by Michele Hauf
She grasped him by the neck and nuzzled her face aside his soft maw. “I love you.”
She felt his body shift within her embrace. Behind her, Trouble blew out a breath and thanked the heavens he’d not shifted completely.
“Someone grab the guy a coat,” Kelyn said as Beck’s body shifted back to were shape, still clasping Daisy to his chest.
When her lover had completed the shift, he stumbled backward, landing in a snowbank and taking Daisy down with him. Ignoring the others, Daisy kissed him long and deeply. Surrounded by her bondmate’s scent, she answered his need for her. To simply be there for him. And within his kiss she found safety and home and love.
“You talked me out of it,” he whispered to her. “I wanted to kill him. But your softness, your sweet scent, it calmed me. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Daisy Blu.”
“Let’s not consider what you would have done. You stopped the ghost wolf, and that’s all that matters. Marx said he’d break your spell.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Stryke tossed a coat toward Beck. It was too short to cover anything important, so Beck tied the arms about his waist for the time being. His jeans and sweater were shredded.
Stryke stepped beside Daisy and asked quietly, “Is this the tangle you wanted?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good going, sis. You almost got us all killed. You’ve just taken the lead versus all Trouble’s antics.”
“Normally that would thrill me. But now? I’m just happy Beck is alive.”
“Your bondmate?”
She nodded. “I love him.”
Bella rushed to Beck, and Daisy stepped aside to let his mother hug him. “Your father would be proud,” she said to her son. “You did the right thing.”
“What do we do with him?” Trouble still held Marx with an arm twisted behind his back, on his knees. “Did he really come from another time, Stryke?”
“Ask him.”
Denton nodded. “This time is not my own. But I fear I shall never return to the eighteenth century if I cannot free Sencha. My time travel skills were depleted with the trip to the future to obtain the silver ammunition. But, as promised, I shall remove the curse of the ghost wolf from Beckett Severo.” He glanced to Bella. “It is the very least I can do for the suffering I have caused your family.”
Daisy stepped up to the hunter. “You will return to your time. Because you’ll take my wolf to finish your spell.”
“No, Daisy,” Trouble started, but Blade stepped up behind him, and with but a look, the troublemaker of the family conceded. “You can do what you want, I guess.”
“I have to choose one or the other,” she said. “I choose to help instead of harm.”
“We must work quickly,” Denton said. “Twilight is the best time to break a spell. But Beckett must return to his ghost wolf shape. It’s the only way it’ll work.”
Chapter 32
Beck kissed Daisy while everyone around them faded into the distance. It was only he and his gorgeous faery wolf. The woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life. The woman with whom his werewolf had bonded. The woman who made his heart laugh and his life worthwhile.
The woman who had made him stand up to the manifestation of his grief—the ghost wolf—and had helped him fight it. He would forever miss his father. But killing another man in vengeance would never serve his soul, or his father’s memory.
And yet now to turn toward the hunter and ask for his help was as far from his understanding as possible. But it felt right.
Because Daisy in his arms was right. She had tamed his wild.
“We must hurry to use the twilight,” Denton insisted. “Come, Beckett. Let us do this.”
“I like you,” he said, and kissed Daisy’s forehead. “This is what’s right for us.” He clasped her hand. “Come with me.”
And they strode after Denton toward the open land where the figment of the hunter’s lost lover stood. Behind them, the Saint-Pierre brothers stalked as a protective crew that bracketed Bella. Beck felt with everyone he cared about present, it had to be right.
Breaking a spell couldn’t do any more harm than he had already caused. Or so he hoped. It was Daisy giving up her wolf that frightened him.
Denton stopped and turned. Beck walked right up to him. The two assessed one another a moment. The man had killed in an attempt to save his lover. Selfish. And yet, Beck had come close to killing after his selfish request to become something that could scare mortal hunters. Perhaps they were more similar than he dared believe.
“Shift,” Denton requested. “And try to control yourself. If you take my head from my shoulders, I can be of no help to you.”
“Will it take long?” Beck asked as he toed off his boots and handed Daisy the coat he’d tied about his waist. Everyone present had already seen him naked, including his mother. “I don’t have much control over the ghost wolf.”
“I’ll begin immediately,” Denton said. “But she should stand back by the others. Manipulating magic can send off, er...sparks.”
Daisy nodded, and stepped back beside her brothers.
“Dude, I’ve seen your ass more times than a man should,” Trouble commented.
Beck flipped him off and turned to Denton. “All right, let’s do this.”
* * *
Daisy felt Bella’s hand slip into hers. She slid up close to the vampiress as they watched Beck shift to the ghost wolf. Blade swore quietly as the monstrous creature reached full height and howled at the settling night.
Instantly Denton began a chant before the werewolf. Palms up and mesmerizing the werewolf into his stare, the peller spoke a language Daisy had never before heard. Wasn’t Latin. She’d heard that enough times when around witches. Beck’s werewolf grew transfixed, as if the man’s words alone had bewitched him to a silent supplication.
An intense humming surrounded the two men and the snow stirred, whipping up around them. Daisy tightened her grip. Bella responded by whispering that all would be well.
“I hope so,” she said. “I love him too much.”
Bella smiled at her. “I know that feeling.”
Suddenly Denton’s body flew out of the snowy tornado, landing on the ground near the woman’s figment. She didn’t regard the goings-on, but merely stood there, as if against a wall, endlessly searching from another dimension.
Stryke took a step toward the fallen peller, but Blade stayed him.
And when the snow fell to the ground and Beck’s werewolf stood there, shoulders arched forward and huffing, he was no longer the ghostly white wolf but a brown-furred werewolf similar to her brothers.
Daisy ran for him, and as the werewolf turned and opened its maw to growl warningly, it instead caught Daisy against its chest and hugged her.
* * *
An hour later, when the hunter/peller had finally come to after being spit out during the breaking of the spell, he nodded as if he had done well, and wandered toward the woman trapped in the Edge. He put up his palms before her, but his hands moved through her figment.
Beck hadn’t let go of Daisy since he’d shifted back to human shape. Stryke had handed him a sweater and some pants. Bella had found the backpack with extra clothing Beck kept in his truck. He’d pulled on his pants, and then had grasped Daisy to his chest, never wanting to let her go.
“It worked,” she said against his chest.
“I hope so.”
“I know so. We won’t believe anything but. Promise?”
He nodded. “I feel...not so exhausted. Like the great drain of the ghost wolf is gone from me. But I wonder now what the faery whom I owed a favor to will think. Will she come after me?”
“We’ll deal with that if and when it happens. Now it’s my turn.”
“You sure you want to do this?” Beck asked. “You can still sacrifice your faery.”
“You said you’d like me as a faery.”
“I will. I just don’t want you to feel as though you ow
e Marx anything.”
“I don’t. I’m doing this for her.” She nodded toward Sencha. “And besides, I’ll always be bonded to you, no matter my form. I love you, Beck.”
* * *
Daisy saw surprising compassion in Denton Marx’s gaze. And she wasn’t mistaking it as a desperate greed to get at her werewolf. He was a man who had lost his lover in the worst way possible. Sencha was trapped in some sort of no-man’s-land that Daisy couldn’t begin to comprehend. But if Stryke had said he’d take Daemonia, the place of all demons, over the Edge, then it was worse than the worst.
She grasped the peller’s hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “I’m ready for this. Are you?”
He nodded. “I am truly sorry for the trouble I have brought to you and your family.”
“I understand, and I can forgive you. Like Bella said, it doesn’t mean I condone your actions, but I can see the reason you were driven toward killing.”
He winced when she said that word. “Let us begin.”
Beck stood beside her. Warmth radiated from his bare chest and sought hers beneath her coat. The guy needed more clothes, but as Denton had explained, this shouldn’t take long. She merely had to release her werewolf and invite her faery to stay. Then they could all go home.
And she and her bondmate could begin again.
Scanning her eyes across the waiting faces that stood thirty feet off by the vehicles, Daisy noticed that Trouble did not meet her gaze. He was disappointed she was sacrificing her wolf for the faery. Regret already made her shiver more with nerves than from the chill air. She loved being a wolf. But she hadn’t given her faery a chance and, as her mother had said, it was her feminine nurturing side.
Could she abandon the tomboy that she had been all her life and become something else? This was going to be an awkward transition, she felt sure. As Beck had said, she could sacrifice her faery. She didn’t need to help Denton by giving him her wolf. It just felt more right than anything. And if she had the power to save the trapped woman, then that was all that mattered.
“Will you step back beside the others?” Denton asked Beck.
Too late to back out now. Daisy nodded reassurance to Beck. Her lover kissed her, then whispered, “You can change your mind.”
“No, I’m good. I have to give up one or the other. And you did say you liked my wings?”
“Like them. Love them. Adore them.” He kissed her again. “I love you, faery wolf.” And he wandered over to stand beside his mother, who wrapped her arms across his middle and tilted her head against his shoulder.
Marx held a glass container about the size of a peanut butter jar, from which he removed a cork stopper. “Say the words I’ve told you, and I shall capture your werewolf essence.”
“So simple as that?”
He nodded, then shrugged. “As far as I know. Your werewolf is neither a curse nor a spell that I am able to break. I only have Sencha’s grimoire that I studied for reference to capturing an essence.”
He cast a look over his shoulder at the figment, who had wandered farther away, her head still bowed in sorrow.
“Right then.”
Daisy straightened her shoulders and spread out her arms as she’d been directed. She closed her eyes, and before speaking, said a silent thank-you to her werewolf. It was all that she knew and was comfortable with. It had served her well and made her strong. Strong enough to face this new and unsure future.
“I release my werewolf willingly and with grace. And I invite my faery to reside upon my soul ever after.”
The wind whistled through the trees. Snow swirled upon the ground, dusting up glittery whorls. The hush of Denton’s breath was all Daisy could hear beyond the pulsing of her heart.
When would it—?
Chest lifting, her arms flung backward. Daisy felt as if she were being tugged upward by an invisible cord. The life essence sparkled before her in the air. Her insides flamed, then cooled instantly. That which sparkled swirled toward the open jar Denton held and landed within. He capped the container and nodded.
And Daisy dropped her shoulders and glanced toward Beck. His hands were spaded before his mouth in a hopeful clutch. She nodded at him and smiled.
“I think it worked,” she said, though she didn’t feel different. Any more faerylike or less wolflike. “I—”
A raging storm of white moths suddenly swooped over their heads. It moved toward Daisy, and when she realized what was happening, she screamed to Denton to protect the essence.
The white faery had returned.
Chapter 33
At the sight of the crazed storm of moths, Beck shoved his mother into Blade’s arms and took off toward Daisy. Before he could reach her, the moths swirled in a tornado upon the ground and formed into the wicked white faery. The sidhe thrust out a hand toward him, which sent a bolt of moths against his chest. Felt like tens of thousands of volts pricking throughout his nervous system. Forced from his feet, Beck landed on the ground, but got up immediately and shook off the annoyance.
“You have reneged on our bargain, werewolf,” the faery called.
Behind her, Denton stepped protectively before Daisy.
Beck had cheated the faery out of her boon. But that would have required he ransom his wolf. Become merely human. Or give up his firstborn.
“There must be something you can ask of me,” he said, approaching cautiously. He wanted to get close enough to slip around beside the faery and grab Daisy to keep her safe.
“I wanted a werewolf! And I will have one.”
The faery spun into a swirl of moths so thick Beck could not see before him. The snowy clearing filled with moths. The swarm’s wings cut across his skin, drawing blood at his forehead and his bare chest. He heard his mother’s scream. The brothers swore. And when again the moths narrowed into a focused figure of the faery, they streamed toward Denton and the jar of Daisy’s wolf essence.
He would not allow Daisy’s sacrifice to be used in a manner she had not intended. She’d wanted to help the hunter reunite with his lost lover.
Denton tucked the jar inside his leather coat, but try as he might to hold it closed, the flaps of his coat flayed wide and the jar lifted out of the pocket.
“No!” Beck called.
Thanks to the distracting shout, the faery turned her attention to Beck, and Denton was able to grasp the jar.
“Take my wolf,” Beck called. He spread his arms wide. “It is only right you are granted the boon I promised.”
“Beck, no!” Daisy shouted. She tried to move toward him, but a wall of moths blocked her. “Don’t do this.”
He’d snagged the faery’s interest. Though she was not fully formed, her lower half busy with moths, he stood waiting as the sidhe moved toward him.
“It is a stronger, more vital wolf than that of the essence in that jar,” he coaxed. And really, he was no man if he didn’t live up to his bargains. For that, he knew his father would be proud. “Come take it if you dare.”
Beck felt the entrance of the faery magic through his pores as pinpricks boring deeply, seeking the source of his very being. His essence. His wolf. The one thing that he was.
Muscles tightening in a reactive defense against the rape of his essence, Beck’s fists formed and he thrust back his head to howl. His wolf cried out to the night, the howl long and unceasing. Crows stirred from the nearby trees, and a gray wolf a mile off answered the mourning howl.
And then it was gone.
Beck dropped to his knees. The storm of moths swirled about him, the wings scraping his skin raw. The fire of his werewolf had left his body.
Collapsing forward into the snow, he blacked out.
* * *
Beck woke. His head was nestled against something soft, warm and smelling like candy. Pink hair sifted over his face. A gentle hand stroked his cheek. It felt...safe. Loving. A teardrop splattered his mouth. He dashed out his tongue to taste the salted drop.
“Beck?” Daisy whispered. “You’re ba
ck?”
He groaned and tried to sit up, but his body felt as though it had been worked over by the Saint-Pierre brothers and their dad. So he merely tilted his head toward the pink heaven and nodded.
“He’s awake,” he heard Daisy say.
“Thank God.” His mother. She would never abandon her faith in the god she had worshipped as a human. Beck smiled. All was well? As good as it could be.
Then he realized he lay in the front of his truck, his head on Daisy’s lap. The heater was blasting.
“He’s good,” Daisy said to someone else. Probably a brother.
“Let’s head out,” Trouble announced. “Stryke, what’s the hunter up to?”
“Working with the spell,” Stryke confirmed. “I still think we should steal Daisy’s essence back for her.”
“Boys,” Daisy called out the truck window. “It’s over. I made a choice. The peller has what he needs to rescue the woman and go home. And Beck...” she ran her fingers through his hair, and Beck shivered and snuggled up closer “...is going to be just fine.”
Two days later
Just fine was a matter of opinion. Adjusting to his new human status was surprisingly bewildering. Beck had taken for granted simple things such as walking. While as a werewolf he had moved sinuously, with a grace he hadn’t to consider, this mortal body seemed to fumble upon the earth. And he felt the clothes upon his body as cumbersome and itchy.
And he couldn’t eat as much, which made him wonder if he’d grow thin and waste away. He’d only eaten a chicken leg, thigh, two wings and a breast tonight. Daisy had been surprised that he’d refused a second helping of red velvet cake.
They had made love for the first time since he’d become human this morning, tucked in his bed, snuggling together against the insistent cold. Man, did he feel the cold now. He could not walk outside without a shirt in this frigid weather.
And the sex. It had seemed the same to him. Spectacular. He and Daisy had kissed, hugged, touched, licked, stroked and...they’d both come a few times, as they usually did when making love.