Wild Magic (Wilding Pack Wolves 6) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (2 page)

Zoe’s mouth had fallen open at the magical display, and Troy looked flat-out dumbfounded, but Daniel found something surprising in the field as well—
a girl.
Some girl he didn’t know was out in the middle of his secret, elite team of white wolves, apparently telling them what to do.
What the hell?

Daniel picked up his pace, pulling ahead of Zoe and Troy and waving to his brother. They needed to cut the magic show for a moment so that he could bring the civilians onto the field, plus Daniel was in need of an explanation
right now
as to why they’d brought someone outside the family into the fold. Noah broke from the group to trot over, but before Daniel could demand some answers, his brother brushed on past and went to give Zoe a hug.

Daniel pressed his lips together. His irritation really
should
take second place to looking out for their cousin. Naturally, Noah would be on top of that better than he would—his kid brother always had a softer touch. He was talking quietly to Zoe, wringing the first smile out of her that Daniel had seen since the fire.

He waited while they reconnected and surreptitiously checked out the short, spiky-haired girl in the field. She was dressed all in black and
tiny,
but with mouth-watering little curves in all the right places. The thing was, the white wolves were all mated—Noah to Emily, Kaden to his cousin Terra, and Owen to his other cousin Nova. It didn’t make sense that they’d bring a smokin’ hot girl out to the field just to show off their powers.

So, what was she doing here?

Noah finally stepped back from comforting Zoe and gestured back to the field, where Owen and Kaden were still tossing blue orbs of magical energy back and forth while the hot girl looked on.

“Well, the Wolf Hunter’s got some serious shit to deal with now,” Noah said loudly for the group. “This is some real firepower here. We’re finally learning how to actually use it without, you know, burning down the entire forest.” His asshole brother smirked like that was some kind of joke. Daniel had to spend considerable time convincing Mama River to let them practice out here, and their early attempts at magic-handling hadn’t helped.
At all.

“Glad to hear you’re not quite such a danger anymore,” he called out to Noah, then he tipped his head back to the field. “Looks like you’ve been getting some help.” But when he flicked a look at the short-haired girl, her brilliant green eyes were locked on him like a sighting laser. He jolted at the intensity of her stare, then covered it by hurrying over with his hand extended. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Daniel Wilding.”

But she didn’t take his hand—instead, she twisted those pretty lips up into a smirk and waved her hand in a circle in the air. When she finally held it out to him, palm up, there was a cracking ball of blue magical fire floating above it.

Holy shit.

“You might want to be careful about touching a witch, Daniel Wilding.” Her smile was dangerous and sexy and freaking him straight out.

A witch.
He dropped his hand and stepped back. “Alrighty, then.” Witches could kill you with a simple touch—no ball of energy required—and it wasn’t like witches and wolves got along. In fact, the hairs on the back of his neck were bristling out so fast, it was like they were looking for a new home.

She was laughing at his freaked-out expression as he backed away from her magic-filled hand. Her teasing little laugh wasn’t an unpleasant sound—in fact, it was downright sexy—but that only raised goosebumps on his skin. He’d heard the stories about shifters lured in by witches with a taste for wolf. They would trap them in an alluring haze of sex—witches were impossibly beautiful, something about the beauty spells they cast—then the witches would literally carve out the male wolf’s heart to get at the magic inside.

He swallowed. There were legit reasons witches and wolves didn’t mix.

Her laugh tempered into a smirk. “It’s all right, cute stuff.” She clapped her hands together, and the blue ball of fire disappeared. Then she took two steps forward, closing the gap between them, and patted him on the cheek! “I’m here to help, not hurt.”

He backed off more, out of her reach, nearly stumbling and going down, then he shot a wild-eyed stare to Noah, who had crept up on them. What the hell was his brother doing, bringing a witch here? Much less one who seemed radically careless about that deadly
touching thing.

“This is Skylar Starling,” Noah said, sweeping a hand in her direction as if having a witch in the field with them was something they did every day. “Kaden recruited her from one of the covens downtown.”

“Recruited?” the girl said, her voice hiking up. “I was told there were hot shifters in the mountains that I could play magical tricks with. That wasn’t exactly a hard sell.”

Oh,
Jesus.
Daniel darted a look at Noah, but he was just grinning. Zoe was smiling as well. Was he the only one who thought it was actually
dangerous
to have a witch sniffing around a pack of wolves? Sure, Noah had some residual witch in him, but he was a
wolf first
—that witch stuff was buried in his DNA, giving him some bonus powers and a startling white fur coat, but he was still primarily a shifter. The downtown covens, on the other hand, were a hotbed of the Dark Arts, filled with seductive witches just waiting to lure an unsuspecting wolf to his death.

“Come on, Daniel,” Skylar said with a smile that made him feel unsteady. “Why don’t you join us?” She fluttered her delicate fingers at the other three white wolves like they were already best of friends.

“Yeah,
Daniel,”
Noah said with a laugh. “Why don’t you let Skylar bring out your inner witch?”

“Shut up.” He wanted to say,
What the hell, Noah?
Daniel might have an inner witch, but he certainly didn’t want to bring it out—and telling this pixie-sized witch about it was just asking for trouble. Although, if Kaden recommended her… Daniel peered at her again. Kaden worked with witches during his time on the force. And Daniel knew they weren’t
all
heart-eating monsters. If Kaden had cleared her to help out with the team, Daniel should probably just suck it up and let it go.

But then she pranced over to him and grabbed his hand. “I promise I won’t bite.”

His heart nearly jerked to a stop. There was some kind of electric zap when she touched him, but not in a bad way—in fact, her small hand roaming over his felt
not bad
at all.
Her touch was sending small pulses of pleasure racing into his body—it went beyond the smooth warmness of her skin, the gentle press of her fingers holding his hand palm up, and the crazy sexy way her green eyes were holding his captive. His mouth worked, but no words came out. What on earth was she doing to him? Casting some kind of spell?

Before he could articulate that, the question answered itself. She was holding his hand up and passing her other hand over it… and a small ball of blue light appeared, floating over his palm.

He was gaping again, mesmerized.

Skylar smirked. “Now that’s not so scary, is it?”

It should be…
but somehow her touch made it less so. And those eyes…

His cousin Zoe said something, but he missed it with the way Skylar’s blazing green eyes were still holding him captive. What kind of magic was this? By the time he turned to look, Noah had shuffled Zoe and Troy off toward the main house. Which was just as well—they needed to get settled. And Daniel needed to sort out what was happening with this…
witch.

She snuffed out the magic in his palm and released him. The small, pleasurable sparking sensation dissipated. Had she been working some kind of spell on him? It sure as hell felt like it… then again, he was already missing it. Craving it, even.
Insane.
He was still blinking when Kaden and Owen sauntered up to join them, smirking at Daniel’s obvious discomfort with this whole thing.

“Hey, thanks for the warning,” he snarled at them. “Next time you bring in someone new, how about a heads up?”

“Say what now?” Owen asked, his Texas drawl coming out. “You were busy taking care of your family. We were fixin’ to tell you in the morning. Just hadn’t gotten around to it, is all.”

Daniel frowned. Maybe he
was
over-reacting. They’d obviously been practicing in the field for a while before he arrived, and none of them had been turned to ash or had their hearts cut out. Owen looked vaguely offended; and Kaden was giving him a look like Daniel might be mentally unbalanced.

He cleared his throat and turned to Skylar. “All right, I guess we could use some help on the magic side of things. How’s that going to work, exactly?”

“Your boys are naturals.” She smirked and ran a flirtatious gaze over them. “And their magic is definitely on the
wild
side.”

He gave Kaden and Owen a pinched look. “They don’t need any encouragement to burn down the forest. What they need is
control.”

“You heard the boss man,” Skylar said, her smirk tempering into something more genuine. “Let’s stick to magic handling for a while before you wild things try something more advanced.” She turned back to him. “What about you, hot stuff? Are you up for a few private lessons?”

That drew snickers, but Daniel’s hands were already up, holding her off. “No thanks. I’m good.”

“Your loss.” She ran those pretty green eyes over him, which rose heat in several parts of his body, including his cheeks. What the hell? Why was he reacting to a simple look from this girl? Then she turned her back on him. “Okay, boys, one more round tonight. Then we’ll hit it again in the morning.” She skipped with light steps back toward the center of the field, and Daniel couldn’t help watching her go. Her little butt was curvy in a way that made his hands ache—as if they wanted a handful of
her
in those tight black pants. Which was
so
messed up. She was a
witch,
for God’s sake. The literal definition of playing with fire.

“Need some help cleaning up the drool?” Kaden was barely suppressing his laugh.

“Fuck you.” Daniel scowled.

Kaden laughed outright at him, then jogged over to join Owen, who was already tromping out into the field. Skylar had conjured two blue balls of energy to toss their way, like a game of magical hot potato, catching and passing the crackling balls. The three of them quickly got into a rhythm that was impressive with how fast they were handling their magic. Kaden was probably right to bring Skylar in—Daniel hadn’t seen them do anything like this before tonight.

And their skills would need to be top-notch to catch the Wolf Hunter.

But that didn’t mean Daniel wasn’t still nervous as hell having her around—if only because of the way his body reacted to her, all nervous and intense and sparking up with pleasure. What in the heck was that thing that happened when they touched? He didn’t know… but if he were smart, he’d avoid that like the dangerous magic it was. And if there was one thing Daniel Wilding tried to be, it was
smart.

But he could already feel the urge to join them, to linger in the field, watching, just to have another taste of that flirtatious gaze pointed his way. Instead, very deliberately, he turned his back on them and headed toward the main house. The only place he could safely have electric encounters with Skylar Starling would be in his dreams… and even then, he wasn’t certain they wouldn’t turn into nightmares.

Skyler ran through the forest like the devil himself was chasing her.

It was so early in the morning that the sun was barely rising over the mountains. The rosy light filtered through the trees, but most of the forest was still shrouded in darkness. She had conjured some firefly lights to buzz around and light the way like a magical pixie-dust trail through the forest—maybe that would keep her from tripping and breaking her leg out here in the middle of nowhere. The other witches in her coven would be laughing at her if they saw her running like an average human in her Nike tennis shoes and yoga pants, but she loved the adrenaline. And it was glorious out here in the early-morning forest—nothing in the city could match it. Besides, her coven sisters would be surprised at much more than her running if they knew the truth about her.

She had to trade in three favors and make two casual threats of magical retaliation in order to end up here, helping Kaden with his secret pack of magical wolves. Ever since Grace Krepky, the first openly shifter person to run for Congress, had revealed herself as a white wolf, the witching community had been on fire about what it meant. The white wolf was a magical beast that hearkened back to the time when witches and wolves were not separate species. There was a reason why female wolves and male witches were rare. Witches and wolves were really two halves of the same original magical beast—one who shifted as well as wielded magical powers. Long ago, they had divided into females expressing the predominantly feminine magical arts, while males expressed the predominantly masculine aspect in becoming shifters. Wolves weren’t the only shifters, of course, but they were inherently communal, gathering in packs and generally exposing themselves to the public more frequently by their close association.