Pete to be in danger. I’m just looking for advice.”
She put the blade back on the table. “I have a place, but the Order’s vault
is more secure. Rumor has it that it’s absolutely impregnable.”
I stared down at the wicked blade. I could feel the wrongness of it with
every nerve in my body. It wasn’t just that Kahanov was probably going to
use it to sever my soul—the blade itself was evil, I was certain of it.
I reached out but stopped my hand. “Actually, is there any way we could
destroy it…maybe feed it to the Sphere of Devouring?”
My aunt smiled sadly. “That’s a very good idea, but I’m afraid it’s
extremely hard to destroy an artifact like this. It’s not ephemeral like a spell
—it’s magic made manifest. But I think I have a better idea of where to put
it.”
“Where?”
She picked up the knife by the blade and handed it hilt-first to me. “Right
in your hands. I imagine, considering what you’ve accomplished already, that
this is the safest place.”
I kept my hands on the table and didn’t move a muscle to take it. “No
offense, Aunt Laurel, but that’s a terrible plan. He’ll just take it from me. It’s
like bringing your own carving knife to the Bates Motel.”
“Nonsense. You won’t carry it around in a belt sheath.” She set down the
knife and snapped her fingers. With a spark of magic and a twist of mist, an
object appeared in her hand.
“Your car keys?” I asked.
“I store them in the ether. Along with my favorite wand, the Demonic
Tutelary Texts of Degobraxis the Infernal, a purse, and a few other important
or handy items.”
My jaw dropped for a number of reasons.
Seeing as I didn’t immediately protest, my aunt clapped her hands.
“Casey, get my ethereal inscription kit.”
“Uh…ethereal?” I stammered.
“The ether is a place between places. What’s important is—” She
snapped her fingers, and her keys disappeared. “It will be very hard for
Kahanov to find the knife, and if, for some reason, he ever gets his hands on
it, you’ll be able to dismiss it at will. It’s not foolproof, but I’m guessing he’ll
never suspect you have it.”
Casey returned with a red leather satchel and handed it to Laurel. She
opened it and pulled out a tiny vial of ink and a brush. “Give me your hand.”
I did as she ordered, and she began painting little magical symbols on my
palm. Her nutmeg signature rose into the air, and electricity flowed through
my skin until my hand was vibrating with power.
I sat perfectly still, almost breathless, afraid that if I wiggled, she might
mess up a symbol and blow off my fingers or something. Finally, she sat
back. “Okay, the next step is to memorize the knife in every detail. You’ll
need those details to call it back to you. Tell me when you’re certain you can
imagine it exactly.”
I traced my eyes over every inch of the Soul Knife. The bronze dagger
was so patinaed that it was nearly pure green. The lancelet blade had a raised
ridge down the center and was inscribed with fine runes, though none of the
designs meant anything to me.
I turned my concentration to the signature of its magic, which tasted like
wine and had the sound of ripe wheat blowing in the summer wind.
“Okay,” I said at last.
My aunt placed her fingers on the back of my hand. “Now, imagine your
hand completely empty. Unburdened.”
I focused my mind on envisioning an empty palm, and my aunt began to
chant. Her magic flowed along the symbols she had drawn and down into the
knife. The scent of nutmeg and the sound of bees filled the air, and then the
lines of black runes she had inscribed on my palm began to glow with purple
light.
Suddenly, with a swirl of mist, the dagger and symbols disappeared.
I gasped. “It’s gone!”
I turned my hand over, looking for any trace of her magical runes.
Nothing.
“Now, the trick is to bring it back. Remember exactly how it was, how it
felt in your grasp.”
I closed my eyes and brought to mind the image of the knife. Every
detail. Not just how it looked, but its weight and the way it fit in the palm of
my hand. I imagined I could feel the signature of its magic, wine and rustling
wheat.
With a puff, the knife appeared, and my hand sank with the weight.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
I looked from Casey to my aunt. “I mean, this is crazy powerful. I
imagine airport security is impossible.”
My aunt laughed. “Well, yes, but show me the terrorist who wants to pull
a knife on a plane full of werewolves, vampires, and sorcerers.”
Fair point.
She pushed away from the table. “And with that bit of hocus pocus, I’m
headed to bed. I want to hear more, though, in the morning.”
Casey crossed his arms and leaned back on his stool. “I’m not leaving
until you explain why you’re dressed like a man.”
I turned my spoon on him. “Casey, I was considering spilling the beans,
but you pestered me one too many times. I will never, ever tell you, and now
you’ll go to your grave haunted by the question.”
I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell either of them that I kept turning into a
werewolf and was now at risk of ripping through every outfit I owned.
He glared at me with venom in his eyes. “I thought maybe you had a new
Italian boyfriend. That’s all.”
“No.”
“I hear you and Jaxson are a thing,” my aunt said, far, far too casually at
kitchen door.
The room spun, and the blood drained from my face. She knew. Shit. My
eyes flicked to Casey, who looked away with suspicious speed.
I gave the side of his head a death stare. “Casey, you big-mouthed
asshole. No, Aunt Laurel. We are not a thing.”
She put her hands on the table and leaned forward. “Savannah, we all like
the taste of forbidden fruit. I certainly did at your age.”
“I don’t want Jaxson’s fruits,” I blurted, sending the off-the-rails
conversation over a bridge and into the chasm below.
She glanced at her son and frowned. “Keep in mind, I had to rear Casey
through his teenage years. The women he brought into this house…there’s a
room I can never enter again.”
“Too much. I don’t want to know. Don’t tell me.”
“It’s the room across from yours,” Casey added.
I covered my face with my hands. This was too awkward.
“Do not trust Jaxson, Savannah,” said Aunt Laurel. “The pack care only
for their own. When you discover the truth of that, it’ll break your heart.”
My aunt left me sitting at the table in shock, with a half-eaten bowl of ice
cream in front of me and an ancient, corroded blade in my hand. I pointed the
blade at Casey and wordlessly let him wither beneath my glare.
He slowly got up and backed away. “Sorry?”
With that, he fled. I dismissed the knife and headed to bed, ready to sleep
and hopefully wake without the persistent feeling that I was a fraud wearing
someone else’s clothes.
> 28
Savannah
My eyes fluttered open, and I gently closed them again as I did my best to
hide from the day.
Ugh. No more murderous psychopaths, please.
At least my dreams had been free of demons and sorcerers and monsters.
It had just been me and Jaxson, running free as wolves, with nothing to fear.
Of course, that suggested a whole host of additional problems I didn’t want to
face this morning, either.
My jaw stretched wide in a yawn, and I forced my eyes open. Soft
morning light filtered into the room, and dust motes softly danced in the rays.
There was a peace in my soul that belied the danger that hung over all our
heads. We’d disrupted the sorcerer’s plans, but he was still out there, most
likely scheming up a way to take revenge.
I stretched out my legs and froze.
Something was wrong.
I snapped my head down. Everything was fur and paws.
With a yelp, I leapt up, or tried to. My four legs tangled in the sheet, and I
flipped over and out of bed with a thud.
I twisted and scrambled as I tried to disentangle myself from the sheets.
Finally, I struggled free and paced back and forth.
Okay. I’m a wolf. I’ve done this before. All I have to do is shift back.
I focused my mind, straining with the human part of my being that was
now trapped inside the wolf.
Nothing happened.
I felt the wolf’s frustration as she took control and began to investigate
the room. No shifting. I need to run.
I gritted my teeth and tried to shove her aside. No. Not now. Please. We’ll
run later.
My wolf didn’t yield. Not even a hair on my body quivered. She was as
stubborn as a—
Steps sounded on the stairs. God, no. Had someone heard my yelp and the
following thump on the floor?
Shift now! Someone’s coming, I said to my wolf.
No!
I let out a sigh of frustration, but it came out as a wolfy snarl.
Someone paused outside the door and my breath caught. “Savy?
Everything ok?” Casey said. “I heard something fall.”
Panic seized my mind. I couldn’t speak as a wolf—just snarl, growl, and
howl. A mm-hmm would probably come out as a whimper or sound like a
wounded animal. That would have Casey breaking down the door in no time.
“Savy?”
Shit. He wasn’t going to go away. My thoughts raced through my mind
like Wile E. Coyote and landed on a single, desperate ruse.
I gave a snort, and then started snoring loudly. It sounded utterly ghastly,
but it was as close to a human sound as I could make.
“Holy shit,” Casey muttered to himself. The sound of his feet moved off
into the hall. “That girl has one hell of a deviated septum.”
If I’d been in two-legged form, I would have turned bright crimson.
My wolf paced back and forth. I need out. This room is too small.
Shift back, I pleaded. Then I’ll go to the park, and we can run there.
No! I don’t trust you. You walk beneath the sun every day. I’ve been
trapped my whole life. I’m not shifting back.
Was this how it was for Jaxson and Sam? It couldn’t be. Did they just
have more control?
Do as I say, I commanded.
In response, the wolf shoved my soul completely out of the driver’s seat
and jumped up on the bed. She faced the mirror with teeth bared and fur
bristling and growled. Never.
Too loud! I warned my wolf. Casey had to have heard her growl and
would come to inspect. Sure enough, his footsteps sounded on the stairs
again.
“Savy?”
Panic tore at me as my wolf looked around wildly. The window was
cracked, and she darted over.
Oh, no.
I tried taking over, but my wolf pushed the window open and leapt out
onto the eaves of the second-floor roof. Our feet stumbled and skittered
across the shingles.
Fear tore through my mind as we slid toward the edge, but my wolf took
control and planted our feet into the gutter just in time. She gave a low growl.
Don’t try to take over! You’ll get us killed. You drive on two legs, I get to
drive on four.
My mind spun. We were trapped on the roof. Casey had probably heard,
and if anyone saw us, they’d shoot first and ask questions later.
Unable to control my rising fear, I submitted and withdrew into the
shadows of my mind. Okay, just get us out of here.
My wolf padded quickly over the slanted shingles and landed gently on
the porch roof like a wolf ninja. Then, with a burst of speed, she jumped off
the roof.
My heart caught as we soared through the air and tumbled into the grass
below. Paws digging into the turf, my wolf bolted across the lawn and
scurried under the bushes on the far side of the yard as the front door burst
open. I could smell the scent of my aunt. Breathing hard, my wolf pressed our
belly down on the ground and waited, listening. I tried to call my magic to
wrap shadows around us, but nothing came.
Apparently, I was completely powerless in this form, both in terms of
control and of magic, and that scared me almost as much as Kahanov did.
Eventually, the footsteps receded, and the door slammed shut, though we
waited silently to make sure my aunt was truly gone. Did the house have
cameras? I hoped not.
What was I going to do?
We have to shift back. If anyone sees us here, they’ll try to kill us. They
hate werewolves in the Indies, I pleaded.
So I won’t be seen, and we’ll get out of the Indies, my wolf replied,
scrabbling out from under the bushes and slinking down the street.
Please, I begged.
I need this. Don’t you get that? You were chained to a bed and broke out.
I helped you then. Help me now.
My mind swam. She helped me break out of the sanitorium?
I’d ripped through my bonds, though I couldn’t remember how. Of course
it had been her. I hadn’t been that strong before. Kahanov and the freaks in
white coats must have injected me with something.
They were the monsters I needed to stop. I could deal with the wolf later.
We should find Jaxson, I insisted, desperate for any kind of certainty or
plan at this point. You can drive.
Okay. I like him. Both two legs and four.
It was a couple of miles to Jaxson’s place. Maybe that would be
enough…
A car door slammed up ahead, and a powerful engine roared to life.
Shit! We can’t be seen!
Okay, I’ll detour. My wolf looked both ways, then darted north across
74th Street. At that moment, a Mustang convertible swung out onto the road
and squealed to an abrupt halt, pointed straight at us.
“Shit!” someone shouted. “Is that a fucking wolf?”
I recognized the voice. And the stench. One of the assholes from the park.
We ran.
Tires screamed on the pavement as the Mustang roared after us. All I
could think of was that barren highway in Wisconsin where this had all
started and how brutally that had ended.
If they ran me down, would I come back to life over and over again like
the werewolf I’d hit
?
My wolf swerved across the street and through the strip of tiny yards that
fronted the rowhouses. She leapt and bounded, dodging around the bushes,
flower beds, and little iron fences. A hedge of hydrangeas exploded into a
shower of frozen petals behind us.
We juked and swerved as a ray of frost hit the ground beside us,
sheathing each blade of grass with a thick coating of ice. Those assholes are
trying to kill us with ice magic! I screamed at my wolf.
To my horror, she charged the Mustang. The surprised driver slammed on
the brakes, and the car twisted sideways. Its tires squealed and left stinking
black streaks across the pavement.
We’re going to die! I shouted in my head.
My wolf pounced on the hood, then launched over the guys’ astonished
faces, landed in the back seat, and spun, snarling and snapping.
The jerks screamed, flailed at the doors, and tumbled out of the still-
skidding vehicle. My wolf bolted out of the car and raced across the street in
the opposite direction. We ducked down an alley, jumped a fence, and
hunkered down beneath someone’s porch.
That was too close! I said.
But didn’t you have fun? I should have ripped out their throats for the
way they treated you the other night. I could feel my wolf’s emotions, and it
was hard to disentangle them from my own. Triumph. Rage. Protectiveness.
How was I supposed to relate to this new, very spirted, independent part
of me?
We placed our head on our paws and waited until we heard the car drive
off.
Some laundry fluttered on the clothesline in the adjacent yard.
Can you jump the fence? I asked. We could shift, and I could put on those
clothes and sneak back to the house.
She readjusted her head on her paws. No shifting. We’re going to find
Jaxson. My way.
I tried to shove my wolf out of the driver’s seat, but she wouldn’t budge.
Instead, she slipped out from under the porch and headed north.
I was a captive in my own body, forced to watch as my wolf darted across
streets, dodged honking cars, and crept from alley to alley.
Our heart raced, and I could feel her terror as she pushed through the
savage human world around us. But she kept going, refusing to let me or
anything steer her from her course.
And then, amid my own fear and frustration and resentment, I felt the
flicker of a new and strange emotion: kinship.
Untamed Fate (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 2) Page 20