by Cecy Robson
Better luck next time, asshole.
My eyes quickly fell back to Aric. I gasped when I saw him. He lay with his back arched against the base of the embankment. Blood trailed into the water from where his skull had hit a large rock. His breath was ragged, but his eyes blinked open. “Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered, reaching for him.
He shook his head, grimacing as his skull snapped back into place, but surprising me with a smile. He pushed my long hair over my shoulders. His stare wandered down my body until it locked onto my legs.
Aric’s eyes widened when he caught my blood mixing with the river water. “You’re not all right!” He cradled me in his arms. “Your thighs look like hamburger!”
I smiled weakly when he lifted me from the river and placed me along the edge of the bank, keeping his body close against mine. I stroked his cheek carefully. “I meant yes, I’ll marry you,” I told him quietly.
Aric stilled. Drops of muddy water trickled from his hair to stream along his temples. “Even after all that?” he asked, motioning with a jerk of his chin to where the shifter had disappeared.
My fingers trailed over his rough five o’clock shadow. I knew what he meant. Our union wouldn’t make our lives any easier. “For better or for worse, right?”
His light brown irises flickered and that grin I fell in love with spread across his face. “Yes, sweetness. For better or worse.”
Chapter 2
“I’ll leave you just where the trees thin and the forest opens to the road. You’ll be close, but hidden and safe from the fight,” Aric said. “I’ll bring Emme to heal you and leave another wolf to guard you while we finish off the panther.”
In a different world this would likely sound like an odd conversation. In mine, it was almost a daily chat.
Aric tucked me against him and charged, his bare feet racing in the direction of the beach. His body swerved around the dense pines in an exuberant rush, but he was vigilant as always and careful to keep me from harm. His injuries had likely already healed. That wasn’t the case with me.
Aric fell under the spectrum of supernaturals who were hard to kill. While I had a tougher hide and could withstand more than any mere human, my inability to heal made me vulnerable and a liability. I hated it, but the last few months and my current situation were a sore reminder of that truth.
The cold river water had chilled my bones and the severity of my injuries made my head spin. I adjusted my bare skin against his, hoping his heat would help soothe me. It worked. The warmth that bonded us as mates spread through me, but it wouldn’t be enough to save me. My legs grew slick against his stomach. And although I recognized that I continued to bleed, I remained unbelievably headstrong.
“Don’t leave me, I can still fight,” I muttered.
Aric pressed a kiss against my forehead. “Don’t be stubborn. I proposed to a tigress, not a mule.” He ran another few feet before stopping abruptly. “Shit. Now what?”
I tilted my head to see Emme riding Bren the wolf. Bren sprinted gracefully and effortlessly toward us, carrying the jumbled quilt in his teeth. Emme clung for dear life to the fur of his neck, her honey-blond hair sweeping behind her, and her body bouncing in less than charming motions. It was almost comical. Almost. If my legs hadn’t been sliced to shreds, I may have had a giggle.
Bren changed back to human as he rose, dropping the quilt into his outstretched arms. Emme’s fingers remained tangled in his long messy curls. He was a lot taller, and I supposed she was afraid to let go. Having a petite ninety-eight-pound blonde attached to him didn’t seem to bother Bren. He walked casually toward us with Emme’s body swinging like a bell behind him. “It’s over,” he said. “The panther’s dead.” His eyes widened when he looked at me. “Damn, Ceel. You look like hell. Guess that blushing bride stuff was all bullshit, huh?”
He threw the blanket over me and twisted Emme around to face him. He chuckled when he caught the humiliation scorching her freckled face and set her carefully on the ground.
Most women would’ve liked sliding down Bren’s muscular and naked body, but most women weren’t as timid as my youngest sister. “I’ll heal you n-now, Celia,” she stammered.
“Thank you,” I said. My vision was starting to dim and I was close to passing out. So much for claiming I could still fight.
Emme touched my face and surrounded me with her pale yellow healing light. Aric tightened his hold when a groan escaped my lips. He whispered soft wolfish sounds in my ear, trying to distract me from the sting spreading deep into my bones. When Emme finished, my fresh wounds would completely heal. Until then, my body was furious at the speed at which it was forced to mend and punished me with painful spasms.
I didn’t remember losing consciousness, but when I lifted my heavy lids, we were back on the beach and with those I most loved.
Bren circled the dead horses. The poor animals lay on their backs with their legs stuck up in the air like poles. He shook his head. “Damn, Aric. You’re going to have to pay for those.”
Aric ignored him. “Anyone hurt?”
Although everyone denied it, an innocent bystander might have objected. Eight weres I didn’t know had answered Aric’s call. By scent I could tell there were four bears, three cougars, and a werebadger. With the exception of my sisters, everyone present was naked. Blood painted their bodies and soaked the sand, and entrails dried in the sun. On a scale of nastiness, this topped close to puking digits. The humans were lucky to have this part of the world hidden from them or easily swiped from their memories with a little mojo. At that moment, I wished I could have been one of those lucky humans blind to the disturbing side of our reality.
The dead shape-shifters, in their human forms, lay about thirty feet apart on the mangled beach. Heidi grabbed the leg of one and dragged it along the sand to join the other. Aric stopped just a few feet from them. The panther had been female, the tiger male. Both had their throats torn out, but the panther also had her skull crushed. My brows drew tight. “Why is the tiger dead?”
Aric lowered me to ground. He hadn’t realized I was awake until then. But he did know what I meant. To kill a shifter, you have to either mutilate the heart or brain. Aric hadn’t done either to the tiger that attacked us. “I don’t know,” he said, rubbing his sternum. “For now, I only care that Tura’s dead.”
“Tura?” I asked.
Aric growled. He continued to stare at the shifter as if expecting him to attack. “He’s one of the oldest shape-shifters we’re aware of and among the deadliest.”
Yet Aric had taken Tura out in order to defend me. I tried not to shudder. Just like that, I could have lost him.
Aric sensed my fear and leaned into me to whisper. “I’m safe and so are you. I will always protect you, okay?”
“Just like I’ll always protect you, too,” I told him. I meant it, and I knew he meant what he said as well, but I couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong.
Aric motioned to the panther. “Who made the kill?”
Gemini stepped forward. “I did. But it required our combined forces to bring her down.” He had his arm around my sister Taran, although his show of affection seemed forced.
Just a few weeks back, Taran would have been smiling up at her mate, bragging about what a badass wolf he was. But Taran was no longer the same. None of us were.
Anara was a trusted Pack Elder who allowed his hatred toward me to spiral out of control. This monster literally tore my and Aric’s baby from my womb. Ugly scars lined my lower belly, a reminder that our baby was gone, and that we would never be able to conceive another. And while Anara’s actions left me devastated and almost killed me, I hadn’t suffered alone.
Anara had chewed Taran’s arm off from the elbow down and devoured both of Shayna’s. Shayna’s werewolf essence regenerated her spirit and arms completely. Taran hadn’t fared as well. In an effort to help, the Pack Omega had attempted to use Taran’s mate bond with Gemini to regrow Taran’s a
rm. No one could have predicted how freakishly Taran’s magic would clash with the Pack’s, but it had, and it changed Taran in a way that broke my heart.
Stark white skin covered Taran’s new appendage and sickly blue veins ran down its length. While technically a healthy and functioning arm, it stood out like a clump of snow against a golden beach. For someone who appeared seemingly perfect—flawless olive skin, killer curves, and bold blue eyes—Taran didn’t feel beautiful anymore. She wore elbow-length gloves to conceal her new limb and had lost much of the persona that made her the family hellcat.
And now she was also losing control over her power.
Taran tucked her arm beneath her maiden blouse and placed her “normal” arm over it. In attempting to use her fire, she must have burned off her gloves. Gemini noticed, but instead of comforting her, his stance stiffened further.
Shayna glanced their way before walking to my side and clasping her hand on my shoulder. “You okay, dude?” she asked me.
I nodded and adjusted the quilt around me, my spine straightening as two runners sprinted past us. “Don’t worry, Ceel,” Bren said. “The broom humpers have it covered.”
The scent of witch magic filled my nose, but it was faint, overpowered by Tahoe’s. Taran shrugged Gem’s arm off and stepped forward. “I tried to give us some camouflage, but I couldn’t manage more than a few puffs of mist.” She tucked her new arm deeper beneath her shirt. “Nothing seems to be working, even this close to the lake’s magic.”
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’re going to figure this out.”
Her tightening jaw informed me she didn’t believe me. I hoped to prove her wrong, but now wasn’t the time.
Aric furrowed his brows in Gemini’s direction. “This isn’t Genevieve’s coven.” He took a whiff of the air, a smile spreading across his face as his gaze traveled to the elevated walkway above us.
A band of witches in their sixties straddled racing bikes and waved his way. Each wore a helmet, T-shirt, and black spandex pants with “Bitches on Bikes” airbrushed across her butt. A woman with fair skin and a gleaming smile left the group, trailed by another woman who reached into her fanny pack and removed a container of salt. Together, they carefully walked down the stone steps and onto the beach while those who remained on the walkway gave the camouflaging spell an added boost of energy.
“Hello, Delilah,” Aric said when the first woman reached us.
The woman nodded briefly before using her glove-clad hands to remove her helmet. She ran her fingers through her short white curls with her smile firmly in place. “Sorry we missed all the action, Aric,” she said in a thick Southern accent. “But we were already down at the ten-mile mark when we heard your call.” Her light blue eyes danced from one shape-shifter to the other. “Damn. Hadn’t met up with a shifter since ’86. Would’ve loved a little payback. Almost lost three of my girls to one, don’t you know?”
Aric nodded. “I remember Dad telling me about that fight.” He laughed. “He said no one could curse like that Delilah Swan.”
She grinned at the compliment. “And no one still can, y’all.”
I didn’t know Delilah, but I liked her right away. She smiled widely as she held out her hand. “You must be Aric’s mate, Celia. So, you’re the tiny little thing telling all the bad guys what fer.”
I adjusted the blanket around me again before extending my hand. Although most present remained naked, they were weres and had spent most of their lives au naturel. I was only comfortable being bare-skinned around Aric. I shook her hand, slightly embarrassed. “Nice to meet you, Delilah.”
“Celia’s also my fiancée.” His smile widened as he stroked my back. “She just agreed to marry me.”
Delilah’s gaze swept over the devastation. “After all this? Hell, darlin’, it must be love.” She waved to the other witch who had followed her. “Betty Sue, come here, sweet thang.” The tall African American woman glanced up in the middle of drawing a ring of salt around the shifters. She passed her container to a were and joined us. “This here’s probably the best tracking witch any coven’s ever seen. Tell the young’uns what you did.”
Betty Sue grinned. “The eagle shifter passed over us while we were on our way,” she said. “I hit him with a tracking spell. I’ll be able to trace him within a two-thousand-mile radius. But more important, I’ll be able to warn you any time he reenters the state.”
Hearing I would at least have advanced warning felt like music to my ears. My shoulders slumped with relief. While I didn’t trust most of the broom humpers, some weren’t so bad after all.
“Thank you, Betty Sue,” I said.
“And I thank you on behalf of the Pack,” Aric said.
Which was wolf for “I owe you.”
“Consider it a wedding gift,” Betty Sue said with a laugh.
Delilah pointed a finger at Aric. “And while you’re at it, tell that diva, Genevieve, that if another shifter wanders back here, he’s ours. We’re no spring chickens, but we still have a fight left in our peckers.”
Aric chuckled. “I’ll be sure to tell her just that.”
Betty Sue finished circling the shifters’ corpses with salt. The rest of the coven joined them now that their camouflaging spell was in full swing. They nodded to the weres, then formed a ring around the shifters and joined hands.
Tahoe’s magic stirred as they called it forth. They chanted something I couldn’t quite make out, but each word pricked at my skin with its strength. My sisters and I had been wary of witches since our smackdown with them when we first moved to the area, but it wasn’t their presence that bothered me then.
Shape-shifters carried the power of hell within them. While they were technically dead, I could still sense their evil surrounding us. “Don’t worry,” Aric murmured in my ear. “The purity of Tahoe’s magic will cleanse whatever remains in the air after the coven purges the ground.”
My eyes widened. “No one purged the ground after we killed the other shifter. Were we supposed to do that?” I was picturing the last nutcase shape-shifter I killed rising from the ground. It wasn’t the prettiest of images.
“It’s not necessary to us, but it is to the witches. Nature’s sacred to them, and because of the lake’s power, anything directly around it is considered hallowed ground. Their strong beliefs won’t permit them to simply walk away.” He rubbed at his sternum again. It was the second time I noticed him do that.
“Are you all right?” I asked him.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You keep rubbing your chest.”
Aric stared down at his hand as if noticing it for the first time before letting it fall. “It’s fine. Just sore from the fight.”
As an Alpha and pureblood Leader, Aric couldn’t show weakness. I shut my mouth, realizing I shouldn’t have announced his vulnerability, especially in the presence of those outside our trusted circle.
Delilah pointed to the bodies. “Hey, Aric. What do you want us to do with them, set ’em on fire? Datonna’s got some good flame.”
A witch in pink spandex wiggled her flaming fingers at us to prove her point. Aric glanced at me. “Can you bury them? Shape-shifter burning carries a wretched stink. Even with Tahoe’s power, it may take some time for it to leave the air.”
“Ah. Sure.”
He cocked his head. “You don’t have to, sweetness.”
He’d sensed my hesitation, but he clearly didn’t understand the reason for it. I didn’t want to admit how I hated touching them, especially since it seemed like such a wimpy thing to say. “No. I’ll do it.”
The coven watched me as I marched forward to shift the remains of the bodies deep into the sand. I jerked my hand back when I buried the female first. Though she was dead, I could sense her evil. Filthy. That was the best way I could describe her. And that filth seemed to try to dig its way into my skin and infect me with its poison.
Aric wrapped his arm around my shoulders as I stared at my fingertips. “What is it?”
I shook out my hand, well aware that everyone had stopped speaking and was watching me closely. “Is it—” I took a breath. “Is it possible for a shifter to contaminate you with its power?”
The members of the coven exchanged glances, but it was Betty Sue who spoke. “No. It shouldn’t be. Shifters hoard their power; it makes them stronger. And nothing can pass on power once it’s dead, child.”
I so needed to hear that just then. “Good to know. Thank you, Betty Sue.” I shook out my hand again and reached for the shifter Tura who had attacked us as the tiger, expecting to feel that horrible sensation again. I frowned when I touched him. I felt…nothing. Not one damn trickle of power.
“What’s wrong, Ceel?” Bren asked.
I shifted Tura deep before answering, hoping that if Aric was right, Tahoe would soon swallow the remains. “Tura didn’t feel like anything.”
Aric closed in. “What do you mean?”
“He lacked evil—the poison I sensed in the female—it didn’t seep from Tura’s remains like hers did.”
Everyone focused on me like they couldn’t understand. I did my best to explain. “I could sense remnants of the other shifters—their darkness, even after they died. It’s like some kind of nasty infestation. That’s why I asked if it could infect me.”
Aric turned his head in the direction of the coven. “But it can’t, right?”
The coven collectively muttered among themselves. Everyone waited on edge for a definite answer. Aric gathered me to him. He wasn’t happy. And neither was I. This was the day he proposed. This was supposed to be special. Instead I became a damn horse, we almost died—again, and now I could potentially have shifter cooties? Hells to the no.
Delilah stepped forward. “I’ve never heard of anything like it, but we’ve also never heard of anything like you, girl. If I had to guess, I’d suspect you’re sensitive to dark ones.”