Werewolf Mage 3

by Harry Nix

  He quickly picked up the three mixing bowls, revealing a blackened crater on the tabletop. He dropped the ring near it, covered it over and put his weight on the largest bowl and waited.

  As soon as he dropped it, the ring’s spell screen vanished. Alex was happy to let it go, giving his natural mana time to recharge.

  This was how Juno found him, holding the bowls down.

  “So, whatcha got under there?” she said as she came sauntering into the conference room.

  Despite bringing some of her own clothes with her, it appeared she’d raided the clothes left behind by the old pack members who’d left and never returned. The werewolf she’d taken the clothes from must have been tiny because she was bursting out all over the place.

  She was wearing a black skirt that could have passed for a belt on a good day. There was no way she could have sat down in it. She’d paired that with a white t-shirt that had been fashionably ripped and was skin-tight. She was barefoot but carrying a pair of glittering red heels in her hand.

  “Possible exploding ring,” Alex said, watching her as she walked past him, swinging her hips. She thunked the heels down on the table and Alex winced.

  “Little jumpy, aren’t ya?” the witch said. She turned around and Alex saw she was wearing smoky eyeshadow and had found blood-red lipstick somewhere. Contrasting with her blonde hair she looked like a cheerleader turned vampire.

  “Why are you so dressed up?” Alex asked, unable to help himself looking up and down her body. Sure, the ring might explode and blow a hole in the table but holy hell, check out that butt.

  “This old thing? I was just having a chat with the prisoner. You know, doing the old bad nymph, even badder witch combo thing.”

  “Uh-huh,” Alex said, practically drooling before his brain caught up with her words.

  “Sorry, what? You were interrogating Stephen? Please tell me it wasn’t like last time.”

  When they’d captured Stephen originally, the three girls had put on a show of threatening the mage that had been extremely effective. Alex had played the “good cop” role and had learned later that the girls really had wanted to hurt the necromancer, which meant their threats had had a grain of truth to them.

  Juno stalked closer, crossing her arms, which just helped push up the cleavage he could see through her torn t-shirt.

  “He’s fine... I mean, mostly. Physically, he’s unharmed,” Juno said.

  “That seems suspiciously specific,” Alex said. He’d heard Stephen crying up in his room overnight. He focused his hearing but there was nothing.

  Juno suddenly slapped her hand on the mixing bowl.

  “Bang!” she shouted, making Alex nearly jump out of his skin. Then she stepped closer and Alex caught her scent. Spice and warm. She came close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin in the cold room.

  “It was just. like. that.” she whispered. “Physically, he’s fine. But he may have gotten a little fright.”

  “How did that skirt tie into that fright, exactly?”

  Juno trailed a finger down his arm and then bumped into him. He was holding the bowl down with both hands and had to move a step to keep his balance.

  “It’s all about keeping the suspect... off-balance,” Juno whispered. Then she reached down between Alex’s legs and grabbed him.

  “Do you know what I mean? A bit of push, a bit of pull and soon they’ll tell you anything.”

  The room was cold, practically freezing but Alex felt his temperature spike. He wanted to grab the little witch and bend her over the conference table. Except there was the problem of the ring—some of the previous explosions had been quite powerful. To let go of the protective bowl would be to risk serious injury or a fire. No matter how sexy little miss skirt was, he wasn’t going to risk her getting hurt.

  “Maybe you can wait until the bomb threat here has passed,” Alex said.

  Juno gave him a gentle squeeze and then dropped to her knees, her fingers working on his belt.

  “You keep doing that. It’s important work. Don’t mind me,” she said.

  She had his pants undone and down before he could say another word. A moment later his boxers went and half a second after that her hot mouth engulfed him.

  “Damn,” Alex groaned.

  Sitting there for so long in the cold room hadn’t been good for him. His feet were that kind of cold where they don’t feel warm all day, no matter what you do. His hands felt the same. Now with his pants down, it was evident other body parts had been cold too... until they were surrounded by what felt like molten heat.

  “So how goes the enchanting?” Juno said, pulling off him for a moment before plunging right back in. She squeezed with her hand and swirled her tongue, making Alex’s knees weak.

  “Good,” he said, closing his eyes and focusing on holding the mixing bowl down.

  “Just good? The class would like to hear your report, Mr. Lowe,” Juno said. She went back to swirling.

  Alex opened his eyes just as the first red glints appeared in the air. Sex magic. It was technically sex mana, but he hadn’t changed the label on the red bar he could see on his spell screen. Juno had called it sex magic and so he’d left it that way.

  The red glints began drifting towards him, drawn by an unseen current.

  “I got that... uh... strength spell to hold,” he gasped.

  “Good boy,” Juno said and then licked up and down his length before swallowing him again.

  As she went to work on him, Alex screwed up his eyes again and tried to keep his focus on holding the bowl. Behind his eyelids he saw flashes of red as glints hit him, some directly in the face, before being absorbed.

  There was something about the situation that made Alex nearly go wild with lust. Was it the potential danger? Maybe that he couldn’t move? Or just the little blonde witch herself looking punk-rock vampire?

  Familiar tingles started at the base of his spine.

  Even as wild as he felt, Alex knew it was polite to announce.

  “I’m going to...”

  “Oh, good,” Juno said.

  She sucked and pulled her head back and forth, increasing speed. Alex felt his toes curl. He opened his eyes again and saw red swirling, like a glitter tornado.

  Alex could feel the rush approaching and with his connection to Juno, could feel the magic around him surging like the sea.

  Suddenly, the little witch let go, stood up and turned around, hiking up the little skirt. Alex would never have thought this move worked but somehow, she backed herself on to him. He half slid down to meet her, still trying desperately to hold the bomb containment in place.

  Juno bucked her hips, moving back and forth just two more times and then Alex roared as he came. There was a sudden flurry of red that burst out of the air and then swamped him.

  It was an awkward position that couldn’t be held for long, but Alex was still disappointed when Juno pulled herself off him and turned around, adjusting her skirt.

  “Okay, well, I’ll see you later,” she said, as though they were just friends who’d met for coffee.

  “But...”

  She gave him a wink, grabbed the red high heels and left Alex leaning against the table, pants and boxers down around his ankles.

  He sat there for a moment before deciding he’d held the mixing bowl long enough. Plus, he was half-naked and anyone could walk in.

  Alex let go of the bowl and pulled his pants back up. He’d only just tightened his belt when there was a crack from behind him and the bowls shot straight up, hitting the roof. A small ball of flame hit too but dissipated and then the bowls crashed down to the table with an almighty racket.

  Alex instinctively shifted to his hybrid form but leaped too, crashing into a padded office chair and going ass over teakettle. He was glad no one was there to see it when he ended up flat on his face with the chair on top of him.

  He’d just gotten up when Nia rushed in. She looked at the blackened crater in the table and the smal
l cloud of smoke that was drifting near the ceiling.

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  Alex’s heart was pounding from the surprise of the explosion (and everything that had come before that) but wild ideas crossed his mind as he looked Nia up and down. She’d raided someone’s closet too and was wearing a skirt that was very mini indeed.

  She saw the look on his face and started backing away.

  “No! I have important work I’m doing,” she said, pushing her way out the door.

  She took off, laughing, and Alex chased.

  4

  After leaving Nia an exhausted mess in a bedroom, Alex took a quick detour via the shower for the second time (he had chased Nia but had made sure to go by the shower on the way after being with Juno) and went looking for April.

  He quickly discovered she wasn’t guarding Stephen. Juno was sitting outside his door, wearing far more demure clothing than the last time he’d seen her. She gave him a spine-melting deep kiss that made him want to drag her away before telling him that April had gone looking for herbs, and sent him on his way.

  Alex was soon outside in hybrid form, sniffing the air. Mostly what he could smell was cleaning products and soap from the efforts to remove the silver. As the only three spellcasters in the village were occupied, no werewolves were currently at work. Someone had used simple yellow twine to block off parts of the village that still required cleaning.

  “She went that way Alpha,” Esme called out from over near a chicken coop. She gave him a lascivious wink when he glanced at her and waggled her eyebrows.

  “Thanks,” Alex called out and waved to her. He saw Lydia, her equally elderly instigator and general shit-stirrer come out of a nearby cabin. The two old ladies talked, Esme pointed at Alex and then made a hip-thrusting movement that he wished he could scrub from his mind.

  Alex got moving, ignoring the cackling behind him. He soon caught April’s scent and sped up, heading out of the village at a light jog.

  As he went, Alex laughed to himself. Esme wasn’t entirely wrong about what was on his mind. For some reason he felt like a horny teenager, sex and girls pulling his mind away from what he was meant to be doing.

  It wasn’t long before Jacob fell in beside Alex, silently padding along. Alex glanced at him and saw the young werewolf looked exhausted. It was no wonder—he’d spent the entire night recovering from his injuries. It was just another thing Alex had learned: healing spells could do incredible things but there was still deep healing that often had to occur. Healing took energy and calories and although spells could rebuild bone, it still took time to heal fully.

  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?” Alex asked.

  “Can’t sleep in the day, no matter what,” Jacob said.

  Alex had no such problem. After rolling in the hay with Nia he could have easily slept in the warm dark room. Given the way Yvonne, a teenage werewolf, looked at Jacob, he’d have no problem doing the same thing... if only he wasn’t utterly oblivious to her and the other teenage girls who watched him like he was a walking meal.

  “Esme and Lydia always have some high-proof alcohol on them. That can work.”

  “Are you recommending I get drunk to sleep?”

  Alex saw Jacob frowning at him, not sure if Alex was joking.

  “You’re right. Best leave that to the adults.”

  “I mean, you’re the Alpha so if you command it, I’ll have no choice to obey. If you say ‘Jacob, I command you to eat fried chicken and drink whiskey’ well, what can I do?”

  Alex laughed as they jogged.

  “Your line is ‘Jacob, I command you to eat fried chicken and drink whiskey’, in your own time,” Jacob added after a moment in a whisper, like he was a director giving lines.

  “Jacob, I command you to race me to the tallest tree over there, if you’re up to it,” Alex said, still laughing.

  “Ready set go!” Jacob said in one breath and shifted to wolf form.

  So close to him, the pull of the shift was quite strong. Alex let it take him and shifted quickly, sprinting after the young werewolf who already had a good lead on him.

  Outside the village proper were sparse trees and some bushes, plus a nearby creek. Together they sprinted through this, Alex giving it all he had just to catch up. But Jacob was too fast, and he knew this land like the back of his paw. He’d used a hidden rock in the creek to launch himself, clearing a small mud pit. Alex had gone straight through it, splattering himself with mud and slowing him enough for Jacob to reach the tree first.

  He immediately howled and then shifted to hybrid form, laughing, and jumping around.

  Alex skidded to a stop at the tree and shifted too, panting heavily.

  “Yes! The young werewolf wins again! Can you believe it folks? The aging champion has failed to hold his title!”

  “I’ll give you aging champion,” Alex said, swiping good-naturedly at Jacob who nimbly dodged out of the way, still laughing.

  Despite the darkness of yesterday and the still darker implications of what it meant and what Alex feared he had to do in the future, seeing Jacob laughing made him happy. When he’d first met the kid, he’d kept his head down and mouth shut, seeming afraid of Alex. From what he’d gathered, Jasper had ruled his pack with a good dose of fear and physical punishment.

  Of course, with Jacob opening up and relaxing had come a flood of shit-talking, the young werewolf challenging Alex to various physical games and often beating him. More than once Alex had ended up in the mud pit after Jacob pushed him off the wet log. He took it all in stride though, after all, he’d missed growing up as a werewolf and had a lot of catching up to do. As it was, he still screwed up leaps from time to time, frequently shooting past his intended target.

  Jacob suddenly went silent and Alex followed his lead. They were on the edge of the forest proper now, a place that teamed with animals, including boars, some of them large enough to provide a challenge to even an adult werewolf.

  “Soldiers?” Alex whispered, listening hard.

  There was definitely something out there. Various birds had gone silent, which was always a sign.

  “I smell boar,” Jacob whispered back.

  Alex relaxed, but only a little. There had been a lot of debate about what to do exactly about the fact six soldiers, twenty weredogs and then ten more junior necromancers plus some unknown number of senior necros had made it deep into their territory without being detected.

  The simple fact was that Alex’s pack wasn’t large enough for the territory that had originally been held by the Greenacre pack, which had numbered around two-hundred and fifty.

  Alex had been surprised to learn that number—from his observations when they’d first come here it had appeared to be far less. On the other hand, he saw how it was useful to hide your true strength and numbers from outsiders.

  It had also stung a little to learn the true size of the pack that had walked away after Jasper had been killed. He had only thirty-six in his pack, six of whom were children. So few had returned. It was true those thirty-six werewolves were eating him out of house and home, but Alex knew if he’d had a hundred, the attack yesterday would have gone very differently. At the very least, the invaders wouldn’t have made it so close to the village. With thirty-six, they hadn’t detected them in time.

  Thirty-five Alex amended to himself, now that Bish was dead. They planned to hold a funeral later today.

  And possibly thirty-four if Gem never wakes up, he thought.

  With such a small pack, there physically weren’t enough werewolves to hold the territory. Holding, as Alex had learned, was an active process. Members of the pack constantly roamed their territory, chasing out interlopers, and, much to Alex’s amusement, pissing on trees.

  He’d smelt it before, when running the boundaries of the territory but hadn’t put two and two together. Despite satellite phones, televisions and all sorts of modern technology, the werewolves had an animalistic part of their nature. And so, they pissed on tree
s, too.

  The angry werewolves wanted vengeance for the attacks and also wanted to keep roaming the territory to the boarders. Alex had listened to all the arguments and decided: yes, they could keep roaming to the borders but the minimum group size was now five if going further than a mile from the central village.

  “This way,” Jacob whispered and shifted to wolf form.

  Alex shifted too, the colors around him lighting up. Although actual wolves saw fewer colors than humans, werewolves had far better eyesight. The tones of the leaves were richer, the grass greener and his night-vision greatly improved. The darkness of the forest became not so dark, which allowed him to see their prey.

  It was a boar, a whopping beast of a thing. It was almost as big as Jacob and pitch black. It had two large tusks that looked deadly sharp and although it was standing still in the forest, Alex sensed a mad violence to it. If it saw them, it would charge.

  It had obviously heard Jacob howling and the two of them laughing but so far hadn’t spotted them.

  Jacob slinked from tree to tree, making sure always to keep something between him and the boar. Alex followed, keeping as low as he could and carefully placing his paws. It had only just been over a week now since he and Juno had returned from Baxter and although Alex was diving into werewolf life headfirst, he hadn’t yet had the chance to hunt.

  A stick cracked under his paw and Jacob froze, giving him a glare. Alex held his breath and listened. He could hear the boar breathing and faintly detect its heartbeat too. It didn’t sound like it was moving. After a moment, Jacob gave him another look that Alex didn’t need a dictionary to translate: stop stomping around and making noise!

  Together they circled around the boar, moving deeper into the forest as they did. Here, the density of the trees and darkness meant they could hide more easily. They were also downwind of the boar so it couldn’t smell them. The downside was that a field of silence spread around them too as birds and other small creatures sat still and silent, waiting for the Alpha predators to pass.

  The boar must have sensed the change in the sound too because it turned around, its ears twitching. It appeared to be deciding between charging in, stomping and making a show or bolting away. Both were viable strategies and one of the reasons it had lived so long and grown so large.