Fire & Rescue Shifters: Coyote in the Sea (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Friends and Family) Read online

  Coyote In The Sea

  A Fire & Rescue Shifters: Friends and Family story

  Zoe Chant

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  1. The Novice

  2. The Prince

  3. The Gift

  A note from Zoe Chant

  Also by Zoe Chant

  Author’s Note

  Warning!

  Read The Master Shark’s Mate first!

  This story features Martha and Finn from The Master Shark’s Mate. It won’t make much sense if you haven’t already read that book!

  Coyote in the Sea takes place thirteen years after the original Fire & Rescue Shifters series, and about ten years before Wildfire Griffin.

  If you’ve read Wildfire Sea Dragon and/or The Sea Dragon’s Lion, you might recognise some of the characters that Martha and Finn meet in this tale…

  1. The Novice

  Martha hadn’t been sure that she would recognize the girl.

  She’d only seen her once before, after all, and that at a distance. She had a vague memory of a slight wisp of a child, all eyes and elbows.

  At the time, Martha had just assumed that she was one of the neighborhood kids. What with her vast, sprawling shifter clan, she’d long since given up trying to keep track of all the youngest generation’s friends. Everyone was welcome, no matter whether they ran about on two, four, or no legs at all.

  Even when Finn had gone very still, all his attention abruptly fixed on the girl, Martha hadn’t thought much of it. Her mate always attracted waifs and strays like moths to a porch light. When he’d gone over to talk to the child, part of Martha’s mind was already working out which sheets and blankets to get out to make up the sofa bed, and who might have a pair of outgrown sneakers going spare. Just business as usual.

  At least, until the kid had taken one look at Finn’s face, shrieked blue murder at the top of her lungs, and lit out as though a whole passel of rattlesnakes was on her tail.

  That had been Martha’s lasting memory of the girl: worn shoes flapping, long pale braid whipping behind her. And Finn, staring after her with an expression that made Martha forget about preparing the guest bedroom, and instead collar a couple of grandkids to come help get their abuelo’s armor ready.

  It had all worked out fine in the end, of course. Or so Martha had thought.

  Now, looking down into the courtyard, she wasn’t quite so sure.

  No need to rely on her all-too-fallible memory to spot the girl. She stood out among the ranks of the other aspirants like a coyote at a dog show. It was more than just her silver-gray hair, such an anomaly among all the blue and green and turquoise heads of the surrounding sea dragon youths. It was even more than the way she held herself; painfully upright, so rigid that Martha had to suppress the instinct to march down there right now and give the poor mite a hug.

  What really gave her away was the empty space around her.

  Squeaky-clean, tunic-clad youngsters filled the courtyard in a neat grid, each exactly the same distance from their neighbors. Except for the slender gray-haired girl. She stood alone in a bubble of empty space, everyone keeping well back, as though she might be contagious. Even the youths right behind the girl managed to stare straight through her.

  For her part, the girl ignored her classmates right back. Martha couldn’t see her face from her elevated angle, but there was a certain set to the girl’s shoulders that convinced Martha that she’d picked her own spot to stand. No lurking in a corner for this girl. She’d planted herself square in the middle of that courtyard, in a silent act of defiance.

  Good on you, Martha thought fiercely. You show them. You show them all.

  If she’d been the same sort of shifter as the girl, she would have sent the encouragement telepathically. Martha cast a glance at Finn over her shoulder, wondering if he was silently communing with the youngster.

  If he was, there was no sign of it. Unlike the girl down below, he’d chosen to lurk in a corner of the tower top, half-hidden by shadow. His rough-hewn features were impassive as he gazed down into the courtyard. Even her sense of him down their mate bond was subdued; any emotion hidden deep down, beneath the dark, still surface of his mind.

  At her side, John Doe stirred. The iridescent plates of the Imperial Champion’s armor clicked against each other as he looked upward.

  “Sunset,” John rumbled in his melodic sea dragon accent. “It is time.”

  Martha glanced that way herself, but could see no change in the dark blue waters above the air dome that enclosed Atlantis. The underwater city was so far under the surface that hardly any natural sunlight ever reached the tops of the highest pearl towers, let alone the coral-paved streets.

  Funny to think that frightened me, once.

  Martha could barely remember the time when the sea dragon city had seemed strange and alien. She touched the locket that hung at her throat, feeling the familiar pulse of magic from the pearl hidden inside.

  Finn had made that jewel for her, in the heady whirlwind of their early courtship, so that she would be able to visit his homeland under the waves. Now, after well over a decade dividing their time between land and sea, Atlantis was as familiar as her own desert.

  Well, maybe not quite that familiar. She’d never quite worked out the Atlantean trick of telling the time without sun or sky. Even her watch was no help, as sea shifter magic tended to send human technology into fits.

  But evidently John was right. The vast, carved doors of the fortress cracked open, swinging back. As one, the students in the courtyard snapped to attention. From the utter silence, Martha was pretty certain that every last one of them had stopped breathing.

  A small group of knights emerged from their headquarters, boots ringing on the pearlescent tiles in perfect unison. Their jeweled armor gleamed under the magical, ever-shifting phosphorescent glow that lit Atlantis. Intricate, horned helmets with snarling, dragon-faced visors hid their faces.

  Martha was surprised at how few of them there were. She did a swift count as the knights paced forward, spreading out through the rows of stock-still children.

  “Seven?” she asked. “They’re only picking seven of the students to continue training as knights?”

  John inclined his head, light flashing from his own horned helm. The sea dragon’s indigo eyes warmed as he gazed down into the courtyard with evident pride.

  “An excellent year,” he declared. “Rarely do so many aspirants pass the trials. I have no doubt that most of those picked will go on to prove themselves worthy of becoming full knights. The ranks of the Order will be greatly strengthened.”

  And most of these poor kids are about to have their dreams crushed.

  In front of an audience, too. Martha, Finn, and the Imperial Champion weren’t the only spectators watching this ceremony. Silk-clad sea dragons from dozens of noble families lined the walls around the courtyard, all hoping to see their own kin selected for the immense honor of joining the Order of the First Water.

  Martha had been mated to a sea shifter for long enough to have picked up an understanding of sea dragon culture. All knightly orders were prestigious, of course… but the First Water was the oldest and most exclusive of all. They were the bodyguards of the Imperial family, the hand-picked protectors of the Pearl Throne. Every sea dragon would give their personal hoard to have a kid accepted into those illustrious ranks.

  Most of the kids down there would have been preparing for this day practically since they were born. They’d teethed on
wooden swords and taken their first tottering steps in armored boots instead of booties. Generations of family expectations rested on their narrow shoulders.

  And now, they were about to learn whether they’d made the grade. If they hadn’t, there would be no second chances.

  Looking down at those tense, anxious youngsters, Martha’s heart went out to all of them. They were trying so hard to look composed and stoic, but there was no hiding the fact that they were just children. She had grandkids older than them.

  “Doesn’t seem right,” she muttered to Finn. “Putting such pressure on them so young. They’re barely teenagers. Kids their age shouldn’t have any more to worry about than baseball tryouts and spelling tests.”

  Finn cast her a wry look. One corner of his mouth quirked, showing a flash of jagged, sharp-edged teeth.

  “When I was their age,” he murmured, “I had already faced my foes in battle.”

  John twitched a little at that. Martha didn’t blame him. When Finn had been young, his ‘foes’ had included the Pearl Emperor and the entire sea dragon race. John wouldn’t even have been born then, but of course he’d heard the tales. All sea shifters had.

  “Thankfully, such times are long past,” the sea dragon said. His tone chilled noticeably. “And we, at least, have never armed our children and thrust them at the enemy.”

  Finn let the barb pass without comment, withdrawing back into stoic silence. Martha repressed a sigh. The dragon-shark wars were long over… but it took more than just a few decades of peace to wash away centuries of bloodshed.

  Unfortunately, Martha thought, glancing back down into the courtyard at the gray-haired girl.

  She hadn’t had the advantage of years of intensive training. The poor chit hadn’t even dipped so much as a toe into the ocean until last year. Yet here she stood, amidst all those hot-housed sea dragon scions; a tough, scrappy little thing, straight and stiff as a sword, waiting to learn her fate.

  The knights stalked through the crowd of children, spreading out. Towering over the younglings, they looked like terrifying beasts out of legend, coming to gobble up their sacrificial victims. Martha was sure that if she’d been a kid staring up at those fanged metal visors, there would have been a spreading puddle on the floor around her feet by now.

  One knight stepped in front of the gray-haired girl… and paused. Martha held her breath, crossing her fingers behind her back, and her toes for good measure.

  But after a single heartbeat of hesitation, the knight moved on. She stopped instead at the sea dragon youth to the girl’s left. The knight reached out to rest her gauntleted hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “Forget your past name,” the knight told him, her voice echoing hollowly behind the jeweled mask of her helmet. “You are First Novice now.”

  Sea dragon nobility were far too dignified to do anything so uncouth as cheer, but a kind of mass exhalation came from a small group off to Martha’s left as the boy bowed to the knight. Two sea dragons that Martha presumed to be his parents clasped each other’s hands, delight and pride breaking through their polite reserve despite the dictates of etiquette.

  The boy turned and momentarily baffled Martha by bowing in her direction as well. Then she realized that the gesture of respect had actually been intended for John, towering at her side.

  Of course. He’s here in his official capacity as Imperial Champion. Martha was so used to just thinking of John as ‘that nice young man with the ridiculous sword,’ she frequently forgot that he also royalty; a living embodiment of all the power and might of the Pearl Empire.

  Then again, Martha had trouble seeing the Pearl Empress herself that way. It was hard to be in awe of someone who regularly dropped by for Taco Tuesday.

  John acknowledged the boy’s bow with a slight dip of his head. His expression was as politely neutral as ever, but Martha noticed a slight furrow to his brow that made her inner coyote prick up its ears.

  “Something wrong?” she murmured to the sea dragon, as the newly promoted First Novice accompanied his sponsor back into the fortress.

  John’s gaze followed the other knights, still circulating amidst the crowd of hopeful children. “Not yet.”

  A second novice was tapped, and then a third. John responded to every bow with the same grave courtesy… but as the announcements went on, the line between his brows deepened.

  “Come on, come on,” Martha couldn’t help muttering, as yet another knight hesitated in front of the gray-haired girl before swiftly moving on. “Damn it!”

  “Imperial Champion.” Finn pitched his voice low enough that none of the surrounding sea dragon nobles would be able to hear. “Did she pass the trials?”

  “The results of novice assessments are discussed only within the private, innermost circles of the Order,” John said, in forbidding tones. Then his mouth crooked upward. “But I believe that I may reveal to one of the Empress’s most trusted, honored advisors—not to mention personal friend—that your protege excelled at every challenge.”

  Finn shook his head slightly, his impenetrable gray eyes never leaving the girl. “Not my protege.”

  He’d only met her that once, Martha knew. John had been the one to go after her—at Finn’s request—and bring her back to Atlantis. Martha had tried to encourage Finn to visit the girl, but he’d refused.

  She must come to me, was all the explanation she’d been able to wheedle out of him. When she is ready.

  Martha had enough experience with her occasionally maddening mate to know that when he was in that kind of mood, she might as well try to persuade a mule to yodel. She’d been forced to let the matter drop, though not without a severe tickling as revenge (which had turned into another kind of physical activity, so possibly that had back-fired as a punishment).

  She’d half-expected Finn to refuse the Empress’s invitation to attend the choosing ceremony. But he’d nodded thoughtfully, and sent back his acceptance, and so here they were.

  To watch the poor kid not get picked, apparently. Martha bit back a curse as yet more knights passed over the girl, choosing other candidates. Maybe that’s what Finn meant. He’s here to console her when she fails.

  “If she was top of the class, don’t they have to let her join?” she asked John. “Otherwise what was the point of testing and ranking these kids in the first place?”

  “The Order must ensure that all who pass through its doors are worthy. But the final choice is always down to the individual knight who will assume responsibility for the student.” John opened one armored hand palm-up in a small, helpless gesture. “If I could, I would have sponsored her myself. But training a novice is a full-time endeavor, and not one compatible with my duties as the Imperial Champion and Royal Consort. It is hard enough to find enough time for my own children.”

  Martha glanced back down into the courtyard. There were only two knights yet to pick their students. Both of them hurried past the gray-haired girl without so much as a glance, nearly colliding with each other in their determination to ignore her.

  “But you are the Imperial Champion,” she said, turning back to John. “If you recommended her, wouldn’t the others have to listen?”

  “Traditionally, the Orders manage their own affairs,” John replied. “I am a member of the First Water myself, but my voice does not carry the weight of the Pearl Throne when I speak behind those doors.”

  The last two knights had a brief, somewhat undignified race, both hastening for the same skinny youth in the front row. The taller knight—a woman in emerald-green armor—won, slapping the poor kid’s shoulder so hard she practically knocked him to his knees.

  “Forgetyourpastname.” The knight spoke so quickly her words ran together, as though she was afraid the other knight might interrupt if she gave him so much as a breath of space. “You are Sixth Novice now.”

  That left only the seventh and final knight. It was hard to tell with the azure-blue mask covering his face, but Martha had the impression he hadn’t intended to
be the last to pick his student. He turned on his heel, scrutinizing the remaining kids with the glum air of someone picking over the bargain bins two days after Black Friday.

  “Oh, the nasty little bigots,” Martha said in frustration. “She’s had it a hundred times tougher than any other kid down there. She won her place fair and square. And still none of the knights are going to pick her, just because she’s not a sea dragon. Do something, John!”

  “I have no authority in this matter.” John held up a hand, forestalling her retort. “Which is not to say, however, that I am totally without influence.”

  As the last knight stalked past the gray-haired girl once again, John shifted position. It was just a slight, casual motion, as though he was merely settling himself a little more comfortably.

  But a shaft of light happened to catch his breastplate, sparkling from the golden sea dragon etched into the surface. The huge black pearl clutched in its claws shimmered with shifting colors of indigo and purple.

  Many of the nobles were adorned with pearls, but none of that particular shade. Black pearls were reserved only for the Imperial family, the blood royal… though Martha happened to know that there was one sole exception to that tradition.

  The glittering reflections from John’s armor must have caught the last knight’s attention. He checked himself mid-step, faltering. Martha saw his horned helmet tilt, his hidden eyes moving from the girl up to the Imperial Champion.

  John didn’t gesture or make any sign. He just stood there, cool gaze locked on the knight, the symbol of his position gleaming over his heart.

  Come on, Martha willed the seventh knight. If you won’t do the right thing out of a sense of justice, then at least do it out of self-interest. Do you really want to piss off the Empress’s mate?

  Much the same thought was clearly going through the knight’s mind. Slowly, as though he was still arguing with himself, he approached the gray-haired girl.