“Guess you guys don’t floss, huh?”
“Strega,” the taller Malandanti snarled, his eyes wide as he stared at my protection symbol.
Hmm, strega? That was much cooler than witch. I liked it. Breanna Welker, Earth Strega.
For now, the Malandanti magic fell from me as if I were Teflon-coated, but one more step away from the glow and my Teflon would be gone.
This was not looking good for the home team. Oh well, game on.
“Leave or die,” I demanded, smiling in satisfaction at using one of my favorite movie lines. With a flick of my finger, a blue-green fireball landed at the feet of the closest Malandanti. He yelped and jumped sideways to avoid the bouncing flame.
“Simon is so gonna kill me.”
I ducked as the remaining Malandanti hurled a bolt of lightning in my direction. The bolt whizzed past my head and embedded in a tree. The ground shook with the force of the impact, the tree shuddering before thudding to the ground. Guess my fireballs weren’t all that intimidating.
“Damn,” I grumbled, diving toward the rider. The protection sign faded. I needed a diversion.
“Hey, look over there,” I yelled, pointing to the top of the cliff. The idiots fell for it.
I straddled the rider and called upon the ancient magic of my people. My mind reached out to the forest, beckoning an ally from its depths. The connection clicked into the place as the protection symbol flickered its last moments of life. The Malandanti, no longer staring into the wild blue yonder, advanced.
“We do not wish to kill you, strega. We only seek the werewolf.”
“Uh huh, whatever.”
The Malandanti danced as my curtain of flames touched off tiny fires within the hems of their robes. Their predicament gave me just enough time to cast another protection spell over the rider. The acidic smell of black magic tormented my nose and brought tears to my eyes. My magic tank was almost empty. The ugliest Malandanti sputtered a mean-sounding curse and the ground began to shake.
“Yeah, not happening, Dumb and Dumber. You can’t sic the earth on an earth witch.”
My final vapors of magic quieted Mother Earth. The Malandanti screamed and threw another energy bolt. I tucked and rolled but not quickly enough. The voltage sizzled along my nerves, searing my insides to a charcoal-y well-done.
The second Malandanti attacked my protection spell, shredding the rider’s only defense. I tried to cast another spell, but with no magic and burned-out circuits, all I managed were a few tough-sounding words that held no power.
Muttering a string of profanity my fellow soldiers would have been proud of, I clambered to my feet. The Malandanti ignored me. That was insulting.
“Yoohoo!”
Both witches glared at me.
“I wasn’t done yet. Why don’t you guys go make some brew or something? Or, I’ve got it–go fly a kite in a thunderstorm. A visit to the spa could really help with those wrinkles.”
Their lips moved but I couldn’t hear the words. They were casting and I was receiving, or something like that. Earth witches have the ability to absorb black magic and if I didn’t deflect their magic, my internal organs would cease to exist. No magic in my tanks meant no deflector shields. This was gonna hurt.
The slashing of my guts increased as the Malandanti chanted louder. I pulled a knife from my boot and side-armed it, but the freak ducked before the blade reached its target. My liver bubbled and my spleen baked as the magic swirled inside me. I was almost witch fricassee when a bellowing bear burst from the forest. The Malandanti screamed and ran from the clearing with the bear in hot pursuit.
“Damn well took you long enough.”
Bears didn’t get in a hurry to answer a summons from an earth witch. He was probably on his nightly constitutional when I called and a wild bear in the woods would not rush.
The bear roared as tires squealed from the cliff above. The Malandanti were so busy trying to run away they hadn’t bothered to cast any spells. That was good. If the bear had been hurt, Mother Earth would not have been pleased with me and I didn’t want the big bad Mama angry.
I pulled my radio from my pocket and made a note to thank the manufacturer since the thing worked even through my shape-changes and the Malandanti fireworks.
“Ordy, this is Welker. You out there?”
The radio crackled to life. “Gotcha loud and clear, Bre. What’s up?” Theodore Ordison answered in his slow Louisiana drawl.
“I need the Humvee over here. Got a wolf down, civilian.”
A long pause followed before the Cajun answered. “Uh, we weren’t supposed to engage anybody. What did you do to him?”
“It wasn’t me, Ordy. The Malandanti attacked him. Now get your ass over here with the Humvee ASAP.”
“Be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Make it ten. This guy’s hurt pretty bad.”
My body trembled and my legs felt encased in concrete as I crawled toward the rider. A tiny carpenter was building cabinets in my head. Blood dripped from my nose. Damn black magic. This was supposed to be an easy recon mission, just watch the road and report anything odd. Nobody had said anything about Malandanti sightings and why was a lone werewolf out here this time of night, anyway? Werewolves were pack creatures. Hell, they didn’t even go to the bathroom by themselves.
The rider wasn’t moving but there was air whooshing into his lungs. He was alive, barely. He lay on his back, his face hidden by the dark mask of his helmet. I knelt beside him and shook off my coat. He groaned softly, his boots scratching against the dirt as I unzipped his black leather jacket and ran my hands along the hardened muscles of his chest. Gritting my teeth and trying to be gentle, I pulled the helmet from his head.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered when he moaned. Waves of chestnut curls spilled around the most handsome face I’d ever seen. Sinfully dark lashes rested against perfect olive skin. With high, chiseled cheekbones and deliciously full lips, he was traffic-stopping gorgeous. An unruly lock of hair fell across his forehead, giving him a heart-stealing mischievous look even as he lay unconscious and bleeding. The smell of musk and leather was intoxicating. A sense of coiled power and pure masculine sexuality surrounded him.
Yum.
I scooted closer, actually checking his injuries this time. He was losing blood rapidly through his leg, the jagged femur jutting through a rip in his pants. He had at least four broken ribs beneath a set of washboard abs that made me seriously want to do laundry, a nasty bump on the back of his head and a constant stream of blood flowing from his mouth. The injuries would have been enough to kill most beings but werewolves were tough.
After pulling my radio from my fatigues, I couldn’t resist running my fingers through the rebellious chestnut hair on his forehead.
“You’re going to be all right, Wolf. Just hang on, okay?” The bristly stubble along his jaw tickled my fingers.
My radio beeped. Simon answered immediately.
“Breanna, where have you been? You were supposed to report in a half hour ago.”
“I found a couple of Malandanti.”
“Are you all right?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine but I’m with a werewolf who’s been hurt. He needs medical attention.”
“Which one? Aaron?”
“No, not a Bravo wolf. I think he’s one of the Italian Pack wolves.” The line buzzed long enough I thought the call had dropped. “Hey, Simon?”
“Why