Page 36 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

If only I could change into a fish, I thought. As quick as the thought flitted through my brain I felt myself contracting. My legs and arms hewed to my sides, my skin flaked into scales. I took a breath and drew in oxygen rich water. I was slipping free of Lorelei’s grasp…

But I’d forgotten what undines lived on. Before I could get away, sharp claws pierced my gills. She’d skewered me like a shrimp on a spit and now she was lifting me into her gaping, needle-toothed mouth. I thrashed to get out of her grip, but her claws only sank deeper into my skin. Her eyes glowed with malice and delight as she squeezed…but then they widened with surprise. Something jarred her. I felt the reverberation in my gut. I looked up and saw the shadows of branches spreading over her head—then another jolt. Lorelei screamed and turned to face her attacker, flinging me aside in panic. I hit something hard and dry. I was on land, gasping to breathe like a fish out of water…No, that wasn’t the image I needed.Like a drowning person dragged ashore. I picturedmyself—my own human body—and then I was retching up water, my limbs bruised and battered but once more my own. I was on a large flat rock that hung over the stream. Duncan, still in his deer form, stood a few feet from me, his head lowered to ward off Lorelei with his antlers. Her hair was wild and matted, her green eyes flashing, her lips curled over her sharp teeth in an angry snarl. Blood ran down her pearl-slick skin, pooling in crimson swirls around her slim legs. When I sat up, her eyes snapped from Duncan to me.

“I see you didn’t waste time finding another male to protect you, Doorkeeper. Is that why you don’t want the undines free to come to this world—because you want all the men to yourself?”

“I’m trying to keep the door open!” I cried.

Lorelei laughed. “By running naked in the woods?”

I looked down at myself and saw with horror that she was right: Iwasnaked.

“And copulating with that handsome buck?” She gave Duncan an appreciative look.

“I was not…” But before I could finish she raised her arms and summoned a thunderclap that drowned out what I was going to say. The boom was followed by a torrent of rain that came down like a curtain on the last act of a bloody and tragic opera. Lorelei dove into the water and disappeared in the current. Duncan lifted his head and turned, becoming a man again. A rather nicely built man, I noticed as he waded through the water toward me. That linen suit had been hiding a muscular chest and strong arms.

“You’re hurt,” he said, laying his hands on my ribcage. “Lie back and I’ll work a binding spell to heal your skin.”

“What if she comes back?” I asked as I lay down on the rock, mortified that we were both naked. I hadn’t minded running through the fields with Duncan Laird or nuzzling himin deer form, but I was now all too aware that we’d met only hours ago.

“She won’t come back,” he said. “She’s hurt, too. I speared her with my antlers.” His lips twitched into a smile at his prowess, but his eyes stayed on the wounds on my ribcage as he moved his hands over them. He was making a motion with his right hand that resembled sewing. Great, I thought. My spine had been knitted and now my ribs were being sewn up with invisible thread. I’d be a Raggedy Ann doll before long. I felt a tug on my skin and looked away, back to his face.

“She was going to kill me,” I said, trying to focus on Duncan’s face instead of what his hands were doing. It was a nice face. Without the distraction of his messy hair—plastered now to his skull—I could admire his high forehead and the angular line of his cheekbones. “Even though I told her that I was trying to keep the door open.”

“You can’t expect rational thinking from an undine, especially one in heat—and believe me, that onewas. You said you wouldn’t let her come through the door when you met her in Faerie. That was enough for her to decide you’re trying to keep her from breeding. No matter how much you may actually be trying to help the undines, she sees you as an obstacle to her breeding…Hold on, this is going to pinch a little…” Duncan made one last tug that hurt like hell, then he laid both his hands on top of the wounds, closed his eyes, and uttered a few words in a language I didn’t recognize. I felt a warming sensation and my skin went agreeably numb. Opening his eyes, Duncan looked straight into mine. Against the backdrop of gray rain clouds, they were a fiery gold that smoldered with the same warmth I felt in his hands. Which still lay on my bare skin.

“Are you…um…still healing me?” I asked awkwardly.

He shook his head. “I’m trying to feel if your power has been unblocked. It feels different, but stilltangled. Perhaps another transformation would work better. Another shape might be more liberating. We have to try something else. Now it’s more important than ever that you gain control of your power.”

“Why?” I asked.

“To protect yourself. As long as Lorelei believes that you’re in the way of her breeding cycle, she’ll try to kill you.”

Duncan walked me back to my house, supporting me with his arm around my waist. He’d conjured clothes for both of us, but they were soon so wet they didn’t do much good keeping us warm.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said, after we’d been walking through the rain in silence for several minutes.

“Hm…just one thing?” he asked.

I laughed. “No, actually there aremanythings, but one uppermost. Aelvesgold comes from Faerie, right?”

“Yes. Creatures from Faerie bring it with them when they come into this world.”

“Right, and witches use it to make magic…”

“Yes,” he said, holding back a sodden branch for me.

The path was narrow here. I was conscious of my wet clothes brushing against him as I passed and glad it was too dark for him to see clearly how my clothes clung to me. Which was pretty ridiculous considering that he’d seen me naked not half an hour ago. “But Liz said the circle had a limited amount of it, and yet tonight I saw it all around me,” I said, trying to keep my mind on the Aelvesgold.

“Yes, that’s because after you handled the Aelvestone youwere filled with the stuff and drew even more of it to you. Think of the Aelvesgold as having a magnetic charge—the more you have inside you, the more you draw it to you.”

“Huh. Okay, so couldn’t there conceivably be enough Aelvesgold in this world to supply all the witches and fairies even if the door closes?”

Duncan shook his head. “Without replenishment from Faerie, it would run out rather soon. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless there was a creature who produced its own Aelvesgold even outside Faerie.”

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