I jumped, flinging up my hands, magic ready, terrified in that flash as I imagined how the wild mages had tricked me, how Calum and Frim were right here, ready to unleash their spells and reavers on us.
Then Jason grabbed my shoulder with a reassuring squeeze. Just as quickly I saw it was not a person. It was another stone. This one, at the heart of the circle, was much smaller than the rest. It turned out to be rather thin and oblong when seen from other angles. Like a very thick tabletop set on end, or a very massive tombstone.
Used in relation to sunlight and seasons? The shadow at the center configuring to other stones like a sundial? Or used in rituals of some sort?
Though mystery remained, the scare faded as the whole massive circle became clear. Some of the stones had toppled over the years, many leaned, and the whole thing was surely a mere shadow of its former self of many thousand years ago. This, and the extremely remote location, must be what kept traffic down.
We went about searching the place, though not entirely sure what we hunted. I crouched with a hand in the damp grass and earth, asking after magic. I touched the stones as well, seeking faie, spirits, instincts. I got only mud on my fingers and felt only cold stones.
Pacing, I passed Jed as he sniffed. He seemed little interested. Maybe there was some connection, but with no trace of magic that I could find, and Jed turning up no hint of reavers, it seemed the stone circle would not be revealing secrets today.
So why had it come up? And was it worth puzzling over right now?
With my hand on a stone, I tried to sink into a scry, listening to the breeze, counting my breaths. The footbridge, faie, the solstice, Melanie, Stefan…
I saw the circle as I had seen it that first day, taking in the wide landscape of green dropping off to blue. The picture didn’t change when I asked to see people who might make a habit of visiting the place.
With greater interest I turned my attention on the forest, the bridge, asking for a guide there. A road, an image on a map, all fleeting. I wasn’t tranced properly and was making a hash of it with my own anxiety to get going.
Fog was drifting back in, the searchers breaking off to talk about food, or asking why standing stones in nearly the northernmost bit of the UK would have anything to do with attacks on shifters in the southernmost bit.
“WiFi,” I said. “That’s what we need. Let’s get into the first big town heading south, search and ask, go into a tourist office, look at maps. There just aren’t many rivers in forested areas out here, right?”
Isaac nodded. “We’ll find it.”
“Then it’s fighting the clock to meet our friends for dinner that’s the problem.”
By the time we returned to the Jeep the southern horizon was clear, sky blue, just as chilly. North, looking back toward the cliffs, remained a drifting but dispersing web of fog.
Something still pulled me to that circle: the importance of the original vision, this moment of finding something that should have been a triumph, instead leaving only frustration.
What could be more turning around to what we already knew than finding this first clue?
I paused, hand on the passenger door while Isaac was climbing in and Kage was pulling on the bike helmet Jed had been wearing.
“I know it’s the same place. But … for what?”
“That circle’s not going anywhere, Belle.” Andrew was already in the back with Jason. “We’ll find these mages, get them to spill if they’re hired guns, try not to be blown up by them, and come back here for a shifty if we like.”
“It’s connected,” I said, watching the fog. “We know that. But…”
“But what are we going to do?”
“We could stake it out,” Jason said. “Like in Paris and London.”
“No chip shop nearby here,” Andrew said. “How long do we wait? No home or hotel where someone lives. Even if the killers come here every year to celebrate their birthdays or raise reavers, we could still wait months to see one. Important, sure, but it’s not going to hand over a statement unless you can scry one from it.”
I shook my head. “No luck there. I could try later with a real effort now that I know it.”
“Best you can do then. Come on, darling. Let’s find your bridge.”
At our first town we did indeed throw caution to the wind and hunt for little wooden bridges in the Highlands online. No matching picture. Nor did anyone working at the local tourist office know of such a spot. We did, however, enjoy the delight of maps—buying a paper one—and marking forested areas before turning our phones back off.
Then we drove.
If I was to believe the mages in my scry—and Goddess knew we all had plenty of reasons to be suspicions of scries—we had to reach the bridge itself, know the exact place, in order to place which town was twenty kilometers away. Another quick hike would be great for the wolves. The trouble was “quick” didn’t seem to be featuring into the day’s activities.
A frigid day it was, going from clear to rain, then a drab overcast chill that felt like December by midday when it should have been getting warmer.
Worse was the icy feeling of being observed. On a stop with a few more rounds of target practice, I warded us again, including the vehicles, phones—imagining protective energy bubbles. Even as I did it, I kept glancing around. No one else on the road. No trees to hide behind. No fog. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed.
It was after 2:30 p.m., myself reaching a panic state over running out of time, when Jason and Andrew drew a couple of hikers into conversation at the edge of a forest in the central Highlands. Yes, they knew the territory and would be glad to have a look at the sketch.
“Oh, right!” the man fairly shouted at sight of my drawing.
“Why, that’s in Timbly Forest—high in the hills where the river flows down from Loch Breen,” the woman said, pointing as if such a river lay just across the road. “There’s a footpath with a car park on the far end of the loch. You’d have to walk from there.”
I wanted to throw my arms around her. Yet Isaac’s eyebrows jumped and I knew a sinking feeling at the same time.
“Where is Timbly Forest?” I gulped.
It was 3:30 p.m. before we reached the forest and had to puzzle over which of three different towns or villages they might have meant. Maybe even four towns? There was something of a ring of villages around the forest. We needed to know exactly where the bridge crossed the river to deduce the right distance. The trouble was, there must be miles worth of river upon which the bridge could rest.
With oppressive cold gray of the afternoon hanging over us, breath just visible, we faced the fact that we really would have to physically find the bridge and map it.
“And quickly.” I jammed my hands into coat pockets.
“Could just scout the towns,” Kage said. “Run into them. They’ll be in one. If we went in two groups—”
“We’re not breaking up like that. And it wouldn’t do any good to check now. They won’t be there. They’ll be in for dinner.”
“We have plenty of time to find it, arä.” Isaac was calm. He traced his finger along the map. “If the bridge is up here, it’s got to be Carowness. If it’s down here it’ll be Lanlith. The others are too far. Either of those could be twenty kilometers depending on the bridge itself. It won’t take us that long.”
Others were already walking. Jason and Andrew shared a bag with the last of the cream buns from that morning, Gabriel looked at his phone. Jed, who’d changed back after a break in fur so he could report about Cimbayrel, sniffed as he watched the river. He’d been able to tell us only that humans did visit the site, but not in profusion and he picked up no hint of reavers, shifters, or anything else to draw attention.
I dumped out my backpack to replace clothes and toiletries with water bottle, notebook, phone—turned off—a nut and fruit bar, and our map, then hurried with the others along the shore of the loch. We were in the high country already, needing to walk from the eastern
point of the loch to the western end and start gradually downhill where the river flowed out.
It took over an hour, four or five rushed miles, before I got the feeling of déjà vu.
“This is it.” I spoke under my breath, talking to myself and forgetting the ears which surrounded me.
Everyone looked quickly to the river on our left, checking for bridges.
“The area, I mean. We’re close.”
We hurried our breathless pace even more, Kage ahead like a scout, Gabriel and Jed trailing. Then Jason said, “There…” and Kage froze.
Even when we got to the spot and found that yes, it was indeed a little wooden footbridge, Kage glared suspiciously, as if waiting for the mages to appear.
Isaac stepped past him to walk out on it and gaze downriver. It was a worthwhile view. There was no single waterfall. Just a steady downhill where the water blazed away into the distance and rounded the bend of the forest.
I walked out with Isaac to return myself to the same spot while he took the place of the mages from my scry on the other side. The bridge, only wide enough for one person to cross at a time, and perhaps fifteen feet long, was a perfect match. The trees and trail on the other side, even boot marks there in the mud where they had stepped off. The marks of other hikers by now, yet the idea remained evocative.
It had happened again after all. A scry conversation the same as I’d had with Gavin. Somehow, though I couldn’t imagine how, these mages had not warded themselves but activated a tripwire so they detected my magic and talked back. It had all been real.
I slung my backpack to one arm to reach the map and walked to Isaac so we could check our spot. This was detailed enough that it should be doable with the twists and turns of the river and the amount of time we’d been walking to guess at distance from the eastern tip of Loch Breen.
“Carowness, isn’t it?” I said as we ran our fingers over it.
Behind me, on the other side, Andrew was asking Jason if he’d remembered to bring a fishing line. Jed poked along the rocks of the high bank as if following tracks. Gabriel was struggling with his phone again. Zar walked out to the center of the bridge to watch the water tumbling away below him. Kage was muttering about something.
“Does that work?” I called to Gabriel over the roaring water. “It would be a closer map.”
“We’ve got it,” Isaac tapped the paper map. “Turns out … looks like Lanlith.”
“You judge from this and we’ll try with the phone—hoping we both come up with the same answer. Then let’s get to whichever it is before it’s too late.” I handed him my purple pen to mark it and started back across the bridge to Gabriel.
Zar tore himself from silent meditation over the river and moved ahead so I could cross. I was just in the middle, Isaac on the muddy trail on the far end, Gabriel at the near end, Zar three steps ahead, when the bridge fell out from under me.
Chapter 20
The noise was like fireworks, so incongruous it added to the pure shock of the drop as broken boards crashed away through open air beneath my feet. I made one wild grab, throwing myself at Zar and the splintered end of the bridge as I fell toward rushing water.
Zar lunged for me, moving with wolf speed, but missed catching my arm. With broken boards and a chunk of the mossy handrail I crashed into the water with Zar throwing himself after.
Hitting that water was like hitting a wall. The force of cold so shocking it flattened my lungs, seemed to flatten my whole body like a fly on a windshield. I hardly felt the smash into rocks, my backpack being ripped from my arm, the force of the current tossing me downstream. Everything was just cold.
In the next minutes I knew nothing but that shock and motion, water up my nose and in my mouth and eyes and down my throat, the absence of oxygen, and endlessness of cold. There should have been some magic, some force in me ready to fight back. I did kick and struggle, trying to keep my head above water. But that was all instinct, body fighting for life without free will. For a moment it seemed to be all I had left.
I felt Zar’s arm around my waist before the bank, so tight he crushed me like the cold, lifting nearly all my weight while he clawed up the rocks with his other three limbs. I stumbled and grabbed anything solid, pulling through water, rocks, then mud and last year’s forest mulch.
Our breaths steamed as we gasped and vomited water. A stupid thing to think about, yet I felt bewildered by the idea that they could steam. It meant the breath escaping my body was warm. It couldn’t be warm because I was frozen right through to the marrow of my bones and inside of my brain. Only there it was: wisps of puffing steam while we choked.
Zar grabbed me again. I scrambled with him up into the edge of trees, needing shelter away from the rushing river—as if it might reach out and catch us, drag us back under with hungry jaws. Then he was ripping at my clothes, coat zipper, sleeves, pulling my top over my head.
I likewise moved as quick as I could to strip, yanking off my base layer of a T-shirt and tearing at my shoes. What did people do who really fell through ice? How could they survive? Even move?
Seeing I could look after myself, Zar stripped off his own coat, boots, shirt. All while both of us gasped and gagged. My throat and sinuses burned with a welcome blaze that reminded me I was not actually a witch popsicle. This was Scotland in September. Not Minnesota in January. I could move, think, help us both.
Still in soaked jeans and bra, tangled hair plastered all over my shoulders and face, shaking so violently it added an extra challenge to focus, I mounded together mulch, clearing a patch of dirt to make a wet circle around it. On hands and knees we scrambled for every rotten stick or twig in ten feet, heaping them into this wet mound.
With Zar still grabbing more, I pressed both hands into the mound, drawing on the fire and the water, asking the water to go, sink into the earth, evaporate, and welcoming the fire. In seconds the heap was at least beginning to dry and warm. It took a moment of force and focus while I shook and Zar snapped more sticks into the mound and finished stripping before I was compelled to draw my hands away. In their wake trickled smoke and new flame chewing through the weak fuel we were able to provide.
That infant of a flame seemed to blink and yawn and glance uneasily around. I tried to blow on it, still holding the magic, calling more fire, but I couldn’t keep it up. Zar took over with gentle blowing while I stripped off my jeans, which seemed to be painted on.
The fire came into its own while we snapped off branches to feed the now rambunctious yearling. In a minute we stood above it, holding one another’s arms, moving in place as the constant motion and new blaze returned life to chilled bloodstreams.
In all this time, neither of us had said a word. I don’t know why. We just … knew. It was easier to warm and dry skin than dry clothes. We could be in danger from exposure if we left them on. I could start a fire. It all just made sense.
Now another bit of common sense.
“Zar? You should change. You’ll dry instantly. The water will fall away.”
He shook his head. “I’ll dry with you. We’ll be fine.”
“You’d help me also. You’d be warm. Or you could run back up river to get the others and let them know where—”
“I’m not leaving you.” Through chattering teeth. “They’ll find us. We’ll stay here at the site and they’ll be along. We must have traveled several kilometers.”
I had to think about that. “What? It was just a few minutes…”
“More than that. And think about how fast we were going. They’ll have to come down here the old-fashioned way. Still, they’ll find us before dark and we’ll get out of here. Just focus on warming up now and make sure you’re all right.”
“Before … dark…? Zar, we can’t sit here for hours—”
“It might not be that long. It doesn’t matter. We can’t wander around either. We have to wait.”
“Either way, change. They’ll be here soon…” How far had we come? Remembering that map, and notici
ng now that the river here was dramatically slower with the ground having leveled out…
Zar threw more sticks on the fire. I yanked myself back to some scrap of focus. They reached us when they reached us. We were bruised, cold, but would be fine. They would know that and be coming down the trail to find us now. Any minute…
“Zar, change, please. Even just for ten minutes and change back if you want to. It’ll help both of us.”
He brought in an armful of branches for me to add over time, pushed back his long hair in wet strands from forehead and chin, nodded indecisively, and finally retreated to change. He knew I didn’t like to hear it—certainly not see it. After Paris, I felt even more strongly about this point.
On my knees on my soaked coat, I stripped off bra and underwear, wringing out as much as I could, then holding these and the T-shirt I’d been wearing as a base layer nearly inside the fire. I floundered with more magic to dry the things as I still gasped and shook uncontrollably. My brain and whole energy seemed to be rattling around with my teeth. I succeeded in burning a small whole in the side of my shirt before anything was remotely dry.
Warm fur pressed against my frozen back and I jumped.
This was no way to cast spells.
I set everything down with the rest of our clothes in a ring around the fire, some of it roughly propped on sticks stuck into the ground, hugged myself, and shut my eyes, only leaning in beside the blaze. Zar sat against my back, his side to me, his head draped over my shoulder. He was like a heated comforter.
For ten minutes I remained in a bundle on my knees, taking deep breaths, fire in front, wolf behind, adding more of the snapped branches but otherwise unmoving.
I tried again, Zar still wrapped around me, by pressing bra, then underwear, then T-shirt between my hands to dry each article. Steam lifted like a sauna around us. I used the shirt to rub over my skin and squeeze out hair, then dried it again. All the time Zar leaned against me, silent, in contact with as much of me as he could reach.
My arms felt weak, hands shaking for a new reason, by the time I leaned away from him to put the bra back on, then pull the toasty shirt over by head. I wished I hadn’t burnt it. Pima cotton, soft lilac, I was fond of that shirt. Which made me realize that my backpack, my phone, my notebook, the only sources of notes and records of my scries and our clues and findings for this whole case, were all gone. Washed down the river.
Moonlight Magic: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 9) Page 13