Chapter 37 Ditch
Ditch
Up to a point? The hells? Her outraged tail lashed back and forth.
She’d thought she’d landed this wolf when she’d swallowed his seed under a full moon. “What exactly would you change about me then?”
He parted his lips, exhaled, then deflected. “You first. What would I need to change to have a future with you?”
“If I wanted a future with someone, I’d demand…” She ticked items off. “A suitable breeding partner—meaning a warlock. Someone who’s not an enemy of my coven—so Lykae need not apply. Personally? I’d expect him to be less married to morals and to his people.”
“All things I canna change.”
“Your turn.”
“Simple,” he said. “I’d make you more married to morals. The rest we could work around.”
Ditch had been called a thousand names over her life, cursed to the surface of the sun and the depths of hells, and yet his quiet admission gave her pause.
Morals only ever blocked her goals; she’d learned to step over them.
“Could we work around the rest? You sound confident for a male trudging through the Helter to ask a sorceress how.”
“If she does no’ have the answer, I’ll keep searching. I’ve never known more clearly what I want. My life’s been a long run of dissatisfaction. Now I understand why.”
“Dissatisfaction—with all your nymphs? That’s a bold claim!”
He slowed, gazing down at her face. “I’ve had a glimpse of more with you. Of a soul’s longing. It will call to yours, and one day you’ll answer it.”
They shared a moment of…something—
Branches rustled too close behind them.
“Ghouls have our scent. Time to go.” He scooped her up and ran.
“Mind the tail!” She bit his shoulder.
He shifted his hold, arm locking beneath her knees. He pumped his other arm to increase his blazing speed.
When his muscles flexed against her and his skin heated, annoyance slid toward want; apparently, she hadn’t gotten enough of him last night.
His scent affected her like an intoxispell, muddling her thoughts. Her tail looped his forearm like a pleased serpent.
He veered, forded a shallow stream, then cut back again, laying false paths. In a rough tone, he admitted, “We’ve got dozens behind us, and all I can think about is last night.”
“It was adequate,” she said airily.
“Heh. You’re all but purring in my arms right now. No fear they’ll catch us?”
“Catch a Lykae in his prime who’s cloaking our trail?” The mist muddled her senses, but she believed he’d jagged enough to throw their pursuers. “I’m only surprised you didn’t leap halfway to that mountain.”
“No idea what I’d land in. Might drop into a wendigo nest. I canna take such risks with you.”
“You worry about wendigos while sprinting toward a sorceress’s lair. If you can’t recognize a greater peril, how did you live this long?”
“By avoiding the supernatural and sticking with the natural.”
“Sound plan. Yet now destiny binds you to a supernatural witch. You must secretly hate fate.”
His arm tightened. “Canna.”
If it could have been anyone, it might have been him…
Sorcery thickened as they neared the mountain—dark magic, born in malice, appealing and lethal. An overgrown path snaked up the slope.
“I think we’ve shaken the ghouls,” he said. “She’ll be in the cave at the top. I can go alone and return to you here.”
“Stop!” Ditch hissed in his ear.
He stilled instantly.
“Now. Now I can see,” she murmured. “And better than you.” She slid from his arms and scanned the path. Concentrations of magic glowed to her sight, each one a trap knot. “Without me, you won’t get far. The rise is laced with traps. Do you not sense sorcery?”
“Aye, like a blanket of wrongness. But I doona detect the seams.”
She gathered a stick and stepped to the nearest line of magic stretched across the trail. She swung it through the barrier. Sparks. The wood fell in two. “I’ll go first.”
“Let you lead? No’ possible, mate. I’ll leap it.”
“She’ll expect that. Next will be a pitfall straight into a black hole.”
“How do you know?”
Shrug. “It’s what I would do.” She lifted her hands and began to murmur oothspeak, a conjuration known as a pirate’s chant that stole another’s magic and made it hers. The line guttered out. “Deactivated.”
“You’re full of surprises.”
“Oh, I have more.” She smiled a promise.
“Will you guide me true?”
“No,” she said sweetly, “but I’ll gobble up every ounce of this yummy sorcery.”
She moved up the trail, chanting at a hidden pitfall until the ground shivered smooth, then at a deadfall rig, then at a beam snare. The traps continued, seeming to grow increasingly desperate in number, while she grew bright on their power.
By the time they reached the cave mouth, she brimmed with stolen sorcery and rode a wicked little buzz. She eyed the gorgeous Lykae like a dessert course.
“A good talent to have,” he observed, his lips curving, his gaze fascinated. “Especially for a female who lives among witches.”
“Alas, our laws forbid me from draining anyone in my coven.” She tipped her chin at the cave. “But a sorceress living all alone in the Helter?” Ditch flashed him a grin and sang under her breath, “Fee-fi-fo-fum.”