Witchmate (Skeleton Key)

by Renee George

  As she moved through the forested hilly terrain, her senses were overwhelmed with elemental magic. A month earlier, she’d forbade her followers from entering the wolfkind’s territory in preparation for her plans, but the strong aura of spellcasting meant her witches had disobeyed her. She pushed the anger from her mind. Wrath had a way of making psychic magic unpredictable. Any minds in her proximity could potentially sustain irreparable damage.

  She kept her focus on the anomaly. When she came upon the dead whisaphores, her gut clenched. She recognized one of the men, his face and neck twisted unnaturally away from his body. It was Tia’s friend Renald. What was he doing out this far?

  She would question Tia later, but for now, she needed to continue the quest for the girl. If she lost Emma Watson, all her plans would be for naught. As she traversed farther into the heart of San fe Sang’s territory, the magic began to fade. But still, she felt a tug, barely perceptible, hint of unrecognizable magic.

  Then she heard the river. It had been so long since she’d heard the roaring sound. Her chest ached with regret and grief. Impulsively, she let go of the thread that had dragged her this far and let her spirit drift until she passed over the raging water and glided down into a tree-lined valley. A small ramshackle cabin stood in the center.

  A myriad of emotions overwhelmed Aerina as the past was made present. “No,” she whimpered. She couldn’t allow herself the distraction. What was gone could never be again, but Emma was hope. Hope for the future.

  “Rina,” a voice said. “Rina!” It was sharper, louder this time. Aerina found it hard to drag her gaze away from the unkempt home. It had been beautiful once.

  “Rina!” Louder. More demanding. She blinked, her body convulsing. No, not convulsing. Tia had her by the shoulder, shaking her roughly.

  “I’m awake,” Aerina said. “Stop.”

  “You had me scared.”

  “Why are you here, Tia?” Aerina fought back against the apathy she now felt. And then she remembered. “Did you send Renald out to the wolfkind territory?”

  “No,” Tia said, her eyes wide. “Why?”

  Aerina fixed her with a doubting stare. “He’s dead.”

  Fear, disbelief, and a flare of anger touched Tia’s expression before she made her face like stone. “How do you know?”

  Aerina sat up, cupping Tia’s face between her hands. She delved into her mind, using her honed ability to read what was truly there. Effortlessly, she broke down the wall Tia had built as a defense against psychic powers, but it was no match for Aerina’s spellcasting.

  “Tah shay.” She breathed the words, and Tia’s walls crumbled. And there it was. Deception. Power mongering. Greed. Guilt. Lust. Love. Tia, her closest advisor, had plotted against her. Not only had she sent Renald’s group, but there were also three other clusters of witches searching for Keir D’San and another target. Who? She probed Tia’s mind harder. The young witch grabbed her head and screamed. Her pale gray eyes rolled back before fluttering to a close as she slumped lifelessly to the ground. Aerina had gone too far with her thought-probe.

  She knelt beside the woman, who until this moment, Aerina considered her closest confidant. Aerina placed her hands on the acolyte’s still chest, her fingers sending jolts of electricity to Tia’s heart. After thirty minutes of trying and failing to revive Tia, the witch queen felt her powers start to wane. “Why, my darling girl? Why did you force this moment with your prideful ambition?”

  The only thing she knew for certain was that Keir and one other person had been targeted by Tia’s cronies. She prayed it wasn’t Emma. Aerina had no choice now. She had to go into the woods. If the rogue bands of witches succeeded in killing the domiscin or Emma, all chances of reconciliation for their two species would be destroyed.

  ****

  “Mika and Jaylinn,” Toland said. He pointed to the left. “You both head that way with Thadeus. Amile and I will take the right. Move in an arc until we meet north of the river.”

  “We should go back, brother,” Thadeus said. “With no scent to catch, we risk getting farther from camp and reinforcements. We can set out fresh in the morning. The witch’s spell should be faded by then.”

  Toland shook his head. “We can’t leave our domiscin out her alone and vulnerable.”

  “He made the choice to take off on his own,” Mika protested. “We can’t keep him safe if he chooses to be reckless.”

  “Watch yourself, Mika.” Toland hadn’t forgotten that she’d stirred Jaylinn up about the found woman Emma. “You are bordering on insubordination. Keir is our alpha, the leader of our people, he doesn’t need our permission to make decisions.”

  “It would be nice if he’d have told us,” Thadeus said.

  Toland knew Mika and his brother were both right, but he hated that Mika’s observations about Keir were a judgment rather than mere concern. “We keep going.”

  “I’d like to stay with Amile,” Thad said.

  Toland raised a brow at his brother. It wasn’t like Thadeus to question his decisions. Before he could acquiesce, Amile stepped in.

  “Tol has set the mission parameter,” she said to her mate. “You and I are the best trackers. It makes sense that we split up.”

  He took her hand and nodded. “Be careful.” He glanced at Toland. “You too.”

  “We will.” Amile kissed Thadeus. “You and Mika do the same.”

  After a few nods of farewell, the group split up and headed in opposite directions.

  ****

  “That’s so loud!” Emma shouted. The pounding of the rapids as they roared down the wide river was deafening.

  “What?” Keir answered, shouting as well. Emma could barely hear him.

  She raised on her tippy toes and projected her voice toward his ear. “How much longer until we can cross?”

  Keir turned toward her. His dark gaze warmed her from the inside. He leaned down to get close to her ear. “I’m not sure. This is the farthest I’ve been up stream. It has to slow down somewhere. Do you need to rest?”

  They had been walking since before dawn. Four hours of trekking over rough ground and Emma was ready for a break. Stopping now wasn’t an option. She’d created fire the night before, and this morning, she swore she manipulated the wind. The witchvine belt didn’t seem to be able to stop her from displaying magic.

  Which meant, she wouldn’t be welcome in Keir’s camp. And because of her connection with Keir, the witches would probably keep trying to kill her. If nothing else, to use as leverage against him.

  Keir asked again, “Do you need to rest, Emma? We can stop for a moment.”

  “No,” she said. “We keep going until we’re safe.”

  The River of Tears reminded Emma of the videos she’d seen of the Colorado River rapids. It was crazy how the insanely fast currents seemed to froth at the mouth like a rabid dog. After an hour of traveling upstream, the roar became less earsplitting.

  “I can finally hear myself think,” Emma said. “Can you still not smell anything? Not even the water?”

  “The magic faded a couple of hours ago,” he replied.

  “Oh.” Why hadn’t he told her? He could have gone back to his wolfkind, at the very least, to say goodbye. “I can keep going on my own.”

  Keir turned to her, his gaze predatory. “I can’t leave you, Emma. I won’t. Don’t you understand that? You are my mate.”

  “Well, sure,” she told him. “We had sex. But people do that and leave each other all the time.” She was sure that had been the case for her parents.

  “Yes, and if it had only been sex, leaving you might be an option. But we went beyond that. We connected. Mated.” He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed as if to emphasize the enormity of his words. “Could you walk away from me?”

  Emma thought about his question. She imagined leaving Keir and never seeing him again. An ache deep in her gut blossomed until she doubled over. The pressure in her chest was nearly as debilitating. She pushed the unwanted images of a l
ife without Keir from her mind. The pain eased.

  She stared up at him. “No,” she said when she could breathe normally again. “I can’t walk away from you. Why? I don’t understand?”

  “It’s biological for my kind. When we mate, it’s for life. When a wolfkind loses a mate to death, he or she also dies. There is no cure for the terminal pain of heartbreak.”

  “And you knew this when you pledged yourself to me last night?” she asked incredulously. “How could you be so stupid? Your people will never accept me, Keir. You’ve ruined your life, and for what? A thief.” Her frustration blinded her to the rising water. “A thief and most likely a witch. Your natural enemy. How in the world are we ever going to make this work?”

  “We worry about it after we cross the river.”

  Emma turned to the flowing water as a massive tidal wave splashed over the two of them. She screamed as the force threw her back. She raised her hands, and the next wave stopped midair. “I…” She was flabbergasted.

  Keir regained his feet and stared at her as if a hairy wart had blossomed on her nose. “Try to move it to one side, Emma.” His voice was calm, emotionless, but his stance was so rigid, Emma knew he was anything but stoic on the inside.

  She kept her hand up as she stood, the whole time willing the choppy water to hold still. The uncooperative liquid sloshed back and forth unsteadily. Her energy drained rapidly, and Emma used all the tricks she’d learned from Mike to keep her adrenaline in check, her pulse slow, and her breathing even.

  “Are you okay?”

  She didn’t answer Keir. Couldn’t answer him, not if she wanted to control her focus. She moved her hand to the left, rejoicing as the water responded.

  “This will work,” Emma said. “It has to.” She focused on the splitting the current, and when, like Moses parting the Red Sea, the River of Tears rose on one side as the water dammed, and emptied on the other, Emma’s jaw dropped. “Hell yes.”

  “Hold that,” Keir commanded.

  He grabbed the hand she wasn’t using to cast magic, and they set off across the muddy, soggy, rock filled, fishy smelling river bed. At one point, she sank down to her knee in the muck. It was getting harder to hold the magic, especially with the physical effort.

  “This is ridiculous.” What she wouldn’t have given for the ability to fly. Suddenly, the top of her head passed Keir’s. The invisible wall holding back the river began to fail as she floated up into the air.

  Keir anchored Emma as if she were a helium balloon that if he let go, would drift away. “Hold on,” he shouted.

  With the kind of speed she’d only seen in superhero movies, Keir leaped from the mud and ran so fast his feet skimmed the surface. The whole time, he held on to Emma, dragging her along, as he raced them to the opposite shore. Emma felt as much as she heard a popping sound. The river crashed toward them in a runaway tide.

  Emma couldn’t regain control, and she lost altitude as well. “Keir!”

  His face, half man-half wolf, wrenched with determination. His claws bit into her wrist, and he flung Emma the last five feet to the bank. The dominant force of the river, like a Tasmanian devil released from a cage, blasted Keir, twisting his body unnaturally when he catapulted himself into the air.

  “No!” Emma collapsed as she tapped into the last of her power and yanked Keir the rest of the way to land. He lay sprawled on the jagged rocks. “Keir,” she cried out, dragging her useless legs behind her as the river rock shredded her black leggings. She dropped her backpack when she reached him.

  The rushing water slowed until the only sounds Emma heard were the rhythmic movement of the current like a gentle rain and her own whimpers. The magic had taken more out of her than her body had been ready to give. She didn’t even have the strength to turn Keir over to check his breathing.

  “Help me,” she whispered like a prayer, knowing she was on her own. Unable to hold her head up, she lowered it to Keir’s back.

  “I am here with you, child,” an angelic voice replied. A prodigious amount of love and grief and hope filled Emma. She blinked her eyes open, the act more difficult than parting the river. A woman, tall and thin, with jet black hair, pale skin, and gray eyes appeared to be floating over Emma. Her white gown flowed as if carried upward by a gentle stream of air. A chill wind began to blow, raising gooseflesh on Emma’s arm. Was this what dying felt like?

  “You are not dying, though I can understand why you think so,” the woman said. “You used more magic than I have felt in a very long time.”

  She heard a hoarse, almost strangled voice, say, “Emma.” A wheezing cough proceeded movement beneath her. She heard her name again, but it sounded hollow as if she were in a tunnel. Her body involuntarily stiffened, and she felt herself rise from the ground. The rocks ceased their relentless digging into her skin.

  “Rest now, child.”

  Emma curled up as if cradled by the strange woman’s voice. “Keir,” she whispered.

  “Rest,” the woman insisted. “Rest now.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Every muscle and bone in Keir’s body ached. The straw mattress crinkled as he rolled to his side. Emma lay next to him. Her chest rose and fell in a steady, natural rhythm. He breathed a sigh of relief. They’d made it across the river alive.

  The blanket over them scratched at his skin. He lifted the cover. He’d been redressed in a cream-colored pair of soft cotton pants. Emma wore a white dressing gown. Had she managed to find them shelter and fresh clothes? And how? He’d never seen anything like the magic she’d used at the river.

  Her command of magic would make her a major target with both wolfkind and the witches. His people would want her dead, and the witches would want to use her to finally defeat the wolves. Neither situation was acceptable.

  “Emma,” he said. He gently shook her shoulder. “Emma, wake up.”

  She stirred under his touch. “Keir.” She turned her head and opened her eyes.

  Normally dark blue, they had turned the color of a bright afternoon sky. Keir tried to hide his shock at the transformation. “Do you feel well?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Stiff and sore, but no worse for wear.” He cupped her cheek. “Thanks to you. I still don’t know how you managed to get me out of the water and here.” He forced a smile and gestured to the cozy room. “Where ever here is.”

  “I…” Emma quickly sat up, holding the blanket to her chest, and looked around. “I didn’t bring us here.”

  “I brought you here.” The soft-spoken voice startled both Keir and Emma. A fire flared in the hearth across the room. A woman stood near the flames, her black hair plaited in a braid over her right shoulder, and her white gown reflected the oranges and yellows of the dancing flames.

  The most startling thing, Keir hadn’t sensed her in the room. Not even a hint. He’d believed until that moment that they were alone.

  He jumped up, fighting the scream in his muscles and put himself between Emma and the intruder. His fingers snapped and reshaped, his nails turning to razor sharp claws. “Stay back, witch.”

  “If I’d wanted to harm you, wolf king, I would have done it while you slept so peacefully in my bed.” She waved her hand. A soft light brightened the room. “Besides, you broke your back when the water hit you. If you keep moving around, you will do yourself more damage.

  A broken back would have taken months, maybe years, to heal. Wolfkind could heal most injuries if they weren’t fatal, but the process was slow and painful. “If my back was broken, how am I healed now?”

  “Spirit magic.”

  “I know little of that.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said. “It’s a defensive magic used for healing, bolstering the power in others, energy, and so on. Spirit practitioners are effectively the backbone of our battles.”

  “Like a combat medic,” Emma said.

  “Exactly like that,” the witch replied. “Their magic is used to heal, wolf.”
/>   “Who are you?” Keir asked. “Why did you bring us here?”

  In the brighter light, Keir saw that the walls were a thick tangle of woven vines.

  Witchvine.

  “Yes.” The woman smiled sadly. “My home is made of wallen ivy.” She sat down in a rocking chair near the fireplace.

  This was no ordinary witch. In this room, her powers should have been non-existent. “How can you work your magic with this much witchvine surrounding you?”

  “It is my creation.”

  “What?” Alarms were sounding in Keir’s head. Who was the woman that she was powerful enough to not only practice witchcraft within the confines of a witchvine structure but to also claim she was the maker of the one true equalizer in the war against her kind? “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “My dear boy. For you.” She nodded to Keir. “And for her.” Her fingers flickered toward Emma. “Partially. The real reason was revenge, but the years have squashed my appetite for such indulgence.”

  “I don’t understand any of this,” Keir said. “Tell us who you are.”

  Emma slid her legs over the side of the bed. Keir sat down beside her, his hand relaxing as she twined her fingers in his. “I’m going to take a stab at name-that-woman and guess that this is the witch in the wood.”

  Keir narrowed his gaze on the woman. “She’s a fairytale, Emma. A myth.”

  “And yet.” The woman held her arms out and hands up in supplication and shrugged. “Here I am.”

  “Did you actually cry a river?” Emma asked.

  The woman laughed. “I did not.” She shook her head. “But there were days…”

  “Why did you bring us here, witch?” Keir growled the words. If this truly were the witch in the woods, then neither he nor Emma were safe.

  “I think what Keir means to say is thank you for taking care of us and keeping us safe while we were otherwise incapacitated.”

  Keir diverted an incredulous stare at Emma.