Where Wild Things Roam

Strange Magic

Darby    

“Is that my pillow?” I ask, pointing to the one the were is holding over his male bits and sincerely hoping it’s not.

I couldn’t care less what a marvelous specimen he is or how much his thoughts tell me he desires me. When I’m sitting under my pergola watching the sunset, I don’t want it to be on a pillow covered in were come.

He runs the fingers of his free hand through his wavy black hair and licks full lips nervously as his brows flick up over gorgeous blue eyes. He’s the Alpha I felt when the wolves crossed into my valley. That much is clear by the size of him. He’s a foot taller than my 5’6 frame, easily two and a half times my breadth and made entirely of mouth-wateringly chiseled muscle.

And he’s definitely a marvelous specimen.

He’s got eyes such a deep blue they’re almost purple, framed with dark lashes the same shade as his hair, and a strong, square jaw. I’m itching to run the back of my fingers against the grain of the faint scruff that runs along it already and wonder what happened to my manners.

But that’s just where I’d like to start.

Lean and muscular doesn’t quite cut it for his kind. They’re all beautifully sculpted, rippling and bulging muscles clearly visible beneath their warm, tanned skin as they move.

But this one, I can’t take my eyes off him and the prickling at the back of my neck I mistook for the warning of my magic wards is vibrating tensely like the string of a recently fired bow. While everything about weres is powerful, from their muscular builds to their extraordinary senses to their voracious urges to their intense emotions and loyalties, this one appears particularly so in all of those characteristics.

Compellingly so, if I consider the fiercely erotic thoughts he was entertaining when he first saw me.

Which is why him seeming nervous is strange.

Since he hasn’t answered the first question, I’m about to ask another one when his eyes grow distant. One of his others is communicating through their wolf link with him.

When he returns his focus to me, he says quietly, “I’m sorry. I didn’t figure it was appropriate to ask for your help in the nude.”

I’m quite confident that, pillow or otherwise, he’s still in the nude, but decline to mention as much, only half out of courtesy.

The simplest truth is his ear candy voice rumbles and crackles in all the right ways and the cumulative package is just too tasty to resist. My skin feels like its igniting and a heavy aching I haven’t felt in eternity starts between my thighs.

From beyond him, I hear Tessa’s bark, impatient and worried, and tear my eyes away from his, lean and glance around him. “What help?”

“My Second is wounded. Tessa told us to put him in your surgery. I figured it was easier on her if I came to find you.”

My eyes lock with his again, desperate to make him understand. “That bark is more than worry.”

It’s all the warning I can spare before I vault past him, weaving through the grove at an all-out run that’s the fastest, if not the most graceful, of the ways I have to travel. I can hear him pounding behind me, but even though he has longer legs than I do, his human form will be no match for my sylphy speed.

Or so I thought.

I’m about half-way to the cottage through my grove when he draws abreast of me, powerful muscles pumping with each stride. To say it’s sexy is an understatement.

We clear the garden wall together, but my faery form is more agile than his were one, and I zip into the kitchen, easily dodging the furniture even at high speed and stop on a dime at my surgery door.

“What the hell have you done!?” I shout, furious, taking in the disaster it's become.

My surgery is a shambles, drawers hanging open and supplies dumped all over the blood-spattered floor. There’s a hairy, monstrous wolf with a vampire’s fletched yew arrow poking out beneath its ribs draped over my tiny exam table. The were, the one I presume has trashed my surgery, is also naked and standing over the wolf pressing blood-soaked gauze pads around the wound and trying to avoid contact with the arrow.

“Who gives a s**t?” he shouts back. “He’s stopped breathing!”

It’s the only spur I need for action. I surge into the room, summoning magic, my palms flat towards the floor. When I feel it gather, I flip my hands palms up, lifting all of the mess with it before pushing it outwards to right everything in the room. Supplies fly into their assigned places, drawers lift back to their positions in the cabinets and slam closed, broken glass refuses into neatly ordered cork-stoppered vials and jars.

“A witch!” The were at the wolf releases his hands and vaults over the table towards me, his body beginning to shift into another monstrous wolf faster than any shifter I’ve ever seen.

Only this wolf isn’t inert on my exam table—he’s raging wild and about to land on me. Behind me, Tessa is barking a frantic warning, but it’s far too little too late. I didn’t summon magic to defend myself. I summoned magic to heal and repair.

Which means I’m going to die.

As the wolf clears the table, I squeeze my eyes closed, bracing against the crushing impact and brief moment of pain that will doubtless precede my death.

But it never comes.

Instead, I’m pushed roughly aside as the Alpha charges into the room, an aggressive growl issuing from him. His powerful limbs twist and flex as he catches and wrestles the out-of-control wolf to the floor at his feet and pins it.

“MINE!” He roars.

In the small room, it’s so loud it hurts my ears and I clutch my hands over them, cringing against the wall.

“Jack! Shift! NOW!”

Though I’ve never seen it in person before, I know an alpha command cannot be disobeyed. Hearing it like that, I have no doubt why.

Tessa places herself between me and the battling weres, her teeth bared and her hackles raised to defend me. Comparatively, she looks positively diminutive and I slip to the floor, clutching her to me defensively, more afraid they’ll hurt her than I am that they’d hurt me.

The were, Jack, shifts but still flails beneath the alpha, his sky blue eyes dark and stormy with hatred and boring into me, until he’s commanded to stop that as well.

“But she’s a witch! She’s probably the one who cloaked them!”

“It takes dark magic to cloak, Jack.”

In yet another show of incredible strength, the alpha physically lifts Jack to his feet, shoving him roughly out the surgery door, placing himself bodily between us. “Hers is green magic. Get the f**k out of here. Go sit down somewhere and if you so much as move without my permission, I’m going to clock your ass so hard you’ll wake up next week. Do you understand?”

From outside the surgery, I hear the meek reply.

“Yes, Alpha.”

The alpha’s eyes turn towards me where I grip Tessa tightly to my chest. He extends an enormous hand and I take it, releasing my dog and letting him gently draw me to my feet.

He looks down at Tessa then. “I apologize for my Second’s ill behavior in your home, little sister. It will not happen again, I assure you,” he rumbles politely. “If you would, please, watch him. If he disobeys, alert me.”

Tessa wags her tail and limps importantly out of the surgery, clearly pleased with her assigned duty.

“Did you just alpha my dog?”

Deep blue eyes meet mine filled with amusement, then his face splits in a wide smile.

“Holy goddesses, have mercy!” I gasp before I can stop myself. “You’re goddamned devastating.”

The amusement darkens, softens—oh, for f**k’s sake! I don’t really know or care what it mutates into. But my body does.

That ache between my thighs that began outside in my grove thunders to life, more powerful than before. And this time with a host of new responses swelling inside me too. My skin feels tight, like I can’t contain it all, and I want to kiss him more than I’ve ever wanted anything else in my life.

As if he can tell, he pulls me towards him, trapping me in his mesmerizing eyes. His large hands slide around me, warm palms promising my body delights like I’ve never experienced and I melt into him.

Then his fingers brush against the underside of my gossamer wings I hadn't even realized I'd released where they lay, folded along my back. Confused fireworks explode behind my eyes and in my head, wiping out everything else as they claw about my brain. I shove him away, shuddering.

“Please, don’t do that.” I wince, retracting my wings inside me and move towards the dying were on my exam table. “Your friend,” I remind, wrenching my body’s control from hypnotic control of the alpha.

Jack    

Dark magic.

Green magic.

I don’t care what the f**k kind of magic it is! She’s a witch and I’m going to kill her.

 the bossy border collie warns through the link. Milady can hear your thoughts. I know she wouldn’t harm you, but Alpha would>

 I retort menacingly.

she adds pointedly.

 Offended, I glanced down at the dog, my brows drawn together. She turns in hobbling circles a few times, then eases herself stiffly to the floor where she can watch me. Unable to help myself, I lean forward on the chair I occupy at the kitchen table and stroke her fur gently.

 Tessa replies indignantly.

My eyes shoot from the dog to the woman, stunned. Tessa's lady has her back to me as Ian helps her to her feet, but there's no mistaking the two pair of strong transparent wings with dark shimmery veins and an irridescent sheen draped vertically and originating at two spots between her narrow shoulders. 

In shock, I peer at her, comparing what I see with what little I know of fae and watching the silvery wings curl and retract into her, disappearing entirely beneath her creamy skin. 

She's tall, fine-boned as a bird and elegant, and moves with a fluid grace rather than the airy intangible vibe I've always imagined fae would have. In fact, she seems entirely solid, slender and curvy at the same time, and now that I'm thinking of it again, scents strongly of breeding female.

Beyond that she's clearly attractive to my big brother— and that alone is no small feat— she doesn't appear all that different than any other well-built pretty brunette with one notable exception. Though she can't be more than her late twenties, something about her is old.

And I don't mean ageless, even if she does have that going for her too. 

I mean like survived from some long-dead era. Ancient and mysterious. And not just a little dangerous.  

**

Ian    

As the faery woman focuses her attention on Ivan and begins whispering, I position myself on the opposite side of the table where I can keep an eye on Jack.

“How can I help you?” I ask quietly, remembering what she’d said in the orchard, and trying not to disturb her concentration.

She darts to the corner of the room, wheeling a monitoring instrument on an ornately carved rolling pole to the side of the table. From a woven basket beneath it, she stretches a pressure cuff towards Ivan’s front leg, ripping the Velcro open before looping it loosely around his limb. “The second cabinet from the wall, second shelf. The vials with the yellow caps and red stripe along the label. I need one—,” she glances down at Ivan, skimming him from head to foot, “—on second thought, better make that two. Syringes are in the drawer beneath. Grab one of the largest ones.”

By the time I return to Ivan’s side with the vials and syringe, she has him cuffed up, and is adjusting settings using the buttons on the strange monitoring machine. A bag of clear medically labeled fluid hangs from the top of the pole, a packaged IV needle waiting on the top of the machine.

Removing the syringe from its sterile wrapping, she braces it between two long, almost spindly-delicate fingers while she removes the plastic caps from the vials, exposing the poke-through lids. She removes the wrapping, then the protective cap from the syringe needle with her teeth, spitting it to the floor with the rest of the trash.

“The good news is he’s not going to feel me yank this yew arrow out of him. The bad news is after I inject this,” she drains first one, then the second vial into the syringe, dropping these to the floor and kicking them out of the way, “he’s going to know it was there.”

Tapping a finger against the syringe, she forces bubbles out of it and looks up at me again, nearly knocking me senseless with those golden-green tip-tilted eyes. “I’m going to need that alpha command again. The minute he draws breath after I inject this, I need you to make him shift. I need him in human form.”

“Got it.”

She nods once, then looks down at Ivan and draws a deep breath. She braces her free hand in the matted and bloodied fur around the arrow and the wound begins to hiss and smoke.

“Holy shit.”

“Yep,” she replies, positioning the syringe over Ivan’s heart. “It’s going to get worse. Ready?”

“Let’s do it.” I rest my arms heavily over Ivan, prepared to restrain him during his shift.

On the other side of Ivan’s furry body, my mate closes her hand around the yew arrow, at the same time pushing the syringe into Ivan’s chest then forcing the plunger down. With a strength I didn’t think she could have, she yanks the hissing, smoldering arrow free and sends it clattering to the floor. The empty syringe follows so she can press both hands over the oozing hole where the arrow had been.

Ivan’s body jerks once, hard, on the table beneath me, then he draws a ragged breath. Blood pumps out of the open wound and down the faery healer’s arms and the breath Ivan had just taken becomes an agonized roar. My mate cringes against it, squeezing her eyes closed tightly, but she keeps her hands over the wound.

“Ivan!” I shout over him. “Shift! Now!”

Beneath my straining arms, Ivan convulses, his wolf half struggling against the commanded transformation in his pain. She was right—this is definitely getting worse. “Jack! I need help holding him!”

Jack vaults out of his chair and is beside my mate in a heartbeat, his full weight thrown over Ivan’s lower body. “What the f**k is happening?!?” he demands over Ivan’s tormented howls and thrashing.

“I’m forcing the poison out of him! Alpha! Command him again!”

I can barely hear her over Ivan's wolf’s anguished cries. “Ivan! I order you to shift! RIGHT NOW!”

This time, the command penetrates his consciousness beyond the pain.

Though the convulsions beneath Jack and I continue, Ivan’s fur retracts, and the familiar popping and morphing of bones and shape from wolf to man starts, but it’s taking far longer than it should.

“Hold on, buddy!” I urge, pinning his chest with all my weight, my hands gripping the opposite side of the table.

**

Darby    

A were's shift that normally only takes maybe a minute, takes the wounded Ivan nearly fifteen minutes to complete. It's agonizingly long, especially listening to his tormented howls and cries, and the viscerally disturbing pops as his body moves from one form to the other.

I’ve never healed a were before—or any shifter for that matter—and what I know of human medicine and normal veterinary medicine is insufficient to get my magic into him and ease his pain through it. All I can do is try to hold the bleeding vessels inside him closed and keep trying to start the healing process.

As his shift progresses, his convulsing stops and he grows still enough that Jack and the alpha relax their holds. Ivan’s also quiet now, allowing me to hear the erratic beeps and blips coming from the monitoring instrument and focus on the parts of his anatomy I can access and heal.

I lose track of how much time passes between when Ivan’s shift is complete and when the blips and beeps from the machine become stable. The distrustful Jack has retreated against the surgery wall, as far away from me as he can get, glaring threateningly. The alpha remains close though, his deep blue eyes watching my every move.

I pray the Powers that Be help me. This alpha is the fastest, strongest were I’ve ever encountered and if Ivan dies, I doubt I’ll survive him long.

With the sheer volume of magic that's channeled through me today, I know when I release both the magic and the wound, I won’t remain upright for long. Please, just long enough for me to start the IV, I pray, hoping my request is heeded as I relinguish the healing energy I've drawn.

And, maybe, if you can, don’t let me fall face first into any were blood.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the wretched poisoned arrow lying on the floor. “Don’t…touch… that,” I say, releasing Ivan’s wound and pointing to the arrow.

Stumbling a bit, I snatch the IV needle off the top of the monitor and turn Ivan’s arm so I can see his veins, hoping he hasn’t lost so much blood that I can’t find one. “I guess I needn’t have worried,” I giggle to myself, now struggling to decide which of the thick cords twisting up his inner arm I’m going to use and unwrapping the needle.

“Are you sure you’re okay to do that?” The handsome alpha peers at me doubtfully.

“Oh, so little faith. This part I could do with my eyes closed.” Which I might have to, I think, seeing the edges of my vision beginning to blur and white out.

Selecting a vein quickly, I thread the IV needle into it, then press the securing protective adhesive onto his flesh. As I’m attaching the fluid and starting the pump, the white is constricting from the periphery of my sight towards the center, leaving me a narrow tunnel to finish adjusting the drip.

“She needs to sit down,” Jack says, almost urgently. It sounds like he’s in a tin can about a hundred yards away.

“I’m fine,” I lie, but I can feel myself swaying now. And I’m getting hot. And the tunnel is barely the size of a straw, turning dark now instead of white. The last thing I see is the alpha darting around the exam table towards me.

**

Ian     

I focus on my mate as she concentrates on Ivan, and when he settles at last, I hear her whispered words again. When she speaks in the Old Tongue to summon magic—the language of the earth itself— the combination of sounds is an eerie blend of vowels, trilling and humming babble to my ears. Whatever she’s saying, it’s drawing massive amounts of energy even I can feel through her, channeling it into Ivan’s wound. Her spectacular tip-tilted eyes stare into a place I can’t follow and her entire body pulses with green vitality.

Jack’s comment isn’t far off and I nod. Though she’s not the most powerful deity for werewolves, Anann as a triple aspect, sometimes referred to as Three Sisters, is formidable, nevertheless.

As werewolves, the moon goddess, Arianrhod rules. To her, we attribute the selection of our mates and the gifts of our abilities, which makes the gift of this faery woman as mine particularly interesting. Why would Arianrhod give a fabled faery mate to the alpha of Candlewood pack? Least of all a fae as powerful as this one.

The vitals monitor has been beeping a steady rhythm for some time when suddenly she drops her hands. My mate sways, stumbling a bit, but rights herself quickly. A smile tugs the corners of my mouth. She’s stronger than she looks and it makes me proud.

“Don’t…touch…that.” She points to the blood covered arrow she pulled from Ivan laying on the surgery floor, drawing my eyes to it.

 Jack spits sarcasm through our link.

“I guess I needn’t have worried,” she giggles, staring at the underside of Ivan’s forearm, tracing the veins along it with her delicate fingertips.

Unable to suppress it, a low growl escapes me. The only person I want her touching like that is me!

But I revise my opinion hastily as she removes the needle’s packaging. She’s planning on stabbing an IV needle about as thick as garden hose into Ivan. As she’s swaying. And lightheaded. “Are you sure you’re okay to do that?”

“Oh, so little faith. This part I could do with my eyes closed.”

Though I have my doubts, and she sways quite a bit while she’s doing it, the faery gets the IV placed, taping it down neatly afterwards.

 As I watch, she slips in the blood on the floor, stumbles, recovers herself and sways, all while hooking up the IV solution hanging on the pole and adjusting the pump and monitor at the bedside.

“She needs to sit down.”

“I’m fine,” my mate reassures us.

But her face is flushed, and her eyes are wide and unfocused. Her pupils are constricted and she’s blinking erratically, long eyelashes fluttering over her peridot eyes. Her breath comes in shallow pants. Swaying hard to one side, she smudges a bloody hand against her forehead as she starts to fall and I nip around the table to catch her at her narrow waist.

Her head dangles backwards off her shoulders in unconsciousness and her rosy pout is alarmingly pale. I slide one hand up her spine, pulling her close to my chest and wonder momentarily where the shimmery filigree wings retract to and why she doesn’t like them touched.

Though the contact had been brief, for me, it had been profound. I felt like we’d been adrift inside one another and laid bare to our cores. Like she’d opened me to my soul, reached across time and space into the depths of my existence and woken some forgotten hunger that had been sleeping untold years. I yearned for that touch again.

“I need to get her cleaned up.” I look over my shoulder at Ivan—he seems to be resting peacefully—then towards the back wall and the glowering Jack. “Think you can get this cleaned up and see if you can find us some clothes?”

“And food. I’m starving.”

As if to voice its agreement, my stomach lurches and gives a loud growl. Through the surgery door, I can see the sun has shifted and now streams in through the western windows. “And food,” I agree. “Maybe Tessa can help.”

The little old lady dog waits just outside the surgery door, looking up at me patiently with her clouded eyes. She wags her tail, it’s white tip—called the shepherd’s lantern—tracing an infinity pattern in the air.

 Tessa hobbles a slow turn and, sweeping my unconscious mate into my arms, I follow her out, heading across the kitchen towards the stairs.

“Dammit, Ian! You left bloody footprints all the way across the kitchen! Now I have to clean that too!”

It’s all I can do not to laugh at Tessa—she’s feisty for someone perhaps thirty pounds and up against a two-hundred pound three-year-old like Jack can be.

 Jack whines in my head.

**