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Chapter Fifteen

Drayton

I f you told me three weeks ago that I would be sitting on my back porch, watching my mate play with the pack pups and dance around, I would have called you crazy.

Yet, here I am, watching my stunning mate jump around, her long, teal hair bouncing and swinging around her with every move.

She turns to me with the brightest smile on her face, her jade eyes sparkling in the sunlight that seems to gravitate towards her.

It’s strange, the shift that’s happened since I walked her through the front door just weeks before.

Everything is lighter and sweeter.

This house has represented nothing but pain for me for so long.

Everyday, Talia changes that a little more.

She's helping all of us come out of the shadows left behind by my father and stepmother.

“I could watch her all day,” Penn murmurs beside me, his fingers spinning the cold beer can around in his hand. “She looks like a fucking angel.”

“I know what you mean,” I respond, tipping my own beer back for a long drink. “Everyone seems happier since she came here. Obviously there’s a shift with the four of us around her, but it seems to reach so much further than her mates. I’m starting to understand the reverence in the history books about the mythical shifters. I’ve never seen anything like her before.”

Wes sits up on the other side of me, his eyes looking at me with excitement. “You’re actually not far off the mark! Mythical shifters are genetically on the same level as all shifters, but magically, they’re something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?” Penn asks, sitting forward as well. “Talia’s magic is different from ours?”

“It is! It’s kind of like how our special powers have a different wavelength than the magic of other shifters,” he explains, pushing his long hair back from his face. “Except that hers seems to be on a much larger scale than that. Her healing powers are strong enough to heal an entire army if she needed to. When she chooses to shift, I believe her powers will be even more amplified in that form. I don’t think even she’s scratched the surface of what it means to be a mythical shifter. It’s not hard to see that her lineage has a direct connection to Adessa herself.”

“Are you guys talking about me?” Talia stands on the stairs, her breathing quick as she playfully glares between the three of us.

“We are! I was just saying that I think your magic has a direct link to the goddess that created shifters, Adessa. It has the same signature as the Valley of the Goddess,” Wes explains excitedly, standing up to lean on the railing by her.

Talia stares at Wes like he just revealed she was a lizard person with a head full of snakes. Wes looks back at Penn and I, his eyes wide in fear and discomfort. Wes is either fantastic with emotions or he clams up and freaks out. Today is the latter.

Talia is moving through waves of confusion, shock, and then understanding. She walks up the stairs fully, sitting on Penn’s lap like she’s done it a million times before. A sliver of jealousy runs through me over her choice, but I squash it quickly. Talia has four other mates, if you include Forrester whom I haven’t given up on yet, which means I can’t be selfish.

“Adessa is the name of the goddess that created shifters?” Talia asks after a bit, twisting her hair in her fingertips. “Do you guys all go to the golden meadow as well? Is that the Valley of the Goddess?”

Taking over the lead so Wes can reshape his thoughts, I answer her questions with as much information as I can. “That’s what shifter history says. Adessa came down during the turning of the age, around when the human’s bible says that a deity named Jesus walked the Earth. The gods that came before her all left their mark on the world, some good and some bad. She wanted to do the same, but she wasn’t sure how. It was then that she noticed the relationship between human and animal. It fascinated her, and she stayed on Earth longer than she was meant to, studying the bonds there.”

Wes smiles at her, leaning with his back on the railing now, his earlier discomfort vanishing. He picks up where I left off, loving talking about the history of shifters. “The other gods grew angry, fighting back against her breaking the rules. You see, when a god or goddess visits our world, no other one can come through. By staying here past her time, she shifted the power balance in her favour and blocked the others from coming.”

“What did they do to her?” Talia sits forward, eyes flickering between Wes and I while Penn dozes in the chair.

“They threatened to make her human and force her to live a mortal life here,” Wes answers her, his hands flying all over the place with his words. “She didn’t want to lose her immortality so she created a loophole for herself. She created the first shifters using humans that had the greatest connection to their animals. Instead of leaving it at that though, she imbued them with her own magic, creating a link between minds as well as a merging of bodies. In this link, she put a golden valley that shined with her pure magic.

“Here, she could watch and study from the Realm of the Gods. The first shifters came out powerful and unique, their animals more god-like than their natural alternatives. She created lesser shifters as well, ones that kept their natural state, but had extra powers. As the bloodlines mixed with each other and humans alike, most of that magic was lost all together aside from the shifting from animal to human. The mythicals were the only ones who didn’t lose their magic through time, though they were hunted to near extinction.”

“So that’s how she spoke to me,” Talia murmurs quietly. We all look at her, even Penn opening his eyes and shooting his eyes towards her. “The valley.”

“Who spoke to you, sweetheart?” I lean forward, grabbing her off of Penn’s lap so that I can connect stronger to her emotions through touch. She feels calm and serene, her confusion from before gone.

“Adessa,” she says nonchalantly like she’s telling us the weather. “After we escaped the compound and I was stabbed, I went to the meadow, or Valley of the Goddess as I know now, like I always would. This time I assumed it was just the afterlife because I didn’t think I could survive that wound. While I was there, a voice came to me and said it wasn’t time. She said I needed to wake up because my mates were waiting for me. Then she said that I was the beginning and that it was time for the awakening of the Champions of Adessa.”

Rubbing her back, I look to Wes for an answer on this one. He dived deep into the legends behind shifters and Adessa, so if any of us know what Talia is talking about, it’s him. He looks just as confused as I feel, though. His brow is furrowed deeply and he keeps blinking quickly.

“Champions of Adessa?” he asks finally, looking at Tal for an answer.

“That’s what the voice said. I didn’t ask many questions.” Talia leans back into me, laying her head against mine. “I’m sorry, I should have asked more.”

“Hey.” I bump my nose against her chin and nuzzle into her scent. “None of that. If there was a mysterious voice talking to me after I thought I died, I wouldn’t think to ask questions either. From the looks of it, none of us know much about it, but if there’s one person you can count on to get to the bottom of any mystery, it’s Wes Holm.”

Wes nods at me distractedly, his mind probably off in a million directions right now. I wasn’t kidding when I said he would get to the bottom of it. Wes absolutely hates not knowing stuff, and mysteries very rarely stay that way with him around.

“I think I know someone who may have more information about these Champions. Give me a couple days, but I should be able to get some resources that will help us figure out what it all means,” Wes addresses all of us, already pulling out his phone and tapping away. “Talia? I’m going to grab you later when I have more information so that we can go through it and see if any of it rings any bells for you.”

“Sounds good, Wes. Just let me know.” Talia smiles up at him, giving him a wink before he walks away. She picked up the winking quickly from all of us. It’s so fucking cute when she does it. All I want to do is wrap her up in my arms and take her somewhere private so I can show her how much I love it.

Wes walks away after a quick kiss on Tal’s cheek, already absorbed in his phone completely. Alaric tries to acknowledge him as he passes, but Wes is so far gone he doesn’t see him. Alaric jokingly flips him off behind his back, shaking his head with a laugh as he climbs up the porch.

“What new information has him wrapped up in his own head?” Alaric asks when he’s in front of us. “It must be big for him to be so out of it.”

“Talia had a voice come to her in the Valley of the Goddess that we believe was Adessa herself. She said that you were the beginning, right?” I confirm with Talia, not wanting to tell her story wrong.

“Yeah, I was the beginning, and there would be a middle and an end. Each one of us is a Champion of Adessa. I think it might mean there’s more mythical shifters out there,” Talia says, leaning farther into me. “If I had to take a guess, I bet it has to do with Croisés. I think they’ve angered Adessa with their experiments on her beings in the name of some false god. Though, if I’m the beginning, then there’s a lot of bad still to come.”

Alaric curses under his breath, matching my own thoughts exactly. There’s no doubt in my mind that Talia is right. So much of the history is matching our current situation, which means I doubt Adessa is taking the attack on shifters very well. If Adessa is involved, that also means this is bigger than even we know yet.

“I think you’re probably right, beautiful. That doesn’t mean I don’t hope you’re wrong.” I sigh and drop my head on her shoulder, squeezing her a little tighter against me. I don’t want my mate involved in this, but she’s been involved long before even we were. There’s no stopping fate, and I can’t help thinking she’s been destined for this since before any of us were even born.

“Sorry, babe. I do need to steal the alpha from you,” Alaric says after a bit, giving Talia a small smile. He grabs her from my lap, guiding her legs around his waist and kissing her nose. “I’ve missed you, little doe.”

Talia giggles, rubbing her nose against his playfully. “You saw me two hours ago!”

“Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you,” he gushes, turning into a huge, romantic teddy bear. “Let’s go for a hike tomorrow, just the two of us.”

Standing up, I roll my eyes at Penn who looks just as annoyed as I do. We’ve been doing things as a group as much as possible while we all work through getting used to the group dynamic. We’ve always been a close-knit group, aside from Forrester recently, yet we’ve never had a situation like this before.

“Alaric,” I grumble, cracking my knuckles and my neck impatiently. “You said you needed me for something.”

Alaric sets Talia on her feet with a light kiss to the temple, and turns to me with a nod. “Yeah, we’ve got a situation and it doesn’t look good.”

“Shit,” I curse under my breath, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Okay, let’s head to my office.”

Moving behind Talia, I kiss the back of her head and give her shoulder a quick squeeze. “I’ll see you later, baby. Make sure Penn behaves himself while we’re gone.”

Talia smiles at me softly as I make my way in the door. Her eyes hold so much concern for us, it almost makes me want to run back up and grab her to take her with us. Alaric’s tone on the porch has my hackles raised, though.

“How bad is it really?” I ask once we’re far enough into the house. “I’m not sure the pack can take another hit. Most of the pack is nervous right now, though Talia is doing a wonderful job easing a lot of it.”

“It’s Marcus and his band of assholes,” Alaric says through clenched teeth. “He’s reaching out to other packs behind our backs and trying to encourage a fucking war against you. Thankfully we have a lot more friends out there than he does, but it’s still causing ripples of chaos to start.”

Closing the door behind Alaric when we reach my office, I slam my hand against the solid oak and colourfully curse up a storm. This isn’t just bad, this is a fucking nightmare. If enough discord is sewn in the shifter community from our pack, no matter how many friends we have in other packs, we’ll have trouble at our door fast.

“Marcus has become more than a liability,” I say, turning around to look at Alaric. He’s leaning on the edge of my desk, arms crossed over his chest with his fight face on. “He needs to be taken out. I want you to get the evidence together so that when his exile comes, no one can deny the proof. In the meantime, I’ll call the other packs and try to settle as many of them as possible while also gathering statements against Marcus. He’s done in the Forntida pack.”

“With pleasure.” Alaric pushes off my desk, heading over to the file cabinets that have our threats in it.

Marcus has been in that file cabinet since I took over as alpha. My father was just as toxic and let Marcus get away with way too much. I ended the threat of my father over the pack with violence and death. That’s not the way I want to go with Forrester’s uncle, but I will if I have to. Despite what they both think and say to anyone with ears, I didn’t kill him for power. I killed him to save my own life, to save Forrester’s life, and to save the future of the pack.