Witch for the Wolf

by Annabelle Winters

  Magda nodded as she thought back once again to how the Darkness had entered her when she was a teenager. Little Maggie was all dark emotion back then, wasn’t she? She hated everyone around her. She hated herself. Then her fox came out, and just when she saw a spark of light through the dark clouds that had surrounded her youth, those government scientists had taken her, taken her animal, leaving behind nothing but fear and more hatred. Hatred for every human around her. Hatred for all humans. Was that the essence of the Darkness? Hatred? Anger? Vengeance? The Holy Trinity of dark emotion?

  “Why?” said Caleb. “Answer that question, John. Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Benson said quietly. “But I have a theory.”

  Caleb snorted, shaking his head and glancing over at Magda, who was frowning hard as she tried to answer that question herself.

  “He has a theory,” Caleb whispered, rolling his eyes. “Here it comes, babe. Prepare yourself.”

  “Because the Darkness hates what it is not, what it can never be even though it yearns for it,” whispered Magda as she felt the energy swirl inside her like a storm brewing. “And it can never live in the flesh, never experience three-dimensional life on Earth except through us. So it yearns to experience the joys of life in the flesh, but at the same time it hates that it yearns for that! So the result is hatred, frustration, anger. A need to corrupt, spoil, destroy. A need born out of . . . out of . . .”

  “Conflict,” said Benson, nodding as a grim smile emerged. “The draw of opposites, the need to seek unity, balance, equilibrium. It’s a force at play everywhere in the universe: The way rivers flow to the ocean, the way air fills a vacuum, the way sound fills the silence. It’s the same drive that makes men conquer new lands, trying to remake the world in their own image, spread their own beliefs, their own seed. And just like men have always wanted to be like the gods, sometimes the gods yearn to be human even though they don’t want to give up the power that comes from not being human. Just like a child wants the toy that it doesn’t have!”

  Caleb took a sharp breath, his grip around Magda’s waist tightening as she sensed his frustration. “This isn’t helping clear things up,” he grumbled, rubbing his head with his free hand. “What’s the end game here, John?”

  Benson just smiled and shook his head. “There is no end game. It’s all just one game. One dance. The eternal dance of the universe. Back and forth, in and out, up and down. Right now the Darkness is on the upswing. Look at what’s happening in the world. There is more misery, war, and injustice now than ever before! But like the saying goes, Life will find a way. And it has.” He glanced at Magda and then back at Caleb. “With you two. With Adam and Ash. Bart and Bis. And all the Shifters who are waking up to their destinies, to their futures, to their fate.”

  “Life will find a way,” Caleb said slowly. “Did you seriously just quote a line from Jurassic Park?”

  “Don’t interrupt my inspirational speech, Soldier,” said Benson with a twinkle in his eye. “My point is that the universe itself is always seeking balance, which means that as the Darkness rises, we can expect an opposing force to rise along with it. I’ve spent decades wondering exactly what that force is going to be, and now I see it. I see it standing before me.” He paused, and Magda swore she saw his lips tremble with emotion, his eyes misting up until he quickly blinked and looked away as if he was embarrassed. “Love in its purest form. One-on-one love ordained by the universe. Love that forces two creatures of flesh-and-blood to overcome all conflict, to merge their opposites, to find a way to the promised land, back to the Garden of Eden, to their own happily ever after.”

  “Holy Mother of God, he’s lost it,” Caleb muttered, shaking his head. “He’s finally cracked. Too many years of sitting in safehouses and listening to violent madmen speak about their visions of the world. Or maybe he’s just been sitting alone in the dark reading romance novels on his Kindle. Fifty-fifty shot on either of those options. Let’s go before he starts bawling. I don’t think I can handle that.”

  But Magda reached her arm around Caleb and dug her fingers in tight as she felt her fox move inside her, sensed her mate’s wolf move inside him. Their animals were listening too, and they were agreeing with Benson. He was right. Wasn’t every Shifter faced with the challenge of balancing their animal with their human? Wasn’t every Shifter faced with the unstoppable draw towards their fated mate, forced to confront every obstacle that comes between them and their union? The story of the Shifter was the story of life in its purest form, wasn’t it? How do you balance the needs of the flesh with the needs of the spirit? How do you balance the dark and the light? The man and the woman? The animal and the human? The need to kill with the need to create new life?

  She looked over at Caleb. Caleb the Soldier. Caleb the Wolf. Caleb the Man. Caleb the Shifter. Caleb her mate. Then she closed her eyes and turned her gaze inward, her body trembling as she saw the opposites that made her who she was: Witch, fox, woman, angry teenager. The ambition to rule the world mixing with the drive to give birth, to cuddle her pups, to bear more children for her mate. The needs of her fox to run wild, to hunt, to mate . . . to just be.

  Slowly she opened her eyes and nodded. “You’re saying that Shifters are the universe’s response to the growing power of the Darkness. Shifters coming together with their fated mates is the force that can counter the Darkness, because it’s the purest form of love, a love that serves the needs of the animal and the human, the body and the spirit, the darkness and the light.”

  Caleb let out a massive sigh. “Finally! Now that I can understand! I coulda told you that the first time we kissed. Man! All this pointless babbling, and all we needed to do is get down to it and just fu—”

  Magda felt herself go flush with embarrassment as she dug her fingers hard into his side. She could feel her fox yelping in glee, turning round and round inside her so fast she got an image of a red spinning furball, its heat rising for its mate. But still she could sense that darkness sitting there in the background, cold and silent, watching and waiting, like this was all still playing out exactly the way it wanted.

  “It’s not that simple,” she finally said. “And you know it, Caleb. We can’t . . . we can’t do that until . . .”

  Caleb went quiet, and Magda knew he was thinking about what she’d told him earlier, in private, about the deal she’d made all those years ago. Her first born child. Was it real? Or was the deal just part of her imagination, something that a bookish teenager had pulled from a scary story. Hell, it was the oldest story in the book, wasn’t it? The demon or dark power asking for the first born child! Maybe she’d just made it up! Made up the whole thing with the deal!

  “Well,” said Benson, clearing his throat as if he was uncomfortable talking about matters this personal, “whatever you two need to work out, I’d suggest you get started.” He glanced at Magda, his face grim as he reached for a phone and tapped on the screen. He turned the phone around so they could see the video that had started to play, and Magda gasped when she focused on the screen.

  It was the Black Dragon, Murad, flying across the desert, massive wings spread out wide, golden eyes burning like dark flame. The video had been taken via satellite, and below the wings of the dragon Magda could see hundred of Shifters, beasts in animal form, all of them bounding across the burning sand of the desert like they were on a mission.

  “What the hell,” Caleb muttered, leaning forward and grabbing the phone. “That’s Darius the Lion Shifter at the helm. Everett the Tiger Shifter bringing up the rear. How the hell did Murad get all those wild animals to actually . . .” He trailed off, blinking hard as he rubbed his stubble and glanced over at Magda. “This is not good. This is very, very not good. Where is this? When was this? Where the hell are they going?”

  “Swipe to the next video,” Benson said softly, rubbing his forehead. “This was last night.”

  “Motherfu—” Caleb shouted,
ripping away from Magda and stomping through the room, growling and snorting as if he was trying to hold his wolf back from bursting forth. “No way. No way! I did this, John! I trained those beasts! What did I do! What the fuck did I do?!”

  “We both did it,” Magda said quietly, feeling her darkness slither through her like a snake tightening its coils around her insides, reminding her that it was still there, deep inside her, taking hold, never coming out. She stared back at the video of Murad’s Black Dragon leading its army of feral Shifters into battle.

  Of course, it wasn’t a battle.

  It was a massacre.

  A night raid on a small village in Western Iraq. A practice run for Murad’s army. Just stretching their legs. Sharpening their claws. Bloodying their teeth. Giving the animals a taste of what was to come: Death, destruction, chaos. The Apocalypse, the Darkness, the end of the world—whatever name you wanted to give it. It was coming, and she and her mate were the only things standing in the way right now.

  “Why us?” she said suddenly, her eyes still riveted on the footage of Murad’s Black Dragon ripping through sandstone houses like they were made of canvas, burning men, women, children, and pets alike, swallowing some whole, tossing a few to his savage Shifters, who ripped them apart like feral beasts fighting over scraps. “You said you think the counter-force to the Darkness is Shifters waking up and finding their mates, restoring balance to the world we’re living in. So that’s much bigger than us, isn’t it?” She looked at the feral Shifters on the screen, led by the rampaging Black Dragon, the one she’d held in check for years with her magic . . . magic that she wasn’t sure would ever be powerful enough to stop him again.

  Not unless . . . she started to think as she felt the darkness in her nod like it was a living, breathing thing of the night. Not unless you make a sacrifice. You want the power to stop Murad’s dragon now that it’s been unleashed? Then you need to take the Darkness further into your soul. That’s why the deal for a first-born child is the oldest deal in the history of darkness! It’s not about the child itself; it’s about what it means to give up what’s most precious to a creature of flesh and blood, what’s most precious to a mother. Making a choice like that takes you to a dark place from which there’s no coming back.

  Absolute darkness.

  Absolute power.

  It’s a paradox, Magda realized as she felt her fox scream inside her like even its sly intelligence was no match for the insidiousness of the Darkness. That’s how darkness works, isn’t it? Forces you to make an impossible choice, a choice where you lose either way! I’m being offered a chance to save the world from Murad’s Black Dragon, but in return I’ll have to give up what’s most precious to me, give up my world! I can’t win!

  Not alone, no, came her fox’s whisper after a moment of silence. But with him you can. Together you can. You and him. All of us together.

  “Why me?” she said again, suddenly furious for being in this position, wondering if she was going crazy.

  “Because you’re special, Magda,” said Benson softly. “A witch Shifter. Natural born witch, and natural born Shifter. Once you manage to accept and balance all the parts of yourself, you’ll gain access to power that can put the Black Dragon back inside Murad and hold it there.”

  “I told you already, I’m not a natural born witch!” Magda screamed, pulling at her hair as she began to pace the room. She could feel her body expanding and contracting with each heated breath, like she was morphing back and forth between the witch and the woman even as her fox twisted into a cowering furball inside her. “My magic came from the Darkness, and even then it was barely enough to hold Murad’s dragon in check all these years. To gain the kind of power to put the Black Dragon back into the Sheikh means I’ll have to go deeper into the Darkness, maybe all the way!”

  “OK, timeout!” Caleb shouted, stepping in and trying to grab Magda as she clawed at her hair, not sure if her witch or her fox was going to burst forth first. “Nobody’s going anywhere—not yet, at least.” He turned to Benson. “John, if what you’re saying about Shifters and their fated mates is true, then if Murad finds his fated mate, that should stop his rampage, shouldn’t it?”

  Benson sighed and closed his eyes. He pressed his hands together like he was trying to meditate or something, and after a long moment he opened his eyes and exhaled. “That’s the problem,” he whispered. “Murad did find his fated mate. He found her, and he killed her. There’s no coming back from that. He is all dark. All self-hatred. All beast. He will never find balance.”

  “Then we just kill him,” Caleb said, his jaw tightening as he finally got a hold of Magda and pulled her into his hard body. “We’re the goddamn United States Military, John. We can kill anything a hundred times over. We just kill him. Poof. Done.”

  Benson snorted. “You know as well as I do that the only thing that can kill a dragon is another dragon. And there’s only one other dragon that I know of.”

  “Adam,” said Caleb, his face going pale as Magda watched her mate connect the dots in his head. “Oh, shit, John. You’re saying if Magda can’t put the Black Dragon back into the bottle, the only other option is for . . . is to have Adam . . .”

  “Kill his own father,” Magda said, a tight smile of pure ice coming across her face as she felt the Darkness tremble with laughter, shiver with glee, rub its invisible hands together in pure delight at the masterful game of manipulation it was unleashing. Now they were all in it, weren’t they?

  “If it’s too late to save Murad,” Caleb said slowly, “then Adam will kill him if that’s what it takes to stop what’s happening. You know he will.”

  “Yes,” said Benson, his face still grim. “But then what happens? Think about it! What would it do to Adam to take the life of his own father? What would it do to his heart, his soul, his own dragon?”

  “Shit,” said Caleb, rubbing his forehead and shaking his head. “You’re right. It might turn Adam’s dragon all dark. Killing one dark dragon might just unleash another one! Which means . . .” he started to say, looking down at Magda as the realization showed on his taut, lean face.

  Magda nodded, closing her eyes as she kept that cold smile on her lips. Benson was right. This was up to her and her mate. Yes, the longer game was for Shifters around the world to wake up and start finding their mates. But the immediate need was to stop Murad’s Black Dragon from its rampage or else there wouldn’t be a world! The War for Balance would continue as every Shifter out there found its mate; but this first battle had to be won now.

  “All right,” she said, her eyes flashing as she studied Benson’s expression. Yes, this was a man of secrets, with his own darkness. But he had accepted his darkness, accepted that he’d done what he needed to do over the course of his life, made compromises and sacrifices for the greater good. Now she and Caleb would have to do the same. “I still don’t believe I’m a natural born witch, though.”

  “You will when you go back there,” Benson said softly. “Back to where it all began for you. How did you end up at an obscure boarding school for girls nestled in Germany’s Black Forest, Magda? Why is the Darkness so strong in that part of the world? Why did the U.S. Military set up a secret facility for Paranormal Research right there? Did you know that Hitler and the major figures of the Third Reich were deeply interested in the occult and paranormal? So were the Russians during the height of the Cold War. And so are we. The War for Balance is bigger than the two of you, yes. But this battle is all on you. I’ll work with Adam and Bart to see if we can slow Murad’s army down to give you some time.”

  “Some time for what?” Caleb said, agitation in his voice even though Magda could feel his heart beating steady like a soldier’s, firm and focused like a man with a mission.

  Benson grinned, shrugging and then winking at Caleb. “To save the fucking world, Soldier. You in?”

  Caleb’s eyes went wide, and then he just sho
uted with laughter tinged with a madness that Magda could feel in herself too. She needed him, she knew. She needed him by her side as she dug into her own past, confronted her own demons, fought her internal battle as the battle outside raged on.

  And somewhere along this journey he’s going to need me too, she realized as she saw the midnight blue in his eyes and remembered that there was so much about this man that was still a mystery to her. She knew he was her mate, but that was it. She didn’t really know where he came from, where he was going, what demons lived inside him, what darkness lay hiding there beside his inner wolf.

  “You know I’m in,” said Caleb, his wolf speaking through the man in a way that made Magda shiver. “In it to win it, baby. Now and forever. Ow, ow, owwwooooo!”

  14

  “Ow!” snarled Caleb, frowning down at his metal underwear as he examined the padlock. “Why is this still on me, may I ask?”

  “You know why,” Magda said, turning her head toward him as she led the way. “I don’t trust you. I don’t trust myself. And I certainly don’t trust our animals. Besides, I think you’re stuck with it. I don’t think I have access to my magic any longer.”

  “Liar,” said Caleb, stomping over twigs and fallen branches as he followed his curvy mate into the depths of Germany’s mountainous Black Forest region. Benson had gotten an unmarked plane to fly them west past Russia and Poland to Germany, dropping them off as close to the Black Forest as possible. “I saw you conjure up those clothes you’re wearing.”