With that energy still radiating from me, I lifted my hand and laid it gently across his forehead. I let the energy turn into magic, flowing like water from my fingertips. Releasing a rush of love and magic into him, I sighed and melted against him. No wonder my parents hadn’t let me practice healing magic on anyone outside our family. It was powerful stuff.
My head was in a fog as Efrain’s eyes fluttered open. Without so much as glancing around to see where we were, he rolled over onto me, his heavy body crushing down on mine. “What are you doing to me there, Little Red?” he asked, his voice slurry, his eyes unfocused.
“Saving your life,” I said, forcing the words out in a normal tone. But there was nothing normal here. My heart was racing, my body charged with the energy buzzing between us.
A slow smile spread over his lips, and he brushed my hair back with both hands. “I could just eat you all up.”
His growled words sent a thrill shimmering through my body. It was all I could do not to arch up against him, wrap my legs around him. Instead, I stroked my fingers across his forehead, eliciting a groan from him. I cupped his rough, stubble-laden cheek with one hand, marveling at how small and dainty my hand looked against his rugged face. “We’ve got an audience,” I whispered.
“They’d probably enjoy it as much as we did,” he said, his fingers skimming my throat, sending a shudder of pleasure through me.
“That’s just the residual magic talking,” I said quickly.
His eyelids were heavy, his pupils dilated. “Did you put a spell on me? Whatever you did to me, I’m not sure I like it.”
“No,” I said, squirming under him. “I just healed your head.”
“Good,” he said, holding me captive as I squirmed. “Because I don’t appreciate people fucking with my head.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I’m not.”
“Now I know why they say witches are dangerous,” he said, rolling off me. He lay on his back, not trying to hide the fact that he had enjoyed our contact as much as I had.
I averted my eyes, my cheeks warming. Oral grinned and held out a hand to me. “You can put a spell on me any time,” he said, pulling me to my feet. “I enjoy people messing with my mind.”
“I’m not,” I protested. He and Nelson had slipped away to put on clothes while I healed Efrain, and their state of dress both relieved and disappointed me, much to my chagrin. I wasn’t sure about the fact that they’d left me alone with Efrain, either, or that they’d come back to watch.
“You know, shifters aren’t strictly monogamous, either,” Oral said with a wink. His hair had been mussed by the wind and the T-shirt he’d pulled on, and his big ears stuck out through his hair in the most adorable way. I wondered if he liked to have them nibbled, and then pushed away the ridiculous thought. I’d never wanted to nibble on a guy’s anything before in my life. It was as if being around all these animals had unlocked my own animal side.
Right now, it was distracting the hell out of me.
“I think we need to concentrate on getting my grandma out of the wolves’ valley,” I said.
“That sounds like a fair deal,” Oral said, with another of his easy smiles.
“Tell me what you know, and I’ll go in tomorrow during the eclipse and get her out,” I said. “Those wolves will never know what hit ‘em.”
“You can say that again,” Nelson muttered.
9
I woke with a start, my undershirt sticking to me and my heart hammering. An urgency gripped me before I came fully awake. When I did, I cursed myself for sleeping so late.
I sat up, only to find Oral snoozing quietly beside me. I’d let him crawl into bed with me in the guest room, and true to his word, he’d let me go straight to sleep without even a kiss. He looked so sweet and peaceful in the sunlight streaming through the window, his hair all tousled and sexy. I ran a hand through my tangled mane, wondering how it was fair that he could look so perfect when he’d just woken up.
Not what you should be worrying about.
“Hey, girl,” he said, his eyes fluttering open.
“I better get up,” I said, swinging my legs off the bed.
Oral’s arm circled my waist, and he sat up, nuzzling the back of my neck. “Hey,” he said, a smile shining through his words. “Don’t run out on me yet. I spent a whole night holding you and didn’t even get a chance to show you my skills. You can’t leave thinking I’m a loser.”
I smiled and twisted towards him. “I don’t think you’re a loser,” I said, holding his face between my hands. “I think you’re a gentleman.”
He scoffed. “I’d rather you think I was a scoundrel.”
“What makes you think you can’t be both?” I asked, leaning forward to plant a kiss on his lips. Oral groaned and threw himself backwards onto the bed as I slipped out the door, a grin on my face.
Guilt rushed into me when I saw the empty living room with the blankets rumpled on the couch. My heart lurched, and I thought I’d be sick. Had Efrain run out on me? I shouldn’t be teasing boys who looked at me with such clear longing it made my thighs tremble, no matter how exciting and fun it was. I should be finding my grandmother with the help of the only shifter in the house who wasn’t interested in me.
Outside, I heard a steady thump, and I raced out the back door. Efrain was stacking row upon row of firewood in the nearly empty woodshed. From the looks of it, he’d been at it for hours, maybe all night. But then I took stock of his bulging, tattooed biceps and decided that maybe he just worked a lot faster than me and my sisters.
For a moment, we stood taking measure of each other. I could see the appreciation in his eyes as they worked their way over me, and it made me want to strut like a peacock. I was busy taking him in, too—his broad shoulders, his arms, his strong, tan hands. His face wasn’t classically handsome like Malik’s. His eyes were small, his nose a bit crooked, as if it had been broken at some point. A scar bit into his upper lip, and his cheekbones and jaw were so chiseled they were almost harsh. His dark hair bristled up in thick tufts. But somehow, all put together, it worked. He looked rough and fierce, and he was looking at me like an animal watching his prey.
I quivered with a feeling that was foreign to me, an ache of longing buried deep inside me.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” I asked, the memory of the night before pressing down on me at full force. “Let’s get going.”
“I was just waiting for you to rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” he drawled. I’d forgotten how deep and rough his voice was, almost a growl even as his lips twisted into a knowing smirk. As his eyes fixed on me, I had the feeling he knew exactly what I’d been thinking, as if he could feel my exact emotions through a bond of shared magic. Of course that was impossible. Even witches who shared my magic couldn’t read my mind, though if I’d shared enough magic, they could sense my emotions.
But Efrain was a shifter, not a warlock, so that hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have.
“I’ll get changed and then we can go,” Efrain said, slamming his ax down into a stump. He peeled off his shirt, steam rising from his sweaty, muscled body. His washboard abs glistened with moisture, the mosaic of tattoos across him fascinating in their complexity. I wanted to stand there longer, to trace my fingers over their lines, to decipher them like hieroglyphics.
Efrain pushed past me and strode into the house, leaving me standing on the porch, shaken. What had I done? Was this the result of the magic, or just plain lust? I’d never experienced either, so how would I know?
“What are you laughing at?” Efrain growled when he emerged from the bedroom. He was wearing a backpack, which looked comically tiny on his huge frame.
“Nothing,” I said, biting back a smile. “Heading off to school?”
“Either carry it yourself, or shut up.”
“Shutting up,” I said, making a zipper motion across my lips.
Efrain took a menacing step towards me, and my breath caught. He didn’t look like he meant to hurt
me. He looked like he could barely contain himself from devouring me.
“You sure you don’t need a third person for a stakeout?” Oral asked, interrupting our moment. “Or for entertainment?”
“The more people sneaking into the valley, the more likely we’ll get caught,” Efrain said.
Nelson frowned at the dishes he was washing, but he didn’t say anything. Leaving the house was a bit of a relief. There was too much tension crackling in the air between us, and something else between me and Oral. Altogether, it was just unsettling.
Despite what I’d thought about Efrain, and despite my attraction to him, he was somehow safer than the other two. He had a girlfriend, so there was no chance of anything messy happening between us, no matter what animal urges he’d awakened in me.
As we set off up the mountain at a brisk pace, Efrain striding ahead on his long legs, my questions came tumbling out. “What if…what if Granny is hurt? How are we going to carry her back?”
“I’ll shift into a horse and you can ride me,” he said with a smirk.
“Okay,” I said, my pulse quickening at the reminder of the sensations I’d had the day before.
“You liked that, huh?” Efrain said, his smile growing wider.
“It’s efficient,” I said lightly. “Where are we going now?”
“Over the river and through the woods,” he said. “Any more burning questions?”
“Did you carry that backpack to school?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Why?”
“No reason,” I said. “Just curious. Did you go to shifter school?”
He snorted. “Shifters don’t need training on how to shift. It comes naturally.”
“But that’s all the magic you have, right?” I asked, a little smug. Sure, I had to go to school for ages to learn all the different elements and spells, to learn about my familiar, herbology, and the history of witches and witchcraft. But there was a lot I could do once I learned it. All he could do was turn into a different animal.
“More useful than snapping your fingers to light a fire,” he grumbled.
“You’re right,” I said quickly. “I don’t want to argue or insult your people. I was just curious. So, what did you go to school for?”
“The usual,” he said. “Math, reading, science, all that bullshit.”
“Where’s the shifter school?”
He cast a strange look at me. “There’s no shifter school,” he said. “We go to school in Kingston.”
“With regular humans?” I asked, turning so abruptly that my toe caught in a root and I pitched forward.
Efrain caught me so quickly that the blast of air I’d automatically raised to do the job slammed into us both. We stumbled back, Efrain’s arms tightening protectively around me. “What the hell was that?”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Overreaction.”
He looked down at me, his face guarded. “How much magic does that take?”
“Not much,” I said, pulling away.
“How can you tell?” he asked as we began walking again.
“I just feel it,” I said with a shrug.
“So, no one else knows how much magic you have,” he said. “Only you can tell. You could trick someone into thinking you had a lot when really you weren’t very powerful, and vice versa.”
“If they’d take your word for it,” I said. “It’s not like you can stick a magical tire gauge on me and see if I’m running low. Witches can compete against each other to do the same tasks involving magic, so we all know who’s strongest in our valley. Your capacity remains the same, but what you have readily available is not a set amount. It shifts depending on use, practice, what you’ve been doing lately…”
Efrain frowned but didn’t answer, seeming to mull that over for a few minutes.
“So, about this school…” I said when things had gotten too quiet for too long.
“What about it?” he asked, his voice edged with resentment. “It’s not like I have no control over my shifting. I can fit in with humans as well as you.”
“I probably can’t fit in with humans at all,” I said. “I’ve never been around them for more than a few hours when we go into town.”
“Never?” he asked, looking at me askance. “They live all over our valley. All you have to do is cross the mountain from your valley into ours.”
“I’m not allowed to,” I admitted.
“I thought you were a big girl now.”
“I am,” I protested. “But it’s not safe out there. People aren’t safe out there. They never burned shifters at the stake, did they?”
Efrain snorted in response.
“It’s true,” I said. “My grandma lost all her magic because she left our valley.”
Efrain frowned at me, hooking his thumbs into the straps of his comically small backpack. “You’re right,” he said after a minute. “It’s not safe for you out here. You can’t trust people of any nature. We’re all shady, and not just shifty shifters.”
I thought about all the times my parents had told me that if I saw anyone in our valley, I was supposed to run home and tell them, not even talk to the person. No shifters. No wolves. No one but witches and the others supernaturals in our coven could be trusted.
And yet, it was a warlock who had taken my grandmother’s magic, who had made my parents so paranoid to begin with. Maybe it was time to do away with those old-fashioned notions and prejudices. If nothing else, shifters were tons of fun. I couldn’t remember having this much excitement in my entire life. If not for the fact that Granny Golden had been taken captive, it would have been the adventure of a lifetime—sneaking into the wolf valley, flirting with sexy shifters around a bonfire…
“I don’t think you’re shifty,” I said, striding to keep up with Efrain. “I think you’re just what’s been missing from my life.”
Efrain snorted like a boar. “What are you on?”
“I’m on an adventure,” I said, twirling around and spreading my arms. “That’s what I’ve been missing. Don’t get me wrong, the First Valley is home, and it’s beautiful and safe, but…I want fun and adventure. I want danger and excitement and magic.”
“Looks like you’re going to get your wish,” Efrain said, dropping his backpack.
Robin swooped overhead, calling out in agitation. I pulled him closer, winding my magic tight around him.
Efrain grabbed his white T-shirt and ripped it straight down the middle, tossing the shredded material aside. His muscles rippled across his chest and abs, a snake tattoo curling up his ribs and across his chest, where a ferocious boar’s head snarled out at me. He grabbed me, thrusting my body behind his before the protest could leave my lips.
“What is it?” I asked, my eyes darting around the woods. It irked me a bit that he could sense something I couldn’t.
A shadow slipped between the barren trees, and a shiver raced down my spine. Another shadow caught my attention, and I spun to press my back against the solid wall of muscle that was Efrain. He muttered the word just as the first of them materialized.
“Wolves.”
10
I expected Efrain to change into a boar, but before he could, one of the wolves changed into a man. “We have warned you to stop invading our valley,” he said, his voice hard and clear. “Your constant trespassing will not be tolerated under our new leader.”
“We just want my grandma back,” I said, holding up both hands. “We’re not here to invade. We brought no army.”
“I don’t know anything about your grandmother,” the man said. “We have only wolves in or valley. And we’re tired of you shifters crossing our boundaries as if they don’t exist, taking from our valley because you depleted your own.”
“You sure you ain’t seen her granny?” Efrain asked, sounding amused. “Old lady, grey hair, about yay high?” He held up a hand to show how tall she was.
“No,” the wolf-man said, grinding his teeth. “Now get out of our valley. We won’t tell you again.”
“You sure-sure?” Efrain asked. “No old lady wandered by lately? Because I might have seen her here with my own eyes.”
“We have only wolves in our pack.”
“I don’t think these dogs are going to obey,” Efrain said. “Which means we might have to fight.”
Without warning, his body exploded into a huge, spiny boar. He charged straight for the man, but before he could reach him, the other two wolves, who had stayed in wolf form, leapt into his way. Efrain’s tusk gouged into one of the wolves, and I bit back a horrified scream as a bloody, crimson gasp appeared in the wolf’s grey pelt.
I’d wanted excitement, not violence. Of course I had trained for fighting, but now that an attack was actually happening, I froze. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Witches fought with shields and magic, clean and neat. There was no blood in a witch fight.
The wolves were snarling, leaping in to bite at Efrain as he charged one way and another, trying to skewer another wolf. Even the one he’d hit was still standing, snapping when he came near.
And I was standing there, useless as an ordinary human.
Do something, I screamed at myself. Robin swooped overhead, chirping in agitation.
I raised my hands to do something my parents had told me never to do—use magic to hurt someone. Gathering my magic, I blasted a fireball at one of the wolves, who tumbled into the leaves with an agonized howl. Instantly, something dark coiled through me, invading my magic. I tried to push it out, but I couldn’t. After a second, I realized it was the magic itself, turning dark.
The last wolf took that moment to seize Efrain by the throat. With a hideous shriek, he bucked to shake the wolf loose, but it held on.
Forget this.
I could heal my magic later. I lifted my hands, trying to find an opening that would ensure I hit the wolf and not Efrain. They were rolling and bucking so much I couldn’t get a clear shot, though. How the hell did people do this? When I practiced with the coven, it was all choreographed and controlled. Now that it was real, nothing was easy. I didn’t want to hit Efrain by accident and make it worse. But I couldn’t just stand by and watch his throat being ripped out.
Realms and Rebels: A Paranormal and Fantasy Reverse Harem Collection Page 43