Bear Reign (Alpha Guardians Book 7)

H
e didn’t wait
for a response, heading down a grand sandstone staircase and tugging his shirt off as he went. He stripped down to his boxer briefs, uncaring whether Sophie got an eyeful or not. He was overwhelmed and raw right now, he couldn’t worry about her right now.

Shouldn’t worry about her at all, in fact. Therein lay the problem.

The water was the perfect temperature when he dove in, just this side of refreshing. The sun had warmed the top and left the deeper recesses crisp and cool, and just the feel of the water on his skin was like sucking in a life-saving breath just when he felt he was drowning.

He did a dozen laps, slow and methodical, the exercise burning his tired muscles but acting as a balm for his overwrought mind. It was meditative for him, and he slipped so far into his own world that the sound of splashing water jolted him mid-stroke.

Ephraim surfaced to find Sophie wading in, wearing what looked like nothing but one of his t-shirts. The thin cotton was already damp around her breasts and hips, clinging to the slick outlines of her curves.

There went his meditative state. His whole body tightened, cock growing hard in an instant as he watched her approach. She gave him a self-conscious smile and dove under the surface, swimming over to come up just a few feet from him, treading water.

“Sophie…” he warned. “I don’t think you want to come any closer. I’m on edge right now.”

C
lick
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D
ear Reader
,

A
s a New Orleans resident
, I am always inspired by the rich history, vibrant culture, and haunting beauty of my city. I have certainly drawn on many of the stories and famous figures from the interwoven tapestry of New Orleans myths, legends, and history. I would like to make a point of saying that I have taken bits and pieces of all of these things, mixed them all together, and come up with a work of fiction.

None of the names, places, or persons in this story are meant to be taken literally — that’s part of the fun of a story like this. Everything in this story is a work of fiction, a figment of my imagination, and is meant to be interpreted as such.

Please enjoy this story, with my compliments.

S
incerely
,

V
ivian Wood

E
phraim stood
on a rocky bluff that overlooked the valley where his village lay, his long dark hair whipping wildly around his shoulders. He straightened his spine as he stared at the far mouth of the valley, watching as a line of a dozen of his village’s warriors approached, returning from battle. Though Ephraim couldn’t see their expressions from this distance, their movements were slow and heavy, almost defeated.

Or perhaps that was just his imagining. After all, it was hard to notice anything about the warriors in contrast with the burden they carried, a shrouded body lying on a pallet of cloth and heavy branches.

Ephraim’s father, a fellow warrior fallen in a raid against a neighboring tribe.

Watching the warriors, with their tall frames and broad shoulders, always made Ephraim strain to stand up taller, to make himself seem older and stronger. At fourteen, he held himself up to the standard of his father and the other village heroes. His brothers Elias and Egrel, older than him by more than a decade, constantly tormented him about his lithe frame. It seemed nothing ever changed between them: Elias the rugged warrior, Egrel the clever sorcerer, and little Ephraim who would never grow into his clumsy feet and fierce angst.

Maybe you’ll never mature, you’ll just cling to mother’s skirts all your life
, was Egrel’s newest taunt.

Ephraim realized that his fists were clenched tightly, just thinking about it. His father always told him to ignore Egrel’s sharp tongue and Elias’s quiet condescension, but it was difficult. It always seemed like his brothers bore some grudge against Ephraim, as if their brotherly teasing was something more. Something deeper, uglier.

Turning his focus back to the procession of warriors below, Ephraim knew the tension with his brothers grew out of competition. Ephraim was most beloved of his mother, and he’d inherited more than just his father’s dark good looks — he also had the ability to shift into a great, furred beast. It was the same gift that had carried his father through a lifetime of sprawling, epic battles. The ability that had raised their family’s status, given them the best of the valley’s land to farm, given them a great number of sheep and cattle.

One day, Ephraim was destined to follow in his father’s footsteps, become a respected warrior. Neither Elias nor Egrel could rely on such an ability to earn their keep, though Elias was talented with a sword and Egrel adept with potions and spells.

“Have they brought him, then?”

Ephraim whirled and found his mother standing at the doorway of their cottage, leaning against the frame for support.

“Here, mother, let’s get you back inside,” Ephraim said, crossing the yard to assist her.

“That was your father, was it not? He wears the shroud,” his mother mumbled. She was light as a feather when Ephraim half-carried her back to the makeshift bed they’d set up by the fire. The nights were cool this time of year, and her health was poor. Worse, even, since word came that Ephraim’s father was gravely wounded in battle a week past.

“Just rest, mother,” Ephraim said. “I’ll get your special tea, to help you sleep.”

“I want to see him,” she said, but already he could see that she was fading. “I need to see him…”

Once she was settled in and sleeping soundly, Ephraim stepped back outside. Elias and Egrel stood less than fifty paces from the cottage, and they both went silent upon seeing Ephraim.

“Brothers,” he said, watching their stiff posture. Guilty, almost. “What is to happen to father’s body?”

“The warriors are already building the funeral pyre,” Egrel said, jerking his head toward the valley.

It was true; Ephraim moved closer to watch his father’s brethren stacking lumber, wide and high.

“Will there be a ceremony?” Ephraim wondered. Usually death was a private affair, mourning kept to each individual family, but his father was no ordinary villager.

“No doubt.” Elias shifted his stance, his eyes downcast.

“Mother will want to go,” Ephraim said, sadness welling in his chest.

“She is too ill,” Egrel shot back immediately, hostile. “I won’t have you dragging her down to the village, making her health worse, just to keep her favor.”

Ephraim’s mouth opened and closed. Egrel had a cruel mind, always assuming the worst of everyone. What was there to say to that, really?

“She is sleeping now,” Ephraim said, looking away instead.

“Let us go down, then.” Elias, never one for two words when one would do. Head of the family now, it seemed.

Ephraim nodded and followed them, heart heavy.

A
s they trudged back
up the hill from the ceremony, the pyre’s ash and smoke still clinging to their clothes and hair, Egrel was the first to break the heavy silence.

“I’ve asked a sorcerer from a distant village to come and see to mother,” he said, trading a heavy glance with Elias. “He should be here today.”

“A sorcerer? Their services are very expensive. How will we pay for that?” Ephraim asked, frowning. “Our flocks are thinnest this time of year. We can hardly afford to give away as many sheep as he would surely ask.”

“We will make an arrangement,” Egrel said with a shrug. “Mother’s health is most important, as I am sure you will agree.”

Elias merely grunted, his expression dark as a thundercloud. There was something they weren’t saying, Ephraim was sure of it. But what?

When they reached the cottage, the sorcerer was waiting for them. Swathed in many layers of woolen coats, hood shoved back to reveal a shock of perfectly white hair decades too old for his youthful face, he watched them all with darkly shining eyes.

“I am Egrel,” Ephraim’s brother said by way of introduction. “This is the older, Elias. And the youngest, Ephraim.”

“I am Crane,” the sorcerer said, inclining his head. “I haven’t much time, so let us begin.”

Ephraim and Egrel hovered as the man examined their mother, pushing back her thinning blonde hair, looking in her ears, pressing his finger against her parched tongue. It went on like that for some time, the man looking at her wrists and ankles, asking a few questions about whether she’d had fever, whether she’d met any strangers of late.

The sorcerer lay her in the bed and drew the covers over her once more.

“It is a malady of spirit, the most difficult to cure,” he announced. He shot Egrel a meaningful glance. “I can mix something to heal her, but the ingredients are very, very rare.”

“Do it,” Egrel said without hesitation.

Ephraim wanted to ask outright what the cost would be, what understanding Egrel and Crane and Elias had between them, but he was afraid. Afraid that Crane might not cure his mother, afraid that the price they’d agreed to would be dark and shocking. After all, there was no way to un-know something once it’d been said aloud.

The man sat down at the broad kitchen table, clearing away Mother’s other medicines and herbs, and began to unpack various small jars and bottles from somewhere in his many cloaks. He pulled out a mortar and pestle and ground up a number of ingredients together, eventually producing a small amount of greenish, herbal liquid and pouring it into a glass vial.

“Give this with her tea, three times a day until it is gone. Do not miss a dose,” the sorcerer said, handing it over to Egrel. He gathered his things, vanishing them all back into his cloaks, and stood.

Those dark eyes landed on Ephraim again, giving him a chill. Crane arched a brow, glancing at Egrel.

“I will take my payment now,” he said simply.

A sense of foreboding slithered down Ephraim’s spine a split second before Elias and Egrel sprung forward and grasped each of his arms, pulling them tight behind his body and cinching his wrists tight with a rough piece of cord.

“What—?!” was all Ephraim managed before Egrel clapped a pungent-smelling wad of cloth against his nose and mouth. Ephraim gagged at the oily residue that covered the cloth, but his muffled protest only made him drag in deep breaths of the heady odor.

His eyelids drooped, then his body, then he knew nothing.

T
he first thing
Ephraim knew when he opened his eyes was that he was far, far away from home. The world shifted and rolled under him with merciless rhythm. There was a loud sound, rushing and hissing in time with the movement of the dark, cramped space where he lay.

A ship
, he realized. He was in the underbelly of a ship, bound for parts unknown.

The next reality that sunk in was the feel of cool metal, wrapped around his neck and wrists. He couldn’t make out the slave’s collar and cuffs, they seemed to be invisible. But they were heavy and tight against his skin, all too real to him.

Once he worked up the nerve to explore his shadowy berth, he found a chamberpot, a flagon of stale water, and a box of mealy hard-tack biscuits. He couldn’t even look at the food or water for a full day, his body falling victim to violent sickness caused by the movement of the ship. He’d never even seen the ocean, having in fact never been outside his village, but already he knew that he hated the sea.

Though he waited, no one came.

The ship rocked and rolled, and slowly he grew used to the feeling of it, his body adjusting.

He rationed his water and food.

Still, no one came.

At last, one day the ship’s indomitable rhythm changed. The waves were harder, choppier… and then the movement ceased altogether. A door flung open and sunlight poured into the ship’s hold; Ephraim’s relief and terror were equal in measure.

An unfamiliar man with dark olive skin beckoned, speaking to Ephraim in a harsh and foreign tongue. Unsure what else to do, knowing he had nowhere to run in a strange land, Ephraim allowed himself to be pulled off the ship and loaded onto a cart piled high with boxes and bags. As if it wasn’t clear enough that he was a possession, a piece of cargo…

Fingering the invisible metal of his collar, Ephraim swallowed. His eyes were wide, taking in the bustling docks and the towering white walls of a great city. The cart carried him straight through those gleaming walls, passing a hundred kinds of things: horses, people, cottages, stalls where people sold food and potions and swords and endless other items.

A city
, Ephraim thought.
This must be a city
.

At the far end of Ephraim’s sight line, a white marble palace rose against the endless blue sky. The cart stopped far from that, before a dark wood house several stories high, neat and tall. A prominent sign adorned the front, written in a language Ephraim had never seen, but there was an outlined sketch of a seductive, beckoning woman.

Why would Ephraim be brought to such a place?

The olive-skinned man yanked him off the cart and gave him a shove toward the front door. Ephraim went, feeling more helpless now than he had in the darkness of the ship’s belly. When he stepped inside, a cloud of sweet, thick smoke greeted him. It was dark enough that he had to squint to make out the hazy shapes. The room was all polished wood and low furniture, cushions on the floor and soft-looking fabric draped over the windows.

Ephraim’s captor propelled him though the room, down a dimly lit back hallway. At the very end, the man wrenched open a doorway and shoved Ephraim inside a simply furnished white room, pointing at a low, finely made white bed.

Ephraim took a seat as the door closed, leaving him alone. More waiting; it seemed that most of what he’d come to think of as his new life was waiting, waiting. There was nothing to look at or examine, not even a window in the whole room.

At length, the sorcerer himself stepped into the room.

“There you are,” Crane said, as if Ephraim had somehow been late, as if he controlled any aspect of his current circumstances. At least Crane spoke Ephraim’s language, a small comfort.

“Where are we?” Ephraim asked, his voice breaking a little from such a long period of disuse.

“That age, are we?” Crane said, chuckling. “The perfect age to be in your shoes, young man. To answer your question, you are in London.”

“London,” Ephraim repeated. “Where is that?”

Crane laughed.

“Only a world away from where I found you.”

“Why am I here? Why would you want to take me from my family?” All the questions he’d turned over and over in his mind these last months tumbled out of his mouth unbidden.

“You won’t agree with me now, but I think I saved you from a worse fate,” Crane said, crossing his arms.

“Worse than wearing a collar?” Ephraim snapped.

To his surprise, Crane’s lips curled up in amusement.

“I believe so, yes. I think you would have met with an unfortunate fate had I not taken you in the bargain. Your brother… Egrel, was it not? He offered you up quite eagerly. And the other one didn’t stop him.”

“You’re lying,” Ephraim hissed. “They would never do that.”

“You were there,” Crane said, his amusement fading. “And do not call me a liar again. You will regret it deeply.”

“So I am a slave now, is that it? Why would you want me as a slave?” Ephraim challenged, though he’d had plenty of time to imagine a thousand vile reasons.

“You are much more than that. You are a djinn,” Crane said, pronouncing it like
jen
.

“A genie in a lamp?” Ephraim scoffed, knowing the children’s story well enough. “I am no such thing. I am a shape shifter, like my father.”

“You are that, yes. But now you are more. You will see,” Crane said. He produced a thin circle of shining, hammered gold. On the ring were three long, elegant gold keys. “Kneel.”

Ephraim tried to open his mouth to argue, but fiery pain flashed through his entire body. Crane’s command thundered through his mind, hammering at his very thoughts until he found himself on his knees, looking up at the sorcerer.

“What did you do?” Ephraim whispered.

“I wished for you to kneel. I spoke it aloud, holding the keys,” he said, jiggling the keys in the air. “You had no choice. You live to serve now.”

“Serve you? Why would you want that?” Ephraim asked. He scrambled back to his feet, heart pounding. His collar felt tighter than ever, and he pulled at it with clumsy, desperate fingers.