The Mating Intent-mobi

by Bonnie Vanak

  The tree looked dead. Cypress trees dropped their leaves in Florida’s cooler winter months, but this was summer. Alarm filled her. She touched a cypress knee, the portion of the tree exposed to the water.

  Darkness flooded her, the equally dark magick pulsing inside her rising eagerly to greet it, twining around it like a snake.

  One of the cypress knees pulled free from the water. The slimy, thick root slid toward her like a serpent. Before she could move, it struck quick as a viper, wrapping around her neck. The root squeezed tight, choking her air supply. If she didn’t get it off her now, she’d die.

  Sienna fought hard, scrambling to pry her fingers beneath the algae-coated root. But the cypress root compressed tighter. Her fingers slipped as she rolled and grabbed at the tree root, desperate for air. Balling her fists, she hammered at the root, frantic to free herself. Tears clouded her vision as she gasped, the root painfully constricting her throat until she saw stars.

  Killed by a tree, the foliage she’d foresworn to protect. The irony was too amusing. Maybe she’d laugh about it, if she lived.

  Her fists collided with the slippery root, and the blows grew feebler. The darkness inside her pulled at the tree root, urging it to choke her. Wanting her to suffer with pain…

  Her vision dimmed, but she heard footsteps upon the path, a low curse. Saw Gabriel pull ineffectively at the tree limb, trying to free her. Ears buzzing with the rush of blood, she dimly heard him shout, “Sienna! Use your power, all of it.”

  But her power was dark.

  Grayness pushed at the edges of her vision. She was fading fast. But every instinct urged her to live. She had too much left on this earth to accomplish.

  Sienna closed her eyes. With all her might, she reached for the power inside, pushing past the evil poisoning her spirit. She focused all her light and pulled hard, hurling the power at the tree wrapped around her neck.

  With a shriek, the root unraveled and slid away. Gasping, she rolled backwards, wheezing as she drew in huge lungfuls of blessed air. The cypress root lay limp and wet upon the ground.

  Gabriel shifted into his beast self. A piercing roar split the silence as the sleek, golden panther leapt out from the path and attacked the bald cypress tree. Snarling, the panther pushed at the trunk with its big paws. Giving an unholy scream, the cypress shuddered as if uprooted by a Category 5 hurricane, and then crashed into the water.

  The panther raced to her side, nipped her sharply on the flank, urging her to rise.

  Sienna ran, following the panther. Droplets soaked the sandy shore. Horrified, she watched the tainted liquid eat into the ground.

  The panther shifted back into Gabriel. Strong, his body lean and muscled, he stared grimly at the water. Then he touched her neck, and the painful ache eased. His expression softened. “You okay?”

  She nodded. “For someone who almost got strangled by a tree root, I’m fine.”

  “I warned you not to touch anything else. It’s cursed.”

  “I didn’t. The darkness inside me reacted to the tree and the root pulled free from the water.”

  Weary, she rubbed her face. “Why did the tree fall over when you pushed it, but you couldn’t free me?”

  Gabriel’s mouth tightened. “I’ve tried for two weeks to chop down that tree. No use. I could tell it was starting to contaminate the shore. It wouldn’t budge. It was only when it was weakened by your power that I was able to push it down.”

  He gave her a level look. “Your magick weakened it, Sienna. The magick of light, working through the power of darkness inside you.”

  Whoa. Not a nice thought. Though it no longer hurt, she rubbed her neck, unwilling to consider his words. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m still a little shaky, ‘kay?”

  He stroked a thumb along her neck. “Tell me what you felt when you touched the tree. Was it the same darkness you felt when Rex died along the river?”

  She stepped away from his touch. “Yes. The same smell, the same cloudy darkness, like black fog. It’s strong and very tainted magick. So it’s on your land as well?”

  He nodded. “It’s in the area outside my immediate home that isn’t warded. There is a blight upon our lands. It’s poisoning the trees, the plants, the water. And it only affects Others, not Skins.” Gabriel rubbed a hand over his nape and she saw the despair on his face.

  She sucked in a breath. This was both bad news and good. If Skins weren’t affected, the dark magick was less threatening to the world and they didn’t risk exposing the shifters to humans. The cloak hiding their world remained firmly in place.

  But they also had no means to defeat the dark enchantment until they could identify it.

  They returned to the campground. Hands on lean hips, Gabriel surveyed the Others.

  “Gabe, what happened? We heard a crash.” A red-haired, lean man approached, holding a crossbow in one hand. His left arm was secured by a white sling. “Scared the living crap out of everyone.”

  “A tree fell into the water. An old tree.” Gabriel exchanged glances with her and she knew he didn’t want to frighten the shifters further.

  “It was its time to go,” she added.

  The red-haired man relaxed and lowered the bow.

  “That’s a fine-looking crossbow,” she told him, wanting to put him at ease. “You’re a good shot?”

  “Not right now.” The bow fell from his hand and the man looked grim. “Not with this damn broken wing.”

  Gabriel put a hand on the man’s thin shoulder. “Sienna this is Roger, a red-shouldered hawk shifter. Roger was nesting in a live oak tree with his mate when the tree attacked him. The branches strangled his mate, who was trying to protect their eggs, and crushed the nest. Roger only escaped because he fell from the tree, one wing broken. He hasn’t shifted since.”

  “Not much reason to, anymore.”

  Roger’s gaze turned haunted. “I loved Ursula more than my life. When that tree attacked her… killing our young.” He kicked at the polished wood bow. “Useless. Like me. What’s the damn use of having weapons when you can’t even use them to protect those you love?”

  Turning, the hawk shifter walked away. She picked up the crossbow, dusted it off and ran after him. As Roger sat at the picnic table, she set down the bow before him. “This is not useless and neither are you. You will use it again, some day, I vow.”

  He looked doubtful. “No one can help us. Gabe’s tried.”

  “But I haven’t and I’m Elven. I have powers he lacks.” She squeezed his hand. “I promise I will do all that I can to aid you and everyone affected by this.”

  Something flickered in his dark gaze. It might have been hope.

  Sienna returned to Gabriel, who gave a warm smile. “You’re good for them. I can feel the change in the air since your arrival. Come, meet the others.”

  Taking her hand he brought her over to a black bear shifter. “Neida was rummaging through an island deep in the Everglades when the water began rising, trying to drown her. She climbed a tree and remained there all night. Then she got hungry and ate some berries. They poisoned her.”

  He squatted down and put a hand on the shifter’s shoulder. “You doing better now, Neida? No more tummy pain?”

  The bear shook her head.

  “Neida’s folks were killed by over-eager hunters. She’s still a cub, with no one to look after her.”

  Sienna smiled at the young shifter. All of them looked at Gabriel with shining gratitude.

  “You’re healing them,” she told him.

  “Trying to.” He stretched out his hands and studied them. “I don’t have much power, not like you, but I gained the magick shortly after you left. It’s as if being one in the flesh with you endowed me with new power. Wyldings can’t heal others, but I can. So I started searching for injured Wyldings. A few here and there. And then about a month ago, the land went berserk.”

  His jaw like granite, he swept his gaze around the circle. “There’s no other way to describe it.
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  “I know it’s dark enchantment, but I’ve never felt anything like it before.” She lifted her face to the air, and sensed a something that had been lacking when she’d hiked along the Loxahatchee and at the swamp. “Someone has cursed this area.”

  Gabriel locked gazes with her. “There’s only one kind of dark enchantment that has this power, Sienna.”

  She had a bad feeling about this.

  “Yes. Fae magick.”

  “Not just any Fae magick.” He gave her a level look, his big body tensing. “Only one type of Fae has enough power to do something this nasty and this widespread. Elves.”

  Chapter 5

  Gabriel felt certain the dark enchantment was Fae. He knew the Elves weren’t as noble as some believed. Except for Sienna, he distrusted her kind.

  He distrusted them because he kept a shameful secret from his clan, and from Sienna herself. His mother wasn’t a panther shifter, but a powerful white light Elf. She’d abandoned him at birth, leaving him to be raised by his father. He’d tried to gain acceptance among her kind, but failed.

  Elves, unlike shifters, were selfish. When infused with power, some went very dark and did very bad things.

  Sienna’s eyes widened. “My people would never curse the land they are foresworn to protect.”

  He leaned close, his muscles tensing. “Maybe you don’t know your people as well as you thought, pixie. Because some of them have proven to be very devious.”

  Sienna clenched her fists, her shoulders rigid. “Stop insulting us. We protect the land. Perhaps a shifter did this, a shifter who somehow gained new powers.”

  Going still, he searched her face. “What are you accusing me of, Sienna? Are you saying I did this on purpose? I hurt my land?”

  “Maybe you did it to lure me into staying, convince me that I’m needed here.”

  Infuriated, he clenched his fists. “You believe I’m that low I’d hurt those under my care?”

  ”No. But I have a hard time believing a Fae would do this.”

  “Because your people are noble. So you think. The almighty Elven especially have no faults,” he grated out.

  And you’re not like them. You’re more like us, like me. You have two sides to your nature as well. How can you long for acceptance from a people who will always judge you as unworthy, just like they judged me?

  “You don’t like us.”

  “I like you. But not your people,” he told her. “Elves can’t be trusted. Some do very bad things.”

  “Like leave their lovers and return to their people? You’d like me in your bed, but you don’t trust me because I’m Elven. Say it, Gabriel.”

  He couldn’t say anything more because he was dangerously close to losing it. Infuriated, he turned on his heel, wanting to smash his fists against the trees. He would not argue with her anymore. Not lose his temper before these shifters who already had suffered too much trauma.

  Instead, he forced himself to calm as he went from Wylding to Wylding, talking with them and trying to soothe their fears. This was his territory and he’d fight to the death to protect it, and anyone who lived within his borders.

  Keeping his distance as he helped a deer shifter cook a vegetable stew outside (now there was an irony he’d never have predicted), Gabriel kept an eye on Sienna. His sharp hearing enabled him to overhear every word she said as she knelt down by Neida, and began talking with her about Oregon and the beauty of the rugged coast.

  Gabriel’s chest tightened. She was good here, good with the shifters and the land. He must make her see reason and stay with him. But would she stay? Because experience taught him Elves never stuck around.

  He couldn’t risk his heart. Not again. When she’d left him last time, he’d mourned her absence for days. It had felt like a razor sliding over his heart.

  The connection between them had been so strong. He’d felt as if his mate had finally walked into his life.

  Only to walk out.

  When the shifters began eating and the sun sank into the sky, Gabriel went to Sienna. “Time to return, pixie.”

  They left the campsite to a chorus of good-byes. Voices that had weakly greeted them sounded much stronger since Sienna’s visit.

  His anger faded as he watched her duck her head, wiping her eyes. She’d come here for her own purpose and never anticipated being sucked into his troubles. Guilt pinched him.

  Then he shoved it aside. Guilt was a useless emotion. Did their guilty feelings ever make his life more bearable?

  Hell no.

  But, wanting to preserve her dignity, Gabriel pretended not to see the tears on her cheeks, sparkling in the dying sunlight.

  Elven tears had power, he remembered. She’d cried as he took her virginity, and her tears had lit up the entire room with blue-white light.

  “I need to use the spring as soon as possible. And return home.” She pushed a hand through her long blonde hair. “But you have a huge problem here.”

  Sensing her indecision, he nodded. “I need your help to stop this.”

  “I have to return to King Cael soon. I don’t have much time. So what can we do?”

  Glad she seemed committed to stay for the moment, he put a hand on the small of her back as he guided her over a rugged hill on the pathway.

  “We need to visit the river where you saw Rex. If this has spread, then we need to examine the river and see if it’s feeding the Glades or if it’s migrating.”

  Sienna frowned and stopped, her hand flattened against the trunk of a slash pine tree. She tilted her head, all sorrow gone and replaced by intent scrutiny. She appeared to be listening to something he couldn’t hear.

  He waited patiently. Having seen her use of power previously when she’d visited him last, he trusted her abilities. Light or dark, she was a powerful Elf who could tune into nature and discern problems by communicating with plant life.

  If only she stopped trying to fit into a lifestyle that refused to admit her. Sienna was too good for those superficial, pompous fools.

  He certainly hadn’t been good enough. Gabriel swallowed past the bitterness.

  Sighing, she removed her hand. “I tried gathering information, but the tree was silent. I got nothing, probably due to the warding you did on your borders. It’s shut away all other magick.”

  “Perhaps the tree is tired and asleep for the night.”

  Amusement flickered over her face. “Still sarcastic, Gabriel? Maybe it needs a hug instead. You’re a tree hugger. Why don’t you demonstrate your love?”

  He grinned, enjoying this light sparring with her. She had a sharp tongue and knew how to use it.

  Knew how to use it on certain parts of his body, too.

  He spread out his arms. “I need a hug. Panthers need love, too.”

  Sienna tried to keep a straight face, but he saw her crack a smile as she pushed at his chest. “Go away. I’m allergic to cats.”

  “Please Sienna. I need love. I need affection.” He grabbed her hand and clutched it to his chest. “Don’t be Elfish.”

  Sputtering, she tried to snatch her hand back, but he yanked her into his arms. Gabriel stared down at her. “I need you. I need you naked in my bed, but at the moment I’ll settle for having your mouth. I love your mouth. It’s so damn sexy I need to kiss it. Now.”

  He lowered his mouth to hers. Her lips were soft and warm, silk against his plundering tongue. Lust seized him and he held her tight, never wanting to release her, always keeping her by his side. Sienna did not struggle but sighed and parted her lips as he thrust his tongue into the wet cavern of her mouth. She tasted like mint and hope and all his tomorrows.

  His dick instantly went hard and Gabriel groaned at her sweetness. He had to have her, no matter what it took. Pushing her against the tree trunk, he ravished her lips and fisted a hand in her hair, feeling as if he’d been lost all these years and had finally found his way home. No one had ever understood him like Sienna had. She knew the loneliness of never truly being alone, solitary as a sma
ll island surrounded by a raging sea of people. Sienna was a quiet forest glade, a splash of cool water to extinguish his thirst.

  One night, three nights in his bed, hell, he’d never get enough of her.

  Gabriel groaned against her mouth and felt her warmth envelop him and stroke him from the inside out. And then he felt something else as well; a stirring in the air and the awakening of his shifter senses.

  His breathing ragged, he opened his eyes and broke the kiss. Sienna’s eyes remained closed, her expression dreamy, her skin pulsing blue-white.

  She was glowing with sexual heat.

  Glowing with Elven power. And so was everything around them.

  “Pixie, look at yourself. Look at us,” he quietly ordered.

  She opened her eyes and confusion replaced passion. “You’re glowing, Gabriel.”

  Then she glanced around, and her eyes widened with shock. “Everything is pulsing with power.”

  “Elven power. Your power. It’s good and wholesome. Not dark.” Sensing her fear and denial, he picked up her hand and placed it against the tree. “Feel this? I can’t communicate with it, but I sense its gratitude that you are here. You love the land as much as we do.”

  She pulled her hand away as if burnt. Her mouth, swollen from his possessive kisses, trembled. “It can’t be me, with all this darkness consuming my powers. You’re wrong.”

  And the glow faded from the earth beneath their feet, from the trees and the foliage, and her, leaving Gabriel cold and empty as if something precious and wonderful had touched him for a single moment, and then fled.

  She still believed the magick inside her was evil and dangerous.

  He must convince her that the tremendous power she held could be used for good, too.

  “It’s us, pixie. When we come together, in sexual passion, the magick inside you reacts to me. You become a conduit for positive energy that heals.”

  “That’s not true. You’re saying that only as a line to get me into bed.”

  Gabriel released a frustrated growl. “You don’t believe me? Fine.”

  Grabbing her hand, he pulled her back toward the glen, knowing what they’d find. When she protested, he simply scooped her over one shoulder again and carried her, jogging back to the encampment.