Wanted by the Alphas (An Extremely Sensual Paranormal Shifter Romance) (18 page)

You want to watch? Then stay behind the
battle lines,
Jared had said,
or I’m out of here.

She had promised not to intervene, whatever
the outcome.

Why is she compelled to watch then? It is
akin to a mother going to the Roman gladiatorial ring to see her
two sons being pit against each other in a fight to the death. And
yet she is compelled to watch. To be a living part of it.

The werewolf is already there. His hackles
are all raised and he is growling softly, dangerously. Something
glistens around his neck. It is a collar of some sort with an
amulet hanging from it. It is too far for her to make the amulet
design out, though she reckons Jared would probably be able to see
it.

Shannon has never seen Kirk wear any sort of
collar or necklace, and she wonders if this confers him some sort
of protection.

The werewolf paws at the ground. His growls
rumble in his chest. They are now like thunder.

Shannon’s heart beats fiercely within her own
chest, and the pain of what must happen within the next few minutes
is almost visceral throughout her body. She will bleed when they
bleed and cry in despair when one of them is felled. This is a no
win situation. At the end of this, she will be in sackcloth and
ashes.

Please
, she prays without knowing what
she is praying for.

Lucien stands still as he faces the werewolf.
The air is charged with something that Shannon has never
experienced, but the smell of burnt iron is rampant. Menace is in
every particle, every blade of grass, every shaking leaf that
adorns the area around them.

Lucien removes the covered stick from behind
his back. He unsheathes it. It is a katana – a samurai sword that
catches the sunlight and gleams as brightly as the sun.

Shannon’s breath catches in her throat. She
has not expected a witch to be wielding a katana.

Lucien removes something else from his
jacket. It is a silver handgun. He aims this at the werewolf, who
begins his acceleration towards the blond witch.

Silver bullets!

Shannon clasps her hands to her mouth to keep
her from crying out.

Lucien pulls the trigger, and successive
blasts go off. The bullets whizz into the air and strike the
werewolf, who visibly is impacted. But no blood stains smear his
golden fur and he keeps on picking up the pace towards the witch.
Shannon wonders if that is what the amulet is for.

Lucien seems ready for this as well. He drops
the silver gun and grasps the katana with two hands, the way it is
meant to be wielded.

The werewolf leaps into the air for Lucien’s
throat. He thrusts the katana upwards towards Kirk’s chest.

“Noooooo!” screams Shannon.

An explosion of light and sound erupts from
the katana. The air sizzles and pure blinding light strikes the
trees and area in a wide radius. Shannon’s body is thrown back from
the blast, and she thinks:
God, that hurts
.

She smells the burning of the trees but hears
nothing as her world crowds in and vanishes into a pinpoint.

THE OPENING

“Shannon? Shannon?”

She tries to open her eyes, but it is such an
effort. Her entire body is numb and she cannot feel any of her
limbs. Her vision swims and she sees two anxious faces peering down
at her.

Lucien!

And Kirk!

Kirk is in his human form and he is naked.
His hair is wild and flowing, and his body wears dirt marks and
bruises and scratches. He is bleeding from a wound on his side, but
this does not seem to perturb him. He is more concerned about her.
The collar and amulet at his throat are missing.

Lucien is just as anxious. His shirt is torn
and bloodied at the collar, baring a lot of his chest. His blond
hair is disheveled. His lower lip is smeared with blood and his
hands are singed.

She whimpers, but no voice issues from her
throat.

Jared? Where is Jared?

She wants to keep her eyes open, but her lids
shut on her. Now all she can hear is voices.

“She’s hurt bad. Her pulse is very weak.”
Kirk’s voice.

“Can you do something?”

“We can bring her to the hospital. But I
can’t transform, damn you. What did you do to me?”

“Reversion spell. What the hell did you do?
Silver bullets can’t harm you?”

“I’ve got my secrets, you’ve got yours. But
she’s dying, damn it! None of anything else matters.”

“I didn’t know she was here! I was trying to
kill
you
. That’s why the spell was so strong.”

“Thanks.” Sarcastically.

“If you hadn’t worn that amulet, the
repercussions wouldn’t be that devastating. Look at this place. All
the trees are singed and broken. The rangers will be on to this for
sure by tomorrow.”

“Fuck the rangers. She’s dying! That’s all
that matters.”

A groan.

“Is her brother OK?”

“He’s hurt too, but he’s in a lot better
shape than she is. It’s because he’s a shifter, I think. But he
wasn’t protected like you and me.”

Lucien’s decisive voice: “We’ve got to do
something.”

Kirk in a low voice: “I don’t think we can
make it to the hospital in this state.”

“Then there’s only one thing I can do, and
you have to help me, seeing that you obviously know a spell or
two.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“This is a very old spell, one that has been
in my family for years. One of my ancestors was put to death for
owning it.”

“Great, thanks for telling me that.”

The voices are fast fading. Shannon’s brain
is slowing down to a trickle. She can barely think anymore. Nothing
appears to be fully coherent to her.

Lucien: “This katana is tempered with old
magick. It is a conduit, a channel for concentrated energy. Stand
clear.”

A swooshing sound, like a blade being plunged
into something soft.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? Sticking the sword
into the ground. Now I need your blood . . . and mine.”

Silence.

“OK, what do I do now?”

“Let your blood flow into the blade, and I
will let mine mingle with yours. Ours is magical blood. It will
make the conduit twice as strong, thus binding us to the
spell.”

“What exactly are we doing?”

“Nothing your medical degree has ever
prepared you for. Now I need a sharp stick.”

More silence. Footsteps rushing around. The
startling snap of wood.

“Here.”

“Thanks.”

“What are you doing?”

“Drawing hieroglyphs around the focus
point.”

“Why hieroglyphs? I can read the ancient
Egyptian alphabet . . . well, kind of – ”

Something in Shannon’s fading mind stirs. She
knows what Lucien is writing.

A horned viper.

A leg.

A hand.

A leaf.

Another leaf.

A wave.

Another hand.

An open mouth.

A rope.

An ancient Egyptian anagram. Scramble them
and put the letters all together again.

“It says . . .
Forbidden
,” Kirk
pronounces in awe.

Forbidden.

The word thrills through her like an
incantation of a spell. And maybe – combined with the katana and
the blood and the power channeling through the earth like a roaring
waterfall – it is.

The world spins on its axis as images of
ankhs and leaves and hanged witches and growling werewolves tumble
in her head.

*

This time, she can open her eyes with ease,
and she realizes it is because her body is no longer corporeal. She
looks around her in wonder.

Am I dead?

She is not alone. Kirk, Lucien and Jared are
with her, and they are also looking around them in amazement. This
is because the world around them has taken on the brilliant hues of
the rainbow and beyond.

Everything around them – the trees, the
grass, the sky, the mountains, a slowly moving stream – is
constantly changing in color, as if they are looking at everything
through a rapidly moving, multicolored prism. Everything is
simultaneously surreal and hyper-real. The colors blaze before her
eyes, if indeed those are her eyes she is seeing through.

“What is this place?” Jared breathes.

“This is Pangaea, the world between worlds,”
Lucien says. “Do not eat or drink anything here unless bidden.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Jared says.

“Pangaea?” Kirk asks.

“It is one of the netherworlds accessible by
certain portals, like the one I created with the katana and the
hieroglyphs. Living people do not wander into this, except for a
few who can ‘travel’ between worlds. One of my ancestors, Magda,
could do this.”

“And the dead?” Kirk says in trepidation.
“Are they here?”

“No. This is not the afterworld, although
there are creatures here who would have you believe so. Also do not
engage anyone in conversation unless I tell you to. The creatures
here cannot be trusted.”

Shannon takes all this in half-dazedly. Her
body is too light, and she still cannot feel all her limbs. Even
Lucien, Kirk and Jared are not fully corporeal. Their skins are too
bright, too real. Jared’s hue is slightly dimmer.

They are all naked.

She looks down at herself. She too is naked.
But her flesh texture is far, far fainter than the rest of them, as
if she is already part ghost.

And maybe she is.

She is alarmed.

“Lucien, Kirk.” Even her voice sounds strange
in her ears, as if she is speaking through a fluted vessel. “Why am
I different?”

Lucien holds his hand out to her. He is
clearly distressed, as is Kirk. Jared is looking around him,
thoroughly baffled. She grips Lucien’s hand. His touch is barely
there, as if she is already intangible.

“Shannon.” Kirk’s beautiful face is a rictus
of fear. “Don’t leave us.”

“I don’t want to leave you!”

But she is fading fast, winking in and out,
as if she is a television image that is being interrupted by
static.

“Quick,” Lucien urges. In this place, he
resembles an Impressionist painting of a blond-haired, blue-eyed
angel from one of the French masters. “Bring her to the
stream.”

Together, they grip her hands and pull her to
the kaleidoscopic stream. It is as if her feet are floating, they
hardly touch the ground.

“Can the waters heal her?” Kirk asks.

“No. We need the ferryman.”

“Where is he?”

Lucien points downstream. “There.”

Shannon blinks. Sure enough, she can make out
a robed figure poling a barge up the stream, struggling against the
current. The figure comes closer in stops and starts. She would
blink, and the barge is suddenly much closer.

“Hurry,” Kirk says more to himself, “she is
very weak.”

They stand upon the banks of the eddying
stream as the ferryman approaches. The ferryman wears a brown robe
with a cowl, and Shannon cannot make out his features in the
darkness of his face. But when she gazes upon his hands, she finds
that they are extremely skeletal. Not quite bone, but with only a
thin layer of yellowed skin covering his knobby fingers and
knuckles.

His hands curve around a wooden pole which
has one end mired deep in the water of the stream. Shannon thinks
she can see creatures running around in the substance of the pole,
but when she stares directly at it, it once again turns into
wood.

“Ferryman,” Lucien addresses the figure
respectfully. “We have a boon to ask of you.”

The ferryman does not reply.

Both Lucien and Kirk are holding Shannon
up.

“Please grant this one the gift of further
life,” Lucien says. “It is not her turn to go.”

The ferryman says in a raspy voice, “What
will you offer in exchange for her life?”

Lucien says, “What do you wish?”

The air between them curls menacingly as the
ferryman contemplates this.

He says, “You, witch, have given up your
heritage for this woman. You will be excommunicated from your
family and coven, shunned from your own community of witches for
shaming them. You have given up your considerable inheritance,
which will cripple you greatly.”

“Yes.”

“Is she worth it?” the ferryman
challenges.

Lucien glances at Shannon, and says, “Yes. I
would do it again in a heartbeat. I love her and I do not want her
to die.”

The ferryman turns to Kirk.

“You, shapeshifter, have been transformed by
this woman. You are beginning to question everything in your life
and your status as the alpha in your community. You believe you
have found your lifelong mate and you intend to remain true to this
woman.”

“Yes, that is true.” Kirk glances at Shannon.
“I would do anything for her.”

“Good. Because we have need of your skills,
the both of you.” The ferryman’s tone is insidious as he cackles.
“Additionally, your living flesh is craved by many beings here. We
will be calling upon you soon enough, witch and shapeshifter, when
the time is upon us. Do you agree to this?”

Shannon has a sinking feeling. Whatever the
ferryman and his fellow denizens of this place request of Lucien
and Kirk will not be pleasant. Or legal. Or beneficial to the world
at large.

She wants to shout out, “No! I am not worth
it. Don’t do it! What they will ask you to do will potentially be
far worse!”

But no voice issues from her throat. In
alarm, she observes her hands and feet. They are fading even faster
than possible.

“Yes, I agree,” Lucien says without
hesitation.

“Yes, I agree,” Kirk echoes him.

No.

But her thought is too weak, as if even her
mind is going.

“Very well.” There is a smile in the
ferryman’s voice. “On behalf of Pangaea, I accept your barter. Now
in order to restore life to her, you must bring her to the Tree.
Climb on board.”