Page 1 of Titan’s Mate

Chapter 1

Everyone’s life is a story.

That’s what Mari Jiang’s grandfather used to tell her, when she was a little girl and begged him for stories.

My life is a story, your papa’s life is a story, your Nai Nai’s life is a story. Your life is a story, Zhenzhen.

Zhenzhen was his pet name for her. It meant ‘precious jewel.’

Beloved.

How could my life be a story, Gong-gong? she would ask. Nothing’s ever happened to me.

It will, he assured her. Your life will be a beautiful story. And you will get to choose how it turns out.

I want all happy things, she told him when she was five, bouncing on his lap. Balloons and cake and ponies! A white one and a black one and a—a pink one! A real live pink pony was the most exciting thing she could imagine. And a whole store full of cinnamon buns.

Gong-gong laughed because he knew how much Mari loved cinnamon buns. Then his face got solemn and gentle as he stroked her hair. You will have happiness and sorrow, little Zhenzhen. No one ever gets all happy things.

Not anyone? She had stared at him, a new idea coming to her. Do you—do you have sorrow, Gong-gong? She touched his face, scratchy with his beard. He always seemed so serene, so wise, so quietly joyful. So safe.

He kissed the top of her head. I have had great sorrow. And so will you.

Her eyes filled with tears, for all the lost cinnamon buns, the pink ponies that might never be. For the sadness in Gong-gong’s face.

Then he smiled at her, and she felt safe again. I will tell you a secret, he said. You can always have joy. Joy is around every corner and under every stone. But you must keep looking for it, or it will hide itself away from you.

He held her close in his strong arms. And if you keep looking for the joy, you will find your happy ending.

But Mari knew better now. Not everyone got a happy ending, no matter how hard they looked for joy.

Sometimes, they just got an ending.

The moon hung round and orange in the sky, with only the thinnest, tiniest sliver shaved off. Mari crouched in the woods, hidden by underbrush, looking out at a moonlit clearing.

A graveyard.

Seven graves in a circle, each with a random cluster of markers—three or five or six together. Thirty-three carved stones, ranging from a foot to maybe eighteen inches high.

No, thirty-two stone markers, and one temporary one made of wood. Two nights ago there were three wooden markers; last night there were only two.

Three nights of the full moon. Tonight, the shamanwould bring the final stone and complete the memorial.

She looked to the side of the clearing, where one more grave lay in the deep shadows under a pine tree. Unlike the thick grass that covered most of the clearing, this was bare dirt, sunken the way badly-cared-for graves did after the earth settled.

It was topped by a large, smooth knob of black granite that made Mari queasy to look at. The night air seemed to shimmer above it, like the air over hot asphalt on a summer day.

But wasn’t summer. It was the day before Thanksgiving, in the hills of Kentucky, and tonight the temperature had dropped all the way from ‘chilly’ down to ‘colder than an alligator shifter’s titty.’ Which was probably just an expression, but Mari couldn’t say for sure, having personally never groped any alligator titty.

Although, if an alligator’s titties were ever as cold as this, they’d probably be dead. Frost rimed the grass inside the circle of graves, and when Mari breathed in, the air made the inside of her nose feel crispy. The night smelled like snow.

Mari shivered. She would have to find some kind of shelter for tonight. Her inner bear wasn’t made for this kind of weather. It—and her titties and all the other parts of her—hated the cold.

But she couldn’t leave now. He was coming. He had to be—to place the last stone marker and honor the dead, just like he’d done the past two nights.

The shaman. She’d spent months hunting for him—the one person who could save her from the hell that was coming for her.

If she didn’t chicken out of talking to him. Again.