by D. D. Miers
“Is it always this quiet?”
Eloise peered past my shoulder. Only when trouble’s on the way.”
We turned away from the window and Portia raised her shoulders, in question. “What’s out there?”
“Darkness. The people have all decided to unanimously turn in early on a Friday night, and the street’s vacant. Even the wolves have gone.”
Gray and Niall had rejoined us, and Penelope took Prescot by the arm and put their backs to a wall.
But Portia was the first to notice the trembling on the net of spells she’d woven over the house and property, the first warning tremors like a fly on a spider’s web. She was back on her knees, hands pressed to the floor, and her tattoo began to glow.
I glanced down at my wrist, my sleeve backlit in an intricate design of vines and tiny flowers. Fuck. “I didn’t plan on testing my little family bonding bracelets to be tested quite so fast.”
“But they’re not burning, so we’re not in mortal danger, right?” she panted, already tired from shoring up her spells.
“No, but they will be soon. So, why don’t you just save us a lot of trouble and tell us who’s on the other side? Who did you leave the wards down for?”
No one else in the room spoke, all of us staring down at Portia, sweat already beading on her forehead from the exertion. “I didn’t mean to. It was a mistake. I was expecting you to fight me more, and it was a relief that you were going to let me keep my promises to my sister.”
The wards held, but the house shook with the effort someone was making to tear it all down. Gray ushered us all into the sanctuary. “We’ve got to perform the ritual now, Morgan.”
“How can we, when something’s bringing the house down around us?”
“Because if we’re bound, maybe they’ll stop.”
Seventeen
“We should gag the witch and tie her hands so she can’t bring the Ufasach Bas down on our heads,” Niall argued as we gathered in the little parlor Eloise had converted into her sanctuary. It was the altar that had surprised me when I first walked in. The shifters I knew, if they worshipped, simply celebrated nature, not a specific god or goddess.
But Eloise not only worshipped a goddess, she worshipped the Goddess. Her altar was covered in moss and greenery, just like my aunt’s, with semi-precious stones and flower petals among the plants and carved wooden figures I assumed represented her shifter family.
Tapestries on the walls depicted nature as a utopia, predators, and prey lying in soft grass together as they listened to figures of deity who sat on large boulders and tree stumps and taught.
The rest of the sanctuary was familiar too. Part of the ceiling had been replaced with glass, turning it into an atrium. Among the clear panes were stained glass depictions of my lineage, my coven's legends, none of it based on anything regarding shifters.
“You’re a hybrid, aren’t you, Eloise? A shifter witch.”
“Of course, you say that like you thought it wasn’t possible.”
“I’ve heard it’s difficult. I only know one witch with a shifter husband. They have a baby, but…” I shrugged. “I wish I’d just been told.”
Niall and Gray were arguing about binding Portia so she couldn’t cause any more trouble, but I could’ve told them she wouldn’t be. She’d used up all her strength to raise the wards too quickly, slamming them into place with the kind of metaphysical pain I can only compare to slamming your whole fucking hand in a truck door. And having done both, I knew she was suffering too much to even defend herself.
“Stop fucking around, you guys. Let’s get this done. My aunt didn’t bring them here, at least not on purpose. She’s the one person I can assure you isn’t consorting with any Fae.”
Gray rushed to my side, kissed me hard and fast, and took a thin leather thing from his pocket to bind our hands together.
Eloise was waiting to one side of her altar, holding onto the wall for support as the house shuddered under the weight of big magic, bigger than anything I’d ever tried, even my storm calling.
Niall screamed that it was all my aunt’s fault, Gray was begging him to focus on the binding so we could end it, and Penelope was clinging to Prescot like she could protect him with her body.
“I’ve got to shore up the wards, Grayson. Portia isn’t strong enough, she’s suppressed her best magic for too long.” I took out my athame, but Gray was tugging at me, desperate to stop the attack, and Niall was screaming at Julian to let him take Portia as she sobbed in a pile on the floor because our twin tattoos were burning like a mother fucker and that meant we were all going to die.
“All of you stop. Now.” Eloise hadn’t raised her voice, but we all heard, and we all froze. “Leave my friend alone, Niall Silverwolf, or I will drop you like a bad habit.”
He gaped at her but stopped wrestling with Julian and stepped back to block the doorway. Another shudder hit the house, and I could feel thick, dark magic like a living thing slithering over the wards, testing them for weakness.
Gray helped Portia to a seat, and turned to me, just as the wards buckled. I recut my hand, slicing wildly and sending a fine spray of blood over the floor and the nearest wall, but even before I forced magic back into the wards, the raw power of my living blood sparked, and I heard a scream in my head.
Everyone covered their ears and ducked down as the metaphysical wail assaulted us. When it stopped, I ran my hand over the wall next to the altar, adding to Portia’s magic. A second psychic scream pierced my brain, and Eloise grabbed hold of me.
Thinking it was the pain, I tried to help her to a seat, but instead, she shoved me through a narrow opening behind a tapestry I hadn’t realize was there. It led down a stairway to a room that had multiple locks of different shapes on the inside.
She locked the top one, the only one that wasn’t some kind of deadbolt. The room had boxes stacked neatly against one wall, and some kind of foam pad with bedding on it against another.
“You can’t keep me in here.” I hissed at her and backed away. Sitting on the floor of the cell-like cement room, she took my athame from me and cut a line down her arm.
“Do you know how hard it is for a shifter-witch to survive to adulthood, girl?”
"I know how hard it is for any hybrid to survive, but no, I can't imagine what it was like for you." I only knew one couple where she was a witch, and he was a werewolf, I hadn't heard from them since I'd helped her escape the coven, and I was glad for it. Everyone around me was always in danger, and they deserved some peace.
She carved the symbol for infinity in her arm, hissing from the pain. “The pack must always have a shifter-witch to maintain its power. We’re the bridge between peoples that can fight he covens with their own magic, but there hasn’t been someone like me in a long time.”
“But I’m not like you, Jord Bjorn. I’m Fae, not shifter.”
She held up the fresh wound on her arm. “Not yet, you aren’t. Give me your arm.”
I flinched and pulled away from her. “No way. It’s insane. You can’t give me your animal.”
“No. I can only help you call your own. Do it, girl. There isn’t time to argue. You need an animal to call, and Gray needs you.”
The wards I'd shored up were beginning to crumble under the pressure of that monstrous thing that attacked it. I held out my arm, and she sliced with a flick of her wrist, pressing her bleeding arm to mine as something heavy slammed against the locked door.
“Holy shit. Why would you do that?”
“Shifters were not always born, Princess. You are my best chance of ensuring my legacy. A human might not survive the change.”
“I might not survive a change.”
“You’re Fae, you may not be immortal, but the magic speaks to you. Can’t you hear it?”
I didn’t hear it. All I heard was the worried trill of Caorach in my head, horrified that I’d let this woman drag me into a room and try to infect me. “Gray’s going to break through, you’d better have some ki
nd of explanation. He thinks you have dementia.”
She rolled my sleeve down over my wound. It was already closed, and thankfully, human diseases of the blood don’t affect shifters or Fae, but it still made me shudder to think of her blood healing into my body.
"They believe it because it's true. But I must see this through, and you must choose an animal to call because if you don't, it will drive you mad." Another hit to the door and Gray would be through. She shoved boxes to one side, revealing another door. "I wish I could teach you our ways, but it will take the rest of my sanity to hold them off. Your wards are failing."
“I’ll shore them up again.”
My arm began to burn, and I glanced at my tattoo, but the pain was spread over my entire forearm as her blood infected my body and climbing up toward my shoulder.
“The pain will only grow, Princess. It will disrupt your focus, steal your power. You’ll need rest, and to be protected. Finish the ritual, and remember, you must choose your animal for you. If you force yourself into the wrong form, it will drive you insane, and you will be destroyed for the good of the pack.
I grabbed for her, but excruciating pain gripped my chest, sending me to my knees. "Don't leave." The door burst open behind me, and Gray roared his fury, leaping over me to get to Eloise. "Gray, stop!"
She placed her hand on his shoulder and looked up into his face as his gaze shifted between us in confusion. “I will hold the hunters off, my last gift to you, Godson. Take care of the girl, she is my legacy.”
Eloise disappeared through the second door, and Gray picked me up, cradling me against his chest. "What did she do to you?"
“It hurts, Gray. I feel so hot, and everything hurts so bad.” I couldn’t hear Caorach, couldn’t feel my connection to her past the searing pain that overheated my brain and melted my bones to molten lava.
“She hurt you.”
"Gray, she said she gave me an animal to call, but all I feel is…" I thought of Prescot when he'd been curled up in agony as I tried to force his animal out of his wrongly mended body. "I've never…felt anything this bad."
He cursed into my hair. “I’m sorry for bringing you here, Mo. I thought I was protecting you.”
“We’ve got to finish the handfasting. The ritual is supposed to help me focus. She said I had to choose the right animal.” Talking was exhausting. I rested my head against Gray’s chest and listened to his heart, beating faster than I ever remembered.
I focused harder on that rhythm, and I could hear his blood pumping, whooshing through valves. I listened to the breath he drew in before bellowing for Niall to help, and the saliva moves down his throat when he swallowed.
The sound made me glance up at his throat, and I knew immediately where to bite to crush his trachea and stop him from breathing altogether. I shuddered and the hungry thoughts taking over my mind were drowned out by Caorach's complaints.
I will not share you with that hunger. Control yourself, Princess.
Strangely, the whining melody in my head and the rebuke from my possessive blade was calming, and some of the pain in my head dimmed.
"We've got to finish the handfasting, but who can bless us? Our bond must be accepted by the kingdoms." I caught sight of the others, waiting in the calm of the moment for the next attack. "Eloise said to finish the handfasting, and she'll hold them off."
It was Portia’s turn to cuss, but she was already rummaging around behind the altar before it occurred to me that she could finish the rite and bear witness to the coven and the shifters that we were a bonded pair.
She emerged from her search with a strip of white linen that she draped over her head, and an athame.
"I'll use hers since your guard took mine," she griped. "Can you stand?" I tried it, and my legs held. "Good. Then you and Gray stand together," the house shook around us, and she gripped the edge of the altar to regain her balance. "Damnit, you'd think they'd give up when it didn't work the first twenty times."
Gray wrapped the leather thong around our wrists, standing to my left, binding my tattoo and wound-free hand to his, as we grasped each other by the wrist. Outside, a bear roared and growled, pacing under the window as Eloise circled the house, waiting for the first Unseelie to break through the quickly fading wards.
Shit.
“I wish she’d explained what’s happening to me a little better.” Gray kissed the fingers on my bound hand.
“I’ll explain everything, just as soon as we’re safe.” The house shook again, harder than ever, and Niall ran up to the altar and stood behind Portia, holding her upright so she could finish what we’d started, before the thing that hunted us, devoured us all.
Eighteen
“Do you have vows prepared?” Portia’s voice trembled, but the tears of fear and despair that shone in her eyes didn’t fall.
“No. we haven’t had time.”
“Well, that’s just fine, it’ll shorten the process and…” The house went quiet. No earthquakes, no sense of anything crushing the magic web of protection cast over it. Just terrifying silence. “Oh, Goddess protect us,” she murmured. “Witnesses, step forward.”
“What’s happening?” Prescot whispered, doing his best to hide the fear in his shaking voice.
“The Jord Bjorn will keep you safe, boy. Stand strong.” Gray managed a quick smile to reassure him, but when he looked back at me, uncertainty filled his eyes.
I dug the vials and seeds and stones out of my pocket with one hand and placed them on the altar on the bed of soft moss. "I love you, Gray." I wanted to say so much more, about how proud I was that he would choose me over so many great and powerful women, and how tonight, our hands joined together, was the most important thing I'd ever felt part of. But my strength failed, and I could only gaze up at him and hope he understood.
He raised our hands to his lips and kissed my knuckles again through the leather
Penelope and Julian stepped up to the altar, then Niall and Prescot joined them. Only two were necessary, but it made my heart lighten a fraction to see our friends all want to take part. Especially poor Prescot, who looked like he might throw up from fear.
Portia incanted the spell of binding from memory, and as she finished, she handed Eloise’s athame to Julian and placed her hands over ours. “Daughter of my sister, blood of my blood. Let this be my oath that you and yours are family, that our clan may be strengthened by the blood of the shifters, and the pack be honored by the blood of a witch.”
The pressure of the silence released as Portia began to weave her magic, creating a bubble of peace that pushed out the terrifying presence. It was impossible to hate or fear with love through every one of us in a thread that encompassed us all.
Tears stung her eyes as she clasped our bound hands between hers and murmured a spell I’d never heard or read on my mother’s books. My pain lessened by degrees until I could breathe freely and stand straight without wobbling on my feet.
“This is all I can do to ease your transition, Morgana. Heed the guidance Eloise gave you. She was the last of the sacred women who had an animal to call, and without that balance, all sides lose magic.”
“Yeah. I’m her legacy. No big deal, right?”
Portia gave me a stern, but not angry look. "Very big deal, very big secret, until now. I know your sarcasm is to hide your fear, but you can't afford to ignore your feelings right now. I don't understand what's happening to you, I only know that when Eloise started asking about you years ago, that what she suggested was dangerous not only to your life but your mind."
“Aunt….Thank you. I…”
The door to the cottage was blasted off its hinges, splinters of wood flying into the room we were in. Niall jerked Prescot to the floor, and the rest of us ducked and took cover as best we could behind the altar or the few pieces of furniture in the room, as Chthel and five hunters came through the door, weapons swinging.
“The bond is complete, set the flame, and let love be their tether,” Portia hissed, and the leath
er thong fell away from our hands like it had been cut.
I called fire to my freed hand and lit up the top of the altar, sending Eloise’s offerings up in smoke, along with my tokens. Before I could douse the flame, Chthel’s screech jerked my attention to her, and I cast my fire again, lobbing the flames at her as quickly as I could call it.
My temporary reprieve against the pain failed, and I collapsed onto my knees, the pain stealing my breath and my magic. Gray leaped forward with a roar, standing between me and the nightmarish leader of the Ufasach Bas and she knocked him aside like a cardboard cutout.
The hunters that followed Chthel were already wounded and bleeding. The last one through the splintered doorway gave a shriek of surprise and pain as a bear, bigger than any great Kodiak I’d ever heard of, grabbed her in its massive paws and tore her head from her body, spraying her companions with foul blood.
“Jord Bjorn,” Prescot breathed, ducking his head in obeisance.
“Well, shit. That’s impressive.” The curse from Niall managed to tuck the corners of my lips up, and it spread to an honest, if humorless grin as the great bear mauled a second hunter, their claws barely piercing her hide.
But pierce they did, and I knew it was only a matter of time before she succumbed to the poison and fell. I reached for the plant life around us but could only reach the seedlings and moss on the broken altar. I glanced back and saw the flame had gone out. The items I’d brought were gone replaced by a stone, the shade of garnet, just big enough that I could wrap my fingers around it.
“Aunt, what’s that?”
Her eyes widened, and she scooped it off the altar, tossing it to me. "Use it to focus your power. Rain down flames on them. Morgana, as long as you can."
I did as I was told, calling a storm, then using the deep crimson stone to draw fire from the storm’s energy, instead of lightning. Flooded with the stone’s power, for a moment my pain and exhaustion disappeared, and I called Caorach to my other hand.
