Seeing Spots (2 page)

Sable was supported through the crowd and set at the corner of the bar with the smooth wood under her hands. The press of bodies was not onerous. Everyone seemed to have a fairly calm attitude.

When a blue woman came forward and she stood on a chair, the quiet murmuring ceased.

“Well, as some of you may have felt, the Crossroads has been disconnected from the world. We are currently a bubble of magic floating in the ether. This is not yet a time for panic. We have supplies for several weeks and I can begin to cannibalize the magic here and turn it into supplies and equipment if it goes on beyond that.”

Someone called out. “What happened?”

The blue woman winced. “There is the taste of fey magic around the stump of the connection to the world.”

One woman narrowed her eyes. “You are fey.”

The woman next to her smacked her sharply and her hair bristled upright. “She is a djinn. It is like saying that you are a mage because there is magic in your blood.”

The original speaker winced. “Sorry, Spike.”

A lovely man moved to the woman with the urge to smack and he put his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her temple. Sable watched them through tired eyes.

The woman with the white hair who had helped Sable into the bar went to stand next to the blue woman. “Teebie is not to blame for this. We have been feeling the tremors for months. They have been working at the tether and finally snapped it.”

The djinn woman looked a little less nervous. “I can feel that the Crossroads is still attached to the earth, but the access and egress point has been sealed. We were very lucky that we didn’t lose our last incoming guest. Teal and Tony had to hold the portal open to get her out.”

The crowd turned to Sable and she waved weakly. “Hey. How are you doing?”

A few folks smiled and two snorted out loud.

Teal nodded. “Sable was in the link when it was shut off. It closed from the earth upward and that had to take a lot of effort. Dira isn’t the kind to let that sort of thing cut her off from her own creation.”

A voice from the back of the crowd called out. “Where does that leave us?”

Teal lifted her chin. “All guests will gather in the Open Heart. There are only eight of you right now. The unpredictability of the portal has cut down on our arrivals.”

The rest of the crowd looked around at each other.

“Everyone else, you are all on a staycation. Work yourselves on a comfortable schedule, but from this moment on, all resources here will be communal property. I need everyone to make every bit of food count.”

They all nodded and Sable sat while folks discussed the dispersal of assets and everyone agreed to monitor their inventory and try to make it last a month. She was still reeling when a man came to her side and he said, “Come on, I will take you to the Open Heart. We have been dismissed.”

He smiled at her and helped her stand. She looked over to Teebie and Teal, and they smiled at her nodding slightly.

“Okay.”

She stood straight, and he put his arm around her waist. She leaned on him, and he led her through the crowd, several folks patting her shoulder in commiseration.

Sable blinked at the light outside and sighed. “Well, this isn’t going the way I thought.”

The man with her chuckled. He had black hair and a scar running from his ear to the bottom of his jaw on the right side. “We are in a situation no one has been in before. I don’t think anyone has ever been stuck here before.”

“Oh goody. I am so glad to be one of the few. My name is Sable.”

“Warren. Nice to meet you. The other guests are four men and two women. We complete the eight guests.”

She walked slowly but surely down the street, and when he helped her up the stairs of a Victorian home, she smiled at the scent of cookies and coffee.

Warren settled her in a living room, next to a fireplace. “I will get you some coffee. Cream and sugar?”

“Yes, please. Two sugars.” She sat and her lids fluttered. She leaned her head on her hand with her elbow on the edge of the couch.

Her head was pounding and she wanted nothing more than to sleep, but something told her that sleep would be the worst thing for her situation.

* * * *

The negotiations were not going well, but Wormith had a hidden card to play.

“What about those who have come to the Crossroads and have had to leave when their time was up because they were unmatchable? Their match could be a member of the fey community, but they would not even have a chance at meeting them because of the strictures between our factions.”

He sucked in a deep breath. “We are desperate. We are dying. Our race lives a very long time and that does not help us have children. We are losing members of our population with every year and there are none born to replace them.”

Krisia cocked her head. “What about the halflings?”

“They do not bear the same quantity or quality of magic that their parents had. If we are not allowed to pursue a magical race in a heavily organized manner, we will die out and the world will be empty at our passing.”

Mage Guild Master Tobias frowned. “You want human mages as well?”

“If there is a solid match, yes. I have something to give in exchange.”

The table perked up and leaned forward to hear his terms. Wormith’s hands were sweating and his ears tingled. If they didn’t accept this, there would be no other item he could offer.

“In exchange for allowing our people access to the Crossroads in the same manner the shifters can, any person mating with one of the fey would share the life of the fey. The lifespan would be split and shared evenly, as would the magic.”

Shifter Guild Master Norman Exeter narrowed his eyes. “That is a fair blending of the races, now is it even possible?”

Wormith nodded. “Our seers tell us that this is our only chance. A selection of men and women who can take an animal form would be our first attempts. A fair sampling of thirty would be applied over the next year if we can get agreement. We would even provide additional magics to shore up what we have damaged.”

Norman leaned back. “What about all the collectors?”

Wormith flinched. He knew that would be mentioned. “We will take them apart as our regulations allow. New laws are being enacted as we speak.”

“What promises can you give that will demonstrate your conviction to keep our people safe and healthy, as well as free? I know that your kind view us as animals, so how are the volunteers being selected?”

Wormith produced a file with several candidates for the first volunteers to try the project.

Norman looked over it and he tilted his head. “This list counts heavily on the population of the Crossroads being more female than male.”

He pushed the file over to Dira, and she flipped through it, with her eyes narrow. “What about djinn?”

Wormith blinked. “Um, we have not contacted them yet.”

“You don’t have to. If we are opening up the Crossroads for anyone to find love, it will be open to all with magical bloodlines. Even Halfling humans.”

Wormith swallowed. “What?”

“You heard me. This is not a playground for you. We have created the Crossroads out of need and I poured my heart and soul into providing a safe, private environment for folk to meet and let their beasts speak. If we are doing this, admittance criteria will change and we will have to hire a seer to work with the transporter to determine the chances of love being found. We will also need a spell crafted to hold the mated pair together. The binding will need to be administered at the Crossroads. The contract must be drawn to bind them together in both communities.” Dira rapped out her demands.

Norman raised his brows. “You have no objection to a shifter marrying a fey?”

Dira smiled sadly. “My sister married a djinn and had many wonderful children, many of whom are still alive today. Their magic was not diluted, it was stronger.”

Wormith was stunned. That hadn’t been in the briefing about the creator of the Crossroads. He knew she was a dragon, but her family had not been mentioned.

“So it works?”

Dira snorted and fire came out. “Of course it works. We are the same basic species, just different races. If your folk would have shed their superiority earlier, there may have been thousands more of you by now.”

Wormith rubbed his head. “I didn’t know. I never thought about it.”

“Think about it. Now, let’s bring this to a vote. I vote yea to letting the elves into the Crossroads as long as other species are invited as well, and a seer indicates that it is their best chance at love.”

The vote went around the table and Dira smiled. “Good. Now, let’s get the protocols in place. We have a population trapped in there.”

Kris nodded grimly, “And there was nearly a fatality. If not for the quick thinking of the guardians up there, she would have been torn apart by your severing the link.”

Wormith felt uneasy. “Is she alive?”

“She is, but we don’t know if there are any side effects. Our communications have been cut off and we need them back immediately. Get to work on that.”

* * * *

Sable sat drinking her coffee and Warren sat near her.

“I never imagined that I would get stuck here without even having a chance at a mate. I got here yesterday and I was hoping to meet someone this afternoon. Now that I have met them all in this panic, none of them are for me.”

She smiled and watched the newcomers file in. Teebie led the group, and she brought a tray of sandwiches into the living room, flicking a fire into the fireplace with her fingers. It burned without fuel and the guests settled on the furnishings around the room.

Introductions were made, but Sable was concentrating on her body. She felt a shift coming and she wasn’t going to be able to stop it.

“Please excuse me.” She got up and bolted out of the building, using her senses to pinpoint a large, open area.

* * * *

Warren looked at Teebie and the djinn looked worried. “Warren, can you follow her and make sure she is okay?”

He got to his feet. “I will. I will bring her back as soon as I can.”

“Let her burn off some of the magical flare. She was caught in a mess and it had to have had an effect.” Teebie nodded and generated another round of sandwiches.

Warren wondered what kind of an effect that could be, and he followed the scent of the newcomer out the door and down to the shifter’s field. A gold and spotted streak was sprinting away from a pile of clothing, and Warren huffed in surprise. He never would have guessed that she was a cat.

Sable ran for two hours before she finally got rid of the weird energy running through her. When she trotted back to her clothing, Warren was kneeling next to it.

She sat in front of him and tried to shift. Nothing happened.

Sable shook her head and stood up again, going up on her hind legs and trying to shift. She tried to call her human form, but it was difficult. She felt her skin stretch and pull in a way she hadn’t felt since her first shift thirteen years ago.

Sable wanted to scream, and she fell to her side as her human body took shape. She panted and lay on the ground, trying to stop the shaking in her body.

“I will take you back to the Open Heart. Your clothing will be fine here, or someone will bring it along.”

He scooped her up and carried her back to the bed and breakfast. Teebie was next to them the moment that they came through the door, and she escorted them up to Sable’s room.

Being naked in front of other shifters was par for the course but being helpless wasn’t. Sable was frustrated and nothing was coming out of her mouth except mewls and yowls.

Teebie sat at her side and ran her hands over Sable’s throat. “Oh dear. Your vocal chords are stuck. I am sure that it will be fixable as soon as you can see a healer, but in the meantime, I will get you a note pad.”

Sable made a face. Making cute kitty noises was not normally in her repertoire.

“It might reset on its own. Just don’t stress it out.” Teebie smiled. “I will send Spike in to check you. She is far more versed in shifter ailments than I am.”

Warren smiled at her, his handsome face a bit of a torture after her embarrassing moment of shifting and getting stuck. She mouthed a polite,
Thank you,
and inclined her head.

To her surprise, he took a seat in her room.

“Teebie, you can go for Spike; I will keep an eye on Sable for you.”

Teebie smiled in appreciation. “Thank you. I will go and get the prickly one.”

A moment later, Sable was alone with Warren and he was smiling at her.

From the instant she had seen him, her inner beast had been yowling in desperation, but her body had been too tired to do anything. Now, he was sitting alone with her and her cat wanted to sing the song of her people. If she opened her mouth, she was going to be humiliated.

Warren chuckled. “Well, since you are stuck, I will tell you my story. I came to the Crossroads because my family pushed me into it. I was sceptical about the whole thing until I saw my first couple here and I thought,
I want that.
After that, I started looking in earnest, but with the link unstable, not a lot of folk were getting through. My beast got grumpy and I turned my senses off.”

She sighed and put another pillow behind her back, tugging the bedding up under her arms.

“I know. Turning off my senses in this situation was stupid, but as I said, I am conflicted.”

She rolled her eyes.

“It wasn’t until I held your clothing and really took in your scent that I realised what I had been missing. Or rather, what I nearly missed.”

She scowled and cocked her head.

“I would like permission to court you if I may. My beast is positively enthusiastic about it, and I would like to find out if this runs both ways.”

She covered her eyes with her hands, peeping through her fingers. Yup, he was still there. He was waiting like all good predators could.

She bit her lip and lowered her hands. She tried to sigh, but it came out a yowl. With a jerk, she nodded her head.