Gilbert (14 page)

“I’ll put the windows down up here,” Isaiah offered, already doing so as he drove along the highway.

“Maybe you should concentrate on the sketches,” Gilbert suggested.

“Yeah, but I can’t while I’m sitting on you like this.” Jihu couldn’t help it, he squeezed his buttocks and Gilbert moaned softly. Levi narrowed his eyes at them and Jihu hopped up. “I think I’ll just move over here.” Then he surprised himself by winking at Levi. Judging by the way Levi gaped at him, Jihu had startled him as well.

Jihu worked on the sketches while they made their way towards Sheridan. He lost himself in the fine lines and deep wrinkles he put to paper, on the detailed marks that made the images pop with hints of the subject’s character. Jihu stridently kept to the facts he remembered, but as he drew the old man and old woman, more and more memories came to him.

By the time they pulled to a stop, he was almost finished, and everyone but Isaiah was crowded around him, something he only realised after he put the last bit of shading under the old woman’s eyes. Jihu flushed all over when he saw that he had an audience. “Um.”
How eloquent. Guh.
He cleared his throat and set the pencil down. “Bae?”

Bae took the clipboard with the woman’s picture on it. The old man’s was still on the exam table. “Look at this, Levi. You can bring images to life in your carvings, and Jihu, he does it with a pencil and paper!”

Jihu nibbled his lip. Gilbert came to his side and pulled him into a wonderful embrace. “God, Jihu. You didn’t tell us you had talent like that. Seriously, it looks like those people could just step off the paper! That—” Gilbert dropped a kiss on Jihu’s brow. “
You’re
incredible!”

“I’m not—” Jihu started, but was quickly drowned out by the gentle scolding and effusive praise of his new family. He basked in it, once he got past wanting to melt into a puddle of embarrassment. Jihu knew he had many doubts about himself, and he’d questioned his worth for as long as he could remember, but from the moment he’d learnt of Daniel’s existence, he’d begun to internally repair himself, and he hadn’t even realised it. Love truly could heal all wounds, couldn’t it? At least the emotional ones, he thought.

“I think these are a pair of shamans from a lepe further north. North Dakota, if I remember right. They’re Amurs, too, and supposed to be very powerful. Hye is the woman’s name, and the man is Seok. Hye is actually the more powerful shaman, if one believes in such things. I don’t. I think both have had some type of medical education. They’d have to, wouldn’t they, to create a drug like the one used on you?”

Jihu wasn’t the brightest guy, but he had to disagree. “No, not necessarily. There are many homeopathic medicines used among us. We, at least in my former lepe, never used modern medicines. Everything was treated with plants and home remedies. We didn’t have a shaman, but there were some people, mainly women, who treated anyone who was ill enough to need it.”

“Jihu’s got a point.” Gilbert rubbed his back and smiled at him, pride lighting his features. “Think about what kind of knowledge has probably been handed down from shaman to shaman. Possibly centuries of information. Josiah, your pack has a shaman, right?”

Josiah nodded. “Yeah, and he’s a scary ol’ bugger, let me tell you, but he can fix just about anything that goes wrong with a shifter. He’s got this…this ability to kind of go into himself, then see into whoever he’s treating. That’s what he says, at least, and like
I
said, he’s scary, even if he is nice. I guess, really, it’s his power that’s scary. Intimidating. Whatever you want to call it,” he added with a shrug. “But he also might know something about this stuff. I’ll call my dad and have him pass along the message to have the shaman call me back. Should be fun. He hates talking on the phone.”

“Maybe he’ll pox your ass,” Isaiah suggested, as he came over from the driver’s seat.

Oscar scowled and patted Josiah’s butt. “He wouldn’t dare mess with this beauty. And anyway, I’ve met the guy. He’s not scary, he’s powerful, but friendly enough.”

Any other comebacks were stilted by a sound knock on the back van doors. Jihu startled and almost squeaked, and he doubted he was the only one. Levi grinned and hurried to the doors. “That’s gotta be Esau.”

Esau Walraven, as it turned out, seemed as affable as he’d been described to Jihu, at least sober, anyways. But something about the older man, perhaps the way he had of watching one silently, never even blinking, made Jihu think there was much more to Esau than what showed on the surface.

Regardless, Jihu was glad he was on their side. Esau, like his cousins—with the exception of Oscar—was a huge mountain of a man, with muscle on top of muscles in some places. He had the same dark auburn hair and his green eyes were flecked with brown and amber. No one who saw him and knew of his family would doubt his relation to them. Yet Jihu suspected there was much different about Esau, buried under his exterior layers.

“You have quite the skill,” Esau said as he looked at the drawings. “I can’t draw a straight line, and can’t even trace something for shit.” He held up his hands and curled them into fists. “All these hams are good for is building things, and even then, I can’t create something like Levi does, sculpting animals and making furniture from ideas he has. I have to have blueprints and directions. There’s not a creative bone in my body, apparently.”

“I’m sure you build lovely…houses?” Jihu tried, hoping he didn’t sound as young and silly as he felt. He thought Esau was lonely, and that was something Jihu understood and could sympathise with, even if he wasn’t lonely anymore.

Esau smiled at him and patted his shoulder. “You’re a kind one, aren’t you? Gilbert better treat you like the gift you are. Otherwise I’ll have to have a talk with him.”

Gilbert rolled his eyes and swatted at Esau’s hand. “Quit pawing my mate, and Jihu will tell you, I worship the ground he walks on. I’m not a fool.”

Esau arched a brow at that but Jihu knew Gilbert meant what he said. The link between them flowed stronger, and the warm truth of Gilbert’s words thrilled Jihu.

“So, the plan is?” Esau asked. He clapped his hands together when no one answered. “Anyone? I was assuming there’d be a plan.”

“The only plan we have is to try to find my family, or someone from the lepe who can tell us where they are,” Bae answered. “We don’t know what it’s like out there”—he waved towards the van wall. “We don’t know if we’ll find anyone, and if we do, if they’ll be a friend or an enemy. Are there cops, firefighters, reporters around? Where’s the fire headed? Last I checked, it was rolling eastward. There are too many things we don’t know, so making a detailed plan simply wasn’t possible.”

Esau grunted and crossed his arms over his chest. “Crap. I like plans, in work and in most everything else. I might have mentioned that.”

“A little spontaneity will be good for you,” Gilbert said. Esau scowled and Gilbert laughed. “Seriously. You can’t plan every moment. Did you plan to get drunk and beat the shit out of Levi?”

Esau grinned. “Actually, yeah, I did. He kept calling me an old geezer. I figured getting drunk would knock down my inhibitions about smacking a family member, and it did.”

“Thanks for that,” Levi muttered. “You’re still an old geezer.”

“An old geezer who can whoop your ass, boy,” Esau rumbled.

“Put your dicks up,” Bae snapped. “We don’t have time for that kind of macho bullshit.”

Jihu was pretty sure Bae didn’t lose his temper often, just going by the shocked expressions in the van. Esau and Levi both apologised.

“Esau, you got here before us, didn’t you?” Jihu asked. Esau nodded and Jihu went on. “Well, did you get to check the area out? I don’t even know how crowded this rest area is.”

Esau pushed the van doors open. “Actually, I’m not the first cousin here. There are some of us in Sheridan already, seeing if they can find any other shifters. They’ve been at it for about two hours and will let me know if they do or don’t find anyone. As for this place, it’s not crowded at all. I think most people were evacuated to the west, and we came in from the north. The emergency crews and such are set up in a few places that I can show you on a map.”

Jihu cringed at the bitter scent of smoke on the wind. It burnt his nose and he cupped a hand over the lower half of his face. How many lives, shifter, human, animal, had been lost? He was afraid of what the answer might be. Especially when people Bae obviously cared about might very well be among the casualties.

Chapter Twelve

The plan wasn’t much more detailed than it had been in the first place. People would soon be allowed to return to the smaller town beyond Sheridan, or what was left of it. Kirk and Brett hadn’t found any shifters, but would remain in Sheridan in case some did turn up. The forest was still burning, but the fire continued its easterly path. As far as any of them could tell, the firefighters and other emergency crews had moved on.

It wasn’t safe for Gilbert or the other leopards to shift into their animal, but Josiah and Lyndon were deemed safe enough and so they would strike out as wolf and cougar. Gilbert and the others would follow at a distance, just in case there were any news crews in the air. It wouldn’t do to be seen traipsing along beside wild animals. It’d be suspicious, to say the least.

“I wish I could shift,” Jihu said as he watched Lyndon and Josiah talking. “I haven’t gotten to in months. I miss running and giving over to my leopard.”

Gilbert took a sip from the water bottle and handed it to Jihu. “Drink. We don’t want to get dehydrated.” He checked his watch then the rise of the moon in the darkening sky. Off to the east, the fire would be lighting up the sky in a display of Mother Nature’s power. “I don’t get to shift often, either. Living in the city, it’s hard. But if we do decide to live in the cabin Grandma offered us, we can shift as often as you want. Maybe it’ll get to be less painful for me to do it, too.”

Jihu cocked his head at him and frowned. “It hurts you to shift?”

“Yup.” Gilbert gestured at his cousins. “Hurts all of us, as far as I know.”

“Tim said it doesn’t hurt him when he’s in Mongolia,” Isaiah added. “And he said it hurts less when he’s home now, too. Mom’s gonna check it out while she and Dad are visiting Tim and Otto. They think maybe it’s a native-soil type of thing or something, even though we’re originally from the Nepal area, I think.”

“That’s just odd. We’re from South Korea. Why would it hurt snow leopard shifters to shift away from their homeland but not us?” Jihu asked, gaze darting from Gilbert to his cousins.

“No idea,” Gilbert admitted. “We don’t know enough about what we are to figure it out, I guess.”

“I do think shifting more often helps,” Oscar said. “I shift a lot more now because Josiah loves to go for runs. I no longer feel like every bone in my body is breaking, just like they’re on fire. Which is a definite improvement, believe me.”

Josiah waved them over and Bae locked up the van, hoisting a canvas bag filled with medical supplies over his shoulder. Gilbert took Jihu’s hand and they gathered with the others behind the restrooms.

“This doesn’t look suspicious at all,” Oscar snarked. “A group of men standing around back here…”

“Well then, let’s move this into the trees over there,” Josiah said, pointing to the dense foliage further back. “I don’t think anyone’s paying us any attention, but Oscar does have a point. Keep an eye out for anyone who seems to be watching us.”

Gilbert didn’t feel like they were being watched, and he didn’t see anyone around. The rest area only had two other vehicles in it, both eighteen-wheelers. He didn’t spot anyone in the cabs, and figured the drivers were sleeping or in the restrooms. His ability to scent was skewered by the heavy burnt stench. The wind seemed more weighted with it than it had earlier.

“Seems safe enough,” he said as he followed Jihu into the woods. They were the last of the group. Keeping his voice as soft as he could while still speaking at a level he could be heard on, he continued, “I can’t smell anything but smoke and burnt wood, burnt—well, just burnt. Can any of you?”

Jihu and the others sniffed and a quiet chorus of ‘no’s followed. Josiah and Lyndon began stripping, Lyndon handing their clothes to Levi and talking. “Maybe once we’re shifted. My senses are never as sharp as Levi’s when I’m in human form, but as a cougar…” Lyndon dropped down to his hands and knees. Gilbert wasn’t attracted to his cousin’s mate, but he had to admit that Lyndon was a nicely put together man.

“He is,”
Jihu agreed silently.
“I would be worried if I didn’t know how much you prefer your partner to be smaller than you.”

“Not smaller everywhere,”
Gilbert corrected with a mental leer.

“Well, Lyndon doesn’t seem to be lacking there, either. Neither does Josiah. Wow.”

Gilbert wasn’t sure he cared for Jihu’s ‘Wow’ there, but when he glanced at Josiah he did understand it. The wolf shifter was as close to magnificent as any man could be. He still wasn’t as sexy as Jihu, though.

“He’s got nothing on you, Gil.”
Jihu patted his ass and Gilbert couldn’t hold in the surprised look. Jihu winked at him then gasped as he caught sight of Josiah and Lyndon shifting.
“Oh wow, they’re something else, aren’t they? I can’t wait to see you shifted. I can’t wait to run with you.”

“We’ll give them a few minutes then follow in the two groups like we planned,” Bae instructed. Jihu, Gilbert and Levi would track after Lyndon, while Bae, Isaiah, Oscar and Esau did the same with Josiah. Bae tapped his watch. “Remember, we meet up at the coordinates for the lepe in three hours. Whoever gets there first can check it out. If you find anyone, be very careful. I can’t guarantee they will be friendly, even my own flesh and blood. Be safe, and make sure to keep the radio units on, but don’t use them unless absolutely necessary.”

They’d been over all of it earlier, and Gilbert was hard-pressed not to say as much, but he knew this was very important and his own attitude was of no consequence. It was also unwarranted, so he told himself to get his shit together. He had a job to do.