Wildfire Shifters: Collection 1

by Zoe Chant

  And then Callum had sensed one that had him wheeling round despite his exhaustion. He’d told himself that there wasn’t time to call for help, that he had to act before his enemy slipped away again…but that hadn’t been the real reason he’d swooped to attack.

  As the hellhound’s fireball had hit him, as Callum had fallen into darkness, the last thing he’d felt had been relief. Because at least there would be an end to the pain.

  Unfortunately, he seemed to have woken up.

  Now one whole side of his body was in agony. Callum could feel his shifter healing burning through what little energy he had left, struggling to repair his injuries.

  Quiet, his pegasus said again. Its wings wrapped around his mind, holding him close. We must be very, very quiet now. So she will not hear us. So she will not come.

  She? Callum wondered. He held himself still as his animal commanded, trying to give no sign that he’d regained consciousness.

  Since he couldn’t risk opening his eyes, he concentrated on his pegasus senses instead, reaching out to feel the life forms all around. There weren’t many. Beetles under the tree bark, a squirrel perched motionless on a branch overhead…as far as he could sense, all the little lives were keeping as still and quiet as himself. It was as if a shadow of some great predator had fallen over the forest.

  Yet the only predator he could detect was the hellhound. Maurice was pacing around him, every movement agitated. The sharp reek of fear hung around him.

  “I held up my end of the bargain,” the hellhound said, apparently talking to himself. “I want out now. You can take it from here. You don’t need me anymore.”

  Oh, but we do. This is just the first step. Your true task still awaits.

  Callum started despite himself. That hissing, self-satisfied voice had come out of thin air. His senses flailed, fruitlessly searching for who could have spoken.

  “Look, this is a fucking dumb plan,” Maurice said to his mysterious conversational partner. “Stalking and ambushing ‘em one at a time, okay, that I can do. But this is gonna draw down a fucking lot more fire than that. They’ll all come to rescue their buddy. The griffin, the unicorn, all of them. You expect me to take on a fucking sea dragon all by myself?”

  The queen has summoned her scion. Lupa is willful, but she cannot ignore the queen’s call. Callum realized that he was hearing the voice with his mind, not his ears. He still couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Even now, she brings the pack.

  “Then let them do your damn dirty work.”

  The other voice hissed angrily. The queen cannot rely on Lupa or her craven hounds for this. Only you have the heart—or lack of it—to do what the queen requires.

  “Well, I got the brains to not do it,” Maurice retorted. “Not like this, at least. Yeah, I can step out of hiding and kill one weak, helpless human before the rest of ’em can react, but after that the shit is gonna hit the fan. Those damn firefighters have got their own hellhound, and he’s the size of a fucking bear. If I try to duck sideways again afterwards, he’ll pull me back by my tail and the rest of them will rip me apart in revenge. This is suicide. I ain’t doing it.”

  You have no choice, the other voice hissed. You pledged your soul to the service of the queen. You do not want to feel her displeasure.

  Maurice made a strangled, pained grunt. Callum risked opening his eyes, just a fraction. Maurice was standing right in front of him, pale-faced, cradling his left arm against his chest as if it was broken. Some kind of mark glowed on the back of his hand, throbbing with a sickly red light. Callum only caught a glimpse of it before Maurice closed his other hand over it, hiding it from sight.

  Our prisoner is awake, said the other voice. Good. It is time. Look at me, little shifter. Look at me, and know true fear.

  Since there was no point in further pretense, Callum lifted his head. He stared around, but he still couldn’t see anyone other than Maurice.

  Up here, little shifter.

  The squirrel dropped out of the tree, landing on Maurice’s shoulder. The hellhound twitched, a look of pure revulsion contorting his face, but he made no move to brush the creature away. The squirrel sat up, folding its front paws neatly. Its eyes glowed like red embers.

  Do not show fear, his pegasus said urgently. Do not feel fear. It wants us to be afraid. Stay calm.

  That was easier said than done. Callum did his best to keep his breathing steady and unchanged, holding the demon’s malevolent gaze without flinching.

  “This won’t work.” Callum’s voice came out hoarse and croaky. His chest and shoulder burned where Maurice’s fiery breath had caught him. “Even if you possess me, it won’t do you any good. My friends won’t be fooled. And we know how to deal with your kind.”

  The demon stretched the squirrel’s mouth into an unnatural grin, showing long, pointed fangs. Oh you do, do you, little shifter? Will your one true mate come to save you? Will she feel me gnawing away at your soul? Will she reach down and cast me out with the bright power of her love? Is your bond so strong? Are you so very sure of that?

  “Yes. Yes, I am.”

  And he was. Because despite everything he had done, all the ways he had failed her, he could still feel Diana’s love shining in his soul. It had just taken the utter darkness of rock bottom for him to see it.

  His heart lifted, despite the pain, despite the demon. Diana loved him, as he loved her. No matter what, they were mates. If he needed her, she would always come—

  NO! His pegasus reared up, kicking him away from the mate bond. DO NOT REACH FOR HER! THAT IS WHAT IT WANTS!

  His breath froze in his chest as he finally realized the demon’s true goal. Because Maurice had been talking about ambushing and killing just one person...

  One helpless, human person.

  The demon-squirrel laughed, a horribly human sound from that animal throat. Excellent. Now you are afraid.

  It leaped from Maurice’s shoulder, landing on his own. Callum felt the pinprick scratch of its claws as it curled around his neck. Its teeth pressed against his flesh, not quite breaking the skin.

  And you will be more afraid, the demon crooned in his mind. You will not be able to stop yourself from screaming for your mate, once I am inside you. Once you feel me nibbling away at your soul, one tender bite at a time. You will scream. And she will come to save you. And then, she will die.

  “No,” Callum whispered. He pulled at the ropes, heedless of the pain that shot through his burned side, struggling to break free. It didn’t make sense, Maurice had only gone after Diana as a way to get to him, why would the demons want to kill her…? “No! I swear, I won’t fight. Possess me, do whatever you want with me, just leave Diana alone! You don’t need her! You have me already!”

  You? The demon laughed again, as its teeth sank into Callum’s neck. Oh, little shifter. This was never about you.

  Chapter 29

  Diana gasped, clutching at her chest. Not because of pain, but because of a sudden lack of pain. No matter how she reached for Callum, he evaded her touch. She had an odd sense of him retreating, slamming up thick shields, trying to hide from her.

  Which meant that something was very, very wrong.

  She tugged at Connor’s streaming red mane. He turned his head, ears tilting quizzically in her direction.

  “Something’s happened!” She had to shout at the top of her lungs against the rush of the wind. “Callum needs us now. We have to go faster!”

  Connor snorted to show that he understood. He made eye contact with Rory, who was flying at his wingtip in griffin form. Diana couldn’t hear their telepathic communication, not being a shifter herself, but she knew that Connor must be relaying her message to Rory.

  “Diana!” Edith called from Rory’s back. She had her hands cupped round her mouth, balancing easily despite the griffin’s surging wingbeats. The wind snatched most of her words away, leaving only fragments. “Rory can’t—too dangerous—stick together!”

  You’re only going to get your
self killed, Gertrude whispered. You only escaped from Maurice before by sheer dumb luck. You’re weak and useless. You should have left this to the shifters. What can you possibly do to save Callum?

  Diana set her jaw, ignoring that poisonous background murmur. She crouched low over Connor’s neck, redoubling her grip on his mane.

  “How fast can you fly?” she said into his ear.

  Connor’s eye rolled to look back at her. There was a distinctly wicked gleam in those dark depths. She felt his muscles bunch under her thighs.

  Edith yelled something—but they were already streaking ahead. Risking a backward glance, Diana could see Rory clawing at the air to try to keep up, but the griffin was no match for a pegasus. In mere seconds, he was just a distant dot behind them.

  Diana faced forward again, squinting against the wind. She scanned the mountains below, looking for any sign of Callum. The mate bond was cold and silent in her heart, giving no indication of which way they should go…but she wasn’t the one navigating.

  “Are we getting close yet?” she yelled to Connor.

  The pegasus tossed his head in a nod. Diana had to throw her arms around his neck as he dropped without warning into a steep dive. She scrunched her eyes shut, Connor’s mane lashing her cheek, and held on.

  She felt the jolt of Connor’s hooves touching down. His headlong flight turned into a gallop, far faster than any horse could run, weaving round tree trunks. Diana clung to his back as branches whipped past her head.

  Connor slowed, prancing to a halt. Sitting up, Diana immediately realized why he’d had to land and run the last stretch. This was old, dense forest, trees crowded together too closely for a pegasus to fly between. Leaves and branches made a thick roof above their heads.

  “Diana!”

  Callum was alone in a small clearing, tied to a tree by thick ropes wrapped around his chest and legs. His t-shirt was in tatters, exposing burns and bite-marks across his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to be seriously injured.

  Callum’s eyes met hers in the dimness of the forest, and the mate bond burst like a firework in her heart. He wasn’t trying to hide from her any longer—and yet immediately something else slammed between them, a horribly foreign presence. Dark, scaled coils snatched him away from her again, hiding his soul.

  She could practically see the horned serpent that had possessed him, like a physical presence wrapped around his body. But Callum was fighting it, as fiercely as he was fighting the ropes that bound him. She could feel how terrified he was.

  But not for himself.

  “Trap,” Callum choked out. His head jerked, that demonic force trying to gag him, trying to stop him from warning her… “Hellhound! Run!”

  Too late.

  A flame-eyed, black-furred shape leaped out of thin air, slamming into Connor, knocking him over. Diana was flung off his back. She hit the ground hard, all the breath driven out of her.

  A wall of flame speared past her, separating her from Connor. She could hear him shrieking like a furious bird of prey, struggling back to his feet to come to her aid. But the hellhound was already leaping for her, jaws open wide, hellfire boiling in its throat…

  Time seemed to collapse. She was seven years old again, helpless and terrified, scrabbling backward with mud under her palms. And the thing was lunging, fire dripping from its fangs, lunging at her mom—

  Who faced it, calm and unafraid. Who raised her hands…

  Diana saw it as clearly as if her mother was here now, standing in front of her once again. Her mother’s spirit flooded through her, warm and protective, backed by the strength of all their ancestors. She could feel them all, as she produced her own hands.

  She clapped, once.

  A shockwave blasted from her palms with a sound like thunder. The hellhound was thrown back, head over tail, his snarl becoming a startled yelp. Then Connor was on him, kicking and biting, and the hellhound abruptly had bigger things to worry about.

  Diana was already racing across to Callum, trusting Connor to keep the hellhound off her back. She could sense that alien force sliding through her mate’s mind, like a snake trying to slither down a hole.

  Well, she wasn’t having that.

  “Get out!” she snarled at the demon in Callum. She seized his face between her hands, pressing her whole body against his, her whole soul blazing down the mate bond with righteous fury. “That’s my mate! Get out of him!”

  Callum twisted in his bonds, gagging. He wrenched his head to one side, and a torrent of darkness poured out of his mouth. Diana held onto him, refusing to let go, until the last wisp of smoke streamed out of him.

  Callum sagged in his ropes, panting. The newly-ousted demon was a formless, shifting mass of shadow, twisting on the ground. Even as Diana watched, it started to solidify, taking on the form of a monstrous horned serpent.

  “It’ll reform and attack,” Callum gasped. “My knife. Quickly!”

  Diana found his utility knife, holstered as ever at his belt. She sawed through the ropes, silently blessing Superintendent Buck for insisting that his firefighters were always prepared for an emergency.

  No! The demon’s soundless voice shrieked across Diana’s mind like fingernails on a blackboard, making her flinch. It was still foggy and half-formed, but it had burning red eyes now, blazing with hate. It turned toward the hellhound, who was still locked in battle with Connor. Attack her, kill her now, before it is too late! Leave the other one!

  The hellhound turned, his form starting to blur into invisibility. Lightning-fast, Connor locked his teeth in the hellhound’s leg, dragging him back into solidity. No matter how the hellhound snarled and snapped, the pegasus held on grimly, stopping the beast from escaping him.

  Callum fell free at last, into her arms. For a heartbeat, he just leaned on her, holding her as tightly as she clutched at him. Then he was pushing her back, behind him.

  “Whatever you just did,” Callum said to her, his wary eyes fixed on the writhing demon. “Can you do it again?”

  “I have no idea!” Her fingertips were still tingling with that electric surge of energy, but that strange sense of calm certainty had deserted her. “But I’ll try!”

  Diana held up her hands threateningly, hoping the demon couldn’t tell how they were shaking. She clapped.

  Nothing happened.

  The demon let out a cold laugh. It coiled, head rising into the air, taking solid form at last. It was huge, far bigger than any real snake, dwarfing them all.

  Too late, little thunder-kin, it hissed in triumph. Too little, too late. You never learned how to summon your power. We killed your mother, as we killed all the rest of the Storm Society, before they could teach you. You slipped through our fangs all those years ago, but now we have you at last. No one can help you now.

  “Connor!” Callum called, as the demon gathered itself to strike.

  Still wrestling the hellhound, Connor locked eyes with his brother. Diana could sense some brief, wordless flicker of understanding pass between them. She understood, and cold terror gripped her heart.

  “No!” She grabbed hold of Callum’s arm, digging her fingers in. “I’m not leaving you!”

  “You have to. I can’t fly.” Callum twisted free, despite her effort to hold onto him. He stepped forward, shielding her body with his own. “But I can hold them off long enough for you to escape.”

  Callum shifted into pegasus form, rearing up. He was scorched and wounded, many feathers burned down to charred stumps, but he still spread his wings in a show of threat. He screamed like a hawk, proud and defiant.

  She had only seconds. Connor was already tossing the hellhound aside, racing for her. Diana closed her eyes, reaching deep into herself, looking for that spark of connection once more.

  Because the demon had said that no one could help her now…but that wasn’t true.

  Thunder-kin, it had called her.

  “Wakinyan,” she whispered. “Thunderbird. Come.”

  Chapter 30

&nb
sp; The sky split open.

  A hammer blow of wind drove Callum into the ground. For an instant, he thought that the demon had already struck, faster than he’d been able to react—but the horned snake had been thrown aside by the shockwave as well.

  All around, trees snapped and splintered, trunks cracking like matchsticks, falling outward. Callum shifted back into human form, throwing himself over Diana to shelter her from the storm as best he could. A little way off, he glimpsed Connor also shifting, curling into a ball with his arms over his head to protect himself from the flying debris.

  Shadow fell over them. Huge wings unfurled, blocking out the sun. Electricity crackled, leaping from feather to feather like lightning.

  Diana pushed him aside. Alone out of all of them, she rose to her feet, unaffected by the storm winds screaming all around, undaunted by the massive talons hanging over her head. She lifted her arms in welcome.

  “Wakinyan!” she called out, her face shining with joy and wonder.

  The Thunderbird responded with a rumble of thunder that shook the ground. Its burning white gaze moved from Diana to the cowering demon. The geometric patterns on its wings brightened, seething with an ominous electric glow.

  The demon moved in a streak of black. With the speed of desperation, it struck.

  Callum reacted instinctively, grabbing for Diana—but she wasn’t the horned snake’s target. He’d moved in the wrong direction, and now there was nothing he could do to stop the demon’s attack.

  Its fangs closed on Connor.

  “No!” Callum shouted, echoed by Diana—but it was too late.

  The demon disappeared, pouring itself into Connor. He convulsed as it entered him, dropping to his knees. Callum knew all too well what his brother would be feeling. The cold running through his blood, black coils wrapping round his inner pegasus…and Connor had no mate bond glowing in his soul to help him resist.

  “No!” Diana screamed again, but she wasn’t speaking to the demon. She twisted out of Callum’s grasp, running forward to fling herself between Connor and the Thunderbird. She stretched out her arms as though trying to shield Connor, head tipped back to meet the Thunderbird’s pitiless white stare. “Stop! He’s my friend!”