Panthera Spelaea

My Lion wasn’t happy with the idea of someone killing me to take my Gift, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now. I had some serious discussions ahead of me with my girls, not to mention what I should tell our families. ‘By the way, we’re never going to age, so you need to help us keep the secret while you grow old and die on us. The good news? Lots of grandkids.’

I felt the engines rumble to life as we got underway. “Where are we going?”

“Eventually, the Spanish island of Menorca. For now, we have to transit past the southern tip of Sardinia. Ekatarina is flying into the Cagliari Elmas Airport late this afternoon. A helicopter will fly her out as we pass by.”

I had to ask the obvious question. “Ekatarina is an EAGLE. Can’t she just fly out?”

Duncan looked at me like I was an idiot. “When has a woman ever traveled without luggage?” He had a point. Duncan raised his glass and looked at me. “Whatever the girls get up to, I’ll just apologize for in advance. Olivia hasn’t shut up since she found out about your two mates.”

“It’s just women talk, right?” I didn’t sound very confident.

He laughed. “Do you know how long it has been since Olivia had the chance to make real friends?”

I didn’t get it. “Olivia seems friendly enough. I bet she has plenty of friends.”

“No, that’s part of the problem with how we have to live. Art has the same issue, as do all of us. The only true friends we can have will be on this yacht tonight. We’re the only ones trusted with the secrets. Olivia can’t be friends long-term with anyone except Ekatarina. Human friends are problematic; even on our ranch, we isolate ourselves from the surrounding town. We don’t travel off our property very often, and when we do, she has no one to see except in our group.”

“No grandchildren?”

“We’re not at rich as Art is, and we can’t support the extended family that he can. We don’t share the secret of our existence with our children; once they move out, their children never know they have grandparents.”

That sucked. “Why is that?”

“How hard would it be for someone to make a slip of the tongue? Better they never know.”

Art agreed. “I stay more active in the lives of my extended family. Since I support their upbringing, education, and employment, I engender more loyalty. I don’t allow those not of my blood to see me and know the truth. Unless working for me directly, they live in the world, and their spouses know nothing. I sponsor summer camps, bringing my children together from around the world. They don’t know everyone at the Camp is related by blood, and we get a good idea of their character. When the kids are old enough to trust, I have the option of bringing them into the family company. As you can imagine, the farther down the family tree you go, the tougher it is to trust them.”

“And if you don’t trust them?”

Art took a drink before answering. “No person is cut off completely from the family. We may not have contact, but we can guide their careers and help put them in positions of power and influence around the world. As far as they know, their dead ancestor left a trust fund for their education. Most of them will never get asked to do anything, but if needed? We have a parent or grandparent in the Company ask for help without explaining why. I have thousands and thousands of descendants who go through life never knowing Arten Karpen is their blood relative.”

It sounded complicated. “Art, how the hell do you handle marriage? What if your child or grandchild divorces?”

“If they fall in love with someone outside the family, I set them up with employment outside the family business. Marina was that way; she interned at the company, then fell in love while at law school. I helped her set up her practice, and now she helps me. If one of them gets divorced, they can come back in. They never mention me to their spouse, and they never visit with them. If I’m lucky, they bring sons or daughters to me I can read into the family.”

“So they all leave to get married and raise children?”

“Not all marriages are outside the family,” he said with a smile. “You’d be surprised how many distant cousins fall in love at these camps or while working in the family business. If both are family, they stay in the Company and keep my existence from their children until it is time.”

My head was reeling. “Jesus. It’s like the Mob.”

Art laughed at that. “The Mob dreams of having the loyalty I have. Family is everything to us. I told you earlier; almost two thousand work in Karpen Investments and three thousand more know the secret but live and work outside the company. They have spouses, children, lives of their own but remain loyal to me, keeping the secret from the rest of their family.”

“And you’ve never had anyone try to blackmail you? Talk to the press? Try to kill you and take your bear for themselves?”

His eyes flashed. “No. I provide them with good lives, good jobs, and a purpose. Their loyalty shows the strength of the family bonds. Those that aren’t loyal are left out.”

“Damn. That doesn’t seem like it should be possible!”

“I don’t think it would be under normal circumstances. I’m an old switcher, John, with centuries of experience observing and evaluating people. My bear has a nose for loyalty. I also believe there is a genetic component that works to strengthen that bond to our family, but I can’t prove that.”

I hadn’t thought of that. It still blew my mind to think Art was five and a half centuries old, Edward was about a hundred, and Duncan was over three hundred years old when all three looked as young and strong as I did. How much could you learn over the centuries?

“And what does your bear’s nose say about me?”

“My bear likes you, John. So do my investigators, who I’ve had researching your background since you came to our attention. I admire your loyalty to your mates. The incident on the subway, then in the park, was how I knew I could trust you.”

“Why?”

“Because when you come into the kind of power we have, the temptation is to abuse it. My people saw how fast you could run and how strong you’d become. A lesser man would seek advantage from that, but you protected Svetlana from assault without going too far. I’m glad my people didn’t have to clean up after you on that one; letting your lion out in the subway, or demonstrating superhuman abilities, would show you weren’t mature enough to handle the power you’ve obtained.”

“And if you couldn’t trust me?”

“My people would take you before anyone else could. You and Svetlana would have been drugged and taken to a secure holding facility. I’d pick a family member suited to the Gift and have you killed so he could take your Lion. Svetlana might survive as his mate or might not. It’s harsh, but so is the life we must lead. Imagine if Viktor was the first to touch you after your death? Or some criminal? No, we cannot risk power in the wrong hands. Someone has to kill the host so a more suitable person could get the Gift.”

“And you get to choose who is ‘suitable’ to get the gift?”

“I have the power and the age to make those decisions, John. What happens to one of us affects us all. That’s why I brought you here, to meet with the others. We all need to take our measure of you, and you need to understand how your life has to be now. If I didn’t believe you could do it, you’d be dead already.”

I needed to change the subject. “So, Duncan, about the girls?”

“Olivia’s only friend since Art’s mate died has been Ekatarina, and she lives halfway around the world. She’s also a switcher and not mated, so things aren’t the same for her. With Anna and Svetlana, she can have friends living the same way and under the same rules. She doesn’t have to hold back on who she is or what it is like to be a Switcher’s mate. By the time we all head our separate ways, those girls will be friends for life. A LONG life.”

Edward laughed a little. “You’ll have no secrets by the time they get out of the pool, John.”

I wanted to find out more about my fellow US citizens. “How long have you and Olivia been mated?”

“I found her in 1821. Since then, we’ve had eight daughters and seven sons.”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Fifteen children in three hundred years doesn’t seem like much for a wolf. I thought you had big litters?”

Edward choked on his drink on that one, and Duncan just chuckled. “The way we have to live, keeping a big family around is difficult. You raise your babies to adulthood, and pretty soon, you can’t ignore that you look the same despite the age difference. What we settled on was to have one or two. While raising them, we build our next identity and moving our fortune to the next land. After they reached adulthood, we’d fake our deaths, leave them enough money for a good life, and move to the next place.”

“And that is why you have so few?”

He nodded. “The Gift gives, but it also takes. You’ll learn the pain that comes with abandoning your children to keep your secret, John. Not everyone has Art’s fortune or will to live in hiding.”

“That has to be hard,” I said. I couldn’t imagine raising children only to cut them loose like that.

“Sometimes I think I’m the lucky one, but I’m not,” Edward said. “Art and Duncan spent centuries with their mates, while I’ve been afraid to let anyone close for a long time. You can keep an eye on your children from a distance, but that would tear me apart. I couldn’t take falling in love repeatedly with people who aren’t my mate and I’d have to leave. That shit tears you up. Whoever said ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ is full of shit. I stopped seeing women my cat rejected decades ago.”

“So you’ve given up on women?”

Edward looked shocked. “Oh, HELL no. I’m getting pussy left and right. I’m King of the one-night stands. I just accept that if my cat doesn’t want her in the morning, she’s gone. I find quantity has a quality all its own.”

I bet. We talked for another hour, mostly me telling my life story and talking about how I was settling in with my lion. “Gents, if you don’t mind, I need to find my mates and see how bad everything is by now.”

“I’ll go with you,” Duncan said. “God knows what decisions they’ve made for us already.”

The day was sunny, the breeze warm, the water clear, and the scenery in the pool was fantastic. “I didn’t know suits were optional on board,” I teased as I walked up to the small saltwater pool on the aft deck.

“We didn’t feel like going back to change, and who cares? We’re on a yacht in the Med, and we’re all friends or family here,” Anna responded.

“Get your clothes off and get in here baby,” Svetlana said.

I looked over at Duncan, who shrugged and pulled off his shirt. “Could be worse,” he said.

“We’ll find out soon.” We slid into the water, and my girls sat in my lap as the others joined us. Life was good, and tonight we’d have all the Switchers in one place.