Inquisitor (Witch & Wolf Book 1) (9 page)

I edged my way forward, shouldering through the brush. Under the cover of rustling leaves, I wormed my way closer to my prey.

“The sun’s rising,” Dana whined. Other voices—all feminine—murmured their agreement.

I shoved my nose through a thicket far enough to see the humans. Six of them huddled around something on the ground. It glowed with a pale light. My snuffling held my need to sneeze at bay.

The humans didn’t notice my noise.

Ears still pinned back, I took stock of my prey. My nose, in its weary, itching state, had missed the scent of a second male. A low, quiet growl rumbled in my chest. Four females sat together, the two younger, smaller ones—teenagers—flanked by the older ones. The males, while adult so far as my nose could tell, were young.

Humans. Frail. Larger than me in body, but so weak, so submissive. The girls flinched as one of the older females stood. “Once more,” she ordered.

I flattened myself closer to the cold of the ground. The males, like the younger girls, recoiled from the standing figure.

Submissives. I clacked my fangs. I couldn’t use them to feed my sister, who wouldn’t eat humans. The males weren’t dominant enough to be worth bringing back as a mate for either one of us.

“Once more,” the woman repeated. “Now!”

The humans stood in obedience of the woman’s order. Despite the chill of the autumn dawn, they stripped out of their clothes. Sweat glistened on their shivering bodies. As they took their places in the circle, I got a better look at the object they surrounded.

The quartz crystal glowed with an inner light, bright enough in the morning gloom I couldn’t tell what color the gem was. The wind masked my growls.

I recognized it, and a shiver of fear rippled through me.

The wild places of the world, my territory, my mountain, was no place for a witch-circle’s focus stone. I froze, staring at the facets of the gem as light rippled over the trampled ring around it. The humans stretched out their hands to the center of their circle. The wind strengthened, tearing leaves free from the branches and raining them down on the clearing.

The cold bit at my sore nose. Energy cracked in the air, sparks of static dancing over my fur. An acrid odor deadened my sense of smell.

“Focus!” the old woman barked. One of the younger girls made a whimpering noise, silenced by a glare from the dominant witch. “Think only of the cold of winter, of purifying snow, and of the power of the great blizzards.”

A chant started from one of the young girls, a pale little thing who looked like the easiest prey of the lot. One by one, the others joined her. The crystal’s light turned into the blue-white of undisturbed snow and ice. A beam of white light stretched from the ground to the sky, burning away the fog of morning.

The static strengthened with their chanting, sparks dancing from their ring to sweep over the ground. Frost spread from the circle, caking the grass and the trees before penetrating the thicket to freeze my fur.

Using the voice of the wind, their magic sang to me. It touched me, worming its way into my head. Its cajoling urged me to join the circle and add my song to theirs. I desired to summon the full, true fury of winter. The need for the cold and a mate ignited within me.

The chanting grew in volume until the humans shouted their words to the sky. My breath froze in my lungs. The drizzling rain turned to sleet. I struggled to draw a breath. Snow fell, blanketing my nose and sticking to my coat.

Freeze
, the magic urged. My body shuddered from the cold.

I closed my eyes. With the darkness, I could feel the winter fighting the fledgling autumn. In that moment, the seasons shifted.

If no one stopped them, the witches would succeed.

My rage boiled, shattering the ice within me. A wolf flowed with the seasons. She didn’t fight the tides of time. She didn’t change the circle of life. Lifting my head, I howled. The tiny part of me, she who knew the nature of humans, who always hid somewhere in my chest and head, howled with me.

In that moment, we were wolves, her and me.

We erupted from the bushes at the interloping humans, the enemies of wolves, of nature, and of the wild places of the world.

My fangs closed on the arm of the old, dominant female. Blood flooded my mouth. Its sweetness was wonderful—salty, metallic, and warm enough to hold the winter cold at bay. My tongue numbed as a static charge swept through me. Settling back on my haunches, I braced myself with my front paws before shaking my head with all of my strength.

The witch screamed, the shrill cry of a dying animal.

A second shake brought her to her knees. Letting the mangled ruins of her arm fall from my jaws, I pounced on her, snapping at her exposed throat.

“Oh, god! Oh, god!” one of the younger females shrieked. Their fear, intoxicating in its strength, drowned out the scent of the fresh blood splattered over me.

My fangs clamped onto the witch’s shoulder, my growls deep in my chest and rumbling in my throat. I gave her a final shake, and she fell limp beneath me. A shape lunged at me from the side. Releasing my prey, I jumped at the crystal in the center of the circle.

I slammed into an invisible barrier, its chill freezing the blood on my muzzle. Pain lanced through my head.

“Kill it,” the old woman gasped out on a gurgled breath.

I twisted to face the humans, pressing my flank to the barrier. The five unhurt humans held their ground. One of the younger females knelt next to the old witch I had mauled. I ducked my head and bared my teeth before howling at the lightening sky.

The world around me stilled, except for the falling snow. It swirled around me before blanketing the ground, muting the vibrant colors of autumn with gray. I felt the pulse of static burst over my fur from the crystal behind me. Blue lights flickered around the naked forms of the witches.

I howled again.

Another wolf answered me. My ears perked forward. It wasn’t the shriller call of a pack warning me away or challenging my territory. It was the warbling inquiry of a wolf seeking permission to enter my turf, my domain.

I barked a warning of danger, of predators, and of difficult prey. The witches stirred at my call, blinking away the stupor holding them still.

If I wanted to stop them, I had to take them all out before they remembered to use their witchcraft against me. The oldest one lived. I couldn’t smell her death. Not yet.

The others hesitated.

I lunged for the second of the older females. She raised her hand, fingers splayed, to ward me away. The stench of burning fur filled my nose. A dull throb spread across my shoulder and along my back. My full weight slammed into the woman’s chest.

We went down in a heap. Before I could close my fangs around her throat, someone tackled me from the side, throwing me off of my prey. I howled in rage.

I wasn’t a large wolf, but I wasn’t small, either. By werewolf standards, though, I was a runt. I snapped my teeth at the interloper. One of the males managed to get his fingers into my fur, throwing me down to the ground. He slammed his knee into my shoulder before he pummeled my muzzle.

Bright bursts of light danced in front of my eyes.

Fingers wrapped around my nose, pinning my mouth shut. I struggled to draw a breath through my clogged, blood-stained nose.

“Hold it down,” the man gasped.

I thrashed and kicked out my hind legs. I felt the resistance of my claws scraping over bared skin. A burst of fresh blood hung in the air. Some of it was mine.

Something in me broke loose. With strength I didn’t know I possessed, I tore free of the human’s grasp and sank my teeth into his flesh.

~*~

Blood stained the snow red. I stood with my legs splayed and head ducked. The humans were gone. Snarls rumbled out of me with every breath.

I didn’t remember the witches escaping. There wasn’t enough blood on the ground for me to have killed or devoured them. There was a gap in my memory, a dark blur. The cold remained, pulsing from the abandoned crystal in the clearing.

The scent of fear and blood lingered in the air. A sneeze wracked through me, awakening pain in my side and across my back. My skin itched and crawled as though a thousand little bugs burrowed into my fur. I twisted around and chewed at the worst of the spots.

It didn’t help. Shaking myself off, I checked the circle one final time. I was alone.

I howled my fury and frustration.

The other wolf answered. It was close enough that I froze, snapping my head in the direction of the sound. The luring aroma of male teased my nose. I backed towards the crystal, nestled in its barrier. A branch snapped somewhere beyond the thicket.

I barked a warning before growling.

My prey had fled, but they left the crystal to me. It, and all of its chilling power, was mine. It had been abandoned. The bloodied clearing was my territory.

A small gray wolf halted at the edge of the clearing, his head low and cocked to the side to expose his throat. The musky scent of the male once again reached my nose. I sneezed, chomping at an itch on one of my forelegs. My eyes didn’t leave the interloper. The cold of winter settled over me, heightening my awareness of him and reminding me that it was the season of mating.

The wolf across the clearing whined, dipping his head lower. The submissiveness of the gesture drew another snarl out of me. I barked a final warning. With a whine, he retreated a pace.

Behind me, the crystal thrummed, the waves of cold intensifying with each passing moment.

The wolf in me wanted it gone.

The witch in me wanted it.

I shivered. In order for either the wolf or the witch in me to get their way, I had to get through the barrier. Keeping one eye on the submissive male, I turned my nose towards the crystal. The barrier reminded me of ice. I rubbed at my nose with a paw in the futile effort of stopping myself from sneezing. I turned back to the invader. 

The gray wolf continued to watch me. I pinned my ears back. He wasn’t much smaller than me, but he wasn’t my kind. He wasn’t my species. He wasn’t my pack. While he was undeniably a wolf, I was bulkier in frame, build for bursts of power and true strength. His legs were more slender, as though built for nothing more than running.

Even our coats set us apart. I was red and black. Through the blood caking my fur, I could make out the white stripe across my nose when I glared down at the intruder. I lifted a black-socked paw and stomped at the snow.

The gray wolf flattened himself to the ground with a whine. Submissives. I snarled my disapproval.

I wanted—no, I
needed—
an Alpha
.
A leader with whom I could form a proper pack of my own. Together, we would rule the wild places, and be strong. The winter called to me, however early, and I was, yet again, without a mate.

The crystal’s thrumming strengthened.

Freeze
, it whispered to me.

I disobeyed the command, growling my displeasure at the objects attempt to subjugate
me
. The grey wolf swayed, falling to his side with a thump. His legs twitched.

I snarled, twisting towards the barrier. Rage shattered the ice forming within me. The gray wolf, the little submissive male, was an interloper in my territory. It was
my
duty to punish him. Something swelled within me, similar to the ominous charge of an encroaching hurricane ready to pummel the shore.

The seasons were
my
domain. The urge to create a den and take a mate faltered beneath the indignation that it wasn’t true winter. The stone was at fault, and it belonged to me.

It was my responsibility.

Winter wasn’t coming early, not when I stood guard. No matter how much I loathed autumn, winter had to wait for its turn. I barked once. The wolf in me raged, but it was the electric power of the witch that surged forward at my call.

The barrier shattered in a dusting of snow. Frost tinted my fur blue as the temperature dropped from the crystal’s influence. I shuddered and recoiled before I caught myself and braced my legs once more. I curled my upper lip in a snarl and felt the tender flesh of my gums freeze.

The noise I made wasn’t quite a bark. It came out as a short growl. Sparks of energy lit the ice coating me. A bolt of blue-white light arced between me and the stone.

The crystal erupted in a shower of pearlescent fragments. Lightning crackled out in a ring while color and light curtained upwards in a vibrant display of green and red. A column of snow and white luminescence shot upwards. In defiance of the sun, an aurora danced through the air until the ground and the sky shimmered.

The gray wolf lay still. I barked once, but the male didn’t move. I narrowed my eyes, snorting my disgust. I turned away and left the rival animal to live or die. The trees beckoned to me. The air warmed with each gusting of the wind, until the snow turned into rain. Snow melted away to reveal the dark, earthy tones of autumn.