Adjusting Course, page 5
“Glad my suggestion has you calling a wolf,” Hudson grumbled. “A mated one no less.”
“What?” I gasped, turning and looking at him like he was nuts. Hudson simply pointed in front of us to a wolf sliding to a stop and glancing all around. My eyes about popped out of my head as the wolf shifted into a naked Alpha Geoff.
“What the fuck?” he demanded, shaking his head and focusing on us. “That was—I’m in the middle of a chase!”
I raced over there. “Shit, shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“That wasn’t like a portal. I have to get back.”
Yeah, he really did. I heard his thoughts and how panicked he was. I grabbed him and focused on where he had just been. I brought us there and recognized someone of his pack flying by us in a four-wheeler.
“Who?” I demanded.
“Rogue wolves,” Geoff answered, looking a bit green around the gills.
I took off in the direction the four-wheeler had gone, using the fairy rune for speed, and easily passing it by. I kept going until I saw six people ahead. Shooting off my combined rune, I easily took them down. It was hard for me to tell if there was more or what I was really looking for. Instead, I opened a portal to Shael but kept going.
I found one more and took care of him, not sensing anyone else. Teleporting back to the four-wheeler, it skidded to a stop.
“How many? I got seven.”
“Seven in human form, two shifted,” he yelled.
Fuck. I didn’t know how to handle that.
And the shifted ones would have been much faster. The woods around Geoff’s pack were huge though, and there was no telling which way they could have gone.
A portal opened and Onas walked through… Dragging two shifted wolves behind him.
“Thank fuck,” I sighed.
He simply raised an eyebrow at me. “I never thought you’d be so happy to see me.”
“Hey, I take any good help when I mess up,” I muttered. I focused on Geoff’s wolf. “Those the guys?”
“Yes, thank you, Princess Tamsin.”
Shael handled getting the seven I’d knocked out to us, and then we met up with Geoff.
“I’m so, so sorry, Geoff,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to. Things have been—”
“I get it,” he cut in. “Just don’t fucking teleport me again. Especially shifted. Fuck.” He was holding his stomach and leaning against a tree.
“Rogue wolves tried to poison our Alpha,” one of Geoff’s guys informed us when Shael looked like she was chewing nails. “He’s not himself.”
“It’s fine,” I promised, waving the fairies off. “This was my mistake and he’s a friend.”
Shael gave a swift nod and went over to Geoff. “It’s an herb toxic to wolves.” She waved me over as she moved her hand to his arm. “Feel with your magic. You know how to heal injuries, but poisons and things specific to a species are different.” She gave me a look, and I heard in her mind that she was hinting about caffeine, spices, and normal alcohol to us.
Right, that made sense.
It also helped me picture how to heal him. Runes were a lot of visualizing. Yeah, I could do some healing with basic, but the levels were complicated, and everything wasn’t always covered by a rune and magic unless someone could focus it.
I listened to Shael’s instruction and guidance as I helped Geoff.
“Well done, Your Highness,” she praised. “Every shifter species has issues like this. It’s nature’s balance.”
I nodded. “They can withstand what humans can’t or won’t die from the ailments they do, so something has to hurt them in other ways.”
“Yes, very good. Knowing what can be toxic or hurt them helps us heal, but it also aids us when we are called in to control a situation.” She pressed her lips together when I gave her a questioning look.
“Fairies were the ones we used to call in if there were any feral wolves or a group of rogues got too big,” Geoff explained. He reached over and clapped my shoulder. “Thanks. That was a bad one, and I was falling too far behind the shifted ones.”
“Glad I teleported you then,” I muttered. “Was anyone else hurt?”
“Several got smaller doses,” he answered. “If you could stay a bit and heal them, I would really appreciate it. It would take our healers much longer, and it was at least a few kids.”
“What the fuck were they doing trying to poison kids?” I growled.
“They weren’t,” he sighed. “I’m just not a normal Alpha who eats or hits the buffet first. I let the kids go before me a lot.”
And this time it hurt the kids. “I’m sorry, Geoff.”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“No, I know, but just… I’m sorry your people were hurt and this happened to you. Do you know why?”
He shrugged. “I’m in charge of one of the most powerful packs. There will always be people who want my head no matter what.”
Boy, that was the fucking truth.
We brought the rogues and everyone else through portals to where Geoff wanted, and then I went with him and Shael to heal the others.
“What did you need me for?” Geoff asked when we were done.
I turned to him—able to look at him now that he was wearing pants—to answer him when panic slammed into me. Then my magic ramped up along with what felt like bugs crawling all over me. Every cell of my body was on high alert.
And I had no fucking clue why.
I raced over to the nearest window, but I wasn’t facing the danger. Somehow I knew that. I teleported outside to where we had come in, and the crawling sensation suddenly was only on my back and much, much worse. I spun around and bolted in that direction.
Understanding filled me as the main gate came into view… And a truck from the main road was revving up faster instead of slowing down.
Shit.
I didn’t hesitate, teleporting my sword to me and letting my wings out so I had use of my full power. I gathered energy as I brought my sword overhead and then launched it at the truck with everything I had like when I did a power clap. It went flying faster than I could see and was suddenly through the windshield and stuck in the truck.
The smashed truck. My magic had folded it up to a quarter of its original size.
Woah.
I could pat myself on the back later, but my body and magic were still ready for a fight. Opening two portals, I called Chief and his pack to me.
“Three trucks are coming up fast behind the first,” I told Chief after he leapt through. “Burn them. Don’t let them reach the gate. Do not get hurt.”
The pack gave barks of acknowledgment.
I realized my mistake as I felt the trucks and their glamours instead of going off my crazy spidey senses. The trucks were rigged to detonate with the magic inside if anything touched them, getting something out of the attack even if it wasn’t the max results desired.
I teleported in front of the pack. “Stand down!”
Luckily, they did, Chief whimpering in defiance… And because the first truck was barreling down on me.
The anger I felt towards the evil of attacking children and innocents was easy to call on. I had fae fire in my hands before I even realized it. Yes, the dogs could have done the same.
But I could throw mine and not touch the trucks. So I did. I hit the first and dove out of the way. I rolled to my feet and got the second before the third. The first was nothing but ash in the wind by the time I nailed the third truck
After the third burned to nothing, I glanced all around, trying to get a feel for what was happening.
Instead, I was grabbed into a bear hug. I knew who it was, hugging my dad back.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded as he leaned away. “I was right here, Tamsin!”
“I just reacted,” I admitted, trying to move away more.
Everyone else arrived, and I was being slammed with questions while still trying to sense what was going on. Finally, I got annoyed and more importantly, scared over it all. I froze everyone besides the fae dogs, going over by them.
I knelt down next to Chief—since he and the others all had their fire off—and leaned my forehead to his. “I’m so, so sorry, my friend. I didn’t mean to be so dismissive with your life. I was scared. I won’t risk you all again like that.”
He lectured me in his mind that the reason fae dogs served me was so I wasn’t at risk, and I needed to understand that. They would gladly die to protect me and Faerie, so let them if need be.
But I couldn’t. No matter how society saw them, they were my dogs. Chief and his pack especially were my damn babies that I bought toys for and spoiled rotten.
He knew I was lying through my teeth when I promised I would if I ever had to.
I felt pushing at my magic, knowing who it was, but only releasing Lageos. “I don’t know what happened or if we’re safe. The dogs go off my signal, so they’re calm. I don’t know what to sense.”
“Okay, okay, Tamsin,” he whispered, clearly understanding what I’d done had fried me.
Somehow, at least.
I nodded and glanced at the others, knowing they could hear me. I released them but much to their shock, I stayed kneeling next to Chief. Petting him was comforting me or something, but I felt… Shocky?
“I don’t know what I did,” I said for the hundredth time as people kept asking me questions.
“Stop!” Onas shouted at all of them. He waited for them to quiet down, and then to the shock of everyone there—myself included—knelt in front of me. “Tell us what happened, Princess.”
“I don’t know,” I whispered again, feeling cold.
“What you did scared you,” he said gently. “It scared us too. That’s okay.”
“It’s not,” I rasped. “Everyone freaks out when I do weird stuff. I can’t take that anymore, Onas. I don’t know what I did, and I don’t want to tell what I felt because you’ll all freak out. It will be more problems and another way I’m not like any of you. It hurts me when that happens. It hurts me to never feel like one of you.”
Neldor moved next to me, plopping on his butt to shock everyone again and giving me a comfort rune. “You’re fried. I can feel an echo of it. It’s like every nerve in your body shorted out.”
I thought about that and nodded. “Yeah, it did.”
“I’m on your team. Tell me and I will beat anyone who freaks out, okay? Then we can have some fun and skip afternoon training?”
“Promise?” I hated how young and wounded I sounded to my ears, but I felt like that. What had happened scared me.
“I promise. We’ll get those buckets of cookies you liked. You did something awesome, and that comes with treats.”
For some reason I believed him, comforted because he was my mate. So I ignored everyone else—even my dad which I knew hurt him—and focused on Neldor. “My magic was freaking out. I don’t know what happened. It was like… Remember when you were talking to Clum after you first woke up? I just knew I had to be there.”
He nodded. “Your magic interlaces with your spidey senses in a way mine doesn’t even. It makes sense because the more we listen to our instincts, just like when we train our bodies for our other senses, our magic locks with those too.”
I glanced away from Chief and into his light green eyes. “No one’s ever told me that. I mean, about my gut reactions and stuff. That helps. Thanks.”
“I think people don’t know what to tell you sometimes because no one likes to be wrong. If you had asked me, I would have told you teleporting wasn’t possible. Fairies can’t call fae fire. So it’s hard to help.”
I sat with that a moment and nodded. “But hearing that helps. It’s nicer to hear that instead of just being dismissed or acting like I’m a freak.”
“We’re all freaks, right?” he pushed when I went quiet.
I nodded. “It was like bugs crawling all over me. I knew something was wrong.” I told him the rest, trying to explain it as best as I could, but it sounded stupid in my own head. “The magic was bad. I could sense that behind the cloaking and other devices. I have no idea what it was because those trucks were loaded. It was bad.”
“It was and not just cloaked, but cloaked to feel like something else,” Shael muttered.
“Well, something was definitely going on because my guys at the gate said the truck wasn’t slowing down but going to ram it,” Geoff confirmed. “It looked like it to me too.” He waited until I looked at him. “We raced right after you. I didn’t even know you glamoured your sword like that.”
“I didn’t. I learned to teleport it to me.” I shrugged when the Alpha and several of his people stared at me in shock or disbelief. I stood and went over to Geoff. “Touch my shirt and skin. You can’t glamour touch, right?”
He slowly nodded and touched my tank top over my sports bra and then my shoulder, muttering it was my skin for sure.
I took a step back and double-tapped my chest as I focused the magic I used to teleport. I kept Geoff’s gaze as I teleported my Faerie Guardian uniform onto my body at the same time I teleported away my workout clothes. I smiled when his eyes went bug wide. “Wicked, right?” I moved closer and let him touch it.
“This—I can’t believe it’s possible.”
I shrugged. “I still can’t believe any of it is possible, Geoff. I was having a really rough time, and Izzy told me to figure out something fun with my powers instead of always what people want from me because of them. I wanted to be like Ironman. He’s always hated by a lot, but they still want more from him, and he does the best he can even when he’s wrong.”
“Because Tony Stark learns from his mistakes,” one of Geoff’s guys said, smiling when I glanced at him. “That’s what the guy who does those behind-the-film clips always says. You got that from when Ironman upgrades to the nanotech suit, right?”
“Yeah, it was the coolest transformation that would fit with me.”
He nodded. “It was sick. But Stark upgraded to a nanotech suit after Antman sneaks into his suit. That’s the clip, ‘because Tony Stark learns from his mistakes,’ or something like that.”
“Yeah, it would be nice to learn from mine,” I whispered, staring down at my uniform. “I wish people would definitely try that more often.”
5
I didn’t want my uniform on anymore, feeling like it was fake somehow with the way people treated me. I focused again and changed back.
Neldor was in front of me before I could blink and had a barrier up. He stared up at the sky. “The top did not return to you correctly.”
I glanced down and winced, my sports bra half under and half over my tank top and my right breast almost exposed because of it. Most of it was besides the nipple but honestly, it wasn’t as bad as the tiny bikinis I wore modeling.
It was actually really sweet how he covered me though. I quickly turned around and fixed it.
“Thanks, I’m set,” I told him.
He cleared his throat and nodded, taking down the barrier and moving back to where he’d been.
“I haven’t perfected it yet,” I admitted to the others. “It’s harder when it’s formfitting clothing and like layers.” I turned to Neldor. “I feel fragile. Can you bring Darby and Hudson here? Please? Oh, Izzy. Don’t let her be scared.”
“Are you okay?” he worried.
I shrugged. “I feel fried.” I frowned. “I feel like when I used to touch outlets for my foster dad and one shocked me. Yeah, just fried.”
“Wait, what?” Shael gasped.
I nodded. “I had a foster dad who was in construction. A jobsite boss. He had a few of us and he’d always bring us with to the houses as they were being finished and we had to touch all the outlets to make sure there weren’t problems. If we got shocked, he’d laugh that kids are idiots and act like he cared but if we didn’t do it, we got spanked and denied meals.”
“Humans are monsters,” one of the wolves whispered.
I shrugged again. “I doubt it was humans that just tried to magically blow up your pack, so there are monsters all around.”
“I think you need energy,” Stefanie worried.
I shook my head. “I don’t want anything outside.” I gave myself a healing rune and sighed. “A healing rune helped.” I felt worlds better when Hudson came storming through a portal that someone must have opened to get him. Immediately, I was in his arms.
“You’re killing me, shorty,” he whispered as he hugged me.
“Holy shit, Prince Hudson is your other mate?” one of the wolves hissed.
“Not one word to anyone,” Geoff warned darkly.
“Of course, of course,” the woman agreed. “I would never. I just… I feel like an idiot. Of course, it’s him. You’re always together and not just like friends.”
I shrugged while still hugging Hudson. “I’m also always around Izzy and she’s not my mate.”
“I worry like one,” she said before getting in on our hug. “You took out four trucks? Did I just hear that right? What was on them?”
I hurried to tell them so they were caught up, sighing when Darby pulled me away and gave me the best bear hug ever.
And then I got a hug from a bear. Lucca must have snuck in with all the crazy, and I was somehow hugging him after Darby. I honestly didn’t have the energy to argue.
Plus, it was a really good hug.
“Try another healing rune,” he muttered before kissing my hair.
Good idea. I did it and nodded it helped.
I went over to Geoff who was upset about the trucks and not even knowing who was after him and his pack this time. Something hit me, and my mouth worked with my brain too fast to blurt out what I was thinking instead of waiting. “We need to get you a barrier. Not over all of your woods, but the main compound depending on how big.”
“That’s more power than you should be dealing with right now,” Lageos argued.
“Not right now, but it’s not bad with the key,” I muttered, already having played with them a bunch. “If we combine power, it should be a cakewalk. I’m worried about humans though. We can’t just block everyone. Humans like to check into places like that because they think they’re cults or militias.”
