“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, youwait.” 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.
