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  “We have been attacked by operatives of the organization,” she said.

  “And you blame Dr. Stone for this?”

  “No. We blame John Adams for this. Him and the others of the Shara. We are determined to find them and remove their influence from the world.”

  “I’m not so sure you will find that as easy as you believe,” Barden said.

  He stepped away from the fireplace, and passed in front of me. When he did, he held his hand up behind him, and it took me a moment too long to realize what he was doing. He passed me a fistful of spell coins. I grabbed them as quickly as I could. I thumbed through the coins, coming across ones I needed to use for a barrier, ready for the possibility I’d need to throw one up and hold onto that protection.

  Thankfully, he stayed in front of me. Having Barden so close gave me a different layer of protection. It wasn’t a barrier, but his proximity meant he would be able to place any protection I might need.

  “Because they use these rune coins?” Ariel grinned, and faster than I could react, she seized my arm, pulling it toward her. She squeezed my wrist, prying my hand open, and looked down at the coins. She didn’t grab them, but studied them.

  “Release Dr. Stone,” Barden said.

  “Or what?” Ariel said.

  “Or you and I will see which of us is more powerful. I will warn you, Ariel, I recognize you as a powerful alpha, but I am not without my own talents.”

  Power built again, and Barden faced her. It crackled in the air, leaving everything within me shivering under the onslaught of power. Barden would do that for me? I knew he cared, but facing a shifter alpha like this was even more than I would have expected. When we’d been attacked by the vampires before, he’d abandoned me. This was a more direct response.

  But then, I wondered if it was just for show. When it came to revealing strength, when it came down to demonstrating power, the shifters needed to see someone else was able to hold strength. It was how they were able to decide power.

  “You don’t have to fear that I’m going to do anything to disrupt the agreement,” she said.

  “If you attack her, I will take that as an attack on the mage council.”

  “Now you decide to pull her into the council?”

  “I get to decide whether or not you are attacking someone who I offer my protection to.”

  “I’d be careful, Barden. You wouldn’t want anyone to accuse you of working against the council’s best interest.”

  Barden continued to stare at her, and power built from him. As it did, I took one of the coins, dropping it on the ground near Ariel. I surged power through it, letting a hint of power explode. It surrounded her. It was a barrier, nothing more, and I dropped another one, then another. As I did, I triggered more and more of them. I was growing tired from having used as many coins as I had, but I still had enough strength to deal with this. Triggering barrier coins didn’t take a lot of energy, and I was able to use what I had remaining in order to hold onto them.

  She turned her attention to me, glaring at me. “You would attack now?”

  “Considering everything I’ve been through with you so far, I think that’s a lot for you to ask.”

  “You don’t even know what you’ve begun to get into.”

  “I would say the same about you. I might not be a shifter, and I might not have the same knowledge and power you do, but I know far more about the organization than you. I have far more experience with John Adams and others of the organization, including the Shara. When it comes to this, I am better informed than you.”

  Ariel glared at me, and I did my best to ignore it. It was difficult as she was a powerful woman. With the power she possessed, I couldn’t help but feel as if I needed to shrivel up.

  When I felt that, there was Jean-Pierre, standing behind me, his sense pressing upon me. Even though I knew I should be more concerned about having a vampire elder so close, I couldn’t help but feel relieved by his presence.

  Barden replied, “She speaks the truth. I would say Dr. Stone knows more about the organization than anyone.”

  Ariel turned toward him. “I doubt she knows more than you,” she said.

  “Unfortunately, when it comes to this, Dr. Stone is better informed than even I am. I have done my best to gain an understanding of aspects of the organization, but they are nothing if not secretive.” He flashed a smile, and his power surged again. This time, I knew he was doing it for her benefit and not for mine. There was no point in him showing off to me what power he had. I had plenty of experience with Barden and knew just how powerful he was. “Can we have a reasoned conversation?” he asked.

  “Depends on what reasoned is to you,” she said.

  “Reasoned to me would be the two of us having a conversation where I don’t have to hold onto you.”

  She stood in place. “Do you think you’re holding onto me?”

  “I know I’m not. Dr. Stone is, and having plenty of experience with her particular brand of magic, I will tell you she is likely able to hold onto it for an indefinite amount of time. She might not be a powerful mage, but she has a gift with her brand of magic.”

  Ariel glared at Barden for another moment, and finally she turned toward me. She held her hands up, and pressed them against the barrier. She sent a surge of power through it, and I braced for the attack. I held onto it, surging more and more power from me and into her barrier. When I did, even though she was fighting against what I was holding, she wasn’t able to overpower it.

  “As I said,” Barden said, smiling.

  I breathed out. I didn’t want to get into a magical battle, and I certainly didn’t want to do it with a shifter of power like Ariel. Even if I had enough power to withstand her attack.

  “We need to stop them,” she said. “They intend to release a dangerous power on the other side of the Veil.”

  Barden chuckled. “I know you have experience across the Veil, so you understand there are plenty of dangerous creatures of power there already.”

  “This is different. This is one who has already been banished from the other side of the Veil. And if it were up to the organization, they would release it once again.”

  “What power is that?”

  “The power of the Great Ones.”

  7

  I sat on the sofa, glancing from Barden to Ariel, but not taking my eye off her for the most part. I was uncomfortable around her and worried about what she might do, but I was curious about what she was getting at. Who were these Great Ones?

  Barden paced. “We have already faced them,” he said.

  “We faced them, and we defeated them, but that didn’t mean we stopped all of them. And there have been rumors of a Great One having existed on this side of the Veil for a long time.”

  Barden paused and turned back to her. “How could there be a Great One on this side?”

  “All I know is that there has been a sense of power. We’ve been searching through the other packs, trying to find out if we can uncover anything, but there hasn’t been anything we’ve been able to determine.”

  Barden glanced over to Jean-Pierre. “Have you heard anything about this?”

  “Nothing I am aware of,” Jean-Pierre said.

  “How much would you have heard about the shifters and the Great Ones?”

  Jean-Pierre shrugged. “It’s possible I would not have been aware of a lot. I have been dealing with a fair bit of my own difficulty,” he said, flashing a hint of a smile. His fangs were visible when he did.

  Barden grunted. “Why would the organization want to release the Great Ones on the other side of the Veil? When they attempted to do so before, it was to release that power on this side.”

  “It wasn’t them trying to release that power. It was another one of our pack who was trying to do it. This is different.”

  “How so?”

  “Because this attempt is for the Great Ones to cause great danger.”

  Barden shook his head. “From what I understand,
the Great Ones have always caused great danger. And in this case, I don’t know how it could be any more than what we’ve already experienced.”

  “I have told you how it is more. The Great Ones are incredibly powerful.”

  Clearing my throat, they all turned to look at me. “What are these Great Ones?”

  “You were involved in that difficulty the last time,” Barden said, turning to me. “They are the precursors to the shifters. They are beings of great power, and they originally came from the other side of the Veil. As far as I can tell, the shifters would like to keep them there.”

  “They are not even on that side of the Veil.” Ariel growled softly, and a sense of power built from her, radiating for a brief moment before retreating. “We removed the threat of the Great Ones long ago. They might have been our precursors, but they are also dangerous. We recognized that danger, just as we have recognized the danger is now something else.”

  “And what is that?” Barden asked.

  Ariel growled again. “Many of the alpha shifters draw power from them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Similar to how the vampires have drawn power.”

  “Through runes?” I asked. If that were the case, then not only did shifters not have their own power, but they were drawing it from something else. And I had the sense it wasn’t something which had voluntarily offered its power – not in the same way that Barden had offered me his power. I wanted nothing to do with it. Perhaps the freeing of the Great Ones wasn’t so bad.

  “Tell us more about the Great Ones,” Barden said.

  “I cannot,” she said.

  “If you’re so concerned about what’s taking place, then you need help. We have experienced the Great Ones before,” I said.

  “You are not of the pack,” Ariel replied, looking at me.

  “And she is not a vampire, but she’s helped a vampire elder. She wasn’t even a dark mage, but she helped the mage council. I think it doesn’t matter which magical community we might be with. All that matters is we help each other. Isn’t that what we should be doing?”

  Ariel growled again, and power surged from her, and she turned her attention back to me. “What I will share with you, I do for the shifters. You should not be aware of it.”

  “Just me?” I glanced from Jean-Pierre to Barden.

  “They are elders within their magical communities. They have different obligations.” Ariel growled again. “The Great Ones were the precursors. They were the first. On the other side of the Veil, the Great Ones existed for centuries upon centuries, powerful. They ruled over others.”

  “Others like yourself?”

  “Others,” she said.

  “And then what happened?”

  “They decided to attack,” Ariel said. “The war was brief, brutal, and when it was over, the twelve leaders who made up the Council of Great Ones, were banished. When it comes to punishment on the other side of the Veil, it is swift and brutal.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were sent to a place in between. It wasn’t on either side of the Veil, and it was separated from both, which held them apart from their power. The others, those who would be the shifters, were banished from the other side of the Veil, pushed to this side. And so the shifters as you know it were born. We had no power at first. It was difficult enough for us to summon the necessary magic we needed in order to change shapes. We could only do it at certain times of the month, and it weakened us. It wasn’t until others learned how to tap into the power of the Great Ones that we were able to become what we are now.”

  “The shifters you are today are tied to the Great Ones?”

  “We are still tied to the Great Ones, and when I learned of it, I tried to abandon it, but I could not.”

  Barden watched her, frowning. “I didn’t realize you’d tried to abandon it.”

  “I had no interest in maintaining that power, not if I knew it was not for us.”

  “What’s happening now?” Barden asked.

  “As far as I can tell, the organization has discovered the nature of that power, and they seek to claim it for themselves.”

  Barden and Jean-Pierre shared a look, and I frowned. It was far too similar to what had happened with attempting to take the marker from Jean-Pierre on the vampires. Were they intending to use that power to make new shifters? It was something the organization might do. If that were the case, then could they even be successful? But Ariel seemed concerned about more than just them taking that kind of power.

  “Why are you concerned about the Great Ones being freed to come back across the Veil?”

  “If they are free to cross, they will resume their war,” she said.

  “I have a hard time thinking any creatures will be successful in instigating a war on the other side of the Veil,” Barden said.

  “You might be surprised. The Great Ones were taken by surprise last time, and they were able to be overpowered. But if they were to face that threat again, it’s likely they would succeed.”

  “They can’t be that powerful.”

  “What do you know about power crossing the Veil?” she asked me.

  “It’s changed,” I said.

  “And when it changes, think about what you’ve experienced. Now imagine that power amplified, existing on the other side of the Veil, and not altered.”

  I frowned for a moment, but I thought I understood what she was getting at. She was concerned not just about the others, but she was concerned about what would happen when that power was increased when on the other side. I had seen it myself. With the fae, I knew how powerful they were, and though I hadn’t faced any of the fae on this side, I knew that power changed when it crossed, and the way it was diminished. Even Kate was supposedly stronger on the other side of the Veil. With that being the case, if the Great Ones would gain strength by crossing the Veil, perhaps it was dangerous.

  “I can see from your face you grasp my challenge.”

  “I don’t know that I grasp anything, but I do recognize that what you’re saying has merit.”

  “I don’t care if the shifters hold on to the power of the Great Ones. All we care about is being able to maintain our connection to our power. In the time we have existed, we have discovered there are other ways of holding onto it. We no longer need the Great Ones, though it does make us stronger. What I care about is having that power unleashed, and drawing the attention of others from the other side, and risking war coming over here.”

  Neither Barden nor Jean-Pierre showed any sign of a reaction. If John Adams and the others were involved, I might be the only one who would help stop what was going to take place.

  I turned to Ariel. “Why did you request the meeting with the vampires?”

  “You aren’t a vampire,” she said.

  “Obviously,” I said. “But I can still ask why you summoned a meeting with the vampires. What did you hope to accomplish by doing so?” The more I thought about it, the harder it was for me to comprehend what the shifters had hoped to achieve. Having the vampires meet with them wouldn’t have gotten them anywhere… unless they believed the vampires knew more about John Adams. I turned to Jean-Pierre. “Did you make it sound as if you knew how to find him?”

  “Dr. Stone…”

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  Jean-Pierre stared at me, saying nothing, and I shook my head. What a fool, and yet, the more I thought about it, the more I thought what he had done might have been successful. If he had been trying to convince the others he and the vampires had a way of knowing what John Adams was up to, it might actually draw out the organization. Especially as they had grown increasingly concerned about the possibility John Adams was changing allegiances. It wasn’t exactly as if he had changed allegiances. John Adams had been willing to work with us, but he had done so only on the other side of the Veil. I doubted he would be as willing to do the same thing on this side. I had seen the way he’d immediately fled at the first opportunity, disappearing when
he was given the chance to do so.

  “We were trying to uncover anything we could about the organization,” Jean-Pierre said. “If that involved making it seem as if we had access to someone we don’t…”

  I shook my head again. “You want to draw their attention? You know what happened the last time they came after you.”

  “Better than anyone,” he said.

  “And I don’t know that it makes sense for you to taunt him. You know just how dangerous he is.”

  “I do, which is why I am still troubled that you allowed him to escape.”

  “After what happened on the other side of the Veil, I wasn’t in any shape to stop him.” That was true, even if I’d wanted to stop him. At this point, I wasn’t even sure if I did. Although I had been angry with the way he’d used us, and although I hated he was calling upon power that created dangers, I also understood John Adams wasn’t the threat, at least not like he had once been. Matt and the Shara were ultimately the ones we had to find and stop, if only we could figure out how.

  “How sure are you the organization is trying to free the Great Ones?” I asked Ariel.

  “We have seen evidence of it,” she said.

  “What sort of evidence?”

  “The kind to tell us others are chasing power they should not.” She wasn’t going to share anything more with me.

  “What if I had a way of getting us to the organization?”

  Barden watched me. “I thought you didn’t know how to find them.”

  “I don’t. When I went there the last time, I was transported by Matt, but…” I trailed off as I tried to think about the nature of it, wondering if there might be another way. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered whether or not I could use a transport coin. I didn’t have to know exactly where it was, did I? I could simply use the image from my memory, and then I should be able to find a way to transport to reach it. I didn’t even know if it would work. If it didn’t, I hadn’t lost anything, but if it did work, if I somehow were able to transport us across the distance, we would be able to find the organization – and possibly find out if all of them were responsible for what was taking place, or whether it truly was a subset and only the Shara.