Jory Strong: Healer's Choice

Weariness washed through Rebekka. Sensing it, Levi said, “Take as long as you need. The Tiger, Canino, is accompanying Cyrin and me to Lion lands. The three of us will make sure you get back to the brothel safely before we leave.”

Rebekka reached for strength and found it. “I can keep going.”

She placed her hands on the Wolf’s back. Though his mate had spoken for him, she still asked if it was his choice to become fully wolf. He yipped in answer, howled, and once again Rebekka let herself become her gift.

The healing took longer. Rebekka knew it by the change in light, by the hunger pains reminding her it had been a long time since morning and breakfast.

As soon as she lifted her hands from the male’s fur he sprang to his feet. But unlike the female, he didn’t back away in distrust. He stared, intelligent eyes meeting hers, holding a promise that if it ever came to pass that she needed his aid, he would help her.

“Thank you,” she said.

He turned away then and, with his mate, melted into the darkening forest.

“You need food,” Levi said. “The others can hunt while I build a fire.”

Rebekka glanced at the three remaining Weres. They were all big cats.

Cyrin, Levi’s brother, had the flattened, maned face of a lion. His arms were furred, ending in paws with deadly, nonretractable claws.

The Leopard had animal arms, legs, head, and back but human chest and genitals. A short distance away was the Tiger, a beast from his armpits down.

Rage filled Rebekka looking at the men. It poured strength into her.

What had been done to these Weres was criminal. It should never have been allowed by the vice lords who ruled the red zone.

There were Weres in the brothels who were an abomination of shape, too. She knew some of their stories but none of them had been trapped and created through torture so they could be used for entertainment purposes.

“I can do another before eating,” Rebekka said. Her gaze fell on the Leopard. With only his chest and genitals human, he would be the easiest—or so she thought until he indicated his choice, to take a man’s form.

She was shaking with exhaustion by the time it was done, so tired it sounded as though the ocean thundered in her head. So weary she couldn’t find the strength to stand despite the smell of meat cooking in a fire pit.

“Thank you,” the Leopard said.

Curious, Rebekka asked, “Why?”

“Because I have people to kill and this form will serve me best.”

Levi returned to help Rebekka to her feet. The Leopard lingered only long enough to eat some of the cooked deer; then after accepting a knife from Levi, he, too, entered the forest, startling a bright red cardinal into flight as he passed under the branch it sat on.

Food restored Rebekka’s strength enough for her to heal the Tiger, Canino, and then Levi’s brother, Cyrin. Both chose to take their animal forms.

“Stay here for the night? Or go back to the brothel?” Levi asked.

Rebekka looked at the rapidly darkening sky. “I’ve been away too long. By now I’ll be needed in the brothels. If we hurry we can make it back to Oakland.”

BLOOD and bowel and death. The shallow grave was an afterthought. The burial meant to delay the discovery of the bodies, hiding scent until predators had destroyed answers to how and when and who, and nature had eradicated the trail leading back to where.

The attempt failed. In jaguar form Aryck could easily find the answers to all those questions. Even why didn’t evade him, not when he felt the same seething emotions over the presence of human intruders in territory held by the Weres.

Giving up the Jaguar’s black form, fur yielded to smooth, deeply tanned skin. Bones and organs reorganized, the pain sharp, excruciating, lasting only long enough to mark the transition between beast and man, to serve as a reminder of the covenant between his kind and the Earth that had given birth to them.

Aryck remained crouched at the graveside, looking down at the man and woman he’d unearthed. His pack mate Daivat’s scent rose, intermingled with that of the dead.

Arrogant fool , Aryck thought, lips tightening into a grim line as he surveyed the carnage.

He reached in and grabbed the man’s blood-drenched shirt. Pulled the corpse from the shallow blanket of earth with easy strength.

The head dropped as though it would follow the shower of dirt back into the grave. It remained held to the body by sinew alone, a testament to the powerful swipe of Daivat’s claws in what would have been a fatal strike, though whether it had come first or last was unanswerable.

The human had been mauled. He’d been attacked in a rage Aryck knew stemmed from an urge not only to drive out an intruder but to prove himself, to issue a challenge to both the interlopers and, subconsciously, to the pack’s alpha.

Aryck released the corpse. It landed on the rich loam of the shallow hole with a soft thud.

He took more care with the female, rising to his feet as he lifted her. Her skirt fell open as he stepped backward, stirring the air and adding the smell of sex to that of death.

Aryck placed her on the ground before returning to his crouch. The front of her blouse was torn and, like the skirt, opened to leave her bare and exposed.

Bruises marred her skin. Black and yellow. Purple. Old and new alike. A long history of them on her arms and legs.

His gaze flicked to the dead man in consideration, then back to the woman. Between her pubic mound and left hip she bore a tattoo, a solid circle of black with a bloodred symbol set in its center.

Dried semen on her inner thighs told a complex tale. Not a single man, but many. All of them human. Except one. Daivat.

Was it rape? Aryck growled low and deep in his throat. The thought of it was abhorrent, regardless of the species involved in the act.

He studied the woman, looking for evidence to either condemn or vindicate Daivat of at least one of his crimes, then growled again in frustration at not finding any. Neither his jaguar senses nor his human ones could tell whether she’d given herself to Daivat willingly or not.

The blood on her clothes and skin belonged to the dead man. Her death had been as quick as her companion’s, but not as messy, a snapped neck instead of a throat ripped open.

Both killings happened more than a mile away in a tangled stretch of wild grapevines. And like the burial place, the attack was on Coyote land. It was forbidden territory to any Jaguar except those sent for the purpose of gathering information about the humans who’d arrived in a caravan of heavy trucks.

Their encampment was guarded by uniformed men anxious to send bullets into live targets. The rattle of machine guns cut across the valley daily, scattering predator and prey alike with random bursts of violence and the senseless brutality that was the hallmark of the only-human race.

Aryck rose from his examination of the female. He wondered what Daivat’s explanation of events would be.

Entering the forbidden area alone was enough to warrant punishment. Killing the humans without sanction, then hiding the deed rather than coming forward and explaining the necessity of it, made what he’d done worse.

Weres were three-souled. Man soul and beast soul living harmoniously and perfectly entwined in the physical world while the eternal soul resided in the shadowlands with the ancestors.

In another Were, killing and hiding the deed might signify the beginning of a rogue state, an imbalance or separation of the man and animal souls. Aryck didn’t think that was the case with Daivat.

This challenge had been a long time in coming. It was inevitable, but only a fool blinded by arrogance would issue it now, and under these circumstances.