Page 111 of Corbin
One day, they might realize that to mages, everyone else was classified asothers. Including humans.
Justin would never want to deal with the scheming Power Barons in person, which was not a problem so long as the Guardian ruled Gallize shifters.
In an attempt to push everyone back in a better mental direction, Justin asked, “Either of you have any idea at what age Adrian met his wolf?”
“No,” Rory said. “Adrian never said much to me about his early days.”
Cole interjected, “Sammy once told me he’d been the first one to train Adrian, like Sammy trained me. He claimed Adrian had been full of himself at twenty-one, so I’d guess he shifted into his wolf by twenty at the latest.”
“Sammy would have been the one to drop that wolf a notch,” Rory said in his quiet way, always a bit of reserve in his voice.
After a quiet moment passed, Cole’s grim look eased with a smile born of memories. “No doubt. Sammy kicked my wolf’s crazy butt over and over until I finally gained control.” Cole’s throat bobbed with a hard swallow. “I do miss that bear.”
“Me, too,” Justin murmured, and Rory nodded.
Sammy had been the one to save Cole, who had fought against his wolf from day one. Cole had no idea he was anything but human until he took off in a panicked run onenight during college. The Guardian had been keeping tabs on Cole and ordered him brought in. Then the Guardian called up Cole’s wolf and forced the change, as he had for all of them. Cole had not reacted well, completely opposite to how Justin viewed meeting his bear.
Justin had experienced a sense of peace for the first time in his life upon shifting to Herc, because he’d been the odd Gallize born into a grizzly shifter clan.
That had sucked big-time.
Where his clan mates had shifted the first time as young children, he couldn’t. He’d tried over and over again. He’d had no idea he needed the Guardian’s help, since most shifters knew nothing about the Gallize. Day after day of being ridiculed as the only male in Clan Boudreaux who could not shift had slowly destroyed his confidence.
Teenage grizzly females snubbed him, unwilling to even date. What was the point when they would never mate with someone like Justin?
No man had been happier than Justin to join the League Of Gallize Shifters when he changed for the first time, not only to a super-sized grizzly bear, but one with extra power when he needed it.
But Cole had wanted no part of being a shifter, and his wolf hadn’t liked him any better.
The Guardian had faced the unenviable task of putting down Cole if Sammy had not stepped in to save the wolf shifter.
That was how they all rolled. They had no clan, pack, or whatever. The shifters in their group watched out for each other in their brotherhood.
“Why’d you ask about Adrian’s age when his wolf was called up?” Cole asked. “Adrian is closing in on twenty-eight. You worried about the mating curse?”
Rory kicked a rock and kept walking. “That would be the cherry on top, wouldn’t it?”
“I think we’re good with that for right now,” Justin countered, hoping to diffuse any new negative suggestions on Rory’s part. “I’m just thinking if we could get Adrian under control enough to function out in the world, maybe a mate would help him over the last hurdle.”
“I don’t know.” Cole stared into the distance. “Meeting a mate is amazing ... and stressful. With very little information available after the Gallize females lost their guardian, it’s hard to know what the hell is going on when you meet a potential mate. I’m not sure putting Adrian in that position would help him any time soon.”
Justin found that comment interesting and would press Cole later for more information about his first encounter with Tess.
Every Gallize male faced a curse placed on him by a pissed-off dark witch. That had happened many centuries ago, back when a Gallizenae druidess was handpicking five pregnant women whose male babies were blessed as the first generation of Gallize shifters.
She also chose five women carrying female babies to birth the first Gallize females, who werenotshifters, though they did receive powers from the blessing. But not even Justin’s Guardian could tell his men what abilities to expect, so Cole did have a point.
The curse was no myth.
Justin had seen it firsthand.
Over a period of weeks, Sammy and Cole had both deteriorated, with their animals gradually taking control.
Cole’s mate saved him, which had not been as simple as it sounded.
Still, now that Justin thought about it, he questioned whether the torture and abuse Adrian had suffered at the hands of an enemy overseas might have triggered the mating curse.
Damn, he hoped not.
