Chapter 3 #2
Did she know she stepped closer? “You have my permission to go straight to the seven hells.”
“You don’t want to be tangled up in this. This is far above your pay grade. King business and all. Not for common witches.” Another step closer as we argued.
Close enough to grab. “Like hells I will. I might have been worthless with these brass knuckles, but I won’t stop.”
I admired that about her. Focus to the point of stupidity was something we both had in common.
“You’re not worthless.” I snapped my mouth shut.
That wasn’t exactly what she said. I scooped her up into the saddle to cover my error.
She fought harder this time. My kidney absorbed a blow that actually hurt.
Her foot wedged under my chin, tipping my head back, all while she sat upright.
Goddsdamn, how flexible was she? Her wriggling tumbled us to the ground.
When I looked up, she was halfway down the path, bolting again. Mistake.
The urge to hunt her down flushed through my veins.
My claws lengthened into the dirt. My Nightmare wanted to grow as many arms as we needed to chase her to ground.
But I resisted. I didn’t want her to die of fright running from me.
Few witnessed my Nightmare and stayed sane.
A partial shift to speed my hunt would have to suffice.
I would rather have her see me in all my Elven glory, with a crown on my head, my palace framing my splendor.
It wasn’t at my disposal at the moment, but she wouldn’t see me any other way if I could help it.
We settled on a burst of speed that ripped the leaves from the trees.
We pounced a bit too gleefully on Maggie.
She stared up at me, limp on the ground, but ready for another round.
“Don’t run if you don’t want me to chase you.”
“I thought you wanted me out of your hair,” she said.
Was she going to touch my monster? Her eyes flitted to the extra hands by her head. Her mouth still fought. Would she bite me if I ran my tongue along it? I leaned down to taste and noticed the shine in her eyes and grit to her teeth. This pushed her to her physical limit. I tilted back.
“I want you back in Ward’s Keep, not planning your next failed assassination attempt. As hot as they are.”
I picked her up out of the dirt by her wrists as I dusted her off. Confusion marred her features as she hung limply in my grasp. Maggie’s anger tapped out.
“Come on, Pumpkin. You get an ‘A’ for effort, but I’m on a serious adult-type mission. I need to focus.” I pulled her along back to my mount. We walked a few dozen feet but the salamander looked much farther.
“I am a fully grown adult, if you haven’t noticed.”
I noticed in more ways than safe, but it was more fun to needle her.
“What are you, eighteen?”
She ripped her hands out of my grip with surprising force. “You're terrible at guessing ages. I'm thirty-two. A perfectly adult human age.”
She was thirty-one, because I knew her sun and moon sign, not to mention her natal day and hour. I narrowed my eyes, a frown tugging at my mouth. She tracked every twitch of my lips.
“You realize I'm two hundred and fifty. I'm too old for your games. I've forgotten more magic than you will ever know. Give up this vendetta.”
Her sneer could melt iron. “Enough magic to get us out of this thicket?”
“Of course.” I smiled, showing all my teeth.
“Then why don’t we seem to be any closer to your mount?”
She was right. We had been walking toward the creature, and it sure as fuck wasn’t any closer. How many people ever left Oakjour Thicket?
I hurried her. “The thicket is playing a little joke on us.”
“So much for all that magic you forgot,” she grumbled. “I should have killed you this time. I planned it perfectly.”
I didn’t need to mention that I had also been in more battles than she could remember. Maggie thought she was going to win, and I didn’t want to disabuse her of any notion that kept her in my orbit.
I stopped dragging her, curious. “Show me what you’ve got then.”
I circled my hand to get her to try a move for me.
She dropped into a fighting stance that wasn’t half bad.
Then Maggie sliced out with a dagger in a mechanical move that would have had Yaya in angry tears, tanning my hide if I tried it.
Did she learn this Bakh dung from a book? I plucked the dagger out of her hands.
“I meant your magic, Pumpkin.”
Surely, she would do better at that. She screwed up her face, and I formed a void just under the surface of my skin.
I waited to see what came out of that magic box I filled during our last encounter.
All that focus time, sun salutations and endless crystals must amount to a terrifying witch ready to burn the Harrowlands.
The possibility that I wouldn’t consume what she was about to hit me with flooded anticipation through my veins.
Maggie slapped her hand on my chest, drawing a sigil for “destruction,” and it promptly fizzled out.
I patted down my hair to see if she got any sparks in it. “Wow, that’s really sad.”
Maggie stormed off, determined to get to the salamander. When I caught up with her, I went to reach for her arm. “Sorry, sorry. That was such a good try.”
I wasn’t the best at consolation. I ate dirt as she drew her booted foot back from tripping me, and I laughed. I loved that she was as petty as I was. If all this hadn’t happened, we might have been friends.
The earth beneath me rumbled, but not from my laughter.
An ear-splitting clatter shook the trees, which whipped the flank of the Stavian elk crashing through the forest. The elk’s bellow of rage would make any predator tremble.
Sharp hooves cut the air as the trees and shrubbery goaded the elk further.
It thundered its considerable bulk in our direction, ready to trample us.
And as fear filled me, I had no control over what happened next.
In a blaze of fury, I became the dark, with razor-sharp teeth and claws and a bulk far greater than any Elf.
This wasn’t a partial shift. Shadows curled in my mouth, and wisps of it pulled Maggie behind me.
She squeaked in the most distracting way.
Ruby-glow eyes appeared along my cheekbones, each looking for the weakest spot on the elk with deadly focus.
The animal thrashed its rack, attempting to impale me.
Us. I didn’t hesitate, even if it would scare Maggie.
I would rather her afraid than skewered.
The elk took one look and screamed. Leaves kicked up alongside clods of dirt as the elk wheeled its legs to change direction.
Too late. My unbridled Nightmare took a massive bite right out of the elk’s neck, letting it flop forward as it crumpled to the ground.
I took another large mouthful. The taste of fresh blood full of terror satisfied my abyss.
We had to be strong to defend her. Triumph surged through me. We protected our mate from death.
Maggie didn’t seem to mind the grind of bones in my teeth, but her face buried in the fur on my back.
I was just happy she was almost tearing out my pelt by its roots with her grip, but I didn’t taste any fear.
We now had food to offer our mate. A delicate liver, a nutritious heart.
I blinked all of my eyes. Wait. What? I checked the bond, and sneaky tendrils were reaching for Maggie.
I ripped at them mercilessly, retaking my Elven form, stuffing my Nightmare back into my body.
I masked my fury at the slip with a smirk.
She stepped back from me, looking me up and down. I resisted the impulse to toss my long hair over my shoulder and adjust my clothing.
“You look so normal again,” Maggie said.
“I am a normal Elf.” I took out a perfectly respectable knife from my wide belt and cut off a leg like any human would have. The back of my hand wiped the blood off my mouth, the rest of my face. At least it hid the blush blooming on my cheeks.
“And a Nightmare.” She didn’t sound afraid, merely curious. Searching her lake-blue eyes, I didn’t see the judgement that came every time a fellow Elf saw my full Nightmare.
“That is the definition of a shifter.” The words were dry as sand. “You didn’t think they kidnapped me to join a shifter army because I turned into a fluffy bunny, did you?”
It was easier to put her on the defensive than to hear what she said next.
“They let you keep the throne as a shifter?” A wrinkle formed between her perfect brows.
“I took the throne,” I bit out, clicking my teeth.
My face must have looked so forbidding even Maggie shut her mouth at that.
“You suck at saying thank you,” I said.
“It's one of my better traits.” She smirked.
She helped me break down some of the elk, not afraid to get bloody by the way she plunged her hands into the carcass. She separated her own leg, and we attempted to start back to the salamander.
It didn’t look good. I balanced the leg across my shoulders, and the weight didn’t slow me much.
Maggie had to drag hers behind her. I might have carried them both, but I relished watching her muscles flex.
It was too awkward for her to run her mouth like she usually did, all her concentration focused on moving forward.
Reaching out to the wood, I asked to be allowed back to my mount.
A flow of laughter rippled over the thicket in reply.
I looked behind me to see how she was holding up, and when I turned back, the salamander had disappeared. Perfect.
Maggie dropped the elk leg. “I can’t haul this thing anymore. Are we lost? Did you intentionally get us lost?”
“No! I should be halfway to Portsgrave Harbor by now,” I said, annoyed as she was.
The branches dipped down in the wind to tangle in my hair.
“It seems to like you. Get it to let us go,” Maggie said.
It liked me a little too much. I didn’t want to scare my Pumpkin, but we might never leave here. At least the thicket provided food. Maybe it wanted something else as well.
Maggie sat hard upon the path. “What is the thing you're looking for in that fishing town again?”
I would not sit in the dirt, but I did put dinner down.
“The Calix is a remnant of pure Godd magic left to the Elves for safekeeping. In return for guarding it, it granted us fertility and abundance for our people.” I stuck with the legend.
She didn’t need to know the kingmaker part. “It went missing some millennia ago.”
She looked up at me, and I might have forgotten to tell her I had a delightful view down her shirt. It was a welcome distraction from the mistake my Nightmare almost made. Lust I could handle. A mate bond I could not.
“Well, good job keeping ahold of it. You at least know what it looks like?”
I folded my arms across my chest. “We have a lot of remnants to keep track of when we’re an ancient race. Of course I haven’t seen it. I’m not that old. Ward told me what it looked like, and I drew a picture for him to pass around.”
I took it out of my vest pocket and handed it to her. Maggie unfolded it. Her face grew beet red.
“You drew this?” she asked.
“That’s what I told you.” I went to look over her shoulder and turned the page right side up.
She pointed to the vines flowing over the page. “What is this?”
“The Calix adorns itself in roses and thorny vines at the guard. They are said to be sentient to a degree.”
Maggie looked up at me. “So it’s a broom?”
“A sword.” What was she trying to say?
“Why is it bent here? Is it a broken blade?”
“My hand slipped on that part. That’s the pommel, the quillon, the ricasso.” I pointed to each. “I don’t have to tell you that’s the pointy end.”
Maggie turned the page, then turned it again. “Did you draw this with a stick?”
“I have trained in the arts as one of the many aspects of my title. That is an authentic representation of the Calix.”
“Oh yeah. It’s great. Really great. I can tell you tried really hard.”
She stopped just short of sarcasm. Is that how she treated me after I saved her from being squashed like a pancake?
Anger loosened my tongue. “How are things with Evie?”
Her jaw hardened to the point of cracking a tooth. “I don’t even understand all the ins and outs of what happened with Evie, so you certainly know nothing about us. Do you even have siblings?”
That surprised me. Somehow Maggie didn’t see the link between what happened with her sister’s ex and how her witch’s cup filled–why she craved physical connection.
When the urge was upon her to fill her magic, not even I would be strong enough to resist the call.
Then I remembered her training was probably cut short…
by me. Therefore, it was my responsibility to teach Maggie how to survive in this magical world.
She was a sitting target without access to her power.
If I wasn't going to mate her, at least I wasn’t heartless enough to leave her helpless in a world full of monsters.
“I don’t need siblings to know more about it than you do. When you’re on that mat, trying to burn out the fever. It doesn’t bring you peace, does it? Sometimes you catch a glimpse of your magic’s potential, but it dies too quickly.”
Her involuntary jerk backward made me flinch. She looked at me in horror, as if I had just exposed one of her deepest secrets. My Nightmare knew, the moment he tasted her, what kind of witch she was.
I held out my hand, more than willing to educate her on the fun part of what we might do together without a mate bond tangling things up.
“Let me show you your secret, Pumpkin.”