After our day of finding nothing in the books, Sera convinced me to spend one more night at Red’s cottage. Mainly because she was my personal guard, which she wouldn’t admit to, but I knew she was, and she wanted to sleep in her bed. I waited as the night turned dark, and she fell asleep before I took off. I wasn’t going to sit around Azren and hope a solution ended up in my lap. The records were a dead end. While the people of Azren felt mildly safer now that the wolves were locked up, my friends weren’t safe. I only felt a small bit of guilt for sneaking out in the middle of the night. Sera would be okay, probably just mad that I bested her again.
My run was typical through the first half of the woods. Night animals were out in full force and getting their nightly meals. Owls were hooting, and the possums ran from me as I made small noises so they’d know I was near. Large animals such as the few large cats that hunted near my place were out too. I didn’t hear them, but it was like I could feel them.
There had to be an answer that I was just missing. I wished I could have had Nikkan to talk with. While he wasn’t one for things such as helping whole groups of people since he was more of the loner type, he was great at coming up with crazy ideas. I knew the majority of them were just plain nuts to try, but at this point, any of his stupid schemes would have been welcomed. I needed a fresh view on all of it. There had to be something.
I was fortunate that my night vision was as good as my day vision. I didn’t need to rest or wait as I continued my run past my house. There wasn’t anyone waiting there for me, anyway. Nikkan was locked away with the rest of the wolves.
The howls began before I even got near the fence. Their voices rang out in the night air. The wolves were just as bad as the first night in the wall, and I didn’t blame them. There weren’t any animals for quite a distance; the animals were all staying away, which only made things worse. I knew since I just ran through the woods. I had to imagine all the wolves were starving, and the ones not starving were huddled scared in their homes. It wasn’t good for those that already had the curse or those who didn’t and were trapped with them.
Trapped wolves were one problem, but trapped, hungry wolves were utterly worse. I knew they had already turned on each other. How far would it go? How long could Nikkan and Grace stay safe? They needed to eat.
I slowed my pace as I saw the shimmer of the foggy fence that kept the wolves in. Even in the dark, it was obvious where it was. I felt the magic of it but still wasn’t about to admit that I had magic in me. If I did, it was useless magic, it seemed.
The wall was still holding, and not a single wolf was near it. I could hear the skirmishes beyond the wall, but I couldn’t make out a single thing. The fuzzy wall was hard enough to see through, but I knew if there was some sort of movement, I would notice. I began to walk around the wall as I heard the wolves growling at each other. Every now and then, there would be an ear-piercing howl.
There was also the occasional human voice within the fence. I tested the wall more than once, wanting to help the human calls I heard. If they were human, they might not be cursed yet, but just being a wolf condemned them to the same fate as the ones changed by magic. I pressed on the fog wall again. There was no way a human was going through it. I could do nothing for the cries of the people trapped there.
“You can’t do anything,” Sera commented as she appeared out of the dark.
Of course, she followed me.
“I know that.” I hit the wall with my hand. Elder was safe from the wolves, but that didn’t mean my friends were safe. Being this close made it more real.
Another human cry came from inside the wall. It was the scream of a man. Part of me wanted to see him and see what was wrong, but another part was thankful I couldn’t see him since I couldn’t help.
“Nikkan, Grace,” I yelled, hoping to see my friends. Maybe not hoping either if they were locked up safe. But it didn’t sound like much of anyone was safe. “Micco.” I tried yelling for the older man instead. He would be out there in the thick of it, trying to protect those that couldn’t defend themselves.
There were now groans and moans mixed into the snarling and howls of the wolves. Amazingly, someone staggered into view. I didn’t recognize them as they got close. They had dark hair and were twice as wide as Nikkan. It had to be a male.
“Are you okay?” Sera yelled.
We could hear the wolves and people in the village. They had to be able to hear us.
The person looked around and finally noticed us. He looked like he was going to run to us, but before he could take two steps toward us, a wolf popped out of the tree line behind the person and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him back to where we couldn’t see them. The man barely made a sound, like he was resigned to his fate.
“They are dying,” I complained to Sera. “The wolves are killing the humans.”
“We can’t be certain,” Sera replied as she began to pace beside me and occasionally check the wall also.
More yells and cries came from the village. Sera began to pound on the wall as she walked not too far behind me. She might have disliked the wolves before, but she was different now. Grace had changed her. Sera cared.
“I know Grace wanted to keep the people of Elder safe, but she isn’t safe,” I complained. There was nothing Sera or I could do. It wasn’t fair. “What if something happens to her or Nikkan?”
Sera nodded and pounded on the wall. No one else came near the wall, but we could hear it all. Sera wasn’t sugar-coating it. She could hear what I heard, and it wasn’t good. There was a fight going on within the walls, and I couldn’t do a thing to help them. All my training and power was for nothing if I couldn’t get within the wall. I knew how much Red feared me being bitten, but I feared losing my friends more than becoming a wolf.
“This isn’t fair,” I complained as anger started to build inside me.
I pressed my forehead to the wall and tried to see something that would tell me what was going on. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as it felt. I doubted that, but I kept a small sliver of hope.
“It isn’t,” Sera agreed. That was a first, and some of my anger deflated at the thought that Sera and I could agree on something. “But what can we do?”
My anger came back. What could we do? We only got to sit safely behind the wall and listen to our friends die. We were helpless. I hated the magical wall even though I knew it was needed. I hated that they said I had magic, but I couldn’t help my friends. I hated that this curse was destroying the people that felt like home to me. I hated all of it.
I began to pound harder on the wall. If I was magical, couldn’t I just break it? Could I go save my friends? Was my magic strong enough to keep them safe?
“Castiel,” Sera said as she came over and caught my hands. She gently wiped away the blood on my knuckles. “Beating yourself up won’t help anything.”
I blew out my breath before responding. I wasn’t angry at Sera and didn’t want to take it out on her. I was mad with the world, angry with the curse, and angry that I was powerless even though the healer and Sera both said I was filled with magic. I never really wanted to be unique or have magical powers, but at this exact moment, I wanted to be able to help my friends. But I was useless.
I turned from the village and leaned back against the wall and slid down until I was sitting with my back to it. It might have been torture to listen to them fighting, but I couldn’t leave. I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew Nikkan and Grace were safe. I hoped that morning would come quickly, though I knew night time had just begun.
“We can’t go in there as it keeps wolves and humans apart. We can’t change what we are,” Sera explained what I already knew. She continued to stand and scan the woods behind me now. Sera leaned her head against the invisible wall and closed her eyes. “There has to be an answer. We have to be missing something.”
I wished with all my might that she was right. I couldn’t just accept that we failed. My friends and all the wolves were counting on us. Failure was
n’t an option. But man, it felt like we had failed.
“Castiel,” a voice called from the other side of the fence.
I scrambled up and looked through the wall.
“Help,” she said louder as she stumbled near.
I could see her red hair glowing in the soft moonlight. Her clothing was ripped, but she was still in her human form. I could make out that her arms and face were covered with blood as she neared us and collapsed on the ground in front of us.
“Castiel,” she cried as she saw me. “I can’t help him.” She sobbed more.
Where was Nikkan? I waited for him to appear from behind her, but he wasn’t there. I pounded on the wall with my cut-up hands.
“Grace,” I yelled, trying to get her to look up at me. I had to know. “What’s going on?”
Grace’s eyes fluttered between Sera and me.
“He tried to keep me safe, but I can’t help him. I can’t shift. I’ll become a monster like the rest of them. I’m not strong enough to fight the curse. He should never have stayed to protect me. He’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do.”
Grace tried to push herself up to stand, but her legs wobbled, and she ended up back on the ground. She gave up trying and lay down, sobbing. A feeling of uselessness settled in me. I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t smart enough. I wasn’t as magical as everyone hoped. I was just me. And I failed. Nikkan was going to die, and I couldn’t do a thing about it.
“What can we do?”
Sera looked like she was almost in tears. Her forlorn face was what I needed to find my motivation. I couldn’t give up. My friends needed us.
“We have to help her,” I told Sera. Sera was pounding on the wall with more vigor now also.
“But we can’t go through the wall,” Sera complained. “Stupid magic,” she shouted at the wall.
A flash of gray caught my eye behind Grace. I could see someone was coming near.
“Grace,” I shouted to my friend. Grace didn’t move from the ground.
The gray was getting closer. I knew it wasn’t my friend. Nikkan was blond, not gray, and this wolf was gray. I could see it nearing Grace, approaching like she was prey. I pushed harder on the wall. Grace was going to die if we didn’t help her.
“GRACE,” Sera screamed.
Grace still didn’t move.
I needed to save her. I needed that magic within me. I needed to protect my friends.
“Magic protect them,” I began to chant in my head over and over again. I might not feel my magic or know what it was, but I needed it.
I leaned into the wall and pushed harder. I felt a crack in my hand but ignored the pain. I would never let my friend die right in front of me. I was stronger than that. I was stronger than the wall. If there was indeed magic in me, I needed it now. I needed to be fierce like the black cats prowling in the night. I needed to be scary like the bears that lived far from civilization in the woods. I needed to be fast like the owls that were catching their prey in the darkness. I needed to save my friend and stand up to the monstrous wolves.
More bones cracked in my hands as I pushed. I would save my friend, no matter what. With that determination, magic began to swirl around me. I let out a scream myself as I pushed harder now. I could feel it. There was magic in me that Sera and Mal saw. It was really there, and it was going to save my friend.
It felt like an eternity, but the wolf prowling behind Grace hadn’t taken one step as I pushed through the barrier and landed on my hands and knees. The world seemed brighter to me but less colorful. I didn’t wait to see what changed as I rushed towards the wolf that was hunting Grace. The wolf looked at me and took off back into the woods but not without me catching my reflection in his eyes. I wasn’t a human or a wolf. I had made it through the barrier for one reason only. I was a panther. The magic inside me made me a shifter.
God of Shifters
1
18th March
My four feet worked just like human feet. I was actually on four feet! Somehow beyond my wildest dreams, I was a shifter. I had never once been able to transform into an animal, no matter how much I wanted to run fast, soar in the skies, or hunt with my wolf friend Nikkan. There was so much about this ability I wanted to know more about. Why did it happen now? What sort of animal was I? Was I part wolf, but no one knew? I’d seen myself as a panther, reflected in the eyes of a wolf, but how could I be a panther? Panthers didn’t live in this part of Elder. I wasn’t actually sure if they lived in Elder at all. I scrambled my brain, trying to remember if I’d been bitten and was actually a wolf, a hallucinating wolf, at that.
I didn’t have time to contemplate my new ability as I rushed over to Grace. She was still lying on the ground, unconscious. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was slow, but she was alive. I nudged her with my animal snout, but she didn’t move. I was going to have to carry her with me, but I had no idea how to get her on my back as an animal. It wasn’t like my sharp claws were made for picking someone up.
Without me thinking about it, my body shifted back to its human form. If I’d had time to contemplate it, I would have worried that I was standing in the forest nude, but just as I became human, another wolf approached us. It wasn’t Nikkan, and it wasn’t looking to help us.
“Castiel,” Sera yelled at me. Her voice was muted, but I could hear her. “Watch out!”
I quickly turned to see her, and she was waving in the other direction from the wolf that had just shown up. I turned that way to see there were two more wolves, and they were both lunging at Grace and me like we were easy meals. I wasn’t anyone’s easy meal.
On instinct, I transformed to be equal with them, but my new form was larger than they were. I was midnight black, but they could still see me. I was trying to be a giant wolf, but it seemed I made myself a cat instead. My sudden feline appearance made them both stop in their tracks. I hoped it would make them run away like the one did just a moment before, but these two seemed to be communicating as they circled me. There was no way I was going to be able to fight two of them, even as a cat, while protecting Grace.
I needed to be something bigger, something they’d fear. Was it possible to make my animal larger? I mean, I had seen wolves come in all shapes and sizes. I thought their size was a dominance issue, and I felt like I could be larger if I wanted to be.
I felt the magic swirl around me as my body began to vibrate. I wasn’t turning back into a human as I stayed on four feet, but I was changing. It seemed like the magic knew what to do, even if I didn’t. My body was swelling in size, and my fur was getting shaggier. It was doing what I wanted as if the magic could read my mind. I didn’t know how to explain it. It was a part of me, and yet, it wasn’t. I couldn’t cast a spell but I could shift into another form with barely a thought.
As the magic finished with my new form, I was looking down at the two wolves. My new, shaggy form was gigantic, and I had a feeling I was much more massive now than a cat. I’d fear me if I saw me in the woods. They took one look at me and bolted. That had worked, but I wasn’t sure what I was. I didn’t feel like a cat now. My limbs were heavier, not as fluid when I picked them up to move. I had a feeling that if I went through the woods, I’d wake half the creatures in it, nothing like the stealthy hunter my cat would be.
Grace moaned on the ground, and I transformed back into my human self. That seemed to be the easiest part. Being human was like breathing. I didn’t have to think or will myself to change. I was just that, human. It would have been nice if being human included clothing, but that seemed to be a whole other shifter issue I would have to deal with.
It wasn’t that I cared too much about being naked, but Sera was watching from the other side of the wall. I cared if I was naked in front of her. Reaching down to Grace, who had stilled again, I took her jacket off and wrapped it around my waist. Easily, I was able to pick her up, and I brought her to the wall. She hadn’t weighed much before, but since she’d been cursed, she’d become light as a feather.
/> “What just happened?” I asked Sera, who was pressed against the wall as if she was trying to push through it as I had.
“You freaking turned into a bear is what happened,” she replied. “Now, get your butt back over here, so I don’t lose my head to your mother.”
A bear! Well, that answered my question of if I’d been bitten. No wolf bite could transform anyone into a bear...and no one in any of the kingdoms could shift between different animal forms, at least, not until now.
First off, I wasn’t even sure I could go back through the wall, and second, I looked at Grace in my arms. I couldn’t leave her unprotected. Understanding appeared in Sera’s eyes. She cared for Grace too. We both wanted our friend to be safe.
“Just see if you can,” Sera suggested. “And if you can pass through the wall, then go back and hide Grace for the night and get back to this side where you are safe.”
I hated following directions and hated it more that Sera was right. If I’d had time to argue, I would have, but I wasn’t sure how long we’d be alone before another wolf tried to attack Grace. What I needed right now was time to process all of it. And I wasn’t going to get that.
“Do it now,” Sera almost begged. I could see the worry on her face.
I gently set Grace on the ground and then pushed my hand into the wall. It didn’t budge. I didn’t precisely remember what going through it felt like, but I knew I’d just gone through it. I wasn’t sure how the whole process worked.
“Maybe you need to be angry?” Sera suggested.
I rolled my eyes at her. And why not. It wasn’t like anger was a feeling I could just conjure up like a magician. The healer was right about me having magic, but I wasn’t a warlock or anything like that. Sera huffed on the other side of the wall, but there was nothing I could do.
Castiel: Son of Red Riding Hood (Kingdom of Fairytales Boxset Book 3) Page 23
