The Thing About Weres

Spells. You tell him that you don’t want to. It ends with…”

Somewhere in there, Mad-one had detached. As my words trailed off, she stared unseeingly at a piece of parchment fluttering from the broken spear of a nearby tree stump, her forehead creased.

“I cannot sense her presence in my memory of that,” she mused out loud. “And yet how else could she know? There were none to witness our conversation. Even Simeon, waiting in the next room, could not hear us through the wards placed on the door…” The penny dropped and the puzzlement cleared from her expression. “It is my mage’s memory.” A look of absolute joy and relief softened her features as she gazed at the dying black walnut tree. “At last. He has found her. Finally he has chosen his nalera.”

She lifted her small chin skyward.

“Thank you, Goddess,” she said shakily. “Thank you for delivering this wretch to us.”

“That’s it, I’m going home now.”

“You cannot leave Threall,” she said harshly. “You are the chosen one. In all the eternity I have served, there has never been another so well suited to my mage’s needs. You are not of our world. You are unbound. You are young and strong.”

I swear it was like trying to say good-bye to a telemarketer.

“And you, my friend, have been chatting with trees too long.”

“It is your destiny!”

Then, just when I was leaning away from her, worry bubbling—Goddess, how am I going to think of all those things that are my talismans for home, Trowbridge, Cordelia, and Ralph, how can I do that with Miss Loony Tunes scaring the crap out of me with her destiny rant—the strangest thing happened in a day positively bursting with the extraordinarily odd and peculiar.

One second the Mystwalker of Threall was slopping toward me through the mud, her clawed hand stretching toward me, her face animated with zeal, and in the next … between one rapid thump-thump of my heart … her face blurred into a pale, white smear.

The smell of earth and fire and rain disappeared.

And so did the fear.

I heard Trowbridge’s voice coming from a great distance: “Another mouthful. Come on, sweetheart, swallow it. You’re almost there.”

So real. So urgent.

Couldn’t see him. Couldn’t feel him.

But as I strained to listen to his hoarse call, the blue mysts swallowed the Mad Mystwalker. And then I was no longer bogged down in mud. I felt adrift in the dense fog … my body a little ship bobbing in the soft swell of lake that knew no rough winds.

Feeling languid and happy. Knowing that the sun and the warmth were just through that next patch of fog. All I had to do was steer for home. And that I could do. Hell, I had a rudder, and compass with true north needle, if you will.

I’m happy. I’m finally happy again.

All that guilt and sadness that had weighed me down. All those wretched doubts and pathetic fears that had fluttered around me these last six horrible months. They were nothing more than gray moths. I pursed my lips and blew them away.

Clear skies ahead. Trim your sails for home, Hedi.

Search for the connection to your real body again. Recall the heat of his body. The pressure of his arms. Fae Stars. Think of the man on whom you’ve staked your future.

Listen for him. Hear him.

He’s there, in the real world, holding you. Calling your name.

He’s your One True Thing, isn’t he?

The fog is thinning. Almost there … Damn, damn, damn. I can almost smell home … it’s just there … obscured by that bluish haze … a maddening stubborn veil over what I want.

Why can’t Trowbridge hear me?

Because you’re broken.

No I’m not. It’s just … my voice has gotten so small.

Then make yourself bigger. Remember home and your true body. Imagine it all, every little detail. You’re in Creemore. On a field. Feel the grass prickling through your jeans. The pain in your belly. The slick warm heat of your blood.

Remember who you are.

That’s easy. I’m Hedi. Mate to an Alpha. Sister to a twin. Friend to an amulet … and a six-foot mother hen …

No. Those are the people you love. Who is Hedi?

She’s the girl who left her magic by a fairy pond and her wolf in a field littered with discarded clothing.

You need to go home to find them. And when you get there, you need to glue yourself back together. Because this is wrong. This feeling you keep trying to push away—like you’re jagged and broken, a mirror cracked.

And FYI? No one can choose your destiny.

Right. No one can. I won’t let them.

Oh … there he is …

“Sweetheart, drink it. Don’t fight me, dammit. DRINK!”

Chapter Nine

“Let her go. You must! It is beyond reason to expect you to hold against the moon’s call much longer.”

“I will hold,” rumbled Trowbridge. “She’ll come around soon.”

Working on it. But I was toasty warm and heavenly safe. Back on terra firma, where there were no Mad-ones, no Scary Trees, no soul balls glowing in the sky. My boat had pulled into shore, and now I just felt contentment. Lazy, bone-melting happiness. Like being in your bed and knowing that you don’t really have to get up. It’s a holiday. Or a Sunday. Mortal-me, she-bitch-me, and Fae-is-me—the three us were having a lie-in. There was no alarm clock dinging in our ear. No ex-drag queen rapping her knuckles on our door, telling us to “get up before you turn into a mattress.”

No worries, no fear.

Goddess, I felt freakin’ wonderful. Downright joyful.

My mate and I were together again. And for the time being, I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the niggling details … like how the portal opened, and who the Fae was, and why Trowbridge looked so different from my dreams. I began to hum, feeling one with this world, and all the little furry creatures in it.

“She’s singing.” The Fae’s voice softened with amusement. “The sun potion affects some that way.”

Damn right I am. I am so absolutely in perfect unity with myself and the universe—uh- oh. An intrusion of mild dismay. Trowbridge’s skin was twitching under my cheek. His skin felt damp, too. Sweat? His scent was sharper than I remembered. Spiked with testosterone.

“Hedi,” rasped my mate. “Wake up.”

“Your claws will pierce her skin,” said the Fae. “Release her. Pass her to me.”

Don’t you dare.

“She is mine,” Trowbridge growled. “Do your job. Close the portal.”

I would have rewarded my man with a loving gaze, but my lids felt like all seven dwarves were sitting on them. Instead, I idly wondered why I knew—in a flash of deep intuition—that the Fae greeted that information with shock, and was struggling not to show it.

“By what right do you call her ‘mine’?” demanded the Fae. “She is not of your pack.”

“She is my mate,” Trowbridge said simply.

I am his mate. Happiness made my heart swell. Every medicine cabinet should