by Zoë Archer
In moments, she saddled and mounted her horse, then joined a mounted Nathan in front of her cabin.
“Their scent’s growing stronger,” Nathan said. “The men who took me.” A coil of fury unwound within him, strong and fierce. He wanted to hurt those men as they had hurt him.
“You and I can’t fight them,” she said, somehow reading his thoughts. “I know those men, and we could not defeat them on our own.”
He wanted to press her on how she knew those bastards, but she had already set her heels to her horse. Nathan followed her lead, spurring his horse into motion.
They plunged their horses into the woods bordering the west end of the valley, and then up steep, forested hill slopes. Nathan was no stranger to riding, but he would never have found the route on which she led them, narrow passes between rocky ridges all but invisible to any but the most experienced mountain dweller. She never stopped to look back, not at him, and not at her now-abandoned home. He didn’t ask where they were headed. All that mattered was moving forward.
The mountain’s secrets she knew well. They slid up between the hills, barely a notch, and then they rode downward, putting the valley behind them. Dense stands of spruce trees kept them in lengthening shadow. Nathan watched her watching, her eyes constant in their movement, assessing, thorough. What manner of woman was she, to carry herself like a veteran?
She sat tall in the saddle, moving easily with the horse. He followed the golden rope of her braid hanging down her back and thought of what it might look like unbound. Those trousers showed her legs to be long and sleek.
Hot, swift hunger clawed through him. He saw himself leap toward her, drag her off her horse, and, wrapping her legs around him, thrust into her as she moaned her pleasure. A claiming. Pure visceral demand. He saw it clearly but fought the urge to act. He stayed on his own horse and beat his thoughts and needs down, stunned by their savagery and strength. It had to be the animal within him.
He didn’t know who the hell he was anymore. He was a stranger to himself, a stranger who was not another man but, incredibly, a wolf, capable of killing with nothing more than tooth and nail. Wanting a woman in the most basic and elemental way. Demanding to make her his. His study of the law meant nothing compared to the unleashed truth of his body and mind.
She turned in her saddle at his rueful laugh. “You find this amusing?”
“No. Yes.” He shook his head. “The world’s changed.”
“It often does.”
He nudged his horse so that he rode beside her, and considered the clean lines of her profile beneath the brim of her hat. “Tell me what you know.”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “I know as much as you.”
“Don’t lie to me. You saw me turn into a wolf, and it didn’t shock you at all, like you’d seen something like that before. You know the men who abducted me, who paid the trapper to capture me. For someone who claims to be ignorant,” he said, his voice hardening, “you sure know a hell of a lot.”
A slight tension in her jaw drew his gaze. So subtle, the shifts of her emotions, yet he could read them. She wanted to bury those emotions, but there was too much fire in her to be dampened. She debated with herself, what to say, what not to say. She was a keeper of many secrets. He wanted to know them, to know her. The glimpses of herself that he caught tantalized and made him need more.
“Tell me, damn it,” he growled.
Her nod of acquiescence was so small as to be almost invisible. “There is,” she said after a pause, “real magic in the world. The magic of legends and tales. You said you did not believe in it, but, after what happened at my cabin, it is safe to assume you believe now.”
“I’ve got proof,” he said, grim.
“Your mind is open now.” She gave him a quick glance of approbation. “That’s good. You will need to keep it open.” She guided them down a series of switchbacks through the trees, using a trail only she could see. “This magic can be found everywhere, all over the world. When humanity created civilization, it created magic, and placed it into objects both for protection and to coalesce the magic’s power.”
“What kind of objects?”
She gestured with a gloved hand. “Anything, everything. A coin, a knife, even something as mundane as a rock. Such objects are known as Sources.”
Just the word alone sent a cataract of wakefulness swirling through him. He felt it, the animal inside himself, respond, pacing and alert, as though responding to a long-awaited call.
“The Sources are prized beyond all reckoning,” she continued. “They must be kept hidden from those who would exploit them. And there are many who do just that.”
“The men who abducted me,” he deduced.
Again, she looked approvingly at him, though it was only a slight thaw in the gray ice of her eyes. “They are called the Heirs of Albion, an organization of British men who plunder Sources in order to make Britain master of the globe. If the Heirs had their desire, Britain’s empire would see no limits.”
“They didn’t come all the way from England just for me,” he objected. “I’m just one man.” He stumbled over that word, knowing he was something more than a man. He felt it now when she spoke, how her voice lured the beast within him. He pushed it down when it coiled to spring. “Not enough to make a difference where building an empire is concerned.”
“They probably did not come for you. I’ve heard legends of magic in these mountains. Monsters living in the lakes. A giant serpent.” She said these fantastical things as though they were as familiar as house pets. Maybe to her, and those Heirs, they were. “The Heirs must have come for one of those, and to scout for other Sources. That’s why they brought a falcon with them. Birds are extremely sensitive to magic, so when their falcon came near you, it sensed the magic within you and reacted. That was enough for them to decide they needed to capture you.”
She held his gaze. “It’s a fortunate thing you escaped their clutches. They would have made your life a hell, had they taken you back to England. Dissect you with magic, see how you work, perhaps to reproduce your changing ability in one of their own.”
The flatness of her tone, more than her words, chilled him. “Were you one of these Heirs?”
A tiny, mirthless smile notched in the corner of her mouth. “Heirs have no women in their ranks. They believe we are too weak and fragile for such dangerous work.”
“They’ve never met you, then.” He meant it as a compliment. The courage of this woman made most men look like green saplings. The animal inside of him rumbled its approval, knowing she could meet his strength with her own.
Her smile, small as it was, disappeared. “They’ve met me. Watch out.” They had reached the bottom of the hill, and now the horses had to pick their way through a quickly moving stream.
He was careful to lead his horse exactly where hers had walked. Soon they reached the opposite bank of the stream, coming up on shingled gravel flats.
“Sources,” she continued, “are not entirely undefended from organizations like the Heirs. They have their own shielding magic, and the wisdom of the ancients, but there are people who make it their life’s work to protect Sources.”
“People like you.”
She spoke stiffly, refusing to look in his direction. “Not anymore.”
“Why did you leave them, these…whoever they are?”
“They’re called the Blades of the Rose, but that doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “What matters now is to keep running.”
“I can’t run from the Heirs forever. I won’t.” The idea of fleeing like a wounded deer infuriated him and his inner beast. He never turned from a fight, no matter what form it took.
“We cannot fight the Heirs,” she protested. “We don’t even know what’s happening inside of you.”
The animal was a betrayal and a blessing. All these years, never knowing what he truly was, what he could be capable of doing. It was terrifying and liberating. The impossible now possible. Men tu
rning into animals and back again. Magic throughout the globe, and secret societies battling for it. What had become of the world?
He’d make a place for himself. That meant knowing more, battling toward a goal.
“I don’t run,” he said.
She flushed, because that was exactly what she was proposing.
“And if I can’t fight the Heirs alone,” he said, “I’ll find people like me—the other Earth Spirits—and we can face the Heirs together.”
“You’ll never find them,” she pointed out. “Local tribes say the Earth Spirits are secretive and elusive, living far from others, somewhere deep in the wilderness. Only a few bands in this area know of them or where they might be.”
“Then I find one of those bands,” Nathan said, decisive. “Even if they don’t stand with me against the Heirs, I’ll learn more about who, and what, I am. Why the change happened now, after all this time. Make them tell me what they know.”
“You cannot ‘make’ the Native bands do anything.” She pursed her mouth wryly. “Out here, one doesn’t storm onward, heedless of everything but one’s own objectives.”
He quirked a brow. “You think I have no finesse.”
“As much finesse as a wildfire.”
His sudden crack of laughter startled her, almost as much as it did himself. “Back in Victoria, they called me a ‘hard-headed son of a bitch.’”
He watched, fascinated, as she fought down a smile. He wanted to see the progress of her smile, how it might change her, lighten her. But her will was strong, and she wouldn’t allow such lightness.
Instead, she glanced up at the sky and the deepening shadows cast by the trees.
“Finding a band of Natives will have to wait until tomorrow,” she said. “Right now, my concern is putting enough distance between us and the Heirs so we can make camp.”
He noticed she included herself in his plans. Not unwanted—she intrigued the hell out of him and the animal within. But, even though he knew she was as capable, if not more so, than any man he’d ever met, the idea of needing her help, of needing anyone, riled him. He’d spent too long alone, fighting for himself.
“I’ve drawn you back into something you want to avoid,” he growled.
She didn’t try to deny this.
“Point me in the right direction,” he said. “I can do this on my own.” He didn’t want to part with her, not when too many of her mysteries tantalized him as a man, not when that primal inner beast wanted to claim her for its own. But this was bitter medicine, dragging her into the dangerous—and baffling—morass his own life had become.
She brushed away his proposal as a horse might twitch away a fly. “You cannot do this alone,” she said. “Whether either of us like it, you need an ally. God help us both, but that ally is me.”
Thoughts of Heirs, Blades, Earth Spirits, and his own complex, changeable nature spiked in and out of his mind in the preparation of camp. His fascination with Astrid Bramfield grew each moment he spent with her.
The journey from Victoria to the trading post had taken Nathan through some of the wildest and roughest terrain he’d ever encountered. He knew a fair amount about life out of doors—no matter how much the school administrators had tried to coax or beat the Native out of him, he’d been determined to learn something of his tribal self. And the voyageur who’d served as his guide between his home and the trading post seemed to have tree sap running in his veins, his knowledge was so deep, and had taught Nathan a few things about surviving in the wild.
Though the voyageur had many years on Astrid Bramfield, he didn’t possess her instinct or expertise. She chose the site of their camp with a keen eye, close to a river, but not so close that the site might flood should the waters rise. Ample feed for the now-hobbled horses and mule. His heightened sense of smell told him she’d steered clear of game trails. No unwanted guests during the night.
“The Heirs might come,” he said as they spread dried bracken on the ground for bedding.
She shook her head. “They will, but not today. Even their guides cannot find the hidden pass out of the valley. They’ll lose time doubling back and skirting it. Besides, we are far enough from the river so I can hear them coming.”
“I can help with that, too,” he pointed out, touching a fingertip to his ear. “Unexpected gift.” He could also hear the sounds of her body in motion, so that he was aware of every shift, every sigh.
Kneeling, she began to dig a fire pit. He noted that she made one hole in the ground, and then a smaller connecting hole beside it. He saw the rationale when, after she lit a fire, the smoke dispersed.
“Clever,” he murmured. He lowered down to sitting, cross-legged. “Our position won’t be given away by the smoke.”
“A war-camp fire,” she said. The flames were low in the pit, barely giving off any light. In the growing dusk, her cool remove kept her distant, even as she sat opposite him.
“Did you learn to do that out here,” he asked, “or when you were a Blade?”
She scowled. “I thought Indians were supposed to be stoic and silent.”
“I’m not your typical Indian,” he noted, a fair amount of pride tingeing his voice. He’d worked like a fiend to ensure no one mistook him for ordinary. And now he was far beyond ordinary, in ways even he couldn’t have envisioned.
She regarded him steadily, the fire pit between them. In her eyes was a tentative reaching out, a marked contrast to her tart words. Her voice softened, became pliant with curiosity. “I cannot figure it. You seem remarkably…adjusted to your new magic.”
“I won’t let myself go mad, even if a man doesn’t often learn he can change into a wolf.”
“Usually someone doesn’t have a say in the matter of madness. It takes them, whether they want it to or not.”
“Like grief,” he said.
Vulnerability flared in her gaze. He wanted to take that vulnerability into himself, shelter her.
“Like grief,” she answered, then looked away, breaking the connection.
The truth was, and he could hardly voice it to himself, let alone Astrid Bramfield, he felt…relieved. Late at night, he had lain in bed, at war with himself, struggling to contain something he couldn’t name, something animal inside of him that scrabbled to be let out. When he dreamt, his dreams were of moonlit forests, of nocturnal hunts and flight. Those who ran the school that raised him, they insisted Natives were wild, savage creatures that wanted taming. He had to prove them wrong. So he rebelled against not only them, but himself.
“Why—” she began, then stopped herself.
“Yes?”
She made a dismissive gesture, but he wouldn’t let her retreat so easily. “Ask your question.”
She tried again to wave it away.
“Short of being bludgeoned with a heavy log,” he said, “I refuse capitulation.”
“How aggravating,” she muttered.
“Effective,” he countered. “No one was going to hand a Native a law degree. I had to seize it for myself.”
She seemed to respect that. “Are there any other Indian attorneys in Victoria?”
“No, and probably not in all of British Columbia, either. And I wasn’t called to the bar by falling for such simple attempts at distraction. Ask your question,” he repeated.
Knowing that she couldn’t shake him, she finally asked, “Why did you turn into a wolf at the cabin? How did you know how to do it? You didn’t believe it was possible.”
He turned his gaze to the fire she had built with such skill. Only the tips of the flames showed at the rim of the pit. One would hardly know a goodly blaze burned beneath the surface. “The first time—I’m not sure. Can’t even remember. But the second time…” He frowned. “I saw that trapper’s gun pointed at you. He wanted to hurt you. And I couldn’t let that happen.”
His answer caught her off guard. “You were protecting me?”
“Yes.”
Her jaw tightened as it did, he began to learn, when she w
as angry. “I don’t need protection.”
Nathan’s own temper flared. “Tell that to the wolf. We both saw you threatened. And he came out. You look tough, but you’re also a woman.”
“Tough? Like an old, stringy hen?”
He almost laughed at her look of outrage. She might have been one of the most unusual women he’d ever met, but she had her feminine vanities, just the same. Made him wonder what other parts of her were as purely female.
His animal rumbled in his chest. Man and beast were both intrigued with Astrid Bramfield. He had felt it earlier and he felt it now. The man was drawn by her mind, her tenacity and will. The beast’s interest was much more primitive but just as powerful. He was both, animal and man. Each moment from now on would be a fight between the two parts of himself. Unless he found balance.
“So, to answer you,” he said, “instinct guided me.”
“And, when you were the wolf, was it you? Did you have the same thoughts, the same feelings?”
“I was there,” he said, after considering her question. “But I was also the wolf. His mind and mine…blended together. Hard to explain. I want you to feel it with me.”
The idea seemed far too intimate for her. Without another word, she got to her feet and went to the packs taken from the horses. Nathan almost believed she, too, had some animal within her, she moved with such lithe grace, like a sleek mountain cat. But this cat would sooner claw him than accept a caress. He grappled with the urge to stalk her now like prey. Or a mate.
She rummaged in the packs until she produced what Nathan recognized as dried meat and pemmican, and a canteen.
“Dinner,” she said, coming back beside the fire. “Courtesy of Edwin. We’ve enough provisions to last us awhile without hunting.” She handed him the food, careful to keep their hands from touching. It was the same with the canteen.