Heart of a Dire Wolf

by Carol Van Natta

  The keys turned brilliant green and sank halfway into the ice. The ice wall groaned and creaked.

  She and Nic stepped back as the ice buckled like a curtain being drawn from left to right, revealing a semi-circle of six massive, translucent pillars made of clear ice. In the centers of five of the pillars, a wide green and gold throne, and on each throne, a perfectly preserved naked body. A golden elf male with a long braid, a dark-skinned human female with long coils of silver-gray hair, a dark elf male with hair that looked like sculpted iron, a bald polar fairy male, and an arctic elf female with icicles where human hair would be. The sixth pillar had only an empty silver throne.

  The spirits seemed more tranquil as they floated through the chamber and around the pillars.

  Nic held out his hand, palm forward. “Heavy magic.” He dropped his arm. “I don’t think they’re dead.”

  “I think we need to figure out how to wake them if we’re going to get out of here.” She blew out a gusty breath. “And I thought final exams were killer.”

  He raised their joined hands. “Oh, mysterious spirits of Fort LeBlanc, please tell us how to do whatever it is the goddess wants us to do, so I can take my incredibly smart and sexy mate to a nice soft bed someplace where no one is trying to kidnap us or kill us or run over us with snow tractors.”

  Multiple ghosts swarmed over their hands and around their heads.

  Words echoed in her ears. Sit... throne...

  A knot of swirling spirits streamed toward the sixth pillar.

  Skyla looked to Nic. It was clear from his puzzled expression that he’d heard it, too. “If this is a trap, it’s the most elaborate one I’ve ever heard of. Which of us sits?”

  Nic frowned in thought. “Two keys. Two hearts.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Two butts.”

  They walked toward the pillar together. She took a deep breath. “If this goes horribly wrong, and we get stuck in the ice, I’ll never give up trying to get us free.” She pulsed her love through their mate bond.

  He kissed her quickly. “Likewise. I love you.”

  She reached out to touch the pillar surface, but her fingers went right through. “Illusion.”

  She and her mate took the one step up, turned, joined hands, and sat. Cold immediately chilled her thighs. Dire wolves might not mind cold butts, but humans did. She repurposed a bit of the abundant free magic in the room to heat the hard slab beneath them. It woke a resonating magical thrum from their throne.

  “Thanks.” Nic smiled and snugged his arm around her. “Did I mention your magic makes me horny?” He turned to look at the other pillars, then gave her a speculative look. “Can you warm their butts, too? Maybe it’ll speed things along.”

  “Worth a try.” She cautiously tried the same quick spell on the closest throne, with the golden elf. When nothing exploded or retaliated, she quickly did the same for the others.

  The spirits swirled faster around the magic pillars. The blue ice of the floor turned aqua, then green, then sprouted verdant green moss, like watching time-lapse photography.

  The magic of the pillars turned to fog and sank to the floor and flowed around the room, but didn’t go beyond the ice curtain.

  The golden elf next to them opened his eyes. He held up his hand and watched it as it turned.

  The other throne occupants stirred. The polar fairy stood first, then stumbled over to the arctic elf to help her stand.

  The last to wake was the human-looking woman, but she was the first to notice Skyla and Nic. She cocked her head, as if doubting her eyes. “Are we still dreaming, or is the magister throne occupied by a tiger and a dire wolf?”

  The golden elf stood cautiously, then looked them up and down. “They look human to me.”

  The dark elf stepped off his throne onto the green moss floor. “They are shifters. It is the prophecy.”

  Nic pulsed a thought through their mate bond. Have I mentioned that oracles make me crazy?

  The dark elf turned to them. “We are the elders of Fort LeBlanc. I am Grafit. How long have we slept?”

  “Best guess, eighty-five or eight-six years,” answered Skyla. “The dead aren’t very good with dates.”

  That opened a floodgate of questions that she and Nic did their best to answer.

  Nic explained about the town’s disappearance from the human world, the inexplicable reappearance. She told them who turned on the defensive ring, that the defenders included help from Kotoyeesinay, and who was attacking.

  As the awakened elders spoke, they each seemed to be absorbing the magical fog with each breath they took, making them glow brighter and recover more of their wits.

  The bald polar fairy scooped up a handful of moss and transformed it into a belted black tunic and boots. “I say we go up top for a bit of pest obliteration.”

  The arctic elf gave him a tender smile as she clothed herself in green and pulled her icicle locks back into a knot. “Ever the fighter, my love. I vote we look before we leap.” She nodded toward the human woman. “Ortesse, if you would?”

  Ortesse, seemingly not bothered by the cold or her nakedness, touched her throne. Magic flared to show a detailed, three-dimensional map as a large hologram, with the buildings and trees of Fort LeBlanc, the people setting up to defend, and the encroaching armies to the south and east. Everything and everyone seemed to be moving in slow motion.

  A sour look crossed the polar fairy’s face. “Might have known she’d show up.” Skyla couldn’t tell who he was looking at.

  Nic tightened his hand on hers and pulsed a thought. Moira and the others have hardly moved from when I left. Time is passing for us, but not for them.

  Skyla cleared her throat. “Is this a time stasis chamber?”

  “Yes,” said the dark elf. “Our magister created it.”

  Ortesse, the human woman, looked stricken. “He sacrificed himself to save us, so we could save the town. We failed.”

  Grafit frowned. “He built the chamber too well.” He pointed to the polar fairy. “Rorabek tried to open a portal for Dirosha to cross and ask Kotoyeesinay for help, but the chamber warped the magic. We made the difficult decision to sleep and dream and wait for the prophecy to unfold.”

  The elders all turned to look at Skyla and Nic expectantly.

  Skyla held up her hands to ward them off. “I’m just a grad student. Nic is a geologist. The spirits led us to you. The rest was just a SWAG.”

  “A what?” asked Dirosha, the arctic elf. She crouched to touch the moss on the floor. As she stood, the moss flowed through her fingers to make a flowing caftan, which she handed to Ortesse. The woman nodded thanks and pulled it on over her head.

  “Strategic wild-ass guess,” replied Nic. He stood and stepped off the throne platform, so Skyla did the same.

  “Can you send us back?” He pointed to the ceiling. “Those are our friends.”

  “We’ll all go,” said Ortesse. “That’s our town.” She turned to Skyla and Nic with an anticipatory smile. “And then I want to hear all about this thing called the ‘internet.’”

  Luckily, Nic remembered to retrieve the borrowed keys. Skyla’s two experiences with portals caused her to wince and cling to him as they walked through, but Rorabek’s portal ring was just like stepping from the throne room into the dark center of the three conifers. Frost-covered pine needles littered the ground.

  Spirits swirled around them all except Ortesse, whose magic felt like Moira’s, and like Rayne’s had been. Skyla couldn’t tell if the other elders couldn’t see the spirits, or just ignored them.

  The elders stood in a circle and linked hands. The three conifer trees lit up with glade magic. The elders broke their circle and strode determinedly out of the tiny glade, each glowing with ancient magic.

  Skyla started to follow, but Nic pulled her back and into his arms for a hug and a kiss. “Not the warmest bunch, are they?”

  “Elves don’t do warm.” She chuckled. “Actually, they remind me of my dissertation committee
, operating by rules they forgot to tell the students.” She held up her hand to let spirits dance on her palm like tiny flames. “People paid a heavy price to protect them and the town.”

  Nic held up his hand, mimicking her gesture. She smiled when spirits left her hand for his. She’d given up trying to talk to anyone about her gift. She’d never expected to be lucky enough that her mate would share it.

  Nic watched the spirits for a long moment. “The elders should read your stories.”

  The level of magic in the glade increased.

  She pulled on her gloves. “Let’s get away from the firehose.” She stood on her toes for a quick kiss. “Besides, I want to see wizards getting their asses kicked.”

  16

  Nic stood behind Skyla in the entryway of the storehouse, arms wrapped around her, as they watched the aftermath and cleanup operations. More returning natives made Fort LeBlanc seem alive again. And muddy, because the morning sun had also brought the promise of a pleasant fall day, and melting snow made a sloppy mess of old dirt and gravel paths.

  Neither the wizards nor their mercenaries had proved to be a match for the combined might and magic of two pissed-off sanctuary towns. Nic was happy to stay in Fort LeBlanc and defend if needed, rather than take the fight to the enemy. He had nothing to prove, and every reason to stay near his beloved mate.

  Tad and Verna, the snow owl shifters, had stayed in town, too, and shared more history. The three town elder elves, Dirosha, Fuldar, and Grafit, were once diplomats for their respective tribes. They had each argued for a peaceful alliance between the ancients but were ignored or exiled for their trouble. They banded together to approach the polar fairies on their own. Bald, irritable Rorabek, a high-placed fairy commander at the time, scandalously fell in love with Dirosha, and she with him. The elves might have succeeded in their self-appointed mission, but for treachery in the polar fairy leadership.

  M’Tima, a mysterious, more-than-human ambassador in the fairy demesne, and a magister of great power and compassion, gave them a map and helped them flee. She arrived within days and contributed magic to create the glade and build the sanctuary. She died of injuries sustained during her own escape, which she hid from the others until it was too late to save her.

  Tinsel arrived and contributed her skills and magic but didn’t stay.

  At first, the elders welcomed anyone, regardless of species, as long as they held peace in their hearts and contributed to the community. Tad and Verna, whose human aspect showed their First Nations heritage, were the first shifters who stayed. They liked being in a town where they didn’t have to hide who they were, and the government authorities wouldn’t bother them.

  Ortesse, the human mirror mage, came later. She’d escaped slavery in the American south and found Fort LeBlanc using her magic. Her skills were so useful, the elves made her part of the glade, which extended her life indefinitely. She’d come up with the idea to disguise the town as a French military fort.

  “Why did you leave?” ask Nic.

  “Politics,” said Verna. “Some of the newer residents wanted to seal the borders and turn away all comers, like elves did way back when, before human settlements overwhelmed them, or make it an invitation-only fairy demesne.”

  Tad shrugged. “That wasn’t where we wanted to raise our children.”

  “I don’t blame you,” said Skyla. “Kind’a ruins the whole point of sanctuary. And having friends.”

  Nic agreed, especially after seeing family-friendly Kotoyeesinay.

  Now he and Skyla were waiting their turn to go through the portal to Kotoyeesinay and return all their borrowed equipment, then fall into bed. They’d both had enough excitement for a while.

  “You! Crows!” barked Rorabek in battlefield volume. “Get those snowmobiles in line!”

  “Race ya!” shouted one of the Mackenzies to another. All five snowmobiles veered north, the opposite direction of the equipment staging area.

  Nic chuckled. Rorabek’s skills had been very useful in organizing the capture of the tough-hided, tusked kreshicks, who had quickly abandoned the wizard’s lost cause and scattered, but he had a lot to learn about handling modern shifter generations.

  Meanwhile, several of the elves from both towns worked with Ortesse and Moira to back-trace the wizard’s portal before destroying it. They shared the information with the Wizard Imperium’s representative, who promised to take action immediately. Nic was skeptical. The auction house had obviously operated for years with impunity.

  He dropped his head to inhale a slow breath of his mate’s sweet scent, hidden under the smells of dirt, sweat, and pine resin. Her warmth and the contentment of the mate bond soothed him and his irascible tiger like nothing else. It took him a moment to figure out what was missing. “You haven’t restored your maned-wolf illusion.”

  A two-meter-tall kreshick hissed and snapped her sharp teeth at the two orange-eyed, white-furred forest giants, former residents of Fort LeBlanc, who were force-walking her toward the fairy portal for the Wizard Imperium’s holding cells.

  She twitched one shoulder. “I’m not scary here.”

  Nic tightened his arms around her, wishing he could magically soothe all the hurts she’d absorbed for being different. “What do you want to do first?”

  “Soak in that hot tub you promised me last night. Or was that in the afternoon? Dammit, I’m losing track of the days again.”

  “I know what you mean. Too many events crammed into too little time.” He dropped his head to nuzzle her hair again. “I actually meant after we spend a week or two holed up at Tinsel’s, taking care of our life-threatening deficiency in Vitamin Sex.”

  “If you don’t have your health...” Her bright tone made him laugh.

  She leaned back into his embrace. “I don’t know. I’m not the same person who got kidnapped off the L.A. streets five weeks ago. Six weeks. Whenever. I don’t think I’ll fit into any of my old plans. I should probably defend my dissertation, because it took four years of my life, but if the committee doesn’t like it, they can kiss my ass. I’ll have to clean up after my unexpected disappearance and figure out what to do about Rayne’s estate and the family trust. After that, who knows?” She turned to put her arms around his neck. “What about you?”

  “My life’s course has mostly been set by what I didn’t want.” He clasped his fingers together behind her. “I didn’t want to be the only predator in a big herbivore clan. I didn’t want to be a fighter. A team player. An office job. Being a leader, or working for one.” He shook his head. “Thinking you’re about to die every day has a way of clarifying things. During lights out, when I smelled your scent, I started thinking about what I do want. A home with my mate. Community. Friends. Someday, children. Everything else will sort itself out. First, though, I want to check on the bobcat boys. Not that I want to be within a thousand miles of the auction house, but I promised.” He made a disgusted sound. “I don’t trust anyone else to do it. That Shifter Tribunal woman just kept saying ‘no comment’ or ‘not my department’ when she took custody of the hyenas.”

  “I hope most of the shifter prisoners got far away. When I was getting ready to blow the cell doors, I told them to stick together and help each other. I hope they listened.”

  “That was you, opening the doors? He smiled. He’d won the clever-mate lottery. “How did you talk to the shifters through all that suppressor magic?”

  “Whoever designed the spells forgot about broader shifter hearing ranges. I created a message spell that played in sub- and ultrasonic, then sent it to random cells, so it’d look like a glitch. The earthquake moved up my timetable.”

  “You are amazing.” He kissed her. “Let’s go wait with Oskar at the portal. Maybe Tinsel will slip us through early.”

  They walked hand in hand along the muddy path that took them near the center triad of conifers. The town ghosts seemed to like it there best. They seemed content, though he couldn’t say why he thought that.

  Oskar the s
leigh sounded bells as it floated to greet them, and gave Nic a nudge. “No, I’m not singing Jingle Bells again.”

  Tinsel, still in red armor and standing in her chariot-style sleigh, greeted them with a wide smile. “Congratulations on your new mate bond.”

  Skyla beamed. “Your gift was perfect.”

  Nic smiled. “To be honest, I didn’t think fairies or elves could see bonds.” In the shifter world, the new mate bond was almost tangible, and the equivalent of writing “just married” on the car windows.

  “They can, if they want to.” Tinsel waved dismissively. “They like to pretend they’re above such things.” She tilted her head toward the portal. “As soon as they finish moving the snow tractor out of the Kotoyeesinay glade, I’ll send you and Oskar on through.”

  “Thanks. We’ll be ready.” He turned to Skyla and made a grand gesture to invite her into the sleigh. “After you, Alphonse…” He trailed off as he saw the five Fort LeBlanc town elders headed straight for them with a purposeful looks on their faces. “Uh, oh.”

  Skyla turned. “Great.”

  The elders stopped about two meters from them and focused on Tinsel. “Yours is the last open portal,” said Fuldar, the golden elf. “We are about to uncover the town.”

  Tinsel nodded. “It won’t hurt my portal, but we’ll be gone in five minutes if you want to wait.”

  “Uncover?” asked Nic, looking to Skyla.

  She shook her head. “I don’t…” Her eyes widened with dawning realization. “I know why we’ve been feeling magic everywhere. Complex lamellar illusion. The storehouse is the power hub.” She glanced toward the three conifers. “I bet it powered the stasis chamber, too.” She turned to Tinsel. “When the lightning hit your portal—”

  Rorabek spoke over her. “What do you know about the illusion?” He pushed his way to the front of the elders.

  Nic’s inner tiger switched his tail at the blend of condescension and suspicion in the polar fairy’s tone. Nic raised an eyebrow.