“Hey, pass me another one of those cookies, mate. What did you call them again?” Dimi asked River.

River grinned as he has the platter of cookies down to our friend. “Are you sure you want to eat these? I mean, they aren’t anything like those Tim Tams you like to order from Amazon. In fact, I’d wager to say that there is nothing even remotely Australian about Snickerdoodles.”

Dimi blushed lightly while everyone around the table chuckled. The story of our youngest pack member’s Australian fetish after having mated with Ethan was one of our favorites to retell.

River and I had probably teased him a little too much about that one, but that was mostly because he hadn’t shared any of his goodies with us. He could keep those damn cookies as far as I was concerned, but I wouldn’t have minded some of those chocolates he’d hoarded.

“All right, I reckon we’ve teased my angel boy quite enough about that now,” Ethan said indulgently as he pressed a kiss to his young mate’s temple. Dimi was sitting on Ethan’s lap, both of them smiled happily at each other and looked perfectly content. I had to admit, it was a good look for the two of them.

I glanced over at my own mate, my eyes tracing over his strong jawline and nearly aristocratic profile. Unable to resist, I lifted a hand and stroked it down his shoulder length, chestnut brown hair. In this light, it made me think of melted chocolate—smooth, silky and lustrous.

Cody tapped his fingers on the table. “Okay, gents. As much as I hate to put a pin in the fun, I think we need to get down to brass tacks and see if we can’t poke around at this latest clue to find the meaning of it for River and Mark.”

Ansh giggled from where he was sitting on Kontar’s lap. “Cody, seriously? I heard pin, tacks, and poke in the same sentence. Have Kontar and I not been fulfilling your needs enough lately?”

Heath rolled his eyes. “All right, perv. Can we not have anymore jokes about nails, screws, or hard tools? Our newest couple needs to focus on the quest, before you have them running back up and shutting themselves away in Sean’s old flat again. Hell, it took us weeks to get them out there for this visit to Effie.”

“Trust me, dollface, I don’t need to hear any special words to make me want to yank my alpha up those stairs. However, I have to admit that you’re right. We have a mission to consider. Everyone just eat your damn cookies and let’s think about the newest clue. We have all the time in the world for jokes about getting impaled later.”

I cleared my throat, amused as always by River’s no-nonsense way of talking. “Okay, then. Let’s run over those lines one more time.” Once everyone was paying attention, River recited them again.

After he’d quoted the lines, I looked over to my right at the sound of clacking. Clark was typing away on his laptop, pursing his lips as he stared intently at the screen with Kent and Parker both watching over each of his shoulders.

He glanced up a moment later. “So, the first part is quite obvious where it says thirteen lines and a legacy passed. That obviously refers to the original shamans, and their familial lines which are represented by each of us here.”

Peter nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that’s obvious to me as well. But where does life’s blood come in and how will that form the last? Is the goddess saying that we are the last of our lines… Wait. No. That wouldn’t make sense, since we’ve already begun the next generation with our own children. Hmm...”

“Aye, I reckon it will be another one of those obvious answers once we get it figured it out. It’s the guesswork that drives me crazy,” Ethan commented.

Sean dunked a cookie into his tea while he spoke up. “Am I the only one wonderin’ what gift remains and what choice it is that must be made? That’s a wee bit worrisome, if ya ask me.”

A few ideas were tossed back and forth, but I wasn’t really paying attention thanks to the movement in my peripheral vision. Recently, I’d found that pretty much everything River did was new and exciting.

He did have one habit that drove me nuts, however. The man was incapable of sitting still without fidgeting, which was amusing considering the amount of meditation that he did on a daily basis.

After about the tenth time he tossed whatever he was playing with up in the air and caught it again, I couldn’t take it another second. On the next toss, I reached out and neatly snagged it midair. The moment my hand closed around the surprisingly smooth rock, a chill went over me and a barrage of images flashed through my mind.

Once again, I was seeing those ancient shamans that we’d witnessed so many months ago when we had that group vision of the portal’s genesis. I saw the shaman that resembled River chiseling this very rock from the monolith at the circle which was meant to represent his tribe.

I witnessed the flash of Artio’s steel blade slicing across that same shaman’s palm and his blood being squeezed onto this very rock. Another image showed the pile of rocks—thirteen in total to represent each tribe—as they went flying through the air to return the individual rocks to their original owners while a blindingly white light flared from where the pile had been in the spot that portal itself was now being created.

A series of images and impressions of different hands and faces over generations of River’s family followed. And every face, no matter the gender or features, all contained one singular feature in common—a distinct yellow glow to their eyes that was identical to River’s.

The final image I saw was a vision of a dying alpha pressing the stone into the hand of a grieving omega. The omega held a sleeping toddler against his chest while tears rolled down his face.

“Please, Aaron. Make sure that you give this to River. It’s the only thing I have that can link him to his personal history. This stone has been in my family as long as I can remember… Please make sure my son gets it. I regret that I failed to pass my family’s legacy gifts to him, but I will never regret the fact that he is an omega like his dad.”

“Ezekiel, you ask too much when you expect me to live without you. How can I remain here in our home and raise our son alone? I cannot do it. Please don’t ask it of me, my love.”

The alpha reached up and cradled the omega’s cheek. “Then don’t remain here in our home. Travel, explore other places before you put down new roots—but live you must, Aaron. You must carry on for River now.”

“But what about this rock? What shall I tell River about it when I don’t know any of your history?” Aaron asked softly.

“Tell him it was his Papa’s lucky stone, and that I wanted him to have it. I don’t know why, but one day it will be important that he has it in his possession when the time comes that he will need it.”

Aaron rolled his eyes affectionately. “And would this be one of those moments where your inner voice has spoken, or is this another of your gut feelings?”

The alpha slowly stretched to pat the sleeping child’s back. “A little of both? But we both know I don’t put much stock in my gifts these days when they couldn’t warn me about this damn cancer.”

I blinked my eyes as I pulled myself away from that scene. Everyone at the table sat silently staring at me, waiting for me to share whatever I’d seen. This was one nice thing about hanging out with a bunch of damn psychics—one never needed to bother explaining these type of episodes.

“What did you see, Mark?” River asked softly.

Taking his hand, I set the stone in his palm and curled his fingers closed over it. “I saw that this was one of the original shamans stones. Remember the ones we witnessed as they were imbued with the blood of our ancestors? This stone is from that day—and I suspect, the answer to our clue.”

River’s eyes searched mine for a long moment. “That’s not all you saw, was it? You seem a little too emotional to merely have witnessed a scene you’d already seen before.”

“You see too much, River. And you are way too empathic for someone whose gifts are supposedly nonexistent. But yes, I saw your alpha father’s family over the generations. I saw every hand that ever held this rock.”

“Wow, that’s quite a gift.” River bit his lip in the exact same thoughtful way that Aaron had before him. “Does that mean you also saw my father?”

“I did. And I’ll be happy to tell you what I saw, and the love that I witnessed between your parents if you would like.” I replied.

River slid the stone back into his pocket. “Later, if that’s okay. First I need to wrap my brain around you having seen a man that I never met.”

Putting my arm around his shoulder, I pulled my mate into my embrace. “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. You don’t remember him, because you were only a toddler at the time of his death. But he loved you dearly. I’ll tell you all about it when you’re ready, okay?”

After taking in a deep breath, River smiled tremulously. “When I’m ready... But in the meantime, does anyone else have a lucky rock by chance? Because this is a perfect answer to our clue for life’s blood.”

“Aye,” Sean looked up from where he was tapping on his phone. “I’ve messaged me Mam. She has a chunk of rock up on the mantle that has been in the family. She says she’ll bring it by for Mark or Tau to examine.”

“I could almost swear that our Papa has one in his den as well, I’ll call him now.” Peter said as he stood and stepped back from the table. His mate Parker stood as well, pulling out his phone as he spoke.

“Clark’s and my dad has a shit load of rocks and metals that have been in our family. One of our ancestors was into metallurgy, so he has quite the collection of all that stuff. I’m sorry, but one of you may have to go over a lot of rocks to find the one that came from our families shaman ancestor. But I’ll call my dad too, and see if he can help narrow it down.”

Tau looked across the table at me. “Well, I guess this time it comes down to my retrocognitive gift and yours of psychometry. It looks like we’ll have a bit of work between us.”

His bossy little mate Jun nodded his agreement. “Yes, but at least this time it only involves you guys reading rocks instead of us needing to kill a bunch of vampires. If you ask me, I’ll take boring over dangerous any day.”

“Yeah, we believe that, Jun.” Clark smirked. “And this from the guy who I met while he was being choked to death by a demonic she-cat?”

Jun lifted his shoulder in a halfhearted shrug of agreement. “True, my past self was a little more adventurous than he needed to be. But when it comes to my mate? I’ll definitely choose the boring and safe over crazy and dangerous any day.”

As I rested my cheek against the top of River’s head where he still leaned against my shoulder, I couldn’t find it in me to disagree with Jun.