“Just sit in the rocking chair and don’t drip all over the rug. It’s Persian.”
“Well, aren’t you fancy after the apocalypse,” Circe said, crossing into the living room. She sat down with a squishing sound. He made her more irate than she’d been since aliens invaded Earth five years ago then staged World War III, destroying ninety-five percent of the human race and mutating the survivors.
His damp blond hair fell in waves to his broad shoulders. His T-shirt clung to his muscled chest, and raindrops glistened over the tattoos that covered his taut forearms.
Circe had spent most of the last five years cloistered in her coven with her sister witches in a cave in Arizona. She couldn’t help but notice how attractive Xavier was with his tight waist and delicious behind, even though he’d locked her in a dog cage.
“What do you want, dragon?” she asked in a cool tone, regaining her composure. She was a powerful witch who could throw him across the room and crush his skull in a matter of seconds. In human form, he was no match for her. None of these men were. But Circe had agreed to play nice for the sake of diplomacy, something Xavier seemed to be sorely lacking.
“Your friends have escaped. Where have they gone?”
“I’d assume they mean to continue with their plan to liberate the LA dome and save all those children you seem to think aren’t being harmed.”
“Their actions will bring the Anu down on us. The only reason they haven’t sent their ships to bomb our farm is because we stay out of the way.”
“You can’t live like this forever, Xavier. Eventually, they will come after you, too. None of us is safe as long as they inhabit our world. The duty of every being, every human, and every mutant left on Earth is to eradicate the vampire aliens from our planet.”
“Bah,” he said, turning away from her.
Circe could see his profile and the strong curve of his nose.
“I have kept these people safe for three years. Three years of farming, hunting, and gathering. We have a good life. Multiple shifter races and a witch live together in harmony here.”
“It is commendable indeed, but I’m afraid it isn’t enough.”
He whirled and eyed her, his face stony. “What would you have me do, witch?” he asked, his voice rumbling with boiling rage. “Should I sacrifice my people for the sake of the Anu’s science experiments? We have families here. Children.”
“Those science experiments are kids. Human kids. The only humans left on Earth. Don’t you have any compassion?” she said steadily as she watched his chest heave.
“Compassion? You question my compassion? What were you doing all these years, witch? While I gathered and protected two hundred shifters, what was your great contribution to the survival of civilization?”
Circe gulped. He had a point, but she didn’t want to admit it. Circe and her sister witches had spent most of the last five years in preparation. They had learned to use their spells, to heal, and to go on vision quests. She’d communicated with wolf packs and cougar prides. She’d communed with dryads and learned of the Council of the Seventh House, the alien faction that opposed the Anu.
But Xavier was right—coming with Cassie and Rafe to LA to liberate the dome had been her first direct action to help with anything tangible. She frowned. She knew what she and her friends were doing was for the greater good. If Xavier was so worried about his people, he could evacuate or join forces with her and her friends.
“I’ve been doing my work,” Circe muttered, diverting her eyes from Xavier’s angry penetrating gaze.
“Let me guess. Your work consists of hiding out and playing with magic.”
“Don’t belittle my craft.”
“The other witch who lived here, Brigid—she and her girlfriend, Emilia, blew up Pyramid Corporation vans. Did you even do anything like that?”
Pyramid Corporation was in league with the Anu and ran the domes where the children used in genetic hybridization projects were kept. Circe’s friend Cassie had been held in a dome and was on a mission to destroy every one of them.
“I have a greater mission than blowing up vans. Freeing the children kept in the domes and liberating the Earth from bondage is far more important than one little settlement or the opinions of its leader.”
“This is a load of crap. I don’t need to listen to this anymore. Guards, take her back to her cell. We’ll find the others on our own.”
Circe’s blood surged with irritation. This ridiculous dragon shifter had quite the nerve to lock her in a dog cage once. She didn’t intend to let it happen again. She spun from her chair and grabbed with both hands, unleashing two giant disembodied appendages. The two guards near the front door hoisted into the air, and she threw them against the wall in the hallway.
A painting of a southern California landscape thudded to the floor as the guards slid down the wall, unconscious. Circe whirled back around to find Xavier gripping her wrist. She looked up into his cobalt-blue eyes. Her own black eyes widened.
A jolt of energy shot through her like an electric shock. Her body shuddered while Xavier’s face turned red. Without a word, he pulled her into the hallway and up the stairs. Circe grabbed with her hand, trying to use her spell, but nothing happened.
Xavier’s clutch crushed her wrist, and she moaned in pain.
“Where are you taking me?” she shouted.
He didn’t respond. He turned up a second staircase to the third floor and barged through a narrow door. Beyond lay a dim attic lit only by a glass-paned door. Dust twirled in the air as Xavier dragged her through the room. She dug in her heels, but her slippery, wet feet and small size made it an uneven match.
He pushed open the door and dragged her out onto a small patio overlooking the farm. The rain had stopped, and people were busily preparing the midday meal. Circe screamed for help, and shocked faces turned up toward them.
Xavier’s body writhed slowly as his shape contorted form. His skin grew golden scales, and his size burst through his clothing. Wings spread from his back, flapping wildly as his claw clutched her waist.
Circe tried to break free and run through the door, but he snatched her in his talon and pumped his wings. Shrieks from below told her this was not a common sight. She screamed and cursed at him, but he didn’t listen.
Something had happened to Xavier. And something was happening to her, too. She could feel the change buzzing in her brain. Ever since the radiation pulses had turned all the surviving humans into mutants of one type or another, she’d lost all her skin pigmentation. Her hair had gone pin straight and as black as night. Pale skin, black eyes, and straight black hair were the hallmarks of mutant witches. As she beat against Xavier’s claw, she could see her skin regain its original color.
Baffled, Circe stopped fighting. Her head and body ached from the energy coursing through her veins. She felt hot and weak, as if she had a severe flu. When she’d transformed into a witch five years ago, she had known intuitively what to do. This time she didn’t.
She couldn’t seem to use her grab spell. Had she lost all her magic? Was she no longer a witch? Below, the rolling yellow hills of California glowed in the midday sunlight as the clouds broke.
Two
Dragon wings beat the air and sailed north over the central valley. Every mile Xavier flew away from her friends filled Circe with growing dread. None of this made any sense. Not that the world made sense anymore. The laws of physics and reality had been turned upside down.
Magic and spacecraft ruled the world. The witches were able to instinctively tap into the quantum field to manipulate time and matter. Without her magic, Circe no longer fit into this new world.
She lay limp in Xavier’s claws as they crushed her ribs. Looking up from under his torso, which was covered in pale-yellow scales, she could see his lower jaw. She ground her teeth, trying to shift in his grip to a more comfortable position. He tilted his head slightly to glance at her.
His eyes gleamed against the blue of the sky, and Circe co
uld see the sharp teeth that lined his massive jaw. She flinched, knowing he could devour her in two bites. Why had this man, a leader of a group of two hundred mixed shifters, suddenly gone feral and kidnapped her?
Strange magic was at work, indeed, and Circe intended to find the meaning of it, unless he ate her first. The landscape below slowly changed from vast valleys of dried and dead farmland, orchards, and towns to rolling hills covered in evergreen forests.
Soon, the hills turned to jagged mountains. The air cooled, and Circe could see peaks dusted with snow in the distance. Xavier pumped his wings, gaining altitude as he approached the mountains. He descended into a grassy clearing surrounded by pine forest.
Beating his wings hard against gravity, he dropped her from the air a few feet from the ground. She fell into the tall grass and wildflowers and rolled for several feet.
As she stood, Xavier landed gracefully a dozen yards away. His eyes never left her. She gathered herself up, ready to defend herself. He strode across the field toward her. A breeze blew her hair around her face, and she noticed it had lightened to dark-auburn waves.
Stunned and distracted by the change in her hair, she was surprised when Xavier’s dragon face came close to hers. His huge nostrils sniffed at her body, causing her thin black robe to flutter. She narrowed her eyes at him and gripped in the air.
He should have felt her spell grip his neck and squeeze. Her grab spell might not have been able to defeat him, but it should have at least given her time to escape. Unfortunately, her grab spell didn’t work. She frowned and crossed her arms. At least the beast hadn’t eaten her. Yet.
In a glimmering shift of light, Xavier’s body contorted. He shrank as his wings withdrew. Claws contracted into hands, and scales smoothed into glistening, tanned skin. Xavier stood before her, panting. His cobalt eyes glinted and held her in their unblinking gaze. His shoulders twitched, and he clenched his fists. He was magnificently naked. A more perfectly fashioned man had never been made.
Circe drew in a breath and grasped her chest as she backed away toward the forest’s edge behind her. Grass tickled her legs and snagged in her robe. Her clothes were dry after the long flight in the midday sun. A twig snapped under her feet as she backed into a tree trunk.
Xavier stood over her, his stony gaze still fixed on her. Circe couldn’t read his expression. It seemed emotionless, but feral, dangerous, as if he might pounce at any provocation.
“Why have you brought me here?” Circe stammered. The scent of pine filled her nostrils, and pine needles poked into her feet between the straps on her sandals. She could feel sap cling to her hair.
Xavier tilted his head, his eyes never leaving her. In one swift motion, he tore the bottom of her robe from around her legs and used it to bind her hands to the tree. Rage slowly surpassed fear as Circe realized what he had done. She struggled against the bonds but couldn’t free herself. The jagged ridges of the bark dug into her bare legs.
“I demand an explanation!” she screamed as he marched away. He didn’t respond. Damn it! Circe took deep breaths, trying to calm down. Panic and outrage wouldn’t help her situation. She had to think.
What is wrong with Xavier? He had no reason to bring her to the forest. But the man he had been back in San Diego seemed to be gone. He’d been replaced by a wild creature with scorching animalistic eyes and wordless intentions.
Circe quieted her mind and brought herself into meditation. With a pounding headache and fever, she could have difficulty deepening her brain waves. She’d practiced the techniques of quieting her mind for many hours a day for the last five years. Deep in the trance state, she sought her spirit guide.
Witches were all intimately connected to their own higher selves, a part of the soul that existed across the entire multiverse of infinite realities. It was an all-knowing, all-seeing version of herself.
The spirit guide came to her, fluttering before her as she remained tied to the tree. The guide looked exactly like Circe. Circe’s higher self was of medium height with a slight, slender built, long wavy auburn hair, and hazel, almond-shaped eyes. She had an oval face, alabaster skin, a wide mouth, and full, red lips.
Circe’s eyes remained locked tightly shut as she deepened her meditation. The spirit guide’s white, shimmering robes fluttered around her as if they were weightless.
“Why am I here?” Circe asked.
“That remains to be seen,” the guide said. She was always so vague.
Circe tried again. “Will this help my purpose?”
“Each has many purposes.”
“Will this help me in my quest to rid Earth of the Anu?” The words echoed through Circe’s mind.
“Yes.”
“What does Xavier want?” Circe asked.
“You,” the guide said placidly.
“But why?”
“That remains to be seen.”
Circe cringed inwardly, and the vision faded. So much for that tactic. Her higher self was timeless and omniscient. The guide didn’t always give the most relevant advice.
She considered telepathically contacting her coven in Arizona then decided against it. She didn’t want to needlessly worry her sister witches. Her head and body throbbed with pain, and she shivered in the cool breeze blowing off the mountain. She didn’t know if she even had the strength to go into another meditation so soon.
Behind her in the forest, she heard a loud crack as if a tree trunk had been snapped in half. It was followed by a dozen more cracking booms. A gust of wind blew past her from within the forest, bringing with it dust and pine needles, which clung to her hair and clothes.
She tried to sink to the ground, but the bonds around her hands were too tight. A tear broke from the corner of her eye as she fought the growing sense of hopelessness that weighed heavily on her chest. She hung her head and let the tears fall as she took several gasps of air.
Circe had always been a woman in control. Before the Anu had invaded, she had been the CEO of a small telecommunications firm in Phoenix, Arizona.
Back then, she’d been known as Katherine Spiegel. She’d graduated at the top of her MBA class from Stanford Business School. A modern businesswoman, Kathy had spent her life focused on achievement, and she had accomplished almost every one of her goals.
She’d run to her cabin in the desert when the first bombs hit the major cities. She’d been spared then. But when the radiation blast came a few days later, she’d gone through the mutating change like all the other humans who had survived the radiation.
She’d instantly realized who and what she was. Like all other witches in the new world, she took on the name of a mythological goddess. She called herself Circe, daughter of the sun. When her sister witches, Vesta and Hecate, found her, they settled in a cave near a small river on a Hopi Indian reservation.
For five years, they worked together, perfecting their craft. Circe had been the natural leader, a position she had taken seriously. Not once since the end of the world had she cried.
But tied to a tree at the top of the Sierra Nevadas, she hung her head in sorrow. Gasping with fevered breaths, Circe pulled herself together. She had changed yet again, forced to adapt to a new paradigm. Instead of shriveling in fear and anguish, she would rise to the challenge, as she had to every other obstacle in her life.
Three
She raised her eyes and shook the hair from her face. Xavier flew over the meadow, piling logs into a massive nest. The beating of his enormous wings flattened the grass under where he worked. After each log was placed, he flew back to the forest and gathered another. Circe sighed in frustration. What on earth is this overgrown lizard doing with me on top of this mountain?
The air temperature was at least forty degrees lower than what she had become accustomed to in the summertime. The illness the change had brought on made her feel terribly sick. The cold air running over her bare legs didn’t help matters. She shivered as goose flesh pricked her skin.
Circe concentrated her will. With a rene
wed burst of energy, she yanked the bonds around her wrists. Her mind cleared, and she changed tactics. If she sawed against the bark, she might be able to break through the fabric. The effort required her to move her bound hands made her instantly exhausted. She fought through the pain and fatigue, moving her wrists over the jagged bark until the fabric snapped free.
With a gasp, she brought her hands in front of her and rubbed her wrists. Taking a deep breath, she wheeled around and ran into the forest. Dizziness overwhelmed her senses, but she pushed past it, taking only a moment to catch her breath as she balanced herself near a tree.
In her old life, Circe had been a marathon runner. Running away from a dragon shifter in the middle of some kind of metamorphosis couldn’t be that much more difficult. Keep running, Circe.
She broke through the underbrush and found herself sliding downhill. Struggling to keep upright, she dug her heels into the rocky soil. Gravel poured into her sandals, cutting into the soles of her feet.
At the bottom of the hill, she looked around then continued toward what looked like a clearing. She had no idea how she would get back to her friends or her sister witches. All she knew was that she didn’t intend to stick around and participate in whatever Xavier had planned for her.
She passed the forest’s edge and came into the clearing. Tall grass and wildflowers swayed in the breeze. A hawk circled overhead and dove toward the forest. The hawk shrieked before it disappeared into the canopy. A dark shadow crossed the clearing.
Circe turned to look behind her over the forest. Xavier’s reptilian face came into view against the darkening sky. She shot back through the forest, hoping to take cover in the dense woods. She hadn’t crossed more than twenty feet when Xavier landed in front of her, folding his massive wings against his scaly sides.
She screamed in frustration and ran in the other direction. But it was no use. The dragon ran faster than she could and grabbed her in his massive jaws. The teeth bit into her flesh, drawing blood. Circe cried out in pain, expecting the end. But Xavier did not crush her. He took her in his claw and launched into the sky.
Howl & Growl: A Paranormal Romance Boxed Set Page 53
