Wolf Spell: Shifters Bewitched #1

protector was nowhere to be found. Maybe he had forgotten, or changed his mind.
Somehow, even though it should have filled me with relief, the thought of him not showing up made my chest tighten.
I turned back, wondering how long I would need to wait until I could safely go back to the castle and my friends. Was this like in college, when everyone said if the professor didn’t show up in fifteen minutes, you were allowed to go home?
Somehow, I didn’t think that rule applied here.
The castle looked somehow further away than it should have. Warm light glowed in the windows and it looked cozy in spite of its incredible size.
I decided to distract myself by working on my magic for a moment. Maybe out here in the quiet night, it would be easier to commune with the plants.
I focused on the tight buds of the nearest rhododendron and closed my eyes.
I see you. Open for me.
Nothing happened, so I tried again. And again.
A soft sound in the trees broke my already dwindling concentration. I spun to check, but there was still no guardian. I scanned the tree line, wondering what I had heard.
There was a faint rustle and then movement in my periphery. I turned to look, but it was gone, leaving me with only the vague impression that I had seen someone in a dark hood, slipping between the trees. I blinked and scanned the tree line again, but saw nothing more.
Before I could give it much thought, an intense sense of awareness settled over me. It was as if the air were charged with electricity and I had suddenly gone weightless.
The guardian stepped out from between the trees and fixed me with his arctic gaze. I couldn’t believe I had thought for one second that I might miss his arrival. It would have been easier for me to ignore a full marching band.
“You’re here,” he said. The two words sent a tingle down my spine.
I nodded and swallowed hard, trying to ignore the ache in my chest that intensified in his presence.
“They explained everything to you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I managed.
He turned on his heel and headed back into the forest, not even bothering to ask me to follow.
I scrambled after him. I had no interest in being alone in these woods.
Branches and twigs snapped underfoot. I had a sense that I should stay quiet, but he was setting such a brisk pace that I couldn’t do anything but try to keep up.
The moonlight cast strange shadows, stretching the trees and rocks like a funhouse mirror. I stumbled once or twice over roots, but kept my feet under me.
The Lord Protector just kept walking. He turned corners without waiting for me, his confidence that I would follow was unshakable.
And I was angry to know that he was right. Even if I weren’t designated to follow him by whatever archaic law the witches had pledged, my own instincts locked me to him as if he had my unwilling heart on a titanium leash.
We pushed through a dense thicket of rhododendrons and he turned a corner around the hillside.
I jogged after him, hugging the wall of the mountain so as not to lose my footing in the wet leaves.
But when I turned the bend, he was gone.
I sensed movement, and then something grabbed me, dragging me into the darkness.

13


Luke
I never asked for a mate bond.
I never craved the soul wrenching pull that my brothers in arms talked about in our long nights by the campfire. To me, those witches in the castle were silly things, dressing up in their gowns and marching around chanting, every one of them raised up soft in the human realm, completely unprepared for the real duties of protecting that damned library or being a guardian’s mate.
But like it or not, I was bound now to one of them, and there was nothing I could do about that.
As we came through the thicket and rounded the corner, an impossible scent reached my keen nose. Something I’d learned of in my training, but never had the misfortune to meet face to face.
A hellhound.
I took another disbelieving deep breath of the crisp air, just to be sure, but there was no mistaking the mix of rot and sulfur that followed such an unnatural beast.
If the Order had summoned a creature this powerful, then they were getting bold, or desperate. Either way, it meant trouble.
The thought of the girl in danger set my protective instincts on fire, as if it were my own vulnerable flesh out there thrashing through the trees.
I regretted making her march after me. I should have slung her over my shoulder the minute I laid eyes on her.
I stepped backward into a shallow cave on the hillside and waited for her to catch up. On my own, I might have stood and fought. But I couldn’t risk the human getting spooked by my other form and running out of my protection and into certain death.
Closing my eyes, I called the beast forward a bit, so that I could sense her better.
As soon as the delicious throb of her heart signaled that she had rounded the bend I grabbed her and yanked her inside.
She gasped and struggled uselessly against me.
I put my hand over her mouth and pinned her to the wall of the cave, covering her body with mine, to stop her making noise and to cover her scent somewhat from the hellhound that was prowling just outside.
“Stop, human,” I breathed into her hair.
She smelled like wildflowers and her body was soft and tender under mine. Unbidden thoughts took hold of me and it was all I could do not to claim her there and then, even with danger so close.
She relaxed at the sound of my voice. Could her senses really be so dull that she hadn’t realized who grabbed her?
I forgot what blundering messes humans were.
“Wh-what’s happening?” she whispered to me.
“Someone sent a hellhound after one of us,” I whispered back.