1
Miriam
Snow fell all around me as tiny, glittering specks across the dark grey landscape. My paws, despite being the size of motorcycle tires, barely made a sound as I lumbered on toward my destination.
It was bitterly cold. Far too cold for humans but my thick fur kept me at a comfortable temperature. Excitement brimmed within me and I picked up my pace, my breath creating soft puffs of vapor in front of my snout.
A wedding! Perhaps the first wedding between a shaman and her ila in a generation. There was hope on the horizon yet for our kind.
I let out a short howl as I ran. Crossing thousands of treacherous miles in a single night was no hardship for me. Soon the temperature would rise and the snow would melt. Sun and heat were not part of my typical environment, but I could adapt.
A new scent on the breeze made me growl. Gunpowder, quickly followed by the stench of human fear.
What are you doing out here, little human? Surely you know better than to hunt alone at night?
A shot rang out, going wild and harmless over my head and I came to an abrupt halt. Lifting my nose in the air and swiveling my ears, I pinpointed the foolish human’s location within seconds.
Perfect. I needed a snack for the long journey.
He made a hell of a racket scrambling out of the bushes he was hiding in.
“Holy shit!” he cried out, stumbling backward in the snow like a newborn deer. “It’s real! Oh my God, it’s real!”
I roared in his fear-stricken face until the smell of piss reached my nose. He held his gun but seemed to completely forget how to use it while he cried and pleaded. Hungry and bored of his whimpering, I swiped a paw and knocked him into a nearby tree.
Finally silent, he laid in a crumpled heap at the base. My stomach growling, I ambled over and tore off his clothing with my teeth and claws for easier access to his flesh.
I always hated getting fabric stuck in my teeth.
“Guh!”
Cold sweat bathed my body as I jolted awake, sitting straight up in bed as my heart raced like I just ran a mile. My stomach sloshed dangerously, already queasy from the neverending flow of champagne from last night’s bachelorette party. Now I had the taste of human flesh in my mouth to go along with it.
“Mir?”
Colt stirred next to me, barely awake but still wrapped an arm around my waist protectively. “Another vision?” he asked, gently pulling me back down the mattress until I laid next to him.
“Someone’s coming to the wedding.” My whisper came out hurried as I struggled to catch my breath. I never saw through the eyes of a shifter like that before and struggled to make sense of what I just experienced.
“Lots of people are,” he chuckled, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I hope Mel’s ready. It’s going to be quite the affair.”
I turned on my side to face him and nuzzled my head under his chin. My handsome wolf shifter enveloped me in a cocoon of warmth and strength. He was just what I needed to chase away the intense sensations of cold and bloodlust from what I just saw.
“This one is different,” I muttered against his throat. “He’s dangerous. He’s on his way to the wedding right now and attacked a human so… casually.”
Colt’s arms tightened around me. “Do you think Mel’s in danger? Or you?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He seemed… excited for the wedding. I don’t think he has anything against shaman. But he killed and started eating a human like it was nothing. Ugh, I can still taste it…”
“There’s going to be lots of guests with open disdain for humans,” he reminded me. “Many who have no problems doing unsavory things to them. In their eyes, it’s justice. But this wedding is going to be symbolically about bridging the divide between us. I think lots of guests are looking forward to seeing that progress.”
“God, I hope so,” I sighed, leaning my cheek against his heart. “I am a little worried, though. I mean, most of the wedding guests are strangers. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”
“It’s a risk,” he agreed, smoothing his hands down my back. “But Mel and the guys insisted on doing it this way. It’s their wedding and we have to trust their judgement.”
“You’re right,” I sighed, trailing my fingers along his biceps.”
“We’ll let the security team know,” he kissed the crown of my head. “What kind of shifter was he?”
I thought for a moment, recalling all the sensations I felt while in this shifter’s consciousness. “I don’t know.”
Colt pulled back, his golden eyes quizzical as he stared at me.
“He wasn’t like any animal I’ve ever heard of before,” I said. “In some ways, he felt like a wolf. Dense fur, ran on four legs, excellent sense of smell. But he was gigantic. I mean, the adult human he killed was child-sized from his perspective.”
Colt’s brow furrowed. “A direwolf, maybe? Those supposedly went extinct but I mean, we are seeing a dragon shifter get married today.”
“He was alone,” I said. “That’s what makes me think he’s not a wolf. I didn’t get any sort of pack mentality from him. He’s definitely a solitary hunter and prefers it that way.”
“Huh,” Colt laid back in his mess of pillows, staring at the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling as he thought. “I have no idea, Mir. We can ask Arjun, maybe? Although he’s busy as fuck today.”
“Arjun doesn’t know anything that I don’t know,” I smacked Colt playfully, but my heart gave an uncomfortable twinge in my chest.
The English tiger shifter and I had an icy relationship, which was thawing but not particularly quickly. His stepfather Lhozen taught me everything I knew about becoming a shaman, a human with special abilities to communicate with and see through the eyes of shifters. In a world where humans profited off of exploiting and experimenting on shifters, we shaman were essential in protecting and guiding them in a world that treated them as sub-human.
Unfortunately, Lhozen also turned out to be a leader in a shifter-trafficking ring. All three of Mel’s shifter fiances had been captured by Lhozen’s operative at some point. Including his own stepson, Arjun, and Colt’s brother, Hunter.
Because my shaman training began shortly after Arjun’s mother died, he believed Lhozen took me in not only as an apprentice, but as a mistress. Which couldn’t be further from the truth, but there was no reasoning with a young man filled with grief.
Now, Arjun would become my brother-in-law, of sorts.
“Where’s Gabe?” I asked, lifting my head off of Colt’s chest to see that his youngest brother, and my other lover, was not in bed with us.
“Off brooding somewhere, like usual,” Colt scoffed. “Probably trying to convince himself not to attend this wedding out of principal or whatever.”
I sighed in response, dropping my ear back to the watery thud of Colt’s heartbeat. People thought dating two men was complicated. Just being with Gabe on his own was like dating ten guys. I never knew who I was going to see. And one of them was always pissed off at me.
“Don’t go looking for him,” Colt protested as I started to get up. He pulled me back down to his chest and wrapped me in a bear hug. “Let him hear what he’s missing out on.”