The wolf’s scent hit me halfway up the stairs. I drew out the katana sword I’d acquired while fighting in the Ōnin War in the fifteenth century. It was a reflex. I did not need a weapon to best a shifter—or anyone other than a Shadow Warrior—into submission.

​

My bare hands would suffice. My sheer will would suffice.

​

The scent grew stronger, almost pungent. What had the senseless witchling gotten herself into this time? She could not help but attract the wrong kind of entities, the kind who would enjoy nothing more than sucking out her blossoming powers with a straw.

​

I had worked methodically to prime her powers to the point of bursting and now that very thing had put her life at risk. Regret gripped me. Had I miscalculated? Regret was not something I had felt in centuries, a time so long ago it did not connect to my current etheric essence nor state of mind.

​

“You are adaptable,” Grand Magistrate Düsternis had said to me after I had traveled the world on horses, then boats, then trains. It was not a compliment. “Shadows bend the world to their milieu; they do not adapt.”

I did not always see eye-to-eye with the Grand Magistrate. I viewed my resolve to monitor the cultural development of mankind as a necessary and vital component of Immortal world building. My travels also enhanced my personal contemplations on the meaning and justification of mortal existence.

​

Fuck Chaos and his eternal immaturity. His thirst for power had forced me to expose my most prized ward, Luna Mae, to the greater world of Immortals and Eternals. Even if her true lineage was not suspected, I detested taking the risk all the same.

​

I kicked the door open.

​

Luna lay on the couch with the wolf sprawled on top of her. Her lips were busy with low passions and her legs wrapped around him.

​

I refrained from judging her poor taste and willing submission to a being not nearly as powerful as herself. They both looked dumbly at me now, sexual frustration oozing from their young, untried and unskilled bodies.

​

Such uninspired attempts at copulation.

​

The whole scene offended me. I felt embarrassed for her. She fell for the wolf’s smooth act. Her instincts were pitiful.

​

My heart pounded wildly. The world reeled. I did not understand the welling sense of anger in my chest. Surely, I must have been put off by poorly cooked human food to have been so affected by this laughably crude attempt at passion. To see her with a wolf, sickened me, frankly. I did not approve of harboring any feelings at all for the girl, even if food poisoning or some other malady was to blame. It was not part of the plan. I had, after all, forced her to hate me by design.

​

Luna’s eyes burned with anger.

​

“Disentangle from that man,” I ordered her.

​

She sat up, embarrassed. “Seriously, dude? A fucking sword?”

​

“Luna, get out. I’ll take care of this.”

​

The wolf went pale. He took her hand. “Sophie, who is this guy?”

​

I could have ended him before he took another breath.

​

“I’m not going anywhere,” Luna said. “What’s going on? And what do you have against my door? This is getting ridiculous.”

​

I flipped the sword upside down, tip to the ground, fighting the urge to clutch her away and pummel the wolf into the floor. “Do you have any idea with what man you are consorting?”

​

“You know him?” she said, uncertain.

​

The wolf sprang up, putting his shirt back on. He was well-formed, but painfully simple. “Why is he acting like he owns you, Sophie?” he said.

​

“Nobody owns me. He’s just, ah—”

​

I stepped in front of Luna, cutting her off. “Have you been around a shapeshifter before?”

​

She looked like she had been kicked in the stomach. She had not known she was about to screw a shapeshifter.

“Their aura doesn’t register, Luna,” I explained. “Not when they don’t want it to.”

​

The wolf growled. How appropriate and timely. Maybe she’d finally get it through her head that she had been played for a fool.

​

“You’ve finally gone nuts,” she said, her eyes speaking a different truth. Deep down, she knew my words were true.

​

I fixed my eyes on the wolf. “It’s not easy to spot a shapeshifter,” I said, “but this one reeks of it.”

​

“I can’t feel the slightest trace of magic,” she said.

​

“Their auras are utterly unique. They do not originate from the Deep Down and so do not rely on relatable fields of magic. Learning to recognize them is a lost art.”

​

She turned to the shifter. “Why won’t you say something, Emmet?”

​

He glanced to her, unblinking, knowing his time was up.

​

“Is it true, Dr. Groshek?” Luna insisted.

​

He considered her words. “His mention of shapeshifters does not surprise you in the least. How do you know about such things, Sophie?”

​

“What do you mean?”

​

“You weren’t surprised in the slightest to hear him talk about shapeshifters as if they’re real. Why is that?”

​

Oh, this was good.

​

“Wait, you don’t know why I would know?” Luna said.

​

“No, that’s why I’m asking. Please, enlighten me.”

​

“Oh, please,” I said. If I were mortal, I would have rolled my eyes. “You may have not known what he is, Luna, but he knew what you are, trust me.”

​

Faint golden sparks glided over the wolf’s irises. He was considering attacking me. Come on, wolf, make my day.

​

“Emmet, just go,” Luna said, sensing the belligerence in his stance. “This is my apartment, not a battleground.”

​

The way she looked at him, the concern in her eyes, the ache in her voice… she was more than a little smitten with the wolfboy and it pissed me off.

​

He walked to her, on two legs. “Will you be safe?”

​

I managed not to laugh at the weak creature’s protective concern.

​

“She will. When you’re gone,” I said, swinging the sword forward, stopping the blade inches from his throat.

​

He received the pointed message. He laughed a little, the fool, as he stepped back and circled to the door.

​

Good riddance.

​

I walked to the door and locked it. When I turned, Luna had her back to me, shoulders hunched. I could not help but pity the girl. Her world had dislodged from its reliable course in multiple ways since we first met. I wished no pain upon her, but she needed to understand the looming danger of consorting with a shapeshifter on the eve of her tantamount battle against the morphic hordes.

​

“Let me guess,” I said. “He was too good to be true. Your first encounter had a flare for the dramatic.”

​

She did not speak.

​

I walked to the fridge to get a drink. “There’s another fucking task on my plate. I’ll have to investigate this playboy shifter to see who he is and, more importantly, how he found you. That’s all I needed.”

​

“You could just kill him. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

​

I knew those words were not her truth. I ignored them. “I don’t have time for this shit.”

​

She laughed. “Wouldn’t time be of little concern to Immortals?”

​

In one stride, I was breathing out in her face. She knew how to push my buttons. “Good idea,” I said. “Upon your suggestion, I might kill him after all.”

​

I saw panic in her eyes. She yet cared about the wretched shifter.

​

“Don’t you dare, do you hear me? Leave him alone, whatever he is.”

​

“Oh, is that love baring its teeth?” I said, trying to make light of the subject to hide my strangely possessive impulses.

​

“Leaving him alone is a new condition of my cooperation.”

​

“The perils of working with a witch, known love mongers, crippled by sentimentality. What is that humans say? Ah, yes, I remember, there’s one born every minute.”

​

“Better than feeling nothing.”

​

Oh, to be feeling nothing, Luna Mae. The problem was I felt too much. “Makes sense. You’re both moon creatures. The lunar witch and the wolf shifter. Both so weak, so fucking predictable.”

​

Her voice trembled. “Promise you won’t hurt him.”

​

“That creature does not matter to me,” I said. “It’s you. If you forget him, then I can forget him. From now on, you will do exactly as I say.”

​

“Fine. For how long?”

​

“For as long as necessary. First edict is that you will no longer mate with that wolf boy. If he shows up, you come to me. If he calls, you let me know immediately. If he sends you a letter, you hasten to deliver it to my hands. If you dream about him, you wake up and call me.”

​

“Fine, I’ll listen and whatever, but stop busting down my door, for one, and you do not have the right to stalk me, follow me, barge into my free time like a crazy clown invader. I have a life, even if it’s about to end.”

​

I remembered a time, long ago, when I, too, believed a human life had its advantages. I reached inside my back pocket. “I was returning your phone. I heard it jingle in my car. When I got to the door, I sensed the wolf. I feared you were in danger. It didn’t cross my mind it was mating season.”

​

“Not funny.”

​

“On that we can agree.”

​

“You’re infuriating,” she said. “Has anyone ever told you that?”

​

I tried not to laugh. “Yes. Throughout all the ages of man.”

​

A faint smile passed from her lips.

​

“Enough trifling banter,” I said. “You will stand in front of the Council on Thursday.”

​

Her eyed almost popped out of their sockets. “In two days?”

​

“Clearly, you need a directive. The sooner you speak the oath the better.”

​

Getting her in front of the Council and Düsternis, already riddled my innards with malice. I had been reckless. She now possessed unwarranted secrets of the Immortal realm because of me.

​

I rubbed the back of my neck, pensively. “If you have any sense at all, you won’t willingly offer information to the magistrates unless they have asked for it directly.” My voice turned dry, almost failing. “And you won’t repeat anything that I have told you or shown you.”

​

“What dark secret are you hiding?”

​

“My leniency,” I told her. It might have been true to anyone other than her, but with her it felt like a lie. My compulsion to protect her cursed me a little more each day.

​

I had to leave before I said or, worse, did something I’d regret. I stepped through the door but stopped on the top step to grumble under my breath.

​

I knew she needed more time, years maybe, to mature and learn nuances necessary to control her energy core. Only seasoned mist riders should ever open their full resources to the extent necessary to complete the deadly task of harnessing the power of a lunar moon in its full morphic phase without giving away their essence.

​

The plan was always to wait, to only interfere in her life once her visible aging had ceased, but Chaos took the choice away from me like he had done so many times before.

​

I turned back. “Don’t you think of bailing out, Luna Mae. The ones you love are not on my kill list, yet, but you’ll find that I am very practical at getting what I need.”

​

 Her fear and hatred of me was a necessary control. She was young and easily spooked, easily driven to destructive rebellions. Throughout the ages I had seen the young throw themselves on the chopping blades of their own flimsy ideals. Passions easily ignited and weakly formed.

​

I had to maintain the delicate balance between myself and this bewitching, fiery green-eyed mage. I could not help but notice the fight in her, a burning self-reliance that could cast its own spell and topple the best-laid plans of men and immortals alike.

​

I would not let that happen.

 

Copyright Stella Fitzsimons, 2019. All Rights Reserved.

 

​

Do you want more bonus chapters like this? Sign up for my newsletter for an instant download!