“Are you prepared to depart?” Vrox asks casually.
Arawl nods his head. “Yes. Our packs are clustered on the floor at our feet.”
“Good.” Vrox sighs. “We have a few days’ travel still until we reach the border of the ogre territory. Thankfully their caverns aren’t deep within their lands, given the way the Wyvern Mountains cut through. Hopefully, we can get in and out before my brothers even catch up to us.”
One by one, we stand and fetch our packs. Arawl hovers behind me to double-check the straps on mine to make certain that they are tightened securely. The tavern quiets and I shiver as I feel the attention of all the patrons focused on us. One particular satyr, a male with a prominent goatee, leans forward in his chair, his eyes fastened on me. I return his stare as I allow my magic to run through me in an obvious show of power. It does the trick because he pales and drops his eyes.
He didn’t realize that I’m a witch. Now he knows.
He slides out of his chair and trots away at a fast clip as he rounds into a backroom hidden behind the counter. Within seconds, the proprietress appears, her face already ruddy from a bit of drink but set into a deep scowl and she brings the weapons that she confiscated upon our arrival. She shakes her graying, frizzy head of hair and glares at us with a pinched expression.
“You lot are bad for business. Threatening customers left and right and each one possessing dispositions liable to kill off a good buzz. No good for a satyr inn. I will ask that you not return.”
“I have no problem with that,” Arawl growls. “I do not care to discover nosy satyrs spying on my mate for coin. You are fortunate I did not kill him.” He draws in a deep breath. “Your son, I am guessing.”
Her face flushes. “Just get out. We harm no one! Males who get territorial over their females and aggressive about a little innocent information exchange are not the sort of customers we want to have around.”
Arawl takes his accustomed place at the rear as our group files out. Meanwhile, I’m scowling to myself about the whole spying on me bullshit, and for what information? And to get offended that they’re called out on it? The satyrs don’t seem to possess any sense of honor. Everything they value is tied to their wine.
I smile as an idea comes to me. I know exactly one transmutation spell, a party trick that I mastered more for my amusement than anything else. Tracing glyphs into the air, I whisper the incantation under my breath, letting the power infuse them and take effect as we pass through the door. We head back into the woods, keeping our bearing to the northwest, when we hear the raucous shouts drifting up behind us from the tavern. They’re muffled but clear enough even to my own hearing. I smirk as the sounds of chaos descends.
“What happened to the wine?” one bellows.
“It tastes like vinegar,” another satyr cries out. “Every drop in the place!”
“The new shipment!” the proprietress shrieks.
Arawl casts an assessing look at me. “Do you have any responsibility for that?”
“No one insults my mate,” I say simply. My breath catches when I am suddenly pinned against his side and he hugs me tightly.
“I love you, mate,” he laughs, “but sometimes you worry me.”
“Please. I’m sure it is nothing compared to what Jinx did...”
“What...?”
A horrified scream about giant mutant rats pierces the air and my crazy, chaotic friend laughs himself sick, supported by his mates as we leave the tavern far behind us.
“Really, Jinx? Rats? That’s disgusting,” I chide my laughing hyena of a friend. But even I can’t keep a straight face. He really does enjoy going for the more childish pranks. I’m just glad he didn’t make whatever sewage system they are using explode. He did that before, and I’d been forced to walk a block around my normal route to avoid the place he was unfairly fired from.
“Well, at least you held back,” I say finally and Rashi begins to snicker as Jinx continues to laugh uproariously.
I don’t even want to know what dirty gutter their minds took a side trip into. I really don’t.
Chapter 22
Ana
Although the air gets cooler with every day that passes, I have to admit that the northern forest is pretty. The trees look aflame, with red, yellow, and orange leaves. I pull my cloak tighter around myself to ward off the cold as I look around and breathe in the pleasant scents of autumn. The woodsy, wet-earth smell sinks into me. There is, however, an eerie silence to it that is disconcerting. Not even birdsong breaks through the air.
The werewolves are more alert too, no doubt also unnerved by the lack of natural sounds in the forest. Arawl strides stiffly beside me, his ears pricked and turning every which way. Vrox growls from his place just in front of us, his fur puffing out menacingly.
“I do not like this,” Vrox snarls.
“It is like it is a dead forest,” Fahuri observes from the front, doubtlessly overhearing the male’s remark. Her yellow eyes cut over to us with concern. “I cannot scent a single living thing in this part of the woods.” Her voice sounds hollow, as if just speaking in the woods attempts to tear apart even the simplest conversation.
“It doesn’t feel like a cursed area to me,” I offer. “Jinx?”
My friend shakes his head slowly. “There is something out here, but it’s not a curse that is doing this,”
“I do not smell anything,” Vrox objects, but Arawl interrupts him.
“It is not a scent, but a nothingness beneath the scent that is here,” he says, his nostrils flaring.
Now that he mentions it, the typical autumny smells that I was enjoying were missing one important but easily overlooked feature. It was shallow, like when you go into a room just after someone sprays air freshener in a room. There’s a complex, rich depth to it.
“What could have possibly done that?” Tas queries. His tail is held out straight behind him.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Fahuri, have you ever come across anything like this before?”
She shakes her head. “No, but believe me that when we return, I will certainly be categorizing the phenomenon in our records. Quite odd.”
Our footsteps echo with every crunch over the dead leaves. Even the tread of the werewolves, usually quite silent, sounds unnaturally loud. Arawl drops back a few paces and is talking with Vrox. That’s fine with me because, at this point, I want to get the fuck out of here, and being in the front, closer to Fahuri, means I’m a few steps closer to this awful place being behind me.
I pick up my pace, hoping we’ll get out of this section of the woods soon. It doesn’t escape my attention that there are far more fallen trees in this part of the forest than I’d seen anywhere else. I curse with the strain of my muscles as I climb over a fallen tree. When I slide down the other side, I find myself surrounded by large rotting bones.
Swallowing an undignified scream, I backpedal into the side of the tree I just climbed. Don’t panic, I remind myself. They’re just the very large, very thick bones of a humanoid form. I swallow thickly when my eyes fasten on the broken skull with only a singular orbital socket.
“Arawl...” I call out weakly.
Apparently, my mate didn’t notice that I had slipped out of his sight until now because he lets out a loud, panicked snarl and leaps to the top of the fallen log with enough force that one side cracks beneath his weight as he crouches down to run his muzzle over me, carefully inspecting me for any injury.
“I’m fine,” I croak, “but I can’t say the same for this guy here.”
His eyes follow my gaze and he stiffens, his breath catching in his throat. He slides off the log and begins to circle it curiously. He lets out a few sharp yips and the rest of the team comes crashing through the brush, followed by a very confused Jinx. My friend stumbles to an abrupt stop when he catches sight of the monstrous remains.
“What was it?” I whisper.
“An ogre,” Vrox supplies. He bends down to sniff at the bones but pulls back sharply,
a look of disgust twists on his face. “Just as foul in death as he likely was in life.”
“What do you suppose killed him? I wouldn’t imagine these guys would be easy to kill, not even for mother nature.”
“No telling. There isn’t much of him left to tell us anything. The skull is broken but there are no other breaks that would indicate how he was brought down. Maybe a vital organ was punctured.”
“Maybe he was hunted,” I say nervously, my eyes fastened on one massive scarred femur bone. “Jinx, does that look like he was chewed on?”
Jinx picks his way over to my side and shivers. “I think so. It would take something pretty sharp to scratch the bone like that, and there are several nicks and gouges. I saw a deer bone like this that had been chewed on by coyotes when I was a kid... before the home, you know,” he says.
Arawl leans down and sniffs at the bone, a puzzled frown creasing his face. “I should be able to detect even a trace amount of saliva. These remains don’t appear to be that old. I don’t scent anything. Rashi?”
The beta also leans down and sniffs. His face wrinkles with confusion and he shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“Unnatural,” Tas murmurs, exchanging a look with Vrox. The brothers shudder and look away from the bones.
“Is there something up, guys?” I ask them directly.
Tas hesitates before he inclines his head respectfully. “Only rumors. Shortly after the last battle with the Warue, there was a stranger who came through the most northern edge of our territory. The male was Warue and emaciated, but he didn’t seem inclined to cause any trouble nor did he show any aggression. He was scared and making his way south to take sanctuary in an orc village where he claimed to have a distant relative who’d separated from their tribe years before. He was rambling about unnatural things going on in the north. We didn’t believe him at the time...”
“...But now it is difficult not to take him seriously in light of this,” Vrox finishes. “It is very hard to bring down an ogre. It will often take the efforts of several werewolves to bring down one, but a werewolf, not even a starving one, wouldn’t have eaten an ogre without risking grave illness.” At my confusion, he hastens to explain. “Ogres at their death release a chemical that floods their bodies—a toxin that is particularly dangerous. Most scavengers will avoid them too.”
“Creepy,” Jinx breathes.
“I suggest we move on,” Rashi implores his mate. He glances at the remains as if he can’t wait to get as far as possible away from them. I can’t say I blame him. Fahuri’s wide eyes are still fastened on the remains with a fascinated abhorrence. She nods slowly, her throat working as if swallowing back bile.
“Yes,” she agrees. “I don’t think we are going to be able to see anything more here. Arawl?” Her deference to Arawl does not go unnoted by the other two betas. Their sharp gazes turn toward him. I watch my mate stand a little taller, looking every bit the majestic alpha with his tall, muscular body. His green eyes return the males’ regard coolly before he addresses Fahuri.
“Let’s go. There is nothing but death here. We keep on our route and push through to the ogre caves and pray we are there by nightfall.” He pauses and glances warily at the bones. “I do not wish to sleep in these woods tonight. I do not trust it and will not risk any of your safety.”
The males drop their heads deferentially and then straighten once again to take guard positions as we leave the remains. I feel sick to my stomach as we depart. The magic here feels wrong and I suspect it’s having an adverse effect on my health. A healthy forest is rich with wild magic. This dead forest is... tainted, even down the primal energy levels woven into its fabric.
I only make it a few feet before I lean against a tree and empty my stomach. My mate hovers over me with concern, stroking my back as I rinse my mouth from the waterskin he hands me and spit the filth out of my mouth onto the ground. Swiping the back of my hand across my mouth, I hand the water back to him and give him a shaky smile.
“You are well, mate?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I reassure him. “This place is just getting to me.”
“Then let us hasten and put it far behind us,” he says. “I too am disturbed and don’t wish to remain here any longer than possible.”
He invites me to lean against him as we walk side-by-side after the others. They are a distance ahead of us where they stopped and waited upon realizing that we were no longer with them. As we close in, Fahuri at the head turns with her mates following close behind her.
The forest seems to stretch on endlessly, whispering a haunting sound of ghosts as we hurry through it. No matter how fast we walk, it stretches before us, and when I begin to tire, Arawl scoops me up against his chest and carries me. We do not stop to eat or rest; we continue on at a grinding pace that after a while even has Jinx lagging as exhaustion creeps up on him. Jinx is firing bolts of energy at something up ahead that I cannot see and that concerns me, but not as concerned about what I feel building behind me.
I glance up at what I can see of the sky between the trees. The sun is falling quickly, my heart speeds up. We won’t make it out of the woods before nightfall. I am certain of it. I can see the woods darkening ominously around us. A few leaves from the ground stir and whip around us and I stare at them in confusion, my skin prickling again. I don’t feel any breeze, but the leaves stir as if rustled by the wind. I dig my nails into Arawl’s shoulders, my breath coming out in frightened pants.
“My love, the leaves,” I whisper.
His ears flatten and his pace increases until he’s neck-and-neck with Vrox. Rashi up ahead of us has picked Jinx up on his back and he’s racing with Fahuri and Tas ahead of us. We are gaining ground on them and the trees whip by us. I gasp in excitement when I can see a stretch of starry sky opening up ahead.
We’re almost out of the woods.
Arawl growls and strains as he runs, but we are both aware of a rippling in the leaves following after us. The leaves kick up in a large mass as whatever it is gains on us at a terrifying speed. We aren’t going to make it out of the forest before it is upon us.
I lick my lips and stretch out a hand. Sweat pours off me as I etch out the powerful barrier spell, my magic expanding within me and emptying within the large shield that is growing larger by the minute between us and whatever chases us. I can feel when it collides with the barrier. The backlash is painful and jolts my arm so hard that something wrenches. Despite the discomfort, I keep it stretched out, the muscles shaking from exertion and my lips and mouth dry as I keep up the chant.
The thing slams into the barrier over and over again. I can feel the shield weakening as my own power drains away. Desperately, I search for a source of raw power and grab hold of the nearest thing to me. I rip it from them and into me. The light that blasts through my inner eye is blinding and I cry out just before the world blacks out around me.
The last thing I’m aware of is my mate’s hot breath on my cheek.
“Ana, we made it.”
Chapter 23
Arawl
I hold my mate in my arms, silently willing her to wake up. She has been out for hours, but Jinx says that it is normal. He is hovering nearby somewhat anxiously but is less disturbed by her unconsciousness than I am. I haven’t realized how much I felt her presence within me until it was literally torn out when she fell into a healing sleep. It is not a true sleep. I feel like she has been cut from me while she heals, and it is a terrible feeling—a gaping emptiness. To think that not long ago, I was wanting this. I shudder and lean down to nuzzle her cheek.
Leaning back, I pin Jinx with a withering glare. “Why is she not waking? You said she would only need a short rest.”
I will not admit that I am exhausted. When we were fleeing from the... whatever it was... I felt Ana utilize our bond to draw power from me. I don’t have much magical skill, but I have abundant power like all werewolves that is particularly potent in alphas. There are some who build up skills as potent magi
c users for the tribe. I use only a very small portion of my power as a portal guardian and never bothered to learn more. Having my mate siphon it out of me felt almost sexual, and my cock still aches, though it is no longer threatening to extrude.
Jinx wrinkles his nose and comes over to look down at Ana. I resist the urge to cover her protectively with my body, all my instincts raging at me to keep her hidden and safe while she is so vulnerable. I do not listen to them, however. I know Jinx would do anything to protect her as much as I would, even if for completely different reasons. He is family in more than just the sense of his recent mating with Fahuri.
“Look, it’s not like baking a cake, Arawl,” he sighs. “There is no telling just how long it will take for her to recover from expending all of her energy like that. Honestly, I’m impressed she was able to keep the barrier up as long as she did.”
“She drew on my power,” I say quietly. “She drew on it until the connection snapped and she fell unconscious.”
“Ah, well that explains a little, I guess. Some witches use their bonds with familiar entities to give their magic a boost, but I’ve never heard of anyone doing it from another living being. But then again, each witch has different gifts, and Ana’s has always been particularly strong. Still, drawing on your power is probably a new trick for her, and it probably overloaded her body. My best guess, anyway,” he says with an apologetic smile.
I huff and glance around the grassy expanse surrounding us. I feel strangely exposed. Although our woods have grassy meadows, they are but small breaks in the forest. It is an unfamiliar and eerie feeling being out of the trees with nothing but bare expanses surrounding me other than the Wyvern Mountains looming uncomfortably close.
“It is not safe to be out in the open. Griffins often inhabit the higher cliffs of the mountains and are opportunistic hunters. They’ve been known to carry off even large beasts,” I say, my eyes roving over the sky warily.
The Accidental Werewolf's Mate: A Monsterly Yours Romance (Monstery Yours Book 3) Page 16