Heart Mates (24 page)

All magic abruptly cut off. The containment circle dropped. Her wall against the poison dissipated.

She was exhausted, barely alive. She slid to the floor, only Mason’s strength keeping her from collapsing in a heap. Her muscles throbbed as if she’d been beaten. Her eyes wouldn’t work.

A small tongue licked her fingers.

Yippy yippy
. From somewhere far away a tiny bark tinkled.

The tongue worked up her knuckles, drawing the pain from her twisted joints. Calming the swelling.

Yippy yippity yip
. Behind her. Either a third dog or a mosquito. That annoying? She was betting on the mosquito.

Panting, she twisted her head on the ground.

The piccolo barks came from the tiny pink mouth of a black toy poodle. Mad as a hornet, albeit a curly-haired, cutie-pie hornet.

Well, sure. That annoying? Had to be Jayden.

Tied at the tail…
Jayden must have meant he was tied to Noah, a straight magical connection from the first unhexing attempt. Her shrink spell had rebounded into
him
. Jayden had gone from a miniature to a toy.

Noah’s tongue started licking her other hand. He worked the swelling and pain out of her fingers. Healing her, as miraculously as he had the first time she’d broken a funeral seal.

Until his tongue touched burst skin, wet with blood.

Noah gave a pained bark and fell over.

She rolled to her side to sit up. The remains of the death magic juddered through her, leaching her strength. Beside her, Noah lay gasping. On one elbow, she parted the fur over his wound. The red angry lines now radiated as big as a DVD.

Not only had she failed to neutralize the hex, his licking her must’ve put shards of her broken death seal into him—and the poison had grabbed it to spread.

Her wand, still in her hand, jerked down, pointing at her pocket. She rolled to her back. Her hand dove in…and came out with Jayden’s healing disk. Thank goodness. She wouldn’t have to do serious magic. She was alive but the seal shards still cut her nerves.

Managing to crawl to Noah’s side, she pressed the disk to his flank and blew gently on it, activating it with the lightest touch of air magic. She felt the
thwuck
when the thing started sucking the poison to a point. Her gasp of pain from using magic was a duet with Noah’s soft whine.

She stopped blowing, but the disk didn’t stop sucking. She tried a small flick of magic to remove it. Her hands burned. It still didn’t stop.

She had no choice but to pull the thing physically off. Noah was silent, but she felt his whole body tense and knew what it cost him. The disk came off with a ripping sound and left a raw, naked circle.

But it had worked. The angry radiating lines had shrunk to the size of a half dollar.

She sat on her heels, exhausted and almost numb with pain. Wordlessly, Mason squatted to pick up the panting terrier and carried him out of the garage. She rose and limped behind. The toy poodle trotted in her wake.

Mason laid Noah carefully on the couch in the exact spot where Noah had held her, where they’d slept together in a more profound sharing of trust than even the sex.

Noah’s golden eyes were open and calm. He’d stopped panting and seemed better. She sat next to him, resting her elbows on her knees.

Her magic hadn’t worked.

She was a hereditary witch princess, a
magna cum laude
graduate of Nostradamus University. Her magic
never
failed.

Yet now, when she needed it most, despite suffering excruciating pain to use it, it had failed.

She
had failed.

She buried her face in her hands. The skin on her right hand was cracked and bleeding. Blood leaked onto her cheeks, joining the trickle of shame seeping from her eyes.

Noah gave a soft bark. He tried to lick her ugly fingers.

She made a small noise of dismay and snatched her hand away from him. “That’s how you got hurt before.”

He rubbed up against her. Warmth and healing worked into her skin and bones.

Three little yips and the rest of her death pain drained away.

“What did you say?” She lifted her head and touched her wolf.

Beyond them, Mason paced the office anxiously. “That’s it then. We’re done for.” Even Jayden looked beaten.

Noah nuzzled her. His tail wagged.
I have confidence in you
.

Not the three words he’d used before, but he was counting on her. No time to go to pieces.

She sighed, released the wolf and took several deep breaths. Time to pull out all the stops. Hard to do when she was only one step from the grave, but there was no choice. She was almost certain to fail, but she needed to try.

But because she was almost certain to fail, she needed a backup plan. She found her phone and tried Aunt Linda’s number. It went immediately to voicemail. She left a terse, “Emergency. Call me.” She turned to the black poodle. “Jayden. Find Aunt Linda. Whether she can undo the hex or not, we need her. Bring her here. Mason. When does the fight take place?”

“When the sun clears the tall grass. This time of year, about 7:16.”

She checked her phone for the time. Six thirty. She set one alarm for six forty-five and another for seven. “Jayden, try to make it within the hour, okay?”

He nodded and trotted off.

She could have attempted a search spell, but Aunt Linda was backup. She needed to save what magic she had for the main push.

She stood and started pacing. “Okay, thinking out loud, here. I tried magically cutting the hex wrappings but it didn’t work—plus it bounced a good half inch above the hex. My shrink spell too.” She stopped. “Something invisible covers the hex.”

Mason said, “Like what?”

“Well…” She kicked into pacing again. “A repel or reverse wouldn’t have broken the shears. But a hide, armor, or a shield spell… Stars and moon. I have to go.” She headed for the door.

“You know how to fix this, my queen?”

That spun her back. Mason’s face glowed with an unnatural confidence in her, almost to the point of fanaticism.

When she was a page, she’d worn exactly that expression looking at Rodolphe. It made her feel all kinds of slimy.

She couldn’t encourage that kind of blind adoration. “Mason, it’s only an idea, and a long shot at that. You need to prepare Noah to fight the challenge as he is.”

Mason’s face fell so abruptly she had to add, “But it’s an idea. There’s still hope.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Six thirty-five. Sophia had a little more than half an hour before the Challenge Fight. She borrowed Noah’s SUV. As she lumbered out of the drive she wondered if it would’ve been faster to walk.

She ran a stop sign returning to the bookstore. What the hell. Turning the big vehicle was so slow it was as good as a stop—it felt like she was driving a pirouetting elephant.

On the way she phoned Gabriel.

He answered immediately. “What the hell is going on? I felt your magic flare from two states over. Definitely you this time. I left like a zillion voicemails. Only death magic causes that kind of pain—”

“Chew me out later, Gabriel. I’m alive, but if I’m going to stay that way, I need your help.”

He huffed. “What?”

She was fiercely glad this wizard was her brother. When it came down to it, he’d give her what she needed, no questions asked.

She parked the SUV rather haphazardly across the street from the store and slammed out. “Bur hexes. Are they over or under?”

A short tapping of keys was followed by, “It depends. Shifters are over; wizards are under.”

She swore. But it’d only confirmed what she’d begun to suspect. The other thing Jayden had been trying to tell her.
Layered.

Every spell had a purpose and a strength. But each spell also had a natural layer, overlay or underlay. For a single spell it didn’t mean anything.

Put two or more spells together and significance got cooking.

An itch spell was overlay. Hit with it, a person scratched like crazy. Unless the person had an underlay of armor, when the itch spell hovered harmlessly on top.

Auntie’s hex, hitting a pureblood shifter,
should
have been on top, easily cut by Sophia’s neutralizations.

Which meant Noah was
at least part wizard
. Also duh-huhed why the wizard healing disk had worked on him. She jammed the key into store lock.

Somewhere in his lineage, a mage had done the dirty deed with a shifter. Noah was a forbidden dual.

“Sophia?” Gabriel’s voice sounded in her ear. “Talk to me. Why are you asking about layers? Noah’s a wizard?”

Okay, not no questions asked. Should’ve expected that. Her brother’s sharp mind was constantly working, prying and poking at facts like a sewing machine needle. Eventually he’d stitch things together. She didn’t have time for it now.

“He’s a shifter.” She threw open the bookstore door and went inside, exquisitely aware that she wasn’t answering the question.

“Then why are you asking about wizards?”

Her phone beeped. Six forty-five already? “Duals are taboo.”

“Taboo doesn’t mean impossible,” Gabriel said reasonably. “Not if you’ve got a girl and a boy.”

He was right—she and Noah had proved that several times now—but she still fought the idea. “It’s
wrong
.”

“I see.” A beat. “But you love him?”

Damn it. The one fact she couldn’t fight. “Yes.”

“Then it’s not wrong. What have you tried, unhex-wise?”

And that was that. Sophia’s heart swelled. Her brother would stand by her and Noah. “It’s complicated by a magical poison.” She told him about the stabbing and her tries at removing the hex. In the background was fast typing. “What are you doing?”

“I made a spell database that’s kind of like a medical symptoms search. I’ve been looking for a chance to give it a workout.”

“You and your databases.” She gave a watery laugh. “Thanks.” She meant more than just the hex.

“You’d do the same for me. Hmm. Invisible, repelling magic but not physical attacks?” More clacking of keys. “It’s a hide spell, Sophia. Masking Noah’s magic, and now the hex.”

“Yeah, but a reveal removes a hide. Why didn’t Jayden’s reveal remove Noah’s hide? It removed his own.”

“Jayden?”

“Never mind. It would take too long to explain. What kind of spell sticks through a reveal…?” She smacked her forehead. “Gabriel, your dearest sister is a couple cackles short of a full witch today.” Mason had just been talking about it. The Challenge Fight field had a hide spell—fueled and renewed by talismans. “Noah’s wearing something magical that’s supporting the hide.”

“A ring? Earring? What does he always wear?”

“I don’t know…wait. Yes, I do. His wolf pendant. Unless Jayden had seen Noah shirtless, he wouldn’t know about it.”

“Shirtless?”

Flames hit her cheeks. “Look, does your database tell you what breaks a hide-covered hex?”

“Just use the Laws of Precedence. Break the top spell first. The hide. But the hide won’t break as long as the pendant renews it. Ergo, he has to take the pendant off.”

“Right.” Could a dog remove a pendant that had shifted in with him? Arcane Animals hadn’t taught her that.

She’d worry how Noah would remove his pendant while she drove back. “I have to go. Thanks for everything.”

About to sign off, she stopped. “Gabriel. I love you.”

A sharp inhale let her know he understood.
She might not survive the day.
But he only said, “I love you too, Sophia. Be careful.”

She put her phone away and started for the front door.

A melodious voice said, “Wait.”

She spun. A handsome older man, his thick auburn hair frosted at the temples, stood with his powerful frame filling the doorway between the kitchen and the store.

Strangely, she wasn’t scared. Somehow the man was familiar. Reassuring.

He raised a small cardboard box, like fancy bath salts, holding it out to her. “You’ll need this.”

“What is it?”

“Loose blue chalk. Your aunt uses it to mark patterns.”

Her phone beeped again. Fifteen minutes. And she still had to navigate the barge masquerading as a vehicle back upstream, worse because she’d parked it facing east and it took a small country to do a U-turn.

She hurried to him and took the box. “Well. I don’t know what I’ll need it for, but thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He winked one green eye.

As she trotted out, she realized that green eye’s pupil was oddly elongated. A cat’s eye.

Good grief. That was Mr. Kibbles.

She managed to get the monster truck turned around by circling the block, only crunching two Minis on the way. Not really, but it was a near thing. She screeched to a halt outside the store and ran inside.

No Jayden. She ran to the garage. No Mason, no Noah. She sprinted out the people door.

The pack already circled in the field. It goosed her heart rate.

Shifters, both wolf and human, concentrated on the center. Wolf Ivan, standing amid the tall grass, howled his challenge. A heavyweight to wolf Noah’s super-heavy, but the rat dog would be outclassed like a sack of flour trampled by a hippo.

She couldn’t see Noah. Hopefully she’d gotten here before him—

“Start!” Mason called.

That kicked her heart into race.

Ivan leaped forward. Tall grass waved in the other direction, like a tiny nuclear submarine was displacing the tillers.

Noah, plowing through the grass, too short to be visible.

Ivan the Wolf didn’t make the connection. He stopped abruptly and howled again, triumphantly, and definitely premature.

Noah leaped into view and sank needle-sharp teeth into Ivan’s underbelly.

Ivan yowled. He reared back and spun, flicking Noah off like water. The poor little dog tumbled into the grass. Ivan bounded to the other side of the ring where he fell to his back to lick his belly, whimpering.

She shouldered her way through to the front of the circle. Noah staggered to his feet, barely visible even close up.

The wound on his flank had opened again, oozing blood. His fur was matted with it and caked with grass and dirt. He shuddered on his little legs. He tried to take a step but was as stiff as a marionette.

Damn that poison. If they survived this she was turning Killer into a snake. Better yet, a politician. “Noah! Your mother’s medallion.”

Bonnie booed. “No coaching!”

Sophia gave her a hairy eyeball, the facial equivalent of the finger.

Noah yipped. When she turned her attention to him, his trembling eased and his ears perked forward. She touched her white wolf. He said,
I knew you’d come
.

“I only left to figure out the hex. When your mother gave you the medallion, did she do anything special?”

“Shut up and fight,” Clyde yelled.

Ivan stopped licking. With a growl he shook himself, rolled to his feet and started for Noah.

My mother kissed it
. Noah turned to face Ivan.

Activated with love. The most powerful magic of all.

But there had to be a word or words. “What did she say?”

Too late. Ivan bounded the diameter of the circle toward Noah. Hunched down, hiding in the grass, Noah didn’t answer. She held her breath. If Ivan fell for the same trick again, Noah might actually win this fight.

Ivan screeched to a halt, toenails digging dirt, mere inches outside Noah’s kill zone. Life was just a bowl of fuckberries.

Outside Noah’s kill zone but not outside Ivan’s. The wolf snapped up Noah’s sturdy little dog body in huge deadly jaws.

Sophia gasped. Noah, as a wolf, had cracked the spine of a stag. What could Ivan do to a small dog?

“Stop!” Her heart hammering, she tried to burst into the ring. Hands grabbed her, held her back.

Ice exploded in her stomach as Noah squirmed and Ivan chomped—Noah wriggled loose. He fell out of Ivan’s slobbery mouth, little legs scrambling. She breathed in relief, too soon.

Noah was no cat. He hit the ground hard and lay gasping on his side for what seemed an eternity.

Ivan pounced. Sophia struggled harder against the hands.

Noah managed at the last minute to suck in a breath, tuck his legs and roll away, but he was slow and stiff. Damned poison.

Ivan spun on his paws, toenails scuffing up divots, and quickly shifted direction. He pounced again.

Noah rolled the other way. While Ivan scrabbled to change direction again, Noah creaked to his feet. He skittered to the side, but his limbs were awkward and his whole body shouted his pain.

Ivan scrambled to come around. Even injured, Noah had more maneuverability, but Ivan had the greater reach. The wolf leaped again. Noah didn’t change directions so much as prance stiffly sideways, barely evading Ivan.

Sophia shook off the hands by backing out. Once loose she ran around the circle, following Noah, her fingers pressed to her wolf so hard her skin dented. “Noah, it’s vital. What did your mother say?”

Ivan reared and spun on his hind legs, practically turning inside out before charging again. Noah shot one directed mental push at her before spinning to face Ivan.

Hide
.

Ivan opened his jaws, fangs big as Noah’s face, and chomped him.

She screamed.

Noah wasn’t there. He’d dived between Ivan’s legs. Ivan followed him, trying to bite him, and threw himself into a somersault.

Sophia forced herself to breathe. Now she could break the spell. All she had to do was get Noah to remove his medallion.

Which would reveal his wizard magic.

It hit her then, the question of why Noah’s mother had walled off his magic in the first place. That took a death sacrifice. What was so vital that she’d died to prevent anyone from knowing Noah was a wizard?

The answer stunned her with its simplicity. Its horror.

Rodolphe’s siphon. It pulled magic from shifters—just like the siphon invented by the evil wizard Phere Burgot. Worse, Burgot had created a second siphon—one that sucked a witch’s power directly from her body.

Centuries had passed and Burgot was dead by now. But maybe another such evil wizard had risen. A strong dual, having both innate magic and power?

Noah would be an evil wizard’s wet dream come true.

Things rearranged in her mind. Noah’s original alpha fight, thrust on an immature alpha, this alpha challenge—all to force him to reveal his magic?

No, impossible. Magic wasn’t detectible in a person, only on a thing or in a spell—and even that only while the spell was active. Even after Noah used his power, nobody could trace him by it…

Except his familiar.

Noah’s revealed power would call his familiar to him. If the evil mage followed the familiar… Damn it, she
couldn’t
remove the hide spell.

“Go Ivan!” Bonnie shouted.

Ivan ran after Noah with jaws snapping.

Noah dodged, slower. He was tiring. Then one dodge was too late.

Ivan slapped Noah with a paw like a hockey stick. The small dog flew into the circle of observers, bounced and hit the ground. He staggered drunkenly to his feet. His wound had opened completely, blood spilling.

Sophia’s heart shot into her throat, pounding frantically. Her mouth went dry. It didn’t matter who was after Noah or even why—if she didn’t remove the hex, Ivan was going to kill him
now
.

She ran around the circle. “Noah, take off the medallion.
Hurry
.” She had to believe his Canidae could shed a necklace his human wore.

He growled, started wriggling. A moment later, the pendant popped out of nowhere.

In her head, a single bell sounded, the deep, resonant gong of prophecy fulfilled.

HEART begins to beat
.

Awe flooded her. She trembled—then clamped down on it. Job to do. She snapped open her third eye.

And saw…nothing. No spell shimmered into sight over the hex. She’d expected, once the hide spell wasn’t continuously fueled, that it would become visible on the etheric. Whoever had crafted the spell was powerful and subtle. Even her third eye was blind.

She grabbed her wand out of her pocket, wound up, and hit Noah with a reveal. “
Revoke Hide.
”

She’d pulled power without regard. The final funeral seal reverberated with the spell. Waves of pain and nausea juddered through her, bending her double.

A halo sparked around the dog and showed…nothing.

Her temples were pounding. Great galloping ghosts, who the hell could cast a spell that wouldn’t reveal? Not even Gabriel could do that.

She was officially screwed. Without a way to see the hide spell she couldn’t revoke it. She couldn’t even weaken it.