Verity followed Alatar through his afternoon errands, holding a basket whilst he harvested from the vegetable garden and then shucking the skins and silk from corn for the cooks, before he collected another witch and led the two women down the long road directly before the house, to a field on the edge of the property which had just been replanted.
The witch immediately began to wander the tidy rows of seedlings, and Verity watched in amazement as the plants sprung up in her wake, tendrils and stems weaving and leaves unfurling.
“Okay,” Alatar stretched out his neck muscles and cracked his knuckles. “I expect you will find this easy as it is an adaption of a healing spell.” He summoned the power, and she recognised the structure of the spell as he wove it and then trailed it into the plants as he walked down the furrows. “Do you see?”
Being a healer meant that the majority of magic was beyond her. Witches and warlocks used components, spell words and arcane objects to focus their power and direct it, whereas Verity’s relationship with her magic was more organic. It just was there, and touching the injured person or animal was all that she needed in order to direct it.
She had studied magic, as did all members of the coven, but her success with even the most basic of spells was middling at best. But this she understood. She could see how the magic activated the cells’ photosynthesis process in order to accelerate the growth process.
She crouched between the furrows and dug her fingers into the soil, and pushed her power through her fingertips, much like she did in order to heal the injured, except this did not result in pain as there were no wounds to echo their injury on her body. She watched the plants along the two rows shoot upwards in sudden growth.
“I knew that you would be able to do this spell,” Alatar was pleased.
“It is a lot like healing,” she agreed, but of more interest was the chain-mesh fence just beyond the field where they worked. A fence indicated an end of the property, which meant the glamor and wards would end not far beyond it. She needed to get beyond the ward and glamor in order to make her way home to her mates.
They continued to grow the field, until Alatar paused squinting at the setting sun. “It is time to go back,” he announced. “Rune will be back soon, and I am sure I can smell dinner.”
Verity inhaled. She could just catch the scent of cooking meat on the air. “I think I can too,” she was starving. Using her magic in this way might not be painful, but it did deplete her energy. By logic, the road should lead to a gate, she thought, but would it be guarded? Probably, she decided as they retraced their path up the dirt road.
Werewolves young and old flowed out of the fields onto the road ahead of them, all following their noses towards the food, she guessed. There was a simple peacefulness to the people, she thought, compared to the city, that came from having rewarding work and a full stomach to reward it. She could understand why Alatar would think it simply better for her to stay, but for a man in the first glows of taking a mate, he was awfully dismissive of her mates.
As they passed the house, Alatar exclaimed and strode up to a large russet haired man whose face lit upon seeing him. “You are filthy,” Alatar complained as he wrapped his arms around the man and kissed him. “What did you do, roll in mud?”
Rune laughed. “You are far from clean, yourself, my mate,” he replied lightly. His eyes lifted, spotting Verity. “Ah, you were successful,” he commented, keeping one arm around Alatar as he stepped forward. “Hi, you must be Verity. I am Rune.”
They looked good together, she thought, contrasting in builds, hair colour, and personality but in a way that was obviously complementary from the love that shone on their faces.
“Hi,” she accepted the hand he held out to her and felt the press of callouses and the dry heat of his palm as his much larger hand all but swallowed hers in its clasp. His size, build and colouring reminded her of Dior, though Rune’s hair was more of a deeper red-brown, whereas Dior’s was almost blonde, and the thought of the lion gargoyle brought back that tight press between her breasts and she winced, rubbing with her hand.
“Are you okay?” Rune looked concerned.
“I am fine,” she assured him. “I just get sort of an ache whenever I think of my mates.”
“It will pass,” Alatar was brisk, trying to steer Rune inside. “She will be okay.”
“What mates? What do you mean it will pass?” Rune wondered, pulling back a little. “Where are her mates?”
“Let’s talk about it,” Alatar raised his eyebrows and jerked his head towards the building. “Whilst we wash up. Verity, why don’t you go join the queue for food? We will find you,” he said over his shoulder as he tugged his mate towards the door.
“What mates Al?” Rune repeated as they entered the building.
She heard Alatar’s voice as he replied, but not the words.
She turned towards the fire pit and the food queue and waited her turn before taking her food to where the shadows were darkest behind a nearby tree, and where the trunk would hide her from Alatar.
“And I thought lurking in shadows was a wolfish trait,” the man already in the shadows commented.
“Oh, I am sorry,” Verity hesitated.
“Don’t be sorry,” he flashed white teeth in a grin. “Come little witchy, there is enough room for two. I don’t mind sharing.”
She considered her options and shrugged, sitting cross legged on the ground near him and adjusting her position, glancing over her shoulder, so that she was hidden from sight.
“You really are keen to hide,” he commented eating with his fingers with quick, neat efficiency, without the use of any utensils. Another big man, she thought sliding him a look out of the corner of her eye. “Who are you hiding from?”
“My half-brother,” she answered keeping her voice low and quiet.
“Why?” He leaned forward out of the shadows to look around the trunk of the tree and the firelight picked up his dark blond hair pulled back into a messy ponytail at the nape of his neck and sparked off the almost metal-like sharp spikes of his stubble. “And who?” He wondered with curiosity.
“Who and why are you hiding?” She replied.
He chuckled, keeping his voice quiet. “Ah, well, you know,” he shrugged dismissively. “In every pack there is always a lone wolf. I am this pack’s maverick. There is,” he dropped his voice down even lower so that he had to lean towards her to ensure that she heard. “An alpha female who has decided she would like to tame me, but I am untameable.”
“Alatar,” she murmured it as a confession exchanged for a confession. “Is my brother. And because he is up to something, and I don’t know what it is.”
“Mmm,” he leaned back into the shadows, all but disappearing to her sight. “He wants to trade you.”
“Trade me,” she repeated, her mouth falling open. “What for?”
“Loan you, might be a better term,” the lone wolf pursed his lips as he considered. “Can you loan on a trade? I don’t know. There is another pack that we work with, and they have a food processing factory which they have got operational. Turns all the fresh veggies into canned,” he shrugged. “Better for the long-term plan. They want a healer. Our pack has two, but both are mated into the pack, they are not going anywhere. You, on the other hand,” he raised his eyebrows.
“Alatar wants to trade me in exchange for the use of a factory?” She blinked and then stiffened as she heard her brother’s voice near the fire.
She cautiously peered around the trunk of the tree and could see Alatar and Rune looking around in search of her. She pressed herself back, tighter to the trunk, feeling the bark bite her back through the thin top she wore.
“It is a good deal all around, from what I hear,” the lone wolf replied following her gaze to Alatar and Rune before sliding back into the shadows himself. “You need the safety a pack can provide, they want someone with your skills, and they have plenty,” he grinned lasciviously. “Of single wolves looking for a mate, and this pack needs the use of the factory. Everyone is happy, nice and tidy.”
“I am not,” she protested. “I am not happy.” It was bullshit, she thought, that Alatar had opened a portal in order to help her, he had an ulterior motive all along. He was just a bad, she thought, as their father, if it were true, and she rather thought it was.
“Why?” The wolf was genuinely intrigued. “Don’t like werewolves?”
“I have mates already,” she rubbed her sternum, the pain there sharpening like heartburn. “I need to get back to them.”
“Well, that is a problem,” he agreed amiably. “I bet that has caused some consternation amongst the alpha ranks today.”
“Mmm,” she said noncommittally. “Alatar has been pushing for me to abandon my mates.”
“Ouch,” he murmured. “They really want this trade for him to suggest that – it is pretty much blasphemy for a wolf to abandon his or her mate.”
“What is the long-term plan?” She asked him. He seemed very well informed, if somewhat derisive of the plans.
“To make this permanent,” he gestured with his hand indicating the farm. “Apparently they are not anticipating the end of the winged hellion invasion and are planning for this to be a way of life.”
Obviously, Ashlynn had shared the details of the culling games with her parents, even if Elior was not sharing the knowledge on a wider basis.
“The winged people call it the games,” she told the lone wolf. “The cull. They open portals into other realms and those of their people who can’t afford the fines must enter and fight what is within and find the exit portal. They do these games every year. Eventually they will stop coming, when they move the games to another realm, but only until they begin them again.”
“So, it is permanent,” he seemed disgruntled by that.
“In a way,” she agreed. “I guess.”
“So, what are you going to do witchy?” He asked her. “I have never heard of someone abandoning their mate, is it even possible?”
“Alatar seems to think so, because we are only recently mated.”
“You haven’t been turned.” He nodded. “I’ve heard of mate claims where, for one reason of another, the wolf didn’t turn the human, and the mate bond atrophied eventually. Maybe that is what he is hoping. Seems a pretty miserable thing to wish on another, to me, though.”
“I don’t think gargoyles turn their mates,” she replied. “So, I don’t know what he is thinking, really.”
He snorted his laughter. “Oh, f-k,” he muttered. “F-k only knows what gargoyles do to bind their mates. Weird creatures. So, what are you going to do, witchy?” He leaned forward again, the firelight catching in the blue-grey of his eyes. “You going to let your brother trade you and hope that the mate claim fades away?”
“Why would I tell you?” She replied cautiously.
His grin was crooked and wicked. “I find farm-life not to my taste,” he told her. “It seems we might be able to help each other. I can get you back to the city, back to your gargoyle mates.”
“And what can I do for you?” She wondered.
He chuckled and shifted, sliding one leg out into the firelight so that it caught on the dull metal that cuffed his ankle. “Be a dear and fetch me the keys.”