Shadow Sworn (Copper Falls Book 2)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  He’d never loved anyone as much as he loved her.

  “I’m fine. We should get you inside though,” he told her.

  She held her hand out, beckoning him, and he went. He’d expected her to lead him back upstairs, but instead she gently pulled him into the living room, toward the recliner where he usually sat when he was watching TV. She gently shoved him, urging him to sit down, and as soon as he did, she settled herself onto his lap. He folded her into his arms, the motion coming as naturally to him as breathing. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he could smell the herbal shampoo she used.

  They sat in silence for a while. The only light came from the weak under-cabinet fluorescent light in the kitchen, bathing the opposite side of the room in a bluish glow.

  “Are you feeling better?” Sophie finally asked him.

  “I am. Thank you for everything. I’m sorry I put you though that.”

  She took a breath, and then sat up so she could look at his face. “You didn’t ‘put me through’ anything, Calder. I came to look for you, and I took care of you, because I love you.”

  “You love me. But you took care of me because it’s what you do,” he said, rubbing his hand over her hip.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

  He looked away, and she gently placed a hand on his face and turned him to look at her again. “Calder.”

  “I ran across a bear getting ready for winter. I think I must have been too close to its den. Anyway, it went after me, and I had to fight it off. I was afraid it would be a fight to the death for a while there, but he eventually turned tail and ran into one of those little caves not too far from the falls.”

  Sophie was watching him, skepticism plain on her face. “I heard you roaring,” she said. “It’s been a while since I heard you sounding like that.”

  She shifted a little, and he groaned when she brushed against him. He was already having a hard time focusing with her on his lap, nothing between him and her lush curves but the sweatshirt.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, looking into his eyes. He felt, more than saw, the way her body flushed. “Stop looking at me like that when I’m trying to talk to you,” she said, and the touch of breathlessness in her voice was enough to nearly drive him insane.

  “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m fine, thanks to you. And I’ll avoid any bear dens in the future. I should have been paying attention.” He ran his hand over her hip, then lower, down her silky, shapely thigh. She trembled a bit against him. “I think we should go back upstairs so I can thank you properly,” he said. He leaned down and kissed her neck, sucking the delicate skin just a little bit, her scent surrounding him. He could feel her heart pounding, the pulse point beneath his lips racing. He reached under the sweatshirt, trailing his fingers up her stomach before cupping one perfect, heavy breast in his hand. She let out a little moan, and he rubbed his thumb over the hard peak of her nipple. The cry of frustrated need she gave had him ready to lay her out on the living room floor and have his way with her right there.

  The last time he’d done that, she’d gotten rug burns on her gorgeous ass. Can’t have that, he reminded himself.

  “Upstairs, before I lose my mind,” he growled.

  “Have I ever told you how much I love the growly voice?” she murmured as she kissed his throat.

  “How about if you show me?”

  She stood up and walked toward the stairs, and the devilish grin she shot him over her shoulder told him he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night. Not that he was complaining.

  He followed her, and as he ran up the stairs behind Sophie, he told himself this was why everything would be okay. Everything else could fall apart, but they kept each other sane.

  It had to be enough.

  Chapter Seventeen

  September 17, 1870

  She was not surprised to see him walking out of the forest. Luc’s appearance, as always, never failed to warm Migisi. His broad, muscled body, those icy blue eyes. Blond beard, his blond curls peeking from beneath the wide-brimmed hat he wore. His jaw was clenched, his movements stiff. As he drew near, she could see a wild look in his eyes.

  A wave of guilt washed over her. He seemed to be nearly in pain.

  “It’s the full moon,” he said in greeting, and Migisi nodded, understanding. She unconsciously put a hand on Claire, who slept, strapped snugly to Migisi’s body. “One day every month, I hate you more than usual, Migisi,” he continued. “And it gets worse, every. damned. month.”

  “I will do what I can to help,” she said, meeting hie eyes. “There is no point in apologizing. I was not sorry when I did it, and apologizing now does not change a thing.”

  “I don’t want or need your apologies,” he said, a snarl in his voice. “Just keep me from hurting anyone. Keep me away from my family, so they don’t have to see me like this anymore. I’ll be well enough by tomorrow night. Until then, you get to witness firsthand what you did to me.”

  Migisi simply watched him. “I will protect them,” she said. “I do not want to hurt you.”

  He gave s short, bitter laugh. “You can’t do any worse than you’ve already done. It’s a little late to worry about that now.” He turned away from her and sat on the low stone wall she’d begun building around the garden. To her shock, the moment Claire had been born, plants had started to grow again. Not as well as they had before, but well enough to ensure that next spring, the squash and beans she planted would actually grow. Another gift from her daughter.

  It was as close as she’d ever get to the Light again. She was grateful for it. Her daughter would not be a powerful witch, not the way she would be had she been born to two Light parents, or even a non-witch and the Light her father had been. But there would be enough to ensure that she would never starve, that she would be able to heal the small things, that the things she did, as long as they were good and Light-worthy, would succeed. It was a gift, and she thanked the Light daily for bestowing it on her daughter, despite the things Migisi had done. Despite what she’d become.

  Migisi sat down on a log nearby. Claire was beginning to fuss, and Migisi opened the front of her dress. That was another fear she’d had, that her body would not be able to sustain her child. Thankfully, so far they had managed well enough.

  She didn’t know what to say to him, doubted that he actually wanted her to say anything. He wasn’t there because he wanted to be, she reminded herself. No matter how much she still loved him, no matter how her heart seemed to swell at the sight of him… she knew they were long past the point where those feelings would ever be returned again. Not the way they once had been. He’d admitted that he still cared. Cared, but didn’t trust. Cared, but would never, ever let himself become caught up with her again.

  And she couldn’t blame him. She knew it must rankle him to have to come to her for help, after she had put him in the situation in the first place.

  “Tell me what I can expect,” she said, her attention mostly focused on her daughter.

  There were a few moments of silence. “Do you even know what you did?” he asked, disbelief in his tone.

  “I was not thinking clearly. All I knew was that I wanted you to hurt as much as I did at that moment.” She paused. “I was already falling into Shadow.”

  “I remember,” he said.

  “Seeing… what I saw that night, I lost all sense. It was as if Shadow flooded into me, all at once, and all I craved was vengeance. All I wanted was to make you hurt. The darkness gathered for months.”

  “That warlock,” Luc said. “I should have killed him as soon as we realized what was going on. You should have told me about him.”

  “He’d already cursed you, to turn me. Curses do not die with those who cast them. Besides, he would have killed you.”

  “It would have been better than this,” he said, and the anger and desperation in his voice was like a stab to the heart.

  It had taken Migisi a while to work it out, as blind in love as sh
e had been with Luc. The more time she’d spent with him, the more she felt herself being drawn into Shadow. And the intensity of her feelings for him just made it all the more powerful. The warlock, Marshall, he was calling himself now, had gloated after it was all said and done, once he’d realized she’d fully succumbed to Shadow. The only way she could have avoided becoming Shadow would have been to avoid Luc. In the end, he’d been cursed twice: once, by Marshall, so that the more time she spent with him, the deeper she was drawn into Shadow, and later, by herself, to punish him for the pain she’d felt. Pain caused by, what she now realized, was a scene set up by Marshall to finally push her over the edge. In all of it, Luc had been an innocent, a tool used by Marshall. And of all of them, he’d suffered the most for it.

  “Tell me about it,” she said, shaking off her anger, her desire to destroy the warlock who had done this to them. One day, she promised herself. “What does it do?”

  She heard Luc take a breath. “I am starving, dying of thirst, unsatisfied every moment of the day. Did you purposely give me a windigoo curse, or was that just luck?”

  “I did not intend that. I felt empty, and I wanted you to feel the same.”

  He snorted. “Well, you succeeded marvelously. You must be so proud.”

  She didn’t answer. He had every right to give her barbs.

  “I spend every day, every moment of my life feeling empty. No amount of food, or drink, or sex, or activity can fill the need or distract me from it. It is like a never ending irritation, like I’m about to crawl out of my skin. I can’t relax. There is no rest. My wife has long tired of trying to sate my needs. My child, our one and only, is our last,” he added.

  Migisi did not feel the slightest sorry about that.

  “So that’s bad enough, and is a decent enough curse if you wanted to punish me. But in your insanity, you forgot the fact that I have another side to my being.”

  “Your bear,” Migisi said softly. She shivered as icy fear slid down her spine.

  “My bear,” he repeated. “When you combine painful, unending hunger with an enormous bear, it does not end well. I try to run far enough away in the days before the full moon that I will be unlikely to bother any villages, far enough away from my family that they don’t have to see what I become. But recently, it is never far enough. Last month, I spent hours roaring outside of my home. My child was terrified. My wife looks at me like the monster I am. She had her cousin come to live with us, because she’s a witch and she hopes that, if it comes to that, her cousin’s magic will protect them.” He paused, the angry, feral look on his face transforming him into something fearsome, something that lacked the care and warmth she knew Luc to have. “So the joke appears to be on me: I have a witch living in my house, protecting my family from the curse a witch put on me,” he finished, and his voice was raised, the final words shouted into the emptiness around them.

  “If she is there, then why come to me?” Migisi asked after a few tense moments of silence.

  “Because I want you to experience firsthand what you did to me. And you’re stronger than she is. But mostly because if anyone deserves sleepless nights over this, it’s you.”

  He stalked away and sat on the ground against a tree at the edge of the forest, away from her. She finished feeding Claire, and held her, gently patting her back until she settled back to sleep. Migisi gently tightened the ends of the fabric that held Claire tied to her body and went inside, coming back out moments later with a blanket. She lit a fire in the small ring of stones behind her house, and kept an eye on Luc as the sun began to set. She transferred Claire from the sling she wore around her body to a cradleboard, which she wore on her back. It would keep Claire safer than having her in front of her, should Luc actually manage to strike her somehow.

  As soon as day bled into night, she heard the first painful growls from the edge of the forest. Luc was already shifting. She watched it happen, man to beast. It was a process she’d always been fascinated by, because she knew that Luc enjoyed it so. This night, there was none of that joy. There was desperation on his face warring with the rage that was his curse. It had once been his joy, and she’d managed to take that from him as well.

  “Don’t let me hurt anyone, Migisi,” he said in a strangled voice just before the shift completed.

  And it began. It began with a roar that sent ice into her veins. It began with Luc, his beast, charging toward her with hatred in its eyes. Before he could reach her, she waved her hand, creating a force that knocked him back a bit and shielded both herself and Claire from his advance. He shook his head, charged again, and met the same invisible wall.

  Again and again, Luc charged toward Migisi, and though she fully expected her shields to hold, she feared for Claire, sobbing quietly on the cradleboard Migisi had hastily strapped to her back. She knew she couldn’t set the baby down and still be able to maintain any focus, worried as she would be that Luc would somehow harm her.

  The rage, the pain, the confusion… every roar, every pained growl was filled with it, and Migisi wept even as she threw up shield after shield, keeping him away from her and her daughter. Tears flowed down Migisi’s face, dripping in frozen rivulets down her neck, and still she forced him back and away from her.

  After what felt like an eternity, Luc turned and charged in the opposite direction. That would take him toward the small village that had grown around the copper mines, Migisi realized. She let out a frustrated cry and formed another invisible wall, this one keeping him from continuing east as he was. He bellowed in rage.

  He was getting smarter, she realized as she formed yet another invisible wall. No longer was he simply bashing the same shield over and over again. Instead, he walked a bit, tested the barrier, then walked some more. The key was staying one step ahead of him, putting up shields before he could charge further away.

  Silently, she crept closer to him so she’d be able to act quickly if he gave any indication of trying to get around the shields. Claire had stopped sobbing, and Migisi hoped that she slept. She could already feel her own exhaustion, the stress of watching Luc deal with what she’d done to him. The guilt was crushing.

  It was nearly impossible to breathe over the way her chest twisted at each pained sound he made. Her magic was still there, ready when she needed it, but she wondered if she would be able to keep this up all night.

  “No time for doubt now,” she whispered to herself, and for Claire’s benefit, knowing that if she was still awake, she would be soothed by her mother’s voice. She formed another shield as Luc charged again, and he hit it, hard, and fell back shaking his enormous, shaggy head.

  His bear. How in the Light had she been foolish enough to do this to him and not take his bear into account? How had she been so blind, so stupid, so evil? And she knew she could easily blame it all on Shadow, that Marshall’s plan to turn her, to force her to be the thing she swore she’d never be was at the root of why she’d done it. But it was a lie. All she’d felt in that moment when she’d seen Luc kissing that woman was rage. Pain. Emptiness, as if her entire world had just been taken from her. She’d wanted to hurt him.

  And she had. And she swore to the Light and the Shadow and anything else that she would do everything she could to make the rest of his life as peaceful as she could. She would find a way to break the curse, she hoped. There had to be a way.

  She swore she could hear something laugh on the cold wind that whipped through the woods near her home. She formed another shield, and Luc gave a desperate roar, turning and charging her again in rage.

  Another shield. Another enraged roar.

  It went on all night, as the full moon rose high into the clear sky, the millions of stars above making her feel insignificant as she warded Luc off over and over again. Her head ached. Her heart ached.

  She began talking to Luc as he raged.

  “Do you remember the day we met?” she murmured. He grunted and tried to ram through the shield she’d created around her and her daughter yet a
gain. “Do you remember how you trailed me? How in that first moment our eyes met, it felt as if the entire world changed?”

  She hated the way her voice shook, but, to her surprise, Luc stopped trying to break through to her. He stood, breathing hard, watching her with those ice blue eyes that she would remember until the day she ceased to draw breath. “Do you remember the first time we kissed? The way we never seemed to stop touching one another?” She stood, watching him. They must make quite a scene, she thought to herself, tiny woman and enormous bear, staring one another down beneath the vast, cold sky. “Light, how I loved you,” she whispered, and he stared. “How I still love you, though I know we are well past the time when that matters.” She kept her eyes on his, knowing that the eye contact, which had so often connected them as lovers and friends, seemed to soothe him even now, even after so much had gone wrong. “You enjoyed it when I sang to you. Remember?”

  And so, she sang. She sang of the wind and the trees and the falls, of death and rebirth, of light and darkness. She sang, and she laced her words with magic, calling Shadow, forcing it to do her bidding, forcing it to do something good and decent, despite itself.

  By the time she’d sung her voice hoarse, Luc had slumped to the ground, still in his bear form, breathing deeply, the occasional rumble issuing from his bulky form. Her child slept soundly on her back. Migisi gently took off the cradleboard, then picked Claire up and held her closely, needing the comfort of her daughter’s sweet scent, her calm, pure sleep. She wrapped herself and Claire up in a large wool blanket, and together, they sat near the dwindling fire as she watched Luc sleep.

  As dawn whispered into the world, she watched Luc’s body reforming itself, shaggy fur disappearing, giving way to muscled flesh. The pain of the shift finally woke him. He stood with a pained expression, and Migisi watched him silently.

  He pulled on the pants and shirt he’d shed the night before, met her eyes for the briefest of moments, and trudged away without a word.