by Alice Bello
But I didn’t feel anything…
Not angry, not guilty…
I felt numb.
And that’s when the creature showed itself.
Tall, willowy, and unearthly.
I tightened my hold on the carving knife.
But as it came closer, it seemed to change. Its stark lines turning to feminine curves, its naked, husk-like skin turning to soft, silky flesh, a sheer gown of green draping from her shoulders—she was a vision.
Somehow I knew, just knew she’d been here a long time, in this land, and she’d been so happy to find my grandmother. She’d fed from her magic and her animal for a full cycle of the moon.
I didn’t find that disturbing, and I was no longer angry.
I was just standing there, staring at her, waiting for her to tell me what she wanted me to do.
Like she was…
My master…
She smiled as that thought whispered through my mind. Her lips were blue and cold looking, but also delicious looking.
She came closer and I felt my body respond to her. My pulse quickened, my flesh burned and my cock hardened.
She reached out toward me and I thought, for just a moment, of the knife in my hand…
But it was gone, and so was… well, whatever else I’d had in my other hand.
I looked into her eyes, and the frosty green made me think of frozen swamp water.
You are mine… came a coarse whisper in my mind. You will be delicious.
The moment her hand touched my face I felt her drawing on me, sipping me like I was…
Like wine… the cold voice mused. Delicious…
My legs shook and my heart skipped a beat.
Just like being in love… she mused.
Love.
I’ve never been in love…
She lifted her other hand to the other side of my face, cupping my jaw in her cold, rough hands.
Those hands looked so soft…
If I ever fell in love… I would want it to be with someone like…
And just as I thought of her, she appeared at the edge of my vision.
“Stormy,” I breathed, feeling something well up in me just looking at her.
The fae pulled her hands from me and hissed. Her face was stark and cold, and her hands had smoke coming off them.
I fell back against a tree, my heart slamming against my chest and my lungs burning.
My legs felt as if they could hardly hold me upright.
I looked past the fae woman, to where Stormy stood. She had a sword in her hand, long and elegant, and she stood with it pointed at the fae.
“I think you have something of mine.”
Chapter 5
Stormy
It’s amazing how much someone could know about a subject. Maddox’s grandmother went on and on and on about legends, parables, fables and why each one of them was true and untrue at the same time.
It was like having Gram explaining a vision quest to you and discounting the parts she didn’t experience when she went on one, but also telling you about the parts others had sworn had happened to them on their vision quests.
Like trying to learn how to do something on the computer using a book of riddles as a guide.
So aggravating.
I hadn’t learned anything useful in the two hours I’d been listening to her.
But I did have a headache, and I was irritable and scared—of what was waiting for me in the woods behind the old woman’s house, and of her grandson.
When that bear of his ripped out him, it would kill every living thing for miles.
And there would be nothing I could do about it.
I could be the lucky first to die…
“Okay, okay…” I shook my head and gritted my teeth. “I just don’t see how any of this is going to help me.”
If only the thing in the woods were of Native American origin. I wouldn’t know how to stop it, but at least I wouldn’t be going in blind. Gram had been teaching me, grooming me to become a medicine woman without me even realizing it.
“It shouldn’t be able to affect you as it does Maddox or me.”
“Why? And how is it affecting Maddox? He didn’t even know it was out there all this time.”
The old woman’s eyes were so sad. “She’s been weaving her magic into him, even through the protections of my home’s threshold. There was just me living in there for so long, the power of the threshold was diminished.”
I held up my hand. “Weaving?”
“She is fae. Her magic is like a thin thread, and it penetrates and makes knots. That’s how it slips into you undetected until it’s too late.”
It was still so creepy talking to someone about how they were murdered. “And you didn’t know?”
“I had thought their kind had left these lands long ago. So I became lax in my defenses, and did not heed the signs.” She smiled with regret. “You know what they say, twenty-twenty hindsight. I can see what I missed now. The early cold that only seemed to be near my home, how the forest had grown silent at night, too silent… and then there was that humming.”
“Humming?”
“She sang to me at night. I thought it was just someone’s radio. And after brushing that thought aside once, she had me. It just seemed so natural to have her singing to me at night.
“Then one night, when I decided I was tired and needed to go to sleep, I went out the back door instead of up the stairs to my bedroom.”
I swallowed, so afraid of what she was about to say.
“I wasn’t a bit surprised to see her there. At first, I saw her for what she really was… but that image slipped away and was replaced by the beauty she wanted me to see. I lay down by her feet, like a dog… so tired. And she sang me to sleep, petting me.”
The ghost shook herself and gave me a pained glance. “She had been feeding slowly on me for over a month, and then, that night, she finished her work, drinking my magic and my life force until my heart stopped and I died there in the woods.”
“And you’re sure that’s where she’ll be tonight?” A ghoul in the night, with magic powers and the ability to consume magic and life itself.
Horrifying.
“Maddox will go out there tonight to avenge me, and she won’t be able to resist. She’ll take him tonight just from convenience.”
My puma growled out her hatred for that thought. She already thought of Maddox as hers.
Which was insane. Just a couple hours ago she had been ready to run from him, so afraid of what she saw in him. And now…
And now we both had placed our claim on him.
Absolute lunacy.
“But why do you think that I won’t be affected by her?” I couldn’t grasp it.
“Because of your blood, your lineage. I can already see your magic is like the wind, like the water in a stream, like the earth itself: fluid and as different to hers as possible.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Magic… that’s all I get? My magic, which I still have never used and know nothing about… that will protect me from her?”
“From her magic, yes, but she is fae and ancient, she will be a superb fighter to have lasted this long. But you have fangs and teeth on your side.”
My puma murmured her approval. She wanted to taste this creature’s blood.
My mind lit on something she had said earlier.
“You said mankind drove them out of Europe with… metal?”
She nodded. “With their white god and iron, yes.”
Iron… “You wouldn’t happen to have a sword made out of iron, would you?”
The old woman smiled. “It would happen that I do, in a tool shed about half a mile from my home.”
I quirked an eyebrow at the woman. “Why so far?”
She shrugged. “It’s been a long time since monsters—ones I couldn’t kill with my fangs and claws—roamed these woods. As I said, I neglected my defenses against them.”
She gave me the quirked eyeb
row right back. “So, are you trained in fighting with a sword?”
I shook my head. “Ax, knives, bow and arrow, staff and spear, even a shotgun, but not a sword… do you have a shotgun?”
“Afraid not, dear… never liked them.”
Me either…
The old woman smiled then. “But I do have something else in the tool shed.”
***
“I think you have something of mine.” I felt myself falter for just a moment—not sure where that came from, but immediately realizing it was true. I pointed the heavy and clumsy sword at the dark fae before me.
And let me say, for the record, she was one of the ugliest things I’d ever seen. Parts of her looked like an animal, parts like a tree, the face barely possessed the general make up of being human.
That face and her entire body rippled for a moment. I guess she was trying to cloak herself, as Nonna had said she would. But, as the old woman had predicted, I wasn’t being affected by it.
That was good.
Maddox stood there, staring at me as if he was lost.
My puma hissed as I started to see the silky, mist like threads, all the color of blood, that spun from the fae into the air and were anchored in Maddox’s skin.
The fae woman glared at me, her eyes pitch black. “Go away, little cat—this bear is mine.”
I shook my head and walked toward her, willing myself not to shake. She was the scariest thing I’d ever seen. “As I said, he’s mine.”
She smiled and her fangs were just hideous. “I saw him first.”
I blinked. “You’ve got me there. Maybe we could flip for him?”
She tilted her head, trying to digest my words.
I held up my sword at her. “Pointy end wins.”
She chuckled—sounded more like the warning of a rattle snake. “I guess I could glut myself on cat and bear.”
Okay, that made my legs shake. But to my credit, my arm didn’t so much as twitch, and my voice was cold and calm. “Then come get some, bitch.”
I don’t know what I was expecting, but she flew at me as if shot from a catapult, and on the way she tore a small tree out of the ground and brought it down at me with a lightning-quick strike.
And just like that she knocked the sword right out of my hand and sent me sailing through the air like a fly-ball at a softball game. A good-sized elm tree stopped me about ten feet away, catching me and then dropping me to the ground in a boneless heap.
Everything went black as I watched the fae woman stalk toward me.
Chapter 6
Maddox
My bear wanted out.
It was excruciating.
It was ripping at my insides, roaring in a rage I’d never felt before.
And I knew I should be angry too.
But I wasn’t.
I just stood there, watching as the fae woman jumped and flew through the air, suddenly armed with a freaking tree. I watched as she walloped Stormy with the tree. Next thing I knew Stormy was flying through the night air and landed with a sickening crunch against another, much sturdier, tree.
It felt as if my bear had punched a hole through my chest, its entire arm reaching through, trying to get at the fae woman. But I just stood there, watching with no real feeling in me, just the pain of having my bear ripping through me.
Dimly I realized that if my bear did get out, the fae woman would die, and so would Stormy.
Oh god…
I took a step closer to the fae woman.
She turned and glared at me, and swung her arm in my direction. The air screamed at me as it cut into my flesh. But it didn’t hurt near as much as what my bear was doing.
“Stay where I left you, slave. I’ll get to you soon enough.”
She turned and looked down to the ground, where Stormy had been lying just a moment ago.
But Stormy wasn’t there.
Chapter 7
Stormy
I walked into my grandmother’s kitchen.
I didn’t wonder how I got there.
I didn’t think to ask… well, I didn’t think to ask anything.
Gram stood at the stove, pulling a roasting pan from the oven.
I was so happy to see her. I walked up and hugged her around the neck, and kissed her weathered cheek.
“I love you,” I said, feeling tears well in my eyes.
“I love you too, little cat.” She shooed me over to the kitchen table. “Sit down, sit down. I made your favorite: beef roast with baby carrots in sugar water, and mashed potatoes and gravy.”
I swiped at my tears with my hands and shook my head. “No, Gram, I’m not hungry. I just want to…” I just wanted to hug her again and never let go.
I’ve missed you so much.
Gram hit me with her Don’t you disobey me glare.
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry.”
Oh boy…
“Yes, ma’am.” I turned and took my usual seat at the kitchen table, the one that was right next to Gram’s chair at the head of the table.
“That’s my good girl.” She came over and put a plate heaping with hot, delicious smelling food in front of me. “Now dig in. You’ll need your strength.”
I lifted my fork and tucked into eating my Gram’s marvelous food. It tasted so good.
I blinked while I chewed, “What do I need my strength for?”
Gram set a frosty glass of milk to my right. “So you can kill that fae, of course.”
The fae…
The image of her flying through the air at me with that damn tree in her grasp flashed through my mind, as did how she’d looked as she came at me while I was blacking out.
She was a monster out of my worst nightmares.
“I don’t think I can take her,” I confessed.
She nodded, her brow creased in concentration. “Your bear will have to help.”
My bear…
“She has him under her spell. His grandmother said so, and I can see the threads of her spell if I try real hard.” Plus, if his bear got out, it would kill everything in its path, including me.”
“Don’t think like that.” Gram smacked me in the back of the head with an oven mitt.
I glared at her. “You can hear my thoughts?”
She smiled wickedly. “Death has its benefits.”
You’re dead… I remember now…
Gram sat at the table and picked up her cup of coffee. She always liked it strong and black. “Nothing will ever change that, as nothing will ever change how much I love you, your mother, or your brother or sister. But…”
I turned and look into her faded eyes. I remembered them being so much brighter.
“If you’re going to survive this fight, and save your bear from that nasty creature, you’re going to have to work fast.”
I pushed my half-eaten plate of food away and turned to face her. “Tell me what to do.”
“Your magic isn’t just something to be called upon: it’s in you, in every cell of your body.”
I don’t get it…
“And your magic is even more potent when you’re in your puma skin.”
I blinked. “I’m a weapon.”
Gram smiled. “As much as a two hundred pound puma with long fangs and claws can be.”
My mouth dropped open and I gasped. “I do not weigh two hundred pounds!”
“You do when you shift, Stormy. We all grow larger than we should be able to.” She looked far too satisfied with herself.
I was about to remind her that she had a bald spot on her backside the last time I ever saw her shift into her puma, but she interrupted my thoughts by pointing to the frost covered glass of milk.
“It’s time to get back, don’t you think?”
I didn’t want to leave—didn’t want to ever leave her again. But this wasn’t real.
And I had things to do, and a monster to kill.
I reached out and took hold of the ice-cold glass of milk, and as I brought it to my lips and started to drink the w
orld turned white.
Chapter 8
“Stay where I left you, slave…” The fae woman’s voice was cold and inhuman, but it did ring with possessiveness.
That’s what snapped me to.
That this crusty, ancient bitch thought she had any claim to my Maddox, to my bear…
I went from lying on the ground at her feet to jumping up into the tree I’d been smashed into moments ago. I glared down at the fae as she realized I was no longer lying at her feet.
I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out the cold iron trowel Nonna had led me to in that old shack.
I dropped down from the tree and raked the cold, sharp edge of the trowel down her back, leaving it stuck in her about halfway down.
She screamed with an inhuman, feral howl. I rolled away from her as she flung her arms at me, trying to get at me. I relished that scream when I saw the lovely red blood of the fae running down her back, and the blade sticking out of her back.
My cat wanted to attack, but I knew I’d only surprised her. I could see that the injury I’d caused her was already mending.
I couldn’t take her on my own.
I needed Maddox.
But he was being held by her magic.
Ah yes, the magic…
With a whisper of consent, my animal’s magic flowed through me, and in a heartbeat of pain and the shredding of clothes, I stood on four paws, baring the fangs of my cat at the fae woman.
I could see the silken threads of the fae’s magic even better in my puma form. Gram had been right.
I just hoped she was right about the other things.
The fae reached back, trying to pull the trowel from her back, the iron smoking from where it was sticking out of her.
Now was my best chance to test Nonna’s theory.
I raced across the clearing and jumped in the air, opening my jaws, my teeth bared, as I sank my fangs into the thread-like streams of the fae’s magic. It hurt, like biting into razor-sharp threads of glass, but the blood I tasted was not mine.
It was the blood of the fae… and it tasted good.
The fae whirled on me, letting out another pained cry.