Pack witch, p.12
Pack Witch, page 12
part #5 of The Splintered Bond Series
I pressed a hand to my heart. “Julian.” The sounds of the tumbling water covered up my sobs as Leroy picked his way carefully over the last few boulders to him and set me down.
“Alpha,” he cried out. “Sergeant!”
Years before, not two hundred yards from this very spot, I’d seen a female shifter being chased by a group of males. I hadn’t known who it was until later, but I’d watched her battle the pack of rogues, never giving up. She’d been forced over the cliff’s edge and fallen to her death in the winding river far below. I’d been across the valley, far too distant to use my magic to soften her fall, or protect her, and I’d wept bitter tears for many years afterward, wishing I’d been able to save her.
She’d been the Alpha’s true mate, after all, the mother of Brand, and her loss had gutted the Mountain pack. I would have given every bit of my magic to save her, to keep the old Alpha from having to experience the pain I’d lived with for so long.
Now, though, it was my true mate who had fallen. As we got close enough to see what had happened to Julian, I knew I might need to make that sacrifice to save him.
He hadn’t fallen all the way to the bottom, but been caught by a long, jagged lip of stone that jutted out into the sky before the final steep descent of the cliff wall. He lay on his back, eyes closed, arms splayed wide, his legs… Like his arms, they were broken so severely, he looked more like a discarded ragdoll than a male. Blood dripped from the compound fractures inside his sweatpants and from his shattered arms.
I forced myself to think as a healer, not as a lover. The familiar pattern of triage was all that would keep me from crumbling beneath the weight of my anguish at seeing Julian like this.
He was still breathing, though the sound that emerged from his bloody lips with each exhalation made it clear one of his lungs was injured, perhaps collapsed. His tanned skin had an unhealthy gray tinge, and I knew bleeding was one of the most pressing concerns. His head… Blood poured from a wound behind one ear, but his skull was intact, from what I could see.
“By the moon,” Leroy whispered. “How’s he alive?”
“By the moon, is how,” I replied, shocked that I could speak. I peeked up to the sky, seeing the moon rising in the east, barely visible above the sharp peaks there. I hadn’t been able to feel more than the barest whisper of her power since my wolf… went to sleep. But I could sense the energy that flowed from the moon to Julian now, keeping his chest rising for one more breath, then another, though each was shallower than the next.
He was dying. The moon gave shifters the power to heal, but he’d already been weakened by his tattoos, and the physical injuries he had now were enough to kill all but the very strongest shifters.
“Set me down next to him. I need to be able to touch him.”
Leroy obeyed, moving me carefully from his back to sit beside Julian’s broken body. The sweet boy didn’t move far away, though, hovering with his hands outstretched as if he was worried I might fall.
He wasn’t wrong. But I had a greater fear.
“Leroy, I need you to promise to stay back.” I settled close to Julian’s side and laid a hand on his chest, on the place where I’d healed him. His skin was cooling already. There wasn’t time to wrap his wounds to stop the bleeding, or set the bones, or move him so he could heal.
He didn’t need medicine; he needed a miracle, and there was only one place I could access that kind of power. “I’m going to ask the earth to lend me strength to save him. I need to focus, okay?”
“O-okay. When Bo gets here with the medicine basket, what do I do?”
“Just wait,” I whispered under the sound of the cold breeze that rushed past. “Stay with me.”
I felt his nod, though I didn’t look away from my lover’s face, wondering if I could do what I needed here. I’d only ever pulled from the soft dirt of the earth and the living things that grew in it. Trees and grasses, bushes and smaller plants were easy to coax earth magic from. The soft soil gave it up with joy, small pulses of warmth that felt comfortable as they filled me. I’d never been able to coax power from a hard, cold slab of stone, and I wasn’t sure it was even possible.
There was no time to doubt myself, though. The wind whistling around us, I pressed my hand to Julian’s chest more firmly, and my other hand to the hard granite beneath us. Closing my eyes, I sent my request into the stone.
It hurt at first, pulling the traces of magic I had out of my own veins and extending them, seeking a way in, a path to the heart of the earth. The power felt immovable, unshakeable, like the mountain itself. At first, there was no response, and no matter how much of myself I poured into the stone, seeking a reply, there was no answer.
I kept seeking, my eyes closed, my breathing slowing, my blood itself pulsing sluggishly as I gave up the little stored magic I had in search of a greater, deeper well. There was a subtle vibration, deep below, like an invisible river of stone, moving so slowly only the sun and moon might notice it.
There. Touching it with my mind hurt, like I was pressing myself into a small fissure of the granite, my body breaking, being crushed, as I went deeper.
The earth’s magic there was vast as an ocean, but I reached into it, ignoring the pain of it, doing all I could to keep from being consumed by it. My purpose gave me strength.
Please. Please let me save the one I love. The pain sharpened, like a jagged sliver of stone being forced under my skin. I let it happen, picturing what I asked for. I would suffer whatever pain I needed to save him. He was solid, like the earth. A father to the fatherless, a pillar of strength to his pack, to his family.
To me. Please give me the strength to save him.
My answer came slowly, then all at once. Energy filled me in a way that felt both familiar and foreign, soothing and agonizing. Not the quick, soft move of soil and plant, the sturdy strength of the pines and aspen that slid like sap through me, but something far deeper.
The promise of permanence. Stone, bonding me to her, binding me. Demanding a sacrifice. I thought of Leroy and Bo and the love in their eyes as they gazed at him. Of his strength and integrity, and how much he gave of himself to the world.
Whatever I have is yours. Just let me save him.
For a moment, I felt another presence. The moon’s light fell on me as it rose, tugging at the last filament of connection I had to my wolf’s spirit. My chest burned again, more painfully than it had when I’d stood on the mountain alone. That fire I’d felt, my heart seizing—that had been her, waking up. Or trying to.
She’d been asleep until he had come close enough to feel. But now… I saw her eyes, like twin harvest moons in the darkness of our shared consciousness. Those dark pools lifted to the moon above, her home.
Wolves didn’t belong to the earth, couldn’t survive, even asleep, in the depths.
I had to let her go. There was only space in my spirit for one type of magic, for one river to flow.
Whatever I have is yours, I whispered again, feeling the power of the deep earth sliding into my cells. I wasn’t certain if I was speaking to Julian, the earth, or the moon.
My eyes closed, I crooned a low note, the sound somewhere between a hum and a groan of anguish. The power overtook me, changing me, carving canyons in my innermost being. My wolf’s faint light grew even more diffuse as the scrap of her that had remained inside me all these years strained to go to the sky.
She longed to run with the moon. A sob worked its way out of my throat, a sound that might have been a howl once. The part of me that had been tied however tenuously to the moon sputtered like a candle.
I knew in my bones that I wouldn’t die with her. When that faint light went out, when that wisp of spirit that had slept inside me for so long finally drifted to the moon, I would be the earth’s, completely, down to the last fiber of my being. That was the only way I could truly tap into the power I needed to save Julian.
I hummed louder, the darker power beneath me promising healing. Goodbye, I hummed. Thank you for all you did to keep me alive. Rest now.
Julian’s groan forced my eyes to open. His amber eyes met mine, and I saw something in his gaze that might have been fear. “What have you done?”
Chapter 18
Julian
My wolf had always protected me, even when I hadn’t deserved it. It had healed my body hundreds of times. I knew now it had been forced to work harder over the years as my witch magic festered and pooled beneath the tattoos, as I struggled with my exposure to silver. As the mate sickness took its toll.
But now I was injured far past the healing my wolf could provide, even with the moon’s cool beams falling on me. I’d closed my eyes with nothing but regret that I hadn’t told my boys how much I loved them. That I hadn’t made certain my mate knew that finding her had been worth all the pain that came before.
At least I hadn’t bitten her, claimed her. She would live, and my boys would take care of her. We would run together under the moon someday, after she’d lived her full life, and…
A sharp jolt of alarm surged from my wolf, waking me.
What had happened? I could feel his panic. It was her; she was in danger. She was…
Here? I opened my eyes, fighting past the pain, to see what had happened. Zinnia sat beside me, one hand on my chest, the area there warm while all the rest of me was ice cold. Her face was tear-streaked, though her body looked unharmed, and her eyes when they met mine frightened me.
They were darker than I’d ever seen, a deep gray—the color of the mountain stone—instead of the warm brown of before. And something else had changed, something that had my injured wolf whimpering silently. Her wolf, that ghostly presence I’d sensed before, was absent now.
“What have you done?” My voice was a death’s rattle, the words garbled. One of my lungs sounded and felt as if it was filling with fluid. My magic had far too much to heal and not enough blood left to do the work.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t matter. Her eyes were bracketed with lines of pain, sweat running down her brow as she pressed on my chest, pushing energy into me.
“What I had to.” Her flint-gray eyes dropped to her hand, and I felt a surge of intense power move from her fingers into me. Or try to. “Your boys need you. Your pack needs you.” Another surge battered into me like a fist the size of a mountain.
It was the most powerful magic I’d ever felt, and I knew it might have saved me, if she’d used this before I’d fallen. But not now. I’d been dying already, and there was no way for my body to heal.
“Love, let me go,” I rasped, my words were almost unintelligible.
Her gaze hardened. “I will not. You made a vow. Anything I asked of you, you promised. I am asking you to stay and fight for me. For us. Stay alive, no matter how it hurts. If not for me, then for the boys. They need you.”
“Not… the boys,” I managed. If I died, I needed them to know what was in my heart. How much I loved them. “My… sons.”
From my other side, I heard the word, “Sergeant,” buried in a sob, and knew Leroy was there. Then there was the sound of bare, running feet slapping on rock and something dropping beside me, though I couldn’t move my head to see.
“Alpha,” Bo panted breathlessly. “Sergeant, I’m beggin’ ya. Don’t leave us.”
“I’ll try,” I rasped at last.
Zinnia’s eyes sparkled with dark fire, flecks of crystals buried in stone, as she placed her other hand next to the one on my chest. I didn’t have breath to speak again, or words.
The power inside her was vast, and she poured it into me with her hands, my body bowing with the force of it. My physical wounds responded, but only in the places where she had healed me before, in the garden. My organs, my heart, my forearms—the places where our lovemaking and her gentle earth magic had wrought changes before—all stopped bleeding, and hurting.
But the wounds beneath my tattoos were unreachable, even now. Even with this power.
I felt her tears land on my face and neck as she crouched over me, her eyes boring into my chest as if she could force the healing there to move beyond. “Heal,” she insisted, and there was something in her tone that was close to an Alpha’s command. I let my gaze rise past her to the sky, to the moon.
The moon. If I’d had the energy to gasp, I would have.
A silver spirit wolf ran there, circling the moon, faint on the still-blue sky. It was a wisp of moonlight, as if one of its beams had escaped its tether and was seeking something below…
My breathing stuttered.
Her wolf. It was there, in the moon, waiting for me. It called to me.
“Heal, Julian!” Zinnia commanded again, and something sharp tugged and clawed at my soul. I knew what it was: I’d made a vow to the moon to obey her, if I could. And I could heal, or at least a part of me could. Not the part of me that was the Alpha, the wolf.
But Julian. The part of me she loved and commanded. It was possible that I could obey her, but only if—
My thoughts went white, and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I’d asked him for so much, for so long. Could I…
Yes. My wolf’s assent wasn’t a word, but a gift. He lifted his head in our shared spirit and howled, calling on the moon, sending his power into my body. Giving his own magic to the task of closing wounds and erasing scars. Giving his life.
Yes, I repeated, acknowledging what this would cost me. Half of my soul, of my being. For her. For us.
With my acceptance, the tattoos on my body began to flatten, the tainted magic beneath them dissipating. Even the scars from the silver blades that had cut me flared with heat before the tight skin became smooth.
Her power, the magic of the earth and of healing, began to fill me as the physical and magical wounds I’d carried began to close.
I heard a shout—“Boys! Straighten his legs, his arms! He’s healing too fast!”—and then what felt like bolts of lightning at my arms that moved down my legs. Blackness threatened to pull me away from consciousness, but I fought it, knowing I had to be awake to do this.
To let go of the pack bonds I held and move them to another.
To give up being Alpha.
To say goodbye to my wolf.
Chapter 19
Zinnia
Irealized too late what he’d done, though I wasn’t certain I could have stopped it anyway. I was too caught up in the healing that began, all of a sudden, throughout his body. The marks that had given that odd texture to his skin began to smooth out, like he was being reshaped by some enormous hand. The wounds that hadn’t healed from my earth magic closed up as I watched, and when they began to heal over the compound fractures, I panicked. I couldn’t reach his legs, and still keep the magic going.
“Boys! Straighten his legs, his arms! He’s healing too fast!”
Leroy, used to taking directions in the garden, obeyed immediately. Bo snapped into action a split second later and went to work on the other side, both of them stone-faced as they maneuvered Julian’s bones back into alignment. I knew I could heal him again if I needed to, but that would mean re-breaking the bones, and the pain would be agonizing.
If he lived. He had to live.
Everything happened at once, too fast to process. The healing, the power moving through me like I had become an extension of the mountain, and the loss. I felt—I even saw—a shadowy gray cloud of power rise from Julian’s chest at the same moment the boys were moving, and knew he’d made a sacrifice that was more than equal to mine.
Tears raced down my cheeks as I grieved.
My wolf had given up her power long ago to keep me alive. She’d given up the last thread of connection to make room for the deeper earth magic.
His wolf had done the same now, but to give the human side of my mate back to me. To honor the vow he’d made, though I was sure he’d never imagined the cost of those words, spoken in a moment of passion.
“Look.” Julian’s voice was stronger now. I blinked away tears and saw where he was looking. Two pale shadows circled the moon, flickers of watery light, like pale moths hovering around a flame. And then, a bolt of light, shot back down to earth. But it didn’t land on me or Julian.
“Sergeant,” Leroy shouted. “What’s happening?” He pointed to his friend, who was coated in silvery light.
“He’s my Heir,” Julian rasped. “Bo. You are called by the moon Herself to take on the role of Alpha for the Meridion pack. Do you accept this responsibility?”
“I–I can’t,” Bo stammered, his expression horrified. “I ain’t ready. You said it yourself.”
“I was wrong. The moon doesn’t make mistakes, my son. You are ready. You’re strong and good, and the moon calls you. Answer Her.”
Bo’s eyes widened at the word son. “I… I…” He swallowed, then squared his shoulders. “I do! I am Alpha!”
The change was instant. He went from being a naked boy to being a massive wolf, larger than before. He threw his head back and howled, the sound vibrating with power. As the energy surrounded him, the moonlight poured into him, his dark fur drinking it up. Storing it deep inside.
“Alpha,” I whispered, smiling through my tears. The power that filled me now was nothing like the moon’s, and a part of me ached with longing. My eyes fell on Julian, who had lapsed back into unconsciousness, though I could feel his pulse, feel the iron in his veins as it thrummed. He’d lost too much blood, but he had time to replenish it. Time to get stronger and heal. I pressed my hands even more firmly on his chest and let the power flow through me, my eyes on the boys, who were both almost staggering with shock.
“He’s my Alpha,” Leroy whispered to me, then repeated to Bo, “You’re my Alpha. I can feel it inside.”
Bo whimpered, then howled again, the tones mournful now.
“Nah, Bo! It’s a good thing. It’s how it oughta be. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather follow, and that’s the honest truth. My best friend, the Alpha?” Leroy scrambled across the narrow ledge of stone to kneel at his friend’s feet. “I pledge myself to you, Alpha.” His head was bowed, so he couldn’t see the odd, endearing confusion that filled the new Alpha’s eyes. But he giggled when the wolf started licking him on his ears and face. “C’mon, Bo, you gotta act like an Alpha now. No more messin’ around.” They were on the edge of roughhousing on a steep mountainside, and all four of us were in danger of falling off the cliff.
