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Rustling to my left yanks my attention to the side. I tense. My wolf’s hackles raised. Twenty feet or so off the path, something barrels towards us.
Ten feet.
Five.
I only just recognize it as a shifter in its wolf form before it lunges. Mangled lupine features loom in my vision for all of a split second before a powerful shove heaves me out of its path. Orson collapses beside me, having pushed me out of danger’s way, and we turn back just as a gunshot blows a chunk off the shifter’s shoulder.
It drops dead to the ground beside Orson and me. Over the sound of my blaring panic, I hear Braxton’s voice, calm and even, saying, “You hit his shoulder. He shouldn’t be dead.”
And yet, as my eyes inspect the wolf beside me, there’s no mistaking him as living. Orson rolls onto his side and peers over me at the corpse, our bodies close enough that his scent overwhelms me. It momentarily distracts me from the grim situation. His eyes fall to mine and my cheeks flush. I don’t know why, and I will them to blanch instead, but the heat is intractable.
He smiles, which doesn’t help matters. “You know you have a lovely scent, Asha? I smelled the wildflowers before, but now I notice underneath their redolence lurks a subtle hint of a coming storm. Rarely do you experience a shifter’s scent that evokes Proustian emotions.”
I’m not sure I understand a single word, lulled by his deep voice and entranced by the effect of his heterochromatic gaze. “Yeah?” is the only response I can muster.
He chuckles. “Yeah.”
“Crispy critter,” says Braxton, hunching to inspect the corpse.
I turn away from Orson to see Braxton’s correct, albeit in a rather glib way. The wolf’s coat is mottled with burned patches, its fur matted with blood. How he managed to leap towards me, I don’t know, because he looks like he’s died three times already. I sniff him and frown. The scent of death conceals any chance of identifying what pack he’s from.
Raven Pack. He has to be one of them.
Orson stands and then turns back to assist me to my feet. His hand is warm in mine, sending a strange tingling through my body. We drop hands quickly and separate, avoiding eye contact, like he felt the weird tingling too.
Or maybe I’m imagining it all.
Our group gathers around the body, staring down at its pitiful state. “He probably didn’t even know what he was jumping at,” says Braxton.
“Likely frenzied with pain,” Max posits.
“What a terrible fate,” says Orson, crouching to run his hand over the wolf’s fur. “Now forever locked in this shape.”
“Well,” I say, “notforever, if we’re being biologically honest.” Everyone looks at me. “Decomposition.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking my final breath through my snout,” says Braxton.
Orson looks over at him. “Spoken like a true warrior.”
Braxton’s eyes narrow, taking a moment to figure out whether Orson’s being facetious. But he’s spent enough time now in the ex-con’s presence to know of his earnestness. He accepts the compliment with a nod.
Aw, we’re making progress.
A noxious smell pierces the aroma of pines and dirt. It arrives suddenly, accompanied by a twinge at the nape of my neck.Magic. It’s powerful, dark, and frightens me.
“What is it?” asks Max.
My gaze moves to him, suprised that Max knew how I was feeling. “Magic,” I warn. “But I can’t identify its origins or nature. I can just tell it's potent and dangerous.”
There’s a moment when I think Orson is going to ask how I know that, but his mouth opens and then closes without it ever leaving his mouth. All eyes are on me all the same.
“Magic is going to need magic, if it’s anything like before,” Braxton says, glancing in my direction.
Before. When I had to fight my brother. When everyone in that town would have died without my strange magic. The one that didn’t feel like any magic I’d used or before.
The magic the Blood Mages infused me with y makes me feel dirty. Like every time I use it, I’m losing a part of my soul. But that silver magic… it felt so natural, like breathing.Is that what I’d have to use today or the other stuff?
A shiver rolls down my spine. I’ll have to think about that, but not right now. Not when everyone is staring at me, and the scent of dark magic fills the air. Not when one of my pack members is probably somewhere close by.
