Her Warriors Read online

  Selkies of the Irish myths were purported to be beautiful. Jacki had never felt it. Sure, she knew her brother and her kin were above-average handsome, but they were her family. She would love them regardless of what they looked like. Jacki herself perpetually fought against the fat her seal form wanted to line every part of her body with. Sure, it would keep her warm in the ocean, but on dry land, Jacki sometimes felt more like a whale than a seal. At least compared to the svelte ground-based female lion shifters in her Clan.

  There were more than a few selkies in the Kinkaid Clan too, of course, but most of the Clan was made up of lions. They were tall and lithe, the women were fit and some were skinny in a way Jacki would never be. After all, she was a seal when she shifted. Not a sleek jungle cat.

  And she thought she resembled her seal in human form too. In a word—fat. Maybe she didn’t have Jabba-the-Hut style body rolls, but she was definitely a lot curvier than her lion shifter cousins. She had hips. Big hips. And though she was as strong and as flexible—if not more so—as her lion shifter cousins, she was shorter and plumper than any of the lion girls she had grown up with.

  It had made Jacki shy. And though, like most shifters, she’d had her share of sexual experiences over the years, she had never formed any long-term relationships with men. The longest her relationships lasted were a few weeks. Usually less. It was kind of depressing and it didn’t give her a whole lot of experience dealing with attractive men on a long-term romantic basis.

  When she fled Beau’s knowing smirk, she headed for her comfort place—the water. Higher up on the mountain ridge, the small lake and stream running near the stone circle sacred to the Goddess beckoned. Jacki intended to seek the lake, but instead found herself at the stream in the very place she had fought in the last battle.

  She didn’t know where the strength had come from to do what she had done all those days ago. Jacki hadn’t even known she could do something like that before it had happened. She was still a little shocked by it. But her beloved Aunt Sophia was a seer. She had told Jacki where to go and hinted at what to do. Aunt Sophia’s words had given her the guts to try.

  When Jacki’s cell phone rang, she almost laughed. That ring tone was the one she had assigned to her aunt. Sure enough, as Jacki answered the phone, her aunt’s voice came to her over the connection.

  “Are you at the stone circle?”

  No hello. That meant her aunt was on the move. Impatient. It was a quirk of hers when she was in the grips of a vision, or shortly thereafter. Jacki knew enough not to argue or delay. Her aunt’s visions were powerful and they demanded a lot of the woman. Jacki wouldn’t complicate matters by fooling around at a time like this.

  “Not quite,” she replied just as abruptly. “I’m at the stream, just below the circle.”

  “Go to the circle. Go now,” Sophia urged.

  “All right.” Jacki was moving quickly through the woods as she spoke. She broke through the last of the sheltering trees and into the small stone circle, hidden among them.

  “Is she there?” Sophia’s voice was hushed, almost reverent.

  Jacki looked into the circle and it was glowing with an unearthly light. In the center of the circle, by the stone altar, was a being. The small creature was human-shaped, but this was no human. Not by a long shot. Jacki blinked and tried to focus her eyes on the person in the center of the circle.

  “Someone’s there. It’s glowing,” she told her aunt in a whisper.

  “Good.” Sophia sounded relieved. “I’ll hang up now. Go to her. She’ll tell you what comes next. Good luck, little one. I’ve always had faith in you. It’s time you found your own faith.”

  And with those characteristically cryptic words, her aunt hung up. Jacki returned the phone to her pocket and squared her shoulders. Her aunt wouldn’t have led her into anything bad. Quite the opposite. If Aunt Sophia wanted her to be here to meet this person, it must be a good thing. An important thing.

  The question was…did Jacki have the guts to meet her destiny?

  Well, there was no time like the present to find out. Jacki braced herself and walked into the stone circle.

  “Hello, child.” The voice came from the glowing being at the center of the circle. It was a voice filled with music and clear tones that touched something deep inside Jacki. “Be welcome here.”

  The closer she stepped, the more she was able to see the being. It was a woman. A petite woman with a fey grace. Jacki had seen this woman before. Only once, but she had made an impression.

  “High Priestess?” Jacki was confused and it sounded in her tone.

  “Call me Bettina, child. For you are soon to be one of us. One of the Lady’s priestesses.” Bettina’s smile lit the circle with its warmth.

  “You’re kidding.” It wasn’t an elegant answer, but the High Priestess had just floored Jacki.

  Bettina’s musical laugh floated through the circle, echoing off the standing stones with a chiming sound.

  “Nope. Not kidding.” Her expression sobered a bit. “What you did here during the last battle proved your worth and your dedication to the Goddess. You skipped all the normal training and went straight for the big banana. You called on the Lady’s power when it was most needed and She favored you. You are already Her servant whether you realize it or not. She has chosen you. All that remains is for you to be consecrated—if you agree.”

  “Big banana?” Jacki was dumbfounded by what Bettina had said, but her mind was stuck on hearing such casual words from such an exalted being. Bettina wasn’t human. At least not completely. She hid it well, but Jacki had always suspected the small woman of immense power was at least part fey.

  Bettina laughed again, her eyes crinkling a little at the corners—the only sign of any age at all on her beautiful face. Yet, she was older than Jacki’s own mother. Bettina had been the High Priestess of the Lady for as long as anyone could remember. Which, for shifters with exceptionally long life spans, was a very long time indeed.

  “You expected me to be more formal with a lot of thees and thous in my sentences?” Bettina walked closer and the glow diminished even more until she was just a very pretty woman, no magical aura around her at all.

  And she was short. A lot shorter than Jacki. Which seemed incongruous since the woman had such immense power.

  “Sorry?” Jacki wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “It’s okay, Jacqueline. I suspect we’ll get to know each other much better before all is said and done.” Bettina began walking slowly and Jacki naturally fell into step beside her.

  “Call me Jacki. And why do you think that?”

  “Well, for one thing, you accomplished a task here a few days ago that would have been impossible for almost anybody else. It makes me think that perhaps I’ve finally found my successor.”

  “What?” Jacki was hearing things, surely.

  Bettina turned to look at her and they both stopped walking. “Think about it. The High Priestess has to be the most magical of all the Lady’s priestesses. You’re a selkie. You’re used to being more magical than most shifters. And you—either knowingly or unknowingly—called on the Lady’s power in that last battle and She answered you in terms no other priestess alive today could have handled. Yet you took all that power in stride. I think you were born to serve Her and it only took that battle to bring out your true talents.”

  “But I’m not even a priestess. I’ve never trained—”

  Bettina cut her off with a gentle raised hand. “Sometimes it happens that way. In fact, it happened that way to me. I was just a regular girl doing regular things when a crisis hit and I asked for help from the Goddess. She chose to answer my plea. That’s what happened to you too, Jacki. I think it’s clear that you’re to be my successor, if I should fall in the coming battle.”

  “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 conc
erned, 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 ha
d 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.