Then Dare howls. The keening, wordless noise is full of anger and frustration, and as the sound dies in the air, he takes off running. His dark form streaks toward the point where the magic seems to be coming from, as if he’s going to track down the witch and make them pay.
“No!” I bolt forward, tearing past Archer, who’s checking over Trystan’s hind end where he got hit by the magic. I can’t see any wounds or blood, which makes me think the witch’s magic attacked him on the inside—and that’s utterly terrifying. “Dare, no! You can’t leave the range of my magic!”
Another blast of power echoes through the valley, and I whip around to see it coming from an entirely different place. I etch my sigil once more and take the full brunt of the blow. At least this time, my shield doesn’t immediately fall. It wavers tenuously for a second before collapsing.
It’s barely an improvement, but I’ll take it.
All four of my mates take up positions around me, snarling and snapping at the air as they survey the hills around us. Their hackles are up, and it isn’t hard to guess what they’re thinking and feeling—the magic is coming from all around us. From everywhere and nowhere all at once. How can we fight an enemy we can’t see? Especially my shifter mates, who depend on physical strength and prowess.
You can’t tear a ghost limb from limb.
So it’s up to me to do something. I’m the only one who can fight magic with magic.
With my heart crawling into my throat, I close my eyes briefly and open my mind to see if I can sense her presence nearby.
When shifters transform from human to wolf or vice versa, I can feel their magic in the air. So I can only hope that if she uses her powers, I’ll be able to feel it happening. If I can get ahead of her blasts, maybe I can get enough barriers up to keep us safe and figure out where she is and how to stop her.
And it works. I sense her next attack before it even pops into view and sketch my sigil in the air an instant earlier than I had before. That extra perception makes my sigil stronger, and after the witch’s magic slams into it, it remains up, strong and unwavering.
“Get behind me!” I yell to my mates, who are still gathered defensively around me.
Another wave of black smoke lances out from the hills behind me, and I etch out a new sigil, forming a second, slightly less corporeal barrier. Clearly, I’m not skilled enough to hold two at once, while the witch attacking us is definitely skilled enough to do more than one attack at a time.
She attacks again from a different direction. I’m ready this time, because I’m listening to my innate magic sense rather than relying on my sight. But my hands are already full with the first two barriers, and now the third is hardly more than a gust of wind between us and the witch. Her magic tears through my paltry shield as if it isn’t even real, and the smoky tendril flings past me and narrowly misses Ridge’s snout.
My panic and terror are joined by anger as I watch Ridge’s rust-colored wolf dart out of the way. His tail trails too close to the black smoke for my comfort.
If I don’t do something, we’ll all be killed. This witch clearly holds a vendetta—maybe not necessarily against wolves, but at the very least against anyone who encroaches on her territory. She won’t stop until we’re vanquished, whether that means we run away or we’re dead. I’ll be damned if I let her kill us.
But we can’t run either. This witch is my only option. She might hold the key to understanding everything that I am, and to gaining control over my witch side. I just have to figure out how to get past her defenses and convince her to listen.
There’s a slight lull in her attacks, and I take my chance to try another sigil I recall from my practices: this one meant to amplify sound. I etch it quickly over my throat and scream, “We come in peace! Please! We don’t want to fight!”
Before I even finish speaking, another blast of smoky magic snaps out from the cliffs around us. It passes by my head so fast it sounds like the crack of a bullet. I leap away from it as more chunks of rock and dirt explode into the air. Archer yelps as the force of the blow throws him out of range. He lands on his big paws and skids to a stop, shaking his head as if trying to recover from a hard punch.
I have to stop this. My mates are still surrounding me, but they can’t do anything against magic. The only thing they can do between me and this witch is get themselves killed, and I refuse for that to happen.
What I need is a shock factor, like the night of Lawson’s challenge when I revealed myself to the pack as a hybrid wolf and witch. That’s what the witch needs—to see something so shocking that she’ll stop her assault and listen because she wants to know more.
So I drop my shitty magical barriers, and I shift into my wolf form.
The witch deep inside me steps aside to make way for the wolf, thank God, but magic continues to run over my skin. Once my fur has grown in and I’m standing on four legs facing the threat, blackness still races through my fur, rippling over me.
The valley goes deathly silent.
Shoving my way past Ridge and Dare, I drop my pack and put myself front and center so that I can gaze around us, doing my best to spot the witch. Her defenses are so secure that I can’t even sense the
