The Mating Game: Werewolves of Montana Book 8

by Bonnie Vanak

  Good, strong, pure magick, racing through her body. White light streaking along her veins, humming with power.

  He hadn’t used a condom, she realized with both horror and awe. The wizard’s seed, filled with his magick, flooded her womb.

  Quivering, she forced herself to lie still, feeling the tinge of power filling her body. Xavier stroked her hair, murmuring reassurances. She nuzzled her cheek against his sweat-slicked shoulder. His hand stroked her hair in a tender caress. “Promise you will remain here, at my side. I don’t know why you are in my life, but I know you are meant to stay with me.”

  Ciara listened to his heart thud as she rested her cheek on his muscular chest. Even if she did not need his lock of hair to free her mother, she could not make such a pledge. It meant tying herself to him, strengthening the bond already forged in the flesh and…

  Her heart. A heart Xavier would break yet again when he finally recovered his memory and returned to his duties as the Crystal Wizard.

  He would leave her again. Back in Florida, he warned that this could not last.

  She buried her face in his shoulder. “I can’t promise that.”

  Silence dripped between them a minute. Then he raised himself on an elbow, his fingers brushing against her cheek.

  “Try to,” he said softly. “And I promise if you do run from me, I will catch you.”

  His eyes gleamed with that wild, frightening look, the surge of his powers.

  “Because I won’t let you go. I don’t know how or why we were lovers, but I know this. I can hunt you down and make you mine, keep you at my side. Forever.”

  20

  Xavier was missing one lock of his hair. It curled inside her little, blue velvet pouch, and she could feel the crystal pulse with power.

  Filled with guilt over what she’d done, Ciara drove to the witch Viola’s house. She had left him sleeping peacefully on the bed.

  Did clipping his hair mean she’d drained his power? Ciara didn’t know, but the thought of leaving him alone in the townhouse, helpless to the increasing evil in the region, tore her apart.

  More so than the ominous words he’d spoken, threatening to hunt her down and make her his forever.

  After he’d said those words, Xavier had rubbed at his temples, as if suffering another headache. She suggested they lie down together and sleep. He had fallen into a deep slumber.

  She pulled off the side of the road, ready to turn back. Xavier surely could save her mother with his powers.

  And then she remembered what he’d told her back at the flea market. I am forbidden from interfering. There is another whose duty it is to free your mother.

  He would not remember those words, but even now, she sensed he wouldn’t heed her pleas to free Carlina. He had said as much back in the flea market, claiming that it was not his destiny.

  Ciara drove up to the witch’s house. Even as she walked up the steps to knock on the door, it swung open. Gathering her courage, she entered the house.

  Viola sat in the living room, tapping a long nail against the arm of an antique settee. Everything in the living room was antique and smelled musty and slightly unpleasant.

  “Do you have it?” Viola asked.

  Ciara withdrew the lock of hair and held it out in her palm.

  Viola stared at the prize with greed in her eyes. “Xavier’s power. His crystals. He never would part with one ounce of his power. Give it to me.”

  “Not until you return my mother,” Ciara demanded.

  “Your mother.” Viola laughed, the sound grating on Ciara’s raw nerves. “Your mother! Go look in the basement.”

  Still clutching the lock, Ciara tore out of the living room and toward the door leading to the dark, dank basement. A dim light flickered there.

  A horrid stench, like sewer water, wafted up from the basement, but she paid it no mind. Trying to prevent herself from gagging, she raced down the stairs, searching around for her mother, expecting her caged or tied up.

  The basement was empty, except for something in the corner, hidden in the shadows.

  Ciara waved a hand, using her inner light to make her hand glow like a flashlight.

  A rotting corpse sat in the chair. Echoes of her mother’s screams bounded off the cold, concrete walls.

  Staring in horror, she trembled. Finally she whipped her gaze around and went to a shelf, where a small digital recorder played her mother’s voice, her mother’s screams.

  Ciara looked at the corpse again. Too short to be the tall, slender Carlina…

  Quickly she searched the basement, scenting the taint of evil. On a metal shelf were several vials. Ciara picked one up and sniffed. Her nose wrinkled as she recognized dark magick.

  Beside the vials was a small, wood box. She opened it. A gemstone glowed blue inside. Her heart raced as she picked it up.

  Draconite, a gemstone taken from the skull of a dead dragon of great power. It had protective powers and countered dark magick. Viola must have stolen this from one of her victims.

  Alone, it was a simple talisman that could not render aid against neocromancing, the most powerful dark magick.

  A gentle, female voice spoke into her mind. Use the crystal from Xavier to infuse it.

  Frowning, she glanced around. Was that her mother’s voice, advising her?

  She took the crystal from his lock of hair and touched it to the draconite. The gemstone glowed bright green then white.

  Ciara tucked both back inside her pocket and shut the lid to the wood box.

  Footsteps sounded on the basement steps.

  “What did you do to her?” Ciara cried out. “Where is my mother?”

  Viola entered the basement, the hem of her green skirt swirling around her bare feet. “I see you’ve met my latest prize. Such a sweet Troll. Almost a shame to kill him. He watched his mate die first. I needed her head for my potion. Him, I didn’t need, but I required her terror and his anguish. Anguish makes the potion much more powerful.”

  The Trolls, parents to the girls she and Xavier had found. Panic clogged her veins. “Where is my mother? You promised to free her, not kill her!”

  The witch smiled. “Find her, if you wish.”

  Ciara rushed past her, racing up the steps, running through the kitchen and finally realizing the foul smells she’d detected were not the witch’s cooking but something far more sinister.

  The garden, the herb garden… She tore through the yard and did not stop until reaching the square plot of land containing the witch’s herbs.

  The scarecrow in the midst of the garden wasn’t a scarecrow after all. Ciara peered closer and then focused, using her own magick. She chanted a spell, and the mask over the scarecrow faded.

  Replaced with the frozen scream of her mother, Carlina.

  “Mother!” she cried out.

  Her mother did not move.

  A shudder raced through her as she felt the air change, and Viola stood beside her. “Your mother is such a brave soul. She came here to plead with me to leave you alone.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  Viola sneered. “Carlina is a Nymph but has witch’s blood as well. She looked into her reflecting pool, saw you with Xavier, and knew what he meant to me. She saw your future and begged me to leave you alone. She would do anything, she promised. So I turned her into a decoration for my garden. So scary, don’t you think? She’s alive but trapped in a stasis spell.”

  Dozens of thoughts whirled through her mind. Her mother was still alive.

  She could yet be saved.

  If she indulged Viola’s ego and gleaned more information, she could stall for time until figuring out a way to restore Carlina.

  “I don’t understand.” Ciara assumed an expression of slack-jawed stupidity. “What do you mean? How can a witch trap another witch?”

  Viola made an impatient sound. “Your mother’s powers are nothing compared to mine. All I needed was a simple paralyzing potion to cast the wretched woman into a trance. I have much,
much more magick. And with Xavier’s crystal, my powers will increase. Now, give the crystal to me.”

  Ciara blinked, and Viola’s face suddenly seemed to manifest lines and deep wrinkles, as if her beauty were mere illusion. She blinked again, and the image faded. But she wondered if the illusion was the real thing. The witch had to be hundreds of years old.

  Her hand curled around the crystal. Tapping into its powers, she allowed her spirit to touch Viola’s mind. Sensation burned, as if sticking her fingers over a roaring fire, but she forced herself to remain to flip through Viola’s thoughts. Then she wove them together like stringing cards on a single thread.

  Carlina…I can’t release her, must have the crystal. Xavier will pay for what he did. Bastard wizard can’t best me. I’ll destroy him and watch…

  The witch wasn’t a mere spell caster, like Ciara. She was ancient, hundreds of years old, and her hatred of Xavier overcame all else.

  Gasping, she withdrew from the blackness inside Viola’s mind. The witch was hiding her true identity, but Ciara knew she had met her before, for her spirit cried out at the hatred inside Viola.

  In another time and another place…

  Ciara unfurled her palm, showing the glowing crystal and the black lock of Xavier’s hair. “I have what you seek.”

  Viola reached for it. Greed shone in her eyes. “Give it to me, and I will free your mother.”

  Having seen a glimpse inside her mind, Ciara understood Viola was far too destructive and power hungry to release Carlina. Viola wished to hurt Ciara, and although she didn’t understand why, she sensed it had to do with Xavier.

  Ciara whistled loudly, and a raven swooped down.

  Viola snarled and started for her, but as quickly, Ciara flung the lock of hair with the crystal into the air, bidding the raven to take it back to Xavier.

  “Black bird, take flight. With the speed of light, take the crystal back to Xavier and wrong this right!” she sang out.

  With the lock of Xavier’s hair in its mouth, the raven flew off.

  Cheated of the wizard’s plethora of magick, Viola tore at her hair. “It’s gone! Gone! All these centuries I have waited… You little bitch! You will pay for making my prize vanish!”

  “You never were going to restore my mother. You relish your power more than all else.”

  The witch laughed. “So clever. You always were such a bold soul for such an ugly creature.”

  Her jaw dropped as she stared at Viola. Where had she heard those words before? They echoed from another time and place.

  The witch waved a hand at Ciara’s immobilized, screaming mother. “Your mother refused to join me, to form a coven. We could have combined our powers. Now it’s time to make you pay.”

  Ciara flung out her hands, chanting the spell she’d memorized in Xavier’s book. For a moment, Viola’s face scrunched up, and her skin began to flake. The witch screamed, and then her face repaired itself.

  Shaken, Ciara drew in a deep breath. Using the power had weakened her. “Only showing the world how ugly you truly are inside, Viola.”

  The witch smiled. “My true name is Andromeda. I have lived many, many centuries waiting for you—that stupid, ugly girl Xavier always loved—to return to this plane of existence. Only you had the ability to make him fall beneath your spell so I could seize his power. You failed me. I’m not going to kill you. That would be too easy. I’m going to let you live and let Xavier see exactly how ugly you are. I do need another statue for my herb garden.”

  Andromeda flung out her hands, and currents of red and black energy burst from her fingers.

  “Like this!” Andromeda cackled.

  A terrible agony seized her insides. Burning up, the pain as if her entire body were immersed in flames. Ciara gasped, holding out her hands, trying to combat the witch’s power, but her own magick was too feeble.

  She removed the draconite stone from her pocket to counter the spell, but it fell, tumbling into the garden. No! Ciara frantically reached for it, but to her horror, she felt her body change, her bones shrink, her skin stretch, and her muscles pound. Ciara looked at her trembling hands.

  They were green and dotted with purple warts. Andromeda had turned her into an Ogre.

  “Darkness, use your power and endeavor, make Ciara an Ogre inside forever,” Andromeda chanted.

  “Xavier,” she cried out.

  Andromeda laughed. “Your precious Xavier will never find you. My magick shields us. Not even the great Crystal Wizard can uncast the spell. Nor can he save you.” The witch rubbed her hands together. “If he comes here, he will burn the minute he touches this ground.”

  Andromeda stretched out her hands, and Ciara floated through the air, the back of her dress hooking onto a wooden pole in the garden. Black flames shimmered on the ground, so warm they heated the soles of her feet.

  Neocromancing. The bones of the dead used to create black magick.

  And then Ciara’s screams began to fade as her mouth closed, and she felt her body turn to green stone. She watched Andromeda shapeshift into a raven and take flight, probably chasing after Xavier’s crystal.

  Ciara cried, her tears turning to stone. She was doomed to forever live silently screaming, cast in the witch’s evil power, and Xavier would never know how much she loved him.

  And once he returned here, he was doomed to come under the spell of Andromeda’s beauty once more.

  With the last ounce of her power, she gasped and used a spell to shimmer in the air to protect the wizard with the draconite stone’s magick.

  And then her eyes closed, her lips turned to stone, and she gasped no more.

  21

  Ciara had stolen from him.

  Infuriated, Xavier paced the living room, his thoughts in a maelstrom. The theft was a grave offense and deep inside, he knew he must punish her. But he did not know why.

  Little pinpricks of memory kept teasing him, blinking like fireflies. As he examined each one, they faded.

  So damn frustrating.

  His fingers went to the lock of hair she’d snipped as he rested. He had grown more and more tired lately, and he did not know why. He’d fallen asleep with Ciara in his arms, and when he awoke, she had been gone.

  Why had she stolen a lock of his hair? Surely not for her scrapbook. And why did he know with every fiber of his being that she had stolen something else previously?

  Maybe she stole my virginity, he thought humorlessly.

  He whirled and headed into the kitchen. He was so damn exhausted all he wanted to do was sleep. Yet deep inside, instinct warned him to resist sleep.

  He might never wake up. Xavier trusted his instincts.

  On the kitchen next to a silver goblet he did not recognize was a note in small, neat cursive. “I’m sorry, Xavier. It was for a very good reason. I love you. Ciara.”

  Another note was next to it in bold, masculine handwriting. “Drink this soon as you awaken, or you will fade away and be lost to shadow.”

  What the…

  He sniffed the amber liquid. It glowed and sparkled, as if lit from within. It smelled like his favorite snack of chocolate-covered strawberries, but his suspicions rose. Who had left this and why?

  Maybe it was a sleeping potion Ciara had left so she could return and cut off more of his hair.

  Perhaps she likes me best with my hair short, as it was when we used to meet at the soda shop.

  Xavier staggered backward, stricken at the sudden flicker of memory.

  It faded like the others. But deep down, he knew it was real and not imaginary. He had known Ciara in another life—or at least another lifetime for her, perhaps not for him.

  He sniffed the potion again, wary of drinking it. Yet he sensed it would ease his weariness and aid him. It smelled and looked familiar.

  “Bottoms up,” he muttered and took a single sip.

  Xavier felt a tingling rush down his spine. He set down the goblet and doubled over, gasping for breath. One sip and he felt as if someone had pushe
d him in front of a freight train.

  “About time you woke up, lazybones. I’ve been waiting for an hour for you to stop snoozing,” an amused male voice said. “Finish it.”

  Bracing his hands on the counter, he turned his head to see a dark-haired, bearded man with piercing blue eyes sitting on his refrigerator. Clad in cobalt blue, the man had a glowing aura that made Xavier squint.

  Feeling he knew this man, he struggled to regain his lost composure. “Who the hell are you?”

  The man leapt down, landing catlike on his feet. Soft, blue doeskin boots covered his feet. “You still don’t have your memory. Terrific. I’d bang your head against the counter if it helped.”

  Xavier narrowed his gaze, desperate to hide the fierce ache in his temples. “Pounding your head against the counter might help.”

  The man considered. “Perhaps. But dragons have hard heads.”

  Suddenly the newcomer shifted into a cobalt-and-silver dragon the size of a German Shepherd. The dragon grinned, showing rows of sharp, jagged teeth.

  Xavier went to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. Felt good, though the dragon was still there.

  “Who are you?” he repeated. “And how the hell did you get here?”

  The dragon shifted back into the man. “Damn. I thought seeing me as dragon would trigger something.” The man rubbed his beard. “I am forbidden from telling you my identity, but know this, Xavier—I am not your enemy.”

  “That’s not reassuring. Are you a friend?”

  “I don’t know you well enough to be your friend.”

  “Then who are you?” As he shouted the words, a wave of fresh pounding filled his head. Xavier massaged his temples.

  “I can say no more,” Dragon Man stated.

  “You sound like a bad fortune cookie.”

  “Tristan has been accused of that but never me.” The man looked pleased.

  Tristan? That name sounded terribly familiar. Feeling his strength begin to return, Xavier decided to test this dragon. He centered himself, ignored the throbbing agony in his head, and gathered his magick.

  Not even blinking, he flicked his wrist, tossing a bolt of pure energy, which turned into a blade of pure crystal, sharp enough to slice steel. The move exhausted him even more.