Charmed Wolf

chief cook as she barreled toward me. Then, when the coast was clear for one split second, I slid down over the bank into the woods.
It felt strange to hide from my own clan, but this was the role of the Alpha. “Above and apart, always,” Father had warned me so many times I could still hear his voice in my head.
“I get it,” I whispered to the empty air, clutching the unstoppered glitter bottle as I toed off my shoes then pushed my way through dense brush and into the forest. Pack pings still tapped against my cranium, but I ignored them as I made my way through new growth and into old growth. Ground gave beneath my feet, soft and springy. Wildflowers dotted the forest floor.
Blue, brilliant blooms were the most common. What had Kale called them? I couldn’t remember, but I could walk on stones to make less of a dent in their profusion. After all, the Guardian liked its bling.
The other things the Guardian liked and disliked I’d learned the hard way. Children were to be cherished, but we quickly outgrew our charm as we approached adulthood. Asking for the Guardian’s name was a capital offense—I’d done it only once and still bore the scar.
I suspect Father had intended to teach me more tricks for dealing with our fae ally as the end of his reign came closer. But he’d died in his prime of a heart attack. So I didn’t know if Father had ridden a unicorn into another world when he needed a closer connection to the Guardian. Couldn’t imagine his broad bulk on the back of the miraculous being who waited for me here where the creek descended beneath a root and disappeared into the soil, the spot where Father had explained the Guardian could hear us the best.
All I knew was that this stunning beast had showed up the day after Father died and had been present whenever I needed him ever since. “You look stunning today,” I told the unicorn honestly. His blue-black hide was so intense it shimmered, like a midnight mirage turned to reality.
Okay, part of that shimmering was because he’d stepped directly into a sunbeam. The unicorn, I’d come to realize in the six months I’d known him, was unbelievably vain.
And, here in the forest away from my pack, I could tease rather than cling to my dignity. “I don’t think your hair has ever looked so shiny. And...did you polish your horn?”
The unicorn couldn’t answer in words, but he knew how to get his point across. His nostrils flared as he snorted out a burst of amusement. Then his chin dipped.
Glancing down to see what he was referring to, I noted a galaxy of glitter spilled across my chest. Striking a pose with one hand on my hip and the other above my head, I twirled in a circle. “What, you don’t think this will be the new look?”
The unicorn snorted again, then stamped one hoof. I didn’t know what he got up to when I didn’t need him, but I got the distinct impression that today he didn’t have time for extended banter. So I nodded and moved on to the nitty gritty. “Can you take me to the Guardian?”
Taking his motionlessness for assent, I vaulted onto his back. And, yes, the unstoppered glitter container made the process trickier. Now there was a matching streak of silver dotting the unicorn’s mane.
Luckily, he couldn’t see it or we would have had an extended, one-sided discussion about proper application of cosmetics. Instead, he broke into a run. No, make that a gallop. Warm unicorn back undulated beneath me. Wind whipped against my face until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. With one hand I clung to my glitter sample. With the other, I clutched his mane.
The air turned frigid, then it warmed. Not just to April in Appalachia levels. To the humid heat of the tropics. I opened my eyes to take in a world I’d never seen until my father died.
It was impossible to imagine the solidity of Father in this ethereal world that seemed to be neither entirely of earth nor of Faery. Gnarled trees grew so massive they made our old-growth forest look puny, dense thickets of undergrowth ringing the clearing in which the unicorn stood. Flowers glinted in vast clusters like an endless, braided bouquet, the ones here even more gloriously blue than the individuals Kale had remarked upon.
Closer at hand, the unicorn’s mane was as pristine and glitter-free as when he’d first snorted at me. Glancing down, I saw that my breast and hands had also been washed clean of every speck of silver dust.
The container, however, remained half full. I could still do what I’d come for.
“Thank you,” I told the unicorn as I slipped off his back. My toes touched the soil...and a thousand pinpricks broke through my skin.
WHEN FATHER FIRST INTRODUCED me to the Guardian over a decade ago, I’d howled at fungal threads biting down like piranha teeth. We’d been at the spot where the creek faded into the soil rather than in this Between place, so the pain had been less intense than now. Still, thirteen-year-old me had been surprised and unamused. I’d picked up my feet in a crazy sort of dance.
Rather than soothing me, Father had slapped me so hard I fell on my face on the rotting leaves. “Heir,” he growled. “You disappoint me.”
“I—” Before I could finish, something minty slithered into my open mouth and the pain eased so fast I might as well have been anesthetized. Then, as if the Guardian was unsure whether it wanted to be quite that kind, a millipede had crawled in after. I could still feel the red on my cheeks and my father’s cold disapproval as I tried to spit the critter out.
Today, I was ready for the pinpricks and didn’t flinch when the Guardian tapped into my body. Instead, I dropped to my knees