Shadow Witch Rising (Copper Falls Book 1)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “It's bad. Bryce said he went to check on Calder during the full moon a few months ago. He said it was terrifying. And he's going to be going nuts, because he wants you.” She waved off the protest Sophie had been about to make. “Don't deny it. That look at Bryce's place the other day. That night at Jack's. And I don't even know what happens when the two of you aren't out in public. He wants you. I'm telling you, as a totally sane shifter, that that's a hard thing to go through, to want someone, to crave them, to be able to smell them and not have them. And he's not in the right mental state.” She shook her head. “I'm scared for you, sweetie. Okay?”

  “Have a little faith,” Sophie said with a smile, taking her friend's hand.

  “That's your department. You really believe your Light magic is going to keep you safe from this?”

  Sophie gave Layla's hand a squeeze. “I have good wards. I'm on protective land. I have guns,” she said, which made Layla laugh a little, which had been her intention. “I'll be fine.”

  Layla sighed. “I know you, Soph. You're going to hear him, you're going to see him, and you're going to want to try to help. You can't help him. If you try… I mean, he pretty much said it would be bad, right?”

  Sophie nodded. “I'm staying in my house, behind all of my wards. I'll add wards. It'll be fine. Believe me, running is tempting. It is. But I feel like, my ancestor did this. I need to at least see what it does. I owe him that much,” she finished more quietly.

  “I can come stay with you,” Layla said.

  Sophie shook her head.

  “You want to be alone.”

  “I love you, but yeah. Whatever happens tonight, I'd rather go through it on my own. It's what I'm used to.”

  “I wish you'd get over that. You're not alone anymore. Learn to lean on others, at least sometimes.”

  Sophie squeezed Layla'a hand again, then released it. She didn't voice the main thing that kept her so separate. Those she depended on almost always ended up hurting. She wouldn't let it happen to Layla.

  They sat for a while, talking about nothing, and Sophie filled her in on what Thea had told her about Migisi. Once they neared the end of Sophie's shift, Layla gave her a hug and got up to leave.

  “Be careful, all right?” she said in Sophie's ear. Sophie hugged her harder.

  “I'll be fine.”

  Sophie kept one eye on the western horizon as she fed and milked the goats, not even bothering to change out of her work clothes first. Once finished, she locked them securely in their small barn, carried the pail of milk into the house, then headed back out and secured the chicken coop door. She quickly picked some salad greens, then headed into the house, bolting the back door behind her.

  She washed the greens, turned on the kitchen radio, then turned it back off. She didn't want to be distracted. She forced the salad down her throat without really tasting it, then went into the living room, lit a fire in the wood stove, then went to the large gun cabinet in the corner of the room. It had been Ava's, though Sophie had stocked it with a newer shotgun. She loaded it, locked the cabinet. That done, she glanced out the window again.

  The sun was just setting.

  Sophie lit a couple of her white candles, for protection. Added a couple of stones to the floor in front of both doors, ran her hands over the locks, the doors themselves, as she chanted her favorite protective spell. She was relieved to feel her magic twining with the wards that already existed. In her current nervousness, it would have been all too easy to lose focus.

  “My bear is interested in you.” Calder's words echoed, his warning from the other day.

  Once the wards were as strong as she could make them, she sat on the floor in front of the heavy oak door, leaning her back against it, her shotgun across her lap.

  Now all that was left to do was wait. And hope for Calder that maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe his curse wouldn't be too bad. Maybe he had more time than he thought.

  That hope was immediately dashed the moment her living room was mostly blanketed in darkness, the flickering of candles, the flames in the stove the only light, augmented by the shining moonlight coming in the windows. A pained roar echoed through the woods, sending chills up her spine.

  “Please hold, please hold, please hold,” she begged her wards, then began chanting her protective spells.

  The next time she heard the roar, the agonized, rage-filled, confused sound filling her ears, it was closer.

  And then he roared again. She knew it was no normal black bear. Not sounding like that, so full of anguish, as if he was in actual pain. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  He roared again.

  Again.

  The walls of her tiny cottage seemed to tremble with it. Her ears ached. Her chest hurt, and she whimpered, resting her face against her knees as she kept up the chant. She could feel her wards being tested.

  He was close, but not too close. Apparently, her wards had deemed him too unsafe to let him on the property. She sent a silent thank you to her ancestors, hoping with all her heart that they heard it, that they felt her gratitude.

  Another anguished roar, full of frustration. Another.

  She chanced a peek out the side window, toward the woods in the direction of his house. What she saw nearly took her breath away.

  He was enormous. Much larger than any bear she'd ever seen. Midnight black fur against the bright moonlight. And he stood at the boundary of her property, roaring in rage and agony, his muzzle raised to the sky, powerful haunches struggling, trying with all his might to crash his way through the invisible barrier keeping him away from her.

  “Oh, Calder,” she whispered. He was terrifying. She could see his huge teeth the next time he opened his mouth to roar, foam dripping from the corners of his mouth. He grunted and growled and pushed like a mindless monster against the wards.

  She couldn't look anymore.

  Sophie sat back down, back against the door. She considered turning the stereo on as loud as she could, but it seemed unfair. Her ancestor had caused this. If he had to go through this agony, this madness, the least she could do (aside from breaking his curse) was listen to it.

  He sounded like he was in pain.

  She closed her eyes and held her shotgun on her lap, and chanted and listened, bearing witness to his agony.

  It went on all night.

  His growls, his angry howls never ceased, only growing more enraged, more agonizing as the night went on. Sophie sat, motionless, and listened to his anguish, his desperation. Once she realized that her wards would hold, fear was replaced by pity, but, more, by anger. How could Migisi do this? What could possibly drive anyone to curse anyone in this way? The longer she sat, the more she hated Migisi and her vile curse. Her eyes kept darting to the journal, the one with Migisi's name in it. She'd find the spell to break it. It had to be in there somewhere. If not, she'd find it some other way. She'd track down information about Migisi. If there was an answer to be found, she would find it.

  And she'd work on herself, too. See if she could get back some of the magic she'd lost. There had to be a way to make herself stronger. Better.

  She couldn't let him go on like this. And his father had been going through it for years, from what Calder had said.

  He roared again.

  “I'll fix it, Calder,” Sophie whispered. “I promise.”

  It went on until the sky started to lighten in the east, turning the living room a dusky pink tone.

  The roaring ceased, and Sophie looked out the front window again, wincing at the way her hips had stiffened from sitting so long in one position. The bear was lumbering across the road, toward Calder's.

  As he got near the porch, she watched as everything shifted, bear turning into bulky, muscled human flesh, and then Calder, in his human form, stumbled into his house.

  She didn't think. She didn't give herself a chance to second-guess what she was doing.

  She set the gun down, stepped into her sneakers, and jogged across the road.

  His f
ront door hung open, and she crept in quietly, thinking that she was an absolute idiot. She had to know if he was okay.

  She walked quietly through the house, hoping, praying his bear wouldn't make a reappearance just now. She took the stairs to the second floor, noting that Calder's house was clean, sparse. At the top of the stairs, she headed toward an open door at the end of the hallway.

  Sophie peered in and found Calder, nude, sprawled across a twin-size bed on his stomach. Sweat gleamed over his back and shoulders, and he was breathing raggedly between snores.

  Sophie bit her lip, glanced down the hallway. She could leave without him knowing.

  She wanted him to know. She wanted him to know she wasn't turning her back on him, not now. Not after hearing what he'd been through the night before. She walked into his room.

  It smelled like him. Clean, woodsy. Wild. Comforting, when it definitely shouldn't have made her feel that way. Especially not after seeing what he was.

  And it struck her, the irony that she'd spent years running and hiding from one monster, only to walk into this particular monster's bedroom willingly.

  She crept over to his bed, intending to pull the blankets up over him. He trembled, groaned a little, and she guessed it was the after-effects of the night before. She tried not to stare at him, but she couldn't resist letting her eyes travel the sculpted muscles of his shoulders and back.

  She rested the sheet over him, and froze when he opened his eyes.

  They were too bright. They looked the way someone's eyes looked when they were very sick, feverish. And when he reached out and snagged her wrist with his hand, she could feel how warm he was, as if he was running a high-grade fever.

  “Sophie,” he said hoarsely, looking at her, but still looking unfocused. “Stay.”

  “I shouldn't,” she whispered, fighting tears back.

  “Please, stay,” he said again, the anguish in his voice undoing her. She let herself, against every sane thought screeching in her mind, be pulled into bed beside him, lay there as he wrapped her in his arms and buried his face against her neck, breathing her in, a deep rumble that felt almost like a purr vibrating his body. After some hesitation, she put her arm lightly around his waist, and he held her closer.

  “Stay,” he rumbled.

  “Okay,” she whispered. Scared to death, cursing herself for her stupidity. What kind of moron gets into bed with a monster who spent the last twelve hours raging that he couldn't get to her?

  And, idiot that she was, her heart broke for him. His breathing eased, the tremors stopped, and his arm soon became heavy on her waist. Light snores filled the room, and, against her better judgment, she closed her eyes. If he was going to kill her, there wasn't a whole lot she could do just then.

  For some reason, she didn't believe he would. She felt stupidly safe. She just hoped she'd live to regret getting into bed with him.

  She couldn't have said how long she slept. She slept the sleep of the dead, more soundly than she'd slept in years.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Her eyes shot open to see Calder looming over her, still lying with her in his bed. His icy blue eyes were narrowed in irritation or confusion, she couldn't tell which.

  She couldn't answer. Too aware of his naked, muscled body beside her, above her. His warmth.

  “Sophie,” he demanded.

  “I came to check on you,” she finally said. “Once I saw you turn back.”

  He shook his head, got out of bed, and she forced her gaze away from him. He pulled on a discarded pair of jeans near the bed.

  “I'm surprised you didn't put a bullet in my head while I was sleeping,” he said.

  “Well, I forgot my gun,” she said, sitting up, chancing another look at him now that he was at least partially clothed.

  His jaw was clenched, eyes blazing. “And how did you know I wouldn't hurt you?”

  “I didn't,” she said.

  He let out a frustrated breath, seemed at a loss for words. Sophie climbed out of bed, stepped back into her sneakers, which she'd kicked off right before falling asleep.

  “You were in so much pain last night,” she said softly. “I could hear it.”

  “So, what? You feel sorry for me?” he asked, jaw still clenched, not looking at her.

  “Do you want me to?” she asked.

  He looked at her then, giving her a glare. “No. I would have preferred you not see me like that at all. Or see me afterward,” he said, looking away again.

  “My wards held,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “They didn't let you near the house. I had wondered, since they ordinarily let you through.”

  He didn't answer, seemed to be refusing to look at her.

  “Why are you pissed at me?” she finally asked, irritated.

  He looked at her then, his pointed stare sharp, angry. “Why? Because you had no idea what I was going to be like. You came over here, and you locked yourself in my house, and I could have still been in that fucked-up state of mind. I could have hurt you. I could have torn you apart. I could have destroyed you, Sophie,” he said, raising his voice.

  “But you didn't,” she said.

  He let out an angry growl, looked for the nearest thing to hit, ended up punching the wall next to his bedroom door. Chunks of plaster flew out into the room, and he punched again, giving the wall matching holes. She flinched back.

  “Don't you get it?” he asked, turning to look at her again. “I don't even know how in control I'm going to be. And then you just wander in here What the hell ever possessed you to do that?”

  “You were in pain. And it was my ancestor's fault. I had to make sure you were okay. I don't even know what I planned to do if you weren't,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “I don't know. All I know is it hurt to see you that way, to listen to how much it hurt you. You were suffering, and there wasn't a thing I could do and that goes against everything I am, Calder. Okay?”

  He was watching her. He took a deep breath, seeming to try to get his temper under control. This, too, was the curse. The Calder she'd known had always been even-tempered, almost laid back. The only times she'd ever seen him angry were when some of the dumber boys had said things to her, growing up. She was seeing, in bits and pieces, what it was doing to him, and she was even more determined to figure out a way to fix it.

  “And you didn't hurt me,” she added. “All you did was beg me to stay. And then you held me and we fell asleep. You didn't even come close to hurting me.”

  “But I could have,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest and looking up at the ceiling, as if wishing for an answer to appear. Or his patience. One or the other. “You heard how crazed I was.” He shook his head. “I should move.”

  “Don't be an idiot,” she said before she could even think of what she was saying. His gaze swung to her, and she refused to look away.

  “I'm not the one crawling into bed with men I barely know,” he said.

  “Fine. Screw yourself, Calder,” she said, walking past him out of the room. He didn't answer, and he didn't try to stop her. She blinked back tears again, walked quickly out of the house and across the road.

  When she got close to her house, the first thing she noticed was the yellow rose at the end of her driveway.

  She picked it up, let out a frustrated, rage-filled scream, unlike any sound she'd ever made in her life. “And you, you sick bastard. Give me one reason, give me a chance, and I will gut you. You're not doing this to me again, Marshall!” she roared, her voice echoing in the cold morning, her breath steaming in front of her face. She tore the bloom off of the rose, threw it into the highway. As she did, she saw Calder standing on the shoulder of the road. She snarled at him, stalked to her house.

  She was at her porch when she heard fast footsteps behind her. She spun, and Calder was there.

  She didn't even think. She was full of hurt and anger, and she was exhausted emotionally and physically.

 
She held her hands up, and, coming almost unbidden, a weak but focused surge of power flew toward Calder, knocking him on his ass on her front walk. He stared at her in shock.

  “Just stay away,” she said, trying to disguise the hurt in her voice, the fear she was feeling, immediately, over what she'd just done. All she wanted was her home, safety. Quiet. And she felt weird. Twisted and messed up inside. Wrong. She looked out the peephole, watched as Calder picked himself up and stood, looking at her house for several long moments. And, just as she knew he would, he eventually turned and walked away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  What the ever-loving fuck had she been thinking? Calder fumed as he stormed back across the road. Following him, being anywhere near him when she'd just seen, all night long, what a walking disaster he was. He went around his house, grabbed the ax he'd swung into a log a few days ago. There was a pile of unsplit logs Jon had brought him the other day. He grabbed one with an irritated snarl, set it onto the tree stump, swung the ax, splitting the log in half in one blow.

  He kept at it, methodically, mechanically, letting his body get exhausted, letting his arms, shoulders, and chest start burning with the ceaseless motion. He kept going.

  The pile of split logs near the house grew. Jon would come and pick them up to warm the cabin he lived in. They'd learned the hard way not to bother giving their father a fire.

  He kept chopping, her scent all over him, making him even crazier. He was raw, one giant angry nerve, hungry and tired and unable to rest, hating himself and everything he was, his heart pounding with fear every time he let himself remember that instant, that moment he'd woken up to find her there.

  “Fuck,” he roared, throwing the ax, where it stuck deep into the side of the garage. He could have killed her. He could have hurt her in ways she'd never recover from.

  “Settle down, teddy bear,” a smooth voice said behind him, and he swung, the scent of sulfur and smoke registering at the same moment he saw the asshole standing there in his dark suit, arms crossed, looking pleased with himself. “Does she know? Maybe she wouldn't have climbed into bed with you if she'd known.”