by Lib Starling
Scarlett’s brows lifted. “Aha,” she said. “So you’ve figured out the shifters’ little secret, too, and got yourself a familiar. How clever. You’ll have to tell me how you compelled one to bond with you. It’s a subject of special interest to me.”
“I didn’t compel him,” Katrina snapped. “I’m not like you, Scarlett. He accepted the bond willingly, because he wanted it, too.”
Logan had joined Chase beside Jack’s writhing body, and together, they pressed handfuls of snow against the burn. Logan flashed a startled glance at Chase as they worked over their friend. “Did you hear that?”
Chase had heard, all right. So Scarlett hadn’t bonded to a familiar, after all—either by the shifter’s choice, or by some dark, filthy compulsion. How is she doing this, then? How has she amplified the Power?
And suddenly, even as he asked himself the question, Chase knew. Gasping, he lurched to his feet and reeled away from Jack and Logan. His stomach heaved beneath the weight of his terrible certainty. His hand reached for his chest, his neck—for the stay that was gone. The stay that was in Scarlett’s control.
Me. She’s been using me—my totem—my stay. All this time, I’ve been in her power, and I haven’t even known it. All this time, I’ve been… helping that heartless bitch.
Rage welled up inside him, and his wolf scrabbled at his soul, begging to be freed, to fight. Chase kept his wolf in check. The last thing he needed now was to let his animal side take precedence. That must wait until he’d figured out what should be done about his stolen stay. Did Scarlett have the medallion on her even now? Hiding in a pocket, or hanging around her neck? He squinted at her, wondering, but in the dim starlight he could make out few details of her form or clothing.
“Bring Jack to me,” Katrina said. “Quickly.”
Alexander, evidently released from Katrina’s restraints, bounded once more toward Scarlett, menacing her with his teeth and the blue daggers of his eyes. The white wolf held Scarlett in her place.
Chase helped carry Jack to Katrina’s side. He could see that she had formed a circle around her position, traced into the snow and sprinkled with salt and the crushed, fragrant leaves of some unknown herb. He laid Jack carefully at the circle’s edge, and Katrina bent over him, murmuring the words of her spell quickly, passing her hands over his injured shoulder.
In a few moments, Jack struggled to his feet, moving his arm with tentative care. “Better,” he said hoarsely. “Thanks.”
“Not as good as it should be,” Katrina replied. “But it’s the best I can do for now, under pressure.”
As he slung Jack’s arm around his neck to help him back to his place, Chase glanced toward Scarlett. The dark witch stood calmly, ignoring Alexander’s snarls. She sketched a circle of her own into the snow around her feet.
“Katrina…” Chase said warily.
Katrina’s eyes darted toward Scarlett. Then she shouted, “Back to your places!”
The moment Scarlett’s circle was complete, she flung one hand casually toward Darien, who stood in his human form beside Roxy, on the opposite side of the ring from Chase. Chase braced for another bolt of fire, and his heart surged with a panic that turned the breath in his lungs to a leaden weight. Don’t let it hit Roxy. Please…
But no red flash came. Instead, Darien’s limbs jerked, then held in the air as if he’d been frozen in a block of ice. Sprawled against the sky, Darien’s gasp was audible from clear across the ridge. And the scream of agony that followed sent a sickening chill up Chase’s back.
He dragged Jack back to their position and turned in time to see Katrina lift her hand in an abrupt motion, yanking an invisible surface up from the earth. Scarlett toppled, landing hard on her back. Her mouth opened in a silent gasp.
With the wind knocked from her chest, Scarlett’s spell disintegrated. Darien collapsed into the snow, heaving and shuddering, but his screams—thank God—stopped. Roxy and Brooke rushed forward to help him.
“My God!” Logan said, his words quaking in this throat.
“This is nothing,” Chase said darkly. “She’s only playing—testing our limits. Trying to see what will work, what we’re prepared for—and what we’re not prepared for.” Chase didn’t know how he knew it. But some instinct told him clearly that any witch was capable of much more than this. And a witch like Scarlett—a witch in possession of a shifter’s stay—who could say what vicious surprises she was preparing for Alpha House, even now?
Matthew pointed to the snow-covered earth. “Look. What’s that?”
Chase watched the patchwork of starlight and shadow chase itself across the ground, moving in a flowing, rippling spiral, circling inside the ring of shifters like water around a drain. The sight disoriented him, dizzying his head, making his wolf feel nauseated and wary. He looked up at the sky—directly over head—and saw at once the source of the strange, mobile shadows. Clouds, thin and sickly like oil tainting pure water, slid across the sky, converging on a point high above the ring of shifters. As the clouds grew denser, the formation swirled, lazy and ponderous. Chase had lived in the Rocky Mountains long enough to recognize a storm cell forming. And it was forming fast.
“Shit,” he muttered.
“Looks like thunder—lighting,” said Logan uneasily.
Jack winced. “We’re exposed, up here on the ridge. We’ve got to get to shelter.”
“Or we have to put a stop to that storm,” Chase agreed. He raised his voice. “Katrina! Overhead!”
Scarlett slung another fireball directly at Katrina. It was smaller than the one she’d tossed at Jack, and Katrina easily burst it to harmless sparks before it could make contact. The fireball was obviously a mere distraction. Scarlett’s real attack was gathering overhead, moment by moment, obscuring the stars and blotting out their wan, silver light.
Katrina glanced up. Her brow furrowed at sight of the spreading storm cell.
The hairs on Chase’s body raised—a slow, eerie sensation—as the air began to fill with electricity. Many of the brothers broke rank, dispersing for shelter, or at least trying to get beyond the edge of that great shelf of dense, black cloud. The shifted brothers were the first to leave, their animal forms far more sensitive to the sudden change in the weather and the building vibration of hot electricity in the sky.
Chase turned quickly to Logan and Matthew. “Get Jack out of here. He’s hurt.”
“I can stay,” Jack insisted. “Look how many are leaving. Katrina wanted a complete circle to keep Scarlett in place. We need everybody we can spare.”
Chase patted his good shoulder. “You’re brave, Jack—but even with Katrina’s healing, that burn is pretty bad. I’m sure Scarlett knows that. She’ll aim for you again. Get down to safety, and do what you can to rally everyone who left. See if you can convince them to return. Logan, Matthew—when you have Jack down off this hill, come back up and help me.”
“But the circle,” Logan protested.
“We’ll just move in closer,” Chase said. He glanced across the broken ring at Roxy, his eyes finding hers even in the dark. He knew exactly where she was; he could feel her, a familiar, intrinsic presence, like a limb of his own body—and as the circle drew tighter and Chase came nearer to her, he knew that limb would fill with fire.
I’ll do what I must, he told himself, steeling his gut, bracing up his wolf for the onslaught of pain. Katrina and Alexander did what they had to do. I will, too.
“Go,” he said to his friends.
Chase stepped closer to the witches, closer to Roxy—closer to his pain. It began as a slow throb, spreading along his ribs, quivering in his legs. But as he moved resolutely closer, the throb turned to an ache, and then a sharp, persistent blaze that reached deep into his core. Chase breathed steadily, deeply, willing himself to stay upright, to keep breathing, to remain on his feet.
He watched Roxy steadily across the range of the witches’ unseen missiles, the hard cudgels of Air they used to batter one another’s defenses. Roxy’s eye
s were wide and frightened, but she held herself firm, fists clenched at her side as she closed in on the witches’ battle. The circle’s ragged edges cinched tight around Scarlett. Chase shuddered under the burden of his pain, but his resole was strong.
Darien still stood beside Roxy, trembling from his terrible brush with magic—or perhaps it was the threat of lightning that made him shake. But Brooke, Chase noted, had vanished from the ridge. No doubt she had fled for cover.
The clouds overhead gave a loud crackle. Electricity bloomed in the air like a deadly flower, lifting the hair on Chase’s head. How long now, he wondered, panting and stifling his agonized groans, until the storm broke, and lightning rained down in a terrible shower? The storm’s intensity felt alive to Chase—intelligent, deliberate, and evil. The wolf whined inside his chest, more from the danger than from the pain. Every animal instinct Chase possessed raced along his veins, flowing fast and hot, compelling him to flee for his life. But he refused to leave this work undone. He would stand against the witch who had harmed him, used him—who was using him even now, drawing through his stolen stay to twist the Powers to her corrupted will.
“Go,” Chase gasped, staring at Roxy, willing her to get to safety before it was too late. “Go!”
But she couldn’t hear him over the thuds and high-pitched whistles of the blows and bolts the witches exchanged.
The sky crackled again. Sparks leaped from Chase’s clothing. The hairs on his arms vibrated with a current he could not see, but could feel passing over him, around him, through him. Alexander’s fur seemed to glow beneath the boiling mass of black cloud, as if the white wolf were a particle charged.
Now, Chase thought, a sob hammering at his chest. It will happen now—the lightning—the sky ripping apart with a tear of thunder. I’m a goner—finished. And so is Roxy. I never got to hold her one last time never got to love her again.
Katrina’s shout snapped Chase out of his misery. “Now!”
Alexander sprang forward, and in the same moment, Katrina flung a tiny bundle into the air. Chase couldn’t quite see what it was—only that it unraveled as it flew. No, not unraveled—unwrapped. He caught sight of a little sprig of some dry, withered herb. It tumbled from the scrap of cloth that had enfolded it, and Alexander caught it up in his jaws as he leaped. With one more long-legged bound, the wolf sailed directly toward Scarlett, so swiftly that the dark witch could barely blink, let alone formulate her defense.
Chase thought Alexander would bowl into Scarlett, knocking her to the ground. His long, pale body, however, sailed past her shoulder. But as Scarlett ducked away, the wolf’s jaws opened, and the herb fell directly into the witch’s face.
She staggered backward, hands pressed to her eyes, venting a shrill scream that was entirely at odds with her previously cool, unconcerned façade. One of her feet broke past the protective edge of her circle.
The sky split with a single blue-white bolt. The air ripped itself open, quaking the earth with its mad, hollow thunder. The force of it knocked Chase backward; he landed hard against a tangle of sagebrush and struggled to his feet, scratched by the stiff branches, hot blood seeping through his shirt and trickling down his back, but otherwise—miraculously—unharmed.
He looked frantically around the ridge-top. A black scar smoked in the earth near Scarlett’s circle. The snow on the ridge had melted in a flash, exposing chunks of granite and rough, rusty-red lava rock. The bolt had thrown all the brothers off their feet—everyone, save for Katrina and Alexander. Even Scarlett was sprawled flat on her back. Chase watched as, one by one, the brothers of Alpha House picked themselves up, wide-eyed and trembling. Then Scarlett stirred, climbing up to wobble on unsteady legs.
Chase stared hard at the place where Roxy had stood, directly across from him in the darkness. He saw nothing—no movement, no hint of her beloved shape.
Please, he prayed frantically. Please, not Roxy. Let her be okay…
Darien stooped to the ground, and Chase held his breath. Then Roxy staggered up, leaning on Darien’s arm.
Chase’s explosive sigh was half a sob. He nearly fell again, rocked by the welcome blow of relief.
Scarlett, stumbling as she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, gave a cruel, oily laugh. “Touch-not? Is that the best weapon you can bring to this fight?”
“It knocked you flat on your ass,” Katrina growled. “And sent your lightning bolt a little astray. Unless you meant all along to nearly kill yourself.”
“You’re no better than a child,” Scarlett said. Her voice creaked like a rusty hinge. “I can do better than touch-not, you pathetic bitch. Much better.”
Scarlett’s dark eyes flicked, and found Chase among his brothers. She held Chase with a steady, amused stare.
Chase’s legs refused to move. He willed them—commanded them—to step back, away—to turn and run. But he couldn’t twitch a muscle. He watched in helpless disbelief as Scarlett reached one slender, white hand up to her throat. Her fist tightened—On my stay, Chase knew with terrible, sudden fear, with a clarity of terror. And then, in a flash, a violent, white-hot wrench, his body arched and stretched and lit up with pain. He felt his clothing hold for a moment, constricting around his shifting form, and then heard the tearing of cotton and denim, and the dull, hollow thud of his own body—his wolf’s body—falling to the ground.
He twisted and thrashed amid the shredded remains of his clothes. Then he rolled and clambered to his feet. He stood, panting, on his four paws as the mist of his breath filled the air around his head, obscuring his vision.
Roxy screamed and lurched toward him; Darien caught her around the chest and hauled her back into the darkness. But he could still hear her frantic cries, her fear and rage—and the curses she spat at Scarlett.
A voice spoke clearly in his head. Go, it said. He recognized it. How many times had he heard Scarlett whisper his name? How many times had he heard her panting and crying out beneath him? Go, my familiar. Chase shook his head, white foam flying from his lips—a vehement denial. But his eyes turned, against his will, toward Katrina. He showed his deadly teeth in a snarl.
Alexander leaped between Chase and the blonde-haired witch. He met Chase hackle for hackle, growl for growl, and advanced one threatening step for every slinking, sliding move Chase made toward Katrina.
But just as the white wolf crouched to leap, to close with Chase in terrible determination to protect his witch, the voice laughed, slick and low, inside Chase’s head.
He turned. With his ears and his sensitive nose, with his keen, dark-loving eyes, he found Roxy in the darkness. And although the pain gathered inside him and beat at his flesh and bones—although it screamed along his hide and rippled his fur—he advanced on Roxy with a snarl he could not control.
.6.
“ Chase!”
Roxy struggled out of Darien’s grip and scrambled back toward the circle of shifters. She didn’t know what she would do—what she could do to help Chase. She certainly couldn’t go near him without inflicting searing pain. Her only clear thought was that she must stop Scarlett—distract her somehow, as Katrina’s trick with that little bundle of herbs had done.
Katrina had warned all the shifters, as they’d dispersed across the ridge-top to wait for Scarlett’s arrival, that they must stay as far away from the battle as they could, while still maintaining their perimeter of watchful eyes and powerful bodies—the barrier that would ensure Scarlett couldn’t slip off into the night to flee, or to ambush the brothers from the cover of darkness. “I can’t promise that the spells I throw at Scarlett won’t go astray,” Katrina had told them. “You have to stay clear of us both—give us room to fight.”
Roxy’s mouth dried at the thought of launching herself into the path of those missiles of Power, those strange streaks of incandescence that flew from the witches’ hands. But her rage at the sight of Chase forced into his lupine form was greater than she could bear. Anger rampaged through her heart, driving her on despite the risk to herself
. She might never be able to touch Chase again, but she could still help him. And if she was hurt herself—or worse—then it would be well worth the cost. It was worth any cost, to help the man she loved, to give him one last gift before they parted ways and were separated for the rest of their lonely lives.
But as she lurched toward the witches, the great gray wolf turned to her with a thick, loud snarl. Chase’s jaws quivered with the force of his vicious brutality, and froth dripped from his lips—from the long, white daggers of his teeth. His dark eyes were at odds with the violence and hatred that seemed etched into every hair of his pelt. Those eyes stared at her with frantic desperation, an air of pleading and apology that wrenched at Roxy’s heart. But although his eyes said clearly that he wished her no harm—that he loved her as much as ever—his lean, hard, silver-furred body crept toward her, hunched and tense, quivering with the promise of death.
Roxy gasped. “Chase! Please, don’t—a”
Katrina blocked one of Scarlett’s blows; the fireball exploded in a shower of sparks that illuminated Chase’s fur with a violent red glow. The blonde witch shot a quick glance toward Roxy, and her brows lowered. Katrina gave a sharp command. “Alexander!”.
In an instant, the white wolf spun away from his mistress and launched his full weight into Chase’s side. The gray wolf gave a whuff of shock as he went sprawling into the snow, but he was on his paws again before Roxy could blink, rounding on Alexander with a chaotic sound that was more a human shout of rage than a proper, animal growl. The wolves clashed, rising onto their hind legs, tearing at one another with teeth and paws as the witches’ bolts of fire and light rocketed past them. Their thrashing, spinning path carried them nearer to Roxy; Darien seized her by the arm and hauled her back.
“Don’t worry about me!” Roxy cried, to Darien and to Katrina. “Chase! Leave him alone, Alexander!”
Darien’s voice was close beside her ear, and his breath was hot on her cheek. “Chase will kill you! Let Alexander keep him off!”