But Jake caught them, pouring his strength into the web her fragile powers had spun. Behind him were the others, the pack a solid wall of energy waiting to be tapped. Cautiously, Selina drew in that strength, filling her magic with the cool, silver energy of the wolves.
She opened her eyes to find her face buried in the wild grey ruff of Steve’s neck. She pulled back, gasping as she saw the great yellow eyes, his long snout, and the strong limbs. A perfect, magnificent beast.
Steve nuzzled her cheek, the cold, wet shock of it snapping her fully awake. He rose, bumping her playfully, the rough brush of his tail slapping her arm. Then he took off with a bound, racing to greet the members of his new pack.
Tears blurred her eyes. She blinked them back, fighting a sudden, painful lump in her throat. She’d never been able to save a life before. She’d never been able to make that kind of magic. Now there’s a way to help the first-timers!
With a blink of surprise, she realized Jake’s gorgeous suit was on the ground, paw prints squashing the supple fabric into the grass. Jake himself, a huge, brown wolf, was sprawled before her.
“The magic pulled you over, too?” she asked.
He shimmered, and suddenly there was a naked man on the grass, his chin propped on one hand. Selina couldn’t stop her gaze from roaming over all that muscled flesh. She was in a mood for celebration, with Jake as the party favour.
He gave a lazy smile. “So, was that good for you?”
Selina fell on to her side, bringing her face close to Jake’s. Her hair was in shambles, her dress a ruin, but she felt magnificent. “I’ve never been strong enough to do magic like that before. I don’t think anyone’s ever blended wolf and fey power before. This is entirely new.”
He kissed her, digging his fingers into the tangled curls of her hair. “You’re magnificent.”
“I had a lot of help. I needed the power of the wolves.”
Jake gave her a serious look. “Everyone needs help, but don’t sell yourself short. Your human side is a brilliant businesswoman. Your fey side is a brilliant healer. I honour both sides of you. If a little wolf gets thrown into the mix well, hell, that’s so much the better for me.”
Selina thought naked and serious was a good look on him. “I can’t turn my back on what I am anymore. I can’t deny that I’m part of the supernatural world. Not after Gary, and not after you. Especially not after tonight. What we did together was amazing. Important.”
“So you’re ready to be fey again?”
“Half-fey — but I still want my own gallery. No one has opened one with exclusively non-human artists.” She rolled on to her back, the grass cold and damp beneath her. “There are plenty who need representation. You should see some of the vampire portraits. Dark, but so gorgeous. The art world will eat it up with a spoon.”
They were silent for a moment. Selina watched rags of cloud drift across the full moon. Jake’s breath brushed her cheek, warm and familiar.
“You up for a werewolf partner?”
She grinned. “Who do you think is going to help me hang my first show?”
“Gary?”
She swatted at Jake, but he caught her around the middle and flipped her on top of him. The strength in his long, sculpted limbs made her shiver. His eyes were playful, but wild as the distant howls of his kin.
He slid his hand up her thigh, under the flowing fabric of her skirt.
“What are you doing?” She whispered it because the night was too dense, too charged for talking out loud.
“Thinking up new kinds of magic.”
Lara Adrian
NightDrake
People are strange.
A twentieth-century philosopher once said that, or so I’ve been told. As I drove my rig through the rain and sludge towards the docks in Port Phoenix, I couldn’t help thinking how apt the observation was. Especially now, some 300 years after Earth hiccupped on its axis in 2066 and brought about all manner of changes to the world mankind once knew.
The waters rose in many places; vanished in others. Landmasses shifted, ripped apart by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, or drowned by mudslides several storeys deep. Once-great cities toppled, technology and infrastructure were swept away overnight.
Kingdoms and governments, corporations and institutions were all rendered impotent with the sudden, irreparable, global financial crash. Survivors of the planet’s changes — a population estimated to be only in the tens of millions — fled across borders that no longer existed to rebuild their lives and form new communities.
And, after some long millennia of hiding, living in the safety of the shadows, a small number of other survivors came out of the dust and rubble of this altered new world.
They are the Strange.
Shapeshifters and telepaths, nymphs and hobgoblins.
Goddamned freaks of nature, I thought to myself as I rolled to a stop at the dockyard entrance and glanced through the box-truck’s window at a pair of grey-skinned gargoyles squatting atop the tall pillars of the gate. I stared for a long moment, if only to let them know that I had no fear of them. The disdain between the Strange and me is well-known, and definitely mutual. As I rolled down the glass, one of the hideous creatures perched overhead sneered down at me through the dark and drizzle of the cold summer night.
“Nisha the Merc,” he hissed, obviously recognizing me while I reached out and pulled the rope on a copper bell, then waited for the guard on duty to come over and let me inside. Above me, the beast crouched lower, dropping his voice to a gravelly whisper. “Nisha, the cold-hearted bitch.”
Amused, the other gargoyle chuckled quietly and shifted on his taloned feet, rattling the heavy iron manacles that ensured he and his companion remained at their posts. Even if they weren’t shackled in place, these two Strange beasts couldn’t touch me and they knew it. Harming a human was punishable by death.
But they could hate me.
They could despise that I made my living as a mercenary, although I’ve always preferred to think of myself as a facilitator. Generally speaking — and for the right price — I was a problem-solver. When something needed to get done quickly and quietly, no questions asked, folks with the money and the means usually turned to me to make it happen.
Tonight’s job was no different. I had been hired to pick up and transport a cargo shipment for someone who preferred to keep his business at the seedy Port Phoenix dockyard confidential. Not that any of the lowlife humans working the yard, or the even lowlier Strange enslaved there as labourers, would give a damn what was coming or going from the supply freighters that arrived from all parts of the globe.
Still, my client had his reasons, I supposed, and that was good enough for me. I didn’t need to know who he was or what I was moving. All that mattered was the two rough-cut diamonds currently tucked into the fur lining of my boot and the three that would be given to me after I’d delivered tonight’s cargo to its destination.
The big human guard humped out of his shack near the gate, a long black rifle slung across his body from a wide leather shoulder strap. I leaned out and he peered at me through the rusted iron bars, recognition lifting the heavy brow visoring small, avid eyes that made my skin crawl. “Back so soon, eh, Nisha?” He grunted, leering now. “You sure are a woman in high demand these days. Not that I’m complaining about that, of course.”
I gave him a smile that a smarter man might have recognized as loathing. “What can I say? Business is booming.”
He grinned as he unlocked the gate and let me drive through. “Which slip is it tonight?”
“Three-East,” I said through the open window, the designation indicating the docks where cargo from New Asia arrived. When the guard hopped up on to the truck’s running board alongside me, I gave him a flat look. “I know the way.”