see the star energies in my middle. Oddly, they were moving slower. “I can’t shift to half-form right now. Beast is . . . something’s wrong with her.”
Eli canted his head, acknowledging my words. I finished the cocoa. Eli offered me a hand. I looked at it but I had to clear the air first. “I know how dangerous it is to shift to a smaller mass. I was afraid someone would try to stop me.”
“I’m not that someone. Don’t play games, Jane. Not with me.”
“If I wanted to do something really, really stupid, you would let me?”
“We’d talk over options. Weigh threat levels. Discuss backup. You claim you want family and clan. But when it comes down to the battles we should be fighting together, you go rogue. Bruiser was livid. Molly was furious. I was pissed. Still am.” His words were hard, with sharp angles, meant to cut.
I wasn’t good at apologies. Or doing things with others. I had run away from my people when I got sick. I had run away when I planned to shift to owl. “I didn’t know if I could shift to owl with the tumor in my belly. I was afraid I’d die and you’d be here to have to watch.”
“So you ran off alone. Again.”
“I told Alex what I was doing and where I was going. I carried the cell phone.”
“Not good enough.”
Viciously, I said, “I don’t want you to watch me die, you idiot. It’s tearing you apart watching the cancer eat me.”
Eli slanted a look at me, one hard and cutting. “You ran away. You always run away.”
I tried to cuss but the words stuck in my throat. I managed, “I’m sorry.”
Eli nodded, a tiny dip of his chin. “You should always make use of backup if it’s available. It was available and you went out alone. Don’t.” His tone was steely. Softer he said, “However, what you did was brilliant, flying with a trackable cell. It was a good plan. We know where you went. Is the last location you circled for so long the place where EJ is?”
“Yes.” I took a few deep breaths. And accepted Eli’s hand, which was still out, in offering. He pulled me to my feet and steadied me. The pain swept through me like waves if waves were made of blades and broken glass. “Gimme a minute,” I said. I held the Anzu feather hard against me. The pain ratcheted down slowly.
“You’re right about one thing. I do not want to watch you die.”
“Okay. So I don’t die. I stay alive.”
“Good plan.” Eli opened his cell. Punched a number. He said, “Yeah. We’re heading back in. Last coordinates are where she tracked EJ. Shimon has him. She confirmed that there are two groups of fangheads, competing.” He listened for a bit and I didn’t try to overhear. I was too busy breathing. “Copy.” He closed the cell and picked up my gobag and the crystal. “What’s this?”
“Soul. I’m pretty sure. We’ll need to free her but . . . I don’t know how. She’s trapped but that isn’t her arcenciel form. It’s a mermaid form. And I’m pretty sure she isn’t sane in that form.”
“Yeah. Copy that.” Eli studied Soul in the beam of his flash.
“If we find a rift in the dimensions,” I said, lying by omission, “we can try breaking the crystal and tossing her in.”
“Yeah. We’ll do that. Just go out and find a rift. Though I guess a rift isn’t any more impossible than anything else we’ve done.” He tucked Soul in his pocket and slid an arm under my shoulder and around my back. Our heights were pretty much the same, but it worked. He flipped on a strong flashlight and shone it across the snow.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s do this.” I took my first step. Agony like boiling oil passed through my middle. I took a second step. And a third.
It was nearly dawn when we got back to the inn. Eli used his cell continuously, and by the time we got back, a battle plan had been organized. But I still hadn’t found Beast. And I wasn’t able to fight for EJ. I would be a liability. Which just sucked.
I lay on my recliner with the heated blanket on high, sipping chocolate with CBD oil in it, trying to find Beast, trying to find my half-form. No such luck. I watched the team as they filed out the door, taking the kids with them to