Chuck hugged her closer. He didn’t know how to change that fact either. “Babe… I still don’t think I’ve done anything you need to forgive me for.”
“But the cubs…”
“I don’t remember their creation and I can’t explain them. They smell like my family. That’s all I know.”
“This sucks worse than the Baba Yaga test. If I don’t figure things out, Gaia is going to make me mortal.”
“Well, that’s a little harsh,” Chuck grumbled.
Hildy laughed. “I thought so too, but she’s Mother Nature.”
“Babe, you got this,” Chuck whispered. “You’re not your best self right now. I think living in a cave may have been more traumatic than you realized.”
“I have no life. This house is awful. I donated all my old clothes and shoes. Giving up everything was the mortal price of my healer training. And now it may all have been for nothing. How can I handle being mortal without my clothes?”
Chuck rubbed her back. It felt like heaven to hold her. “Things are never as bleak as they seem.”
“Everything seems pretty bleak to me. All I have are three blankets to wear.”
Chuck chuckled and hugged her tight. “Everyone in town who found your clothes in the consignment shop bought them and brought them to me. Even Roger gave up what he bought, and you know how that guy is. I let him keep your lingerie though because I’m sure he wore it. We’ll have to buy you some new sexy wear.”
Hildy chuckled against his throat. “Roger is perverted. Is he really counseling people?”
Chuck raised his head and smiled. “Everyone is trying to help. Shifters need to shift and it’s awful to be afraid to do it.”
Hildy nodded. She rubbed the tears from her eyes. “I agree… and I am going to fix this. I just don’t know how yet. So you really rescued my clothes?”
“The whole town did. I have all your clothes at my house. I bought shoe bags to store those heels in that make your legs look so long and sexy. When we get this place livable, I’ll bring them to you—except for your undies because I’d prefer you never wore any.”
She lifted her head and stared into Chuck’s twinkling eyes. “What if I promised only to wear the sexy kind?”
“Nah… I’d just be destroying them every chance I got. That would probably get expensive.”
“Well, don’t be in a rush to bring back my clothes anyway. I have to wear a blanket until my Earth tattoos heal.”
“Tattoos? What does yours say? My older brother has one of this woman he met in college. She was pure evil according to him. He said he tattooed her on his body so he wouldn’t forget.”
“My tattoos don’t say anything. They’re symbols for communing with the Earth.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.” Hildy slid the blanket up until one leg was exposed. Chuck traced the winding mark along her calf with his finger. “They’re full of pink magic.”
“They are?” Hildy looked in surprise at the marks. Chuck’s touch seemed to bring them alive. “Trace another one.” She lifted the blanket until the other leg was bared.
Chuck traced the mark but lifted his gaze to Hildy’s. “Are you torturing me on purpose? I don’t know how much honor I have left. Your honeypot is calling to me and I’m famished.”
Hildy gently lifted his hand off her legs and pushed the blanket back down. “Not today. I’m…”
“Vulnerable?” Chuck suggested.
Hildy nodded. “You are incredibly brilliant about all the right things. I’ve always liked that about you.”
Chuck gently removed her from his lap and adjusted his interest in her. “Let’s check out the basement before I forget that I didn’t come here to claim you.”
6
The basement stairs creaked, but they seemed reasonably sound, and in surprisingly better condition than anything else in the house.
Chuck looked for the light switch and found it at the bottom of the stairs when it needed to be at the top. He flipped it on and the bright light revealed an old metal table in the middle of the room. Along the walls were cages of varying sizes. Medical tomes filled several bookcases. There were also some bins with clothing in them.
“This must be where Doc Seavers worked.”
Hildy nodded and looked around. “Now that I’m down here, as ironic as it is, I believe this is the least scary place in this whole house.”
“Agreed,” Chuck said, lifting a sweater from one of the bins. It was old and moth-eaten. “It needs updating though.”
Hildy reached out a hand and used it to shove Chuck gently against the bookcase. “Stand back there and don’t move until I get done.”
She lifted her other hand and closed her eyes.
“I call to the north, the south, and the east.
I call to Earth’s keepers who take care of beasts.
In this place of healing, let all be made new
For the many, the one, the packs, and the few
I call to the west and Mother Gaia’s domain,
I promise to heal—this is my claim
Send me the tools from pain to free
As I will, Great Mother, so mote it be.”
Her hair lifted in the magical wind that suddenly swept through the space. Hildy glanced around as power continued to swirl in the air. For over a minute, the house fought the transition to modernize, but soon it bowed to Gaia’s control over the elements. A flash of white light had her pressing her face into Chuck.
When the creation magic faded away, everything in the room looked shiny and clean. Hildy saw her old bags were now down here as well. She was definitely going to upgrade those to something more fashionable. What if she needed to make a house call?
Inside her, something she’d been missing in her life clicked into place. Belonging, Hildy decided. She belonged here—in this room—in this freaking house of horrors. She looked at Chuck. She belonged here with him too. Understanding was the first step. Now she had to come to terms with everything.
“I wish you could see your face, Hildy. You’re glowing.” Chuck lifted the hand she’d held him back with and brought her fingers to his lips. “Your power is amazing. I’m honored you shared this with me. One thing though…”
“What?” Hildy asked.
Chuck grinned. “You have to quit stepping in front of me. A big old man like me shouldn’t be hiding behind the woman in his life.”
“What are you worried about? You’re not a man—you’re a bear.”
“Hush. This is my argument and I say I’m both. Woman, it’s way past time you learned that I’m the only man for you.”
Hildy giggled at the sexy bear kissing her fingers and fell in love with him all over again. The past still loomed but she was going to handle the future differently.
“When I get the shifter problem figured out, would you like to have dinner sometime? The cats might be willing to babysit the cubs.”
Chuck’s answer was to spin her into his arms for a long overdue welcome home kiss.
In a much better mood after Chuck had kissed her, Hildy went to the kitchen to whip up a fresh batch of honey muffins for him while he worked on getting the lights fixed in her bedroom.
She’d barely gotten the muffins into the oven when Carol popped into the kitchen. The Baba Yaga’s entrance dumped orange glitter over every surface. When Carol only laughed at the mess, it got on her last nerve.
Hildy waved a hand at the orange glitter and glared. “If you’re going to spread that stupid sparkly stuff around every time you show up in a big poof, you can make your stupid grand entrances outside. I’ll be all afternoon cleaning up this mess, Carol. It’s not funny.”
Carol fisted hands on her hips. “Goddess, you’ve turned into a whiner. You seriously need to get laid.” She waved a hand and all the orange glitter magic returned to her.
Hildy looked around at a once again clean kitchen. “That’s much better. I can’t stand the mess. I think it’s a healer thing.”
“Speaking of healing…” Carol began. “Any progress on finding out what’s going on?”
Hildy snorted. “I cried myself to sleep last night and found a druid in my kitchen this morning. Gaia may make me mortal if I don’t do what she wants—only I don’t know what she wants me to do. Yesterday I discovered the whole town is blaming Chuck and the cubs for the problem. I don’t believe that for one minute. Does any of this sound like progress to you?”
Carol shrugged. “Some of it. Are you talking nicely to your bear again?”
Hildy nodded.
“Then yes… that absolutely counts as progress,” Carol confirmed. She sat at Hildy’s table and conjured herself a cup of coffee from a café she loved in Venice. “Want one?” she asked a glaring Hildy.
Hildy shook her head and went to make herself a cup of tea. “There is something strange about the cubs’ existence. Do we know any female named Issy?”
Carol wrinkled her brows as she thought. “None that I can recall.”
“My gut says she’s the problem.”
“What do you know about her?” Carol asked.
“She’s the mother of Chuck’s cubs.”
Carol choked and spat coffee on the pristine table.
Hildy glared at the mess, crossed her arms, and leaned against her wonderful farmhouse sink while she talked. The kitchen was perfect. Carol, though, was annoying.
She glared at her friend. “I sent you a copy of it, so I know you read the note she left. The mother told Chuck that he could kill or keep the cubs and that she didn’t care which he did. While that sounds like a terrible mother, it doesn’t sound like a shifter. Even the worst of each shifter species care for their babies. They might torture them later in life, but they’d never give them away as infants. Clan animals like bears especially don’t work that way. Sometimes bear mothers keep their cubs around for years longer than they should.”
Carol wiped up the spilled coffee with her sleeve. “That means whoever it was knew Chuck would take the babies in. The question is how did she make them smell like his family? I’ll get the warlocks started on making a list of female magicals who might have a vendetta against shifters. The research might take a while though, Hildy. I haven’t made too many friends in my work, and people have to be coerced into talking to me or my posse.”
Hildy brought her cup of tea to the table and sat. She looked deeply into Carol’s eyes. This was no time for petty irritations and she wasn’t going to let them get in her way. It was time to think logically because she needed the Baba Yaga’s help.
“What if this isn’t about the shifters in Assley at all, Carol? What if this is really about someone wanting to ruin my healing work? If that’s true, they’ve already managed to do it for two years. I didn’t have to permanently move to the cave to do my training with Gaia. I did that to get away from Chuck and the cubs. I’ve been emotionally wounded for so long that this possibility didn’t occur to me until today.”
Carol leaned back. “That’s an intriguing notion. You were once in the running to serve by my side as the Baba Yaga. Your power has changed purposes but you still have more than most witches. Jealousy alone makes your suggestion a plausible theory. We should seek out our common enemies. I’ve got the ones from our past. Did you piss off anyone new in the last couple of years?”
Hildy recalled her breakfast conversation with Keera and snorted. “My healer life is full of annoying acquaintances, but no one evil. If I have an enemy right now, you can bet it’s an old one.”
Carol nodded. She reached out and put a hand over Hildy’s. “The Jezibaba warned me that there would always be those who resented the amount of power we possessed. If this is about you and your power, you can bet it’s about me as well. I’ll talk to Ahmed and the warlocks. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
Hildy nodded and turned her palm over inside Carol’s until she could link their fingers. She felt the immense power flowing through the woman she called sister and friend. She’d sacrificed her share of it to make sure Carol got to serve as the Baba Yaga, and she’d do it all over again if needed. Carol was the proper witch protectress. She still believed that with all her heart.
“Before you leave, I need to tell you something. You were right about me, Carol. I’m having some trouble adapting to normal witch life again. I don’t want you to worry about me though. I’m going to be okay.”
“Of course you are.” Carol squeezed Hildy’s hand and then slipped hers away. “Besides, I don’t have time to worry. I only have time to fix things. Your cats are currently in fear for their lives because I told them it was time to earn their keep. I need to know you’re safe. How’s your magic working?”
Hildy smiled. “Great. Stronger than ever. I even did some renovating on my own today. Want to see my new healing space? Next to the kitchen, it’s the second best space in this whole house.”
Carol winced with more than a little guilt. “Goddess, Hildy. Tell me you didn’t claim that creepy basement as your workspace. I think that human doctor’s ghost might still be down there.”
“Let’s go see.” Giggling, Hildy tightened her grip and did something she’d never done and magically transported them both to the basement.
They landed with a resounding thud on top of the large stainless steel exam table. Hildy laughed harder than she’d laughed in years when Carol screamed obscenities at her. Her life remained a hot mess of failures but she was hopeful for the first time in years.
7
That evening Hildy pulled the blanket off over her head and tossed it on a nearby chair. She inspected her body and all the marks winding around her limbs and torso. Puncture pain from the thorns used to make the druid designs was finally easing and slowly the ink was being absorbed. One day the marks would be visible only to Gaia and other druids. But the power over what the marks controlled would forever be hers.
She smiled as she remembered Chuck’s fingers lightly exploring the design on her leg. Despite his enormous size, Chuck was always very gentle when he touched her. She wondered what he’d be like when he forgot himself in a moment of passion, especially when he figured out how strong she was.
A brilliant red light suddenly filled the room interrupting her romantic fantasy of being with Chuck. Hildy heard her three peeping toms yowl loudly before galloping down the hallway. Little furry perverts had been spying on her—all three of them. She made a mental note to search for their spying spot and seal it off.
Hildy swiveled toward the commanding presence she felt enter her space and saw the Goddess Morgana in all her nine-foot silver glory appear.
“Welcome, Goddess.” Hildy smiled and knelt, bowing her head to her former magic patron.
Morgana chuckled. “Don’t kneel to me, Hildegard. Gaia doesn’t like to share homage and you’re wearing her banner all over you. ”
Hildy smiled wistfully and rose. “I’m not sure Gaia still thinks claiming me as an apprentice was a good idea. If Keera’s right about her making me completely mortal, I may be looking for a new magic patron.”
Morgana rolled her eyes. “Is Keera still harping about having to live without magical powers for fifty years? Boo-hoo, that’s what she gets for sleeping with Zenos of the One before he was officially marked. Gaia has strict rules about such things. The Great Mother had to search far and wide for another consecrated druid willing to tattoo the dragon-mage. It was tough to find someone not afraid of being burned to a crisp for causing the dragon pain.”
“Zenos? Are you telling me that he was the reason Keera was made mortal?” Hildy giggled at the idea and then tucked it away. No wonder Keera said such mean things about her irreverent magic teacher.
Morgana waved her hand. “Don’t read too much into Keera’s opinions. Zenos slept with every female he could back then. Keera was just one in a long line. Of course, she thought she’d be the one to change him. That was never going to happen. So many women waste their lives on the wrong men.”
Hildy shrugged. She didn’t j
udge people. Coming into direct contact with a grown-up and very appealing Chuck had put an end to her desire for experimentation, but Carol was still doing her fair share. Everyone walked their own journey when it came to lovers.
She looked down at her still naked body and reached for the blanket to cover herself.
“No,” Morgana said firmly, holding up a hand. “That covering is far too unpleasant for my eyes. I purposely waited until you took it off before I came to visit. Your blanket-serape look is beyond ugly.”
Hildy ran a hand through her hair and laughed nervously. Fine. Naked she’d stay if that what Morgana wanted, but she knew she looked like a wild woman with her hair so unkempt.
“I can see you’re still uncomfortable. Let me cover you,” Morgana said in concession. She waved a hand and a caftan of sleek blue silk molded itself softly to Hildy’s body.
Looking down, Hildy touched the fabric in wonder. “It’s beautiful. It looks like one of your dresses.”
“That because it is one of mine. It’s elven and enchanted. The fabric changes to whatever size the wearer happens to be. Emeritus gave me that dress, but he won’t mind me lending that particular one out. I have it in several colors.”
“Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”
“No need to strain. It will take good care of itself. One day the dress will return to me on its own, so I’d be careful where I wore it unless you’re into public exposure.”
Hildy laughed at the warning. “It would be an insult to Gaia if I didn’t love my own body, but I don’t like being nude outdoors. I didn’t like it when the only audience I had was a bunch of squirrels.”
Morgana laughed. “The Great Mother makes all her disciples chant that mantra about the body she gave them.” She waved a hand behind her and a large chair appeared in the shabby room. Morgana sat in it and got comfortable. “That’s much better.”
Whole Lot of Shiftin' Going On Page 5
