Shadow Of A Mate (16 page)

Mam and Papa were still by his bedside and even Nikko and Kane had stayed with him most of the time. The little puma was in his cat skin, laying over Jay’s legs and purring softly to soothe and warm him.

They hadn’t left his side or slept. Mam would take Nikko to get food or see the medical staff, but that was it. Papa just stared with a heavy frown on his face.

This whole thing was harder on them than him.

His grandmother and mother appeared beside him. They couldn’t stay here very long without fading and he hadn’t asked where they went when they weren’t with him. Something told him he wasn’t ready to know. If someone had said to him that he would be with his mother again, meet his grandmother and that all he would want was to leave, he would have called them a liar.

“I don’t want them to hurt so much,” he said, voice cracking.

“They love you,” his mother told him as she brushed his blond hair back behind his pierced ear.

“I know.” He might have tried to argue, stutter or shy away from the fact before. But he had watched them care for him, heard them talk to him and pray for him to be okay. Even Arthwr’s betas had sat next to him and taken turns shifting to keep him warm.

He could feel both women looking at him and he met their eyes without hiding. They smiled simultaneously, appearing proud and Jay tipped his head to the side. He’d missed something.

“You have changed—” His mother’s words were cut off by a wail and for a moment Jay thought Katrianna had somehow broken into this place to kill them. He shifted instantly into his lynx and put himself between where the noise had come from and his mother and grandmother. Katrianna might have his power, but she couldn’t take his cat.

When he didn’t see anything, he spun around and searched for the threat so he could protect his mother and grandmother but he couldn’t find any. There was nothing here but them.

Shifting back, he turned back to them. His mother was grinning broadly with a hand clasped to her chest over her heart.

“Well goddess bless us, he did it. Your jaguar has done what none have managed to do for thousands of years.” There were tears on Leanna’s face, but his grandmother looked elated, peaceful even.

“I don’t understand,” he said, feeling completely lost.

She hustled Jay away from the looking window and whispered something to the air. “It is time for you to go.” A large opening seemed to split apart from the very fabric of this weird half reality. It moved and stretched until there was a doorway.

“Your father and I love you, Jayden. We will see you again.” With that his mother kissed his forehead and hugged him close before letting go and passing through the portal-like door. He could smell the earthiness of trees and grass and he could hear purring.

Before Jay could say anything, the vision and scents faded and another scene materialised. He saw a figure of a man standing there, but he couldn’t make out his face because of the bright light.

His grandmother came to him with a smile. “Thank your mate for me, my grandson. He has done more than he knows. Tell Lorrie that I am finally with my Hathor again.”

He didn’t know what was going on, but he obediently nodded and kissed her cheek as she hugged him. “I am glad that I met you, grandmother. I will deliver your messages,” he said formally. It felt right.

“Good boy. I am so proud of you, so very proud. Now once I step through here I want you to wait until you see your home and go immediately through the portal. Do not delay.”

“Okay,” he agreed nodding.

Leanna stepped through the doorway and he saw her hug the figure of the man like they were at sea and he was her lifeline. He didn’t get a chance to do anything more before the portal changed again.

It didn’t sink in that they had really gone until he was left alone staring into the doorway. He saw the room with Mam and Papa in, the same scene that he had been watching earlier.

Gazing about the white realm around him, Jay wondered if he’d ever really understand any of this. Then he simply stepped into the doorway.

Coming awake was like struggling to rise to the surface after being weighted to the bottom of the ocean. Everything hurt and his body felt as if it were on the cusp of bursting from the pressures surrounding it.

Opening his eyes was harder than it should have been and he knew his body was still not wholly his own. The terrible sucking, draining had stopped, but there was a pressing need telling him that something needed to be done.

He looked to the side and saw a window that led out on to the vast grounds of the pack ground. Knowledge in his head was fuzzy, but absolute. He knew he was home, safe and his pack would protect him.

There was something out there.

Something dark and treacherous growing in the ground. The trees that he knew should be green and luscious were brown and dead. There was a sickness to it that clawed at his throat and his heart.

The forest was dying. He needed to get outside quickly.

Hands pulled at him, trying to drag him back to the bed and he heard his name being called desperately, but there was no time to explain. He had to return the power to the earth, to heal it from the damage and taint the dark magic had done to it. He could hear it calling out to him.

The lynx inside him hissed in urgency.

Jay ripped himself away from his pack and smashed through the window.

Screams and roars erupted around him as he continued forward.

Even the alpha voice that should have stopped him merely passed over him like water over a rock. He stared down at his bleeding arms and hands and watched the thin rivers of crimson run freely over his skin and sink into the thirsty ground below.

Miraculously, where the drops fell, the crisp, dead remains of grass bloomed again with richness and life. And it spread like a ripple on a pond’s surface. Just a few drops were healing his home.

The world stilled as one would draw in and hold a breath. That was when he understood. Through his blood he could cure the land of the contamination of Katrianna’s dirty stolen magic. He plunged his hands deep into the earth and let the power take him.

This time only roars and howls called out around him as people finally began to understand. Together they stood as one. One pack. One power to heal the land.

The symbol Katrianna had carved into his flesh burned away under the onslaught of pure primal, blessed power. The light restored his bones and skin, making them strong again and without the mark of evil.

He wanted everyone to bask in the beauty and power of the forest breathing once more so he threw his head back and screamed a roar that would call his pack to him. He called to lions, leopards, jaguars, cougars, pumas, wolves, jackals, bears and everything in between so he could share the goodness.

Using the ties that lay inside the mate bond, Jay called them all and soon shifters and wild animals alike crept from the forest and into the light. It spread to them and he heard them gasp. Some tried to run, but the power found them and eased their fear when they felt it was nothing harmful.

Shifters they had rescued crawled and dragged themselves outside, he could hear them coming over the glass and ground behind him. Jay felt the earth’s natural power pulse and race over them. It healed them and he realised the earth was giving back to them. The land healed them as he had healed it.

As suddenly as it had begun, everything ceased, pausing in a perfect moment.

At least...almost perfect.

Jay came back to himself as the power and adrenaline settled and he looked around for Kyle, though he knew his mate wasn’t here. Kyle had gone to slay his demons and Jay would be here when he returned. And when he did come home to him, Jay knew he was finally strong enough and worthy enough to be a proper alpha mate.

Whatever this power brought them and the pack, Jay knew they’d stand to face it head on as equals this time.

* * * *

Kyle heard people shouting above him and tried to fight his way out of the confusing metal prison he found himself in. Everything was in high contrast as he forced his eyes to open. He could smell and hear even the slightest thing, down to the single green leaf in the whole jungle break off the black tree and flutter to the ground in great swirling sways.

In slow motion, Kyle shook his head in attempts to clear away the fuzziness clouding his mind. When he couldn’t, he realised his jaguar had taken over. This wasn’t a normal shift, he wasn’t in control. His beast was.

Something far away from here, something powerful and good called him home and made him want to obey.

“It’s Jay. He’s alive and doing some freaky shit,” said a familiar voice.

“I can’t think of anything, but getting to him. We need to leave. Now. You grab Logan, we’ll take Kyle. The sooner we get home the sooner Jay can try and talk some sense in to Kyle. If it isn’t one of them sacrificing themselves it’s the other. Our jobs are hard enough as it is.” The second voice was slightly deeper and closer than the first.

Another voice came from beside him, this one gruffer and angry. “He’s calling shifters to him again. Someone remind me to tell that boy not to do that. It’s dangerous for someone as untrained as Jay.”

Jay.

He knew that name. Jay. Jay was his. His mate.

His mate was calling for him.

Kyle didn’t wait another second, he hauled himself up on to his paws and forced them to move. Putting one paw in front of the other he kept moving, listening all the time for that mesmeric voice.

* * * *

Jay waited at the window for hours, waiting, watching and thinking about what his friends had said when they had contacted him from the plane. He’d been so confused about everything he hadn’t even asked what the hell they were doing on a plane. Or where they got one in the first place.

Mack had called to tell him that they were heading home and that was great news. The not so great news was that Kyle had gone feral. They’d told him that Katrianna had tried to kill Kyle and that Logan had taken the hit instead.

Hearing that Kyle had then thrown himself at Katrianna and somehow overloaded her with power so that she literally exploded was incomprehensible.

When he’d asked again where Kyle was, they’d gotten quiet and admitted that they didn’t know. Kyle had been blasted by the power as well as Katrianna and his jaguar took over.

When Jay had called the shifters of the pack to him it turned out that Kyle and the others had felt it, too. While the betas had just been drawn to come home, Kyle in his jaguar form had taken off.

And Kyle was too damn fast to be caught if he didn’t want to be.

Mind fuck and FUBAR didn’t even begin to cover what he’d heard and his mind was still trying to process it.

The sound of a truck pulling up the drive drew him out of his thoughts and he jerked his head to look through the glass in time to see Tryst and Mack getting out and Rogo carrying Logan in wolf form while Merrick stood off to one side looking at the lion carefully.

Damn. He’d hoped Logan might have awakened or at least shifted back during the journey home.

When the betas entered the porch area and were out of sight, Jay leaped out of the comfy armchair and ran across the large upstairs library and out into the foyer. Tryst and Mack were just coming through the door and being greeted by Mam and Papa, but Jay didn’t stop.

He ran at them and luckily Tryst saw him coming because otherwise Jay might have ended up on the floor instead of wrapped up in a big hug between the two betas.

“Are you guys okay?”

Mam, Papa and Rogo took Logan away. They’d prepared one of the downstairs rooms with French windows accessing the grounds for his recovery in case his wolf side needed to be closer to the forest outside.

Pressing his face into Tryst’s shoulder, he clutched Mack and Tryst tighter, one arm around each of them. Apart from Kyle they were the only true friends he’d ever had and the thought of losing them was painful.

From the way they held him and took deep breaths of his scent, he knew this trip had been hard on them and they were glad to be home. They would also be just as worried about Kyle as he was.

“We’re good, Jay. Anything from Kyle?”

His good mood plateaued. “No, nothing.”

“He’ll be fine,” Mack assured him and hugged him tighter for a second before letting him go and stepping back. Shifters were fine with touching for comfort, but Jay knew Kyle would get grumpy if he scented anyone else on Jay. And he knew Mack and Tryst knew that, too.

“Your mate will come home soon. His jaguar is running for him and keeping him away from you until whatever power he has left settles,” Merrick said from a few feet away from them.

Jay was about to reach out and offer Merrick a hug and tell the man he was glad he hadn’t been hurt when Merrick opened his mouth again. He should have known his uncle wouldn’t be able to stop talking before he pissed someone off.

“Either that or the energy will overload again and he’ll go pop.” Merrick smacked his lips for the sound effect, opened a closed fist and fluttered his fingers.

That was enough. His patience snapped and he met Merrick eye to eye, ignoring the sudden tension in the betas. “Can you pick between asshole and caring uncle please? The back and forth makes my head hurt.”

Merrick startled and looked at him with wide eyes for a moment. “I’ll do my best. You wouldn’t have been bold enough to speak up like that before. What
have
you been doing?” There was genuine interest in his tone. Which is why Jay answered honestly whereas he had avoided answering everyone else who had asked him.

“I’ve been with my grandmother and mother and I’ve learned some new tricks,” he said, letting his newfound power and control shine in his eyes. He enjoyed seeing Merrick blanch and the man’s eyes widen.

No one moved or said anything for a long, tense minute.

Then Merrick surprised them all by laughing deeply. “I did wonder whether there was anything of my brother in you. But that smile right there with an edge of threat? That was all Devlin,” Merrick commented once he’d finished laughing.