Magic Shifts

CHAPTER 17

“WE ARE NOT going to tell him about the giant,” I told Julie.

The sun was rising and the morning promised to be lovely. I had given Curran my word that I would not attack a giant, and I’d broken it. I didn’t want to fight with him now. I didn’t want to fight with him, period, but especially now. A week ago I would’ve said our relationship was rock solid. A lot had happened in a week and we were both really stressed-out. Today I wasn’t sure how far I could push him. I just didn’t know. I was too tired to handle it right now.

Also I needed sleep. And food. I would kill for food. And a shower. And sleep. I had to stop thinking in circles. I had briefly considered going to Cutting Edge to shower, but Curran would’ve smelled the blood on me anyway. It would take a very long soak before I managed to get it all out of my hair and off my skin, and I just wanted to go home.

I would have to tell Curran about it eventually, because we had agreed not to lie to each other and because the ifrit was a vindictive sonovabitch. I had insulted him and nuked his giant again. Well, technically Nick had, but I had played a large part in it. That meant he would likely send us a lovely surprise when he regained his magic. Too bad there was no way to tell how long that would be.

Julie opened her eyes so wide, you’d think a purple flying elephant had landed in front of us. “Are you asking me to lie?”

So when it suited her purposes, Julie had no problem bending the truth, but when I suggested it, there was shock and outrage. How exactly did that work? “No, I’m telling you not to volunteer information.”

“What if he asks me?”

“Tell him to ask me.”

“Are you and Curran going to get a divorce?” Julie asked, her voice small.

“We can’t get a divorce. We’re not married.”

“Oh God, I’ll be one of those kids.”

“One of what kids?”

“With weekend parents.”

“Julie, damn it, we are not getting a divorce . . . Why the hell are six cars parked in our driveway?”

We both stared at the completely full driveway, occupied by four Pack Jeeps; Pooki, which was Dali’s Plymouth Prowler; and a sleek-looking silver Ferrari, which was Raphael’s favorite ride.

“Something happened,” Julie said.

I parked fifty yards away, just in case, and hightailed it to the door. The door handle turned in my hand. Unlocked. I walked in, Julie at my heels.

“I want to know why nobody told me she almost died!” Andrea said.

I followed her voice and stepped into the kitchen. She sat at the table, eating handfuls of trail mix. Raphael sat next to her, stroking her back.

“I’m her best friend. I had a right to know!”

“You had a right to know?” George waved her arm. “I’m directly involved in this and nobody told me.”

“We all had a right to know,” Robert said, one hand over the phone receiver’s mouthpiece. His husband, Thomas, stood next to him, drinking coffee out of a mug with a kitten on it. Both alphas of Clan Rat were in attendance.

“She claimed the city. It’s a matter of Pack security,” Robert said, then put a hand over his free ear and went back to his phone call.

“It’s a matter of Kate and Curran,” Dali said.

Jim dragged his hand over his face. “You weren’t told because you would bicker about it all day and by the time you were done deciding, she would’ve been dead.”

“Oh please,” Desandra said. “It’s not like we’re children.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Dali told her.

The blond alpha of Clan Wolf winked at her.

Curran stood near the stove, behind everyone. Our gazes met. Relief showed in his eyes and then I saw the precise moment he realized I was covered in gore. A gold fire sheathed his irises.

“It was my decision,” Jim said. “Deal with it.”

“What is that smell?” Andrea turned. Suddenly everything went quiet.

“The scouts report there was a giant incident near the Casino,” Robert said, hanging up.

“What kind of a giant incident?” Desandra asked.

Curran’s face was terrible.

“An incident with a giant in it,” Robert clarified, and saw me.

Curran moved.

One moment I was standing and then I was in the hallway, my feet in the empty air. He’d clamped his hands on my shoulders and lifted me to his face. His voice was glacial. “One thing. I asked you to do one thing.”

He was really pissed off. I would’ve preferred it if he’d roared.

“I’m sorry.”

Something thudded against the front door.

“You gave me your word and you broke it.”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I had no choice. I was trying to save Rowena.”

He opened his mouth.

“Reckless, stupid, wrong, broke your trust, I’m sorry,” I told him. “Don’t be mad at me.”

The door thudded again. Curran dropped me down and jerked it open. “WHAT?”

A thirty-foot-tall bull with enormous metal horns glared back at us with eyes the size of teacups. Flames sheathed its huge legs, flaring around its hooves. The bull opened its maw and vomited fire.

Curran spun me around, clamping me to his chest, his back to the flames.

The fire smashed into the invisible shield of the house ward and splashed back, falling harmlessly to the ground. Curran thrust me aside. His human body tore and a seven-and-a-half-foot monster spilled out and charged the bull.

The eight shapeshifters in my kitchen went furry as one and sprinted through the hallway past me, followed by Grendel barking his head off.

“Alive!” I called after them. “We need to ask him some . . .”

The bull ducked his head, ready to gore Curran. Curran grabbed the bull’s left horn and punched the enormous bovine in the face. The bull’s head snapped to the side, but Curran jerked it back and hammered another hard punch into its skull.

Never mind.

Curran punched it again and again, his fist like a jackhammer, smashing into the bone. The bull attempted to back up, jerking its head, trying to free its horn, but Curran held on and kept punching. Blood flew from the side of the bull’s head. The monster pushed forward, trying to bulldoze Curran off his feet. Curran locked both hands on the bull’s horns and thrust his clawed feet into the ground. Muscles bulged under his gray fur, the faint dark stripes standing out like whip marks.

Curran’s feet slid and stopped. They struggled, face to face, the bull’s maddened fiery eyes staring into Curran’s ice-cold gray. The shapeshifters waited in a ragged semicircle.

The bull strained, but Curran held it.

Holy shit.

The bull opened its mouth and bellowed. Curran roared back, the sound of pure fury. Tiny hairs rose on the back of my neck.

Fire flared, sheathing the bull’s sides. Curran vaulted onto its back, one hand still on the horn. His enormous leonine jaws gaped open and Curran bit into the side of the bull’s throat. The monster screamed and the shapeshifters ripped into the bovine monster, oblivious to the flames.

“This is good,” a wererat in a warrior form said next to me in Robert’s voice. “He was very stressed-out. Excuse me.”

He pushed past me and joined the slaughter. I slumped against the door frame and watched.

“WILL YOU STOP eating it,” I growled.

“No,” Andrea said. She was sitting on the ground and chewing on some unidentifiable chunk of bull flesh.

“It’s a piece of meat from something a djinn summoned.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Who else would send a bull made of fire to my house after I helped kill a djinn-possessed giant? Stop eating. It might have been a person,” I told her.

“I don’t care.”

“Andrea! You don’t know what this will do to the baby!”

“It will make it nice and strong.” Andrea bit into the piece of meat, shredding it with her sharp bouda teeth.

“It’s evidence.”

“You have all that evidence over there.” She waved at the rest of the bull corpse, spread in about a hundred pieces across our lawn. Curran had torn it to pieces with his bare hands. “I’ve been starving all day and eating that bird-food trail mix. I’m pregnant, hormonal, and tired, and I am damn hungry. I’m going to sit here and eat my meat.”

“She’s right,” Desandra told me, biting into a chunk. “It’s really decent. Tastes like grass-fed Angus to me. So kind of your fiancé to tenderize it.”

That was it. I was done. I just didn’t even care anymore.

I marched my way up the driveway to the house. An enormous white tiger sprawled in my driveway, flicking her tail at a small flock of butterflies that bounced on bright wings around her brilliant white fur. I circled Dali and the butterflies and went inside. Curran sat on a couch in the living room. He was back in his human skin. The couch was covered in blood. That was fine. I was having second thoughts about the color anyway.

I sat next to him. Watching him rip the bull apart wasn’t just frightening. It was one of those things I would never forget. It was imprinted in my brain. Curran’s control was absolute, so when he opened the door and the feral lethal monster shot out and reveled in unrestrained destruction, it made your blood run cold. He’d had less outlet than usual since we moved out of the Keep. There people recognized what he was. If he wanted something, he had only to pick up the phone and people would run to do his bidding. Here, he was trying his best to be a good considerate neighbor. To be a normal human, not in the true sense of the word, but in the meaning other suburban families would accept and find nonthreatening. I hadn’t fully understood how hard it was for him until now.

It was over. People saw it. They stopped and stared, and there was no going back. And I couldn’t be happier about it.

“Julie asked me if we are getting a divorce,” I told him.

No response.

“I told her that we couldn’t get one since we aren’t married.”

Silence.

“I understand now,” I told him. “You left the Pack for me and threw it all away, because you thought we would have a happy peaceful life together. You’ve been so good and assumed this calm, nice role of a man who lives in the suburbs with his family and instead this messed-up crap keeps happening. I—”

He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him.

I shut up.

We sat together on the couch.

“I didn’t touch the giant. I didn’t use any power words. I only threw some undead blood at it. I just got splattered with gore.” I almost said I promise but held my tongue.

“I will kill anything that tries to hurt you,” he said, his voice quiet.

“I know. I will kill anything that tries to hurt you,” I told him.

Curran looked at me. “I just can’t figure out what to do when you hurt yourself. Who am I mad at?”

I opened my mouth. Nothing smart came to mind. “If anyone can figure it out, it would be you. You’re the only one who’ll put up with me.”

He didn’t answer.

“I have some bad news.” Might as well drop all of the shoes at the same time.

“Tell me.”

“The Order claimed the earring that houses the ifrit. They won’t let anyone examine it. Eduardo is being held in some abandoned building. He is starving and we have no way to know which building he’s in. I saw him in a vision. He doesn’t have long.”

“Anything else?” Curran asked, his voice even.

“Yes. My father is building a tower near Lawrenceville. He wants to have dinner tonight. At Applebee’s.”

The arm holding me shook. I glanced at him. Curran was laughing.

“I love you,” I told him. “I don’t give a crap what anybody thinks or says. You don’t have to be anyone or anything but you, Curran. Don’t do this for me, because I just want you.”

“You realize all of the neighbors are going to move, right?”

“Screw them. Good riddance. I couldn’t care less if we fit in with them or don’t. I never wanted the ‘good’ neighborhood or to be seen as ‘normal.’ I just wanted to live in a house with you and Julie. You can be yourself. You let me be myself, so it’s only fair. Stop trying so hard to fit in. I love you because you don’t.”

He kissed my hair.

“Anything exciting happen while I was gone?” I asked.

“Remember how we sent George to have a subtle conversation with Patrick?”

Oh no. “I’m afraid to ask . . .”

“He tried to lecture her on her duty to the Clan and she told him to shut up. He told her he would take her in hand for her dad.”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a few seconds. “Is he alive?”

“Oh yes. She didn’t kill him. Both of his legs are broken, but he is alive.”

“Was that an official challenge?”

“No, they are classifying it as a family dispute, since George decided to separate and isn’t in the clan chain of command anymore.”

Raphael walked into the room. He was wearing worn-out jeans and a leather jacket, and if you sent him and the leading male model down the street, he would turn more heads. There was just something about Raphael that broadcasted sex, loud and clear, and I had yet to meet a woman who didn’t respond to it. Of course, they usually did their best to hide that response because Andrea was a crack shot.

Raphael crouched by Curran and said, “Hey. I just figured out how we all could make a lot of money.”

“Go on,” Curran said.

“I’m going to buy out your neighbors and offer their houses to Pack members who live in the city. Any Pack family would give up their life’s savings to live next to the former Beast Lord, and something tells me your neighbors will be extremely eager to sell.”

Curran laughed again.

“We’ll make a small fortune,” Raphael said. “All you have to do is go out once in a while in your warrior form and roar. Especially when it’s dark. They’ll line up to sell so fast, we’ll have to give out numbers.”

I laughed.

“I’m completely serious.” Raphael was grinning. “You could use the extra cash.”

“You should get your wife to stop eating unidentified meat,” I told him.

Curran stroked my back.

Desandra thrust her head into the room. “You better hurry. Mahon is here.”

MAHON STOOD ON the lawn. Large, burly, with a curly beard, he looked like he needed a chain-mail hauberk, a mace, and a castle to defend. His beast form made his human body look weak and puny, which was why Mahon served as the Pack’s Executioner. His glower made hardened fighters run for cover. His daughter couldn’t have cared less. She stood defiant in the middle of the lawn, holding a blanket around herself with her one hand. Usually transforming from a human to a beast and then back to a human would’ve put her down for a nap, but the tilt of her chin told me she was very motivated to stay awake. George was pissed off. They both looked ready to explode. I braced myself.

Across the street a crowd of neighbors had gathered at Heather Savell’s house. Awesome. Nothing better at a shapeshifter family brawl than conveniently placed innocent bystanders.

“. . . Separation is ridiculous. You’ve had your fun,” Mahon said, his voice deep. “This foolishness stops now. Come home.”

“No.” If George had freezing powers, that one word would’ve turned her dad into an icicle.

“You are not leaving the Pack.”

“Yes, I am.”

Mahon exhaled rage. “For what?” His voice boomed. “For some boy?”

George bared her teeth. “He isn’t a boy. He is a man. My man. The one I chose.”

“Yes, just like you chose Aidan before, and what’s-his-face, Nathan. This will pass. Don’t throw your life away.”

“Staying with you would be throwing my life away. You want me to marry a werebear and be a good little brood mare.”

Oh boy.

“I want you to stay with your family!” Mahon roared.

“Do not raise your voice at me!” George roared back.

“We raised you, we clothed you, we fed you, we educated you, and this is how you repay us?”

“You did all the things that parents are legally obligated to do. Congratulations, Dad. You weren’t a neglectful parent. Thank you. It doesn’t give you the right to shackle me for the rest of my life. You’re not entitled to it. This is my life and I will live it.”

“She isn’t leaving your family,” Thomas said. “She’s leaving the Pack.”

“The hell she is.” Mahon seemed to get bigger somehow, his face darker. He pointed at Curran. “Is this it? Is he your example? You want to throw it all away because some . . . human couldn’t stand living in the Keep? She nagged at him and nagged at him until he gave in and now look at him. Years wasted! Years! And we are all worse off for it. He thinks with his dick, but you, you were always smarter than that.”

It’s funny how loud horrified silence can be.

Curran laughed.

Mahon stared at him, incredulous.

Across the street Heather was gaping at me. I smiled and waved at her.

“What about this is funny?” Mahon roared. “You were supposed to be the Beast Lord. You were supposed to start a legacy!”

“I’m happy,” Curran told him. “Don’t you want me to be happy?”

“It’s not about being happy! It’s about duty and obligations and doing something with your life!”

“What about your obligations?” Curran asked, his voice mild. “What was your duty to my mate when I was comatose?”

Mahon opened his mouth.

“Did you protect her?” Curran asked. “Did you help her? Did you do anything to support this future legacy?”

“She was not a proper mate. She will never be a proper mate. She is a human!”

Well, of course.

“You don’t get to decide that.” Curran said. “It isn’t your place. I chose her. I led the Pack for seventeen years and it failed me when I needed it most. You failed me.”

Mahon recoiled.

“My obligation to the Pack is over,” Curran said. “You failed to uphold your end of the bargain.”

“Speaking of duty,” George put in. “What the hell were you thinking, sending a fifteen-year-old against Andorf? He was a berserk bear with years of experience and Curran could barely shave. Why didn’t you go, Dad?”

“Be quiet,” Mahon snapped. “You were barely twelve. You have no idea what was involved. I sent him because we needed a leader. Because the packs wouldn’t follow me!”

I went and sat by Andrea. I’d had a long day and I was tired of standing.

“So your convenience and lofty ideals justified sending a child to the slaughter and then unloading the burden of being in charge of people’s lives on him?” George raised her eyebrows. “So you could stand behind the throne and have fun playing kingmaker? You should ask yourself, Dad, why all your children want to escape. Maybe we’re not the problem.”

“This is it!” Mahon roared. “This ends now. You’re coming with me, if I have to carry you. You’re not separating from the Pack. I will put you under lock and—”

“Enough.” Jim’s voice cut through Mahon’s roar like a knife.

“—key, I’ll—”

“I said, enough!” Jim snarled. “No member of the Pack will interfere with separation. No member of the Pack will be restrained against her will because her father is on a power trip. Mind your conduct, Alpha.”

If I slow-clapped, Mahon’s head would probably explode.

“You need to rethink that,” Mahon told him.

“You will not break the law you yourself helped put in place. The law applies to everyone.” Jim glared at Mahon. “You will obey it. If you find yourself unable to follow the law, step down and Clan Heavy will find an alpha who can.”

“You—” Mahon began.

“I am the Beast Lord,” Jim said.

“Not for long,” Mahon snarled.

“Is that a challenge?” Jim bared his teeth. Dali rose from her spot in the driveway and stalked over, paw over massive paw, like a silent majestic shadow, and stood beside her mate, her blue eyes staring at Mahon with unyielding intensity.

Mahon glanced at Curran.

Curran shook his head.

“You would side with them against me?” Mahon looked shocked.

“You’re wrong,” Curran told him. “The law is the law whether you like it or not. Either you’re an alpha and you uphold the law, or you are not.”

“It’s always like that with you,” George said. “You’ve been after Curran for years to find a mate, and when he found one, you didn’t approve of her, so you decided that none of the things you were supposed to do as his father applied. You’ve been asking me for years when I planned to settle down, and when I did, you didn’t like him either. Now he’s disappeared and it’s your responsibility as an alpha to look for him, but you don’t like it, so you chose not to do it. All your talk of duty and obligations means nothing. You think you know better than any of us. You don’t. Look at what you’re doing, Dad. You’re challenging the Beast Lord you swore allegiance to because you don’t like the man your daughter loves. Because it hurt some weird little place in your pride. This is how you serve and lead your clan. Don’t you have any integrity at all?”

A burning rock the size of a basketball streaked across the sky and landed in the street in front of our house. I lunged in front of Andrea, trying to shield her. The explosion shook the ground.

“What are you doing?” Andrea hauled me back. “I’m a shapeshifter. I regenerate!”

“You’re pregnant.”

“Oh, shut up.”

A brilliant golden flame ten feet high and five feet wide ignited in the middle of the street. Inside it, Eduardo writhed in his cage. The ifrit was punishing Eduardo because we’d killed the bull.

A voice rolled through the street, a voice charged with inhuman power that prickled against my skin like static. It raised every hair on the back of my arms. “All who are guilty will die. Witness the betrayer spawn. See his suffering.”

George ran. I jumped to my feet and chased her. Jim made a grab for her, but he wasn’t fast enough. George dashed into the street, right into the fire. It broke apart into a thousand sparks and transformed into a thirty-foot-long, glowing snake.

George screamed at the top of her lungs. It was a scream of rage and pain, rolled into one horrible, soul-crushing sound. She screamed as if something inside her had torn and nothing could put it back together.

The snake lunged at her. George grabbed it by its neck, heaved it upright, and slammed the body against the pavement. The snake hissed, the massive coils trying to wind around George and crush her. The werebear planted one foot on the snake. The muscles on her arm flexed and she tore the reptile in two. The light went out of the snake’s eyes, but George didn’t stop. She mauled and ripped the creature again and again, venting her grief on its body.

We watched her rage, tears welling in her eyes, until she finally let it go, and then Curran and I led her back into the house off the street.