“Hello, sweetheart, so glad you made it. Now listen, stay close to Halle, don’t stray far from the pack. Ladies!” She addressed the wolves around me. “The anchor is our responsibility tonight. Mate to our alphas, we are honored to have her run with us.”
Most of the women smiled warmly, but a few remained impassive and a couple rolled their eyes. But then these were the wolves standing by Astrid, friends of hers, or maybe potential breeders to my mates. Either way I didn’t care. I had no time for immature bitches.
“You’ll be safe with us,” Heather said. “Leif’s told me how hard you’ve been training to run with us.”
“I have. I want to be able to do this with you.”
“And I’m so happy you do. When we spot feywarg, we howl to let the pack know. We’ll be splitting into smaller packs. You’ll be with Halle, okay?”
I nodded. “No problem.”
Around me clothes were being shed, and naked flesh gleamed in the firelight.
“The fire keeps the feywarg at bay. They like to bite, and the bites are toxic; they’ll make you sick. If you find yourself overwhelmed, head back to camp.”
The air crackled with power as the wolves shifted, and in a matter of minutes, I was the only bipedal occupant in the camp. Heather was a huge dark wolf with sharp, intelligent eyes, small for a dire wolf, but she still came up to my thigh.
Another wolf nudged my hip and I looked down into hazel eyes so like Rune’s that for a moment I thought he was here. But this wolf’s coat had no amber highlights.
“Hey, Halle.”
She chuffed and swung her head in a come-on gesture. Around us the wolves were splitting into groups of five or six. Heather inclined her head, then set off. I followed Halle to a nearby pack of wolves I didn’t recognize. Probably Holm Pack. I hadn’t had an invite from them yet.
We set off across the field and into the woods. The wolves fanned out around me, and the only sound was the pant of their breath and the crunch of their paws on bracken as we wound through the trees. I had no clue what we were looking for. I should have asked about that. Never mind, I’d pick it up. My body tingled with power eager to be expelled, hands warm and ready to shoot lightning. It was so cold that my breath plumed in front of my face, but my blood was warm with anticipation.
God, I’d missed the action. How in the hell did the anchors sit around all day doing nothing? If not for training with Sloane and runs with the guys, I’d go insane. Which reminded me, I needed to bug Anna about the silent sisters and the glamour. Surely they should have it ready by now?
Something silver and about the size of a weasel shot across my path up ahead. I noted the black striations down its back.
Feywarg?
I looked to Halle to find her looking back at me, tongue hanging out of her mouth in a goofy way as if to say, now the fun begins, then she threw back her head and howled before picking up speed.
The chase was on.
I pushed myself, boots pounding earth, leaping over logs in pursuit of the—motherfucker!
Streaks of silver lit up the night. Fuck, they were beautiful. How could I hurt them? Two of them twisted and headed toward Halle, and I caught sight of their eerie silver eyes and wide mouths filled with needle-like teeth that gleamed like metal.
They leaped at her, claws out, mouths open and ready to chomp, but Halle turned her head, snapping her jaws around one feywarg’s neck and slashing at another with her claws. The feywarg fell to the ground, bloody and very dead. Halle continued chasing the horde of silver streaks that split up into the night. Wolves rushed past me, going in various directions after the feywarg.
I headed after Halle, weaving through the trees, gaining on the feywarg. Five, six, shit there were eight of them up ahead, and then they split into two groups. Halle headed left and I went right, hands tingling, ready to power up. The feywarg looked over their shoulders at me, spitting and snarling. I sent out a blast of lightning, taking out the straggler. Its body twisted and hit the ground. The others squealed and picked up speed, leaving me in the dust. Fuck, they were fast, and even my training with the guys hadn’t prepared me for how fast these fuckers were, but I had an ace up my sleeve. I jumped, materializing right behind the feywarg and blasting them with my mojo.
They hit the ground, stiff, charred, and still.
The amulet made long jumps hard. I needed to keep them infrequent, but training with Sloane had helped me learn that jumping was no longer off the table.
I looked down at the dead feywarg and then around the clearing we’d ended up in. A pile of furry bodies was shoved up against a tree. I wandered over to take a closer look.
Dead rabbits.
The feywarg had been hard at work.
Shit, I’d completely lost track of the pack, the hunt, and my sense of direction. I’d retrace my steps. I turned to head out when a shadow at the edge of the clearing shifted and a silver form clutching a dead rabbit in its mouth hurried toward the tree.
Shit. I raised my hand to blast it and it froze, noticing me for the first time. Its gaze flew past me to the dead feywarg. My hands fizzed and the rabbit fell from its jaws.
“Please, don’t.”
The power in my hands fizzed out. What the fuck?
“Please…” Its crazy silver eyes widened, and its mouth quivered. “Please don’t kill me.”
The crunch of bracken filled the clearing. The feywarg stiffened, then froze as the golden form of Halle padded toward me with a feywarg dangling from her jaws. The feywarg by the tree let out a sound that was a cross between a wail and a shriek.
Halle dropped her cargo, lips pulled back from her teeth in a snarl, and pounced. I acted on instinct, throwing myself between the feywarg and Halle.
“Stop!”
Three more wolves from our pack joined us in the clearing, carrying more feywarg bodies.
Halle jerked her nose up at me, her eyes clouded in confusion.
Did she know? “It can talk.”
Halle chuffed and then the air rippled as she shifted into human form. “What are you talking about?”
I looked down at the feywarg. “Say something, dammit.”
The creature fixed its silver eyes on Halle and hissed.
“Cora, get away from it,” Halle snapped.
This was crazy. “It spoke to me.”
“They can’t speak. They’re vicious predators. Nothing more.”
“You’re the vicious ones,” it squeaked.
Halle jerked back. “Fuck.”
“You kill us. You hunt us. All we want is food. We have a right to eat.”
The other wolves shifted back into human form, steam rising off their bodies and evaporating into the freezing night air. They joined us, faces pale with shock.
“This can’t be happening,” one of them said. “This must be a trick.”
Confusion rippled over us and then the feywarg bolted.
No one tried to stop it. Everyone’s attention was on the tree with rabbits piled next to it.
The elation in my chest from the hunt faded. The feywarg attacked livestock and wildlife, but if the stories of the fae realm’s demise were true, then these creatures were living in a dying realm. Starving. Maybe our world was the only place they could get food. The rabbits were their haul. To take home to feed their families? Oh, God.
The hunt didn’t feel like fun anymore. In fact, I felt kinda icky.
“They’ve never spoken,” a brunette wolf said.
“We’ve never given them a chance,” Halle added.
“It doesn’t matter,” another wolf said. “They kill livestock and cute bunnies.”
“And we don’t?” Halle ran a hand over her face. “They’re not mindless, vicious predators. We need to report this to Heather. Reassess the hunt. Maybe we can communicate with them and come to an arrangement.”
“How?” the brunette said. “They procreate too fast. The numbers will overwhelm us if we don’t cull them, and—”
Howls lit up the
night in the distance. Halle’s head shot up. This must be a signal that more feywarg had been sighted.
“Fuck,” Halle said. “We’d better find Heather.”
I’d barely taken a step when the world went completely silent. The wolves tensed, and then a sharp crack of snapping twigs cut through the air. The women surrounded me, their naked bodies pale in the moonlight.
“What is it? What’s happening?”
Halle fell into a defensive stance, shoulders bunching. “Varga.”
I caught a flash of yellow eyes, the curve of a dark shaggy back. Oh shit.
I looked from Halle to the other two women in human form. “Why aren’t you shifting into wolf form?”
And then it hit me. Shifting required miasma, a kind of magic, and the varga nullified magic.
The wolves weren’t shifting because they couldn’t.
They were stuck in human form and we were surrounded by varga.
Fuck.
Chapter Nineteen
Leif
I can’t believe I’m doing this. Sitting in the Land Rover half a mile away from the hunt with Tor and Rune, waiting. Just waiting.
I drum a staccato rhythm on the dash. “She’ll think we don’t trust her.”
“She won’t know,” Tor growls. “We stay.”
No harm in it, Rune says from the back seat.
“You two are ridiculous. Cora is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
“Except when original vampires are involved,” Tor points out.
“She’s with my pack and several members from yours.”
Our women are perfectly capable of watching out for her, Rune says. Maybe we should leave and come back in a couple of hours to pick her up?
“We stay,” Tor snaps.
“He has a point,” Jasper drawls from the back seat.
Rune growls, low and menacing, and Tor twists in his seat, teeth bared.
“Oh puh-lease, cut the theatrics,” Jasper says. “We all know if Cora is in any danger, I’m the best person to have around. I can be with her in a blink.” He smiles thinly. “I can even take you three with me.”
“We don’t need your fucking help,” Tor snaps.
“I wouldn’t be so hasty,” Jasper says. “You might not like me, but I’m not going anywhere. Best to learn to live with me. Cora needs us all.”
“Cora doesn’t need you, Jasper.” Tor’s lip curls. “You need her.”
“Maybe at one point.” He shrugs. “But things have changed, and you know it. You’re bonded to her, after all. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it.”
Tor and I exchange glances. Jasper is right. Cora cares about him, and those feelings aren’t clouded by a mating bond. So there is no doubt as to their validity. The only thing holding her back is the seal and her doubts as to what exactly Jasper is.
What is he? Rune says, as if reading my thoughts.
Jasper rolls his eyes. “Bored. I might take a peek on Cora all by myself.”
“Don’t,” Tor snaps. “She wants to do this alone.”
But I’m fixated on the fact that Jasper just responded to Rune…had he heard his thoughts?
He’s running away, Rune says. He’s trying to avoid my question.
Jasper snorts. “I don’t run from anything.”
Oh shit. He can hear him.
Rune stares at him levelly. You hear me.
“I’m connected to Cora. Of course I can fucking hear you.”
Well, that begs the question as to what else he can pick up.
“Too fucking much,” Jasper mutters.
So much for his connection being separate to the anchor bond we have with Cora. Tor’s jaw ticks. Yeah, he is thinking the same thing.
Stop dodging my question, Rune says. What are you?
“I’m a malevolent spirit.”
“And what is that?” Tor asks. “Who were you when alive? Were you ever alive? Where did you live? What did you do?”
A dark look crosses Jasper’s face and then his mouth flattens. “My life is none of your business.”
And then it hits me. “You don’t know, do you?”
Jasper’s jaw ticks and he looks out the window. “I remember being a captive. Being a blood witch’s plaything. I remember being bound to brick and mortar over and over again until she came. Until she set me free.”
Cora.
“I need her, yes. But I want her too.” His eyes blaze. “And nothing and no one will come between us.”
Tor growls and lunges between the seats, hand reaching for Jasper just as a sharp shock passes through me, followed by a desperate tug in my solar plexus.
We all freeze, gazes going wide.
“Cora,” we say in unison.
“Grab hold of me,” Jasper orders.
We do as he asks, and then the world splinters.
Chapter Twenty
Cora
Heat rushed through my limbs, adrenaline pooling in my veins. My connection to the guys flared and thrummed in my chest, a deep vibration that made my teeth ache. I focused on it, sending the bat signal because there was no way we could take on the varga alone. Unable to shift and without weapons, the wolves were defenseless.
I dipped and drew my daggers from my boots, then stepped in front of Halle. “Back off, fuckers.”
Okay, I probably looked ridiculous to them. What damage could one witch with no access to magic and two daggers do to three vicious varga? But I wasn’t planning on having to fight them. All I needed to do was stall until the call I’d sent out was answered.
“Cora, no!” Halle grabbed my arm.
“Have you got weapons?”
“No.”
“Then hush.”
The three varga had fanned out to circle us. One was larger than the others with fur so thick and spiky it looked like spines. It watched us with pale, arctic-blue eyes.
Three-on-one, effectively.
Not great odds if Tor, Leif, and Rune didn’t get here on time, but it was my fault the wolves had shifted to human form. A silver wolf dashed into the clearing and froze.
“Astrid, run!” Halle cried.
The silver wolf looked from the varga to me. I saw indecision in her gray eyes and then her lip curled, eyes flashing as she leaped over the varga and landed in front of me. She growled deep in her throat, body vibrating in warning.
Fuck, who would have guessed.
Okay, so part of me wanted to kick her for not listening to Halle and getting backup, but as another varga materialized from the shadows, I couldn’t help but be grateful for her presence. If the guys didn’t make it…
I twirled my daggers and fell into a defensive stance. “Get out of the circle as soon as you can. Put distance between you and them so you can shift.”
“Yeah,” Halle said. “Not leaving you.”
“Right now, you’re a liability. You get bitten or scratched, and you’re fucked. As soon as the guys get here, you run.”
“The guys?” I heard confusion in her voice.
My lips curved in a smile as heat flared in my chest. I resisted the urge to close my eyes and revel in the thrum at my solar plexus. This was their answer. They were coming. My wolf mates were on the way.
The varga inched in slowly, gaze passing over me dismissively to fix on the women behind me. Astrid snapped at them in warning, inching forward to urge them away.
I joined her, slashing out with my blade to ward them off.
Come on, guys. If these fuckers attacked, we were fucked. Wait, why hadn’t they attacked yet?
Shadows moved around us, and three figures stepped into the clearing. Guys I didn’t recognize, dressed in strange clothes that looked like they were made of stitched-together leather. Furs hung around their necks and their hair was long, shaggy, and golden. Piercing blue eyes sat in faces that may have been handsome if not so gaunt. Their frames were broad, but there wasn’t an ounce of excess fat on these men. All muscle and sinew moving dangerously beneath pale skin.
“Come.” The voice was a raspy command. “You will come with us.”
“And who the fuck are you?” I glared at him.
“Varga,” Halle said softly. “Shit.”
The varga in human form moved toward us, and the varga in wolf form came with them. I noticed the chains hanging from the men’s fingers. They intended to take the women.
What the fuck?
“You need to leave. Now.” I locked gazes with the nearest one. “You have about one minute before this clearing is crawling with dire wolves.”
A raspy chuckle emanated from the huge varga with the fur that looked like spines. The varga in human form who’d just spoken nodded, his gaze fixed on Spiny Back.
“No one comes to save you,” he said. “No patrol tonight. Wolves will be tired.”
I allowed a wicked smile. “Not my wolves. I guess you forgot to factor in for the anchor being on this hunt. And an anchor has a direct line to her—”
The air crackled and Jasper materialized outside the circle of wolves, and he wasn’t alone. Tor, Leif, and Rune were with him, except… Fuck, Tor and Leif were in human form.
The varga turned their backs on us to focus on Jasper and co.
“You no match for us,” the varga spokesperson said in his stilted way of speaking.
More varga in wolf form entered the clearing, cutting off any escape for the guys, not that they looked like they planned on escaping to get backup.
“Why aren’t you shifting?” Jasper asked Tor.
“We can’t. They mute the use of magic,” Leif said. “We need miasma to shift.”
“You can’t beat us. Not tonight,” the scraggly-haired varga rasped. “Stand down and we may spare you. Fight and you die.”
Jasper’s emerald gaze locked on me, eyes narrowed. “Sorry, Cora, this might hurt a little.”
“What?”
The air around me thickened and then pressed in on me, and then it was as if the oxygen was being sucked from my lungs. What the hell? I glared at Jasper, clutching at my throat. What was he doing?
Witch Undecided: The Thirteenth Sign Book 2 Page 12
