by Lisa Ladew
Vant’s evil stare found Growler. “By the Great and Powerful Bear!” he said in an overly-solicitous tone that was obviously meant for mockery. “This is Growler, himself, isn’t it. He’s an alpha of some element. Belief or something. Prowls those Belief switches good.” Vant crossed his arms over his belly, then looked around as if for answer.
Anna gulped hard and ignored the monster, who would dare try to provoke her with jealousy. She would slice his head from his neck with her weak magic and her strong will. She switched her weapon from one hand to the other, wiping the free hand on her dress. She couldn’t kill Vant. She knew it. But she wouldn’t concede it. There had to be a way. “Let it never be said Anna would not allow a dead vampire a few brave words afore he died, Vant,” she hissed his way, all pathetic bluff.
Vant made a theatre show of looking from her to Growler, mocking them. She hated him like fire. Every cell in her body screamed to kill him. And yet, she could only stand and listen and wait for her shifters to come save them both, unless she wanted to die. Twice in two days she had to control herself to protect her life. If she went in swinging like she had with Antimony, Vant would not blow her away harmlessly. He would slice her in half. Anna itched to fight with everything she had. But she could not.
Vant’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her, nodding his head like he had just figured something out. “Anna the everyday Bond switch is sweet on this big bear. Grr.” He shook his head like a fool. “I thought that wasn’t allowed. Right? Cosh rules. Antimony’s rules.”
Growler growled long and hard and irritated and Anna had to agree completely. Why did this nasty bloodsucker know so much cosh business? HOW did this bloodsucker know cosh business? Snarls filled the air, and the shifters sprinted close, coming from between the trees as if from nowhere. Sir Dewey’s giant proper bear went right for Growler, freeing him from the magic with a swipe of massive claws, as Growler held the magic taut, but too late, the Vampire Vant had feinted again, phazed and came up behind Anna, ready to run her through like he had Growler. Anna had magic, a little, she bonded it behind her, shielding the blow, knocking the knife up her back where it split her dress and cut off one braid, but didn’t mar her skin.
Shifters converged on Vant, and poof, he was gone in a haze of black-colored magicks. They’d lost him. Lost the Fatherborne.
Shame burned Anna. Worse than useless, Bond switches were, if they couldn’t kill when it meant everything. Vant could be anywhere. She staggered. She’d used so much magic she had little energy left to walk or think. Growler was there. Human again, he caught her. The wound on her side split open under the strain of her depleted magic. Growler lowered her to the ground and pulled her dress apart to get a look at it. The other shifters of her element shifted into humans, mostly all at once, each instantly wearing clothes that she’d paired to their shift with her twisting, campfire magic over the years. As one, they turned outward, showing her their backs. She didn’t understand at first, but then she did.
They all knew. Each and every one of them knew Anna had chosen Growler and Growler had chosen Anna and all that was left was the claiming that would assure neither was ever part of the cosh again.
But they turned their backs as a show of respect, not disapproval. She could feel it from them. Their acceptance gave her strength. They would no longer seek to Prowl with her, to serve her in any way but the most broad. They would funnel her to Growler for all. But he would have to claim her. And then the cosh-switch would decree they be thrown from the cosh, and none of it would ever happen. Even though the ones who mattered, accepted it. Anna could weep with it.
Growler did, one hot tear sliding down his cheek. Anna grabbed for it, wet leaves sticky on the back of her neck, her scalp and arse pressing into the forest floor. She had Growler’s tears around her neck but she’d forgotten until she saw that liquid manifestation of his love for her on his cheek, that shining reminder that when she hurt, he hurt. She had to touch it. One finger, outstretched, trembling. Wet. Cool. Power surged through her. Her magic was back, and at full strength.
But still, she could never kill a Fatherborne. Bond switches were weak. Everyone knew it. Nurses and midwives, they were good for. Not vampire killing. Anna ground her teeth and fixed her wounds, sitting up, grasping her dress close.
The shifters filtered away while Growler knelt next to her, no words or growl coming from him. Would the other shifters watch over them from afar? Anna did not know the ways of the secretive males. Would they tell anyone about her and Growler? They would not. Would they say they had prowled with her to protect her and Growler’s secret? She didn’t know.
Growler tried to lift her with a growl. She wouldn’t have it. Who knew what he wanted. But she needed to prowl. She hadn’t killed Vant, but her energy had gone sky high with the other kills and the energy of the roof and the face-off with Vant and Antimony. She couldn’t come down on her own. Her heart pounded in her chest and she lurched up. She needed more vampires. That would bring her down.
“Are they still fighting at the Cosh?” she yelled into the forest, to her shifters who had come from there. Could she find vampires there? Her campfire energy surged higher, her renewed magic almost lifting her from the ground. More vampires. She needed them. Her body ached to be in on the kill. To pair with her sisters and wipe the vampires clean.
Pink light exploded from the East, blinding them all, an explosion rolling over the hills and through the forest, blasting needles from trees and animals from roosts. Anna watched. Her shifters watched with her, the orange lights in their eyes fading with the pink glow from the explosion that could not have happened. Debris rained down. Pieces of wooden beams. Growler batted one away that fell to close to her. A bed. Almost whole. Straw and feathers carried on the wind. Had Antimony blown the cosh to pieces?
It did appear so. Anna and the Bond shifters set off in that direction at a run, without a word, Anna running as hard and fast as she could to keep up with the animals, until her bear ran past so close his fur grazed her elbow. She grabbed on to his side and he cocked his hip under her, flipping her on top of him. She clutched his coarse fur with both hands, clenching his rolling body with her knees, as he pounded them down the path toward home.
18 – Antimony Knows
They drew close to where the cosh had stood, in the meadow just below Coven Springs. The smell of wood and straw filled the forest, animals ran at them, the deer so spooked they vaulted over Anna and her bear, while wild mountain lions, panthers, bears, and wolves flanked them, ran with them. Anna and her shifters took the last bit slowly, deliberately. Anna did not want to run into Antimony. Antimony’s last line to Anna had been, “Stay down, Anna. You don’t want to lose your pretty head. Growler wouldn’t make it through the night.” What were the consequences to be?
Antimony kicking her out was the worst and also the most likely outcome. And then Anna’s life as a warrior would be over.
Somber, but still practically floating on electrical energy that insisted she kill, slay, hunt a vampire, now!, she skirted the meadow from within the trees. Not even one wall of the cosh still stood. The place must have been overrun with vampires and Antimony had destroyed it all. The switches and shifters were immune to her magic when she wanted them to be, so the danger to them would only have been from flying debris, while the vampires would have been wiped out. Destroyed. Brotherborne and Fatherborne alike. Reckless. Crazy. Typical.
And now they had nothing left.
A group of cosh children, all girls, ranging in age from eight months to fourteen years, were sitting in the tall grasses on the edges of the meadow, talking softly.
Growler bid his shifters fall back so the switch children would not sense them and swarm them. The oldest three, long hair braided down their backs, coming of age knives at their sides, spoke quietly, but Anna could still hear. Growler could, too. They whispered the gossip of the cosh, while the younger switches tended to the babies and sang or told stories.
Mary Celeste had
gotten her kill, her way, had made the cosh proud. Fourteen switches had been injured but all were healed with magic. The children had managed to escape their hiding place and track down a fleeing vampire. Not much was left of him. None of the cosh had died. One shifter had lost too much of a leg to fully regenerate. The rest had shifted to heal their numerous injuries, and would take the one who lost the leg to the healer of the forest. He might get his leg back. If not, he would have to adapt. They all would. He wasn’t automatically out of the cosh. Fate would decide if he was bold enough to stay with three legs as an animal, and only one arm as a human. The Keeper’s book had been found in the river, blown there by the explosion but still intact.
The Keeper’s book was important to all, especially Antimony, since it acted as Fate’s messenger and Fate’s keeper. Antimony kept it in her room, but switches had free access to it. They passed it around, read it, rubbed the words on the pages, added to it when they discovered a new spell or saw their magic change in accordance to need. Spells, stories, magic and magicks were added, until the pages were alive and would whisper to you as you read them.
The children did not seem sad that their house was destroyed. Blocking it out? Or were they typical switches, sentimental only about their weapons? The girls whispered Bone and Belief and Breath elements wished to go nomadic again, like they had been a hundred years before. The cosh used to have been only a concept, loosely grouping switches and shifters who glowed together in a common cause. Eradicate the vampires. Stop them from doing what vampires did. Anna wasted no time thinking about that. The two Blood switches under Antimony would never allow it. They were strong here in the forest, indeed, in all the surrounding land. Something about the earth itself here. And since only Blood could kill the Fatherborne, they were the ones who decided whether the cosh was nomadic or not. Someone whispered Antimony had planned the explosion so there was no cosh to move. That she wanted it rebuilt from scratch in a new location and would destroy all to get her desire. No love for Antimony. The sisters stood for each other. Antimony was not a sister. Switches did not like to think about what she really was. Even the little ones felt it. But she was so powerful. They needed her.
Anna gazed past the children, at the hill where the longhouse used to stand. There were a few shifters poking around, looking for still-living vampires. Most were prowling. The battle had been the biggest any but Antimony had seen before, and most switches would need to prowl even though they no longer had a home. Anna needed to prowl, but she would not allow herself. Not now. Not yet. She was strong and could resist the prowl with promises of more kills. Not all could.
More whispers from the girls, but Anna had heard enough. She swung around to her left, no direction in mind, only away. She poured her overflowing killing energy into a joint-pounding run through the trees, so fast she could only breathe in sips and gasps. She ran through the forest with abandon, no doubt in her mind that her shifters, or at least the biggest one, the strongest one, the one with the most attitude, was running after her. The alpha pacing her. Waiting for her to be ready.
***
Growler ran with Anna as a human, slightly to the left and behind her, watching the braid the vampire had hacked short bounce on her back. Growler would undo the mangled braid, then find a way to cut the rest of her hair so it matched, so it curled just around her shoulders and kissed her face so becomingly. He’d done so before.
Growler could see her face from that time, see it in his mind, from one time when he’d cut her hair before. She’d been beautiful then, the curls softening her face. She was beautiful now, one braid hacked off, the end bouncing as she ran in front of him, leaping downed trees, spinning around standing ones. She was flagging, though. He ran faster to be there to catch her if she stumbled.
In his mind, he was already catching her. Taking her somewhere. Cutting her other braid off. Curling what was left around her face with his fingers. His dick hardened in his pants and he groaned at the tightness as he ran and it chafed, willing it to go down. To wait. It was not yet time.
Night turned to early morning and still they ran. None of the shifters were with them, he’d felt them peel off, drop away, miles ago. He would never stop. Not till Anna did. The sun rose higher, the air heated, and still they ran. Magicks still leaked from Anna’s fingertips, orange and swirling, like a bird in flight. Running was the hard way to bring the magic down, but one his Anna chose often. Till she punished herself enough.
She stopped, all at once, sagging. Growler grabbed her around the waist, catching her, lifting her, folding her into his chest. He would carry her home. She could rest. No, they had no home left. He would carry her somewhere.
She placed a hand on his chest. “I still want to Prowl, Growler. The right way.”
Growler did not try to argue. She looked wasted. Exhausted. Beaten. But she would not miss this chance. Where else had they to go? Rebuilding the cosh would take twenty days, with all shifters working at full tilt. It was important that they, all the shifters in the cosh, build the building with their bare hands, working it with their devotion to the cause, placing every board and rock. They’d learned in the last hundred years, after they put down roots and began building houses, that the areas the shifters put the most attention into creating were most receptive to the magic of the switches. The cosh soaked up magic easily, especially in an area a shifter had sweated over, had left enough flesh on. If many Bond shifters had worked on one area, the switches would gather there, naturally. Sometimes the wood would glow with the color of their magic, like it soaked it in and held onto it for a time. So there would be no hiring hands to help with the construction and build a new cosh in two days. They had to do it the long way. The right way. There was no other way.
Sir Dewey probably was stringing tents now, or already had a nest for the bond switches and shifters to gather in until a course of action was decided on. But Anna would not want to go there just yet. She wanted to prowl. Needed it.
Growler felt around in the forest with his senses, finding a cave immediately to the south. He whirled around and headed for it, glad when Anna relaxed completely in his arms. He reached the cave quickly, placing Anna carefully in the driest corner to sleep on the soft sand as he prepared the cave. He checked it through, then built a fire at the entrance then tore the extra skirts from Anna’s dress to make her a bed where the dust and the dirt wouldn’t rub up against her.
She sighed as he tore her skirts from her. He left her for only long enough to find water for her to drink and wash in, as she always insisted on.
Then he woke her.
Anna brushed hair out of her face, laying back on her skirts, staring up at him with complete trust. She captured his shoulders and stared into his eyes, smiling sweetly. He loved her smile. Would kill for it. Die for the right to gaze upon it.
“We still live,” she said, long shadows on her face.
Growler laughed aloud, bucking when her hand reached for his shirt, moving it to expose the chiseled skin of his chest. His Anna wished to see his body. He plucked his shirt away and kicked off his boots. Anna was relaxed completely, arms limp, head lolling, as she stared at him with lust in her eyes. She looked so tired. And still she needed him. The process that had married a switches need to a shifters prowess in this way so cursed and blessed them. Anna swirled her hips and sighed and her sweet, dangerous campfire scent reached him. She was so ready to Prowl. But she would need him to do all the work.
Gladly. For eternity. He dropped to his knees, pants still on, and gathered her close. “You doubted your magic.”
She didn’t say a word.
Growler could never get her to talk about it. He accepted that Bond magic was not the fierce, biting magic that Blood and Belief were, but Anna never would. It didn’t make sense, she said. Why would Fate consign her to a nursewife’s role, but give her a burning desire to be the lead warrior, the one always in front during battle? They were missing something. She was missing something. Some element of her eleme
nt that would make Bond magic as strong as the magic of her sisters. Or at least let her kill a Fatherborne. She wouldn’t even care if she were weaker than her sisters, if she could make them stronger than they were alone. That was still her strength, even if she lent it out. But there had to be a way for a Bond to kill a Fatherborne. This was always Growler and Anna’s pillow talk. How to get at least a bit of the power the cosh overflowed with, pull it over on their side. Enough to speak up for themselves without fear.
So he’d said it. She often doubted her magic. He didn’t take the words back, as her eyes hardened slightly, then relaxed. She knew how he felt and he would not hide it. They’d been here before. This push and pull, Anna refusing to believe she was as good as the other switches, as worthy. Growler insisting she believe it. But then one of them would move close to the other one and Anna would catch a glimpse of Growlers hard biceps and shoulders as he caged her in with his arms, or Growler would press up against her and groan at how she pressed back and they would be lost. They would never fight when they could fuck instead. Anna had sworn that if Growler was ever hers and hers alone, that would be her first rule to herself about how to be a good mate. She would never, ever fight her mate, when instead she could fuck her mate.
Anna held out just a bit longer, talking still, quietly, her voice speaking volumes about being tired but not sleepy. “If only the cosh blowing up meant we could start over,” she sighed. “We are not the same cosh we were a hundred years ago, five years ago, even one year ago...” Her words trailed off.
“It being gone changes nothing,” Growler rasped, finally pulling the braids out of his Anna’s hair with one hand, the other one on the ground, holding him up. Even if there was no cosh… Growler let the thought drift. Let his bear have it. There was something interesting in there that he couldn’t quite grasp, but his bear would tell him when it was important.
