by Petra Landon
“Duncan won’t be back until morning” Raoul said confidently. It was rare that Duncan got to run in his beast form in the wild. His friend missed the freedom. San Francisco allowed few opportunities for a massive black bear to run amok without raising the kind of ruckus the Shifters avoided at all costs.
“He’s running free” he said simply, as Tasia hesitated. “He won’t be back until he needs to.”
She understood him only too well. The Alpha had chosen to sacrifice his chance at freedom this night, to keep an eye on her.
Tasia closed her eyes to weave her magic, focused solely on making the opening to the nook impregnable from the hordes gathering outside. This magic needed no finesse or even skill, just raw power, but it would hold off the leeches and dissipate by morning. When she was done, she leant back against the wall, weary and drained.
The Alpha watched her from the entrance, not abandoning his sentry position while she worked on fortifying the defenses.
“All done?” he inquired.
Tasia nodded mutely.
He reached for something by the fire before striding across to hold it out to her. It was his tee.
“Put this on” he directed. “And take your damp stuff off.”
Tasia stared at him, perplexed by the demand.
“Your clothes are all damp. If we put them by the fire, they’ll dry by morning. I’ll turn my back” he added pointedly.
Tasia reached for the tee he held out to her.
He strode away to the other side, to face the entrance again, his back to the fire and her.
“Take everything damp off, witchling” he reminded her bluntly. “My t-shirt is long enough.”
Tasia flushed, unbeknownst to him. Of course, he was aware of how damp her clothes were — he’d felt them himself not a half hour ago.
She stripped silently and quickly, one eye on the motionless man beyond the fire.
“Decent?” he inquired.
“Yes.”
Tasia focused on laying out her underclothes and tee close to the fire. He was right. A trek out of the woods awaited them in the morning, and she intended to be in good shape for it. Otherwise, she’d slow the two Shifters down. His tee was huge on her, engulfing her and coming to just above her knees. Although covered up, Tasia felt vulnerable and uneasy in his presence. Something had changed between them indefinably tonight, and it disquieted her.
“Here.” He held out a shirt to her, startling her. “This is Duncan’s. Use it to sit on.”
As she hesitated, he unfurled the shirt by the fire, spreading it open invitingly, before glancing at her.
“Give me the jeans. I’ll put them by the fire on the other side.”
The gold eyes were opaque, fathomless and detached. Back to his usual self, like the wild interlude by the fire had never been. Tasia, seriously unnerved by the events, felt a little better. The old Alpha she could handle; the other one was better left to her dreams, where he could do no lasting damage.
She watched him arrange the jeans on the other side of the fire, before taking a seat on the ground across the flames from her. He swiped his face with his forearm, looking overheated. The chiseled upper body gleamed in the firelight, a fine sheen on the muscles. He was sweating, she realized. The nook probably felt like a hot house to him. She could still feel the imprint of his body against her — hard, impenetrable, and almost burning up where his skin touched her. Tasia closed her eyes to slump against the wall, willing the memories away.
“Alright?” he inquired, mistaking her weariness for exhaustion from the magic.
“Yes” she said without opening her eyes.
Silence reigned in the nook.
“Your jeans are damp too” she pointed out abruptly, before she could think it through.
For a moment, he said nothing. She sensed his gaze on her but Tasia kept her eyes closed, wishing fervently that she could take the words back.
“I did consider ditching them, witchling.” His voice was bland. “But I had a mental image of you running into the forest, leaving me behind to face the leeches, and I reluctantly disregarded the idea.”
Whether it was the caustic humor or the wry self-deprecation subtly inviting her to agree with him, it seemed to do the trick. The charged air between them seemed to lighten at his words, and Tasia felt unaccountably better. Their equation had undergone a change tonight, but perhaps not as badly she feared. Soon, they’d forget the moment of madness to slip seamlessly back into their slightly tenuous and mostly contentious association of before, she hoped optimistically.
“Since when have you required my assistance with the Vampires?” she bantered, a smile on her lips, with her eyes still closed. Or any Chosen, she added silently.
“I can think of at least one occasion” he responded. “The night we met.”
Tasia said nothing. She couldn’t refute him. “I consider that night a team effort.”
“How very gratifying” he said dryly.
Tasia gave a weak chuckle to relax against the wall.
When she opened her eyes twenty minutes later, he was staring into the fire. He glanced up, sensing her regard.
“I’m fine.” She answered the silent query in the gold eyes.
“Is it always like this when you use a lot of magic?” There was curiosity in his voice.
“Not always.” The answer came easily.
Tasia took a deep breath. Her mind had not been idle while her body recharged from her bout of powerful magic. Considerably alarmed by the passionate interlude, she had come to a decision. The time in the cage, Tasia had been able to ignore easily, despite the unexpected lick of desire awakened in her. In the cold light of day, she had convinced herself that the cage had been an anomaly. A man on the verge of losing himself had reached blindly for an anchor. This, she understood instinctively, from her struggles in the shed. To look for something familiar — a memory, an image — anything to hold on to as a safe haven while she struggled against an increasingly aggressive beast.
But this last interlude had been different. Tasia couldn’t deny that, try as she might. For the first time, he’d consciously chosen to give in. That the man defined by his tight leash over his self had chosen to voluntarily surrender to passion alarmed Tasia. But more than that, Tasia was frightened by her response to him. This nameless thing between them terrified her — it was like flirting with a fire that could blaze everything to ashes around her, before it singed her into nothingness, for added measure. There were some boundaries she could never cross — was not allowed to cross. Boundaries determined at birth that she had no control over. The sense of hovering on the edge and being unable to stop herself from going over was terrifying.
Would she have stopped him if the Blutsaugers hadn’t come knocking at the door, she asked herself. The answer to that question jolted her. From now on, she was determined to be on her guard with him. And the first order of business was to put their relationship back on the old footing, where everything revolved around the deal they had struck. Where they danced and circled around each other like two strangers forced by circumstances to try and find a way to trust the other. This was the only relationship she could have with any Chosen — especially this one.
He had made an overture to her — taken a leap of faith with her. It was time she reciprocated. It would help set the relationship back to before: he, the protector, and she, the Wizard he’d learnt to tolerate in his Pack because of her history with Hawk and her work on the investigation.
“There’s a way to work magic without tiring myself” she said abruptly, drawing his eyes back to her.
Raoul waited, understanding immediately that this was a gesture on her part. He said nothing, content to allow her to drive the conversation.
“My blood increases the power of any magic I work.”
He was surprised but not shocked. Compared to what he knew of her powers, this was minor. Raoul had known of a few Chosen whose blood helped power their magic, as hers seemed to do. It
was rare in their world, but not uncommon.
“Have you always known this?” he inquired.
“Yes.” She nodded. “When I did Mfector work, I used to carry a vial of blood around my neck, just in case I ever needed it in a hurry.”
She had stopped doing so after the Vampire nest. With the possibility of meeting a Blutsauger, her blood became a liability instead of an asset.
His expression tightened at the matter-of-fact reminder of how close she had skirted the edge, before the Pack. Only those on the fringes of Chosen society hired Mfectors randomly off a Wizard Registry list. It was dangerous and thankless work for someone like her. Not for the first time, he found himself pondering the vagaries of a fate that had brought her to Hawk one night, months ago. Fate again. After a lifetime of not believing in the fickle mistress, why was he being reminded of it as a factor in her entanglement with his Pack, he wondered. Without that one coincidence, she would never have come to his attention. Though both Chosen and residing in San Francisco, they might as well have been on different planets. He kept himself away from Wizards, and she was unlikely to cross the path of a Shifter. Yet, she and the Pack had been thrown together, almost as if their two destinies were inter-twined. She and her unique abilities were invaluable in an investigation of the past that affected all Chosen, and without the Pack, she’d be dead — or worse. More than most, Raoul knew that there were fates worse than death. Far worse.
“Did you ever need it?” he asked, his voice even.
Tasia paused. This trust business did not come easily to someone who’d spent a lifetime in the shadows, but she was determined to demonstrate her intent to meet him halfway, like he had done.
“Yes, when the rogue Shifters came after me.”
“What happened?” he asked, persistent as always.
With her, he would get answers only when he pushed for them. She had opened this door for a reason. He would push it, inch by inch, slamming it open if need be before she changed her mind to retreat again.
“I tried to work magic without making it look like magic, but one of the Shifters realized something was up. He lashed out. I didn’t get away fast enough and was flung against the wall. All things considered, I didn’t hurt myself too badly, but the ground scraped my hands.”
Tasia’s eyes were on him, but her expression indicated that she was far away, back in the alley by her studio in San Francisco. “I couldn’t run, so I did the next best thing. I built an illusion to make me look like an extension of the wall. It wouldn’t have withstood closer scrutiny, but it looked good enough from afar. The blood from my scrapes helped power it — an illusion like that is major magic. If not for the wound, I’d have used the vial around my neck. The Shifters could smell me, but I was lucky they didn’t scrutinize the alley wall too carefully.”
There was a short silence as both pairs of eyes tangled across the bright fire, the crackling of the flames the only sound in the nook.
“You were lucky that time.” His voice was hard.
“I was.” Her response was heartfelt. “I realized later how truly lucky I was. The Shifters only gave up on me because they thought I was harmless. They could take care of me later. In the larger scheme of things, I was a nobody.”
“This is precisely why you need allies — so that no Chosen ever considers you a nobody. In our world, being a nobody with power can be catastrophic.”
There was a note in his voice that struck Tasia. Now that she knew a little of his history, she understood instinctively what made him empathize with those he considered the underdogs. Despite his success and position amongst the Chosen, his experience would always color the way he looked at the world.
There was another silence.
“I haven’t told anyone this.” Her eyes flashed to him, before glancing away.
“I know.” He contented himself with the simple and cryptic response. It hid a lot more.
He ruminated silently until suddenly, the import of her revelation struck him forcibly.
“That night at the Vampire nest, you almost bled out” he said abruptly, the gold eyes intent on her. “Did you rip your wound deliberately to work magic against the leeches?”
Tasia hesitated, curiously reluctant to admit this.
“Did you, witchling?” The gold eyes were implacable.
She knew he would not let this go. “It was powerful magic” Tasia hedged.
She’d always been reluctant to discuss her magic against the leeches at the nest. It had created the earliest bone of contention between them. “I was already wounded. I merely took advantage of it.”
The gold eyes narrowed. “No, you forget that I took care of your wound myself. The bite mark at the wrist had stopped bleeding when I placed you in Hawk’s care, but when I returned for you, there was blood on the bandage.”
Tasia said nothing, but her expressive eyes made clear what she refused to admit.
“I suspected even then that it was deliberate on your part” he muttered. “But I couldn’t understand why you’d do such a thing, so I let it pass.”
A storm gathered in his eyes as she remained silent. “You should’ve let the Pack handle it. You were this close to the point of no return. When Duncan arrived with reinforcements, you were in danger of bleeding out in the car.”
“But I didn’t” she reminded him. “It was a gamble worth taking.”
“No, it wasn’t” he said baldly. “I worked magic to seal your wound. Wizard magic. Your ability to heal did the rest.”
Shock flashed across her face. She’d been unaware of this.
“Wizard magic” she murmured faintly, her heart sinking. Was she always fated to remind him of who she was? He’d once accused her of forcing him to break his pledge to walk away from his Wizard heritage. Here was more evidence of that accusation.
“It was my decision to use my magic to heal you” he reiterated bluntly, sensing her ambivalence.
“You told me once that you dislike being reminded of your Wizard heritage.” She met the gold eyes directly. She understood now why he disliked exploiting or acknowledging his Wizard blood. A Chosen had tried to torture the Wyr out of him for not being Wizard enough.
“I do. But I chose to save you. It’s not your cross to bear.”
It struck Tasia that they had come a long way. She and him. She could still remember the bitterness of the early tussles between them.
“I knew what you were when I asked Hawk to bring you to me. And I knew that you were hiding secrets when I offered you Pack protection. Your association with my Pack is my decision. Has always been my decision” he said firmly. His issues with the past were his to deal with, not the witchling’s fault.
As usual, his words hinted that he had sensed the direction of her thoughts. Sometimes, Tasia wondered whether the investigation and everything else going on was a blessing in disguise. Had it not been for that, she’d have been seriously freaked out by how this man seemed to always read her so uncannily.
“Perhaps, it was another instance of fate playing her games” he said abruptly. Her Wizard heritage had forced him to face his past head on, even before Anderson’s attempt at revenge on him.
Before Tasia could respond, he changed tack.
“Why did you risk so much?” he demanded. “The Pack would not have abandoned you.”
Tasia shook herself free from the memories. “That is precisely why I risked it.”
The gold eyes studied her across the fire.
“Strangers rushed to my aid when I was in need the most. Was I supposed to stand by while they paid the price for their altruism?”
“Duncan was on his way with backup” he reminded her. “No Shifter would’ve paid any price.” But Raoul knew she had a point. It had been touch and go for a few moments. The sheer horde of leeches had outnumbered them.
“I knew I could tilt the balance towards you.” The words came easily to Tasia. The gamble at the Vampire nest had been an impulsive one, made through the fog of pain, confus
ion and terror. But Tasia did not regret it one bit. “I too do not walk away from my friends” she said simply, as the gold eyes studied her with the flames licking between them. “You of all people should appreciate that.”
Raoul stared at her as her words died away. He couldn’t refute her.
“Your courage has never been in question. Not with me” he pointed out, his voice soft. “But you must learn to curb your impulsiveness. You’re the one with secrets to protect.”
Impulsive, am I?
Tasia thought it high time to remind him of the inherent contradictions of his own actions.
“You disapprove of my actions at the nest and yet, you offered me Pack protection because I went to Hawk's aid” she reminded him. “Will you say that was impulsive, too?”
“That was different” he countered.
Tasia smiled, enjoying the conversation. Snug in a warm cave with a lit fire while the wind and rain howled outside, and the leeches hunted unsuccessfully for prey. Most importantly, she was content because she sensed that their relationship was back on familiar ground. There was no rancor or bitterness between them, just an honest difference of opinion. No, she corrected herself, more like a difference in perspective.
“Sometimes, I wonder about the day I met Hawk. It turned my world upside down” she admitted. “Despite the mercenaries hunting me, somedays my old life felt a lot safer than the one at the Lair.”
His expression changed subtly, the gold eyes losing their intensity.
“A pack can be an intense experience” he acknowledged easily. “And there’s no way to escape it when you live at their Lair.”
Tasia studied him, before taking the plunge. “Their Alpha can be an equally intense experience.”
Amusement and something else flashed across his face, before his expression softened. “I’m something of an acquired taste.” His lips quirked. “It takes a rare being to appreciate my excellent qualities.”
For a moment, Tasia gaped at him. Then, her lips quivered. Soon, peals of unfettered laughter echoed in the nook.
He watched her, a relaxed half-smile on his face.
