by Ruby Loren
Despite being indoors, January could smell that warm-weather smell, which held the promise of grassy meadows and forest leaves. “Business first,” she chided, pulling a face in the mirror.
The sun was below the horizon when she stepped out of the house dressed in jeans and an off-the-shoulder pullover. It was a far cry from her attire the previous few nights. She was still peeved that she’d only brought a single dress to Vienna, believing that the event would last for one night. Instead, she’d had to dig into her own funds to pay for two new dresses. Each dress had cost the same amount of money as the bakery made in a month! She’d been horrified. Especially as this new role was apparently unpaid. If she wasn’t careful, she could end up in some financial difficulty. Especially if she was going to be stuck doing this job, literally forever. It was yet another reason to weasel out of the new arrangement - this time, permanently. She was not going to run again.
She breathed in the early evening air and set off through the forest. There was a long time to go before moonrise, but she needed a walk in human form to clear her head. After being surrounded by so much opulence, it was nice to be out in nature again.
January was surprised to find that she wasn’t the first person to arrive in the clearing where the pack met every full moon. A woman stood in her place on the lip of the bowl, looking down at the clearing below. She turned and January could smell wolf.
“I’m the new alpha of the wolves,” the woman said, by way of greeting.
January vaguely remembered seeing her at Howlers Bar, right before Leah’s bomb had gone off. The female werewolf looked older and tougher than she remembered, but terrible events did that to you. January knew that from her own experience.
“Are you happy to keep the accords?” January asked, in response.
The new alpha held her eye contact for a moment. January had a fleeting feeling that the other woman had considered challenging her leadership, before she looked away and nodded.
“We’ll continue the test, yes,” the wolf said, not entirely agreeing.
“It will be nice to have stable leadership. Congratulations on your victory,” January inclined her head in a show of respect.
The woman hesitated.
January waited, knowing what she wanted to say, but wanting her to ask it. If she was going to be a good pack leader, she had to be willing to do difficult things. Things like asking the big scary unicorn shifter if they’d murdered the previous alpha wolf.
“Do you know what happened to Joe Milan?”
“I don’t know where he is now, but I can tell you exactly what happened,” January said. She shared an edited version of how Joe had sold her, Ryan, and Bella, out. She decided not to mention the involvement of any vampires. There was a good chance it would reflect just as poorly on her, as it would Joe, for being associated with them.
“What would you like me to do if he does happen to turn up again?” the werewolf asked, curiously.
January gave her a grim smile. “I’d be very interested to know if anyone happens to see him. Very interested indeed.”
The two women regarded one another for a second or two. January noted that a sort of grudging respect had formed between them.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Olivia,” the wolf responded.
January nodded and wished her a good night. The wolf walked away, heading in the direction of their designated half of the forest.
January was left alone in the clearing, feeling better than she’d imagined she would tonight. The wolves had a new leader, and she didn’t seem crazy, weak, or underhand. It was one worry off her mind.
Unfortunately, that was where the easy ride came to an end. Morgan Bracken was the next person to enter the clearing. Fully clothed and striding along with a hiking stick in his hand, he’d clearly come to talk before the rest of the pack turned up. January had a feeling she wouldn’t like what he had to say.
Morgan wasn’t even his real name. He was really called Rolf, but January had decided to stick with the name he’d given her. The tiger shifter had initially come to town, pretending to be looking for a non-wolf pack to join. That alone had rung alarm bells. Shifters didn’t tend to run in packs, and big cats were, on the whole, especially adverse to being part of a group. In addition to their solitary nature, it was hard enough to keep one big cat from attracting attention. Imagine the problems if an average joe happened to see a whole bunch of them running around in the woods.
She’d tasked Ryan with researching the newcomer and he’d struck gold. Morgan had been in a couple of unorthodox packs before his unusual request to join with the shifters of Witchwood Forest. January had assumed when she’d met him that he was the new undercover representative, sent by the Official Board of Shifters, to check up on how she was running the pack. She hadn’t minded that. To her knowledge, she wasn’t breaking any rules, and the rules were in place to stop their kind from being discovered.
What she did have a problem with was Morgan’s track record.
The packs he'd been in before, had each ended messily. Perhaps it was nothing to do with the Board’s representative, but January didn’t believe in coincidences anymore. Morgan Bracken was going to be kept on a very short leash.
“How are you, Morgan?” she asked, figuring there was nothing to lose by at least pretending to be pleasant.
Morgan ignored her attempt at being civil. “This pack is in trouble,” he began.
January was sorely tempted to roll her eyes, change into a unicorn, and gallop off, right there and then. But she stayed and listened, deciding to act like a pack leader, for once.
“…and that’s what I’m going to be telling the Board,” Morgan finished, triumphantly.
January blinked a few times and tried to process everything she’d just half-listened to him say. The gist of it had been that he didn’t like her, or her leadership, but there had been some specifics within that. He was concerned that the bar had been forgotten about in favour of her own business - that she was apparently using to take advantage of the good nature of the pack, by forcing them to spend money there. He was concerned that he’d witnessed a witch walk into the forest and challenge her, and she’d ‘let’ him challenge her without stopping him immediately. And finally, he was concerned that she was spending too much time galavanting off to places with a vampire, instead of sticking with her own kind.
January took a deep breath, wondering where to begin, but Morgan just held a hand up in her face.
“It’s all in my report already. You can’t change it,” he said.
January did some more blinking. “Then, what’s the purpose of you coming here to tell me about it?” She was genuinely curious.
Morgan looked surprised. “I thought I’d give you fair warning that your time as a privileged pack leader is up. The Board will put someone else in charge here. Someone better suited, with actual experience,” he said, examining his manicured fingernails.
January took advantage of his lapse of attention to raise an eyebrow. “Someone like you?” she hazarded.
Morgan feigned surprise. “Well, I’d never ask for such a thing, but I do have experience you sadly lack,” he said, pityingly.
January nodded, like what he was saying wasn’t complete nonsense. “You’ve led packs before, then?”
“Yes, quite a few,” he said, practically preening now.
January’s mouth twitched up, as he walked into her trap. He only knew she knew his real name - not his past. “Would that be the pack that broke up when the bodies of exotic animals were found in rural Yorkshire? Or was it the one where a group of mechanics were found in a garage, mauled to death, by what looked like a big cat?”
He looked at her with thinly-veiled hate. “The Board wouldn’t put me in charge if they didn’t believe in my abilities. Those incidents had nothing to do with me. Things like that are exactly why I was brought in as leader.”
January nodded. “Right. So, how come the packs you’ve bee
n a part of no longer exist?”
“They naturally disbanded. After all…” He trailed off, but January knew what he’d almost said. After all, shifters aren’t supposed to be in packs. It was only the wolves who traditionally liked to stick together.
“Your job is to come in and disband any alternative pack, whether or not the pack is successful,” she observed.
Morgan’s golden cheeks flushed darker. “That is not my job. It’s not my fault that in the past, packs haven’t complied with the Board’s regulations.”
January tilted her head at him. “I like to think I’m a reasonable pack leader. When you listed off all of those things you have ‘concerns’ about, I was willing to talk about them with you. Now I know what you’re really up to, I want you to know you need to be very careful when you make your next move. I don’t exile any pack members who haven’t broken pack law, so you can stay in the pack, but if you challenge me for leadership…” She left it hanging.
Tiger shifter or not, she’d been a tough adversary when she’d simply been a unicorn. Now she had magic on her side, she doubted there was a shifter on the planet who would be able to best her in an unfair fight. Perhaps it wasn’t very honourable, but there were no rules when it came to leadership challenges, beyond it ending when the loser either yielded, or was dead. If it came to it, she’d use every trick in the book to win.
“Challenge you? I won’t need to challenge you! The Board will…” he frowned and looked uncertain for the first time.
January gave him a pleasant smile. “What will the Board do?” she prompted, but he didn’t speak again.
After a moment she looked away from Morgan and noticed that the first few shifters were arriving. It was time to start the full moon meet. “Morgan,” she said, making the tiger shifter stop walking away and turn to face her again. “Don't try to do anything underhand. Be upfront, or you’ll be sorry,” she warned him.
She felt the air thrum with energy and the next moment, Morgan’s clothes tore off his body and a slim tiger slunk away between the trees. It didn't exactly fill her with confidence that he would heed her words.
January turned back to the clearing and the shifters below, sacrificing her clothes and changing into her black unicorn form. She stood strong on the edge of the clearing, waiting while the animals gathered and the moon rose, full in the sky. When she was satisfied that all were present who were coming, she tossed her mane and reared up on her hind legs, letting out a whinny that signified the start of the full moon run. Her cry was echoed by the rest of the pack and they dispersed, each animal off to have their own taste of full moon madness, knowing that they had the protection of the pack.
Long may it last, January privately thought, when she made it to the edge of the trees and a vast expanse of fields stretched out before her. For something she’d originally been so reluctant to take on, she was having a hard time letting the leadership go.
She snorted. Her reasons for wanting to stay leader had nothing to do with wanting the power, or forcing the pack to stay together. She just refused to contemplate handing over to someone like Morgan.
Perhaps he was correct, and she wasn’t the right unicorn for the job, but she sure as hell wasn't going to let him bring disaster to her hometown pack. Morgan Bracken would be a fool not to look over his shoulder from now on. Crossing her came at a high cost.
A cost some people still need to pay, she thought, darkly.
All of her enemies would get what was coming to them in the end. She’d see to it, or die trying.
4
It was a sign of very bad times when January found she wasn’t entirely displeased to hear from Simon. The man who’d splattered her personal life across the internet for the purposes of entertainment now seemed quaint in comparison to what she was up against in current times. So, when the magical writing appeared on top of a just-iced cake, asking her if she could come round to help him sort out his father’s house the next day, she’d merely tutted at the ruined cake and sent back what she hoped was the word ‘yes’.
It was a Saturday - one of Simon’s days off - when she visited Tor’s house again. January had arrived promptly at nine o’ clock, but Simon was nowhere to be seen.
She spared a thought to wonder how the bakery was coming along. She’d taken the liberty of asking Danny to run things again today, hoping that she could pop in later to make sure he was finding it all okay. Her last minute dash to Vienna had definitely left him stressed, but when she’d caught up with him when she’d returned, he’d reported that things had gone well, and no major disasters had occurred. He’d been even more pleased when she’d transferred him the money for doing the job, although he kept questioning whether or not it was too much. January had told him it was fine - just so long as he didn’t use the money to take a holiday and leave her high and dry!
She raised her gaze to the first floor window, where she’d last seen the rabbit, but the spot was vacant. A glance through the living room window revealed that the food bowl had been refilled again. January frowned, realising for the first time that all of Tor’s books were missing from the bookshelf.
“Good morning!”
January flinched, annoyed that Simon had managed to creep up behind her, unheard. Few humans could manage that. Having said that, she shouldn’t be surprised that Simon was the exception. He had spent twenty years as a cat.
“How are you?” January asked, deeply curious. It was the first time she’d seen Simon since their doom had been pronounced via USB.
He threw her a pointed look. “Do you really want to ask that? After you got me sent to a slave labour camp? If that weren’t bad enough, yesterday you made the word ‘yes’ appear in six-foot tall, black glowing letters, right in the middle of the work zone.” He frowned. “I don't even know how it’s possible for black to glow, but you managed it.”
“What happened after it appeared?” January asked, even more curious.
“Maybe if you apologise, I’ll tell you,” Simon said, unlocking the door to the nondescript house.
“I think all of this is penance for you writing about my life on the internet.” She refused to apologise after all he’d done.
“Not that you’re still holding it against me, or anything,” Simon bemoaned. “I’m at a work camp! How is a blog worse than that? Plus, I gave you the bakery - which is apparently the fastest growing business in the county, or something.” He huffed out a breath of air.
“Okay, fine. I’m sorry for sending you giant glowing letters. Tor never got around to teaching me magical writing. I’ve always done it by instinct, and I’ve no idea how to send things through time and space, like you seem to.”
Simon hesitated on the doorstep. “That’s not really how it works. It’s just like sending an email. I’d ask how you did it, but I guess you just thought about it and it happened. Woo woo!” He waved his fingers in the air. “Man, I hate enchanter magic.”
“So, there’s an actual spell for it?” January asked, hopefully.
“Yes! There’s an actual… AAAAARGH!”
Simon screamed as he stepped over the threshold and was forced to simultaneously spin and duck when an anvil swung down from the ceiling. January frowned at it, and its molecules disassembled into dust before it hit her.
Simon jerked around after the shock of nearly dying. “What is this? Are we in a cartoon? What kind of person drops an anvil on someone else? Oh.”
He raised his eyes to the ceiling and examined the trap. “I’m going to kill that stupid rabbit!”
“Wascally wabbit,” January corrected.
Simon glared at her. “I hate you.”
They ventured into the house, a lot more carefully than Simon had been when he’d first crossed the threshold.
“I can’t believe this. My own house! That rabbit thinks he owns the place. He would be dead in days if I hadn’t set up spells to keep his food and water topped up. It’s so ungrateful!” he complained.
January raised an eyebrow
behind his back. “I know. I've never experienced a pet like that,” she said, sarcastically.
Simon turned back and gave her another annoyed look. “Oh, get over it. I never tried to kill you, did I?” He made a thoughtful noise and turned back to look down the corridor. “What happened to the anvil, by the way?”
“I disassembled it,” January said.
“Right. Makes sense.” It was clear by the way he said it that it didn’t make magical sense at all.
January suddenly wondered exactly what Simon was tasked with doing in his new job as a ‘researcher’. She was itching to ask, but right now, they had a rabbit to find and traps to avoid.
“Stop!” Simon said. He pointed just in front of him. “Tripwire.” They both looked to the side of the hall at the metal spiked club, which had been strapped into an alcove. The alcove hadn’t existed when January had visited the house for her magic lessons. The rough, teeth marks in the plaster hinted at the culprit.
“He’s destroying the house, too. Well, that’s just great,” Simon said.
January looked at the trap with witch sight, but found no trace of magic.
“That won’t work here. He’s too clever. He knows we’re witches, so he’s smart enough to try to kill us in normal ways. That’s not to say he’s adverse to magical murder, if he can trick us.” They’d made it into the kitchen. Simon pointed towards the tea caddy. A green haze, identical to the one January had once seen appear above Lucy’s hexed hobnobs floated there.
“Nasty,” Simon commented.
“He can do magic, too?” January asked, and then wondered why she was surprised. It definitely explained why Tor had looked so guilty when she’d asked him about Jinx.
“Yes, that’s one of my spells, the little rat. He must have found my diary.”
January blinked a little at that information. She was intrigued that Simon had been the sort to keep a diary, and could only imagine what it might contain by way of devious magic, but he’d just let slip something far more important. “It’s your spell? You were the one who hexed those biscuits?”