by Susan Hayes
“I’ve got a message for you, too.”
The tallest of the gulls walked to the front of his group. He was carrying a battered pet-carrier with a snarling bundle of fury crammed inside. Snuffy’s voice was muffled because he’d been stuffed in head first, but she could still make out most of what he was saying.
“I’m going to tear out your gizzards and feed them to the crows! Or crabs! Crows and crabs! All of ‘em! And then I’m going to stomp on the bits leftover! You hear me you squawking bunch of shit hawks?”
Breeze held her hands out to her sides, palms up, and summoned her magic. Dark blue sparks flowed from her fingers to surround her in a glittering swirl. “Let my familiar go.”
The leader smirked, shook the carrier, and dropped it on the ground at his feet. “You can have the fat, mouthy bastard back as soon as you hear my message. This town is ours.”
The rest of his crew nodded and voiced their agreement.
“Yeah, ours.”
“All ours.”
“Mine!”
The leader sighed and raised a hand. “Fuck’s sake, Gus. We talked about this.”
“You’re wrong. This town isn’t yours. It’s mine, and I will protect it.”
The sparks flew faster and her hair lifted from her shoulders in what she hoped was a fantastic display of power and not a bad case of static frizz.
“Yeah?” The lead gull stepped aside and several others followed suit, including a huge gull Shifter that had to be Jimbo. “You’ll need to discuss that with him.”
Behind Jimbo stood a new player. Tall, broad, and broody enough he could have hatched a dozen eggs just by looking at them. He wore a hooded cloak of pure black, and shadows clung to his form despite the fact the sun hadn’t set yet.
“This is a place of power. Too long has it languished without purpose or protection. The Father of Shadows has seen this, and lays claim to this place. He will bring purpose to the Way again, bathing the world in shadow and corruption.” His voice was oddly hollow and filled with dark, unhappy whispers. As he spoke, the shadows around him started to deepen and grow, slithering over the ground at his feet like serpents.
The hackles on the back of her neck stood up and her inner voice started to suggest now might be a good time to go on vacation. Bali was nice this time of year, wasn’t it?
She planted her feet and got a grip on her fear. She wasn’t going anywhere. “Not happening. This Father of really long titles guy can find some other place to spread his corruption. Wyrding Way is protected.”
The shadowy figure sniffed. “By you? Please. You’re nothing. The Father killed your parents, and they were more powerful than you can imagine.”
She shrieked in fury and hurled her magic at him without thinking. It was focused by anger and instinct and contained more power than she’d wielded in her life. And it didn’t touch him.
The shadowy figure dusted a speck of imaginary dirt from his shoulder. “Is that all you’ve got?”
She threw another blast at him, pouring everything she had into it. It had no more affect on him than the first one. Fuck!
He raised a hand engulfed in those hideous shadows and gestured to her, firing a sizzling wall of shadow at her and everyone else. She acted on instinct, throwing up a magical shield that should have blocked the incoming spell…but it didn’t. The wall of darkness hit hard, knocking her off her feet with the force of a speeding train. His magic was so cold it burned, the pain so bad she couldn’t find the strength to move or even groan. All she could do was crack open one eye as the hooded figure straightened and looked past her to the people she was supposed to be protecting.
“You have twenty-four hours to pack your things and leave. Anyone who wishes to join the Father of Shadows is welcome to stay, of course.” He turned, paused, and for a moment his voice sounded almost human. “But I really don’t recommend it. Leave while you can. You won’t get a second chance."
He raised his hand and the gull Shifters fell in around him. One of them asked, “Wait. What happens to the ones that stay? My momma lives near here…”
If the gull got an answer, she couldn’t hear it over the raucous gloating of the lead gull as he walked away. “Tick-tock, townies. Pack up and leave. This place is ours!”
“Mine!” the scrawniest of them shrieked, then squawked in pain as the creepy dude in the hood zapped him with a bolt of pure black light.
Breeze lay on the ground. She was still in pain from the magical assault, but that wasn’t what hurt the most. She’d failed. Her only job was to protect the town, and she’d fucked it up. Goddess on high, her magic hadn’t even touched the creepy hood dude. She wasn’t special. Her wishes hadn’t come true after all.
Chapter Ten
Connell was on top of the world. He’d never been much for doubts and second-guessing, so it hadn’t taken long for him to shake off his worries. Things would work out because that’s what always happened. He just had to keep going and put his faith in the Goddess’ plans.
“Sorry for doubting you, your Gloriousness.” He addressed the twilight sky as he drove back to Wyrding. Finding his mate had flipped his flippers at first, but he was coming around to the idea. Coming. Now there was an appealing plan for later tonight. Sex with Breeze had been off the charts amazing. She was smart, funny, and sexy as hell. He could see a future with her. Breeze would protect the town while he went on missions. He’d finally have a place to call home.
Yeah, he liked that idea. He’d been on the road for years. Hell, he’d barely seen the inside of the apartment that acted as his official residence. He hadn’t been back there in… shit. Three months. The food in the fridge had probably become sentient and taken over the lease.
His quest to track down Jimbo the gull’s sick mother had worked out as nicely as everything else today. He’d found her in the second place he’d checked, set up in a cute little village only a few kilometres down the coast. She was elderly, frail, and wracked with a nasty cough, but she was happy to have tea with a friend of her dear boy, Jimmy.
Gladys told him all about her Jimmy and his friends, most of whom she didn’t approve of. By the time he left, he had the names of every member of Jimbo’s crew. He hadn’t told her what her son was up to, but he made sure she knew he agreed with her assessment of his friends. They were indeed a shady group of kelp suckers who needed a swat to their feathered behinds.
He was putting together a plan on the drive, working through ways to get Jimbo to turn on his friends. It would give the gull a chance to correct his mistakes and stay out of Shifter jail. That would be best for Gladys. She needed her son. Connell hated to think about what would happen to her if she was left alone.
He didn’t get the first inkling of trouble until he hit the edge of town. There was a crowd gathered outside the pub. Odd, the party wasn’t supposed to start for another hour. A few seconds later he spotted the gull and orca Shifters staring each other down and realized the shit had hit the fan while he’d been gone.
He slammed on the brakes and leapt out of the car as Breeze’s furious shriek tore through the air and a firestorm of familiar blue sparks lit up the street. He sprinted to the center of the action, throwing up a silent prayer to the Goddess for protection as he dodged through the crowd.
He reached the line of orca Shifters just as someone said, “Is that all you’ve got?” and loosed a blast of dark magic at his mate.
The force of the blast knocked several of the smaller whale Shifters off their feet and still had enough kick to bring him to his knees.
He was back on his feet by the time the gull’s spell-slinger had made his speech about packing up and leaving. Like he was going to listen to an overly dramatic warlock in a knock-off Ringwraith costume. Breeze would deal with… Shit.
“Breeze!” His mate was still down, and the concrete around her was smoking slightly. He vaulted over the backs of the downed Shifters and landed beside her.
“Breeze, talk to me. Tell me you’re okay.”
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She groaned and hid her face. “You saw that?”
“Part of it. Who the fuck was that? How badly are you hurt? Fuck, I should have been here.” She’d gotten hurt standing up to the assholes he’d been sent here to deal with. His mess. His mission. Her pain.
She sat up. Her clothes were scorched and radiating waves of cold that reminded him of the deepest ocean. He tried to run his hands over her, to reassure himself she was okay, but she pushed him away and wouldn’t look at him. “He’s the messenger of someone called the Father of Shadows. I’d say the gulls are working for him, so, hey, I found your warlock for you. Guess I wasn’t a total failure.”
“You’re not a failure—” Before he could say anything else, she turned away from him to crawl over to a banged-up pet carrier. She unlatched the door and Snuffy wiggled free, though it took him a few seconds to get his bulk through the narrow door. Connell stayed where he was, still weighed down by the guilt of knowing he’d left Breeze alone. He’d left his mate, and she’d gotten hurt because of it.
So much for his brilliant plan to go on missions and leave her behind. She’d been out of his sight for two hours and nearly been killed. How the hell could he leave her for weeks at a time to do his job?
The truth slapped him across the face like a soggy salmon tail. The Goddess hadn’t just sent him a mate. She’d presented him with a choice. He could have one or the other, but he couldn’t have both. He grunted in wordless annoyance. Mysterious ways, my ass. Sometimes, the Goddess was a stark raving bitch.
Breeze continued to ignore him. Instead, she crooned to her familiar, gathering the fuzzy beast onto her lap and holding him with the same tender care he should be showing his mate right now. He shoved his own issues into a box, locked the damned lid, and moved to her side, crouching down to rest a hand on her shoulder. At least her clothes were warmer now, and the colour had come back to her face.
“Hey Snuffy. You okay?” he asked.
“Nothing a bubble bath and a bottle of Patrón won’t fix. Oh, and waffles. I’m going to need waffles to recover fully.”
Breeze uttered a soft, broken little laugh. “You can have as many waffles as you want, my friend. I’ll cook them myself.”
Connell shook his head and ran his hand from Breeze’s shoulder to touch the fat little raccoon’s head. “No, you won’t. I’m the one who left you to deal with this alone. I’m cooking.”
Both witch and familiar gave him almost identical looks of incredulity. “You can cook, too?” she asked.
“Yes, lass, I can cook. My da saw to that part of my education.” He’d talk about anything she wanted if it kept her from looking as defeated as she had a moment before.
“So, what did your mom teach you?”
“How to shoot straight.”
She started to smile, but it faded away a second later. “I bet they’re proud of you. Mine wouldn’t be.” She looked back at the scorched ground and the huddled groups of townsfolk beyond. “They’d be so disappointed. I failed, Connell. I failed all these people, and now they’re going to have to leave their homes and run from this Father of Shadows asshole.”
“Whoa. Who said anything about running? Or failing? This is a setback, little witch, not a surrender.”
She swallowed, her head bowing in defeat. “You must have missed the part where I threw everything I had at him and barely made his ridiculously dramatic cloak flutter.”
Snuffy chittered. “What did they teach you at that stupid orphanage? Of course your magic didn’t affect him, you used light magic. You can only fight dark magic with dark magic.”
Frustration edged her next words. “You see? I’m a total failure! I don’t have dark magic. I can’t protect this place.”
“Are you sure about that?” He touched the back of her hand and tried not to be distracted by her soft skin or her alluring scent. Goddess, if anything had happened to her, if she’d been truly hurt, it would have destroyed him.
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Think, my wee witch. Earlier today, you said your magic looked darker. Midnight blue. Remember?”
She nodded slowly. “I’d forgotten.”
Snuffy blinked up at her. “You were using dark magic yesterday. In the kitchen. Boom! Spew!” He flailed his little paws in the air. “And today, too. Didn’t you notice?”
“I did? I was?” I was too surprised by what was happening to notice.”
“You’ve always had dark magic, Breeze. You couldn’t protect this place without it,” Snuffy declared.
“I think that’s what was taken from you.” He felt a twist deep in his gut. He hadn’t really thought about what it must have been like for Breeze to grow up without memories or magic. If someone had taken his ability to shift, what would that have done to him? Who would he have become?
“I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t think it was taken, just locked away for a while. Taking someone’s magic is traumatic for everyone involved. Your parents would never want to hurt you. They loved you,” Snuffy said.
“Whatever was done to me, they knew about it. The magic, the memories, all of it. They said as much in the new verse I got from the locket today.”
“New verse?” he asked.
“I heard a new one this afternoon. It made me think I was ready to face those mother-flocking gull Shifters. It was all about the time drawing near and not being afraid of my first trial.”
“Nothing about dark magic?” Snuffy asked.
“Honestly, it was almost as vague as the last one. I’ve gotten better predictions from a fucking fortune cookie.”
Goddess, he loved his little witch. Even crushed by doubts and struggling to make sense of her world, she hadn’t lost her sense of humour. He plonked himself down on the ground and lifted her onto his lap, cradling her close.
A living wall of muscle loomed over them. “They’ve given you all the help they could, Breeze. They didn’t want to leave you. Goddess above, I think it nearly killed them to do it.”
Fisk stood over them, his dark eyes full of regret. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Uncle?”
The big man nodded. “I think the actual relationship is more like half great uncle on your mother’s side, but uncle is close enough.”
Breeze nestled deeper into Connell’s arms, and he held her close, determined to protect her from any more pain. She’d been through enough today. “Do we have to do this here? Now?”
Fisk nodded. “We do.”
“Then we’re doing this somewhere more comfortable.” Connell got to his feet, still holding Breeze. A silent reminder to the big orca Shifter that he wasn’t the only alpha male in Breeze’s life.
Fisk merely raised an eyebrow. “We?”
Connell had made his decision. If he had to choose between Breeze and the job, he’d choose his mate every time. He raised his voice so that everyone around them could hear. “We. Breeze is my mate. Where she goes, I go. Always.”
“Really?” Breeze looked up at him with a mixture of adoration and frustration. “You still want me after I screwed this all up? And what happened to the plan to figure out this whole ‘us’ thing later?”
“I did figure it out. The second I thought you might be in trouble, I realized two things. One, I shouldn’t have left you alone. We’re supposed to be a team. Two, if anything happened to you, it would destroy me. So, we’re mates, we’re a team, and I’m not leaving you alone again. Any questions?”
“Are you always this bossy?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to put me down?”
“No.”
Fisk chuckled. “As much as I’m enjoying seeing the little seal meet his match, we really need to talk.”
Breeze glowered up at her uncle. “You don’t get to waltz back into my life after a thirteen-year hiatus and start telling me what to do. And don’t call my mate little. I’ve seen him naked, and believe me, that word doesn’t apply to any part of him.”
The big
orca Shifter actually blushed. “Uh. Right. Sorry.”
Snuffy wailed and clapped his paws over his ears. “Holy Goddess dipped in guacamole. I don’t want to hear this. Also, I’m going to need my own place. With soundproofing.”
“So long as you promise not to furnish it entirely with stolen goods and shiny things,” Breeze told him.
“Not entirely. Got it.”
Breeze nodded. “So, where can we go to talk?”
Fisk jerked his head toward the Watering Hole. “Pub’s open, and I think this conversation would go better with booze. In fact, I’m certain of it.”
That was the best suggestion Connell had heard all day. They needed to eat, drink, and come up with a plan to protect the town from a flock of feather-headed shit hawks and a warlock with the wardrobe of a cosplayer on a budget.
Chapter Eleven
Breeze ate her way through a plate of poutine, two chocolate shakes, and a slice of cheesecake while her newly-discovered uncle explained what he knew. After a few minutes, she worked out a simple formula to keep her cool. For every two sentences the big orca Shifter uttered, she ate another mouthful of food. It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective, and right now, that’s all that mattered. The town was in enough trouble without her randomly blowing up parts of it while she learned the truth about what had happened the night her life imploded.
The welcome home party was supposed to start soon, but there wouldn’t be any celebrating tonight. Instead, the residents of Wyrding Way were drifting around the pub, talking to each other and coming over in small groups to let her know that they believed in her. It was terrifying. They still thought she could save them, and she had no idea how the hell she was going to do it. All she knew was that she had to try.
She tuned back into Fisk’s explanation just as he dropped a bomb the size of parliament’s collective egos on her. “Wait. My parents aren’t dead?!” She dropped the fork to stare at Fisk, and the air around her filled with deep blue sparks.
