Oh God. This was going to come around to bite me in the ass. I could feel it.
“What are the crystals for?” Molly asked, picking one up and examining it.
“Put that down,” Willemena snapped. “You do not mess with a witch’s crystals. Hasn’t anyone bothered to teach you any manners?”
Molly didn’t cower. She placed the crystal back on the table slowly. “What are they for?” she asked again, uncaring that an old and powerful witch had just chewed off her head. I had to fight a grin. Molly was fierce.
“Crystals augment magic,” Willemena said. “They can also sustain it. Evie needs all the help she can get, especially since she has to manage magic she’s never done before while in fox form, we’re going to amplify things a bit.”
“Think of it as a battery,” Tianna said. “We’re going to supercharge Evie’s magic.”
Great. Supercharge Evie when she doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing!
“Is it safe?” Molly asked.
“Safe enough,” Willemena answered, not reassuring me in the least.
“Don’t worry,” Cass said to Molly. “My Evie is tough as nails. She’ll get it done.”
All that was left was to hope he was right. I had everything to live for now. I wasn’t going to let a fucking dead vamp take that from me.
I had a family. I had a pack. And I was keeping them.
9 Just Breathe
“You got this, Evie.” Cass was still standing on the chair around the dining room table. His gaze was fierce as he peered at my fox.
‘Cass, I love you, but let’s be real. I don’t fucking got this. I’m dead.’ Bile rose in my throat. I was totally going to botch this. My head would end up on Nathan’s body or we’d both turn into foxes or something else awful would happen and then the kill spell would take me out.
Reo and Haru were transporting Nathan’s body to the house right now. Brock was still on his call so we were forging ahead. I had minutes to prepare. Minutes!
‘Listen, Evie girl. It’s like my illusion magic. You just need to visualize. Reach out and grab Nathan’s hand and then visualize him being you. Then visualize you shifting back from a fox but into his form, to look like him. Easy peasy.’
For the first time in my life, I wanted to throat punch my bestie. Either he was totally delusional, or he actually thought what he just said to me was in any way easy. Cass once told me it took a decade to properly learn his illusion magic, but I wasn’t going to mention that now.
Willemena burst into the cabin then with Tianna hot on her heels. “The sky is darkening! The kill spell is getting restless. We need to do this now or it will start to strike from the skies, seeking out Evie’s energy.”
‘What the actual fuck did she just say?’ I asked Cass.
“You mean … it will strike her with lightning?” he asked Willemena, who nodded.
“And probably take all of us with it too,” she said.
Excellent. It just kept getting better and better.
‘I’m gonna puke.’ I hopped off the chair I’d been sitting on and started to pace, bushy tails shifting side to side with each step.
Cass flew over to his woman. “Buttercup, is there anything you can do to stave off the storm?”
Tianna’s eyes hooded over as her lips turned up into a smirk. “Of course, sugar plum.” Then she retreated outside, hands outstretched and magic crackling between her palms.
Willemena looked at Molly for some explanation of how these two were a couple, but Molly just shrugged. That was a mystery greater than we had time to solve right now.
“Where is the body?” Willemena roared, patience obviously exhausted.
“It’s here,” Brock called from outside, and I ran over to the open door. The alpha held Nathan’s limp body cradled in his arms as he walked inside. The two warriors followed, heads low.
Brock took one look at the crystals set up on the table and stalked right up to Willemena. “I know what’s best for Evie. If I say wait for me, you wait.” His voice could cut glass. Tension built in the room as the witch and the alpha stared each other down.
She would probably kill him for talking to her like that. I gulped.
Finally her stern look cracked and she grinned. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give to be loved like that. With that kind of ferocity.” Her gaze flicked to mine. “You’re a lucky woman.”
When I wasn’t a fox, obviously.
Okay, not the response I’d been expecting from the witch, but I was super glad no one had beheaded the other.
Brock shot one final glare at Willemena before walking over to where I stood in my petite fox form. Bending over, he laid Nathan on the floor next to me.
I’d seen enough death in my profession not to be too bothered by it, but I could feel this loss throughout the pack bond and it made it harder to ignore.
Nathan had almost killed me, yes, but it was only because he was a young wolf who hadn’t yet learned how to control his animal side once he shifted. It wasn’t his fault, and it wasn’t lost on me that if this worked he’d actually be saving my life.
Brock arranged Nathan’s arms and legs so they weren’t sticking out at odd angles and he looked less dead, a gesture I appreciated, and then made sure the blood-soaked towel covering his abdomen still concealed whatever was under there.
“The lightning’s started!” Tianna screamed from outside.
Willemena ran for the door. “I can buy you ten minutes, kitsune,” she said to me. “Make it happen.” Then she disappeared outside to help Tianna keep the storm at bay.
My eyes bulged. Make it happen? Was she kidding me? Nothing like dumping all the pressure on me…
Brock reached out and stroked my thick fur from the top of my head all the way down to my tails, and his caress helped to relax my body some.
‘I’ve got a trick up my sleeve that I don’t share with many people,’ he told me. ‘I’m going to momentarily transfer my alpha power to you, something I can do since you’re one of my pack members. It’ll give you extra strength and stamina during this … transformation spell.’
My eyes widened. ‘You can do that?’
He nodded. ‘I’ll lie on the couch and transfer my power to you now.’
Holy shit. I didn’t know what else to say as he stood, stepped over Nathan’s body, and lay on Gran’s couch, settling in like he was getting ready to go into a trance or something.
I collected myself, because it appeared I had no choice. I had no fucking clue what I was doing, but no one seemed to bother too much with that teeny tiny super fucking important fact! I was either going to die right now, or I was going to, by some miracle, figure shit out, and I’d live, continuing to give life to the baby growing inside me.
Pulling in a deep breath, I tried to focus, or find my center, or whatever. Man, I missed Gran like crazy right then. She would have known what to do, and even if she hadn’t, she would have known just the right thing to say to get me to arrive at what I needed on my own. She was great at that.
Sudden movement had me whipping my head around. Haru swam into view, holding a cell phone in his hand. “I’ve risked a call to your father. We only have sixty seconds of call time before your location might be tracked.” His words were fast, like machine gun bullets, reminding me how little time I had to figure this shit out, and making me twice as nervous as I’d been before. Besides … did he just fucking say he called my dad? Just like that, Haru was throwing my dad into the mix? This was not how I wanted our first interaction to go down, especially since I couldn’t even speak to him.
But Haru shoved the phone up to my fox ear anyway. Life hadn’t been in the habit of waiting for me to be ready for anything before it happened.
“Hey, kitten.”
His voice. I had no memory of it. There were no home movies or any other recordings of my brief time with my parents. His voice was rich and had the slightest Japanese accent.
“I realize you can’t talk in your kitsune form, and we have little time. Haru has filled me in. You can do this. For your first time, it’s easier if you are holding the other person’s hand or a piece of their hair or something like that.”
Tears leaked from my eyes. I had a dad, alive, and he was talking to me now as if we hadn’t spent the last twenty-five years apart. I forced myself to get it together. I’d have plenty of time to freak out about my dad later—I hoped.
“Look him over for a good minute before you begin,” he was saying. “Try to register everything so you can remember it later with your eyes closed. Notice the shape of his nose, the color of his hair, the shape of his lips, and so on. It’s easier with someone you’re close with.”
A clicking sounded on the line and my father sighed. “I have to go. I’m so proud of you, kitten. I love you so much. Your mom—”
The call dropped.
Fuck. My. Life.
“There’s no more time!” Tianna yelled from outside as wind blew the door and slammed it against the wall with a crash that made me jump.
With a giant swallow, I shoved down every emotion that wanted to come to the surface and pushed away the call with my dad—all but his advice. I definitely needed to follow his instructions. One day I’d allow myself to have a much needed nervous breakdown, but that wasn’t today.
I worked to calm my nerves as I settled beside Nathan’s quickly cooling body. I needed to get this done before his essence entirely disassociated from the body it was leaving behind. As I lay down, a huge surge of power filled me up, making my body tremble for a moment.
Brock.
‘You can do this, ma petite renarde,’ he said.
I nodded at my lover, trying not to let him see that I was barely holding it together, and then nestled between Nathan’s arm and torso. Peering at his face for several long moments, I tried to catalog everything. The way his eyebrows were kind of bushy and his nose a little crooked. His face was squarish and his lips wide.
The wind picked up outside and I heard Willemena tell the storm to fuck off. Ordinarily I would’ve laughed at the outburst from the old witch. Not now. I wasn’t even a little bit amused, not at anything. Shit was as serious as a heart attack.
‘Just breathe,’ Cass said.
And that’s what I did. I lay my muzzle on Nathan’s arm, closed my eyes, and silently thanked him for his sacrifice. A deep breath in, Brock’s alpha power surged through me. A breath out, and my nerves fled and I harnessed more control.
I pictured myself—slender and fit, with long, silky black hair and almond-shaped, violet eyes. I even remembered to include the small birthmark I had on the back of my right thigh. And then I pushed that image onto Nathan, while also calling up my magic, like I would when shifting. I imagined it encompassing him as light. Just as Tianna had taught me to create a dome of protection over myself, I placed a dome of Evie Black over Nathan. I pushed my brain to hold the image and hoped like all hell that it was working.