by Mary Hughes
Some bastard set the alarm for four thirty. It took her a moment to recall she was the bastard, needing to get to the jail before the sun rose. She showered, her mind on securing Noah’s release before he went doggie.
Thoughts of Noah and the jail turned to memories of what they’d done at the jail. While the water ran like warm silk over her flesh, she remembered his hands doing the same, and more.
Swearing, she cranked the shower to cold, cleaned herself in a flurry of soap, rinsed quick, and leaped out.
She’d just managed to dry her overheated skin when her cell phone rang with the Techie Titan theme. Gabriel? She answered, “Who are you and what have you done with my nerd king brother? It’s four-oh-crap in the morning.”
“I’m still up from last night. I went dungeon crawling with some guildies. Look, I felt a surge of death magic…or I thought I did, but then it disappeared. I tried you but you turned your phone off again.”
“I didn’t turn it off.” She’d slept through it, potentially worse from the brotherly scolding point of view. To distract him, she quickly added, “What did you do then?”
“I called cousin Daniel. He’s all upset that you’re, and I quote,” Gabriel sucked in a big breath, “‘She’s the Blue from the prophecy but she’s not taking it seriously enough especially considering since there’s an evil wizard is involved, and it’s all happening now!!’ And I did not imagine the double bangs. Sophia, what in the poached eggs and hell is going on?”
“Well…” She glanced at the clock. She’d have to give him the insta-quick version. As she checked her luggage for clean clothes, she gave him a run-down, mumbling the stuff he’d yell at. Would Noah like the sexy skirt and tank top? Yes, but it was too obvious. She talked on autopilot, explaining her suspicions that Rodolphe might be the Hungry Ghost, that there was a group undermining the new alpha, and about the leadership challenge. Maybe skirt, heels, and blouse, but open the blouse an extra button? She categorically denied the death magic but was so distracted trying to decide between heels or flats that she said, “It’s only good luck the alpha found his mate in time for the challenge—”
Fortunately, she stopped herself from babbling who Noah’s new mate was.
Unfortunately, her brother was no dummy.
“Sophia Blue, you’ve mated a shifter? Something so forbidden you’ll never again have to open your necklaces to get them on? How did you—?”
“Oops, you’re breaking up. Gotta go.”
Between the shower, her brother, and her clothing indecision, dawn was lightening the windows now. Panting in her race to get to Noah, she threw on her default clothes, the Full Banker of navy pants suit, ivory blouse, inch-heeled pumps, and pearls, and rushed downstairs.
A note from Mason was taped to the front door. He’d had to go on ahead.
Swearing, she ran the two and a half blocks to the jail. She got there just as the sun’s disk cleared the horizon.
Mason sat on a bench outside the combination jail/courthouse. “Noah’s already gone.” He rose as she approached. “We didn’t get to talk last night. I heard I missed all the excitement.”
She bent hands to knees and panted. “Not all of it. Just the most embarrassing parts. How’d he get out?”
“The good news is, Jayden pulled some strings and Noah was released. The bad news is, Attila, Bonnie, and Clyde were released too.”
“Who?” She straightened.
“The three idiot ex-lieutenants.”
“No. Who’s Jayden?”
Mason raised an eyebrow. “Black hair, black eyes, all attitude? Owns a really sweet bike I’d give my left nut to buy?”
“Oh, Jayden.” Nameless Guy now had a name. “Is he a friend?” She reconsidered. “Or at least on our side?”
“Dunno. As much as he’s ever on anybody’s side, I guess.”
“Is he pack?”
“No, though he runs with us sometimes. To me, he doesn’t even smell like a wolf, but Noah has apparently had a few business dealings with him and says he’s trustworthy enough. Frankly, the pack needs his money. Anyway, there’s more.”
“Bad news or good news?” But in her gut, she knew.
“Worse news. Ivan and Killer returned to demand Noah’s head, reissuing the Alpha Challenge for tonight.”
It hit her like a punch in the gut. She collapsed onto the bench next to Mason. “I was hoping they’d give up.”
“Me too. In fact, strangely enough, they had.” He sat next to her. “While Noah was still locked up, Jayden ‘talked’ with them. That boy has some seriously strange juju going on. But in this case it worked to our advantage. He convinced all five to crouch to Noah’s dominance—it’s a pack thing,” he added to answer her puzzled look. “Basically they acknowledged Noah as alpha, kind of like swearing fealty. But by this morning, their attitude had changed one-eighty.”
“Like someone else talked to them?”
“Threatened, more like.”
“Wait. All five had given in?” She frowned as the implications hit her. “Then whoever’s undermining Noah, it isn’t the anti-alphas. Maybe not even part of the pack at all. Crap. I’d been rooting for Killer. Now we’re in the exact same position we were in yesterday. Hunt and fight.”
“And uh—” he blushed, “—the other thing.
Big strong Mason, blushing. She wondered what the last F stood for. “Does Noah have to accept the challenge?”
“This bogus? Not usually. Usually his lieutenants would rise up against the demanding assholes. But in this case, the pack members who would support Noah are off earning a living, or have vulnerable pups, or are too old or young to stand up to Ivan et al.”
“So Noah’s stuck.”
“Probably. He went with Bonnie and Clyde to try one last time to reason with them, but I’m not holding out a lot of hope. That’s where he is, by the way, or was until the sun rose. He said he’d meet us at your aunt’s store.”
“Got it.” She started to stand, then paused at a thought and sank back onto the bench. “So if he has to go through with this challenge, how does he win?”
“Again, normally the hunt part would be simple. By the time alphas are old enough to lead, they’re usually mated, so the challenged alpha and his mate lead the pack on a hunt where the alpha pair makes a kill and shares it with the pack.”
A kill? She stifled a squeamish shudder. “And in this case?”
“On the plus side, Ivan and his buddies don’t know Noah’s mated.”
“Can’t they see his eyes have changed?”
“Gold isn’t a common mated color. And some shifters change eye color like mood rings. They probably think Noah’s just furious over the challenge. They’ll see that as a good thing. That he’s distracted, and worried how he’ll miraculously find his mate by tonight, maybe jumping the first female who accepts him—”
The low, rough noise startled both of them—until she realized who it was. Her. She was growling. She cut it off with hot cheeks.
Mason politely pretended not to notice, talking on as if nothing had happened. “—when he’s not distracted at all, since we know Noah has a true mate, don’t we?”
Now didn’t seem to be the time to bring up the fact that she probably wasn’t his true mate either. “You said that’s the good news. What’s the bad?”
His eyebrows rose. “You don’t shift. Noah told me everything, Princess Sophia.”
Braid her broomstick. “The hunt has to be led by two wolves? Can’t I, I don’t know, dress up in tweeds, carry a rifle, and laugh about hunting wabbits?”
He shook his head. “The whole point of the challenge is to prove the alpha pair can lead the pack into a fertile future. Feeding and protecting the pack is important but ‘fertile’ applies to the viability of their offspring. They should be able to produce pups who can shift easily, which means a proper mate. Which is the last F in HUFF, by the way. Hunt, Fight, and, um, Fornicate.”
The way he said it made it clear the wolves generally u
sed the shorter word. Her cheeks went from hot to on fire. That certainly explained why Noah had kneed Mason in the balls when he’d tried to tell her about that final F. “Okay, so the mate has to shift and hunt with her alpha. I might be able to learn to shift. Noah can try teaching me, starting at sunset—”
“Sorry, no.” Mason was already shaking his head. “You have to understand, wolves love custom. The more convoluted, the better. Traditionally the Challenge Hunt starts when the moon rises, but the full custom is ‘moonrise or sunset, whichever comes last’. Last night, moonrise was after midnight, which was why there was time for Noah to talk to the five. But due to the vagaries of the heavenly calendar, the moon won’t set until one thirty this afternoon, and it doesn’t rise at all.”
“The hunt starts at sunset,” she whispered.
“Exactly.” Mason’s grimace tightened to a full-fledged scowl. “Since the hex locks Noah in his Canidae form until then, he doesn’t have a mouth to teach you.”
“Then we’ll have to find someone else.” She snapped her fingers. “I can shift.”
Mason startled. “You can?”
“Not yet, but I just remembered someone who said that. C’mon.” She rose and started off. “What I don’t understand is, why would someone outside the pack challenge Noah? Undermine him like this?”
“Greed?” Mason walked with her. “In return for protecting the pack, the alpha gets a cut of all pack earnings. Power and prestige play into it too.”
“Yes, but if it’s another wolf, aren’t there easier ways to become alpha? Why the whole Challenge Hunt shtick? Doesn’t that seem unnecessarily provocative to you?”
“As in provoking? Maybe. But what’s he trying to provoke? Noah’s protective instincts are already fired up. I don’t know what else there’d be.”
She didn’t know either, but she had a vague, and terrifying, suspicion.
As they passed First Street, he said, “Where are we going?”
“Jayden’s. When I said to him ‘I know you’re a shifter,’ he replied ‘I can shift’.”
Mason’s eyes widened. “Implying he wasn’t born a shifter.”
“Exactly. If Noah trusts him, I’ll trust him too—for now. The hard part will be getting Jayden to teach me. He’s not the kind of guy who seems naturally helpful. It’d be easier if I had leverage. Say, a big shotgun. Or a cannon. Or a battleship.”
And then she remembered she had access to the one thing that made Jayden geek. The man who fixed his motorcycles.
She smiled.
“Whoa,” Mason said. “Do I want to know what you’re thinking? No, I do not. That smile bodes ill for someone. Not me, I hope.”
“Not you. Here we are.” She stepped onto the concrete pad in front of the pet store. Though the time was ungodly-thirty in the morning, the door was open, as if they were expected. She went in.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” she asked the swirling darkness inside.
It resolved into the black-haired, black-eyed, very masculine form of the pet groomer she now knew as Jayden. He put his apron on, and she waited for the sexiness-amnesia to hit.
Sure enough, the instant the bib settled, she forgot to think of him as anything but a pet groomer. But she remembered the memory of it. “An enchanted apron?”
Jayden cocked a half smile. “Not the apron.”
Which of course answered exactly nothing. “So what are you? A vampire? A godling? The rear half of a centaur?”
He threw back his head and laughed, a full belly laugh. “You’re a proper match for Noah, aren’t you, princess? We’d better get started. We don’t have much time, and you have a long way to go.” He started toward the glassed-in area of the grooming salon.
“Wait. What are we doing?”
He shot her a grin over his shoulder, absolutely appealing in spite of the apron. “What you came to learn, of course. Shifting.”
She nearly clapped her hands. “You’ll teach me? Without cajoling or threatening? Who are you and what have you done with Jayden?”
He laughed. “I assure you, I don’t do everything for gain.”
“Not buying it. Why? Because you owe Noah’s pack a favor? Because Mason is the only one who can fix your bike? Some hidden gotcha?”
“None of those, Your Royal Highness. I’ll teach you because it amuses me.” With that he disappeared into the salon.
Mason whistled. “That can’t be good.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. There’s no one else in a five-hundred-mile radius who can teach a witch to shift.”
“Good point. Look, it sounds like this’ll take a while. I’m going to find Noah to give him an update, okay? Don’t leave until I get back. He’ll have my nuts for Waldorf salad if I leave you unprotected.”
“You left me this morning.”
“I’m now walking with a limp.”
She suppressed a smile.
After Mason left, Sophia followed Jayden to the grooming area. “So what’s first?” She came into the small room and shut the glass door behind her.
“Pin this to your underclothes. Make sure some part of it touches your skin.” He handed her a small, white-enameled brooch shaped like a wolf. “You’ll be shifting in no time.”
“And then?”
“Nothing. It’s a fully contained spell. All you have to do is activate it, so you won’t even be breaking any more of your death seals.”
She gaped at him. “How do you know about the seals?”
“Please. A witch who doesn’t do magic? Unless you did a complete Evacuate or the evil Phere Burgot himself sucked your magic out, there’s no way to keep it from expressing other than death seals.”
“But…but you said we had a long way to go. I thought this would take all day.”
“I said that to get rid of Mason. You and I need to talk without wolfie ears, princess.”
“What? Why?” This was why she didn’t trust the lying, secretive, conniving buzzard.
“I know that,” he said.
“I beg your pardon?” She stared at him. “Did you just read my—”
“Oh please. Your expression shouted that you don’t trust me. Besides, you’re a smart woman, or you are now. Of course you don’t trust me. You shouldn’t trust me, or anybody.”
“I trust Noah.”
“Who originally didn’t tell you about the hex that turns him into a puffball doggie.” He scanned the store behind her.
“I understand why,” she said. “It makes him vulnerable. But you—”
“Princess, I’d love to bicker all day,” he said in a voice she’d use for backed-up drains. “But there’s something else Noah isn’t telling you. Something big. If you don’t get it out of him before you try to lift the hex, wear a shit-proof mask for when it blows up in your face.”
“There’s a pleasant image. If this secret is so important, why don’t you tell me?”
He jerked one shoulder, grimacing. “Not mine to tell. But do yourself and him a big favor. Bribe him, wheedle, coerce him—whatever you have to do, get it out of him.” He raised one brow. “Me? I’d use sex.”
“Why…you…I’d…”
“Yes dear, I know. Away you go, now. You have less than twenty-four hours to figure out how to break the hex—and more importantly, how to break Noah.” He used two hands to shoo her, crowding her out of the grooming booth through the store. “Oh, and somewhere in there you may want to experiment with shifting. Walking as a wolf isn’t as easy as I make it look.”
“Wait!” She dug in her heels at the exit and held up the brooch. “How do I activate this?”
“Same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice.” He grinned as he shut and locked the door behind her.
* * *
“Killer,” sneered Rodolphe, the wizard known as X. “I hope you have a better tribute this time.” He stepped into the trailer of the insipid he-wolf.
“Yes, master.” The wolfman pointed at a fur-bitten female lying like a sack of potatoes on an even lump
ier couch. Then he held up the stiletto. “And though it nearly cost us our lives, the blade has been blooded as you instructed. Twice.” As he handed the stiletto over, he added in a mutter, “A better weapon than that siphon.”
“Killer, you’re an idiot.” With a flick, Rodolphe activated the deadly blade—and plunged it into the sacrifice. The drugged-up creature barely mewled. “You don’t understand how marvelous an invention this siphon is. Let me tell you a story.”
With the other hand he slapped the siphon against the bitch’s temple and activated it. “Once upon a time, witches held their rightful place as rulers of the earth. Then ignorant mundanes painted them as power-hungry monsters in fairy tales, and used the tales to incite a rebellion. The slaughter of witches in fairy tales paralleled witch hunts in real life.”
The female barely gave a sigh as her head collapsed. Rodolphe moved the siphon to her breastbone. “Instead of rising up in retaliation, witches, led by goody-goodies Jean-Dion d’Avignon and Nostradamus, created the Witches’ Council.”
Rodolphe funneled the wolf’s magic into both himself and the blade. Killer’s eyes were glued to the female, wide in what, for any other being, would be horror. Killer, horrified. As if. “Then a truly great wizard—call him X—arose. He developed the siphon.”
The siphoned magic curdled the blood on the blade, creating the magical poison. “The instrument let X snare magic that was cast by namby-pambies who didn’t deserve it, and siphon it for his own use.”
Rodolphe twisted the knife to get out the last drops of suffering. The siphon sucked them down greedily. “The short-sighted Council, rather than laud X, tried to lock him up. Asses.”
He pulled out the knife and wiped it on the dying female. “So X worked long and hard to refine the instrument to, not only suck magic as it was cast, but to seize it directly from beings of magic.”
Killer roused from his horrified freeze. “Fuckin’ shifters, you mean.”
“Yes, Killer. Shifters. But it still wasn’t enough.” The last of the power flowed into the siphon. “X developed an instrument which latched onto cast spells, then sent suckers which swam up the spell-stream to the mage, to suck magic directly from mages. He could take their power for his own!” Rodolphe chortled. “Now, most mages aren’t more than a magical mouthful. Shifters are more substantial. But when X heard of a royal dual child, he knew he at last had the perfect power source.”
