Mage of Inconvenience

by Parker Foye

  Moonrise shivered across West’s skin, bringing goose bumps to the surface. Moving briskly, he pulled off his shirt and jacket, folded them, and stashed them in the forked branches of a tree. Jeans and underwear followed, with boots weighing his clothes down. Night air chilled his skin, competing with the rush of building adrenaline. West glanced at the moon. Almost impossibly bright. He closed his eyes and fell forward onto four feet.

  Taking his time to settle into his shape, West stretched out and snapped his jaw. It was like waking from a long sleep, though it hadn’t been long since he’d shifted. Or like unearthing a winter coat after summer, shaking off the dust, and checking the fit. He darted from side to side and leaped, twisting in midair, landed softly, and flicked his tail. Still got it.

  Padding through the forest, West’s ears flicked at sounds human ears wouldn’t have distinguished: night birds in the trees, rodents in the undergrowth. His nose separated the thick conversation of scents into single strands of history as he snuffled through the vegetation, trying to learn the comings and goings of his temporary home.

  The deeper he traveled into the forest, the more complex the scents became, and he followed trails of gossip until he came across a strain that triggered something in the back of his mind. Concentrating, West tried to pick apart the threads, finally identifying a scent he hadn’t expected to come across again, a familiar lycan, hundreds of miles from her territory. Dana had no reason to be in Ontario.

  What should I do?

  If West ran, Dana would be alerted to his panic and follow—if she hadn’t come to the lake expressly for West in the first place. If he stayed, Dana would find him. Do I want her to find me?

  Daughter of the pack enforcer, Dana had trained alongside West as they both learned to protect the future leader. They’d been encouraged in their friendship by their families, as tight bonds made efficient teams. Though West carried his mother’s name and his father’s distaste, he’d enjoyed his role and working with Dana—and he’d enjoyed the lack of responsibilities. They’d tried Rabid, once, he and Dana, something West never would have dared if he’d a pack to lead.

  Dana had locked him in the storm cellar until the effects passed.

  Evidently the story of West’s loss of control—and Dana’s ability to contain him during it—had reached his father’s ears. When the announcement came that West would be next to lead the Hargreaves pack, with Dana by his side, his father had cited a leader’s strength and passion and the importance of trust and building bonds. Like those were things he knew West to have, when he’d all but ignored West for years. West couldn’t tell who was most surprised by the announcement, him or Lyle.

  After West refused the position—and, therefore, the match with Dana—he’d expected Lyle to be pleased with the chance to make his case, to find and build his own bonds. Yet Lyle had attacked instead, and their father had locked them both away until their tempers calmed.

  Dana had released West in the dead of night. He hadn’t stopped running for months. Hargreaves held to the old ways and didn’t care for runners. If his father’s pack found him, he’d be made an example.

  It could be a coincidence that Dana was in the area. Or she might have been ordered to find West in her duties as an enforcer. Months had passed and anything might have happened.

  But West wouldn’t go back.

  Joyous barking sounded nearby. West had dithered too long. He set his paws to the earth but too late, as Dana bounded through the trees and pounced, trying to tackle West to the ground. West twisted and scrambled away, only to pause when a waft of Dana’s scent stirred memories of their shared adventures. Dana yipped like she’d never seen the moon before and bounded forward.

  Her yip started him from his reverie. He had to go. But in scrabbling to escape, West accidentally stepped on Dana’s tail and made her yelp, and he faltered midstride, checking on Dana over his shoulder. He found her dancing from side to side playfully, edging closer and farther from West, like she danced on hot coals. Or like she’d traced a scent home and waited for her pack to run their prey to ground.

  West dug his front paw into the earth, worrying the dirt. Every muscle twitched. His tail flicked nervously. Dana kept dancing, and as her open posture didn’t change, tension slowly eased from West’s muscles. A coincidence. They’d been friends a long time, and if the pack wanted West, they would surely have stalked him months ago instead of Dana going ahead alone.

  Surely.

  Nose wrinkling with whatever she read from West, Dana glanced over her shoulder, toward the trees. She yipped a question. Play-come-play?

  It had been months since West had run with another lycan. Longing howled in his heart.

  If he ran, Dana could follow him to Colquhoun. But she could follow West anywhere, once she had his scent. One of the best trackers in their pack, as children Dana had followed thin trails over rocks and through rivers, to prove she could. They’d played weeklong games of hide-and-seek. Games West always lost.

  West flicked his tail and shoved his nervousness into the ground, hoping it wouldn’t poison the earth. He barked a response to Dana. Play-let’s-play.

  They ran until the sun rose.

  WEST blew out a breath. Dana’s tail wafted away from his nose, only to return to the same place. West sneezed, jackknifing from his supine position and almost kneeing Dana in the face.

  Her human face.

  Crap. West twisted to his side and scrambled backward, until a tree trunk stopped his progress; it hadn’t been Dana’s tail waking him, but her hair. She’d grown it out from her old messy cut, dirty blonde and tangled with grass. It suited her. And it’s 100 percent not the issue at hand, Westley Nolan Irving.

  Dana snuffled in her sleep. West jerked, bumping his head against the tree, unsettled by the familiar sound in the strange place. He glanced around, trying to recognize where they were, but none of the trees jogged his memory. Sniffing for scents, he couldn’t track any of the conversations. He scratched his jaw, and his nails caught on something. West inspected his nails and grimaced. Blood. This is the worst morning.

  Admittedly, the morning he’d woken in a cold sweat and resolved to leave behind everything he’d ever known came a close second.

  “West?”

  West flinched, even as he turned to face Dana. He’d never shied from Dana before, not even when he’d thought she’d been sent to exile him. He didn’t intend to start.

  Making a considered retreat would have been an entirely different course of action.

  “Dana.”

  In her shifted form, Dana and West were of a similar height. Sitting in human form, she seemed much smaller all over, slender and almost rangy with muscle, not like the soft women he’d become used to seeing at the diner. West’s gaze traveled from Dana’s feet to head, checking for injuries and other changes.

  He recognized Dana’s shaggy hair, the scar on her abdomen, the way she held herself with confidence. Her familiar smell, like fresh fudge and the forest after rain, brought memories of home, and he didn’t know how he could ever have forgotten it. Pack tattoos encircled Dana’s legs, as they did West’s, though Dana had received new work in their time apart: a web of intricate knots across her shoulder, showing how she’d climbed pack ranks. West nodded at it, at the months of Dana’s life he’d never know.

  “Congratulations.”

  Dana shrugged her inked shoulder, like she hadn’t waited her whole life for that tattoo. “Thanks.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Who else?”

  Dana’s mother had the steadiest hands in the pack. West nodded. Nodded again, when he realized he didn’t have anything else to say. He fidgeted in place, thinking about finding his clothes and returning to the cottage. To Colquhoun. But when he moved to leave, Dana raised her hand.

  “Wait.”

  West waited. He’d always been good at following orders. Until he hadn’t been.

  “Did you find that mage? I was worried about you.” Her lips t
wisted. “I’ve been worried about you for a while.”

  Shame twisted in West’s chest, and he folded his arms, curling over them, abruptly self-conscious of his nudity. He looked sidelong at Dana, who hadn’t moved.

  “Thank you. I’m sorry for—” West blew out a breath. “Everything, I guess. It can’t have been easy, the last few months. Has—has anyone looked for me?”

  Dana shook her head, her lips twisting. “Lyle said you were dead.”

  West’s lips were numb. His fingers. His heart. Older by nearly a decade, but their distance wider than years, Lyle had trained with a pack in Manitoba almost as long as West could remember. Learning to lead, they’d both thought, and leaving West to try to fill his prints. He’d failed in every way.

  Their father had called West “the spare” his entire life. It figured the promise of brutality—Rabid influenced or otherwise—would be what changed his mind.

  West hugged himself, cold suddenly. He thought about the warmth of Colquhoun’s cottage, the warmth of being the bottom in a pile of fur. His father’s hard words.

  “Why would he say that?”

  Dana shrugged. “He told everyone. Said he’d looked and you’d been caught in a rockslide after you ran. Nothing left to bring home but fur.”

  And fur could’ve been found anywhere. West’s brindled coloring was unusual in his pack, but hardly unique. He’d shed enough to make three whole other wolves every summer when he was a kid. There might be fur caught on every burr from Hargreaves territory to the coast.

  Around his cabin, even. He remembered the jacket. Whose had that been?

  West rubbed his mouth. I need to go.

  “Dana, I—”

  “Don’t. After you ignored me all this time, I finally found you.”

  “Have you been looking for me?” he asked sharply.

  Taken aback at West’s tone, Dana shook her head like she wanted to get water from her ears. “No! Chance, is all. Came this way for—for pack business.” She scratched her new tattoo. “Caught your scent and had to know, especially after you asked about a mage. You understand, don’t you? I was worried.”

  “Sure, but—”

  A bird startled from its tree suddenly, making West jump. Dana didn’t move; she’d heard it. She always did have stronger senses than West. They’d made a game of it, when they were young. West wondered what else Dana might be learning that West had no idea he gave away.

  “I have to go,” he said. “My clothes. I need to get dressed. Which way did we come?”

  Dana pointed. “A klick west.” She stuttered forward, hand raised. “Can I see you again?”

  West shook his head, wishing he could nod. He’d missed Dana and would miss her anew with their chance meeting to refresh his memory.

  “I’ll text you.”

  She flashed her teeth. “You’d better.”

  West didn’t reply. He was too busy running.

  AFTER finding and retrieving his clothing from an interested raccoon, West ran east, so tired that he dazedly imagined himself halfway to Ottawa, before daring to double back on his tracks and follow his nose to the lake. Worn out from having his senses on high alert for any sign of Dana or the Hargreaves pack following, his legs and nerves trembled as he approached the property. He’d been out far longer than he’d expected, the sun heavy in the sky by the time he scented Colquhoun around the back of the cottage. A recent fire. Cooked meat. Gin. West’s stomach rumbled with hunger, since he’d finally stopped running long enough to hear its complaints.

  Colquhoun lounged resplendently on the terrace, recliner angled to catch the last of the sun on his skin, his tablet on his lap. West nearly tripped over his own feet at the sight. He decided to blame exhaustion.

  The noise of his clumsiness made Colquhoun start. Magic sparked at his fingers and flew through the air with a snap and point of his fingers, stinging West’s nose and making him yelp. Cursing lowly, Colquhoun made a cutting gesture and the sting subsided. West rubbed his nose, feeling pathetic.

  “Ow.”

  Colquhoun adjusted his sunglasses, his lips a thin line on his face. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to sneak up on a sleeping mage?”

  “I’ll make a note.”

  “See that you do.” Resuming his pose, Colquhoun patted the edge of his recliner. “Come on. Obviously you feel better. Out at first light, weren’t you?”

  West walked slowly across the terrace, trying to think up a story for his absence. He perched on the edge of Colquhoun’s recliner, in the gap where Colquhoun had drawn his knees up, and stared at the inky water. Colquhoun smelled very citrusy. West didn’t think that was a good sign. “I wanted to see the sun rise.”

  “It can be very beautiful. I would’ve liked to see it with you. We’ll have to make do with this sunset instead, I suppose.”

  “I—I didn’t think. I’m new to all this—romance. Stuff.”

  West’s mouth puckered with the tartness of Colquhoun’s scent. He braced and glanced at Colquhoun from the corner of his eye, expecting something more vitriolic than the earlier sting, but Colquhoun merely adjusted his sunglasses again and flicked his hair off his face. His tablet shifted in his lap. West tried not to wonder if he’d been looking at their photographs.

  “I see. And—”

  “We need to move,” West blurted, turning to face Colquhoun properly.

  The notion had come to him in as swift a blow as Colquhoun’s magic. They couldn’t stay at the cottage. They couldn’t stay anywhere the pack might find them. After meeting Dana in the woods, for all she claimed coincidence, West couldn’t remain in place like prey run to earth, waiting to be dug out.

  Colquhoun’s skeptical expression said he needed more convincing. As West scrambled for an argument, his attention fell on the tablet.

  “For authenticity! For the photographs. They should be taken in lots of different places. Shouldn’t they?”

  That’s even a good reason. Well done, me.

  Colquhoun drummed his nails on the tablet casing. His lips pursed like he’d been sucking the lemons that flavored his unique scent. With a great exhalation, he sat up straight and nudged his sunglasses down his nose to look at West over the top of the frame. “I hope you know that you don’t for one second convince me with this bullshit about sunrises,” he said, enunciating the last word with disdain. “Did you think my spells wouldn’t note a breach? However—do get up, darling, you’re in my way—however, you do have a point, regarding changing locales. Did you have anywhere in particular in mind, or is that not part of your scheming?”

  “I’m not scheming. I’m—”

  “You’re lucky I need you, is what you are.” Colquhoun bared his teeth in something like a smile. “And lucky I have excellent control of my magic. Now, please do go away. I’m quite cross with you.”

  Though he wanted to stay and argue, West didn’t know what he’d say. Or what he’d argue for, only that he hated the disappointment on Colquhoun’s face and wished desperately for it to lift. He’d disappointed enough people in his life. He didn’t want Colquhoun to join the list.

  But he’d been asked to leave. Nodding, West moved closer to the edge of the terrace, pausing as a flicker of some emotion—surprise?—crossed Colquhoun’s face, before he shuttered his expression again. West saw his own pathetic face in the mirrored surface of Colquhoun’s sunglasses and grimaced. He wouldn’t want to look at such a wreck either. His stomach growled again and he flushed, ducking his head.

  “Good night, then,” he said, making for the door.

  He’d almost closed the door, when he heard Colquhoun’s quiet response. “Good night, darling. We’ll do better tomorrow. And do get something to eat. I’m having sympathy hunger.”

  West told himself it didn’t mean anything. But he remembered his mother’s voice, the night she left. All relationships take work, Westley. You have to decide where is best to invest your time.

  How will I know, Mama?

  She’d smiled, touched his ch
eek, and scented him. You’ll know, sweetie. When you’re both trying to make the same thing. That’s how you’ll know.

  West had so few memories of her that the ones remaining were worn through like old photographs. His mother left the same day Lyle went to Manitoba, but she hadn’t come back when Lyle slunk home to claim his spot as heir. He hoped she’d found somewhere better to invest her time. Maybe one day he’d find her and ask what to do when the “same thing” was a lie.

  West rested his head on the cool window in his room. He could see Colquhoun’s feet on the deck, the only part of him in sight.

  What then?

  Chapter Six

  JULIAN posed West at the helm, ensuring the sun hit the natural highlights in West’s hair and didn’t glare obnoxiously. He took a photo. Another. A third.

  “Are you done yet?”

  “Almost.” Julian wrapped his arm around West’s shoulders and pressed their faces together, stretching out his other arm to take the photo. “Smile, darling.”

  They smiled. Julian grimaced at the tablet and poked West’s cheek, taking another photo of West’s reaction. West stuck out his tongue.

  “That should be enough for now, I think.” Setting his tablet down, Julian returned to the helm. West hadn’t moved, and Julian pouted his best pout at him. “Go on, take a seat. Enjoy the view a little. Think of me as your personal captain, if it makes you happy.”

  With an almost-pout of his own, West left the helm and took a seat in the afterdeck. Stretching his arm over the back of the couch, he turned to watch the water.

  Without any attention on him, Julian took his first deep breath of the morning, then blew it out in a rush. He flexed his shoulders, trying to force the tension away. They had months left of their deception. If he couldn’t handle a few days together, how would he walk West down the aisle and collect his inheritance?

  The inheritance. Julian thought longingly of his mother’s library. Based in their property in Kent, but accessible from any doorway marked with the right spell, the library housed thousands of works. First editions by the fistful, protected by charms so they could still be read as they should be. Yards of recipe books Julian had pored over. History tomes, and coffee-table books bright with art, and a secret corner stuffed with papyrus he’d never been allowed to touch. And upstairs on the balcony, more precious than all the rest, the magical collection—including Mage Matilda’s extensive research on meta curses and cures, the corpus of his mother’s career. The Spell of Undoing that had been her life’s work and would destroy Julian’s greatest mistake.