CHAPTER NINE
Lero
Nightshade Bear Territory
I took a nap and ate some leftovers before getting out the salt and my favorite knit blanket. It was the alternating colors of the ocean and a sunset. Dad had knitted it when I was a kid when he was first learning the craft. I treasured each and every little ‘mis-stitch’ that showed through.
In the kitchen, I drew a salt circle on the floor, because I didn’t know how long I’d be gone and had no one to call on to watch my body while I searched for my mate.
Sure, plenty of people would’ve rushed to my rescue but some things you had to do on your own.
Besides, explaining this to any of my relatives would’ve taken too long and I was tired of waiting.
Tired of playing this silly game with a grieving and mad elf.
I stretched out on the kitchen floor much like I had the day I researched what I was about to do.
I covered myself with the knit blanket, imagining it was like a shield that would protect me from all the malevolent things that liked to creep around empty bodies.
Xenos wasn’t my grandpa by blood, but I liked to think I was somehow still linked to his ancestors and that they’d help me out in a pinch.
Surely, spirits know more than blood ties.
I closed my eyes and let my body get heavy.
I imagined that I was so heavy that the kitchen floor sagged under my weight.
Then I was with my bear again upon the hill he liked to watch the world from.
He stared at me with kind eyes for a long moment and I reached out to run my hands through his thick fur.
Was I merely two of the same comforting myself?
Perhaps, but self-soothing has long been in the survivor’s toolbox.
Mere seconds later, I was once again one with my bear and we made that same journey to the cave and then through its veins and arteries searching out the opening we’d found before.
This walk was longer than before and we had to sniff each opening we found along the way because they’d all rearranged themselves.
We were careful not to poke too hard at any one opening.
Getting Grandpa’s or Mori’s attention wouldn’t be a great thing to do right now.
Getting any of our parents’ attention would be detrimental.
When I’d just about given up hope of finding the cave that would lead to our Vallis a light shined ahead of us.
It glowed with a red orange warmth. It was him!
This was the one. My bear gave it a quick sniff to be sure and then we were off.
This cave ran longer than it had before too.
Of course it did! He was further away this time.
I braced to come out of the cave underground with him but instead I found myself standing on a grassy field.
A heartbeat sounded under my feet so I started digging.
I dug and dug until my paws and claws found wood.
My bear reared up on his thick, furry hindlegs and brought down all his weight on the boards.
They didn’t budge or crack. Not to be dissuaded he reared up and proceeded to crash down against the boards again.
My teeth shook from the force but yet the boards did not give.
I wasn’t sure what Vallis was thinking below ground but I prayed he knew nothing would turn us aside from helping him.
The rearing back and pouncing down continued on and on and after what must’ve been the umpteenth time, soft, feminine laughter sounded from nearby.
We turned with a snarl. I’d never laid eyes on Pami before but I knew it was her.
Evil had a distinct look and despite how protective my parents were, I’d seen it before.
It was the look in someone’s eyes when they enjoyed cruelty – whether inflicting or observing. This was Pami and she could see me.
“Are you his pathetic little mate?” she laughed, walking closer.
I sniffed the air. She didn’t smell like anything except elf. Maybe I missed something. I knew a lot of the elves here locked away their inner beast until they met their true-mate but still you’d think something would be there if she had something to smell at all. But there was nothing.
Pami was tall but not taller than the elves I’d met on Earthside. She had spring-leaf colored hair that flowed around her body as if an unseen wind always rustled through it. Her eyes were as blue as a clear winter stream and I would’ve placed good money on her soul being just as icy.
“You can’t get to him. This is the price he must pay for getting in my way. I’m saving you trouble, really,” she said, her voice climbing higher to a sickly-sweet tone. “He was so adorable. Vallis has always been so naive. True-mate, smhoe-mate. Who cares? Isn’t a girl allowed to change her mind?”
My bear wanted to roar but I clamped my mouth shut. I needed to hear what she wanted to tell me because assholes often gave themselves away and brought their weaknesses to light while they boasted about their fantastic misdeeds.
“Anyway,” she said, her pitch rising higher yet as if she planned to exploded my brain like a sound rod tinked too close to weak glass.
“Broug was in my way. Thought too much power was evil. Of course, your poor na?ve mate believed that my idiot mate tried to do this big ole spell all by himself. Broug wasn’t stupid.
Nowhere near that stupid. It was hilarious how little he thought of his best friend!
Pity for you but now you’re in my way too. ”
The sun reflected, glinting off the edge of a near ethereal dagger.
She lunged at me, dagger out like a hot poker.
I jumped back, the tip of the dagger swiping through my fur but missing my astral skin.
Pami laughed, throwing her head back, and lunged again.
I was already moving. I needed to get behind her.
My best chance was getting on her back and removing her head that way once I was out of the reach of the dagger.
That’s why my sort of cousin by friendship, Star, would land on his enemies shoulders and rip off their heads.
I needed to do that – but in astral form. In bear astral form at that.
Sweat ran down my head despite my furry form but I ignored it.
I didn’t know what happened if she cut my astral form with that knife but I had a feeling deep in my gut that I didn’t want to find out either.
She followed me until she circled me circling her.
She slashed again but this time another bear jumped over me and landed half on me, half between us.
The newcomer was weightless and for half a second I thought my sire had found me.
Only my sire wasn’t old enough to have streaks of grey down his back.
“GHOST!” my bear roared into my thoughts.
He was right. This bear wasn’t ethereal.
He was spectral. My heart thumped against ribs that were still back in my kitchen.
If I didn’t contain my vitals, I’d soon find myself back in my body while my mate was left at the mercy of a pissed off Pami.
I skirted away from the ass of the ghost bear and made my way to stand on the boards that hid my mate.
The bear could fight Pami while I tried to figure out how to pry them up.
“OUT OF MY WAY!” she keened at the ghost bear who was now between she and I, but the stubborn bear didn’t budge.
If a bear can be counted on to be anything, it can be counted on to be stubborn.
So instead of standing again, the bear roared, showing all its teeth and shaking its massive head so that spectral spit flew this way and that.
She lunged with the knife outstretched and her arm sank into the bear.
His energy-filled body sparkled like I always imagine one might in the Grove of Souls.
The bear’s eyes lit up, hungry for blood or justice, I wasn’t sure which. Would it come after me once it devoured her?
“Hope that thing isn’t a cannibal,” I said mostly to myself, but I heard a laugh come from under the boards.
Relief flooded through my ethereal veins.
Vallis was still alive. I pried harder, tearing up my nails and cuticles in the process.
I never realized so much could hurt and sting like a bitch when you weren’t even in your body.
The bear snarled and I glanced over my shoulder as it ripped at Pami.
Its spectral form couldn’t take skin but it ripped something.
It was as if her left side had some unseen hole where magic or something akin to it poured out.
She pressed both of her hands to her side and fled backwards until she was out of sight.
“Don’t eat me!” I said to the ghost bear while I pried hard at the boards. I couldn’t give up. I couldn’t even think of how helpless I felt because then Vallis would know.
“Son of Colton,” the bear said and my hands fell still.
“Yeah? That’s me,” I nodded.
“You do not know me, but I know of you. We are not blood but for a while Colton was part of our family, but I wronged so many of yours and…” the bear’s words trailed off.
“Finn?” I asked, he was the only bear shifter I knew who’d wronged my family directly. He was trying to shoot my grandpa and hit my dad instead. Which was why my sire had a wolf to begin with.
“It is I,” he lowered his massive head for a second.
“I… I don’t know how to get him out,” I said, pointing at the boards under my knees.
“You will need help. I believe he will have more air now that the soil cannot penetrate into his prison I will guard him. I will keep her away for as long as possible. It is as much as I can do. You deserve more help. Ask for it from the people who can give it to you, Son of Colton.”
“I… I thought you moved on,” I said, remembering years ago when Grandpa had to go stop him from raising hell.
“Moving on is near impossible when… Never mind. It is not for the young to be burdened by the old. I have to make this right. This and before. It has to be made right. I will guard him. You rest. You have to rest. Eat too. Go!”
I opened my mouth to say that I couldn’t leave Vallis like this.
Even if Finn had good intentions now, leaving felt like leaving my mate all alone and he’d spent enough time like that over the last few years.
Only, I didn’t have a choice. Energy was an infinite resource, but our bodies could only process and burn up so much of it because it had to go down to rest.
“I LOVE YOU, VALLIS!” I shouted as my body pulled me back into it.
***
When I woke, I wasn’t sure what time it was.
It was dark outside and it seemed like either seconds or a million years had passed and it was up to me to figure out which one it was.
I didn’t try to sit up right away. There was something cozy about sleeping in an unbroken salt circle curled up under my favorite knit blanket.
“Mate?” Vallis’s voice reached my ears and my heart jumped into my throat before plunging into my stomach finally jerking back up to its rightful place.
I turned over to find my mate sitting outside of the circle, tapping his thumbs against his feet.
The salt circle kept him out. I wiped away a section of it with a clumsy flop of my hand.
My limbs felt heavy but not as heavy as my skull.
It was as if someone replaced my skull with draconic metal.
“You worried me,” Vallis said softly.
“I’m sorry… Sorry that I couldn’t get the boards apart,” I yawned, feeling the same shame and disappointment radiating through my cells again. I’d gotten to him but couldn’t help him. Whoever my ancestors were, they were hanging their heads in shame about about right now.
“No, they’re not,” Vallis sighed and flashed me a sad smile. “They raised someone who tries. Besides, I can breathe now. That’s the important thing. Wars are won one battle at a time and we won this one, thanks to your friend.”
“That’s….” I sighed, unsure of how to explain Finn.
“He told me who he was,” Vallis said. “We had a few days to talk while you were out.”
“Days?” I said, trying to sit up, but my stomach rumbled and I gave up and laid back down.
“Yeah,” Vallis nodded. “It was a while. I can’t believe no one came to see you during that time.”
“They might’ve and thought that I wasn’t home. I gotta get up. I gotta pretend to do Yule. Preston’ll have his baby soon,” I said, pushing myself to sit up this time.
Vallis lifted me up and carried me out to the sofa before disappearing back into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, he came back out with a chicken sandwich.
I devoured it. I needed to head into the woods to hunt but right about now I felt like a deer could kick my ass all over the territory and take me home and feed me to its fawn.
Vallis laughed at the mental imagery playing through my thoughts. I loved the sound of his laughter. I glanced at the clock and decided to get a shower and swing by Grandpa’s for dinner. He always had an open door and tonight I needed it.
“I still haven’t gotten you a Yule present,” I sighed, sliding off the sofa.
“Yeah, you did: AIR!” Vallis chuckled. “It’s I who haven’t bought you anything.”
I hugged him tight and kissed him. Okay, to be honest, I ended up being late for dinner because we did more than wash each other’s back in the shower.