Her Warriors (3 page)

“Then you feel it too?” Jacki whispered,
afraid to give voice to her fears. “That the worst hasn’t happened
yet?”

Bettina nodded with a solemn expression. “As
far as I’m concerned, more and increasing conflict is a given. We
have little time left to prepare and that includes securing a
succession, in case it’s needed. I think it’s pretty clear, you are
the one I’ve been waiting for.” Bettina began walking again and
Jacki followed at her side. “I thought it was Allie at first, but
she was meant for the Lords. She is a good priestess and will lead
all the North American
were
as their spiritual guide, but
she is not destined to take my place as High Priestess. She hasn’t
got quite enough magical power. But you, my friend, are another
animal altogether.”

They walked in silence for a moment until
they came to the stream, where the battle had taken place. Bettina
stopped in the exact spot where Jacki had cast the counter-spell
that had turned the tide of the battle for the lake and stream.

“You did good work here, child. The waters
still hum with purity, and a trace of the Lady’s magic.” Bettina
bent to run her fingers through the clear mountain stream. “The
question remains, did you know what you were doing when you called
on the Lady’s mercy?”

Jacki knew there was no other path but
honesty here. “No, milady.” Jacki looked down at her feet, feeling
a bit foolish. “I’ve been wondering where all that magic came from,
but I didn’t even dare consider the Lady might have answered my
prayer Herself.”

Bettina smiled and stood. “Don’t worry. I
didn’t realize it, when it happened to me, either. The more I hear
from you, the more I think She has a bigger plan for you. So let’s
talk.” She started walking again, heading back toward the stone
circle at a leisurely pace. “I’ve been making my home with the
Lords, but I think I’m due a vacation, and I hear the Nyx is
setting up shop in the mountains of New York. Lovely area this time
of year,” she said, almost conversationally. “If you were to accept
Ria’s invitation and your suitor’s urging to go up there yourself,
I think we could spend a little time honing your skills. And I
could teach you the secret handshake.”

“Secret handshake?” Bettina’s figures of
speech would take some getting used to. As Jacki thought that, she
realized she had already made her decision. “Well, okay. I guess
I’m New York bound. But how did you know Beau had been pestering me
to go there?”

Bettina just smiled in that mysterious way
of hers.

Chapter
Two

Beau Champlain didn’t like being bedridden.
For a shifter who normally healed faster than any human could
imagine, it was a rare thing to have an injury that kept him
immobile for more than a few hours. His inner tiger was clawing at
his insides to get out and
run
.

But the doctors had strictly forbidden
it.

Normally, a shift would help heal him, but
in this particular instance, the wound had been caused by something
poisoned with silver. A silver tipped, exploding bullet, packed
with silver dust. An ugly piece of work designed to kill vampires
outright and maim shifters for life—if they lived through it.

No wonder Beau had felt like shit for days
after the battle. He had been unconscious mostly, but he remembered
each time he woke, she was there. His angel in a seal skin coat.
Only she wasn’t wearing her fur when she mopped his brow and said
little prayers to the Lady under her breath that she probably
thought he was too messed up to hear.

Jacki Kinkaid had tended him while he’d been
down and out, and it touched him more than he could say. There was
no doubt in his mind that he wanted her for his own, but she was a
selkie—a totally different species. She was curvy and luscious, and
he practically salivated every time he got a look at her. He had no
idea if they were even compatible, and he hadn’t been lucid enough
to discover if she really was his mate, or if he was just
dreaming.

He thought she might be though. All the
signs were there. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. He felt a
deep-seated need to kiss her…and more. He wanted to be with her all
the time. It was like an obsession of the nicest, most pleasurable
kind, which promised good things if, indeed, she turned out to be
his mate in truth.

The only real way to know for sure was to
get close to her. To kiss her, and see if she brought out his beast
in human form. If she could make him purr while he was human, well,
that would be undeniable confirmation that she was meant to be his.
Beau couldn’t wait to get back on his feet and kiss her. But he had
to catch her first.

Jacki had proved quite elusive since he’d
woken up, lucid for the first time in days. And then the Nyx and
her new mate had left North Carolina to set up their new place in
New York. The Nyx had come personally to invite Beau to join them
there while he convalesced. He hadn’t given her an answer. He
couldn’t. He technically still worked for the Kinkaids and had to
clear his movements with them. The last assignment he’d been given
was to keep Jacki safe. She was a full-blooded Kinkaid, after all.
And Beau was loyal to the Clan and its leader, Sam Kinkaid, king of
all lion shifters and self-made Texas billionaire.

As long as Jacki was here in North Carolina,
Beau would stay here too—even if he was no good for keeping her
safe at the moment. In fact, it was more the other way around. She
had nursed him through a hellacious poisoned bullet wound. The
roles had reversed. She had protected him after he fell from his
sniper’s nest in the battle, and she had been looking after him
ever since.

Well, no more. He had urged her to accept
the Nyx’s invitation to go to New York. That way, he could go with
her, continuing to follow his last order to keep her safe while she
was away from her Clan.

Jacki’s brother, Tom, was wounded too, and
was in even worse shape than Beau. She had spent her time split
between them and now that Beau was on the mend, she seemed to be
spending more and more time with her brother—which was only right,
but it stuck in Beau’s craw. He wanted her attention on him.

As much as he liked Tom, Beau didn’t want to
share Jacki with anyone. Not yet. Not until he’d figured out
whether or not she was really his mate. It was driving his tiger
crazy, being so near her and yet so far. The tiger didn’t
understand inaction. It paced around inside Beau’s skull, wanting
to do something, roaring at his human half to get a move on
already.

So when Jacki came back from a walk in the
woods and brought the fresh scent of the outdoors right to his
bedside, he felt like he’d won the lottery. She sat in the chair
beside him and met his gaze with a bubbling sort of happiness,
mixed with a new serenity that she hadn’t had before.

He had been studying her for days and she’d
seemed confused at times. Restless and edgy. Whatever had just
happened, had calmed her. It had brought her a modicum of peace.
And for that, Beau was glad.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked in a gentle
voice he reserved only for her.

“I took a walk up to the stone circle.”

“Alone?” Beau didn’t like that. He wanted
her protected at all times.

But she just smiled. “It’s safe now. And I
wasn’t alone.”

Jealousy hit him like a freight train, and
for a moment, Beau couldn’t breathe.

“The most extraordinary thing happened,” she
went on, seemingly oblivious to his upset. “The High Priestess was
there.” Beau’s anger cooled a bit, replaced by curiosity. He was a
cat, after all. “And she said the most amazing things.” Jacki
trailed off, her gaze going hazy as if in memory. It took her a
moment, but she came back to him and smiled once more. “I’m going
with you to New York. Bettina’s going there too, and she’s going to
train me. I’m going to be a priestess.”

Beau was dumbfounded, and he said the first
thing that popped into his head. “I thought you already were.” Her
gaze narrowed in confusion, so he tried to clarify. “After what I
saw you do to those creatures and all the magic you were able to
pull from the water and earth and living things… I felt that,
Jacki, and I’ve only ever felt something like that happen in the
presence of a priestess.”

“Well, I’m not. Not officially. Not yet.”
She refocused her gaze and met his. She looked…resolute, he
thought. “But I will be.”

A couple of days later, Beau was in much
better shape. He was almost fully healed and working on getting
back to his former state of battle-readiness. He had accompanied
Jacki and Tom Kinkaid, along with a few more of the wounded, and
those who had been invited to join the
pantera noir
queen
and her new mate in their new stronghold.

The first stop on their agenda, once they’d
reached the mountain, was to go up to the main house near the
pinnacle of the mountain. They were to be formally received by the
Nyx and her mate in their new territory. From there, all the
newcomers would be assigned to places that best suited their
condition, training and inclination.

The mountain was a vast place, with multiple
residences and defensive positions. No matter where they tried to
put him, Beau was ready to argue that his only proper place was at
Jacki’s side. He would get Sam Kinkaid involved, if he had to.

But Beau shouldn’t have worried. The royal
reception was way less formal than he was expecting. Ria and
Jake—the Nyx and her human mate—were friendly, informal people.
They welcomed Jacki with a hug and Beau with smiles, a backpounding
handshake from Jake and a quiet inquiry about his injury from Ria.
They made him feel welcome, appreciated and…almost like part of the
family. Which was odd, to say the least.

Most shifter groups were based around a
common species. Wolves had Packs. Lions had Prides. Other kinds of
shifters had Clans or Tribes, or whatever worked best for their
particular species.

Beau had always been a loner, going his own
way and making a place for himself in various places. The most
recent place he’d found was among the Kinkaid Clan. He felt good
there. Most of the Kinkaids were big cats too. Lions, in fact. They
understood that a big cat needed to run from time to time, and roar
when the mood struck. They hadn’t minded Beau’s unusually volatile
temper. In fact, they’d pummeled him and been pummeled in return,
with good nature, when their cats rode them too hard.

A bit to Beau’s surprise, Jake told him
Master Geir had offered rooms at his place for Tom and Jacki
Kinkaid and Beau, as their liegeman, to stay and convalesce. Beau
had liked the other tiger shifter and thought they had worked
pretty well together during the last battle—until Beau had gotten
shot. He didn’t remember much after that, but he did recall the
rather humiliating necessity of Geir hauling him around like a sack
of potatoes. He owed Geir big time for saving his ass. And wasn’t
that going to be humbling, having to thank the guy? But it had to
be done. It was a matter of honor.

Beau might try to seem casual in his
attitudes towards most things, but he was big on loyalty and honor.
That was at the base of why he’d chosen to remain a lone tiger
rather than pledge himself to the usurper ruler of his species who
had been recently overthrown. Beau could have gone back to the
tigre d’or
, now that there was a new king and the usurper
and his cronies had been dealt with, and maybe he still would. But
for the moment, Beau was content to stay allied with the
Kinkaids.

Especially now that he thought he might have
a shot at finding a mate among them. Mating was not to be trifled
with. If Jacki was meant to be his—and he hers—he would move heaven
and earth, and forsake all other allegiances, to be with her.
Mating was
that
important.

Ria and Jake had someone drive the trio down
to Geir’s place, which was a little farther down the mountain. Beau
wondered what kind of place it was. He had heard rumors about this
very special mountain and its facilities, but he was quickly
learning that the rumors were pale reflections of the reality.

The first sight he had of Master Geir’s new
house was impressive. It was built in old farmhouse style and it
was pretty darn huge. Antique-looking, it fit into the surroundings
beautifully. When the dirt road widened, Beau saw that the house
was only a small part of a compound that consisted of several
outbuildings, including a huge barn that didn’t really look like it
contained livestock.

First of all, most prey animals like horses,
cows, sheep and the like, wouldn’t be very comfortable around a
tiger shifter like Master Geir or his students. Secondly, what
would he do with livestock? Geir didn’t strike Beau as a gentleman
farmer. In fact, he was anything but. Geir was called
Master
because he had earned the right to train all the
pantera
noir
Royal Guards, and approve those that eventually took their
place protecting the Nyx.

It was a hell of a responsibility. Only the
most talented of fighters earned such an honor. Geir had to be an
expert in many different disciplines in order to give his pupils
the widest possible training. Beau looked forward to getting back
in shape, and he hoped they were here long enough for him to put
Geir through his paces—or, more likely, the other way around. It
would be good to spar with one of his own species again. It had
been a long time. Perhaps too long…

Geir saw the van coming down from the big
house. He had been living here only a few days, but the place
already felt like home. It helped that the remaining Millers—Tad
and his mate, Mandy—had made him feel so welcome in their former
family home. Tad and Mandy lived down at the edge of the vast
property and Tad had been helping Geir the past few days, cleaning
up and getting ready for more people to inhabit the place.