Chapter One

Othoni

I'd lost track of how many moons had passed since Lev refused to return home. I was almost positive that I was the first leader in the history of my pard to have a mate abandon his duties. I was also the first leader in the pard's history to have his adult child refuse to come home and find an appropriate mate. Perhaps I was in the wrong. Perhaps the times were changing faster than our family could keep up with. Okay, faster than I could adapt to. Or perhaps it was all about willingness.

While the rest of the pard went on with life as usual, Azien, my other son barely spoke to me. I worked night and day on replacing the potion his brother had stolen – the potion that was his birth right, but Azien didn't seem that interested in it. He avoided me at all costs. The worst part of it was that I didn't even notice at first. Lev was gone and Sergei was gone. I figured Azien was still around because he understood the importance of tradition. It wasn't like I upheld the pard's tradition for fun. Keeping away outsiders always kept us safe. It wasn't like I wanted to send Sergei away. It's not as if I didn't want to know my grandson. Their way just wasn't the way things worked. Their way wasn't the safe way. If any other member of our pard disagreed with what I'd done, they didn't speak up about it.

Still, I missed them. I worried about my mate and son out there in the wild world without me, without the protection of our pard. Our family link was alive and well. I felt them here and there. Somehow, they were still safe, but they weren't with us anymore. Sometimes my grandson's babbles would flood onto the family link as if he was trying to reach out to me despite us never having met up in the solid world.

Sometimes, I thought about lurching right in front of Lev. I could do that, after all. That's one thing Sergei never bothered to learn about the potion he and his friend stole. It wasn't a one-time thing. My soul could traverse miles and perhaps even life and death to be in the presence of my true-mate. They could too, but I figured they'd never realize that on their own.

Lev's thoughts grew heavier each day. Our mating link was still there. We didn't speak over it any longer, but emotions still flooded back and forth rather often. We both did our best not to bleed onto that link, but it always happened. Closing myself off to it was like clenching my jaw. You could only clamp that muscle shut for so long before your brain forced you to release it. Someone was dying. Well, maybe dying. He wasn't sure. He wasn't a doctor or a seer. My alpha wasn't even that familiar with the spirits I worked with.

I stirred the pot over the fire and Lev's thoughts stirred themselves up in a circle until they threatened to tumble out of me. Who was he worried about? Not Sergei or his baby. That would've been stronger. He wouldn't have avoided their names. Whoever it was, he ached for them and their mate.

"So not someone he's fallen for," my jaguar whispered into my thoughts.

I didn't like to think about who Lev might meet out in the wild world. I didn't like to consider the fact that he might just fall in love with someone who had never known tradition. He could. Anything was possible after all, but in my heart of heart's Lev would always be mine even if he built a new life with someone else.

His laughter leaked over our mating link, and I nearly dropped my spoon into the pot. That would've ruined the potion for sure.

"What's so damn funny?" I asked, a kneejerk reaction.

Those were the first words we spoke since he fled the territory to be with Sergei and his new family. Silence rang in my ears and I resumed tending to my potion. We might've been true-mates but we still weren't talking.

"That you would think that," Lev finally said after several ringing minutes of silence.

"That what?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level.

It was so good to hear his voice sound off inside my head again even if he sounded tired and sad.

"That I'm out here housing up with someone else. Do you really think there is anyone else, Othoni? That there could be anyone else for me is funny. I'm glad your sense of humor has survived these years."

"What am I supposed to think? You've been gone. If you're not getting love here you are getting it somewhere."

"That stings," Lev said.

In my mind's eye I saw him shake his head at me. Whether or not he did it, I didn't know. It was the reaction I remembered from him. How had he changed in the years that separated us?

"What am I supposed to believe then?" I asked, tapping my spoon on the side of the pan and setting it aside.

"You think I could fall into bed with someone else? In love with someone who isn't you?"

"I wasn't what you wanted. I thought maybe you'd find it out there."

"I can't find what I want, anymore than I can make you see what I want. I've made friends. I've seen our grandchild grow. I haven't fallen in love. Not in the way you mean. I've seen more of the world than I thought was possible – the good and the bad and the war."

"We participated in that war," I reminded him, "we with magic didn't sit that one out. That way we could help without calling danger down upon our own heads."

"I won't say the wild world, as you call it, is a safe place. That's why I thought we'd move Sergei and his family to where it was safe. You're the one who sent them back out here."

"I sent Sergei nowhere," I shook my head.

"Mate, that's a lie. What did you expect him to do? Walk away from the only love that will ever be real for him? Walk away from the child he sired? That is not the man we raised," Lev sighed.

"I expected him not to be a thief," I said, my words coming out like sharp stones.

"True. We didn't raise him to be that either, but he was lonely."

"Loneliness isn't an excuse to steal away---" I dropped it.

I dropped the whole conversation. I wasn't having that argument again. We could go around and around for years – until our doors to the Other World showed up – and never agree.

"You want to live in the world you think should've been, but I live in the one that is. Sure, Sergei shouldn't have taken it. I can agree with that even if I understand why he did it," Lev said over our mating link, "but the world we live in, mate, is one where he did. Everything we did from that moment out had to be based on what is now and not what should've been. Nova's getting so big. He has your eyes. He looks so much like Sergei when he was a kid. You're missing out on that because you want to live in a world that doesn't exist except in ‘shoulda/woulda.'"

I didn't say anything, but hoped he'd go on. I missed his voice. I missed his energy raining down over me. I missed his arms around me. My cat plopped down on his belly inside his inner sanctum and let out a long hiss, his version of a sigh. Lev didn't say anything else until I was in bed that night.

"Mate," his voice drizzled into my thoughts and I blinked to keep myself from falling asleep. It was nearly morning where he was. The first rays of the sun warmed his face.

"Lev?" I answered over our mating link, swallowing down a yawn.

"If you die before me I'm jumping into the fire," he said a second later.

I sat up ramrod straight waiting for him to say more. Why would I die before him? What did he know that I didn't?

"You're safe. I'd kill anyone who threatened you or our pard, Othoni, you know that. I just wanted you to know, that if you go first, don't be afraid, I'm not far behind you," he said.

"Lev, what's going on? Why all this death talk? What's happening over there?" I asked, swinging my legs off the side of the bed. I needed a drink of water or maybe something stronger if I had to have this conversation during the hours I'd usually only dream of Lev.

"I've made friends, mate. I've made so many friends. Good people too. One of them is dying. They're so kind and so brave. Also, afraid. Afraid of missing their mate on the other side. Afraid that their mate won't know what to do without them. That they won't move on when they die."

"Who, Alpha?" I asked, pouring a glass of water and sitting down in the same kitchen rocking chair where I rocked both of our boys.

"I can't say. They don't want anyone to know. They want to live out the rest of their lives the best as they can. You'll know when it happens. I think the world, wild or otherwise, will know when it happens. I can't stop thinking about them. I can't stop thinking about what if something happened to one of us or one of our boys while everything is all broken up like this. Othoni, I don't want things to be this way. I can agree with you on this. I can't call home a place where my son and grandson aren't welcome. That's changed nothing between us, mate. There is only you for me. You will be the only one for me, in this life and in the next. I meant what I said. When you go, I go. I won't have you afraid like that."

"I've never been afraid of spirits," I said, trying to soothe him.

"Maybe I am. Maybe I can do this, but I don't know that I can live in a world where you don't exist anymore."

"People don't stop existing, Alpha. You know this. We change forms, but we're still us. Souls are all we ever were and all we will ever be at the end of the day. I'm sorry about your friend and sorry for their mate," I said but couldn't apologize for the rest of it.

"Then are our souls jaguars?" Lev asked.

"I'd like to think so, but I don't have all the answers," I said and took a sip of my water.

"Then if we're jaguars that means Sergei's mate's soul is a wolf?" Lev asked, poking at an old wound.

"Maybe."

"But what if he wasn't always a wolf? What if we weren't always jaguars?" Lev poked again and again with his questions.

"I don't know,"I sighed.

"If it's so dangerous out here what about bringing them in to keep them safe?" Lev asked.

"They don't want to live here."

"So, that means we just stop talking to them?" he asked.

"I don't think he wants to talk to me."

"You don't know that."

"It's been years. He hasn't tried."

"Why try when he expects you to turn him away? Why would he put himself through that again?" Lev poked at me some more. "We're the parents. It's our job to stay in touch."

"You haven't spoken to Azien often," I reminded him.

"I have. Over the phone. I've even invited him out into the wild world with me. He doesn't want to come. Says you need him."

"The pard needs him. It's his birthright."

"Birth burden is more like it," Lev huffed.

"If you're going to be nasty we can go back to not talking at all."

"I'll leave you alone if that's what you want, but we're never going to solve this by not talking about it."

"What's there to solve? I have a pard to keep safe. Once upon a time it was our pard to keep safe, but you reneged on that promise."

"How?" Lev growled and a chill shimmied down my spine.

"Where are you now?" I asked him, standing up and knocking the glass of water to the floor in the process.

It shattered across the hardwood, and I swore under my breath.

"Are you okay?" Lev asked, his heart skipping a beat in time with mine.

"I'm fine. Fuck! I knocked over a glass and it broke. Look, it's late. If you want to have this argument again, come home and we'll have it again."

"I don't want to argue. I'll only come back if you're willing to find the middle ground."

"What exactly do you think the middle ground is, Alpha?" I spat out the question.

"I don't know. We haven't found it yet. Do you want to try or not? I'm willing. If you saw them – my friends – you'd be willing to. You can't say you'd die a man at peace if we never saw each other again or if you never saw Sergei again. If you can say that, then you're not the man I fell in love with."

"I can't say that," I said, gritting my teeth despite not speaking aloud.

"I know you can't. I keep telling myself we have time to work this out, but do we? We don't know that. Anything could happen. Anything at all, mate, and I don't want that. I can't live with that."

"Then come home."

"What about Sergei?" Lev asked.

"Sergei can do whatever he wants out there. He's a grown man."

"Mate," Lev sighed.

"Mate," I sighed back at him.

Childish. It wasn't my best moment, but I was exhausted and not in the mood to have this argument again.

"For what it's worth, I love you. It'll always be you, Othoni."

"I love you too," I said and padded back off to the bed that was once ours but was now only mine.