Authors: A. C. Arthur
When she touched a hand to his shoulder, Eli warmed instantly, his heart stilling a beat.
“I would be honored to fight by your side, Eli,” she said. “And I will protect you with my life.”
Eli turned quickly then, taking her face in his hands. “Do not leave my side and do not do anything foolish. Do you hear me, Nivea? Just don’t even think about it! If something were to happen to you … if you didn’t make it through this … just—”
Nivea kissed his lips to silence his words. “I’m going to make it through this, Eli, and so are you and all the other Shadows. This is what we’ve been trained for, what we do. We will protect the humans and the Shadows. We will be successful. I promise.”
* * *
“It’s probably for the best,” Ary told Kalina as they sat at the smaller conference room table in the suite she shared with Rome.
“I know it is, but I don’t have to like it,” she replied. “I’m as much a part of this Assembly as anyone else and I’m trained in gun battle.”
“And you are the First Female of the Assembly and carrying the first heir,” Ary said matter-of-factly. “Not to mention the twenty-seven stitches currently healing at your side.”
Kalina sat back in the chair, still not liking the situation but knowing that Ary’s words were only solidifying what her mate had already told her.
“You will not fight, Kalina. And that is all,” Rome had said the moment they’d entered their suite. When she’d opened her mouth to reply he’d silenced her with an urgent kiss that relayed all the fear and trepidation he was feeling at that very moment. Even if she’d thought she had a leg to stand on, she hadn’t wanted to argue with him, not at that moment.
Nick, Ary, X, and Caprise had come in minutes later and the consensus had been the same. Ary and Shya would stay with Kalina. Jax would take them to the tunnels that had been completed just a couple of weeks ago. They ran beneath Havenway and into Alexandria. There were provisions and space in the tunnels for at least a thousand shifters to live temporarily. The cabinets were stocked with food and health supplies, there were generators and sewage lines and everything they had above ground.
The others would go to National Harbor and defend the shifters’ secret. Kalina knew it was the right thing to do but hated that she would miss all the action. Still sulking, she reached into the pocket of the jacket she’d been wearing to answer the buzzing of her cell phone. Her lips spread into an instant smile when she read the words:
Eli and I are going to be joined!
* * *
“I thought you didn’t believe in mates and joining,” Ezra said as he was once again in Eli’s room handing him another bow tie.
It was pink this time, a color that Eli would have never picked out for himself. But after Nivea had stopped hugging him so tightly he thought he might not breathe normally again, she’d said she had a great pink dress to wear and that he should find something to match it. They were pressed for time and needed to be in the training center in half an hour, but with all they were facing, after all that they’d both been through, there was no way Eli was going to tell her she couldn’t have what she wanted, no way in hell.
Eli and Nivea had been coming from the conference room holding hands, when he’d suddenly stopped moving. He could hear Nivea calling his name but it sounded like she was a distance away instead of right beside him. Then he was surrounded by trees and the call of toucans and the laughter of monkeys. There was no sunlight and the air was damp, the crisp, fresh scent of the water cascading over the rocks. He’d taken a step, a branch cracking beneath his feet.
“Eli.”
He lifted his head as she called his name. She’d been standing about ten feet away with flowers entwined in her hair, Elder Alamar standing behind her, Caprise and Kalina beside her. Her dress was long and white and cupping her silhouette seductively. A few feet away were Ezra, Rome, X, and Nick and then it clicked.
“Eli?” Nivea had called to him again, this time rubbing her hand up and down his arm.
He blinked again and immediately recognized the gray walls and tiled floors of Havenway. His breath came quickly, his lungs filling with refreshed air as all the pieces to the jumble his life had been in the last years, came together.
“We need to have a joining ceremony,” he’d said to her immediately. “Before we head to D.C. to face … whatever. This, us, we need to be official, just in case.” He said the last softly.
Nivea hadn’t wasted a second. She hadn’t said a word in argument or protest. Instead, she’d hugged him again and the next thing Eli knew he was in his room, stepping out of the shower with Ezra sitting on the edge of his bed, a garment bag lying beside him.
“I didn’t believe that foul poison would have served any good in my life, and yet it did,” Eli said in reply to Ezra’s question.
Ezra chuckled. “Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point there. But you know, we’re going to come out of this all right. We’re not going into battle to be killed. Unless you know something I don’t.” His twin lifted a brow in question.
Eli shook his head. “I haven’t had any visions about the battle,” he told his brother before turning from the mirror to face him. “But I did see Nivea and me joining in the rain forest. She was smiling and happy and I realized that’s how I always want to see her. Not fighting against our enemies or crying over her parents’ betrayal. I just want her happy and I know that this will make her happy.”
“And what about you? How will it make you feel?” Ezra asked him.
“Complete,” Eli immediately replied. “I will finally be complete.”
* * *
Not five minutes later they all stood in the living room of Rome’s suite. Kalina and Caprise stood side by side while Ary was standing near the couch behind them where Shya slept. In front of the door was Elder Alamar, his face solemn once again, a string of beads in his right hand, a black and gold scarf thrown over his left shoulder. Baxter stood a step behind the Elder, while Ezra and Eli were to his left, all of them facing the same way.
Rome held Nivea’s arm, walking her slowly the short distance from the conference room through the living room. There was no music—traditional human wedding chords or the tribal drumming that would have been heard in the Gungi. She did not wear a formal white wedding gown and Eli did not wear a designer tuxedo. There were no flowers, no gauzy white netting draping every surface, no lavish spread of food waiting for an extravagant reception later on. The room was neat and seemed personal only to those who lived there. The situation was dire and cast a heavy aura over them all.
Yet, Nivea’s heart beat a little faster as she walked, her gaze fixating on Eli’s until she was finally standing beside him. He took her hand and together they faced Elder Alamar.
“
Os dois vieram, coração e mente como um só,
” the Elder began, his voice low, resonating in a slow melody. “
Eles encontraram um ao outro através de todo o mundo e por muito tempo para participar deste dia
.”
He took the beads and motioned for Nivea to lower her head. Slipping them onto her neck, he pressed the emblem into her skin.
“
Topètenia
to
Topètenia,
” he whispered and nodded for her to do the same.
She cleared her throat. “
Topètenia
to
Topètenia
.”
“
Assim será abençoado,
” he said in Portuguese and then again in English. “So be blessed.”
He slid the scarf from his shoulder, lifting it and nodding until Eli leaned forward so that he could fit it around his broad shoulders. When he was finished he touched the center of Eli’s chest.
“
Topètenia
to
Topètenia,
” he said once more.
Eli repeated, “
Topètenia
to
Topètenia
.”
“
Assim será abençoado,
” Alamar said, then stepped back, holding both his hands up, palms flattened above Nivea’s and Eli’s heads. “
O mate é o coração, eo coração é o shifter. Estados são vida, para todo o sempre
. The mate is the heart and the heart is the shifter. United they are in life, forevermore.”
* * *
“Boden Estevez will kill and destroy the world as you know it,” Rayna told Dorian as they sat in his car, parked in front of the Reynolds Building.
“He is one of you?” Dorian asked, not at all surprised anymore by what was being said to him.
In the weeks since this mysteriously beautiful woman had walked up onto his sister’s porch, he had learned so much. They were a different species, shape shifters, she’d called them, able to turn from human to big cat and back again. They had originated in the Amazonian rain forest and once divided, migrated to forests throughout the world. They were both an anomaly and a nightmare, he’d thought to himself.
“He is a rogue shifter. They tried to kill him off but he lived. Everywhere he goes he is sent away, but he comes back, like a disease.”
“And you do not like him?”
“I abhor him,” was Rayna’s immediate response. “He came into my family and has been tearing us apart since day one. He’s vowed revenge against the Shadows and I’ve vowed revenge against him.”
“What did he do to you and your family?”
She turned quickly in the passenger seat and stared at him fiercely, her eyes almost translucent. He now knew this happened usually when she was upset or extremely aroused. Since they were parked in downtown D.C. on a very public street, he would have to hope for her being upset.
“He corrupted my sister. She now follows him around blindly like she is under some type of spell. It’s sickening and my parents want her back,” Rayna said vehemently.
“But your sister is an adult, correct? I mean, I’m just saying that oftentimes adults select persons to get involved with that their families do not approve of. It’s not that uncommon and the family meddling in their business doesn’t normally help.”
“You do not understand. Bianca was innocent before he came. She believes she loves him, that he is her mate. But Boden had a mate and he was forced to leave her, and then she was murdered. He’s angry and he’s evil. He does not possess the capacity to love anymore, but Bianca cannot see that.”
“If she’s with him then there’s a chance that she may be more like him than you think.”
Her teeth bared then and Dorian instinctively reached to his side for his gun. He loved having sex with her, had never experienced anything like it before in his life, but if she shifted and attacked, he would not hesitate to defend himself. That said a lot for the bond they’d forged in the past few weeks.
“Whatever she does it is because of him,” Rayna stated.
“Okay, fine. I’ll take your word for it since I’ve never met your sister. But why did you bring us here? How does all this relate to Roman Reynolds?”
“He is what Boden is after. All that he has and is in this part of the world. Boden wants it and has planned to get it, whatever the cost.”
“So he’s going to attack Reynolds? Is that what you’re saying? There’s going to be some type of shifter war going on in my city?” Dorian had known it. Deep down he’d felt something from the second he’d seen Roman Reynolds and looked at his financial records. The pull toward this man that he now knew for certain was a beast, had been strong and persistent.
His heart pounded at what that actually meant now, what Rayna had just told him would happen. “He’s going to attack Reynolds, and that means he’ll also attack Kalina.”
Rayna nodded. “Boden will come for Reynolds, but we can stop him. We can warn Reynolds and we can help,” she said adamantly. “And then I can save my sister.”
“Wait a minute,” Dorian said, flattening his hands on the steering wheel. “You came to me because you want me to help Roman Reynolds?”
“You are a human,” she said. “He will need the help of your kind, your law enforcement.”
“He’s not one of us,” Dorian told her flatly.
Rayna shook her head. “Believe me when I tell you that if you could choose, it would be Roman over Boden to be a part of the human race.”
Dorian didn’t believe her and he didn’t believe she expected him to help the man he’d sworn to take down. He also didn’t want Kalina hurt. He had never wanted that, and thus this crusade against Reynolds in the first damned place. He’d always feared Kalina would become a casualty to whatever was really going on with Reynolds. In addition to that reason, Dorian was still a federal agent. It was his duty to stop any type of impending war between these animals from breaking out in his city.
The time had finally come and strangely enough, Boden did not feel an ounce of excitement. There was no hum of anticipation, no anxious tingles moving throughout his body. This moment had been a long time coming. Well, the time was now. And he was ready.
“They will be here by seven, just as you asked,” Bianca said, coming to sit beside him on the couch.
Yesterday she’d packed their things and they’d made the drive from the Four Seasons to the suite they now occupied at the Gaylord. Both hotels had been phenomenal in their décor and service. She draped an arm over his shoulder, her chin resting there as she used a finger to run along the line of his jaw. The touch annoyed him and Boden tilted his head out of her reach.
“How many?” he asked.
“Charles confirmed two hundred,” she replied. If she was ruffled by his movements he couldn’t tell, nor did he care.
Years ago, Bianca Adani had come in handy. She’d been in the right place at the right time and he’d acted accordingly, taking the body she offered and the allegiance she swore after telling him who she really was. The initial shock that he’d slept with Acacia’s half-sister had first angered him. Then, after sleeping with Bianca again, he thought it fitting. Teodoro had been so smug and so arrogant that day he’d used his army of
Lormenian
soldiers to chase Boden out of the Sierra Leone rain forest. They’d forbidden him to come back, promising to do the Elders’ biding and behead him if they so much as smelled his scent again.
With a second death ordered and no army to back him up, Boden had no choice but to leave. But he did not go far.