Witchmate (Skeleton Key) (9 page)

“I’m not a witch, Keir.” She rose up and crossed her arms over his chest, resting her chin on the back of her hand. “I’m an ordinary person from an ordinary world where werewolves and witches don’t exist.”

“But you are here now.” He stroked the side of her face. “In this world, those are the only two species that exist.”

“Do you think that by coming here…somehow, that it has changed me?”

He gazed at her appraisingly. “Maybe.”

“Is there anyone who might know?”

His eyes averted for a moment. “There are tales of the witch of the wood. The lore claims she is as wicked as she is old.”

“How old?”

“No one knows. But she lived in the times before the war.”

Emma kissed his lightly furred chest. “Why did witches and wolves start fighting in the first place?”

“Who knows why a war starts,” he said as if repeating the party line.

“Did the wolves or the witches attack first?”

“The war started the day my parents were killed in a vicious attack on Surrock, our capital city. We weren’t prepared for the assault, and the witches were without mercy. I was sent to live with his second, Willen Bodyn. His son’s Toland and Thadeus became my brothers. Willen guided me until I was old enough to take the reins as
Domiscin
. Alpha to my people. It feels like I have spent several lifetimes at war.”

His eyes turned wistful, sad. Emma kissed him. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

“And your parents?” Keir asked.

Emma felt a mixture of sadness and longing. “I was put into foster care as an infant. My mother abandoned me at a gas station. I never found out who she was.”

“Foster care?”

“A system where unwanted children are cared for.” She’d been lucky that Mike had taken her in. He might be a hustler and a thief, but he never beat her or abused her. He taught her a trade and made her feel wanted, if not loved. He wasn’t the ideal when it came to fathers, but what she’d learned from her school friends was that most fathers, while they do the best they can, aren’t ideal.

“I’m sorry,” Keir said. “The war has made orphans of many of our children. We have a similar system in place for replacement caregivers. My friend Toland’s parents took me in after my parents died. It’s hard when you feel like an outsider in a place that should be home…no matter how welcome people try to make you.”

Emma realized Keir knew exactly how she’d felt. Mike had been awesome, but his place had never felt like home. She always had the sickening feeling that if she didn’t live up to his expectations, she’d find herself out on the street, true or not. But she also had another realization, she didn’t feel that way with Keir. In his arms, she felt safe, comforted.

“Here, with you, I feel like I’m home.”

Keir wrapped his arms around her shoulders and leaned his head forward to brush her lips with a gentle kiss. “Me too.” His voice was sleepy.

“This can’t last, can it?” Emma asked. She couldn’t stand the idea of losing Keir. Not when she finally had someone in her life that she felt she belonged with.

“Yes,” Keir said, drawing her closer, forcing her to lay her head down on his chest. “We’ll find a way.”

Aerina felt the child. As a master of all types of magic, she also had a connection to the existing forces in her world. Emma should have arrived two days earlier, but when she hadn’t appeared, and Aerina couldn’t feel any difference, she’d began to think the spell had gone wrong. However, the evening before, she felt a subtle shift—a gentle disturbance in the magic.

She stretched her mind, probing with her psychic energy to find Emma. She closed her eyes, allowing her third sight, the one connected to her spirit, to flow out into the aether, searching, seeking. In the woods, she drifted. She had started projecting her consciousness to journey through wolfkind territory nearly fifty years ago. The practice had made her a proficient traveler, but it was an ability she kept to herself. The magic was intrusive, and if anyone knew her level of mastery, it would be seen as an invasion of privacy. Besides, she hadn’t wanted to give her father another weapon in his war against the wolves.

As she moved through the forested hilly terrain, her senses were overwhelmed with elemental magic. A month earlier, she’d forbade her followers from entering the wolfkind’s territory in preparation for her plans, but the strong aura of spellcasting meant her witches had disobeyed her. She pushed the anger from her mind. Wrath had a way of making psychic magic unpredictable. Any minds in her proximity could potentially sustain irreparable damage.

She kept her focus on the anomaly. When she came upon the dead whisaphores, her gut clenched. She recognized one of the men, his face and neck twisted unnaturally away from his body. It was Tia’s friend Renald. What was he doing out this far?

She would question Tia later, but for now, she needed to continue the quest for the girl. If she lost Emma Watson, all her plans would be for naught. As she traversed farther into the heart of San fe Sang’s territory, the magic began to fade. But still, she felt a tug, barely perceptible, hint of unrecognizable magic.

Then she heard the river. It had been so long since she’d heard the roaring sound. Her chest ached with regret and grief. Impulsively, she let go of the thread that had dragged her this far and let her spirit drift until she passed over the raging water and glided down into a tree-lined valley. A small ramshackle cabin stood in the center.

A myriad of emotions overwhelmed Aerina as the past was made present. “No,” she whimpered. She couldn’t allow herself the distraction. What was gone could never be again, but Emma was hope. Hope for the future.

“Rina,” a voice said. “Rina!” It was sharper, louder this time. Aerina found it hard to drag her gaze away from the unkempt home. It had been beautiful once.

“Rina!” Louder. More demanding. She blinked, her body convulsing. No, not convulsing. Tia had her by the shoulder, shaking her roughly.

“I’m awake,” Aerina said. “Stop.”

“You had me scared.”

“Why are you here, Tia?” Aerina fought back against the apathy she now felt. And then she remembered. “Did you send Renald out to the wolfkind territory?”

“No,” Tia said, her eyes wide. “Why?”

Aerina fixed her with a doubting stare. “He’s dead.”

Fear, disbelief, and a flare of anger touched Tia’s expression before she made her face like stone. “How do you know?”

Aerina sat up, cupping Tia’s face between her hands. She delved into her mind, using her honed ability to read what was truly there. Effortlessly, she broke down the wall Tia had built as a defense against psychic powers, but it was no match for Aerina’s spellcasting.

“
Tah shay
.” She breathed the words, and Tia’s walls crumbled. And there it was. Deception. Power mongering. Greed. Guilt. Lust. Love. Tia, her closest advisor, had plotted against her. Not only had she sent Renald’s group, but there were also three other clusters of witches searching for Keir D’San and another target. Who? She probed Tia’s mind harder. The young witch grabbed her head and screamed. Her pale gray eyes rolled back before fluttering to a close as she slumped lifelessly to the ground. Aerina had gone too far with her thought-probe.

She knelt beside the woman, who until this moment, Aerina considered her closest confidant. Aerina placed her hands on the acolyte’s still chest, her fingers sending jolts of electricity to Tia’s heart. After thirty minutes of trying and failing to revive Tia, the witch queen felt her powers start to wane.  “Why, my darling girl? Why did you force this moment with your prideful ambition?”

The only thing she knew for certain was that Keir and one other person had been targeted by Tia’s cronies. She prayed it wasn’t Emma. Aerina had no choice now. She had to go into the woods. If the rogue bands of witches succeeded in killing the
domiscin
or Emma, all chances of reconciliation for their two species would be destroyed.

****

“Mika and Jaylinn,” Toland said. He pointed to the left. “You both head that way with Thadeus. Amile and I will take the right. Move in an arc until we meet north of the river.”

“We should go back, brother,” Thadeus said. “With no scent to catch, we risk getting farther from camp and reinforcements. We can set out fresh in the morning. The witch’s spell should be faded by then.”

Toland shook his head. “We can’t leave our
domiscin
out her alone and vulnerable.”

“He made the choice to take off on his own,” Mika protested. “We can’t keep him safe if he chooses to be reckless.”

“Watch yourself, Mika.” Toland hadn’t forgotten that she’d stirred Jaylinn up about the found woman Emma. “You are bordering on insubordination. Keir is our alpha, the leader of our people, he doesn’t need our permission to make decisions.”

“It would be nice if he’d have told us,” Thadeus said.

Toland knew Mika and his brother were both right, but he hated that Mika’s observations about Keir were a judgment rather than mere concern. “We keep going.”

“I’d like to stay with Amile,” Thad said.

Toland raised a brow at his brother. It wasn’t like Thadeus to question his decisions. Before he could acquiesce, Amile stepped in.

“Tol has set the mission parameter,” she said to her mate. “You and I are the best trackers. It makes sense that we split up.”

He took her hand and nodded. “Be careful.” He glanced at Toland. “You too.”

“We will.” Amile kissed Thadeus. “You and Mika do the same.”

After a few nods of farewell, the group split up and headed in opposite directions.

****

“That’s so loud!” Emma shouted. The pounding of the rapids as they roared down the wide river was deafening.

“What?” Keir answered, shouting as well. Emma could barely hear him.

She raised on her tippy toes and projected her voice toward his ear. “How much longer until we can cross?”

Keir turned toward her. His dark gaze warmed her from the inside. He leaned down to get close to her ear. “I’m not sure. This is the farthest I’ve been up stream. It has to slow down somewhere. Do you need to rest?”

They had been walking since before dawn. Four hours of trekking over rough ground and Emma was ready for a break. Stopping now wasn’t an option. She’d created fire the night before, and this morning, she swore she manipulated the wind. The witchvine belt didn’t seem to be able to stop her from displaying magic.

Which meant, she wouldn’t be welcome in Keir’s camp. And because of her connection with Keir, the witches would probably keep trying to kill her. If nothing else, to use as leverage against him.

Keir asked again, “Do you need to rest, Emma? We can stop for a moment.”

“No,” she said. “We keep going until we’re safe.”

The River of Tears reminded Emma of the videos she’d seen of the Colorado River rapids. It was crazy how the insanely fast currents seemed to froth at the mouth like a rabid dog. After an hour of traveling upstream, the roar became less earsplitting.

“I can finally hear myself think,” Emma said.  “Can you still not smell anything? Not even the water?”

“The magic faded a couple of hours ago,” he replied.

“Oh.” Why hadn’t he told her? He could have gone back to his wolfkind, at the very least, to say goodbye. “I can keep going on my own.”

Keir turned to her, his gaze predatory. “I can’t leave you, Emma. I won’t. Don’t you understand that? You are my mate.”

“Well, sure,” she told him. “We had sex. But people do that and leave each other all the time.” She was sure that had been the case for her parents.

“Yes, and if it had only been sex, leaving you might be an option. But we went beyond that. We connected. Mated.” He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed as if to emphasize the enormity of his words. “Could you walk away from me?”

Emma thought about his question. She imagined leaving Keir and never seeing him again. An ache deep in her gut blossomed until she doubled over. The pressure in her chest was nearly as debilitating. She pushed the unwanted images of a life without Keir from her mind. The pain eased.

She stared up at him. “No,” she said when she could breathe normally again. “I can’t walk away from you. Why? I don’t understand?”

“It’s biological for my kind. When we mate, it’s for life. When a wolfkind loses a mate to death, he or she also dies. There is no cure for the terminal pain of heartbreak.”

“And you knew this when you pledged yourself to me last night?” she asked incredulously. “How could you be so stupid? Your people will never accept me, Keir. You’ve ruined your life, and for what? A thief.” Her frustration blinded her to the rising water. “A thief and most likely a witch. Your natural enemy. How in the world are we ever going to make this work?”

“We worry about it after we cross the river.”

Emma turned to the flowing water as a massive tidal wave splashed over the two of them. She screamed as the force threw her back. She raised her hands, and the next wave stopped midair. “I…” She was flabbergasted.

Keir regained his feet and stared at her as if a hairy wart had blossomed on her nose. “Try to move it to one side, Emma.” His voice was calm, emotionless, but his stance was so rigid, Emma knew he was anything but stoic on the inside.

She kept her hand up as she stood, the whole time willing the choppy water to hold still. The uncooperative liquid sloshed back and forth unsteadily. Her energy drained rapidly, and Emma used all the tricks she’d learned from Mike to keep her adrenaline in check, her pulse slow, and her breathing even.

“Are you okay?”

She didn’t answer Keir. Couldn’t answer him, not if she wanted to control her focus. She moved her hand to the left, rejoicing as the water responded.

“This will work,” Emma said. “It has to.” She focused on the splitting the current, and when, like Moses parting the Red Sea, the River of Tears rose on one side as the water dammed, and emptied on the other, Emma’s jaw dropped. “Hell yes.”

“Hold that,” Keir commanded.

He grabbed the hand she wasn’t using to cast magic, and they set off across the muddy, soggy, rock filled, fishy smelling river bed. At one point, she sank down to her knee in the muck. It was getting harder to hold the magic, especially with the physical effort.

“This is ridiculous.”  What she wouldn’t have given for the ability to fly. Suddenly, the top of her head passed Keir’s. The invisible wall holding back the river began to fail as she floated up into the air.

Keir anchored Emma as if she were a helium balloon that if he let go, would drift away. “Hold on,” he shouted.

With the kind of speed she’d only seen in superhero movies, Keir leaped from the mud and ran so fast his feet skimmed the surface. The whole time, he held on to Emma, dragging her along, as he raced them to the opposite shore. Emma felt as much as she heard a popping sound. The river crashed toward them in a runaway tide.

Emma couldn’t regain control, and she lost altitude as well. “Keir!”

His face, half man-half wolf, wrenched with determination. His claws bit into her wrist, and he flung Emma the last five feet to the bank. The dominant force of the river, like a Tasmanian devil released from a cage, blasted Keir, twisting his body unnaturally when he catapulted himself into the air. 

“No!” Emma collapsed as she tapped into the last of her power and yanked Keir the rest of the way to land. He lay sprawled on the jagged rocks. “Keir,” she cried out, dragging her useless legs behind her as the river rock shredded her black leggings. She dropped her backpack when she reached him. 

The rushing water slowed until the only sounds Emma heard were the rhythmic movement of the current like a gentle rain and her own whimpers. The magic had taken more out of her than her body had been ready to give. She didn’t even have the strength to turn Keir over to check his breathing.

“Help me,” she whispered like a prayer, knowing she was on her own. Unable to hold her head up, she lowered it to Keir’s back.

“I am here with you, child,” an angelic voice replied. A prodigious amount of love and grief and hope filled Emma. She blinked her eyes open, the act more difficult than parting the river. A woman, tall and thin, with jet black hair, pale skin, and gray eyes appeared to be floating over Emma. Her white gown flowed as if carried upward by a gentle stream of air. A chill wind began to blow, raising gooseflesh on Emma’s arm. Was this what dying felt like?