Page 8 of Wings and Shadowthief

Jack was holding the werewolf down by throat with one massive, muscular hand.

The werewolf whined plaintively, all aggression gone. He was submitting to Jack.

Damn, that was hot. To say that she had trouble redirecting her eyes from the tight abs to her patient was an understatement, but she did so anyway.

She painstakingly applied as much healing energy as she was able to, until blood stopped pouring out of the wolf’s punctured neck. The wolf went limp, passing out now that fear and pain weren’t keeping him awake.

She sighed in relief.

Managing a weak smile, Gwen lifted her gaze to Jack. “Thanks.”

He remained silent, his cold eyes boring into her with an intensity that might have made her shiver, if she had the energy to care. “What are you doing?”

Gwen frowned at his tone more than his words. What she was doing seemed obvious: keeping their allies alive. The question was, why was he pissed about it? “Helping.”

Jack’s jaw ticked. “You’re barely holding on. You could die if you overtax your magic.”

He wasn’t wrong; there was a limit to the amount of power any witch could use, and if they blatantly ignored that limit, they paid a price. Witches learned that lesson before any other.

Gwen wasn’t at her limit—not when it came to her power. She was exhausted, true, but it was because of her physical state. Her metaphysic energy was just fine.

In her one year in the Academy of Supernatural Studies, her primary task had been to find out her own limits. That was witch 101, something she should have a good handle on by now, but her home hadn’t been a great place to experiment with that sort of thing.

Gwen was of Tuareg descent. The tribe was nomadic by nature, but they’d stuck to North Africa for hundreds of years. During the European colonization, when most of the African empires were taken over, they retreated into small villages shielded by the magic of their witches to avoid getting kidnapped and sold across the seas. Then the colonizers more or less retreated, and once there was no fear of slavery, their people decided to get in line with the rest of the world about despising witches.

Her clan became nomads again, traveling the world in search of a safe haven. In her twenty-four years, she’d lived in Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Austria, and now, in the UK. She spoke five languages fluently and was half-decent in three more. Gwen didn’t have a true mother tongue, a true home. Hell, she wasn’t even sure where her coven was at the moment.

Half of the world hated witches, and the other half never spared her a glance because of the color of her skin. She wasn’t the kind of person who got second chances when she messed up.

From the moment she was born, Gwen had been expected to be perfect, because when she made mistakes, her entire coven paid the price. They often had to move after a spell went wrong, a pissed-off neighbor accusing them of one thing or another.

Despite trying her best, Gwen had made mistakes. Many of them. Her magic was hard to contain, and harder to control. If she tried not to use it, it exploded in the middle of the night. If she attempted to water a garden, she could accidentally change the weather forecast of an entire country.

Each time, she was punished. She still had the scars to show for it.

Oldcrest was her last chance at becoming something other than a bomb ready to explode. Her family sent her here to teach her to control her magic. If she didn’t learn, they’d have no choice but to do what anyone did to faulty weapons.

She’d expected this place to be another prison, but it hadn’t been. Oldcrest felt like her first home. She had friends here, true friends she loved more than any family. Hence why she intended to defend this place against anyone threatening it until there was no breath left in her lungs.

The Hunter

The witch pissed him off like no one ever had. She shouldn’t be here, in the middle of a smoky battlefield, her hands stained red with the blood of friends and foes alike. She shouldn’t put herself in danger for anyone, let alone that drowsy mutt on the floor.

The creature inside Jack sneered.

He didn’t get this very often. Control over the body he shared with Jack. Nice, responsible, fair Jack, the leader, the heir of the huntsmen.

What a joke.

Jack was a lie, a mirage, and a coward. The creature despised him.

The creature despised almost everyone, but not her. Not that witch.

“I’m fine,” she told him, lifting her chin.

She dared lie to him, like he was an inconsequential pup she could control with pretty words. Like he wasJack.

The creature wasn’t Jack. He liked to call himself Hunter.

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