by D. D. Miers
My magic continued to build as it never had before with a man until the glow of my skin shone through my closed eyelids. I opened them and squealed in panic, struggling so hard to get away from him he dropped me. I landed in a crouch and stared at my arms, my skin almost the color of the moon and twice as bright.
“Do you see this?” I panted, holding my hands out to him. I looked up and staggered a couple of steps back. “Holy shit, Grayson, look at you.”
His glow wasn’t like mine. He looked like a light reflected off a black, fathomless lake. But still, he did glow. I could see the jaguar moving just beneath the surface of his glow and in that moment, I knew if I wanted to, I could pull the animal out of him, force him into the change and command the part of him that wasn’t man.
“Well, I’ve never seen this before,” he gasped. “My animal wants you. I think it’s best if you go to your room and lock the door until I feel a little more…me.”
I didn’t argue, because I could feel it too, and if he knew what I could with the power we’d awakened, it could only hurt the trust I’d earned from him. Dinner forgotten, I escaped to my room and took off the dress, changing into the cutoff sweats and Harvard t-shirt.
Pacing the floor didn’t help the stress I was feeling, but it kept me busy as I wondered what my connection to Grayson was. Despite the excitement of the evening, or maybe because of it, the bed seemed to call to me. I laid down between the cool sheets and wondered if Grayson was dwelling on our kiss.
What a kiss it had been too. I’d never wanted anything as much as I wanted our clothes to simply vanish while we were locked together, his hands holding me, kneading my muscles as he ravaged my mouth and neck.
Either I had to get a handle on whatever our magic did when we were together, or I had to stay away from him. The urge to control his beast, to call it forth and command it, had been irresistible. But as much as I wanted to avoid a repeat of those overwhelming sensations, I wanted to experience them again, as soon as possible. I’d never realized it was possible to command so much power. Power I could use to end the threat the witches held over me.
My last thought as sleep dragged me from consciousness, was to wonder if Kiersten, wherever she had escaped to, would give birth to something like me. Perhaps Morgana’s curse was true after all. But if I or another hybrid like me managed to destroy the witches, it was long overdue.
It felt like only minutes had passed when Grayson burst through my door, calling my name as he did. “I’ve got to leave. I need you to do your protective warding of this place while I’m gone. I won’t have you left unprotected.”
I sat up and scrubbed my face with my hands. “Wait, what? You’re what?” I scrambled out of the bed, tangling my legs up and barely saving myself from a faceplant on the floor. “No thank you. I’m going with you.”
“All you have to wear Is your dress, and where I’m going, being sexy wouldn’t be safe.” He waved a hand. “Just take a minute before I go and do your magic,” he left the room just as my brain woke up and I realized he was naked from the waist up, except for a bandage wrapped around his ribs.
When I caught up to him in his bathroom, the bandage was gone, revealing faded bruises across his ribcage. “Hey, I’ll wear this, but I’m going.” I wanted to touch him, run my fingers over his ribs and see if I could take away the pain making him wincing as he rewrapped himself. “How are you still hurting?”
“Because if I’d been human, I would’ve been ground meat.” I took the bandage from him and wrapped it around his ribs pulling it just tight enough to make him suck in a breath. I wrapped him up like I would’ve done to a fighter, grateful Will had taught me more than just how to damage people.
“I can’t stay here alone.” I looked at his reflection in the mirror. “This isn’t my home. You don’t even have houseplants, what kind of magic am I supposed to do without being able to touch nature?”
The guestroom, which had seemed comforting in its sterility because it made it seem like an island, detached from my reality, suddenly looked like a deathtrap if a warlock found me. I tightened the drawstring on the shorts and rolled the waistband until they felt snug and tied the shirt in a knot at the back.
“You’re going to wear your stilettos?”
I stuck out my tongue and started opening the cabinets and drawers looking for an elastic band. “No, I’m going to make myself some shoes when we get outside. I’m a fairy, remember? I think I can manage a simple pair of leaf sandals.”
All the tales humans tell each other came from somewhere, right? So, I’d be a cobbler elf for the night.
“What are you looking for?”
“I wanted to tie my hair back in a ponytail. I’ll just grab something when we get outside.”
“Can you do that?”
“If you had houseplants, I wouldn’t have to wear your old sweats.” I wasn't as confident in my skills as I attempted to sound, but he didn’t need to know.
He shrugged and backed me out into the bedroom, where he’d laid out a silk t-shirt and a pair of slacks. He hissed as he pulled the shirt down over his head, sat on the bed and stared at me. “You looking for a show?”
I gasped and blushed like an idiot. “I stayed in case you gave up being hardheaded and let me help you change, but uh, I’ll give you some privacy. I’ll be outside waiting.”
I was out the door before he could argue and headed down to the street. The stairwell was empty except for a young blond guy who looked at my bare feet and men’s clothes and offered me a high five, which I happily accepted, despite feeling like a fraud.
The Piedmont garden was full of hardy plants and it took only a minute to fashion a pair of woven sandals from the tall ornamental grass, and another to wind a baby morning glory through my hair in a plaited crown. I twisted a stem through the tops of the sandals and coaxed a flower to grow over my toes, and joined an impatient—yet still sexy—Grayson by the car.
“Well holy shit, sorry I doubted you.” I refused to admit they’d turned out better than I had thought they would, so I just curtsied and let him open the door for me. He sped off, but I was getting used to his driving, so the squealing tires and breakneck speed even in the city didn’t have me white knuckling the door handle anymore. We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, out to the Muir Beach area, and parked near the trees.
The wind had kicked up, and in the distance, even in the deep black of night in the forest, I could hear the water breaking on the shore. He took my hand and led me into the trees, walking as fast as I could in broad daylight. I could hear him sniff the air occasionally, and he’d adjust our direction and pick up his pace until he was jogging, and I felt like he was pulling me through the trees like a fallen kite.
I bounced off the tree trunks for a few minutes until pain and impatience reminded me I was supposed to be the queen of the forest. I used my magic to feel my way, "seeing" the life force of the trees instead of trying to avoid them as I came upon them.
Immediately, the whole park was open for me, not just the trees, but every fern, fallen twig, and branch, even the moss growing on the damp, shaded surfaces was visible to me. At the same time, I saw life forces that breathed and bled, not green things, but those made of flesh and bone and fur. The pack was gathered in a clearing ahead of us and to the left. I put on a boost of speed and pulled Grayson with me, for once, guiding him around the foliage until he jerked us to a stop at the edge of the meadow.
Seventeen
“Now. Stay here. They’ve changed, and with no alpha to control their beasts, we’re moments from a bloodbath.” Before I thought to tell him what I’d experienced in his apartment, he let out a roar announcing his arrival and leapt forward to the circle of bears, wolves, cats, and assorted other shifters gathered around the fighters.
From the high ground among the trees, I could see the brawlers throwing each other around. Again, some had already been dispatched and were lying outside the circle, ignored, while the spectators watched the fight at ha
nd. I snuck around the ring of shifters in a wide arc and finally left the protection of the trees when I could reach the injured men without being seen.
One was bleeding so profusely I was sure he’d die before his healing could stop the flow. I created tourniquets from nearby reeds and tied off the wound in his upper thigh. I propped up his feet and created a grassy pillow for his head, before moving to the next defeated fighter, whose leg was broken so badly I could see the bones sticking out of his dark skin at angles. I said a quick prayer and set the break with a sickening snap of bone on bone and marveled at the instant healing beginning. So much like the Fae.
The others were healing or almost healed, but they didn’t mind I checked on them anyway, and no one threatened to kill me or eat me, which felt like a big win under the circumstances.
A scream of pain caught my attention and I climbed onto a boulder to see what had happened. The wolf and cat that had been fighting were both lying on their sides, Grayson standing between them, his shirt torn off, bandages almost glowing in the moonlight, a bright white "punch here" sign against his swarthy skin.
The cat crawled off, dragging his useless leg behind him, but the wolf snarled and tried to attack again. Grayson picked him up and launched him out of the circle. I assumed it signaled defeat, just like a boxer getting tossed from the ring would.
Before Grayson could send everyone home, two more shifters stepped up to challenge him, and I realized it wasn’t going to stop. The remaining shifters closed in, the ones at the back pressing against the closest for their turn to fight the interim alpha and prove themselves.
My would-be protector fought every beast attacking him, maintaining his human form. He still managed to tear his opponents apart, breaking their limbs and throwing them out of the circle before they could be trampled by those remaining.
I was torn between helping the wounded and watching over Grayson. He was in my stronghold, after all, between the sky and the earth, hemmed in by a forest and the sea, it was a natural "between" place, where my magic would have the most power. It was also the witching hour. Despite my desire to leave that part of myself behind, there was strong magic in my Wiccan traditions, too, and if I wove them together, I felt unstoppable.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for Grayson. I glanced around, looking for Niall, but if he really was the party boy who didn’t care, I couldn’t expect him to leap into the fray. The harder he fought, the more my chest constricted around my lungs. He was getting tired, and if he quit, the shifter he happened to be fighting at the time would be the alpha, having won the challenge.
Just hurt someone bad enough the others pause, and you can call it all off. The female wolf, Shenna, stood among the few shifters who hadn’t given in to their power and changed yet. I watched as she stepped just inside the informal ring and swiped a clawed hand up Grayson’s spine, blood spraying in a wide arc up and over him.
The black bear he was fighting drove him back, attacking with tooth and claw as Grayson weakly blocked the massive swinging paws. I hadn’t realized I screamed a warning, but twenty plus pairs of eyes turned on me as Grayson continued to fight for his life, Shenna sneering at me from across the circle.
Something in me snapped, and I called every ounce of my Fae magic to my hands, the power scorching hot and biting cold at the same time. The pain traveled up my arms until I had no choice but to release it into the wild things growing around me, and into the wind, and the roaring Pacific at my back.
I pushed as much trapped energy upwards, as I dared, afraid if the shifters touched it, I’d take them over, and I had too many enemies as it was. But the sky took everything I had and gave it back to me in storm clouds as the wind whipped up the tall grass and reeds of the shoreline. Lightning flashed, and the shifters finally took notice the storm was on them, backing away from me toward the trees. The next lightning crashed just inside the meadow and they stopped, unsure of which way was safe.
They watched me, too, and I knew they thought I was controlling the storm, but truly violent nature doesn’t work that way. I could make the grass grow, even make it braid itself into a crown. But I couldn’t part an ocean, or make lightning land on a dime, not without some serious preparation and wiccan rituals to help control it.
“This is done,” I shouted over the wind. “Go the fuck home, people.”
I pushed enough energy into the biggest, blackest cloud, and a beautiful hand of lightning came down, its electric fingers spreading and landing with multiple popping, sizzling sounds as they struck the earth. Most of the shifters bolted for the trees, leaving the wounded to fend for themselves.
Shenna was among the shifters who stayed. As Grayson staggered and stumbled from one wounded shifter to the next, she followed him. I hopped down from the rock and picked my way through the wounded shifters to get to him and ask if he needed my help getting an ambulance so far from the paved road.
When I was only a few feet away, the wolf stepped up to him and kissed him deeply. I know I'm prudish, but considering her actions, I would've been pissed no matter who she was kissing or why she was doing it. At least that was what I told myself as I grabbed her hair and jerked her head to the ground.
“Morgan,” Grayson gasped, grabbing me around the waist and dumping me several feet away from her. “What the hell are you doing?”
“She’s the one who clawed your back, Grayson,” I panted. “Do what you want, with who you want. I know, none of my business. But not her. Not the literal back stabber. If you’re that special kind of stupid or weak, take me home first. I’m not gonna sit here and watch you make an ass out of yourself.”
“Shenna? What the fuck, woman? You know cheating means execution. Your rabid need for power the prime reason you can't ever be alpha."
"You won't tell them. You could never sentence me to death."
He scoffed. "I won't tell them this time, but you have just used your last chance, Shen. I'm done with you."
I sat on the ground as fat droplets of rain began to fall on my face and the back of my neck. “Damnit, did I really just start a full-on rainstorm?” Grayson was growling at Shenna, and the world was starting to tip and spin slowly around me. Using my power had emptied not only my magical reserves but exhausted me physically as well.
Well, I don’t need the witches finding what I just did, I considered as I watched, numb and almost paralyzed from fatigue, as Grayson cornered the she-wolf. “C’mon, Grayson, you know me. Who are you going to believe? Me, the only woman you ever loved, or that, that thing?” I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they might finally fall out. If she thought thing was the insult that would rock my world, I needed to introduce her to some people.
Even so, it stings like a mother, I admitted silently. I struggled to my feet and dragged my sorry Fae butt over to Grayson and Shenna, who was now pinned to the boulder I’d perched on. He glanced at me, his eyes full of concern, and it tore me up inside, knowing he’d looked at any member of his pack the same way, even Shenna the bitch. No one looked at me with that open empathy, not even Orson and Pen. They liked me, cared about me, but he loved his people, the way I’d always imagined my father loving his.
“I need sleep Grayson,” I finally interjected. He’d been growling at her, talking so low all I'd heard were guttural, animal sounds. Maybe that’s all they had been, but my brain wouldn’t function much longer either way.
He let her go and I turned back toward the parking lot, staggering through the trees blind without my magic to help me. As tired as he was, Grayson hefted me into his arms and carried me the final few hundred feet to the parking lot.
He didn’t leave right away, but I rested while I listened to him talk on the phone, getting help for the wounded who hadn’t regained mobility by the time my electrical storm cleared. The rain didn’t even seem to bother him as he stood outside the car, window open, glancing in every so often like he was double checking I was still there.
I had called lightning out of the sky and made a
near-hurricane force wind, without my book of shadows, or ritual, or magic symbols. My aunt had made me think Morgana’s curse had made me weak, my blood would sicken and kill the line.
But what if the opposite were true? The witches refused to stop underestimating me, no matter how many times I escaped or healed or beat their challenges. Was the curse a prophecy at all, or simply an observation of how the witches ugly, bigoted traditions would cause them to die out completely?
I closed my eyes and let sleep take me. I would talk to Pippi, who was the one Fae to ever give anything freely, without asking for a better deal in return. Talk to Pippi and after, get my ass kicked by Will, I decided. It was about time he started talking about who the new warlock power broker was, and whether they could help me find the practitioner who had been making a mess of my life.
Eighteen
The barista called out another name as I collected my order and some guy in a suit knocked me aside as he grabbed his froufrou latte. I barely stifled the urge to give him an electrical shock to his ass and took the coffees I’d purchased back to the table in the corner where my favorite brownie waited for me.
Pippi warmed her hands on her cup of coffee, her lined, brown skin darker because of the layer of dirt covering it. A brownie without a home usually went boggart, feral, and disappeared into the woods with the pixies, never to be seen again.
My little friend had shown herself to have fortitude no one would have believed. She had claimed the alley behind the bonds shop as a home, and Orson had formally given her permission to keep it and the shop itself clean. She’d remained herself, but it wasn’t the same as having a home that was hers to keep clean and people to care for.
“Pippi, do all Fae have the same talents as their parents?” I asked. It had never occurred to me to ask her before, because my father’s magic and mine had been so different. After the mini-storm I’d created I felt damned foolish for not asking.
