A Twitch of Tail (6 page)

“Well, a few hundred years ago, it wasn’t exactly kosher to be Wiccan.  Having supernatural powers meant the human population thought you danced with the devil, even though that’s far from the truth.  Many Wiccans turned away from their powers out of fear of execution, and they forbade their future children from using those powers.  After a few generations, the powers were muted entirely.  Without using their powers, the future generations didn’t retain their long lives, and now unnatural Wiccans remain mortal even if they are able to tap into the power of their ancestry.”

“Are there male Wiccans?  I thought boy witches were called wizards?” Melo asked.

“Common misconception.  Male Wiccans do exist.  I’ve only met a few.  My father is a Wiccan.  Wizards use dark magic and are definitely not to be confused with Wiccans.”

“Where is your dad?”  Melo reached over and took her hand.

“He and my mother joined together to have a child — me — but he had no interest in being in a relationship with her.  Once I was born, my father set up a trust fund to pay for my education and care and left.  He never wanted to be in contact with me.  According to my mother, he just wanted to ‘do his part’ to keep the Wiccan line of both his and my mother’s family going.”

“Sorry, kitta,” Tahlon said with a low voice.

“Don’t be sorry.  I’m not.  I can’t miss something I never had.”

“Are you close with your mom?” Melo asked.

She frowned in thought.  “We never really were close, and now we don’t speak at all.”

“What happened?” Melo encouraged.

Tera hadn’t planned to air all the dirty laundry of her family life to them now, but she believed in honesty, so she started talking.  “When I was little, my mother told me that a good Wiccan studied hard and was obedient to the coven.  She was very aloof and cold, and I wanted so badly to please her that I tried to do everything she said and adhered to the strict laws of the coven.  But I always had a soft spot for other supernatural creatures, especially those who couldn’t help themselves.  When I worked at an orphanage for weres, my mother tolerated it for a while, but eventually she told me I had to quit or the coven would punish me.”

“Punish you for helping people?” Tahlon asked.

Her lips pressed into a hard line for a moment before she answered, “Her coven doesn’t consider were-animals people.  I refused to quit.  It was the first time I really went against the coven.  So they cast a binding spell on me, muting my powers in an attempt to force me to quit.  I didn’t want to, but after a year without being able to commune with my power and the coven, I felt so out of touch with my power that I quit and returned to the coven.  I don’t think that I ever really realized how cold my mother was until she bound me like that.  She basically made me human.  I towed the line for a few more years, but my heart wasn’t with the coven anymore.  Then they started to question my other choices:  where I lived, who I dated, what I did in my free time.  It was stifling.  I started looking for another coven to join and found Lorene’s.”

“Does your mother know where you are?” Melo asked.

“Yeah, but I haven’t spoken to her since I left the coven.  I tried to contact her a few times, but she was never available.  And she could easily find me by casting a location spell.  I have a feeling I’ll never see her again,” she sighed.

Melo lifted her hand and kissed the top.  “I’m sorry you had a hard time of things with your mother and the coven, but I’ll never be sorry you came here, sweetheart.”

“I’m not sorry either, Mel,” she promised.

Melo stopped the car at the base of the bluffs and turned to her.  “I need to tell you something I probably should have mentioned yesterday.”

Worry skated through her fast.  No good news ever started that way.

Melo looked down at his hands as he began to speak.  “A couple years ago I dated one of the Wiccans in the coven, Lorene’s granddaughter.  We weren’t exclusive, but we were involved for a while, and I didn’t want you to get blindsided if someone mentioned it.”

“Okay.”

His head lifted abruptly.  “Okay?”

She laughed.  “Yeah.  I know you were with people before me.  I appreciate you telling me.”  She leaned forward and hooked her hands behind his neck.  “Are you mine, Melo?”

“You know I am.  Entirely.”

“Then that’s the only thing I need to know.  Whoever came before me doesn’t matter.”

Tahlon laughed.  “Our kitta’s something special, brother.”

Melo smiled.  “Indeed.”

She kissed him and rolled her eyes.  “What did you think I was going to do?  Pitch a fit?  Hunt her down?  Shoot you in the balls?  Give me a little credit.”

“I will never underestimate you again, sweetheart.”

She looked back at Tahlon, and he put his hands up in an I-give-up gesture.  “I’ll never underestimate you, kitta.”

“What’s
kitta
mean?”

“Kitten,” Tahlon said.  “It’s a tiger term of endearment.”

They got out of the car and walked up the path to the top of the bluffs.  She explained that a spell kept the bluffs hidden from human eyes.  Lorene was waiting for them when they reached the top, and she looked at both men and then at Tera.

“I just found out that the lion pride is an entirely unmated male group,” Lorene said.

Melo and Tahlon stiffened next to her.  She looked up at them in confusion and then at Lorene.

“What’s the problem?” Tera asked.

“Tigers are extremely possessive of their females.  Manny came up here with Mari, took one look at the group, and refused to let her stay.  She’s an unnatural and not very powerful, so it won’t hurt us to not have her here, but I’ll miss her all the same.”

“But most of the guards here are unmated males,” Tera said, thinking about the ones each were-group sent on the full moon to help guard the coven while they cast their spells.

“It’s because they are a new group.  Hopefully by the next full moon when it’s their smaller group of guards, the others will be more welcoming.  And it’s my understanding that the were-groups are getting together next month for a meet and greet so the lions can introduce themselves officially.”

Melo put his arm around Tera.  “We’ll be fine, Lorene, but I ask that you not expect Tera to interact with them, especially so soon after our mating.  Our instincts to keep her safe are running very high right now, and Tahlon is not used to this sort of thing.”

Lorene nodded.  “As soon as the casting is done, Tera can slip away, and I’ll excuse her absence.  The lions will understand.”

Lorene left them alone, and Tera turned in Melo’s arms and hugged him, placing her head on his chest.  “You’re not going to try to bite anyone’s head off, right?”

Melo hugged her, his big hands spanning her back.  “Promise.  Just stay as close to us as you can, and then come right to us as soon as possible.”

She reached for Tahlon, sliding into his arms, making him promise the same thing.

She stayed with them both, away from the crowd surrounding the new alliance.

“I didn’t know there were lion prides in the states,” she said, leaning against Melo as Tahlon stood just slightly in front of her, his arms crossed over his chest.

Melo rested his chin on top of her head.  “There aren’t many.  But these guys are a group of rare white lions.  They’re the only group of their kind on this side of the world.  Midas has met with their leader.  They settled first in Michigan but decided that it would be better to settle with a larger population of were-animals than where they were, which were mostly wolves.”

“White lions?” she mused.  “I’ve heard of them in nature but not in the supernatural world.”

Tahlon looked down at her.  “White anything is rare in the supernatural world — wolf, tiger, lion, or whatever.  In a normal group, you might have one or two rare ones in each generation, so this group is extremely rare because the white color for their group isn’t recessive like it is in other were-groups.  It’s dominant.  So even if they have cubs with natural-colored lion females, they’ll be white.”

“Tahl and I are white,” Melo whispered into her ear.  “The only ones in our family line back for five generations, and in our entire ambush.”

“So our kids?”  She looked up at Melo.

“Whatever color they are, sweetheart, we’ll love them,” Melo promised, kissing her nose.

The time had come for the equinox ceremony to start, and she reluctantly stepped from the warm shelter of Melo’s arms and shimmied out of her dress.  After kissing them both, she joined her coven.

Tera had participated in many equinox ceremonies since she came into her Wiccan powers at the age of eighteen.  The universe aligned in a most magnificent way on the equinox, and the fall equinox was considered a time of thankfulness.

The coven arranged themselves in three circles:  the four Corners stood facing each other around a bonfire pit that was laden with wood, the natural witches stood a few feet away in a circle facing the Corners, and the unnatural witches formed a circle around the natural witches.  Behind the natural witches, the were-animal guards faced outwards, a silent promise to keep watch for any danger that might come.

Slightly away from everyone stood the white lion pride.  Tera was facing their direction, and she took the opportunity to look them over.  Jantha, the leader of the lions, stood in the center of the group.  He was tall and broad shouldered, with a huge mane of graying blonde hair.  She had heard that two of the males in the group were his sons and that his mate had been killed by a hunter many years ago.  The lions were watching the coven with varying degrees of curiosity.  Tera supposed that for a group who had never been around a Wiccan coven, the ceremonies could seem bizarre.

The Corners called their powers, and Tera and the other natural witches added their powers as the protective circle around the coven sealed shut.  Tera felt the power of water fill her as she connected once more with her coven.  The chanting began, and Tera followed the Corners’ lead as they moved through their spell casting and then chanted prayers of thanksgiving for the harvest.

The ceremony ended, and Tera nodded at Lorene and the other Corners, gathered her cloak around herself, and stepped away from her coven, joining her mates.  She pulled on the dress quickly, and they hurried her down to the car, where Tahlon insisted she sit in the back with him.

He buried his face in her neck and licked across the mating marks.  She shivered, digging her fingers into his shirt.  Judging by the heated look in Melo’s eyes as she met them in the rearview mirror, it was going to be a long, hot night.

Chapter 5

Melo had been staring at the ceiling for an hour while Tera slept soundly, sprawled across him like a warm blanket.  Her mouth was parted slightly, her lashes casting shadows on her cheeks.  It was Wednesday morning, and he should be getting up and getting ready for work, but the last thing he wanted to do was move and wake up his sweetheart.

Melo worked for Midas, who owned Whispering Creek Construction.  Melo had worked construction in Florida, so he was able to step right into the ambush-run company as a manager.  That was what he considered his
day job
.  His ambush job, however, was as the king’s protector, or personal guard.  Melo went with Midas to any meetings that concerned the ambush or their community.  He’d stepped in front of Midas a number of times during the last few years to protect him.  Yes, there were dangers in his day job.  He could smash his thumb with a hammer.  Shoot himself with a nail gun.  Fall off a roof.  But the potential for serious danger came every time he stepped out with Midas as his protector, because as a leader, Midas was a target and Melo was the shield.  It hadn’t bothered him that his life was on the line as he served Midas as his protector, but it bothered him now.  Now that Tera was in his life.

A soft fingertip touched the corner of his mouth.  He glanced down to see Tera looking at him in concern.  “Why are you frowning?”

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, hugging her just a little tighter.  He loved the way she felt against him.  The lush softness of her body and the slight weight of her was comforting.  “I was just thinking about quitting my job.”

Her brows rose in surprise, and a smile curved her lips.  “I don’t know what you heard, but receptionists don’t make that much money, even really awesome ones like me.”

He chuckled.  “Not my day job.  My ambush job as Midas’ protector.  Just with the nature of the job, I put myself in danger when I go out with him, and I’ve got you to think about now, and our future cubs.”  He brushed a lock of hair off her shoulder and kissed her forehead.  “I think it’s time for me to step down.  There are others who could take my place who don’t have my responsibilities.”

She hummed in her throat.  “I don’t want you to stop doing something you enjoy because of me.  You’re obviously very good at what you do or Midas wouldn’t trust you.”

“I am, sweetheart, but it would be selfish of me to put myself in harm’s way when I have you to take care of.  The ambush isn’t ranked like a wolf pack.  My stepping down doesn’t change anything except to free myself from an obligation.”