“I figured the resignation was on your part.” Mads stretched his back and leaned from side to side.
“No? I am afraid that our kind are not so affectionate or open. If you mistook my distance as unkindness, I apologize. You are another male’s omega, and I did not wish to encroach.”
Mads shook his head. “Mages are not territorial. Our bonds are not easily defiled. I’ve been taken and hurt before.”
“I find that rather endearing.” Sikko smiled and turned his face to the sun, a soft smile warming his cheeks. “There are not many of our kind left, polar bears.”
“It didn’t seem that way.” Mads stared at the porch and frowned. “I wonder if I’d known my father was a polar bear, if I’d known him well, if I’d have taken that form as a familiar.”
“It is of no matter. Polar bear runs in your blood. As it does your firstborn son’s and this child to come.” Sikko had a way of breathing that was contagious, a pattern of in and out that sank Mads into a rather docile state, as if peace flowed where the alpha went.
“I do wish I’d have had something to do with where I came from, but the life I lived earned me this.” Mads gestured toward the lovely house, away from it toward the coven’s neighborhood.
“The paths we walk lead to our destinations.” Sikko quieted. “Sounds far deeper than it is, but it’s true.”
Mads nodded, enjoying the breathing, the fresh air, and the warm sun.
“There’s nothing financially we can give you that Marquis cannot provide you a dozen times more. It’d be insulting.” Sikko quieted as he fished in his pocket and pulled out a palm-sized white thing, stained in carved veins down the sides. “A polar bear, upon their first heat or rut, is given a totem, an item of spiritual power. Most of the time, it’s symbolic, but for a mage… Can you tell?”
Mads glanced over as Sikko handed over what appeared to be a very strangely carved fish in white stone… As his fingernails raked the details, it became clear it was ivory. And in it did lay power. But that’s all it had, power. It had no direction, no goal, no enchantment. Mads had never seen anything like it as he turned it over, tapping the surface to see if any seams could reveal themselves, as if wish could be imbedded in it. But it didn’t smell like wish did, acrid magic and death.
“There is magic, but it has no direction. There’s no spell put on it. This is rather like a crude battery.” Mads flipped it in his fingers, and the more he familiarized himself with the charm, the less the magic felt mageborn. It was shifter magic, like his familiar shift, a pairing to something else.
“Many of our people carry these charms made from teeth of our ancestors, old charms from walruses, whale bone, and more.” Sikko frowned. “I suppose I am a shaman of sorts, though the ways have long since died out of our histories.”
“Since you’ve decided to live in Sailor’s mixed coven—” Mads called it that, but they’d decided to refer to it as a cult, endearingly. They couldn’t decide on pack or coven status. They chose the name RedSky for themselves, and the former RedSky, Rexford’s coven, had officially been established as the Eclipse coven. No other name suited Sailor as well. “Pay heed to the half-blood girl. She is canid and shifter, born of dog, sired of wolf, and given her human form by Sailor, a half-blood mage. She is a shaman and they are learning how to work her magic. As a half blood himself, Sailor can work shifter magic.”
Sikko’s eyes lit up. “I will take this task to heart. Thank you, son of my heart.”
Mads’s eyes stung at hearing it. Victor had referred to him as his son. Had referred to himself as Mads’s father. It had been cordial and awkward, but Sikko managed to smooth that gap. “It’s no problem.”
Mads leaned over to hand the charm back, but Sikko refused it, instead staring at the outstretched charm. “It occurs to me that you, also, are part shifter. You hold shifter magic, too. Can you manipulate the magic in this charm?”
Mads nodded. It felt like any other magic, clay beneath invisible fingers of his power. It needed a few pinches, sculpting it into his heart’s desire, a spoken command if not a powerful thought. Intention. Sikko cupped his hands under Mads’s andsmiled hopefully. “This is a charm my grandmother made for me before she passed in a hunting accident. Orcas do love bear if they can get their teeth in one.”
That saddened Mads infinitely, but Sikko had the air of someone who accepted all things as destiny or part of the cycle of life.
“Is it possible to make a charm that would ease an omega in childbirth?” Sikko tilted his head. Ordinarily, Mads would have saidno, but the wild magic already in it had the feel of magic that flowed with a body, not from it. It obeyed his intentions. It sought to live in the soul, in the heart, and body. And like that, Mads shaped it with a nod.
He sought to draw pain into it as fuel for magic, to make the charm last longer. For the contractions, they needed energy, magic that would help blood flow better. Warmth from cold to aid in healing, and something to aid milk flow. Wind in it to make sure that oxygen flowed to both babe and bearer. And like that, it was done.
Mads made to withdraw his hands, to give the charm back, but Sikko wouldn’t take it. “You’ll need this. I hope your own magic works on you.”
Mads blinked in surprise and stared down at the charm. Experimental as it was, it would come in handy in the near future when—“You can smell it, can’t you?”
“And see it a little.” Sikko tilted his head and gestured toward Mads’s lower belly. A spreading wet patch pressed against his stinging line met Mads’s wandering hand.
“Oh!” Mads tried to look down but ended up having to pull his shirt up to stare at the wetness and sniff. He’d not been familiar with the scent of amniotic fluid, so the ammoniac and coppery scent didn’t occur to him. “Snakes’ sakes…”
Sikko rose to his feet with a smile and extended a hand, lifting Mads to his feet with ease. “Victor wasn’t able to be therefor you or your first child. Please allow him and me to be there for this one. And little Caspian. We’ve seen photos and would love to meet them.”
“It doesn’t bother you, mixing blood?” Mads rested a hand on the side of his belly. He’d had practice contractions on and off for days, so the stiffening muscles there didn’t worry him.
“I suppose it saddens me there are fewer and fewer pure polar bears. As we dwindle, so does our history and magic—as you’ve seen.” Sikko nodded his head from side to side. “But there are creatures far older than polar bears that died off long before I was born. There are no more buffalo shifters. The jaguar shifters are all mixed with others. And we have so little information on gryphons that we don’t even know if they truly existed.”
Mads nodded slowly. “It’s sad.”
“Precisely, but their blood lives on in small ways, in stories and in magic that lingers.” Sikko brushed his fingertips over Mads’s hair. “They say the silver that crops up in mixed blood is when magic touches unicorn blood once more.”
