by T J Nichols
Neither of them moved. The seconds ticked by.
Jude broke the silence first. “I can feel it as much as you.”
Mack swallowed. “Then you should fight it, too.”
“I thought we’d agreed that we wouldn’t.” Jude’s fingers brushed his hand but didn’t grab hold.
He resisted the urge to pull his hand away or step back, but his resolve was weakening. He was sure he could hear Jude’s heartbeat and smell his desire. It was a drug, and he needed another taste. Jude could use the magic between them to press the issue. To take what he wanted. If he did, then he’d know Jude’s true nature.
“That was before,” Mack said carefully. “I thought you were scared of me now.” He’d seen it in Jude’s eyes when he’d glanced at the paws.
Jude lifted Mack’s hand and kissed his knuckles, his gaze never wavering from Mack’s, then he released him and stepped back. “Like you haven’t looked at me with that same fear.” Lightning flashed between Jude’s fingers. “If I die tomorrow, I want to have lived first. You want to hide.”
Jude spun and walked away.
Mack took a step after him. He shouldn’t want Jude. He certainly didn’t want to strengthen the witch’s power over him. But Jude hadn’t used it. That made it so much harder to walk upstairs to his cold, empty bed.
He lay in bed unable to find sleep when he needed release. He listened as Jude came up and showered. He tried not to imagine Jude naked and wet and needy. He could walk in there, and Jude wouldn’t turn him away. His teeth pressed into his lip when all he wanted was to feel the witch’s lips on his. Would it be so bad to make the most of what they had? To be with someone who knew the part of him he kept hidden?
He fisted his hands. The fear of his hands becoming paws again, and that he’d get caught in a partial shift, was all that kept him in bed. The bond was doing things to him that he didn’t want. If there had been no bond, he’d still be helping and he’d still want Jude, but the lust would be safe. The pipes rattled as the shower shut off.
The witch walked past his room, only the slightest hesitation in his steps before he went downstairs. Mack sighed. The moment was over. Nothing was going to happen tonight. It wasn’t relief that flooded his veins, but regret.
Chapter Nine
Daylight woke Jude from a fitful sleep. Every time the aufhockers had tested his circle he’d woken, but it had held. This morning he was tired, as if he’d been up all night, because the magic had drained him. Holding a protection circle was different to tossing around electricity. And while he could’ve gotten up at dawn to keep the circle up, the aufhockers were long gone. He should be glad he’d gotten a few hours of decent sleep.
Jude cracked open his eyes. The room smelled like lavender, reminding him of the spell down the mine. In daylight it was also lavender and white and rather frillier than he’d expected. He’d thought a house owned by bear shifters, and mechanics, would be more practical. Mack’s mother was clearly in charge of home decorating. He hoped she wouldn’t be annoyed that her guest room was getting messed up. It would’ve been easier to share a bed with Mack. He’d have probably slept better, too.
He’d been aware of Mack getting up during the night, but they hadn’t crossed paths, and neither of them had made the short walk to the other’s room. The bond burned through his blood. He needed something that he couldn’t quite explain. He didn’t want to say it was Mack. He had never needed anyone and had learned not to rely on anyone either. People couldn’t be trusted.
But Mack wasn’t some random person. Mack was his mate, and that had to count for something. Didn’t it? The closer they got, the more the bond would strengthen. Their magics would strengthen. To defeat the aufhockers they’d need every advantage they could gather.
He eased out of the large bed—big enough for visiting bears?—and padded over to the window. Without his extra input, the sun had brought down his defensive circle as it had risen. The yard was free of aufhockers.
He should be glad they’d lived through the night. But he’d meant what he’d said to Mack. He wanted more from life than getting by. He wanted to explore what this bond meant. He’d never get another chance, assuming they survived this in the first place and that he somehow got to keep his magic.
But if Mack wanted to fight it, there was nothing he could do. He wouldn’t be the kind of witch who had made shifters hate them and believed the familiar bond was something to be feared instead of enjoyed. He rested his forehead on the glass. No boyfriend had ever made him this confused about what to do next.
His stomach grumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten dinner. He wasn’t missing breakfast just because Mack was in a mood. Before he could reconsider, he dressed, wishing he’d grabbed more clothes from the motel. His hair flopped in his eyes because he hadn’t found a blow-dryer in the bathroom. He hoped he looked casually disheveled, not a mess.
In bare feet, he made his way to the kitchen which was bright and homely. Where were Mack’s parents? Had they died? But the garage still had his father’s name on the business cards. If they were alive, why did Mack live at home? Jude had been keen to get out and have his own place as soon as he could.
He hesitated, not sure he should start looking through someone else’s kitchen, but hunger and the need for coffee won. There was no sign of a coffee machine or any pods, so he gave up on the coffee. There was, however, a surprising amount of food in the fridge and the pantry, considering Mack seemed to live here alone. Jude pulled out the bacon and two eggs and found a frying pan. While he tried to be quiet, he wasn’t quiet enough. Before he’d even cracked the eggs, Mack was in the doorway. Jude sensed him but didn’t turn to acknowledge him. He wasn’t ready for that.
Mack took a few steps into the kitchen. “If the aufhockers are hunting us, then we need to draw them away from town.”
Jude nodded. He wasn’t ready to think about being hunted by aufhockers. He hadn’t even had coffee yet. He wanted to pretend this was a normal morning for a little longer. “Do you want scrambled eggs?”
“Yeah.” Mack moved around the kitchen then appeared at Jude’s side with a loaf of bread and a packet of sausages. “I’m starving.”
Jude glanced at him. Clearly, they weren’t talking about what had happened after their visitors left. Even now the tension thrummed between him. Jude was too aware of Mack’s proximity. In silence, they made breakfast and then sat at the table with a pile of bacon, sausages, toast, and eggs between them. There was enough breakfast for four people.
“Are you expecting your parents to walk in?” That would be extremely awkward.
Mack frowned. “No. They bought a caravan two years ago and headed off on the vacation they could never take while Dad was running the business. I get to house sit and run the garage my way.” Then he started loading up his plate like he hadn’t eaten for a week. He took a few mouthfuls, then stopped. “There’s no coffee.”
“You don’t have a machine.” That had been one of the first things Jude had looked for.
Mack rolled his eyes and got up and boiled the kettle. “Do you want one?”
“Okay.” He regretted that when Mack placed a mug of instant black coffee in front of him.
While Mack put sugar and milk on the table, he didn’t add either to his.
Jude added both hoping to make the coffee drinkable. “We need to make a plan.”
They couldn’t wait around for the creatures to close in and catch them out, nor did he want to be staying with Mack. Well, he did, but in the same bed. Being this close but not being able to touch was torture. His magic had never felt so bruised, and he’d never needed anything the way he wanted to pull Mack to him. Last night he’d been very tempted to do just that, but Mack had drawn a line, and Jude couldn’t step over it without being a dick. Despite their best efforts to ignore what was happening, the magic between them was wild and dangerous. To use it, they needed to tame it. There were other ways to do it besides having sex and giving in to the attraction. Those
witches who’d treated their familiars as pets and kept them trapped in animal form had managed. Maybe something platonic could work for them, though it would be less fun.
Jude took a sip of the coffee. It was as bad as he’d expected, but at least it was caffeine.
“I have a plan. We’re going camping.”
“Camping?” Jude almost choked on his coffee.
Mack lifted his gaze and put sausage on his fork like this was just a regular day. “They’ll follow us.”
That was what was wrong with the plan, not a selling point in Jude’s mind. “And kill us.”
Mack shook his head. “You can do your circle thing, and we can find a way to kill them.” He ate as though success was a sure thing and was completely untroubled about being hunted by aufhockers.
“That doesn’t sound like a plan.” It sounded dangerous and vaguely suicidal. “Which part of ‘are hard to kill’ did you mishear?”
“You said hard to kill, not impossible. People must have killed them in the past.”
“People also left town and let them have it in the past.” The people of North had left the town to the breeding pair even though they’d found a way to bind them.
“They’ll have a weakness. Changing size takes energy.” Mack put another two sausages on his plate and then put them between two pieces of bread with more of the scrambled egg.
If Jude ate like that, he’d be the size of this house in under a week. “How much energy does shifting take?”
Mack ate his sausage sandwich and considered him. “It depends.”
That wasn’t really an answer, but Jude didn’t press. There wasn’t much of breakfast left. Jude took the last piece of bacon because it looked lonely sitting there. He rarely went back for more, mostly because he didn’t want to have to run or go to the gym. The lack of dinner had left him with extra room in his stomach, though.
“We’ll go into town, and you can throw the rest of your stuff in my truck and check out of the motel.”
That meant Mack expected him to stay until the mission was done. “Do you really want me here?”
Did he really want to be here? He did, but only because he still had hope there could be more between them. He hated that weakness but at the same time wanted to see if it could be a strength. If it wasn’t, witches in the past wouldn’t have sought out familiars.
“Better we’re together.”
But they weren’t together. They weren’t even talking about what was between them or what they would do with the attraction and magic.
Usually Mack loved heading out to the woods. Usually he was alone. He enjoyed being alone. Jude was silent and grim in the passenger seat—he didn’t want to go camping. Hell, he’d probably never even been camping. He’d argued that leaving the town and the house was a bad idea. Mack didn’t want to risk human lives. Jude wanted the safety of four walls, but the safety they provided was an illusion.
Mack was pretty sure the aufhocker could break down the door, or shatter glass, when at full size. Anything, magical or not, that could kill a cow was worth being wary of. He always gave true bears a wide berth and respect. The last thing he wanted was to get into a fight over an area of forest that he wasn’t that interested in. He could always find a new place to go if a bear had moved into his preferred area.
Jude’s hair had fallen over his face, and his chin was tilted down as he studied the screen of his phone. The easiness they’d shared was gone. And it was Mack’s fault for brushing him aside. No matter how many times he said it was for the best, he wasn’t sure he believed it. Not when he had to tighten his fingers on the steering wheel to stop himself from reaching out and brushing aside that lock of blond hair. He was glad Jude hadn’t set his hair in place. A small smile curved his lips, and he heard Jude’s heartbeat quicken a second before he glanced over as if aware Mack had been looking. Mack returned his gaze to the road. They were almost there.
Jude put his phone down. “You said you’d had to get into your car as a bear, why? Is there something else in the woods I should worry about?”
“Hunters.” He could feel Jude’s gaze on him.
“They were hunting you?”
“Yes.” It had happened more than once. He’d learned to be careful.
“Why not shift?”
“Because then I’d be a naked man running around the woods—that would cause more gossip than I need in my life.” It was bad enough that he’d shut his garage today claiming to be ill. Ned would know that he was faking and suspect all the wrong reasons, which were better than him knowing the real reason. Though it would make for a lot of ribbing at some later stage.
“So you make for the car and get in, because a bear driving a car is so much better than a naked man in the woods.”
Mack shot him a glare. When put like that, it sounded stupid. “When I come out here, I leave my clothes in the car. I hide the keys not far away, but I don’t lock the car.” He had at first. That time he’d jumped into the bed of his truck and pulled the tarp over himself so he could shift. He’d still been naked and had felt horribly vulnerable when the hunters had clattered into the car park, but they hadn’t seen him or the bear they were after. “I get in, lie across the seats, and shift.” Which was very uncomfortable, but better a handbrake digging into his gut than digging a bullet out and explaining a gunshot wound at the hospital. “Then I can drag on a shirt.”
“Can you shift with clothes on?”
“Only if I want to destroy the clothing. My bear ass doesn’t fit my jeans.” Which made Jude lower his gaze as if he was sizing up Mack’s ass. “Why the sudden interest in what I do?”
Not that he minded talking about it. He’d never been able to share this part of his life with anyone who wasn’t a shifter. He’d certainly never had a casual conversation about shifting with someone he was attracted to. He was pushing Jude aside why again? He should make the most of it. He glanced at his hands on the steering wheel. What if he partially shifted again? What if it was his head? What if he got stuck?
And what if he mastered the ability to shift just a part of him at will?
Jude shrugged. “I want to know more about shifters.”
Mack wanted to know more about witches and familiars, but they didn’t have that luxury right now. They didn’t have time to explore what was between them. “We need to know more about aufhockers.”
“Which are shifters. Shifting takes energy, so they must need to eat a lot to change size. We know they are silent hunters and as creepy as fuck. That is all we know. I’ve been scouring every site I know of, and I even put a call out on the Coven database. No one has anything.”
“Then how do other places get rid of an aufhocker problem?” There had to be a way of dealing with them.
“They don’t. The aufhockers get rid of the human problem.” Jude’s voice was flat, as though he’d already admitted defeat.
Mack pressed his lips together. “Well, they were put to sleep before, so maybe you can do that.”
“Not my kind of magic. Also that would mean trapping them first. And that magic clearly doesn’t last forever because they’ve woken up two hundred years in the future.”
It wouldn’t be their problem in two hundred years, but Mack didn’t say that. And he didn’t want to be leaving that kind of problem for someone else to deal with. The road became gravel, and the truck bounced along. “What magic can you do?”
“I can ruin anything electronic and take out the grid of a small city.”
“You know that from experience?”
Jude gave a reluctant nod.
Mack could understand why the Coven thought Jude was dangerous. But sending him on this mission when a different type of witch would’ve been better was a cruel test that would be followed by the barbaric stripping of magic. Not only that, the aufhocker problem wouldn’t be solved. The Coven’s plan sucked for everyone involved, including him. “You can fix bar signs.”
Jude’s lips curved into a smile for a millisecond.
He pushed back his hair. He looked younger and less certain, as though the hair and the clothing he usually wore were an armor against the world. Mack decided he liked seeing Jude in one of his old shirts more than he should. Jude was still wearing those stupid boots, although they were more scuffed than shiny after surviving the mine collapse. “And you’ve saved us twice.”
“What? No, I haven’t.”
Mack nodded. “Yeah, you did. The rockfall and the aufhocker deterrent circle.” While he wouldn’t have been looking for aufhockers without Jude, the witch had used his magic to keep them safe.
Jude frowned. “I guess I did.”
“So call down the lightning and fry those fuckers.” Out here it would be safe to do just that.
“That’s your plan?”
“Got a better one?”
Jude was silent for several heartbeats. “I don’t summon lightning. I control the flow of electrons and make my own charge.”
Mack took his attention off the road for a moment. Jude was a lot more powerful than he realized. Or maybe he realized and was afraid of his own power because the Coven had convinced him he was dangerous. “How do you control electrons?” He knew how electricity worked, could check the battery on a car and fix the lights, but that was it. “Do you actually make electricity?”
“You could say that. I can feel them, taste the charge.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s the same for those witches who can communicate with animals or control the weather. It’s just there, part of them. The same as your magic. How did you know to become a bear, not a wolf when you shifted?”
“I didn’t. I just did.” He’d felt the heat rising, and his parents had known he was getting close, so they’d gone on a camping trip. Being it the wild had tipped him over the edge, and he’d become part of it. The world had been so different. After that first shift, he was different. His hearing was better and so was his sense of smell. The strength had been a gradual build.
“Same for me. I just can.” He glanced down at his phone. “I guess we’re far enough from civilization.” He held up his phone. It had no signal.
