“What areyoudoing?”
“We’re in the middle of the goddamn Colorado mountains.”
Something rustled in the bushes, and he spun around to see a skunk dart toward the road.
Did you know?he asked the wolf. He should have known that there was a stinky rodent twenty feet from his house.
A shadow passed over him, and he ducked, every alarm bell twanging as he looked up to see a hawk swoop low.
You’re freaking out about a bird?
His wolf didn’t answer.
“I need more!” she shouted. “Dammit!”
“More what?”
“Magic.”
He shrugged his shirt back on and leaped out of the truck toward her. She had her eyes closed, and her hands waved through the air. He could hear the crash of something much bigger in the trees. He looked around to see a moose head for the road.
“You are useless,” he said to his wolf and got back the faintest feel of a collar around its neck and winced. If his wolf was useless, it was Asher who’d made it that way.
He reached for Penn. They’d connected before. It was what sent her running the last time. He hoped she’d gotten over her surprise as he grabbed her hand and put it on his chest, grateful he’d already unbuttoned his shirt. The warmth of her palm immediately seeped into his skin and calmed him and the wolf.
He didn’t know what to do. Was there a spell? It had happened automatically the last time.
Please.
She opened her eyes and met his, and the connection snapped into place. He poured every bit of power he could into her.
“Better?” he asked with a grimace, feeling like all the energy in his cells was getting sucked out of his fingernails.
“Hell yeah!” she said, and the rustling became a stampede.
When two bald eagles swooped overhead, making him twitch again, and a second moose and a mountain lion loped by, he gulped and stepped away. She followed him, prolonging the contact.
“I think we’re good,” he said.
When an entire herd of deer nearly ran them down, he wrenched away, and she staggered.
He caught her, worried it would make the connection stronger, but it winked out, and he was just holding the love of his life in his arms.
“Holy shit,” she said.
“Let’s go.” He ran for the truck. He saw a hoof-sized dent in the side of his horse trailer and winced. As she slid into the passenger seat, he said, “Maybe tell them they don’t have to help?”
She twisted around. “Oh my god! Not you guys!”
The beige lizard was clawing desperately at the windshield, surprised by the glass. “Not you either!”
She plucked the little dude into her lap. It was about a foot long with another foot of tail, and it climbed her like she was a tree. It settled on her shoulder and gave him a beady lizard eye. Asher had no idea what was going on in that tiny head, but he was fairly sure the thing would do violence if it could.
He felt another alien stirring within him and winced. The snake saw a rival—or a snack. Was that her influence? If he hung out with any animal witch long enough, he’d start feeling like a snake? He wanted to ask another wolf, but he couldn’t help thinking this was probably the only time on earth this had happened.
He floored it, and they bounced toward the gate.
“There’s not a back way off this property?”
