Page 38 of Resurgence of the Pack

He may be in Common, but you’re not.

But his wolf is wherever you go when you’re not with me.

Esme snorted.You piped Roan from death. I think you can manage this.

She was right, I could. I looked up to meet Farrier’s eyes, which were watching me curiously and with no smallamount of jealousy. ‘You’re talking to your wolf now, aren’t you?’ he asked.

I nodded slowly. ‘She thinks I should use my magic on you to link you to your wolf, even while you’re in Common.’

His eyes went wide. ‘You could do that?’

‘I think so, though I’m not certain. And even with that link, I doubt very much you’d have magic enough to shift without going to a portal.’

He studied me. ‘You try your best to let me talk to my wolf,reallytalk to him, and I’ll tell you what I know about the Domini.’

Chapter 20

I pulled my magic up from my stomach and reached out first to Farrier. I looped him easily enough but his wolf wasn’t there to do the same to.

I closed my eyes and looked with my magic rather than my physical vision. Desperately I hummed ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ as I searched for the man’s wolf. There! There was a tendril, like a silver contrail left by an aeroplane.

I followed it, plunging away from my body as I reached out to the wolf. He wasn’t alone but with many others: the Great Pack. Mindful of the price if I spoke to the Great Pack, I silently looped my magic around him alone and gently tugged him back to Farrier. Since I wasn’t using the Great Pack’s magic to speak to them but my own piping skills, surely that meant that a wolf’s soul wouldn’t be forfeit?

Nervously I closed the loop around Farrier and the wolf, tying it off with my best girl-guide knots. I opened my eyes and swore a little as an itch started on my skin. I’d used too much magic. That wasn’t ideal; I had guests and now really wasn’t the time for an overnight stay at Rosie’s.

Farrier’s mouth was still hanging open but it snapped shut as tears suddenly filled his eyes. He closed them whilst he spoke to his wolf properly for the first time in his life.

I reached out a hand to Esme and gave her a full body cuddle. We were so lucky to have our relationship, to have been able to speak to each other from the beginning. I couldn’t imagine being reft from her, even after our recent disagreements. Poor Farrier. To be a werewolf yet to be stuck in Common forever without his wolf? I shuddered; it was the stuff of nightmares.

Finally, he opened his eyes and they were shining. ‘Thank you,’ he breathed. ‘This is the greatest gift you could ever have given me. If the Domini do find me, we’ll die happy.’

‘They won’t find you from me,’ I vowed.

‘You don’t know their strength,’ he warned. ‘They’ve existed for centuries, pulling strings from behind a curtain.’

‘Why not justseizepower?’ I asked. ‘Why let the Connection have the finalsay?’

He snorted. ‘The Connection can be steered in the direction the Domini want. This way the Domini have no responsibility, no one to answer to. If they came out in the open, their atrocities would spark outrage. People would rise up against them as they would against any dictatorship. Sometimes it takes years but eventually the regimes are toppled. This way, no one knows to topple the Domini. Far better to lurk in the shadows like the cowards they are.’

‘What’s their agenda?’ Greg asked.

Farrier shrugged. ‘Wealth, power. I suppose those things come hand in hand. They believe that they should have more of both, no matter how much they already have.’

I leaned forward. ‘So do you know the identity of any of them?’

He nodded slowly. ‘I suspect a few of them, but one I know for sure.’

‘How?’

‘He was the one who was sent to kill me,’ he said drily. ‘He left me for dead but a loner found me and saved my life. He stitched me up and dragged me to the witches, who sent me here to their little safe haven.’

‘The witches?’ I said, startled. ‘They run this place?’

‘Yeah, it was set up centuries ago but it really came into its own with the advent of the Connection. If you makea powerful enemy and death is on the cards, you can run away to the circus. You have to stay in the Common but you’re safe.’

‘Does Amber know about this place?’ I asked curiously.

He snorted. ‘Does sheknowabout it? She runs the whole thing!’

---