Witch for the Wolf

by Annabelle Winters

  “It just is?! That’s your answer?!” Caleb roared, punching a tree-trunk so hard he knew he’d have some serious bruises in a few hours. “Not good enough, you goddamned furball. Not! Good! Enough!”

  “Caleb!” Magda screamed, flinging herself into his body so hard it almost knocked the wind out of him. But he grabbed her and pulled her in close, looking upon her tear-streaked face that made it clear her fox had just told her exactly what his wolf had just revealed. “Caleb, what is your animal telling you? Don’t listen to it, Caleb! It’s a trick! We can’t trust our animals right now! Not here! Not in this place!”

  Caleb frowned as he felt his mind squirm like a toad in the sun. Suddenly there were too many people talking at once, too many voices in his head, too many sounds from the trees, too much, too much, just too damned much!

  Take her, whispered his wolf through the chaos. You want answers? You want to know what the Darkness is? You want to see it, touch it, face it dead on like a soldier? Then draw it out into the open. Give it what it wants. Give it what it has been promised. Give it what it wants, and it will come for it. Take her now, Caleb. Claim your mate. Her fox is blocking her dark magic, and she will not be able to stop you. Take control. Take your mate. Claim your fate.

  A strange peace came over Caleb, but it was the eerie peace of a desert island before a hurricane comes screaming in. He could feel the energy building up in his core, and as his mind cleared out all the voices, Caleb was certain he understood what the wolf was talking about when he said the Darkness was the source of every Shifter’s animal energy. Wasn’t it true that without balance and control a Shifter’s animal was a destructive, merciless, ruthless force? Look at Adam’s dragon when it went on a rampage! Look at Bart’s bear when it was out of control! Those beasts killed without discrimination! No prisoners! No survivors! No leftovers for the morning!

  I’m a goddamn killer too, Caleb reminded himself as he tightened his grip around his mate and looked deep into her eyes. And so is she. So is my mate. My woman. My witch.

  That one look at her eyes told him that her mind was swirling too, that she was turned around inside, twisted and torn as to whether this was magic or madness, real or imagined, the path to their destiny or the road to eternal darkness.

  Give it what it wants and it will come for it, his animal had whispered as Caleb cocked his head and let his gaze move down along Magda’s bosom overflowing past her white gown’s neckline. That’s what you want, isn’t it, Soldier? To face your enemy on the battlefield? To draw it out into the open?

  “Yes,” Caleb whispered, leaning close and slowly licking Magda’s neck as she swooned in his arms, shivered at his touch, and finally let out a low moan that made Caleb tremble. He could feel his manhood push against the metal lock like it had before, but this time he swore he could feel the metal begin to bend under his power, from his need, his need to fill her with his seed. “Yes, that’s the answer. All this while we’ve been trying to hold ourselves back from doing what comes naturally, and we’ve been restraining ourselves out of fear. But I’m a goddamn soldier. I face my fears. I fight my fears. I kill my fears.”

  “What are you talking about?” Magda mumbled, her eyelids fluttering like she was under a spell—or perhaps just coming out of a spell.

  “The Darkness wants our first born, right? Well, then let’s give it what it wants. Bring it out into the open. I want to see this mysterious force called the Darkness. I want to face it. Let’s see if it can take my child from me. My baby from me. Anything from me! We’re going to finish this before we leave this forest, Magda. I’m going to finish this. Kill the enemy and walk out of here with my woman and my baby.”

  “No!” Magda shrieked as she tried to get away from him. “No, Caleb! You don’t understand! We need to . . . oh, God, Caleb. Oh, God!”

  And then Caleb couldn’t hear her voice, couldn’t see her face, couldn’t even breathe. Because he’d leaned in and kissed her. He’d kissed her hard, and his mouth smothered hers as he felt his wolf howl, sensed her fox yelp, smelled her feminine musk rise up to him like a drug in the thick, heavy air of the dark forest.

  He kissed her. By the eternal Darkness that lives in every Shifter, he kissed her.

  17

  His kiss broke her down the middle, shattered her from the inside out, sent sparks through her body, tremors through her soul. She could hear his wolf’s howl rip through the ether, her fox yipping and yelping in unison as it gave itself up to its powerful, dominant mate. She could sense her animal had been waiting its entire life for this moment, perhaps while dreading the day it happened, knowing what was promised.

  The memory of that promise almost broke her in two again, and she tried to break away from his kiss. But she couldn’t. He was too strong, and when she felt his rock-hard manhood pushing against her thighs and force them apart, she realized that the barrier she’d managed to keep up to control their cravings for one another was now gone.

  Magda tried to conjure up that metal cage again, almost panicking when she realized her magic wasn’t working. Had she lost her magic again? Did it really not work when she was being controlled by Caleb’s touch?

  Let me use my magic to stop him, Magda said to her fox. Why don’t my spells work?

  Your dark magic comes from the Darkness, which is the source of every Shifter’s animal energy, replied her fox. I am your connection to the Darkness, and to the dark magic that comes from it. I control its flow, and I don’t want you to use it because I know you will use it to stop him from doing what must happen. Just like you have been stopping it all this while, denying it even though you didn't know you were denying it, thought it was me who was denying it. This must happen. He is going to claim us, take us, put his seed in us. It is time, and I will not let you stop it.

  “No!” Magda shrieked, pushing at Caleb even as she felt her wetness flow down the insides of her thighs as he rubbed her mound hard, driving his fingers deep into her, pushing the soaked cloth of her gown along with it. “This is a trick! You’re under its control just like he is!”

  Of course I’m under its control, honey, whispered her fox. The Darkness is Shifter energy, the energy of the animal. I am the Darkness, just like your mate’s wolf is the Darkness, just like Adam’s dragon, Bart and Bis’s bears, Ash’s black leopard. Even Murad’s dragon—though that is an example of what happens when the Darkness takes over the man too, when the battle for balance is lost.

  The battle for balance, Magda thought as she felt Caleb’s hot breath against her cheek as he licked her neck, his hands beneath her robe, fingers digging into her ass, driving into her vagina. Balance at every level. The balance between the human and the animal. The balance within the human itself. And the balance between two fated mates struggling to find their way to their destiny.

  But what is our destiny, Magda thought as she felt her fox retreat to the background as Caleb pushed her up against a tree and kissed her hard on the lips again. She could feel the arousal rip through her body, but at the same time her mind was still tormented by that strange promise of a first-born child. The disconnect was driving her close to insanity as she felt the two parts of herself split like they were fighting each other: The animal that simply wanted its mate; the human that was holding back as it tried to figure out what was going on, if this was a trap, a trick, a mistake!

  “Our first born child,” she groaned as Caleb broke from the kiss and drew his head back so he could look at her. His blue eyes were misty with need, but she could tell that he was fighting with himself just like she was struggling with the needs of the body and the doubts of the mind. He was a soldier, a warrior, a killer, and so he wanted to handle it by drawing his enemy out and facing it on the battlefield. But that wasn’t Magda’s way. It wasn’t the way of the fox. “Our first born child,” she said again, touching his face as he looked at her with those hungry blue eyes. “Caleb, we can’t. We can’t use our
child as bait! What kind of parents do that?”

  “You don’t trust me to take care of you, to take care of my child, my family?” he growled, running the back of his hand along her cheek and tracing his fingers along her neck.

  “Of course I do,” she whispered. “It’s just that I . . . I can’t do this until I understand what’s going on. Until I get to the bottom of this deal with the Darkness. Caleb, the Darkness isn’t some demon or monster. I understand what you’re doing, Caleb. I understand that you’re a soldier, that you want to face your enemy on the battlefield. But that’s a manifestation of your own frustration, your own confusion, your own conflict. We’re so close, Caleb. We need to hold on. We’re so close!”

  “Close to what?!” Caleb howled, pressing her neck and then whipping his body back. He spun away from her, his naked body taut and tense, his tattoos shining like they’d been burned fresh onto his skin. “The only thing I’m close to is madness, Magda! We’re fated mates! I feel it and you feel it! Our animals know it! What’s stopping us from doing what comes naturally?”

  “We are stopping us!” Magda screamed, her cheeks puffing out as she felt the blood rush to her face. “Why can’t you see that? I see it in you. You’re holding back too, even though you want to take me, claim me, put your seed in me. You’re as unsure about this as I am! You’re as fucking scared as I am! You just won’t admit it!”

  Caleb whipped his body back around, his eyes blazing with the darkest blue she’d ever seen. “I don’t get scared,” he whispered, almost spitting the words out. “I don’t do fear. Fear is for pussies.”

  Magda’s eyes went black and she shrieked with mocking laughter. “Oh, my God! You are still a child, aren’t you? That angry little boy, cowering in the corner, afraid of daddy, powerless to protect mommy!”

  With a roar that shook the trees, Caleb was on her, his wolf bursting forth in mid-air, jaws wide open, teeth white as ivory, tongue red as blood. But before the wolf got to her, Magda’s fox had come forth, and she bounded out of the way so fast that the wolf went crashing into the tree, almost bringing it down with his strength.

  And then Magda the fox was tearing through the woods, a red blur of fox-fur with a gray wolf hot on her heels, both animals wild with pure energy. They crashed through bushes, bounced off gnarled tree-roots, splashed through streams. Rabbits and squirrels stopped to stare. Wild boar tamely sat on their haunches to watch the show. Birds of prey almost fell out of the sky as they got distracted by the streaks of pure energy whizzing through the woods beneath them. Even that solitary German mountain lion emerged from its daytime slumber to shake its head and say, “Diese Amerikaner sind verrückt!” (Translation: These Americans are crazy.)

  Magda’s snout was hanging open as she raced through the woods, cutting left and right, bounding over obstacles like it was a game. She could feel the wolf’s breath hot on her heels, and although she knew the bigger and more powerful wolf would have run her down in a second in an open field, her fox had the advantage in the thick forest with its quickness and ability to change direction on a dime.

  “Can’t catch me!” Magda squealed as she leapt over a boulder and heard the wolf stumble and roll head over heels with momentum. But the beast kept going, rolling over and landing on its feet, barely losing a step, its breath still hot on Magda’s swift paws.

  “Oh, I’m gonna catch you, little Red Riding Hood,” growled the wolf through its steady panting. “I can run forever. Your tiny legs are going to wear down soon enough. I’m gonna catch you and eat you up, little Red Riding Hood.”

  “Is that what the big bad wolf does in the story?” Magda panted as she made a sharp left and barreled down an incline so fast she could barely keep her footing.

  “This ain’t a fairy tale, little fox,” growled the wolf as he crashed down into the shady little valley after her.

  “That wasn’t much of a fairy tale either, if you think about it,” Magda said with glee as she felt the air get cooler as they descended into the valley nestled between the mountains. “Though I always liked the part where the wolf dresses up as the Grandma to trick little Red Riding Hood. In fact, I think I’d like to see you in a grandma-dress. In fact, I think I will see you in a grandma-dress!”

  She leapt up onto a flat ridge of smooth rock, turning in the air and landing on all fours facing the wolf. Without even realizing she was doing it, she muttered some words and presto, the big bad wolf was suddenly clothed in a polka-dot dress with red frills around the collar!

  Magda’s trickster fox yipped with delight as the wolf’s legs got tangled up in the dress and it fell head-over-heels as it tried to jump up onto the ridge, its snout banging against the base of the ridge, making it roar in surprise. Magda’s body was burning with energy, and she just kept yipping out loud as she looked down at her wolf rolling around in a frilly polka-dot dress, its maws wide open as it snorted with laughter. She had a vague memory of saying something mean to him, something hurtful, something that brought the wolf out in him, brought the Darkness out in him. But now they were laughing, playing, chasing each other like puppies!

  And then the wolf stood up on his hind legs, his Change coming through so quick Magda gasped as she saw Caleb the man burst through. The comical dress dropped away as Caleb stood upright and stretched his arms out wide, his body lean and tight, his cock long and hard, his mouth twisted in a half-grin that meant only one thing.

  Magda gasped again as she felt her own Change burst through, the woman in her coming forth, naked and ready. She couldn’t think anymore. She could barely even see. The energy of her animal was whipping through her, and she didn’t give a damn if it was the Darkness taking over, a demon collecting on its deal, or a goddamn fairy godmother that was casting a spell on her.

  She felt herself sit down hard on her ass, and then Caleb was standing up against the ridge, pushing her thighs apart as he buried his face between her legs, his tongue driving deep into her vagina and curling upwards, bringing out the animal and the woman in her all at once.

  Magda screamed as she came, her climax roaring in like the wind, her eyes going wide and then rolling up in her head as her mate rolled his stiff tongue around her cavern like he wanted to taste every part of her secret space, drink her down, eat her up like the big bad wolf he was.

  “You taste so damned sweet, Magda,” Caleb growled from between her legs, his tongue still inside her, his voice and lips making her clit shiver as his mouth smothered her mound. “I told you I’m going to eat you up, little Red Riding Hood. Eat you up and then ride you.”

  Magda’s mouth curled into a smile as the ecstasy escalated until her orgasm splintered into a million secondary climaxes. She bucked her hips up into his face, groaned as she felt his stubble prickly and rough against her soft inner thighs, his big hands firmly cupping her ass as he drank her nectar, inhaled her scent, ate her up just like he said he would.

  “I don’t think that’s what happens in that story,” she whimpered softly. She fluttered her eyelids as she tried to catch her breath, but then she felt Caleb slide his finger into her rear hole from beneath and she screamed in shock, her eyes flicking wide open, her lips forming a tight circle as she gasped and then moaned out loud. “OK, now that certainly doesn’t happen to little Red Riding Hood,” she managed to say as she slowly lowered her hips onto her mate’s middle finger, groaning as she felt it slide deep into her ass in the most filthy, beautiful way.

  “This is the adult version,” whispered Caleb, his breath hot against her wet mound as he looked up at her, his gaze travelling along her naked body and locking in on her eyes. “The version we’ll tell our children.”

  “Ohmygod, we will not!” she squealed as Caleb slowly curled his finger inside her asshole and then gently sucked on her clit again, bringing her so close to another climax that she started to pant and make a gurgling noise like a bubbling brook in the springtime.

  But just be
fore that new climax hit, Caleb pulled his face away, flipped her over onto her stomach, and pulled her by the hips until she bent her knees and stuck her ass up in the air. He spread her asscheeks so wide she could feel the air swirling around her opening, and then he let go and brought his open palms down hard on her buttocks, both hands at once, the slaps ringing out like gunshots through the forest.

  He spanked her twice, three times, hard and with authority, her cries rippling through the silent forest as her asscheeks shuddered with each strike. Each slap stung like fire, but it felt so damned good Magda couldn’t help but arch her back down and stick her ass up in the air as she prepared for the next one. She grinned wide as she realized why she needed to have a “meaty” butt. She was built for her mate. Built for her man. Just exactly right. Like the story of Goldilocks. The adult version, of course.

  “That’s for making me wear a dress,” he whispered, pressing his face close to her lower back and then slowly running his tongue straight down along her rear crack, leaving a trail of clean saliva. He circled her rear hole with his tongue, licking her carefully and lovingly before driving his tongue inside and holding it there. She could feel his wetness coat her from the inside, and she gasped when he pulled his tongue away and a moment later pressed the massive head of his cock against her tight pucker. “And this,” he whispered, his voice a low rumble, “is for imprisoning me in that inhumane, medieval torture device.”

  Magda felt her breath catch in her throat as she tightened up from behind, her entire body stiffening when she realized what was about to happen. But the head of his cock was already firmly placed at her rear entrance, and Caleb pushed the thick bulb of his erection past her opening so she couldn’t close up.

  “What are you doing?” she groaned, her eyes wide even though she could barely see. She tried to turn, to move, to do anything, but Caleb’s right hand was on the back of her neck, holding her in position as he pulled her left asscheek out with his other hand to give him full access. “What are you doing, Caleb? What are you . . . oh, oh, oh fuck!”