Page 43 of Truthfinder’s Promise

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Meredith had barely registered Jensen’s order to get out when something large, furred, and snarling rammed into her. Her back hit the edge of the kitchen island, sharp and hard, the air fleeing her lungs in a rush. A jaguar latched onto her front, claws digging into her right shoulder to hold its position as its other paw raked down her chest, lines of acid-dipped pain ripping through her skin.

But Meredith and pain were old friends. She got her knee up between her and the cat’s hind legs before it could make a cat’s classic move to disembowel, and she snapped her arm in front of her neck, preventing its teeth from latching on to her throat. Sharp fangs bit through her forearm and clamped down.

She did the only thing she could think of. She shoved off the counter and bore the jaguar to the ground, landing on top of it. She thought it was surprise more than anything else that made it let go. Whatever the cause, it gave Meredith the split second she needed. She scrambled back and wove an Aspect shield in so short a time even Valkyrie might be impressed. The jaguar leapt to its feet, lunged for her, and hit hard against the protective bubble.

Physical shields, like this one, were rarely used in actual combat, because while they prevented anything from getting to the person they protected, they also prevented the person inside them from interacting with anything outside. Using one was a last ditch, I am so fucked I am going to hide in this bubble and hope someone rescues me, kind of shield.

Meredith was so fucked. Her chest and ribs burned from the lacerations, and the amount of blood pouring down her arm suggested something important had been pierced by jaguar teeth. She clamped her hand over the wound. Fat lot of good it was going to do, considering she didn’t have much strength to put into the effort.

The world went woozy. She was vaguely aware that Jensen was fighting two people—no, Shifters—across the room but her vision wouldn’t focus enough for her to notice any more than that. She slumped against the kitchen island and pressed down harder on her arm. The problem was, she couldn’t feel the fingers in her left hand anymore.

The jaguar flung itself at her shield again and again. When Meredith inevitably passed out, her shield would come down and those sharp fangs would close over her neck. If she didn’t bleed to death first. She had never spent a great deal of time imagining her own death, but had she, she didn’t think she’d have come up with death by jaguar. Certainly not death by jaguar Shifter.

She was thinking through fuzzy thoughts, trying to arrive at the conclusion that she should find something to use as a tourniquet, when a black-clad form hurtled into the jaguar.

Valkyrie. Either this was the luckiest day of Meredith’s life, or Val hadn’t been able to leave well enough alone. Not that Meredith was complaining. Jaguar claws swiped and tore at Val, trying and failing to pierce the Battle Aspect armor that coated the warrior like a second skin.

Meredith heard what sounded like every faucet in the house turn on and a rush of water spilled into the room, separating Valkyrie, Meredith, and the jaguar from Jensen and the two others. The two dropped Jensen and focused on coming to the jaguar’s aid. But there was no crossing the wall of water before them because Jace stood in its center, the water subject to his every thought. Each time the shifters tried to navigate it, the water hurled them back.

A few feet away, Valkyrie bore the jaguar to the ground, her blade readying to strike a killing blow, and Meredith didn’t need Jensen shouting her name in a plea for her to scream, “Val, stop!”

Val froze, the tip of her dagger just piercing the jaguar’s chest. “It tried to kill you,” she pointed out.

“This has just been a big mis—” Her vision hazed and she blinked hard, trying to focus. “Misunderstanding,” she finished. She tried to move forward again but something held her back.

“Sorry, sorry, I should have been here sooner.” Siren was at her side. She sounded tired and faintly ill again, and Meredith wanted to tell her not to fix her, that she wasn’t worth it when something was obviously wrong with Siren herself. Unfortunately—or fortunately, she supposed, since the cool Aspect flooding into her body was literally saving her life—she never managed to form the words.

Her vision and thoughts cleared as her wounds knitted closed. An uncomfortable sensation, like IV fluids being pumped into her veins, spread through her.

“Are you regrowing my blood cells?” she asked.

“Yes,” Siren said, sounding more tired and sick than ever. “Be grateful.”

“Well, you’ve regrown enough of them,” she snapped. “I’m not going to die, but you look like you might if you keep going.”

Jace’s head jerked toward his wife at those words, his grip on his Aspect faltering, and in the momentary opportunity provided by his lapse in attention, Jensen broke through the water wall. He made it all of two feet before Random cut him off with an upheld hand, his be-whatever-it-needs-to-be Aspect freezing Jensen in place.

“I really wouldn’t,” Random said casually. “I’m a reasonable man, but the women in this room are a little kill happy.”

Great. Everyone was here. So much for secrecy. How in the hell was she going to explain this?

Siren finally stopped pouring Life Aspect into her, fingers trailing down one of her arms, then the other, as if she might find some wound in a physical inspection that she’d missed with a magical one. Her hand paused on Meredith’s wrist.

“When did you get a tattoo? And why does it have a J inside an infinity symbol next to your Aspect Affinities?”

Every Shifter in the room went dead still, a change that wasn’t missed by any of the Aspecters. The pinned jaguar let out a noise Meredith couldn’t begin to guess the meaning of, and shifted. Gold and black spotted fur melted away, and after a minute or two of cracking and shifting—during which Valkyrie didn’t so much as blink at what was happening beneath her—the jaguar was gone and a very beautiful, very naked woman lay in its place.

Her golden eyes sparked with fury, and she looked at Jensen like no one else was even in the room. “You married her?”

Meredith would have laughed at that obvious misunderstanding if Jensen hadn’t immediately replied, “Yes.”

Every gaze in the room swiveled to her. Meredith’s went to Jensen. His eyes practically begged her not to say any of the things she instinctually wanted to say. Among them, What the hell? and Are you fucking kidding me? and, Please tell me this tattoo is not a Shifter wedding band.

Goddess, she’d even thought it felt like a wedding ceremony.

The naked woman threw Valkyrie off her. Val allowed it, probably because the whole of the woman’s focus was on Jensen. She stalked to him, black hair spilling in a wavy curtain down her back, completely unconcerned with her nudity in a room full of strangers. She grabbed Jensen’s left hand and flipped it over, baring the tattoo on the underside of his wrist.