My sentiments exactly.

“There has to be more to it than that. Why would the creatures suddenly decide to cause mayhem?”

Cal raised an eyebrow at me, pausing for a moment to stare. “Why not? The things are monsters.”

I stared him down, ignoring how Tommy puffed up at that statement. “Really? And yet, you just had the grand tour of monster kind and you are still alive and well. Not even a scratch or a bit of drool on you.”

He had the grace to look guilty. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that everything I’ve been taught….”

“Maybe you need new teachers,” Tommy snarked.

Cal went all cold and angry in a flash, his golden-brown skin flushing an enthralling dusky color. “I had the best teachers in the world,” he said softly. “They taught me how to control and manipulate my magic. How to be stronger so that the people around me weren’t in danger.” His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “They kept me from having to be executed or put in a magically induced coma for the rest of my life. And they showed me what the unseen things in this world are capable of and how to protect against them.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Careful,” I said, showing fang. “You’re starting to sound like a religious fanatic. Or a hunter.”

The anger disappeared in a blink and I watched him put his mask back on. Apparently, Cal’s time away had not been sunshine and rainbows. Maybe Tommy really did get the better end of the deal.

“So…” I said, feeling the stupid need to give Cal a break for the time being. And also because no way did I want to try to think about what was going on out there. “Tommy, how’s Suzie? Are you giving her the undead pork sword?”

Cal made a choked sound. Tommy glared.

“Cute, Tess,” he said dryly. But I noticed he didn’t answer the question. He ran his hands through his hair and plopped back down on the couch. “I know I should leave her alone, but…I just can’t.”

Cal went to poke around the bookshelf that stood on the opposite wall, running graceful fingers over the spines of my books. “Sounds like you’re a stalker,” he said helpfully.

Tommy ignored him and turned his mournful white eyes on me. “I’m not good enough for her. You know that.”

I sighed. “I’m sorry things have turned out like this for you,” I said. And I was most certainly not going to cry, damn it. I blinked rapidly. “If it weren’t for me, you would be living a normal life.”

Tommy shrugged. “Normal is boring. Normal was killing me long before you ever did.”

“What’s this girl like?” Cal asked, picking up a skull figurine one of my few fanatic fans had sent me when I released my last novel.

“Too good for me,” Tommy said, looking like a dejected teenager as he slumped on the couch. The world was going to hell around us, but he was more worried about his love life.

“She’s a nerdy hippie who works at the library and studies history. She’s a fluffy, latte-drinking loon,” I said. “But she’s not perfect, Tommy. She’s just another freaking human being.”

He gave me a murderous look. Maybe because I refused to put the little cream-puff on a pedestal.

“Besides,” I said, while Cal continued to move around, touching my stuff. “Why the hell would you even want some kind of meaningful relationship? Fuck her all you want. Just don’t come crying to me when you can’t have kids, or she’s aging and you’re not, or she decides she’d rather have a live boyfriend.” God love was awful.

Cal turned to face us both. He spoke to Tommy, but he kept darting glances at me. “I’m pretty sure that when the world is falling apart, love is the only thing that matters. And being different doesn’t mean you can’t be together. You just need to learn how you fit.”

He turned back to the bookshelf, took out one of the books I’d written, and flipped to the first page.

I stood and went to the kitchen to find a raw steak. Fucking love. Fucking feelings. What the hell would the pretty witch know about how badly that shit could damage you.

I leaned against the kitchen counter and pressed my head against the cabinet, claws curling down into the countertop, leaving gouges in the cheap fake tile. Love was what made the world fall apart in the first place. And being different…well, once I had thought that didn’t matter. That one of the good guys could fall in love with one of the bad guys. Or at least accept her enough to make some sort of relationship work.

“Missed the mark on that one, didn’t you?” I whispered.

I straightened and refused to go look in the drawer under the table by the door. I had stared at the monster-killing axe too much as it was already, drawn to it as if the damned thing could tell me what Cloud was thinking. I told myself I didn’t want to see it again until I was able to bury it in a hunter.

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

The days stretched on and I struggled under the strain of the sense of uneasy anticipation that I felt from the creatures in the woods.

I also noticed a steady, insidious increase in my hunger. The wendigo was surging forward again, and I had the sinking feeling that this was a battle I was going to lose.

I ran the perimeter of the areas of the national forest closest to my home. There were no signs of hunters. But every now and then I swore I smelled the scent of leather and incense. I was losing my mind. I scrambled over fallen trees and under tree branches and bushes. I dashed through cold water and drank in the delicious open air. I howled at the moon. I wondered why I had ever wanted to be human in the first place.

Near dawn, I stumbled back to the cabin, blood crusted in my claws and wildness still beating at my heart. But I was exhausted, thanks to the growing press of the sun hovering just beyond the horizon. A tingle of magic caught my awareness and I turned, my heart leaping despite my fatigue. Cloud. Was this where she killed me? Or maybe she would ask for forgiveness and tell me how stupid she had been. I would agree with her on that. And then tell her to fuck right off.

I let out a gusty sigh. The dogman stepped out of the shadows, ambling a few steps on all fours, then stretching to stand up like the hairy man-thing he was. “Hey, Doggy,” I said, leaning against a porch rail. I was too tired to try the steps just yet.

The dogman huffed. He turned his head and regarded me. Probably with pity. On his bizarre face it was hard to tell if he felt sorry for me or wanted to eat me. He made one of his hideous garbled sounds.

Ahanu cawed and fluttered down to land on the dogman’s shoulder. His birdy eyes were judging me. “Not you too,” I said, trying not to pant. Hunger was warring with fatigue, and my mind was so foggy. I needed to sleep. I needed to devour every living thing within five miles of here. My fangs ached.

I blinked, trying to clear my mind. Backyard. I was in my backyard leaning against the railing. Sitting against it now, my ass in the dirt and my back against the post. When had that happened? Shit, I was falling apart faster than I had realized.

Magic rolled over me in tingling waves and I hissed. Cal was there, standing next to the dogman. They were having some sort of odd exchange and my ghost boy was translating. Wait. Not my ghost boy. Traitor spirit.

“Where did you come from?” I asked Cal.

He stopped speaking and turned to me. “Hey there, wendigo girl,” his voice was soft, and his sharp blue eyes bright against his golden skin. Goddamn it, I didn’t need pity from some asshole who got to be in charge of his freaky powers.

“Fuck--” I meant to say more. To tell him to get lost. To ask the dog to either fix me or put me out of my misery. But my burning throat closed off. So damned hungry. I lifted my arm and sank my fangs into it, biting deep. The pain seemed to wake me up a bit. And the blood…well, it was like giving a starving person a glass of water and telling them it would make them feel full…but it was better than nothing. I chewed on my forearm a bit, not feeling the pain.

“Damn it, Tess!” Tommy was there. He must have felt me not feeling so well. Or something.

He surged forward, but Cal caught him by the arm. The taller man pushed past his brother and came to squat down near me, smelling of warm human blood and tingly magic. I lunged, but strong arms caught me and held me still. Damned idiot Tommy. “Tess,” my ghoul shouted, holding my arms so tight I was surprised he didn’t break a bone.

Cal didn’t flinch in the face of my attempt to eat him. “The old guy here says he tried to suppress the wendigo madness, but his powers aren’t what they used to be since his…accident,” he said, gesturing over his shoulder at the dogman.

I growled.

“I’m going to try and see if I can help,” Cal whispered, voice low and soothing.

“Try?” Tommy said, his voice tired but full of warning. “You better damned well not try something on Tess. If you make her worse, I swear to God I will do something a whole lot worse than fuck your high school sweetheart.”

I snorted. “You tell him, moron.”

Tommy seemed to lower his guard when I made jokes. Good. I jerked at his hands and flung myself at the human snack tray.

I hit a wall and slammed back against the porch railing, knocking my head and banging my elbow. “Fuck.”

One corner of Cal’s mouth lifted in a wry smile. “I’m not as human as you seem to think,” he said, still holding up the hand he had used to make some sort of magical shield. It even blocked some of his delicious smell.

I gripped my head in my hands and rocked forward, moaning. My head felt like it was going to crack open. My whole body burned. I started shaking.

Eat him.

I ignored Death as he whispered in my head. If the God was trying to comfort me now, he was far, far too late.

Magic danced over my skin, tingling and foreign, as Cal started to chant in a low, rough voice. At first, I fought it. It felt wrong. Tight and confining. But the deeper it sank into my skin, the more numb I became, as if I was being injected with some sort of painkiller. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, panting as I tried to get more air into my suddenly constricted lungs.

This was nothing like the nearly negligible power I had felt from the dogman. This power dominated and suffocated. It crushed. And I welcomed it. I stopped fighting and let it crush all but the tiniest sliver of my will. There was something human under it all. And suddenly I realized that I craved that humanity so deeply it hurt.

The dogman was right. I needed something to anchor me to my humanity or I was going to disappear under the beast.

Cal dropped his hand. There were lines around his mouth, but he didn’t show any strain otherwise. How powerful was this witch?

Tommy let go of me. “Okay, Tess?” He glanced at Cal. “That felt like some powerful whammy. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

When I didn’t respond, Tommy shook me. “Shit, Tess. Tell me he didn’t damage that last remaining brain cell or some shit.”

I slapped his hands away. “Shut up.”

He stood and went to talk to the dogman.

Cal still crouched in front of me. He studied me with sharp blue eyes. “It would be even more effective if you gave over that last little bit of will I feel you clinging to,” he whispered.

I glared at him. The idea was too tempting for it to be a good one. If I let go completely and let his magic snuff the monster, I would stop feeling all the pain. The hurt. The betrayal. The fear. The goddamned exhaustion.

But would I still be me? The thought made me want to chew on him all over again.

He must have read the anger in my eyes. The witch held out his hand, palm up, exposing the prominent blue veins in his forearm. “Go ahead.”

I stared at him. If I bit a human, I ran the risk of tainting them with the wendigo madness. “You want to be like me?” I asked, my voice low and rough with hunger.

He looked into my eyes as if searching for something. “I can burn the taint away with magic. Most other witches probably couldn’t manage it. But I can. It’s not the most cost-effective use of power, but you need this.”

I still didn’t move. He left his arm extended, watching me.

“I don’t know you. Why should I trust you? For all I know your magical blood is poisoned or something. Or maybe you’d like a pet wendigo just like the hunters.”

He sighed. “Tess, not everyone is out to use you. You don’t have to marry me, just take the edge off that hunger before someone dies, will you?”

I closed my eyes. This is how it had started with Kwan. And now he was dead. “Helping me will kill you,” I said softly.

He was still there. I could feel the steady tingle of his magic and the soft warmth of his human body. “You’ll need to get in line,” he said wryly. “There are lots of other threats that got there long before you.”

I didn’t know what he was babbling about.

“Cal,” Tommy said from behind the witch. “What are you doing?”

The dogman burbled.

“Shh,” Cal told them both. “Private conversation, gentlemen.”

I snorted and opened my eyes to glance at Tommy. “Your brother wants me to chew on him. I told him it’s a bad idea.”

Tommy considered his brother for a while, then shrugged. “He’s a masochistic bastard,” he said finally. Then he looked at me. “But he’s scary powerful, Tess. Even for one of them. He’s the prodigy of asshole witches.”

“I can burn off the wendigo taint,” Cal repeated. “Easy.”

Ahanu croaked loudly, making me jump. The adrenaline woke up the hunger again and I swallowed hard. Damned bird. I swore that was purposeful.

I pushed myself up to my knees and reached out to grasp Cal’s forearm. I stared into his blue eyes as I brought his arm to my mouth. “No crying,” I said. “It will only make me bite harder.”

He laughed. “Maybe I like it that way,” he said with a wicked leer. “I’ve just been accused of being masochistic.”

I shivered and sank my teeth into his soft skin.

Blood laced with power flooded my mouth and I bit harder. Cal breathed out a long breath, then grabbed the back of my head and pulled me closer, holding me there as I drank. I wanted to bite some more. To tear and chew and rend. But I didn’t. I held onto enough of myself to realize that even though Cal said he could burn away the poison my bite held, I had no idea if he could heal any faster than a normal human.

Tommy cleared his throat. “I’m just gonna…go walk the dogman home now.” His tone was stilted. “I feel like I’m seeing something I really shouldn’t see.”

I growled, but didn’t let go of Cal’s arm.

When I finally lifted my head, at Cal’s urging, we were alone on the ground by my front steps. I swiped a hand across my mouth. For the first time in months, I felt like myself. As if I wasn’t about to lose myself to madness. Even if the creature in me still beat against the walls of its magical prison.

Cal took off his outer shirt and ripped a swath of fabric from it, then used it to neatly bind his bleeding arm. Like it was nothing.

“How do you feel?” He asked, studying me with those too-sharp eyes.

I sighed. “Like less of a monster. Or maybe more of a monster. I have no idea.”

He nodded. “You’ll survive.”

I quirked a brow at him. “You assume I want to survive.”

Cal didn’t give me some heartwarming speech to try to change my mind. “We all feel like that sometimes,” he said softly. “But we get up and keep moving anyway. Eventually the bleeding stops.”

I thought maybe he just might know what he was talking about. And I wondered how he knew. Why did the big, bad witch with the looks and the power and the aristocratic stick-up-their-ass family know what it was like to not want to go on?

He stood and gave me a hand up, then stretched his tall form, popping his back. I turned to head inside, but he stopped me, grabbing my wrist and tugging. When I turned around, he was just there, so fast I didn’t have time to react. Firm lips moved over mine, tasting of magic and human warmth. A long arm snaked around my waist and pulled me closer, pressing our hips together, pressing my breasts against his hard, warm chest. His heart beat hot and steady through the thin layers of fabric separating us. His fingers curled into my hair, pulling slightly as he angled my head, bowed me backward for better access.

I groaned and had to make a conscious effort not to bite his lip. Not a hunter. Questionable healing abilities. I pulled against his hold, breaking away, but he didn’t release me, and our bodies were still melded together, the rise and fall of our breathing perfectly synchronized. Another man had played the dutiful keeper and fed me. He had also seemed to think sex was a natural part of the bargain. He was dead. I turned my head away.

“Looking for compensation for the blood?” I asked, my voice sounding nasty even to me.

Cal pulled back farther. “What?”

I looked at him then, putting every bit of my hurt into the look. I had to keep my distance. I couldn’t give in to my body’s stupid instincts. My heart couldn’t survive it. Every time I wanted someone, it ended in disaster. And this guy was danger dipped in menace, and topped with suspicion. “That’s what they all seem to want. You really are a masochist, aren’t you? Get your jollies off bloodletting? Want me to scratch you up good next time?” I dug my fingers into his hips, letting my claws pierce the fabric, but not the skin.

He straightened and gripped my upper arms, holding me back so he could glare at me. “I don’t know what the hell you are accusing me of,” he said softly. “But I’ve wanted to kiss that evil mouth of yours since the first time I saw you.”

I drew away and he let me go. “Sure,” I waved a hand flippantly. “See you around.” I started up the stairs and the magic he had woven over me pulled at me, urging me to stop. I turned and glared at him.

He smiled that overly charming smile at me and bowed like a prince from a fairytale. “Sleep well, wendigo girl.”

Then he turned and climbed into his ridiculous SUV and drove off into the rising pink of sunrise.

I stared at the horizon, my eyes burning. I was confused, and tired and…wrung out. But I was more whole.

Maybe the thing I needed to anchor me to my humanity was another human.

And maybe I had just lost every last bit of my fucking mind.

I slammed the door behind me and fell into my bed like a rock.

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

Cloud kept to the shadows, rushing from one pool of deep darkness to the next, bolstered by a slight pull of magic—only a little, not enough to tire her. Her tomahawk flashed, severing the head from the shoulders of the creature that rose up in front of her. There were dozens of them. And they were angry. Aggressive.

Even when the natures of some should have been more docile.

She spun as talons dragged over her shoulder and down her arm, leaving shallow furrows that streamed blood. The bird creature that grabbed for her should have been harmless, poking about in the marshes for fish and snakes. Not trying to feast on her immortal hide. She slashed upward, gutting it. Then she planted a foot in its feathered chest and held it down, thigh muscles straining, as she slit its throat. It clamored and warbled, but finally went lifeless.

She dashed into the shadows again, skimming the edges of the melee. Other hunters moved around her, most doing as she was, picking off the outliers in the group of monsters.

Cloud’s throat ached as she clamped down on the feelings threatening to overwhelm her. She wasn’t a feeling person right now. She was a weapon.

The elders were behaving strangely. And they watched her with a scrutiny that they never had before. She was one of their most trusted. Her commitment was legendary, even if she did tend to keep to herself while carrying out her destiny. But she felt their eyes, even now. She was shackled by them. Had Brutus let on more than she thought? Did they know about Tess? And yet, if they suspected…why hadn’t they made a move?

She knocked aside a strange ram that had head-butted her into a tree, making her momentarily lose her breath. She was never going to get the council off her back at this rate. Angry, she kicked the ram again, ignoring its bellow of rage. She leapt, feet landing on the creature’s solid back, then propelling her forward and up. She tucked into a tight ball and hit the ground in a roll, rising to her feet in the same motion, tomahawk flashing, the weapon glowing with hungry hunter magic. It had taken her days to make it, slowly imbuing it with her magic. But it wasn’t like she could just go to Tess’s house and ask for her old one back.

She hacked her way through to the center of the field, where a massive creature stood, it’s roar shattering the night. It looked like a twisted cross between a grizzly bear and a scorpion. Its armored tail lashed about, dripping poison, the stinger long enough to impale a human.

She narrowed her eyes. Fuck the council. Let them suspect her. She would give them reason to let her do her job without their rules. She let loose a high, ululating cry that rose like a hunting wolf’s call. She moved like the shadows that were her cloak, slashing and dancing away, leaping over the deadly tail to hew it off at the base.

The creature screamed and swiped at her with its sharp claws longer than her forearm.

She took it apart, piece by piece.

She was standing in the center of the field, breath coming in sharp, rasping gasps, dripping burning black blood, when she felt it. Magic. But not hunter magic.

The creatures around her had multiplied, but they were milling about now, maybe startled by the brutal death of their bear leader. More hunters joined the fray…but they weren’t hunters she recognized. They were clad in black, stretchy clothes head-to-toe, but all dressed the same, as if in uniform. They moved in slowly, forming a loose circle around the creatures that remained, most of which were benign beings who had been cowed into fighting. Magic started to rise.

A hunter rushed past Cloud. “Move it!”

She pulled on her own magic and slipped into the space between shadows. Materializing out of the numbing cold of the inbetween place, she arrived outside the circle of newcomers. Her hair lashed about her in a wind that didn’t feel natural. Energy rose up out of the earth itself. For a split second, the wind stopped, and nothing moved, every creature gone suddenly silent.

Then there was a deep whump of sound, a percussive blast that knocked her back against a tree, sending pain lancing through the side where the ram had hit her earlier. When she looked back at the clearing, the creatures were gone. Blasted to oblivion.

She looked about, taking in the startling destruction. The black-clad newcomers slowly faded away into the trees and then were gone.

“What the hell was that?” She whispered.

Another hunter, a man she had come across in passing over the years, slipped from the tree trunk behind her. “The council’s new hunters,” he whispered. “You see them, stay out of their way.” Then he was away, fading into the dark.

Cloud’s vision swam with fatigue and she scrubbed a hand over her face in a vain attempt to clear her eyes before she stepped into the shadows to escape the cursed place.

She lost her grip on the shadow magic and stumbled out of the dark space before she made it back to the little motel where the rest of her stuff was. She had planned to pay for another night and spend the day sleeping. And probably worrying about what the hell the council was up to, so she could avoid worrying about other things. Other people.

She stumbled again as she tried to make her way to the road she could see a few hundred feet away. Her vision swam again. She could usually see in the dark nearly as well as a monster. But tonight things blurred and swirled together and confused her. She shook her head, feeling suddenly hot, then achingly cold. When the shivering started, she cursed.

The scorpion-bear.

She crouched and ran her hands over her body. Where?

She realized someone was singing an old Ojibwe child’s song and her head snapped up, searching the clearing. The song stopped. She ran her hands over her arms, her chest. The singing started again.

She laughed and fell on her butt to sit when she realized it was her singing. Stupid.

She frowned shook her head again. She had been looking for something…? Feeling her body. She remembered hands on her body. Small, greedy hands with claws at the tips. And the taste of Tess in her mouth.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She tried to clear her head and focus through the haze that surrounded her. Something about an insect…poison…she ran her hands over her thighs. What was she doing? Legs. Pain lanced through her body when her hand found a hot, swollen lump on her calf.

“Damn it.”

She managed to get her tomahawk out of her belt, though her hands shook when a new round of intense heat was followed by shivers. She grimaced at the dirty blade, still coated in monster blood. She wiped it off on her pants as best she could, then she drew the blade along her calf, parting fabric, skin, and muscle with ease. It burned, and she hissed in pain, blacking out for a while.

When she came to, she tried to squeeze the pocket of venom, and was rewarded with a gush of blood and fluid and a surge of nausea.

She needed a healer. One that knew monsters. She needed Kwan.

She fell backward and lay shivering on the ground, looking up through the bare tree branches above at the cloak of stars in the sky. So pretty. She could just sleep here, under the stars. Surely when she woke up she’d feel better.

Images swirled behind her eyelids and she danced in and out of awareness. “Shit.”

She rolled over and got to her hands and knees. “Get up, Cloud,” she chanted to herself, “get up.” She heard another voice in her head as she said the words, one that had shouted at her with irritation. Get up. If that is all it takes to defeat you, how will you fight them? The monsters?

So, she got up. She stumbled along as much as she could, and she crawled when she couldn’t walk. “Get up, Cloud,” she chanted. “Get up. Get up. Get up.”

She had no idea where she was going. Only that she needed help. Only that she wasn’t allowed to die. Never allowed to die. Only to fight. And fight. And fight.

 

*****

 

I woke as darkness was falling, my senses suddenly on alert. Something was wrong. But I had no idea how I knew that. I turned my awareness to the creatures in the forest and felt their anxiety. I shifted to sit over the edge of my bed and yelped.

Struggling to get control over my gasping breath and racing heart, I glared at Death. “Lurking around people’s bedrooms is beyond creepy, you know.”

He wore his dapper older man form today. “Go to the woods,” he whispered. “You don’t have long.” His sad silver-blue eyes terrified me. What was making Death look sad?

I leapt to my feet and headed toward the door in my sweats and thin t-shirt, not caring that it was probably thirty degrees outside. When I didn’t feel his presence at my back, I turned to look for him. “Aren’t you coming?”

He faded back into the shadows in the corner of the room, his shape melting into darkness. I will avoid making the same mistake twice.

I didn’t like the sound of that.

Tearing out my back door, I leapt off the porch and hit the ground running. Something was causing a disturbance a few miles away, at the edge of the forest. I pulled on my creature speed, irritated that it was less than it had been. Everything felt dampened. Suppressed.

The price of magic witch shackles, I supposed. Cal’s binding was tighter than the dogman’s had been. Hopefully that meant it was more permanent.

I darted around trees and over obstacles without conscious thought. As I got closer, I recognized the problem. Cloud was here. No doubt terrorizing the local creatures. Maybe this was it. Why she danced around killing me, I had no idea. She clearly hated the sight of me.

I slid to a halt under the bare branches of a big maple tree, my feet slipping in the deep drifts of dead leaves that scattered the forest floor.

Cloud lay curled up in a ball at the base of the tree, and for one brief moment, my chest clenched, and I was sure she was dead. But no. If she were dead, she would be nothing but dust.

Hunters didn’t age well after you took out their life spark.

I paced closer. Her breath made little white puffs in the chilly air. Snow wasn’t far off. My monsters were watching her curiously from a distance, but they weren’t attacking. I felt confusion in them. Did we like her or not like her? Was she welcome or a threat? I had nothing to tell them—I didn’t know the answers to those questions myself.

She shivered and moaned, and I walked over to her as if I had a death wish. Why couldn’t she either attack me or stay the fuck away already? I was sick of trying to decide if I wanted to murder her or…well, fuck that anyway.

I squatted down by her leather-clad form. “Cloud?”

She started shaking harder, and for a moment I thought she was crying. Then she started singing, fingers reaching up weakly to bat at the tree branches above her. It sounded like a happy, bouncy little kid’s song. Her honey-brown eyes held only a faint hint of their usual golden glow, the pupils blown wide and her expression glazed.

I could smell her blood, but it smelled wrong, repulsive and…dirty. Not the sweet, power-rich delicacy that it had been. “Hey, look Ninja-Indian Chick, happy hour is over. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.”

She laughed like a child. Then she looked at me and those glazed-over eyes filled with tears. “Tess?” Her husky alto voice wobbled.

I shook my head and took her outstretched hand in mine. She was cold. Hunters were never cold. They always burned like fire. “Yep,” I said with a big, fake smile. “Everyone’s favorite neighborhood wendigo.”

She squeezed my hand and burst into tears. I scooted behind her and got my other arm under hers, grabbing her under her lovely chest, I pulled her up to recline against me, holding her while she shook. She wouldn’t let go of my hand and she squeezed so tight the bones ground together. Then she started sobbing, ugly crying in a way I had never thought possible.

Part of me was scared shitless. The other part really wished I had this on video. Cloud made an interesting drunk.

“Hey,” I said, pressing my lips close to her silky hair, inhaling her smoky incense scent as I whispered in her ear. “Hunter, what are you doing in my woods? What happened to you?” And why the fuck had she come here of all places. I inhaled again. Whatever was wrong with her was in her blood.

“Tess?” She said again. Then she twisted around to look at me, her motions fumbling and feeble. “What…you look weak. Who did that to you? I’ll kill them!”

I frowned. She wasn’t wrong. I felt messed up since that spell. But I wasn’t a raving monster anymore. Besides, who knew what she was really seeing right now. And why the hell was I sitting here holding her? I could rip her head off right now and she wouldn’t even struggle. Problem solved.

She shook her head. “I killed her. I killed…her. Tess…there was so much blood. And screaming.” She let go of my hand to grasp her head and rock forward, almost toppling over in the process. I steadied her, grasping her shoulders. She started crying even harder, holding up her hands as if to ward off a horrible sight in front of her. “She was a monster. Kill her. Have to save her spirit. That’s why I was made!” Her words were starting to slur. “I loved her. I killed her. I killed Tess. I loved her. And she loved me. Everyone I love dies.”

The heartbroken, jagged sound of her voice was torture. I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and hugged her tight, trying to stop the rocking. “I’m right here,” I said, terror rising in me at the emotions her words had caused. No. No. No.

“Gookomis…” she whispered, like a heartsick child. “Gookomis…no, no, no….”

I let go of her and she fell over sideways into the drift of leaves, her eyes going blank as she stared at the forest beyond us, where the glowing eyes of my creature herd stared back. She started singing again while I ran my hands carefully over her perfect, sculpted body.

No scalp wounds, no lumps on her head, but I knew that already. Whatever was wrong with her was inside her. My hands stroked over her muscular arms, her back and torso. Her dark, skin-tight sweater was ripped in several places and she had scratches on her that should have already healed, but nothing looked life-threatening. I prodded her abdomen and she freaking giggled, twisting away and snorting before going back to her singing and crying.

I smiled like an idiot for a second. My cold, dangerous hunter was ticklish? My face fell. No. Not mine. And maybe not even alive for much longer.

My hands stroked lower. It took me longer than I would have expected to find the small gash on the back of her calf. Her whole lower leg was swollen and hot, where the rest of her body was icy. I ripped the pant leg up to the knee and pushed the leather aside. It looked like a giant, swollen bug bite covering her calf…which someone had sliced open. Sticky yellowish goo oozed out and it wasn’t even bleeding anymore. I lowered my head, knowing I was going to regret it, and breathed in.

I jerked my head back. Shit. Yeah, that was where that nasty smell was coming from. She had been poisoned by something. God only knew what had caused that.

“Oh, Cloud,” I said tiredly. “You are supposed to be better than that.”

But my inner monster was freaking out. Cloud was delirious and shaking with chills and sweats. And her heartbeat was thready, galloping along, then hitching to a stop, then galloping on some more.

I looked up at the creatures who had drawn closer. The bird-thing was there. I knew it could speak. I pulled Cloud into my arms again and she sighed, reaching up to stroke my cheek with a shaking, clammy hand. “My pretty wendigo.” Her voice was just a whisper.

I ignored the way my heart lurched. Cloud. Oh, goddamn it Cloud!

I looked at the bird-thing. “Whatever did this was one of you guys,” I said firmly, refusing to let my voice wobble the way it wanted to. “Fix it.”

The bird thing took a few cautious steps closer and stood looking down at us. Hunts us. It said in my mind, in its difficult human-speak.

I glared at it and held Cloud tighter. “Yes,” I said through clenched teeth, fangs aching. “But she’s mine. And you things owe me a hunter.”

It was a low blow, but I didn’t care. I felt the confusion and guilt of the creatures around me. They had killed Kwan to protect the God of death. They had no choice in their actions. But he had been mine, and they knew that.

The bird made a warbling sound. Hurts you.

I shifted Cloud and jiggled her a little bit. She was drifting off to sleep, her heart rate slowing. “Now!” I nearly screamed. “You fix her right fucking now!”

The creature in me flared up against the magic that was suppressing it. I felt my power swell with my hunger. If she died, I would devour them all, human, monster, every living thing in the world.

The bird warbled again and there was a scurrying in the fallen leaves around us. A troop of little stick-like creatures with red mushroom heads about five inches tall filed over to stand by Cloud’s leg. They each put a little mossy hand on her skin and started making a deep sound like an earthquake, a subterranean rumble.

One of them came over and touched me, peering up at me with round, purple eyes. I felt it reach through the magical barrier Cal had put on me and grab a hold of my wendigo powers. It sucked energy out of me and gave it to the other little mushroom men.

I couldn’t really protest. But fuck, I didn’t have much energy stored up to begin with.

When they stopped and trooped away in a wobbly line into the forest, their red color muted, Cloud’s leg had stopped oozing puss and her heartbeat was steadier.

She groaned and rolled onto her side, curling into me and wrapping her arms around my waist. She lay there for some time, breathing slowly, maybe dozing. I sat back against the tree trunk and stroked my fingers through her black hair. It was tangled and I’m pretty sure there was blood in it. I was sitting in the middle of the woods in the dark, holding the hunter who had sworn to kill me. Both of us stank.

It was perfect.

But of course, if it gave me a warm feeling like home to be near her, like something was suddenly right after it had been so wrong…then that meant it was all about to come to a messy, screeching halt. Because my life.

I felt her wake, and braced myself as she pushed herself up to a half-reclining position on her hands. She looked down at her leg, then let out a gusty sigh. Her whole body went rigid when she realized she was sitting against another person. She pushed herself away, spinning into a crouch that must have been agony on her injured leg. But she didn’t let the pain show on her face. I wondered how much else that cold expression hid.

Her eyes glowed brighter now above her high cheekbones, and a breeze rippled her angled haircut, blowing the dark strands across her face. “Tess?” she breathed.

I sighed and moved myself to sit cross-legged. I didn’t have the energy for the fight that was sure to come. “Hi ya, Cloud Princess.”

She shook her head. “No. Why am I here?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Someone got themselves injured and crawled over to my neck of the woods to die. Did you miss me, Cloud?” My voice was light, mocking. Even though I wanted to ask her the question for real. Did she miss me? Was she sorry? Would she come back and help me make sense of the world?

She frowned, and her eyes darted away, taking in the forest around me as if looking for threats. “Damn. They’ll know. Why did I come here?” She stood, fists clenched at her sides and a nervous tension in her, as if she didn’t know whether to fight or flee.

“I’m not fighting you,” I said from my place on the ground.

Her gaze snapped back to me. “You need to be ready for a fight. Always.” Her eyes narrowed. “What happened to you? You were losing control before…now you’re calm. But you feel weak, Tess. Who is doing this to you?”

I pushed myself up to standing, crossing my arms over my chest to keep from strangling her, suddenly so angry I could hardly stop the urge to rip her throat out. “You are doing this to me, Cloud! You left me alone.” I dropped my arms, my claws out and fangs flashing. “You left. So leave, hunter. Go!” I flung out an arm, pointing toward town. “Walk away, again!”

I watched her struggle with some strong emotion, saw the moment she decided not to give in to it and shut herself down. “Watch your back, wendigo,” she said, husky voice nearly a whisper on the wind.

I flipped her off as she disappeared into the shadows. Watch my back? I saved her life and all I got was a fucking watch your back?

Fucking hunters.

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

This fucking night couldn’t get any worse. Cloud had ditched me. Again. And I was stupid enough to have hoped it would turn out differently. That maybe she hadn’t killed me yet because she cared.

God, I can be so dumb.

Her actions made no sense though. And what did she mean “they’ll know?” Who would know what? Was she afraid her little hunters’ council would find out she was hanging out with a wendigo?

Not so long ago, she had declared she was going to tell them about me. That she was going to stop hiding me and convince the council that I wasn’t an evil beast. I had leapt to the stupid conclusion that it was because she wanted me. But as always, I’m sure it was just another scheme to use me.

I came to a halt as I approached the house. Apparently, the night could indeed get worse.

“Shitsticks.”

I trudged up the steps and into the house, striding past my unwelcome guest to find someone else in my kitchen making coffee. “Ed said you drink the stuff in the middle of the night,” Flo said as she held out a steaming mug.

I stared at her for a moment as my dad shuffled into the doorway behind me, unfazed that I’d ignored him in the living room. My worthless parent smelled clean again, free from the reek of stale alcohol and old man. He was oddly silent. Usually he started in with his yammering immediately and didn’t stop until I shoved him out the door.

I looked Florence over. My dad’s girlfriend tilted her head and studied me back, a small smile curling her lips. She looked as fit as ever. Her silver hair was shorter, thanks to Brutus chopping off her long braid and using it to insinuate her death a few months ago. It bumped about her shoulders in a sassy bob that emphasized her plump, weathered brown cheeks and her blueberry eyes. She was a duende—some sort of sprite. I was ridiculously happy to see her alive, despite the absolute certainty that if she was here with my old man in the middle of the night, the shit was about to hit the fan.

I sipped my coffee as I eyed her. Then I went to get more sugar and stir it into my cup. “You guys nocturnal now?” I asked sweetly.

She sighed. “Oh, Sweetheart, it’s good to see you too.”

I laughed. “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said seriously. “The stupid bird said you were just hiding, but I was worried…I…well shit if I know who’s lying and who is telling the truth anymore.”

Then I froze. Ah shit. My stupid deadbeat parent didn’t know about monsters and magic, and things that go bump in the night. He thought I was a head-case who wore fake horns and plastic teeth to promote my awful horror novels. Or that I was just weird.

Flo only smiled at me, patient and understanding. “He knows.”

I turned to look at my dad. That certainly explained his silence. My shoulders pulled up around my ears. I felt ridiculously…ashamed for lying to him all this time.

Fuck that. He was a jerk who had spent most of my childhood and all of my adult life getting drunk and gambling, so he didn’t have to deal with real life. Was he scared of me now?

His eyes traveled from my antlers to my fangs, to the claws that had popped out instinctively. I willed the claws away with an effort.

“I can’t say I was terribly surprised, Tess.” He held out his arms and beckoned me closer. “God damn, the shit you’ve been through, girl.”

I took a step forward before I caught myself. I did not need a fucking hug. He came to me and hugged me anyway, goddamn him. I let out a choked noise, completely floored when I started crying uncontrollably. I couldn’t seem to stop. The tears came in big, drenching waves, as I blubbered like an idiot. I had been hurt so many times in my life that I thought I was getting numb to it. But no. Apparently all I needed was for one person to acknowledge the fact that it had been so hard, and I completely lost my mind.

Finally, I pulled back, grabbing a dishtowel to wipe my face. I tossed my hair back and pretended I had not just gone all maiden in distress to my daddy.

“So what,” I said, my voice lower than usual thanks to all the crying. “That doesn’t explain what you are doing here.”

Dad’s gaze darted to Flo, and I read fear in those blue eyes, so like my own.

“Spit it out,” I said, my head starting to hurt.

Flo came to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Where are your hunters, Tess?”

It felt like someone had punched me in the gut. Fun. I waved a hand flippantly, as if I couldn’t care less. “Oh, one is dead and the other one is out there somewhere plotting my demise.”

Dad’s eyes widened. “Cloud….”

I narrowed my eyes at him. The old coot had a soft spot for the cold, bitchy hunter. “Is trying to kill me,” I supplied.

His breath left him in a whoosh. “Then the other one?”

I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. “Chased after a monster he shouldn’t have been hunting.”

He almost hugged me again, but this time I was fast enough to evade him, stepping sideways and retrieving my coffee cup, using it as a barrier.

Flo shook her head. “I don’t know why on earth you were so attached to a couple of murderers, but I am sorry for your loss. I understand you cared for them.”

I didn’t reply. There was nothing to say really. She was absolutely correct on all counts. See, even imaginary fairytale creatures are smarter than my dumb ass.

“We came because there is something I need to show you,” Flo said quietly. I shivered. Her kindly-old-human-lady act slipped just a bit and I got a peek at something much, much older. Something that had moved from home to home, making its way from Portugal to America as it was hunted just for existing.

I shook my head. “No thanks, I’ll pass.”

She snorted. “Go get in the car, girl, we are going on a road trip.”

I put my mug down. “First off, you can’t make me go anywhere. Secondly, I have shit here I need to take care of. I can’t go far. And I can’t be out in the daylight…so maybe you and daddy dearest can just go have fun by yourselves.”

She frowned at me. “I’m serious, Tess. I told your father about our world because it wasn’t safe for him to be ignorant anymore. Because the battle is moving closer to us and I’m not sure there is anywhere left that we can run.”

I wanted to put my hands over my ears and refuse to listen. I stood there instead, letting her words wash over me, feeling detached. “They are running from something,” I said slowly. My creatures. The ones who had flocked here thinking I was offering sanctuary.

She sighed. “What other choice do they have? What other human cares if they live or die?”

I laughed then, sharp and bitter. “Have you looked at me lately? I’m not human, Flo.”

She waved a hand. “Close enough. Close as we’ve got.”

I turned to dad. “You sure she didn’t fall and hit her head on the way here?”

He smiled at that, but then his face grew serious too. “Tess, she’s been around for a long time. If she says it’s bad. It’s bad.”

I was afraid of that.

“Well, then,” I said with a smile that showed all my teeth. “Let’s go take a fucking road-trip.” I picked up my jacket off the hook by the door. “Oh…and I’m bringing my undead ghoul servant.” I glanced at dad. “You know, Tommy? The idiot?”

He blinked at me. “Tommy is a--” he cleared his throat.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Monster? Yeah, old man. We’re all monsters around here. You get used to it. Just…be careful who you strike up conversation with at dinner, alright?”

*****

We hopped in Dad’s old blue Buick and headed south. Flo was driving, and I wasn’t entirely comfortable with her speeding down the open stretches of dark road. She and I might survive a high-speed crash when a deer decided to step out in front of the car, but Ed was all human.

Fortunately, her reflexes were on-par with most of the other creatures I’d encountered. When a stupid buck did dash out, she tracked its movements and swerved around it flawlessly. Dad let out a breath.

“Well,” he said tiredly, “at least your driving makes more sense now.”

Florence just laughed, and dad smiled back. He knew she wasn’t human, and he didn’t care. I still had trouble with that concept.

We drove for three hours, and I kept a constant eye on the horizon. It wasn’t too late yet, but if whatever it was we were going to see took very long, the damned sun would be up before I made it back home. Tommy slouched in the seat next to me and tapped away at his phone. I didn’t hear sound, so I thought he must be texting Suzie, rather than playing his stupid games.

“Humans usually sleep at night,” I reminded him.

He looked up and gave me a nasty leer. “Not if their boyfriend is a ghoul. And, you know, amazing in bed.”

“Ugh,” I rolled my eyes. Too much fucking information. Now I had so many question that I didn’t want to have—like how did erections work when you were dead? Was he cold? Did he have supernatural stamina? Oh. My. God. “Barf.”

Tommy chuckled.

Dad eyed us from the front seat. “You two are like brother and sister. I always wished you had a sibling, Tess.”

I glared at him. I had spent my childhood completely and utterly alone after my mom died. Thanks to his retreat into his alcoholic pity-party. I opened my mouth to give him a scathing reply, but Tommy beat me to it.

“A wendigo can’t be worse than my real siblings.”

I met his eyes and shrugged. Cal didn’t seem too bad. I hadn’t spent enough time around the rest to form opinions, but the girls had seemed open and friendly. Certainly not prone to eating people. But who knows?

Flow hushed us. “Listen,” she hissed. “Feel.”

I sat up and Tommy slipped his phone away into his pocket. Was he sexting? Oh God, shut up brain!

Then I was too distracted to think about it anymore. Because I felt what Flo had felt.

Magic.

There was a glow on the horizon that wasn’t the sun. I felt small flares of power and saw a couple of brief flares of light, like small gouts of flame. “What--”

The ground shook and Flo pulled over on the side of the road. “I don’t think we should get any closer. They’ve been going at it in this area for a while now, but it’s slowly moving north.” She looked at me as we got out of the car. “They’re trying to escape. But the hunters just keep chasing.”

I narrowed my eyes at the glow in the night as I got out of the car. “Wildfire?”

Tommy cursed under his breath as he slid around my side of the car. I didn’t bother to tell him to shut it. He was right.

Some distant battle on the other side of the country was scary enough. But this shit was right in my backyard. And if Flo was right, it was moving closer.

And that magic. I sensed hunters, but also something else. They had changed their magic somehow. It felt both familiar and foreign all at once. And so at odds with the energy of the forest creatures.

“Okay,” I said, sensing something else. “Road trip officially fucking over. Everyone in the car.”

I dashed around the front of the car, grabbed Ed and threw him back inside the passenger side of the car, where he had only just exited. “Tess!”

I slammed the door in his face and looked at Flo’s grim expression.

“Hunters,” she whispered.

I nodded. “Fuck. Just…fuck.”

“I’ll drive,” she said hopping inside. “You can catch up?”

I glanced at Tommy and he nodded. I had a bad feeling about this. I had better control since Cal had put the witch spell on me, but Tommy and I were not at full power. Not even close.

Flo turned the car around. “I’m sorry,” she paused to say. “I wanted to show you what was going on. I wanted you to feel it.”

I nodded in understanding. I wouldn’t have believed her otherwise. Another small tremor shook the ground and I did feel it. I knew exactly what she meant. Whatever that was, it had just killed dozens of magical creatures. I felt their terror, right before the sense of them disappeared as if they had never existed. This wasn’t a war, it was slaughter.

Flo sped away with my dad and I followed Tommy into the woods. We headed away from the glow, but not in the same direction as Flo and Dad, heading more north-west to take our pursuers off track. I ran, Tommy leapt like an over-exuberant Tigger.

But eventually they caught up to us.

There were two of them. One hunter and one with that strange magic.

“Damn it all to fucking hell!” Tommy shouted. “They have goddamned motherfucking witches!”

I slid to a halt as I found myself blocked by a wall of magic. It didn’t feel as…solid… somehow, as the wall Cal had hit me with before. Maybe this witch wasn’t as strong.

I seriously hoped so.

Tommy and I spun in a circle, our backs pressed together. “I got it,” the idiot said, rushing the hunter.

He got a punch in before the witch turned that magic on him. But that was a mistake. Because apparently, he couldn’t put up enough of a barrier to block us both at the same time.

I was on him in a heartbeat. Hunger. Rage. Emptiness. So much darkness that it was like falling down a black hole. Warm blood. Power. Magic.

I was lost.

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

When we got back to the cabin, the sun was up. And I was in a royally bad fucking mood.

Tommy dragged me up the steps and into the house, his feet stumbling as much as mine. We had both gotten a big power surge when I fed, but that had worn off after a few hours of struggling on in the daylight, too afraid to shelter somewhere until dark for fear the hunters would find us again.

They were sure to be just a little more pissy than usual when they found what was left of the two who had come after us the first time.

I sank down to sit on the kitchen floor, hair dangling over my bare shoulders, crusted in blood, head pounding with icepick stabs that made me shiver. My shirt was long gone, and my bra was about to lose the battle. Only one strap was holding it up. I lay my head on the cool linoleum and closed my eyes. We had made it home to the sanctuary of my buzzard herd and my creature forest. My bed was twenty feet, one door, and a million miles away. The kitchen floor was good enough.

I woke in my bed. I could only assume Tommy had made the arduous journey to the room carrying my unconscious ass. The night was only just falling, the sky still the purplish color of a new bruise when I peeked out my bedroom window. But I heard voices raised in the living room. Male voices. And here and there a female one.

I padded to the hallway and leaned against the wall to watch Tommy argue with his family. “You expect me to believe that you didn’t know?” My ghoul shouted into his father’s face.

His mother tugged at his arm. “Of course we knew, Tommy, but it just didn’t seem relevant.”

“Didn’t seem fucking relevant?” Now he was rounding on his mom. “The covens are working with the hunters and you didn’t think it was fucking relevant?”

Cal had been standing silent, watching his brother, probably waiting for Tommy to yell himself out so he could get a word in edgewise. He was the first to notice me and he broke away instantly, coming to stand before me.

“Are you hurt?” He reached out a hand as if to touch my cheek and I jerked back.

“My head hurts because it’s not time to be up yet, but all the yelling was getting annoying,” I growled.

He gave me a tired, lop-sided smile, not seeming to care that I was still caked in filth. “Well, if that’s all.”

He made a motion with his hand around my head and magic danced over me. I hissed, not trusting witch magic just now. But my headache vanished.

“Sorry,” he said, giving me the innocent, sweet look. “Let me help you get to the bathroom, hmm?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I didn’t need help showering and he damned well knew it. I also didn’t think he just wanted to see me naked. I turned and headed toward the bathroom.

Cal followed me in and shut the door, then did something with his magic before he turned back to me. “They won’t hear us. Are you okay? Really?”

I shrugged and picked dried blood out from under my nails. Human blood. No biggie.

He put his hands on my shoulders. “Tess.”

I looked up into his sharp blue eyes. All the sweetness was gone, and his real face was there, waiting.

“I ate them,” I said, voice a husky whisper. “All that’s left are scraps of cloth and bits of bone.”

I shuddered, pushing away the nausea and the clawing feeling of panic that rose through me at the admission.

Cal took a deep breath. “They were trying to kill you. And Tommy. And probably your dad and his lady friend.”

I nodded.

“Without even verifying that you were a threat.”

I nodded again. “Of course. We are all threats.”

He let out a long, shaky sigh. “It is unfortunate they thought that way.”

I slumped. “That’s all you have to say? One of them was a witch.”

He spun me around and unhooked my bra clasp with a deft flick of his fingers, then tossed the soiled thing away to the corner of the bathroom. “Some of your monsters eat humans,” he reminded me. “Some humans eat humans.”

I gagged.

“I didn’t mean you, Tess. I meant actual vanilla human killers.”

I pondered that while he unbuttoned my jeans and worked them off, the fabric stiff from being soaked in gore and then drying on the trek through the forest.

When I was naked, he turned on the shower and pushed me inside. “Wash. And while you rinse off, let the guilt go with it.”

Once I was under the water, he pulled the curtain closed. Cal sighed and sat on the closed toilet lid. “You’ve never killed a person before, have you? Other than my idiot brother?”

I snorted as I shampooed my nasty, matted hair. “No. Just him and a wendigo. My meals have always been…volunteered. And they lived.” For a while anyway. The words brought Kwan’s handsome face to my memory, and I swore I could still taste him. Tears leaked out and mingled with the hot water, and even though I hadn’t minded at all that Cal saw me naked and covered with filth, I was thankful that he couldn’t see me now.

I had eaten two human beings.

“It…you have to find a way to make peace with that part of you,” he said softly. “It is never easy but--"

He was interrupted by a flurried pounding on the door. “Caldwell?” Tommy snarled from the other side. “Tell me you are not in there.”

I peeked around the shower curtain to find Cal grinning. “Should I answer him or stay quiet, so as to defend your honor?” He whispered.

I rolled my eyes. “Piss off Tommy,” I called cheerily.

There was a snort from the other side of the door. “Fine, Tess. But remember what I told you before.”

It took me a minute, but I did remember. Eat whoever I want, just don’t trust them. My ghoul was so cynical. I wonder where he got that trait? I thought, drowning in the sarcasm.

“Coffee, Tommy,” I demanded.

“And some peace and quiet,” Cal added. He lowered his voice. “I know no one else can hear through this door, Tommy. When did your magic awaken, and how different is it than ours?”

Silence.

I ducked back inside the shower for another round of scrubbing, just to be sure I got it all. Tommy the human disappointment had magic?

My ghoul heaved a sigh. “I’ll make the damned coffee.”

“Tommy,” Cal said softly. “She needs to talk to me about the people she killed. Okay?”

More silence.

I lathered and rinsed. What did he mean by telling Tommy that? I had no patience for all this family drama and dancing around. With my dad, if I had something to say, I just said it. And he usually returned the favor.

“Yeah, okay,” Tommy said. “I’ll make the girls help me cook dinner.”

Cal snorted. “Good luck.”

When Tommy was gone, I reached my hand out and felt around on the counter for my comb, then used the comb and a shit-ton of conditioner to work the knots and tangles out of my hair. “Why do you need to talk to me about killing people, Cal?”

I failed to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Was anyone what they seemed in my life?

Cal sighed, and I heard the shift off fabric as he leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. “Because I’ve been there a time or two,” he said slowly. “I…Tommy told you that my parents took me away because I couldn’t control my magic, right?”

“Yep. He said you blew up the house and they thought a little help was in order. But other than the fact that you all left him behind, he didn’t really give me any details.”

I tugged at an especially nasty knot, then hissed in exasperation. Cal slid the shower curtain aside slightly to see what the problem was, then beckoned me to sit on the edge of the tub. Taking the comb, he turned to face me on his toilet seat throne and worked at the knot with deft fingers.

“They didn’t know what to do with me. I was more powerful than anyone else they knew at the time. But I was a danger to everyone around me who couldn’t perform defensive magic.” He blew out a breath. “So…they enlisted me in a training program with a branch of the government. An organization that studies the less than human elements of the world and tries to combat the worst of the nasties out there.”

“Like government hunters?”

He nodded and tugged at my hair a bit. “Sort of. But more regulated. More organized and less focused on simply eradicating everything. I trained with them for four years. And during that time, I was called in to help them from time to time—they could train me and solve crimes, two birds with one stone.”

He set a pile of bark and some leaves beside me, then started dragging the comb through my waist-length hair in long, rhythmic strokes. “I helped with some human cases. The magical community isn’t the only one that has monsters.”

I sighed. “No. I think human monsters are even more creepy.” Because they didn’t have animalistic instincts to blame.

Standing, I rinsed the last of the conditioner out of my now smooth hair and shut off the water. I took the towel Cal handed me and wrapped it around myself, then stepped out. “So, are you going to tell me killing people gets easier, or something like that?” I said, looking down at him.

Cal shook his head, his dark eyes full of pain. “No. It’s awful. Always. But you learn to wall it off, so it can haunt you later. We have evolved to survive,” he said, standing. “So, we survive. Don’t question the right and wrong of that or you’ll go mad. If someone is a threat to you or the ones you love. You do what you have to do. No matter what it costs you.”

His hands were on my shoulders now, and his fingers dented my skin, squeezing as he held back the pain and sadness I saw flash in his eyes.

Hunger washed over me, and I closed my eyes. No. I had just eaten two people last night. There was no way I needed food again so soon. Cal’s magic washed over me, dampening the beast’s instincts as he renewed the spell on me.

“The dogman was right,” Cal said, loosening his hold a bit. “You need something to ground you to your humanity. Someone, maybe?”

I shook my head, eyes still closed. “What does that even mean?”

His hands move from my shoulders to my hips. “I don’t know. Maybe a human connection?”

His fingers pressed through the damp towel over my hips, suggesting, but not insisting.

I stepped closer, pressing the front of our bodies together, opening my eyes as I looked up. “What’s in it for you?”

He laughed then, and his face shuttered. He put on his charming persona. It was like watching someone slip into a new shirt. “Sex with a hot forest creature?”

I stared at him. I refused to buy it. At all.

The persona shirt came off and I saw something I thought might be real. Desperation. “Maybe you aren’t the only one who needs and anchor,” he whispered.

I surged upward on my tiptoes, meeting his lips.

His mouth opened under the assault and he let me take the lead, pushing him back against the sink as I raked my fingers through his soft blond hair, pulling back to suck his bottom lip into my mouth.

The beast in me wanted to hurt him. Wanted to devour him. I shuddered and pulled away. Couldn’t I just have this? Without the goddamned blood and gore?

Cal was there, bringing me back. He bit his own lip, hard, and blood dribbled from his lip to his chin. “You aren’t going to kill me, Tess.” He seemed so certain. I gave in, drinking in his addictive kisses along with his blood, careful not to wound.

I tried to share passion with him, rather than the terror a wendigo usually pushed into their victim’s minds. I had been able to do that for Kwan, but I didn’t know if a witch’s magic or mind worked that way. Were they more or less susceptible to my powers than a hunter?

Cal moaned against my lips then broke away, panting.

So, more sensitive then.

Holy hell that should not have made me so excited. But I loved that I had that power over him.

I unbuttoned his pants and slid a hand inside while he nuzzled my throat, nipping and sucking and driving me mad. He was beautifully made, and I grasped the solid heft of him and stroked aggressively.

He growled against my throat, sliding the towel up to slip his hand between my legs as he pushed me back against the wall. I let my head fall back with a thump as tingles of magic spread from those fingers. Shit. How had I never known about witches until now?

The only other man I had sex with after my husband died was Kwan. And he had been hesitant, respectful of my boundaries and my wounded heart. Cal didn’t know that I was afraid of intimacy. That I didn’t let people touch me because the thought of losing them was too painful. He only saw the me that was before him right now.

And I realized suddenly that I wasn’t that fearful, wounded person anymore. I was still…broken…I think, but I could feel. I could enjoy the run, the hunt, the heat of my blood pumping in my chest as I ranged through the forest at night. And I could embrace all those things right now as Cal walked right through my barriers and pinned me against the wall.

He wasn’t hesitant. He didn’t fear I would break. He pushed the towel up further, grasped my ass in his big hands and lifted me off my feet. I obligingly wrapped my legs around his waist, thankful for our increased strength. Pressing me up against the wall, he slid home, filling me with one long, sure push, pausing to moan against my throat. I shivered and raked my claws lightly down his back, knowing he could feel the sharpness of them through the thin layer of his shirt.

Confident in my strength, he let me hang on while he lifted one hand to my face, pulling me to him in a scorching kiss. I growled impatiently, not able to move the way I wanted to. He gave me a wicked grin, but finally returned his hands to my hips and took me faster and harder, pouring all of himself into me.

I came so hard I lost touch with reality for a minute there.

Cal wasn’t far behind, biting my shoulder sharply as he moaned against my skin.

Finally, I unlocked my legs from around his trim waist, and he let me drop to my feet, pulling me in for a lingering kiss. “Better?”

And…it was, somehow. I wobbled on my feet and grinned like an idiot.

After another quick run through the shower, I pulled on sweats and a t-shirt. Cal leaned against the sink, doing something with his magic that set off hot flares that felt like fire without the visible flame. I frowned at him as he ran a hand over his bottom lip, eyes unfocused as he concentrated inward.

The wound looked a little less angry than it had, but it wasn’t healing the way Kwan’s wounds would. And I knew the arm I’d chewed on before had taken a long time to get to the barely there scab that it was now. “What are you doing?”

He blinked at me, re-focusing, and let the magic fade. “Getting rid of the…taint.”

I took a breath. My bite was an infectious, poisonous thing to humans. I knew that. But still, that hurt somehow.

“Do you have to do that every time I bite you?” I waved a hand at him, encompassing his weird magic.

He ran a hand through his hair, glancing away and then back at me. “Yeah. I have to burn the poison out of my blood before it can cause madness.”

“Neat.” I said, stepping toward the door.

He must have seen the tension in me. “You are not a monster. I’m fine.”

When that didn’t work, he reached out and caught my arm, halting my escape and giving me a squeeze. His dark blue eyes were oddly flat when he said, “My magic is a danger to everyone I touch,” he said, gaze boring into me. “That is just who I am. I can’t change it.”

I nodded. Point taken. He burned down houses in jealous rage, I contaminated people by chewing on them. We all had our little quirks.

When I opened the door, he stayed behind to finish his cleansing.

I don’t care what he said, knowing that the guy you just fucked was now tainted and had to magically cleanse himself before carrying on with his day made a girl feel less than warm and fuzzy.

*****

 

When I emerged from our warded bathroom haven, I was assaulted by the scent of ruined—and by that, I mean cooked—meat. I went to stand in the doorway to the kitchen, taking in the domestic scene there. Tommy had found a stupid apron somewhere. I think it was a Christmas gift from one of the elderly ladies at the library where I’d worked until a couple months ago. It was pink polka-dotted and trimmed in lace. He was sliding burgers onto a plate as I watched.

Tommy’s twin sisters were sitting at the table chattering about some movie they’d watched about witches and how absolutely wrong it had gotten witch lore. Their mom and dad were standing nearby having a conversation that probably involved me and their son. And monster-human warfare. But I didn’t know that from just looking at them.

Tommy turned to take the burgers to the table and caught sight of me. We shared a look, part warm-fuzzies and part sadness. Was this what a family felt like? I had no idea. And Tommy had been without this for five years. He was probably as overwhelmed as I was.

He set the plate down and the witches started getting out burger buns and toppings. I drifted over to the kitchen to find a bowl of raw hamburger set out by my coffee mug. My ghoul was so thoughtful. I rolled my eyes.

Feeling smug, I got out a spoon, took my bowl to the table and sat down between Tommy’s mother and one of the twins, the soft-looking one with the sensitive brown eyes. Everyone stopped talking as I scooped up a spoonful of raw meat and ate it. Tommy’s sister made a strangled sound. His father met my eyes across the table and one corner of his mouth twitched. I wasn’t sure if it was revulsion or suppressed laughter. Maybe ol’ Pops was okay after all.

I glanced around. “What? Aren’t you all hungry?”

Everyone started moving again automatically. Tommy laughed at them as he took up a seat by his dad. “At least you’re using a spoon. Downright fucking civilized tonight, aren’t you?”

I glared at him. “Shut up.”

Cal drifted in, his bottom lip a little puffy, but otherwise looking normal. He helped himself to three burgers and a pile of chips. Luckily, I kept some real food around for my ghoul and the occasional living visitor. Though the way Cal was eating, I was going to have to re-stock the cupboards. Geesh.

He looked up around a bite of burger and winked at me. I scooped up some more raw meat and put it in my mouth, watching to see if anyone gagged. Cal grinned.

Tommy sat back and kicked the leg of his brother’s chair hard enough to jolt the smile off his face. Cal kept eating, hoovering the food down like he was starved.

“Hungry, Cal?” Tommy said, toying with the knife he’d used for the mayo.

Cal grunted around his food but ignored his brother.

His mother shook her head, and big bad daddy witch frowned. “Cal.”

I raised an eyebrow at Tommy, silently commanding the idiot to explain.

“Magic comes naturally to witches,” he said, still playing with the knife. “But it still has a cost. It takes massive amounts of physical energy to cast a complex spell. Or to maintain one.”

I looked at Cal. He shrugged.

I ignored Tommy’s leering at me. Was it the magic that Cal had used for the spell to dampen my wendigo madness that was causing the energy drain, or had it cost him that much to get rid of the nasty little disease I’d given him? “Is maintaining the spell on me costing you too much energy?” I asked diplomatically.

Cal put down his burger…the only one left on his plate, since he’d inhaled two of them already. “No,” he said calmly, his face closing off. “It is a constant pull, but it’s not too bad.”

Tommy snorted. “Oh, you just worked up that appetite some other way.”

I jabbed my ghoul in the ribs with my elbow so hard he had to scramble to stay in his chair. “Shut up, moron.”

Tommy’s sisters were looking back and forth between me and Cal like rubberneckers at a bad crash scene. Yep, big brother was plowing the monster. I put my spoon down and ate the rest of my meat with my fingers, making sure to lick my claws, just for effect. Then I went to put my bowl in the sink.

“So,” I said calmly. “The hunters have witches helping them and they are mounting some sort of nation-wide war on monsters, which seems to be rapidly approaching my house. Where a bunch of monsters are hiding.” I wiped my hands on the dishtowel. “Anyone have any idea what the hell I’m supposed to do with that?”

Tommy’s parents shared a look. “We are taking our children out of here,” his mother said firmly.

Daddy witch frowned, I nodded and Tommy shook his head no. Cal said “agreed,” and the girls started in with a barrage of arguments about how they never got to do anything.

I held up a hand. “Shut it.”

I was surprised when they listened. “I am pretty sure I’m going to get my ass murdered trying to save some freaky creatures in my woods in the next few days. So, while it’s been nice to meet you all, I agree with mommy dearest. All witches with heartbeats need to get off my property as soon as possible.”

“I’m staying,” Cal and Tommy said at the same time.

I rolled my eyes. “Of course you are staying, Tommy. No heartbeat. You are mine.”

His mother started to protest, but dear old dad put a hand over hers on the table, silencing her. They had left him behind once before. They didn’t get to claim him now. Besides, he needed to be close to me to soak up my energy and stay fresh anyway.

Cal, on the other hand…. “Look, I know you are all-powerful and everything, but you do realize that if you stay here they’ll think you’re on the wrong side of this mess, right?”

He nodded. “I’m staying.”

I shrugged. His funeral. “Alright. Eat up, little witchies, and then get the fuck out.”

Cal sighed. “Stay at the hotel tonight—it’s warded. But you need to leave first thing tomorrow morning. Go back to California. Warn the covens to keep out of this.”

His father nodded agreement. “Finish up girls, we’re going home.” He looked at me. “You’ve already killed one of my boys, wendigo. Don’t get the other one killed, or you will have worse things to worry about than a few pissed-off hunters.”

I smiled at him, showing fang. “Sure thing, witch. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Cowards. He and his wife were powerful magic users. They knew others—a whole coven of them, however many that was. They could help. They could defend the forest creatures. But they wouldn’t. Who would help a monster?

As they were leaving, one the girls pulled me aside. “We don’t think you are a monster,” she said. Viola, the one with the Heidi braids.

Her sister Rose, the softer of the two, ran a hand through her own light brown waves and looked at me with pleading brown eyes. “Your creatures…I hope they will be okay.”

I didn’t know what to say. Maybe the younger generation of witches hadn’t had their brains boiled by magic yet. “Thank you,” I finally managed. I had the insane urge to hug them. I refrained. “It was…actually nice to meet you. Please be smarter than your brothers.”

They laughed and headed for the door where their parents were waiting impatiently. “We will,” braids said. But the sweet one just looked pensive. It was hard to be the sensitive one. I hoped for her sake she would outgrow it. The world was too harsh for that kind of empathy.

When the rest of the family was gone, Tommy turned to me and Cal. “I need to check on Suzie,” he said, anxiety bubbling just beneath the surface. “I’m afraid what will happen to her if they sense I’ve been near her. I’m going to make her go visit her aunt—I know she lives out of state somewhere.” Cal nodded. “Make sure she avoids the places where there are natural disasters…we know they aren’t so natural.”

Tommy turned to go. “Wait,” I said. “My dad. Tommy can you make sure Flo has him stashed somewhere safe?”

“Sure, Tess,” he said, turning at the last minute to come back and wrap me in a tight hug, smelling of leather and soil. “You better be here when I get back. And all in one piece,” he warned.

Cal drew his brother in for a hug, shocking us all. Then he shooed Tommy away. “We probably have a few days until they reach us and find the source of all the power in the area.”

I stared at the door after Tommy left.

“We should probably have some sort of plan for what to do when the hunters get here,” I said absently. What the hell was I supposed to do? I didn’t know how to fight a war. Which is what I had a feeling was rolling up to my doorstep.

“First,” Cal said in a smooth voice that sent tingles down my spine. “We take a few minutes to take advantage of an empty house.”

I turned to him with a wicked grin. “I think we can manage that…for a few minutes.”

And we did.

 

 

 

Chapter 15

 

Cal was different this time. More intense, his touch more…tender. As if he were trying to make up for the pain and fear I knew was coming. Afterward, I must have dozed off.

I woke up feeling like something was wrong. The creatures out in the forest were scared. Oh, right. Hunters. War. Oncoming death. I went to sit up.

And realized I couldn’t move.

I managed to open my eyes and turn my head. Cal stood beside the bed, one hand encased in green, glowing energy, held out toward me in a staying gesture.

The other hand held Cloud’s old tomahawk. The one she’d thrown at my head the day Kwan was killed. The one with the glowing, magic-imbued monster-killing blade.

The terror was slow in coming. I’m stupid. I thought the person I had just opened up to, Tommy’s brother, the sweet guy who was hiding his pain—I thought he had been real.

I tried to lift my arms, to sit up. I frantically tried to reach out and touch the wendigo madness inside me, to draw on it for power. But I was bound.

And goddamn it, I realized too late that I had let him do it. From the moment he offered to help me with his magic, he had been suppressing my monster, sinking his magical hooks into me deeper and deeper. No wonder he felt so depleted at dinner. It wasn’t from healing the sickness or banging one stupid woman against a bathroom wall. It was the slow, steady drain of casting his spell on me and maintaining it long enough to completely saturate my will. I could feel it there, infusing my very cells.

“Asshole,” I panted. Even moving my mouth took effort.

Why had he taken so much time to kill me? He could have done it the first day he met me. Fuck, what had I told him. What had I shown him? My relationship with the hunters. My monsters. I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned Brutus to him, but there were enough other freaky things he could have come around to investigate. Probably sent by the hunters.

I was a fucking idiot.

Cal’s dark blue eyes peered down at me as he put a knee on the bed, bracing himself to lift that axe and take my head. His lips compressed to a thin line and…a fucking tear tracked down his cheek. “I’m sorry, Tess,” he breathed. “I had hoped you would stay asleep and happy.” His power pressed down on me harder, making it difficult to breathe. “I….” His expression hardened. “I meant what I told you about killing. It never gets easier. But you do what you need to do to protect the ones you love.”

“Tommy…” I managed. If the fucker killed me, he would be killing his own brother in the process. Tommy needed me to live.

Cal took a ragged breath, looking suddenly exhausted. “I tried to find a way to keep him going. But he is already dead and…there’s nothing witch magic can do to save him.”

I raged inside my head. Tommy’s family was sacrificing him again? And all the creatures outside this cabin. The ones who were being hunted to extinction because some fucking humans with a complex decided they shouldn’t be allowed to live—they would die without me. But then, who was to say they wouldn’t die even with me here. So far, I’d been of zero usefulness. I cursed myself for my refusal to take responsibility.

If I survived this shit-fest of a lover’s spat I was finally going to stand up and be the monster everyone accused me of being. It seemed I’d be judged and executed for it anyway, even if I was behaving.

A buzzard bounced off the side of the cabin, then another. Their heavy bodies sent off little percussive pings of magic. I could feel the creatures in the forest responding…either to my emotions or Cal’s magic. And if I stalled long enough, Tommy would feel my fear and come to my rescue.

To fight his own fucking brother.

I was so tired.

Cal lifted the axe. I closed my eyes.

An awful, garbled howl shook the air. My creature rescue team. Cal hesitated, and I could see him fighting the inner battle between what was right and what was necessary to survive. “If I let you live, they’ll kill her,” he whispered. “My little girl.”

My heart stuttered in my chest. Well, fuck.

I had no idea who “they” were. But he would do anything he had to do to protect his child. Kill his lover, put his ghoul brother to rest. Turn the whole world upside down and watch it fucking burn. I knew. Because if it were me I’d do the same thing.

I hadn’t been given the choice when my son was taken from me, but if I had, I would have done anything, no matter how it stained my soul.

Pain ripped through my chest and I gasped, back arching up off the bed somehow, even through Cal’s magic. He looked at me, startled. The howling was getting closer. Heavy feet pounded across the living room floor and toward my bedroom. And a drum beat was starting in my chest, heavy and hollow.

“Tommy!” I gasped, becoming frantic. “Let me go to him!”

Cal’s handsome face was frozen, emotion flickering behind his eyes too fast for me to follow. I’ll never know if he would have followed through with it, or if he would have let me go in the end.

The dogman hit him with a meaty thunk and they rolled across the floor in a cussing, growling blur of flesh and fur.

I leapt to my feet, feeling dizzy. The hollow drum-beat in my chest was getting…further away? I took a halting step toward the door. Tommy.

I didn’t care about anything else. I almost left the witch and the dog to kill each other. But the dogman howled again and I turned, crossed to them and kicked at fur and human parts until I got them untangled.

“Lift the magic, asshole,” I demanded of the bruised, bloody Cal. I couldn’t fix Tommy like this.

He sat up, wiping blood off his cheek. The dogman growled and howled again, making my skin crawl. “Fucking stop that noise!” I snapped.

He growled at me.

“Get the magic off me so I can get to my wendigo powers. Someone just killed Tommy!” Not that he cared. He had been about to kill us both anyway.

Cal hesitated, but in the end, he lifted a hand and I felt something inside me break, my powers rushing back through me with a cold shiver, strengthening me, connecting me to the earth and the night in a way I couldn’t explain.

Hunger surged to the forefront, but I somehow managed to cling to some part of my sanity. For now.

I headed out the door, toward that pull in my chest that would take me to my ghoul.

The dogman dashed in front of me, snapping and snarling and herding me in another direction. Cal followed behind, limping. “Best to go with him,” he said. “You can re-animate Tommy. But I don’t even want to know what’s got his fuzzy panties in a twist.”

I whirled on him, snarling. “As if I have any fucking reason to listen to or care what the hell you think I should do, you back-stabbing, lying piece of shit!”

He held up his hands. “Noted. But something is going on out there. So, let’s either kill each other or get going, hmm?”

I spun and followed the dogman. “I’ll be right behind you,” Cal said, favoring his leg. Like I fucking cared. Once I found out what the dog wanted and got Tommy back on his feet, I was going to devour the witch slowly, bit by bit, making sure he felt every ounce of fear and pain I could deal out.

The dogman led me in a frantic dash through the trees, out of the forest and across the road, back into the forest. I scampered along. At one point, I smelled smoke. Then Cal caught up and we started to slow. The dogman howled again.

I could smell blood. Powerful blood laced with magic. And I heard harsh, feminine cursing.

We slipped through the trees and I prayed that my nose was wrong. That I wasn’t about to see what I knew I was about to see.

Cloud. She knelt on the ground, covered in blood. She had a new axe, which was also covered in gore. Two other hunters were slumped across the way in a heap, not moving. Cloud’s hair was matted across her forehead and I swear she was crying. But no. That cold bitch didn’t have enough heart to cry.

Right next to her was Cal’s sister. The soft one. The one without the braids, who loved animals and thought I wasn’t a monster. Her throat had been slashed open and her eyes stared sightlessly at the canopy of trees. A small fire raged a few feet away. Witch fire, I thought. At least the little Whitehall had put up a fight.

A howl rolled up from my chest and poured out of me. Pain, frustration, rage. Hunger.

Cloud pushed herself to her feet and stood there, swaying, bleeding from a gash on her temple. Cal was vibrating with magic as he lunged for the hunter. I flung him back with a backward swipe of my hand. “Fuck off. She’s mine.”

I stalked toward Cloud. “Not satisfied with terrorizing innocent creatures, Cloud Princess?” I hissed. “Decided you would graduate to killing helpless little girls?”

Her glowing eyes widened. “You…Tess, you believe I would harm a human…a child?”

I couldn’t stop growling and it colored my voice as I spoke. “I don’t believe anything of anyone anymore.” I circled her. “You think you know someone. You think you can trust them,” I glanced at Cal, who stood nearby, fists clenched. “And then they fuck you over.” I brought my gaze back to Cloud, my heart trying to beat, to feel something that wasn’t black. But my heart was too damaged to manage much more than rage. “And then they try to kill you.”

Cloud slumped, holding one arm as if it pained her. “She’s losing herself to the monster,” she said to the witch, ignoring the danger in front of her. “You’ve got strong magic. You can suppress it. Stop her before she’s completely gone.”

I continued to circle, laughing now. They thought they could stop me. I was going to devour them both. And the dog. And anyone else who was stupid enough to get in my path. The creatures in the forest howled with me, in a dark song that spoke of blood and death and pain.

“Tess,” Cloud was pleading. “I did not kill that girl. I tried to help her. They are coming. The full force of hunters is coming, and you need to get a hold of yourself.”

She smelled wonderful. Like power. Like life. Like death. Like a deep love that had been stomped into the ground under a hunter’s boot. I needed to taste her.

“Tess,” Cal said, his magic rising around us. “Please, we need to know what this hunter knows so we can…God, Tess. Come on!”

His magic caressed me, but then withdrew. “Please don’t make me do this.”

Cloud backed away from me with weary steps. “Bind her!”

He shook his head and dropped to his knees beside his sister’s corpse. “I…I can’t do that to her again. I won’t hurt her like that again. It’s why she is like this now.”

Cloud snorted in disgust. “Tess,” she said in that deep, rich alto, pulling her own, weaker magic around herself. “Look at me, Tess. It’s Cloud. I want to help you fix this. I was wrong. The hunters are wrong. But you need to pull your head out of your monster ass and work with me.”

I hissed at her. I needed. I needed to stop this blackness inside me that was sucking everything I loved in and devouring it. I needed to stop the hunger. I needed…her.

I lunged. Cloud danced away, then kicked me in the back, sending me sprawling. She never had taken it easy on me when we were training together. She’d never been afraid of hurting me. I grinned. This was going to be fun.

*****

 

Cloud whirled dancing out of reach just in time to avoid another lunge. Tess’s powers had grown, even starved and magically castrated as she had been. Maybe being around the witch magic had increased her power somehow. Cloud clenched her teeth against the pain in her chest that obliterated the pain from the numerous cuts and scrapes she had gotten in her previous fight. She was not jealous. The witch had kept Tess alive when Cloud couldn’t.

Why was he refusing to use his magic now?

“Tess,” she said, wincing when a set of sharp wendigo claws raked her side as she dodged another blow. “You are stronger than this. Get it together.”

Tess crouched down, her long fingers touching the ground, wild brown hair flowing about her in waves, tangled with leaves and sticks. Her eyes glowed with a cold blue flame. Sharp fangs flashed as she smiled. A wicked, primal forest creature baiting her prey. She lifted a hand and crooked one clawed finger. “Shh…come here, hunter. Let me show you the beauty of your own death.”

Cloud shivered. That smooth voice, lisping between her fangs, held a cold, dark power that was more seductive than it should be. It spoke to some hidden thing inside Cloud.

Cloud paced closer, body loose, but prepared, always on guard. The way it had been for over a hundred years now. “You can try,” she said. “Then I can knock some sense into your tiny monster brain, so we can move on to more important things.”

Tess lunged. Cloud flowed into a spinning kick with sharp, upward force. She connected with Tess’s chin, flinging her head up and back before the wendigo rolled across the ground.

The witch stood, his power flaring in unsteady waves of grief and rage. The girl must have been important to him. His magic flowed around the clearing, slowing Tess, but not completely halting her.

The wendigo turned on him. “I was saving you for later,” she hissed. “Do you want to die now instead?”

He set his mouth in a grim line. “Tess. I won’t take your will from you. Not again. But you need to calm down. Where is Tommy?”

Cloud’s gaze snapped from the witch to Tess. “What do you mean, again?” She said softly. What had he done? “And…Tess, where is Tommy?” The ghoul should be here making a fumbling attempt to protect his maker with his brute strength and brutal disregard for bodily injury…unless….

Tess threw back her head and howled. Cloud’s skin shivered with goosebumps at the sound of loss.

The witch cringed. Cloud took a deep breath. He didn’t care for Tess. Not deeply enough to save her. He didn’t love her. Cloud clenched her teeth. She pulled on her own magic again and dashed forward. Tess was wounded. The monster was in control and beyond reason.

And Cloud was really sick of having to hurt the people she cared about most.

She landed a punch to Tess’s stomach, but it cost her to get so close. The wendigo girl grabbed her, and they went rolling across the forest floor. Terror roiled through Cloud, wendigo power drawing on her darkest fears. Her deepest pain, even as teeth and claws slashed at her flesh.

She saw blood everywhere. Her grandmother’s face as Cloud cut her down like an animal. The funeral ceremonies of her family. The faces of every warrior she had lost along the way.

She sobbed as she struck out, not letting it overwhelm her. Grabbing the wendigo by its horns, Cloud hit her with magic at the same time that she slammed Tess’s head against a tree trunk.

The wendigo went slack under her and Cloud prayed to every God she could think of that she hadn’t just caused some sort of irreparable brain damage.

“Don’t kill her,” the handsome witch said, approaching with his hands out, magic at the ready. “Please. I swear to you, she can still find her humanity.”

Cloud grunted and pushed her hair back off her sweaty, bloody forehead. “I fucking know that.” She scowled up at him. “You…you have been keeping her controlled. You are her lover, and yet you wouldn’t use your magic to stop this.”

If you loved someone you were supposed to do whatever you needed to do to save them. Even if it meant hurting them in the process.

He frowned. “You’re…Cloud?”

She stood and got in his space, anger getting the best of her. “What did you do to her? You…are you still working for them?” She snorted. Of course he was. And the fucking ghoul had let him walk right into Tess’s life. She was going to murder them all. She gripped the witch’s throat, ignoring the burn of his magic that was warning her to back off.

Tess moaned and sat up, her black power pulsating around her wildly, as if she couldn’t decide if the human or the monster should be in control. Releasing the witch, Cloud went to crouch near Tess. “Get it together,” she said coldly. “We need to find Tommy and put him back together. Then we have hunters to kill.”

Blue eyes regarded her with weariness that cut through Cloud like a knife. “Cloud? What the fuck, Cloud?”

The broken desperation and confusion in Tess’s voice almost undid her. She was Cloud’s responsibility. She had been from the moment Cloud let her live after the wendigo attack. Maybe even before that—when she had failed to get to the wendigo fast enough to stop it from attacking a human. And Cloud had failed her so thoroughly at every turn.

The fire was getting bigger, drawing closer to them, the smoke suffocating. Witch’s fire was nearly impossible to extinguish, and it burned everything in its path down to nothingness. Cloud slipped an arm around Tess’s torso and levered her up. “Come on, I don’t want to know what cooked wendigo smells like.”

Tess went rigid at her touch, standing then pushing her away, wrapping her arms around herself. “I….” She fell to her knees again, with a grunt, eyes flaring blue. “Hungry….”

Cloud looked behind her, at the witch. He was trying to contain the witch’s fire with his magic until it burned out. He glanced at her, his dark blue eyes hooded with pain. “No.” He said firmly. “It won’t work. I’m not enough to anchor her to her humanity.” He gave her a meaningful look. “I never was.”

Cloud knelt by Tess once more, watched those beautiful blue eyes flare with power, then die down to pain, only to flare again. She drew the blade of her axe across her palm, eyes never leaving Tess’s face.

Tess shook her head, fangs bared. “Fuck off.”

Cloud sighed. “We need you, Tess. This isn’t a battle the creatures can win on their own.”

She snarled at Cloud. “So, I’m still a tool?”

Cloud closed her eyes. “Tess….”

Pain lanced through her hand as Tess yanked it upward in a bruising grip and, rather than lapping up the blood she offered, bit deep, fangs scraping bone. Despair, sadness, betrayal. The emotions Tess pushed on her were so heavy that Cloud felt like she couldn’t breathe.

Tess tore away roughly and flung Cloud’s hand back at her like a dead thing. “There you go,” she said, voice sharp and bitter. “Your killing machine is all powered up, hunter. How will you use me now?” Her eyes darted between Cloud and the witch and Cloud’s heart broke. “Am I allowed to find my ghoul now?”

Cloud stood, stuffing her emotions into the deep, black hole where she usually kept them. She turned her back on her heart and spoke to the witch. “The girl--”

Tess spoke from behind her. “Rose,” Tess growled. “Her fucking name was Rose, Cloud.”

She closed her eyes in a long blink, praying for composure that she sure as hell did not feel. “Rose,” she said to the witch. “Was she part of your coven?”

The witch glared at her. “She’s my sister.”

He went to the girl’s body and scooped her up, cradling her lifeless, blood-drenched form in his arms as he stood. He gave Cloud a glare that promised they were not done here. “I will find out the truth of how she died,” he promised. The threat was implied. He suspected Cloud had killed her. He would want retribution. But it would come later. Probably when Cloud let her guard down and thought he was over it.

Cloud nodded. She was so tired…of everything. And she had used too much energy tonight. “You’ll do what you need to do.”

He turned and walked away, his sister tucked close to his chest.

There was a rustle of movement behind her and Tess was off in the opposite direction, moving with that terrifying speed of hers. Cloud sighed and stepped into the shadows, feeling the strain of pulling on her limited magic reserves one time too many. She slipped in and out of shadow as she ran, keeping up with Tess.

Cloud knew there would be no redemption for herself. She had never thought there would be. But Tess was hers. And she wouldn’t forget that again.

 

 

 

Chapter 16

 

I dashed through the forest toward the pull that told me where Tommy was. For some reason, the thrumming in my chest that usually led me to him was growing fainter. Usually it got stronger the closer I got.

But I had only raised him a couple of times before, and it had always been almost immediately after he was killed. I had delayed this time. I had lost myself and gone berserk over Cal’s betrayal and my monster’s obsession with the fucking ninja Indian chick.

Because of that, had I failed Tommy?

I stopped in a clearing. Trying to hone in on the direction more firmly. “How did you know about Cal?” I snapped at Cloud.

Jesus, as if that was important right now.

Cloud heaved a sigh and gestured upward.

I raised my eyes and made out a dark form gliding in silent circles above us. Of course. The damned traitor-bird.

“Ghost chicken!” I shouted up at the raven. “Where is Tommy?”

The bird croaked and continued to circle frantically.

I glanced at Cloud. “What the hell is wrong with him?”

She frowned. “I…I don’t know. He appeared to me earlier tonight. As a boy.”

The bird descended to land on a nearby tree branch. His feathers were all puffed up, and he hopped up and down, hissing and clicking. That was a pissed off raven if I’d ever seen one. Not that I had, really. But still.

I crossed my arms. Bad feelings starting to ramp up. Fuck my life.

“Ahanu, dude. Do the boy thing and talk to us. You might be a little back-stabber, but I’m sure one of us is bound to listen to your shit.”

The bird flapped its wings and cawed again.

“Is he…Ahanu, are you…stuck?” I breathed.

The bird stopped its shuffling freak-out and glared at me with sharp yellow eyes. Then it snapped out a croak.

“Fuck,” I said succinctly.

Cloud pushed past me to stare up at the bird from just below his perch. “Can you take us to where Tommy died?”

And I didn’t like the way she phrased that at all. Not the place where Tommy was. The place where he’d died.

I growled.

The bird took flight again and we dashed after him, following the ever-weakening beacon in my chest.

We stumbled to a halt in a part of the woods I hadn’t visited in some time. It smelled like skunk. But the aniwye was nowhere to be seen.

The place was bathed in black ghoul blood. It had splattered on the tree trunks, the leaves, the rocks. It soaked the soil. But Tommy was nowhere to be seen.

“He put up a fight,” Cloud whispered.

“But…” I ground out, wanting to move, to run, to find him. “He’s dead. I felt it.” I tapped my chest, right over my solar plexus. “Here.”

Cloud swore softly under her breath in a language I didn’t understand.

“Someone took him.” Her cold voice was sure. It wasn’t a question.

“Someone killed my ghoul, then had the balls to take his corpse?” Why? Who? What the hell? The monster inside me roared.

Cloud shook her head. And I didn’t feel one ounce of concern about how shitty she looked right now, all blood covered, exhausted and wan.

Fuck her.

I rubbed my chest.

“I can hardly feel him at all,” I said softly. “And I…I can’t even feel a direction anymore.” As if he were moving around. Being carried off somewhere.

“We need to re-group,” Cloud said in that irritatingly calm voice of hers. “Let’s go back to your cabin. If the witches are still there, maybe they will help…now that they’ve been drawn into this.”

Because one of their fucking children had been murdered. She didn’t say it. I glared at her. Had she really killed a child? And if so, what was she doing here now?

I wanted to trust her. I wanted to murder her. I wanted to run as far away as I could and never interact with another human again. I was sick of being screwed over.

We turned and headed back toward home.

I ran, not caring if she could keep up with her fatigue and her injuries. I half-hoped I lost her and the forest creatures decided to take advantage of her weakness to get rid of her.

As we got closer to my house, the acrid smell of smoke got stronger. I put on speed, cursing under my breath. Why was someone so set on burning the forest down.

I slid to a halt in my back yard. “Son-of-a-mother-fucking-cunt-licking-bastard!”

My cabin was engulfed in flames. It had been burning for a while. And with some sort of supernatural intensity. Already there was almost nothing left of it.

My home. My sanctuary. The place where I had managed to keep clinging to life after my real life ended.

It was gone.

“Witch’s fire,” Cloud whispered.

I jerked around to face her. “What?”

“That is not natural. The place is saturated in magic.”

I clenched my fists. I would recognize the taste and feel of that power anywhere.

Cal.

“He burned my fucking house down,” I said, voice gone flat. “Of course he burned my fucking house down.”

Why? Was it a parting shot since he hadn’t been able to kill me? Rage because of his sister’s death?

Cloud sat down suddenly, butt hitting the earth with a thump. I think she was running out of juice.

“Well,” I drawled, “what was that you said about the witches helping us?”

She laughed, bent over, wheezing, tears streaming down her cheeks.

I watched her come unhinged as my crippled spirit bird landed on my shoulder. I gave him a look. “You really think I won’t rip your sneaky black head off?” I asked him.

He clucked and held on tighter, little talons digging into my shoulder through my shirt.

“’Cloud,” I said, wondering where my rage was. I was pretty sure I shouldn’t feel this numb. I watched her fall over sideways to sprawl on the ground. I nudged her with my foot, hoping she wasn’t dead. “Hey, Cloud Princess.”

She wheezed again, and I watched as a silver streak slowly appeared in the black hair falling across her forehead.

“Cloud?” My voice squeaked. The numbness was leaving me. Panic was setting in. I had watched hunters die. They aged rapidly then turned into dust.

I hit my knees by her side. “Cloud. Get up. I still owe you an ass kicking for everything you’ve put me through.”

She wheezed, eyes closed. “So tired.”

I grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and yanked her up against me, giving her a shake. “Open your fucking eyes, hunter.”

Golden brown eyes stared into mine. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But when has that ever fixed anything?”

I shook her again, watching as faint wrinkles appeared around her eyes, lined her high cheekbones and crinkled along her throat. “Cloud! Goddamn it Cloud, you do not get to leave me alone again!”

She took a deep breath as if it was the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. “Fine.”

I growled. Her hair was still going white.

“Oh hell!” Then I remembered. I was so stupid. Cloud got her power from the blood of her enemies. Her creators had made her that way, so that she could never stop hunting monsters. Like me.

I bit my lip, fangs slicing through my flesh with a rubbery give. Blood pooled in my mouth, and I pulled Cloud closer, pressing my lips to hers.

She went rigid in my arms, frozen in shock. I shook her again, not removing my lips from hers. Finally, she opened under me, my blood flowing into her mouth. She swallowed greedily, and I drew back to rip my lip open again before it could heal. She reached for me on her own this time, fisting her long fingers in my hair and tugging hard, pulling me down to her. She swept her tongue inside my mouth, lapping up all the dark power I could give her.

I pulled back. Her hair was black again, her bronze skin smooth and young. Her eyes unlined, but haunted-looking in the light of the flickering flames that had destroyed the last remnants of my life.

Her hand slipped through my hair, then lower, cupping the back of my neck. “Tess?”

Want thrummed through me. I needed her like I needed air.

Like I needed human flesh and blood.

I gazed into her honey-brown eyes as they flashed to glowing yellow, and I felt that sense of depth again. That feeling that I was about to fall into deep water.

“I’ll never trust you again,” I said, voice rough.

She licked her lips. “I know.”

We were frozen. I don’t know who moved first.

I was on my back without knowing how I got there. Cloud sat astride my hips, her strong hands ghosting up my body to cup my breasts as she leaned forward, claiming my mouth with a moan that went right through me.

I was a monster. Every time I risked caring about someone I ended up hurting. Losing. But I had nothing left to lose now. And I knew better than to think that anyone would ever care about me.

I didn’t need love.

I needed this though. I wanted her warmth. Her humanity. The thing that lived inside her. So why shouldn’t I take it?

I grasped her slender hips as she slid sideways, slipping a leg between mine. She rubbed against me and I growled, my chest rumbling with it, pleasure sparking over my skin everywhere we touched.

I clutched her leather-clad ass and rolled us over. Cloud. My Cloud.

No.

Hunter. Betrayer. Liar. Killer.

We ripped at each other’s clothes, shredding them in our haste. Her firmly muscled body slid over mine again, burning hot against my cold skin. Her hot mouth suckled at my breasts as her cleaver fingers brought me shuddering to the edge of release. My claws burst through my fingers and I was helpless, frustrated at my inability to touch her.

“I’m not afraid of a little monster scratch,” she breathed against my throat.

I dragged my claws down her back and she arched into me, those high, glorious tits squishing against my chest. I had never been with a woman. And some part of me would feel awkward and inexperienced later, but now my body knew what to do. My beast knew what it wanted, and it helped me push our pleasure higher.

I slid down her perfect body, licking and kissing every scar. I stopped to bite her soft inner thigh, making her writhe and pull my hair as I pushed pleasure through her, letting her feel the desperate, scary need inside me. The blood helped me control my monster just enough. Claws away, I slid a finger past her slick folds, stroking her inside and out.

Cloud. My cloud.

Stoic. Cold. Emotionless. She came apart in my arms, defenses down, shaking and calling my name in that husky voice. I grinned, the possessive monster in me feeling pleased. I owned her as much as she owned me.

I glutted myself on her pleasure.

*****

 

We were lying beside the smoldering ashes that had once been all my worldly possessions when I felt the damned sun creeping up the horizon.

I was clammy and covered in leaves and sand. Light, puffy snowflakes started to fall, dusting us in prickling cold that vanished as fast as it fell, thanks to the heat still coming off the place where my house had been. My arm was numb where Cloud was using it as a pillow.

The hunter was dead asleep. I had no idea what she had been up to before we found her last night, but whatever it was had drained her physically and magically.

My head started to throb. The sun was coming up. I had no home. I had no money. No friends. No one I could trust.

Not even the powerful hunter sleeping in my arms.

Fucking her had been stupid.

Every decision I had made in the last year had been stupid.

I pulled my arm out from under Cloud, not caring if she woke.

Then I pulled on what I could of my shredded clothes. Probably should have thought about the burning house when I decided to destroy the only clothing I had left.

Cloud sat up, the sharp angles of her proud face unreadable.

I tossed her clothing scraps to her.

We had no sooner dressed than the raven flew into the clearing croaking it’s head off.

I sensed power.

Hunters.

The creatures of the forest were a constant pressure at my back. Cloud stepped closer and we backed toward the woods in silent agreement. She cast one apprehensive glance at the strange creatures that surrounded us as we entered the woods. “Let her be,” I whispered to them. I could feel them bristling. She was a hunter.

But there were worse things coming. I could feel them. So many of them. Rolling toward us with the light of the burning sun.

Cal stepped into the clearing that had once been my back yard, glorious and radiating magic.

He was dressed head-to-toe in a fitted black get-up that looked suspiciously like a uniform. His golden hair rippled in the breeze. His magic rose up around him in a dizzying cloud that made the air in front of us waver. He looked right at us. His eyes met mine across the impossible distance. Cloud stepped in front of me like a human shield.

As if that was going to do any good.

Cal was chanting. His magic rose up over us, tingling over my skin, suffocating, nearly deafening me as it cut off my senses. But I heard him shout one last thing before everything went silent.

“The wendigo bitch is dead!”

 

Did you enjoy Mangled?

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You might also enjoy my paranormal romance/urban fantasy series the Demon’s Call Series.

 

 

About The Author

Kaye Draper is the author of numerous novels and short stories available in e-format and print. Kaye inhabits the forests and waters of Michigan, where she often finds inspiration for her stories. She is currently hard at work on the next book in the wendigo saga, and the final installment of the Earth and Sky Saga. Sign up for her mailing list to receive free short stories and book updates. Visit her website kayedraper.com, her blog Write Me, Twitter, or Facebook.

 

 

More books by Kaye Draper

Wendigo Girl Series

Beauty And The Feast

Creeping Beauty

Mangled

 

Demon’s Call Series

Moonlight Calls

Blood Beckons

Destiny Decrees

The Demon’s Birthday Present (short story)

 

Earth and Sky Saga

Earth And sky

Rise And Fall

Darkness And Light

Gods And Angels (coming soon)

 

Fantasy Romance

Redemption

A Secret Sky

 

Paranormal Romance

Survivor

 

Come Love a Fey Collection

Kelpie (novel)

Pooka (short story)

Mer (short story)

Crow (short story)

Wyvern (short story)

House On The Hill (short story)

 

Young Adult

Kami Cursed