Jennifer Ashley: Wild Wolf

“He’s trapped too?” Misty looked dismayed. “Where?”

“In the ice.”

Misty stood up, which gave Graham a nice view of her legs in her shorts. Her skin was scratched and abraded, but even that couldn’t mar her. Some of the scratches were from last night with her, when Graham had made hot pounding love to her in her garden. The thought of doing that again someday was one thing that kept him from crumbling and dying as Oison wanted him to.

“Where?” Misty started walking away, toward the sheet of ice.

“Misty.” Graham sat up, jerking at the vines. They still wouldn’t let him go. Dougal tried to help, but to no avail.

“He’s in there ?” Misty stopped, horrified. “Is he dead?”

“Hell if I know.”

Dougal kept trying to free Graham, starting to moan when he couldn’t. Graham had to switch his attention to bolstering Dougal’s confidence. When he looked back at Misty, she was leafing through a book.

Must be her little book about flowers. The one that had gotten him drunk on tequila, making him take another step in his relationship with Misty.

“There’s nothing in here about melting ice,” she said in frustration. “Or breaking ice. Nothing about ice at all.”

“Anything about water?” Graham asked. “Oison said his element was water. Reid’s is earth.”

Misty turned pages, rustling in the stillness. “I don’t know. Damn it.”

Dougal called out to her. “Anything about making plants stop messing with us?”

More rustling. “Let me look. Why are they doing this anyway? I mean, they’re flowers . Plants aren’t magical or sentient. Their ‘magic’ is converting sunlight, water, and soil into food and oxygen. Photosynthesis. These plants shouldn’t be alive at all. No sunlight, and these are all sun-loving flowers.”

“But this is Faerie,” Graham said. “So magical shit works. All the stories about magical creatures originated here. The stories are watered down in the human world, but the original incidents weren’t.”

“Oh.” Misty looked back at Graham, her face losing some color. “So all the scary stories about frost queens and witches putting children in ovens are true?”

“Yep.”

“That’s disturbing.” Misty went back to her book, as though determined to find something to protect her from every fairy tale ever written.

“Why the hell are Kyle and Matt here?” Graham demanded. Kyle was trying to help pull away the vines, while Matt was busy licking the ground around a crumpled bag of what used to be chips.

“Ben said they had to come.” Dougal shrugged. “I don’t know why.”

“Ben?” Graham roared. “Goddess, get me loose. I need to strangle some people.”

“Here we go!” Misty actually jumped in delight, her feet leaving the ground. “ To train plants. I thought it meant pruning. It kind of does.” She started moving excitedly to the nearest clump of plants. “Matt, Kyle, Dougal, I need petals from every single type of plant here. All of them. Don’t miss one.”

Her legs moved as she ran about the cave, grabbing flowers and yanking petals free. She moved so fast the vines that reached for her didn’t have time to latch on before she was at another plant. Matt and Kyle, turning human so they could hold the petals, ran every which way, making a game of it.

“I got the red one!” “No, I saw it first.” “You can have the purple one. I got yellow!”

Dougal stayed put, pulling futilely at the vines that refused to let Graham loose.

“Help them,” Graham said, keeping his voice firm but gentle. “If Misty’s right, then she’ll get me free. Go on. She needs you.”

Dougal shook his head, still tugging. As a cub, when he’d been lost in his own fear and misery, Dougal would fix on a task and not be able to stop. Graham, the best he could, put his hand on Dougal’s arm.

“I need you to take care of her for me,” he said. “If something happens to Misty . . . I might as well die here.”

Dougal looked up at him, meeting Graham’s gaze for a fleeting moment. “You really are going to mate with her?”

“I am. Definitely.”

“Good.” Dougal gave Graham a nod, seeming to take heart from Graham’s statement. He finally let go of the vines and leveraged himself to his feet, then with a final look at Graham, walked away to find Misty.

“Now help me put them in a pile,” Misty said to the cubs. “Good. You’ve found so many, both of you. Let’s see. One missing. Hyacinth.” She looked around. “I’ll get it.”

Graham felt his compulsion spell kick in as Misty went toward the purple plants, a spring in her step. He knew, deep in his burning blood, that Oison was coming.

He rose as far as he could in the tangling vines. Dizziness smacked him, along with his Collar’s shocks. “Misty!”

The earth groaned again. Dirt rained from above, more than before. Maybe this cave was about to give, burying them all.

As Misty reached for the lavender flowers rising from leggy stalks, Oison appeared right next to her. He raised his sword and brought it down sharply toward her neck.

Graham bellowed and fought the vines. Matt launched himself at Oison, shifting to wolf cub as he went. As the sword came down, he latched himself on to Oison’s arm, foiling his aim. Kyle, also wolf now, slammed into Misty, making her sidestep. She lost hold of the hyacinths and fell, and Oison’s sword swished over her, missing.

Oison, silent with rage, plucked Matt from his arm and threw him across the cave. Matt landed heavily on his back, cried out in a pathetic whimper, and went still. Kyle, yipping, ran to him.

Oison raised his sword again, but this time, Misty scrambled out of the way. Dougal was there, reaching for Oison. His hands went out as Oison swung, catching the blade. Dougal screamed as the Fae-spelled sword cut his skin. His Collar went off, snapping and sparking, Dougal continuing to scream.

Misty lunged for the purple plants again, grabbing a handful. She raced to her pile of petals in the middle of the cave, threw the hyacinths down, and lifted her book.

Oison shoved Dougal from him. Dougal fell, moving in pain, his Collar continuing to spark. Oison headed for Misty, who was walking around and around her clump of flowers.

“By east and west, by north and south,” Misty read in a loud voice. “By wind and water, fire and earth. By the Goddess and moonlight, by the God and sunlight—I command you to do my will.”

Oison was almost upon her, but Misty kept walking. She lifted the book. “I command you to do my will!”

The petals swirled with her passing, rising a little, then moved faster. Faster still. A vortex of them rushed around her, encasing Misty in its tornado.

The vortex of petals reached all the way to the ceiling. Then they exploded, bursting over the entire cave, raining down like colorful snowflakes. They carpeted the ground, spilling over the vines, the black obsidian, Oison, the fallen Dougal, Matt, and Kyle.

As soon as the petals started to fall, Misty sprinted back to Graham. “Let him go!” she yelled at the vines.

They shivered, leaves and flowers shaking. Then they withdrew, unwinding from Graham and releasing him.

Misty stared, her mouth open. “It worked!” She shouted in delight. “I can’t believe it—it actually worked! I’m going to give Ben a big fat kiss when I see him again.”

“The hell you will.” Graham tried to pull himself up, but he fell again, weak and exhausted.

But Oison was coming. The Fae kicked aside vines and raised his sword again, swinging it hard at Misty.

Graham caught Oison’s wrist, and the blade swung and met Graham’s thick upper arm. Snarling, Graham let it cut him to the bone as he twisted Oison away from Misty, Graham’s Collar sparking hard. He tried to change to his between-beast as he fought, his strongest form, but Graham found he couldn’t shift at all. The sword, and his shocking Collar, combined to take the last of his strength.