Page 4 of The Chosen Fae

Then the fae finished their meal, and one of them zapped the fire out of thin air with a spray of ice coming from his hands. He was a wizard, warlock, or sorcerer. That gave her pause, and her skin chilled. Stone just stared at the cold embers covered with ice, looking like he was in shock. Good. She was glad she wasn’t the only one.

“You’re not taking him with us, are you, Ena?” a guy asked.

“Nope. He belongs here. This is his home, though I would love to revisit him in the future.” Ena started to head out with the others.

Rune stayed hidden, now wishing she’d had someone to catch fish for her and cook them. What a boon!

When the fae were well out of sight, she came out of the shrubs and shifted. “Well, you sure had a good deal.”

She swore Stone was smiling at her in a wolf’s way, then licking his chops. He wagged his tail, the first time she’d ever seen him do that.

She scoffed and headed back to her glen but heard something following her. She looked back. Stone was pursuing her! What did he want? For her to catch fish and cook it for him?

She ignored him, then reached her favorite fishing spot. She shifted and entered the water, then began wading out and pulling in a fish. Stone was soon fishing nearby. If he scared away her fish, he would be in big trouble.

But he caught a couple of fish and left them on the bank. Then he made a fire ring for her, carrying small rocks in his mouth. She brought over bigger stones that she could carry. Then he started grabbing sticks to make a campfire for her. She watched him in surprise. Was he going to eat more cooked fish, or was he getting things ready so she could cook her meal?

She carried her fish close to the campfire and then went back for his two fish, brought them up, and rested them on the others. Then she turned her hands palms up, her fingers pointing at the kindling, realizing she didn’t have any way to start a fire in her rock-lined fire pit.

Suddenly, fire flashed from her fingertips and the tinder caught.

She jumped back, and so did Stone. She looked at him, but he was just staring at the fire.

The older she got, the weirder things got!

Then she skewered the fish and began cooking them over the fire while he sat nearby.

She suspected he was still hungry, or he wouldn’t have helped her, and he had decided that cooked fish tasted better than raw fish, though for wolves, she imagined they would taste fine either way.

She sighed and offered him one of the fish, but he shook his head. She was surprised, but hungry, so she ate the fish and cooked the second one. Again, once it was cooked, he declined to eat it. She finished cooking the last one, but again, he wouldn’t take it.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“Okay, last chance.” She ate the last fish. “Thanks for helping me with making the fire and catching the fish. So who were those people? Have you met them before?”

He shook his head.

“I was surprised you hadn’t chased them off, but at least they didn’t just take your fish and feed themselves and not you too.”

He woofed at her.

“No luck turning into the fae yet?” she asked, though she knew the answer to her question. She figured he would have turned into the fae to speak with her.

He woofed and then left.

She realized she enjoyed his company, even though he usually watched her from a distance. Just like she did when she stole over to his glen to see what he was up to. Since she’d been able to turn into her fae, she’d been over there several times, trying to see if he had turned into his fae yet.

The next morning, Rune heard fighting in Stone’s glen and vicious growls. Instinctively, she knew to let well enough alone. But she couldn’t. She shifted into her wolf coat and raced off to Stone’s glen.

When she arrived, she saw four wolves, about the same age as her and Stone, all in wolf form. They were snarling and growling at him as if claiming his territory for their own. One was a female, the other three males.

All of them were participating in bullying Stone, though he was holding his own, even against that many wolves.

She didn’t even wait to see how all this panned out. Even if Stone had started it, it would have been over territory, and she knew he had every right to protect his glen.

She raced down the hill through the shrubs and tore into the first male she could reach. She bit him hard in the flank, and he jerked back. Before he could bite her back, Stone engaged him, growling, biting, and snarling.