Page 6 of Craved By a Wolf

MacKinnon barely leashed the urge to wrench free of her grip and lash out at her in response to her using magic so close to him. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth so hard he felt sure they would crumble under the pressure, and told himself that she wasn’t a threat.

She was a friend.

It didn’t stop the darkness that teased the edges of his mind, vile thorny tendrils that sensed the weakness in him and saw an opportunity to strike. This darkness wasn’t one born of recent experiences but of those deep in his past, and it wasn’t welcome. He focused his thoughts, blocking the memories that tried to come, pushing them back down into the shadowy box where they belonged, and won his fight against them just as Abigail’s hand slipped from his arm.

“Better?” She went to the counter, picked up a metal bottle and sipped from it.

It looked like a water bottle—the sort humans used when exercising. He had seen a few mortals running in the streets topside with such canteens. He focused on it and the witch, narrowing the world down to her and his current predicament, using them to banish his memories.

As those memories lost their grip on him, his wolf side lunged back to the fore, snarling and pushing him to shift in order to face the current threat.

The current non-existent threat.

He wasn’t in danger. Not anymore. He told himself that on repeat, but it didn’t calm his wolf side.

Abigail hopped up onto the counter, between a display stand filled with gift cards and the cash register, and crossed her legs. Unlike the witch who had cursed him, she was one of the types who preferred to wear a more fashionable style of black dress. It ended at her knees, flashing violet stockings and ankle high pointed black leather boots.

“Come closer.” She waved him towards her. When he didn’t move, she rolled her eyes. “Wolf giving you hell?”

Was it ever? He clenched his fists, curling his fingers and digging his claws into his palms. His instincts could sense the magic in her and it had his wolf side on the defensive, wanting to keep his distance. He sucked down a breath, making his throat burn, and told himself that she wasn’t a danger to him. Abigail was a sweet lass and had always been nice to him and his pack.

His wolf growled anyway.

MacKinnon huffed and pulled down another breath, stared at Abigail and forced himself to move towards her, because she couldn’t help him unless he trusted her. Trust wasn’t easy to come by for him, but Abigail had earned it.

She set her bottle down beside her hip and held both hands out in front of her. Her eyes slipped shut as she murmured something beneath her breath and the air vibrated around him. His wolf side battered the cage of his mortal body, growling and snarling, but he breathed slowly and evenly, doing his damnedest to calm himself, aware that if he didn’t, he would shift. Shifting right now would be dangerous. His human mind—the logical side of him—would be subdued by his animal instincts. He would end up lashing out at every perceivable threat.

Which meant every witch in the town, including Abigail.

“There is a spell on you. I can’t tell what it is though, and I really can’t help you break it if that’s what you want. I’m not that good at this sort of thing.” Abigail’s voice held a note of apology, or possibly regret. Her eyes opened and lifted to lock with his as her pale eyebrows furrowed. “Any info you can give me might help me figure out what this spell is and I could find a witch who has the right skill set in order to undo it.”

“A curse,” he spat and paced away from her, unable to keep still as the anger that had been drifting to the back of his mind surged to the fore again, stoking the embers in his veins back into an inferno. “I’m to find my fated one and betray her by bringing her to this witch. Redhead. Nasty. Dark eyes. Wee little thing like you.”

“Everyone isweecompared with you.” Abigail shrugged. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Why does she want you to betray this other witch?”

He shrugged now, hefting his shoulders as he pivoted and growled. “I don’t know. The witch did something. Is it… is it possible she might not be my true mate?”

He hadn’t realised how badly he needed to know the answer to that question until it burst from his lips. His gaze collided with Abigail’s again as his entire body tensed, every inch of him going rigid as he awaited her answer.

She sipped her water and then pursed her lips. “It is possible. A spell can make you believe anything.”

“Fuckin’ knew it.” He snarled and twisted, stalked away from her to the other end of the shop, which took all of three strides, and barely leashed the urge to lash out at the bottles and boxes stacked on a cabinet there. Abigail would make him pay for any damages and the price tags on some of the items was enough to put him off unleashing his rage on them. He settled for growling instead. “She’s playing me.”

“Or not,” Abigail put in. “It is entirely possible this witch you’re meant to betray is your fated one.”

He huffed at that. “No way. How could a witch know who my mate is?”

“A spell, maybe? Imagine the money you could make off it!” Her eyes lit up, as if she was already counting the cash in her head, and then she sobered. “But it would be one hell of a spell. Something like that… it would cost a witch a lot. I’m not talking coin either. Dark magic… I’ve read books… Heard rumours like any other light witch. Some dark spells want blood.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” he muttered.

“I’m talking blood like shaving years off your life blood. Dark magic likes a sacrifice. It craves power and it gets it from leeching the life from the witch casting it. I even heard a rumour once that a spell killed a dark witch the second she cast it.” Her tone was matter of fact, but there was a wariness in her eyes, as if just talking about such things was forbidden and liable to get her into trouble. Light witches tended to avoid anything to do with their darker counterparts and Kin was beginning to see why.

“Why would a witch be willing to put herself through that just to settle a feud?” MacKinnon frowned at her as he tried to think of a good enough reason for a witch to want to risk death in order to have revenge upon someone.

“Who knows?” She gave him a look that said they would have to be crazy.

“But a spell could find my mate? This could be real?” He tried to keep the desperate need to know the answer to that question out of his voice and failed, sounded far too eager as he stared at Abigail.

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