AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What’s wrong? Did I hurt you?” she asks, as if she doesn’t know what she’s done. I’m not about to shift onto two legs so I can explain it all to her. Does she think this sort of thing is funny? Luring me here just so she can twist my insides for her?
I shake my head in a bluster of anger. One swipe at her face and that would teach her a lesson. I raise my paw to strike her, but I can’t manage to bring it down.
Ivy screams, turning and running from me because she thinks I am the monster, even though she knows what she did to me. Though, I still can’t figure out why. What would she get out of luring in a pack leader under the guise of romantic whiles?
I watch her run, guilt flooding me even though I’m pretty sure I did the right thing in scaring her off.
Melancholy taps me on the shoulder. I liked the way she looked at me. Then I had to go replace that sweet thoughtfulness with terror.
Sounds about right.
I let out a heavy sigh at the odd turn in my night, but my next breath is cut with a gasp when white hot pain slices across my right arm once more. A roar escapes me because I wasn’t expecting the pain to return. I showed her not to mess with me ever again. She should have lifted the tethering charm that did this.
But when I hear her footsteps falter and a fearful cry fills the night air, I cast all logic off me and barrel toward the sound. Did she trip? Did she hurt herself? Is she bleeding?
Should I care?
The pain in my arm lessens as I approach her, scenting that damn alluring coconut shampoo as if it is the only smell in my universe. I don’t smell blood, thank goodness for that. But the fear that I instilled in her is wafting off her body in palpable waves. I slow my pace, grateful that my arm is no longer burning when I catch sight of her on all fours. She tries to find her footing and fails, faceplanting on the dirt.
I really scared her.
“Don’t!” Ivy pleads. It is clear to me this woman has never raised her hand to anyone in her life. Even when facing a vicious attacker, she only flops over onto her back and does her best to scurry away from me like a skittish crab, as if that would do a lick of good.
I shift back into my man form because I can tell more talking is in order. My black hair falls forward. “You did this. You tethered us together. My arm… You lured me here. Why?” I keep on all fours, so we are on the same level, and my dick isn’t swinging in her face.
Ivy shakes her head rapidly, tears dotting her cheeks. “I don’t practice magic! Why would I light my own arm on fire with a phantom flame? Even if I could cast spells, which I can’t, I would never hurt anyone on purpose! I’m a pacifist!”
Of all the things I expect to come out of her mouth, that one hits me at just the right angle. I debate between snarling and laughing. “A pacifist?”
She nods, sniffling through her tears. “I don’t believe in solving problems with violence.”
“Just herbs and witchcraft? Well, not all of us have that luxury.”
At this, she sits up, indignant through her fear. “I don’t have even an ounce of my mother’s magic! I’m telling you; I’m just as inconvenienced by all this as you are. I don’t know why someone wanted me to meet you out here in the middle of the night. No witch would put one of her own near a shifter.”
My upper lip curls. “Because we’re filthy? Because shifters are beneath you?”
She scoffs at my guess. “No. Because Fern told me that most witches are ignorant.”
Whatever I expected her to say, it wasn’t that. I rear back, perplexed and unsure how to respond. “You’re calling your own kind ignorant?”
She shrugs. “The entire magical community, really. You all hate each other, even though you’re so similar. Isn’t that right? Fern told me about the shifter pack wars. Vampire attacks on magical folk. Witches using Mother Nature to hurt people, when that was never the point of magic. It’s all foolish.” Then she groans, covering her face with her hands. “Go ahead and kill me now. I can never keep my mouth shut. Fern always said that would be my undoing.”
She braces herself for my attack, giving me the chance to watch defeat wash over her. “You call your mother by her first name?”
Her eyes peek at me curiously, as if wondering why I haven’t maimed her yet. “Well, yeah. I was always more the parent than she was.”
Though I’m still nude, I sit on the forest floor, crossing my legs with my hands over my lap to cover myself as best as I am able. I study her movements, which are careful and laced with worry. She rubs her right arm in the same spot mine was burning when she ran away from me. She doesn’t look nefarious or like someone who might have a plan up her sleeve. She looks just as turned around as I feel.
And I nearly took her head off.
“You really didn’t do this?”
“No!” she replies, incensed as she swipes at the slickness on her face. “Take the water and go where it’s leading you. You’ll never have to see me again, and you can go back to hating witches.”
I cast around and then recall that I left the water bottle near the brook. “It’s not the water the witch needs,” I rule. “My arm doesn’t sting at all right now, and I left the bottle at the creek.”
At this, Ivy’s nose scrunches. “Then what do they need? Could this please be over with? I just want to go home!”
