I wasn’t sure exactly what he was talking about, but nodded anyway. “Sometimes I think our fates change with the wind, you know.”
Keagan snorted. “You have no fucking idea how true that is. No fucking idea.”
9
Keagan
Despite the exhausting day, once I slid into the sleeping bag in Bodhi’s tent, I still couldn’t sleep. I lay in the darkness, aware of him twisting inside his own bag nearby and wished I had some insight into the turmoil going through his head. It might help me understand my own tangled thoughts. Or at least help ease the guilt I felt over the calm certainty that he and I could not be each other’s answer.
I’d felt the magic in the room at his house when we’d spoken to his grandmother and her new husband a couple days earlier. Bonds like that were not common among humans, but they were among the higher races, and the power that was produced through a soul-mate bond was hard to deny. You couldn’t force it, no matter what Sophia North said the fate hounds were capable of.
I’d been a fool to try, but the pain of losing Rohan to Deva—hell, who was I kidding? The pain of having her within my grasp but slip away made me desperate. Desperate and dumb. But perhaps it wasn’t so bad after all. I’d barely noticed the soul drain since leaving the house. I still had no idea whether Ozzie and Llyr had had any luck hunting down the hounds. Maybe they’d found them and dealt with them. Maybe that’s why the pain of that power drain was faint enough that the ache of a different emptiness was all I felt.
Being inside a new lover had only distracted from that sensation briefly. I had the feeling if I woke Bodhi up now for another round, he’d be game, but only because he needed the distraction as much as I did. The truth was, I didn’t know how to function without a partner. Maybe Bodhi could fill that particular void if we were on the same page about our goals. That was probably the biggest mistake I’d made with Rohan—simply assuming he understood that our partnership wasn’t just about scratching an itch. It was about being able to collectively offer the best potential match to a mate. Together. I just wasn’t built to pursue a female on my own. Even in the midst of that one epic fuck I’d shared alone with Deva, I’d known it would be better for us all if we were sharing.
I had no idea what would come of this escape. Bodhi and I had something that could work, and I didn’t get the impression he was into this for more than the sex anyway. Maybe tomorrow when my head was clearer in the light of day I could broach the topic. Set the ground rules I never got around to stating with Rohan. And try like hell to work together to get Deva out of our systems and move the fuck on.
Besides, if that magic he’d produced was any indication, Bodhi’s blood was rich with higher races essence. If there was even a trace of ursa in him, he’d probably be a better partner than Rohan ever was.
The constant churn of thoughts were so loud, I somehow missed the sound of Bodhi leaving the tent. It wasn’t until I heard the resonant pluck of guitar strings outside that I turned over and realized he wasn’t there. I guess I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping.
He was a true musician. Even though the song he played was that ridiculous “Save Your Soul” song he’d played by my bedside, he managed to switch it up just enough that I didn’t hate it. In fact, with him singing it that way, with a slightly reggae beat, I actually kind of liked the damn song. And as much as I hated the idea of it, the lyrics fucking hit me. Hard.
Giving up on ever sleeping, I crawled out of the tent and plopped down in the camp chair with a groan.
“Sorry, man,” Bodhi said. “I’ll play something else.”
“Nah. That one’s irritatingly appropriate. I’m gonna have it stuck in my goddamn head anyway, so you may as well play it.”
He began plucking strings again, his gaze shifting inward to that place singers go when they draw the magic of the song forth and make it real. I shifted out of my seat to grab a fresh chunk of firewood to rebuild the bed of coals in the fire pit.
And froze.
Every hair on my body stood on end at the eerie purple shimmer that caught my eye through the trees. I dropped the log halfway into the coals and lifted my hand to silence Bodhi. He didn’t say a thing, to his credit, but stopped playing and turned to look in the direction of my swift head tilt.
“Fuck me,” he muttered under his breath. “Is that the one that bit you?”
I crouched low, staring at the beast that lurked in the shadows beyond our campsite. Its purple eyes bled faint trails of iridescent blue fire, and somewhere inside my mind, I heard its low, rumbling growl.
“No, but it’s just as fucking big.” I’d have known the hound that bit me, if I were faced with it again.
I’d gone out into that studio with one mission—to get bitten. But when I opened the door I found not two fate hounds, but three. The two smaller ones were still caged, but a third had joined them and was crouched just outside the cage peering in, making strange crooning noises as though to calm its traumatized young. At first it hadn’t reacted badly. It looked at me with pleading eyes. It didn’t communicate with words, yet its stark desire that I free its young had been as plain as if it had spoken. I’d refused. Told it that it had to mark me first. Its confusion and hesitance was palpable, like a bubble of resistance, but I pushed, and pushed, taunting it and threatening it until finally it let out a frustrated roar and gave in.
The second it had knocked me to the ground, I knew that between the two of us, I was the monster. I was the one forcing an otherwise passive creature to act outside its nature. I’d seen the agony in its eyes just before it freed its pups and ran.
Whether or not that attack had been a death sentence I wasn’t sure. I may have been able to survive the damaged soul and the existential pain that tormented me. But staring into the eyes of blue fire that hovered in the shadows now, I knew my true executioner had come calling, and it was not the creature I’d begged to mark me before. This hound was a new one, and I saw nothing but death in its eyes.
As its gaze flicked between me and Bodhi, I knew I wasn’t the only target.
The second it leaped I was already lurching out of my seat.
“Get behind me!”
I charged past Bodhi, bending swiftly as I passed to grab the end of the flaming log that lay in the fire. The hound sailed through the air, aiming for the spot where Bodhi had just been, but he had just managed to scramble back, his foot getting hung up in his chair for a second before he toppled over.
“What the fuck?” His guitar made a dissonant sound of splintering wood and twanging strings.
I swiped the fiery log through the air at the beast as it arced toward me. Its yelp was less a sound than an impression in my mind, like some psychic ear I possessed was all that could hear it. The log passed straight through it like it was air, and yet its body torqued as a flaming spot appeared in its side, flaring bright then darkening as a piece of it burned away like a spark hitting a sheet of parchment.
It landed several feet away and circled, teeth bared and glowing purple saliva dripping. The hole in its side gaped darkly, displaying nothing but the night beyond the campsite, but as I crouched and stepped sideways around the fire, the hole began to close.
When I reached Bodhi I stuck my hand out to help him up, never removing my gaze from the hound. He accepted, rising with his hand still clutched around the busted neck of his guitar, the rest of it dangling from the strings like the body of a broken bird.
“It’s going to charge again, dude,” I said. “I think it’s taking our measure. Fire hurts it, but it heals fast. What’ve you got?”
I darted a look at him, keeping the log pointed at the hound. The end had been flaming a moment ago but now was nothing more than a glowing ember. I doubted it would be enough.
“One sec . . .”
The hound’s eyes tracked Bodhi and it tensed as he reached for one of the discarded towels.
“Don’t you fucking look at him, asshole,” I snapped, taking another step and brandish
ing my glowing stick at the beast. Its lip curled back and the strange growl vibrated inside my skull like a swarm of bees had taken up residence.
I heard a sharp plinking sound and Bodhi’s guitar landed in the fire. Then heard sounds of tearing cloth and the potent scent of whiskey hit my nose. A second later the sharp woof of something flammable catching fire and Bodhi was beside me with a bright torch made from the broken neck of his guitar.
“That’s a fucking shame,” I said.
“I guess we’ll never find out if it was a Jewel fan, will we?”
“Maybe it wasn’t a Jewel fan but let’s see how it likes Warren Zevon,” I said, gripped with the crazy urged to sing at the beast. The damage it had taken healed quickly so we needed something more than torches. If the others responded to music, maybe this one would too.
I smacked a familiar beat on my chest with my free hand and Bodhi instantly caught on, belting out an energetic rendition of “Werewolves of London” as I hurried to rebuild my torch from the scraps of towel and discarded guitar strings.
The song seemed to stall the beast for a moment, but after the first verse, its teeth snapped and it shot toward us again.
“I got this, light yours up. Hurry!” Bodhi lunged at the creature, his torch swinging. The hound was huge—nearly as big as I’d be if I shifted—but that made it an easy target and Bodhi’s torch smacked it along its jaw just as its teeth snapped shut within an inch of his arm. He danced backward, kicking over one of the chairs and circling the fire while the beast backed off and stalked in an arc again. One of its eyes burned red-orange, then faded to black nothingness.
“It’s not too smart is it?” Bodhi said.
“I have a feeling it’s not used to people fighting back. We aren’t supposed to see them, remember?”
We took turns dancing with the beast, singing about werewolves, complete with the chorus of howls between each verse. It was those moments when the hound seemed to twitch and falter the most, the only signal that the music had any effect.
But despite the confusion, it still managed to lunge at us the second its wounds healed up, which happened all too fast. Seeing no change in this routine, I took a chance and charged at it, my whiskey and rag torch held out in front of me like a sword aimed straight at its head. The hound leaped sideways in a blur and spun, then lashed out with one huge claw. Bright, fiery agony lanced across my ass and down my thigh. I howled in pain and stumbled to the ground, my torch skittering out of my hand.
I spun on my good leg in time to see the creature bounding over the cooler, aimed straight at Bodhi whose torch was barely a flicker. Bodhi’s teeth were bared, a wild, ferocious look in his eyes as he refused to back down despite the beast hurtling toward him.
“Fuck!” I pressed a hand to my right ass cheek, felt the rents in my shorts and the hot blood flowing. I couldn’t function with one leg . . . not as well as I could with four.
With a silent prayer to Gaia, I closed my eyes and let her magic flood my body from the earth beneath my hands and knees. My shorts were ruined anyway and fell away in tatters when my true shape emerged, my human body dissolving into the bear like dead growth consumed by the forest floor.
The fire pit was between me and the hound now, with Bodhi on the other side. I let out a roar that shook the trees above me and broke into a dead run, hoping some of the whiskey I’d spilled on my hands and feet when making my torch had lingered in my fur in this form. I didn’t pause when I reached the fire pit but ran straight through, the glowing coals nothing but warm stones beneath my toughened paws, the ruined guitar clanking and snapping beneath my weight. I smelled the burning fur before the flames appeared in my periphery, and when I leaped at the beast, my forepaws raised up to maul it, they weren’t paws at all, but twin balls of fire.
Bodhi’s eyes went wide and he lurched to the side, the hound’s teeth only grazing his shoulder before he fell.
It yelped in pain when my paws hit its haunches and I don’t think I’d ever wished so much in my life that I were a dragon.
When I landed on it, a cold, tingly sensation flooded me, disorienting me. I swayed and stumbled to the side, realizing as I did that the creature’s incorporeal nature had forced it through me. And when I fell onto my injured ass and looked down my body at naked human flesh, I realized the intersection of our bodies had completely drained me of even the small bit of magic I’d received from Gaia to complete my shift and hold it.
The hound’s wounds healed even faster.
“Keagan, look out!” Bodhi yelled, but I was too dazed to move, and the hound could clearly sense my weakness. It didn’t lunge this time, but slinked toward me, its jaw dripping with purple fire, tinged greenish now thanks to the dose of nature magic it had absorbed from me. I crab-walked backward, my ass and thigh blazing with agony.
This could not be how my life ended, peering into the maw of a beast I hadn’t even known existed before two days ago, and still fucking hopelessly in love with a girl I barely even knew.
Its huge body loomed over me and I saw Bodhi struggle with his own damaged arm and aim for the fire pit again, but my charge through it had kicked up and scattered the coals and there was barely a flame left to relight his torch.
The hound’s maw opened wide, its head tilted and its eyes calculating where best to tear out my fucking throat, as if its teeth couldn’t simply tear my whole head off. I clamped my eyes shut to count my blessings, but all I saw in the blackness was Deva’s dark skin and multicolored eyes, and that mouth that I regretted never once kissing.
10
Keagan
An ear-splitting sound like a siren blasted through my mind just as I was sure the hound would snap its jaws shut and end me. Then all I heard was a chorus of howling and growling in that strange psychic noise that hit my auditory nerve without actually traveling through my ears.
I opened my eyes in time to see a blur of purple light fling itself into the side of the hound, sending it tumbling away in a ball. The growling intensified, accompanied by the sounds of snapping teeth, then three more purple blurs shot straight at the indecipherable tangle of light several yards from me. The ensuing chaos looked like it might have dozens of limbs and multiple heads, though it was hard to tell.
I rolled onto hands and knees, hissing at the fresh jolt of pain through my flank, and Bodhi appeared, offering his hand. I gratefully took it and stood, leaning on him for support as we stared in shock at the bizarre spectacle before us.
After a few seconds we were able to make out distinct shapes as the fighting slowed. The hound that had attacked our camp was at the center, struggling like mad to fend off attacks on all sides from four separate beasts that moved almost too fast for me to track. Despite the four other hounds charging repeatedly at it and biting its sides, its neck, its haunches, it still turned its purple gaze on me and tried to lunge out of the circle of its attackers. I stumbled back and Bodhi kept hold of me, but I need not have worried. The second the beast came at me, another one leaped into its path, snapping and growling.
I blinked a few times, uncertain whether my eyes were deceiving me, but Bodhi’s comment made it clear I wasn’t imagining things.
“Is that the hound that bit you the other night?” he asked.
He was right. The green thread of magic that tugged on my soul was back with a vengeance, and it was attached to the hound that had just saved my life.
I blinked to clear my vision, my head swimming from blood loss. “Makes no goddamn sense,” I said. But deep down I knew it did make sense. I’d forced the beast to mark me and it had, yet it clearly still took its role in that bond seriously. It was defending me like I belonged to it. And there were three other hounds assisting it.
I sagged against Bodhi and he let out a curse.
“Jesus, dude, you’re fucking bleeding to death! Here, I think we can let them do their thing. Let me check you out.” He half-carried me to his truck and yanked open the tailgate and camper, then reached inside for a sturdy red
case with a white cross painted on it.
I leaned against the tailgate, darkness creeping into my vision. I should have healed quicker than this, but whatever the hound had done when its body passed through me had entirely sapped my strength. Bodhi squeezed my shoulder and hauled me into his side again, directing me toward the tent.
I practically fell onto my belly on the sleeping bag, groaning at the pain that lashed my body and trying to tell myself it wasn’t as bad as the first time, that I could handle it. But somehow this was worse. There had been a moment when I’d come to terms with death, but not anymore. Not after having a reprieve.
“I don’t want to fucking die, man,” I practically sobbed. I had no shame with Bodhi. We’d fucked each other, and now he was in the process of doing something to my naked, mauled ass that was somehow easing the pain, though I didn’t have the strength to look or even ask.
“You aren’t going to die. Though this is pretty gnarly. What’s your stance on hospitals?”
“Can’t . . . humans can’t know.”
“I figured as much. Well, I’ll get you patched up as well as I can. Then you might have to ride in the back while I get you home. That Willem guy who healed you before . . . is he the only one who can fix you?”
There were probably dragons in this area who could heal me. I knew Kol Magnus, the dragon’s First Shadow, kept offices here. Of all four higher races, the dragons were the most organized within the human world. The other races tended to stay underground. But even if there were dragons within the Bay Area, I had no one’s contact info and lacked a dragon’s skill of telepathic communication. Ursa and turul tended to stick to the fringes of humanity.
“Yeah, better just take me home,” I groaned.
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