Undercover Magic (11 page)

When I opened the door to the elegant white and pale green suite we'd been assigned,
I was glad to see that he was still awake. He'd sprawled out on top of the luxurious
quilt-covered bed fully dressed and was staring at the ceiling.

"Laswell claims he knew my parents," I said, closing the door behind me.

He didn't even look at me. "I had someone on the way. Why did you contact Bellmonte?"

I paused in the process of taking off my gear. He sounded...hurt. I wasn't sure what
to do with that.

"I couldn't have known."

"You ran to him for help. Why?"

My shoulders tightened and my mouth went dry. "What are you doing?"

"There's an energy between you and him." His gaze flashed to mine. "I don't like it.
It's dangerous."

I took a careful, controlled breath, angry that he didn't trust me to behave myself
around a monster like Bellmonte. Or anyone, for that matter. "You have no reason to
feel threatened."

"If you want him, say so."

Stop it! My brain screamed. He was trying to kill us. I felt it. I didn't want that.
"Don't, Cooper. Please."

A muscle jumped along his jaw and the color drained from his face. "I don't know what
to think, Addison. I just know it's tearing me up inside." His tormented gaze met
mine. "
You're
tearing me up."

I held my holster tightly against my chest. "Bellmonte is less than human to me. You
have to know that."

"Do I?"

"When he helps me I..." I tried to swallow, but my throat felt like it had filled
with sand. "I don't feel...obligated. I don't owe him anything because I don't care."

"Is that what you feel with me? Obligated?"

"I don't know," I whispered, staring at the floor.

I felt his gaze on me and prayed he'd understand what I couldn't put into words. After
what seemed like an eternity, I risked glancing up. His expression had softened and
I felt the knot in my chest ease. Then a deep, longing sadness filled his eyes and
my throat squeezed close.

"You didn't trust me to know what to do for Laswell?" he said.

"I'm sorry I can't be what you want." Instead I was weak. A coward.

"But maybe you're what I need," Cooper said.

He got up and crossed the room to me. Pulling me snugly against his chest, he kissed
the top of my head. I shivered against him.

I'd run from the one thing that would make everything simpler for Cooper. And in many
ways, for me. That's why Laswell had made me so furious. He'd forced me to look at
what I didn't want to face.

I pressed tighter against Cooper. "I need to know who I am. Will you help me?"

He nuzzled his cheek against my hair. "No one can tell you that. You have to decide
for yourself."

I pulled back and looked at him. Terror scraped the inside of my stomach at the thought
of the step I was about to take. "Not this time."

"I don't understand."

"What Laswell said—" I took a deep breath, more scared than I'd ever been in my life
and I wasn't even sure why. I was being stupid. I'd seen Cooper do it and he wasn't
a monster. And if it were true, if I was Were...then no one could stop us from being
together.

In a rush, I pushed out the words that might change everything for us. "If you can...teach
me how to shift."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Unarmed and in loose-fitting clothing, I sat cross-legged in a clearing deep inside
the Laswell estate. The hike to find a spot private enough to please Cooper had taken
nearly an hour. In that time, I was left with an impression of an extensive property
filled with forest that beat with a wild, primal force that I hadn't expected to find
given the history of the area.

The fat moon shot fingers of pale light through the thick canopy of leaves and cast
a mystical glow over the clearing that added to my nervousness. On a night like this,
it seemed to me that anything could happen, and that scared me.

In a moon patch directly across from me stood a larger than normal timber wolf with
hungry silver-green eyes.

"You're not going to change my mind," I said to him.

He released a resigned huff through his shiny black nose and started to glow. The
edges of his form blurred and he compressed into a ball of light. The ball stretched
and took on a roughly human shape.

There was a
pop
of sound, and Cooper stood in front of me gloriously naked. I admired him for a moment
and then tossed him the pair of sweat pants bundled on the ground beside me.

"You look worried," I said as he pulled them on.

"I'm thrilled. If you can shift, it proves I've been right all along." He sat down
across from me and assumed the lotus position.

"Or it'll prove I'm human."

"Not conclusively." His eyebrows made a deep V over the bridge of his nose. "Most
shifters grow up with this. You're not going to learn it in one night."

"Isn't the term 'Shifters' considered impolite?" I asked, hoping I'd caught him out
after his probably true, but still insulting comment.

"Weres to the outside world. Shifters among ourselves. Shifting can be dangerous,"
he added.

"Bring it."

He studied me for a moment and then let out a long breath. "First you need to know
that our kind isn't bound by the moon like legend teaches. We can go into our animal
form any time we want."

"Got it."

"In mid-adolescence we choose the animal we'll spiritually bond with. Usually the
traditional totem of the Clan. One we've already spent a lot of time around."

"I've spent a lot of time with Wizard."

"I love cats," he said, but I could see he was struggling not to grimace.

"You hate cats."

"I love her if she keeps you in one piece. The animal you resonate with is crucial
during a shift. Break focus and you could reassemble in this dimension as a quivering
pile of flesh."

I shuddered. "Great image. If you're trying to discourage me, it's working."

"Just making a point."

"Stay focused. Got it."

"Close your eyes. Deep breath in. Slow breath out. Picture Wizard," he said.

"I'm going to have a fluffy tail, aren't I."

"But you'll be a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound house cat, which is frightening to contemplate.
Now focus."

We breathed for a moment.

"When we shift nothing can touch us," Cooper said, his voice washing over me and blending
with the sounds of the forest around us. "Anything in this dimension that does is
forced into the fourth. If its molecules can't hold their integrity, they separate
and are absorbed into the primeval energy field. They don't come back."

I thought about that for a moment, my breath going in and out, eyes closed. "Why don't
we break apart?"

"We have extra DNA that's designed to accommodate the higher vibration without losing
coherence."

"Focus. Don't touch anything."

"The key is feeling. And trust," he added.

I opened my eyes. "Game over." Trust in general was a bit of an issue for me. Trusting
feelings was even worse.

"Emotions are a higher vibration than physical matter. When you trust them, they work
for you." Cooper leaned over and poked me lightly in the center of my chest. "That's
the energy that expands out into your cells, moving them into the fourth dimension.
Your thoughts then direct how you re-form in this dimension."

I got up. "I'm done."

Cooper grabbed my wrists and pulled me back down. I squirmed a bit on general principle,
and he planted his palms on top of my shoulders to hold me still. The heat from his
hands soaked into me, soothing my tension. I was being a jerk. He hadn't asked to
do this, I had.

"I'll try," I muttered, crossing my legs again and taking a deep breath.

"Trust the process. Feel." He gently touched the middle of my chest with the tip of
his index finger. "Picture the form you've bonded with—" he touched my forehead, "—and
your body will do the rest. Let's try it."

"You are so going to fail."

*  *  *

Marc had been concerned, but they'd both agreed that there wasn't much they could
do until something happened.

Something was happening.

On the far side of the garden, Margaret slid further down the angled roof of the ridiculous
replica of a Greek temple. Through the binoculars, she watched as two black vans pulled
up in the street outside the front gate, headlights off. A dozen FBI agents in S.W.A.T.
gear poured out, armed and ready for a battle.

A sleek, stealth helicopter swept toward them from over the tree tops in the forest
beyond, eerily silent.

She radioed Marc. They had half the men as the FBI, civilians to protect, and the
Prince deep in the woods doing goddess knew what. There wasn't much chance this battle
would go well for their side.

Her smile peeled back from her teeth and a primitive joy coursed through her blood.

A lost cause...the best kind of fight.

*  *  *

Cooper and I had been breathing and focusing for what felt like forever. Was something
supposed to happen?

I cracked my eyes open and stole a peek at Cooper. His body was glowing. I glanced
down at mine. Nothing.

I closed my eyes and tried harder. Sadly, my thoughts were fragmenting from boredom
and frustration. I never had liked to fail and tended to think about other things
when I did.

"You should feel a tingling pulse in every cell of your body," Cooper said in a calm,
dreamy voice.

I gave up and watched him. "Won't shifting destroy our clothes?"

He released a long-suffering sigh and opened his eyes. "Yes. But only if you do it.
Try again."

I did, but I was losing hope. I mean, Cooper had spent his life around this stuff,
had grown up expecting to do it someday. For me it was all brand new and a large part
of me wasn't even convinced I was made for it.

"I'm not sure this is really me," I muttered.

"I am."

There must be something I wasn't getting. Some important detail that was so normal
for him he hadn't thought to mention it. "What about the ground?" I asked. "Won't
we dissolve that when we shift?"

"If your change is too slow, a shallow indention will be left. Humans used to call
them faery circles. Normally that doesn't happen. The life force of the Earth interacts
with other dimensions all the time. She can handle it."

"Maybe Laswell was lying to me."

"This is going to take a while, isn't it," he stated.

"Feel. Picture. Trust. I know. He could have been."

"That doesn't explain your list of unusual talents."

"Like how I can smell when someone's popped in or out of the fourth D?"

"Not anyone, any time. Only when they don't belong here. And yeah, that one's unusual.
Also the humanly impossible jumps, strength, injury repair..."

"I get it. But I'm still adjusting." I took a deep breath and let it out. "I miss
Wizard. Not sure how I feel about the tail, though."

A tingle started in the center of my body and spread out, flickering along my arms
and legs, moving over my face. It felt nice. Maybe I was finally starting to relax.

"Focus on your heart energy and let it build. You won't have very good control at
first, but it'll be worse if you don't get these basic skills down."

The tingling got stronger like a light buzz of electricity was moving through my body.
I wondered if my father would have been the one to guide me when it was time.

"Now picture Wizard," Cooper said, sounding so far away, so unimportant. "The texture
of her fur. The weight of her in your arms—"

The image of a man's face flashed across my mind and was gone. If my life had been
different, my father would have probably been the one teaching me this. A shadow of
sorrow settled over my heart.

A gunshot blasted from the direction of the house.

Fear and shock erupted through my body and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest.
The tingling shattered over me—a hot, piercing jolt of electricity.

I felt Cooper jump to his feet as the energy raced through my body, tangling with
waves of power. My thoughts went numb and my world exploded into light.

*  *  *

Cooper watched in alarm as Addison's body burst into pure energy and expanded, stretching
up about eight feet. He'd never seen anything like it.

Inhuman arms sprouted and then reptilian like legs, wings and a monstrous head. A
blurry and vague form made out of light.

He instinctively reached for his gun, grateful it wasn't there for once. This was
Addison. His Addison. Whatever the hell she was shifting into.

Another shot echoed some distance away, but now on the grounds. Whoever they were,
they were getting closer.

As her form solidified, he back-peddled away from her, unable to completely stop the
fear bristling down his back. What she was becoming wasn't possible.

"Change back!" he yelled, panic sweeping away his common sense. If anyone saw her,
if anyone found out, they would kill her. Once a shift was this far along, it was
nearly impossible for an experienced Were to reverse. No beginner could ever accomplish
it.

A sharp clap of sound like a cosmic doorway shutting burst over him. The light-made
creature was gone. In its place a biped eight foot gargoyle-like creature with claws,
teeth, bat wings, the works—plus green cat eyes, a ruff of soft white fur around its
neck and a fluffy tricolored tail.

A tingle of shift energy swept over him and he tamped it down. He would not let fear
control him. This was Addison. Horrifying, dangerous, but also confused and frightened.
And somehow she'd blended her cat totem with something that shouldn't even exist.

He dared to take a step closer, though it made his hackles rise. "You have to change
back, Addison," he growled at her.

The creature...Addison tried to speak but only a garbled tangle of grunts and hissing
came out. Its reptilian monster face contorted into a frightening parody of a puzzled
look.

"You can't be seen like this. You can't even exist."

The demon-like monster—damn it, this was Addison!—cocked its head.

"For once do what you're told," he scolded, his fear and frustration boiling over
into panic.

She flapped her wings in agitation, stirring up dust and leaves.

"They'll kill you!"

Understanding finally dawned and with it a shimmer of fear flickered across her strange
cat-like eyes.

She nodded her head and closed those eyes. A glow blossomed out from the center of
her chest and wrapped around her body as gunfire rattled through the dark forest.

*  *  *

I felt like I stood inside a silent, glowing egg made of light, half in and half out
of the place I saw briefly before I landed in a body I didn't understand but had felt
strangely at home in. I could see Cooper gesturing at me to stay where I was, or maybe
to move—I wasn't sure. I could see the panic on his beautiful face as FBI agents dressed
completely in black and holding wicked looking rifles rushed at him from the forest
around the clearing.

A faint brush of fear feathered across my mind, but not enough to interrupt the peace
and comfort of my light-made egg. As if in slow motion, I watched Cooper duck, strike,
and disarm one of the agents. I saw him run for cover, firing randomly to cover his
escape.

Dispassionately, I noticed the agent across the clearing as he took careful aim and
fired. I saw the bullet strike Cooper, followed by another.

I saw him go down.