Wolf Tales 12 (8 page)

Anton nodded. “High enough for you or me to comfortably place our hands in them at chest level. Lily would have to stand on her toes to reach them.”

Anton was right. He could see them now—the two prints placed side by side at the very end of the artwork on the wall. Stefan grabbed his wristwatch off the counter and slipped it on. It was almost seven, and though he’d gone the night without sleep, he was wide awake. Adrenaline rushed through his veins; his mind was crystal clear.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and grabbed his dirty clothes off the bed. Anton did the same, and they left the room together. “I’m going to grab some fresh clothes. I’ll meet you in Alex’s room. Let’s get him up and see what he remembers of Lily’s story.” Stef paused, shivering. “And while I think of it, we need to add another hot water heater to this wing.”

Laughing, Anton flipped him off and headed toward his suite of rooms.

Alex reminded Anton of a miniature version of his father—already growing tall and lanky with amber eyes too big for his face and a thick mop of dark hair that resisted whatever attempts Xandi made to tame it. He had Stef’s boundless good humor and his mother’s zest for life.

He was smart and funny, and idolized Lily—a little too much, in Anton’s estimation. Even he knew his daughter was far from perfect. No, she had a bit too much of her father in her, and way too much influence on Alex.

Liana had accompanied them into the caverns. She’d heard about the cave drawings and tagged along in case the language was still familiar to her. As their Goddess, she had known every language the Chanku had ever used, but much of that information had been given to Eve, deleted forever from Liana’s memories.

Munching on a breakfast bar, Alex stood in front of the cavern wall with Stefan on one side and Anton on the other, and pointed out the various characters in “Lily’s storybook.” Liana stood off to one side, quietly watching.

“Lily told me this part is about the mountains where they lived when they first came here, in a place they called the frozen wilderness. The ones who wrote the story left their home when it got really cold there. They came here to find their brothers, who were called spirit guides. See this?”

He pointed to marks that looked like smoke. “This is how they got here. They traveled on the magic.”

Stefan flashed a questioning glance at Anton. “On the magic?”

Anton shrugged. “Another name for the astral plane? Maybe the word ‘magic’ is merely Lily’s interpretation.”

“I think that might be it.” Liana stepped forward, shaking her head. “I used to know this. I’ve got bits of memories, but they’re faint.” She pointed to the circular shape. “This is the ship they arrived in. I’d forgotten all about these early stories, but the drawings are jogging some old memories loose, I guess.”

She glanced at Anton. “Our ancient ancestors left a dying world and immigrated here, long before there were any modern humans. They settled in what is now the Tibetan steppe before the plateau was as high and the climate as cold as it is now.” She shrugged. “Many millions of years ago. I don’t know for sure. Time passes. . . .”

As her voice faded, Anton merely nodded. Time passed differently on the astral plane. Even now, Liana often had trouble keeping track of time, as if her internal clock had never been locked into a particular set of seconds, minutes, or hours.

“Anyway . . .” Alex interrupted, obviously reaching for the spotlight again. “This is the story of how we got here, and Lily said she thought it might be a door that went to the place where the Goddess lives.” He crossed his arms on his chest, obviously more than a little perturbed. “We were going to look for it today. Together.” He pouted and glared at Anton. “She didn’t wait. She went all by herself and didn’t take me. Lily just thinks she’s so special because she’s older.”

Anton folded his arms and stared very seriously at Alex. “Lily is going to be in a lot of trouble for going away without telling us. Be thankful you didn’t go with her.”

Stefan ruffled Alex’s hair. “Anton’s right, sport. If you’d gone with Lily, you’d be in big trouble, too. C’mon. Let’s go talk Mom into some real breakfast.”

“Pancakes?” Alex’s eyes lit up.

“Works for me.”
Anton, I’m going to get him out of here before you cross over. The last thing this kid needs is to see how to get to the astral. Liana? Can you stay and help Anton?

Liana nodded and Stef herded his six-year-old out of the cave. When they were gone, Anton placed his hands in the carved prints on the wall. “I can feel magic here. I don’t understand why I never noticed it before. It’s thrumming just beneath the surface, as if the barrier between worlds is quite thin.”

“Lily may have enabled an ancient power. It’s been lying dormant for a long time or I would have sensed it before now.” She shook her head, laughing softly. “Oh, Anton! That little girl is really going to keep you on your toes.”

“Don’t I know it.” He felt the warmth in the rock, the slight vibration as if the stone lived. “I think I know how this works. Once my hands are in position, I need to picture where I want to go. This should open a gateway into that particular place. Is that correct?”

“It is. I believe Eve still exists in the same domain where I once lived, though if you think of Eve, you should be transported to wherever and whenever she is. Do you want me to come with you?”

Anton stepped back from the wall and placed his hands on Liana’s shoulders. Her belly was round with the child she carried. This would be the third for her and Adam—a second daughter—due in just over a month. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Strong and calm and the perfect mate for Adam Wolf.

“I would love to have you beside me, but you are going back to your husband and your children, and I’m going after my wayward daughter by myself. Thank you, Liana. For more than you will ever know.” He kissed her, marveling at how warm and alive she felt. Nothing at all like the cold goddess who had once held him captive as nothing more than a sex slave to her needs.

They definitely had history between them, one Anton wouldn’t change for anything. Once Liana had been self-serving and even cruel, but she was the link, the one who had sent him on his original quest to discover his lost heritage.

And now he was off on another quest, this time in search of his future.
Lily.
She was unbelievably special, and in so many ways represented all that he hoped for, all that he wanted for every one of them.

She truly was touched by the Goddess, but no matter.

She was still a little girl. Still his.

Anton turned away from Liana and again placed his palms against the stone. He slipped his fingers into the perfectly carved indentations, and thought of Eve. Thought of the woman who had once been Adam Wolf’s mate, the woman who had been there for all of them in so many ways before she’d died her untimely death.

He thought of Eve and put his fears for Lily out of his mind. He felt the stone grow warm beneath his palms, blinked at the brilliant colors of the world that opened to him as the dark cavern beneath his Montana home faded from view.

And without a backward glance, Anton stepped through the gateway, into the shimmering light and timeless beauty of the astral plane.

Chapter 6

“What do you mean, you don’t know where she is? You’re the goddess, Eve. Damn it! You’re supposed to know everything!” Anton glared at the woman who stared at him out of those damned swirling eyes as if he was the one who was crazy. Gray to green to amber, her irises spun in a mesmerizing pattern guaranteed to make him nuts.

Calm as a damned stone statue with just as much compassion, she merely smiled at him and sighed. “Lily is on a quest, one critical to all Chanku—those we know and those yet to be found. She is fated to do so much, Anton. You must accept that she is a special child.”

Anton clenched his hands and tried not to snarl. “Eve. Lily is six years old. She’s still a baby. She has no business going on a quest. She’s not even allowed to leave the fucking meadow without her parents’ permission.”

When Eve continued smiling, Anton had to forcibly hold himself back from taking a swing at her. Her quiet reply had him shaking with rage.

“Lily Milina is an old soul, and I mean that in a very literal way. Her body may be that of a child, but she has the mental strength of an adult. She carries the hopes and dreams of the Ancient Ones—the monks you met years ago—within her soul.” Eve’s smile disappeared in the beat of his heart. Now her look was one of frustration, as if he was the helpless child, not Lily.

“I know you’re going to have a hard time accepting this, Anton, but her magical abilities are already far beyond yours.”

“What magical abilities?” He swung away and paced a few steps, turned and glared at Eve. “She’s good at mindtalking and I have a feeling she can block me, but . . .”

“But you have absolutely no idea your daughter is reading your thoughts during much of the day, and quite often at night.” In a rapid-fire monologue, Eve interrupted Anton and set his mind reeling. “Did you know that she is a beautiful black wolf with golden highlights when she shifts? That she has taught herself to read the ancient language? That she communicates with the unborn babies within the pack? Did you know your daughter worries about you, about your responsibilities as their leader, and wants to do what she can to ease your stress? Did you—”

“Stop. Please . . .” He held up his right hand. Pleading? Begging for her to stop, because . . . Anton’s legs suddenly gave out and he found himself sitting in the grass with his head between his knees and Eve standing over him, laughing softly.

“I’m sorry, Anton, but you of all people cannot afford to keep your head buried in the sand. Your denial of reality helps no one, least of all your daughter. Lily is an unusual child.”

“I knew she was special, but I had no idea. . . .”

“But you should. You need to know what your daughter is capable of. There is much to that child even I don’t understand, but she is good. She is pure of heart and soul, and all she wants to do is make you proud, to ease your life, to be a good daughter. Right now, being a good daughter means she has undertaken a quest that will change the lives of all of you, including the hundreds of Chanku who are still lost.”

He raised his head, blinking. “Hundreds? Shouldn’t there be more? By now, I would imagine thousands, if not millions of our kind across the globe.”

Eve shook her head and sat beside him on the soft grass. She took Anton’s left hand and turned it over, running her fingertip over the lifeline on his palm. Over and over again, as if the subtle repetition soothed her thoughts.

“You’re right. There should be millions, but very few survive. Chanku have been hunted throughout the ages, destroyed by those who fear their amazing abilities. Those first star-voyagers who settled on a primitive Earth tried to blend in, but their differences made that impossible. They did not want to be seen as gods—they merely wanted to be left alone to go on with lives that had been upended when their world died. They felt they would be safer in small groups, so they spread out across the earth, using various gates that allowed them to travel on the astral.

“Some were the original Gypsies, the Rom. Others came to the North American continent and became spirit guides to indigenous peoples. Wherever legends of shapeshifters abound, Chanku are generally the source, but not all of those early travelers survived. Cut off from their packs, their lines died out. History and circumstance have not been kind to Chanku.”

Eve paused, her expression pensive. “The diaspora that Liana knew of was the second migration, and it was really quite small. Only a few survived the long march from their Tibetan home. They had lost access to the nutrients their bodies needed to shift, and they’d forgotten about the gates, the pathways that gave them easy access to the astral plane, and thus to other parts of the earth.”

“The gateway Lily found in the cavern beneath my home?”

Eve nodded. “The same. They were established millions of years ago to give the first Chanku access to different parts of the world via the astral, but through cataclysm and pure happenstance, their locations were lost. Your friend Igmutaka? He is the child of shapeshifters who were part of the very earliest migration out of Tibet, Chanku who chose to stay in their animal form. He was born a cougar and tapped by the Mother as a spirit guide, but without any knowledge of his human self. He knew only the animal and the ethereal. When he discovered his human form, his history finally became known to me.” She chuckled. “I wish I knew his future. I look forward to his trials with Tala and Mik’s little Star.”

“But he’s her spirit guide.” Anton’s mind was reeling, and he focused on the simplest part of the information Eve shared . . . none of which appeared to be at all related to bringing his daughter home. “Why would a spirit guide have trials with the one he watches over? Star seems like a wonderful child.”

Eve burst into laughter. Her amusement was so honest, so unexpected, that Anton found himself laughing alongside her. “What?” he asked.

“Igmutaka recognized Star as his future mate at the moment of her birth. He has no idea how he’s going to make that leap from spirit guide to suitor, and I don’t see her making it easy for him. I look forward to watching the hoops she makes him jump through. Think about it! With Tala as her mother, and . . .”

Anton laughed. “No need to say another word. You’re right. The man deserves our sympathies, but this doesn’t help me get my daughter back. Where is she, Eve? What can I do?”

She covered his hand with hers. “Nothing right now. This is something Lily must do on her own. I told her how to find that which she seeks. I am watching over her and I promise to do my best to keep her safe. You must find the strength to give Lily the freedom she needs to complete her quest. It won’t be easy for you, but you have to let her finish what she has begun. Lives hang in the balance. Chanku lives.”

“Can I see her? Talk to her? Reassure myself she’s safe?” His heart felt like a huge block of ice in his chest. What kind of father was he? He should be demanding her return. Going after her, no matter where she’d gone. She was his daughter, his baby . . . she was, and would always be, his heart.