Hildy bit her lip at her poor accommodations. Chuck had fixed the lighting and brought a lamp from his house, but the room was going to need a whole lot more to be anything close to cheerful.
“Let’s have a drink and chat.” Morgana clapped and a beautiful wooden chest of drawers appeared along one wall. A green cauldron appeared resting on a bed of green glowing crystals arranged artfully on a silver tray. Two large glass mugs with handles had materialized beside the bubbling liquid.
“Okay,” Hildy said, knowing full well declining was not an option. Would it be rude to ask what kind of drink she was being offered? She filled and carried a glass to Morgana. “My druid marks are still healing. Is this potion all natural?”
“Yes. It’s my own recipe for mead.” Morgana sipped and chuckled at Hildy’s concerns. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing in it that Gaia will punish you for.”
Hildy filled her glass and went to sit on her bed. “I think Gaia is letting Carol punish me. She’s the one who put me in this creepy house. Most of it is falling down. I fixed the basement up today in order to use that space for healing work. There’s a separate entrance there for the shifters in animal form. The healer who lived here a long time ago used it for that purpose.”
Morgana looked around. “Why aren’t the shifters in this town taking care of this place? A witch healer like you, especially in a crisis, can’t be wasting her magic on performing magical renovations.”
“That’s what I told Carol, but you know how she is. Her mind is always on the next battle to be fought instead of practical matters like falling down houses.”
“I know. The new Baba Yaga is completely delightful and has none of Elenora’s resentment of the protectress work. Carol is very clear on what’s right and wrong.”
Hildy burst out laughing. No one bent more rules than Carol did, but she wasn’t going to correct what the goddess believed. “Please never tell Carol that. Her head is big enough already. It’s all I can do to keep her from bossing me around constantly.”
Morgana smiled and lifted her glass. “I think you’re delightful too, Hildy. You’re the most compassionate healer who’s ever lived on this Earth. Once you get your full powers there will be nothing you can’t cure.”
“Don’t you mean if I get my powers? Keera said Gaia was having second thoughts about me.”
Morgana chuckled as she shook her head. “Everyone is waiting for you to figure out the situation on your own. I am not that patient. That’s why I decided to visit. I have a purpose for our chat.”
Hildy sipped her mead. “What do you mean?”
“Your power has been bestowed already but you don’t have access to it. Your energy is not yet in the right place to manifest Gaia’s final gifts.”
Hildy put her drink down on the table before she got tempted to throw the glass across the room. “I know I can be dense sometimes but wouldn’t I know if I was carrying around Gaia’s powers?”
Morgana shook her head. “No. You wouldn’t. That broken heart of yours has become a weapon for your enemy. You must finish healing yourself before the greatest work of your life can begin.”
“But I’m…” Hildy paused, not wanting to lie to the goddess. “I know I have some issues. I’m working on fixing my attitude.”
“Which could take years as stubborn as you are,” Morgana said with an eye roll.
“Hey now…” Hildy blurted, forgetting who she was talking to. “I’m trying to figure it all out.”
Morgana leaned forward in her chair. “What is the most powerful force in the world?”
Hildy felt her eye twitch. Drinking mead and being quizzed by the Goddess Morgana had not been on her ‘things to do before going to bed’ list. The woman was as bad as Keera. This day had been shitty all around.
“The greatest force in the world is water,” Hildy finally answered.
Morgana rolled her eyes higher than before. “You’re far more out of touch with your true feelings than I thought. Go for a less literal reply, Hildegard. Try again.”
Hildy frowned at the chastisement. She felt like she was speaking one language while Morgana was speaking another. Was this what Chuck felt like when he got confused?
She sighed as she rubbed her forehead. “This is hard because I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Morgana vibrated with irritation and the room shook. “Okay. Let’s try getting there in a different way. Why did you ask me to give Carol your Baba Yaga magic?”
“Because she was the better choice to be the witch protectress.”
“And why was she the better choice? You saved the bear who was chained to the tree. You were the one who saved Carol with your smart thinking. From a certain point of view, you proved to be the most worthy witch that day. You could be the Baba Yaga right now if you had made a different decision.”
Hildy rubbed harder. Her mind went back to that fated day. “But the whole reason Carol got hurt was that I chose to throw myself in front of Chuck instead of fight alongside her when she needed my help. Isobelle’s power was pumped up with dark magic. Carol and I only had our own. Because of my decision about saving Chuck, that evil witch almost got away with her plan to kill us both.”
Morgana leaned forward in her seat. “Now we’re making progress. Next question—why was the bear so important to you that you risked Carol’s life to save his?”
“He’s a shifter who doesn’t have any magic. And because he’s not just any shifter, Chuck’s my…” Hildy stopped just in time. Her gaze flew to Morgana’s. “I couldn’t let him die that day. Carol is like a sister to me, but I chose to protect the weakest person in the battle. Carol told me later that she thought I did the right thing in saving Chuck. Honestly? I was never as sure about that as Carol was.”
“Oh please… even Carol’s familiar was sure of your motives. When Thane the dragon spelled you to love him, you dove in front of Ahmed in dog form to save his life. You didn’t know who you were or who Ahmed was when you did it. Not even enchantment has the power to push you off your shifter saving path.”
Hildy sighed. “I’d like to believe that’s true. I really would. But without Chuck that day I got spelled, I might never have broken the devotion curse Thane put on me. Chuck was only a cub back then, but his hugs saved me.”
“Hildegard, listen to me. Your love for Gaia’s creatures is your truest power. Chuck loving you is his. Does that ring any bells in that troubled mind of yours?”
“Love,” Hildy nearly shouted. “I get it now. That’s the greatest force.”
Morgana clapped. “Yes. Finally. Let that love you feel for everyone shine like a light in the dark… and that reminds me. Get some better lamps for this room. By the Ancients, I glow in the dark and can barely see myself in here.”
Hildy chuckled over Morgana’s complaining. “I’m enjoying our chat.”
“I am too. How about a refill?” Morgana asked, holding out her glass.
Hildy figured she passed the test. They drank several more glasses of mead and talked about all manner of things.
Hildy woke the next morning with a raging headache from drinking so much. Her body was sprawled on top of her bedcovers and she was still wearing the fantastic blue dress Morgana put on her.
She stumbled from the bed to the bathroom to take care of business. The cool tile under her feet shocked her fully awake. As she ran water in the sink, she realized the bathroom no longer looked dismal. Looking around in stunned surprise, Hildy saw the surfaces were all gleaming granite and the faucets sparkled. Her bathroom now looked like a top of the line spa.
She turned off her new sink faucet, dried her hands on a thick towel, and then returned to her bedroom. She blinked at the massive four-poster wooden bed filling up most of the space. A bubbling water fountain rested on a matching chest of drawers… which she vaguely remembered Morgana conjuring last night. And hadn’t that fountain been the mead cauldron?
Hildy chuckled over her souvenir from the evening before and ran a n
ervous hand through her still wild and wooly hair.
Looking around, she noticed Chuck’s modest brass lamp was the only thing from the old room remaining. The lamp looked a bit pathetic with all the new furnishings, but she’d keep it there because it reminded her of him.
“How in Gaia’s name am I supposed to explain this room to people after all the complaining I did about using my magic for anything other than healing?”
Carol would be happy to think she was using her magic to create it. Gaia would not.
“Why explain what the goddess drops on ya, doll face? Nobody questions the shiny lady with magnificent tatas. She does whatever she wants.”
Hildy laughed at Fat Bastard’s reasoning. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Maybe youse should keep invitin’ dem magical friends to visit. Maybe youse can ask the next visitor for a kitty spa with a catnip dispenser in the mudroom.”
Laughing, Hildy went to the kitchen to make them all breakfast.
8
Hildy was loading empty breakfast dishes into the most efficient dishwasher in the world when she heard a bunch of animals growling at each other. It sounded like the beginning of a fight.
“What is Gaia’s name is going on now?” She’d barely spoken the words when Fat Bastard trotted into the kitchen yowling at the top of his lungs.
“Yo, Ms. Healer. Youse got some weird-ass—and by dat, I mean shifters with extremely weird asses—in your recently refurbished basement. Me and the boys put a couple of dem freaks in cages just in case. No telling what they might turn into if they keep changing.”
“Coming,” Hildy said urgently, then realized she was still wearing her borrowed elven gown. “Let me throw on some other clothes. I don’t want to ruin this dress. Tell everyone I’ll be down in a few.”
“Weeze will watch the weirdoes until youse be properly attired for work,” Fat Bastard said, trotting off to return to the basement.
Knowing the blanket would just get tangled up as she worked, Hildy dug through her bags and found an old sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants that had been Chuck’s. She lifted the clothing she’d never washed to her face and breathed in what was left of his scent.
She’d borrowed the clothes shortly after coming to Assley and had never returned them. She’d taken them with her to Gaia’s cave because she’d needed some comfort during those first awful months. The bear had always been an addiction to her—one she’d never gotten over.
She rolled and cuffed the pant legs five or six times to clear her ankles enough to walk. The borrowed clothing covered her druid marks yet left her limbs freer to move around in case she’d need a full range of motion for her work.
With her feet still bare, Hildy jogged down the basement stairs, taking them two at a time. What greeted her was a nightmarish scene that perfectly matched the house.
“Great Gaia in the morning, no wonder everyone in town is freaked out about this,” Hildy said, venting her shock aloud.
“Whose clothes are you wearing?” Chuck demanded.
“Huh?” Hildy replied, her mind still working on accepting what her eyes were seeing. Finally, she wrenched her gaze away from the mountain lion with a gorilla’s head—barely. She looked at Chuck in shock. “Why are you here? I’m working.”
Chuck snuffled and huffed. “The guy with the gorilla head is my friend, George. I brought him here.” A mountain lion’s growl exited the gorilla head’s mouth.
“He’s certainly in a freaky-deaky-doo condition,” Hildy stated. She started to walk closer to the odd shifter, but Chuck grabbed her arm. Tightly. She looked at his strong grip on her. “What’s with the macho crap, Chuck? This is not like you.”
“I know, but… you never answered my question.”
Hildy held out her free hand and pointed around the room. “Little busy here. Do you not see all these aberrations?”
Chuck growled low and loud. “Abe R. Rations? Is that his freakin’ name?”
Hildy’s face wrinkled in confusion. Chuck’s extreme level of anger finally registered with her overwhelmed mind. She yanked her wrist away and fisted both hands on her hips. “Listen, I’m barely keeping up with what’s happening here. What are you trying to say to me?”
A loud bear bellow drowned out all the other animal noises that had been filling the room. Silence descended in the echo of Chuck’s roar. Hildy could hear him continue to breathe hard. She so didn’t need this right now.
“I’m saying I don’t want you wearing other men’s clothes, Hildegard.” Chuck grabbed her shirt and pulled her closer. “You’re mine and it’s driving me crazy seeing you dressed like that. The ugly blanket at least didn’t make me want to kill everyone in the room. You need to take off those clothes before someone gets hurt.”
The shifters in cages hunkered into a corner. The ones not in cages ran into empty ones and pawed the doors closed. The mountain lion with the gorilla head shook it wildly as he monkey-screeched in horror over what Chuck was saying.
Even the cats—her alleged familiars—went yowling back up the stairs in retreat. Familiars were supposed to stand by your side no matter what happened. Her cowardly bastards didn’t even glance over their pudgy shoulders. They just left her to deal with the jealous bear alone.
Rolling her eyes at the drama she still didn’t want to admit was her life, Hildy glanced down at Chuck’s hand still gripping her shirt. She looked up and met his angry gaze. This was a bad time to have to face down a raging bear, but was there ever a good time?
She snorted over her epiphany, did a side cartwheel to break Chuck’s grip on her shirt, and then finished her escape with a solid round-off. She made sure the side of her foot connected soundly with the top of Chuck’s hard head, effectively knocking all eight-foot of her stupid bear on his human ass in just a few seconds.
Hildy slid up her sleeves and calmly walked over to straddle him. She sat on his massive chest and glared down. “Got any clue about where you went wrong?” she asked.
“No. What the hell just happened?” Chuck asked.
The twittering animal sounds rose in a crescendo. Hildy snorted and looked down at him while offering no explanation.
She was stupid mad that Chuck didn’t recognize his clothes and more mad that he didn’t trust her loyalty to him even though she knew that wasn’t entirely fair. After all, she’d been the one who’d left two years ago. Maybe she was mad at herself for not having stayed and worked things out with him. Her feelings for Chuck were complicated, but she was never going to let them interfere with her work.
“I would like the honor of answering the bear’s obtuse question.” Fat Bastard quietly crept back down the stairs and came to pace beside Chuck’s head. “Youse just got your big old bear butt handed to you by the witch youse is trying so poorly to romance. Don’t you recognize your own clothes?”
“My clothes?” Chuck asked still in a daze.
“Yessssss. Your clothes,” Hildy echoed.
Chuck closed his eyes and laughed. “Guess that makes me a jealous idiot.”
“Yes, but she loves youse anyway, ya big dumb idiot,” Fat Bastard said.
Chuck sat up which slid Hildy down into his lap. She fit so perfectly there and they were eye-to-eye. He really liked this. “I love you too.”
Hildy narrowed her eyes. “My cat said that. I didn’t say anything. Plus, I refuse to love an idiot.”
“Now that’s not nice. What if I said I refused to love a thief?” Chuck asked.
Hildy gasped. “I’m not a thief.”
“You stole my clothes,” Chuck pointed out, easing his hands around her waist.
“I didn’t steal them. I was exercising my girlfriend rights,” Hildy insisted.
“So you’re my girlfriend then?” Chuck smiled and settled his hands over her very shapely hips.
“I’m not having this conversation right now. I have too much work to do.” Hildy went to climb off but found herself held in place. One look at the determination in Chuck’s eyes and
she knew there would be no escaping until she admitted the truth. “Okay. Okay. Yes—I’m your girlfriend.”
A crescendo of happy animal noises drowned out her moan as Chuck’s talented lips met hers. She secretly loved the way his hands held her in place while he kissed her. Sure, she could have broken his hold, but she would have missed all the lovely heat his kisses spread throughout her body.
When the world quit spinning wildly, Hildy eased away from Chuck’s mouth and laughed. “Can we pick this up later? I’m sure your friend is tired of having a gorilla head.”
Chuck nodded and lifted her with him when he stood. He set Hildy gently back on the floor. “Later, for sure?” he asked.
“Yes. Later for sure,” Hildy agreed. Her hand was trembling when she reached out and patted his chest.
9
Six hours later, Hildy hadn’t healed anyone and still had no clue about what was causing the strange shifting problems. The most she’d been able to accomplish was helping those afflicted turn back into their human selves. That was a simple reversal spell and not healing at all.
She’d let all of her patients leave except Chuck’s friend, George, the mountain lion. She was using George to do some research. Hildy called out in alarm when a giant wolf-kangaroo creature crashed through the basement door and rolled across her cement floor. He hit the exam table and the mountain lion on it roared in protest.
Hildy started toward the wolf-kangaroo creature to see what was going on but Chuck’s voice stopped her.
“No, Hildy. Don’t touch him yet,” Chuck called as he stomped into the basement. He was breathing hard and looking wild. “Let Mac simmer down first. I had to convince him to come here the hard way. He’s not very happy with anyone right now.”
Hildy stared as Chuck walked to the kangaroo creature with the wolf’s head and put his foot on its back. “Stay down until you can mind your manners,” he ordered.
When feminine flutters started happening like mini-earthquakes all over her body, Hildy grinned and reached up to twirl a finger in a loop of her crazy hair. She was learning all kinds of exciting things about her recently claimed boyfriend—like the fact Chuck was very hot when he was mad.
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