by Keri Arthur
Her eyes were now so narrow I could barely even see the chips of blue, and her aura dark with anger. “I could have you thrown out of this reservation—”
“Oh, you can try,” I cut in. “But I think you’ll find neither Katie nor the wild magic itself would like that situation.”
“Is that a threat?”
My answering smile held no humor. “No. Simply a statement of fact.”
“Then at least we now know where we both stand on this matter.”
“Yes.”
She would be doing everything in her power to end my relationship with Aiden, and I would be doing everything in my power to thwart her.
Lights swept around the corner and sped toward us. I stepped back. The slight uptick of her mouth suggested she knew it wasn’t a retreat.
Aiden pulled up and climbed out of her BMW. As he helped her into the car, I walked over to the truck and waited. Now that the confrontation was over, my gut churned and the shakes had begun. It took several breaths to calm them—or, at least, outwardly enough to hopefully fool Aiden. The inward shakiness would take nothing less than several large glasses of whiskey to calm.
“Is everything all right?” He clicked the truck’s remote and then opened the door.
“Yes.”
He snorted and helped me into the cab. “I got the same monosyllabic response from my mother. I believe neither.”
“Honestly, there’s nothing for you to worry about.”
“Meaning there’s absolutely everything to worry about.” He slammed the door shut and ran around to the driver side. Once he’d pulled out and was heading out of town, he added, “What exactly did she say to you?”
“Nothing I wasn’t expecting.” I shifted slightly to view him better. “I got the impression in the restaurant that she ran someone off—was that someone the wolf you loved and lost? The one you’re reluctant to talk about?”
“No. I ran Mia off, not my mother.” He hesitated and then grimaced. “I gave her a choice. She chose the second option.”
Which wasn’t him, obviously. “What did she do?”
“She lied. Everything she’d told me about herself—every single thing—wasn’t true.” He glanced at me, his eyes filled with shadows and hurt. He loved her still, despite everything, and that damn near shattered my already aching heart. “My mother never liked her, but she also never did anything physical to disrupt or otherwise end my relationship with her.”
Which no doubt meant she’d done everything in her power to verbally run her off—something I suspected she intended with me. Thank God a good percentage of our customers at the café were tourists or human locals—even if she ordered the wolves to avoid our venue, we could still survive.
“But she has run one of your lovers off?”
“Yes. When I was eighteen and head over heels for a wolf who turned out to be a rather close relation.” He glanced at me. “What did she say to you?”
A smile touched my lips. “That I would never be allowed to marry you. To which I replied, ‘never fear, because that prospect has never been part of our equation.’”
“It looked a whole lot more serious than that when I came around the corner.”
“That’s the condensed version. Was Mia a local wolf?”
“I don’t really want to talk about her—”
“And I don’t really want to talk about your mother. Besides, you can’t keep putting this discussion off forever. Not when you’re the one who demanded utter honesty.”
“I knew those words would come back to bite me,” he muttered. He took a somewhat shuddering breath and released it slowly. “No, she wasn’t local. She was a nurse who came here as part of the exchange program.”
The exchange program being a means of ensuring reservations didn’t get too inbred. “Where from?”
“The Raines, who hail from the Northern Territory.”
And who were the only pack in that state, if I remembered correctly. “How long were you together before you discovered her lies?”
“Just over a year. We were set to marry.” His expression was distant, and his aura swirled with pain that had neither been forgotten nor healed. “It was a simple text that alerted me something was wrong. It was from a man named Jude, demanding to know when the hell she was coming back home, because he was missing her something fierce.”
“You read her texts?”
“Not intentionally. She was in the shower and the text flashed up on the screen.” He grimaced. “It did at least explain why she’d been so protective of her damn phone.”
“And Jude was?”
“Her husband.”
My gut dropped. No wonder he’d been so determined to uncover my secrets—he’d feared he was facing a similar situation. And, in many respects, he had been. “Oh fuck, Aiden—”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “She went back home five or six times while we were together, and I never thought anything about it. I just figured she was missing her pack. As it turns out, she was going back to see her husband rather than her family.”
“Surely he must have suspected something was wrong?”
“Why would he? I didn’t, not until that text. But even if he did, the Raine pack was going through hard times thanks to the long drought and a fall in tourist numbers. His entire family are omegas, and way down on the pack’s food chain. It was her money that kept them going.”
“Why go interstate to work, though? Surely she could have gotten at least some work in Darwin?”
“It’s hard to run a cash grab scheme if you’re well known in the territory.”
“But she was married—surely that would have come up during a records search?”
“No, because it was common law.”
I frowned. “But how would marrying you ease her pack’s woes?”
His smile was bitter. “The O’Connors are a wealthy pack, thanks to our situation here. Any divorce settlement would have seen her well looked after.”
And unless there’d been some sort of prenuptial agreement, she wouldn’t have had to stay with him for long to gain a benefit.
“It’s still hard to believe a wolf would let his mate—”
“Fuck another man?” he finished for me. “As an omega, he mightn’t have had the choice.”
“That suggests you think the pack gave its approval to the whole mess.”
“Not so much approval, but forced a blind eye? Yeah, I suspect they did. Mia wasn’t the only wolf who’d been placed in interstate packs to hook the unwary.”
“But how—” I hesitated. “You used your ranger connections to find information out about her and the others?”
“I did indeed.”
“So the ultimatum you gave her was either divorce him or break it off with you?”
“Yes. She obviously chose him, because she never came back.”
I reached across and touched his thigh. He briefly wrapped his fingers around mine and squeezed them gently, but the thick sense of hurt and anger in him didn’t ease. No surprise there—aside from the fact he’d loved her deeply, he was an alpha, and they never liked losing.
“I know it doesn’t help much, but she’s an utter fool.” One who had no idea just what she’d thrown away, despite the fact she’d been with him for over a year.
“Thanks, Liz.”
I gently extracted my hand and returned my gaze to the road. And tried not to think about the hurt that lay in my future.
Silence fell. We eventually stopped at the side of the road that ran along one of the compound’s boundaries and climbed out of the truck. Mrs. O’Connor pulled up behind us and then wound down her window and said, “What happens now?”
“It might be best if you wait in the car, out of the drizzle,” I said. “I’ll attempt to create a protection circle and then connect to the wild magic.”
Karleen nodded and wound the window back up. Aiden went to the back of his truck and hauled out a bright yellow raincoat. He held it up so I could slip my arms i
nto it and then turned me around to zip it up.
“I know it’s not exactly a fashion statement, but it will at least keep part of you dry.”
“Thanks.” I kissed him, well aware his mother watched and not really caring. “You’d better go join your mom.”
“I’d rather stay right where I am. I’m not feeling overly happy with my mother right now.”
I frowned. “I can’t produce a protection circle large enough to encase us and her vehicle.”
“Then don’t. Just make it large enough for the three of us to stand within it. She and I are werewolves—a little rain isn’t going to hurt us.”
I had a feeling his mother wouldn’t agree with that statement—at least not when she wore her Sunday best. But I kept my mouth closed and stepped into the gap between the two vehicles. While there was no protection from the rain, it did at least offer a little respite from the cool breeze.
I didn’t immediately start spelling, though. Instead, I studied the trees opposite, looking for luminous, gossamer wisps. There were none evident, but I could nevertheless feel the distant pulse of power that was the main wellspring.
I just had to hope I could connect to either its threads or Katie’s. To do anything else would not improve Karleen’s opinion of me—though I personally doubted it could get much lower.
After a deep breath to center my energy, I began raising Ashworth’s incorporeal protection circle, watching the spell strings closely, trying to keep them exactly as he’d structured them. But as the spell rose in the air around me, so too did the wild magic that was now a part of me. Or rather, had always been a part of me, but had simply lain dormant until I’d come into contact with the unrestrained magic here.
I ignored the fear-based shiver and continued with the spell. While the end result wasn’t exactly the same as Ashworth’s, it was close enough.
I tied off the ends but didn’t immediately activate the spell, and glanced at Aiden. “Right, let’s do this.”
I might have said it softly, but his mother immediately left her car. There was certainly nothing wrong with her damn hearing.
I told them both where to stand and then activated the circle. “Don’t move around too much, because if you hit the spell wall you’ll tear it open.”
Karleen’s gaze swept the immediate area, no doubt seeking the threads she had no power to see. “How are we supposed to know where the boundaries are? And what use is a protection spell that’s so easily shattered?”
“There’s three feet of wiggle room around us,” I said. “The circle’s strength lies on the outside; had I made it similarly strong inside, it’d cause serious harm if you accidently stepped into it.”
“Then let’s proceed before the rain gets too much heavier.”
Annoyance flared yet again, but I pushed it back and silently called to the wild magic. At first, nothing happened. The distant pulse of power continued unabated, and the night remained free of those luminous, fragile wisps of energy.
Then, gradually, a few responded, moving through the trees like slivers of moonbeams. I held out my hand; after a few heartbeats, the fragile strings slipped through the protection circle and twined themselves around my fingers. There was no sense of Katie within them, so I clenched my fingers and used them to amplify my call for her.
More moonbeam slivers responded. They curled around me, caressed me, amplifying the power of my call. After a few more minutes, a different sort of energy touched my skin. Katie had answered.
Your wish?
Her voice, I noted, was clearer and stronger than before. Either our connection was growing, or my tie to this place was. Your mother wants to talk to you.
I cannot speak directly to her. You know this.
You can if you inhabit me.
She was silent for a second. That could drain you significantly, despite the wild magic’s presence in your soul.
A statement that basically confirmed my theory. Then don’t be long.
Her amusement ran through me, as warm as a silvery sun shower. I won’t. Warn them.
My gaze rose to Karleen’s. “She’s here, but you can’t speak to her for long. As Aiden said, it’ll take a lot of strength out of me.”
She nodded, her expression a mix of hope and disbelief.
I took a deep breath and then closed my eyes. Katie, the stage is yours.
She stepped into me. Her soul sang with the energy of the forest around us, a force so fierce and bright that my skin burned and my heart raced. The air was sharper, thick with scents that stirred my soul and made my blood race with the need to hunt and chase. The night was brighter, too, and the moon a power I could feel deep in my heart, deep in my very soul.
Katie’s soul, I reminded myself, not my own.
“What do you want, Mother?” Though the voice was mine, it held a cold power that was all Katie.
Karleen’s eyes widened. Perhaps she recognized the tone if not the voice. “If this is truly Kate speaking, tell me what I said the night you told me of your intention to marry Gabe.”
Katie forced a smile, though it was all teeth and little humor. “Over your dead body.”
“And your response?”
“That no, actually, it was my dead body. Why are you here, Mother? What do you want?”
Karleen took a deep breath. Silver glistened in her eyes, but she quickly blinked the tears away. “I just want to know why you did this. Why did you sacrifice yourself in this manner?”
“It’s no sacrifice to forever be a part of this land—”
“But none of us will live forever, and our deaths will leave you alone.”
Katie smiled again, though this time it held none of the fierceness. “I will never be alone in this place. Gabe is with me in spirit, and I will always have kin—all my siblings will have children, and their children will have children, and so on.”
“I still can’t—”
“Mom, it was my destiny. It’s always been my destiny. I suspected it when I was a child, and I foresaw it as a teenager.”
“Then Gabe did not—”
“He was nothing more than the key that unlocked what was meant to be. I convinced him, Mom, not the other way around.”
The silver sheen made another brief appearance. “Then you are happy?”
“Yes. I have everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“Then I can only be happy for you.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Katie hesitated. “But I do have a warning for you—be careful what you wish for, because you may just get it.”
Karleen frowned. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
“You know well enough.” Katie looked at Aiden. “Don’t seek happiness in your past, big brother, even if it haunts you.”
He frowned, his expression so similar to his mother’s that I wanted to smile. I couldn’t, because I wasn’t yet in control.
“I don’t—”
“You will, soon enough. I must go.” To me, she silently added, Contact the White Lady. The information she holds will help you track the flesh eater—but you must let her vengeance fly, otherwise her spirit will blight this reservation forever.
And with that ominous warning ringing through my mind, she left my body.
Eight
The minute Katie left me, my knees collapsed and I hit the ground hard. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air. The world spun around me, and for several seconds, unconsciousness loomed.
I clenched my hands and fought it. The wisps of wild magic were still wrapped around my fingers, and their energy surged in response, chasing away the darkness and lending me strength. It might only be borrowed strength, but right then, it didn’t matter. Not if it kept me going long enough to get home.
There was a slight thump on the ground in front of me and then Aiden’s hands on my shoulders, my face, concern evident in his touch. “Liz? Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
I took a deep, shuddering breath and then opened my eyes. The nigh
t wasn’t bright and the moon wasn’t visible, and yet my eyes nevertheless stung.
I blinked rapidly, suddenly aware of the rain, the cold, and just how wet I now was despite the presence of the yellow raincoat. I shivered, and he instantly pulled me closer. The fierce, warm heat of him wrapped around me, and it made me feel as safe as I’d ever felt in my entire life.
And yet I couldn’t help but be aware of a different kind of fierceness emanating from his mother.
“We need to get you out of these wet clothes and back home,” Aiden said. “Before you catch a chill.”
I smiled into his neck, my lips brushing his skin and tasting the musk of wolf and man. Katie’s sensitivity to taste still lingered, despite the fact she no longer possessed my body.
“They breed us witches tougher than that, Aiden. I’ll be right after a hot toddy and a long bath.”
“Then let’s—”
“We can’t go anywhere until I release the protection circle.” I took another deep breath that was filled with the warm, rich scent of him and then drew back. He didn’t entirely release me though, and I wasn’t about to object. If nothing else, it totally pissed off his mother. Although I guess the unhappy vibes could also have been the fact that she wasn’t wearing a coat and was even more sodden than me.
I carefully unpicked the spell and released it, watching as both my magic and the wild faded into the silvery night.
“Right, it’s safe to move.” I raised my gaze to Karleen’s. Her expression was set, and her eyes gave little away. Only the black swirl in her aura hinted at her agitation and annoyance. “Thank you for the pleasant evening, Mrs. O’Connor.”
Her smile flashed but held little sincerity. “It was most… illuminating. Thank you for allowing me to speak to my daughter. Aiden, we’ll talk later.”
“Sure.” His tone was flat. The annoyance was back, obviously.
