AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Silence.”
“No, sir,youdon’t get to dictate when I stop talking—”
But she stopped as something else dictated the conversation to a halt: a glimmer right in their line of sight. She gawked as the glimmer went on—her potion activating by itself—before it winked out of existence. But that didn’t mean it was gone fully.
“What was that?” he asked, already forgetting about freezing her out.
“Potion. The one we made. It caught something.” Hurriedly, she took a vial out of her pocket and scattered its contents in her palm. “Henry—”
“I’m on it.”
His magic surged to life, the energy force as blinding as it had been the first time, and leaving her drunk in its wake. She sucked in a breath and let it out, meeting his in the air, curling around each other. Her toes curled, too, as the two energies clashed before meshing into one, a movement so smooth that it felt like they had been doing it for years. As soon as it settled on her palm, she propelled it forward.
“There,” he barked out, pointing. “I see it.”
She saw a shadow, nothing else. The completed potion on her palm was wrenched with a force and nearly sent her hurtling forward as it latched on to the shadow—only because the shadow had touched the throne room potion and this one recognized it. Henry caught her around the waist, steadying her before she could fall face-first. His warmth wrapped around them, a sizzling that popped when his bubble did.
“Stay here,” he instructed. “Or check the house. I’ll follow it at a distance and see if it’s dangerous.”
Pearl wasn’t good with instructions, particularly those that asked her to stay put and not do anything. So, she went for the second option, snooping around in his house until she determined that nothing was amiss in the regular rooms. She set up the throne room protection next, refilling the broken magical areas and noting that the Lyra hue was still intact. Then she doubled out of the house, her determination to find Henry stronger than that of checking for missing treasures—not that she could, anyway, considering she didn’t even have an inventory list.
It had been a logical idea to separate and cover all the bases at first, but now it sent trepidation in her system when Henry’s trail stopped and she couldn’t find any signs of the shadow. She called him first with her free hand while the other one pointed forward, waiting for a glow. Nothing. She called Moon next.
“Moon? Are you in some kind of shifting ritual or doing something important?”
“Sure. I have a bonfire and I’m dancing around it. There are naked dancing warlocks involved too.”
“You’re a weirdo.”
“What’s up?”
“I need your help. Come to my location quickly. Bring Ruby if you can find her.”
That was all the wolf shifter needed to get to where she was ten minutes later, following a track that he, the Sutton siblings, and Maddox always had in hand in cases of emergency. Moon was already on the defense when he walked beside her, ears perked up and sniffing the air.
“Talk?”
“Yes, but talk low,” she confirmed.
“I can’t find Ruby.”
“Never mind that. Help me with your extra eyes. If you spot any kind of glimmer or shadow, point.”
“Gotcha.”
They walked from one forest to another, separating when they found torn pieces of Henry’s clothing but in different corners. Moon went for the more secluded areas while she raced to the path leading to the island center, where most of the bars, business centers, and villagers resided. She frowned at the sight of more ripped clothes in another forest patch, then a heel that broke from a man’s shoe. It was large enough to be Henry’s, but his feet were the last thing she had been ogling—
A howl sounded from afar, alerting her senses. She was panting by the time she reached Moon to shush him.
“A call would have sufficed, you know. That howl’s going to alert anyone in the vicinity that we’re here and—”
To her stupefaction, he howled again, albeit a lower and shorter one. Pearl forgot about her warning and finally registered his taut body covered in fur, ready to thunder into wolf form. Her hair stood on end when she sensed his agitation. The only time a peaceful shifter would act like this was when he wasn’t in control—or when he spotted a threat.
“Heel, Moon,” she murmured gently, willing her voice to sound as soothing as ever. Her eyes, in the meantime, wildly looked around for the source of the threat. “Remember your old days and your new ones. Remember how you took control of your beast and stopped fearing the change.”
“Pearl,” was all he said, but it was a warning. She followed the trail of his gaze to a clump of dried leaves, wondering why he wouldn’t take his eyes off it. She stilled when her hand glowed, the faint residue from the potion reactivating—and just like that, she couldn’t take her eyes off the dried leaves, either.
Silence embraced their space, not as eerie as she had worried about but still uncomfortable. When the clump of leaves moved, she grasped Moon’s wrist in warning, willing him not to shift as she took careful steps forward. At the last step, she felt her potion immediately and crouched down, fingertips ready with magic.
