by Kat Bostick
And she hadn’t just seen him, she touched him. A shadow of his heat sparked in her palm. Mari could almost feel his rough hands on her cheeks. How was that possible?
Suddenly very self-conscious again, Mari scooted away from Jasper and finished getting dressed. He watched her in that intent, too focused, too intelligent way.
There were indisputable similarities between the dream man and the wolf in front of her. So what? Somewhere there was probably a wolf that shared the same hair and eye color as her, too. It wasn’t that Mari completely discounted the idea of shapeshifters—though their existence seemed much less likely than witches as it was hard to imagine a human body contorting into a wolf—it was only that there didn’t seem to be any proof. If Jasper could change forms, why wouldn’t he do it before tonight?
Jasper continued to watch her but his ears swiveled toward some sound she couldn’t hear. Then without warning he was darting off into the trees.
“Wait, where are you going? I’m totally lost out here!” She shouted after him. It was no use. He vanished like smoke in the breeze. Maybe he was giving her a taste of her own medicine. Ditched in some random patch of trees and left to fend for herself. “I’m not leaving until you come back! Even if I have to sit here all summer!”
Hopefully Mari didn’t have to wait quite that long. While he was off roaming the forest doing whatever wolves do on full moons—which was hopefully not maiming and eating people—she sat in a meditative pose and contemplated the evening. Other than fractured pieces, Mari couldn’t recall anything. She kept getting distracted with thoughts of the red warrior from her dreams but quickly diverted her mind before her hapless heart got any ideas. For all she knew, he wasn’t real.
The only reasonable but unsatisfying answer that explained her strange behavior and brain fog was magic. She’d seen the magic in some nearly tangible form. And she could feel it thrumming beneath the surface of her skin. Whatever she did, it amplified her power. Mari felt stronger, fuller, like parts of herself that had once been uncomfortably empty were overflowing.
All thought snapped from her head at the sound of leaves crinkling in the darkness beyond the safety of the moonlit circle where Mari sat. At that exact moment her brain decided to remind her that she’d picked this area because of the wolf population. Now she was alone in a forest that may or may not be filled with ravenous wolves, angry that she and another wolf invaded their territory.
Before her fear could evolve into full blown panic, a red form, dulled by darkness, appeared from between two trees. Jasper walked with his legs at an odd angle, something flopping around in his jaws. Something dead.
“Ah, look who it is. Maybe you could give a gal some warning next time you decide to take off on a full moon walk about and leave her alone in the dark?”
Jasper ignored her snarky attitude and approached her with the prize in his mouth, pride gleaming in his eyes.
“Is that a bunny?” Mari pouted at the rabbit hanging limp from his maw. He dropped it in front of her. Was he seriously offering her a dead animal? In answer to that silent question, he nudged it and then sat back on his haunches with an expectant expression. “For me?”
He wagged his tail.
“Oh, wow, that is so thoughtful of you. You know what, though? I actually ate before we left. Ooh, yeah, so full.” She patted her stomach. “It’s all yours.”
Jasper whimpered. Surely he didn’t expect her to eat a raw, dead rabbit. Mari was hardly a vegetarian but even she drew the meat line somewhere between thoroughly cooked and fresh from a wolf’s mouth. Jasper whimpered again, annoyed with her ambivalence.
A series of words drifted into her mind as Jasper stared; love, family, pack. Mate. She didn’t know what it meant but she knew it was important.
“Love? Family?” Jasper’s eyes widened. “…pack mate? Is that what you want? I’ll be your pack.” He wiggled excitedly, clearly understanding her words. Mari was starting to wonder if she was hallucinating this entire night and would wake up from some bizarre dream any second.
“Okay, let’s see.” She extended one nervous finger toward the rabbit corpse, gauging Jasper’s reaction when she touched it. His body shivered with anticipation. “This whole eating raw meat thing skeeves me out. I understand your proclivity for rending flesh but you and I don’t share that. You get me?”
He huffed. Mari imagined that was how you said “duh” in wolf speak.
Operating solely on instinct—which was apparently what she had been doing all night, though whose instincts she wasn’t sure because up until now hers were useless—Mari scooped up the rabbit and held it out in front of her. If not for the way it’s body flailed in her hands, the warm, fuzzy critter could have tricked her into thinking it wasn’t dead.
“Thank you, Jasper. What a great gift. Unfortunately, I’m not hungry so maybe I can re-gift and let you eat this while it’s fresh?” Ew, fresh. It was all she could do not to throw the bunny at his feet just to get it away from her. She managed to hide her cringe—that seemed rude—when she placed it back where he’d left it.
Some intense emotion clouded Jasper’s eyes. Though her brain hadn’t gotten the memo, her heart must have recognized whatever that emotion was because it skittered, beating the same rhythm as the fluttering butterfly wings in her stomach. Starting at the soles of her feet, a fresh wave of magic tickled up her body, filling her with immense longing. It became so fierce that it throbbed like an open wound.
Somehow, Mari knew that this magic was different from her own. Yet, it tasted similar on her tongue. That was where Mari felt the magic strongest. Was that normal? To detect magic with her mouth of all places?
She was too distracted to figure it out when that visceral pain mushroomed into even more unbearable sensations. Another part of her was awakening, making itself known in the form of hunger, need, desperation, and insufferable loneliness. His meal discarded, Jasper stepped forward to press his forehead to hers. Then suddenly all of the hunger was sated, all of the need fulfilled, all of the loneliness forgotten. Everything, not just those emotions, was replaced with comfort and love and recognition.
They were barely touching, yet this was the most intimate moment of Mari’s life. His soul reached out from inside of him and met hers, tangled with hers, spoke to hers without words. Something clicked between them, like two magnets drawn to each other were finally connecting. It was the face of the red warrior Mari pictured resting against hers, not the wolf.
“It’s you.” She said, echoing the words from her first dream of him. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Whoever that man was, Mari thought she might love him. The desire to feel his skin on hers again was so intense it consumed her. He had her totally spellbound and she wasn’t even sure if he was real.
Jasper brought his face to the crook of her neck and drew in a long breath. When she had the impulse to tilt her head, revealing her jugular to a predator three times her size, Mari did it without questioning herself. A soft noise like a purr reverberated in Jasper’s chest, vibrating in her bones as he nuzzled her exposed throat vigorously. Faint sparks of magic tingled between them.
There was a little too much unexplained magic going on for Mari’s liking. Part of her—a very big part of her—was pleased with the mystical thrum inexplicably warming her veins. The other part was mildly terrified because her brain couldn’t make sense of anything that was going on. Perhaps until now Mari hadn’t experienced the pull of the full moon, as she rarely worshiped under the open sky. It was intense, to say the least.
Jasper finished showering her with affection and turned his attention back to the rabbit. Not exactly thrilled to watch him tear into the body of a dead animal, Mari propped her hands behind her head and reclined onto her back. Overhead was unfathomable blackness dotted with brilliant lights, Father Above and his many children looking down upon them.
Mari dozed, blocking out the sounds of wolf jaws ripping at flesh. She opened her eyes what felt like hours later t
o find Jasper leaning over her. Without thinking, she asked “you’d tell me if you were a person, right?”
He leapt back and let out a series of excited yips.
“Shut the fridge door.” Mari’s stomached jolted. “That’s not possible. I don’t believe you.” In little more than whisper, she said “wag your tail if you’re a person.”
Jasper wagged his tail so hard he created a breeze around them.
She gaped at him, her eyes drying out because she couldn’t even blink. Her mind whirred, rapidly putting together the evidence and coming up with an explanation that she probably could have gathered ages ago if she’d been more astute. “You’re a mother-effing werewolf?”
Jasper pounded his front legs into the ground, haunches in the air and tail lashing wildly. If that wasn’t answer enough, he barked excitedly and licked her face until a squeal made him jerk back.
She heaved herself up and started pacing madly, as if moving her legs would make her brain move too. “Okay, first of all, how did I not figure that out sooner? Second, um, what? Werewolves are real? But you don’t change into a man! Well, you didn’t until tonight. And isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? A man who changes into a wolf on the full moon?”
Holy crap, Jasper was a man. Jasper was the man. How could that be? A blush crept up Mari’s neck and warmed her cheeks as she replayed the last two months and considered every embarrassing word she’d uttered in front of him. There were more than a few things she definitely wouldn’t have said out loud if she’d known that the hottest guy to ever grace her presence was listening. Was it weird to call him hot when his current body was an animal body? It wasn't like the wolf was the hot one.
This entire situation was unbelievably strange and surreal.
Every time Mari pondered the faraway place the redhead from her dreams must live, wondering if he was real or if he just felt real, he was sitting right next to her. He’d been sleeping in her bed.
“You saw me naked! You perv!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Jasper but lost her annoyance when she chuckled at the absurdity of it all.
Jasper snorted and tossed his head back.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been losing my mind trying to figure out what you are!” Mari swatted a playful hand at him. “Wait, why aren’t you a man? Do werewolf myths have it backwards?”
Jasper stopped his bouncing and whimpered softly.
“Obviously you can change into one. Can you control when that happens? Wag for yes.”
He wagged a swift “yes.”
“So why don’t you turn into a man right now?”
More whimpering.
“Is something wrong with you?” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Sorry, I just mean, is your wolf-to-man changer broken?”
Jasper cocked his head, gave her what she imagined was an amused smile, and wagged his tail.
“Oh.” Mari didn’t know what else to say. Her pacing had ceased some time ago and she swayed awkwardly. “That sucks.”
Brilliant, Mari, just brilliant.
“Maybe we can fix it?” That got him all kinds of excited again and she couldn’t resist the smile that tugged at her lips. The trouble was, there wasn’t a way for her to ask him how it could be fixed, assuming Jasper even knew. He couldn’t answer any of her complex questions.
And that was only one of her current problems. Though she remembered Jasper in all of his naked and beautiful glory, there was still so much she couldn’t recall. What happened that made her feel—and lose her memory like—she’d spent the night drinking heavily? Mari’s stomach churned with unease. This inability to remember was starting to scare her. It was like waking up from a dream that seemed important but only recalling the feeling and not any of the actual images.
There was someone that might be able to give her answers. Gran might be able to give Jasper answers too. If he really was a werewolf—not that she had much reason to doubt it—then that meant there were others out there. Now that she thought about it, Gran’s vague and revised story of Ina made a lot more sense if the wolf was actually a werewolf. Why wouldn’t the old witch just tell her that?
“I really need to call Gran, like immediately.”
Mari shoved two fingers in her pocket only to find it empty. They all were except for the one that held the car keys. It didn’t matter anyway; Gran was out under the full moon just like them, celebrating the solstice with her sisters.
“What happened tonight?” She repeated, more to herself than Jasper this time. “It’s the full moon…Werewolves respond to the full moon. Witches respond to the full moon. We were running and I felt the magic. I saw the magic. That’s never happened before. But why did that make me want to get naked? Damn. What the heck did I do?” She narrowed her eyes at the red wolf—make that werewolf—sitting on his haunches in front of her. “Did you do this to me?”
She got a wolfish eye roll for that.
“Well, I got my wish. My life is about as far from mundane as it gets.” She flopped back onto the ground with a grunt. A second later she bolted back up, a stupid grin on her face. “Jasper! I think I performed my rites. Like as in, true witch rites. Is that what all that witch mumbo jumbo was? Is that even possible without a coven?” She gripped Jasper’s head and smacked sloppy kisses all over his snout before jumping from the ground to do a happy dance. “I’m a witch! I’m a real freaking witch!”
Jasper skipped around her, joining in on her celebratory wiggling. “Hands down, this is the best night of my life.” She stopped dancing and straightened. “Hey, I almost forgot. Did my magic work on you? I don’t really remember casting, only seeing you.”
“Yes.” He answered with a tail wag.
“What did it do?”
Jasper lashed his tail wildly but Mari had no idea what exactly that was supposed to mean.
“Does it call you to me, like Ina’s wolf to her?”
“Yes.”
“I wish I could remember what I did to make that happen.” She bit her lip.
Eventually they both ended up on the ground, gazing sleepily at the stars. It was well past midnight and Mari knew she should probably get up and walk back to the car. Yet, she wasn’t ready to leave. There was peace to be found in the forest and, for the first time in weeks, maybe longer, she was happy. Contentment lapped lazily over her body like warm lake water and she was loath to give that up.
Her last thoughts before drifting to sleep on a bed of leaves were of Jasper in human form. She really needed to figure out how to help him. Mari was desperate to meet that man again. Until then, he felt more dreamlike than real. She closed her eyes, hoping that if he was a dream, he would at least be hers while she slept.
✽✽✽
Jasper
There was a word for Mari’s kind. She was no ordinary green witch. In her blood was a power sculpted by the divine to match the power of the wolf. Her voice carried more magic than even an alpha. The songs that Mari sang were moon made. Jasper hadn’t taken it seriously when she suggested her magic might affect him because he’d forgotten there was a brand of magic that could. It was no wonder she called him out of bloodlust the night they met.
Jasper hadn’t realized a witch of her kind could also call on the change. He couldn’t figure out why it was temporary but he would take what he could get. How long had the man been caged in his own mind? How long since he’d felt the rake of cold air on his skin? How long had he wished to have hands? And how perfect that his first use of those hands was to reach for Mari.
Touching her was a cathartic release that felt a lifetime overdue. All he could do was breathe her in, feel her in his hands, and marvel at the rightness of that connection. Mother Moon tied them together with her silver threads because Mari’s magic could mend him.
Their meeting was not chance, it was inevitable. Even if that meant he walked as the wolf for a decade purely so that he would be in the correct place to find his witch, he would accept it. Now that he had her, none of the past ma
ttered. Mari was his present and his future and she could fix what was broken.
There was a moment of heartbreak when her enchantment shattered and Jasper was returned to the wolf. It didn’t linger though. He knew what he had to do. Deep within him was an instinctive knowledge, a primal drive to claim what was his, to strengthen the thin threads laced between them. Mari felt that drive too, speaking the traditional binding words to him without prompting.
Jasper was more determined than ever to break this curse. There was something much more important that bound him now. Mari accepted his claim. Even though he couldn’t return the words, she took his gift and completed the ritual that she worked with the power of the moon. Their connection was unorthodox given his current state but that could be righted, eventually. Jasper would hold on to the sensation of her gentle caress until then.
Mari was not yet strong enough to shoulder the burden of her magic on her own but she couldn’t join a coven as she so desperately desired. Not with her talents. She needed a pack, his pack. They could teach her what she was and then she could help him. All Jasper had to do was remember how to find them. He was confident he would soon. He remembered more now than he had in months, maybe longer.
Perhaps it could come to him in a dream, as so many memories had. The best dreams came on the full moon when the ravening nature of the wolf was sated with a good hunt. Tonight his prey wasn’t enough to fill his belly but that was fine. He’d caught something better and she was humming softly beside him.
Mari rolled over to wrap her fist in the loose hair on his scruff. Her sun kissed skin reminded him of gold in the fading glimmer of moonlight. It was strange that she could feel so small curled up beside him and still radiate such a commanding force of power. Jasper wanted to bask in her aura like a lizard in the sun. He nestled his head in the crook of her neck and closed his eyes with a contented sigh.
