by Elle Thorne
Griz was frowning, his countenance unapproachable, yet Matteo’s curiosity got the best of him, breaching the silence to ask, “Who’s Sam?”
Salvatore was quiet but clearly intrigued, judging by the set of his face and in his posture.
Griz grunted and turned away. “She knows better than to bring Sam in.”
Matteo looked at Salvatore expectantly, was he going to ask? Would Griz answer?
“What’s Sam supposed to do? Who is he?”
Another grunt. “She. Sam’s a she. Samara Hollowell.”
Salvatore raised a brow. “What is she supposed to help with?”
“Dark magic. Which I suspect is what Mae thinks that is why you can’t shift back.” Griz waved his hand up and down the length of Matteo’s arm, indicating his scales.
Matteo ran a hand over his forearm. His face and neck were the only thing that had no scales. Time for a long-sleeved shirt. Nah, a turtleneck. “I’m going to get something to cover this up.” It occurred to him then that the inn, normally bustling with the town’s shifters and, of late, with the dragons, bears, and sorceresses from the Draecenguard who’d all followed Salvatore to the valley, was now empty. Or was it? He picked up heartbeats but… “Where is everyone?”
“I texted and told them to give us the bottom floor for now. They’re probably in the upstairs sitting area.” A room which mirrored the downstairs space with the same name. “Want me to go get you something to wear so you don’t have to run into everyone?”
Already on the bottom step, Matteo turned back. “No. It is what it is.” He took the stairs two at a time and, sure enough, right at the top of the stairway he ran into Alzbeta, the sorceress who had been assigned to him. With her were Nikola, a dragon shifter, and Bella, the sorceress who’d been assigned to Nikola.
They saw him and gasped at the sight of his skin. All three of them. They stared wide-eyed.
Dark eyed and haired, one braid over her bare shoulder, Alzbeta, in a long black skirt and a red peasant top, stepped forward touched his arm. “What happened?” She ran her fingers over his scales, then flinched as though burned.
Matteo paused at her reaction. “A scuffle. Not sure. Can you fix it?”
Alzbeta turned to Bella. “It’s dark magic. Blood sacrifice probably.”
In jeans and a zebra striped top, blonde and curvy, Bella shuddered and took a step back. “I’m not touching it.”
What the hell were they talking about? Blood sacrifice? Dark magic? Griz had mentioned something about dark magic. “How do you know?” he asked Alzbeta. How could she tell when he couldn’t sense it himself?
She held up her hand. Her fingertips were blood-red.
Why hadn’t Jolie’s hands done that? Why didn’t she react to it? She was a sorceress, after all. Wasn’t she?
He turned to Bella. “Will the same thing happen to you if you touch my arm?”
She shrugged. “I’m not touching you. Dark magic can corrupt my magic.” She took a step away from Alzbeta. “Put gloves on and don’t touch anyone.”
“It’s not a virus,” Matteo scoffed. “It’s not like it’s contagious.”
“You don’t know.” Bella’s voice was barely above a hissed whisper. “You have no idea what dark magic can do to a sorceress. Where did you— What happened?”
Matteo was done with this conversation. Whatever the hell was going on with him, he wanted it fixed. He turned his attention inward as he strode away from Alzbeta and Bella toward the room he stayed in. He rummaged through the closet and found a turtleneck, tore off the shirt he had on, and pulled the sweater over his head.
He’d barely gotten his hands in the sleeves when the door opened. Omar, another of the dragon shifters from the Pontic Mountain monastery peeked his head in the door. “When did you get ba—” He froze. “What the fuck happened to you?” He took a step closer to Matteo.
Just then, the door barged open and Mae stepped between them. “Don’t touch him.”
“Alzbeta already did,” Matteo informed her.
“Stay away from him,” she told Omar then slipped away. He could hear her talking to Alzbeta and Bella, warning them about touching anyone. Told them to wait in their rooms until they heard from her.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Matteo told Omar and took off, heading down the stairs, following Mae, who was already beginning to talk to Griz and Salvatore by the front door. In the background, he heard the door opening and then another voice joined them. He recognized the voice. It was Doc, Mae’s mate.
Mae was almost on tippy toes, standing close to Griz, her face just below his. “We need Sam. It’s not optional. We can’t have blood magic in the valley, and she’s the only one who can counter it.” She put a hand on Doc’s shoulder. “You see to Matteo’s injuries please. In private.” She gave Matteo a pointed glance. “Not out here.” She took Salvatore’s arm. “Come with me. There is something off about Jolie. She’s not a sorceress, and she may not have done this to Matteo, but she is tied into it.”
To say the very least, Matteo thought. He told Doc the injuries could wait and followed Mae and Salvatore into the kitchen where Jolie was sitting at the table, an untouched plate full of food before her.
Chapter Fourteen
Jolie stared at the overflowing plate. The aroma rising from the sumptuous breakfast should make her mouth water, but instead, she felt nausea rising up her throat. She’d heard them whispering. She’d heard Mae say the words blood magic. Or maybe it was dark magic. Either way, neither sounded good.
She glanced at the door and saw Matteo watching her. It was all his fault. If he hadn’t interfered, she’d be long gone and—
No. She couldn’t think that way. She might not have made it out alive had it not been for his interference. And look what it’d gotten him. He couldn’t go out in public because of his half-shifted skin.
“I’m sorry,” she uttered.
“It’s not your fault.” He stepped closer. “You didn’t do this to me. That other guy—”
“Orkney,” she practically spat the word out.
“Yeah, him.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “You didn’t do this.”
“You don’t know.” Nameless’s words haunted her. What if she was something else?
“Mae seems to think it’s dark magic, or maybe a blood spell. That’s not you.”
Jolie thought of the bubble that had allowed them to move about while Orkney and the bears were frozen. She didn’t know what she was now. What if…? “You don’t know.” She lurched up from her seat and went to the sink, turned the water on and splashed her face. “I don’t even know.”
“They’re going to find someone to help with this.” He indicated his arms, though they were covered with fabric now.
“I heard. I guess I wasn’t supposed to, but I heard them say something about Sam.”
“Right. I’m thinking to go with them.”
She put a hand on his arm. “What if someone sees you?”
“I don’t plan on undressing,” he said with a smile. “Can you think of a reason why touching me didn’t affect you? It burned the other sorceress’s fingers.”
She tipped her head, regarding him. This was a new development. “No.” Then she threw her hands up. “I didn’t do this, I swear.”
“I know.” His tone was low and probably was intended to lend comfort, but Jolie could find none.
Guilt assuaged her. “I don’t understand this.” Then she thought of being left here alone. She didn’t know these people. Granted, she barely knew him, but still. “I’d like to go with you. Maybe this person will have an answer as to why it didn’t burn me.”
“Let me talk to Griz before he heads out.”
The sound of the front door closing with a click had Matteo whirling around suddenly and heading out of the room.
Jolie looked at the food, grabbed two biscuits and followed.
Chapter Fifteen
Griz was driving the large, extended-cab pickup. Salvatore sat next
to him. In the back, Matteo sat next to Jolie on a bench seat. He fought the urge to wipe a biscuit crumb from her face as her head lolled with each curve Griz took the truck through. Finally, after her head hit the glass, he reached across and pulled her against his shoulder.
“She’s sleeping pretty hard.” Griz glanced back.
“Yeah.”
“What do you know about her?” Salvatore asked.
That she’s beautiful. And fierce. And fearless. And running away from some damned wizard and bear shifters. No, he wasn’t going to go into all that. It was her story to tell. “She was in the forest. So were a wizard and a couple of bear shifters. I killed one of them. The other bear managed to escape and brought—”
“Hold on.” Griz raised his hand.
“You were in the forest and fought a couple of bears. You killed one…”
“Right. Then the other came back—”
“Why did you go back?” Salvatore interjected. “Why didn’t you wait? We were going to reconnoiter, and you chose to go back out there alone?”
Matteo bristled. Salvatore wasn’t his father. “You don’t own me.” Not to mention, though he did. “She would have been dead while you all pissed the time away checking with Grant and looking at maps. Someone needed to get down there and look into things.” And it was a good thing, too, since she’d have probably been captured or killed by them.
“Simmer down,” Griz cautioned. “Keep your voices low, unless you want to wake her up and scare the hell out of her.”
“Anyway,” Matteo continued, “the bear shifter that attacked me the first time was back with a wizard and another bear. And they were clearly hunting her. They asked me where she was.”
“Any idea what they want with her?” Griz turned off the road and onto one that was unpaved.
“No clue. We haven’t had a chance to talk. She was hiding in the treehouse. Allegra’s treehouse.”
Both Griz and Salvatore uttered curses.
“How’d she get up there? Can she fly?”
“I haven’t had a chance to talk to her.” Matteo thought it was his turn to get some answers. “Did you find out if there are any shifters missing? Are these Bear Canyon shifters?”
“Grant said that so far, no one has said a word, so I’m guessing probably not. Anyway, our people aren’t in the habit of roving the forests and attacking innocents. Plus, we don’t have a rogue wizard touring the area, wreaking havoc.”
“Who is this Sam?” Matteo glanced at the beautiful sorceress leaning against him. She was still sound asleep from fatigue. Or drained from casting spells. Or both.
Another curse from Griz. “She’s someone Mae’s first husband knew. She doesn’t live in Bear Canyon Valley. Hell, no. We wouldn’t let her.” He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t let her. She’s reckless and dangerous. But Mae feels like she owes her, so she has decreed that Sam’s not to be bothered. Ever.”
“Where does she live, then?”
“On the outskirts of our territory.”
Matteo bit back a growl. Griz wasn’t being very forthcoming with answers. “Care to elaborate?”
Salvatore backed him up. “Yes, please do. What are we dealing with here? A sorceress?”
Griz scoffed. “I’d be much more amenable if Samara Hollowell was a sorceress.”
Matteo’s nerves were frayed enough with the last day’s events. He was tired of the cat and mouse, even if that wasn’t Griz’s intent. “What the hell is Samara Hollowell?”
“She’s a goddamned blood elf who was kicked out of her sect for saving a shifter’s life.”
Matteo hadn’t ever encountered a blood elf. He didn’t know the first thing about them. He looked at Salvatore for a reaction.
Salvatore seemed equally baffled. “Blood elves do not interact with any outside of their own kind.”
“Right. Tell me about it,” Griz confirmed. “Until this one did. She saved Brad’s life. Then lost her place in her community. So Mae set her up with an area on the outskirts of our territory. We have a standing rule—or I thought we did—that she doesn’t come to our area, we don’t involve ourselves in her life, and no one needs to know—ever—where she is.” Griz exhaled, his shoulders dropping. “Yet, here we have a blood spell on you. I’m pretty sure it’s a blood spell. What else can it be? And you weren’t in her territory.”
“Not that I know of.” Matteo didn’t want to plead ignorance, but he didn’t think he’d been in her area.
“Trust me. You weren’t. It’s in the complete opposite direction that we’re going.”
“So this Samara has a home somewhere in the forest?”
Griz’s laugh sounded like a bark. “I’d hardly call a hollowed-out tree a home.” He took another turn, and the road became even rougher. They’d been on the road for more than an hour, Matteo was pretty sure, though he hadn’t taken the opportunity to check the time when they pulled out from Mae’s driveway. “It’s a large tree at the edge of a cliff, just down the way from a massive waterfall.” He paused, then looked at Salvatore. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The older dragon shifter nodded. “I’m thinking that with Allegra’s love for waterfalls, we better keep her away from this one.”
“Exactly.”
Good luck controlling Allegra. Matteo opted against giving voice to that thought, but if he knew Allegra, hearing about another waterfall would be like a beacon.
“Anyway,” Griz continued, “we need to be careful when we approach Samara’s spot as she will undoubtedly have put enchantments in place which, at best, will herald our approach. And worse, could possibly hurt us. Sam’s extremely powerful.”
“And you clearly don’t care for her,” Salvatore said.
“The feeling is mutual. She’d have killed me long ago if it weren’t for my friendship with Mae.”
Fantastic. And here they were, going into the lion’s den.
“Five minutes away. Then we walk.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jolie awoke to find herself leaning against Matteo. She could’ve sworn when she fell asleep that her head was in the other direction, against the window.
She’d overheard something as she was waking up. Griz had said Samara was a blood elf. She’d calmed her pulse when she’d heard that news to keep Matteo or the other shifters from knowing she was awake yet.
She took a moment to orient herself before opening her eyes, enjoying the feeling of having her head against a warm body as opposed to a cold wall in a subterranean compound as she had for so long. Not to mention the guy next to her smelled good.
A thought occurred to her. She raised her head and opened her eyes. “What’s the date?” she whispered to Matteo.
He gave her an odd look then told her.
“No. That can’t be.” She’d been locked up for three years? How could that have been? Had time really passed, so much of it that it had been this long?
“How do you not know the date?” he asked her softly.
She glanced away, studying the landscape. The mountains in the background, rising majestically. The trees—so many trees—on the slopes. The bushes, the isolation. This land was endless forests and uninhabited. No wonder Orkney had managed to keep their location a secret. She turned to Matteo, unsure what to say.
His expression was one of concern. “Where do you come from?”
“Denmark, originally. Western Denmark. By the North Sea.”
“You lived in a town there?”
She thought of it wistfully. Of her sorceress family. Her only family, really, except for Oiddras. And none of them were related to her by blood. But that was another matter altogether, and not what Matteo had asked. “No, not in a town. Dragespire. A clifftop ancient castle. Medieval, really, built in the 12th century. It used to be a place where crusaders gathered before they headed out for their quests.”
His face turned pensive, melancholy, almost.
“What is it?”
“Makes me think of my own home.�
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Which made her wonder about his accent. His English was flawless, but he had a European accent, though not a modern one. It made her think of Oiddras’s way of speaking. Then again, so did Salvatore’s manner of talk.
“Tell me about your home,” she encouraged him. Not only because she was curious—she found this gorgeous man intriguing—but also because anything that would divert away from talking about herself was a welcome distraction.
“An area that used to be called Anatolia. Now it’s Turkey. I lived in the Pontic Mountains. That was home for a long time. The last home. My original home, the one I miss the most, is Italy.”
“But not where you were born,” she noted, studying his dark features, aquiline features. “Not with a name like Matteo. What’s your surname?”
“Berberis. Yours?” He arched a brow, pulling back slightly, which made her realize how close their heads had been.
“Berberis. Italian?” She harkened to days of Roman soldiers and could easily see him in that role.
He nodded. Then repeated, “Yours?”
“Anker. So you were of Italian descent but ended up in Turkey? How did that happen?”
“Long story. How did a sorceress from Denmark end up in Bear Canyon Valley?”
Jolie took a deep breath. Was she even a sorceress? “Also a long story.”
“I have the time.”
“Not so. We’re stopping,” she told him. Saved by their arrival. And she wasn’t sure what was in store for them. Hopefully, the matter of his frozen shift could be resolved. She felt guilty about it, as it happened to him while he was saving her.
They exited the vehicle and made their way single file, Griz leading and Salvatore taking up the rear, through the forest on a footpath that was clearly not used for anything but foot travel. Twenty minutes later, they saw a massive tree. One that didn’t look like it belonged in the forest.
