by Elsa Jade
Like she’d charmed a feeling out of him he’d never believed he’d find.
Across the stream, he met her gaze. She’d retreated higher, taking a perch on an outcropping of stone that had entrapped enough dirt below it to sprout an oak. Years ago, the tree had been struck by lightning, splitting the trunk in two. Half had survived and rose up out of the shattered half like a creature emerging from its shed skin. In the pale gleam of the onrushing water to one side and red glow of the rising fire on the other, with the branches—living and dead—spread wide to either side, Margarita Wick was an elemental princess who had bewitched his heart.
The wave swept past them.
So much water, though not as endless as the need for her washing through his veins with every beat of his heart. The obsidian flow, streaked with glimmers of silver, flooded across slickrock, gushing toward the spires.
By comparison, the notch in the rim was not enough. The flood began to back up, washing toward him and his father, forcing them back. It swept around Rita’s viewpoint.
Though she was high and dry, the oak rooted below her had its feet in the flood. The rushing current snatched at the trailing branches, tugging them toward the edge of the cliff. The living wood groaned as leaves were torn loose and swirled away.
A crack, louder than a peal of thunder, ricocheted across the mesa. The dead half of the oak swiveled into the pull of the water, the skeletal branches grasping at the scrub and grasses on the bank as if trying to hold itself in place. The old wood peeled away in chunks of bark, and the fracturing of smaller branches crackled like static.
Over the cacophony, Rita’s cry was a tiny thing.
“Hold on!” he shouted back, bounding out knee deep into the flow. His father splashed behind him.
She had a grip on one of the outstretched greenwood branches, but she was leaning precariously over the racing current. To look toward the cliff’s edge. She waved frantically, as if she could actually push the floating oak away. He saw immediately how the flotsam would plug the spout they’d made, choking off the force of water they needed to fountain over the rim.
Though her gesture was clear to him, it had no magical effect on the tree. And there was no time for a new spell.
Clambering down from her perch, she raced toward the problem, abandoning one crutch and using his shovel instead.
Because of course she did.
His heart slammed in his chest, like a wild thing desperate to go after her. And he didn’t hesitate to follow.
Tightening his hold on the pickax, he raced toward the cliff’s edge. The dead oak had fetched up against the basalt outcroppings, the half-trunk grinding over the slickrock on his side of the stream. The blocked wave was backing up deeper, and he quickly found himself up to his knees. He stumbled over a submerged rock and almost went down, barely catching himself against the ruthless tug of the current.
If Rita took a bad step—
“Get back,” he hollered, though he knew he was wasting his breath.
Sure enough, she reached the crown of branches hung up on her bank and started whacking at the dead wood. Weathered gray twigs scattered around her—the sharp points of the splinters winking scarlet from the ominously brighter glow reaching above the spires.
If they didn’t clear the block and free the flood, the wildfire would jump the rim and rage unhindered across the mesa.
His father lumbered past him, swift and sure in his four-footed shape. One swipe of griz claws took a huge chunk out of the old wood, and the beast swung its head to stare over its humped shoulder at Thor.
With a muttered curse, he splashed forward to join his sire.
Together, they chopped at the grounded trunk with claws and pickax. The swirling waters filled with floating wood chips, and the relentless draw of the current grabbed at their legs, weaker with every passing second as the water spread out ineffectually. The charmed wave was waning. In another minute, there wouldn’t be enough force to flood the fire…
With a deafening roar, the grizzly reared up. Straightening its forelegs, it brought both sets of killer claws down on the trunk where they’d been hacking. A thousand pounds of angry king bear smashed the oak and ripped loose its mooring.
Thor shoved hard, keeping the chewed-up trunk from catching on the rocks. The logjam began to swing out of the way. All the water in the bottlenecked pool rushed toward the wider opening.
But the crown of branches clung stubbornly to the far shore. At some point, Rita had broken the shovel—the handle and shattered shaft were tossed up on the rocks, the scoop presumably somewhere down in the water—and she was wielding her remaining crutch like a scythe, clearing every little anchor. The battered metal caught glints of silver and crimson with every blow.
Not a witch or a princess—a warrior queen with her unlikely sword, fighting for her chosen land.
Thor pounded toward her, the suddenly renewed rush of water trying to push him downstream.
Before he reached her, she stomped through a clinging branch—
And the oak broke free.
She glanced up when he called out, a victorious smile bright on her lips—
Just as the sweep of a far branch caught her behind the knees.
He choked on the last gasp of her name as she vanished under the water. She must’ve been standing on a submerged rock, the flow invisibly deep beneath her.
The thigh-deep wave slowed him, and she popped up before he could scream again. She paddled at the surface—she was a strong swimmer, he knew—but the rotating oak clawed out at her, catching at her clothes and hair, dragging her under again.
Every nerve in him screaming even as he saved his breath, he ripped through the spikes of branches that tore through his shirt and pierced his biceps and shoulders.
And found nothing of her, no silky locks, no soft curves. Just the grit of rock and the icy-cold water. His skin burned from oak talons, his muscles burned from chopping, his heart burned at the fear of losing her.
He dove toward the spires, letting the flood speed him. The charmed wave crashed over the notch, and from below, a booming, demonic hiss erupted as the water hit the flames. Ash and steam exploded over the rim, spreading a deep fog across the rapidly emptying pool.
The water bleeding over the spires, taking Rita with it…
He would cork the notch with his body—let the damned fire burn everything—to catch her. But as he waded-swam toward the edge of the cliff, a flash of glistening darkness in the white fog caught his eye. Rita thrashed through the flood, her auburn hair and green eyes as black as his from the water and pupil-dilating fear. She grabbed at the ragged rock, but her fingers slipped off the wet stone as the tide sucked her away.
She screamed his name, her gaze meeting his as the last pulse of the charmed wave bore her over the jagged spires into the dying fire below.
Chapter 15
He’d lost everything. His clan, his birthright, his bear.
He wouldn’t lose her.
With a desperate cry, he lunged for the mouth of the geyser. Shattering rock and pounding water threatened to beat or drown him before he could burn. With every muscle straining, he drove the pickax deep into a crack in the spire and reached far out into the waterfall—
And grabbed her hand.
With the wave fountaining over them, she had snagged one arm around a hexagonal column of basalt. She stared up at him, her darkened hair streaming back, her face white with strain. “Thor.”
He couldn’t hear her over the gurgle of water in his ears and the hammering of his own blood, but he read his name on her lips. “I won’t let you go,” he shouted back. “Hold on.”
But the flashflood they’d unleashed had weakened some of the rock. There was a reason the slopes of the mesa were littered with scree. The throbbing heat of the guttering wildfire seared his bare back. The pickax had to hold, it had to—and so did he.
Rita grabbed at his wrist with her other hand, her grip slippery. The coppery stink of blood stung
his nostrils. Hers or his, both, didn’t matter. She flailed a bit in his grasp, probably scrabbling to find a foothold, but either the rock beneath her was too sheer or her legs too unsteady, and her weight pulled at him unabated.
In his other hand, the shaft of the ax trembled, a gritty sensation that quivered through his fingers as the metal grated on stone. But he couldn’t dig deeper, not without losing his grip on Rita.
And he’d never do that.
He glanced both ways, hoping for another ledge, a serrated column, anything, but the cliff stretched to either side, unbroken. When he looked down, past her Below them, the flood was washing down the arroyos, extinguishing the flames in great gouts of steam. The creek still cascaded over their heads, sapping his strength with its chill and his own despair.
With everything left in him, he did a one-arm curl, deadlifting her into the crook of his arm. She gasped, her breath a welcome warmth against his neck as she clung close.
The metal ax head shrieked as it slipped another inch out of the rock.
If only he could dig the point deeper, just long enough…
At another shudder deep in his bones, he thought the ax was sliding free. It was done. They were done.
But he couldn’t give up, not this time. He’d failed his whole clan and himself, but he wouldn’t fail his love.
“Rita,” he said through gritted teeth. “Hold on. Just hold on. No matter what.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Despite everything, he laughed. His heart blazed with his love for her.
And the charmed diablo rose, still in his shirt pocket, burned almost as bright.
He threw his head back, every muscle seizing, bones crackling like the spires coming undone in the flood. But he didn’t let go of the ax or Rita.
The change washed over him.
Rita changed his name, as if reminding herself, but she never loosened her grip either.
When the rock crumbled away from the pickax, crashing into the smoke below while his split clothing fluttered down behind it, he drove his own saber claws—bigger than any grizzly—into the tiny crevices. Rita clung to his shoulders, riding him, her hands knotted in his fur. He heaved them up toward the rim, fighting against the gush of water, trying not to choke. Now he knew how migrating salmon felt.
Through the blinding spray, a towering dark bulk blotted out the stars. Oh hell, not the oak coming over the falls…
Wide-gaping jaws full of teeth sharper than any wood carving closed around his nape. Too close to Rita’s face, she must be breathing the heavy huff of the old boar, but she made no sound.
Gently, so gently, his father gripped him like a wayward cub and hauled him over the edge of the waterfall.
Thor’s legs—all four of them, which had walked him the length and breadth of the Four Corners, and which he’d thought to never feel again—collapsed under him in a graceless belly flop.
Luckily, the backwashed pond had all but drained, and his chin rested on a mound of slickrock so he didn’t drown. And Rita, still on his back, was high if not dry. He closed his eyes.
“Thor?” She slid down his flank and splashed forward, bracing herself on his ribs, his shoulder, his neck, his ears. She sat down abruptly on his rock and pulled his head into her lap. “Thor? Can you hear me? Are you…?”
He cracked one weary eye and lapped his tongue over her knuckles, tasting blood. They’d both been scraped and poked and drenched. But they were alive.
He tilted his head the other way.
The big grizzly stood across Angel Creek, which was burbling quietly and angelically again, like it hadn’t been a raging river just a few minutes ago. The beast lowered its head, the whuff of its breath blowing bubbles in the water. The bubbles sparkled silver for a heartbeat before fading.
So the magic wasn’t totally gone.
Warily, he lifted himself to sitting, staring at the other bear. Who looked…smaller. Not teddy sized, by any means, but whatever monstrous attributes Thor had attributed to him were gone. His sire had risked his life in the mouth of the flood to pull them back.
“The fire is out,” Rita murmured, barely louder than the creek. “It worked. And so did the bear charm.”
With a sound he hoped wasn’t too much like a moan, he swung his head to one side, catching her against his shoulder in an awkward sort of bear hug. Across the creek, his father lifted his head and lowered it again in a deliberate nod. Then the big bear turned and ambled into the willows.
Rita tightened her grip in his fur. “Should we go after him?”
That she could ask that—and, he suspected, actually mean it—after all they’ve been through make him love her even more. She’d never give up, not ever. He rumbled softly under his breath, not rising, which he hoped was answer enough since he wasn’t quite ready to release his beast.
She must’ve understood since she loosed her brutal grip on his fur and petted him as if she knew his feelings were teetering more precariously than the spires in full spring flood. She traced her fingertips from the rounds of his ears down the long line of his muzzle to the black tip of his nose, and despite his thick fur, he felt the stroke to his marrow.
“Rex ursi,” she murmured. “You always were the bear king.”
He made another sound that he was glad neither she nor he needed to decipher and ducked his head beneath her touch. With another nudge under her elbow, he got her to throw her arm across his shoulders.
She gave him a hug, almost choking him despite his newly enhanced size. “I know things are changed now,” she said. “I mean, not just you. Us. But—”
He growled for real this time and butted her harder as he dipped his shoulder toward her, making it clear she should climb aboard. Just as she’d been willing to do when their lives were in danger. Now it was just his heart in jeopardy.
She growled back. “That’s not dignified, for either of us,” she sputtered. “Anyway, I can walk—” She shoved herself stubbornly upright with one hand between his extra-fuzzy eyebrows. Then she wavered. “Okay, since I don’t have my crutches or a handy broomstick…” She clambered up on top of him and laid her cheek against his neck. “Thanks for saving my life,” she whispered. “And thanks for giving me the least sensible, boring summer I’ve ever had.”
He rumbled again but softly this time, more a purr, and her arms tightened around his neck. So he’d finally found his bear, but could he find the words to make her stay?
***
As they headed back to the Sunday Landscaping truck, Rita felt half-asleep. In this shape, so large and soft and sleek, Thor was the best combo of stuffed animal/body pillow/waterbed she’d ever spent the night with or on. Although maybe the waterbed thing was only because they were both still soaked to the skin. Or maybe her need to hug him was because they’d almost died.
The spell had worked flawlessly, just as she’d intended, but she hadn’t taken into account the real world. The edge of a cliff, an old dead tree, a long-lost father coming out of the night. Yeah, next time she played with fire she’d be more careful.
Except…if she played it safe, if she followed the circles rules, she’d lose Thor. Her king bear would rule his clan and she would bury herself in the spellatorium again. Was that what she wanted now, now that she’d experienced more, so much more?
For as many push-ups as she’d done in her life, as far as she stretched her arms around his neck, she couldn’t quite close the gap. She could only hold on for as long as possible.
It wasn’t long enough. Before they even got to the truck, she raised her head to squint at a bright headlight staring toward them like a disapproving eye. Closer still, she realized it was an ATV and the man straddling it was Kane Villalobos, the alpha of the Angels Rest wolf pack.
“Montero,” he called. “We smelled smoke from camp. What the hell’s going on?”
Since Thor obviously couldn’t answer, she pushed herself up out of his fur, shivering at the loss of his body heat. “There was a wildfire near
Gypsy’s. It’s out now.”
His double-take almost made her laugh; he’d been so focused on Thor. He peered at her. “Oh. Margarita. I thought for a second maybe bear alphas had two heads. That would’ve been weird.” He smiled at her before his gaze dropped back to Thor. “I’d heard…” He shook his head, his long, dark hair tangling over his broad shoulders. He was big. But not as big as Thor. “Never mind. I was heading back to the lodge to check on things. And to get more marshmallows.” His white teeth flashed. “If you’re sure everything is okay…” His gaze flicked to her again.
“We, ah, made a bit of a mess where the creek drops from the mesa down to the spring. Maybe…keep the kids away from the rim there until we can get a look at it in the light.”
He nodded, his eyes half closed. “So you’ll be back up here again.”
It wasn’t quite a question. She knew her aunt had promised him the circle valued its secrets as much as the shifters did. But there was nothing left to see of her spell.
Not even the need that had briefly bound a bear-less king to her.
“Actually, probably not,” she said slowly. “Blaze can send a crew to check the stability of the rocks.”
“Of the rocks, right,” Kane murmured. “Anything else then?”
He’d be able to reassure the rest of his pack and the other shifters following his lead that the rex ursi had returned. The perfect end to her well-crafted spell. So why was her heart aching? “Go get your marshmallows,” she said. “And give my nephew a hug for me in the morning.”
He nodded and started up the ATV. She waved to him as he peeled away. Only then did she slip off Thor’s shoulder and sink to the dusty ground.
She sighed when he nudged her with a grunt of concern. “I’m fine. Tired. I just didn’t want to explain…everything. I’ll do it later.” For once in her life, she deserved to be lazy and inefficient.
Long arms wrapped around her, snuggling her close. Not bear arms. Just bare arms.
Thor.
With another sigh, she sank back against his naked chest. Even without the bear’s fur, he was so warm. Even without the bear’s size, his body was pure protection. Even without the bear…