Eternal Beauty

Petra watched him shift back into his bear state, leaving behind the scent of desire and longing. It was the one thing she did have, the one thing that gave her hope that she would someday claim her shift, her animal-a good nose. Several feet away, Brodan stretched up, leaned into a tree, and growled. He was magnificent, massive, fierce-fortunate to know who and what he was.

With one last glance in her direction, he turned and barreled away, the forest once again alive with the sounds of an animal on the hunt.

As she always did, Petra watched until he was out of sight, then she turned and made her way out of the forest. Brodan made no secret of his hope that someday she'd suddenly shift into her animal-preferably for him, a bear-and inside the dead muscle housed and protected by her ribs a steady, life-giving beat would begin.

Someday, they would both know the truth of what she was.

Under the cover of trees, the sky looked as though it had lost some of its nighttime blue to a sea of gray clouds. Walking up and over the ridge toward the lake, it was hard to make out the lightly populated, but sprawling village below. Shrouded in fog, Petra moved cautiously, down the hill, over massive stone boulders and sharp-edged rocks. Malen, the young female she was going to check on, had experienced her first shift into her wolf state just two nights earlier. The typical age for a first shift was somewhere between fifteen and twenty-one, and Malen was only eleven. These early shifts took a hard toll on the body and mind, and no one understood why they occurred. It was Petra's job to help all Shifters during their transitions, but with someone as young as Malen, she always made sure she checked in for a good three to six months afterward.

Unable to see clearly, Petra lost her footing for a moment, her shoe slipping on a wet rock, and she went down on her ass. "Dammit," she muttered, scrambling to her feet. Even on a sunny day, dexterity was not one of her strong suits. Something she tried very hard to keep under wraps around the Shifters she lived and worked with, as each one of them moved with perfect grace, speed, and agility.

Moving low and slow, she continued down the hill. At this pace, she'd be to Malen's house by midday meal. She smiled to herself, heading for a break in the fog several feet ahead. But as she neared, a strange humming noise started up around her. At first she thought the sound might be coming from the native people who lived on the other side of the river. Normally, they never crossed the thirty-foot-wide raging bed of water, but sometimes if she was passing close by, she heard them talking and laughing as they washed their clothing. But the sound she heard now was not laughter. It was singular and coming, not from the direction of the river, but from beneath her, within the rock hill she traversed.

Within the ancient caves.

Cautious and quiet, she abandoned her path down toward the village and made her way over several more small boulders to the edge of the hill. The fog was lighter here and she was able to see a piece of flat land jutting out over the more uninhabited section of the village. The land near the caves was mostly black earth, with patches of green here and there, no trees. She inched closer, dropped down on her haunches, and listened. At first, she heard nothing but the wind, no voices, no rhythmic humming. She was about to call herself crazy, about to stand up and continue down the hill to see Malen, when something emerged from the cave.

It was a male; tall and broad and heavily muscled like most the male Shifters she knew. But she'd never seen this male before. With hair the color of the night sky, a purposeful jut to his strong jawline and the stride of one who cared nothing for the opinions of others, she'd certainly have remembered if she had.

Petra drew nearer, narrowed her gaze. He was carrying something. His back was to her as he walked out onto the patch of earth. The sky was still a dark gray and the fog rolled in gentle puffs below, but she recognized the classic shape of a female in his arms. The fog shifted, and for a moment Petra was able to see things clearly under the moonlight. Holding the female tightly against his chest, her long red hair spilling out over his left arm, her body flopping with each step he took, Petra frowned with the ugly understanding that this female no longer breathed.

What had happened here? Petra wondered, gripping the rock she was crouched on. She hadn't heard of anyone being ill in this part of the territory. And who did she know that had hair that color? None of the wolves.

The male stopped then and glanced up at the sky. After a moment or two, he dropped to one knee. As Petra waited, breath held, to see what would happen next, the male did the strangest thing. He curled in over the female in his arms, and like a hen pecking at food, tapped at her body with his mouth. Fear and confusion rolled through Petra. What was this? What was he doing to her? It was wrong and obscene. No Shifter she knew acted like this over its dead.

With gentle hands, the male placed the female's body on the ground. After several long seconds, he rose and stood over her. A desire to leave her perch and run to the female stirred within Petra. If something could be done, if the female's life wasn't over . . . But her thoughts, her will to help, was overshadowed by a sudden and overwhelmingly intense sense of doom. Dawn was breaking in the far edges of the gray sky. She looked down at the male. He was in the same spot, standing over his female. Again, she glanced up at the sky. Adrenaline poured through her and she gasped, jacked to her feet.

Move!

The word exploded from her mind, startling her. The male, the start of day . . . Real and terrible fear pounded at her nerves. But why? What was this reaction? She detected no threat . . . yet it was there-in that strip of pale pink morning sky. She knew it on a visceral level.