Studied the window.
Marginally comforted when Arit joined him on the bench, Nick let the peaceful quiet wash over him. “It’s beautiful. Thank you,” he eventually murmured.
“You’re welcome.” Arit wriggled closer. Stroked Nick’s thigh. He nodded at the soaring hawk represented in delicate glass. “Superstition, tradition, and faith still have a purpose in the tribes. Whether hawk shifters ever existed doesn’t matter as long as their legends give us a reason for hope.”
“Oh, the hawks were real.” Glancing at his mate, Nick arched an eyebrow. “We wolves wiped them out before the first Marisek united the tribes under his banner.” He titled his chin at Milan, the Goddess. “The foundation of the Crystal Palace was laid over ancient catacombs containing funerary stele inscribed with genealogies claiming Malin as their root.”
Arit gaped. “You’re lying.”
“Toly discovered the tunnels, but I was the one who escaped into them every summer, as often as I could, practically from the moment I took my first steps.” Shaking his head, Nick chuckled. “Mother and Father sealed the entrance for fear I’d be lost or hurt, but I found another way in. My brothers and sisters explored the catacombs very little. They thought it was creepy. I loved mapping it, though, seeing what no one else has.” When Arit gawped at him, Nick grinned. “The hawks had icons, too. I don’t know if they were mating gifts, but ossuaries in the oldest tunnels contained carved stones alongside the bones.” His smile widened. “Hollow bones. Like a bird’s.”
“But—” Arit’s mouth worked open and shut. “That’s a major discovery! The tribes argued for centuries about the old gods, swearing any tales of non-wolf shifters in each territory outside their own was fable and fantasy. The tribes didn’t stop fighting battles over it until the first emperor gathered all the gods and goddesses into a pantheon to be revered and respected by all.”
“I don’t know of any proof of lynx shifters or bears.” Nick lifted his palm. “Just the hawks. Evidence of extinct brethren shifters doesn’t prove the existence of their gods and goddesses, either.”
Arit dug his fingers into the meat of Nick’s thigh in his excitement. “But you think lynx and bear shifters existed, too.”
“I do.” Nick leaned into his mate. “Are we a fairy tale? Wolf shifters exist. We have to at least consider the possibility the old legends of other shifters beyond our own kind could be true. If hawks once ruled the southern plains but were descried as myth after defeat and their ultimate extinction, I’ve no reason to believe real lynxes and bears were spared the same fate.”
Nick’s heart melted at Arit’s awe as he struggled to process this new reality, at the bewildered wonder etching his face. “The empire kept knowledge of brethren shifters secret,” Arit said. “Why?”
“Until I found the stele, we passed tales down our bloodline from one emperor to the next like every other high alpha prince of the tribes and that alone. Nothing else.”
“And once you discovered evidence?”
“Father said proving the truth of hawk shifters settled nothing about the question of hawk gods and goddesses. He feared providing proof of hawks but not bears and lynxes would upset the delicate compromise of the pantheon and risked war between the tribes.” Warmth and fond memory swelled Nick’s chest. “He also said the peoples needed faith. More than proof, more than the monarchy, more than anything. Our shared faith makes us strong.”
“You won’t reveal what you know. No matter what your discovery could mean to science and the historical record.” Arit scowled. “If you are crowned, you’ll bury your secrets.”
“Temporarily.” Nick cupped Arit’s cheek, feathering his thumb across the rough stubble. “If traces of hawk shifters remain, clues about bears in the north and lynxes in the Urals could, too—burial grounds hidden by ancient glaciers, old claw marks or paintings lost inside caves. Something. Anything. We, as a people, have been too distracted by war and hardship in the modern age to search.” He leaned, pressing his own cheek against Arit’s ear. “Reopening our borders would bring new technologies as well as archeologists and historians from the lands of men who would aid our investigations. I think the proof is waiting for the tribes to stop fighting with each other and neighboring lands long enough to discover it…because human scientists also believe that. I wouldn’t chance any announcement about the hawk catacombs until we’ve legitimately searched the most promising sites for bears and lynxes.”
Though Arit lowered his hands to Nick’s waist to yank him closer, he firmed his jaw under Nick’s caress. “Don’t you get it? Shifters have had enough of political lies.” He growled. “No more.”
“Was hiding among the humans to survive the rebellion and its aftermath a lie?”
Cursing, Arit stiffened. “Of course not,” he finally said, body vibrating with the ill temper Nick could now readily sense through their strengthening bond. “If you had come forward sooner, when you were still young and most vulnerable, the council would’ve sent assassins to kill you.”
“I agree. Yet here I am, alive and in the imperial cathedral of my forefathers. Plotting to regain the throne.” Nick inhaled the comforting woodsy scent of his mate. “Timing is vital to avoid unnecessary violence and bloodshed. I’ll do whatever I must to lessen the probability of more death.”
Arit harrumphed. “Except your own.”
Nick drew back from the wonderful sanctuary of the curve of his mate’s neck. “What?”
“Don’t pretend you are safe,” Arit argued, high points of angry color reddening his cheeks. “Many elders bow to your popularity in the territories to ally with your cause as a political expediency alone. The council holdouts will strike back. They must or lose the power they accumulated, abused and corrupted after the revolution. What will your grudging, reluctant supporters do when they strike?”
Warmth spread through Nick at the worried sparkle in his mate’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “My fate rests with the peoples. Always has.”
“The peoples nearly killed you once already.” Snarling, Arit dug his fingers into Nick’s hips. “I don’t want you to die.”
“I don’t want you to die, either.”
They both tipped their heads, mouths seeking. Their kiss stretched into forever, the slick dance of tongues a delight to Nick. He swallowed Arit’s rumbling groan and turned to bring their chests together, Arit’s hard muscle flush against his through the layers of Nick’s formal attire and Arit’s heavy leather jacket. The earthy musk of Arit’s arousal supplanted the sour tang of angry fear in Nick’s nostrils. He threaded his hands in Arit’s mane of hair to hold his mate’s wicked mouth steady as he licked, tasted, and made a meal of Arit’s lush lips.