Chapter Fifty-one

Alastair couldn’t help the wide grin that stretched across his face. He felt almost manic with excitement. “You’re about to watch history being made, Sam.” It was his time, now, his, and he couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Finally, he was going to get everything he deserved—his own mate, recognition, power. “No longer will spelltalkers be considered second-class citizens. No longer will you greedy shifters get all the mates.” Once he’d accomplished this, the pack would see him as someone more than just a school teacher or second-class citizen. “Too bad I had to drug her, but I think it will still work. If not, I’ll just try again.”

He carefully positioned the downed, naked woman, folding her hands together over her belly and crossing her legs at her ankles. She was perfect, a little too tall, and a lot too rebellious, but she was soon to be his woman. His mate. And that made her exactly right. He could bend her to the shape he wanted, once the ceremony was done.

Triumph surged hot in his veins. He was nearly there. He re-chalked the lines of the pentagram and circle, making sure there were no gaps.

“Well, Sam, I’m sorry you won’t see how happy she’s going to be with me, but you won’t care out in the woods, will you? You’ll be lost in the hunt. Maybe you’ll even find a real bitch to be your mate.” The bubbles of elation rising through his blood at what was coming almost made him want to giggle. 

He lit the candles, ignoring the repetitive meaty sound of Sam hitting the end of the chain again, and again, and again.

“Do you know, Sam, what a spelltalker really is? Oh, the pack uses us to keep the adolescents in line. Maybe to find out people’s secrets...to hide the wolves’ existence, our talents are similar to the dreamwalkers, but not the same. For instance, telling lies from truth can be done, but it takes it out of the worker and the travel on the astral leaves us exhausted for days. But our real gift is the ability to access the ancestors. Access to lost knowledge on the astral planes. If one has the patience, the time—and the drive.”

He frowned and stepped into the chalk circle, re-positioning Glenna, making sure she was exactly where she needed to be. One mistake and he’d be starting from scratch.

“Once upon a time, spelltalkers took mates with the Bite.” He’d waited years to tell someone else. Keeping everything a secret had been the hardest part. “The knowledge is all there, back in the lines. I just had to look.” He picked up the little brown bottle and shook it, mixing up the contents of settled virus so it would be truly effective.

“I didn’t want a human mate, or a dormant. I wanted a true mate. And there just aren’t enough. Every time I approached a woman she’d fixate on some asshole of a shifter. Even the dreamwalkers and other spelltalkers find fur exciting. So I had to find one on my own.” He examined the ancient wolf’s fang. He’d spent hours sharpening it, making sure it was ready. “It took time—time spent searching the inner lines to the ancestors and the paper trails in the old files. Did you know that we have relatives out there in the human world? And some of them carry the correct DNA to become dreamwalkers, maybe spelltalkers. But I never expected this.”

He took the fang in his hand and prepared it, dipping it into the virus three times before laying it on a small dish next to a sharp knife.

“You, Glenna: a human woman with the right combination of DNA to become a shifter. You and I will have powerful children. And we’ll find more like you, so no one has to go mateless.”

He picked up the knife. “And so it begins.”

He opened himself up to his talent, let in the wildness of the woods and the earth, and spoke the words that in a few moments would let him have access to the magic of the ancestors. The magic of the Bite that would finally allow him, a spelltalker, to take a mate and be bound to her for life—just like the shifters had always done.

***

Sam saw Alastair raise the knife and something inside him snapped, releasing an uncontrollable shaking urge for vengeance. His throat was bruised and sore from hitting the end of the chains too many times, but he bunched his muscles and lunged. This time instead of hitting the end of the chain, he kept going, the ring snapping out of the crumbling cement. He sailed through the air, trailing a chain of broken concrete chunks and landed on Alastair.

The spelltalker hit the floor, a surprised grunt ripped out of him. Candles and chalk rolled as Sam’s trajectory took him too far, and he landed on the other side of the room. He whirled, the chain dragging behind him, and faced his enemy. Alastair was on his feet, hands wide, knife ready.

A rush of glory poured through Sam. He was free.

The fever throbbed and his wolf surged, the only thing in both their minds was ripping the spelltalker’s throat out and shutting him up forever.

He stalked circling around, drawing Alastair further and further into the gloom of the barn and away from Glenna.

“Sam, we can work this out.”

If wolves could laugh then Sam would have been rolling on the ground. There was only one way this was going down—to the death.

He lunged for Alastair’s unprotected underbelly, but the spelltalker moved quicker than expected and slashed the knife down. The edge of the blade cut deep into Sam’s fur. He stumbled past the spelltalker and whipped around to face him again.

His head still hurt and there was a haze to the world. Whatever Alastair had drugged him with was still in his system and slowing him down. In the back of his mind he registered a faint smell of smoke.

But it didn’t matter.

This was a claiming battle. From deep within, the fever throbbed, pushing him to lay claim to Glenna, and this man was in his way, just as if he’d been another wolf, challenging Sam for the right to mate. He howled and charged again, this time feinting high and to Alastair’s off hand before diving low to the soft underbelly of his prey where he sank his fangs in deep and tore.

Hot rich blood spewed out into his mouth, and Alastair screamed. Sam let go, dancing out of range of Alastair’s flashing blade.

“You fucking asshole. You’ve bitten me!”

Sam paced, waiting for a second opportunity, aware it was more than a bite—it was the first of the killing strokes. A belly wound was good for a slow death, but he didn’t have time for that and didn’t want that. No, he needed the satisfaction of the final death blow.

Alastair was moving slower, but he lunged forward and cut down, Sam danced out of the way, darting in for a quick bite at the ankles. Another score.

He smelled Alastair’s surge of adrenaline mixing with the heavy odor of smoke, and sensed the power of the spelltalker’s magic rising to the fore. Alastair began muttering, ancient words Sam had never been permitted to learn, reserved only for the spelltalkers and their secretive rites. His sense of urgency increased. He needed to take Alastair out now before the spell took shape. And while he still had energy.

He ignored the steady seep of blood oozing from his wound. Somewhere, buried deep behind the fever and his wolf, a piece of him understood that the wounds, combined with the drug still in his system, were going to take him down. He didn’t have long before he would pass out and Alastair would win. He went in for the kill.

He rose to his hind feet and punched with his forepaws, knocking Alastair to the ground and cutting off the flow of the spell. He circled around fast, before his foe could recover. He came in from the side, up and under Alastair’s arm and his blade, avoiding the sharp edge and aiming for the throat.

His teeth sank in, met the resistance of skin, then flesh, then he hit the cords of muscle and bone. Alastair’s knife slashed frantically, cutting into Sam’s thick heavy fur on his shoulder. Pain slid down Sam’s back, but he didn’t let go, he continued to close his jaws, grinding his way through the gush of blood until he had a solid grip on the throat of his enemy.

He twisted his jaws and the spine snapped.

The heavy weight of the body’s sudden drop pulled his head down until the corpse settled on the floor. Sam let go and lifted his head. The howl belled out of him announcing to one and all, victory.

He crossed through the haze of smoke, oblivious to the fire eating up the barn, oblivious to anything but reaching Glenna. She lay, with her eyes closed. Sam pushed her with his nose. The wolf didn’t understand. She should be his, she should go with him to run in the woods and complete the claiming.

A beam crashed behind him, sparks flying, and he jumped. Deep within his head the human part of him finally registered the crackling light and heavy scent of fire.

Sam fought for ascendancy, past the wolf and the urge of the fever. He had to shift, to become human, or he would never be able to get Glenna out alive.