Page 7 of Pack Witch
“Hello?” The voice was young, feminine, and completely unfamiliar.
Who was it? I couldn’t see her at all, but I was almost certain she was close enough to touch. Was she hiding herself with magic?
I leaned forward. “Who are you?” When I felt her hand on my arm, her fingers sending new bolts of agony through my entire body, I hissed in pain and pulled back.
“I’m Zinnia,” she replied, like I should know that. Knowher.
The voices in the distance grew closer. Who she was didn’t matter; I had to run, now. “Tell no one you saw me, girl. Don’t say anything unless you want to die.”
Then I ran, the fire on my skin joined by a sensation of tearing that burned in my heart.
“Sergeant!” The distant yelling woke me, and I leaped to my feet.
Leroy?
His voice cracked as he shouted my name again. “Sergeant! There’s a grizzly! It’s headed toward Grandma Ida, and we think it’s got rabies!”
Bo’s voice was quieter, but clear. “We’ll need to shift, Lee. We gotta save her.”
I spotted them racing toward the river and the blurry place, shedding their clothing as they ran. Then the two of them were in wolf form, vanishing beneath the canopy.
Fuck.I was too far to reach them on human feet. I called on my wolf, who groaned and then answered, pouring his energy out.
On four paws at last, I ran to save my friend Ida and my adopted idiot pups.
Chapter 4
Zinnia
“Why do my knees sound like someone’s throwing popcorn in a campfire?” I grumbled as I pulled myself off the ground.
Ida snorted as she gathered up her things, repacking the picnic basket. “Just wait. By the time you’re my age, you’ll sound like somebody’s pouring milk on rice cereal every time you stand up.”
I wasn’t sure she’d even noticed my turbulent emotions as we’d eaten and caught up on pack news, but the animals nearby had. The squirrels hiding in the aspens nearby chittered angrily, though that could’ve been because Brigid had landed on a nearby pine branch, watching me closely.
“I’m grateful to you for letting my friends join us.”
“Friends?” I frowned. What did she mean? “Join us? You saidmeet?—”
“Well, yes. He’s not far. I left him and those two empty-headed boys of his a few miles back. We don’t have to let those two cross the border, I suppose, though the moon knows what they’ll get up to left on their own.” Ida turned and held her headto one side, the wry smile on her round face dropping when she saw my expression.
“Wait, he’shere?Julian?” His name was a dagger in my throat. My heart. “No. I can’t. I can’t!” If I saw him again, if he left me again, there was no way I could survive. It had taken all my focus, and all of my wolf’s life energy, to keep breathing for so long. “I can’t!” I stepped back, unexpected sparks flying from my fingertips and lighting the dried leaves near my feet on fire.
“Zinnia!” Ida stomped out the burning leaves, darting a worried glance my way as she made certain the sparks were extinguished. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything! I can’t!” Agony ripped through me, the old wound torn wide. I had to run, to escape.
Above, Brigid cried out and took wing. Marta lumbered from the closest grove of aspens, roaring angrily. The world around me, all of the parts of it I had threaded my life to, that had kept me alive when my wolf had wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep forever—when she had done just that, too weak to take form in anything but dreams—woke up bristling to defend me.
The hawk wheeled in tight circles over my head and screeched. The squirrels raced along the branches, ready to jump down. Even the bees that had woken for the first days of spring buzzed fiercely as the threads connecting me to nature itself, and the underlying magic of the earth, pulled taut, humming with fear and pain, anger and shock.
I wanted to run, but I didn’t even have the strength. As I sucked in a breath, I knew it was all too late. His scent found me—cedar, musk, and something darker—and the air ripped out of my lungs. Twenty-five years hadn’t dulled it. If anything, it was sharper now, a blade of grief honed by longing. My knees nearly gave out.
Marta stood on her rear legs and roared, not understanding what was hurting me, but sensing it.
Ida didn’t understand either. “Get behind me!” she cried out, ripping her flowered dress as she shifted into her wolf form. She was enormous, every bit as big as a grizzly, and far bigger than Marta, who was only a black bear. Dominance poured off her in waves as the massive wolf advanced on my valiant friend. Marta stood her ground, even with her recently broken back foot.
“No!” I shouted, throwing myself between the two of them. Marta’s shadow fell over me as she bristled and grunted, confused. I’d healed her paw as much as I could, but the bones inside were still fragile. I didn’t want her landing on it with her full weight.
