She was lagging though, getting slower and slower with each pass. He didn’t feel sorry for her. She was Alpha-born and needed to know how to get through the pain and the exhaustion. And her wolf didn’t seem to be letting her quit anyway. Despite it all, she kept going.
And got fucking smarter.
As he raced forward, her scent grew faint. What is she doing? It wasn’t that she’d stopped; she just wasn’t running as fast. He slowed, stretching out his stride so he wasn’t pumping his legs like he had been earlier, but he made sure he could circle around pretty quickly. He sensed Dominic and Arturo on the edge, hovering, but not coming to her aid.
Good. She’s not hurt.
As quietly as he could, he slipped behind a tree and peered around it. Isadora stood in the center of a small clearing, eyes closed, hands loose at her sides. Her chest heaved with each breath she took, little puffs of air visible in the chill of the night.
Still, she didn’t move.
What the hell?
“Catch!”
Carlo jerked forward as a force stronger than he expected pulled him from behind the tree toward Isadora. He dug in his heels and gripped the tree with his sharp claws, his arms bulging with the strain.
“Stop this, Isadora.”
“Catch.”
She’d caught him, all right, and not with any skill of a wolf. This was something more. Carlo tasted the magic on it, the scent of heated cinders and earth under fur. Every mage had a scent, some way to identify their magic to a shifter.
Isadora was using magic.
“Dominic, stop her.”
“Catch!”
“You think I want to get in the middle of that? Let her catch you.”
Not the answer he expected from her father, but he should have guessed. Enabling bastard.
Carlo jerked another foot forward, and he dug into the trunk of the tree, hoping he wouldn’t destroy it with the force of her pull. She still hadn’t moved from her spot in the clearing, never opened her eyes.
She was dragging a full-grown, seven-foot male to her side who had the strength of one of the largest wolves in Encantado. This was madness.
“She’s using magic, Dom.”
“Yup, which is why you can do your little flying dance all on your fucking own. I know better.”
Flying?
Carlo stopped focusing on Isadora’s still form long enough to look down at himself.
His floating self.
Carlo’s feet no longer touched the ground, leaving him perpendicular to it. If he let go of the tree he’d be levitating.
“Arturo!”
“She is magnificent.”
“Yep, and I’m still flying here!”
He swore men were inferior. It didn’t matter the situation, be they young or old, women always were going to be the smarter and stronger sex. Period.
“This is true, but it’s okay. I won’t hold it against you.”
Shockwaves reverberated through Carlo’s skull and he let go of the tree in his shock. He didn’t know that voice, yet he did. It soaked into his bloodstream, awakening long-dead cravings and needs in one fell swoop.
He slammed into the ground, dazed and angry. Where is she? Where? But when he leapt back to his feet, there was nothing there except Arturo, Dominic, and Isadora laughing. He didn’t care. Where was the woman? The one who owned that voice?
He had to find her.
“You lost, old man.”
And it didn’t matter. None of it did.
“Carlo?”
He didn’t even answer his Alpha. Where was she?
“Carlo?”
“What?” he roared, spinning on his Alpha.
Arturo growled. “Careful, pup.”
Carlo took a deep breath, closing his eyes to still his beating heart. “I apologize, Alpha. The magic …”
Arturo nodded knowingly. “I don’t think using Carlo will be a good idea going forward, Dominic. After what Ottavio and Benedict did, he may not be able to deal with Isadora using her magic.”
Dominic rubbed a hand down his face and lifted his daughter into his arms. “She is a Witch Doctor.”
Arturo slid his hands into his pockets. “Like Zahara?”
Dominic nodded. “Yes. Zahara unlocked it to deal with Isadora’s extra life energy that’s making her wolf grow. But she shouldn’t be able to use it like this.”
“I’d definitely say it’s confirmed she can,” Carlo forced out. A Witch Doctor and a wolf. We’re screwed.
Dominic watched him for a moment. “I am sorry for what was done to you.”
Yeah, but they didn’t know the extent—the hell he’d suffered or the cruelty of Benedict’s true work—but he wouldn’t think about that. Not now. He would just focus on the voice he’d heard in his head; the one that made him feel not so alone.
Because thinking of his past only made Carlo wish he could get away from mages forever.
Chapter Twelve
Hungry.
Months had gone by since she’d had her run in the woods and attacked Carlo, and Isadora was in much better control of her wolf and her speech. It sort of scared everyone, but she couldn’t change that.
The night was alive with all kinds of stuff. Rabbits. Mice.
Food.
Isadora sucked in a deep breath through her nose, doing that thing with her wolf where she felt around. Her wolf was pretty. Big purply eyes that turned golden in the night, black fur, and on her ears, just at the tips, the fur turned green.
She looked awesome!
Her wolf stretched, digging her claws into the ground as she pushed her legs forward and lowered her head between them, keeping her butt in the air. Her fangs were white and wet as she yawned.
Izzy—that’s what Isadora called her wolf—was bigger than most of the wolves Isadora saw around Daddy’s pack. Like, bigger bigger. Isadora wasn’t sure why, but she liked that too. Izzy could chomp stupid Bryson Ponce between her teeth and snap his head like a ragdoll.
Then Bryson wouldn’t put markers in her hair to make it all black anymore. Isadora liked her green stripe and couldn’t understand why he always teased her about it.
Izzy stood tall in Isadora’s mind forest, ears lowered and lips pulled back in a snarl. Isadora figured Izzy agreed about Bryson.
I wish I wasn’t so weird.
She didn’t know how she was the way she was. Between Izzy and the power inside her, thanks to her bisnonna Zahara, Isadora knew a lot of things. How to walk and run, funny words—the adults gave her weird looks for knowing those—and using Izzy to get what she wanted.
Daddy called it Alpha call, but Isadora could only smell magic on him that was only a little bit like her magic. How she used her thing with Izzy was different.
Well, she used both—the Alpha call and her magic.
It worked better that way, and Izzy liked how it made her feel stronger.
So Isadora liked that too.
Hungry.
“Okay. Will you help me hunt? I’m not big enough yet.”
Izzy howled in response. She was hungry and needed to eat. Daddy always gave Isadora plenty of meat before bed, but it never seemed to be enough.
Isadora slipped from her princess bed and tiptoed across her room to the door.
“Come on, Izzy. Let’s go.”
Daddy and Mommy were asleep, and Isadora knew how to be very quiet. Uncle Romano was with Aunt Kalinda, so Isadora wouldn’t have to sneak by him.
Score!
It took a few minutes to get down the stairs, taking each step slowly to make sure she didn’t creak. But once she got to the back of the house, it was easy from there. No one came to Daddy’s house uninvited, and the wolves like to run when they want to. Because of that, the back floor-to-ceiling windows were always open.
Probably would be hard to teach the wolves to open them.
“Bet you Izzy could. She’s smart.”
Izzy was better than all the wolves. She had green tips on her ears!
&
nbsp; Once outside, Isadora lifted her face to the moon, letting the cool air whisper along her skin. She could smell much more out here. Wolves were on the perimeter, others sleeping in their homes. If she tried really hard, she’d even pick up on her bisnonna’s brown stew chicken she’d made earlier that day.
Her tummy growled, and she figured Izzy wouldn’t wait much longer.
“Let’s try that new thing tonight.”
Isadora leapt off the porch and went running, fast as her legs could carry her, into the smattering of trees behind her house. It wasn’t as awesome as the woods outside of their lands, or even the one to the north where Uncle Packy and his wife Aunt Giuliana lived, but it would have to do.
Daddy said Isadora shouldn’t know how to shift until she was closer to a teenager, so Isadora didn’t tell him she could. It was just her and Izzy’s little secret. Izzy felt trapped, too big in the little body she had to live in, and she needed to stretch her legs every once in a while.
“Now!”
Isadora reached deep inside and Izza met her, tearing from her mind and landing on all fours in just a few seconds.
I’m so coooool!
Izzy snorted and took a giant leap forward. Isadora didn’t know how it felt for other shifters when they rode with their wolf, but for Isadora it was sort of like being carried. She could see, hear, feel, and taste everything Izzy did, but she was sort of … behind. If she didn’t want to be completely in Izzy’s head, she could sit back and let her wolf have more control.
Isadora was afraid of doing that though. Izzy had some sort of idea she deserved to have a pack of her own. Isadora loved being with Daddy and everyone. She didn’t want to leave them. So most of the time she stayed right with Izzy, enjoying the hunt and only letting Izzy have enough control to do what Isadora hadn’t really learned to do as a wolf yet.
White-tail.
And we’re off.
One sight of the bunny slipping through the deep underbrush was all it took to send Izzy into a tizzy. She cut across, narrowly missing a tree by a hair.
Careful!
Izzy snorted again and kept pushing forward. The scent of the rabbit made Isadora’s mouth water. Its quick little heartbeat made the blood run faster, strengthening the notes of fear and the juicy undertones of the meat.
It was sort of weird ’cause when Isadora watched this movie about a deer who lost his mother, she really liked his rabbit best friend. She hadn’t wanted to eat him. But she understood she was a wolf and what that meant.
She couldn’t always have a prepared meal from the stove. Well, Izzy didn’t always want that anyway.
A burger is good though, Izzy. We could live on those and steak alone.
Of course, there was no answer from Izzy, but Isadora could nearly sense the wolf’s amusement.
Laugh all you want, but I’ve never seen you turn down a rare ribeye or New York strip either.
And who in their right mind would?
Close! Hungry!
When Isadora got impressions from Izzy, her mind turned them into singular words to identify what her wolf wanted. Isadora slipped back a little bit and let Izzy reach ahead to grab for faster speed and better senses. Having Isadora at the helm made the wolf not quite as sharp.
There!
Izzy ran the rabbit into its burrow and started digging, kicking up large pelts of dirt with each stroke of her massive paws. There was no way she wouldn’t get inside. Each pass brought her closer and closer. Izzy snapped her teeth, pushing her muzzle as far as it could go into the hole even as she made it bigger.
Atta girl! Get the meat.
More digging, more sharp growls and snaps.
Meat!
Izzy gripped the rabbit by the throat, bearing down hard with her jaws and yanking it from its hiding place. It kicked and fought but couldn’t hope to get away.
“You put that down right now.”
Startled, Isadora released the rabbit and melded back into her human form with a scream.
Her father stood just a few steps away, his eyes glowing in the dark. Neither she or Izzy had heard or smelled him coming.
“If I were an enemy, you’d have died. You don’t deserve to enjoy your kill if you can’t protect yourself at the same time.”
I’m in trouble.
A muscle worked in Daddy’s jaw, and a soft, threatening growl came out every time he exhaled.
“Guess what, Daddy?”
He lifted one eyebrow, watching her. “Yes?”
“I can shift. Surprise.”
“The rabbit, Isadora.”
What?
She looked down and realized one of her hands was still a wolf’s paw, and it pinned the rabbit to the ground.
“Oh, look. Didn’t know they liked to offer themselves.”
Her Daddy’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “How the hell do you even know words like– You know what? Never mind.”
“Hell isn’t a good word, Daddy.”
He glared at her. “Says the one who just said it.”
She swallowed. “Ten points.”
“What?”
“You got me, so you win ten points.”
“Remind me never to let Silva babysit you again.”
“Twenty points.”
“What the hell, Isadora?”
“She says every time you say that and let her anyway, I get twenty points.”
Daddy pinched his nose, closing his eyes. “I’m going to kill that Fae.”
No!
Isadora leapt to her feet, the rabbit forgotten. No one was going to hurt Auntie Silva. No one. Her wolf agreed. Silva was theirs.
She growled at her father and crouched low to the ground. “Leave her alone.”
“Do you want to test me, pup?”
Okay, so her daddy’s growl was much worse than hers, but she wasn’t going to let it go. Kill it!
“You can’t kill your father, Isadora.”
“I–” Isadora shook her head. No, she didn’t want to kill Daddy. Why would she?
“It’s your wolf. The instincts to protect who is part of your ‘pack.’ Right now, you don’t know those ways, but your wolf recognizes it. Silva is one of yours, and I’ve threatened her. You can’t help it.” Her Daddy sighed. “I will not harm her, Isadora. It was only a saying.”
Instantly, Izzy relaxed, and so did Isadora. “Daddy, I don’t like this.”
“No, I would guess you wouldn’t. We are wild animals, Isadora, even when we walk on two legs. We live in violence and understand it. You should have had a decade, at least, to get used to your wolf, mock fight, and gain skills before it asked this of you. We just have to change how we do this.”
“Does that mean something is wrong with me? Am I a freak?”
Daddy sank to his haunches, and it was the best feeling in the world when he pulled her into his arms, tucking her face against his chest. His strong, steady heartbeat soothed her, even if the smell of his wolf made her a bit agitated.
“You are a year and a half old, Isadora. You shouldn’t be able to talk like this, let alone run or shift. Your world is something we’ve never seen before. It makes you special, a priceless masterpiece I’d never trade for anything in the world.”
Isadora didn’t know how one-and-a-half-year-olds were supposed to act. She was just … her. And even when she went to school, she was with older students. Something about social skills.
“That’s what Bryson calls me.”
“A freak?”
“We can kill this Bryson.”
Yessss.
“Gods, Isadora, you were supposed to laugh, not half-shift in excitement.”
Isadora looked down at herself, and sure enough, her hind legs were trying to change over. Maybe she was a freak. Maybe she wasn’t.
But she let Daddy carry her to the house anyway.
“Your mother is waiting for you.”
Isadora groaned. “I’m in trouble.”
“Oh yes, little one. What’s worse, it’s Mom
my who’s angry.”
Daddy laughed, and Isadora wanted to kick him. Mommy was by far the worst one to see angry. She didn’t get suckered with a couple of tears like the men did.
Thanks, Izzy. Thanks a lot!
And yep, her wolf didn’t respond and left Isadora completely in the driver’s seat.
Even that wolf was afraid of Mommy’s wrath.
Chapter Thirteen
“We do not have time for this,” Asherah argued. Heath was not listening. Did not seem to understand. “The blood runes keep me locked inside. We have to figure out how to get me past them.”
“I can, and you’re going to let me,” Heath grumbled, stepping right up to her. When she moved back, he palmed her cheek, holding her in place. “Don’t let Skuld win,” he whispered, lowering his head. “I’m going to be there when you wake up. I’m going to be the first face you see, and this is just a promise right now. You’ve fought so hard. Let me carry you for a while.”
No, it felt like a goodbye. A moment to take in case they did not survive what was coming. Heath wanted to give them both something to hold on to. She could sense the desperation on the air.
But he ignored her pleas.
“I can leave. I do not want to feel this is the last time.”
“I’m never going to fucking leave you alone, Asherah. Believe in that.”
But how could she? What reason, what relationship could they hope to have? It was stupid to be this afraid, but Heath made her want things, impossible hopes for a future she did not even know she was worthy of. She was afraid of how he made her feel, the love blossoming in her heart.
“I’m here, Asherah. Don’t lose faith when we’re so close.”
It was because he was so close. What if he died? She would not be able to live with herself.
But Heath took the thoughts away from her. His warm breath caressed her cheeks, his fingers like brands against her skin, and then he pressed his lips to hers and she stopped thinking about the reasons they should not do this.
The fear that someone would fail her once more.
He tasted like her salvation, like male and silk sheets. He was better than she could have ever hoped. It was a reminder this male was part of her, the other half of her soul. He was made to be hers.
Heath’s lips slid across hers softly for a moment before he opened his mouth, tilted his head, and exhaled as he deepened the kiss. She’d never thought of air as sexy, but Heath’s breath was. It was hot against her tongue as it swirled down her throat and filled her lungs.
Fated to the Traitor (Portal City Protectors Book 4) Page 11
