Jared ducked as another animal came charging toward him. His new power gave him even better reflexes than normal. Cassie was dizzy by how fast he could move. The skinwalker didn’t stand a chance, yet again, Jared didn’t kill him when he could. Jared turned to see his father scream in rage. He wasn’t as kind and bodies were piling up by his feet. Jared knew that his father was creating a target of himself, but he didn’t care. He relished in the fight and his hatred of the skinwalkers, the hatred that had kicked him out of the clan almost a decade ago poured from him, fueling his rage further.
Quickly, Jared searched for the next person to help. He didn’t bother to help the group that was attacking the bear John. They were all the same as his father—vengeful for blood. None of the mess was John’s fault. Jared respected the man who’d raised Cassie. He understood that he was just like Jared. He was protecting his own. Six wendigo in their pledge forms took turns attacking him, but John was fine. Jared moved on.
Several skinwalkers moved to attack his father. Jared had to step in. It was his job to support his dad, no matter how crazy he was. As Jared approached, his pathway was cut off. A large white tiger stood in his way. Mikel nipped at Jared, and he backed away from the alpha, quick enough to keep his arm but not quick enough to go help his father.
Jared glanced at his father again, and the older alpha laughed as four skinwalkers attacked at once. Jared jumped as Mikel moved in and swiped his tiger paws at Jared’s legs. He had very little memory of Mikel beyond the fatherly figure he was to Nate, but his father had told him enough stories for Jared to know Mikel was cut from the same cloth as his own father. Mikel attacked again, and Jared had to quickly move. Ben finally noticed Jared.
“Is that how we play now?” Ben asked, throwing down the fourth skinwalker he was toying with. Cassie couldn’t tell if they were all dead or just hurt.
Ben jumped over the pile of animals around him and stalked into the fight of people. As he passed skinwalker and wendigo fighting, he didn’t stop to help anyone. He was on a direct march to the tiger that was fending off his own horde of attackers. Tipping his head back, Ben screeched into the night. The wendigo who had been attacking Nate backed away, leaving Nate facing Ben.
She pulled out of Jared’s mind. It was too much. She could feel the thirst for vengeance in Ben. He was out for blood, and Nate was his target. Cassie wasn’t bonded to Nate, and his life ending wouldn’t end hers unless the bond came back. But she didn’t want him hurt, let alone dead.
Cassie looked around. She didn’t have anything with her and had yet to learn how to fight with magic. She was useless, and now her family was out there fighting and possibly dying if Ben got to them.
She was far enough away from the fighting that she was able to hear the low growl beneath her. Glancing down, she dreaded which skinwalker had found her. She wasn’t bonded to Nate and didn’t know what that meant for her now. Would they be her enemy? The witches had made it clear Nate was going to have to kill her if she joined the wrong side. The bond with him wasn’t back yet. She was still technically the enemy.
The large mountain lion looked up the tree at her before climbing up. Backing away on the branch, she tried not to freak out. Jared had tucked her away, and he needed to concentrate on what he was doing. She calmed her heartbeat and looked at the animal that was now staring at her. Cassie couldn’t distract Jared. He was facing off with Mikel.
The golden-colored mountain lion stared at Cassie. It made no move to come and get her, just stared. Cassie stared back, and then it hit her. It was very well possible that she was looking at her best friend.
“Whitney?” Cassie whispered.
The mountain lion gave a sort of smile and nodded her large cat head.
Knowing the large cat was Whitney calmed Cassie a bit more. Her friend was the one person the alpha didn’t order around. Even if Cassie was the enemy now, she was confident Whitney wouldn’t hurt her. Cassie crawled forward on the branch back to the trunk of the tree. Whitney stared at Cassie to open the channel between them.
Cassie could already see the first bit of the battle.
Mikel was busy fighting with Jared, while Jared was evading the old alpha, and Ben had already made it to Nate. He had clipped off the tip of Nate’s tail with his razor-sharp claws, but hadn’t been able to touch him a second time.
“What can I do, Whit? I don’t have the power to fight them. I’m just one witch,” Cassie complained.
Whitney continued to stare. Cassie felt it better this time. The future was coming to her.
Jared was keeping up with Mikel and not touching the old alpha nor getting a single scratch on himself. Mikel slowly was wearing down, yet Jared still wouldn’t go in for the kill. He didn’t even make a single offensive move on the older alpha.
Nate wasn’t fairing as well. He already had two cuts running the length of his cat body. Ben had tried to gut him the last time Nate moved in to attack him. Ben was playing cat and mouse with Nate, except Nate didn’t happen to be the cat in the equation. Where Mikel and Jared were playing it safe, Ben and Nate were going all out. Ben might have been as cut up as Nate was, but Cassie could see it. Nate didn’t have the strength to keep up with him. Without his bond to her, Nate wasn’t the alpha he was always meant to become. He needed a bonded witch to do that. Cassie cringed when Ben moved again, slicing through Nate’s back left leg. The beautiful tiger fell to the ground.
Cassie pulled out of the future. It was one she didn’t want to see. One she had to prevent.
“Can you take me to them?” she asked her cat friend. She was dizzy from looking into the future, but that didn’t stop anything. Whitney nodded.
Cassie climbed on the back of her friend who was twice the size of a normal cougar. Cat Whitney easily leapt from the tree without causing either girl a broken bone. She held on as Whitney moved right into the fight of everyone. Whitney stopped an equal distance from both guys. Animals and monsters were fighting all around them, and not even noticing them as they stood.
She didn’t know what to do, but when all else failed, her aunt had always told her to call on old Mother Earth. Cassie knelt in the ground, digging a quick hold in the dirt. Pulling out the pocket knife she had gotten from Jared, she sliced into her hand and dropped her blood into the ground.
“Mother, please hear my prayer. Give me the strength to stop this,” Cassie whispered a prayer before placing her hands on the ground where her blood had just been soaked up. She wasn’t sure what to do, but decided to just follow her instincts.
“Everyone, stop! Freeze,” Cassie commanded, knowing more than one life depended on her stopping everything.
At her command, everyone—including the alphas—stopped in their tracks. It appeared they had been frozen in place. Cassie even imagined she could see ice on the feet of the person nearest her. As she stood, she could tell no one was moving except her. It was time for her to take back control of her life, starting with the fighting around her.
Cassie walked between a wendigo fighting with a wolf, making sure not to touch or come between them. As she got near Nate, Ben’s eyes followed her though he couldn’t move his body. He again was studying her, but Cassie didn’t care. She wasn’t about to let him kill Nate.
Reaching forward, Cassie touched Nate. He unfroze at the same time as she felt the bond snap back into place. She could feel him in her head again. Their bond was back, and luckily his tail was healed.
‘Did they do anything to you?’ Nate asked across the bond. He had felt it bind into place.
‘No, I’m fine.’
Turning, Cassie walked back through the mess of people over to Jared. She touched him, and the frozen spell on him was instantly gone. He looked at Nate and gave him a frown.
‘The bond is back,’ she told Jared.
Jared nodded as Cassie moved once again. This time, she went to the north end of the stone outcrop. No one seemed to notice they had been fighting in the ritual spot of the wendigo, or if they did, no one se
emed to care. She kind of thought it was the latter.
Cassie stood on the north stone and faced the night humans that had been fighting. Slowly they were back to moving, yet no one charged an inch to fight again. Even Nate and Jared’s fathers, the alphas, waited to assess the situation.
“I didn’t create this mess, but I’m sick of it,” Cassie began as she looked at all the faces, monsters and animals alike. “I can’t understand why everyone hates each other, but I’m missing something here. Where is the coven in all this?”
Not a single witch was on the fighting ground. In fact, Cassie could tell through the bond with Nate that the coven had fled back to the city already while the skinwalkers came in to fight. Even Maria was gone, but Cassie had a feeling that it had more to do with John sending her away than anything. Cassie was the only day human left standing in the middle of the bloodbath the night humans created together.
Ben smiled smugly at tiger Mikel.
“And I understand the fighting to take back the coven since everyone is stuck in their animal forms,” Cassie added. Ben’s smile faded. “But what I don’t understand is why all the fighting to begin with?”
Cassie felt the jumble of thoughts push from both sides. Each person there was fighting for their own reasons, but no one seemed to agree on what those reasons were. Even in each clan. Skinwalkers had several ideas while wendigo all disagreed on their reasons.
“Stop,” Cassie ordered, her head spinning from all the thoughts running through it. It was worse than before. The voices of everyone around her were louder for some reason.
Everyone stopped thinking and stared at her.
‘I could get used to this,’ Cassie told Nate and Jared.
“You know what,” Cassie addressed the crowd, “I’m sick of all the reasons and all the lies. I found out once I was with the wendigo that my whole childhood had been changed by the coven. I have just as many reasons to hate them as the wendigo, but I don’t. Someone taught me to look beyond the few bad people in a group. The coven didn’t change my memories and my fate. Certain people did. I won’t blame the coven, and no one here should blame a whole side of people either.”
Ben began to walk forward.
“What the coven did is unforgivable, but the fact that Mikel let them is why I fight here,” he explained, slowly moving closer, but toward Nate in general. “I deserve my vengeance.”
Ben wasn’t moving fast, but was threatening enough. Cassie could tell exactly what he was planning, and she dropped to her knees to pull power from the ground again to freeze him in his place. Everyone around her just stared. Ben was the alpha, and she was stopping him. Then what did that make her?
“I’m sorry for stopping you like this in front of everyone, but I need to before you make a mistake,” Cassie told Ben, hoping to soothe him. His anger was growing every minute he couldn’t move. He had never been anywhere but at the top of the food chain before.
“If you kill Nate, you will kill Jared also because we are all three bonded together.”
“Impossible,” Ben spat out. His anger was boiling, but so was his curiosity. He denied her based on logic, yet he was smart enough to keep an open mind.
“I was forced to bond to Nate a week ago when your own son and my cousin took Nate. They wanted my protection spell and forced me to cast it on him first. In the process, he took some of my blood. This would have been fine if Ryder hadn’t attacked me the day before and Nate used his blood to heal me. We bonded instantly because of what Ryder and Jack both did,” Cassie explained.
“Still impossible. Once bonded you can’t take another,” Ben stated, obviously not believing her story.
“And I’ve heard you can’t have two mates, but that doesn’t seem to be the case either,” Cassie pointed out. She had him there; even he couldn’t explain it.
“When you said Jared would have to kill me if he couldn’t bond to me, I temporarily broke the bond with Nate, so I could bind with Jared. I had no clue what would happen after that, but it seems it’s possible to have two people bonded to one.” Cassie shrugged. That was as much as she could explain it because she really had no clue beyond that.
“I still don’t believe you,” Ben said, his fingers beginning to wiggle.
Cassie didn’t have much more time of his being frozen. Her words weren’t convincing him, and he would believe Jared even less. He had seen Jared fighting and was already mad at him for not killing anyone. Cassie clenched her hands. Alphas could be impossible to deal with. Her hand gripped the pocket knife she was still holding.
“Fine. I’ll prove it,” Cassie added.
‘I need you in human form for this,’ Cassie told Nate. She slipped off Jared’s coat she was wearing as Nate transformed beside her. Keeping her eyes closed, she handed him the coat.
Nate chuckled. He was completely fine with being nude around all the men and animals, but he wrapped the coat around his waist anyway for Cassie. She reopened her eyes when she knew he was covered … well, the front of him was covered.
Turning to Nate, she took his hands and held them out parallel to the ground. “Keep them there,” Cassie instructed.
He held them in place as asked.
“Now you,” Cassie said, turning to Jared.
Ben was almost free, but he wasn’t moving toward them again. He was watching Cassie with the same analyzing look he had many times already since she had met him.
Taking the knife, Cassie held it above Jared’s left hand. Her hands shook at the thought of cutting him. Jared smiled as he placed his hand over hers and pressed down. They had just been fighting for their lives, so a thin cut that would barely bleed on the top of his hand was nothing in comparison.
Cassie felt the skin on her hand break open. She turned to Nate. He was now sporting the same cut across his left hand. Ben looked shocked, but Cassie wasn’t done yet. She needed both Ben and Mikel to see that they couldn’t touch each other’s children. It was the only way Nate and Jared would both stay safe.
She held the knife over Nate’s right hand. He didn’t even wait for her to hesitate as he pressed the knife down. The skin broke open on her other hand, and followed on Jared.
Cassie looked up at Ben finally. He saw the mark on his own son and was astonished, even if he hid it well. The frozen spell wore off, and he could move freely, but he made no more movements toward Nate.
“We are in a stalemate,” Cassie told the two alphas. “It’s best we all learn to get along. I have no idea what that means, but it has been a long few weeks, and I want some sleep. Everyone go home. We will have to talk this over some other time.” Cassie yawned. Seeing into the future was really exhausting.
Ben finally agreed with Cassie. Tilting his head back, he gave a few roars into the sky. The wendigo vanished from their spots beside whoever they were fighting. Nate handed Cassie the coat and shifted back into his tiger form. Ben stood on the west side of the circle, staring across at Mikel.
Mikel roared, and most of the skinwalkers disappeared into the night also. A big, brown-colored bear waited at the edge of the woods.
‘Time to go home,’ tiger Nate told Cassie in her head. ‘My mother should be there waiting for us.’
Cassie glanced down at him. They were once again bonded, and he was telling her what to do. Typical Nate.
“Cassie?” Jared asked, holding out his hand for her.
Cassie smiled at him. He wasn’t bossy like Nate, but she didn’t plan to go back to his place either. There was only one place she really wanted to go.
“Sorry, guys. I got somewhere to be.” Cassie perched on her toes and pulled Jared down to give him a kiss on his cheek before she patted Nate on his big, furry head.
Cassie didn’t even stop to look at their shocked faces. Well, she knew Jared wasn't shocked. He was actually grinning at her as she ran away. Nate was busy sulking already. Cassie ran to the edge of the woods to the waiting bear.
“Can we finally go home now, Uncle John?”
The b
ear roared his response.
“Good. Because I really miss my bed, and I think I might be able to sleep all winter with you this year.”
Bear John dropped low to the ground, offering her a ride just like she had seen Maria doing. Laughing, Cassie climbed on all the fur. If it wasn’t for the fur, she could pretend she was little again, getting a piggyback ride from her uncle who thought the world of her. Cassie smiled as she snuggled into his fur. A furry uncle was fun, too. But even better was knowing that he never tossed her aside. He had always loved her and taken care of her. Even as all the memories mixed together, Cassie was happy to be able to say she had a home to go back to.
Cassie turned back to see Nate and Jared still standing where she left them. She waved to them as John began to run.
‘We’ll talk about this in the morning,’ Nate told Cassie.
‘Goodnight, Cas. Tell Maria I say hi,’ Jared added to Cassie’s mind.
Cassie smiled into John’s fur. She had her two best friends back. She might not want to be bonded to anyone, and seemed to be gaining mates by the week, but she was still happy. When she had sliced Nate’s hand, she felt it. He had his memories back now, too. That wasn’t going to change things instantly, but it was a start. Being bonded to both of them was a great beginning on the road to finding a solution between the wendigo and the skinwalkers. And she was ready to go home and get some sleep. It might have taken a little work, but things were starting to seem a little more normal.
Author note:
Thank you for reading THE WENDIGO WITCHLING! Keep reading for the sneak peek of the next book in this series THE WITCHLING SEER. Before we get there, I’d like to ask that if you enjoyed reading this book, please consider leaving me a good review at your favorite re.tailer Look for updates on my website on my current works, or join my mailing list for sale alerts and news at: http://www.bkristinmcmichael.com/list
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