The Horned Mage

Book 2

Collateral Alpha

By Liam Lawson

Copyright © 2020 by Liam Lawson. All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

Running was so much better with something to chase. When that something was a deliciously toned girl with long legs and a tight ass even getting up at 5:30 was worthwhile. Especially knowing that the girl in question was mine to catch.

Scarlett glanced back over her shoulder, feline face grinning in the morning light. She wore nothing but running shorts and a sports bra, leaving her delicious, creamy hazelnut skin bare and beaded with rivulets of sweat. Her green eyes flashed with mischief.

She hadn’t been born with green eyes. They’d turned that color after I’d magically claimed her with powers I didn’t fully understand. Powers I was sure were changing me.

Case and point; it was the butt crack of dawn and I’d been awake and eager to take to the streets with my new running partner. I’d never hated exercise exactly, but the thought of doing it for its own sake had never appealed to me, especially not early in the morning. I was actually eager to get out of bed to meet with Scarlett and chase her down. It used to be that the thought of getting up before the sun was…well, not really a thought at all. Not even in the realm of possibilities really.

Scarlett was fast, on her school’s track team in fact, but I was building up speed and endurance quickly. After a few weeks of this I was almost as fast as she was and I swear I wasn’t as winded at the end of our runs as she was.

At first, I’d blamed my initial slowness on my antlers—they were six pronged and added a few pounds to my head. We both knew it was bullshit but she’d humored me. They were my main reason for having never participated in sports. Nothing with a helmet or that risked collision was really an option. I could really hurt someone if something went wrong. Running though…I’d never really considered it.

I’m a freshman in college only in my second semester. Scarlett is a high school dropout recently returned to school to complete her senior year. She’d returned at my insistence and part of her school’s condition had been her participation on their track team. Scarlett had hated the idea until I’d offered to get up to run with her in the mornings. Now they were something we both looked forward to.

I chased her up through the neighborhood, around my house (admittedly, it’s also my roommates’ house but I really wasn’t thinking of them at the moment), and around toward the park. The park had a gazebo, a great big pond full of ducks, and a few meandering trails that were abandoned at this time in the morning. It was officially our playground.

Scarlett was fast, leaping through the park like some kind of gazelle and it was all I could do to keep after her. But I kept after her. Two weeks ago, even after I’d bonded her to me, I would have given up at this point and reduced my pace to something less likely to give me a heart attack. Now I had fixated upon her as my quarry, my prey, and letting her go wasn’t an option.

It was as if something deep inside of me was bleeding up through my chest and into my limbs and pushing them to pump harder. I was erect enough to hurt and the chase became more about the sight of her barely clothed body ahead of me and what I wanted to do with it than exercising. Nothing slowed me down or got in my way. At one point she actually leaped over a picnic table, pausing to smirk at me only for her eyes to widen as I followed right after—something I would never have been crazy enough to attempt before breaking my curse and setting free my magic.

She squealed and put on an extra burst of speed, narrowly avoiding my outstretched hand. We both knew what would happen when I caught her, and in hindsight I’m glad she had the foresight to keep from my grasp in the middle of the public park. She tore out of the park and up the street, laughing as I pursued.

My world shrank down to the running beauty ahead of me. Her lithe legs, taut ass, limber form, supple skin that would taste like salt when I finally got my mouth on her. She cut right all of a sudden and I darted after her, unthinking until she came to an abrupt halt and allowed me to press her body against the door…the front door to my house. She’d taken us home.

She turned her head and I captured her mouth with mine. Our kiss tasted of sweat and adrenaline and my hands found her hips and side. My left hand slid up and beneath her sports bra to capture her breasts and she moaned into my mouth. Her hand found the doorknob and twisted. We fell in, barely catching ourselves before crashing to the floor. She didn’t wait for me—taking off at a dead sprint through the house and up the stairs before I could catch her again.

One of my roommates—I was too distracted to tell who—called from the living room to shut up and close the door. I kicked it closed and took off after Scarlett, chasing her up to my bedroom. She ducked out of my reach again when I came for her and closed the door behind us.

“Now,” she said, gasping for breath in a way that did enticing things to her small but pert breasts. “Now we can—”

I took her mouth with mine. The world fell away. I had my quarry, my prey, and I would take her. I pressed our groins together and lifted her hands above her head, pinning her wrists together against the door. She moaned into my mouth. My free hand massaged her breasts, rubbing fingers and then my palm over the erect nipples tenting her bra before sliding my fingers down to yank off her running shorts.

She hadn’t worn panties, leaving her bare sex ready for me. I groaned into her mouth and released her hands so that I could grab her ass with both hands and carry her over to the bed. She squealed with delight and kicked her shorts loose. She managed to get them off of one foot, but they caught on her other running shoe.

I kicked off my own shoes and socks while she ripped her sports bra over her head, leaving her naked before me save for those running shoes. My erection bobbed in front of me with every pulsing beat of my heart, so hard I felt ready to shatter. I started for her, but Scarlett didn’t wait, throwing herself off the bed and capturing my length in her mouth. She swallowed the head in her first bob and pressed deeper each time after.

Her green eyes rolled up to look at me and I swear, even though her mouth was full, she was smirking at me. I threw my head back and groaned, feeling her tongue lathe my length and saliva dribble down to coat my balls. I ran my fingers through her black hair and pushed her mouth further onto my member, letting out another groan as she began moaning on my shaft, sending little vibrations through the rigid core.

I pulled her off and tossed her back on the bed. I briefly considered burying my face between her legs, but her heady gasps for me to hurry up and get inside of her changed my mind. I threw myself onto Scarlett and thrust into her soaking sex, burying half my length on the first thrust and then ramming the rest of myself inside of her.

She screamed.

Someone else started slamming on the wall followed by a “Shut up!”

I crushed my mouth to her and swallowed her screams, slamming deep into her over and over again, holding nothing back and pouring every remaining ounce of strength and adrenaline from our run into her. Over and over. She screamed again into my mouth, her passage contracting around my length, squeezing down tight even as her legs tried to wrap around my waist to hold me inside of her.

I broke her grip and kept on pounding until her legs fell limp on either side of me and her passage spasmed again, drenching my balls and thighs. I broke our kiss, slammed my face into the pillow beside her, and roared as my orgasm overtook me and I spurted my seed deep into her womb. 

I lay on top of her for a few minutes, hot and sweaty and getting hotter from our combined heat until I managed to roll over. My member slipped free and the cool air hit our combined juices coating me. Scarlett let out a gasp as something similar happened to her sex. The air conditioning was not kind to our sweaty bodies where we had just been pressed together and, in short order, we were both shivering.

Without thinking I threw a blanket over us and pulled her back into my chest.

Only to wake up an hour later to an alarm screaming at us. I pulled away from Scarlett to find my phone and turn it off and instead let out a four-letter word when I saw the time. 7:52. I had eight minutes to get to class and she had about the same to get to school. I leapt from the bed and hurried to toss on clothes, hoping like hell I didn’t stink too bad of sweat and sex.

Scarlett followed suit with her own swearing, jogging down to use the restroom while I grabbed my notebooks and slipped on my jeans. I fought to get my button up shirt on–seriously, try a putting on shirt when you’ve got antlers—and had to redo it three times, then was out the door running to campus. At least it was close.

Chapter Two

Needless to say, I was late to class. Late enough that Prof. Hardin stopped his lecture to give me a baleful glare and ask why I’d bothered coming at all. Admittedly this was entirely my fault, but his tone still made me want to snap back. And maybe punch him in the nose. Alas, that wasn’t happening. Not only because I had no intention of being kicked out of school, but because his teaching assistant, Lilian She, was standing off to the side watching and assessing. She looked at me with mild curiosity in her eyes and I barely repressed a shiver.

If you’d seen someone turn into a giant snake and eat a couple of drug dealers, you’d be scared of them too. It didn’t help that the drug dealers in question had been cooking meth mixed with pixie dust on her orders to begin with. Nor that she’d actually trapped a pixie in a bird cage so that its dust could be used. The pretty, and surprisingly tall, Chinese girl terrified me. It took a conscious effort on my part not to show it as I found my seat beside my best friend, Soraya. 

My relationship with Soraya had become more complicated over the last few weeks, ever since I bonded with, and subsequently started boning, her stepsister. Best friend or not, stuff like that makes things awkward between anyone. Soraya wore her traditionally baggy clothes that made her look heavier than she actually was. The truth is she’s got some absolutely knockout curves, but you’d never know it unless she took off her enormous hoodie. She tossed a curly lock of glossy black hair irritably over her shoulder as I approached, then wrinkled her nose when I sat down, giving me a “what the hell is wrong with you?” look.

I gave her a quick scowl and plopped my notebook onto the table. Only to realize a second later that it was the wrong notebook. Dammit. I’m not particularly neurotic, hell, I’m a freaking messy, but I need my notes to have some semblance of order if they’re to do me any good whatsoever. This, right here, meant I was going to have to copy down everything I wrote for this class all over again in the proper notebook, unless I felt like tearing these pages out and gluing them into the other notebook and I am not nearly dedicated enough to do that.

“You reek,” Soraya whispered to me. “Cochino—you ever hear of a shower?”

“You’re hilarious,” I muttered. “Catch me up.”

She did. Or tried to. Prof. Hardin’s class was basically about a bunch of dead white guys who wrote down every inane thought they had about spellcraft and magic. Right or wrong, their works were discussed at length. How the hell this was supposed to help us become better mages was anyone’s guess, but there you go. College, the land of poor choices and convoluted degree plans.

“You missed half the freaking class,” she hissed. “There’s no way I can—”

“All right, everyone, let’s begin. Find a partner to practice with,” Prof. Hardin said. Wait, practice? Were we finally moving on to practical magic? Soraya and I started to pair up, but Hardin stopped us. “Ah, Mr. Marshall, perhaps you should partner with Lilian for this. No need to hold Miss Cabal back.”

My cheeks burned. He was right, it wasn’t fair to Soraya. Not that I wanted to spend any time around Giant-Death-Snake-Lady, but Lilian was already coming for me and unless I wanted to explain how I knew she was a cold blooded murder machine, I was going to have to treat her like everyone else.

She wrinkled her nose when she reached me. “You know, there’s living the life of a college bachelor, and then there’s just plain being a slob.”

I threw my hands up. “Everyone’s a critic. Ran out of time this morning after my workout.”

“Right. Workout.” She gave another, more delicate sniff. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

I almost missed Soraya stiffening over where she stood with her new practice partner. She’d heard and either figured I was sleeping with someone who wasn’t her stepsister, or that I had been sleeping with her stepsister. Either way had to equal a sudden dose of stomach churning squick for her. And extra bad for me.

No offense to Scarlett, but I’d had a crush on Soraya since we first met. My thing with Scarlett was purely accidental. Was I enjoying the sex? Hell yeah! I was even really starting to like Scarlett as a person and someone to be around now that she wasn’t going out of her way to be annoying. It didn’t lessen my crush on Soraya though, and every time she was reminded of what was going on between me and Scarlett was just another nail in the coffin containing my dreams of a possible future with us together.

Someone shoot me now. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. What did I miss?”

Lilian smiled.

This time I didn’t repress my shiver.

Needless to say, I didn’t find my time working with her particularly instructive. Which kind of sucked because we really were finally getting into some of the more practical, hands-on aspects of magic the old dead guys had been talking about. Turns out, knowing all that theoretical crap might have been a bit useful after all. Between my lack of studying and raw terror of Lilian, focusing enough to practice the assignment wasn’t happening.

Even on those few and far between instances when I was absolutely certain I’d done everything right, my magic refused to respond at all. When I’d wielded it before, it had always seemed like something alive with a mind of its own, which is almost as terrifying as being taught by a man-eating snake when you think about it. But here and now it felt more like a rock than anything alive. My magic just laid there as I ran through the exercises and directed my commands at it, inert. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have almost said that it was asleep.

As soon as class was over, I grabbed my notebook and ran for the hall. Lilian raised a hand and called my name but whatever she wanted to talk to me about the answer was no. A big fat resounding NO.

Soraya found me outside the building, shaking her head as she approached. “You have been acting so weird lately. Lunch?”

Early lunch at Happy Burger was our tradition, and my stomach actually rumbled. My wallet though….

I’d recently come into some money. A pretty decent chunk of cash courtesy of those drug dealers Lilian had eaten. Nobody but Scarlett knew about the money and I intended to keep it that way. Especially since it was mostly gone. At first I’d been hoping to pay next semester’s tuition with it, but the owner of the house I’d been renting, along with three other guys, had not been pleased about it getting trashed by the drug dealers I’d robbed. To be clear, I robbed them after they trashed my place. You would not believe how quickly a wad of money will dwindle when you’re trying to repair a house, replace appliances, and don’t have a steady source of income.

Employers aren’t supposed to discriminate against people like me, those who’ve been altered through some magical means to possess a distinctly inhuman characteristic, like say, big ass freaking antlers, but they definitely do. With the diminutive size of Woodhurst, there just weren’t enough jobs to go around. Given the option between me, the antler boy, and a regular college student, employers always went for the regular Joe. Guess nobody wants to be served a cheeseburger by someone who resembles an animal they might have eaten recently.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying I was going broke quick. Happy Burger was our thing, but my diet was limited to ramen noodles and pop tarts for the time being.

Not hiding my disappointment, I slowly shook my head. “Going to have to pass.”

“Saving up to take Scarlett out?” She asked with a sly grin.

Sometimes I couldn’t get a handle on how Soraya felt about me and Scarlett. Sometimes, like right now, she seemed super supportive. Other times, not so much. It was going to give me whiplash.

“Uh…actually I’m just…I need work.” I hated admitting it but if I couldn’t tell my best friend who could I tell? That was easy, actually. I could always talk to Nicole, my adopted sister and confidante. Only Nicole wasn’t here while Soraya was. It made a bit of a difference.

“Can’t find a job?”

“Nobody’s hiring,” I said.

“You waited kind of late to get looking,” she said. “I mean, most students were applying back during the winter break.”

I resisted the urge to ground my molars. “Thanks.”

The fact that I was a chronic procrastinator didn’t change any of the facts mentioned above. Those hiring for positions don’t like hiring people with antlers. Applying in the middle of the semester definitely didn’t help said person with antler’s chances.

She grinned. “You should thank me. I think I’ve got a job for you.” She eyed me up and down, and her grin widened. “You don’t mind getting a little sweaty, do you?”

Chapter Three

Soraya gave me an address and told me to be there by 9:00 tomorrow morning. Given that it was a personal address and tomorrow was Saturday I was a little skeptical of what she was setting me up with, but it wasn’t like I had anything else going on and I really needed the cash. She’d wrinkled her nose when I’d said I’d be there and told me not to show up like I had to class.

Then she paused, seeming to reconsider. “Actually, show up however the hell you like. You could probably jog there if you wanted.”

I went home, took a much -needed shower, and then headed back up to campus to camp out at the school library. This wasn’t where I used to spend my Friday afternoons but after I’d used my last boon with the pixie Lilian had been keeping prisoner to patch up my relationship with Soraya, said pixie had hinted that she knew what I was. Her phrasing had been odd, and she liked calling me “hunter.” Given that and the oddness of my magic I’d begun to suspect that one of my parents may not have been entirely human.

See, I’d first thought that my antlers were a part of my curse, which was preventing me from developing any magical affinities. Having affinities for different types of magic makes working with that kind of magic a metric shit ton easier. Think of magic like a complicated math formula. Having an affinity is a lot like having a calculator for a particular type. When I broke my curse, I’d quickly discovered two magical affinities: sex and fire. I suspected I had one more, but I wasn’t certain. Nobody else I knew had affinities that acted like mine did. Which is to say, they acted at all. Like I said, affinities are like calculators, not artificial intelligences. They aren’t supposed to act up or sleep or behave.

It seemed to me that figuring out what I was, apart from getting a job and steady income, should be my top priority, so I’d become a regular fixture at the campus library. It hadn’t done me any good whatsoever. I’d checked every random creature that could crossbreed with humans. Demons, faeries, even fallen angels. It turns out that lust is a distinctly un-angelic trait. I certainly wasn’t a giant bursting with elemental power like the Nephilim, and while sex and fire definitely lined up with demons, none of them in turn lined up in turn my green flames or antlers. Minor details, but details that debunked everything I came up with. Nothing matched.

Besides which, the only way a demon could reproduce with a human was stupidly complicated. It took two demons, an incubus and a succubus, working together. The succubus had to seduce a man, get his seed, and then give his seed to an incubus, who would then seduce a woman and impregnate her with the previous victim’s seed. The humans were always described as victims. Always. Apparently demonic visitations, even of the lusty variety, left special kinds of scarring, including nightmares and occasionally infertility. Not to mention that the offspring, called cambions, were supposed to be volatile little monsters. They tended to be murderers, rapists, and generally not that bright. Shakespeare even wrote about one called Caliban in the Tempest and he was basically some dumbass toadie to this wizard called Prospero, who in turn was a sanctimonious douche.

That left me with faeries and changelings. A fat lot of good that had done me. I’d grown so frustrated that I’d even started looking into Eastern and South American beasties such as the Encantado and the Yokai, despite my clearly Caucasian heritage. Nothing there either, by the way. I could occasionally find a faerie that seemed a little like me, but only a little. I could never make everything to match up. One would have antlers and be a serial rapist but wouldn’t have fire. One would have fire but couldn’t reproduce with humans without burning them to a crisp. I was this close to giving up, except that I was pretty sure that looking at faeries was the right direction. After all, the pixie had called me hunter. A faerie would know a faerie right? Or in the case of someone who was half and half, a changeling. It was especially frustrating because, given that I’d been adopted, being a changeling seemed the most likely thing for me to be.

I was missing something. What that was, I had no idea. The longer it eluded me the more frustrated I grew until I could hardly focus. Coming to the library had become more of a desperate habit than an actual pursuit of the truth. After two and a half hours of browsing through books that could have been used for weight training my eyes were beginning to glaze over. Which was when the giggling sorority girls decided to sit down at the next table over, talking in loud whispers.

Not that anyone was complaining about their noise—nobody ever complains about sorority girls making noise at the library unless they can’t appreciate the scenery. With their tight clothing and easy posture there was plenty of scenery to admire. Long legs, busts ranging from barely there to more than a pleasant handful and oh shit I was staring!

I made to jerk my head back down to my book before I came across as a complete creeper when one of the girls, a cute brunette, looked up and met my eyes. I didn’t think she’d intended to. It was just one of those awkward moments that happens. Only it wasn’t awkward, because instead of blushing or looking away I held her gaze. And kept holding it. Something stirred inside me and electricity seemed to crackle along the connection between us as her cheeks flushed.

She looked down in obvious embarrassment, only to glance back up, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind her ear. She was interested in me. I don’t know how I knew…no, I knew exactly how I knew. I could sense it now, my magic acting up between us. It sensed something there, maybe a spark of lust, and had roused like a hungry beast sensing prey.

I grinned, a baring of teeth that brought another flush of color to her cheeks and made her eyes dart back to her work. Her friends noticed and this time I did look away as peals of laughter tore from the group. My erection throbbed in my jeans. I wanted her.

I scowled. Why did I want her? I mean, she was hot, beautiful really, but I’d literally just had sex that morning with a hot girl. Hot, passionate, wild sex. Briefly I wondered if sleeping with another woman would count as cheating on Scarlett. We didn’t have anything official after all. We’d magically bonded and started going at it like rabbits, but we hadn’t gone on anything resembling a real date.

I glanced up again and this time found the girl eyeing me, biting her lower lip. I felt something inside me stirring, my magic and my lust rising in response. It was just like this morning when I’d been chasing Scarlett. I had to—had—to have this woman. I felt it in my chest. Felt myself give it a little reflexive push every time we made eye contact, sending a burst of erotic energy tingling through her body.

Both of us did our best to pretend we were studying, trying not to get caught by her friends. I definitely had the easier time of it. Her face grew steadily more and more flushed and though it was chilly in the library, none of the other girls’ nipples were pressing so distinctly against their t-shirts. I grew harder as I realized fully the effect I was having upon her, the power I had over her. I could feel her arousal bleeding off her body like heat from a fire. It made me want her more. Her leg began bouncing up and down with aroused energy that had no appropriate outlet and she couldn’t keep her attention on her books. Her friends started to give her funny looks, asking if she was okay.

Breathing heavily, she nodded and got up, I guess to go grab some books. I waited a few heartbeats and then followed. I found her in the stacks around the biology books, reaching for a heavy text a shelf too high for her to reach.

I came up behind her, pulled the text down, and handed it down to her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she said, breathless. Her fingers closed around the textbook, but she didn’t take it.

I pressed closer, pushing the book to the side until our bodies were close enough that we could feel one another’s body heat. Her heat was an inferno. I instinctively knew her panties were soaked, that she was clenching her thighs together with an aching need that we both wanted me to satisfy.

She stuttered, trying to find words and failing. Last week, if this girl had approached me, I would have been the one stuttering, unable to speak because I was overwhelmed. Now I felt powerful. This girl belonged to a cadre of the hottest girls on campus, knew it, and was still flustered by me. It made my grin widen. She smiled back at me, apparently liking the expression.

I brought my hand to her face and she inhaled, a sharp breath that made her entire body stiffen and her eyes close. They shot right back open, as if she had realized what she was doing, and she took a step back. “My friends....”

“Can wait,” I said, stepping forward to keep the distance between us minimal. Then I brought my mouth to hers, felt the pulse of my magic in time with my pounding heart. It rose, pouring from my mouth into hers, and brought our body’s crashing together. Need rose up between us. I wanted her. Had to have her. I could feel that she wanted me too. Tasted her fear and excitement on our kiss. One hand wrapped fingers in her hair, pulling her lips more surely against mine, the other grabbed her pert ass and crushed her groin to mine.

The biology book fell from her hands, hitting the floor with a slap that reverberated throughout the silent library.

The noise brought me back to my senses.

I didn’t know this girl. I wanted her, sure, but I didn’t even know her name. And what about Scarlett? Just because we hadn’t put a label on it didn’t mean there wasn’t something there. I didn’t want to hurt Scarlett. I definitely didn’t want to hurt Soraya and I knew that hurting Scarlett would also hurt her stepsister. I’d done them both enough damage.

The sorority girl had taken a step back, breathing heavily as she stared at me. I could see her nipples still tenting her shirt, feel her lust radiating from her. But it was accompanied by fear. Some part of her recognized that something wasn’t quite right. That she had no real idea what was going on or control over the situation. My magic had pulled her to me and played on a desire she probably never would have acted on if left to her own devices.

Did that mean that everything that had just happened was solely the result of my magic, that she’d had no choice about kissing me? I’d felt my power. I could have continued pouring it into her and pushed her lust with my own. We could be having sex right here in between the books…but if it was all my magic, then how was what I was doing any different from dosing her with a date rape drug? Caught up in my power, could she have said no even if she wanted to?

I felt like I was going to be sick.

Apparently, she felt the same because she turned around and ran, leaving the textbook on the floor. Slowly I followed after, my feet heavy and slow. By the time I made it back to my table, she and her friends were gone. 

Chapter Four

I stayed at the library longer than I’d intended. Up until now I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to what my affinity for sex magic meant. The thought that I was a rapist was more than just unsettling, it felt as if the entire world had vanished beneath my feet and I’d fallen into a hungry chasm.

I wasn’t sure whether the way my magic seemed to act of its own accord at times made things better or worse. On the one hand, I could say, hey, it’s not me, it’s my magic. On the other, how could I ever trust if a woman’s interest in me was genuine? How could I be sure that just being around women I was attracted to wouldn’t hurt them? I’d stopped things this time, but what about the next? So many questions, each one gouging out a chunk of my insides. I had no answers. At least, none that were satisfactory.

One question that was a real kick in the balls was: had I been raping Scarlett since the day I broke my curse? If so, that made me worse than the meth heads she’d gotten involved with before getting stuck with me. I was a bigger monster than Lilian.

I sat in the library, staring blankly at the books spread out on the desk in front of me, the text all running together in blur. None of it made any sense. But I stared at it because I couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone else.

It wasn’t until I thought about how Soraya was going to hate me for what I’d done to her little stepsister that something occurred to me that put a metaphorical salve on my concern. I was attracted to Soraya. Hell, I was more than attracted to her. She was gorgeous and my best friend and kind of perfect. She hadn’t fallen victim to my magic. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

It didn’t make everything weighing on me suddenly okay, but that thought took a load off. I was able to take a deep breath and blink away the dryness in my eyes so that they could focus on what was actually in front of them. I put away my mess and headed home, crossing campus and taking the sidewalk along the park that I’d run down earlier with Scarlett. 

It was dark out. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been sitting there, wallowing in confusion and maybe more than a little self-pity. Damn if somehow all that wallowing hadn’t worn me out even worse than my exercise this morning had. I felt as if I could close my eyes and fall asleep standing up.

I did what I always did when I felt like complete shit. I called my adoptive sister, Nicole. She answered on the third ring with a cheerful greeting I barely heard.

“Am I a good person,” I asked her.

“Caleb, why would you ask me that?” She sounded concerned. Dammit, of course she’d be concerned. I hadn’t thought this through.

“It’s just, I don’t know that I am. You know?”

“Not really,” she said. “You’ve always seemed like a pretty okay guy to me. A little lazy, but definitely more square than not.”

Square? She thought I was square? “I’m not square.”

She snorted. “Right. You still haven’t answered me. What’s got you thinking you’re a bad person? Is it something with Scarlett? Did you break up with her?”

Break up with…? “No! Scarlett and I aren’t—”

“Whatever,” she said. “When you finally grow a pair and ask out Soraya be sure you’ve cut things clean and completely with Scarlett first. Whatever’s going on that’s got you feeling bad now, wait until you get into that kind of drama.”

I scowled at the phone. “Are you talking from personal experience th—”

I can only blame the combination of fatigue and my focus on the conversation for my not seeing the figure who came up behind me and slammed something hard into the back of my head.

I staggered forward, raising my hands up to shield myself from another attack. It never came. My attacker instead snatched my phone, ripped my book bag from my arm, and took off.

Without thinking I went after him. Everything I’d been feeling all afternoon provided kindling for white hot anger. Nobody took what was mine. I didn’t consider how dangerous it was to go after an unknown man who’d attacked me, I just moved. I was going to catch him. I was going to take back my stuff. I was going to punish him.

Only he didn’t get very far because another figure—this one a fucking giant—came out of nowhere and clotheslined the bastard. My would-be-mugger took the arm to the throat so hard he completely flipped over backward and crashed to the pavement on his stomach.

The giant reached down and picked up my book bag and phone, then held them out to me as I approached.

I guess it was all the belated adrenaline suddenly pumping through my system, but I’d halfway been about to conjure up some fire to roast the giant. Judging from his grin though, that wasn’t going to be necessary. I took a couple deep breaths, trying to calm down. The guy who’d robbed me was down, barely groaning, and this guy was offering me my stuff back.

“You okay?” the big man asked, handing me my stuff. “You really should be careful. Got to keep your head up at night.”

I caught sight of an enormous, gaudy-ass ring on his hand as I took my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “You’re on the football team.”

It was about the dumbest thing I could have said but it seemed important. Sports had never really been an option for me because of my antlers. Helmets simply couldn’t accommodate them, and frankly, the protrusions were kind of dangerous. Even in something like soccer there was a chance I could put someone’s eye out. Not only had my antlers excluded me from sports, but they had painted a giant target on my back for those who did. I can honestly say that this was the first time a football player had been nice to me.

“Tight end,” said the giant. “You a fan?”

I shrugged. It seemed a more politic answer than outright saying no. Then because he had just beaten the shit out of a mugger said, “Congrats on last year.” Because that’s when he’d gotten that ring. I wasn’t a fan, but everyone knew how we’d done.

His grin widened. “You’re Caleb, right?”

I felt my brow furrow. “You know my name.”

His grin turned a little sheepish and he eyed my antlers. “You kind of stand out.”

Touché. “Afraid I don’t know your name.”

“Bruce Fletcher,” he said, extending a hand. I shook it and nearly got my fingers crushed. Not because he was trying to, but because he didn’t seem able to not. I mean, he could have palmed my skull in his mitts.

I’m not quite sure how we ended up walking together, but we left the mugger face down and gasping for breath as we talked videogames. It turned out, Bruce was a hardcore gamer. He even recorded his gaming sessions and put them up on YouTube as “Let’s Plays” and was thinking about streaming. I made a note to check some of his videos out later. He was actually pretty easy to talk to and quick to drop a joke, despite looking like, well, a dumb jock. Everything about him from his body to his voice to his personality were larger than life.

We stopped when we reached my place and he mentioned that his fraternity was having a party tomorrow night.

Fraternities were something that I had deliberately decided against joining when I’d been accepted to college. I’d had enough bullshit from good old boys and idiots in high school to want anything to do with something as moronic as frats were made out to be. Hazing? No thank you. I didn’t need to go through that kind of bull shit to make friends.

But maybe I’d been wrong. I mean, I’d have completely misjudged Bruce just by looking at him. Maybe I should give this a go. At the very least there’d be free beer.

I called Nicole back to let her know I wasn’t dead and reassure her that everything was okay, but I was no longer interested in talking. If I kept thinking about this heavy stuff my brain was going to implode.

“I understand,” she said. “When you’re ready, Caleb, you can talk to me. I’m always here for you.”

Chapter Five

I took Soraya’s suggestion and jogged to my potential job the next morning since the house wasn’t that far. This neighborhood was a little closer to the center of town but at the same time a little more isolated, branching off from the usual gridline of streets into an arcing cul-de-sac with some of the nicest houses I’d seen in Woodhurst. Clearly these were not the sort of residences rented out to college students or even regular townies. Whoever owned these had a little more green than the average Woodhurster, and not just in terms of money. These quaint houses had some pretty big yards on them, with more than a few elaborate gardens.

I felt completely out of place jogging up the little road to the address Soraya had given me in my shorts and no shirt. Like I should have been wearing a button up and a tie. As I got deeper in, I saw Soraya standing in a yard, her bike on its side as she talked to a tall man with scruffy facial hair that was making a valiant effort at beard-hood but didn’t quite make the mark. He wore a pair of tattered old jeans and nothing else, which made me feel a little bit better about what I was wearing, even if we both stood out like sore thumbs amidst the upscale architecture.

Soraya waved when she spotted me and quickly introduced us. “Mr. Morrow, this is Caleb Marshal. Caleb, Dale Morrow.”

We shook hands and I tried my best to match the man’s firm grip and dark gaze. I swear he almost looked possessed his eyes were so black. More than a little spooky.

“Soraya said you know how to do yardwork,” Mr. Morrow said. “You ever clean a pool?”

“Yardwork, sure. Pool, not so much,” I admitted.

He shrugged. “Basics are easy enough. You able to come down here every weekend?”

I glanced at Soraya, who gave a very deliberate nod of her head behind Mr. Morrow’s back, and I told him that wouldn’t be a problem.

“Great,” Mr. Morrow said. “If anything comes up, give me a call. A call, you understand, not a text. Kid who was supposed to be doing this job got an out of state internship and didn’t say nothing until two days ago. I mean, good for him getting that gig but shit, the little fucker could have given me a heads up so I could find someone else.”

I decided that I liked Mr. Morrow, even as I made a mental note to check my own tendency toward chronic procrastination. Fortunately, it wasn’t like my Saturday mornings were so busy that I could see myself missing work here.

“Won’t be a problem with me, sir,” I said, hoping I wasn’t lying.

“Great,” he said. “Here’s what I need from you.”

It was a hell of a lot more than I’d expected. This wasn’t going to be just a quick lawn mowing followed by checking the chemicals in the pool. He wanted a mowing, a weed eating, a pruning of the shrubs, various fertilizers put out or plants planted, and holiday decorations put up or taken down. And that was just the front yard and didn’t include the pool work.

It wasn’t going to be just for his house either, but the one next to it as well. The owner was apparently out of town more often than not and had asked Mr. Dale Morrow— “Call me Dale” —to have whoever was looking after his own property take care of it as well.

Soraya left when Dale started to take me around to show me to the pool, a smug expression on her face. She could keep it. The money from this job wasn’t half bad for what would amount to half a day’s worth of work. Enough that Happy Burger with Soraya was definitely doable again. If I saved up, I might even manage some sort of replacement for the scholarship I was probably going to lose next semester, now that my curse was broken. Keeping on with school and not plunging myself into a bottomless pit of student debt was a real possibility. Let her be smug—she’d saved my ass and knew it.

Dale had been right about the pool being simple to take care of. Mostly I’d have to remember a few numbers on a pressure gauge behind the shed when I pumped the systems clean and the right amount of chemicals to put in. Of course, there was more yard and garden work as well and Dale even pointed out the gutters around the edge of the roof. Clean them? Sure, I could do that. Like I was about to tell him no at this point. I think he knew it too because he grinned.

I was too glad of the work to be irritated.

“It’s all the same for next door,” he said when we were through. “All the tools you’ll need are in the shed by the pool house, try not to make too much noise getting them. My son’s living there. Don’t understand what he does but I’m pretty sure he makes more money than anyone else in the neighborhood and he needs quiet to work.”

Dale said all of this with a weird mix of bashfulness and undeniable pride that I’d never heard before. I’d never have guessed that someone could be both proud and embarrassed of a person at the exact same time. How did that even work? It wasn’t any of my business, so I just nodded and promised to try and keep the noise down around the pool house.

I did my best to keep quiet around it as instructed. Every time I took out or put back a tool I tiptoed and took extra care with the squeaky door. It was almost like a game, something that gave me a change of pace and a chance to break from work. Three hours later, I definitely needed a bigger break.

Most everything Dale had asked of me I’d gotten done, no problem. The gutters would have to be cleaned out next weekend when his cousin could loan him a ladder but otherwise he seemed pleased enough with my work. All that was left was to go next door and repeat everything all over again for his out of town neighbor.

I hadn’t paid the neighbor’s yard or house any attention while I’d been working, but now that I was getting ready to get started on it, I took a moment to take everything in. The Morrow’s back yard was separated from it by an ivy and honey suckle covered privacy fence with a gate, the only part that was kept clear of the plants.

When I opened the gate, a tingle ran up my fingers and into my forearm, like the aftereffects of getting zapped by electricity. Only instead of leaving a stringing-near-numbness, my arm felt rejuvenated. As if my hand hadn’t been digging through dirt or handling garden tools all morning. I hadn’t even realized that my hand was tired until that little burst of energy had struck and I could distinctly feel the difference in fatigue between my left and right hands.

On the other side of the gate, the house’s backyard seemed normal. A few flower shrubs and trees, a little fake waterfall with a pool and a hot tub…a fragrance like the wilderness. Like spring and autumn all at once with a mineral undertone that stank of life. Breathing it in eased all the tension I hadn’t known I’d been carrying in the muscles throughout my body.

There was power here, something I didn’t understand, but crossing over into the yard felt as though I was walking around a sleeping predator. One that, for whatever reason, didn’t mind my presence so much in its lair. My own magic shifted about inside me, as though waking up to sniff at this sleeping beast. Whatever it detected, my magic liked it.

“What are you doing?”

I turned to find a guy about my age standing behind me. He was about my height, definitely heavier, and pale from not spending much time outside. His appearance wasn’t helped by a mop of dark hair and baggy clothes that only made him look heavier than he was. He held a tablet in one hand and a beer bottle in the other. I couldn’t get a read on his expression, which was odd. I’d gotten used to having a good handle on people.

I’d been awkward as all get out before breaking my curse, and still felt that way a lot, but people had, without my realizing it until now, become easier to read. Tone, posture, expression, little details I’d never really noticed before had been registering, giving me a better read on those around me than I’d realized. Except that none of that was happening.

I pointed, a little stupidly, at the neighbor’s yard behind me. “Yardwork, then cleaning the pool.”

It came out almost like a question, my uncertainty about this guy bleeding over into my voice. It made me stiffen and straighten up a little bit taller. I was not weak, I was…what? What the hell did I think I was that I had to puff up my chest and prove I wasn’t somehow less than this guy?

He walked over and handed me the bottle. It wasn’t beer, as I’d thought, but a hard lemonade. “Thought I detected some odd magic acting up. The lady who owns this place is a little…eccentric. Never seen anyone use wards like she does.”

I accepted the drink with a thanks and looked back over the neighbor’s yard. It looked innocent enough. But this guy, who I took to be Dale’s son, was right. There was something, a subtle charge that hung over the yard that I’d never encountered before.

“Weird,” I said, then offered my hand to shake. “I’m Caleb. Thanks for the drink.”

“Thomas,” he said. “You’re welcome.”

He disappeared back into the pool house. I glanced down at the drink. Wasn’t it supposed to be a totally stacked MILF that brought the sweaty pool boy a drink? Figures.

I got back to work…and discovered when I’d finished that it had taken me only an hour to do the same amount of work on the neighbor’s yard that it had on the Morrow’s. Maybe some of that was because I’d had a little bit of practice with the tasks but two hours less work? On only my second time doing it? What was more, I didn’t feel tired at all. In fact, I kicked off my shoes, dove into the Morrow’s pool, and did a few laps too cool off and popped out invigorated.

Dale paid me and I jogged home, energized and more than a little relieved. Whatever was going on with the Morrow’s neighbor’s place, I definitely liked it. Especially since I wouldn’t be so exhausted I couldn’t go to the party tonight. 

Chapter Six

I invited Scarlett to the party with me. It was her kind of scene, not to mention kind of how we’d ended up together. Parties, college parties in particular, were something she loved. Her excitement over the phone had been palpable and I’d felt good about it until she’d told me she’d meet me at my place instead of letting me pick her up. Admittedly, my place was a hell of a lot closer and I didn’t have a car, but wasn’t I still supposed to pick her up? It seemed ungentlemanly of me to make her come to me, even if it was her suggestion.

I felt even worse when she arrived. Damn she looked hot, wrapped in a tight dress that showed off her lean, athletic figure. It was so short that when she sat down, she’d have to keep her thighs pressed together or flash her panties. Her makeup was heavy but just this side of gaudy—this was a girl out to have a good time and didn’t care who knew it. She’d walked over wearing a pair of cheap shower shoes and changed into heels that looked like they could be used to stab someone and clutching a…I guess it’s called a clutch. One of those tiny purses that’s barely bigger than a wallet.

By comparison, I was dressed in my usual button up shirt and jeans. I felt like a slob.

Scarlett though gave me an appreciative once over while I picked my chin up off the floor and hoped my erection didn’t pop open my pants. “Shall we?” she asked.

We left to cat calls from my roommates, which made her do this thing where she smirked and rolled her eyes at the same time.

“Thanks for the invite,” Scarlett said after we walked for a way. I don’t know how she managed the pace she did in those heels.

“No problem,” I said. “I know you like this kind of thing.”

She shrugged. “There’s not really a lot else in Woodhurst to do. You grow up here you’ve only got so many ways to entertain yourself. Local sports and college parties are at the top of the list.”

“You make it sound pretty boring.”

“Oh God, it is,” she said, throwing back her head to look up to the sky. “You have no idea. All I wanted for the longest time was a way out of this town. Then Soraya got accepted into the college here and I realized that there is no way out. Um,” she gave me a bashful look. It was the first time that evening her confident façade had broken. “You won’t tell Soraya about this will you? The party I mean.”

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Where does Soraya think you are right now?”

Scarlett gave a huff and crossed her arms. “I already have a mother, I don’t need another one.”

“Does your mom know where you are either?” I couldn’t help the smirk that formed on my lips.

“Not the point.” She was quiet for a moment and then. “I make you uncomfortable, don’t I?”

She fixed me with her green eyes, the green eyes my magic had given to her. Had forced upon her. I’d already had some doubts about my connection with Scarlett, but after my epiphany in the library, I realized how horrible I’d really been to her. Sure, we hung out, but I didn’t really know her. We ran, we had sex, and she’d pretty much done whatever I asked her to do. I had to wonder if every single time we’d had sex hadn’t in fact been me forcing myself upon her, if my magic hadn’t somehow…uncomfortable didn’t begin cover it.

After a moment I said, “I’m worried that I may end up being worse for you than those assholes you used to hang around.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, instead of hitting me you make me go to high school. You’re fucking evil.”

But I was making her, wasn’t I? How much power did she have to resist my commands? Somehow, I didn’t think that it was a lot. Also, she was in high school. Sure, she was a legal adult and I was only a year older than her, but still, that detail made me squirm.

“Look,” she said. “Whatever your hang up is, do me a favor and get over it. At least for now, alright? We’re going to a fucking party!”

We had arrived. Cars lined the street on either side going up and down from the frat house, which already had people spilling out into the yard. Everyone had at least one hand occupied with a red plastic cup while music blasted from inside the enormous house. 

In no time flat we were both fixed up with a beer in our own red plastic cups and mingling with a throng of dancers in an enormous living room. Bodies bumped and grinded, bounced up and down. Girls squealed and danced closer to each other to tease the boys. I could feel the sexual energy in the air, a low thrumming that ran through the hormone-ridden crowd. I realized that if I wanted to, I could take any girl there home tonight. I wouldn’t even have to do like I’d done in the library and push my magic at them. I could simply tell when anyone was ready to go.

None more so than Scarlett, though I also realized, that her excitement levels were fluctuating differently than almost everyone else’s here. Most of the guys were simply charged and ready to go at a moment’s notice, requiring only a simple push to flip their switch.  One or two of the girls were like that as well, but most of them went up and down depending on things like how much they had to drink, who was around them, and so on. Their arousal was a heavier, more involved thing that built or fell slowly but strongly. A good number of them had simply come for a good time and didn’t actually care about getting sex—though I sensed that most of them weren’t necessarily opposed to the idea, it just wasn’t what they were there for. 

After a little bit of analyzing the room I turned my attention to Scarlett. She fell somewhere in between, with an arousal that was left at a constant low and heavy setting, like the girls just there for fun, but with a switch not unlike the guys. Only her switch was more specific and would crank her arousal into overdrive at the drop of a hat. And I was holding the hat. No pressure.

I took a drink of my beer and pushed the concern of responsibility aside. This was a party. Scarlett was here to have fun and so was I. Once that thought, and the alcohol, hit my system, I found myself in a state of relaxation I’d never have felt in a crowd like this before. I was powerful and in control and knew something about all of these people that many of them probably didn’t even understand about themselves. I was even comfortable enough to dance, though as Scarlett was kind enough to point out, I was absolute shit at it.

She was also kind enough to correct me. Soon, I was doing that weird little bob-to-the-music-thing that guys do that passes for dancing while Scarlett worked a whole new kind of magic, much to the crowd’s appreciation.

Eventually we stepped out of the mass of dancers to catch our breath and sip our drinks. That’s when Bruce found us. He waded through the crowd like a parent through a kiddie pool, grinning down at us. “Glad you could make it, man.”

“Me too,” I said. “Bruce, this is Scarlett, Scarlett—”

“Bruce Fletcher!” She grabbed his hand with both of hers, shook it, and then took a moment to examine his championship ring. “So. Fucking. Shiny! You totally earned this last year.”

Bruce gave an almost embarrassed laughed. “Thanks. Always nice to meet a fan.”

They struck up a conversation about football that went so fast that between that and the music I was completely lost. I’d known Scarlett had said sporting events were one of the only forms of entertainment around town, but I hadn’t realized exactly how into sports she was. Then again, this was THE SOUTH. Football was its own form of worship down here. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me that she was as into it as she was.

I wasn’t sure whether or not to be jealous of her and Bruce’s conversation or not. I decided not, but only because some primal, instinctive part of me understood beyond a shadow of a doubt that Scarlett was mine. I made a mental note to educate myself a little bit better on football and take her to a game next season. If we were still doing whatever it was we were doing together come then. And if I was still here. Which, I reminded myself, thanks to Soraya’s hookup with the Morrows it was looking like I just might be.

All told I was feeling pretty good until the sorority girl from the library appeared at Bruce’s side.

I don’t think she’d seen me. I was easy enough to miss in Bruce’s shadow, even with my antlers reaching up over the crowd. She froze like a deer in the headlights, as if I was the last person she’d ever expected to see. Bruce absently put an arm around her and pulled her in close to him.

“So, are you two an item?” he asked, absently bending over to kiss the sorority girl on top of her head. She didn’t give any indication that she’d felt it—just kept staring at me.

I realized I was doing much the same and jerked myself out of it. Scarlett was giving me a funny look.

“Uh, we really haven’t put a label on what we are yet,” I said, hoping I hadn’t just put my foot in my mouth.

Scarlett gave him a grin—real or not, I couldn’t tell—and said, “Yeah, this whole thing with us is pretty new. We’re still figuring it out. What about you two?”

Bruce’s grin widened. “Yeah, this is my girl, Sadie. Stole my heart freshmen year before I’d even made the team. We’ve been together ever since.”

Sadie gave a jerky nod. “Hello.”

“Hi,” I said, feeling like a complete idiot. “Uh—

“Nothing happened!” The words came out shrill and angry and full of panic.

Bruce looked from her to me and back to her, exchanging his grin for a puzzled expression. “What didn’t happen?”

“Nothing,” Sadie said quickly. “That’s exactly my point. Nothing happened.”

“Right,” Bruce said with a matching slowness before looking at me. “What didn’t happen?”

“I’m not really sure,” I lied. My palms were sweating. My red plastic cup began slipping in my hand and I had to readjust my grip to keep from dropping it.

“We were in the library,” Sadie blurted. “And—and—and…”

“And I got a book down for you the other day, said hi, and you dropped the book and ran off,” I said. Please don’t mention the kiss. Please don’t mention the kiss.

Sadie stared at me for a moment, not even breathing, and then nodded her head. “That—that’s right. That is what happened.”

Relief swept over her in a wave that made it look like a hundred-pound weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. “Really, nothing happened.”

“You keep saying that,” Bruce said, sounding skeptical. “Why am I getting the sense that there was a little more to it than that?”

Because there was. But how the hell did I explain this without being a complete and total douche?

I gave a shrug, but Bruce wasn’t looking at me. His attention was fixed completely on Sadie. She wouldn’t look at him.

“I need another beer,” he said suddenly and pulled away, pushing through the crowd and leaving Scarlett and I standing awkwardly with Sadie.

She looked after him for a moment, looking like she wanted to call out but not knowing what to say. “You should go,” she finally said after a moment. “I don’t know what happened between us but—but it didn’t happen, okay? I’m not—I don’t cheat on my boyfriend.”

She pushed her way into the crowd and disappeared.

Scarlett grabbed my arm and started pulling me toward the exit. “Where are we going?” I asked, a little more listlessly than I’d meant to. I wasn’t actually sure that I cared about the answer because the only thing I could really think of was how I might have screwed up Bruce and Sadie’s relationship.

“If we’re going to talk about this,” Scarlett said, “then we’re going to need better beer.”

Chapter Seven

Monkeyshines was a bar that I’d heard about—every freshman in town heard about it—but that I’d never gotten around to visiting. It was a low-end establishment that took cash only and was not-so-secretly-infamous for being lax about checking ID. It was one of those places that everyone knew about, and because everyone knew about it, it could only exist in a small town like Woodhurst. A local public secret.

The bar was crowded, as it should be on a Saturday night, but otherwise I didn’t pay attention to the crowd as Scarlett and I made a straight shot for the bar, finding an empty space and flagging down the bar tender for a couple drinks. I asked for whatever was on tap and Scarlett asked for something so complicated the words seemed more appropriate for a yuppie at Starbucks than a student at a bar. I eyed her as the bar tender set about taking care of our orders.

She eyes me right back. “Don’t hate. What’s the deal with you and the dormouse back there?”

“Dormouse?” I couldn’t help but scoff. There was nothing mousey about Sadie. 

Scarlett punched my arm. “You know who I’m talking about. Little Miss Sunshine Sadie. She hurt you?”

I almost choked. On what I don’t know since I don’t have my drink yet. “Me? She was terrified and you’re worried that she hurt me?”

She muttered something under her breath in Spanish before saying, “I don’t know her from Adam. I know you. I care about you. Answer me and be honest: are you okay?” She fixed me with those green eyes. The green eyes I gave her. The look is so earnest I couldn’t bring myself answer. She was being completely honest with me and it was touching. I had no idea what to do or say.

So instead of saying anything I held her gaze and when the bar tender set our drinks down and accepted my cash, I chugged my beer. I was halfway through the frosted mug when it occurred to me that things around me weren’t right. The laughter was too deep and rough, the atmosphere jovial but charged with a violent undercurrent. There’s a smell in the air, apart from the usual sour, salty, and smoky bar smells, grease and musk. Not things one usually associated with underage college students.

I finished my beer and took a proper look around the bar. We were the only students in Monkeyshines. That wasn’t right, especially not on the weekend. It didn’t matter who was hosting what party, there were always college students trolling for beer. Monkeyshines should have been full to bursting with people in their late teens to early twenties. Instead, the average age of the customers was hard to gauge, mostly because everyone looked so weathered.

Leathers and denim were the uniform of the evening, accompanied by big facial hair and tattoos. A lot of the guys had patches on their jackets that mirrored by the ink on their skin: Road Wolves. A motorcycle club passing through had decided to make Monkeyshines their unofficial hangout for the evening and more than a few were giving me and Scarlett looks. Some dismissive, some mocking, and some…hungry.

My magic stirred inside me, triggering my new instincts for reading people. Despite the apparent calm, each and every one of these people, from the biggest men to the smallest woman in a skimpy leather belt pretending to be a skirt, were predators. The way they all moved suggested an intimate understanding of their environment, especially as it pertained to each other. Personal space was regularly violated as they moved, but never on accident. Everything was deliberate. It was as if there was an entire other layer of conversation happening between all the bikers told solely through body language that I could only just make out. It was like hearing a group of people whispering and knowing that they were talking while being unable to make out the words.

I put an arm around Scarlett, claiming her. Mine, the gesture broadcast. A few of the Road Wolves chuckled. A few eyed my antlers and actually licked their lips. One mouthed what I’m sure was venison.

I bared my sharpened teeth at him, and the man actually flinched. He glanced away from me and over to the bar a little way down from where we were situated. I followed his gaze and found three of the Road Wolves clustered around a single figure. They were all standing, and he was sitting, making it hard to get a good look at him.

One of the standing Road Wolves was a stocky, older guy, a little under six feet tall but heavily muscled, tatted, and scarred with a triangular build that came from a big upper body workout and not much lower body. Made sense if he spent most of his time on a bike. Or in prison.

The other two flanked him and the seated man. They had brown hair and bronzed skin from spending a lot of time outside and had to be related. Brother and sister probably, and they looked to be in their early to mid-twenties. Definitely the younger end of this group’s spectrum.

Beside me, Scarlett had tensed up, then made herself relax. I don’t know how I knew this, but she was ready to throw down if any of them made a move at me. I gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and a little bit more tension bled out of her.

The man on the bar stool, surrounded by the three amigos, stood up and tried to hold the older Road Wolf’s gaze. It was Thomas Morrow. What was he doing with a bunch of bikers? I’d gotten the impression he was a computer nerd. Seeing him here was like seeing a dolphin in the African Savanah. Something definitely out of its element.

He glanced away and the boss-man shoved him into the bar.

Anger flared through me. That was my new boss’s son. He wasn’t mine, not like Scarlett, but he was a part of my new territory. My responsibility, at least in part. And dammit, I had to do something right tonight because right now I was striking out in everything.

I marched up to them, Scarlett guarding my back, toting her overcomplicated drink like it was a grenade, and pushed my way into the thick man’s personal space. “Hey.”

He whirled on me, as did his cohorts. Their eyes were glowing. Power radiated from them, hot and living and fixed on me. Their eyes were bright gold, solid orbs punctuated with little black dots of their pupils. They were the eyes of predators, something mankind had been afraid of since we first stumbled out of a cave and realized that we could be hunted.

I part of me was ready to buckle the instant those eyes turned on me. A bigger part of me knew that was a mistake, understood in the most primordial of senses that they weren’t the only predators in the room.

I locked my gaze with the golden eyed older man and bared my teeth. “Problem?”

His flunkies glared at me as well, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the big man. Doing so would be a sign of weakness, an invitation for all three of them to attack me. I’d started something with him that I had to see through to the end or suffer the consequences. I didn’t think that I would like what they were.

The wonder twins circled around to flank me on my right, moving to trap me against the bar. The girl looked like she wanted to get around behind me and completely box me in, but Scarlett got in her way and bared her own teeth in a flash of white I only caught out of the corner of my eye. I almost looked away then, admitted my weakness and defeat to the man in front of me, but I held my ground and his gaze. I didn’t flinch or blink or back down.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing, son?” he asked me through clenched teeth, the sound coming out a low, rumbling growl.

“Do you?” I asked back and felt that predatory aspect of my magic flair up.

I grabbed it. Pushed it. Threw it into him and the magic pounced as if alive. Alive and hungry. It passed from me to him in much the same way the erotic pulses had between me and Sadie at the library earlier only there was nothing remotely sexual about this. The man staggered back, wincing as if something had physically struck him, and then his gaze lowered, just a fraction. Then it fell to the floor.

The heat pouring from him was abruptly extinguished and the power radiating from the other two went out an instant later, visibly startling them. All through the bar the Road Wolves stiffened, stopping what they were doing to stare at me and the old man.

I put an arm around Scarlett and glanced at Thomas. “Let’s get out of here.”

We turned to go but found our way barred by the girl half of the siblings. She had a severe, strikingly pretty face. Her eyes, normal brown and human now, were fixed on me, an inscrutable expression hiding in their depths.

“Move,” I told her.

She stepped aside. We hurried past, unwilling to press our luck further.

I waited until we were out of the bar and a good two blocks away before asking Thomas, “What the hell was that about?”

“They had me set up a website for an online business. It’s not doing as well as they hoped. They were blaming me.” He gave me an appraising look. “Not that I’m ungrateful but, why’d you step in? I mean, you’ve probably created a whole new shit storm for yourself.”

I had? “Dammit. Like what.”

That got a laugh out of him. “I couldn’t begin to guess, man. Watch your back the next few days though.”

A few minutes later he separated from us to head back to his pool house while Scarlett and I made our way back toward my place. Scarlett took her heels off and walked barefoot the rest of the way.

I waited until we were in my front lawn, slightly uphill from the road before turning around and fixing my attention on the shadow that had been following us. Green fire sprang to life around my closed fist.

“Why don’t you come out now?”

Chapter Eight

I should have fucking known better.

A wolf the size of a mule padded silently out of the shadows across the street, eyes glowing gold. Road Wolves. Werewolves. I am such a dumbass.

The wolf came at me slow, but low to the ground, cautious and predatory, ears back, hackles raised. Unlike a dog it didn’t snarl or bare its teeth, but there was no doubt that it was hunting. I did not care for being prey.

Only I wasn’t. I was a challenge. That guy I’d stared down at Monkeyshines must be the Road Wolves’ alpha. I’d undermined his authority in front of his entire pack. Not jot just a traditional werewolf pack, a biker gang—excuse me, motorcycle club—made up of freaking werewolves. Packs weren’t common and usually kept to themselves, establishing ranches or reservations where they could run and shapeshift away from people they might accidentally infect or kill. There was nothing safe about a wolf, especially not a wolf with the intelligence of a human. Some of the worst serial killers in American history were werewolves unable to suppress the urge to hunt or prove their dominance among regular humans. Whether that was because of the wolf or the human in them has been a matter of some debate.

Not that it mattered now because I’d gone and pissed off the boss of what had to have been the meanest pack in Texas. Someone shoot me now. It would be a hell of a lot more merciful than whatever trouble I was going to get myself into. 

I raised my hand and poured more power into the flames surrounding it. They grew brighter, bathing the lawn and street in an eerie, green glow that made the huge wolf all the more unearthly. Almost spectral.

“Stay back.”

The wolf made a chuffing sound in the back of its throat. Was it laughing at me? Whatever the sound meant, the werewolf didn’t stop.

I put my arm around Scarlett and pulled her close, trying to position myself between her and the werewolf. That was a mistake. The wolf’s golden eyes shifted from me to Scarlett glowing with unmistakable rage.

Faster than anything that big had a right to move the wolf was on us, a gray blur that came in low, aiming to take us off our feet. It bowled me over, taking me out at the knees and going straight through for Scarlett.

Scarlett was athletic and had run with a mean crowd. She was scrappy. But how the hell do you expect anyone to fight a wolf with their bare hands? And not just any wolf, but one that outweighs you by anywhere from two to three hundred pounds? Scarlett never stood a chance.

I hit the ground as the wolf’s teeth sank into her calf muscle and ripped her leg out from under her. The wolf’s momentum carried it through us, dragging Scarlett behind it as it crashed into the house’s front door. Scarlett screamed. Screamed so loud that I reacted without thinking.

Green fire billowed around me and flew in an emerald blast to crash into both the werewolf and Scarlett. The door, already battered by having several hundred lupine pound of force batter it, ripped from its hinges to crash inside the house. I lost sight of them as they vanished inside. My stomach dropped. I’d just blasted Scarlett!

The wolf’s snarls and growls echoed through the door. Another set joined it a second later, creating an eerie, violent echo.

Another werewolf? Shit!

I raced inside the house. I had to get the wolf off of Scarlett and then get her to a hospital. Hopefully her leg could be saved. If we were really lucky, maybe, just maybe, the doctors could do something about the magical virus werewolves carried. Sometimes victims could be saved if the right alchemical vaccinations were given soon enough to keep them from transforming. More often than not, it didn’t help. About half the time, people infected did not survive the transformation. All of this, of course, assumed that I hadn’t accidentally just burned her alive.

Fire, regular yellow fire, danced in little clusters in the entry way where my magic had sparked them. The sounds of crashing and snarling filled the house coming from the living room. I rounded the corner, conjuring more flames in my hand, and was nearly bowled over by a pair of giant, furry combatants as they tore through the shredded remains of a sofa and put another hole in the wall.

The new werewolf was fighting the first? Why?

It didn’t matter. In the confusion I couldn’t tell them apart. If I could drive them out, I could find Scarlett and get her to a hospital. I hurled my fire at them. It washed over both monstrous canines in an emerald wave, ripping them apart. One of the combatants—the first werewolf, I realized—whined in pain as it was burned, but the second raised its head and seemed to bask in the fire.

My spell trickled out and the combatants stopped, eying each other from opposite sides of the living room. The werewolf’s fur smoldered, and blistered skin visibly began to knit back to health. The new combatant had emerald fire circling a wound on its hind leg, sinking into bite marks and closing them. It wasn’t a werewolf.

I was looking at an enormous hound, easily the same size as the wolf, but just as clearly a dog. It was white with shaggy fur, or at least, I think it was white. It was glowing green from the inside, light spilling from its eyes and mouth, lowlighting its pale fur.

The giant dog let out three barks that shook my ribcage and rattled the windows. A primordial sound that promised a hunt. That promise called to my magic, making it dance gleefully in my chest. Power spiked between me and the hound. Familiar power.

“Scarlett?” I said, and then she and the wolf came together again.

My fire had healed the bite wound on her leg but hurt the wolf. My muddled brain processed that. Fire good for glowing doggy. Fire bad for werewolf. I threw more green flames at them, igniting the broken furniture as the giant canines rolled through everything, demolishing whatever was unfortunate enough to get in their path. The werewolf was suddenly on the defensive—overwhelmed by the dual onslaught of fang and flame.

It maneuvered suddenly in a twist that somehow took the legs out from under the giant hound and leapt at me. I raised my hands to blast it with more fire but was too slow. In my eagerness to help, I’d unwittingly closed the distance between me and our attacker. I braced myself as the wolf struck, driving me into the wall and cracking the Sheetrock, expecting to feel fangs burying themselves into my throat.

What I did not expect was for a very human mouth to slam its lips into mine in the most ferocious kiss I had ever experienced. A body pressed into mine, a feminine body, breasts pillowing against my chest as fingers anxiously scrabbled for purchase. My kisser’s tongue made its way into my mouth, swirling around my own. Her power poured down my throat from our kiss and my own answered, rushing from me and into her in a torrent that sent spikey tingles through both our bodies. Her nipples pressed into me and my erection strained against my pants, eager to get to her.

She broke the kiss, panting and bleeding from numerous injuries. It was the woman from the bar, not the alpha, but one of the siblings who’d been helping him. Her eyes glowed with golden light, meeting mine with a mixture of challenge and possessiveness.

“Mine,” she said.

Scarlett was suddenly behind her, her dress ripped, exposing great swaths of her tight body. She grabbed the werewolf by her dark brown hair and ripped her off of me, slamming her into the wall. “Bitch!”

The werewolf jerked an elbow across Scarlett’ face, cutting her over her left eye and staggering the younger girl. The werewolf lurched forward, clearly hurting, and just as clearly unwilling to back down. I stepped in between them, pushing them apart, and accidentally found my hand on the werewolf girl’s breast. Her full, naked breast.

She grabbed my wrist and yanked me to her, slamming her mouth to mine again. Only to yank herself free and make a mad scrabble to get at Scarlett. “He’s mine!”

The fuck?

I grabbed her. She struggled and we both fell to the floor and somehow ended up kissing again. Every time she stopped it was to make a lunge at Scarlett. It was as if she was torn between having the most animalistic sex she could with me and ripping Scarlett to pieces.

Scarlett wasn’t about to sit by and take it. The wolf girl broke our kiss and tried to squirm out from beneath me to attack Scarlett, who hauled back and delivered the hardest slap I had ever seen, hard enough to jerk the wolf-girl’s head sideways and stun her.

“She fucking cut me,” Scarlett said, pressing a hand over her eye to stop the cut from bleeding into it. Damn, that looked messy.

The werewolf woman, the very naked werewolf woman, squirmed beneath me and wrapped her legs around my waist to grind her groin against mine. I could feel the heat of her sex through the denim of my jeans, sensing her eagerness as more than something merely physical.

Scarlett crouched down and grabbed the woman’s dark brown hair, yanking her back to the ground and stared down into her eyes. Blood dripped from her cut onto the werewolf woman’s face. They bared their teeth and neither broke contact. I recognized what this was, some sort of alpha-contest, like what I’d somewhat accidentally participated in back at the bar. No matter who won, the fight was going to resume. I had to do something.

So, I jerked my hips, pressing my still clothed groin against the werewolf woman’s. Her head fell back, eyes closing as she arched her body and pressed herself harder against me. Keeping one hand on her hip, I reached over and hooked a hand behind Scarlett’s head and pulled her face to mine so that I could kiss her.

At first, she was too caught off guard to respond. I could taste blood on her lips, hers or her opponent’s I couldn’t tell and wasn’t sure that I cared. But then she was kissing me back and my magic roared to life. Not the fire or the other thing, the part that had reacted to the fight and the werewolves, but the sex magic. It spilled over the three of us, somehow drawing greater strength from Scarlett’s and my connection and pouring into the naked werewolf woman.

It was met by something else, something that rose from her and felt just as alive as my own magic, perhaps more so. Focusing on anything but the naked and near-naked women on the floor with me was becoming next to impossible. My erection throbbed with need and I ripped my clothes off, aided by two extra sets of hands. My shirt was ruined, if it hadn’t already been by the fight, and soon lay in tatters. My jeans followed, more awkwardly, as the three of us tumbled across the floor.

Scarlett’s dress went next and then all three of us were naked, kissing and biting one another, wrestling for dominance as much as to feel each other’s flesh against our own. All the while, magical power rose, fluctuating between us, pulsing and flaring with every caress or squeeze. Each time we stroked somewhere intimate or pressed our mouths together an electric pulse ran through our bodies.

Without speaking, Scarlett and I coordinated our movements and somehow penned our attacker to the floor between us. Scarlett held the woman’s arms over her head, pinning them down and exposing her chest as I moved once again between her legs, this time with no barrier of cloth between us. I grabbed her hips and stroked my length up and down her engorged entrance. Oh, my Dear and Fluffy Lord, her sex was a soaking furnace.

She moaned. Panted. Half-crazed eyes darted between me and Scarlett and she tried to jerk her sex away from me, to break that connection, and froze. Resisting the urge to take her was maybe the greatest test of my will to that point. Everything, from the power in the air to my throbbing dick told me to push myself into her, to claim this woman and make her mine. Only the thought of Sadie, the confusion and fear she’d felt after my power had worked upon her, gave me the strength to resist.

Scarlett gave me a puzzled look, silently asking why I’d stopped moving.

The werewolf shook her head, breasts heaving with every frantic breath. “It isn’t supposed to be like this.”

I furrowed my brow. She’d come after us. What the hell had she expected to happen? Admittedly, a raucous threesome in the ruins of the living room had been the furthest thing from my mind when she’d come at us as a giant wolf but…what the fuck was going on?

I was not a rapist. I was not going to take anyone, not even someone who attacked me, against her will.

With a grunt of effort, I began to pull myself away from her, only her legs wrapped around my waist, yanking my cock back against her hot entrance. My cock settled against her folds and we both groaned.

“Do you want this?” I asked. “Tell me right now. Do you want me to take you?”

She moaned, a long sound equal parts agony and need. “Yes!”

I jerked my hips back, aligned myself, and thrust inside of her. I sank home quickly. She was so hot and wet, her body ready for me. It was as if her sex was pulling me into her—her legs were certainly helping, trying to pull my body as tight against hers as we could go and still be two people.

I felt more than saw Scarlett grin at us and lost it. I began to pound into the werewolf woman with no regard for how hard I was moving. I slammed myself into her over and over again, driving her forward until her head pressed into Scarlett thighs.

Scarlett had reached between her own legs and was fingering herself and moaning, “Take her! Take her!”

The werewolf woman seemed to be in complete agreement, doing her best to meet my every thrust with her hips. Her tight, athletic core contracted over and over. Our flesh came together with a wet slapping sound over and over and her passage squeezed down on my member, as if it didn’t want me to ever withdraw.

Suddenly, her body seized up. Her back arched and she went completely still, letting out a feminine shriek as her canal clamped down on my shaft. Hot fluid spilled over my thighs and balls. I never let up, pounding her straight through her orgasm and driving her into another. Her body was caught between the urge to writhe in pleasure and every muscle trying to stiffen at once. She screamed a quiet, almost strangled scream of pure need.

Her magic rose up and slammed into me and without thinking, I bent over to kiss her. Her hands slipped from beneath Scarlett’s grip and began to claw my back. Scarlett’s warm body pressed into me from behind, mirroring my motions. Her small breasts and hard nipples felt good against my skin and her kisses rained down on the back of my neck.

My kiss with the werewolf broke and she looked up at me with wide golden eyes, the solid gold eyes of a wolf. I felt her body seize up once again, felt our power collide, and her orgasm spill over her. Her eyes changed from glowing gold to glowing green as I claimed her with body and magic. She was mine. Mine! My own orgasm overtook me.

I thrust deep into her, as deep as I could and spilled my seed. Every pulse made me feel like I was dying and being filled with new life at the exact same time. When I finally finished, I collapsed on top of her, rolling off sideways so that the combined weight of Scarlett and I didn’t crush her.

Scarlett rolled off of me with a smirk on her face. All was still. The entire living room stank of sex and smoke and I ached in ways I hadn’t known I could ache.

I thought I heard footsteps but couldn’t bring myself to give a damn about them. A moment later, I passed out.

Chapter Nine

When I woke up, I was hurting everywhere. Someone had thrown a blanket over Scarlett and my naked bodies and there was no sign of the werewolf. There were sounds of people moving around and not bothering to try and keep quiet. 

I groaned. “Someone get the plates of the truck that ran me over?”

“Oh, you got jokes? Put some fucking clothes on and help us clean up.” That was one of my roommates, Domingo. He spoke with a slight accent but probably had a better understanding of the English language than anyone else in the house.

I blinked into the sunlight streaming in through the windows, wincing as it stabbed into my nerves, and then stared as the living room slowly came into focus. Or rather, what was left of the living room.

“Fuck,” I said, taking it all in.

“Yeah,” Domingo said. “Yeah, fuck.”

He, Tim, and Danny were all dressed in grimy jeans and shirts and sweating hard. It didn’t take long to figure out what had been going on. They’d been cleaning up our mess. Judging from the lack of ruined furniture they’d been hauling the broken pieces outside. This made the rest of the damage stand out all the more. The cracks and holes in the wall and floor, the scorch marks…the little fires I’d set off looked to have burned for a while. Shit, that could have been bad. I’d slept right through it all.

I carried Scarlett up to my room, threw on some pants and hurried down to help them clean up.

Nobody was feeling talkative. There was only so much we could do. The best that could be said was that by the time we were done the living room looked less like a war zone and more like a renovation project. I suppose that’s exactly what it was now. Shame it smelled like dogs and smoke.

“Guys, I’m sorry.”

Danny and Tim both shrugged but Domingo glared at me. “You know, you were sorry last time too. I’m grateful you took care of most of that. Shit, I don’t even mind the mess here so much, but dammit, this can’t keep happening, Caleb.”

I winced.

“The worst part isn’t cleaning up this shit,” he went on. “There were fucking fires burning in the living room when I got home. Fires. Do you understand that whatever you were doing, you nearly burned the whole house down—you and Scarlett inside it? And whoever that other chick was.”

“You saw her?” I asked. “What happened to her, where did she go?”

Domingo crossed his arms. “I tell you that you nearly killed everyone, and your first question is about the girl you had a threesome with?”

I shook my head and held up my hands. “It isn’t like that. She attacked us.”

Domingo raised his eyebrows. “Attacked you? And what, mid-fight you all said hey, make love not war?”

Well when you put it like that.... “Uh, pretty much.”

“Whatever.”

Everyone went on about their business after that and I fell back asleep, vaguely wondering where the werewolf had gone and how the hell both Scarlett and I had slept through everything going on in the house. I woke up in the evening long enough to say good night to her as she took off for home and then passed back out.

#

I almost didn’t go to class the next morning. It seemed pointless in the wake of everything that had happened. But this was what I was here for, whether it felt like it or not sometimes, so I went. Where I found Soraya waiting for me outside the classroom door.

She grabbed my arm and pulled me aside in the hall as everyone else trickled in.

“What the hell happened to Scarlett?” she hissed. “She came home last night, her dress in tatters and covered in blood.”

I’d thought my green fire had healed her—maybe it had, but I guess it hadn’t done away with the evidence of the fight. We probably should have showered before passing out but…damn I’d been tired.

“We…it’s complicated.”

“So uncomplicated it,” she said. “I thought her spending time with you would be good for her, she was starting to take things seriously. I think she’s got a real shot at college now if you don’t get her killed.”

“It wasn’t, look, we were attacked, alright. It’s…” I wanted to say it wasn’t my fault, but it kind of was, wasn’t it? Or was it? Dammit, I didn’t know. Why had the werewolf woman attacked us and what the hell had happened in the middle of the fight that had made her switch gears like that? It didn’t make any sense, and without her around there was no way to get answers from her.

“You were attacked? Did you call the police? Oh, God, are you hurt? I didn’t even think.” Her hands went to my chest as if she could suddenly feel for injuries.

I winced. “I’m a little tender but fine. Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what happened. It was…weird doesn’t begin to cover it.”

Prof. Hardin and Lilian She rounded a corner down the hall and came toward us. Soraya glanced at them and then shoved a finger in my face.

“After class. Happy Burger. You are going to tell me everything.” She narrowed her eyes. “Everything, you understand?”

Prof. Hardin ignored us and went straight into the classroom, but Lilian paused to give me a contemplative look. I resisted the urge to shiver.

“You got it,” I promised Soraya. We started to go into class, but Lilian grabbed my arm.

“Let me give you a head start,” she said, and jerked her head toward the exit. “It’s going to be more hands-on practice today. You’re going to get partnered with me. Come on.”

I glanced back into the classroom, where all the other students were seated, already receiving instruction from Prof. Hardin. Safe in their flock. A wave of resentment washed over me. A flock, or a school of fish, or a herd, it didn’t matter. They were all just…just what? I wasn’t sure I wanted to complete that thought.

I returned my attention to Lilian. I’d known the Chinese girl was tall and beautiful, but she had at least two inches on me and was possessed of a subtle, hypnotic beauty. Just like a snake, I thought. Fuck this, I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life cowering in her shadow.

“Has anyone ever told you that you could be a runway model?” I asked, following her outside.

She laughed. “I may have heard some variation on that but usually it’s a cheesy pickup line.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “You trying to pick me up?”

“Hell no,” I said. “No way I could handle you.”

Wasn’t that the truth.

Fortunately, she laughed again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at her. “I think you know.”

She laughed.

Students came out of the building, spilling onto the lawn in pairs. We began our exercises.

I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. I really shouldn’t have. But I did. After all the magic I had worked this weekend, the fire, the sex, the other thing I didn’t have a name for…it had all been alive and active and flowing. There’d been no stopping it. Now, when I was trying to use regular magic, I was getting nothing. No familiar stirring, no heat or sizzle, nothing.

“Sounds like you had a rough weekend,” Lilian said after fifteen minutes of failure. “Stress can mess with one’s ability to work magic. You have to have a clear mind and a strong center.”

Right. Those were definitely not things I’d had when I’d been successfully working my spells before.

“Magic isn’t supposed to be easy,” Lilian went on. “If it was, everyone would do it.”

I wanted to roll my eyes. I didn’t. Not because I was still afraid of her, though there was that too. Just because I’d decided not to cower didn’t mean I wasn’t still terrified of this woman. No, I didn’t roll my eyes because I didn’t want to be disrespectful. That seemed like it would be an insult she might not forgive.

I blew out a breath. “I was working magic just fine this weekend. I don’t know why it is that when I come in here and start trying to do these exercises that it becomes so hard.”

Lilian cocked her head, a decidedly reptilian gesture, and contemplated me. Her eyes drifted up to my antlers. “What kind of magic?”

“Fire,” I answered. “Something I don’t have a name for.”

She gave me a questioning look at that. And then kept looking at me when I didn’t go on.

“Is that all?”

I blushed. Dammit, I blushed like a little girl being asked to her first high school dance.

“You’ve got another affinity,” Lilian prompted. “Come on.”

I don’t know why I told her. I really didn’t owe her any sort of answer. But I gave her one, letting it out in a whisper. “Sex.”

She tapped her ear. “I’m a little hard of hearing, could you repeat that?”

I glanced around, and drew closer to her, then repeated myself.

She grinned from ear to ear. “Really? Now that sounds like a fun affinity, you little perv.”

“It’s not like…” I sighed. “Okay, maybe a little like that.”

She laughed and Prof. Hardin shot us a sharp look, then called out. “Okay, that’s all for today. Don’t forget about next week’s assignment.”

I started toward Soraya when Lilian grabbed my arm again. She was awfully grabby today. “You know, I think I may have some suspicion why your magic works the way it does.”

I froze. “You do?”

“Just a suspicion,” she said. “You have a few minutes to talk about it?”

I looked around for Soraya, but she was already across the lawn, getting ready to head down the street to Happy Burger. “Actually, I, uh…”

She smirked. “Aren’t you involved with her sister?”

“Stepsister,” I muttered. “It’s complicated.”

“Clearly.”

“Look, I got to catch up with her. A lot went down this weekend.”

“Another time then,” she said.

I nodded. I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to spending any time alone with her but maybe she really could help me. Or maybe she’d make me a snack like those drug dealers. Yeah, maybe I was better off minimizing my contact with her.

I hurried after Soraya. She was a good way down the street, checking something on her smartphone. I almost took off after her when the motorcycles pulled up. The brawny alpha of the Road Wolves was in the lead, his sidekick beside him, along with three other men—werewolves—in leathers on angry sounding bikes. None of them looked happy.

I didn’t look at Soraya’s shrinking form. I gave no indication that that was the direction I’d been heading. I crossed my arms and met the alpha’s gaze. I just had to hold his attention long enough for her to get into the restaurant and get out of sight.

The alpha and the younger man who’d been with him at the bar got off their bikes and began walking toward me. Their eyes glowed with angry golden light. Whatever was going on, they weren’t happy about it.

Chapter Ten

They came up short about ten feet away from me, those golden eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. I turned my head so that I could glance back and found Lilian She strolling toward us, a flowery book bag tossed casually over one shoulder.

She smiled and offered a little wave as she drew even with us.

The werewolves’ nostrils flared, and they tilted their heads back. Then took a step back, baring their teeth.

“Hey, Caleb,” she said, as if we hadn’t just spent an entire class together. “Who are your friends?”

I cleared my throat. “You know, I’m not entirely sure.”

The younger one in the lead, the werewolf woman’s brother if I remembered right, took a step forward, lowering himself as if he meant to pounce. It looked a little ridiculous to be honest. Except that knowing he was a werewolf put his posturing in a whole different light. He was this close to attacking us. Somehow the wolves knew that Lilian was a major threat to them, and it was putting them all on edge.

“Where’s my sister?” he said, and his voice came out in a raspy snarl.

Lilian looked between me and him. “Who?”

“The girl that was with you at the bar?” I asked. “When you were trying to shake down my friend?”

I glared at him, meeting his eyes and he flinched but didn’t back down. His lips pulled back to expose his teeth. “Her. You smell of her.”

Shit. I had showered this time before coming to class. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to fool a werewolf nose. “Haven’t seen her. Why’d she come after me?”

The werewolf hadn’t broken my gaze and he seemed more focused on our staring contest than the words I’d spoken.

He lunged, leaping at me like he meant to tear my throat out with his still human teeth. Green fire leapt to my hand but before I had a chance to bring it to bear a geyser of water struck him in the chest with the force of a firehose. The blast knocked him out of the air and sent him tumbling along the ground until he collided into his bike.

The werewolves collectively stepped back. Two rushed forward to help him to his feet while the alpha positioned himself between us and his pack. I glanced over at Lilian. She hadn’t moved. Her narrow arms were crossed over her chest and a single finger had been lifted, as if she meant to say “Oh, hold on.”

That had been…I had never seen a spell cast with that much force that quickly before. The stuff I threw around was fast and powerful, but I needed to do more than lift a finger to generate a blast that strong. Something clicked into place in my mind.

I couldn’t be completely certain, but Lilian’s magic seemed to behave a lot like mine, reacting quickly, almost of its own accord as much as to her will. Nobody else had ever done spellwork like that around me. But everyone else I’d seen do spellwork had been human, and Lilian She definitely wasn’t that. If my magic worked similarly to hers, maybe the reason I was struggling with Hardin’s exercises was because I was trying to force my magic to follow human formulas…and my magic might not be any more human than Lilian’s.

The bikers climbed onto their bikes, the alpha staying between us and them like a goalie in front of a net. Lilian really had them scared.

The bikes roared off down the road a moment later.

“What the hell was that?” I asked Lilian.

“I was about to ask you the same thing?” she said. “Since when do you hang around a crowd like that?”

“I really don’t,” I said.

She jerked her head in the direction the Road Wolves had ridden off in. “Do they know that?”

Good question. Here was another one, where had the werewolf woman gone? Why wouldn’t she have gone back to the Road Wolves after doing whatever the hell she’d been doing with me and Scarlett? And why, oh my Dear and Fluffy Lord, why, did they think that I had something to do with her disappearance?

I pulled out my phone and sent Soraya a text, telling her I’d have to cancel our lunch plans. I’d watched a documentary on wolves back in high school. They weren’t the greatest hunters in the world, far from it. Actually, they were pretty inefficient, only getting their prey like, one fourth of the time or something. But they were relentless. In the documentary, this one pack failed time and time again to take down a caribou. Each time they’d rally, like football players in a huddle, and then go out and try again. I had the very distinct impression that I wasn’t so different from the caribou in this case. They were gone for now, but they weren’t going to stay that way. Lilian sure as hell wasn’t about to step in and be my bodyguard.

If they were going to try again, then I wasn’t going to lead them right to the best person I knew in the world. I promised her that I’d explain everything as soon as I could, but that for the moment, it might be a good idea if I kept my distance.

Dammit, this was so much worse than when Lilian’s pet meth heads were gunning for me. I gave her a guilty glance at the thought.

“What?” she asked.

A stupid idea struck me. I knew it was stupid before I opened my mouth, but I asked anyways. “I don’t suppose you do any sort of tutoring on the side, do you?”

She grinned. “You know, I almost got the impression you were trying to avoid me. But you nearly get jumped by bikers and that’s the first thing you ask? You sure you don’t have a crush on me?”

She was hot enough but there was absolutely no way in hell I was opening that can of worms. Did female snakes eat the males when they were done or was that just spiders? Clearly, I hadn’t watched enough nature documentaries if the wolf one was the only one I could remember.

“It’s not like that, it’s just…I think you can help me.”

She seemed to consider that for a moment. “I’ll think about it. Ask me again after next class, if those assholes haven’t killed you by then.”

“Thanks for that,” I said.

A few minutes later I was walking up the sidewalk to my house.

I found that the Road Wolves weren’t the only ones waiting for me. Danny, Tim, and Domingo were all in the empty living room, sitting in a circle made of folding chairs.

“Hey guys,” I said walking in. They all stood up. Domingo held an official looking piece of paper in his hands. Nobody said hi back or met my eyes.

“What’s going on?”

Domingo handed me the paper. It was an eviction notice.

“What the hell?” I looked up at him and then at the other two. “You’re kicking me out?”

“No,” said Tim in a rush.

“The owner’s kicking you out,” Danny said.

Domingo held up a hand. “We had nothing to do with it, man. I mean, yeah, I’m pissed at you for wrecking the place again, but none of us called the owner about it.”

“The neighbors did,” Tim said. “You guys made a ton of noise last night.”

Danny nodded. “Most fucked up thing I ever saw, you all laying there naked with everything all broken and shit…Caleb, it was fucking scary, okay? There were fires and we couldn’t wake you up.”

I gave a shaky nod. I got that.

“The owner called while you were in class and actually had one of the neighbors bring this over.” He gestured to the eviction notice. “She asked us all a bunch of questions on the phone, but she already knew, sort of, what had happened. And after what happened before….”

The owner wanted me gone. I wasn’t good for their house. In the space of a month I’d basically had the place wrecked not once, but twice. That was assuming you counted the teenaged invasion and the subsequent robbery as the same event and not two separate wreckings. If you did, then this was the third time that the house had been trashed. Not my fault? Maybe not technically, but I was definitely in the center of it all.

“Shit,” I said.

“They want you out today,” Domingo said.

I jerked completely upright. “Today? Dammit, man, where am I supposed to go?”

“I don’t know,” Domingo said. “She just said you weren’t allowed here anymore. You’re supposed to grab your stuff and get out.”

Dammit. Where could I go? Scarlett and Soraya were awesome, but I didn’t really know their mom-slash-stepmom and had no idea how she’d feel about me crashing on their couch. I didn’t know anyone else well enough to ask for a favor like that. I sure as hell couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel.

Naturally it was as I was in the midst of trying to sort through all of this that I heard the sound of motorcycles on the street outside.

Chapter Eleven

I took off out the back, hopping the fence between our yard and the neighbor’s and leaving my roommates—my former roommates—very confused behind me. I barely had time to ask them to hold on to my stuff for a bit before I was out the door and running through backyards.

The roar of motorcycles rose and fell as the Road Wolves drove up and down the street, no doubt trying to find me. Once again, I was the prey and I didn’t care for it. I wondered if they were trying to track me by scent. Supposedly werewolves’ sense of smell was almost as good in human form as a regular wolf’s. If that was the case, then my path back and forth between the school and what used to be my house was a trail they’d have to pick up soon.

As I hopped another fence, one of the bikers drove by slowly, sniffing the air as he made his way down the block. It was nowhere near the house. Where was he going? It dawned on me. He was following one of my running trails.

Over the last several weeks I’d been running up and down this neighborhood, circling every block and finding new routes. The trail from the school might lead back to the house, but from there I had dozens of scent trails going everywhere in the neighborhood. I grinned to myself. Thank you, spontaneous desire to exercise.

I snuck around several more houses, trying to figure out where the hell I should go. I mean, I definitely couldn’t go to Soraya and Scarlett’ place now, not with the Road Wolves after me. I’d done enough wrong to both of them without letting their home be invaded by angry werewolves.

Dammit, what did they even want?

Thomas Morrow would know. He was why they were here in the first place, something about an online business that fell through and they were blaming it on him. I didn’t think that the failed business had a lot to do with why they were after me, but he at least had to know more about werewolves than I did. As a bonus, that neighborhood was so damn nice that a bunch of hoodlums on bikes would definitely get some concerned homeowner to call the cops. It was the best shot at sanctuary and answers that I was going to get.

I waited until the sound of the motorcycles was faint, and hopped another fence, then started running toward the Morrow’s place. I tried to stick to back yards, hopping fences, and keeping away from the roads as much as possible. Every time I heard the sound of motorcycles I hid, usually behind shrubbery or privacy fence. Unfortunately, I had to eventually cross the street.

That’s when they spotted me.

One biker turned onto the street a good hundred yards down the road and had a clear line of sight. His engine roared and he pulled a phone out of his pocket. Texting while driving a motorcycle? I guess if you healed like a werewolf why not, I thought, remembering the way the werewolf woman had healed her wounds the other night.

I took off. I leapt another privacy fence and tried to stick to the backyards, abandoning stealth entirely as the sound of roaring bikes drew closer. I leapt one last fence and found myself on the spiraling road into the Morrow’s upscale neighborhood. I sprinted for all my life was worth, the sound of bikes drawing nearer, keenly aware that no matter how fast I ran, there was no way I was going to outrun a motorcycle.

The Morrow’s house drew closer and closer. So did the sound of my pursuers.

One bike rushed past me, its rider swinging it around to a stop directly in my path. He bared his teeth, eyes gold and glowing. I let fly a blast of emerald fire that caught him full in the chest and knocked him clear off his bike.

He howled—howled—like an honest to God wolf as he hit the pavement. I didn’t stop or slow down, just kept running and leapt over his tottering bike, knocking it over on top of him in the process.

The sounds grew angrier behind me, pushing me harder. I was almost to the Morrow’s, fire ready to leap to my hands. Except that something pulled at my magic as I drew closer, something familiar that I’d completely forgotten about since my time doing yard work. I ran past the Morrow’s house and onto their neighbor’s front lawn. A familiar tingle of magic swept over me as soon as my feet touched the grass and I fell in a heap to the lawn.

One of the bikers leapt off his bike and charged at me—and rebounded off the lawn in a green flash. I scrambled back, away from the edge of the lawn as the wolves gathered, pulling up around the edge of the house. Several of them were already sprouting fur, growing and twisting into lupine figures. Hungry, golden eyes surrounded the lawn.

The werewolves pressed against some unseen barrier but couldn’t get through.

“Where is she?” Snarled the brother from the driveway.

“Fuck you, I don’t know,” I shouted back, pulling myself to my feet. Once more I locked gazes with him.

The magic of this place pulsed through me, mixing with my own and soothing the ache in my lungs the running had started. Every breath invigorated me, filling me with fresh strength. I let it fill me up and the werewolf flinched.

Then he pulled out a gun.

I swore. “Son of a…“

I leapt into the front garden as the first shot went off. Another quickly followed and I raced around to the gate leading to the backyard, giant wolves and crazed gunman following along the edge of the lawn. I burst through the gate and fell into a flowerbed, eating a mouthful of the mulch I’d put down just the other day.

Those guys were fucking nuts. Why did I always end up facing off with nut jobs? And why did they always have guns?

Wolves howled and snarled and why the fuck hadn’t somebody called the cops already? It as the middle of the damn afternoon.

The bikes took off in a roar as sirens sounded. I made to go out front, to meet the police, and spotted a wolf beginning to crouch in the bushes in the yard across the street. Dammit, how did something that big hide itself so well?

That definitely nixed that plan. I reached for my phone. If I couldn’t go to the police, I could at least call them. Only when my fingers felt around in my pocket, they went right through a hole that hadn’t been there when I’d first started funning. I must have ripped my pocket open when I was hopping those fences.

“Oh, come on!” I shut the gate to the privacy fence and made my way to the pool, taking a seat on the edge of the diving board.

The magic of this place pulses and twisted through the earth and air as if alive. It touched me, almost caressed me. It was so familiar and yet so different at the same time. It called to a part of my magic, only a part…the best I could describe it would be like meeting someone you barely recognize at a family reunion. You know you’re somehow related, maybe a cousin or an aunt or something, but you can’t quite place it. My adoptive parents, before my adoptive mother died, had thought going to family reunions might give me a better sense of place—all they’d done was made me feel even more awkward. Mostly I’d ended up hanging out with Nicole and trying not to bother the older kids too much.

The sound of sirens came and went. Nobody came into the backyard to investigate. Every now and then I’d check through the gate. Each time I’d find a pair of golden eyes positioned somewhere, fixed on me. Not always in the same spot, but always with the same relentless devotion to keeping me pinned.

I tried going inside the house to use the phone there, but the locks refused to give, and the windows wouldn’t break. I tried throwing a rock at one and it ricocheted back and hit me in the forehead. I was still smarting from that an hour later.

I tried going next door to the Morrow’s, but the gate wouldn’t open. Apparently, they could lock it from their side and had. When I climbed atop the fence to hop over, the wolf across the street let out a long, mournful howl. It was quickly answered by another.

Shit.

I dropped back into the yard and waited. Night fell.

The howls started up again. Slow at first, but then louder. They moved from mournful to joyous, the sound of wolves on the hunt. I knew that joy. Knew it in my bones. The thrill of being the predator. Once again, I hated being the prey. I hated being cornered even worse.

Hot magic collided with the invisible barrier of the property. It struck over and over again and I realized it was colliding in time with the wolves throwing themselves at it. And they weren’t letting up. I stood and tried to get my back to a garden shed, calling my green fire to hand. The magic this crazy homeowner had poured into her house was a more powerful security system than anything I’d ever seen. But it wasn’t going to keep them out forever.

As if my doubt in the magic’s ability to keep me safe was some sort of catalyst, I felt it give a silent grown and the barrier gave way to the triumphant yipping of wolves. They burst through the gates connecting the backyard to the front on either side of the house and poured into the yard. Easily a dozen of them.

They went quiet once they reached the back and realized I was cornered. There was no way I could outrun them now that they’d found me. I flared my flames brighter and raised my fists. At least so long as they were furry like this none of them could use a gun.

Naturally that was when the asshole brother walked in with the alpha, his pistol held in a grip that shook with fury.  Why did guns have to be so much more efficient at killing than magic?

Chapter Twelve

My flames could do a lot of things but stopping bullets wasn’t one of them.

The brother raised the gun and aimed it squarely at my center mass. “Where’s my sister?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

His face tightened and he stepped forward. “Don’t lie to me!”

The gun went off as he was tackled from behind by a small figure. I ducked as the wolves whirled around to face the newcomer, only to hesitate when they realized how small she was. Scarlett and the brother rolled onto the grass. The gun went off again and then was knocked free. He reared back, eyes glowing, face elongating into a snout as fangs filled his mouth.

I let loose a torrent of fire that engulfed them both. The heat rocked him back and off of Scarlett as he continued to transform, and when the flames died down a giant hound stood, glowing from within with green light, where Scarlett had been. Only there was something different about her. She was bigger than before, with a heavy cape of fur around her neck and shoulders that came down her back in a V. She was thicker in the chest and lankier. Scarlett radiated hot power like the werewolves.

“What the…” But even as I asked understanding dawned. She’d been infected with the werewolf virus. My own magic had somehow transformed her into the hound the other night. Now the magic of the werewolf virus had combined with whatever spell I had over her.

The alpha shapeshifted, leaving me the only two-legged combatant left, and the pack launched themselves at Scarlett.

I called forth the biggest blast of fire I could manage and let it rip over her and them. The property’s magic leapt with an electric shudder at my blast, as if I’d done something to wake it up, and then it rushed into me, through me, and into the magical flames I was dowsing Scarlett and the werewolves with. The flames doubled in size. Then with a jolt, doubled again.

Wolves howled and yipped in pain as, amidst the green inferno as Scarlett tore into them. Every bite they delivered was healed almost instantly by the fire and the new regenerative werewolf magic that resided within her. At the same time, my flames ate their flesh faster than they could regenerate themselves.

But there were so many of them. One managed to get behind Scarlett and rip into her leg from behind, pulling her off balance and allowing another to get inside her defenses. At the same time one of the wolves tore free of the flames and circles around in a smoldering blur to come at me sideways.

I ripped a hand away from Scarlett’s fight, directing some of the fiery torrent at my attacker. It drove him back, but it lessened the onslaught on the wolves engaged with Scarlett. They leapt at her. I redirected my efforts at her attackers, but as soon as I did, two more wolves pulled away and came at me from the sides. The wolves cried out and were onto us.

We became locked in a war of attrition. Scarlett, with my super-charged flames bathing her and our enemies, could hold her own against the pack, if only barely. But as soon as I focused my efforts on her, the wolves would close in on me and I’d be forced to drive them back. If the pack wasn’t between us, I might have been able to create a fiery barrier with Scarlett in the center keeping them from crossing. As it was, we were kept apart, unable to properly coordinate. It was only a matter of time before the wolves slipped through my defenses and when that happened, the rest would fall upon Scarlett.

I was getting tired. My blasts became less and less impressive. Still larger than my usual, but definitely getting smaller. I was burning through the magic of this place faster than I could take out the werewolves. If I could keep a constant blast on the entire pack with all this magic at my disposal and Scarlett ripping them apart then finishing them off would be…not easy, exactly, but in the realm of possibility. On our own like this, our efforts and attention divided, the werewolves were simply going to outlast us.

The land’s power flowing through me dwindled and my blasts became ordinary once more. The werewolves seemed to be struggling to heal the burnt flesh as rapidly as other wounds, but those wounds were still healing. With so many of them they had set up a rotation, letting their most injured pull back to recover while Scarlett and I were forced to fight on. I poured more of my energy into the fight. If I could just take out a one or two, then the rest would become exponentially easier to finish.

It wasn’t to be. I was tired and could feel Scarlett’s fatigue building alongside my own. As my fires lessoned so did the extra boosts of rejuvenation that they provided for her. Our enemies had less to fear from confronting us. We were going to die. I didn’t even know how Scarlett had found me or why she’d come. To try and save me? Was our connection that strong? Had the spell I’d accidentally put on her going to get her killed?

One of the wolves pulled away from Scarlett to come at me and once again I directed my flames at it. Only this time the werewolf didn’t stop or even try to avoid the flames. It pushed right through, teeth bared as its flesh burned and it clawed its way toward me. My magic wasn’t enough. I was going to die.

A new wolf crashed through the Morrow’s gate in the side of the privacy fence, diving into the green flames to slam into my attacker. The flames washed over the wolf, dancing over its fur, which turned pale as the new werewolf grew in size, flinging its victim aside with casual ease.

The fighting came to a halt as the newcomer positioned itself between me and the werewolf pack, trapping them between it and Scarlett. Not it, I realized. Her. The wolf had been transformed by my flames the same way Scarlett had, into something between werewolf and magic hound. She glanced back at me over her shoulder. Green energy glowed from within her, pouring out her jaws and eyes.

She turned back to the pack and in perfect sync with Scarlett, let out three bone rattling howls. The sounds reverberated through me, filling me with new energy as it swept over the wolves. This was a hunting cry, and perhaps for the first time in their lives, the werewolves realized that they were the prey.

The three of us struck at the same time, Scarlett and the werewolf girl pincering the werewolves between them as I let out a fresh blast of flame. The wolves howled and yelped and snarled. Blood and fire flew. The girls were forced back, but this time they were together and positioned with me behind them. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep throwing fire about, but with two giant magical wolf-hounds backed by my power, I was feeling a lot more confident about our odds.

The wolves readied to come at us again when yet another new blast of magic swept over the yard. It slammed into me, leaving my ears ringing as I staggered in place.

“Enough.” A tall woman stepped out the backdoor of the house. She carried a cane, though she didn’t seem to need it. “Enough.”

She tapped her cane to the ground and another blast of magic washed over us in a kinetic pulse. The magic in the land that I’d thought I’d exhausted resurfaced, rising up with renewed vigor to twine its way through our bodies and lash us into place.

The werewolves howled but their howls cracked as they transitioned from the haunting melody of wolf-cry to the groans and curses of naked men and women, though mostly men. Burnt, bleeding, tattooed, dirty—and did I already say naked?—men. None of them seemed especially happy about their current predicament.

The woman’s gaze fell on the girls in front of me. She was an older woman, possessed of an ageless sort of beauty that defied having a number assigned to it. It was hard to read anything past her stern expression, but I thought I saw surprise register in her eyes. She’d expected the girls to transform back as well.

She pointed her cane at me. “Change them back. Now.”

I was in no condition, let alone position, to argue with her. I just didn’t know how to obey.

I cleared my throat. “I-I don’t know how.”

This time there was no mistaking the surprise in her face. She peered more closely at me. “How old are you?”

That’s what she wanted to know? Not, why there were a bunch of furry and furious bikers in her backyard? “Nineteen.”

“You give my sister back!” shouted the brother.

He struggled against the invisible bonds holding him in place and damn if I wasn’t glad they were there. Every ounce of adrenaline I’d had flowing through my system abandoned me. My limbs became shaky and heavy. My eyes stung with a sudden urge to shed tears.

His sister snapped her jaws and fixed him with a green glare. Without the constant blasts of green flame, I could get a better look at her and Scarlett’s new forms. They glowed from within with power, my power, casting their pale fur in a greenish color. She was darker than Scarlett, with a saddle pattern over her back and a mask pattern over her eyes. Both of them were enormous, their heads easily level with mine, making them around the size of horses. Mean, predatory horses.

“Man,” I said shakily, “I don’t even know what she’s doing here.”

That was when my legs gave out and I sprawled onto the grass, the magic holding me in place apparently deciding I wasn’t going to be any more trouble. With the realization that I could move my hands came another thought. Scarlett had transformed before when my fire had hit her and the werewolf girl as well just now. Maybe that was how I turned them back?

Amidst the brother’s swearing I lifted my hands and squeezed out a pathetic trickle of green fire. It splashed onto the giant, glowing wolf-hounds and suddenly Scarlett and the werewolf woman were standing naked in front of me.

“Naked people everywhere,” I muttered.

Chapter Thirteen

The mug of hot tea felt good in my tired hands and the drink felt even better going down my throat. I’d met a few people who were tea-nuts, but I’d never really understood why they made such a big deal over what’s basically a natural pesticide mixed with hot water. As my muscles relaxed and the warmth spread through me, I understood the sentiment behind every bit of babble I’d ever overheard on the subject. Maybe it was just this tea specifically, but damn if this wasn’t exactly what I needed.

Eleanor, the homeowner whose backyard we’d been fighting in, had served a round of steaming mugs to me, the girls, the brother, and the Road Wolves’ alpha. All of us were huddled under enormous blankets she had produced from somewhere in her house. The Road Wolves were both naked under theirs, Eleanor only having clothes that fit, if only barely, the werewolf girl and Scarlett. Man was I glad for the blankets. And not just because I couldn’t stop shivering.

Nobody spoke. I think we’d exhausted ourselves fighting too much to muster the energy for conversation. After a few minutes of silently sipping tea in Eleanor’s living room, our host tapped her cane on the floor and scowled at us.

“Will someone please explain what the hell is going on?”

She was prettier in this light. Elegant but with a bit of a rugged edge. Her steely blonde hair had been chopped into a style that seemed equal parts practicality and rebellion. She wore a pantsuit that looked like it had started its life as high fashion but had been through a few adventures. Still nice and functional, but worn in.

She keen eyes took us all in. “Well?”

I shook my head. “Honestly, I’ve got no idea what is going on.”

I gestured at the werewolf woman with my half-empty mug, then at Scarlett and myself. “We got back to my place Saturday night and she attacked us. Then…” I felt my face warming up.

Her eyes were still green with my magic in her human form, the same as Scarlett’s. The woman blushed even harder than I did.

“I don’t even know your name,” I said with no small amount of exasperation. “I mean…that’s just so wrong that I don’t know that, yeah?”

“What happened?” Her brother demanded, looking back and forth between us. “What happened!”

“My name’s Absinthe,” she said, with a sigh. “It’s nice to meet you.”

I nodded. “Nice to meet you, Absinthe, I’m Caleb. Why did you attack and then have sex with us?”

“What?” The brother started to stand up, but his alpha grabbed his arm.

“John, sit down,” he said.

“I’m Scarlett,” Scarlett said, waving a hand. “Just in case anyone cares. And you all need some serious therapy or something because y’all got to be the most dysfunctional family of crazies I ever met.”

Absinthe let out a little laugh, then gave Scarlett a sheepish look. “Sorry about, uh….” She waved vaguely.

I couldn’t bring myself to respond. Her attack had gotten me evicted. This tea and talk were good for now—it meant nobody was trying to kill me and hopefully would stop trying to kill me, but when it was all done I had nowhere to go.

I pulled myself out of my melancholy and found the alpha taking the three of us in with a contemplative look on his face. He focused his attention on Absinthe—so nice to finally have a name for the hellion—and said, “You mated to him?”

Mated? Well, yeah, we’d had sex. Hadn’t we just said that?

She swallowed and nodded with a solemnity that definitely didn’t seem warranted by a one-night stand, not with this crowd, no matter how crazy it had been.

I noticed Eleanor sitting up a little straighter in her chair. She’d deliberately positioned herself outside the little circle we’d unintentionally made when we sat down in her living room. It put her both outside our conflict and above it. I had no doubt that if any of us tried to act up she’d smack us down without hesitation.

“I thought that werewolves mating to humans was uncommon,” she said.

There was that word again.

“It is,” said the alpha.

I raised my hand. “Excuse me, could somebody fill me in. When you say mating, you don’t just mean sex do you?”

Absinthe’s brother, John, fixed me with a death glare. “No.”

Terrific. I glanced around the room. “Could somebody fill me in?”

Neither of the male werewolves said anything.

“Wait!” Scarlett said, “I think of heard of this. It’s kind of like imprinting or something. Like with baby birds. Only it makes werewolves want to jump each other’s bones.”

The werewolves all glared at her.

She shrugged. “Am I right?”

“You’re not entirely wrong,” Eleanor said when none of the werewolves appeared willing to answer. “Werewolf magic acts very much like a real wolf, only not quite. Real wolves mate for life, but they’ll take some time like any other species to adjust to each other before they actually commit. With werewolves it’s instantaneous and mutual.”

I cleared my throat. “And when it doesn’t happen with another werewolf?”

Absinthe seemed to pull in on herself. Eleanor was taller and slimmer than her and the ill-fitting clothes coupled with the blanket wrapped around her gave her a child-like countenance.

“Humans don’t mate,” said Eleanor. “It’s a one-way street of devotion.” She looked from me to Absinthe. “This young lady is madly in love with you and will be for the rest of her life.”

Scarlett made this sound, like she was trying to suck on her own teeth. “Damn. That sucks.” She gave Absinthe a sympathetic look. “Better give up on him now, Hon, he’s totally hung up on my stepsister.”

I nearly dropped me tea. “Damn, Scarlett.”

“My sister’s not good enough for you,” the brother demanded, once again making to get to his feet.

Once again, his alpha stopped him. He said to Absinthe, “I don’t feel you in our pack anymore.”

Absinthe gave a slow nod and looked to Scarlett, green eyes suddenly prominent. “I don’t want to rip your throat out anymore for smelling like him.”

Scarlett snorted. “Thanks for that, bitch.”

But she smiled when she said it. A real smile, not a bearing of teeth and Absinthe returned it. Okay, that was something. Hopefully it was a good thing.

Eleanor cleared her throat. “Excuse me, but unless I was mistaken, and I could be because there was a lot going on, but didn’t this young man have you both transformed into Cu Sith?”

Sith…wasn’t that a kind of fae? Mostly when I heard that word, I thought of Star Wars and it blocked out anything useful. 

The three of us looked at each other and shrugged. “Um, I’ve been under a curse my entire life that’s cut me off from my magical affinities and gave me these.” I pointed at my antlers. “I broke it about a month ago and I’m still learning what I can do. It’s been…weird. The giant dog thing is completely new. What’s a cu sith?”

Eleanor seemed to consider me. “A fae hound. Very powerful, very dangerous hunters.” She eyed both of the girls. “Were your eyes always green?”

They both shook their heads.

“You’ve worked some kind of magic over them,” Eleanor said. “Bound them to you in some way?”

“Scarlett yeah,” I said. “It was an accident. I guess so was Absinthe. I mean, she turned into a cu sith when my fire hit her.”

Eleanor shook her head. “Something a little bit more than a regular cu sith, I think. Absinthe, did you bite these two?”

The alpha sucked in his breath and Absinthe gave an unsteady nod.

Eleanor gave me an appraising look. “And you’ve felt no…?”

I shrugged. “I’m as human as I ever was, I guess.”

She looked to Scarlett. “And you?”

“I…don’t want to rip Absinthe’s throat out anymore either,” Scarlett admitted with a shrug.

“Fascinating,” Eleanor said. “Absolutely fascinating.”

“I’m still a bit confused,” I said. “Why would Absinthe mate with me? I mean, if I was like, some alpha billionaire shifter or a badass biker with washboard abs, sure. Y’all are all way tougher and meaner looking than me and I’m like, how many years younger than you?” I asked Absinthe.

“I’m twenty-six,” she said, looking if possible, even more embarrassed than before.

“And no offense, but what hot twenty-six-year-old biker chick goes for a nineteen year old college freshmen?”

She scoffed. “If I were a guy and you the girl you wouldn’t ask that.”

Probably not. “I just wouldn’t think I’d be your type, is all.”

“You’re not. I never go for younger guys.” She seemed to let something out of her in a sad wave, sinking into her chair and blanket. “You’re not what I wanted at all. You and Scarlett and…this is not what I wanted.” Then she raised her head and her eyes had gone full wolf, filling with color and heat, except that instead of the gold they’d been before now they were solid emerald orbs in her face. It was haunting. “But I want you now. I’m…part of your pack.”

Part of my pack? “You’re talking like I’m an alpha werewolf.”

At this the alpha cleared his throat, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d have said he was embarrassed. “Caleb, was it? Name’s Herman.”

I blinked. Herman? Wouldn’t have called that.

“You remember the other night in the bar, what happened?” he asked.

“Yeah, y’all were ganging up on my boss’s kid so I stepped in and made you back off.”

Herman nodded. “Exactly. There’s not many alpha werewolves that could make me back down, let alone humans. Humans are just wired different. Societal norms and all that shit. But you, you butted right in and stole my prey from me.” He jerked his head at Absinthe. “Impressed the hell out of her inner wolf, I guess.”

I glanced over and found Absinthe squirming a little in her chair. I sensed a low-level pulse of lust emanating from her. Apparently, the thought of me making an alpha male back down was a turn on for her.

“You stole her from us,” the alpha said. “I didn’t think that could happen with a human, or whatever the hell you are. Absinthe just vanished. She disappeared from the pack. No sign of her. We thought you’d….”

He wasn’t apologizing. He would never apologize for what had gone down. Maybe he couldn’t. It was all that alpha male leader bull shit. But an explanation…I understood the sentiment behind it. This was as close as I was going to get to hearing ‘I’m sorry’ from him.

Absinthe cringed at his words. “My bad. I just…needed some time to wrap my head around things. I thought I was pretty kinky and then I…with the two of you—”

John clapped his hands over his ears. “No-no-no, hell no! I do not need to hear this.”

Absinthe sighed. “I just never would have thought that this could happen. Or was even possible.”

“You and me both,” I said, and let myself sink back into my chair. “You got me evicted by the way. The landlord didn’t appreciate us trashing the house.”

Her eyes fell to the floor. “I’m sorry.”

Eleanor’s grin caught my eye. It was broad and calculating and more than a little mischievous. “What are your plans for the future, Caleb?”

Chapter Fourteen

Scarlett, Absinthe, and I sat crammed together in a booth opposite Soraya, who took us all in over a pair of crossed arms. Happy Burger smelled like happiness and cheeseburgers and everything would have been perfect if not for Soraya’s thunderous scowl. Scarlett had her own arms crossed and was looking off out the window, expression deliberately, and falsely, aloof. Absinthe on the other hand, bedecked once more in biker leathers and looking like she might kill someone at a moment’s notice, was taking in Soraya with aggressive curiosity, nostrils flaring as she smelled her from across the table. How she could smell anything over the scent of burgers and fries was beyond me.

“You’re cheating on my baby sister now?” Soraya’s voice was a touch scathing.

“No!” I said at the same time Scarlett muttered, “Stepsister.”

“It’s more like a menage a troi,” Absinthe offered helpfully. I wasn’t sure I trusted that helpful tone of hers. I didn’t know her that well yet, but beneath her no-nonsense veneer I sensed a streak of mischief a mile wide.

“Bullshit,” Soraya said.

I cringed. I’d done my best to explain everything, the Road Wolves coming after me, Absinthe’s sudden mating, the way my magic was interacting with the werewolf virus, binding her to me and Scarlett.

“Bull. Fucking. Shit.” She said. “Are you a pimp? I mean it, Caleb, so help me if you’re selling my baby sister—”

“Shit, Soraya, no one’s selling me,” Scarlett said, yanking her attention away from whatever was so fascinating out the window to glare at her stepsister. “It’s not like that. It’s…it feels right.”

And wasn’t that the weirdest fucking bit?

In my experience, guys could pummel each other bloody and then be drinking buddies the rest of their lives. Women? Women did not make friends with other women who hit them. Yet Scarlett and Soraya had been spending more and more time together, especially when I wasn’t around. They seemed to genuinely like each other. We hadn’t had another threesome in the few days since the big blowout with the Road Wolves, but I had been with both of them individually. I’d caught them exchanging notes one morning, talking frankly enough to make my ears burn.

“Where are you even staying?” Soraya asked in exasperation. “You can’t even keep a place, how are you going to take care of my baby sister, let alone her and this woman?”

I cleared my throat. “Actually, Eleanor’s letting me stay in the apartment over her garage. She, uh, she gave me a job too. I’m interning for her. Turns out she’s an arcanologist, or something, and is curious—“

“Wait, Eleanor?” Soraya interrupted. “Are you sleeping with her too?”

“No! Good grief, Soraya, I’m not some kind of sex fiend going around humping every female I come across.”

“Could have fooled me.” She held up a hand. “Save it. But we are talking about the same Eleanor right, the Morrow’s neighbor?”

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“The world famous arcanologist?”

World famous? Woodhurst didn’t have any famous people in it.

“She’s an arcanologist,” I admitted. “I don’t know about world famous though. She just got back from a trip to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil and is fixing to head out to Spain in a week or so. Something to do with conquistadors. Sounds pretty cool actually. I’m going to be house sitting for her when I’m not taking care of the lawn and interning for her while she’s here.”

And letting her poke and prod at my magic. She’d promised to help me figure out what I was and control what I could do so that I didn’t have any more accidents like Scarlett and Absinthe. She was pretty sure I’d either been affected by fae magic or had some fae blood in me. She was also pretty sure that whatever was going on with me and my magic was a bit more complicated than that simple explanation.

Regardless of how sure she was about any of it, she was a preferable option to Lilian She. Just because I wasn’t going to live my life in fear of the giant people-eating snake lady didn’t mean putting myself in her path any more often than I had to, was a good idea. Eleanor was more trustworthy and definitely safer.

Soraya shook her head, making some of her curls cascade over her shoulders. “Only you could end up house sitting for Eleanor Hardin and not know who the hell she is.”

“And interning,” I reminded hurriedly. “I’ll be learning a lot under her, and the job actually sounds pretty…wait, Eleanor Hardin?”

Soraya raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, she’s Prof. Hardin’s sister.”

Fuck me sideways with a cactus.

Soraya laughed, the first genuine laugh I’d heard from her since we all sat down together. “I wouldn’t worry too much. Word is she and her brother don’t get along.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone getting along with Prof. Hardin so that wasn’t too hard to believe. Still, with my luck I’d end up caught up in some sibling rivalry bullshit by the end of the month.

She turned her attention to Scarlett. “Scarlett, you happy?”

Scarlett nodded. It occurred to me how much time Scarlett had been spending at my new place. She’d even taken to spending the night. I hadn’t really noticed because I’d been adjusting to Absinthe. She had moved in with me, naturally and without asking, when the Road Wolves had pulled out of town. I hadn’t complained. As Scarlett had said, it felt right. It was an adjustment, two girls living with me almost full time, but not in a bad way. Not in a bad way at all.

Except that I hadn’t realized how little time Scarlett was spending with her family. Especially if Soraya was having to ask that here, instead of in the privacy of their house. This really should have been a talk just between sisters.

But Scarlett grinned. “I am.”

Soraya leaned back in her chair, appearing to relax a moment before her eyes cut to Absinthe. “And you? What’s your deal?”

Absinthe raised an eyebrow. “Deal?”

“I told you,” I said. “It was a werewolf mating thing and the magic got all mingled—”

Soraya cut me off with a raised hand. “Yeah, I got that. But wolves don’t share mates, do they?”

Absinthe shrugged.

We’d actually had this talk. She’d haltingly admitted to me that she wasn’t sure that she was a werewolf anymore. Or at least, not just a werewolf. Something in her magic had fundamentally changed. For better or worse. Either way, she wasn’t about to admit that to someone she barely knew.

“What works for us works for us,” Absinthe finally said.

“Sounds like something you’d read on a fortune cookie,” Soraya said.

“Or maybe one of those dating advice blogs,” Scarlett followed up.

The stepsisters exchanged a look, then burst out laughing.

Soraya pointed at me when she calmed down. “Caleb, you are some kind of fucked up. I’m trying real hard not to judge here, but…yeah, give me some time to get my head around this.”

She stood up and asked Scarlett, “You going to be home for dinner tonight?”

Scarlett gave a jerky nod. “I’ll be there.”

She left, and a few moments later, we did to.

Absinthe shook her head as we walked down the sidewalk, making our way toward the neighborhoods where I our new home was.

“What?” I asked her.

“She’s right. You are some kind of fucked up.” She blew out a breath. “You’ve got it bad for her.”

I didn’t know what to say. She was, according to all accounts, in love with me, because of some kind of werewolf magic—and didn’t that raise all kinds of questions about how real her feelings were?—and I, I liked her plenty. A part of me, the same primal part that had made me stand up to Herman, was proud that she was mine and claimed her thusly. I was more than a little possessive and understood completely what a hypocrite that made me.

“I think some of your emotions are bleeding over into me.” She glanced at Scarlett. “To us. I don’t know whether or not I want to rip her hair out or kiss her.”

I choked on the breath I’d just taken. Then looked at Scarlett. Usually I had a hard time telling when she was blushing but there was absolutely no denying the heat beneath her cheeks.

When I’d recovered and cleared my throat. “You guys, can um, feel what I’m feeling?”

Scarlett shrugged. “Somewhat. I know what you want. I’ve always got a bit of a sense of where you are. That’s how I was able to find you the other night.”

Absinthe nodded. “Same here.”

I stopped walking and took a deep breath. The girls stopped after a few more steps and turned around to face me.

“I’ve got no idea what I’m doing,” I said to them. “Not a clue. I don’t know what my magic is doing to you and it’s not fair to you. I—I will do everything I can to do right by you. I promise.”

The girls exchanged a glance. Scarlett shrugged and looked away but a small smile graced Absinthe’s face. “Good enough for now.”

The Horned Mage’s adventures continue in Defiled Bonds!

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