by Lisa Ladew
Growler stayed a growl. Theresa and Sir Dewey? Theresa had been made into the First Bond switch only a few weeks before, after Polly had grabbed for a vampire she shouldn’t have and been phazed away. None knew exactly what happened, but Fate had called a new switch, Mary Celeste, to the cosh, and so they assumed the worst.
Anna should have been next in line. Fate had called Anna to the cosh first. Antimony had accepted Anna first, but then Antimony had decreed Theresa be the first to have her ceremony performed. Sweet, kind Theresa, who would never stand up to Antimony like Anna burned to, was now one of only five who had the authority. Growler could not help but think of that day, of what possibilities had been stolen from them.
Growler stepped around a tree, the better to see with his eyes what his nose and his ears were telling him. They were there, at the base of a tree with roots as high as their heads, hidden in shadows. Sir Dewey had Theresa pressed against a winding root, his hips holding her captive, his hands curled in her hair, his gaze smoldering so hot Growler could see it from as far away as he was. He pulled Theresa’s hair through his fingers, in a way so intimate and tender that Growler frowned to see it. It was so unlike the hard, needing touch of the Prowl.
Growler could not help from watching for just a moment. He and his Anna had been sneaking away for years, exactly like this, and Growler could not fault Sir Dewey for doing the same. But before this moment, he’d never seen it in another switch and shifter pair. Theresa’s body contracted with Sir Dewey’s touch, then she shivered, and her eyes slipped closed while her head fell back, as if this was a dance between her and Sir Dewey that she loved to her very core.
Theresa’s eyes fluttered. Her voice was deeper and rougher than Growler had ever heard it. “I so order it, Sir Dewey. You owe your mistress much pleasure.”
Whoa! Growler pulled hard to the left and got out of there, not wanting to hear any more. Antimony could see secrets in shifter’s eyes. Sir Dewey dared much, and Growler wished him well. They dared much together.
Fate had put Growler within arm’s reach of the world’s perfect woman for him and then said, you can get a taste once in awhile, but you will never bury your face in her body with abandon, will never call her yours alone, will never know her as the mother of your babies. Growler didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he thought of his Anna, so schitting close and so schitting far away at the same time. By the Bear, Fate was a cruel bitch sometimes.
Growler prowled on, leaving Sir Dewey and Theresa to their tryst.
13 – Growler Finds the Center of the Forest
The next night, after a full twenty-four hours of searching the forest, Growler stepped into a meadow, toeing his way through the forget-me-nots that didn’t belong there. Millions of blue flowers spread in front of him, waving in the wind of the moonlight, running over the ground like grass for one scent mile, about half the length of a distance mile. At the end of the scent mile, in the middle of the sea of flowers like a tiny desert island, was a copse of the largest four trees Growler had ever seen.
This was it. What his bear had set him to look for. The very center of the forest.
Growler lifted his nose, anticipating the scent of the forget-me-nots, catching it easily, the delicate and pretty smell making him want to share the moment with his Anna. He drew himself tall, examining the meadow as it rolled gently uphill, converging around the massive tree and its mates set right in the very center of the circular meadow on an island of dirt. No meadow of wildflowers belonged in the middle of any forest, but this was a place of magic. The Forest of the Spring held many such places.
Growler sent his bear instinct out to the forest behind and the meadow ahead, and the sky above and the earth below, then stepped one step to the left, four large steps ahead, then stood stock still and rotated his body slightly. There. Right there. The middle tree, that massive, twisting tree, with the trunk as big around as ten normal evergreens, the one that shaded almost an acre with its leaves and branches. That tree was at the very center of the forest, and it was moving.
The move happened again. As Growler stood there on the edge of the center, feeling mentally for the center of the forest, measuring it and examining it, it shifted minutely in front of his senses. Growler shook his head and stared hard. Had that just happened? He disconnected himself from the center, dislodging that strange magnetic connection between him and the earth that he never had tried to explain, only appreciated, with faith that it would always be there when he needed it.
He stalked in a large circle around the meadow, his leather boots scuffing in the hard dirt between the flowers, the cool wind ruffling the coarse scruff of three-days-worth of beard on his face, thinking hard about what he might have just seen.
Bears weren’t trackers. This was more of a job for a big cat, maybe a pack of wolves. But Growler was a tracker, always had been. The forest loved him. Before he could ask it nicely to divulge this secret, an amber glow lit the flowers in front of him, spilling acrid fear in his throat. The campfire orange light came from his body, the glow falling from every pore and cell, making the blue flowers dance purple in the breeze. Growler clenched his fists and ground his teeth. His whole body was alighted, not just his eyes, as was happening more and more often lately, but only when it was Anna in trouble. The other shifters only made his eyes glow like normal.
Growler stood his ground, waiting it out, resisting the urge to shift and run headlong toward the cosh, which was miles up his back trail. Even if he shifted and ran his fastest, the immediate danger would pass before he could- there. The glow faded. She was out of danger. Her sisters or the other shifters were with her. As long as someone she loved was with her, his Anna was strong and could fight her way out of anything. She would wait to Prowl until he returned. Or she would run to find him. Such was forbidden, but they did it anyway. Would, no matter the cost. That was just the way it was between him and Anna.
His Anna had grown into the strongest Bond switch who had ever lived. Too bad that meant she was still weaker than any switch who wasn’t Bond, any switch with an element of Blood, Breath, Belief, or Bone.
Growler growled into the night air, the breeze elongating the groaning ache, making it sound as bad as it felt, because he hated thinking of Anna as weak. But everyone knew Bond was the weakest switch element. There was no sweetening of it. No hiding it. No pretending it wasn’t true.
Growler stopped moving, turned to the meadow again, and felt for the center of the forest. Yes, it had shifted. And it was doing so again, a micro shift, so tiny it was almost imperceptible. Growler lifted his nose to the air and scented. If he had not been sent to scout the center of the forest, staring at it for that reason, he never would have noticed this was happening. Was it normal? Natural? Did the center of something alive like a forest always shift and only those who love it will ever notice?
Yes, he decided, after scenting a small fire on the eastern edge of the forest that had eaten an acre of forest. That was what made the center-shifting happen. The Forest of the Spring was ever changing, such an alive place, so of course the center also changed. The center of anything was a place of great power, but the thought he’d had, or his bear had had, that perhaps the new cosh could go at the very center of the forest, seemed foolish now.
If the forest shifted, even by a snail eating an acorn on the very edge, then the center would shift, too. Just because Growler had never noticed before did not mean it had never happened before. There had never been a cause this important before. And he had never been this good before. Always improve, that was Growler’s motto, and the day he could no longer improve, he would walk to his death a warrior, seeking the biggest, strongest vampire, the one who could stop a shifter as strong as Growler with a thought, and challenge the bloodsucker outright. Attempt to strike one last blow.
He would return to the Great Bear with no regrets about his life. Growl. Just one regret. He had not yet claimed his Anna. Oh, to penetrate her skin with his teeth, to taste the tang of her
blood, to see her reaction. To experience her allowing him to violate her in that most sacred way. The last switch who had allowed herself to be claimed had lost everything, including her shifter, or so Growler had heard. If Growler could claim Anna without her losing everything, he would do it in a heartbeat, would sear it into his memory, would honor and hold his Anna above all others… except the Great Bear? Growler loved The Bear, but he loved his Anna more. The Bear would understand. But until that day came, the one that legitimized claiming and matehood, until it even seemed likely, Growler would hold himself back from the claiming. For Anna.
Growler crossed his arms, rocked back on his heels and tried to imagine the cosh in this place of magic, one more time. This is what he had been sent out to do, had been ordered to do by the bear inside when he was only three steps from his bed. Growler didn’t mind working instead of sleeping. He didn’t mind doing anything instead of sleeping, especially being with his Anna. They never got enough of each other, and clutching underneath the most private tree they could find could not compare to taking her to a bed they shared together, a room, maybe a place that could be their own.
Growler growled into the night and shook his head. Always his thoughts returned there, to Anna. To claiming. To mating. He remembered five years ago, what it had been like to be that cub, to meet his Anna for the very first time, to fall head over heels in love, for her to feel the same, and then be denied the expression of that love. It was slowly killing both of them. But they could see no way out.
So they worked. They fought. And they found their comfort when they could.
And they dreamed. Someday. Growl.
Growler squinted his eyes and tilted his head to the side, placing the longhouse with his mind, butting it up against the trees in his imagination. But no way would it ever work. The magic was all wrong for it.
Antimony had not ordered him to find a new place for a cosh yet, but Growler knew it was coming. He and his bear had been scouting locations for months. The Vampire Vant was close, getting closer to them every day. Growler had felt the center pull at him the day before, when he’d been out with Anna, just talking, both of them sneaking away from their positions. His bear had taken notice, then pulled him out of his bed this night for a closer look.
When the day came to move the cosh, the shifters would take it apart a board at a time and relocate it quickly. There were enough of them. The switches would whistle and call at them as they worked hard enough for their muscles to pop and the sweat to bead on their brows. If any had killed recently, she could claim a need to Prowl and peel off a shifter or two for an hour. The immediate needs of the Prowl came before all else, even cosh building.
If none had, they would stay and whisper and gossip, some watching the males work for hours, some wandering off to do whatever switches did all day. Braided their hair, gathered magicks, practiced magic, made weapons, gossiped or fought with their sisters. They could be soft, too, but not around each other. They saved that for the shifters. But only when Antimony could not see.
Growler growled at the thought of Antimony. A harder cunthe Growler had never known. That female could kill vampires indiscriminately. None was too strong for her. She was on a different level than the others, was different than the rest of the switches. None of them would speak of it with their shifters, they were forbidden to, but Growler suspected Antimony was really an elemental switch, one of the original five switches, which put her on the level of the Great Bear himself. A god on earth. Growler knew if the Great Bear came down from the clouds, no matter what he demanded, Growler would do it without questions. So if Anna thought of Antimony in that manner, it was no wonder how unwilling Anna was to talk about change. About demanding change. About causing change. They both wanted it. Anna would sometimes whisper about it, but only for a moment, and only when she was the most certain no magic was about.
Antimony would never change, and it seemed she would never die. So she had to be bested. But she could not be bested. Except… No one, not even Antimony could see Growler’s thoughts, so in his own mind, he fully acknowledged that Fate would do anything for a laugh. Which meant if Growler could figure a way to make Anna the First Bond Switch, maybe Fate would give her what she needed to challenge Antimony.
Growler shook his head, the understanding of exactly why this spot couldn’t be a place of power for the cosh falling into his mind while he thought of other things. Surety spread through him. It felt good.
This was a place of power, this meadow in the center of the forest. Growler squinted, trying to catch if the entire meadow was also shifting so the hill with the tree was always in the very center of not just the forest, but the meadow, too. He thought it might be, which meant the entire placed was magical. Which meant it was perfect. Perfect for something, but not the cosh. The cosh was a long, rectangular house. They could move it, but never put it directly atop the source of this meadow’s magic.
The very center of the tree in the center of the meadow. Only a building that could be built around this tree somehow would benefit from the power flowing out of the earth in that spot, funneled by the tree straight up.
Setting the cosh off-center of that magic would make it weaker than if they put it nowhere special.
Only a different kind of structure could ever always have its center on the center of that tree, and be able to shift with the shifting hill in the very center of the forest. Growler could almost see it. A cozy treehouse with turrets that soared, surrounded. His Anna would love it.
He could see it in his mind’s eye, in that magical place that was flat and dark and devoid, but could be teased into vividness of color and spirit. That place where everything was first created. Dark oak and poplar wood surrounding the tree, floors, walls, ceilings, rope swings, ladders, plank bridges connecting turrets and living quarters.
He could live there.
A building like that, it would never be fit for a cosh. The cosh was long. Rectangular. Blunt. Magic in a chaotic way, not the swirling circle any house that belonged here would be. He took a few steps, eyeing the island of trees in the center of the meadow, trying to decide how best any home build there would be defended.
Dark magicks swirled, making Growler react. He crouched and growled loudly, splitting the air of the meadow with the rumble, telling the vampire exactly where he was but not caring. Growler was only thirty-eight, and as strong as any Fatherborne vampire who was likely a thousand years older than him. He would tear the vampire’s head from its shoulders and bring the living body home for Anna to practice on. Had done so before, but only with weaker vampires. Not a Fatherborne.
By the bear! His schitting focus was shot and he was going to die in these woods if he didn’t get his mind on his work and off his Anna. Thoughtless bears were dead bears. He forced his mind back to the forest, on the magic that had come near.
The black magicks were swirling away, inky liquid darkness gathering between forget-me-not petals before being pulled away in the wind. He scented no vampires. This was old vampire magick he'd stirred up. He froze, thinking he knew exactly what that meant, but his momentum was strong and the toe of his boot dragged forward a millimeter, triggering the bear trap.
Growler screamed into the night, then dropped to the ground and blacked out before he could press the ingrav carved into his side, summoning help.
14 – For Shame, Antimony
Anna vaulted a branch, all-out sprinting in the moonlight in the direction the magic of her sisters, holding her skirts up as she ran. She could feel the magic, raging and boiling ahead of her, could see the glow of it. Her sisters were invading the largest vampire nest they'd ever found in the forest, or so Mary Celeste said. Mary Celeste was a virgin to the Hunt and Prowl, only called to the cosh by recently when Polly had- Anna’s mind skittered away from the loss of Polly. She would be useless to her sisters if she went into the battle with grief on her mind.
If she hadn’t been pouting in the forest about things she wasn’t supposed to thin
k about, high up in the trees where she could see anyone coming, where she could hide from everyone, she would be at the Undoing already, because she would have been at the cosh when the first calls for help came in.
A desperate request for amplifying magic found her, like a scream in the night. She blasted a shot of orange up the back trail of the request, through the whisper of the branches around her head.
Anna didn't know which of her switch sisters needed the assist, but she would turn down no one. Her magic as a Bond switch made her sisters’ magic stronger, giving it a clever twist or just making it bigger and harder and more effective. Somewhere ahead, her sisters and their shifters fought hip deep in vampires, and Anna’s magic was needed. She vaulted another stump and ran faster.
A pink glow lit up the sky farther to the north than she’d thought, filtering through the trees. Anna veered that way, tiny earthen bottles bouncing on her chest, just above the V of her breasts, which were bound tightly within her plain cotton dress. She was so close.
Stray magic shot over her head, while magicks collected on the ground as incomplete rainbows. Barbaric screams from her sisters came from ahead. Anna grabbed a thick limb, cracking and yanking it from its tree as she ran. She slowed just a bit so she could mold the stick with her fingers with less danger of falling. She burned the foot-long stick with orange magic, molding it how she wanted it, rounding it on one end and pointing it wicked-sharp at the other.
Mary Celeste had not killed a vampire yet, which meant she was barren. Mary Celeste wanted to be a mother more than anything and so Theresa and Anna were doing everything in their power to get her that first kill. That first Prowl. Rights to her own fertility. Problem was, it would have to be a very young and weak vampire for Mary Celeste to be able to Undo him, as she was young and weak and fresh from town.