Chapter 11

It was almost midnight before Rita emerged from the spellatorium. Her grumbling stomach had finally insisted on a snack, but she’d managed to distract herself nicely with her work on compounds and elixirs for the shop’s backroom mail-order business and cute herbal sachets for the front-facing showroom for the locals and tourists. Aunt Tilda’s shop was known far and wide among other circles for the power and precision of her magic, and Rita wanted to keep that tradition going strong, maybe even add to it. After crafting that spell for Thor, she had some ideas—

“Sheesh, you keeping shadow hours now?”

The teasing voice from the open back door as she walked into the kitchen made her jump, the rubber tips of her crutches squeaking across the floor. “Blessed…”

“Nah. Just me,” Gin said. “And Brandy’s out on the step. I’m getting another glass of wine. You want?”

It would just make her wistful. And maybe whiny. Better not. “I’m just going to grab some fruit.”

Gin shrugged. “It’s hot enough to turn it into wine, you wait long enough.”

She would just have to keep waiting.

Grabbing the bowl of mixed melons from the fridge, she tucked it under her arm and followed her sister out to the kitchen step.

As she settled herself next to Brandy who scooted over to make room, she kept a wary eye on the night. The Victorian’s back garden was half-jungle at the best of times. In the dark, it was like a whole different planet. The towering sunflowers looked like alien warriors, and the moonflower vines reached out like tentacles to snag the unwary.

Or maybe she just needed a hug.

“You’re up late,” Brandy said as she snagged a chunk of cantaloupe.

“So are you,” Rita volleyed back.

“I’m always up late.” Gin stepped over them to the lower stair and hunkered down with her wine. “I’m glad I’ve corrupted you to my evil ways.”

Brandy stretched her arms up to the sky. “I get to do what I wanna since Mac and Aster are at the overnight for outdoor school.”

“Ah.” Rita spit one of the “seedless” white watermelon seeds into the darkness. “Super-secret shapeshifter-y mysteries of the great outdoors?”

“Actually, they are just up on the mesa with way too many hotdogs and s’mores.” Brandy lounged back with her legs crossed, kicking one flower-toed flipflop idly. “Better Mac than me.”

Gin lifted her wine glass and Brandy clinked hers against it.

Rita looked at her fruit. “Okay, let me try some of that.”

“Ben traded with one of Dena Begay’s cousins out near Shiprock for some of his cherry popovers,” Gin said. “I approve of this relationship.”

There were so many intricate relationships among the shifters. When he wasn’t taking his organic Bare Buns Bakery to area farmers markets, Ben worked for Sunday Landscaping which was run by Blaze Domingo, a wolf shifter, whose twin brother Easton was mated to coyote shifter Dena Begay who had cousins all over the Four Corners and beyond. Keeping track was trickier than any spell.

Brandy handed over her glass and Rita took a swallow of the wine, so bright a red it held its hue even in the shadows. “Mmm. I approve too. I wonder if we could convince Gypsy to stock this instead of that fortified paint stripper.”

“Probably not,” Gin and Brandy said at the same time. They laughed at the same time too, their voices a stereo chime on either side of Rita.

Of course they were happy. They’d had a bottle of wine.

And they had their mates.

She growled at her sister when Brandy reached for the glass.

Brandy snatched back her hand, lips pursed. “Ooh. Somebody’s been learning naughty tricks from the bad boy bear.”

Gin snickered. “I approve of this relationship too.” She ducked when Rita aimed at swat at her hair, only a shade less lurid than the wine. “Seriously, sis. It’s high summer in the high desert. If you’re gonna feel the burn, it might as well be the Thorburn.” She ducked the other way away from Brandy’s swipe.

“Don’t encourage her to get mixed up with someone like that,” Brandy scolded.

“Said the only triplet who managed to get herself knocked up by a bear shifter,” Gin snarked back, ducking away from another swipe. “Hey, watch the wine.”

“Mac is just Mac,” Brandy said—not incorrectly, Rita thought. “But Thorburn Montero is…scary, dangerous, too…big.”

Taking another sip of her wine, Rita murmured, “Rex ursi.” With the exhaled “ur-sigh”, the wine burned on her tongue like dragon fire. “King bear.”

Or he would be again, once he reclaimed his beast.

“Mac explained to me that the rex ursi doesn’t take a mate,” Brandy said, her brown eyes glistening. Probably from the wine, but also from her soft heart. As if she hadn’t gone into fierce mama bear mode the first time Aster had changed in front of them. She’d been ferociously determined to cast out the bear and save her baby boy. Until she found Mac. Now she thought everyone needed to find their forever true mate.

And then Gin the gloomy goth girl got herself a polar bear and now whistled cheerfully on her way to work. It was like a cult around here. A cult of bear.

Rita took another drink. “I’m not looking for a mate.”

“Famous last words,” Gin muttered. “If you don’t want a shifter, then what is that bite on the back of your neck?” She didn’t bother ducking this time.

Rita glared at her. “Does a bear fuck in the woods?”

Still holding onto her glass, Gin put one arm over her head to block both her ears. “La la la, I’m too young to hear this.”

“Oh, Ree,” Brandy gasped, angling her hand under the sleek bob Rita had round-brushed back into submission after her bath. “That’s a mating bite. His beast wanted to seduce you.”

With a hard slant to one side—almost tumbling herself right off the step; apparently this wine was also fortified—Rita glared at her other sister. “It’s not a mating bite. He wasn’t trying to change me. If anything, he liked me just the way I am.” For a heartbeat, realizing that silenced her. Had anyone ever thought she was enough, not slow and boring and desperate? When was the last time she wasn’t pushing for something more from herself? As if another set of pushups and crunches, another grimoire of spells would make up for all the ways she wasn’t enough. She shook off the faltering thoughts. Damn wine. “It’s just a…a regular old love bite.”

“Oh, that’s exactly how it starts,” Brandy warned with an echoing “mm-hmm” from Gin. “Just a little nibble. Just a little taste. And before you know it, he’s eating your… Uh…” Her cheeks were brighter than the wine when they stared at her. “Well anyway, you’re the eldest of us and you should know better.”

Rita smirked into her wine. “You two just set a terrible example, I guess.”

“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” Gin said, wrinkling her nose.

“Me neither.” Brandy tsked under her breath. “You guys are copying me, just like when you always borrowed my clothes.”

“I never borrowed your clothes,” Gin protested. “Too many bright colors and flowers.”

“You dyed my favorite skirt black and turned the flowers into skulls,” Brandy pouted.

Gin tapped her upper lip. “That does sound like something I’d do,” she admitted.

“Anyway, I think it’s a bad idea because it’s just not like you, Ree. It would be different if Thor was like Ben and Mac.”

Brandy nodded. “Kind and gentle,” she clarified.

“Or funny and sweet,” Gin said with a nod.

Rita sputtered. “Thor’s not…” She hesitated, the wine seeming to burn on the back of her eyelids and on the back of her tongue, evaporating her defense of him. “Not gentle, not sweet,” she said finally.

Brandy nodded with the wisdom of a full glass of wine. “Mean and scary, just like I said.”

“No,” Rita said. “I meant not not gentle and not not sweet.”

Gin squinted at her with the confusion of two glasses of wine. “So you’re saying…”

Rita blew out a hard breath. “It means… I don’t know what it means. It was just one night, and now it’s over.”

“Nights always come back,” Brandy said in a slightly ominous tone.

Gin blinked at her. “Hey, that’s a good line. Maybe I could make a shadow witch out of you yet.”

“No way.” Brandy waved her away. “I’m happy with my life just as it is.”

“That’s what I want,” Rita grumbled.

Her sisters stared at her in a horror not unlike the time she had borrowed one of Brandy’s floral miniskirts and paired it with Gin’s favorite knee-high combat boots. “What? You guys are allowed to be happy but that’s crazy for me?”

“You just never seen like you needed that,” Brandy said with a shrug.

Rita stared at her. “Who doesn’t want to be happy?”

“What she meant was”—Gin glanced at her middle sister for confirmation—“is that you never seemed like you didn’t already have it, that you weren’t already happy.”

Brandy nodded. “You always seemed happy doing what Aunt Tilda told you.”

“And telling us what to do,” Gin finished with a snicker.

Rita glared at her sisters. “I didn’t,” she sputtered.

“You did,” they said simultaneously.

“But if you weren’t happy—if you aren’t happy,” Brandy continued, “then I’m sorry we didn’t notice.”

“And of course you should be,” Gin said. “And we will be here for you.”

And that was the problem with always being the strong one, the responsible one, the sensible one. She was so used to being that way, and other people seeing her as such, that she didn’t even know how to ask for help when she needed it. “I’ve always had so much in my life,” she murmured. “You two, Aunt Tilda, a place in the circle. It seems greedy to want more.”

Brandy tilted her head. “Did you say to want Thor?”

Rita jerked back with a slightly too high-pitched laugh. “More. I said more, not Thor.”

Gin shook her head. “No, I think you said Thor.”

Rita stared down at the wine glass in her hand. It was empty. She set it aside. “I had Thor,” she said smugly. “And he was definitely more.”

Brandy hooted, a little too loud, and she clamped her hand over her mouth. But in the darkness her eyes glinted with amusement and touch of preternatural intensity. “So why aren’t you happy then?”

Gin snickered. “Asked the girl who’s hitchhiking pickup started this whole thing.”

“Actually,” Rita said, “it was Aunt Tilda who brought us all here.”

Gin lifted her wine glass that still had a swallow left in the bottom. “To Aunt Tilda.”

Since the other two didn’t have any more wine, they just fist bumped her glass

“So what do you want?” Gin handed her the wine glass with a little left.

Rita stared down into the ruby-bright depths. She knew how the fermentation and distillation processes worked, had done plenty of her own cordials and tinctures as part of her circle duties. If she understood the depths of her own restlessness as well, certainly she could craft the steps to find her own happiness. Couldn’t she? She’d always known her own mind, her own path.

But apparently she didn’t know her own heart.

She scowled down into wine glass. “I want to finish the expansion of the shop and get us clearly in the black again. I want you”—she pointed at Gin—“to complete your ordination in the shadow circle. And I want you”—she redirected her point at Brandy—“to pick bridesmaids dresses that don’t suck and live happily ever after.”

Brandy beamed and sniffed emotionally, dabbing at her over bright eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured. “I will be happily ever after. And my bridesmaids dresses will totally suck.”

Gin patted Rita’s knee, just hard enough to send a reverberation through her thigh bone. “That’s nice. But that’s all for someone else, not for you. What do you want?”

Rita tightened her grasp on the wine glass. The stem was thinner than her crutches, but somehow seemed to offer the same support. The kind of support that could be knocked out from underneath her at any moment, she knew, but still. “I want more Thor,” she confessed. She tossed back the last mouthful of the wine while her sisters cheered softly.

The wine burned a little harder, in the back of her eyes this time. “So tell me how are things at the shop?”

Gin filled her in on the last few days, and then Brandy shared her ongoing plans for the wedding.

“Your dresses won’t really suck,” she assured them. “I want everyone to be as happy as I am.” She leaned against Rita with an only somewhat drunken sigh of contentment.

Rita didn’t even bother asking if her sister were sure after a mere three months together. It was so painfully obvious that she and Mac were meant to be together, and not just because of Aster. The energy that flowed between them was so pure and good, if they could bottle it, they could sell it as a true love potion all by itself. Actually, she had bottled some of it, distilling the essences of a wild flower bouquet that Mac had brought to Brandy one day for no reason at all. After a few more distillations and incantations, she’d probably use it in place of her usual formula for coming home. Because it was so obvious her sister had found the place where her heart belonged.

Also, she had traded some of her cleansing and calming potions to one of her circle contacts who specialized in astrology and telling the future. Not that Rita believed in either of those—the stars were to fixed in their courses and the future was too changeable to be a good gauge of human happiness—but the woman had drawn natal charts and futures for both Brandy and Mac and declared them a perfect match.

Also also, she and Gin had sworn they would bring the full fury of the circle and its shadow down upon Mac’s furry head if he ever hurt their sister.

Sometimes being the strong one was pretty damn sweet.

Brandy yawned and called it a night when she started tearing up over being the first bride ever to have a bouquet of Mesa Diablo roses and a cake frosted with magically blessed huckleberries.

Gin observed her gentle tears. “Good thing you’re happy.”

“It’s the wine,” Brandy said. “And not having my boys with me tonight. Thank you for being my sisters.” She threw a big sloppy hug around them both, until Gin lifted her to her feet.

“Okay, okay. Time for bed.” She glanced back at Rita. “You okay? I got another arm.”

Rita smiled at her minutes-youngest sister. Gin might play goth and grumpy, but underneath the black beat a heart of silver. No wonder the clever polar bear had snapped her up when he had the chance. “I didn’t have that much to drink,” she said. “And anyway, I brought my own support staff.” She nudged her crutches with her toe.

“Well, don’t stay out here all night, or I’ll make you a shadow witch too.” Gin flashed a white-toothed grin at her. “Unless there’s some other reason you’re waiting out here…”

A breath of heat washed across Rita’s cheeks. “Just not sleepy yet.”

“Well, there’s one thing that always tires me out,” Gin said with a knowing smirk.

“I do not want to hear—”

“Making circle potpourri.” Gin looked at her. “Why? What did you think I was going to say?”

“Sexy times,” Brandy piped up. “I thought you’re going to say sexy times.”

Rita groaned. “This is why I’m the oldest.

“And you got so many minutes to make up for,” Gin pointed out. She steered Brandy through the kitchen door. “Sweet dreams.”

They went inside, and for a minute their voices echoed down the hallway along with the low thuds of their footsteps on the stairs going up. Then the old house fell silent, and the whispers of the night surrounded her: the breath of the desert breeze, the chirp of crickets and the rustling of small creatures out in the sage and rabbitbrush beyond the back fence, the faraway rush of a car on the freeway, going somewhere.

Where was she going? Unlike Brandy, she hadn’t wanted to reject her heritage, and unlike Gin, she wasn’t looking for a new path with the circle. She’d always intended to be right there. Well, not necessarily here-here but doing what she was doing.

Damn the manhandling that had shifted her desires.

She touched the leftover sprig of honeysuckle she’d pinned to her shirt after she’d finished decanting a finding spell. Like so many good, sweet things, the flower wouldn’t last the night. She detached the wilting blossom from the pin, twirling the long, silky petal between her fingers. Ugh, why was she being so maudlin? She probably had a sleeping drought somewhere in the spellatorium. She pierced the end of the flower tube with her teeth and sucked the single drop of nectar held within the blossom. As she flicked the empty little flower into the darkness, the simple sweetness eclipsed the bite of the wine for a heartbeat.

“Rita.”

The deep voice coming out of the shadows startled her. On some level, she realized, she’d been waiting for him.

“Thor.” She was on her crutches and at the back gate before the exhalation of his name was fully past her lips.

Beyond the white pickets, the high desert was outlined in argent starlight. Thor was a black mass against the silver. Now her pulse skittered a beat, as if it finally remembered it should be shocked, shocked at this midnight assignation between the good girl and the dangerous beast. Maybe it was the wine, or the honeysuckle, or the desert heat, but she pushed open the gate as fast as she wanted to spread her legs if he but asked. Maybe the thought should have shamed her; instead, her heartbeat picked up the missed beat and magnified it a thousand times.

He slipped inside the gate and pushed it shut behind him. This close, the scent of pine and cold water and a deeper musk teased her.

“I didn’t hear the Harley,” she said, as if that mattered.

One corner of his mouth twitched, as if he didn’t think it mattered either. “I walked. I like the desert at night.”

“I’ve not really been out there,” she said. “Except last night on the mesa.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Peaceful yet electrifying, if that makes sense.” Abruptly he frowned. “Always take someone with you if you go.”

“Because of these?” She thumped one crutch on the ground in warning.

“The pack keeps most other predators away. But the ones that wouldn’t heed that warning would be the worst.”

“You mean like you,” she said tartly.

To her surprise, both sides of his mouth curved in a smile. “Yeah. Like me.”

She looked him up and down. For science, or so she told herself, although the quick survey of his body only mostly served to remind her of their night together. “No bear yet.”

“You can tell?”

“Why else would you be back?” She frowned. “Although the rose shouldn’t have faded so quickly. We’ll have to see—”

“That wouldn’t be the only reason I came to see you.”

She paused. “Oh.” A slow warmth, like sunrise, spread through her body, and it wasn’t just because he was standing so close. Although he was, and his big body radiated a midday heat as if little niceties like the clock meant nothing to a king bear.

Maybe it was just the after echoes of their encounter, still reverberating through their auras, the way the magic in a spell took all the ingredients of their everyday world and made something new and powerful. But as she told him, there’d been no illicit magic in their lovemaking.

Just the magic of his touch, her hungry response, and the transcendent bliss of bringing the two together.

But she couldn’t assume once meant always, no matter how much her yearning body tilted her toward him. “So… Why are you here?”

“To see you.”

She almost said “oh” again, although that would be about as helpful as his short answers. “My sisters are both here,” she said, shuffling her feet and her crutches. “It would be awkward.”

“To see you,” he repeated. “Not just for sexy times.”

She winced. Of course he’d overheard their semi-drunken chatter. “Brandy didn’t mean that,” she assured him.

“Since you have so many virginal years to make up for.”

“Oh, Gin didn’t mean that either.”

“More Thor?”

“I didn’t…” The almost lie stuck in her throat, dryer than the sand beyond the fence. “Okay, yeah, I meant that.”

He laughed, a velvety sound in the darkness. “Not awkward at all. But also not why I’m here.”

She tilted her head, glad the night would hide at least a little of the fire in her face. “If not for sex or the magic, then what?”

The broad spread of his shoulders hunched a little. “I thought, maybe… Would you like to go out with me?”

She ducked her chin. What was this, high school? No, obviously not, because she’d never gone out with anyone in high school. The “weird Wick” appellation had done the trick even if her crutches hadn’t. “Go out,” she repeated dumbly.

He gestured behind him toward the gate. “Walk out on the plain. If you’re going to make Angels Rest of your home, it would be good to know the geology, the plants and animals, the weather, the beauty and dangers so you can watch out for yourself.”

Would the danger or the beauty be more of a threat? She gazed at him. He probably didn’t even notice that he was the biggest risk to her.

But she appreciated that he wanted to show her, that he didn’t think she shouldn’t go just because she was a woman or “crippled” or some other bad excuse. “I’d love to see it.”

“Not just see,” he said. “Smell and taste and touch.”

“I suppose the darkness helps with that,” she conceded. “But keeping all the senses open and aware is a witch’s trick too, not just for shifters.”

He nodded as he reached behind him to swing open the gate. “No wonder we get along so well.”

She smirked at him. “Well, that and the sexy times.”

The velvety rumble of his laugh rolled over her again, somehow even more intimate in the darkness. “Let’s go before we don’t care that we make things awkward for your sisters.”

She had to admit it was becoming less of a concern with every pulse of her blood. She followed him out the gate to the desert beyond. As her eyes adjusted, the starlight seemed brighter than ever. As they walked, the maze of sagebrush and saltbush seemed to part magically in front of them, and she realized he knew exactly where to walk in this rough, wild land. In the pale glow, he pointed out the tracks of jackrabbits and fence lizards and horny toads and the delicate sweep left by feathers—the mark left by a hunting owl grabbing one of the aforementioned creatures. A larger set of tracks he identified as coyote. “Not shifter,” he clarified. “Too small.”

Taking a Leatherman from his back pocket, he sliced open a fruit from a prickly pear cactus—avoiding the many, tiny thorns—to let her suck the water. The warm, earthy flavor eclipsed the lingering tang of wine.

“It tastes a little like berry tea,” she said. “Does it have any historical medicinal purpose like pine needle tea?”

He paused, the glint of the knife in the moonlight not quite as bright as the flash of his grin. “You probably know a lot of this already, don’t you?”

She lifted one eyebrow. “Witch, remember? When I joined Aunt Tilda here, I knew I had a lot to learn.”

“So basically I’ve been shifter-splaining to you all night.” He shook his head. “You could just tell me to shut up.”

“I like listening to you talk,” she admitted. “And I still have a lot to learn.”

“Not so innocent,” he murmured.

She hummed low in the back of her throat, where the wine and the cactus tea had mingled into something wild and sweet. “What else would you teach me?”

“That sexy times in the sand is a terrible idea.” He took a long step around her, stopping her in her tracks, like that owl had stopped its prey. “But a kiss would be one way to shut me up.”

She took another step toward him to close the distance between them and let her crutches dangle from the cuffs as she skimmed her palms up his chest. The night breeze breathing off the mesa should have cooled her. But the fluttering ends of her clothes and locks of her hair tickled her over-sensitive skin until she felt like every nerve was set to flame.

“I do owe you a bite,” she told him.

Standing so close, she felt the fine shudder that racked him at her words. Oh, he liked that idea, did he? Slowly, she fisted her hand in his shirt, and the pressure snapped the pearl buttons wide. A fine sheen of sweat on the rich hue of his skin in the shadows turned his chest to a sculpture of black ice. But the lustful heat simmering from him was incandescent.

With his body as support, she didn’t need her crutches, and she angled herself upright on tiptoes to crash her lips into his. With a deep groan—not velvet, not ice, but undeniable need—he wrapped his arms around her and dragged her up against his chest. The scars he’d left on his own skin when he’d tried to reach for his beast had almost healed, but under her palms flat against his bare skin, his heartbeat was a furious, thundering storm. With each beat, he took the kiss deeper until she was clinging to him.

When he finally lifted his head, their lips parted with a soft smack. Her gasp of pleasure and protest at the end was even softer, but the way his arms tightened around her made up for the loss of his mouth.

His dark eyes glittered in the starlight as he stared down at her. “I’ve thought about this,” he rumbled.

“Sexy times in the sand? It does have a nice bookend feel to lovemaking in a lake.”

He shook his head. “Not that. Not just that. You.” The lock of his arms around her tightened another degree. “I’ve been thinking of you.”

The pang of satisfaction and the knee-jerk thought she should deny his words rippled through her like opposing waves. “You’re supposed to be romancing your bear,” she reminded him. But her voice wobbled with the steadiness of his gaze.

“And yet I find myself thinking every moment not how my bear might find me but how I can make my way back to you.”

His words sparked a sparkling thrill in her even as the wobbly feeling remained, like a roman candle threatening to tip over, burning beautifully but perilous. She shook her head hard, the razor cut ends her bob lashing her cheeks. “It’s not me,” she warned him. No matter how much she might wish otherwise… “You’re just feeling empty without your beast, and you’re looking for the easiest way to fill the void.”

His lips curved, an expression of such amusement and hunger she suddenly knew what it felt to be hunted. “It’s not just me that’s empty,” he said, his voice a rough purr. “And trust me when I say nothing about you is easy.”

“You’re only saying that because I forced you off with a rifle.” She splayed her hands across his bare chest where she would have shot him if he hadn’t left her sister and Ben alone. Now…

She couldn’t imagine how she’d make that choice again. This was why the circle taught that a woman needed to hold her power for the good of her circle, because everyone would want a piece of it. And yet all she wanted was to entwine herself with this big, enigmatic male.

“It wasn’t just when you threatened to kill me,” he said. “Although there’ve been times when I wanted to give up, and I would’ve happily given myself to your bullet.” He bowed his head, touching his shorn locks to her crown. “You know the first time I saw you?”

She swallowed. “At the summer solstice fest,” she said. “When Aster wandered off. I remember you said you’d help look for him.” She frowned. “I wanted to set up a search grid, and you said you’d go by yourself.” She fisted her hand against his chest and gave him a light thump. “You messed up my tidy grid.”

The heave of his chest as he huffed out a laugh lifted her hands. “I couldn’t let any of the other shifters see that I couldn’t control my change. But that wasn’t the first time.” He loosed one hand from behind her and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “You’d just come to Angels Rest,” he murmured. “Your aunt had announced herself to the wolf pack alpha—being neighborly and all, she said. So word that there were witches in Angels Rest was quite the topic of conversation among shifters, as you might imagine. We all wanted a look at you. I saw you when you pulled into town in that yellow VW bus to help her open the shop. You stepped out of the sliding door and your feet hit the pavement like a princess surveying her new kingdom.”

She blinked at him. “That was years ago. My sisters and I were still in school when Aunt Tilda decided to move here. We took a week off to help her get settled.” She gazed at him. “How did I miss seeing you?”

He chuckled. “We’re pretty good about not being seen but we don’t want to be.”

She lifted her chin. “And why would you not want to be seen by me?”

“I was no king then, to court a princess.” His smile faltered. “That was before our trouble with the Kingdom Guard attacking the town’s shifters. If I’d known then…” He shook his head. “I wish I got to know you then, talked to your aunt. Maybe then we would’ve had more help on our side and we wouldn’t have lost anyone.”

It was her turn to lock her arms around him.

“If you’d talked to me, I would’ve expired of shock right on the spot. And then I wouldn’t have been any use to you in your battle.” She laced her fingers at his spine, holding him close. “But now I’m here to help.”

He feathered his fingers through the hair at her nape where the heat had left little auburn curls and then let his hands slide down her shoulders, down to where the cuffs of her crutches wrapped around her forearms. Gently but inexorably breaking her hold, he took a half step back, putting that small distance between them. His shirt that she’d pushed aside fell back into place. “What if I told you I don’t want your help anymore?”

She stiffened. Without the support of his body, she shoved the tips of her crutches into the sand and stared up at him. The starlight that seemed like a wash of fairytale silver just heartbeat ago cast his features into harsh shadow. “But that kiss—”

“That is what I want from you,” he interrupted. His dark eyes locked on her. “Not your help, not some magical rose, not the king bear. I want your kiss, and your touch is the only magic I need. I want you as my princess.”

She stared up at him in confusion, her heart pounding. “Thor. What about your clan?”

“Following our old ways didn’t keep us out of trouble.” He scrubbed his palms over his hips. “I guess hearing how your sister is following the shadow path made me think there could be a new way for the clan.”

Even with her crutches under her, her knees wobbled. She’d stepped out into the desert for more kisses, not…not this much more.

“Our world is changing,” he said. “And maybe the fact that I’m not anymore could make the difference in helping the clan regain its footing in the Four Corners.”

“But when the rex ursi comes back…” She spread her hand over his chest again, the lump of the flask centered under her palm. The hard thud of his heart seemed amplified like a drum by the crystal vessel.

He put his hand over hers, squeezing her fingers. “It’s not coming back.” His voice was soft but steady. “The beast doesn’t need a trap or a homing beacon or even wooing. And if it did need those things, then I wasn’t the right person. The rex ursi knows where it’s meant to be.” He threaded his fingers through hers, entangling their hands. “As I’m meant to be with you.”

For a moment, her heartbeat seemed to stop, her breath suspended like a rose in magic. The starlight illuminating the desert felt like water closing over her head. Then, with an electric tingle in her blood, the same as when a spell came together, time resumed, and she held him tight. So rock-steady under her hand, his heartbeat a metronome, his body like the mesa that never changed. Of course she was tempted by him. Maybe he really was done trying to reclaim his bear, but her whole being yearned to offer itself in place of the beast.

Despite her hand on his chest and her crutch buried in the earth, she wavered. She had no doubt he’d always be there for her, no matter what. She had people who needed her too. For the first time, she really understood sacrifice of a king. Or a queen.

“Thor.” Her words failed her. But as if her heart knew the rest of this very simple spell, the truth of what she wanted pulsed in her veins. More. More. More.

Her mind raced ahead to all the difficulties, like the chirping frogs that popped up after a desert rain. She knew there’d been some doubts about her ability to lead the circle because of her physical strength even with her aunt’s blessing and support. And there’d been more mutterings when Brandy rejected a place in the circle and Gin decided on the shadow path. Shifters weren’t the only ones who clung to the old ways.

Rita straightened, taking hold of her crutch with one hand and Thor with the other. She’d stood up to the circle before, and she would do so again. If Thor had still been the king of the bear clan, she could imagine even more problems, the circle questioning who would have more authority. Now, she could take him as a lover, as witches were allowed to do. And if she just…never gave him up…

“I’m not man or bear,” he murmured. “Can I be enough for you?”

“You’re all I want,” she said. “Mine.”

She’d always believed the teachings of the circle about compassion, sharing, and balance, but she was very feeling very primitively possessive and a little bitey about making him hers.

He cupped her cheek. “I know I’d have to come second to your circle duties, and honestly, I came second in my life to the clan so it won’t be much of a change.” A faint smile flickered across his lips. “Not that I can change at all.”

“I never needed a king,” she assured him. “Thor, I want…”

Her voice stuttered as she stared up into his face. His eyes…

His wry smile flattened. “Rita, what is it?” His grasp tightened around her upper arms. “What’s wrong?”

That amber glow. She’d seen it before in his terrifying half-shifted shape as he’d battled his cousin, whenever the beast was rising in him. She’d pulled her aunt’s rifle on him then to force him away. She had nothing now.

But that wasn’t the threat that turned her blood to winter ice.

The rex ursi could never claim a witch as his mate.

With trembling fingers, she reached up to match his gesture, her thumb pressed to the side of that mouth that had brought her such pleasure in conversation, kisses, and promises. “Your eyes,” she whispered. “It’s the love spell. Your beast followed the call back to you.”

He frowned, shaking his dark head. “No, Rita. There’s no beast here, just me. I don’t blame you—”

She twisted in his embrace, glancing over her shoulder, feeling the moment he jerked his head up and followed her gaze in the way his arm tightened protectively behind her back. She knew her own eyes would be the same amber warning color as his. Even in the single moment they watched, the flames leaped higher.

The desert was burning.