by Lib Starling
When they were gone, he stared down at Roxy in silent disbelief, his lips thinned and his eyes burning.
“Shift back,” he told her, and a note of desperate pleading edged into his voice.
The fox nodded. She closed her eyes, concentrating, reaching for the human spirit that was hidden inside—deeper than it had ever gone before, so isolated that Roxy feared she could never touch it.
A long silence passed, while Roxy struggled to achieve the shift and Alexander looked on with growing concern. At last, the fox gave up, panting. She turned sorrowful green eyes up at Alexander.
I can’t shift, she told him silently, hoping his human form understood.
“Damn it,” he muttered.
He quickly unbuttoned his shirt, threw it on the bed, and then removed his shoes and undid his belt with a flick of his wrist. In another moment he was naked, and with one last pained glance at Roxy, he stepped back and closed his eyes.
Roxy felt the loud, percussive strike of Alexander’s shift, and blinked her eyes against the flash of light. The white wolf stood before her, its muzzle tense with the effort of keeping back a warlike snarl.
You’re trapped, aren’t you? he asked.
Yes. Her fox’s thoughts were quavering. Her heart raced, and she knew she was on the edge of outright panic. What should I do, Alexander? Help me!
Stay calm. You have to stay calm. Fear won’t get you anywhere.
The fox breathed with deliberate steadiness, squeezing her eyes shut as she fought against the rising black tide of despair.
Good, Alexander said. Now…we need to get you to Katrina, and hope that she can help you, the same way she helped Chase.
Roxy’s eyes popped open. Katrina…she hadn’t thought of the blonde-haired witch since their last encounter. Katrina no longer felt like a threat to Roxy—not where Chase was concerned, at least—but the creeping suspicion she had felt in Katrina’s presence only seemed more intense now that Roxy was in her totemic form. More intense…and more dangerous, as if her fox sensed some hidden side of the traveling witch that her human side couldn’t quite make out. Her ears twitched involuntarily at the thought of approaching the witch like this, shifted, stuck, and vulnerable.
A witch… she said vaguely, her senses and her emotions whirling in a confusing tangle.
I know, said Alexander. But what choice do we have? She helped Chase, and God willing, she can help you, too.
I don’t trust her.
It’s wise not to trust any witch. But right now, Roxy, she’s your only hope.
No, I can…I can do it myself. You know how good I am at shifting now…at quick shifts, and shifts under pressure.
Again, she reached for her human spirit, but it seemed to have burrowed deeper still. Now she could barely detect its presence, and no matter how she called to it, it huddled far beyond her reach, ignoring her inner cries. The fox shivered, then threw herself down on the bed, twisting and panting as she struggled to regain control of her dual spirits.
No! Alexander raised a heavy white paw, pinning her to the mattress. Don’t struggle. You’ll exhaust yourself.
Roxy ignored him and continued fighting. Again and again she reached for herself, and again her wounded spirit evaded her. As she twisted, she felt the cold metal of her stay medallion bouncing from her chest and forelegs. The irony of its presence, hanging useless around her neck, only infuriated her all the more, and spurred on her stubborn efforts.
Roxy, listen to me—stop! Don’t wear yourself out!
Alexander dodged to his window and lifted himself up on his hind legs. Roxy squinted at him, watching as he stared down into the night-darkened yard of Alpha House.
Where is she? Alexander muttered. Where the hell is Katrina?
He dropped to all fours and turned to Roxy, his wolfish face suddenly serious and calm—all cool, alpha control. Katrina’s not out there, he told her. I don’t see her camper.
It…it doesn’t matter, Roxy grated, still fighting.
It does. But I’m going to find her, and you’re coming with me. We’re not going to wait for her to return to Alpha House. With Scarlett launching her attack, none of us can afford to sit and wait—especially not you.
Before Roxy could protest, Alexander’s jaws closed around her shoulders, lifting her easily from the bed. She tensed and snarled, kicking her hind legs in protest.
Hold still, he told her curtly. You’re in no condition to walk, and if you struggle I’ll only have to hold you tighter. He tightened his grip momentarily to prove his point. Roxy felt the long, sharp teeth bite into her flesh. With an effort, she stilled herself and tried to hang limp in Alexander’s jaws.
Inside, she gave a ragged sob. Just get me help, she pleaded. I have to get back. I can’t stay like this forever—not now. She tried to shield her thoughts from Alexander, knowing how they would hurt him. But her emotions, like her human spirit, were too far beyond her control. I can’t be stuck like this forever, now that I know how much I love Chase.
Alexander hesitated at the head of the stairs, struck by Roxy’s words. Then, his body moving in stiff jerks, he ran down the staircase without any reply. Roxy hung limp and helpless in his jaws.
.2.
T he moon hung pale and high above the four jagged peaks of the Grand Teton range. It was distant, small, as if drawing back from Earth’s wintery chill and the desolation of the season. Worse, it was somewhat less than full—not an optimal time for this sort of spell, but Katrina had little choice. Her breath misted before her face, a white, lacy cloud lifting delicately into the night air. Behind her, at the edge of the sage field, she could hear her camper’s shut-off engine ticking and pinging as it yielded its head rapidly to the surrounding cold. Otherwise, the great
expanse of snow-covered foothills was silent.
Katrina moved carefully out into the field, her snow boots crunching through the crust of ice and dead foliage. She climbed a short slope and looked back the way she had come. Her Airstream was a comforting presence, more blue than silver in the darkness. Beyond the gravel road where she had parked it—not much more than two parallel lines of indigo shadows tracing through the snow—a fold of the foothills shone silvery-white in a mobile patch of moonlight. The tracks of animals crisscrossed the hill, each track headed in a direct route from this point to that—unhesitating and deliberate. And fresh, Katrina could tell.
The Alpha House brothers have been patrolling here, too—miles from Blackmeade Village. They’d been patrolling everywhere, in truth—a tireless quest to find the dark witch who plagued them. Any place a wild animal could safely go, they went. And some of them—the bird-shifters and Jack’s sly, darting coyote—had even patrolled the town of Jackson Hole itself.
Katrina hoped they could locate Scarlett soon. The cruelties she was perpetrating on the Blackmeade shifters were bad enough, but Katrina was beginning to worry on her own account. Something about the Powers in this vicinity felt…not quite right. Each time she reached for a thread of magic, it felt paradoxically brittle and entirely too strong—as if it were toughening up, developing a sort of magical callus that prevented her from bending it to her will with ease—and yet its core felt more fragile than ever. Now when she tried to weave a spell, she had to work slowly and with great care. It was not conducive to fast and effective magic. And she couldn’t shake the suspicion that somehow, Scarlett was to blame.
Katrina looked down at the silk-wrapped bundle in her palm, then glanced up once more at the hillside across the road. As the thin veils of cloud shifted, the patch of moonlight that dazzled there crept down the slope, moving closer to where Katrina stood.
What could possibly cause this strange shift in the quality of the Powers? She frowned down at her silky bundle again, pondering. It was as if the magic were being forced—violently compelled. That could explain its thick, resistant quality. But that makes no sense, Katrina told herself, shaking her head. On its own, magic had no will, no desires, no consciousness. There was only
the will of the witch—the desire of the one who manipulated the Power. How can magic resist its own use?
The patch of moonlight crossed the road, then, lifting and rippling back upon itself, climbed the slope with agonizing slowness. Katrina eyed the moon again, judging its shy girth, and breathed a desperate prayer to the goddess that its influence would be strong enough to aid her spell.
When the light had nearly reached her, she untied the string that held the bundle closed. The silk fell open in her hand, exposing the crackling, dry, heart-shaped leaves and the twisted stalks of an herb all witches knew as touch-not. Katrina had found this last, winter-faded wisp of the stuff in the yard of Alpha House. A few discarded beer bottles and the foundation of the big house itself had formed a chance shelter of sorts, protecting the fragile plant from snow and ice. But cold and lack of sun had nearly killed it. It was hanging onto life with a grip that was quickly loosening.
Normally, Katrina would have been happy to see the touch-not die. The plant’s leaves contained a chemical that warped a witch’s perception, muddling her ability to weave the Power with accuracy. How long the effect lasted depended on the strength of the touch-not, and on the quantity used. Katrina doubted there was much use left in this sad little thing’s faded leaves, but even the smallest advantage over Scarlett might make all the difference in the fight ahead.
She had sent Chase over to pick the plant, admonishing him to keep the root intact if he could—any scrap of life she could preserve in the winter-ravaged touch-not would be a blessing. She’d watched as Chase had stooped and plucked the herb up, unconcerned and totally unaffected by its pernicious chemicals.
He had dropped it in the protective silk wrapping as she’d directed, and as Katrina tied the bundle securely, she sighed. How useful it would be, to have a partnership with a shifter. Shifter and witch could complement one another in ways Katrina had only begun to imagine. A shifter could do things a witch could not—handling dangerous herbs was only the first on a long list of simple yet valuable skills—and Katrina had already proven her worth to Alpha House. There was so much more she could offer to the shifting community, too. If only witches and shifters weren’t so damned antagonistic. The enmity between them stretched so far into the past that no one really knew its source anymore. As far as Katrina was concerned, it was time to lay that ages-old feud to rest. But she doubted she’d ever see the day when a shifter would agree to an alliance with a witch.
At last, the moonlight found the pinnacle of Katrina’s slope. It fell on the withered touch-not stem, frosting its leaves with a silvery glow.
Do or die time, Katrina said silently, unsure whether she addressed the touch-not, the moon’s weak beams, or herself.
She muttered the opening words of her incantation, a spell of strengthening and renewal meant to revitalize whatever wisp of power still remained in the touch-not’s leaves. The moonlight should help, she hoped—though it would help much more if the moon were full. Then, when she had spoken the proper words, Katrina reached for threads of Earth and Air with slow, deliberate care.
She took one thread of Earth in a delicate grip—and her body jerked as if an electric shock had run through it. She gasped and dropped the bundle; the touch-not fell into the shadows at her feet.
“Shit!” Katrina bent, peering into the trampled ice and dead sagebrush at her feet, searching for the precious herb. What the hell happened? She had never felt such a jolt before. Had she accidentally touched the touch-not? Perhaps more of its power remained than she had dared to hope for. But no—she was positive that she’d made no contact with the leaves.
Katrina located the edge of the silk and tugged it carefully, sliding it over the snow pack. Thank the goddess, the touch-not was still tangled in the silk’s folds. Without touching the leaves, she maneuvered the plant back into the bundle and tied it quickly. The revitalizing spell would have to wait. Now she needed to know exactly what had happened to her Earth Power.
She reached again for Earth, but did not take hold. Instead, her spirit hovered, poised over the Power, ready to grasp but making no contact. She tested it. Earth’s vibrational hum was as steady as ever, if rather thickened, as all Powers were in this space. She reached a little closer, so that her spirit barely brushed the stiff, sluggish edge of the Power.
And she gasped again, though this time there was no accompanying jolt. No, Earth was not as steady as ever—it was overflowing, rushing and pummeling at the boundaries of the channels through which it usually flowed, surging like a river about to burst from its banks. Katrina tested Air next, and felt its howling power, too—amplified far beyond its usual rush. Fire and Water were the same. She stepped her spirit carefully away from the Powers and rocked back on her heels, biting her lip and staring blankly out into the night.
Something had increased all four Powers. Some force had magnified them. How? She stepped toward them again, observing as intently as she could. They moved with a brutal, wild rush, a throbbing potency that put her in mind of…
Katrina’s mouth fell open. Oh, goddess. The Powers feel just like a wild animal. She had been in bed with enough shifters that she could recognize that stark, untamed feeling.
Of course. Where did shifters get their shifting powers from, if not from the Powers? They were magic-users just like witches—though after so many generations apart, their two communities separated by whatever original rift had divided them, the shifters’ use of magic was limited, and all but unconscious.
So there were benefits to working with a shifter—together, they could both be stronger. She had been right to think so, but until this moment, she hadn’t comprehended the full potential of her plan.
Katrina reached toward the Powers once more, examining their new, wild flow with awe. Now that she had detected that animal potency, she couldn’t unsee it. But as she observed the Powers coursing and surging, she felt the resistance of the animal force that magnified it.
So this was where that odd thickening of the Powers came from. Katrina didn’t know which shifter was influencing the Powers, but she could tell by the angry, reluctant flow that he was being compelled—that he was being used against his will.
It can only be Scarlett. Katrina had never even met the dark witch, but already she loathed her. The way she forced her will on shifters—trapping them inside their totems, and now using their unconscious magic to magnify her own powers—was sickening. And Katrina envied Scarlett, too—for the dark witch had discovered the link between shifters and her own kind before Katrina could puzzle it out for herself.
“All right,” Katrina said aloud, staring hard toward Jackson Hole, where she felt Scarlett must be hiding, “now it’s on.”
As she stooped to retrieve the touch-not from the snow, Katrina caught a flash of movement at the crest of the opposite hill. She straightened quickly, stuffing the silk bundle into her coat pocket. Squinting, she watched as the creature slid between clumps of frozen sagebrush, moving as smoothly as the moonlight had over the landscape. The animal was large and white. She recognized his slinky trot—the unmistakable air of confidence and natural power—and despite her concerns over Scarlett’s tampering with the Power, her heart gave a little jump of excitement.
As Alexander’s wolf crossed the road and approached up the hill, Katrina could see that he carried something in his mouth. Dark and limp, it dangled and bounced along with the rhythm of his trot, its thick tail dragging in the snow. The wolf stopped a few paces from Katrina, staring up at her with those intense, sky-blue eyes. Then it carefully laid the creature it carried on the ground.
Katrina looked into Alexander’s eyes for a moment—even in his lupine form, she could see the worry and strain that plagued him—and then she edged closer, bending to look at the dark little form lying on the snow. It was a fox—small and slender, with elegant, pointed muzzle and black-tipped legs. For a moment, Katrina thought it was dead. Then its flank stirred with a labored breath, and its forelegs twitched. Its eyes were tight-shut,
and Katrina had the impression that it was struggling—fighting some ferocious, internal force with a desperation that sent a pang of sympathy coursing through her body.
“One of yours?” Katrina asked the wolf. “A brother?”
The white wolf shook his head abruptly, and then glanced around with an air of consternation. Katrina understood at once the reason for Alexander’s discomfort. He wanted to shift, so that they might communicate with ease—but if he did so, he’d be naked and exposed in the bitter cold of a winter night.
“Down in the Airstream,” she said. “Chase has some of his clothes in the cupboard to the left of the kitchenette. I hope his shoes will fit you.”
The wolf licked his lips in a smile of thanks, then loped quickly down the hill to the waiting camper. Katrina watched, her eyebrows raising in appreciation, as he shifted to his human form. She had seen Blackmeade boys shift a few times in her life, but she never got over her surprise at that sudden, strange phenomenon. One moment the white wolf stood beside the Airstream, and the next—in a flash of light so brief she almost couldn’t detect it at all—he was Alexander, tall, human, and undeniably masculine, with the remnant moonlight playing silvery-pale along the breadth of his shoulders, the snaking lines of muscle in his arms, his trim waist and flat stomach. And the small but strong shape of his ass as he pulled the Airstream’s side door open and fled inside, out of the cold. Katrina bit back a grin.
She crouched beside the fox, placing a hand on its side to feel the beat of its heart. “Hey,” she said, stroking gently. “Can you hear me? Who are you—which brother?”
The fox shifted, its ears flicking at the sound of her voice. But it did not open its eyes, and when she tried to lift it from the snow, its body sagged in her hands, as limp as an old rag.
The Airstream’s door banged shut, and Alexander came sprinting up the hill, clothed in Chase’s athletic pants, a green hoodie, and a pair of sneakers. As he approached, Katrina could see the way Alexander’s nose wrinkled a little, as if some odor—Chase’s?—were offensive to him. But his attention was entirely focused on the fox in the snow. He dropped to his knees beside Katrina.