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Chapter Twenty-Four
Flinging herself intoher friend’s arms, Zee felt the tension fall away for the first time since this whole mess had started.
Meridia wrapped her in a warm, familiar embrace and Zee sighed, breathing in the scent of wildflowers, sun, wind, and sea that was her friend.
“Well, I guess I don’t have to ask if you’ve missed me,” Meridia teased.
Pulling back, Zee managed a smile. She shoved the card Leana had given her into one of the pockets of her flowing pants so she wouldn’t lose it, then looked around, spying Chassy and Felipe, but finding nobody else. A quick inhalation told her there were no other Atargarians.
“You didn’t bring Donner.”
Meridia rolled her eyes. “He wanted to come. I ordered him to remain at the cape on watch. It wouldn’t have been wise to let him around the Prime in his current mood. Besides, he could use the experience of being in charge for a couple of days—and he needs more practice when it comes to patience. If he came here, he’d just be ready for a fight at a minute’s notice.”
“Donner is frequently ready for a fight.” Zee gave her friend a rueful smile.
“Thus the importance of him learning patience.” Her eyes gleamed. “Not that I’d mind seeing an orca’s strength unleashed against a Prime.”
A little-known fact about Atargarian physiology was that many of the powerful ones, like Donner, who would run his own stretch of territory one day, answerable only to his Prime, had an odd quirk when it came to their two forms. Perhaps it was to balance out the fact that some Atargarians and the water-borne mammalian Therians, unlike those born on land, had no hybrid form. They were either in their human skin or in their water-based form.
The orca, his much larger water form, was an animal of strength and grace. In most Atargarian shifters, when they walked in their human skin, they were considerably stronger than humans, but nothing remotely close to their physical forms.
That wasn’t the case with powerful ones like Donner or Felipe. It was like the strength of their water forms somehow condensed and transferred over to the physical forms.
Neither were quite as strong as their water forms, but it was unlikely any Therian creature alive would match their strength.
The playing field would only be determined by endurance, the ability to take pain, the better strategist... and of course, sheer dominance.
In the end, Donner could never win against a Prime because he’d never be a Prime.
But he could sure as hell make Niko, or any other Prime, hurt more than they’d ever imagined.
Surprisingly, though, the thought didn’t bring Zee any pleasure.
“No,” she said, softly brushing her fingers down Meridia’s arm. “I don’t want that.”
“No?” Meridia’s voice was cool.
She met her friend’s gaze with a level one of her own. “No.”
Meridia narrowed her jewel-bright eyes, then, unexpectedly, she laughed. “I always knew things between you two were unfinished. Make him crawl, darling. It’s the least he owes you.”
“I don’t want any man crawling before me,” she muttered, uncomfortable with the idea.
“Any man who would isn’t worthy of you. But a Prime who treated you the way he did... well, there are other things a man can do on his knees to plead his case.”
Zee went bright red and Meridia burst into bright laughter.
It rang across the Hollow’s broad clearing.
Silence fell for a long moment as people looked at Meridia, enraptured. She had withheld some of the power of her voice. But not all of it.
Zee wasn’t surprised to see both Chassy and Felipe move closer to their Regnar. Not that she needed their protection, but they were there as her escorts and would always put themselves on the line.
Since she’d partially shielded the siren song of her voice, she wasn’t likely to draw somebody into a rapt devotion that would have a person throwing himself at her feet.
But such had happened.
“You have deep thoughts weighing you down, my friend.” Meridia brushed a stray lock of hair back from Zee’s face.
