Chapter 73

Chapter 73

Asher

Some weeks later

"He's dead?" I'd been in two minds about allowing Imogen to see the news today, but the others made clear that trying to keep something back from a fated mate that could see inside our heads was stupid and pointless, so I looked over the breakfast table and into her eyes. Relief, that's what I saw, then compassion as Imogen looked across the room to where Mary and her family sat eating. "Phil's dead?"

"Appears to have been an accident," Kyle said, barely suppressing a smirk. "Very sad."

"It's not helping our side of things, though." Lucas was flicking through his paper, then went to the headlines. "The prime minister has declared a state of emergency about the whole shifter thing."

"Probably in response to pressure from world leaders," I replied. "Big questions are being asked. Is this just an Australian thing…?"

It wasn't, we all knew that. While the First Nations people of Australia had people who could shift into native wildlife, the ones they saw that day were the colonial imports like us.

"Not that we can do much about it," I said. "What does everyone else have on today? I'm going to be stuck in meetings with leaders from the different shifter communities. Everyone's still trying to deal with the fall out. Luc, Kyle, you'll be around tonight? I have to step out for a little while."

"Step out?" Imogen's eyes met mine, and not for the first time did I relish the fact I could stare right back. "Where to?"

I fobbed her off with a story about a meeting about funding, but what it really was, was this.

That night I got dressed in dark, unobtrusive clothes. Rye had assured me that my part in this ritual was a small one, over and done with quickly, but never trust a fox, that's what everyone said. Instead, I slotted weapons into my jacket, my ankle holster, and the back of my jeans, making sure I had something to deal with almost any eventuality before setting out.

"You'll be safe?"

I blinked and turned to find Imogen standing there, dressed in those cute bunny pyjamas I pretended to hate but secretly loved.

"Of course I'll be safe," I replied. "It's just a?—"

"Funding meeting." She looked me up and down, holding herself back from rifling through my mind to find the truth. "Right. Well, after you're done at this ‘meeting,' you'll come and find me."

"It'll be the first thing I'll do," I said, walking towards her.

"And you'll give me a kiss."

I smiled, my hands going to her jaw as I pressed one to her forehead.

"Of course."

"And then you'll tell me all about this ‘meeting.'"

That had me freezing on the spot, and her eyes rolled up as she stared into mine, making clear she could get any and all information she wanted right now, but she didn't.

"Whatever you want, my mate."

Those last two words were the most beautiful in human history, I had decided. Every day I treasured the fact that she wore my mark. With a nod, Imogen reached up and tugged my head down, kissing me long and slow, until all thoughts of what I had to do tonight were replaced by a need for her. My body was hard, aching, and protested loudly when I finally pulled away.

But I had to.

No one double-crossed a fox and lived to tell the tale. Mama Lisica had put out the call and I had to answer, so I pressed one last kiss to Imogen's forehead and then turned to leave.

Across town, I reached the fox colony. Once farmland, they'd bought up a lot and created a massive compound before urban sprawl built up around them. As I drove up to the gate, a couple of fox shifters peered into my windshield, then nodded and waved me in as the electric gate rolled open. I drove up the long, bumpy dirt track that led to the main house, only to be greeted by Rye.

"You got rid of Phil," I said, not bothering with small talk. Rye merely shrugged his shoulders. "So what do I owe you for that?"

"Nothing." He gazed over at a huge bonfire, the dark shapes of the rest of the party I would be joining tonight limned by the flames. "You made clear that we are the good guys and that we will have no tolerance for humans who hurt women." He shook his head. "My fellow fox shifters were merely making that position clear to the other prison inmates." His smile was slow and vulpine. "Also helps establish where they sit in the pecking order now." His eyes met mine. "At the top. Now, Mama awaits and you know?—"

"She doesn't like that?" I nodded. "I know."

Without a word, he led me forward. Surrounding the fire were drunken lads and more sober men, cackling women, some hoisting small red-haired children up on their hips and swaying back and forth, but they were all just background noise compared to her. Once a great beauty, you could still see the vestiges of it in her bone structure, Mama Lisica, the matriarch of this fox colony turned to face me.

"Asher, darling." Her fingers were covered in chunky silver rings, the semi-precious stones gleaming in the firelight as she offered me one hand. I took it and brushed a kiss across one lot of rings. "You've come."

"To pay my debts, yes." My hands were clasped behind my back. "I always do. So, did you have a phlebotomist on standby, or?—?"

"So clinical." She tilted her head to one side, those green eyes still keen. The red henna of her hair glowed brighter in the firelight. "We do not need such modern advances. We will do this the old way."

Blood magic was bad, but I would give whatever was needed ten times over if that's what it took to keep my Imogen safe.

"Then let us do things the old way," I replied in a clipped tone that had several of the closer foxes hissing. "I mean no disrespect, Madame Lisica?—"

"So formal."

Her gold tooth flashed as she grinned.

"But I have a mate who doesn't know where I am or why I'm here, and she wants me back where I belong."

"Then let us proceed." Mama turned and flung her arms wide, getting the attention of everyone here. "Now, my darlings, bring forth the supplicant."

I expected some fox that was in trouble, for my blood to be used to curse him or her. Mama was notoriously fickle and capricious in the way she dealt with her colony. Perhaps even a shifter of another kind who hadn't paid their debts.

What I didn't expect was to see my sister be led forward by several male fox shifters.

Every muscle locked down, a shout rising in my chest, but Ursula shook her head sharply.

"I'm here of my own free will, Ash. This needs to happen."

"What needs to happen?" The old witch's smile widened at my hastily snapped question. "What?"

"No communication between siblings?" she asked. "That is a bad business. Families must always talk, but no matter, the ritual has already begun. Now we have your input?—"

"What ritual?" Hands slapped down on my arms and I glared at Rye and Todd, promising a long and bloody death at the end of this. "What fucking ritual?"

"Be careful, bear boy," Mama purred. "You are in sacred space now. Intent is what matters, that and power. Your sister came to me, as she thinks I am the only way she can get her heart's desire."

"You should've come to me, Urse."

I stared at that familiar face, able to see the little girl she was, but she stared me down as a woman, not a child. Unending, uncompromising, she made clear she had done things exactly how she wanted, just like she always did.

"This is the way it has to be, Ash," she told me, her hand moving slowly, glacially slow, right before Mama's snapped out to take a hold of it.

I felt the press of Mama's knife against the back of my hand, her grip unearthly strong as she began to mumble in a language I didn't understand. Words of power, they had to be, because I felt them prickle across my skin. Foxes yipped and cried out as the wind picked up. Embers from the fire went spiralling into the sky, and right as Mama's voice rose, so did her knife.

She stabbed the point into my fingertip, and as the blood welled there, she did the same to Ursula. Our fingers were pressed together, held tight by Mama's grip as my sister turned to face me.

"You found your strength when you killed our foster father," she told me. "I just found pain and weakness."

"You of all people know that's not true. He was the weak one, preying on a child!"

"Telling me I'm strong isn't the same as feeling strong." Tears pricked at my sister's eyes, and my heart broke all over again, because it'd been so long since I'd seen them. Not afterwards, not when I had blood on my hands, not even when I went to visit her months later. "Neither is training, honing my reflexes, or building my skills. None of that makes me feel strong, and I'm sick to fuck of feeling weak. Give me this, just a little bit of your strength, Ash. Just one little bit. It's all I'll ever ask for, I promise. I know I should've asked you, but?—"

"Choose."

Mama cut through my sister's speech, her voice a feral growl.

"Choose what?" I shouted.

"Your bear spirit is strong. It's why you are the perfect candidate. Too strong. Give some of this to your sister and be at peace, Asher. Be at peace."

I didn't know what the fuck I was doing, and right now I wanted a twenty point PowerPoint presentation outlining the proposal along with a cost-benefit analysis, but I knew I wouldn't get it. Instead, I had to trust. A tear slid down Ursula's cheek because she knew just how hard that was for me. To me, the world seemed full of people with shitty motivations that they hid behind a smooth veneer, and that killed me.

But if someone I loved asked me for something, I gave it, every time.

I drew her close, remembering the way I did last time. There was blood on my hands then, but so much more. I'd been sticky with it, tainted by it, and had shrank back from marking my sister with it, but not this time. I pulled her in and pressed a kiss to her forehead, right as Mama said the words.

"Release the power within you and give your sister what she needs."

I didn't know what that was until I saw it.

Hums went up around the crowd, and three men stepped forward to watch the process closely. Their eyes shone with green fire and red, reflected from the bonfire, as my sister fought for her life. Ursula's muscles leapt on her bones, twisting and turning her in brutal directions, her joints going to strange angles.

"What did you do?" I snarled, feeling the bear shift inside me. He could burst free and lay waste to this entire gathering in seconds. That bloodlust I lived with every damn day since the moment I first shifted pounded in my heart.

And hers.

Ursula was shifting.

Her eyes went wide and staring, the previous brown bleeding away to the most perfect blue, right before her bear shoved forward.

Women didn't shift into bears, that was our collective wisdom. No one had been able to explain why, but now I knew. It took a special kind of rage to want to become one of the largest predators in the world, and my sister possessed that in spades. Her roar split the night, sent fox shifters running off into the darkness, all but Mama and several of her grandsons.

"Well, look at you." My voice quavered like a child's as I held my hand out, the massive polar bear chuffing as I got closer. Her muzzle extended, her nose working, as she sniffed at my fingers. "No one will ever mess with you again." Her growl made clear what she thought about that. "Come back to skin, Ursula. Show me you're not lost to me. Show me you can."

The bear fought it, stamping its paws and rearing back on its back legs, but not before it melted away and my sister dropped down to the dirt below. One breath, then another, one of Mama's grandsons rushed in with a blanket, handing it to her as she rose.

"The bear elders are saying you have too much bear in you," she croaked. "That's why you revealed us to the entire world. Well, not anymore." Her smile was shaky, yet triumphant, like a woman who'd just birthed a baby and in some ways she had. A new version of herself. One that could defend herself just as violently as I could. I sucked in a breath, wondering if I could even shift anymore, but I felt the bear inside me. Calmer, an easier presence to live with–something had been taken from me, but it wasn't anything I missed. "I took the extra bit."

"You should've told me." I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close. "You should've fucking told me what you had planned."

"So you could argue with me?" Her voice was muffled by my chest, so she pushed me backwards. "Remember when I suggested changing the coffee supplier?"

"Jarrod's sells single origin Arabica of the highest quality," I replied stiffly.

"And I needed this." Her hands went wide, the slight shake there doing nothing for my confidence. "You took on my pain when you first shifted, and now it's back in its rightful place."

I couldn't argue with her. If she thought I was stubborn, then it was a trait we shared. I had no idea how long this would last, something I would quiz Mama mercilessly about when we were done, but not now. I watched my sister step backwards, the fox shifters who'd watched the most closely clustering around her.

"We're going for a run," one said, gazing down at her. "You could come. No one will see a fuck off huge polar bear on our turf."

She made a show of nodding.

"Don't mind if I do." Her gaze strayed to me. "Go back to your mate, Ash. Your job here is done."

"I'll see you tomorrow?" I asked.

"Late," the fox shifter replied before shooting me a lethal grin. "Real late. C'mon, Ursula."

I watched them as they disappeared into darkness, trying to make out their shapes until I was forced to stop.

"This is what it cost to mobilise your entire colony?" I asked Mama. "This?"

She shrugged.

"I would do anything for family, just as you would, bear boy. Now, I need a drink. Will you join me?"

I shook my head, knowing this was a deadly insult in fox quarters, but there was somewhere I needed to be. One part of my soul wanted to be out rambling in the dark after my sister, but most of it.

It needed to be right here.

I walked into the room, catching the way the stray band of light illuminated the three of them, their bodies tightly entwined. In some ways, they were too beautiful to disturb, but with that sixth sense she had, Imogen's eyes fluttered open.

"You're home?" Kyle snorted and Lucas started to snuffle. "What happened?"

"Everything," I said as I climbed onto the bed. "Just everything."