your other mail.”

Lina felt her stomach churn. It wouldn’t be a mail bomb, would it? The clerk returned a few moments later. She balanced three bundles of mail held together with rubber bands on top of a box at least three feet long and two feet across. She set it all on the counter with an audible thump and sigh of relief to be rid of it.

“Sign here, ma’am.” The clerk handed her a claim slip.

Eyeing the box, Lina signed the slip. She’d brought a cloth grocery bag with her for the mail and dumped it inside. When she picked up the box, its heft shocked her, and she had to put it back on the counter to adjust her grip. It had to weigh over thirty pounds.

Then she spotted the return address. It’d been mailed by one Bertholde Ann-Marie Marsziewnski from somewhere in France.

Lina swallowed hard. “Thank you,” Lina whispered. She once again grabbed the box and hurried out of the lobby to her car. She didn’t have to resist the urge to open it. She wanted to wait until she got home.

Rick and Jan were waiting for her, feet tapping and arms crossed, identical glares on their faces. When she got out of the car, they immediately swarmed her, talking all over each other.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

She held up her hands. “I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “One of you, I don’t care which one, please bring that box into the kitchen. We’re also going to need Zack and Kael.”

Jan reached the passenger side first. “What is—oh, crap!”

“What?” Rick asked, shouldering his twin aside. “Holy shit.”

“Okay, are the expletives out of the way, boys? Because I’d really like to open the fucking thing.” She stormed into the house. She didn’t need to holler for Zack and Kael. Seated at the kitchen table, they were going over the evil spell book and taking notes.

“Hey, babe,” Zack said. He paused and studied her expression. “What’s wrong?”

She dropped the bag of mail on the table and pointed to the doorway, where Jan was carrying the box into the kitchen for her.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know, Zack,” she said. “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

Kael and Zack looked at the return address. “Holy shit!” they said.

“Yeah. Fine. Great. We’ve got that covered. Someone get a knife, please.”

Rick produced a pocketknife and carefully slit the tape holding the box closed while Lina examined the postmark.

“According to the date, she mailed this about a day or so before she left for Yellowstone.”

Rick pried the flaps open. Inside, on the very top, lay an envelope addressed to Lina with her name written in a very fragile-looking scrawl. Beneath it were several objects wrapped and padded with a French newspaper.

The men all stared at her. “What?”

“Well,” Zack drawled, “are you going to open it, or stare at it all day and hope the stuff jumps out onto the table for you?”

She tentatively reached in and withdrew the envelope. The back of it had been sealed with red wax, using a small shield emblazoned with a dragon.

“That was her seal,” Kael said.

Taking a deep breath, she carefully slid her finger under the flap and broke the seal. Inside lay a folded piece of fine parchment, written in the same handwriting as on the envelope. Fortunately for Lina, the letter was penned in English.

Dearest Pavlina,

By the time you read this, child, I will have gone to the Ether beyond. It is my time. I have seen it several times in my visions, and nothing anyone has done has changed the course of my fate. I have lived a long time, experienced many things good and bad. I have no regrets and await it as a new journey. It is not that I wish to die, or even wish to stop living, but this is what the Universe has in store for me. You cannot fight the Goddess of All when Her mind is made up.

The Sisters Three will be your allies. This much I have seen. Love the wolves and even other shifters as the kin that they are—and they are. The good wolves. There are some wolves out there who are not so good. Listen to your kin and they shall guide you well. You can and should trust your kin. They will never fail you.

Do not fear the past. It can only help you now. Listen to it, for you will find many clues to the answers you seek. You are the next in a long line of Seers. And since my brother is older than I, he will most likely follow me soon. (Naturally, however, it would seem from my visions.)

You are the future. You and your dragon men. As in the past, you will save not just our kind, but others from the Dark Gods. Only this time, Goddess willing (for it has not been shown to me yet) you will have many countless happy years together.

My will is also enclosed, as well as some things you will need in your search for a certain item I cannot take the risk of naming in writing in case this should fall into the wrong hands. I have already discussed everything with my brother, and he is in total agreement that it should be like this. Anything I wished him to have, I have already sent to him.

Be well, and blessings to you all.

Bertholde.

P.S. - If Andel gives you any grief, tell him I said to go get fucked. (I have always wanted to say that to him!) He is a pompous blowhard who needs to remember his ego has grown like a flatulent pig over the past few hundred years. Although I do love the little twerp.

Lina couldn’t hold back the laugh. It started as a burping hiccup of a snort, rolled into belly-aching guffaws…then transitioned into sobbing on Zack’s shoulder. She handed him the letter. He held it up so the other three men could also read it.

They all laughed at the same point she had, so she knew they’d finished it. Peeling herself out of Zack’s lap, she ripped off a wad of paper towels from the roll and blew her nose. Then she tucked into the rest of the box.

Books. And more books. Ten in all, seven of them handwritten journals, most of which appeared to be in French.

“Great,” she groused. “Someone overnight me a Rosetta Stone course.” There were also four small, carefully wrapped stone carvings, one of a wolf, one of a dragon, another of a bear. The fourth Lina couldn’t tell if it was supposed to be a lion or a tiger or some other sort of big cat, but they all agreed it was feline. Then there was the large manila envelope that contained Bertholde’s will, as well as other papers, including a set of keys on a ring.

The last item in the box was a mystery. Literally. An intricately carved wooden puzzle box, approximately two feet long, six inches wide and high. She played with it for a moment, then shrugged and handed it over to Jan, who eventually passed it on to Rick, then Kael, then Zack. None of them could open it.

She handed the manila envelope from legal hell to Jan. “You deal with it. Tell me what to do and where to go and come with me.” She felt exhausted, and not just from the trip to Yellowstone. Even more from all the emotional developments of the past twenty-four hours. It wasn’t even noon yet.

Lina grabbed the three books that were in English, or had English content, the stone figurines, and the puzzle box, and tromped up to her room. She put everything on her bed and nearly ran into Rick on her way back down to get her laptop.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m not institutionalized in Chattahoochee, yet, so that’s something. However, the day is still pretty dang young.” She pushed past him, found where she’d left her laptop bag in the study, and hauled it back up to their bedroom. She closed the door behind her.

She’d taught her men early that was the sign for, “Knock first, or die.” She put on music for background noise, fired up her laptop, then settled in to read what she could of the books.

“Oh.” She did a little research and ordered herself a Rosetta Stone course in French.

Never hurts to learn this shit.

The first book she picked was a hardcover journal that had a handwritten date of 1925 inside the front cover. It looked it, too. Green, but the cover was threadbare and battered. Inside, Bertholde had made copious notes in the margins of the yellowed paper over the years in different colors of ink and pencil markings. Some of the ink from a ballpoint pen, and some from a fountain pen. The original entries were written by a variety of people and detailed first- and secondhand accounts of dealings with the cockatrice.

These suckers were assholes. Not that the fact had escaped Lina after her dealings with Edgar and Lenny, but it was nice to have extra backup. They made the mob look like a bunch of tree-hugging sweethearts.

Murder. Destruction. The occasional raping and pillaging. More murder. And, ah, yes, that perennial favorite, murder.

Unfortunately, none of this gave Lina even the slightest clue as to how the cockatrice managed to find out what the tablet was, or what it looked like.

She put the book aside and started skimming through the others, hoping something, anything, would jump out at her.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing. She learned more than she ever hoped to know about the damn cockatrice, and some of the other races that had allied with them against the humans and other shifters.

After two hours of reading, she heard a polite knock on the door. With a sigh, she put her book aside. “It’s okay. Come on in. guys.”

Jan and Rick poked their heads in. “Are you all right, lovely?” Jan asked.

She nodded. “I’m just…coping.” While she hadn’t known Bertholde for very long, she’d immediately liked the woman. It sucked losing her after only knowing her for a very short time.

The men entered and perched on either side of her on the bed. Rick held the paperwork from the manila folder. “Lina, I don’t know how to break this to you other than to say it. She left everything to you.”

“What do you mean, everything?”

Jan shrugged. “Everything. She made you the executrix of her estate, and left everything to you.”

Lina tried to let that sink in. “Everything?”

The men nodded, but didn’t reply.

She chewed on that. “Define everything,” she finally said.

“Well, we made a few calls. We were able to contact her attorney in France. Her estate is worth over eighty million dollars.”

Lina fell back on the bed, laughing in disbelief. Money wasn’t an issue since meeting her men. She had her own income, a result of Edgar’s overconfident planning, which left everything to her after she ended up killing the treacherous bastard, who turned out to be a cockatrice, in self-defense. Jan and Rick had their own money.

“Are you shitting me?” she finally asked when she could find her voice.

“No,” Jan said. “And yes, Andel is having a fit. He wants access to her estate and papers for the other Seer and the attorney won’t allow it, even though it’s her brother. From what I gathered from my conversation with her attorney, her brother could care less. It’s Andel that’s raising a stink. So, guess where we’re going?”

“Outer Mongolia?”

“Right,” Rick said. “France.”

“That wasn’t my guess.”

He stroked her cheek. “I can read your mind, love.”

“Cheater.”

He grinned. “You aren’t mad at me.”

“No, I’m not mad at you.” She let out a frustrated sigh and turned to Jan. “I just want an easy life. Is that too much to ask? I didn’t ask to be a goddess or a Seer. I just wanted a normal life.”

Jan propped himself up on one sexy elbow next to her. “Complaining, lovely?”

She gave him a frustrated groan. “No. Of course not. Well…yes, I am. Fuck.” She stared at the ceiling. Before she met Jan and Rick, she’d been convinced she was going to die an old maid as Zack’s fag hag. “Has Kael tracked down his friend about the tablet, yet?”

“No,” Jan said. “He’s working on it.” He glanced at Rick. She suspected they’d already talked about something and were in rare agreement. “We think it’s best we head down to Arcadia today instead of waiting.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Rick said, “we don’t know who is responsible for the murder, and while circumstantial evidence points to the third killer of Kael’s family, we don’t know for sure. There could be more than one person out there. They could have had other coconspirators. Like whoever provided Lenny with those special cuffs that we couldn’t get out of. Not to mention, if the third guy was a common shifter race, like a wolf or cat or something, that makes him even more dangerous. We already called Brodey and his brothers. They invited us to come down sooner. In fact, Brodey insisted upon it.”

“Because I need to be guarded.”

“Lina, please don’t fight us on this,” Rick said. “We only want to keep you safe. Whoever is responsible for killing Kael’s family, and maybe even Bertholde, they’re hiding something from the wolves and the dragons.”

“We don’t know which wolves.”

“True,” Jan said, “but Ain Lyall is pretty high up in their pack order. He’s going to talk to their pack Seer about bringing you to Maine. She might be able to help you with some of your powers.”

Okay, that plan she could easily get behind. “When are we going to France?”

“After we handle this here, first.”

“Okay.”

They both looked a little shocked at her immediate agreement. “Okay?” they said together.

She smiled. “Okay. I’m not going to fight you guys. You have a point.”

“Wow,” Rick said. “I think hell just froze over.”

She threw a pillow at him. “Watch it, buster. I’m still able to randomly blow stuff up.”

Before they were ready to go, Lina stopped by the kitchen for a soda and caught Zack sitting at the table, staring at the book, the two knives, the remnants of the handcuffs Lenny had used on Jan and Rick, and some of the other items Brodey had grabbed from Lenny’s tent.

She really hadn’t paid much attention to the other stuff, because between the knife and the book, she already felt overwhelmed.

“What are those things, anyway?” She pointed to the five small stone carvings. They’d been on the makeshift altar Lenny had set up in the tent.

Zack shrugged and touched one. Three inches tall, it looked like a malformed creature of some sort, a crudely shaped beast carved from reddish stone. “I have no clue. Some sort of talismans, I guess.”

She picked up the one Zack had touched and nearly dropped it again. She shuddered as she put it back on the table.

“What?” he asked.

“Blech! That thing…” She wiped her palm on her shorts, then went to wash her hands. “I don’t know what that damn thing is, but it’s, like, slimy or something.” The others were different shapes about the same size, but looked like they were carved out of the same material. No way in hell was she touching the others.

He picked it up and held it, frowning. “It feels like stone to me.” He put it back down. “Maybe it’s got some weird residual energy in it you’re sensing.”

“The only thing I’d like to sense is what it feels like crushing it under a sledgehammer.”

He smiled. “After we figure out what they are, knock yourself out. Until then, I think we need them.”

Chapter Fifteen

At least Lina had time to get her laundry done before she had to pack again. Since she didn’t know how long they’d be gone this time, she packed several weeks’ and climates’ worth of clothes.

She might not have a wolf and a soggy bear to keep her warm if she got lost in the woods again like she did back in Yellowstone.

They decided to caravan down in several cars. Lina, Rick, and Jan in her car, and both Kael and Zack following in their own vehicles. Lina sat in the backseat and took in the scenery. She didn’t feel like talking. The fact that there was someone out there capable of the despicable acts she witnessed in her vision made her sick. Even worse, that the person might have also killed Bertholde and still be out there, gunning for her as well.

Add to that the things she’d read about in the books from Bertholde, and she didn’t need convincing that the cockatrice were not a group of people she wanted to include on her Christmas card list.

It took them four hours to reach Arcadia, including a stop for a late lunch. When they pulled into the yard in front of the Lyalls’ house, Brodey, Cail, and a third man she assumed was Ain from his looks all stepped onto the porch. Brodey immediately smiled and swooped in to give her a huge hug when she got out of the car.

“There’s the Princess.”

“Goddess.”

“Whatever.” He flashed her a big smile and turned her to the third brother. “Ain, this is Lina.”

He walked over and shook hands with her. “Nice to meet you.”

She wasn’t expecting the surge of emotion she felt from him through their simple handshake. Gratitude mostly, which surprised her. Affection of a cousinly kind, even though they were strangers until this moment. Protective.

She looked into his eyes. “Thank you,” she softly said.

He appeared startled. “For what?”

“For offering to keep me safe.”

He smiled. “Hey, we protect our kin, by blood or adopted. And you and Brodey have apparently mutually adopted each other.”

Jan and Rick walked up. Fortunately, she didn’t sense any jealousy or tension from either of them. “Guys,” she said, “this is Brodey’s brother, Ain. Ain, this is Jan and Rick Alexandr.” The men all shook hands, and the next several minutes were spent unloading and schlepping luggage inside into the appropriate rooms. The old Florida ranch–style house felt warm and inviting, and looked neat and tidy despite it being occupied by three bachelors.

They cooked steaks outside on a huge, professional-looking grill. Gathered around a fire pit on their back lanai, Lina felt truly at ease for the first time since her abduction in Yellowstone. She found herself able to relax, and her men relaxing as well, knowing that, at least for now, they were all safe.

How long that would last, she didn’t know and didn’t want to think about.

“Another beer?” Cail offered.

She smiled and accepted the proffered bottle. “Thank you.” Normally, she wasn’t a big drinker, but tonight was special. Tonight, she could let everyone else take the driver’s seat and she could chill the frak out.

“Hey,” Kael said. “Do you guys know a wolf by the name of Daniel Blackestone? We called him Blackie back when we ran together in Europe. I’ve called around to my other contacts, but no one knows him or where he is.”

Ain contemplated for a moment. “Name sounds familiar. I’ll call Jocko Connelly up in Maine at the clan compound and ask him. If anyone’ll know, it’s him. Why?”

“It’s…complicated,” Zack said.

Lina tried to tune the men out as they explained to the Lyall brothers about the tablet.

“I think,” Kael said, “that if anyone can give us a lead on the tablet’s last known whereabouts, it’s Blackie. I remember when we were young, we’d gone out drinking one night in Brussels. We heard this drunk guy holding court in one corner, a bear shifter, bellowing about how no one can get the drop on them again because of some tablet. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but Blackie went real quiet. His face got all dark, like he was really pissed off. He says to me, ‘Come on, we gotta get this guy out of here. Now.’ So I follow him, he threw some money on the bar to cover the drunk’s tab, and we drag the guy out literally by the scruff of the neck.

“So we get him outside, and there’s a park one block over. Lots of trees and cover and it’s night anyway. Blackie starts muttering under his breath and dragging this guy along like he weighs nothing. The guy’s fussing and fighting and I’m just going along wondering what the fuck, but helping Blackie with him.

“When we get to the park, Blackie pulls back and slugs the shit out of the guy. Says, ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, running your mouth like that?’ The guy said his father had told him about the tablet. He was all drunk and pissed off because some asshole had welched on a bet and now the bear couldn’t find him to get his money out of him.

“Blackie tells him, ‘Forget the fucking tablet, dude!’ and his eyes went really dark, nearly black. Told him if he ever heard about him mentioning the tablet again, he’d come eviscerate him and make him eat his own entrails. The bear freaked out. Said okay, man, sorry. Sobered him right the fuck up.”

Lina shivered. “Nice guy.”

Kael laughed. “Actually, he is. Let me finish. So the bear dude runs off. I asked him what the fuck was that about? Blackie asked me, ‘You’ve never heard about it? You’re a dragon.’ I said no. Long story short, he tells me about the tablet, the battle against the cockatrice, yadda yadda. He said he personally wasn’t sure the legend of the tablet’s powers wasn’t more than a fairy tale, but since his own parents were murdered by cockatrice looking for the tablet, he takes it damn personally. Then we went back to his workshop. He drew a rough sketch of the tablet out on a piece of paper, then burned the paper. Told me he knew where it was, had helped conceal it the last time, but that they’d have to kill him to get the info out of him.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” Lina said.

“He meant the bad guys. There’s a few people in the world who know about the tablet’s true existence and whereabouts.”

Lina thought for a moment. “That would put Bertholde in the running for that job. Is that why would someone kill her?”

Ain shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe she wouldn’t tell what she knew, so they killed her so she couldn’t warn anyone else to move it.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Lina agreed. “Makes as much sense as any other theory we currently have.”

“So back to your mystery object,” Cail said. “I like puzzles. Can I see the box?”

Jan went to fetch it from their things. Cail played with it for nearly a half hour while they talked. Then both Brodey and Ain took a shot. None of them could open it.

Ain returned it to Jan. “That’s a wicked one.”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “Tell us about it.”

“I’ll get in touch with Jocko in the morning.”

“I think she definitely needs to go see Lacey,” Brodey said.

Cail and Ain both nodded.

“Who’s that?” Lina asked.

“Our pack’s Seer,” Brodey said. “Like Bertholde. And, honestly? There are few places safer to be than a pack compound. Especially ours.”

When Lina yawned, Zack chimed in. “I think she’s worn out tonight, guys. Let’s call it a night and decide on our plan in the morning.”

“I’m okay,” Lina protested.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “Hey, I’m still your Watcher, lady. Listen to me.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, fine. You know, one of these days, I might decide to charbroil you, ya know.” She smiled.

“Promises, promises, Goddess girl. Go get your tushy into bed.”

She did.

Chapter Sixteen

Early the next morning, Ain closed himself in Cail’s study and placed a call. A sleepy, brogue-thick voice answered.

“Aye? Better be good, wakin’ me this early.”

“Hey, Jocko. It’s Aindreas Lyall, down in Florida.”

The older man grunted. “Hold on, boyo.” It sounded like Jocko laid the phone down. Ain heard coughing and a horrific hacking noise. A moment later, the sound of water running. When Jocko finally returned to the phone, he sounded a little more awake. “Sorry, had to hit the loo. What’s up?”

“I need to locate someone.”

“Do I look like the Yellow Pages?”

“He’s a wolf. Daniel Blackestone.”

He didn’t like the wary tone that cropped up in Jocko’s voice. “Why?”

Ain gave him the short version of everything that had happened and sensed Jocko’s distrust ease. “Ah. Makes sense, now. I’ll look around and let ye know.”

“The sooner, the better. We’ve committed to helping them. If Lina’s vision is right, the cockatrice might have plans for us, too.”

“Feathered bastards. Always did hate ’em. I’ll track him down. Ye said yer heading up here to see Lacey?”

“Brodey is. He’s coming with Lina and her men. Cail and I are going to stay here and hold down the fort.”

“All righty, boyo. I’ll let you know when I find him. Have Brodey stop by with yer guests when he gets here so I can meet ’em.”

Lina awoke the next morning, alone in bed and with sunlight streaming through the bedroom window into her eyes. She knew her men had slept with her, because she remembered snuggling between them at some point and their pillows had obviously been used.

Groaning with exhaustion she knew had to be the effect of the trip to Yellowstone, combined with her new revelations, not to mention her period, she dragged herself upright into a sitting position and tried to wake up. She heard men talking in low tones somewhere in the house.

She got out of bed, pulled on a robe, went to the bathroom, and then padded out to the kitchen where she found Brodey, Zack, Kael, Jan, and Rick talking at the kitchen table with the book, cuffs, puzzle box, knives, and the strange stone talismans in the middle of the table.

They fell silent at her appearance.

“Okay, fuck that shit. What’s up?”

At her appearance, Zack had stood to pour her a cup of coffee. He handed it to her, as well as a couple of Motrin for her cramps. “Nothing, babycakes. Why? Are you paranoid?”

“Yes. Don’t you think I’ve earned the right to be after all that’s happened?”

“She’s got a point,” Brodey said with a smile.

She downed the Motrin and gave both Rick and Jan a kiss before she joined them all at the table. “Do we have to have those creepy thingies out?”

“Which creepy thingies, dear?” Zack asked. “The creepy book, knives, cuffs, or statues? Or Jan and Rick?”

“Hey,” Rick said with a smile.

“Just kidding, Smokey,” Zack said.

“The statue thingies.” She shuddered.

Jan grabbed them and put them back in Zack’s knapsack. “Better, lovely?”

She sipped her coffee. “Yes. Thank you.”

Brodey looked thoughtful. “You know, there has to be something about those things. None of us get the same feeling you do when you touch them. I mean, they’re intrinsically creepy, sure, because they were Lenny’s and no doubt had some kind of dark purpose. But they just feel like stone to us.”

“I don’t care. They’re slimy and I don’t want to touch them.”

“We get it,” Zack said. “Don’t worry.”

“Yeah, we have other things to worry about,” Brodey said.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like helping you learn how to defend yourself.”

After breakfast, Brodey loaded Zack and Lina in one of their work trucks and drove them across the ranch to an isolated section of pasture adjoining a wooded area. Jan, Rick, and Kael stayed behind to discuss their various options with Ain and Cail.

They wouldn’t clarify exactly what options, but Lina suspected it was ways of keeping her safe.

“What are we doing here?” Lina asked as they climbed out.

Brodey started stripping. He laid his clothes in the truck bed. She wanted to blush, but found she couldn’t force herself to look away, either.

He laughed. “It’s okay, sugar. Feel free to look. I got over being bashful a century ago.”

Zack whistled. “Glad you don’t mind, because you are nice eye candy, Brodey.”

Brodey laughed again. “Sorry, you’re not only taken, you’re not my type. You want to fill her in, or do you want me to do it?”

“It was your idea.”

Lina felt herself growing frustrated. “Fill me in about what?”

Brodey turned to her. “Remember how in Yellowstone you did that out-of-body thing to talk to me when I found you?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s practice doing that again. We wanted to come out here where there’s not much in the way of distractions.”

“You being naked is a huge distraction, Brodey,” she snarked.

“You’ve got that right,” Zack agreed as he tugged at the bulge in his jeans.

Brodey snorted in amusement, but continued. “I’m going to shift. You try to figure out how you did that and come talk to me.”

“But I don’t know how I did it.”

“That’s the point,” Zack said. “You need to figure it out. No better time than now. Instead of wasting time trying to eliminate what you can’t do, let’s focus on strengthening what we already know you can do.”

Lina and Zack sat on the tailgate. They watched as Brodey shifted and headed out into the trees.

“Any suggestions?” she asked Zack.

“Nope. Sorry, sugar.”

She stared at the woods, in the direction Brodey headed. When she’d done it in Yellowstone, she’d been tied up in a tent and drugged, barely conscious when she sent her mind out and talked to Brodey. It’d been more an accident than anything.

A thought so stupidly simple occurred to her that it made her laugh.

“What is it?” Zack asked.

“Shh.” Remembering how she ended up at Baba Yaga’s, she closed her eyes and focused her mind and thought about seeing and talking to Brodey.

Instantly, she felt herself step outside her body. She turned and looked at the truck. She still sat there next to Zack.

Okay, so to find Brodey. She turned toward the woods and followed his path. Instead of walking, she envisioned herself floating, picking up speed as she moved until soon she was zipping along at a pretty good clip. It only took her a few moments to catch up with him. He was sitting in a small clearing, still shifted into his wolf form.

Lina stopped next to him. “Brodey, can you hear me?”

He didn’t react.

She reached out to pet him and envisioned her hand touching the fur on his head, as if solid. “Broo-deeey.”

He cocked his head, listening.

She tried again. This time, she could feel his fur under her hand. Brodey jumped away from her and shifted back into human form.

“Holy fuck, Lina! You scared the crap out of me!”

“What?”

He pointed at her. “You’re here.”

“You told me to do it.”

“Mentally. You’re actually here here.”

In the distance, they both heard Zack yelling something.

“Oh, crap,” she said, looking at her hands. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Brodey laughed. “Okay, so do we want to work on you dematerializing instead?”

She snorted with laughter. “At least I didn’t randomly blow something up. Like you.”

“And for that I am extremely grateful, kiddo. Let’s head back to the truck before Zack blows a gasket.” He shifted and took off at a run.

Hmm. Well, let’s try it again. Lina closed her eyes and focused on going back to the truck. When she opened her eyes, she was still standing in the middle of the clearing.

“Well, fuck a duck.” With a disappointed sigh, she trudged off after Brodey through the woods.

By the time she reached the truck, Brodey had already donned his clothes and had calmed Zack down.

“There you are!” Zack said. “You scared the crap out of me, disappearing like that.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said.

Brodey snickered. “You might want to practice that in an open field. You don’t want to accidentally materialize halfway through a tree or something.”

“Jesus, give me something else to worry about, why don’t you?” Zack quipped. He shook a finger at Lina. “Quit scaring me like that!”

“I wasn’t trying to scare you,” she said, suddenly feeling very weary. Would she ever master these funky powers?

Did she even want to?

Brodey’s expression looked concerned. “You okay, kiddo?”

“I’m exhausted,” she said.

“Why don’t we head back?” he suggested.

She shook her head. “No. I can’t give up just like that.” The men slid over and made room for her on the tailgate. She leaned against Zack. “I just feel overwhelmed.”

“I would, too,” Brodey agreed. “Do you want to try the materialization thing again? Just a few feet this time?”

She nodded. “Sure.”

He walked several yards away, out in the middle of clear ground, and turned to face her. “Try to come to me.”

She sat up straight and took a deep breath. She still wasn’t sure how she did it before. After five minutes of trying without any luck, she slumped against Zack. “I’m the worst goddess ever.”

Brodey returned to the truck. “Stop that. You just need to figure it out, that’s all. Don’t expect to learn all this stuff at one time. Maybe you’re trying too hard. Maybe we should start with much smaller things, like making stuff move or something.”

“Or barbecuing chicken?” she snarked.

He laughed. “Now there you go. You’re great with that. We can skewer a few birds and let you go to town with the fireballs.”

“I wish I could have been there to see that,” Zack proudly said. “I bet it was a sight.”

Brodey shivered. “Dude, that thing was so fugly, I would have had to tie a pork chop to it to get Wally to go after it. And he’ll eat damn near anything when he’s shifted.”

“Speaking of Lenny,” Zack said, “we should probably have someone check his place out.”

“Do we know where he lived?” Lina asked.

“Kael found out his last address was outside of Boston.”

“Hey,” Brodey said, “that’s near Wally. I can have him go check it out. He’s a PI.”

“Well, isn’t that coincidental,” Zack said.

Brodey shrugged. “He’s about three hundred years old. He’s worked for Scotland Yard, Interpol, and the original Pinkertons. He likes to stay in the same field.”

“Can you call him for us?” Zack asked.

“Sure, but the number’s at the house.”

Lina climbed off the tailgate and stretched. “Okay, so we need to go to the house—”

The words caught in her throat as she found herself standing in the Lyalls’ living room. Jan, Rick, and Ain all let out startled shouts as they looked up from the dining room table.

“Um, hi,” she said, her face reddening.

Worst. Goddess. Ever.

Ever!

“What are you doing here, babe?” Jan asked.

“Fuck that,” Rick said. “How did you get here?”

She started to answer that question when her cell phone rang. She knew it was Zack from the ringtone. She answered. “Yeah, sorry about that,” she said. “I’m at the house.”

“How the fuck did you do it?” he practically shouted in her ear.

“I don’t know!” she said, bursting into tears. Jan and Rick huddled around her as Ain took the phone from her and spoke to Zack.

“Yeah… Sure. We’ll keep her here until you two get back.” He hung up the phone and handed it back to her. “Your Watcher decrees your lessons are over for today due to his needing a stiff drink and a tranquilizer for his nerves.”

“I suck at this!” she wailed against Rick’s shoulder. “I can’t do anything right!”

“Shh, lovely,” Jan soothed, “it’s all right. You’ll get the hang of it eventually. Maybe you’re just trying too hard.”

They got her mind off of her less-than-Goddessly skills by talking about sending Wally to search Lenny’s. Ain and Cail both agreed that was a solid plan. Brodey went to fetch his friend’s number. Lina had never searched Edgar’s place because she didn’t want to deal with anything related to him. She’d told the attorney to turn the contents over to Lenny.

In retrospect, she kicked herself in the ass for doing that. Brodey related all this over the phone to Wally, who was more than happy to help out Brodey. He promised to go do it that afternoon.