Jory Strong: Healer's Choice

She knew the moment he was found because with the pain came images from his life since being made outcast. Terrible scenes of being tortured and twisted into a monstrous shape.

With it came the horror of witnessing the same thing happening to Cyrin. The cruelty perpetrated on them both and that Levi had perpetrated in turn, when insanity and hate made him truly soulless as he hunted those who ran the maze.

Tears streamed from Rebekka’s eyes. She fought the urge to curl into a ball, to hide from the dark evil that could find its way into even the best of hearts.

She was struggling to breathe when the pain stopped abruptly, the fire in her chest and hand suddenly doused. She felt wind on her face and saw through puffy, swollen eyes a figure coming toward her, man shifting to lion and back again in endless succession. Levi.

He reached her and took her hand. The drums ceased, as did the world around them.

Rebekka opened her eyes. A lion lay next to her, his breathing as fast as her own, his heart pounding against her palm.

“Levi,” she whispered through parched lips, hardly daring to believe it had been real and they’d both survived the attention of the Were ancestors.

She rose to her feet when he did. Felt herself calming as he shook and stretched, padded around the room and pounced, barely missing a scurrying mouse. A smile formed, his happiness in wearing fur again after so long making the memory of the pain she’d endured fade along with the scenes she witnessed.

He returned to stand in front of her. Changed. The transition seemingly easy.

Joy lit his face and he hugged her to him. His tears wet her neck. “I can never repay you for this, but I’ll spend a lifetime trying.”

She hugged him back. “Not a lifetime. Help me in Oakland. Then go back to your pride.”

There would be other places; she knew it with certainty. Her father hadn’t created her to help those in Oakland, only to turn her back on Weres elsewhere by returning to Jaguar lands and becoming a mate and mother.

Sadness threatened to eclipse joy at the thought of Aryck. She suppressed it ruthlessly.

Even if she could go back in time, she’d make the same choices if they led to this moment. “If we hurry, we can get back to the brothel before dark.”

“Not the brothel,” Levi said, releasing her and getting dressed. “Araña’s boat.”

Rebekka frowned and followed him out of the room, once again moving slowly down the staircase and through the narrow, twisting passageways. “I could start with those who look human and have earned the right to work more flexible hours. They could slip away at dawn and not be missed for a while.”

Levi shook his head. “It’s too risky to go to the brothel and be trapped there by the night. I can’t hide my scent. The longer I’m there, the quicker the change in it will be noticed. Those who know about the Rite of Trial will guess I’ve gone through it and wonder why I’ve come back. The reason will become obvious when the brothels start emptying.

“Keeping what you’re now capable of a secret will be impossible. We can’t know for sure who spies for Allende. We need to be in a safe place. The outer harbor is Rimmon’s territory. He might not protect anyone on board the Constellation while she’s docked but he won’t allow other boats near her if she’s out in the water.”

Rebekka considered enlisting the aid of The Iberá, as well as the Wainwright witches, then dismissed the idea. Maybe later. The witches would take payment in favors owed, and beyond that, the outer harbor was closer to the brothels and didn’t require Weres to pass through the wards into the area set aside for the gifted—and more important, trust witches or one of the Founding Families.

“You’re right. We’ll go to Araña’s boat.”

Rebekka thought of Feliss as she’d see her last, broken and bloody, doe eyes holding so much pain, and knew she couldn’t bear the thought of her friend being locked in the brothel for another night when freedom was so close. “Will you bring Feliss to the boat tonight?”

Thankfully she wasn’t one of those restricted from leaving or requiring permission and a guard. Given Levi’s absence, and the rumor circulating about him wanting to buy out Feliss’s contract, his taking her away wouldn’t rouse any suspicions for a few days.

“Yes. Just her tonight. Tomorrow I’ll go back for others.”

ARYCK prowled around his home. Melina’s scent lingered there like a malicious spirit taunting him, reminding him of his furious rush to Lion lands when he’d learned Rebekka was there with Levi. Tormenting him with images of them together now because he’d lacked the courage to go with her, because his pride had prevented him from considering what he was asking her to give up to remain in Were lands.

She was a healer filled with compassion, with the need to help others regardless of species or circumstances. From the very first she’d railed against his attitude when it came to the outcasts.

He’d become more flexible in his thinking. Yet at his core he’d still believed their fate was their own. He’d considered it enough to offer them a chance to come into Were territory and face the ancestors.

But how many of them were as Rebekka claimed, caught between forms without knowledge of the Were culture or the existence of the ancestors? How many would trust those who’d always reviled and excluded them? How many would come on what could easily be a rumor?

There’d been no guarantees of safe escort. No offer of protection or help extended to those who might desire to flee the brothels of the human world.

Aryck rubbed his hand over his bare chest, massaging the ache radiating from his heart as he remembered the trek through the Barrens that would have ended in his death if Rebekka hadn’t come to him. The image of her tear-streaked face was a fist to the gut.

Come with me. At least for a little while , she’d said on a broken voice, and he’d refused, hadn’t even stopped to fully consider her request.

Despite his arguments to his father about the ancestors favoring his taking Rebekka as a mate, he’d turned his back and walked away from her, wrapping his pride around him like another skin.

The bitter taste of self-recrimination and remorse filled his mouth. Was she meant to be his mate only if she chose him over those who desperately needed her? Was she meant to be his lover and the mother of his children only if she turned her back on the outcasts who were her friends? Left her world for his?

Was all the sacrifice to be hers? All the risk?

He’d failed her again, proven himself unworthy not just in protecting her physically, but in the safekeeping of her heart.

Resolve forced all other emotions to recede. The Jaguar, crouched in shame and sorrow deep within Aryck’s psyche, rose, adding its strength of purpose to the man’s, both of them finally fully accepting the risk, the necessity of possible sacrifice that came with tying their life and fate to Rebekka’s.

She was their mate and no other would do. They would challenge the ancestors themselves to have her. They would go to Oakland and beg for her forgiveness, then spend a lifetime proving they were worthy of her trust and love.

Aryck left the cabin, sending a quick mental probe and locating his father at Phaedra’s house. He found Caius sitting on a log there, drawing in the smooth dirt while Phaedra cooked the meal and Koren spoke with Nahuatl a few steps away.

Caius looked up as Aryck approached. His lips trembled despite the straightening of his spine. “I’m going to visit her when I get old enough,” he said. “She’ll see I still know all my letters, and she’ll teach me how to read like she said she would.”