Shadow Kissed (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 4)

Savannah

Alone with my guilt, I descended through the trees down to a small lake. The eternal mist of the place hung low along the banks and crept in silken tendrils over the water.

Stepping to the water’s edge, I looked down. The shimmering silver surface reflected the flat gray of the sky and the dark green of the pines. But my reflection was just a wisp of shadow, a dark, featureless silhouette in the water. I was empty, missing my other half, and this place had no illusions about it.

A lump formed in my throat. It was time to start putting myself back together. To repair everything I had broken and torn apart, everything I had hidden from and lied to myself about.

Closing my eyes, I recounted the spell Aunt Laurel had taught me—the spell to release my wolf. I’d memorized it and looked it over a dozen times since, but terror still took me.

Would I be able to do it without her help or Jaxson’s? Would I be trapped without my wolf, unable to recover the shard of her soul and face down the Dark God?

Taking in and holding a deep breath, I pulled my shirt over my head.

Okay, Wolfie, it’s time for me to undo all the damage that I’ve done. I hope that somehow, you can forgive me.

Going over and over my aunt’s spell in my mind, I unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them off. One by one, I piled my human things on the grass until I was naked, the way I had been born. The way we had been born.

The two of us.

Forcing down the doubt and guilt churning inside, I stood up straight and summoned my magic. Slowly, ice water trickled around my skin, and the cold began creeping in. I inhaled slowly, filling my lungs with air and my body with magic until I was shivering and vibrating with power.

Opening my eyes, I began to weave the unbinding spell. As I spoke the words of the incantation, my power flowed out with my breath, the magic pulsing the air around me.

My skin began to burn, precisely and painfully, like a tattoo of fire. Flashes of light flickered, and then runes began to glow all over me—spells of binding. They wrapped around my body like chains of writing, but as I tried to tear them apart with my magic, I found that they were stronger than forged iron.

Anger consumed me. I’d had a hand in making this spell, and I should be able to break it.

I pulled down my magic from the ether until it was a burning ball of ice in my chest. I pressed out with all my strength until my legs were quaking and cold sweat dripped from my skin. My lungs hurt, and my arms shook, but I kept pressing outward. I felt the spell chains bite into my skin, yet they wouldn’t break.

“Let me go!’ I growled.

Savy! a plaintive voice cried.

Shock tumbled through my mind. Wolfie?

My heartbeat accelerated, and I pushed even harder against my restraints. “Wolfie, are you there?”

I can’t get out.

I fought the spell, anger and desperation fueling my magic. The beads of sweat cut through the frost forming on my skin, and I trembled with exhaustion.

You’re slipping away! Wolfie cried. Don’t leave me!

Panic set in, and I snarled in desperation.

We’ve done this before, Wolfie said, her voice like a shout, but barely audible above a whisper or an echo down a long hall. Remember.

I closed my eyes and concentrated. I tried to envision the bonds of magic, but instead, I saw another place.

A memory of a bare concrete room. An IV stand to my right with a blood bag and a tube connected to my arm. A fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

My arms were tied down with leather straps. The rogue wolves had drained my blood and injected me with magic inhibitor. My magic was fading, but so were the bonds that I didn’t know were even there.

A month ago.

I remembered the terror. I remembered arching my back and pulling against my bindings with all my strength. Of begging “please” in a whisper to anyone who could hear me.

And then, someone had responded. Someone I’d never known was there. A guardian angel. A part of my soul.

Wolfie.

In that moment, she’d roared with fury, two decades of anger unleashed. I was trying to fight my way free of the operating table, but she was fighting free of something far more powerful.

As I was about to give up, searing pain had raced through my arms, like my very flesh was being torn from my body. One strap had snapped, and my arm had torn free. I’d seen it for the first time in the fluorescent light: claws and fur rising from my skin. My true form.

As the memory faded to black, the pain lingered. Intensified. My eyes shot open. I was staring wide-eyed out over the lake, with my knees sinking into the soft mud beside the silver water.

We’d broken through before. We’d do so again.

Reaching out for my wolf, I growled deep and low, letting my icy magic turn to fire. All across my body, the golden bonds of spell writing began to burn away into whispers of black.

I gasped as the transformation took me. My back arched, and my chest cracked. Fur erupted along my skin—except this time, it was black and made of shadow.

My head whipped back, and I howled.

My cry was cut short as the wind slammed out of my lungs. My body hurled backward, and I tumbled head over heels until I rolled to a stop in the mud.

With a groan, I levered myself up onto my hands and knees. Human hands. My heart clenched. Had I failed?

“Wolfie?” I cried as I stood.

I’m here, she said—but her voice didn’t come from within.

I snapped my head up.

A black tendril of smoke had coalesced around my arm and trailed to where a dark wolf stood across from me. A wolf of shadow.

My mouth went dry. This had happened before—once when I’d attacked Aunt Laurel, and again on the roof of Bentham.

I tried to moisten my lips. “Wolfie, is that you?”

Yes, she said, pacing back and forth in agitation.

Scrambling to my feet, I took a step toward her. But she retreated hesitantly, and my heart broke. How would she forgive me?

Guilt took me back to my knees, then dropped me to my palms as the tears flowed. “I’m so sorry, Wolfie. I’m sorry I bound you, that after one month of freedom, I bound you again. I know I betrayed your trust. I didn’t want to do it. If I could have asked you, I would have. I know that doesn’t matter.” I hung my head, looking at the muddy streaks on my legs. My chest quaked with sobs. “Please forgive me.”

For a moment, there was no response, and then a wet nose prodded gently at me. No.

My heart stopped cold with the answer I’d feared most. I looked up to see the shadowy wolf lying with her head on her paws, inches from me. You don’t need to be forgiven.

My throat tightened. “But what I did—”

It protected our pack. Our mate. Our family.

The tears hung in the corners of my eyes as I tried to read her expression.

Did you think I would see it any differently? she asked.

“Yes. I bound you. I heard your cries,” I whispered through clenched teeth, because had I spoken any louder, I would have broken into more sobs.

The Dark God took control of me. He turned me on Casey, he turned me on Sam. Fuck him. You saved me from that. Do you think that’s freedom, living in fear of what you might do next?

The world began to spin as all the vindictive words spiraled around me and guilt tried to block my ears.

Wolfie rose and nuzzled me.

I watched them attack you for it and call you a monster. Screw them. We may be twin-souls, but we are one. Our thoughts may be different, but we share the same body, the same blood, the same life. I know why you made your choice. And I know that deep down, you’d make it again—I would trust you to.

With disbelief and heartache straining in my chest, I reached out to touch her. She was shadow, but I could feel her warmth, the soft silk of her black fur.

Finally, I found words. “You were there? You heard—everything? Even though you were bound?”

I’ve always been there. I watched you grow up while I was bound. I watched you fight off the Dark God. I was there when you stood up to the council this morning and the ghost wolf just now. And I watched you cry over the choice you made.

Shock washed over me as she nuzzled my fingers and continued, My heart broke because I couldn’t reach you. That I couldn’t be there to comfort you. You are my person and always have been.

Then I cried. I held her, and I sobbed with everything I had. I didn’t let go of my wolf.

Minutes or hours later—I couldn’t tell the difference here—I’d drained all my tears, and my breathing began to return. Wolfie butted her head against me. Okay, reunion time is over. We have a fucking city to save. So let’s figure out how to get me back to normal.

I sat upright. “Normal. This isn’t your true form? I thought that maybe since we’re twin-souls, you finally broke free.”

Wolfie blinked at me. Oh, hell, no. This isn’t my true form. We are one. We share a body. This is your funky voodoo magic. While black silk is striking, I’m a beautiful red wolf, or have you forgotten?

My jaw dropped.

I was doing it? How?

Staggering to my feet, I looked down at my mud-covered hands. That tendril of smoke still streamed from my wrist to her form.

“So, I have no idea how to do this, but if you’re sure, I’m going to try to reel you back in.”

Do I get to drive after that?

“Of course. I need a break. I’ve been on two legs for too long. Fair warning, though, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

She seemed to smile, then looked out over the water. You’ll figure it out. You’re in charge of magic. I just chase rabbits and bite bad guys really hard.

I reached my hand toward her. My wolf watched and waited. I strained, trying to draw the magic back in.

Wolfie looked at me expectantly.

“I’m trying,” I muttered.

What was I going to do? I took a sharp breath as I pulled for my magic.

Nothing happened.

Wolfie sat, and I squeezed my eyes tight. Frustration blossomed under my skin. I’d done this sort of thing before, hadn’t I? With the Soul Knife. When Aunt Laurel had taught me to summon it. She’d made me memorize every detail: how the blade looked, its weight, the signature of its magic, the way it fit in the palm of my hand.

Would this be the same?

Eyes still shut, I imagined Wolfie. Not how she looked when we were in wolf form, but how she felt when we were together. How she filled that void in my soul. The way her off-kilter humor lifted my spirits.

Reaching out with my hand, that was what I called to me. The spirit that made me whole.

There was nothing at first, and then I gasped as ice water rushed over my skin. My eyes flew open. The shadows around Wolfie spun, pouring into me like my magic had once poured into the Sphere of Devouring.

But she wasn’t devoured. I was filled.

Her spirit flowed back into our body, and a divine lightness spread through my limbs.

And suddenly, all the shadows were gone, and I was standing there alone on the shore of the lake.

“Wolfie?” I asked, chest heaving from exertion.

Holy shit, it worked! she exclaimed from that comfortable spot at the back of my mind.

I blinked. “You’re surprised? You sound really surprised.”

Wolfie hesitated for a second. Okay, confession: I thought I was probably stuck forever as some sort of weird shadow wolf, and I was going to be okay with it, because at least we would be together, but hell, this is so much better.

“It is.”

Great. Priorities. Rinse off, because you’re covered head to toe in mud, and I don’t want it in my fur. Then get your stuff, and let’s shift. It’s time to get the rest of my soul back.