She enveloped me in a hug. “That’s more than enough.”
Briggs and I had always been the closest, since we were of a similar age. She didn’t really understand why I had to leave Nightfell, but her welcome back was the balm I didn’t know I needed.
Fallon waddled over. “Help! I don’t think I can move if there’s danger.”
“Okay, one less layer.” Briggs said.
Briggs took the extra cloak and Fallon cheekily shed one more coat as I shifted. The Old Magic swirled inside me, feeding on my heightened rage. The monster slunk and clawed to be let out fully, but Fallon’s “Yeah, pony!” as she saw the saddle Briggs strapped to me, kept him sane.
With my mate’s enthusiasm, we could surviveanything, even a long-distance relationship. She stepped up into the saddle, nestling into the seat.
Hold on,I told her. Rearing up like a pony, Fallon whooped with joy and I wondered how I would endure without the echo of her laughter in my ear.
We raced through the forest. The trackers led us back to the Dell we had searched a thousand times. Despite the destruction I brought last time, a few green shoots peeked through the blackened ring I had formed along the stream.
Fallon’s grimace didn’t make me feel any better about poisoning the forest. It was hard to see past the desolation. I didn’t know how we would be successful this time but I trusted the Old Magic to provide an answer.
We milled around a small clearing. Fallon dismounted, pushing through wolf bodies so she could touch the ground. She looked at me with a question in her eyes.
I thought I could starve them out if they had no resources.
“Everyone stop trampling everything!” She shouted into the small glade.
The entire pack freezing was quite a sight. It put a bone-deep smile on my face. How did Fallon think she couldn’t be Alpha? My saunter tried to be casual as I blocked everyone’s view of her heart-shaped ass as she bent over a new wild onion sprout.
“Don’t worry, Dec, it will come back.” She coaxed thebud with a bit of her magic and it grew straight and strong.
Wait, Honey.
“Dec.”
We both looked at each other at once. She pointed at me. Her face dawned the same understanding.
“The first clearing. Where they went missing?” she said.
I nodded.The portal magic affected them last time. Try it.
Briggs was in her human form again. “Do I need to push the wolves back?”
“Yes,” Fallon said as she shook out her hands. “Remember when we found that residual portal magic? The forest can show us the way.”
Briggs shouted at the milling wolves to get behind me and I stepped backward to let Fallon work.
“Some magic words would be more dramatic,” she quipped, only because she was nervous.
I believe in you, Honey.All the courage I had spilled through the bond.
Her chin wobbled before she firmed it and spread her hands.
Fallon’s magic inspired awe. In me, in the pack. I didn’t think she realized how competent she was. Even though it was her first time using it for something other than cooking, the power flowed out of her in a measured stream. Fallon could have taken, rent, and battered the plants into submission. Instead, she asked, coaxed, andencouraged. The Old Magic loved it, helping to boost her request.
As the bushes grew, extending their life, their fruit into her waiting hands. The effort was there in the set of her shoulders, but she had borne so many terrible things that she made it look easy. When the plants became full again, they bent through a strange patch of air as if they grew against a wall. Soon the plants formed a dead space in the clearing.
I summoned the Old Magic to my aid in my human form. A furious gust of winter wind blew away the complex magic surrounding the branches like snowflakes. Revealed was a neat, red-rimmed tunnel into the earth.
“It doesn’t smell like anything. Not even magic,” I told Honey. “The scents are so mixed they cancel each other out.”
Briggs started forward in an instant.
