Pack and Coven

by Jody Wallace

  All her efforts would have been wasted. He’d be converted into a pack wolf, lost to himself, lost to her, before she could say bibbity bobbidy boo.

  Tossing the twig into the woods, she jumped into the car. With a tug, she adjusted her bloody skirt to wrap her injured arm. Think. Think. Bandage or drive? She didn’t know how long the cayenne would knock everyone out. She needed to put some distance between them so the pack wolves wouldn’t immediately sense Harry in all his alpha goodness.

  June cranked the car into gear, nudging past the end motorcycle. Maneuvering was tricky with one arm wrapped in her dress, so she unwrapped it. Blood oozed immediately. Jeepers, it was worse than she thought.

  No time. She pushed the pedal to the metal, or, rather, the floor mat, and screeched onto the highway. First she headed west into town, laying rubber at Harry’s driveway as a lure. After fifty yards, she U-turned and sped east. East was toward the pack’s base and away from the coven’s, but she might get stopped by the cops if she whizzed through town at a blazing fifty-eight miles per hour. She didn’t want to explain her or her passenger’s current state to Millington’s finest.

  Her vision fuzzed and cleared. The road climbed out of Millington’s valley, and the car slowed to forty. Thirty. She groped behind the seats for tissues, antibacterial wipes, a shopping bag. Found Harry’s clothes and slapped a shirt around her cut. She tightened it and nearly fainted from the pain.

  She had to get yarrow into the wound and white willow into herself. Tunnel vision encroached. She pulled off the highway in a pocket of gravel next to a drop-off. The river gushed at the bottom. As good a spot as any. Far enough, but not too far to lose cell reception if she had to call the coven.

  The spell she’d planned would work best if they stayed near where she’d harvested the plants. Personal disguise spells, which had to be keyed to personal chemistry, were very fiddly, so she’d had the idea to blanket the car itself first. The coven did that with their houses and hideouts so they could drop their masks inside and take a break. The idea was to mask the Smart car as uninteresting.

  Magical improv was rarely smart. It didn’t conserve a witch’s power and often missed the target. But what else could she do? She needed time to devise Harry’s exclusive camo before they fled the territory, and this was the most expedient way to get that time.

  Nobody would look for him in a Smart car, but they might in her house. Her friendship with Harry wasn’t clandestine or anything, and most folks in Millington accepted it at face value as long as there was nothing hinky going on.

  Which there never had been, thank you very much.

  Her purse was next to his feet. She hauled it into her lap, cursing as her movements slowed, turned fumbly. Beside her, Harry began to stir.

  “Where are we?”

  “We got away. I need to stop the bleeding.” She dumped her purse all over her blood-spattered skirts. Yarrow, white willow, burn cream. Nausea surged, a product of blood odor and low reserves. Okay, ginger too. She sorted her supplies with shaky fingers. There was too much. She was too flustered.

  Hey, a folded-up raincoat. She stared at it for several seconds before Harry took her arm.

  He peeked under the T-shirt and whistled. “Jeez, June. How did that happen?”

  “Lionel,” she answered.

  “I’ll kill that bastard,” Harry growled, posture stiffening.

  “No need to swear. He didn’t mean to.” If he’d meant to, he could have taken her arm off. She breathed quickly, in and out through her teeth so the coppery whang of blood wouldn’t upset her stomach.

  “You need to go to the hospital.” Command shaded Harry’s voice. Did he realize how much his alpha gene came out when he was upset? His potency bore down on her, and she hoped he wouldn’t lean harder. She was too feeble to resist.

  At least the adrenaline and panic had pushed the lust out of her system. Small favors.

  “It looks worse than it is.” There. She crammed white willow and ginger into her mouth, and as she chewed she trickled a tiny bit of power into it.

  Goddess, she loved magic. Instant relief. She found the burn cream and smeared it on her hands. Not too many blisters. The cream, imbued with healing enchantment, flattened the bumps.

  “I don’t remember what happened.” Harry frowned. “You did something to them. To me.”

  June closed her eyes. She could lie, try to keep him in the dark. Or she could confess a bare minimum of facts and make him promise never to tell the coven he knew.

  This was Harry. She could trust him. He was her best friend, even if he didn’t realize it.

  “Yes,” she agreed, the truth popping out like bread from a toaster. “You can do magic, I can do magic. Simple as pie.”

  His frown deepened. “I don’t do magic.”

  “You just don’t call it that.” Most of the contents of her purse slid off her lap onto the floor. But not the yarrow. “Would you unwrap my arm?”

  He did, and she sprinkled the dried greens on it. How much power to use? The blood had slowed to a trickle. At full strength, she could heal it as if it had never been there. She tapped her nearly empty well so the wound remained open but the blood ceased.

  Harry’s nostrils flared and his eyes paled as he soaked in the situation—and her. He looked furious and curious at the same time. When you were a man who could change into a wolf, the existence of other magics probably wasn’t earth-shattering.

  If he figured out she was Sandie, though, that might get complicated.

  “We don’t have time for this,” she said, pulling away.

  “For what?”

  “Anything.” Was that the grumble of a Harley she heard on the far range of her hearing?

  “Make time.” He lowered his chin. “Talk. Now.”

  She did. Because she wanted to, not because he made her.

  “I’m going to cast a spell that will make the pack overlook this car, and we’re going to park here until I feel better.” Or until she broke down and phoned the coven to ask for an itty-bitty rescue.

  She really hoped to avoid that. She’d pushed boundaries before, but this took the cake. Which was a funny way to put it, since cakes were a Millington coven specialty.

  “This spell thing will work?” he asked, dubious.

  “I think so.” She pushed her hair out of her face and wished she could tell Harry everything. Ask for a hug to calm her nerves. As far as he was concerned, they didn’t know each other. “I’m obviously not at my best.”

  “If I’m hidden inside the car, keep driving,” he suggested. “The pack’s territory extends about a hundred miles in either direction. Once I’m out of state, I’m practically in the clear.”

  “We need to stay put.” Remaining stationary aided this type of concealment spell, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to drive after she cast it. “The spell will drain my magic and make me woozy. I can’t drive. There’s, um, probably a book in back if you get bored.”

  “We can’t have you wrecking the car.” Harry smirked, and despite the dire situation, she grinned back. She’d never been able to resist his smile. It had nothing to do with his alpha gene, either.

  They gazed into one another’s eyes, the rest of the world on hold, until he said, “Looks like I’ll be driving after all.”

  June quit smiling.

  Chapter Four

  After she did some mumbo jumbo with the trash from her floor, June sort of passed out.

  Harry waited a minute. “June?”

  Her eyelids fluttered. She mumbled something about cake.

  “I’m going to drive now.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “Haaah,” she sighed.

  That wasn’t a no. Harry jumped out of the car and relocated her soft little body to the passenger’s seat—only to find the stupid car wouldn’t do sixty-five, downhill, without rattling. No sign of the pack, but he heard the roar of a Harley on a mountain road that paralleled the highway in spots.

  Dusk fell quickly in these
parts. Already the long shadows of trees covered the pavement. With a drop-off on one side and a forested incline on the other, the highway was their only option. So they buzzed like a giant beetle up and down the hills.

  Not a beetle. He shouldn’t insult VWs that way.

  Harry tried dialing Sandie on his cell, but reception here was crap. June lolled beside him, seat belt holding her erect. Her pink dress was smeared with blood. The odor twitched his nose like a memory, like something he should recognize.

  He was a little off kilter. Give it time.

  Too bad he didn’t have any and couldn’t make any. He couldn’t outrun Bianca’s border guards in this cheese box. They’d be stationed in a grid pattern threading out from Cranberry Jetty, an unincorporated bump in the road nine miles ahead. Gas station, park visitor’s center, intersection and a bridge to the north, which led to the pack’s commune. There weren’t a lot of roads to choose from in this terrain, and pack wolves had a wide range for sensing alphas—any alpha.

  If he couldn’t blast through Cranberry Jetty in a car that could exceed a hundred, he wasn’t sure how this would go. The trip had taken on a nightmarish quality that reminded him of the night he and his mother had fled the pack where he’d been born. Since he’d been ten, too young to be pack-bound, his mother had been the only one to suffer the severance process.

  She’d suffered. She’d suffered, and then she’d died.

  No, he didn’t want to think about that night.

  June whispered something about Tolkien, or maybe it was told-you. Or toffee. The sound cut off when her head flopped forward. It looked uncomfortable, so he tilted her back. Her blond curls were as soft as down. In sleep, she looked young, maybe twenty-one, twenty-two.

  He refused to consider she might be younger for two reasons. One, she was attractive to him in a very adult way. He hoped Sandie wouldn’t kill him if he seduced her granddaughter once this Bianca thing was done.

  Two, Sandie wouldn’t have sent a teenager into a pack situation. He was surprised Sandie had sent her granddaughter at all.

  Unless, of course, June could do magic. Which was ridiculous.

  Yet they’d escaped. How? He didn’t remember much after Bianca had shown up. His forgetfulness had been caused by something. June had sprinkled leaves on her arm before it stopped bleeding, which might have been coincidence. As for this camouflage thing, he didn’t feel any different.

  But there was no denying June had the drop on shifters. Sandie was a wily one, all right. She’d known about Harry the whole time she’d been grilling his porterhouses and beating his ass at bunco. He’d been her pet wolf, and she’d never said a word.

  He’d be saying a word to her when he saw her again. He might even curse. What was she thinking, sending June into the middle of a pack dispute armed with twigs and a giant purse? A gun would have been handier, along with a fast car. What would the pack do if they found out Sandie and June had made them?

  He might feel betrayed that Sandie had been keeping secrets from him, but she was still his friend. He cared about her more than he’d cared about anyone since his mother died. Now there was June to consider. He wouldn’t be able to protect them if he couldn’t save himself.

  The car whined as he pressed it harder. Those noises weren’t healthy. He’d never worked on a micro, but this model had a three-cylinder engine. The little sucker wasn’t even a hybrid. Just tiny. Why anybody would buy a powerless matchbox in an area like Millington, he had no idea.

  None of this made sense. None of it. The only available person with answers was snoozing in the passenger’s seat, mumbling about dessert.

  A sign for the visitor’s center appeared. One mile to go and no evidence of the pack. They must be spinning their wheels searching Millington, confident the barricades would trap Harry in town.

  His and June’s luck wouldn’t hold forever. He should scout Cranberry Jetty before they tried to blast through it. Harry applied the brakes, and the car squealed like an airplane decelerating.

  Another gravel overlook lay before the sign. The narrow highway was dotted with areas like this anywhere there was car space. For fishermen, hunters, tourists, swimmers, hikers, werewolves trying to decide how to break through a barricade, parking areas had myriad uses. Harry angled the micro onto the shoulder, and it thunked ominously when it dropped off the pavement.

  Rolling down the window, he paused for a moment to listen. He sorted through June’s breathing, awakening night creatures, the rush of the river. Mice in the leaves. The whoosh of diving bats. Mosquitoes. Wind.

  There. A truck coughing to life. Choppers from the…east. Pack members weren’t the only motorcycle aficionados in Mill County, but they did love their hogs. Should he turn back to Millington, into the maws of the shifters he knew were there, or wait it out?

  June murmured something else and rubbed fitfully at her wound, bandaged in strips of his T-shirt. The blood on her skirt had darkened to brown. Her lashes fluttered on her cheeks.

  Harry popped the automatic locks. He was about to ease the handle and step outside for a clearer listen when a small hand on his arm stopped him.

  “Don’t get out,” June whispered. “Told you.”

  She’d mentioned something about the spell only working if he stayed in the car, which was useful if he believed in magic. Her kind of magic. Shifting from human to wolf might be magic, but it didn’t prove the existence of other supernatural beings. Next thing, she’d try to convince him vampires and aliens were real.

  He stroked her hand. Her slender fingers were coated with grease that smelled like aloe and mint. She hadn’t put her rubber gloves back on, a lost cause after what they’d been through. For a moment he had déjà vu—not from the smell, but from the shape and size of her hand.

  He blinked and the recollection was gone.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” he told her. “I can’t hear. I need to stand in the middle of the road.”

  “No. Safe.”

  The hum of choppers increased. Several, going about forty. The engines roared as they ascended the half-mile incline from Cranberry Jetty.

  It wouldn’t do any good to get out now. Wouldn’t do him any good to shift and take off through the trees, either, even if he were willing to leave June behind.

  Several bikes crested the rise and barreled toward the overlook. Harry tensed. If it was the pack, they’d have to pry him out of the car, peel back the top like a can of sardines. He could take a single pack wolf but not several.

  He’d sure as hell try. Presumably they wouldn’t rip their future alpha to shreds. He wouldn’t die, werewolves being extremely hardy, and when he was alpha he’d make their lives miserable.

  No. He wouldn’t even consider being alpha. That was the epitome of miserable to him. Being alpha was like being thrust into parenthood unprepared. Not regular parenthood, which had a certain appeal, but the crushing responsibility of the largest, hairiest, most fractious family imaginable.

  A family whose evils you were sworn to conceal from the world.

  The choppers slowed. Harry cursed under his breath. They coasted to a stop next to the car, so he started rolling up the window.

  That’s when one shifter Harry’d seen already today stared into his face without so much as a glimmer of recognition.

  Violet, Bianca’s lieutenant.

  “It’s not him,” he heard Violet announce into her helmet microphone over the chug of engines. Harry paused with the window halfway up. “Charles, do you smell anything?”

  “Not unless he’s on the river. He didn’t get this far.”

  They didn’t see him. They couldn’t smell him. Couldn’t sense him. He was sitting in a car fifteen feet away from them. Holy shit.

  “Another team checked the river. No trace.” Unless Harry missed his guess, Violet was chewing gum. She nodded at him, clearly assuming he couldn’t hear their conversation. A human wouldn’t.

  It appeared his half-conscious companion was a magician. Either that or t
he pack was so thrown by this stupid car, they failed to believe he was driving it.

  “If we don’t find Harry, I’m not sticking around for one of those dirtbag wannabes,” Charles threatened. “We didn’t send out a call, and they’re showing up anyway. How did they find out? We worked too hard to wind up with another Bert.”

  “Lower your hackles. That won’t happen.” Violet chewed for a moment. “The ceremony doesn’t have to be tonight. We’ll find him. We’re on lockdown now.”

  Harry forced himself not to curse again. Lockdown was an alert to bordering territories that a pack had a runner.

  Hard to escape if the neighbors were looking for you too. Good thing he had a secret weapon. June. If Violet didn’t recognize him in this car, wolves outside Millington wouldn’t either.

  “I want this over with.” Charles revved his motor. “It’s not good for a pack to have a single alpha. She needs a mate.”

  “You think Bianca can’t handle it?” Violet growled.

  Charles’s helmet dipped in capitulation. “I didn’t mean that.”

  The Millington pack’s dilemma had obviously hit the grapevine if the wannabes were circling. They might end up with a hidebound ass like Bert and they might not. Didn’t matter to Harry. He wanted no part. He’d stay away for a month, just in case, and cross his fingers the new alpha would ignore him when he came back.

  “I’ll let it pass,” Violet said at last. “We’re going to freak out the lovebirds if we don’t move.”

  “What kind of car is that, anyway?” another shifter added. “Looks like a penny racer.”

  “It’s better for the environment,” Violet answered with a lippy smack. The choppers snarled to life and squealed down the highway.

  “That was incredible,” Harry said. “They looked right at me.”

  A smile ghosted across June’s lips. “Told you.”

  If he’d informed a human he could turn into a wolf, the human wouldn’t have believed him until he proved it—and then the human would have looked for trick cameras.