by Mary Hughes
“Shrink.” With the last of her concentration, she flung her spell at the hex.
It hit and rebounded straight at her.
Mason yanked her back. She stumbled out of her foot tracings, the spell zapping so close to her ear she heard it whine past.
All magic abruptly cut off. The containment circle dropped. Her wall against the poison dissipated. That meant something, but she couldn’t remember what. She was exhausted, barely alive, the funeral magic eating her from the inside. She slid to the floor, only Mason’s strength keeping her from collapsing in a heap. Her muscles throbbed as if she’d been beaten. Her eyes wouldn’t work.
A small tongue licked her fingers.
Yippy yippy. From somewhere far away a tiny bark tinkled.
The tongue worked up her knuckles, drawing the pain from her twisted joints. Calming the swelling. Her thoughts swirled, erratic, but she realized the healing tongue had to be Noah’s.
Yippy yippity yip. Behind her. Either a third dog or a mosquito. That annoying? She was betting on the mosquito.
Panting, she twisted her head on the ground.
The piccolo barks came from the tiny pink mouth of a black toy poodle. Mad as a hornet, albeit a curly-haired, cutie-pie hornet.
Well, sure. That annoying? Had to be Jayden.
Tied at the tail… Jayden must have meant he was tied to Noah, a straight magical connection from the first unhexing attempt. Her shrink spell had rebounded into him. Jayden had gone from a miniature to a toy.
Yippy yip yip!
He was really mad about something. Something she’d forgotten…?
Noah’s tongue started licking her other hand. He worked the swelling and pain out of her fingers. Healing her, as miraculously as after she’d broken her first funeral seal.
Suddenly Noah gave a pained bark and fell to the floor.
She struggled to sit up. The remaining death magic juddered through her, leaching her strength, and she only managed to roll up to one elbow. But beside her, Noah lay gasping. She parted the fur over his wound.
Red, angry lines radiated as big as a DVD.
Fear bled into her numb exhaustion. This was what Jayden had been trying to tell her. During her attempts to the cut hex, the poison had broken its containment. Probably made worse when Noah licked her hands, healing the worst of the broken death seal by taking it into himself.
Her wand, clamped in her wounded fingers, jerked down, pointing at her pocket. She rolled to her back. Her hand dove in…and came out with Jayden’s healing disk. Thank goodness. She wouldn’t have to do serious magic. She was alive, and Noah’s healing had taken the worst edge off the death magic, but the seal shards still cut her nerves.
Managing to sit up, she pressed the disk to the ugly black lightning on Noah’s flank. She blew gently on the disk, activating it with the lightest touch of air magic. She felt the thwuck when the thing started sucking the poison to a point. Her gasp of pain was a duet with Noah’s soft whine.
She stopped blowing, but the disk didn’t stop sucking. She tried a small flick of magic to remove it. Her hands burned. The disk still didn’t stop.
She had no choice but to pull the thing off physically. The disk came off with a ripping sound and left a raw, naked circle. Noah was silent, but she felt his whole body tense and knew what it cost him.
But it had worked. The angry radiating lines had shrunk to the size of a half dollar.
Drawing up her knees, she slumped against them, exhausted and almost numb with pain. Wordlessly, Mason squatted to pick up the panting terrier. He carried him out of the garage. She pushed herself to weary feet, snagged her shoes, and limped behind. The toy poodle trotted in her wake.
Mason laid Noah carefully on the couch in the exact spot where her mate had held her, where they’d slept together in a more profound sharing of trust than even their sex.
Noah’s golden eyes were open and calm. He’d stopped panting and seemed better. She sat next to him, resting her elbows on her knees.
Her magic hadn’t worked.
She was a hereditary witch princess, a magna cum laude graduate of Nostradamus University. Her magic never failed.
Yet now, when she needed it most, despite suffering excruciating pain to use it, it had failed.
She had failed.
She buried her face in her hands. The skin on her right hand was cracked and bleeding. Blood leaked onto her cheeks, joining the trickle of shame seeping from her eyes.
Noah gave a soft bark. He tried to lick her ugly fingers.
She made a small noise of dismay and snatched her hand away from him. “That’s how you got hurt before.”
He rubbed up against her. Warmth and healing worked into her skin and bones.
Three little yips and the rest of her death pain drained away.
Amazement flooded her breast. “What was that?” She lifted her head and touched her wolf. “What did you say?”
Beyond them, Mason paced the office anxiously. “That’s it then. We’re done for.” Even Jayden looked beaten.
Noah nuzzled her. His tail wagged. I have confidence in you.
Not the three words he’d used before, but he was counting on her. No time to go to pieces.
She sighed, released the wolf, and took several deep breaths. Time to pull out all the stops. Hard to do when she was only one step from the grave, but there was no choice. She was almost certain to fail.
But she needed to try.
Still, because she was almost certain to fail, she needed a backup plan. She found her phone and tried Aunt Linda’s number. It went immediately to voicemail. She left a terse, “Emergency. Call me.” She turned to the black poodle. “Jayden. Find Aunt Linda. Whether she can undo the hex or not, we need her. Bring her here. Mason. When does the fight take place?”
“When the sun clears the tall grass. This time of year, about 7:16.”
She checked her phone for the time. Six thirty. They had forty-six minutes. She set one alarm for six forty-five and another for seven. “Jayden, try to make it within the hour, okay?”
He nodded and trotted off.
She could have attempted a search spell, but Aunt Linda was backup. She needed to save what magic she had for the main push.
She stood and started pacing. “Okay, thinking out loud, here. I tried magically cutting the hex wrappings, but that didn’t work—plus the shears bounced a good half inch above the hex. My shrink spell too.” She stopped. “Something invisible covers the hex.” If she could remove the “something invisible”, she could cut the hex wrappings. Hope stirred in her breast.
“Something?” Mason asked. “Like what?”
“Well…” She kicked into pacing again. “A repel or reverse wouldn’t have broken the shears. But a hide, armor, or shield spell would…” Her brain whirled. A “hide” that wouldn’t appear to a reveal spell? She’d need a special spell or amulet to see it, then. Both books and amulets were at her aunt’s store. “Stars and moon. I have to go.” She headed for the door.
“You know how to fix this, my queen?”
That spun her back. Mason’s face glowed with an unnatural confidence in her, almost to the point of fanaticism.
When she was a page looking at Rodolphe, she’d worn exactly that expression. It made her feel all kinds of slimy.
“Mason, it’s only an idea, and a long shot at that. You need to prepare Noah to fight the challenge as he is.”
Mason’s face fell so abruptly she had to add, “But it’s an idea. There’s still hope.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sophia borrowed Noah’s SUV and lumbered out of the drive. Six thirty-five. She had a little more than half an hour before the Challenge Fight. At the rate the small tank got up to speed, she wondered if it would’ve been faster to walk. Too late for that now. Turning the big vehicle onto the street was no better—it felt like she was driving a pirouetting elephant.
On the way to the bookstore, she phoned Gabriel.
He answered i
mmediately. “What the hell is going on? I felt your magic flare from two states over. Definitely you this time. I left like a zillion voicemails. Only death magic causes that kind of pain—”
“Chew me out later, Gabriel. I’m alive, but if I’m going to stay that way, I need your help.”
He huffed. “What?”
She was fiercely glad this wizard was her brother. When it came down to it, he’d give her what she needed, no questions asked.
She parked the SUV rather haphazardly across the street from the store and slammed out. “Bur hexes. Are they over or under?”
A short tapping of keys was followed by, “It depends. Shifters are over; wizards are under.”
She swore. But it’d only confirmed what she’d begun to suspect. The other thing Jayden had been trying to tell her. Layered.
Every spell had a purpose and a strength. But each spell also had a natural layer, overlay or underlay. For a single spell it didn’t mean anything.
Put two or more spells together and significance got cooking.
An itch spell was overlay. Hit with it, a person scratched like crazy. Unless the person had an underlay of armor. Then the itch spell hovered harmlessly on top.
Auntie’s hex, hitting a pureblood shifter, should have been on top, easily cut by Sophia’s neutralizations.
Which meant Noah was at least part wizard. Also duh-huhed why the wizard healing disk had worked on him. She jammed the key into the store lock.
Somewhere in his lineage, a mage had done the dirty deed with a shifter. Noah was a forbidden dual.
“Sophia?” Gabriel’s voice sounded in her ear. “Talk to me. Why are you asking about layers? Noah’s a wizard?”
Okay, not no questions asked. Should’ve expected that. Her brother’s sharp mind was constantly working, prying and poking at facts like a sewing machine needle. Eventually he’d stitch things together. She didn’t have time for it now.
“He’s a shifter.” She threw open the bookstore door and went inside, exquisitely aware that she wasn’t answering the question.
“Then why are you asking about wizards?”
Her phone beeped. Six forty-five already? Damn it. “Duals are taboo.” She ran to her aunt’s talisman cabinet and threw it open. With two-thirds of her magic freed, the talismans’ enthusiastic shouts were even louder.
“Taboo doesn’t mean impossible,” Gabriel said reasonably. “Not if you’ve got a boy witch and a girl shifter—or vice versa.”
She and Noah had proved several times now that he was correct. But she still fought the idea. “It’s wrong.”
“I see.” A beat. “But you love him?”
Her throat closed up on emotions so big they had no name. The one fact she couldn’t fight. She managed, “Yes.”
“Then it’s not wrong. What have you tried, unhex-wise?”
And that was that. Sophia’s heart swelled and she blinked back tears. Her brother would stand by her and Noah. “It’s complicated by a magical poison.” As she dug through the talismans trying to find one that would remove a stubborn hide or complex armor spell, she told him about the stabbing and her tries at removing the hex. In the background was fast typing. “Gabriel, what are you doing?”
“I made a spell database that’s like a medical symptoms search. I’ve been looking for a chance to give it a workout.”
“You and your databases.” She gave a watery laugh. “Thanks.” She meant more than just the hex.
“You’d do the same for me. Hmm. Invisible, repelling magic, but not physical attacks?” More clacking of keys. “It’s a simple hide spell, Sophia. It would mask any witch magic Noah did, and also the hex.” A pause. “Correction, my familiar says it would mask his witch magic except from his familiar.”
“No, a reveal removes a simple hide. Mine didn’t, and neither did Jayden’s. And I know Jayden’s worked because it removed his own hide.”
“Jayden?”
“Never mind. It would take too long to explain. Check your database again. It can’t be a simple hide…” She smacked her forehead. “Gabriel, your dearest sister is a couple cackles short of a full witch today. There is one very easy way a simple hide won’t reveal.” Mason had just been talking about it. The Challenge Fight field had a hide spell—fueled and renewed by talismans.
“Snap, crackle, and damn. The hide is being constantly refreshed.”
“Yes. Noah must be wearing something magical that supports it.”
“A ring? Earring? What does he always wear?”
“I don’t know…wait. Yes, I do. His wolf pendant. Unless Jayden had seen Noah shirtless, he wouldn’t know about it.”
“Shirtless?”
Flames hit her cheeks. “Look, does your database tell you what breaks a hide-covered hex?”
“Just use the Laws of Precedence. Break the top spell first. The hide. But the hide won’t break as long as the pendant renews it. Ergo, he has to take the pendant off.”
“Right.” Could a dog remove a pendant that had shifted in with him? Arcane Animals hadn’t taught her that.
Well, she’d worry how Noah would remove his pendant while she drove back. Because if the hide wasn’t a particularly stubborn or complex, she could break it easily once Noah removed his pendant. Turned out she hadn’t needed to come here, after all. Chafing at the wasted time, she closed the cabinet. “I have to go. Thanks for everything.”
About to sign off, she stopped. “Gabriel. I love you.”
A sharp inhale let her know he understood. She might not survive the day. But he only said, “I love you too, Sophia. Be careful.”
She put her phone away and started for the front door.
A melodious voice said, “Wait.”
She spun. A handsome older man, his thick auburn hair frosted at the temples, stood with his powerful frame filling the doorway between the kitchen and the store.
Strangely, she wasn’t scared. Somehow the man was familiar. Reassuring.
He raised a small cardboard box, like fancy bath salts, and approached her. “You’ll need this.”
“What is it?”
“Loose blue chalk. Your aunt uses it to mark patterns.”
Sophia’s phone beeped again. Fifteen minutes. And she still had to navigate the barge masquerading as a vehicle back upstream, worse because she’d parked it facing east and it would take a small country to do a U-turn.
“Well. I don’t know what I’ll need it for, but thanks.” She held out her hands and the stranger tossed her the box.
“You’re welcome.” He winked one green eye.
As she trotted out, she realized that green iris surrounded a pupil that was oddly elongated. A cat’s eye.
Good grief. That was Mr. Kibbles.
She managed to get the monster truck turned around by circling the block, only crunching two Minis on the way. Not really, but it was a near thing. She screeched to a halt outside the store and ran inside.
No Jayden. She ran to the garage. No Mason, no Noah. She sprinted out the people door.
The pack already circled in the field. It goosed her heart rate.
Shifters, both wolf and human, concentrated on the center. Wolf Ivan, standing amid the tall grass, howled his challenge. A heavyweight to wolf Noah’s super-heavy, but the rat dog would be outclassed like a sack of flour.
She couldn’t see Noah. Hopefully she’d gotten here before him—
“Start!” Mason called.
That kicked her heart into race.
Ivan leaped forward. Tall grass waved from the other direction, like a tiny nuclear submarine was displacing the tillers.
Noah, plowing through the grass, too short to be visible but running with the heart of an alpha.
Ivan the Wolf didn’t make the connection. He stopped abruptly and howled again, triumphantly, and definitely premature.
Noah leaped into view and sank needle-sharp teeth into Ivan’s underbelly.
Ivan yowled. He reared back on his hind legs and spun, flicking No
ah off like water. The poor little dog tumbled into the grass. Ivan bounded to the other side of the ring where he fell to his hips to lick his belly, whimpering.
Sophia shouldered her way through to the front of the circle. Noah staggered to his feet, barely visible even close up.
The wound on his flank had opened again, oozing blood. His fur was matted with it and caked with grass and dirt. He shuddered on his little legs. He tried to take a step but was as stiff as a marionette.
Damn that poison. If they survived this she was turning Killer into a snake, making him into a pair of boots, and using the boots to kick all the anti-alphas’ asses. “Noah! Your mother’s medallion.”
Bonnie booed. “No coaching!”
Sophia gave her a hairy eyeball, the facial equivalent of the finger.
Noah yipped. When she turned her attention to him, his trembling eased and his ears perked forward. She touched her white wolf. He said, I knew you’d come.
“I only left to figure out the spells. When your mother gave you the medallion, did she do anything special?”
“Shut up and fight,” Clyde yelled.
Ivan stopped licking. With a growl he shook himself, rolled to his feet and started for Noah.
My mother kissed it. Noah turned to face Ivan.
Activated with love. The most powerful magic of all.
But there had to be a word or words. “What did she say?”
Too late. Ivan bounded the diameter of the circle toward Noah. Hunched down, hiding in the grass, Noah didn’t answer. She held her breath. If Ivan fell for the same trick again, Noah might actually win this fight.
Ivan screeched to a halt, toenails digging into dirt, mere inches outside Noah’s kill zone. Life was just a bowl of fuckberries.
Outside Noah’s kill zone but not outside Ivan’s. The wolf snapped up Noah’s sturdy little dog body in huge deadly jaws.
Sophia gasped. Noah, as a wolf, had cracked the spine of a stag. What could Ivan do to a small dog?
“Stop!” Her heart hammering, she tried to burst into the ring. Hands grabbed her, held her back.
Ice exploded in her stomach as Noah squirmed and Ivan chomped—just as Noah wriggled loose. He fell out of Ivan’s slobbery mouth, little legs scrambling. She breathed in relief. Too soon.