Page 45 of Wolf Bonded (Rejected Moons 2)

She nods hesitantly.

I grab her clothes and hand them to her. “Get dressed,” I say. “Let’s get inside before it starts to pour.”

26

NATE

“Wedon’treallyneeda guard dog for this,” Wilder says.

I show him my teeth. I’m the only one he ever callsguard dog.He doesn’t say that to Milo or to Emlyn, even when they’re literally on guard duty in their wolf forms. He’s just trying to rile me up.

Gonna have to try harder than that!

I know they don’t need a guard. Wilder takes Milo and Emlyn out scavenging all the time. They can all handle themselves. I’m not actually here as a protector. I’m here because I know today’s going to be interesting, and I’m sick of missing out on shit just because I’m the one member of this little group who can’t do magic.

That doesn’t really bother me. I’ve got my wolf, and that’s what’s most important as far as I’m concerned. But the three of them have been chattering about how good Em is at elemental magic, and I know I missed something there.

I’m not going to miss the chance to see them fight.

“Okay,” Wilder says. “Combat magic. I’ve seen both of you do some things defensively. But you’re both kind of inconsistent. And Emlyn, you were able to use magic to keep the members of your pack from shifting the last time you faced them. But that was more healing than actual combat. You just put it to unconventional use.”

“So, how do real warriors use magic in combat?” Emlyn asks. “There’s more to it than just defense?”

“Of course,” Wilder grins.

“Are you talking about what the Moon Drinkers do?” Milo said. “When we came face to face with them, they used some power that froze us where we stood. They took away our ability to fight.”

“No,” Wilder says. “That’s blood magic. Robbing someone else of their will like that—that’s different from just putting up a shield. There’s no way they could have done something that powerful without spilling some blood about it.”

“What can we do?” I ask.

“Well, the point of combat magic is to do ranged damage,” Wilder says. “Damage over a distance. If you were going to fight close up, you could just shift, and you’d probably have the upper hand because teeth and claws and wolf muscles are faster than any spell. Moon Casters know that. That’s why they’ll never let a shifter get close if they can help it, which is why you need to know how to fight from far away.”

He grabs a rock, tosses it in the air, and flings his palm out toward it. The rock hurtles through the air so quickly I actually lose sight of it until it smashes into a tree trunk with a sound like something breaking.

I run over to the trunk and jump up, bracing my feet on the bark, examining the place where the rock struck.

It’sembeddedin the wood.

Yeah, you could fucking kill someone with magic like that.

Milo is staring. “The ball game I saw back at the coven,” he says. “This is the same thing, isn’t it?”

“You saw some people playing catch?” Wilder guesses.

“Sort of. Not catch exactly. More like…magic volleyball.”

“Yeah, we just call it catch, even though there’s no physical catching,” Wilder says. “And we do use that game to train kids in combat magic before they’re ready for actual battle scenarios. A lot of people do it for fun, or just as an exercise, like boxing, even once they’ve progressed to more advanced combat.”

“Damn.”

“So that’s what I’m going to have you and Emlyn try today,” Wilder says.

Hang on. He’s going to have them hurl rocks at each other? I’m not on board with that. I hurry over and position myself in between Emlyn and Milo.

Em laughs. “Take it easy, Nate,” she says fondly, reaching over to ruffle my fur. “He won’t let us get hurt.”

I mean, probably not, but still, the whole endeavor seems pretty crazy to me. And this is Wilder we’re talking about. The same guy who made live bait out of himself to lure in Ravagers just so I could blow off a little steam. He’s not exactly known for caution.

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