Page 64 of Phoenix Academy: Madness

I find myself taking a step forward, worried beyond measure, as the two tumble and roll in the frost-covered ground. Bites are checked and claws retracted, but more than once I hear theoomphof what can only be a bruising blow, the sound of a body hitting the ground mercilessly.

"Be careful!" I yell at them, feeling like an unpaid school teacher. "Don't hurt each other!"

The urge to break up the fight is enormous, even though I canfeelthe volatility of David's wolf shifter spirit, and know the only thing keeping his violence in check is the much larger black panther holding him down.

Eventually, their motions begin to slow as energy runs out. The panther pins the wolf to the ground again and again. I can feel the ferocity drain out of them both.

And my heart can't take much more. "Enough." Stepping forward, I reach out and firmly grab the back of the panther's ruff, which feels a lot like bargaining with my own life. "Get off him. This ends now."

With a low rumble, Reggie cuts his eyes at me but acquiesces. As he slinks off of David's still wolf form, I kneel down, feeling out with my naturalistic senses.

There is, as always, a wrongness to the wolf. It doesn't quite fit together in all the right places. Unlike a wild wolf, it's been captured and poured into a container. It should fit, just like David's spirit fits his body, but it doesn't. Instead it finds itself folded over and shoved into something that wasn't made for it completely.

Because of this, the wolf is angry. Which means David is angry. Not just a little, but a lot. Not just sometimes, butallthe time.

I've learned many spells in my lifetime: from my mother, from wise witches in the covens we sometimes stayed with, and from the book my ancestor Viveca Wolfe wrote about the nature of our powers.

One of those spells was a spell to tame a wolf.

Leaning forward, I whisper it into the fuzzy shell of the wolf's pointed grey ear, ignoring the growl that leaves its throat, the way its muzzle tenses and its lip pulls back from very large teeth.

The spell is a promise, a trade of sorts, like every taming a human ever bargained with an animal. One side of the spell whispersno harm, warm food, warm hovel, safety, no hunt, no kill.The other side of the spell asksno hurt, no kill, never bite, always peaceful, sometimes defend.

It's a spell of fur resting against skin beneath a thin blanket, near a fire at night. Sharp eyes warning of danger in the night. Clever thumbs turning flint and tinder into warmth and food. Two halves of an impossible whole: weak, clever human and strong, angry beast.

Beneath me, the wolf's body relaxes all at once. Its spirit shrinks to fit a home that can contain it—temporarily, at least, because no taming spell lasts. Relief sets in as it lays itself down to rest.

In its place David's spirit rises up and, faster than ever before, he shifts back. This time with clothes on even—how unlucky for me.

"There." Rolling back onto my heels, I glance over my shoulder at an astonished Reggie. "How's that for 'handling it,' huh?"

"I didn't know you could do that," he confesses, as David sits up and runs a confused hand through his mussed hair. "Normally it takes hours, and it doesn't even work all the time."

I roll my eyes at him. Of course these three boys never figured out that brute strength alone wouldn't tame David's spirit. But, generously, I admit, "I didn't know it would work either. Not until I heard David's story, and not even then, really. But I guessed, and it seems I guessed correctly. How are you?"

David looks up at me, blinking a kind of stupor out of his blue eyes. "I feel like I just ate a shitload of edibles. Am I high? Did you drug me?"

I laugh at the expression on his face. "Kinda sorta. I just... tamed you. A little. It was effective, but the effects will wear off." Glancing over at Reggie, I ask, "Have you two sorted your differences out now? Because we have to go talk to Xavier as of five minutes ago."

"We have a lot to talk about," David says, still sounding a little wary. "Including what's going to happen next."

"That can all wait until we're with Xavier." Reggie cracks his neck, looking unconcerned. "After all, we can't decide anything one way or another without him."

"Agreed."

Reggie adds, "Though I totally think that if it comes down to it, we should have Ari pick between the three of us by having a dick measuring contest."

David gives him a what-the-fuck look. "You do realize that you and your brother are twins, right?"

In a faux-serious voice, Reggie solemnly claims, "You never know."

Looking back and forth between the two of them, I shake my head, turn back down the path, and trudge towards our final destination.

Either this strange, fragile, cobbled together thing we have will survive our talk with Xavier, or it won't.

In the meantime, I try not to feel too much sadness about the way things might end up. Every time I do, the world goes a little bit mad—literally.

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