There is something else, too. Something sweet. Something I caught in a much muted form when we were human, and now experience in a much fuller way. Our mate smells like somethingwicked, wild wind and sweet berries. There is a purity to her that I instinctively want to protect.
She has been caught up in this ritual, something she did not choose, something she cannot possibly know if she actually wants. A pang of guilt makes its way through to my wolf heart.
The mate bond is a cruel thing.
Normally it is felt between compatible partners, but out here, in these lands, with this pack, it is something that will often be forced through intercourse. I hope she feels the bond when she is taken for the first time. I think Thorn is smitten. He would be the best choice. He is the youngest of us, and the kindest of us.
We head in the direction our mate has taken, moving over ridges and through gullies with eager paws. Her scent grows stronger as we move, but the day is also fading and the sun is descending faster than we can run. We chase our mate through the twilight and into the dark, fanning out to cover more area.
As a deep chill starts to settle over the land, Skor lets out an excited yelp in the mid-distance.
He has spotted her. We turn toward him. I see her instantly, a flash of red hair on a moonlit horizon that looks as foreign and strange as another planet.
She has a staff of some kind, or walking stick, in hand, and she appears to be using it to ascend part of the mountain.
But she is not alone.
Another figure is moving toward her.
Vampire.
I know it instantly because the wind carries the scent of congealed blood to me. There is something very strange and stomach turning about the scent of the undead. It’s blood that is perpetually on the turn, a sort of stench that cannot be ignored. Truly dead things become like earth over time, but these creatures will never smell like soil. They impede the natural cycle of things, turning life essence into a void of ravenous existence.
Our mate is being hunted. She doesn’t seem to notice it. She keeps moving up the hill with a painstakingly slow gait that allows the thing to draw closer. In its stalking mode, it is relatively sedate, but once it comes within range, it rushes toward her in a sudden flurry of movement.
We are not close enough to stop him, but we are close enough to see what is going to happen. At full sprint, we are going to watch our mate die before our eyes.
She turns at the very last moment and faces the thing that wishes to undo her. The vampire screeches with a kind of stupid bloodlust no real predator would ever allow to overcome it. True predators strike in silence.
She hasn’t even shifted. That would give her some chance of holding the thing off, even through the merit of a thicker hide. She’s holding the staff in her hand, as if a bit of stick is going to save her from a vampire. I am certain I am about to watch her die. I run as fast as I can go, closing the distance with desperation. We are only a couple dozen feet away, but it is still not close enough.
She lifts the stave high and brings it down on the ground.
We shouldn’t be able to hear a noise from it, but there is a loud boom that shakes the earth itself. We stumble over our feet as the sky turns green, and a bolt of searing light emerges from the clouds in a bright beam that turns the vampire to dust almost instantly.
Skidding up to her, I take my human form. I have many questions that will never be answered if I remain in my wolf skin.
“What was that?”
“Vampire,” she says, her face turning bright red as she looks me up and down. I wonder if I am the first naked man she has ever seen. I note that her gaze hangs around my crotch for a long moment before she drags it away, avoiding my gaze.
“I mean what was the thing you did?”
“Summon sunlight,” she says with a little shrug. “It’s a simple cantrip. I learned it so I could go for walks at night. They never see it coming. I was surprised that the vampires didn’t start to learn, but then I realized that the ones who experience it never get the chance to tell anyone else.”
She lets out a little giggle.
“That was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my fucking life,” Thorn breathes. “That was so fucking amazing.”
Skor and I exchange looks.
She’s practicing magic.
Our mate is a witch.
This situation was dire to begin with. We were given one scrap of a whelp to mate with and now it turns out that she practices forbidden arts.
Magic is not permitted where we are from. The consequences of magical actions are too dark and too damaging for it to be practiced. Most wolves and people think that it is not real. They have very little capacity for it, and no knowledge of it whatsoever. Our family has a particularly dark and negative association with all things magic. It has taken more from us than I can ever express. I cannot stand it. I will not suffer it to exist in my presence.
