Wolf Magick

by Cynthia Cooke

  Wolf Magick

  Cynthia Cooke

  “Come to us Rena. We’ve been waiting for you.”

  Rena has heard the whispers in her nightmares for years, ever since the night her mother disappeared. She hopes studying at Vindecare, a school for witches, will finally stop the voices and help her to control her abilities. At last she has a chance at a new life—and maybe a relationship with Kaydin, the undeniably sexy gallery owner helping Rena with her art.

  But Kaydin has dark secrets of his own, intimately connected to Rena’s nightmares. The shapeshifter saved the young witch’s life once, a mistake he’s bound to correct. Even if Rena makes him long with desire he hasn’t felt for centuries….

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter One

  “Come to us, Rena. We’re waiting for you.”

  The voice urged Rena onward while every instinct within her told her to turn back…to run. The moon cut through the trees, its icy-blue glow lighting the forest floor with a preternatural hue that made the shadows appear long and ominous. Rena pushed against a branch. The razor-sharp edge of a leaf sliced into her fingertip, drawing blood. She pressed her finger into her mouth, sucking until the sting disappeared.

  She whimpered and she clung tight to her mother’s strong hand. She didn’t want to be here, would rather be anywhere but here. A wolf howled in the distance. The lonely baying skated down her nerves. “Mommy,” she cried. “I want to go home.”

  “Shh, Rena,” her mother whispered. “We’re almost there.”

  “I’m scared. I don’t like it here at night.”

  Her mother stopped and bent down to face her. “There is no reason to be afraid. Soon, I will be very powerful, and no one will ever be able to take you away from me. Okay?”

  Rena nodded, blinking against the tears prickling her eyes.

  “Good. Now be a brave little girl for mommy, okay? And help me find the lights.”

  Rena bit down on her lip and nodded.

  Once more she moved forward, letting her senses guide her. Her heart danced, not in expectation, but in fear—a heady waltz that left her breathless as she moved farther along the path and deeper into the woods.

  She found the clearing circled on all sides by towering trees. The wind howled in protest, beating the branches overhead until they thrashed against one another. It whipped Rena’s hair into a fiery maelstrom around her head and still she moved forward, one tentative step after another.

  She had to do this. For her mother. So she could get stronger and they could be together. Always.

  In the middle of the circle, light pulsed out of the ground. Breathtaking colors that danced and shimmered. They approached the prisms of light bending back and forth, expanding and contracting, earth’s altar to the gods, her mother had said.

  “Rena, we’ve been waiting so long. It’s almost time. Feel the magic. Feel the power. It’s all for you.” The voice whispered in her mind.

  Rena looked up at Mommy to see if Mommy heard it, too. Mommy was smiling. She let go of Rena’s hand and stepped into the lights.

  Rena took a tentative step to follow but paused as she saw something hidden in the colors, a shadow peeking, peering, flickering into nothing.

  “Mommy?”

  Rena stretched her arm out, reaching her fingers toward the kaleidoscope before her, but hesitated as she heard a soft growl. The low rumble filled the air. She turned toward the menacing sound: her chest tightening, her heart racing.

  Dark clouds at war with one another thundered across the sky. They rammed and converged, a bubbling molten stew that blocked out almost all the moon’s rays, except for a sliver of arctic light that broke through to pierce the shimmering black eyes of the beast.

  Fear grasped Rena by the throat and squeezed. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t form the scream trapped in her throat. Her legs weakened, her bones turning watery.

  The beast loomed over her. His elongated nose, dark and quivering, drew back revealing razor-sharp teeth glimmering to fine wet points. Doused in shock, her mind fractured, shuffling through broken images. Burnt umber, sienna, and kohl-black hair swept thick and full around the beast’s face. Its breadth, its impossible height, its neck the size of a tree trunk, it was too much to absorb, to comprehend, as the beast towered over her.

  Rena cried out and cowered beneath the outstretched claw. And then she was flying, tumbling through the air, falling into the thick grass, and lying alone in a still, dark meadow.

  “Mommy!”

  Tears seeped from her eyes, wetting her cheeks, the only indication that she was still alive. But where was Mommy?

  She heard the snapping of the branches and felt the rumbling of the earth beneath her and knew it wasn’t over.

  She screamed. Calling, crying for her mommy to save her.

  But Mommy never came.

  Rena gasped a deep breath then rolled over in bed, flicked on the light and wiped the back of her hand across her wet cheeks. She’d had the dream again. But this time she’d seen even more. She climbed out of bed, stretching as she walked into the outer room of her spacious suite at Vindecare—a school for people with special abilities. A school for witches.

  She’d never considered herself a witch. She hadn’t known her mother had been one, too, until after her grandmother had died and Rena had found her mother’s journals detailing her years at Vindecare, and how they’d helped her. If Grandmother had had her way, Rena never would have discovered the truth about her mother, or herself. She’d done everything she could to make sure Rena knew witchcraft and the people who studied it were an abomination, were evil and belonged in hell.

  Rena didn’t know if there was such a place, but she did know growing up with grandmother had been real close to what she imagined hell to be. Before Rena had found that journal, she’d believed her grandmother was right and she, like her mother, was crazy and doomed to burn with the big man himself. Maybe she was crazy, but she had a gift. And hopefully, through her work at Vindecare, she’d be able to control it. To stop the voice from ruining her life.

  And help her move past her nightmares. Obviously she still had a long way to go.

  She filled the kettle with water and placed it to boil on the small stove in her corner kitchenette. In the living room, she pulled a sheet off an easel set up by a window revealing a large partially painted canvas.

  The beast—all fangs and claws—stared back at her. This time she dreamed more than just a wet shine glinting off sharp pointy teeth. Her dream therapy instructor helped show her how to focus on different aspects of the dream. She hoped that by using her talents as an artist and facing the thing that scared her the most, she could excise the beast from her mind and get rid of the nightmare once and for all.

  She squeezed paint from the tubes, mixing colors—vibrant greens, varying shades of browns and reds and cold white cast with a bluish tint. She set to work bringing life to the monster. The mixture of her colors coupled with the shallow quick strokes of her fan brush added depth and layers to the beast’s fur and life to its eyes.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there adding layer after layer when the doorbell rang. Surprised by the intrusive peal of the high-pitched chime, she looked around her, feeling slightly disoriented.

  The sun’s rays shone bright through the window and an empty mug sat on the table next to her. She couldn’t recall making her tea let alone drinking it. The bell rang again. She dropped her brush and hurried to the door glancing down at her pajama shorts and T-shirt and wondered what time it was.

  She glanced through the peephole. “Damn,” she
muttered and opened the door.

  Kaydin stood in the hallway, surprise filling his forest-green eyes as they swept over her body. He looked impeccable, as usual. Strong and toned, his soft cotton polo stretched over his well-defined chest. He was one of those men who could almost be classified as pretty with his smooth skin and long lashes, except the width of his neck and the strength of his jaw was the very definition of masculinity.

  “Kaydin,” she said with a soft, embarrassed laugh and brushed her hands over her unruly hair, knowing with a moment of dread that not only had she not brushed her hair, chances were she hadn’t brushed her teeth, either.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “I thought we had an appointment at ten.”

  Her eyes widened as alarm rushed through her. Of all the people to forget and she had to forget him. “I am so sorry,” she blurted. And wondered with dismay what time it was. How could she explain why she missed their appointment? She wasn’t sick, she hadn’t overslept, she was just in one hell of a brain fog.

  He stood expectantly in the hall, his dark eyebrows lifting.

  “Oh! Please. Come in. Make yourself at home. I’ll—uh…” She raked her fingers through her hair once more. “I’ll be right back.”

  She bolted for her bedroom, pulled on a pair of jeans and a fresh T-shirt then ran into the bathroom where she scrubbed her face clean, ran a brush through her long dark hair before twisting it into a haphazard knot on the back of her head then quickly brushed her teeth.

  She knew she shouldn’t, but she took a moment to put on makeup. She liked Kaydin, and it wasn’t just his incredible hotness or the way her insides quivered when their eyes met. He was everything she’d always dreamed she’d have for herself yet never believed she could actually get.

  Because if someone like him spent too much time with someone like her, then he’d discover the truth about her.

  And then he’d run.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again as she hurried back into the room. “Can I make you some coffee?”

  She stopped as she saw him standing before the easel studying the painting she’d spent half the night and all morning working on. She gnawed on her bottom lip and wished he hadn’t seen it. The beast was her nightmare and not something she wanted to share with anyone.

  “This isn’t part of the series,” he said, his tone guarded, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “No. This one is…” She searched for the word that would describe exactly what this was. This was her way of dealing with her nightmares. This was cathartic. This was an exorcism. “Personal,” she said finally.

  He turned toward her, his dark eyes narrowing into hard glittering stones. “Rena, your opening is a week from now. You’re still short one painting in the portal series. Why would you be working on a painting of a wolf?”

  She stiffened, feeling the hairs stand on the back of her neck. “A wolf? Is that what you see?”

  “Isn’t that what it is?” Confusion played across his face. “What do you see?”

  She hesitated as her tongue thickened. “A beast.”

  He was giving her that look. The one Grandma always gave her. The one the kids at school gave her. He thought she was crazy.

  “Rena, I’m concerned about you.”

  Oh, no. This was how it always started. “We’re concerned about you Rena, worried you’ve lost your ever-loving-mind.” She stared at him, wide-eyed and unflinching.

  “The gallery showing will mean a lot of press, a lot of attention. You will no longer be able to hide here in this castle.”

  “I’m not hiding. I enjoy my classes here. They are helping me. With my…art.”

  He looked at the painting of the wolf again. “Are you sure about that?”

  “I will have the portal painting done in time, Kaydin. I promise. In fact, I’m going out to the last site this afternoon, getting a motel room nearby and staying all weekend. You can trust me. I want this. I need this.” She stilled, waiting expectantly for his response. She didn’t know if it was his height, a good six inches taller than her own, or his dark penetrating gaze that seemed to hook right into her soul and give a little tug. But something about this man grabbed her by the jugular and said—sit up and pay attention. Don’t screw up. There will be no second chances, no do-overs.

  Well, she was paying attention. Not only to the intensity of his gaze, his rock-hard chest and large arms, but to the voice inside her that wanted to please him, that wanted him to notice her as not just an artist who would fill his gallery, but as a woman. A desirable, fascinating woman who happened to have mind-wrenching, heart-stopping nightmares. And who heard voices. But no one was perfect, right?

  Her lips parted as she blew out a heavy breath. She wished he would calm down and smile. Just a little. A small smile that would have her insides popping and fluttering, like pancake batter on a hot buttery griddle.

  “I’m counting on you, Rena,” he said, his voice deep and husky.

  She cleared her throat. “I…I won’t let you down. I promise. That—” she pointed to the beast on the canvas “—is just me working through some bad dreams.”

  He turned around and looked at the painting once more.

  “Do you always paint your nightmares?”

  Her gaze shifted back to the canvas. “Only the recurring kind.”

  “Trying to work it out of your system, eh?”

  Her eyes locked onto his and something quivered inside her chest. “Some guys are just hard to get out of your mind.”

  “Do me a favor and forget about this one,” he said. “Focus on your art. I’m counting on you. The gallery is counting on you. Don’t let me down.”

  He didn’t say the words that hung heavily in the air between them. Let me down and you won’t get another chance. But she heard them loud and clear. Second chances were never an option. Not for her.

  “I won’t. I promise,” she said and walked him to the door. As she closed it behind him, she leaned against the hard wood, took three deep breaths and tried to grab hold of herself. He was right. She was letting her nightmares take over her life. She had worked hard to get to this point, to get to Vindecare and she wasn’t about to let some dark vision from her past destroy her future. What she had with Kaydin, an opening at a gallery, was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up.

  What’s more, he saw her monster and he didn’t turn away. He didn’t think she was crazy. Because she wasn’t crazy, those were the accusations, the ramblings of an old woman who was terrified of things she didn’t understand. It was time to put the past behind her and move forward. She had to face the woods of her nightmare and prove to everyone that she wasn’t insane.

  She grabbed the bag she’d packed the night before and her satchel, placing her paints and brushes inside along with a sketchbook, her travel easel and a clean canvas then hurried out the door of her suite. She had one last place to visit for her final painting, the one spot she had never wanted to return to again. The one place her instructors at Vindecare had said she must go to, if she wanted to put the past behind her and move forward.

  She knew the threat of having to face those cold woods again was the reason the beast was back haunting her dreams. The last time she’d been there she’d lost everything. She’d only been six. She’d gone in with her mother and had come out alone. No one could ever say definitively what had happened to her, but Rena knew.

  She’d seen it. She’d seen him.

  The beast.

  For years just the thought of him had terrified and paralyzed her, but not anymore. She was taking back her life. She had a chance now. Kaydin, her art and Vindecare had given that to her. She wasn’t going to be afraid anymore. Not of the voice. Not of the beast.

  “Good for you, Rena. Stand strong. Come back to the woods. Come back to me.”

  She ignored the voice, pulled down the sheet covering the beast’s face and walked out the door.

  Chapter Two

  Kaydin left Rena’s apartment more determined than ever
. She was finally beginning to remember. All the pieces of what had happened that night were falling into place. He had to hurry. If she knew what was waiting for her, he’d never get her back into the woods and to the portal. What surprised him was of all the horrible things that had happened that night, the only one she focused on was his face.

  And yet, she promised she would go back to the site today. Did she still believe it was only a dream? She’d been so young when her mother had taken her to the demon. He’d made the mistake of saving her, and he’d had to live with ever since. It was time to put things right. He couldn’t let his human attraction toward this woman get in the way of what needed to be done. He wasn’t human, and he hadn’t been for a very long time.

  But even as he thought of Rena, her smile, her large trusting brown eyes, he was angered again at why her mother would have brought her young child to the portal in the first place. Was Rena supposed to be a sacrifice? A misguided way to increase her power?

  Kaydin could only guess. All he knew for sure was that it was always a lonely witch who fell victim to a demon’s seductive whispers. He only hoped Rena hadn’t succumbed, too. The demon gate was still open, and no matter how many ways he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to close it. Kaydin only hoped Rena wasn’t following in her mother’s footsteps and listening to the demon’s voice.

  He drove north out of the city toward the woods and the house he kept there. It looked as if he were finally reaching the end. All these years he’d watched the girl grow from a child to a beautiful woman, raised by her grandmother who had no clue who Rena was or what she could do. But then neither had Rena herself until she moved into Vindecare. All she knew was that she could see things others couldn’t. Light. Colors. Shapes. Prisms.

  Doorways to another world.

  She must be a very powerful witch to be able to see the lights that highlighted the entrance to the demon realm. In years past, only shapeshifting portal guardians such as himself had been able to see them. But times were changing, everything was changing.