Page 123 of A Wolf in the Garden

I do, a shiver running down my spine at the thought. The well of magic I can sense within me runs a little deeper, and I haven’t hit the bottom yet. There’s not too much more, but I can take from Van’s innate magic too, and I have a feeling that his magic reserves are even deeper than either of us have realised… “Do…” I sigh, torn between needing answers and not wanting to feel stupid.

“Ask anything. I’m only here until tomorrow, so now is your time to ask questions.”

“Do you think I could turn into a deer?” I already know part of what I do is considered shapeshifting — the antlers are a variation of what Van calls my base form, and when I have sex with him under the full moon, I’m shapeshifting there too, my body doing what it needs to intuitively to allow for me to accommodate my much larger partner. I just don’t know how far the ability goes… or maybe I do.

“Do you think you can?” Lylia asks, making me sigh. I hate being put on the spot like this. I feel like I’ve been the centre of everyone’s attention far too much in the past week.

“I think…yes,” I admit. “But I’m not ready to yet. Maybe I won’t ever try. I don’t feel like I need to. I don’t see what the purpose of it is.”

“The purpose of it is to deceive. A way to fool others from a distance, or to befuddle them by catching them off guard.‘What is a deer doing here?!’That sort of thing.”

“That tracks,” Van interjects, gesturing to me. “That’s what happened to her both times she saw a fae deer. Right?”

“Right,” I nod. “Yeah, both times I was very confused, and it definitely slowed me down a bit, in terms of trying to escape.”

“Mmhm. So you’re right, in terms of you not needing to. But I think you can, and you may want to,” Lylia shrugs. “Just for fun.”

“But what if I get stuck like that?” That’s the thought that keeps bothering me, that if I push my magic too far, I might get trapped in the wrong form.

“That’s not going to happen.” Van’s voice is clear and decisive, and I turn to him. “If you ever shift, I will coach you through it. You know that’s a common fear pretty much every shifter has, right? Usually the alpha’s role in those situations is to talk you through your first shift. But the key thing to know is that you will always return to your base form — that’s the form your body naturally wants to be in the most.”

“I didn’t know that about alphas.”

“Yeah, well, you already know my case is a different one. Dad couldn’t do that job for me, when it came to my first shift. The pack’s second stepped in instead.”

We stare out at the garden in silence, all three of us laughing when Phoebe suddenly runs past, clucking madly. “Crazy chicken,” Van mutters under his breath.

“You know they’re coming to live with us at Lost Moon, right?”

“They’re going to live in the main garden, right at the back. You can design them a little barnyard area, and Kaito can build it. I don’t want to hear clucking before dawn.”

“That just puts them closer to Lacey’s house.”

Van shrugs. “She can deal with it. Collecting the eggs can be a job for the boys, it’ll be good for them.”

I grin, because I can picture showing the boys how to care for the chickens and collect their eggs. I wouldn’t trust them to do it unsupervised, but with an adult hanging around they’d probably love it.

Thinking of Lacey’s kids reminds me of the other thing that I need to ask, and the all too familiar pang of anxiety runs through me at the thought of one more thing that might go wrong in the future. “Children,” I say to Lylia, feeling hyper-aware of Van’s presence beside me and the weight of his eyes on my face right now. “I’m not planning on having any children right now, but down the line… are they going to be safe? How does that work? Does my ward protect them?”

Lylia’s gaze darts between us. “When you find yourself pregnant, reach out to me again. Any child within you will be protected, but once they’re born, it’s safest if they have their own protection placed on them. And it’s really quite simple.”

“You’re not going to make me dunk a newborn in the ocean in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

Lylia throws her head back with a throaty laugh, the most relaxed I’ve seen her yet. “Goddess, no! No, not at all. I’ll be quite happy to visit you, wherever you have this hypothetical baby.”

“Okay, good.”

“I think you’re ready, Ellie. You have both Nerilina and your very capable mother-in-law to guide you in a lot of your practice, but the reality is that you learn your magic in time, as you use it. That’s how it works. I can give you the roadmap, but you’re still in the driver’s seat.”

“I figured as much.”

Lylia’s lips curl in a warm smile. “Then my work here is done — for now.”

* * *

“It’s a fitting sendoff,” Lylia comments, hands spreading wide to gesture at the thick layer of mist surrounding the small crowd gathered to say goodbye. She nods at Van and I specifically. “I can’t blame you for being worried this morning; you don’t often see it this dense.” The fog rolled in off the ocean not long after sunrise; Van and I watched its approach from the deck where we were eating breakfast, the cloud looking ominous as it neared. Both of us had been worried that it might have been something fae-related, and had gone as far as to contact Bronte, and then Nerilina — where Lylia also happened to be staying. Reassurances from all three witches had calmed our nerves slightly, and as the fog had enveloped the vineyard without any accompanying incidents, intense relief had bounced between us through the bond.

“Thank you for helping me,” I say to Lylia, tipping my head back slightly to look her in the eye. “I can’t even begin to express how appreciative I am.” I take a deep breath, looking out into the white nothingness, blinking rapidly. I’ve been so bloody emotional lately, and even though I know it’s justified, I still get frustrated that tears are always sitting so close to the surface at any given moment.

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