Wild Magic (Wilding Pack Wolves 6) - New Adult Paranormal Romance (7 page)

Skylar and the others had stopped their training and were headed their way to meet the mayor and his entourage.
Great.

Grace cleared her throat. “I hope you don’t mind us interrupting your practice,” she announced to all of them. “But I’ve been telling the mayor about your dream team here.”

Daniel scowled at her, tempering the words that were about to fly out of his mouth only because Skylar had eased up next to him, giving him anxious looks. Owen, Kaden, and Noah stood behind her, their arms folded across their chests, probably thinking the exact same thing Daniel was—
what the hell?

“Are you sure this is a good idea, Grace?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, Daniel. I probably should’ve checked with you first. But I heard you guys were progressing with your skills, and I figured the mayor should know. It’s the best way to make sure you don’t get in trouble if you actually do have a chance to go after the Wolf Hunter.”

Daniel wasn’t so sure about that, but he nodded anyway. No need to piss off the mayor now. He tilted his head toward the man. “What does he know?” How much had the mayor already been read in on the situation? Daniel flicked a look to Zoe, who seemed exponentially more uncomfortable with each passing second. If nothing else, he could keep her out of this—as far as he knew, no one but the team knew she was a white wolf. He could certainly keep it that way. Grace on the other hand…

“The mayor, of course, knows that I am a white wolf,” Grace said. “But I figured that a demonstration would be the best way to show him the rest.”

Daniel scowled at her.
A demonstration?
Great. But there was nothing to do about it now. He gave her a nod and turned to his team, ushering them further out into the field, away from the mayor. Troy stayed behind with Zoe, which was good. They might yet need her on the team, and Daniel didn’t want this scaring her off.

“All right folks,” Troy said behind him, addressing his mini-audience of Zoe, Mama River, Grace, and the mayor. “If we’re going to have a demonstration, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if ya’ll took about ten steps back.” He herded them to the very edge of the field, a good twenty or thirty yards distant from where Daniel and Skylar and the rest had settled in the middle.

Skylar started them out by conjuring a ball of energy and floating it above her hand. She bounced it lightly, the crackling carrying across the field, then she sent it to Owen. He easily caught it, passed it to Noah, who batted it to Kaden, who then completed the circle by looping it around his back and sending it back to Skylar. They were playing it safe, not getting too wild with the magic handling. Daniel snuck a glance at their audience. The mayor and Mama River seemed suitably impressed.

Daniel turned back to his team. “All right, you jokers. Don’t make me look bad here.”

“You got it, boss.” Noah conjured a second ball—now they had two tossing around the circle at the same time, which was no small trick.

“And no burning down Mama River’s forest while she’s watching, yes?” Daniel added.

“Why don’t you help out, hot stuff?” Skylar asked with a small smirk as she lobbed one of the balls over the top of the group in an arc that landed in Kaden’s hands.

Daniel raised his hands and took a step back. “This is not the time for me to jump in.” Not to mention that he’d had no luck connecting with his white wolf, even though he’d tried a couple of times since he’d met with Skylar in the forest.

But instead of letting it go, Skylar shoved one of the magic balls away, planted her hand on her hip, and glared at Daniel. “This is exactly the right time,” she said. “When the mayor is ready to approve, or
disapprove,
our team for going into the field.” A blue ball of energy zipped her way. Daniel almost called out to warn her, but she caught it without even looking and clapped her hands on top of it to make it disappear. Then she turned to Owen and shouted, “Let’s show the mayor those shields we’ve been working on.”

Daniel stared as Owen started to wave his hands in front of him in a precise motion that looked like some kind of martial art—slowly, a blue shield formed around him. Noah and Kaden started doing the same thing, generating their own shields.

“What is this?” Daniel asked Skylar as she sauntered on over to him.

“Something Troy told us about. Apparently, Zoe is the Queen of generating magical shields, so I figured the boys needed to catch up.” She smirked.

He raised an eyebrow. “When did that happen?”

“When you were busy trying to
not
be a white wolf.” She lifted her chin in challenge.

He sighed, glancing at the shields the others were successful generating around themselves. Lobbing attacks with magical energy was one thing—but a shield was something that could save a life. Or three. If that was something he could learn to do…

Skylar’s defiant expression softened like she could see right inside his head to the struggle there. Then she reached out and took his hand—that familiar crackle of magical energy sizzled across his palm as her fingertips lightly traced the lines there. She peered up at him with those pretty green eyes. If she asked…

“You’re not your grandfather,” she said, softly, just for the two of them to hear. “You’re not a murderer or an adulterer.”

Daniel shook his head. “It’s not that simple—”

She cut him off by pressing her palm to his. The pleasurable spark of that touch was thoroughly distracting. “You’re an amazing alpha wolf who’s pulling together a team of magical witch/wolves to hunt down the
true
bad guy. The one attacking your family.”

He shook his head again. “They don’t need—”

“They
do
need you, Daniel,” she said forcefully. “They’ll need every help they can get to make sure they all survive this.”

Goddammit.
He tipped his head back to stare at the sky for a moment.

She was right. If he could do this, he had an obligation to let go of his biases and his anger about the past and just fucking make it happen. If he was a white wolf—and Skylar had said it was within him—then he should put the team first and find a way to use it to help them.

“All right. How do I do this?” He dropped his hand from hers and stepped back, giving him space from her, in case he fucked this up.

Skylar grinned so wide, he thought she might burst out laughing at him. But she didn’t—she just took a few steps back and raised her voice so he could still hear over the crackling of the shields the others were generating. “Imagine wrapping yourself in the protective energy of your wolf. You already know that feeling—the security and strength of your wolf’s magic. Just embrace it like a physical thing around you.”

Daniel glanced at the motions the others were making and started to copy them. He felt like an idiot.

“Reach
inside,”
Skylar called.

Daniel closed his eyes to focus better. He’d always felt the
strength
of his wolf, but he never pictured that as a separate thing that he could somehow pull outside of himself. But now he imagined just that—reaching deep inside himself and finding that well of energy, then expanding it, making it grow, until it was pulling outside of his physical body. He could have sworn it was all just his imagination until suddenly the hairs on his arms rose in what felt like a storm of static electricity dancing around him. His eyes popped open.

Holy shit.
He was surrounded by a very light blue shimmer of magical energy.

Skylar clapped her hands and grinned.

He kept the circling motion going, feeling the connection now between the movement of his hands and the swirling, growing strength of the shield around him. As he circled his hands faster and faster, the shield gained strength and became more visible. Then it started to
grow…
it swelled in size from something that fit just larger than his body to something that encompassed half the field, enclosing all the other white wolves and Skylar as well. The energy of the thing seemed to draw from a seemingly infinite well inside him, bigger and bigger. He stopped circling, afraid that it was pulling out too much, but then suddenly—the bubble snapped back! It rocketed toward him like it was on a massive rubber band, right back into the center of his being, charging like a wall of electricity. 
It smacked back into his body and knocked him to the ground.

Daniel blinked, dazed.

Skylar bent over him, a terrified look on her face. “Daniel! Daniel! Say something.”

The ringing in his ears subsided quickly. He was just stunned, not hurt. All the magic had simply sucked back inside him, which felt a little like being turned inside out, then righted again.

“Mmokay,” he said, his mouth not quite working right. He struggled up to sitting in the grass and waved at everyone to let them know he was fine.

Skylar threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight. “Oh, thank the goddess!”

The feel of her sweet little body pressed against him was far too nice to push away. He let her hold him a moment, then he said, “Hey, I’m okay,” in a more normal voice since the static buzz had cleared out. “I promise.” He worked his way up from the ground, but Skylar wasn’t going anywhere. Her hands were still around his neck, her perky breasts under her tight t-shirt mashed against his chest, and those gorgeous green eyes—which were still holding all kinds of worry—peering up into his.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” There was a breathiness in her voice that had his wolf sitting up and paying attention.

“Yes.” His arms somehow found themselves around her small waist.

“You did it,” she said softly.

He lifted a hand to her cheek, trailing his fingers along it and enjoying the left-over static jumping there. He wasn’t sure if it was
his
magic or
hers,
but it was definitely
something
magical. “Only because of you.”

She was still breathing harder than normal, still staring at him with those eyes. Daniel vaguely noticed three white blurs at the edge of the field—Owen, Noah, and Kaden had shifted into white wolves. He caught sight of them just as they slipped into the forest.

He turned a smile back to Skylar. “I guess the show’s over.”

She was still staring after the other wolves, a wistful kind of expression on her face.

“What is it?” Daniel asked, peering at her and trying to get her attention back.

She was blinking too much by the time she turned back to him. “Can I tell you something?” There was a quiver in her voice.

“Absolutely yes.” Daniel waited, but something else drew her attention—some kind of commotion at the edge of the field. The audience was breaking up, the mayor was taking off, and there seemed to be some kind of concern all over everyone’s faces.

Oh no. No way in hell.
He was
not
going to let whatever crap was going down with the mayor stop Skylar from spilling her secrets to him.

He grabbed her small hand in his. “Come with me.” Then he towed her toward the forest.

She could have resisted. All she had to say was one tiny word or sound of hesitation, and he would have released her in a nanosecond, but instead, she kept pace with him, hurrying just as fast toward the tree line, as if she couldn’t wait to get to the seclusion that the forest offered. And he knew this land like it was his own, with all the morning runs and training runs he’d taken through the dappled sunlight and under the leafy canopy. He knew just where he wanted to take Skylar—deep into the forest, off the regular trails, where they wouldn’t be disturbed.

She didn’t question it, even though it took them a while to get there. That gave him a little time to think about what he wanted to say. Because he didn’t want just to know Skylar’s secrets, whatever they were—he wanted to know
all
of her. He was half witch—he’d embraced that now, in a way that he never would have if that magic hadn’t literally surged up, formed a badass shield that could protect the people he loved, and then smacked him in the face on the way back in. The magic was
him;
he was the magic. And he could control it—he was certain of that. His wolf was empowered
more
by his witch magic, not less, and all he wanted was to get Skylar alone and tell her what his wolf had been insisting all along—that she belonged with him.

Yes, she was a witch. But, dammit,
so was he.
And his witch-amped-wolf wanted nothing more than to claim this little witch for his own.

He had no idea how that would even work, but he wanted to kiss the hell out of Skylar Starling and figure it out from there.

They finally reached a hidden clearing in the forest that he’d stumbled on before. He pushed his way through a down-sweep of branches and led Skylar inside. They were surrounded by an uneven ring of big bushy ferns and drooping branches. It wasn’t entirely cut off from the forest, but you’d have to barrel through a lot of undergrowth to get to it—it was as secluded as they were going to get.

He turned to face her, hands automatically going to her shoulders and drawing her close. “Now, Ms. Starling,” he said, his breath already a little ragged with anticipation, “I want to hear all your secrets. But first, there’s something I want to do.”

“What’s—”

He didn’t let her finish, just pulled her hard against him, angling her head to claim her mouth with his. She opened right up to him, and he dove in, tasting the sweetness that he knew would be there. Her whimper went straight to his cock, and it strained against his jeans. He pulled her closer, tucking her hot little body against his, letting her feel everything he felt for her. Her small hands grabbed at his shoulders like she couldn’t get hold of him hard enough, and his pulse raced with the little breathy sounds coming from her mouth as he consumed it.

Fuck,
she tasted good. But he had to get control of himself, or he’d be taking her hard and fast up against a tree before she ever had a chance to speak. Or he had a chance to tell her wasn’t just lusting after her… that he wanted so much more.

“Skylar,” he breathed, breaking their insanely hot kiss.

“Yes,” she said with slightly swollen lips. That one word was a declaration—like she was saying
yes
to anything he might ask of her.