by Kat Bostick
“Do you know any natural predator that behaves this way? That kills for the sake of killing? That kills out of hatred? My abhorrence for monsters like him is born out of a lifetime of learning their ways through grief. There is not a coven in this country, maybe in the world, that doesn’t have tales to warn their daughters of the loup-garous. Shapeshifters are evil, Mari.” Gran clutched the arm of the couch until her knuckles turned white.
“And what about witches? Have they done werewolves no wrong?” She asked.
Gran’s gaze was suddenly everywhere but on Mari. “They are stronger than us. Their power is in their bones. A wolf can snap a neck as easily as you can break twigs. We are helpless against such animals.”
“That’s not a ‘no.’”
“There are black witches just as their witches who walk in the light of the divine.” She replied through pinched lips.
“Uh-huh. So there is evil on both sides? I’m not trying to justify violence but I refuse to believe that all werewolves are as malicious as you claim. Jasper had a million opportunities to kill me and here I am, alive and well.” Mari ran a hand down his spine.
“He has killed!” This was hopeless. Gran was too set in her ways.
“Everyone makes mistakes.” Not that she thought Jasper made a mistake. Maybe someday Mari could bring herself to care that Jacob was dead. “You’re obviously not going to change your mind but you’ve got to stop talking about Jasper like he’s the devil. We have much more to discuss and I don’t want to get sidetracked because we’re arguing over the nature of werewolves.”
“Fine.” Gran hissed. “Now it’s time you answer my questions. What did you do on the solstice, Mari? Why is there magic flowing around your aura like storm clouds?”
“Wait, there’s one more thing I need to ask before I forget. Does Gretchen have a nephew named Henrick? A nephew that belongs to a coven and isn’t against being a stalker creep to recruit for them?”
Gran went so still Mari had half a mind to check her pulse. She blanked her face, making it impossible to read what was going on in her head. “You’ve been approached by a wizard?”
“Yeah, outside your apartment and then again when I went out with Aubrey. And I think he cast on me. Remember that time you told me about charming spells?”
“Charming magic isn’t taught anymore.”
“So if someone was using it, they’re probably not practicing white magic?”
Gran’s tone darkened. “Tell me exactly what happened, Mariella.”
✽✽✽
Jasper
Jasper was impressed with the old witch. He hated her but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be fascinated with the way she masked her emotion from her face. Mari was in the kitchen making tea, probably to stall discussing the solstice with her grandmother. She was terrified that she’d done something wrong. He couldn’t blame her given the way her family treated her like a pariah for even mentioning magic.
Mari was obviously angry with her grandmother and the longer he had to sit there and feel her anger secondhand, the harder it was for him not to act on it. He wanted to take a bite out of the old witch but that would only prove her point about him. And if he did bite her, he couldn’t explain that it was mostly because she was a liar and he knew it.
The old witch could hide her emotions from her face but not from her scent. Jasper detected the spike of fear that clouded her pungent herbal scent when Mari mentioned the wizard that approached her. The old woman knew something about him that she wasn’t saying and that made Jasper very unhappy. He couldn’t forget Mari’s barely contained panic when she came home after spending the evening with her squeaky friend. Mari was too brave to be frightened over something inane.
“There is a thread of magic between you. Binding magic.” The old witch suddenly spoke, her voice heavy with accusation. It was almost friendly in comparison to the unashamed contempt that laced her words since she arrived earlier that afternoon.
“The magic your kind possesses is a mystery to me, but I know enough to recognize the significance of binding magic. You’ve claimed her, haven’t you?”
Jasper started to wag his tail but stopped when he realized the old witch didn’t understand that gesture and only seemed to be offended by his eagerness. Instead he did his best to nod his head, though wolf necks were not really designed for nodding.
She hissed a string of curses in French. “You’ve sentenced her to death. Both by activating her power and laying a claim on her soul.”
Laying a claim on her soul? He barely managed to stifle a growl. It wasn’t as if he was a demon collecting souls for condemnation. And Jasper was quite certain that he wasn’t the one responsible for anything that happened on the full moon. Werewolves couldn’t wield witch magic.
He could even argue that he wasn’t the one to claim Mari so much as she claimed him. If she hadn’t spoken the traditional mating words during her rites, Jasper would have waited until he walked on two legs to court her. He would have spent time wooing her and given her words that proved his dedication. Apparently the little witch had been too impatient to wait that long. Fine by him.
“She was safer when she thought she was weak.” The old witch risked a glance over her shoulder and visibly grew sallow. The distinct scent of fear had been wafting off of her all afternoon but it heightened, as did the beat of her pulse. “We were all safer when she was weak.”
She was afraid of Mari? How could she be afraid of sweet Mari, who at that very moment was placing chocolate chip cookies into a bowl for him?
“She needs to learn how to use her power but I fear a coven is not the place for her. Even my sisters aren’t immune to the greed that raw power inspires.” The old witch fixed her eyes back on Jasper, letting the heat of her anger return in a flush of color to her cheeks. “And your kind would only be that much more eager to kill her if they learned what she can do. You’ve done something unheard of since the time of my fiercest foremother. No wolves will accept your binding with Mariella. They no longer respect the role her magic was meant to play. They see only an enemy with too much leverage.”
Jasper did growl this time, quietly so as not to alert Mari of the one-sided argument in the living room. Maybe some wolves would gladly kill his mate for what she was but not his alpha. Jasper remembered the black wolf with a playful laugh and a fatherly heart. He remembered the mercy and understanding that his alpha shared freely. In fact, Jasper was absolutely positive that his pack was the only place Mari would be safe from both witches and werewolves.
“I suppose it shouldn’t come as a shock that she hasn’t told me. We’ve crafted a web of lies around Mari since she was a girl. It’s only natural that she learned to guard her own secrets the same way.” To his surprise, the old witch chuckled. “I should have known we could never keep her from this. It’s more than fate, it’s the will of the Blue Goddess. How arrogant we were to think we had more sway than Mother Moon herself.” Her countenance grew serious once more. “Do you belong to a pack?”
Jasper nodded.
“Are they close? Do they know about her?”
It was much more difficult to shake his head no but she understood.
The old witch sounded slightly panicked when she asked “Would she be safe with them if you have claimed her? Can the bond between you give her protection?”
Yes. Jasper confirmed. And I would kill anyone that threatened her, even pack.
“Then you must bring her to them.” The scent of fear swelled again. “A storm is brewing among my kind. This wizard, Henrick, is only the first wave. The luminary he follows brings chaos in her wake. I fear that she is using black magic. If what she’s told me is true, I believe her to be the one responsible for what’s happened to you. That puts my granddaughter in grave danger. They want power and clearly they will use many twisted means to gain it.
“Mariella is naïve and she is vulnerable. She needs protection and guidance. You beasts could never give her the latter but I am forced to
trust that you would at least keep her unharmed. I don’t think she can stay here any longer. Now that she has performed her rites, she will be a beacon for beings of magic like you and I.”
The only reason Jasper didn’t bite the old witch then was because Mari would be upset with him if he broke her grandmother. Even if she was practically begging him to bring Mari home to his pack—which was already his plan—she had to insult him while doing so.
“What are you two whispering about in here?” Mari smiled for the first time in almost an hour, her hand outstretched with a bowl of cookies.
“The wolf and I have finally agreed on something.” The old witch accepted a mug of tea and dipped her chin at Jasper.
Now if only he could remember where to find his pack.
Chapter 18
Mari
A fresh trickle of anxiety moved inchmeal into Mari’s gut as she sorted through the overwhelming information she’d absorbed today. The chilling and tightening of her insides made her slightly queasy and the lack of food in her stomach wasn’t helping matters. All Mari could do was lie limply and let her eyes roam over the faces her mind shaped out of the uneven lumps on the popcorn ceiling.
She’d hoped it would feel different when Gran finally told her the full story of her heritage. Instead, she mostly felt uneasy. And for some stupid reason she thought her grandmother might be excited when she discovered that Mari completed her rites. No witch in their family had for three generations!
Instead, what she got felt more like fear and distrust. What had she done to deserve such scrutiny from the people that loved her? They acted like she was a ticking bomb. Well, considering what Gran revealed today, maybe she was the magical equivalent.
A run would be a nice way to burn off her tension but after Gran echoed her own sentiments about the safety of Klein now that there was a new coven with questionable morals in town, Mari wasn’t interested in roaming the neighborhood alone. Unfortunately, Jasper couldn’t go unnoticed, even in the dark. He was a werewolf, after all.
Yup, no big deal. He’s just a werewolf. Just a murdering, howling, shapeshifting creature of myth. Mari rolled her eyes at her own thoughts and added said the witch who summoned ancestors to perform sacred rites under the solstice moon.
She didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, Mari was thrilled to finally have the power to be a practicing witch. On the other, she was totally not cool with blindly following the commands of dead people.
Apparently that was how she inexplicably gained the mystical knowledge required to initiate a witch into power; ghosts. When Mari’s mother died, she tied her daughter to her foremothers, giving her access to their wisdom and guidance. Her mother’s spirit acted as intermediary between Mari and those that came before her. It was the reason ancestral songs came to her in whispered chorus when she needed them. Those voices that Mari recognized but couldn’t put to faces were the voices of the dead.
Kind of creepy if she thought about it for too long.
“You remember everything from the solstice. What do you think about all of this, Jasper?” That wasn’t what she really wanted to ask him. Did I make you change that night? Can I break your curse?
Now that Gran had admitted that Mari’s suspicions were true—her magic was Ina’s magic, a power created specifically for werewolves—she was almost certain that it was the swell of her power on the solstice that brought the man out of the wolf. Problem was, she didn’t know how it happened and if she brought it up, Mari was afraid it would only give him false hope. Without training—or even having a title for her type of magic—she was useless to him in that department.
Not to mention, she was too afraid to cast again after what her grandmother told her about herself. Mari let her gaze flick back up to the ceiling and quietly asked “do you think it’s my fault?”
She couldn’t bring herself to add the rest of her question. Do you think it’s my fault that my mother is dead?
Of course it was her fault. Earth Mother granted Mari her power and her life in exchange for her mother’s. That was one family secret she wished her grandmother hadn’t divulged. Maybe that was selfish but, honestly, Mari would have been okay with that particular omission. She grew up knowing that her mother loved her but she never imagined that her mother loved her enough to sacrifice her own life to insure her daughter lived.
How could you love someone so fiercely before you’d even met them?
Jasper came back into her awareness then and she realized that she was staring into his eyes. For two short breaths she thought perhaps she could understand. Some people were simply woven together, bound by fate to love each other, to protect each other, even to die for each other.
“You killed people for me.” She whispered to him. “Why would you kill to save a stranger?”
Jasper snuggled closer, tucking his head in the crook of her neck. He couldn’t explain why he protected her that first night but she knew he would do it again.
The unease that she had been successfully ignoring returned as she let her thoughts wander back to her conversation with Gran. She was terrified by the idea of losing autonomy to spirits. She felt like she wasn’t in control of her own body on the solstice. Gran claimed that the intentions of her ancestors were good, driven by the divine even.
That didn’t make it any less scary to know that they’d hijacked her brain to guide her into her rites. Being mind-controlled by ghost witches wasn’t exactly a pleasant concept. At least her mother was one of them. The woman was a mystery to Mari—Dad refused to even speak her name—and any connection to her was better than none.
“I’m going to tell you something about your mother I swore to your father I would never divulge.” Gran said, coffee eyes brimming with old grief.
“Please, tell me.”
“Do you know what kind of magic your father possesses?” She asked.
Mari chewed her lip and considered. “I’ve always thought he was a psychic. He caught me every time I did something wrong. But that’s not witchcraft.” She shrugged. “I almost don’t believe he has any power.”
“The Sowka name is very old and the Sowka blood is very strong. Your father doesn’t actively use his power so he is unpracticed but you are not wrong about him. He is a psychic, of a kind. Most of his visions come in the form of mantic dreams. You have inherited those dreams. In truth, I don’t know how his magic works. Even before your mother passed, he rarely practiced.
“It was because of Jane’s death that he stopped altogether. Under the circumstances, I would too. You see, Alan knew your mother was going to die.” Tears shimmered in Gran’s eyes.
“But if he knew, couldn’t they have done something to save her?” Mari swallowed a lump in her throat.
“After Samuel was born, Jane was told she could never have another child without risking herself. Your father and I tried to talk to her about options but she refused all of them. The spell that she worked over the nine months that she carried you required a natural birth.”
“What spell? Didn’t Dad get a say in it?” She hadn’t realized she was crying until Jasper licked a tear from her cheek.
“Jane was as stubborn as they come. You remind me so much of her.” Gran smiled briefly. “The night your mother became pregnant with you—under a full moon during the summer solstice—your father foresaw two events: Your mother dying with an infant in her arms and that infant growing into a fierce young witch with blood on her hands and beasts at her back. She glowed with the essence of the divine, carrying not only her own magic but also her mother’s magic inside of her.
“No one believed in your father’s sight more than Jane. You were a gift from the goddesses in her eyes. Your mother weaved a complicated spell—one very few succeed in casting—that gave you every drop of power in her blood upon your birth.”
“Why? Didn’t she know that I was more likely to grow up to be a good person if I had a mom to raise me?” Mari wouldn’t have wanted her mother to do anything for
her if it meant dying. “And if Dad thought I was going to be an evil and terrible witch, shouldn’t he have told me? Wouldn’t it negate that future if I knew and could behave differently?”
“Your mother knew that the woman you would become needed her sacrifice. As for your father…” The old woman bowed her head. “He was afraid. We all were. I didn’t agree with his decision to keep you from practicing altogether but I did agree that it was best if you were kept separate from coven and kin.”
Mari ground her teeth, feeling the heat of magic tingling in her fingers as the resentment bubbled inside of her. “Then why did you tell me that I could join your coven? Why lead me on? You lied to me. Both of you lied!”
“My coven is dead, amour. Three witches do not make a sisterhood. There seemed to be no harm in letting you learn our history and basic control of your power before we were gone. That is all we old witches can offer.” Gran’s dark gaze found hers, an indecipherable emotion in their depths. “Then I felt the power burgeoning within you when you returned from school and I doubted my wisdom. I love my sisters, I will die for them, but I do not trust them. They have grown tired of the old ways and I feared their hunger for a new order would be sated by corrupting you.”
“You had no faith in my ability to choose the right path? How can you be so sure that I’m at the mercy of fate?”
“We are all at the mercy of fate, Mariella.” The old witch pressed her palms together as if in prayer. “It has already begun. Look at the ally by your side. Your path is chosen and it is not for us to judge the morality of it. We mortals can’t possibly understand the machinations of goddesses.” Mari started to argue but Gran cut her off. “Do you mean to tell me that you won’t seek out the others? That you aren’t going to walk into the wolf’s den?”
