Furbidden Mate

by Jessica Snow

  “And if you do figure out a way to get back to human form?”

  I’ll be the same age I was when I was transfigured. It’s not perfect, and it’ll depend on the skill of the spelluser or the type and amount of life forced used, but I’d have a normal human life span after that. Not that we need to focus on it, we need to focus on getting Mike back and you two prepared first.

  Kat nodded, looking at McKenzie, and McKenzie felt the bond between them, which had always been strong, grow. “Okay then, I’m going to go take care of the babies. Mom, I know there’s a lot we still need to talk about, but this is a good start. Thank you.”

  Kat walked away, leaving behind McKenzie and her mother. “So, what do you want to do now, Mom?”

  Now, young lady, we need to get you working on your own powers. If you want to be your niece and nephews’ self-appointed guardian, we need to be a lot stronger.

  For the first time in a while, McKenzie was not upset over the idea of doing some practice on her magic. Instead, she was looking forward to seeing if maybe by being with her family, she might have a little more control. “So, what do you want me to do?”

  This is a good time of day to work on light manipulation. Considering that your father’s being held by vampires, light could be your most potent weapon at hand. Look at the sunlight that is streaming through the pine branches. Now, I want you to focus on trying to bend it, see if you can make it look like it’s going sideways.

  “Any hints?”

  Reba tilted her head to the side and switched her tail back and forth. You normally don’t understand quite where I’m coming with my advice. But if you’re willing to try, the best advice I can give you is to not focus on changing the light, but focus on trying to change the air around it. Light magic and wind magic aren’t as different as you’d think.

  McKenzie muttered to herself, understanding only that her mother had given her another piece of difficult to understand advice. “Great. So, what you’re saying is, there is no spoon.”

  Something like that. Give it a try.

  McKenzie looked at one of the most visible streams of sunlight, which was dramatically piercing the space between two different pine trees with an almost laser beam-like focus. She understood what was making the light visible, it was the dust and pine pollen in the air, and she thought that maybe that was the key to trying to get the effect she wanted. She couldn’t close her eyes with this one, so instead, she shut off the rest of the world, her entire concentration going down to just that beam of light. She could start to feel the itch of the dust and pine on her skin, and she knew she was starting to make the connection that was needed in order to get the magic going. The light quivered, starting to almost wiggle back and forth, and McKenzie clamped down on her excitement. She wasn’t there yet.

  She could feel her mother’s eyes watching her, but McKenzie was so focused on trying to get the light to bend that she was caught off guard when a branch snapped behind her, and she turned a little squeal of fright coming from her pursed lips. It was Zack, who looked as cute as ever in his jeans and flannel shirt. Give it to Zack Lilly, when he went woodsman, he went all in. “Oh, Zack. You startled me. I like the lumberjack look.”

  Zack looked down at his shirt, shrugging. “It was something that was cheap. Do you have some time to talk?”

  McKenzie looked at Reba, who nodded and turned around. I think I’ll go check on my grandchildren too. Maybe I’ll see how Victoria is getting along with them. You two have a good talk.

  Reba walked off, and McKenzie watched her go before turning her attention back to Zack. “You know, for a cat, I think I’ve got a pretty good Mom. At least, I’ve heard of a lot worse.”

  Zack watched Reba disappear inside the cabin, nodding. “I guess you do. I don’t know if my mother would have come back to the house if she had gotten stuck in an animal form.”

  Zack’s face was so haunted by guilt and frustration that McKenzie stepped closer, looking into Zack’s eyes. They were so restrained, but also there was so much emotion in them it was even now a little overwhelming. It was probably the one thing that had held her back and made her overlook him for so long. He wasn’t like most of the other boys in her school, and she didn’t mean just the fact that he was a werewolf. Zack had always played things close to the chest, and his demeanor wasn’t the sort of cockiness that she had gotten used to. Then again, considering that she normally liked hanging out with older guys who didn’t feel the stupid teenage macho urges to show off all the damn time, maybe Zack always had been her type of guy. It just took the world’s weirdest set of circumstances to make her realize it. “Are you handling all of this okay? I know that I was away for a long time.”

  Zack looked like he was about to protest, maybe try to show off and say that he wasn’t as upset by everything as he should have been, but in the end, he just shook his head, chuckling. “You always were able to see past the bullshit, even back to that first party when we got to talk seriously for the first time. I guess I came out because I wasn’t sure about a lot of things.”

  “Like what?” McKenzie asked, reaching out and taking his hand. “Us?”

  “For a start,” Zack said. “Kenzie, you straight up disappeared for nine months. I guess I can understand why you’d want to go off, try and get control of your powers or whatever, but you didn’t even send me a text message that whole time.”

  McKenzie sighed regretfully. “Would it help if I said that I felt like crap the whole time, and one of the first powers I tried to get control on was astral vision? I wanted to check on you guys, and you were on my mind all the time. I just didn’t know how to approach you guys.”

  “Still McKenzie, I guess…” Zack said before squatting down, his face in anguish. “God, this is just so much. I’m trying McKenzie, I really am. But how in the hell am I supposed to be good pack beta, or even just deal with all this? We’re not even done with high school yet. Which, by the way, both of us are probably going to have to repeat the year, we’ve missed so many days. My parents would kill me if they knew, they always wanted me to go to college.”

  “Have you had a chance to grieve for them yet?” McKenzie asked, kneeling next to Zack. “When I thought my Mom had run out on us, one of the first things I had to do was allow myself to feel sad about. And pissed off, and all the other feelings that the shrinks say you’re supposed to feel when something like that happens. Tell me, what were they like?”

  Zack thought for a moment, then smiled. “They were wolves. I never did quite understand how the wolves ended up herding the sheep and cows like our family business was, but it worked. Dad was hard headed and arrogant, but there were times when I would be with him, and he would show me things. I was with him the first time I ever took down prey in my wolf form by myself, I was six years old and he was so proud of me. It wasn’t much, just a silly little jackrabbit, but listening to my Dad I might as well have taken down a whole elk by myself. And Mom, you know for a werewolf that woman sure loved to do baking. I think I spent at least three days a week before I started going to kindergarten with her in the kitchen, making cookies or pies or whatever she happened to have seen on one of her cooking channel programs. She was always more into trying to help Crystal get ready for being an alpha female, but I still had some good times with her too. Even at the end, one of the last happy memories I have of her is coming in and the two of us sharing a half of a mincemeat pie each, mounded over with whipped cream.”

  Zack’s shoulders trembled, and he balled his hands into tight fists and started pounding the earth in his helpless rage. Tears started flowing down his face, and McKenzie wanted to reach out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, but she knew that he had to get this out of his system by himself. “And then Crystal had to go and…!”

  Zack’s words were lost in a grunt of rage, and he almost leaped to his feet. Turning, he lashed out with his fist, punching a nearby pine tree so hard that the one-foot diameter trunk cracked and the tree started to fall. Thankfu
lly, it didn’t fall on the cabin. After the tree crashed to the ground, he stared at his hand, and McKenzie watched as the bones inside his shattered fist started to first realign before they knit and healed themselves. It was strange, and also very, very hot. “I didn’t know you were that strong.”

  Zack turned to her, his eyes glowing with his werewolf inner nature as well as his feelings for her. “I promise you, McKenzie. Give me time, and I’ll be just as strong as Liam. What I’m not going to be is as pigheaded or stupid as the rest of my family. I loved my father, but it was his spoiling of Crystal that led to her being the threat she is today. He let her get away with anything, and now the people I care for are in danger. The best I can hope for is to help fix the mess my family caused.”

  McKenzie stepped closer, putting her hand on his chest and running it up to cup his cheek. “I think you can hope for more than that, Zack.”

  Zack stepped closer, bringing his hands to rest on her waist. “You know I’ve been jealous of your sister ever since you came back. You told her that she was supposed to be your protector.”

  McKenzie smiled, looking into his face. “Well, that’s what the plan is. Why? You got somebody else in mind?”

  Zack nodded and pulled McKenzie in for a kiss. It had been nine long months for her, but it was just as sweet as it was the first time. For months, in her private moments when her mother was giving her free space, McKenzie had dreamed of him. The way his strong hands didn’t seize control, but rather supported and protected her, a gentle, quiet strength that wasn’t flashy or demanding, but solid and never-ending. Here it was again, and inside of her heart, McKenzie shouted for joy. His lips were like fire on hers, and as their kiss deepened, a deep fire traveled down her body to the pit of her stomach. She knew what she was feeling, and she knew what her sister had threatened to Zack with if they went any farther, but her body wanted him. She wanted to feel his strong muscles beneath her fingertips, she wanted to feel his lips and tongue in places that no person had ever touched her before. She could feel him growing against her belly, a hot, throbbing heat that made her feel more powerful than even at her strongest magical times. McKenzie ran her hand down his chest, but before she could touch what she wanted to touch so badly, they stopped as they heard an angered growl behind them.

  “You couldn’t even give me a chance, could you?” Carly said in a voice that trembled with rage. “You know, for nine months while she’s been gone, I’ve tried to be there for you, too. What’s she got that I don’t?”

  Zack let go of McKenzie regretfully, turning to Liam’s little cousin with a frustrated look on his face. “Carly, I’ve told you how many times it just isn’t that way between you and me! There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re a cute girl and you’re going to make some guy really happy someday, but I don’t feel that way for you!”

  Tears shimmered in Carly’s eyes as she looked at Zack with heartbreak. Turning to McKenzie, she growled. “I know what it is. You used your magic on him, it had to be. You take off for nine months, and then a day and a half after you get back, you’ve got him wrapped around your finger again. He’s not a puppy dog, he’s an alpha wolf!”

  McKenzie could feel her temper going, as she held up a hand when Zack tried to step forward in between them. “No. I can handle her myself. Carly, I didn’t do anything to Zack that you are trying to accuse me of. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t do that to him. You think it was hard for you for the past nine months? Try being in my shoes.”

  Carly’s eyes started to swirl with gold, and her voice deepened as her werewolf side started to come to the fore. “If you think the past nine months were hard, I’ll show you what hard is.”

  Carly jumped at McKenzie, and McKenzie raised her hand to push the girl away. She didn’t know where the words came from, but suddenly she felt the power flow down her arm and out towards the flying young teenage werewolf, catching her full on in the body. Carly froze in mid-air, twisting and turning as she started to rise. “Hey! What the fuck? Let me down!”

  McKenzie looked on in a mix of horror and amusement as Carly floated higher and higher. She wasn’t sure, but the girl might have floated all the way into the sky if it hadn’t been for a nearby tree branch, which she snagged and clung to for dear life. McKenzie cupped her hands and yelled up to her, trying not to laugh. “Carly! Are you okay?”

  Zack looked at McKenzie with concern. “Come on, let her down.”

  McKenzie blushed looking up at the squawking young teenage girl, who’d abandoned her werewolf side and was clinging to the branch in total fear. “I’d let her down, but I don’t know how I got her up there. I told you, I don’t have a lot of control over my powers. I was just trying to push her away.”

  Carly heard McKenzie’s comment, and looked down, her eyes big with fright. “So, I’m going to be stuck in this tree forever?!? What the hell, McKenzie? I was pissed off, but I wasn’t going to hurt you!”

  McKenzie shook her head and yelled back. “Usually when I do something like this, the magic wears off in about fifteen to twenty minutes. It’ll fade gradually, so you should start to feel yourself getting heavier. Can you hang on? I’ll go get my Mom if you want. She might be able to get you down faster with my help!”

  Carly shook her head, angry and embarrassed. “No, I think I made enough of a jackass of myself already once today. I’m sorry.”

  McKenzie felt sorry too, not for kissing Zack, but for almost sending Carly on a one-way trip to God knew how high in the air. If anything, it was proof that she needed all the practice she could get if she was going to be of any use at all in protecting her family or in getting her father back. Zack was looking at her with respect and even a little bit of fear on his face, but she can also see that he still was interested in her. “So… what now?”

  McKenzie shrugged and put her hand in Zack’s. “Well, after we get Carly down, I think I’d like to take a walk in the woods with my boyfriend. Just remember, no matter what, we’ve got to stop at second base. I don’t think anybody would get pissed off at me too much, but I don’t want to see what would happen if Liam and you got into it. At least, not with bad intentions.”

  Zack grinned. “So, you think I can take him?”

  McKenzie shrugged and looked up at Carly, thirty feet above their heads. “Tell you what, maybe when this is all finished, you two can work that out between yourselves. Also, later, I think I’ll have a girl talk with Carly. She is family, after all. How do werewolves do girl talk?”

  Zack shrugged. “You two were doing a pretty good job there. Lots are growling, yelling, not so much fur flying as normal. It’s quite entertaining to watch.”

  McKenzie laughed, feeling lighter and happier than she had in the past nine months. “You just want to watch two hot chicks have a fight over you, don’t you?”

  Zack grinned. “What guy doesn’t? Besides, I still need to show you that I could end up being your protector. But after Carly gets down, let’s just start with a walk.”

  Chapter 48

  Kat was washing up the last of the dishes from breakfast when her phone rang. It had been a frustrating week, with false lead after false lead panning out to nothing. There was no hint of her father anywhere, and things were starting to fall into a boring, even tense routine. Even now, while Carly, McKenzie, and Zack were gathered together to try and finish off what they needed for their GED’s, and Victoria watched her grandchildren, Ashley and Liam were out investigating another lead. That left Kat and Elizabeth to get some housework done. “Who is it?”

  Kat glanced at her cell phone, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw who it was. “Kevin? What the hell, I haven’t heard from him in weeks. What’s he want now?”

  Elizabeth put away the frying pan and tossed her towel over her shoulder. “You want me to handle it? I’m pretty good at telling him to piss off.”

  Kat shook her head, sighing. “No, he’s my pathetic ex-boyfriend. I’ll see what he wants. Hello, Kevin.”

  Kevin’s voice w
as whiny and grating, and Kat was immediately suspicious. He only sounded that way when he wanted something. “Hey beautiful, it’s been a long time. I just wanted to know… well, I sort of wanted to see how you guys were doing. You know, see if I can do anything to help out.”

  “Beautiful?” Kat asked, disbelieving. “When are you going to get it through your head, Kevin? You can try to kiss my ass all you want, but it’s not going to change anything.”

  “I’m not trying to hit on you,” Kevin said, obviously lying. “I just know that you guys have been having a lot of troubles. Hell, I don’t really remember a lot of it still, but I’m seeing names in the news and fires in places that I know are connected to you guys. I’m just trying to be a good guy I guess.”

  Good guy? You are so over the line late on that shit that I can’t even believe it came out of your mouth, she thought but kept her temper in check. He was pathetic, a waste of her time and her energy. The only reason she had picked up at all, was because she knew that somewhere inside of his head, Kevin knew about their secrets. “We’re doing fine, Kevin. Honestly, your presence here probably wouldn’t help things. Liam still wants to take a chunk out of your ass.”

  Kat could hear Kevin swallow in fear, and she knew that deep down, he remembered quite a lot about her mate. “Well, maybe I can bring you guys some supplies or something. Where are you guys holed up? You know, I figure I can bring by some groceries. That’s gotta help a lot, right?”

  Kat nearly laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of Kevin’s offer. The last time they’d talked, he’d still been living with his mother in her basement. And now he was offering to bring them groceries? “I don’t think so. We’re doing just fine in that regard, Liam still has plenty of money in his personal bank accounts. Besides, our dietary needs are well handled through our own personal efforts. Speaking of which, how do you like your freshly caught deer? I’ve got some leftover shank if you want it.”