Brightwater Blood

by Shona Husk

  If Dayna rang the police, she’d be the one charged with shooting him, because in the eyes of the police she’d shot a man, not a lion. Her stomach gave a little flip. She’d shot a shape-shifter in her yard. How many more were on their way? She needed to know why he’d come after them, and then she’d make sure he and his friends would never come after her again.

  A plan began to form. Not a good one, but the best she could come up with on her own. This time she swallowed down the grief that wanted to suck her under and keep her down. She had to move. Yet for several more minutes she just sat, unable to force her limbs into action after sitting still for so long.

  She uncurled her fingers from around Clary’s hand and laid her sister’s arm gently on the ground. Then she made herself take a deep breath, and without looking at her sister she stood up. Her legs protested at the movement. Her muscles were cramped from sitting, and the returning blood prickled all the way down to her toes. She ignored the pain of pins and needles—compared to the knife in her heart it was nothing.

  With the rifle in her hand, Dayna made herself walk up to the shape-shifter. She gave him a nudge with the muzzle of the rifle. He didn’t twitch, but he was breathing. Good. The vine felt her pain and called out, but it was afraid—all the other plants around the house were dead and it was alone. She didn’t know why they were dead, but she tried to reassure the vine that everything would be okay if it could hold the shape-shifter for a little longer. Then she went up the stairs and into the house before she could change her mind and second-guess her plan.

  While she hadn’t used magic since finding her mother’s body, it didn’t mean she’d forgotten any of the lessons her mother had taught her…not that she’d ever shown much magical talent, not like Clary. She went to the cupboard and pulled out a length of narrow white cord. The weight of it in her hand was familiar even after six years. She hoped that she’d be able to work the magic she hadn’t practiced in too long. It was one thing to understand but another to use the power that pulsed in the earth.

  Today she didn’t care about the risks. She had nothing left to care about. He had made sure of that.

  Now the shape-shifter would pay for killing her sister.

  Chapter Two

  Lachlan squinted against the sunlight slicing through his head. He was sprawled on the ground, and his thigh was throbbing and burning as if a metal picket was speared through the muscle. His gut tightened as he remembered—he’d been shot. He closed his eyes and let his cheek rest on the ground as he slid his hand to his thigh. His skin was warm and wet and sticky beneath his fingers. His hand stilled. He’d been shot as a lion, yet he was human now, which meant his body had shifted in an attempt to heal while he’d been out cold.

  A shiver rippled down his spine. He hated shifting while unconscious. Had she watched? Where was the woman with the gun now? The Brightwater shamans weren’t known for their merciful nature, but for the moment he was still alive. Probably not good.

  He forced his eyes open. The sun was past the zenith, so he’d been out for at least an hour, more like two. Either way it was longer than he liked to be unconscious while on a job. It was longer than he ever liked to be unconscious. His head ached, but his jaw still worked and nothing seemed broken. His biggest concern was the bullet wound. He swallowed and gathered his thoughts.

  Assess the injury, shift and get the fuck out of here before he got shot again or worse. An enraged shaman could make dying look like a good idea. The gory details of some of the old Brightwater files skittered around the edge of his consciousness. How long could a person live while a tree grew through them? Judging from the grimace of agony on the victim’s face in the grainy black-and-white photo, too long.

  His plan was simple, but the best he could come up with while blood oozed through his fingers. Generally he didn’t mind blood, unless it was his. Then it became a whole lot more worrying. He glanced down his body but couldn’t see the wound while he was lying on his stomach in the dead grass.

  Despite the protest in his skull he eased himself up. The world spun twice before settling. Cautiously he lifted his hand, hoping movement hadn’t made the wound worse. Blood wept in time to the beating of his heart. Not a gush, but more than he’d have liked. His heart sped up as terror searched to break free. He sucked in a breath and shut it down, years of training and experience keeping him almost calm. He didn’t have time to panic.

  He slid his hand around the part of his leg he couldn’t see, searching for an exit wound, but there wasn’t one. That meant the bullet was still in his leg. Not good. Shifting with a bullet still inside him was risky because as his muscles and bones reshaped the bullet would move, possibly doing more damage, and he’d already, unwittingly, done it once.

  On the other hand he was five kilometers from his car, and he’d never make the distance as a man, however as a lion he’d have a chance. He glanced at the house. For all he knew the other sister was inside. He doubted she’d ring him an ambulance or let him place a call. Risking the shift and making a run for safety was looking like the best idea…assuming he didn’t lose too much blood and go into shock on the way there. How much blood had he lost already?

  Lachlan licked his lips. He was thirsty and his heart was beating too fast. He was already showing signs of shock. He didn’t have time to debate. The longer he waited the more blood he would lose and the more likely it was the shaman would come back and finish what she’d started.

  He drew up the heat that brought on the change. It shimmered up his spine in a flood of warmth, then stopped as if it hit a barrier. He closed his eyes and tried again. He hadn’t failed to shift at will since he was thirteen and just learning. Instead of letting the energy blossom naturally, he pulled hard, as if he could push through whatever was blocking the heat. His muscles shook and his head pounded where he’d been struck. Sweat beaded on his skin where fur should’ve formed. He gritted his teeth. The agony of trying to force a shift grated on every nerve and forced his breath to come in hard pants. He let the shifting heat go and hunched over, weakened from the exertion.

  Really not good.

  The panic he’d been keeping a rein on slipped its collar and started running around, yelling, “you’re going to die”, making it very hard for him to concentrate.

  This was bad. There were only a few ways to prevent a were from shifting. Lachlan swallowed with his jaw clenched tight. He couldn’t walk far like this—if he could walk at all. Maybe he could make it to the woman’s car. He opened his eyes and twisted around, trying to see if it was still here, then paused, a frown creasing his brow.

  Around him was a thin white rope, stained dark red. Blood.

  He was willing to bet a year’s pay it was the blood of the last European lion in existence. His blood.

  Keeping his hand pressed against the wound, he turned and discovered what he already knew. The rope made a circle around him, the ends overlapping slightly to seal the ring. He didn’t know a lot about magic, but he knew the best way to bind someone was in a circle of their own blood.

  Lachlan let out a dark laugh. The hunter had become the prey. He’d been trapped by a Brightwater. He wished the bullet had severed his femoral artery because bleeding to death would’ve been preferable to whatever the shaman had in mind.

  While his training with Fendrake had covered plenty of unpalatable situations—with more realism than he’d ever thought he’d need as a tracker—being bound by magic was one of the circumstances not covered, because there was no escape. It was impossible to break a binding circle from the inside. If by chance he did get free, then maybe some of that training would come in handy.

  Bits of the vine that had been wrapped around his paws when he was a lion lay within the circle, but nothing crossed the rope. He gave the rope a halfhearted nudge with his toe, hoping that it was just for show. A shock like static electricity spun up his leg and ricocheted around his skull. He shook his head and the hairs on his arm slowly lay down.

  He wouldn’t
do that again.

  “There’s no way for you to escape.” The female voice was brittle.

  Lachlan turned his head. The Brightwater woman stood in the doorway with the rifle held loosely in her hand. If he hadn’t felt its bite, he might’ve thought she was holding it for decoration.

  The fact she still held it meant she wasn’t so convinced the circle would hold and he wouldn’t escape. Interesting.

  “How about two paracetamols and a glass of water?” Or some sunscreen, a steak and a phone call. Might as well ask for a hot-air balloon, because he wasn’t going to get anything.

  The woman smiled, but it didn’t reach her red-rimmed eyes. She picked up a bottle of water, one of those sports ones, and took a long swallow that made his throat ache with longing. Sitting in the sun was only going to make his dehydration worse, and the more blood he lost the more water he was going to need to make up for lost fluids. She was drinking in front of him to torment him, and it was working already. She set the bottle down. Each move carefully considered as if she were trying to keep a measure of control.

  “Nothing can cross the threshold without breaking the barrier, but you know that.” She glared at him as if he were the most evil creature on the planet, like he’d been the one who’d been killing for kicks.

  “It was worth a try.” He made his lips curve in what he hoped was a winning grin.

  He was screwed. No one was expecting him to check in for hours.

  This was exactly why he’d never wanted to be an agent. He’d never wanted to put his life on the line confronting the baddies. He liked the research, the thrill of the hunt out in the field and working alone. That was now coming back to bite him on the ass.

  “I’m sure it was, shape-shifter.” She spat out the last word as if it was an insult as she leaned on the railing of the porch, a pose that would have appeared relaxed if not for the set of her jaw and the curl of her fingers. She wasn’t just angry, she was ready to boil, and all that venom was directed at him. For half a second he was grateful there was a circle between them.

  Her gaze traveled over his naked body, from his toes to his hair—which was no doubt standing on end the way it always did after a shift, as if his body was unable to let go of the mane.

  Usually when a woman spent that much time checking him out, he left her bed with a promise to call her the next day. Which he generally didn’t. Relationships with humans were too hard. Hiding what he was felt like he was lying. Then there was the risk of infection. His blood carried the mitochondrial virus that caused were-ism, and infecting humans was illegal.

  Safe sex wasn’t optional, it was essential, but it would only take one accident that involved blood-to-blood contact and things would go downhill fast. Few people survived infection, and if anyone died, Fendrake would have his balls for breakfast.

  Because he was a European were-lion, the African were-lions weren’t keen on letting him near their prides, or their women. And he wasn’t desperate enough to risk a fight to the death for a mate. Twenty-eight was too young to die when all he wanted was a night of fun.

  Twenty-eight was too young to die.

  Her examination ended on his face. There was no reason to change the way he talked to a woman—besides, there wasn’t much else he could do.

  “I’m Lachlan. What’s your name?”

  She shook her head—her dark, almost black, hair shining in the sunlight—and looked at the ground. “Like you don’t know.” Her fingers whitened on the rifle. “You killed my sister. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”

  Her gaze locked with his. Her blue eyes were hard and cold, wounded and full of pain…for her sister. Ah, her need for revenge was going to complicate his plan for survival.

  His brain was too slow to come up with anything cleverer than the truth. “I didn’t kill her. I found her.”

  “Liar.” She snarled, as fierce as any were-animal he’d ever met.

  He glanced at the rope and then the rifle. Being trapped in the circle was more comforting than it should’ve been.

  “What were you doing on our property?”

  This time he took a breath before answering and hoped he sounded believable, because if he wasn’t convincing, he’d find out exactly what happened when a bullet hit a magic circle. He doubted the circle would stop the bullet before breaking and setting him free. His luck wasn’t as good as her magic.

  “That was an accident. The lion doesn’t respect boundaries when following a trail…I was chasing a rabbit.” He shrugged and hoped she knew very little about weres and how much humanity remained in the beast. “I stopped when I saw your sister.”

  Her lips twitched, and for a moment he thought she believed him.

  “No. Clary is agoraphobic. She’d have never gone outside willingly.” She scowled at him as if wondering how a lion could’ve lured her sister out of the house.

  Lachlan leaped on to the new piece of information and assembled a bit more of the puzzle. Clarissa was the dead sister, so this was Dayna, the one who worked in the local organic produce store while her supposedly agoraphobic sister worked on the 0055 sex line and sucked the life out of her clients while they orgasmed.

  Nice. His suspect was dead and he was a few hours from joining her if he didn’t get help. At least the Shamanic Council couldn’t get pissed at him for failing to locate the last of the Brightwater bloodline. The most recent sex-line killing had been the final straw that had pushed the Council to vote to eliminate one of their precious lines.

  The Council’s lust for blood was going to kill off his bloodline too.

  “She was there when I found her. In the burned-out circle.” Whatever she’d been doing had burned the grass and trees…and then killed the surrounding wildlife. If he’d come earlier, he might have been caught in the magical whiplash. Instead he was spending his last few hours baking in the sun while watering the grass with his blood. A sudden death would’ve been better. Still, he was here, so he might as well try for some answers. “What magic was she working?”

  Dayna’s eyes narrowed. “We don’t use magic, shape-shifter.”

  Lachlan raised his eyebrows. Shamans always used magic. It was part of them, like it was part of the vine that had attacked him. He pointed to the blood-coated rope that was preventing him from shifting and escaping. “What would you call this, then?”

  “Self-defense.”

  “Uh-huh.” He wasn’t going to win an argument with a woman who blamed him for her sister’s death. The best he could hope for was a little compassion…from a Brightwater. He didn’t like his chances.

  They considered each other for a long moment. Her pale blue eyes and dark hair made her look like the deadliest china doll in the toy shop. He shivered despite the heat from the sun.

  “If I don’t get something for my leg, I’m going to bleed to death.” He was pushing his luck, but maybe Dayna wasn’t as mercenary as her sister. Or maybe he was just hoping she wasn’t. For all he knew, she was party to the killings.

  “That would be fitting. But I have a better idea. How about I take your life and use it to bring back my sister?”

  Chapter Three

  The half smile that had curved his lips and given him a cheeky air even though he was trapped and bleeding fell away, and for a second Dayna glimpsed undisguised fear. He shuttered his expression fast, yet the smile didn’t come back. He was afraid of her. Good. That leveled the field. He was a freaking lion in his spare time.

  She hadn’t been sure the circle would hold him—even though she’d added his blood to the mix. It’d been so long since she’d tried to tap into the power of nature and use that energy to close a circle that she’d cheated and used the last bit of power from the vine—apologizing as she did. Tapping into the pulse of the earth had always been hard for her, and directing it harder. The shamanic beat, her mother had called it. Power for the using—if one knew how to touch it, hold it and bend it to one’s will.

  Magic hadn’t saved her mother, or Clar
y.

  Dayna bit back the sob that rose in her throat. She wasn’t going to cry in front of the killer, yet she couldn’t kill him either—she’d tried. While he was unconscious and trapped in the circle she’d aimed at his head with her finger on the trigger.

  Clary’s skin was cold under the sheet Dayna had placed over her, but she couldn’t avenge her sister. She was pathetic. If it had been the other way around, Clarissa would have shot him in the head and then the heart and used his death to bring Dayna back to life.

  She was the dud twin. No gumption and no magic worth mentioning. Her mother had noticed and had given up, instead devoting all her attention to Clary’s magical training.

  The shape-shifter called Lachlan shook his head, his brown hair standing up at all angles in a way that suited his sharp cheekbones. If he’d come into her shop, she’d have remembered. He was the kind of man who would always get a second and probably a third glance. Maybe he was telling the truth and had come on their property by accident, since she hadn’t seen him around town. The image of him standing over her sister’s body remained strong. Even if he hadn’t killed Clary, he was still a shape-shifter, and she couldn’t ignore her mother’s warnings.

  “Shamanic magic is about life, not death,” he said.

  Dayna frowned then tried to remove the surprise from her face and keep her expression stony, as if she’d kill him if he gave the wrong answer. No one had ever used the word shamanic when referring to what they did, except her mother. “What do you know of shamanic magic?”

  His tongue traced his lip as he thought, and she knew he was going to tell her less than he actually understood.