Lion Shifter

by Lucia Ashta

  I was bound, useless, and cut off from my shifter magic.

  My mage magic.

  That was it. Our only possibility. A fickle, unstable power I’d only managed to access once before, totally by accident, and never since.

  Our chances sucked, but at least now we had one. It was a long shot, but a shot nonetheless.

  I’d do this or I’d die trying. There was no in between.

  “I think the power transference will be more effective if we do it with a conscious shifter,” Jevan was saying, and every man swung his focus onto me. I hurried to school my features into defeated terror—easy enough to do—before they suspected something was up, that I had a plan.

  “You think?” Rage said, his eyes on me though he spoke to the sorcerer. “The boy is probably more powerful than she is.”

  “Yeah, I think. I’ve never done this before. It’s rarely done, for obvious reasons. Most people don’t want to lose their power.”

  But this wasn’t just about Ky and I losing our power. These asshats had decided to steal our lives too, when it apparently wasn’t necessary. That’s just the kind of awesome dudes they were.

  “You came to me because I’m one of the best dark sorcerers there is,” Jevan said, and I struggled to match the scrawny man with the choppy haircut and creepy looks to the best of anything. “I can do this, I’m sure of it. So do you want me to or not? I’m ready. The only one wasting time now is you.”

  Rage’s shoulders visibly tensed beneath his short-sleeved t-shirt. I was certain no one talked to the head honcho shifter like this. Maybe I’d get lucky and Rage would kill Jevan before he could complete the spell. The way his eyes vibrated with anger, his mouth curling in a vicious sneer, it was definitely possible.

  It appeared that Jevan arrived at the identical conclusion. “I’ll start with the girl,” he said hurriedly. “I’ll be able to feel her power as it streams through to Fury since she’s awake. Maybe by then the brother will come to.”

  I shivered in the chill of the night. It wasn’t quite spring, and the nights in the desert were still cold. The ground beneath me radiated the chill through every part of my body. But the shivers that racked me now had as much to do with the disinterest with which the sorcerer spoke of taking our lives as it did with the temperature.

  “Where do you need ‘er?” Rage asked.

  “Let me set up my circle of energy first. I’ll link the elements with my ingredients and build the base of the spell. But once I do, I won’t be able to give you instructions. I’ll be linked into the circle too. So watch for my nod. When I signal, roll her into the circle. Do not step inside it, or you’ll screw everything up. Nothing else can touch the circle once I start.”

  “And Fury?”

  “I’ll nod again when I’m ready for Fury. He can step inside the circle and sit directly across from the girl.” Though Fury was standing right there, Jevan addressed his alpha. “He’ll need to walk in barefoot and place his palms against the earth. We need to be strongly connected to the earth element to pull on her strength.”

  It seemed wrong that someone preparing to perform such foul magic should speak so reverently of the earth. He obviously respected the elements and his magic, he just didn’t respect life. At least not ours.

  Jevan kicked off his shoes, pulled off his socks, rolled them and neatly tucked them inside his shoes, which he set several feet behind him. His care for his effing socks and shoes pissed me the hell off, shaking me up and loosening the uncontrollable shivers that had hold of me. Surely the men had noticed my discomfort, but not one of them offered me a layer of warmth. To them, I was dead already.

  Finally, the sorcerer faced Fury. “You don’t have to do anything once you’re in the circle other than keep your hands and feet against the earth at all times. The girl’s power will go directly into you as I guide it. As long as you don’t do anything to interfere with the transference, you’ll get what you came here for.”

  Fury nodded with a glance at me, but he quickly looked away in the manner of someone struggling with his guilt. Still, he wasn’t feeling badly enough to stop what was about to happen, so I’d still kill him if I got the chance. The world was messed up enough without creatures like these in it.

  “Any final questions?” Jevan asked Rage and Fury. “Or should I get started?”

  A rock slid somewhere in the distance, and Rage, Fury, and the rest of the posse whirled to check it out. I waited, my heart beating in my throat, hoping it was a rescue team.

  But nothing but the deep silence of the night emerged from that direction, and finally Rage turned back to Jevan. “Must’ve been a wild animal. Start. We’ll make sure nothing interferes.”

  “Good. Complete silence from here on out,” Jevan said as he rose.

  I grinned for a quick second. If all it took to throw off his spell was an interruption or two, that I could do. I’d wait until the spell was close to complete, and then yell out so that he’d either have to start all over again, or abandon it entirely. I had no idea how a transference spell worked, but if silence was important, I’d give him its opposite.

  “Gag her,” Rage ordered one of his men, and I whipped my gaze up to his. Triumph shone from his eyes as I realized I’d revealed my thoughts on my face.

  How could I have been so stupid? Finally I’d had an advantage and I’d messed it up.

  “No,” I cried out as a small mountain of a man knelt beside me and reached across my face with a long piece of cloth. “No!” I thrashed my head every which way, but a second beast joined the first and held my head still with hands strong enough to crush my skull. The pressure of his fingertips against my cranium was powerful enough to freak me out. He was hurting me! I’d never felt more fragile in my life.

  The other shifter dropped the cloth in my mouth, wrapped it around my head, tangling it in my hair, and cinched it tight, pulling clumps of my hair into the knot. My eyes watered and I gagged against the cloth, trying to cough and failing. I breathed heavily through my nose, pulling in the scent of old, dusty rag. Yuck.

  But then Jevan started his spell and I couldn’t tear my eyes from his slight frame as he laid his ingredients around him in a large circle, muttering under his breath so softly that I thought he must not want the shifters to hear. I caught snatches of words—magic, power, shifter, cost, and references to elements and ingredients.

  I followed his movements as he placed each one of the small pouches on the ground with care, peering at them to make sure they were equidistant. If one of the pouches contained the bone marrow of a poor dwarf, what the hell did the others hold?

  My breathing was coming too fast and too heavy over the gag when I felt power building within the circle a few feet away from me. Get your act together, Rina. It’s now or never.

  With a final look at Ky, who remained unmoving in the precise spot where Fury had unceremoniously deposited him, I closed my eyes and worked to push the hushed mutterings of the freaky sorcerer away. When that didn’t work, I steeled my nerves and reached for the powers that had eluded me since last term.

  Glowy, goopy mage magic, I need you now.

  I reached deep within me, hoping to find it like I’d never hoped for anything before.

  18

  When the sorcerer ceased his mumbling and placed the final pouch on the ground, completing the circle, energy blasted outward in a wave strong enough to slide me back across the rock a few inches. It whisked across my prone body, temporarily warming my skin. But as it passed, it left behind a chill far worse than that caused by the bite in the late night air. The spell Jevan was building was powerful; I had no doubt it would accomplish what he said it would.

  I threw a final frantic glance at our surroundings, twisting my head against the rough rock, my hair pulling with every desperate movement. But beyond the sage brush, Juniper trees, cactuses, and an array of other prickly plants, I spotted nothing that could help us.

  Though it went against every one of my instincts, I closed my ey
es. I wouldn’t be able to focus with the stares of the sorcerer and nasty shifters, with the view of my brother’s slumped body. Once I’d blocked them out, I immediately attempted to reach for my mage power. But when I searched, I struggled to move past the reality of my circumstances. They were too damning, too overwhelming, and devastatingly stacked against me. A seed of a defeated sob bounced around deep inside me a bit too much like a death rattle.

  Tears burned behind my eyelids. I couldn’t do this. What I was trying was freaking impossible! I was reaching for magic I wasn’t even sure I had when that effer Jevan was minutes away from killing me just for funsies. Mages studied a lifetime to properly control their powers. The Magical Arts Academy was an entire school set up to teach mages how do to what I was trying to do on the fly.

  I sucked in air around my gag, working to calm myself. It only seemed to accentuate my desperation. I was bound, gagged, and collared. I was fucked!

  Huge, strong muscled arms swept under my body and I squeaked against the gag. My eyes flew open, and I stared up into the determined, furious planes of Rage’s face. Far too soon, I was airborne. Instead of rolling me, he tossed me over the circle. I landed on my side with a loud snap that rang out into the otherwise silent night.

  I winced against the onslaught of pain. My eyes watered, and I began to breathe too heavily through my nose. The mother-freaking-effer had broken my arm. I had no idea what part of it had snapped, since the entire damn appendage was blazing like the fires of hell, or wherever bastards like this went once they died—hopefully after a slow and pain-filled death. With my arms bound behind my back, and torturous tingles racing everywhere, all I could determine for sure was that my body was broken.

  And yet, the searing pain zoomed right past my frantic, harried thoughts to deliver pure, blessed clarity—or at least as much of it as I could access through the multiple avenues of pain. The asshole had just given me the edge I needed. I’d get us free and kill him. Twice.

  Jevan’s eyes were wide but he didn’t stop. His mumbling resumed, and this time his attention was directed at me. He was working to link me into the foundation he’d laid for his spell.

  I clenched my eyes shut and got to work. What had I done to bring about the glowy, goopy magic that first time? I hadn’t understood much then, and any helpful memories of that day a semester ago were beyond my reach now. No matter. I’d find another way.

  If my shifter magic was an inherent part of me, inherited from my mother along with the rest of her genetic coding, then my mage power should be the same. Passed on through my father’s lineage, it should be an essential part of me in the same way my mountain lion was. The more I connected with my lion, the more I discovered that she was always with me. Even if I didn’t reach for her, she was just beneath the surface of my human form. She was a part of me, as essential as my heart and lungs.

  My mage magic should be the same, woven into the fabric of my very being. All I had to do was identify it.

  My breathing was ragged, condensation gathering on the rag, moistening it. The breath I sucked in didn’t quite fill my lungs. My left arm throbbed from fingertips to shoulder, the pain radiating into my neck and clavicle. My legs were numb to the point of agony. And I’d never been colder in my life.

  Yet I managed to push the physical sensations away. Mind over matter. The discomfort receded, not enough to afford me true relief, but enough that I could focus beyond the limitations of my body.

  My mage magic was almost certainly linked to my body, but a greater part of it must be connected to my mind, heart, and spirit. I envisioned calmness settling across me, filling me, and I reached for whatever made me a witch: the ability to create a different reality from what would have otherwise existed without my magic. What within me allowed me to manipulate reality and shift it? Where would that power be?

  Bare feet padded near me, followed by a faint shuffling as Fury claimed his seat in the circle and slapped the palms of his hands against the rock.

  I swallowed my fear and pressed onward. Where did I feel my power? Where was the magic hiding from me?

  I scanned my mind and quickly abandoned the search. Panic was all I encountered there. I reached for my heart and spirit, whatever it was that distinguished me from the rock beneath me and gave me life, able to interact with the world and adjust its outcome. My heart beat steadily at what was likely twice its average speed, but I didn’t sense anything unusual there. I moved outward toward my essence, toward that feeling of true me-ness.

  There.

  My heart thudded and I gasped, though around the gag I suspected my captors wouldn’t notice. I’d found it, or at least I thought I had. There, mingled with everything I identified with my true self—my dreams, passions, fears, and longings—was a spark of something so powerful and so alive that it had to be it. It had to be magic. It was alive, and though it was an innate, deep part of me, it also felt apart from me, as if it were something with its own essence and identity.

  Hot tears burned behind my eyelids, this time from relief. Before I could think that I had no idea what to do with this magic now that I’d found it, I reached for it, extending my consciousness toward it. I pictured my essence, my energy, reaching for this intangible magic. I extended an invisible hold and enveloped the mage magic in my grateful embrace. I held it against my center like a treasure and sighed as its warmth spread from my core outward to my limbs.

  Okay. Now all I had to do was use the magic to break the zip ties limiting my movements and break the collar around my neck that prevented my shift. With any luck, much of my broken arm would heal once I shifted, and I’d be able to free Ky and get us out of here.

  I hesitated. Even whole and healed, I was no match for Rage or Fury, not to mention the dark sorcerer and the hulky minions. I couldn’t rely on my newly discovered witchiness to fight them. They outnumbered and outpowered me a gazillion to one.

  My better bet was Ky. He at least wasn’t injured, and he was far stronger and more capable of fighting them off than I was. If I could manage to snap off his collar, then he might be able to shift and break free of the zip ties just by transforming. The proportions of our lions were so different than those of our human bodies, there was a chance the zip ties would simply slide off after his shift. Of course, Ky was unconscious, but maybe I could, you know, zap him awake.

  Oh my God. My plan had holes in it the size of Texas. If I pulled this off, it’d be the biggest underdog win in all of history.

  Jevan’s mumbling rose in volume until I could make out some of the words—none of them encouraging—before they escalated into a crescendo that felt all too final as it rang out into the night.

  I was out of time. I scrambled to clench the mage magic in my hold and aim it at Ky. In my mind’s eye, I pictured the collar around his neck popping open. Just like that, pop. But just as I was about to fling my magic in his direction, Jevan’s magic—dark and insidious—reached inside me to mingle with my own.

  No! No, no, no.

  Greedy claws raked through my etheric body, searching for my shifter power. I felt Jevan’s spell land on my mage magic first, and I snatched away my father’s ancestry, holding it with an iron will. I would not let Jevan take all of my magic, and since he wasn’t aware that I was a dual mage-shifter—you know, since they weren’t supposed to exist—I had a chance at keeping it. I clutched my witch power with the entirety of my determination … leaving my shifter magic wholly exposed. I wasn’t sure I could protect both, and I didn’t dare release my focus from my mage powers to test my abilities.

  I sensed the instant Jevan’s spell alighted on my shifter power. My mountain lion reared inside me in protest, kicking and clawing from the start, fighting to overcome her invisible opponent. My heart wrenched when she roared, her protest reverberating inside me, shaking my core, though I doubted the sound extended beyond my being. It felt as if she looked to me for aid, and my heart broke as I accepted that I couldn’t help her. I was abandoning her when she needed me
most, and I was going to lose her because of it. I threatened to break entirely right then … but no, I had to fight on.

  She snarled and whipped her head around in a frenzy, but Jevan’s magic was drawing her out, dragging her out from my being.

  I’m so sorry, girl. I’m so incredibly sorry. If there’s any way to get you back, I promise you I will. I’ll fight for you with everything I have.

  I was a hypocrite. I was choosing to play it safe and keep my mage magic rather than fight for her now and risk losing both. After this, there might never be another chance. In fact, it was pretty much guaranteed.

  My lion was about to lose her fight. I had to seize my chance. I had no idea what losing my lion might do to my mage magic, but surely it’d do something. My shifter and mage powers were deep parts of me; certainly the loss of one would spin the other into some sort of imbalance. I couldn’t guarantee that I’d be able to use my mage magic at all after losing her.

  I put the entirety of my witch powers behind my vision of Ky’s collar snapping, the blast of magic waking him so he could fight our opponents. Then, before it was too late, I shoved every last bit of my mage magic into my intention … and released it like a loaded exhale, sending it out, aimed straight for my brother.

  I lost my focus. I had no idea whether it had worked or not. My lion was mostly freed of my etheric body, hanging from her claws as if draped over an abyss. Without thinking, I lunged for her, directing tendrils of my mind to latch onto her, to give her a hand to hang on, to return to me, to win this fight with the dastardly sorcerer.

  But as I reached for her, my desperation fueling me to grab her in time, she slipped. Her claws grasped thin air. Her golden copper eyes seared into my being until they faded away, along with the rest of her. I hoped the betrayal I’d felt from her had been a product of my guilty imagination, since this had all played out in my internal vision, but I wasn’t so sure. I’d failed my lion, and chunks of my already broken heart flecked off as she vanished from my senses entirely.