Jason, however, seemed to be aware of this. He sat down on his haunches and held up one massive paw. A paw like a club with talons curving off the end.
I just stared at it.
He dropped the left and lifted his right paw, cocking his head, whining.
I licked my lips, wishing my heart wasn’t beating so fast, sure he could hear it, and reached to shake his paw.
Jason’s tail swept the mulch of the ground. He licked my hand before I withdrew it from the shake. Jason. Right. I had told him…
“I suppose … if he’ll stay in the Jeep?” I said. “We can’t have him out there and be seen.”
Jason stood, tail swinging, opening his mouth in what seemed to be a panting smile, sending bits of debris dropping from his bushy tail.
The other three wolves—one white, one black, and one smaller and mottled with markings I couldn’t make out in the dark—shifted uneasily as they watched us. Of course, I shouldn’t have offered. It wasn’t my fault if they were all jealous pricks, but, in their defense, I had said two. Not two plus animal companion.
Too late, though. Jason nudged past Zar to jump in the open door. Zar followed him in, also yawning.
“You swot,” Kage said, apparently to Jason, and shut his door.
In the passenger seat while Kage started the engine, I looked to Jason and Zar in the back. Jason took up much of the space, standing with his hind paws to Zar’s right and forepaws to his left, scratching at the glass. Zar could only see over the top of his back by mashing down the thick fur.
“He wants his window down,” Zar said irritably to Kage.
“Anything you need, princess,” Kage muttered, rolling down the electric window behind my seat for Jason to stick his head out.
“Are they going to hold this against him?” I asked, glancing at Kage as he let out the clutch.
“Sure they will. Think no one noticed you said two but invited puppy-eyes on the side?” Kage eased the Jeep between two trees, shifted gears, and rubbed the back of his neck. I could see marks there. What looked like newly healed pink flesh, but it was hard to tell in the light. He sighed. “Doesn’t matter. The wankers. Moon curse their hides.”
“Rough night?” I asked, glaring at him.
Kage didn’t say anything.
A long black snout poked up between my headrest and door and the wolf licked my ear. I jumped. His teeth brushing my skin was not a pleasant sensation.
“Sorry,” Zar said. “I guess … we made some noise?”
“You guess you made some noise?” I looked around at him.
Jason moved to meet me between the two seats and licked my ear again.
“Jason!”
He lay down across Zar’s lap and the full bench seat, pinning back his ears and rolling his eyes up at me.
“He was only saying he was sorry too,” Kage said, but he was smiling as we bumped out onto a real road. Enjoying my snapping at someone other than him, no doubt.
I sat forward, letting out a breath. “Will you please roll up the window?” I was freezing.
Kage did so. Behind my seat, Jason heaved a sigh.
Other than my giving directions, Kage sarcastically asking if he was going at a suitable pace and using a suitable technique in his driving for my taste, and Zar swearing at Jason for stepping on him and telling him to get in the back, we made the trip to Saint Nectan’s Glen in silence—although the window did go back down for part of it.
I was prepared for a long wait in the dark, dreading reaching the spot, in fact, longing for my coffee. But I forgot all about this as we pulled into the car park to find not only was it already occupied by a little electric car, but there was a faint light glowing from the glen.
Chapter 14
“Shhh, let me do the talking.”
“Cassia, wait—”
“Might just be worm tossers lighting a fire in there.”
“We’re here for your protection.”
“Please, Zar, keep your distance. Let me talk to them.”
I moved stealthily down the dark wooded trail while Zar and Kage followed only a few paces behind. The only one who did trail from a distance was Jason. Zar had let him out of the Jeep as soon as we’d stopped. So much for staying behind. I didn’t say anything about it. I was starting to feel like an uptight nag around this bunch—which I hated. Those weren’t words I’d usually use to describe myself.
I also remembered Jason being the only one who thought to ask if I would have enough water in the caravan and his attempt at an apology just now on the ride over—though I’d snapped at him for it. Maybe I owed him one.
Werewolves had been keeping their lives private from humans for thousands of years. Jason could probably manage to stay out of the way.
As I walked carefully toward the falls, not daring to bring a flashlight, though Kage had offered a “torch” from the car and I had my own keychain light, I watched the warm glow in the woods fade like lingering sun spots in my eyes. At first, it looked like someone had started a fire out by the falls, as Kage noted. Then the place seemed to slide away, fading as if flames were being covered until the soft orange light became a very faint blue-white one.
By the time I reached the footbridge and could see the waterfall ahead in predawn gray, the light was gone. Just as the surface of the water had made my skin tingle, awareness of energy left behind sent air shivering around me: magic essence like heat lightning. The tips of my fingers tingled. A chill raced down my spine.
I’d meant to move into the open, show the druidic circle I didn’t mean any trouble and introduce myself. No skulking or looking shifty.
Instead, I hesitated. “Zar?” the merest whisper. “Druids aren’t casters. So what…?”
“That’s not human magic,” he whispered back, almost into my ear, and I knew he could feel it as well. “It’s the kindred. Has to be.”
My heart leapt. Would we see one?
The faie: elementals, magical spirits, fairy folk, guides, and ancient companions of both the middle and lower worlds. Nana had seen them, even had pet names for some. I’d felt them around in her high desert domain where I’d hiked and camped with her but never seen a faie in person and awake.
Yet the energy was fading with the light, the air itself seeming to settle just as if a wind were dying—hiding from us.
I started over the bridge, stepping silently as I could and holding my hand out to tell Zar and Kage to stay back. They ignored the warning, following on my heels until I turned and glared. This made them pause on the bridge while I moved on toward the pool.
Noise of rushing water filled my ears. Subtle smells of earth and moss and river rocks filled my nose. There was something about the ground beneath my shoes that breathed.
For a moment, I thought it hadn’t worked. Not only had any faie fled when they sensed our approach, but the druids had abandoned their circle and also slipped away before risking explaining themselves to mundanes.
Then I saw the woman.
As if I’d been looking at her all along. Like I’d known she was part of the stones and water and breeze. Yet, as if she’d just appeared there.
She stood motionless, her back to me, her arms out to the waterfall, palms up, praying or meditating.
With my escorts still at the bridge, I waited at some distance to allow her to finish her ritual. She must know I was here. If for no other reason than the faie’s vanishing. But where were the others?
Druids followed a nature-based faith and this sort, the kinds of druids loosely connected to the magical community, were generally members of druidic orders much as Broomantle was to casters. Diana had said the nearest order was around the Scottish border. If Zar was right, however, and my own scrying, there was still one order in Cornwall. And this glen was a gathering spot. Yet … here she was. One woman facing the waterfall.
For the first time since spotting her, I felt uneasy. Was this right?
I took a gentle step back, waiting, wondering if I should speak o
r leave her in peace, running through what I knew about druids.
There were people Nana used to reference as “fringe magic.” Not mundanes, nor casters in our world. People like Wiccan practitioners, mediums, and shamans.
Then there were druids. A collective joined to the Earth and natural spirits. I hadn’t the faintest idea what all they did to practice their faith, or much else about them, though I respected the idea of their connection to nature. Nana had held them in great esteem.
And now … being attacked? Someone in the South of England murdering shifters and a druid?
My worries of what to do next, of interrupting a ritual, were resolved when the woman—with long, pure white hair and a gently lined, weather-roughened face—turned to me.
In the gloom with the eastern sky growing lavender, the birds calling, the waterfall roaring at her back, she smiled at me.
“Good morning” she said in a soft voice that hardly carried over the water. “I didn’t know anyone else came to the glen so early.”
“I was looking for you,” I said, hoping on second thought that this didn’t sound creepy. “I think. My name is Cassia. I’m trying to find the druids in this area. I hope we can help each other.”
Her eyes widened as she took me in anew, though she didn’t seem alarmed. She offered her hand and I stepped forward.
“Well,” she said slowly, “you’ve found her.” A smile crinkled the corners of her eyes as she pressed my hand in both of hers. Her skin was silky, smooth and fine.
I felt calmer with the contact, certain this was right: where we were supposed to be, who we were supposed to find.
“‘Her’?” I asked. “You mean … there are no other druids in Cornwall?”
The old woman’s expression grew sad and she again squeezed my hand as she said, “We have long been a dying breed.”
I glanced around to the two on the bridge. “That’s what I was hoping to talk to you about.”
She saw them as well.
“Friends of mine. Could we talk to you? They tell me your people may possibly have been attacked as theirs have.”
This time, she did look alarmed as her gaze went from Kage and Zar, then up to my face. “This is a sacred place.” I could hardly hear her in the rush from the waterfall. “Might I beg your grace and time to meet later? I believe I know what it is you are referring to. Two druids have…” Again, she looked at Kage and Zar.
“Two?”
She nodded.
“Anywhere you like,” I said. “Where could we see you?”
“Come for lunch, if it’s not too much to ask. No—my granddaughter will be over. Tea, then? Five?”
“Five would be perfect.” Anything would be perfect. “Thank you so much…?”
“Ellasandra. And thank you for coming to find us. May I give you my address? You young people know how to get anywhere without directions these days.”
I smiled, fishing my phone from my hoodie pocket. “We’re spoiled.” I typed in the address to my notes. No idea if it was near or far but it hardly seemed to matter.
I introduced Kage and Zar, both keeping back, nodding, before thanking Ellasandra again and we left her to her glen.
Thank you, Goddess.
The magic was right. It was myself I didn’t trust. Follow the magic and I would find the answers. Sometimes I just needed reminding.
We made our quiet way back to the Jeep while I looked up the address. Now, though, I couldn’t catch a signal.
They’d heard all we’d said, though I couldn’t imagine how when I’d hardly picked up the old lady’s words a foot away from her.
“So who’s going to tea?” Kage asked in an offhand way.
My little bubble of euphoria at this clear path burst.
“How about I go alone?” I said as we reached the Jeep. “Will that keep the peace?”
“We’re here to look after you, Cassia.” Zar sounded troubled by the idea of my aloneness.
“Are you?”
“Of course we are. Your wish is our—”
“Uh-huh. I’m going to start being more specific about my wishes. How about ‘no fighting’ for one?”
Hand on his door, Kage looked around, then whistled. Nothing happened.
The first rays of sun stroked treetops with a fiery golden glow that helped to lift my spirits once more.
“I didn’t mean to fight with you, Cassia.” Zar took my hand, dark eyes round and troubled. “Truly, I’m sorry. I only wanted to make sure we were doing our—”
“I’m not talking about arguments with you. I’m talking about you fighting among yourselves. All night.”
He opened his mouth, shut it, then bit his lip, apparently bewildered by such an idea. You’d think I’d told him he and the others had been off skiing last night.
“What?” I asked. “Can you not remember stuff you do when you’re—?”
A great, dark figure bounded out of the woods at a run. Kage threw open the door beside us and the wolf flew inside like a gazelle.
Zar spun away from me as Jason brushed past his shoulder. “Jason! Ni, get in the back, Vinu stura.”
“Move over.” Kage flapped his hand, though he didn’t seem to care what Jason did.
Jason stepped to the far seat, giving Zar room to follow. He did not get into the back but panted, once more seeming to smile, untroubled by Zar’s words or tone as Zar still snapped at him in Lucannis.
Kage started the engine.
From the passenger seat I said, “I need coffee before we go back.”
Chapter 15
We took twenty minutes in the village bakery where I was able to find my espresso and plug my phone in for that long. Jason waited in the Jeep, inconspicuously curled up in the back. I hoped.
Kage and Zar sat with me at a tiny table against the wall where I’d found a power outlet. They had steamed milk but nothing to eat, which surprised me. After the display with the burgers, I’d been concerned they might pillage the pastry case. No, they only sniffed, then ignored it. Maybe there had to be meat involved for them to care. Or maybe they were so used to their mealtimes they didn’t consider breakfast an option. I didn’t ask.
Every early morning visitor to come in that bakery stared at us, making me uncomfortable. Probably locals. Only surprised by us. Yet, with the nature of our mission, and nature of what we all were, attracting attention made my skin crawl.
“Couldn’t have got her to have a coffee with you?” Kage asked moodily as we settled. “Why’d she put you off to teatime?”
“She was obviously busy now,” I said, both hands on my hot paper cup on the table. “At least she was willing to see us today at all.”
“You were marvelous to find her, Cassia,” Zar said. “Just like that.”
“Bit too easy, wasn’t it?” Kage gave me a sideways look. “Makes you wonder.”
“What’s that mean? You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust her.” His tone was low, conspiratorial. “Can’t trust anyone, can we?”
“So you think Ellasandra wanted the extra time to call up her serial killer buddies and have them meet us at her place? And maybe druids sport hunt out of helicopters also?”
Zar rubbed his ear, looking down at his drink.
Kage also pulled a face and changed tactics. “We don’t know who could be after us. Watching us and them? Put us all together and…?”
“A bunch of prey in one place attracts predators?” I asked. “If someone is keeping an eye on us, I don’t see that we can do anything about it. The faster and more efficiently we work the better. Which is why it’s a good thing, not a bad one, to find people we’re looking for so quickly. We can’t get paranoid just because we find an easy clue. As to me being ‘marvelous’ I wish you’d have found a caster for help last winter, and you might not be in this situation.”
“That wasn’t our choice,” Kage said.
“But you wouldn’t have even if you were leader of the whole South Coast Cooperative, would y
ou? Why do you hate humans? I know you have a secret to keep but you must see them every day. I’d have thought you get used to us.”
“Diana did ask once,” Zar said. “And most of the pack was against her. Isaac was one who really pushed for it. Only a few did, insisting we could get help from humans.”
“It was a right balls up,” Kage muttered. “After the way that bloke treated them half the pack started thinking—” He turned his head, looking through tall windows to the gray street.
“Thinking what?”
Neither answered. Zar still looked at his lidded cup. Kage drummed his fingers on the table.
“You think … casters could be doing this?”
“Of course not,” Zar said quickly, finally glancing up. “You’re helping us, Cassia. It’s not as if—”
“But some of your people think these murders are the work of casters?”
Kage gave an irritable shrug while Zar again rushed to answer.
“It can’t be casters. The scene, the way they cover their trails, if they had magic—”
“Some say it’s casters who mean to make themselves look mundane by the way they’re working,” Kage said. “Makes sod-all sense if you ask me. If they have magic, why wouldn’t they use it?”
“The fact is, we don’t know,” Zar said. “And our silvers have been firm in trying to keep speculation at bay. Everyone thinks it’s someone or other, so the pack gets jumpy.”
Bunches of cornered wolves ready to fight back and going on suspicions rather than even solid evidence? My own words came back to me, telling Diana I didn’t want to be responsible for a bloodbath. Clearly, neither did she.
As to the caster theory, Kage was right. First of all, it made not the slightest sense that, say, Broomantle members would decide to start murdering werewolves. But, if they did, they’d use all the magic they could and make a clean job of it—no need to chuck gasoline and solvents around. Anyway, I couldn’t allow myself to jump on the speculation and paranoia bandwagon. As far as I was concerned no one and everyone remained suspects. And that was exactly how it was going to stay unless and until something pointed to real evidence.
“I’m glad you asked me to help,” I said. “They’re right to keep everyone in check about running off half-cocked.” I sipped my hot drink. “On an unrelated note, what do you mean when you say silver?”
Moonlight Desire: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 1) Page 9
