Page 190 of Warlords, Witches & Wolves

He gasped as he always did upon seeing her. She was doing that shifting thing she did—a Goddess to so many races, she had the face of many. As she walked towards him, her skin shifted from palest white to olive to amber to darkest black and back again. Her eyes did the same, shifting across all the colours of the spectrum and filled with what looked like a galaxy of stars swirling at their centre rather than pupils. Her hair changed colours too—palest silver to golden blonde to red then darkening to auburn, brown and finally black. Always long and curling and twisting in the breeze that wove eternally around her, it writhed around shoulders bared by the halter-neck of the dress she wore—a dress that flowed down a form that made his gut twist uncomfortably and his skin prickle with awareness of just how fucking beautiful and desirable she was. She was the Goddess of Fecundity in one of her guises so had this effect on all, but she usually toned her sexuality down when she appeared to him.

She’d first come to him when he was a young boy, had held him to her bosom and stroked his hair, holding him like he wished his mother had held him and his aunt rarely did.

His aunt said it was to make him strong. He snorted. She’d failed there.

As the Goddess sauntered towards him, over the wet sand, water frothing at her feet, her cherry red lips twisted at the corner in a knowing smile, a deep dimple flashed in the groove of her cheek before it flashed to another visage and another then another.

His stomach flipped and swirled at the disconcertingly alien effect. ‘Can you stop doing that?’ he asked, waving at her ever-changing faces. He swallowed hard, hoping that he could stop himself from vomiting all over her beautifully manicured feet. Crazy visions, screaming in front of his friends uncontrollably before running away only to vomit all over the Goddess’s feet. He was having a great day.

‘Sorry,’ she said, her expression showing her chagrin. ‘I forget sometimes that it does that. Is this better?’ Her features settled into the one that he’d become most familiar with—the Celtic Goddess of palest skin and fire-red hair, a bow strung over her back, her dress now the animal skins of an ancient huntress. Her eyes still shifted through a spectrum of colours, but he’d learned to deal with that oddity.

He nodded. ‘Thanks.’ The huntress was the easiest of her faces for him to be around—sensual with a frightening kind of fierceness that somehow made him feel protected. He relaxed a little. ‘Thank you for answering me today.’

‘I felt your need was great.’ She nodded and took a seat beside him. She had never let him follow the formalities in this place—her anger a great and terrible thing if he tried to stand or hang his head in her presence. This place was for them both to relax and be themselves. At least that’s what she’d told him when she’d first brought him here. He was not even allowed to call her Goddess here.

Here, she was Arianrhod and he was Paul and they were friends.

A strange kind of friendship, unequal in every respect from an outsider’s point of view, but equal enough for them.

‘Tell me what is troubling you, my young friend.’

He moved to hug his knees, staring out at the horizon, the crash of the waves a reflection of the troubles in his mind. He did not answer right away—he’d learned long ago trite answers were not appreciated. She told him this place was to help him sort through the worries in his mind and soul, but it would not work if he did not respect the process. After a long moment of staring, he rubbed his hand over his tired eyes. ‘I am so sick of being alone.’

‘You are never alone, my friend. There are many who are always around you.’

‘I know. I’m always surrounded. Never left alone.’

‘So, what is it you want? To be alone or not alone?’

He turned to look at her, her fine profile reflecting thoughts that were as equally troubled as his. ‘I want to be wanted for me. Not because I have power. Not because my gift gives my pack an advantage. Not because of a status I was born into and didn’t earn. I wish not to feel so weak all the time.’

She turned her gaze on him. His skin prickled in the face of the power that radiated off her at all times, but it was more intense when she looked at him with those all-seeing eyes. ‘You are unhappy with your life.’

‘Yes. How did you guess?’

Thankfully she didn’t take offence at his sarcasm, just stared at him for an unnervingly long time, then asked, ‘Why?’

He faced her, holding her gaze even as the extent of her powers punched into him. ‘Because I didn’t choose this. It happened to me. And there’s nothing I can do about it.’ He pointed to the waves. ‘I might as well be a bit of flotsam on those waves, tossed and turned about, never having any say over where I’m going or even if I should sink or float. How can I live a lifetime of this?’ He dug his fingers into the sand at his side, thumping his chin—a little painfully—onto his upraised knees. ‘My mother was weak too, but at least she got to run away from it all.’

‘You are not like your mother, Paul. And you cannot run away like she did.’

‘And why is that exactly? Why could she live without the link and I cannot? There’s something about that that just doesn’t add up.’

She sighed. ‘You know perfectly well, why.’

‘I know what I’ve been told.’

‘What you’ve been told is true. Your mother could live apart because she was never strong enough to connect to the pack. Her powers were never in danger of hurting her or others or exposing you all and therefore she did not need the pack bond to channel her powers into and survive. You, on the other hand, my seer-friend, are a different kettle of sea-dwellers.’

‘Fish.’

‘What?’

‘‘Different kettle of fish’ is the saying.’ It was kind of satisfying how she got things like that wrong every now and then.

‘Different kettle of fish. Yes.’ She smiled and patted her knee. ‘Different kettle of fish.’ She faced him again with an abruptness that was startling, her smile fading. ‘Your power can never do without the bond. You need it to survive. Your power would build and build until you lost control if you were unable to channel the excess power to the Were. Your power is even greater than your aunt’s—greater than any witch or warlock seen in any pack for many hundreds of years.’

He snorted. ‘I find that hard to believe. I am not strong. I am weak.’

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