“I’ve been thinking about Vivian’s healing,” Rae said after a time.
“Yeah?” Zander had given up figuring it out. The sword was whole, Viv was doing well, everyone was happy. End of story.
“It’s like everything finally connected.” Rae studied the stars, her face serene. “You and I were alone, each looking for someone who understood us. We found each other and finally came together. The sword was broken, and it came together. Viv and Carson were forced apart, and they came together. We each needed the other half of our whole, and your call to the Goddess brought magic that found the emptiness in us and filled it. We were connected, and joined.”
Rae finished with a satisfied nod, as though pleased she’d worked it all out.
Zander shrugged. “Sounds as good an explanation as any.” He supposed the Goddess could have decided that Rae and Zander, stronger together than they were apart, had the power to heal anything—humans, the sword, themselves. Or it was just the Goddess enjoying herself. She’d been messing with Zander his whole life—why should she stop now?
He took a step closer to Rae. “I like the idea of two halves making a whole. How about we go back below and put our halves together again?”
Rae snorted a laugh. “You are so full of shit.” She started to turn to him, then said. “Oh, wait. We never opened Sean’s gift.”
“Been busy.” Zander moved behind her, resting his hands on either side of hers on the rail. Rae cuddled into him, her backside caressing him enticingly through her thin sweats. “It’s been nice to give in to mating frenzy.”
“As long as we eat once in a while,” Rae said, her voice full of laughter. “To keep our strength up.”
“Piotr stocked the boat well,” Zander reminded her. “We’ll be good for days.”
Miles’s mating gift had been to pick them up on the Washington coast and deliver them to Zander’s fishing boat, which was nestled into a secluded cove, anchored and waiting for them. Piotr’s wedding gift—his and his wife, Irena’s—had been to give the boat a good cleaning and fill the refrigerator and cupboards with Irena’s good cooking. Piotr had also made sure they were well provided with beer and one special bottle of vodka. Rae had hung the wrought-iron frame Piotr had given her on the wall above the cabin’s table and declared that the boat was now perfect.
Rae turned in Zander’s arms, rose on tiptoe, and gave him a kiss on the mouth. Zander’s frenzy, nowhere near sated, stirred. He began to close her into his embrace but Rae smiled and slipped out, and Zander’s arms came together on empty air.
“I want to see what Sean gave us,” she said over her shoulder as she headed for the cabin. “While we’re regaining our strength.”
Zander felt plenty strong but he followed her to the cabin below, which Irena had thoroughly neatened. Zander knew Piotr hadn’t organized it—the man liked clutter.
The Sword of the Guardian greeted them with a peal of welcome. The sound was muffled, however, because Zander had shut the sword into a cupboard, after throwing a blanket over it. The thing was obnoxious.
What Sean had given them was a faux-leather tube about three feet long and four inches around with a lid firmly pushed onto both its top and bottom. He’d thrust the tube at Zander before they’d boarded the plane to take them back to the ocean, an amused look in his blue eyes. Zander had lugged the thing the hours it had taken them to reach the boat, then slung it into a corner to concentrate all his attention on Rae.
Now Rae cleared the table of the remains of their dinner, eaten when they’d last come up for air. Zander opened the tube, curious now, and withdrew a long roll of paper. The paper had the same weight and feel as a map but when he and Rae spread it out across the table, they saw that it was covered with lines and writing.
Sean had drawn a family tree—actually two of them. Names in minuscule type covered the page, connected by thin, curlicued lines.
Above one tree was the word McNaughton. Above the other, Dimitru.
Zander picked out Mason’s name, along with Broderick’s and their two other brothers’ under the McNaughtons. In the Dimitru line, he recognized the name Kenzie, who was the mate of the leader of the North Carolina Shiftertown.
Near the bottom of each tree was a name: Lillias McNaughton under the one on the right and Andrei Dimitru on the left. A double dash connected these two and a small vertical line led down from them to the name Rae Dimitru.
Rae stared at the name, her face draining of color. Slowly she reached out and touched the ornate, old-fashioned handwriting.
“Is this me?” she asked, her voice breathy.
Zander had turned the tube upside down and shook out the second piece of paper he’d heard rattling in there. He snatched it up as it fell, unrolled it, and skimmed the words. “Looks like Sean wrote an explanation.” He held out the paper to Rae.
Rae shook her head, raising trembling hands. “Read it to me. I don’t think I remember how right now.”
Zander leaned back on the table while Rae continued to focus on the names, and began.
To Rae Dimitru:
When Broderick told me he thought you might be a relation and Zander said you’ve always been curious about your heritage, I took it upon myself to research it, a task made much easier once I knew where to start. Your Guardian had looked into your parentage long ago, when you were found, but no one could discover anything about you at all.
At last, I learned that the McNaughton clan had a scandal a hundred or so years ago, when Lillias defied her pack and ran away with one of the Dimitru pack, a Romanian wolf called Andrei. I couldn’t find the exact circumstances of their meeting, but both clans at the time lived in the old world—the Dimitrus in Romania, the McNaughtons in Scotland and France. Somewhere Andrei and Lillias crossed paths, fell in love, and took each other as mates.
From what I can understand, both Dimitrus and McNaughtons opposed the match—I have not been able to find out why—and the pair fled to America with a huge wave of other immigrants. They lived together in the wilds of Canada in bliss, until Andrei was killed by hunters, likely mistaken for a wild wolf.
Lillias was heavy with a cub at the time and she brought it into the world, but she was weak and passed soon after, leaving the cub alone. The cub wandered, looking for someone to take care of it, when it was found by Eoin Lyall and his friend, the Guardian, Daragh O’Sullivan. The little cub knew its name was Rae and nothing more.