Werewolf Mage 5

by Harry Nix

  The kid had fixed the spell he used to make rings and Alex had already tested it. It was still taking the same amount of power roughly, but he now had a 100% success rate, none of the rings exploding or melting. And now by working out how to shrink the lightning ball spell, Alex had gained more space to work with.

  With only the slightest misgivings he’d shared with Stephen the silver cleanse spell. The kid’s eyes had lit up once he’d finally copied it over, describing to Alex that he saw a man, like an old time preacher, standing at a pulpit reading out that he wanted every speck of silver to come to him and then everything slightly larger than a speck and so on, going up through the weights and shapes and sizes. This was why Alex’s spell was so bloated. It wasn’t calling silver as in the element, but contained a lot of specific detail such as an ounce of silver, 1.1 ounces of silver, and so on.

  They stayed up late into the night but that spell was trickier than the others and every time Stephen passed code back to Alex it wasn’t quite right. He could feel they were getting closer, though. Finally, just past midnight, Alex had left Stephen to it and driven back to the main house. He’d gone via the kitchen, grabbing some stew from one of the perpetually bubbling slow cookers and some rustic bread, slathering it with butter. Then he went to the living room where Nia was by herself sitting on a sofa watching some kind of home renovation show where people bought run-down houses, repaired them, and flipped them for profit.

  She glanced up at Alex as he entered but didn’t say anything. He sat down beside her, noticing that the sofa had been upgraded. The previous one had been dumpster dived and could be barely called a sofa considering how uncomfortable it had been. This one certainly didn’t look new, but at least it had padding. The television too had been upgraded, and although it wasn’t quite the gigantic flat-screen that Jacob was campaigning for, it was somewhat larger and didn’t have a crack running through the bottom corner like the previous one had.

  Alex gulped his stew and dipped his bread in it, chewing away as they watched the show. The two stars of it were doing that usual thing: buying some house sight unseen, putting on their horrified looks as they discovered the filth and mold and water damage and whatever else disgusting was in it. They’d just got to the part of the show where finally most of the building and repairs were underway and maybe everything wouldn’t be a complete disaster, when Nia reached across and took one of Alex’s pieces of bread. He’d almost finished the stew, but he held out the bowl to her and she dipped the corner of the bread into it before she started eating.

  “He said he wanted marble backsplashes but I think she was right to go with the travertine,” Nia said.

  “What’s travertine?”

  “I guess it’s kind of like marble. Some kind of stone. It’s better than marble, though, and he should listen to his wife,” Nia said.

  Alex suddenly got the feeling they weren’t just talking about the TV show, but at least Nia was talking so he went with it.

  “He should listen to his wife, should he? She’s definitely chosen the best backsplash for that bathroom and also the kitchen?” Alex said, glancing sideways at Nia, a smile on his lips.

  “Wives always know best,” Nia said, finishing her piece of bread and then taking the last piece.

  “Wives always eat your food,” Alex said but still held out the bowl for Nia to dip her bread into.

  “That’s why husbands always bring extra food for their wives,” Nia said.

  They kept watching the show, which was now at the up and down section where things weren’t quite right and the cost was spiraling crazily out of control.

  “In about five seconds he’s going to do that thing where he puts his hands on the back of his head and pretends they’re about to be bankrupted,” Nia said. Sure enough a moment later it happened and then an ad break cut in. With the stew finished Alex put the bowl on the ground, moved the plate away, and shuffled closer to Nia. Although the house was crowded, they were alone, everyone else asleep, the air conditioners droning away and the backup generators humming their own song. They still hadn’t made any progress in getting the electricity reconnected to the area but Alex wasn’t worrying about that now. His mind was suddenly focused on his mate, the short shorts she was wearing and the tank top.

  “Can I help you with something?” she said lightly as he shuffled closer.

  “No, just watching the show looking for home renovation ideas,” Alex said as he trailed his fingers down her abdomen to the front of her shorts and then brushed his fingers lower in between her legs. Nia let out a quiet breath but kept her gaze on the television as the ads finally finished and the couple finally resumed their tour through their house that looked spectacular, but apparently was still a complete disaster because of the cost.

  “Is that the travertine? That looks good,” Alex said, his fingers moving in gentle circles on the front of Nia’s shorts. She nodded but didn’t make any other sound, her eyes starting to go half-lidded.

  “I like how they opened that wall between the kitchen and the living room, really gave them a lot of space,” Alex murmured, scratching his fingers across the fabric then moving in circles as Nia’s breathing grew shallower. When she reached down and slipped her shorts down to her knees, Alex stopped, his fingers resting against her panties, feeling the warm heat of her.

  “Can I help you with something?” he said, repeating her question back to her.

  “Just really excited about this marble or travertine or whatever,” Nia said, stumbling a little over her words. Alex began moving his fingers again, gently tracing them over her sex. The show had finally moved to the quick wrap-up, a slight touch of worry and disaster, worrying about the price, but then suddenly more people were walking through the house and next minute the credits were rolling and they’d learned the couple had made $80,000 profit. Within another minute a back to back episode began, showing the couple walking into a wreck of a house that from the looks of things had an open sewer pit right in the living room.

  “They’re never going to be able to sell this one,” Nia murmured, her eyes almost completely shut. She’d moved her legs and her shorts had fallen completely to the ground but were still wrapped around her ankles. Alex kept tracing his fingers over her until the front of her panties were wet and Nia’s gasps were becoming more urgent. She moved again, pulling them down over her knees. Alex knelt in front of her, helping her remove her panties and untangling her shorts from around her ankles. Whoever had been in charge of buying a new sofa had bought a rug as well, which was soft on the knees, something Alex was glad for as he began to kiss his way up one of Nia’s legs. He went from one to the other until he was kissing her inner thigh, then went up and around, not quite reaching right in between her legs, but her lower abdomen, down again, the other thigh, edging closer. Nia had her eyes completely closed and was biting her lip as she gasped. Alex eventually stopped teasing the poor girl, planted a kiss between her legs and then started to lick. Nia threw a hand over her mouth and then grabbed a cushion which she pressed up against her chest and face to muffled the sounds as Alex began to swirl his tongue about.

  Behind him he could faintly hear the television, the same conversations between the husband and wife about the disaster they had just purchased, and yet another conversation about travertine. Alex kept licking, starting to move faster now, enjoying the sound of Nia’s breath cut short at each movement of his tongue. As he licked he gently traced a finger over her and then set the tip of his thumb against her body. At the touch of it, Nia moved down and his thumb slid into her, surrounded by liquid wet heat. She began to groan, muffled by the cushion, as he pressed down with his thumb and continued drawing circles with his tongue. Soon he felt the muscles in her thighs begin to shake and she suddenly pressed the cushion against her face as though she was trying to suffocate herself, barely muffling a loud groan. Alex only got in one or two more licks before she suddenly squeezed her legs together, as was common at this point when suddenly everything bec
ame far too sensitive. His hearing was suddenly blocked off by her thighs, his head trapped between them. He didn’t mind, though, it was a good place to be, his tongue still on her and his fingers and his thumb too. She eventually released him, letting out a long sigh, the cushion falling to the side. Alex gave her a few more kisses on the inner thigh before wiping his face on his arm and coming to sit beside her.

  “That was so good,” Nia murmured, touching him on the arm. She looked like she’d been drugged.

  “I don’t want to shock you, but I think they chose a marble backsplash instead of travertine this time,” Alex said, glancing at the television.

  “I’ll marble backsplash you,” Nia said, squeezing his arm. Although she’d appeared half asleep, she pulled herself into his lap, scrabbling at his pants. Alex suddenly couldn’t wait, so he shifted, the charm taking his clothes, and then Nia slid onto him, letting out a sigh. The sofa gave a warning creak at the sudden increase in weight. Nia tried to stay quiet as she rode him, jolting back and forth, but it was almost impossible.

  Alex wasn’t sure why he was so keyed-up—surely not the stew, the bread, or the flipping renovation show—but with Nia riding him he saw a few sparkles of red before suddenly the rush hit. She came, letting out a squeal before grabbing the cushion and shoving it over her face again, seemingly surprised that it happened so quickly.

  As Nia shuddered atop him, Alex gripped her hips, enjoying the feel of her skin. She eventually collapsed down against him and then dropped the cushion, kissing his neck a few times. Nia slid off him and collapsed to his side, patting him on the chest.

  “Good husband,” she said with a sigh. His hand was on her thigh holding on to her, a feeling rebounding between them of possession, connection, and ownership.

  “He’s crazy if he thinks they can get that price using marble in that bathroom,” Nia murmured. Alex laughed, almost on the verge of sleep, and then they lay there recovering as the disastrous house was rebuilt in front of them, finally selling for a ridiculous chunk of money.

  After that, they dragged themselves off to bed, climbing in beside April and Juno, the little witch spooning April despite the warmth. Nia fell into sleep rapidly, but although Alex could feel it calling to him, it was slightly elusive. Through their connection he could still feel some of Nia’s emotions. Deep down she still wasn’t happy about Stephen, her feelings about the boy seemingly solid and hard as a mountain. Perhaps in the morning he would show her the rings, the new spells, and hope that she would come around.

  15

  Alex practically skipped up the sidewalk to Stephen’s house, carrying the bags of food he’d retrieved from the main house for their lunch. To say things were going well would be a dramatic understatement. The kid had cracked the silver cleanse spell overnight. Alex had arrived early, bringing breakfast, but the kid had been too excited to eat, showing him the new, cut-down spell, which was as sleek and fast as an otter cutting through the water. The man on the pulpit was still calling out to silver, but just silver now, not having to go through shapes and sizes. Alex had copied the spell across, as he now had enough space to hold both it and the original, and as he read through it, it seemed so obvious now how to cut it down to make it faster and more efficient. He’d brought a bag full of silver pieces with him and tested out the spell, hiding behind the kitchen door as the flakes and curls shot their way across the kitchen to thud against it. The spell now consumed far less mana, and with its new shrunken size, they’d been able to move to the next step, which had been enchanting the spell onto something.

  Rings were far too small, so Jeremiah had been dispatched to the local hardware shop and returned with a variety of fencing crowbars of different shapes and sizes. The morning had been a rush of Alex and Stephen passing spells back and forth between them, Alex writing at high speed and then handing them over to have them cut down, reworked, and handed back. He adapted parts of the battery spell that was on the rings and sections that made them stronger, but it was Stephen who’d supplied the real miracle working.

  The kid had cut and moved, waving his hands in the air, altering the comic book pages that he saw and handing back what were damn near works of art. They’d worked four hours straight and by the end of it had managed to enchant one of the crowbars. It only held a single charge and it only had a range of about half a mile. But it was the silver cleanse spell working perfectly. In the tiny amount of space left, they managed to even set a timer so the spell could be triggered by anyone putting their hand on top of it and ordering the spell to begin. This gave them a ten second timer before the spell would compile and begin to work, which was the best they could do with the space they had. It was by no means perfect, but considering the crowbar itself only cost seventy-five bucks, they now had a cheap way to manufacture the silver cleanse crowbars and ship them to every werewolf pack in the nation. They even tested it out in the yard and enchanted a few other crowbars, setting them aside just in case they would explode or melt down at some point, although Stephen was confident they wouldn’t, since he couldn’t see any leaks.

  Alex had left him there and gone back to the main house to get lunch, intending to come back and work more on spells, his heart feeling like it was going to float out of his chest with the sheer joy of the morning.

  Just one day with the kid had solved a problem that had plagued werewolves for decades. Now the mages could fly over with their drone planes, dumping thousands of dollars’ worth of silver, but it would be utterly useless. They would just be enriching the werewolves who would be able to use Alex’s spell to cleanse their lands.

  Alex had even realized they might be able to return to his territory that they had abandoned. It had been burnt to the ground, but with this spell they could remove the last of vestiges of silver and perhaps think about rebuilding. This was what was on Alex’s mind as he came through the front door and immediately dropped the food on the ground at the overwhelming scent of blood.

  He immediately shifted to hybrid and ran through the house heading for the kitchen where he could hear two heartbeats, one slow and steady, and the other one fluttering like a bird trapped in a cage. He skidded through the open door into the room where they’d been doing their enchanting. The old kitchen table had been pushed up against the wall and was covered in rings and a few of the crowbars that weren’t strong enough to hold the spells. Nia had Stephen by the neck, her claws dug into his throat, blood dripping down her arm and down his body into a pool beneath him. He was as white as a sheet but still conscious, gurgling as he breathed. Alex stopped in sheer shock.

  “Nia, what the hell?” he growled. He cast healing flame, but Nia growled back at him, digging her claws further into Stephen’s neck.

  “You need to choose between him and your pack,” she said. The girl from last night was gone. His mate, relaxed and warm, comforted, making jokes about a home renovation show.

  Alex realized he’d made a critical error. He’d felt that cold pain inside of her, and stupidly, rather than working to fix it, he’d gone off to the kid, working on spells again.

  “I need him. We enchanted crowbars with silver cleanse, so no werewolf has to ever worry about their lands being silvered again. We’ve changed things forever and in just a day,” Alex said. He could hear Stephen’s heartbeat growing weaker. He knew that if he moved, Nia would tear Stephen’s throat out along with his jugular, might even take his head off in one swipe, and he could throw every bit of healing magic he had at it, but that was if she decided she wasn’t going to fight him, which right now he didn’t feel was a sure thing.

  “You need to choose between him or your pack,” Nia repeated in a low voice. Alex saw there was no getting through to her. She’d decided the kid had to either die or go, and there was no other outcome that would satisfy her. Alex mentally reached for the strand he could feel emanating from Nia but he still wasn’t strong enough, he still wasn’t able to grasp it properly. There were werewolves spread out here, but not enough, and he realized that
if he’d kept Stephen in a crowded area, the kid might have been safer. Alex would have been able to draw on the power of the assembled pack, to push on it, to influence Nia enough to let the kid go.

  “It’s one kid forced to do things against his will, and with him I can make spells better than anyone else. We can stop the mages and vampires killing werewolves ever again. I understand he silvered our land, but with him it could be the end of this war,” Alex said.

  Nia grimaced, showing her teeth.

  “You make a decision in the next three seconds before I tear his head off,” she said.

  Alex tensed, thinking that maybe he’d dive across the room, get to the kid, kick Nia away, but then he tamped down the anger. She was his mate, no matter what was happening right now, she was his.

  “I’ll make him leave today and never return, I promise, just let him live,” Alex said.

  “You need to listen to your pack,” Nia growled. Alex realized he could only hear one heartbeat, just hers. Stephen had died.

  Nia dropped the kid, who fell boneless to the ground. Alex dived, the healing flame from his finger charged with nature magic, pressing it against Stephen’s throat. He was vaguely aware of Nia leaving the house as he moved his hands but the flame did nothing. When Jacob had been injured and sunk in death, Alex had healed his body first before pulling him back. Why wasn’t it working now? Was it only effective on werewolves?

  After a moment, Alex canceled the spell and then, with his hands resting on Stephen’s body, closed his eyes and began reaching out. He’d done this before, pulling Jacob back from death, and also the woman and her kid who had been caught up in the battle, the ones that Titus had killed.