Circle of Wolves
Chapter Eighteen
The Dark One
“Five more minutes, I beg you,” he muttered as he held her tightly to his chest, his face pressed into the back of her neck. “Five more minutes.”
She was shaking with laughter. “Evan Forester, you said that fifteen minutes ago. Do you really want to be late for your first meal with your new family?”
“You’re my family and I’m not hungry.” That was a lie and he knew she knew it. Alexi had been right, he’d never be alone again. She’d feel him and know if he lied, especially as they lay snuggled into one another.
“Evan, Mother will not be amused if we are late.”
“No but Alexi will be.”
A soft grrr’ing sound came from her throat and she rolled over to face him. “My darling, I’d rather stay here with you too. But we have to get up.”
He was about to argue with her when an almost forgotten whooshing sound filled the room and she let out a startled yip. He looked up knowing what he would find. The swirling mass of air churned at the foot of the bed. It whirled like a vortex undulating and turning in on itself.
“Show yourself,” he called out to it, rising from the bed and wrapping himself in his robe.
The wind stilled slowly and the shape of a girl appeared. Evan flinched involuntarily at her appearance. Her long straight blonde hair whipped gently around her as if tugged by a gentle breeze. The round moon-shaped face was achingly familiar. Her crystal eyes looked as if they had captured the stars from the sky. Her nude body gave away her inhuman nature with its impossible thinness and translucent skin. She stared curiously at Kira then at Evan. “Somebody’s in trouble.” The whispered sing-song voice was airy and light. Turning her gaze back to Kira the brow creased and an angry look formed on the face. A soft hissing came from the being.
“Stop it,” Evan said sharply.
“You do not command me, earth mage,” said the creature, the sound of the wind rising to a deafening roar.
“Do not make me call those I do command, or report to the one who has bound you.” Evan’s voice was calm. He knew this creature. She always chose this form, a form so like the face of the girl he had adored so long ago. He knew she did it to goad him.
“Those you command fear you have abandoned them. You have not called them in days,” she taunted. The sound was softening and the creature seemed to forget Kira.
“That is none of your concern,” Evan glanced over at his mate. She was sitting with the blankets tucked tight around her staring at it. Evan could feel the fear she repressed, a fear second only to the curious wonder that filled her. It was the nature of the wolf, of what she was—what they were—to be curious. “She is a sylph,” he told her. “She is really an arbitrary term used only because she chooses to appear as a female.”
“He likes it when I appear in this form,” the whispering voice taunted and the figure preened. “He likes to be reminded of her.”
Evan glared at it and turned to Kira. “She’s referring to Cassandra.” Alexi had pulled her aside and told about his conversation with Evan and the way he had spoken about the girl. He’d done it not to upset or accuse but to reassure her that Evan could handle the bonding. Kira had asked about the girl openly in the early hours of the morning as she had rested her head on his chest listening to his heart.
His master’s daughter, Cassandra Ryder, had been her mate’s best friend, confidante and first love. And though she had adored him and loved him in return, as they grew up and Evan had fallen in love with her, she had fallen in love with someone else. Her death had devastated him but it had crushed the other young man beyond recognition and recovery. The man Evan had told her he was hoping was the dark mage who was looking for them. “If it’s Julien, we may catch a break,” Evan had sighed.
Kira frowned as she glared at the elemental. “Why would you do this? Why would you go out of your way to hurt him?”
The creature sneered at her. “Because he is earth and I am air. It is the way of things.” The crystal eyes narrowed as she raked them over Kira. “Your magic should be different but there is a good deal of water in you—how odd.” A wicked smile appeared. “I wonder what the fire mage will think of you.”
Evan snorted angrily, “Do you have a purpose here Isaura or do I need to report you to your bonded? Or perhaps I should just discuss this with the guardians.” Guardians, or gatekeepers, were known by many names and each element was represented by such a spirit, almost a deity, who acted as arbiter, protector, judge, jury and executioner to the elementals. Zephyr, the name to which the air guardian responded these days when called by his friend Arianna, was not known to be patient with the sylphs who irritated him.
Fear flickered on the creature’s face and then vanished. “I have a message from my mistress. You are called home. She says she pleads with you to come home.” The voice sounded bored. “She says trouble is brewing in the conclave and there was an attack on the pretender, a succubus who defied capture for several nights. My mistress believes that a gifted must have been helping the creature by hiding its trail, allowing it to escape.”
Evan’s frown echoed the sudden chilling and anxiety that burst inside Kira’s chest. She didn’t blame him. A succubus would make any man tremble. The creature visited by night, creeping into a male’s dreams. Using sex to stimulate the energy centers of the brain the succubus would seduce the man in his dreams and feed off the energies created. Most succubae would feast off a victim for a few days and then move on, quickly growing bored. But there were those who sought more than just a simple feeding. If the creature could entice the man to physical climax, not the adolescent nocturnal emissions—but to fully climax as a result of the dream—she could draw enough energy to kill him or at least destroy his mind entirely. And the succubus would use the man’s energy to impregnate herself. It was the only way the succubus could reproduce. Her male counterpart, the incubus, was sterile.
“Is the fire mage all right?” he demanded.
“The fire mage is fine. He would never be fooled by a psyvi. The pretender is also fine. It took him three days to figure it out.” Isaura rolled her eyes and made a disgusted face. “A mage who cannot recognize a psychic vampire. He is a fraud, a pretender to his role.”
“Stop calling him that. He is the fire mage for your bound circle. Show a bit of respect.” Kira’s eyes widened at the tone in Evan’s voice. Then she smiled. The power emanating from him was incredible. This proud, commanding man was her mate.
The sylph’s eyes widened in surprise and then flashed in fury, the roaring wind raging about her, the childlike face contorting to blend with the features of a large bird. Enormous wings seemed to rise from its back and a sharp beak replaced the mouth and nose. It screeched in anger at Evan. Kira started to rise from the bed and go to him but he held out a hand to stop her. “Don’t. Stay on the bed.”
“You have forgotten yourself, little mage. You do not speak to me in such a way,” the creature’s voice roared with a wind that pushed Kira’s hair back from her face.
Evan rolled his eyes and Kira gasped when he turned his back on the creature. He moved his gaze to her and winked. He tried to use the bond between them to send her reassurances. He knew what he was doing. This was his world. “Isaura, go back to your mistress and tell her I’ll call her later today and let her know for sure when I’ll be coming home. It won’t be long now.” He waved his hand at it dismissively.
The sylph had moved toward Evan only a fraction when another creature suddenly appeared. It looked at first like a small child with golden hair and green skin. It wore a small moss-colored tunic and it stood between Evan and the air elemental with its hands on its hips.
“You try it Isaura and I’ll build a wall of wood around you so tight and thick you’ll blow yourself to oblivion trying to get out.” The tiny voice shook with fury.
“Try it, gnome, and I’ll rip your branches off and scatter them to the four corners,” th
e bird-woman screeched.
“Blah-blah-blah,” the little girl snapped. When the wind began to howl the tiny form tilted its head back and cried out, “Mistress Arianna…Isaura’s doing it again.”
The bird creature was instantly gone and the young girl’s form had returned. With the change, the breeze in the room settled to almost nothing. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Try me you big blow-hard and watch how fast Damek is curled up on your mistress’ lap with big crocodile tears sliding down his little face.”
“Fungus lover,” the sylph fired at the tiny green creature and disappeared.
The tiny giggle filled the room and Kira watched in amazement as a laughing Evan swooped up the little girl and dropped onto the bed with her in his lap. “My clever dear,” he chuckled as she snuggled up under his chin. Her amber-colored eyes moved over Kira’s face curiously. She said nothing but after cuddling with her master for a moment, crawled off Evan’s lap and over to where Kira sat clutching the blanket to her. One mottled green hand reached out and touched the pale white skin of her face and then lifted one curl letting it fall back with a bounce.
“Isaura’s right about one thing. Master Ryder is not going to like this. And Master Marcus is going to burn something really big when he finds out. But it won’t burn long when Master Seth makes the pipes burst again.” She paused, gold eyes meeting blue. “Some humans have really bad tempers,” she said to Kira conspiratorially. The tiny head tipped from side to side as if she were examining Kira carefully. “She’s the enemy you know,” Keita said softly.
“She’s not the enemy. She’s my mate,” Evan corrected gently.
“I know,” Keita said, her small face turning back to him. “Do you think you could bind yourself to another without us knowing instantly? Mate or not, Master, she is the enemy. This is going to cause trouble.” The gold eyes glowed and the tiny forehead creased.
“You let me worry about that,” he reached for her and pulled her back into his embrace. “I think it’s time you two met. Kira this is Keita. She, and again she is relative, is a gnome.” When the small creature’s head spun and her sharp gaze searched his, he corrected himself. “She is my gnome. Keita is one of four, well at the moment three, elementals who are bound to me as an earth mage. Isaura is one of the air elementals bound to my friend Arianna. She’s an air mage.”
“Hello,” Kira addressed the small being cautiously. The amber eyes were wooing her into a gentle relaxation. The creature looked so like a small child. But her nose was twitching and her skin tingling at the powerful aura the girl was emitting.
“Hello yourself,” replied the gnome. Her voice was slightly stern as if she were addressing a playmate who was about to get them all in very serious trouble from the grownups. “You do know the stir you will cause, don’t you?”
Kira heard Evan sigh loudly and found that despite what would appear to others as a laughable situation there was no humor in the little face before her. The daughter of the Alpha of all Wolves being told she was a bad little girl by what looked for all the world like a child just barely seven or eight years old.
“Adem is having fits.” The words were addressed to Evan.
“And that would be different how?” he muttered. Adem was by far the most serious of the group. Gnomes were supposed to be playful and lighthearted but though he was in fact the youngest of Evan’s elementals he’d always acted like a little old man casting about dire warnings and grumbling. He was also the more likely to appear to humans in his true form, that of a gnarled, knotted old tree gnome.
“True.” Keita seemed to pause. “But Damek is also worried. It was his cries that woke Mistress Arianna.”
Kira felt fear form in her chest that wasn’t hers. Evan’s gaze clouded and he stared off over the childlike head. When he finally answered, his voice was strained. “What did you tell Arianna?”
“I told Mistress nothing.” Keita wriggled from his grasp and stood on the bed looking down into his face. “Damek told her you had bonded yourself to another. I think she has guessed the rest.” She jerked her head in Kira’s direction.
“And sent Isaura to tell me to come home,” Evan sighed. This was not exactly the reaction he’d hoped for but he couldn’t say it surprised him. “Has she told the others?”
“She sent Isaura with two messages, I think we can both guess who the second message was for,” Keita said, frowning. “I do like the fire mage, Master but I don’t believe he will be helpful in this matter.”
“Would someone please explain what is happening here?” Kira rose from the bed and pulled on her dressing robe. “I get that I’m the enemy. In the eyes of most people here, you, Evan, are the enemy. But a bit more of an explanation is in order.”
Her mate rose and closed the short distance between them. Taking her hands he looked into her eyes. “Kira, you are not the enemy. My mate or not, one of the things this mission has taught me is that your people are not the enemy.” His hand cupped her cheek and he smiled softly. “This will take a bit of adjustment on everyone’s part. Your family—our family,” his smile widened as he said the words. “My friends, your friends, my elementals and both our worlds in general. Some may never accept this. Your mother won’t, you know that. No matter what I do, she will never fully accept this.”
“And Master Marcus,” the little gnome asserted. She jumped off the bed and walked over to them and looked up into their faces. “I don’t know your mother, Mistress Kira but Master Marcus will only ever tolerate this situation.”
“Marcus can kiss my—” Evan blurted only to be stopped by Kira.
“Evan! Not in front of a…” Her voice trailed off. It was so hard to remember when you looked into the tiny face.
His hand lifted her chin. “She’s not a child, Kira. Keita is almost as old as you are. I forget too from time to time but the gnomes are not children any more than the pixies or brownies or other woodland folk. Damek, Adem, Keita and Ilan may appear as children but they are not.” There was a slight tug on his robe and he looked down.
“Master, we have a visitor.”
Kira followed the pointing finger and gasped. Her head felt more than a bit light and she pulled the neck of her robe tighter around her. Standing at the foot of the bed was a bright red lizard about five feet in length. Around it, a wave of heat could be seen rising like the haze off asphalt on a desert road. It rose up on its hind legs and gave a bit of a bow, its tail emitting sharp crackling sparks as it swept to wrap around the lower legs.
“My apologies Master Forester, Mistress Gregoravitch.” He halted his speech at that moment and looked at her carefully and then backed away several paces from the bed. “Perhaps this wasn’t the best form to choose. I seem to have frightened the Mistress.” Evan turned quickly to a pale-faced Kira, who was trembling.
It was all too much. First the bird woman whipping in from nowhere, then a tiny child whose very presence sang of the forbidden powers of magic. And now this creature. Something about it terrified her as the others hadn’t. She pulled away from Evan and sank down onto the bed.
“Kira.” Evan knelt before her. “Kira there’s nothing to be afraid of. I know how strange this seems to you but it’s all right. I swear to you. This is my world, my love and I won’t allow anything in it to harm you.”
She looked into his blue-gray eyes. Suddenly the realization of how hard and how strange all of this must have been for him struck her. He’d submerged himself in her world. And it was a world that did not tolerate magic. A world that did not contain such creatures as these except as terrors in the night. The very thought of gnomes, sylphs, salamanders and undines that had tied themselves to human mages made a young Wolf tremble and drip with the cold sweat of true fear. Unbound these creatures were to be avoided and left in peace. Bound to one of the gifted humans, they were to be hated and feared.
And this was his world, the world that had accepted him and cared for him. This was the world he called his own, these were the people he
called his friends. This was the life into which she must assimilate. Only now, face to face with more magic than she had seen in her entire life, did it occur to her to wonder if she could.
“It’s so much, so very fast,” she whispered.
“I know.” Evan slipped his hand into her hair and cupped the back of her head. He pressed it down until their foreheads met. He felt her fear inside him, felt her uncertainty. It caused an ache so fierce it burned deep within his chest.
Kira felt his pain, his own worry rise back to her through the bond. She felt his need for her and his sudden fear that she could not accept who he was in his own world climb back up that tender connection. She had once told him that his being gadje was what worried her. She hadn’t been lying. It was what she feared. What it meant for her, for him, for their children. With her taint and his magic, what would that mean for their children? How could they ever escape the curse?
“Feel me, sweetheart,” he whispered softly. “Do you feel how much I love you?”
She didn’t have to speak to respond. She found him through the mating bond and sent her own love to him along the tie that linked their souls and made them cerieshe. His strength, his self-assurance, his absolute sense of control flooded to her and slowed the frantic beating of her heart. He had no doubts. No doubts about her, no doubts about them and no doubts that he could handle anything that was happening. His familiarity with the strange magic around them slipped into her. She listened to the pattern of it and tried to copy it for herself.
“Their kind isn’t used to so much magic,” the softly hissing voice of the lizard spoke quietly.
“No,” Keita answered. “I think it frightens them.”
Circle of Wolves Page 26