The Warlock's Kiss

by Tiffany Roberts

  Clearly, the outside world had deemed that unacceptable.

  Adalynn’s face paled further, but she took the shotgun in both hands. Merrick felt the trembling of her arms through the weapon before he released it. She held it against her chest, one hand on the action and the other on the stock.

  “I’ve never used a gun,” she said, her voice low but steady.

  “Point and squeeze the trigger,” Merrick replied. “Pump the action to chamber another round and fire again.”

  Adalynn adjusted her grip on the weapon, clenched her jaw, and nodded.

  Merrick cupped the back of her head with one hand, leaned forward, and kissed her. Despite the urgency of the situation, he was tempted to let the kiss linger. He resisted that temptation and drew back after only a moment. “Stay here. Do not come outside, no matter what happens.”

  She released the shotgun’s stock to press her hand against his chest, fingers curling as though to grab him. “What? Where are you going?”

  Merrick covered her hand with his and gently squeezed it. “To greet our visitors.”

  “Dude, you can’t!” Danny said.

  “No!” Adalynn said simultaneously. “Those things rip people to shreds, Merrick.”

  “And you don’t even have a shirt on,” Danny added.

  “Stay here,” Merrick repeated. Magic thrummed from his core, pulsing outward in waves, each stronger than the last. He sensed several presences outside now, all similar in the feel of their mana songs—each contained a burning core of rage, as animal as it was human.

  “Please, be careful,” said Adalynn. She looped her arm around his neck and pulled him into another quick but passionate kiss before releasing him.

  “You two are lucky we have bigger problems,” Danny said, “or I’d have a lot of questions for you right now.”

  Adalynn took the shotgun in both hands again. “Danny, grab that box of bullets and stay close.”

  Frowning, Danny bent down and scooped up the box. “Shells.”

  “Shells?”

  “Yeah. It’s a shotgun, these are shells. You sure you don’t want me to hold the gun?”

  “No,” Adalynn and Merrick replied in unison. They exchanged a brief, amused glance before Merrick turned away and walked to the balcony doors.

  The bestial presences outside remained in place, giving off their unique resonances, which were more distinct now as Merrick willed his awareness of the ley line running beneath him to life. Though he only slightly opened himself to the ley line, its sound was more a roar than a song, at once harmonious and discordant, deafening and whisper-quiet, high pitched and low-rumbling.

  Merrick opened the glass door and stepped onto the porch. Just before he closed it, he said over his shoulder, “Lock it behind me.”

  He turned his attention forward. The air, while not cold, had a crispness that hinted at the approach of fall. Insects made their soft night music beneath leaves gently rustled by the breeze, and his ears were sharp enough to pick up the sound of the brook running about a hundred yards to the manor’s north. The gray haze blanketing the sky was more pronounced out here, but the moons—two primary halves that had once comprised the greater whole—shone through it, casting their unsettling, bone-yellow light on the world below.

  And none of that mattered.

  Merrick walked around the porch toward the back of his home. Once he rounded the corner and the back lawn was in sight, his gaze fell on the tall, powerful figures in the grass, staring up at him. Four werewolves—two males and two females, he guessed, as the former were larger and more broadly built. They were hybrids of human and wolf; they stood upright on two legs, their bodies were covered in fur, and their fingers were tipped with wicked claws. Their lupine eyes glowed yellow with reflected light.

  He stopped and settled his hands on the railing. The werewolves were displaying more control than he’d thought possible from their kind. Before the Sundering, werewolves—like anything else humans considered supernatural—were exceedingly rare, and only appeared in this form during the full moon. The few he’d encountered had been ravening, bloodthirsty beasts, no more controlled than wild animals.

  These werewolves, on the other hand, had intelligent gleams in their eyes—at least as intelligent as a human’s.

  “We’ve come for food and shelter,” said the foremost wolf in a growling, guttural voice—but in perfect modern English, nonetheless.

  “I’m afraid I’ve run out of hospitality for the millennium,” Merrick replied. He held back the magic bristling within him, which intensified as the tension in the air thickened. “Come back in a thousand years. I ought to have replenished my stores of generosity by then.”

  “Let us in or we’ll let ourselves in,” a gray-furred female snarled, stepping forward with claws splayed.

  “Be silent,” the lead wolf said, snapping his jaws at the female.

  She bared her teeth and growled but backed away, lowering her lupine snout.

  The lead wolf—the alpha, most likely—returned his attention to Merrick. “We don’t mean you any harm, but we will take what we need whether you cooperate or not. This is our territory.”

  “Strange,” Merrick replied. “I must’ve missed the letter from the county explaining that they’d seized my land and sold it out from beneath me.”

  “Come down here, and we’ll see how smug you are,” said the gray female.

  The other male and female—both brown furred—eased back a step.

  “This place smells unnatural,” the brown female said. “We should leave.”

  “The old rules don’t matter anymore,” the alpha said. “This land is ours now. It belongs to my pack. Accept that and cooperate, and we’ll leave you in peace.”

  “More like pieces,” the gray female said.

  Adalynn’s presence tingled on Merrick’s back; she was still inside his bedroom, but sensing her was a powerful drive for him—it enhanced his protective instinct and meant the wolves’ threats sparked greater rage within him. A threat to Merrick’s home was a threat to Adalynn and Danny—because Merrick and the manor were what would keep those two humans safe in this dangerous new world.

  Though he was outnumbered, though the wolves were physically stronger, faster, and tougher, Merrick would not tolerate threats. Especially not threats to his Adalynn.

  Merrick drew in a deep, slow breath and opened his conduit to the ley line a little more. Its song increased in strength, and its power—infinite and unfathomable—trickled into him, making the hairs on his arms stand on end.

  “Where’s your remaining companion?” Merrick asked, reaching outward with invisible tendrils of magic to seek the animalistic resonance of the fifth wolf—five had broken his wards—but he couldn’t look very far in that manner without shifting his full attention to the task.

  Clearly, it was a skill he’d have to improve upon over the years to come.

  With Adalynn at my side throughout.

  The alpha shook his head from side to side and snorted. The other werewolves exchanged questioning glances.

  “Scouting ahead,” the alpha replied.

  Wispy, ethereal clouds drifted in front of the moons, further diffusing the light and deepening the darkness beneath the trees bordering the lawn. It seemed a fitting precursor to what was likely about to happen.

  “Disrespect, threats, and lies.” Merrick tightened his grip on the railing. He’d been wrong for all those years—the flaws and shortcomings he’d attributed to humankind were evident in people of all species. To think human cruelty was unique had been a mistake. “You’ve failed to ingratiate yourself to your would-be host.”

  Merrick vaulted over the railing. He slowed himself with a release of magic just before his feet touched the ground, landing easily in the grass while remaining upright.

  The wolves recoiled slightly, nostrils flaring; whether they’d seen or sensed his magic, they’d noticed it.

  Good.

  For once, Merrick wanted it to be
known that, despite his appearance, he was anything but human—and that these wolves did not intimidate him.

  This was an unquestionably risky move; he was outmatched physically, and he doubted the more aggressive pair of wolves would be dissuaded by his display of bravado, but at the very least it meant he’d be able to steer the fighting away from the house—away from Adalynn and Daniel.

  “See yourselves off my land,” Merrick said, “and I’ll leave each of you in one piece.”

  Keeping his yellow eyes on Merrick, the alpha lowered his snout and peeled his lips back, baring his fangs.

  “So we kill him and take it all anyway,” the gray female said.

  The alpha grunted. Somehow, the sound echoed what he’d said before—the old rules don’t matter anymore.

  Merrick wrenched open his connection to the ley line. Magic, rawer and more powerful than he’d ever felt, surged through him, suffusing his entire being. The heat within him built to a near unbearable degree—but it could not match the heat of his anger.

  “Kill him,” the alpha growled.

  Merrick swept his arm in a wide arc, unleashing a wave of unshaped magical energy.

  The front wolves, who’d been mid-leap already, were struck head-on. The energy swept back their fur for a fraction of a second before it blasted them both backward. Despite their size, the wolves flipped end-over-end in a pair of arcs that saw them crash down only a few yards away from the garden hedge.

  Using that power was a thrill; it came effortlessly, without depleting Merrick’s magic, without drawing from his own energy. Heady as it was, he recognized the danger of it—this power would destroy him if he tapped into it too fully. But he had to use it. This was the surest way to keep Adalynn and her brother safe. No risk was too great to protect them.

  And the ley line offered more than just raw magical energy. Merrick’s senses were opened wide, expanded beyond reason—he was acutely aware of the mana songs, no matter how faint, of everything around him, even the blades of grass, the tiny pebbles, the dirt under his feet and the worms burrowing through it. He held those senses in check. He knew instinctually that, should he choose to, he could expand that awareness to any point along the line. That he could sense everything along its entirety.

  He also knew that to do so would mean losing himself—his self—forever.

  The alpha and the gray female staggered to their feet and shook away their disorientation. Faint wisps of smoke rose from their fur. The brown werewolves had retreated several feet from their original positions, eyes wide and breath ragged.

  “For the pack,” the alpha snarled.

  Those words seemed to jar the reluctant pair. Their features hardened, and they moved in unison with their companions, fanning out to form a wide half-circle in front of Merrick. Though they hung nearly ten yards back, Merrick didn’t lower his guard; they could close that distance incredibly fast if they chose to do so.

  He didn’t intend to give them that chance.

  He acted without allowing himself another moment’s thought, lashing out with invisible magic coils to latch onto the sources of the various mana songs around him—clumps of grass and the far-reaching roots of trees older than the house behind him. As one, the wolves’ hackles rose. Their fur shone in the blue glow Merrick was emitting, which was cast by the magic coursing freely over his skin like dancing forks of lightning, brighter and more intense than ever before. He forced energy through his connections with those plants, altering their resonances, amplifying them.

  Merrick swept his arms upward, and the grass and roots surged from the ground, growing and expanding in the blink of an eye. They writhed and whipped like angry tentacles, grabbing at the wolves.

  The werewolves reacted with superhuman speed, but it wasn’t enough; they only managed a few feet before the magic-infused vegetation caught all four of them, halting their advance. The wolves snarled and struggled, snapped and growled, shredding the plants with fangs and claws. Their strength and ferocity saw them gradually gaining ground.

  “What is he?” asked the gray female.

  “Doesn’t matter,” the alpha replied. “He’s about to be dead.”

  Merrick split his focus, pouring magic into his hands to form pulsing spheres of raw energy. His hold on the plants slipped slightly. The alpha lunged forward, gaining a full two yards before a thick root coiled around his neck and stopped him.

  The alpha roared. The powerful sound swept over Merrick—it was so primal, so rage-filled, that it sparked a hint of fear deep in his gut. Merrick cast that aside; he would not let fear consume him, would not let himself be afraid of these brutish creatures who’d come to take what was his, to threaten his home, his woman.

  The fury that had already been stoked in Merrick erupted. He let out a roar of his own—it rumbled with magic, quaked with rage, thundered with protectiveness, possessiveness, and love—and unleashed the magic from his hands.

  Blue-white energy sprayed from his palms and ignited the magic-enhanced vegetation, enveloping the wolves in a blinding column of raw power. He knew immediately it would not be enough; the grass and roots disintegrated within a second, but the werewolves were made of tougher stuff than that. Freed of their bindings, they all leapt clear of the supernatural blaze, crashing to the ground to the left and right of the blast zone—all but the gray female, who leapt directly at Merrick.

  She emerged from the blaze with singed, smoking fur and raw burns all over her body, but her eyes were bright and filled with bestial fury. Her black claws, each more than an inch long, gleamed in the light of his magic. They could rend Merrick’s flesh as easily as a razor could slice a sheet of paper.

  And immortal did not mean invulnerable.

  Merrick released his hold on the magic and jumped aside. The wolf soared past him, her claws opening a set of shallow gashes on his shoulder as she twisted to account for his movement. Hot blood trickled down his arm, seeping ethereal blue wisps of magic, as he turned to face her.

  She hit the ground hard, rolled, and sprang back to her feet. Smoke wafted from her damaged body, but her wounds—despite their severity—showed signs of healing right before his eyes.

  Apparently, the werewolves’ already accelerated healing factor had only been enhanced by the Sundering.

  Her gaze met Merrick’s, and she leapt forward to attack again.

  Through the ley line, Merrick sensed the other wolves moving, but he didn’t look away from the charging female. He lifted both arms and shaped his magic into solid, pointed shafts—like spears of glowing blue glass—and extended the weapons out from his palms.

  The points struck the female in the chest and burst out her back. Her momentum carried her along the shafts, closer to Merrick, with arms and legs thrashing wildly and jaws snapping.

  Merrick growled and channeled magic through the spears—magic directly from the ley line. The surge of unbridled energy tensed his every muscle and resonated through his bones, threatening not merely to drown out his mana song but to unravel it entirely. He held on, wrapping himself in a cocoon of willpower and fury to maintain his assault.

  The magic flared inside the wolf. She opened her jaws wide and released a cry that was part agonized scream and part bloodthirsty roar. Her flesh split and cracked; arcane energies poured out of the widening wounds.

  In his mind’s eye, Merrick saw the other werewolves advancing, their forms depicted in the flickering crimson of their mana songs.

  The female wolf shattered, the pieces breaking smaller and smaller until nothing of her body remained. The magic snuffed out, and the glass-like spears dissipated. The alpha howled in rage and grief, a sound that pierced Merrick but could not give him pause; he’d offered them a chance to resolve this situation in a different way. This was their choice.

  Merrick clenched his jaw and squeezed down on his connection with the ley line, struggling to stifle some of that dangerous flow. It was only as he spun to face the remaining werewolves that he felt what he’d originally s
ought—the fifth intruder, who had just entered the range of Merrick’s magical senses.

  Another wolf, at the north end of the manor—the same side as Merrick’s bedroom.

  Fear reintroduced itself to Merrick, cold and slithering through his insides, but it wasn’t fear of the wolves or for his own safety—this was fear for Adalynn, for Danny. For the only precious things Merrick had to lose.

  All three of the wolves in front of him attacked.

  Merrick folded himself in magic and twisted his mana song, phasing his physical body into a different state. For an instant, he was only energy, was only the magic he’d always harbored within himself, and the mana song of the ley line became deafening.

  Join me, it sang. Become one with me. Become power.

  Slashing claws and gnashing teeth swept through the space his physical body had occupied. He felt them only distantly, as though they were the phantom caresses of ghostly entities. The wolves’ muscular bodies collided. Merrick forced his incorporeal form aside. He flowed through the air effortlessly, but something pulled him farther along than he’d intended, pulled him down.

  One with the power, whispered the ley line.

  The notion was tempting. He could be a part of the lifeblood of magic, could flow in its source, could cast aside all his worries, all his bitterness, all his pain. Even now, he could feel his concerns falling away, could feel his form growing lighter and more indistinct even as the ley line’s magnetic draw strengthened.

  Adalynn.

  Her name jolted through him, and he latched onto it. Merrick couldn’t go—Adalynn needed him, and he needed her.

  Merrick cast off the ley line’s call and willed himself back, rematerializing his physical body a few feet away from the confused wolves. A shudder ran through him from head to toe, and his muscles tensed, each threatening to cramp at once. Piercing pain, as sharp as a knife, lodged itself deep in his skull.

  Best not attempt that again.

  Despite their initial confusion, the wolves spun toward him quickly; the brown-furred pair were closest. They lunged together, one to each side of Merrick, and he had no choice but to backpedal frantically to avoid their claws.