CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Peter had never experienced anything like the magical fire that issued from Mellie’s golden chalice. It burned the creatures to a crisp but washed over the defenders harmlessly. He was able to stand back and watch its progress as the potion mixed incredibly fast with the ocean waters.
It licked down the coast in both directions and as far out to sea as he could see with his naked eye. He actually saw the leviathan lifted up by a golden wave of power and thrown—there was no better word for it—over the horizon. Or, at least, as much of the horizon as a bear shifter could see in the dark illuminated only by the golden magic of Mellie’s potion.
The dragon was last seen flying out after the leviathan, and Peter wasn’t sure if Paul was just enraged enough to follow the creature and continue the fight or if he was merely doing reconnaissance. Ushering the evil thing away from land, as it were. Once and for all.
At least…Peter hoped it was once and for all. If Mellie’s potion worked as well as her sister’s wards, then the leviathan had just been banished from a good portion of the Pacific coast of the US, Canada and maybe as far as Mexico. He’d have to reach out to the shifter grapevine tomorrow to see just how far Mellie’s protections extended.
Pride filled his heart for his clever mate. Peter turned to look at her, just in time to watch her collapse onto her knees in the surf. In a flash, he was back in his human form, and he caught her in his arms, cradling her close.
Where the beach before had been dominated by a cacophony of sound, it was now silent. The only sounds were the welcome snuffles of bears and the familiar clicks of weaponry standing down.
Babushka came over in her bear form and chuffed at Mellie’s hair—a tender sign of care and concern among bears of the same Clan. He knew what his grandmother was saying without words.
Care for your mate. She did very well. Things along those lines. Approval and love from the ancient bear that touched Peter deeply. If his babushka accepted his mate, Mellie would be welcome in his home Clan. She was already accepted among his adopted Clan with the bears of Grizzly Cove, but it meant a lot to Peter to have his grandmother’s welcome for his mate, as well.
Lifting Mellie into his arms, he carried her away from the battlefield. Others would finish up here. Now was the time to look to his own and make certain his mate was safe and secure.
“Did it work?” Mellie asked weakly as he walked out of the once-again gentle surf, holding her securely in his arms.
“Like a charm, zvyozdochka,” he told her. “You were magnificent.” He placed a gentle kiss on her hair. “Rest now. I will take care of you,” he crooned, walking past everyone and everything, heading for his truck. “You’ve done an amazing thing here tonight, my love.”
Mellie was asleep by the time he buckled her into the passenger seat of his vehicle. Zak had trotted up, holding Peter’s discarded clothing out to him.
“Your lady done good,” Zak said by way of greeting.
Peter accepted the clothes and slid into his pants and boots. The upholstery on his seat was scratchy enough to warrant a bit of protection, but he just chucked the shirt into the backseat. He didn’t want to waste too much time in getting his mate home to their den.
“She is one in a million,” Peter agreed, his voice going soft. “Thank you for your help tonight. Pass the word to the rest,” Peter said seriously, taking a brief moment to put his hand on Zak’s shoulder. “Never have I been prouder to call you all comrades,” he said.
Zak nodded. “We’re Clan,” he said simply, and they both knew the bonds they shared were stronger than that of mere family. The core group of bear shifters that had formed around John and founded Grizzly Cove had chosen each other as brothers. They’d fought alongside each other for decades and forged bonds that would never be broken.
Zak stepped back. “You’ll have an escort shortly, and your granny already claimed a ride back to your place in the Jeep with the fifty-cal on top. She’s quite a lady.”
Peter had to laugh. The bears of Grizzly Cove had no idea what Babushka could get up to, but tonight, they just might have started to get an inkling. He hoped his grandmother would decide to stay. He loved having her around, and she could teach these American bears a thing or two. Peter would truly enjoy watching such a thing.
Peter drove down from the point and headed straight for his den. There were escort vehicles before and after his truck, and they waited while he pulled into his drive, several bears materializing out of the forest to check the perimeter for Peter while he dealt with his sleeping mate. The Clan was pulling out all the stops to protect and show their deep respect for what Mellie had done tonight. Peter was touched by their concern and glad to have the guys from the old unit helping to secure his home tonight.
Peter knew he was too preoccupied with Mellie’s condition, at the moment, to be as thorough as he usually was with security checks. Evil had been running amok not too far away, and it was simply good policy to be certain his home hadn’t been tampered with while they were battling evil elsewhere.
A half dozen bears made short work of the perimeter check, and Zak got out of one of the escort vehicles to help Peter go through the interior of the house before he took Mellie inside. All was as he had left it earlier, and there had been no breaches, but it was still good to check and kind of his teammates to take the time to help.
He saw them off with a friendly wave, knowing some of the guys in bear form would station themselves in the woods around his property for the remainder of the night. That was their way. When one of the unit was down for any reason, the others automatically helped pick up the slack.
Mellie was down—at least for a while—and the others were responding. Their actions said, louder than words, that they had already accepted her as part of the team. She was one of them now, for certain. She had proved herself in every way tonight, and her willingness to face danger in order to protect innocents had won them over completely.
Zak put Mellie in his bed, stripping off her wet clothing and wiping down her legs with a damp washcloth to remove the salt water residue. She would probably want to take a shower later, but he didn’t have a heart to wake her up at the moment. The wipe down would have to suffice for now.
He then went into the living room to call Urse. Peter knew Brody would already have reported back to John on the events of the evening, but he also suspected Mellie would want him to talk to her sister, to reassure Urse that Mellie really was okay.
Urse asked a lot of questions, and Peter answered to the best of his ability, staying on the phone with Mellie’s sister far longer than he’d anticipated. Finally, John took the phone from his mate and gave Peter the sit rep. Early reports of the potion’s dispersal were good.
Urse had received a call from the girls’ grandmother in San Francisco at almost the same moment the potion had been unleashed. The old woman had felt the magic where she lived and called to pass on her impressions. According to Nonna Ricoletti, the potion was far stronger than even she had expected, and she wouldn’t be surprised—in her words—if the effects stretched as far south as Mexico. She would call friends along the coast in the morning to see if she could get a more accurate assessment.
John also had feelers out to other shifter groups along the coast for exactly the same reason. All indications were that Mellie had outdone herself. She’d protected not only Grizzly Cove, but far up and down the coast, as well. Just how far her magic had spread remained to be seen, but things were really looking good according to what John had been able to piece together so far.
He had one final bit of advice to pass on from his mate before they ended the call. Urse warned Peter not to worry if Mellie should sleep for a dozen hours or more. Her potions took a lot out of her sometimes, Urse explained, and if this one was as powerful as it seemed, Mellie would likely need a bit of time to recover.
Peter hung up the phone and thought about what he could do to make Mellie’s rest easier. She was as clean as he could make her and propped up by soft pillows on his bed. He would hold her for the rest of the night, once he was free to seek his bed, but at the moment, he wanted to wait up to talk to his grandmother. He knew she was getting a ride back on the gun truck, so she wouldn’t be far behind.
As he stood there, thinking about his next move, he heard the unmistakable sound of the heavily armed Jeep pulling up in front of his house. A few moments later, his grandmother entered through the front door, grinning happily as she waved goodbye to Peter’s comrades.
“You’re certainly fitting in well with my friends,” Peter observed, moving forward to meet his babushka. He opened his arms, and they hugged each other for a long moment.
“Your friends are a lot of fun,” Babushka told Peter with a grin as she moved away. “I can see why you decided to stay here with them rather than return to Kamchatka, though I was upset with your choice at first. Now, I see the wisdom of it. Here, you had the chance of finding your mate and forging a new life among bears who were your brothers, though not of our Clan. You’ve made your own Clan among these strange bears, and although I did not understand how such a thing could work before seeing it myself, it is a healthy family. A place where much happiness is possible.”
Neither of them had to speak the sad truth that the Clan back on Kamchatka was dwindling and somewhat inbred. There had been no females there that had ever really spiked Peter’s interest. He’d known early on that he’d have to find a mate outside his familial territory, which had been a large part of the appeal of joining the military and traveling the world in the first place.
“I am happy here, Babushka. Mellie makes me happy,” Peter said simply.
“I can see that,” she replied, smiling and cupping Peter’s cheek fondly. “I believe I will stay here for a while. The Clan back home is in good shape, and I want to learn more of your American bears and watch your mate learn her way in this new Clan. I want to be here to help you both, especially if there is any babysitting that needs doing in the near future.” Babushka chuckled as Peter felt shock run through him. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead yet to cubs.
Still chuckling, she walked away toward the back of the house and the room Peter had designed into the layout with her in mind. He’d decorated it in her favorite colors and had kept it ready should she ever decide to visit. He was happy to have her here, and the fact that she’d decided to stay for a while filled his heart with joy.
“I love you, Babushka,” he said quietly, knowing she heard him.
She paused and blew a kiss back at him, then went on her way to her room.
*
Mellie stretched, finding herself naked in Peter’s bed. There was no window in the room, so she couldn’t really tell whether it was day or night, but a clock on the night stand read 4:27. She looked at the open doorway and thought she detected light coming down the hall, but that didn’t really tell her whether it was a.m. or p.m. She’d have to get up and investigate.
Rising, she realized the bed was mussed on both sides, as if Peter had been holding her while she slept. Just the thought of him sent warmth through her heart, love causing her to sigh with happiness. He must’ve taken care of her after she passed out on the beach.
He’d also left clothing near the foot of the bed for her. Soft sweatpants and a T-shirt from her own wardrobe. Maybe Urse had brought some of her clothes over because Mellie didn’t think Peter would have left her alone for long while she was unconscious. Not judging by the way newly mated bear shifters behaved with their mates.
She grabbed the clothing and went into the attached bathroom, opting for a quick shower to make her feel more human. When she was done, the fresh clothes felt soft against her skin as she did her best to figure out how long she’d slept.
Mellie stumbled out into the hallway and followed her nose toward the smell of coffee. She found Peter and his grandmother sitting at the kitchen table, talking quietly in Russian. They both smiled when the saw her, and Peter stood, coming over to her and giving her a kiss in greeting.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, searching her eyes as he pulled back from the kiss that was altogether too short.
“Better. How long did I sleep?”
“Almost twenty-nine hours. You had me worried, but Urse came over yesterday and checked on you a couple of times. She said you were just sleeping it off and convinced me not to worry,” Peter told her. She could see in his eyes that he had been worried, despite Urse’s reassurances.
“Oh, wow. I’ve never slept that long after a casting. I think my previous record was like twenty-two hours, but that only happened one time, when I was first learning to do the really intense potions.” She did her best to sound casual about the whole thing. She didn’t want to worry him more, but the fact that she’d lost a whole day kind of freaked her out. “I’m kind of hungry. I guess I’m too late for lunch and too early for dinner.” She looked around the house, trying to change the subject to something more mundane and less touchy.
“In a shifter house, there is always food,” Granny Ivana said, reappearing at the kitchen table with a plate of sandwiches in her hand. “Come. Sit. You must eat while we tell you the results of your work.”
The sandwiches were just about calling her name, so Mellie took Granny Ivana’s words to heart. “Thank you so much,” Mellie told the older woman. “I guess I missed quite a few meals while I was recovering.”
“A whole day and more,” Granny Ivana agreed. “Start with this, and then, we’ll see what else you might want.”
“If I eat all these sandwiches, I’ll explode,” Mellie joked, laughing as she selected a turkey and cheese sandwich off the platter. She took a bite before curiosity got the better of her. “What did you say about the results of the potion?”
She was eager to know what changes that amazing potion had wrought. Mellie was fairly certain the potion had done something truly spectacular, but she hadn’t been able to stay conscious long enough to really see what had happened.
“The data is still coming in, but Paul flew after the leviathan, watching it get literally thrown from the shoreline faster than the dragon could fly,” Peter told her. “I’m still not totally sure what drove Paul to follow the creature—whether it was rage or merely curiosity—but either way, he chased it a good ten miles out to sea.”
“Ten miles?” Mellie almost choked on her sandwich. Even she hadn’t expected that kind of range.
“It seems pretty uniform,” Peter said, nodding. “Paul flew out last night to see if he could gather more information, and he said it looked like the creatures have been pushed back roughly the same distance as far as he could fly up and down the shoreline. He went south first, until the increased shipping traffic heading for the larger California ports made him wary of being seen, then he headed north, all the way up to the Bering Sea. It seems your potion cut off the Bering Strait completely. The leviathan and its little friends can’t access the Strait and a good portion of the major fishing grounds in the Bering Sea, which is excellent news for the commercial fishing industry.”
Mellie chewed and swallowed mechanically, shocked by what she was hearing. That potion had done even more than she’d suspected.
“And there’s more,” Granny Ivana chimed in, smiling like a cat who had swallowed the proverbial canary. “I called the family in Kamchatka,” she went on, drawing her news out for full effect. “Your potion shot up the North American Pacific Coast, up to the Bering Sea and across to Russia. You have protected a large swath of Siberia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. You have protected my homeland with the same ten-mile safety zone into the ocean.”
“Unbelievable,” Mellie murmured, amazed by the news.
“Believe it,” Granny Ivana went on. “The effect diminishes somewhat after leaving Kamchatka’s shores. Japan received some protection, but not quite at the same level.”
“We’re still working on getting the data from the southward expansion, but early reports seem to indicate the same kind of safety zone extending from Grizzly Cove, southward to about the Panama Canal,” Peter added.
“Wow.” Mellie gave up all pretense of eating. She was truly shocked at the power of the potion. “I mean, I thought it would be potent, but I had no idea it would go that far, or that deep into the ocean. Have the mer checked it out?”
“First thing this morning,” Peter confirmed, smiling broadly. “They can leave the cove for the first time in a long time. They’re so happy they want to throw a party in your honor.”
It was a lot to take in. She remembered being concerned about the golden flame, and she also remembered seeing it shoot down the shoreline as if an oil slick had caught on fire. Only, it wasn’t a normal flame. It was a magical fire that was almost translucent and glowing. Not normal-looking at all.
“What about the flame? Did you all see it?” she asked.
“We saw it,” Granny Ivana confirmed, “but apparently, it was invisible to non-magical folk. Otherwise, there might have been quite a commotion.”
“And the tremors? The earth was shaking, wasn’t it?” Mellie asked, trying to piece together the disjointed recollections in her mind. The potion had taken the vast majority of her attention, but she’d been aware of what was going on around her in a peripheral way.
“It wasn’t an earthquake. Using the stone circle contained the power of the potion nicely,” Peter told her. “The shaking you felt as you dashed for the water came from the leviathan pounding its tentacles on the ocean floor. That’s also what caused the big waves. John and your sister didn’t feel any tremors in town, and no earthquakes were reported for that time anywhere in the ring of fire.”
“That’s a relief,” Mellie said, sighing. “I was afraid I might have caused earthquakes with that potion. I’ve never handled anything so powerful before.”
“Well, you did it masterfully,” Peter told her, leaning in to place a kiss on her temple. “Finish your sandwich,” he scolded with a happy grin. “I’ll call your sister to tell her you’re awake. She made me promise to call.”
“Sounds like Urse.” Mellie laughed and picked up the second half of her sandwich and began to eat it.
She felt truly happy and filled with relief for the first time since the task of brewing a protective potion for Grizzly Cove had been given to her. She had accomplished her task. Finally. It hadn’t been easy, and it hadn’t been quick, but she’d done it. Thank the Mother of All.