Shattered Circle: The Witches Circle Book 3

by C. Larsen

  A boy steps forward, his curious eyes watching me.

  He’s young, maybe ten. I expect him to look down right away, like most of the pack has done so far, but he holds my gaze for a long time before finally glancing away. Despite the golden glow in his eyes, my wolf doesn't sense any threat from him, so I put a friendly smile on my face and say, "Hey, there. Max, right?"

  He nods, his shock of wild black hair sticking up all over his head.

  "What are you doing out here all by yourself?"

  "All my friends are in school." The gold fades to bright blue. Sadness enters his scent.

  "Why aren't you in school with them?"

  He hangs his head, kicking at the earth with the toe of his sneaker. "I was supposed to start school soon, after my birthday, but now Daddy and Nikolay say I can't go."

  "Your birthday's coming up?" I ask, pitching my voice excitedly, trying to cheer him up.

  He nods, peeking up at me. "In two weeks. I'm turning ten."

  "Wow, ten. That's pretty old."

  "Yeah, that's when all the kids get to go to school, but now I can't." He turns sad again.

  "Why not?"

  "Because I lost control." He whispers so quietly I have to strain to hear him.

  "Lost control? Oh, you mean of your wolf?"

  He looks down again, guilt and sadness permeating his scent. "Daddy says they won't let me start school until my control is better."

  "I see," I say. "Well, do you want to know a secret?"

  He looks up at me with wide eyes and nods his head.

  "I have trouble controlling my wolf, too."

  "Really?" he asks, the sadness fading from his scent.

  "Yup. And I'm almost twice your age."

  His mouth drops open into a little 'o'.

  "So, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Keep practicing, and pretty soon you'll have enough control to go to school."

  A huge smile spreads across his face, lighting up his blue eyes. I smile back, happy to have made him feel better.

  "I'm glad you're here," he says. "You'll be a good mate for Gray."

  My mouth drops open. "What? Me and Gray aren’t mating!" But Max's attention is focused behind me.

  "Here they come now." He bounces on his toes, grinning as Gray and an older burly man appear through the trees. "Hi, Gray! I was keeping her safe for you, just like you told me."

  "Good job, buddy," Gray says, ruffling his hair.

  "Meeting over?" I ask, the uncertainty from this morning flooding back to me. Gray never told me what the meeting was about, but I assume it was about the disastrous hunt last night. Maybe he’ll decide I’m too dangerous to keep around.

  Gray's eyes meet mine. He can scent my anxiety. "Yeah, Nikolay's talking to Madelyn and Vasily now," he says.

  I raise my brows, waiting for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He motions to the burly man behind him. "Emerson, this is Grant."

  Grant nods. "We met yesterday."

  "I remember," I say, trying to place him. He looks familiar, but I met so many people yesterday it's hard to keep track.

  "That's my daddy," Max pipes us.

  That's where I remember him from. He led Max away when he started asking questions about my mixed blood.

  "Grant's been appointed your unofficial guard whenever I'm not around," Gray says.

  "Guard? Why would I need a guard?"

  "It's just a precaution, luna, nothing to worry about.”

  "Is it because she can't control her wolf either?" Max asks. Both Gray and Grant whip around to look at him.

  "Who told you that?" Gray asks, voice sharp.

  Max hunches his shoulders at Gray's tone, staring at the ground.

  "I did," I tell them, bringing their focus back to me. "We were talking about how we're both having a little trouble with our wolves." Gray and Grant share a look.

  "No, that's not the reason," Gray says, glancing back at Max.

  "Time to get going, Max," Grant says, laying one huge hand on his shoulder. "We'll see you later Gray, Emerson."

  "Bye!" Max calls, waving to me as his father leads him away.

  I wait until they disappear from view before turning to Gray. "So, it's Grant’s job to make sure I don't hurt anyone if I lose control again?" I knew it. I knew Gray was just placating me. I'm going feral. Grant needs to keep the others safe from me.

  Gray sighs and rolls his eyes. "I'm starting to think you don't listen to a word I say..."

  "You just said Grant is my guard."

  "Yeah, Grant will be guarding you when I can't be with you. He's there to keep you safe."

  "Keep me safe? From what?"

  "From anyone who might think to hurt you. After Nikolay's little speech..." His voice lowers to a growl on the last word. "Well, let's just say he might have made you a target. If other packs find out that he thinks you’re the Chain Breaker, they could cause trouble."

  "You don't really believe him, do you? About me being able to break this curse? I mean, it's ridiculous."

  Gray studies me, face unusually serious. "I don't know, luna. I really don't. But it doesn't matter. Nikolay and Ivan believe that you are, and that's reason enough for another pack to come after you. Plus, a few packs in the area seem to be having some trouble with witches."

  "What kind of trouble?"

  "The kind of trouble that will mean retaliation. You're not just a werewolf, you're also a witch. With things the way they are right now, you need to be careful. We all do."

  I look at him incredulously. "The whole reason you were all pushing me to come to Ashwood to begin with was to keep me safe. Now you're saying I'm not safe here either?"

  "Darlin', it's not safe anywhere for you. Not with this war brewing. But at least here you have me and the pack."

  "And Madelyn and her coven," I say with a sigh. Though I hate to admit it, he's right. I'm safer here than I would be anywhere else. But I can’t help but worry for my friends back in Haven Hollow. They aren’t any safer than me. I should be there. I should be helping them to prevent this war.

  "Come on." Gray bumps me with his shoulder. "Grant is just a precaution. It's unlikely any of the other packs know about you. I just refuse to take any chances with your life."

  "You? This wasn’t Nikolay's idea."

  "Nope. He's arrogant enough to believe no other pack would dare trespass on his territory. He's probably right, but I'm not willing to take the risk."

  I stare out at the forest, lost in thought.

  "What's on your mind? Still worried about last night?"

  "You really don't believe I'm out of control? That what I did last night was normal?"

  "Em, how many times do I have to say it?" He gently tips my face up, his fingers under my chin. "There is nothing wrong with you. Don't let Madelyn or anyone else scare you into thinking there is."

  "You would tell me the truth?"

  "I'll never lie to you. I promise."

  I give him a half smile, still uncertain. "Sorry about last night," I say.

  His lips curl into a sexy smile. "I'm not."

  "I almost got you killed."

  "Yeah, but you more than made up for it." The glazed look in his eyes tells me exactly what he's thinking about.

  I blush, remembering how he carried me from the shower and held me all night.

  "Yeah, well don't get used to it. It was a one-time thing."

  "You're breaking my heart."

  "I'm sure you'll get over it."

  He laughs, eyes crinkling. I smile, too, but it quickly fades from my face, my mind still worrying over my conversation with Madelyn this morning.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks, reading my expression.

  I tell him about what Madelyn said. "What did she mean when she said, 'For your sake, I hope she’s wrong’?"

  Gray's brows pucker as he thinks. "I don't know, Ems. She was probably just referring to the fact that you're now a target for the other packs."

  "I don't know. It felt like i
t was more than that..."

  "We can go back and ask her if you want. She lives just outside town."

  “No, forget it. I doubt she'd tell us. She's already skittish around me. Waiting for me to go feral and rip her throat out or something."

  "Don't worry about her, luna. She’s never been very comfortable around weres', despite our alliance. Few witches are. Truth is, we don’t often have much contact with the coven, except for Vasily. He's sort of our go between."

  "Yeah, but I'm her granddaughter. I just thought maybe she'd be happy to see me, want to get to know me a little, I don't know..."

  My dad's words come back to me, 'your loving grandma didn't want anything to do with you.' For the first time, I wonder if he's right. Madelyn just discovered she has a granddaughter less than a month ago, and yet it seems as if she's done everything in her power to avoid me. I have no idea why. It can't just be her fear of me going feral; she was distant even before I made my change.

  Gray's warm hand settles on my knee. "Just give her some time. It's as new to her as it is to you. I'm sure she wants to get to know you. And if not, then it's her loss, lyubimaya."

  I give him a half smile, surprised at how easily he can make me feel better.

  “Now, I hope you had something to eat this morning, otherwise I'll have to force feed you the way you did me last night. You’re going to need your strength."

  "Forced? Ha!" I laugh. You were practically begging for it."

  "You have no idea." He gives me a roguish grin, then his expression sobers. "Come on, then. Let's head back. We have a busy day ahead of us." He drapes one arm casually over my shoulders and we walk back towards the manor.

  "Busy? With what?"

  "Training. We have to get you ready for the next hunt."

  Chapter 18

  The thought of going on another hunt anytime soon makes my blood run cold, but I have to remind myself that the faster I learn to control my wolf, the sooner I can get back home and find a way to ease tensions between the coven and pack.

  The first thing we work on is shifting on command. Just like last night, I struggle with it. It's a lot harder than I thought it would be, especially since I refuse to let my wolf out any more than necessary. After an hour of trying on my own, kneeling naked and shivering outside behind a clump of bushes, Gray comes over to me and helps me through it like he did before, calling my wolf out and helping her make the change.

  After the painful transformation, I spend a few minutes catching my breath before following Gray through the forest. I'm nervous at first, afraid he'll want me to hunt down a deer or something, but he seems content to just run along beside me, play-fighting every now and then.

  Dead leaves crunch underfoot, surrounding us in their damp, earthy scent. The remaining leaves still clinging tenaciously to the trees are painted in hues of bright orange and deep crimson, dazzling in the filtered sunlight. We run deeper and deeper into the forest, morning gradually morphing into afternoon. What begins as a fun little jaunt through the woods soon turns into a test of endurance. The colorful leaves and beautiful forest vistas lose their appeal after the first hour. Now I simply concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. My muscles scream at me, lungs about to burst.

  We reach the top of a rocky outcrop overlooking a river when I decide I’ve had enough. I flop down onto the rough stone, too tired to move. Gray continues on for another twenty feet before realizing I’m not following anymore.

  *Don't tell me you’re tired already? We've only been running for a few hours!* His laughter rings mockingly in my mind.

  *You may be some kind of super mutt who never tires, but I've reached my limit. I'm done. I can't go any further.*

  He trots back to me, his steps annoyingly lithe as if he could do this all day, and I'm betting he can. Annoying, energizer-bunny werewolf...

  *Fine. We'll take a break before heading back.* He sits down on his haunches next to me and yawns. *But tomorrow we'll run twice as long.*

  *Twice as long! You can't be serious? I can't run that long!*

  *Sure you can, you just need practice. The pack runs twelve hours straight when we're on patrol, and if you do something to piss off Nikolay he'll make you run doubles. Now, that is tough!*

  *Twelve hours of running?* How can anyone run for twelve hours? These werewolves are insane...

  *When we get back, we'll work on some fighting techniques,* he says, watching my expression.

  A groan works its way up my throat and I roll over onto my back. *Fighting? Can't we do that tomorrow? I'm so tired...*

  *Nope, sorry. We have a lot of material to cover before you'll be up to scratch. Cheer up, luna,* he says when I groan again. *Don't you want to put Josh in his place the next time he messes with you?*

  *Hmmm, that's an interesting idea... alright, fine.* I roll to my feet. *Let's get started.*

  The run back is even more agonizing, but I make it, feet dragging. As we get close to the manor, Gray stops and sniffs the ground.

  *Something wrong?* I ask.

  *Do you smell that?*

  I sniff the ground, wrinkling my nose at the acrid smell. *It seems familiar.*

  *Well, what it is?*

  *How should I know?* I snap at him, fatigue making me irritable.

  It's hard to read emotion on a wolf's face, but if I had to guess at his expression, I'd say it was amused. *Well, you were wearing her dress all last night at dinner...*

  *Isabel?* I ask blankly, almost too tired to care.

  Gray nods. *Your nose is one of your most important tools. Everything and everyone has a unique scent. While most humans’ noses aren't strong enough to detect much, a werewolf's nose is as sharp as a blood hound’s, especially when we're in our wolf forms. As a human, tracking someone by scent will be a bit more difficult, but still possible. Since your change, I'm sure you’re already aware that your senses have sharpened: sight, hearing, and most of all, smell. But even though you can detect scents more easily now doesn't mean you know what you're smelling. You have to connect what you smell to what it actually is. We'll start with people. You met Isabel yesterday, even wore her dress to dinner, so your wolf should have automatically registered her scent. I'm surprised you couldn't immediately place it.*

  I huff out a breath. I've been a werewolf for all of five minutes. How does he expect me to already be able to detect the scent of someone I met once?

  Irritated, I take another whiff of the ground in front of me. *I smell something similar to the scent of the dress, but there's something else mixed in it.*

  Gray's mouth opens in the approximation of a wolfy grin. *Good. That's good. It usually takes pups a bit of time to pick up on nuances of mood.*

  *Mood?*

  *When Isabel came through here last night she wasn't very happy. That’s what you’re picking up on. Now that you know her scent, I want you to track her,*

  *Track her where?*

  *Back to her house. Her scent trail’s fresh. You shouldn't have much trouble.*

  Despite Gray's assurance, tracking Isabelle takes me a long time. I keep losing her scent and am forced to backtrack to pick it up again. Several times Gray has to point me in the right direction, and I even get turned around at one point and spend ten minutes going in the wrong direction before I realize my mistake. Through it all, Gray is amazingly patient, though I catch him trying not to laugh a few times. By the time I finally make it to Isabel's house, Gray seems to have adopted a permanent smirk on his muzzle.

  *So...I guess it's fair to say we're going to need some work on this...* I growl deep in my chest and snap my teeth at him, which just makes him chuckle. *So that's how it's gonna be, huh?*

  Getting into a fighting crouch, Gray begins stalking toward me, play growls rumbling up his throat.

  *Oh no, you don't!* I try to make a run for it, but he's on me before I can turn. I roll a few times trying to get out from under him, but he pins me on my back, his teeth pressed against my throat.

  *Too easy.
* He steps back to let me up.

  As soon as he's off me, I lunge again, this time grabbing hold of his foreleg. I try to trip him, hoping to knock some of the arrogance out of him, but he maneuvers easily, slipping out of my grasp.

  I growl in frustration. Before I attempt yet another failed attack, Gray steps forward and says, *Here, let me show you.*

  I watch warily, expecting a trick, but instead of attacking, Gray leads me through the proper techniques for lunging and dodging, showing me the weak points to aim for on an opponent’s body. Then he has me practice on him. The first few times I don't use enough force to take him to the ground, but on my fifth try, something shifts inside of me, an otherness rising up and settling in my bones. I suddenly know exactly where to place my paws and how to angle my jaws to get the best hold. I lunge for Gray's throat, slamming him to the ground with enough force to rattle his teeth.

  *Perfect!* He grins, tongue lolling out. *Try it again, this time I'm going to try to dodge.*

  I step back and take a breath, allowing the otherness to fill me again and sharpen my senses. When I attack this time, a subtle shift in Gray's stance alerts me to which way he's going to step and I immediately alter my attack to intercept him, pinning him to the ground again.

  *Excellent! You're finally letting her in. Good job.*

  He takes up another defensive position, but instead of attacking, I sit back and cock my head at him. Letting her in? My wolf? That’s what that strange feeling was?

  I take an instinctive step back, struggling to regain control, forcing her back down inside.

  *No, no. It's a good thing! She was teaching you.*

  *I don't want her to teach me.* I take another step away.

  *Em,* he groans. *You have to stop fearing your wolf. She's not going to hurt you.*

  *I'm not afraid of her hurting me. I'm afraid of her hurting you.*

  He sighs, watching me back up even further. *Madelyn is an idiot for scaring you,* he grumbles.

  I don't bother arguing with him. He doesn't have mixed blood. He isn't in danger of going feral. He can't possibly understand.

  *Come on,* he says, shaking his head in defeat. *It's time to head back anyway.* He leads me back to the place we left our clothes and we shift back.