Chapter 7
Shadow wished she’d had a way to warn Jeremiah of what was about to happen. But the werewolf gave her the idea when he’d called her a “bogey-man.”
Apparently the shifters have some sort of legend about the Scylds, scary stories told at night to keep little shapeshifting monster cubs in line, maybe?
She curbed the thought, with a glance at Jeremiah. Despite her emotional reaction earlier to the knowledge that he could turn into a hyena at will, she found herself still attracted to him, physically. And his very first words had been to make sure she was okay.
I’m so fucked.
So to speak.
Not that it mattered, if they couldn’t get away. She had no doubt that the werewolves would kill them both. She had seen it in the eyes of the one with the gun, and was a little surprised that they hadn’t already done so. Clearly they wanted something from either her or Jeremiah.
In the meantime, they seemed to be waiting for something.
Shadow decided to take advantage of that wait, wiggling around until she got one hand into her back pocket.
If the werewolves had actually known anything real about Scylds, they would have known to check her pockets and disarm her. The animals had teeth and claws. Scylds had strength, a little magic, and what they could carry.
For the first time ever, Shadow thanked Erik silently for having trained her to pack along back-up supplies.
With a flick of her wrist, she scattered flare-powder in front of her, closing her eyes as it exploded. Then she followed it with the confusion spell, holding her breath and counting to ten to let it take effect on the others while she ripped the bolts up out of the floor, first the one holding her chains down, then the one holding Jeremiah’s—the chains were strong, but she had already seen that the bolts were rusted, and her natural Scyld strength was easily equal to the task. Next, she smashed the chairs, once again breathing normally, but counting silently.
At most, she had thirty seconds to get them out before the confusion spell began to wear off and the werewolves figured out what was going on.
Thirty seconds to get to her car and either get them both out of there, or grab her axe—along with all the other supplies she kept in her trunk—and take a stand.
She would decide which when the time came.
“Come on.”
She grabbed Jeremiah’s hand and tugged, but he resisted, as confused by the spell as the wolves were.
“Shit. I don’t have time for this.” She placed her palms on either side of his face, stared into his eyes. “Jeremiah. It’s me. Shadow. From last night. Remember? I need you to come with me.”
She didn’t know what she would do if he refused—if he fought back, she wouldn’t be able to pick him up and carry him.
Leave him behind?
And suddenly she discovered that she was absolutely unwilling to do that.
I am really and truly fucked.
Luckily, he nodded and fell in behind her.
Shadow heard him muttering one word over and over as he followed her out the door: “Moratiwa, moratiwa, moratiwa.”
“What?” she demanded over her shoulder as she slammed the door behind them.
“We must remember moratiwa. We can make this work if we remember.”
Shadow ignored his ravings and pulled out her last spell packet. This one she sprinkled into her mouth, grimacing at the taste, then waited for the strength-enhancer to kick in.
When it flooded her system, she took the length of chain still wrapped around her hands and focused on pulling open one link, then another. When she was free, she slipped the chain through the handles and managed to bend it back on itself just as the wolves on the other side began slamming into the door.
Only then did she look back at Jeremiah, who had used the time to shift into his hyena form. He still dragged chains from around his midsection, but up close, his animal shape was huge, reaching almost to her waist, and heavy-boned. In another first, Shadow felt awe at a shapeshifter’s ability to change, rather than disgust.
She reached out her hands to pry the chains away from his midsection, and as the chains dropped to the ground, found herself rubbing her fingers through his brown, spotted fur—it was coarse and stiff on his neck, but softer along his sides.
“Later,” she promised, though whether to herself or him, she wasn’t certain. All she knew for sure was that the hinges on the doors were about to give, and she still didn’t have her weapon.
Scrabbling toward the car, she managed to open the driver’s door and pop the trunk, and by the time the doors fell outward from the frame to reveal three full-grown wolves, she and Jeremiah stood side by side, ready to fight.
* * *
They fought, Jeremiah thought, as if they had been built to work together. Shadow moved like a dancer, her axe flashing bright in the moonlight as strands of her hair swirled out from the braid tucked down the back of her jacket.
Jeremiah, used to hunting with his clansmates, darted in and out, snapping at the wolves and using his sharp teeth to slash skin and heavy jaws to crush bones when he caught them. The first wolf he grabbed yelped once as Jeremiah cracked his foreleg in half, then went silent forever as Shadow cleaved through its spine with her weapon.
Dropping the dead wolf’s leg, Jeremiah turned to guard Shadow as she pulled the axe-head from the animal’s neck.
But the other wolves were leaving, turning to trot away into the night, the alpha clearly willing to let the two of them go rather than risk his own skin.
Jeremiah snarled at their retreating forms.
And people thought hyenas were dishonorable.
Shadow tilted her head as she watched them go. “I don’t like the way they keep looking back here,” she said. “I think they might be going for reinforcements.” She dropped one hand to Jeremiah’s head, caressing it unconsciously. “I think maybe we had better get out of here, find someplace safe to call our people from.”
Jeremiah yipped in agreement, and Shadow seemed to understand.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She paused long enough to grab the clothing he had stripped out of before shifting only moments ago. “I assume you’ll need these when you change back? And that you can change back sometime soon so we can talk?”
He yipped again, twice this time, and she nodded, then opened the back door. He hopped in, and she sat her axe in the floorboard of the passenger side in front.
* * *
Shadow had no idea where in Savannah they were, but she didn’t really care.
Everything about her world was about to change.
Well, almost everything, anyway.
She was still pretty sure werewolves were assholes.
But she was going to have to reevaluate almost everything else she thought she knew.
As soon as she felt certain no one was following them, Shadow pulled the car off onto a side street, then wound through as many turns as she could bring herself to make, just to be sure, before pulling over to the side of street and turning off the car.
Turning sideways, she cocked one leg up onto her seat and stared for a long moment at the man—human again, for now, and dressed in jeans, if nothing else—in the back seat of her car. Finally, she asked the first question that came to mind. “What does ‘moratiwa’ mean?”
He laughed out loud, the bright sound making her smile in response. When he answered, though, it was in a soft tone. “It means lover.”
She joined him in his joyful laughter, then leaned around the seat to pull him into a deep, hot kiss.
There would be more questions later, she was sure—many more, and some hard choices to make. But Shadow was certain that Jeremiah was right: if they remembered that one word, they could navigate what was to come.
They might not know what this was, or where it was going, but Shadow was absolutely certain she was going to enjoy the ride.
“Moratiwa,” she agreed, murmuring it against his lips.
* * *