Stallion Mage: A Horse Shifter Mpreg Romance (COMPLETE)

A Mage's Situation (2/2)

Ice-cold water oozed up from the wet sand on the river back, chilling Alvarr's human feet. I need to shift, he thought. He gritted his teeth and waited for the nausea to come as he changed to his four-legged shape.

The shift came more slowly, but his stomach didn't revolt. Maybe the... my foal... is getting used to shifting. Had they all shifted in their mother's wombs? They must have. Alvarr glanced at the light brown stallion beside him. Barron had no idea what Alvarr was hiding, but though they were friends, the mage was not going to tell him. If I tell anyone, it will be Laren.

"What happens now?" Barron asked.

"I don't know," the mage repiled. He pointed his horn toward the ground, but he could see that it was not glowing. Nor did he feel the surge of power that had sprung to him when he had healed Barron. He walked a few steps into the water.

"Be careful," his friend said, alarm in his voice.

"I've crossed this river before," Alvarr murmured. That's right. Barron too feels the fear of crossing the border. But the small black stallion's compulsion from the past did not hold Alvarr any longer.

He closed his eyes. Give me the power, he willed, but he knew it was useless. He felt dead inside, as devoid of Nature's forces as one of the cold rocks on the riverbank. He paced a bit, splashing through the cold shallows.

Everyone will die if I do not help. It was a strange, prideful thought, one that was uncomfortable to have. As much as he'd been on the outside of the tribe, they were still his people. He cast around again for a thread of power, but still came up empty.

What good am I, if I cannot do this? A hot ball of anger and shame formed in his stomach, and he stamped his hoof. His anger warmed him from the inside until he was sweating. Deliberately, he envisioned the bodies of his friends lying by the river, stripped thin by hunger and thirst, eyes dulled in death.

The anger grew inside him. That will not happen. I won't allow it.

He let himself see Laren stumble on his way to drink, laid to waste by the barren earth. No! His mate could not die. For if it did, even though Laren had rejected him, Alvarr would become like Alvi, a violent storm of anger and grief.

"Alvarr, what is happening?" he heard Barron call, as if from a great distance.

An unbearable heat seared his forehead, and then white light burst into his field of vision. My horn! It shone as bright as that time he mated with Laren.

Alvarr could not see anything but brightness and shook his head, trying to dash it away. He tried to touch the cold earth with his mind, but it repelled him, locked in the death of winter. It was not enough.

Nature, help me, he cried in his mind, and a tiny, soft energy added to his plea. My foal! It was surely nothing but a small, soft thing inside him, no bigger than his hoof, but it, too, was joining in the effort. Though most of his mind was consumed with his task, he had a moment of realization, a tiny spark of clarity. My child is also a mage.

Still blind, Alvarr reared and came splashing down into the icy river, letting out a great trumpeting cry. He could not fail. He would trust in Nature and fight for the lives of his tribe and his child.

Though he was still blinded by the light of his horn, a great tremor rocked the earth under his hooves. The water's sound changed. Now, it rushed toward him, not past him. He felt its freezing flow just above his hooves.

I have done something. But he knew his work was not yet done. He closed his eyes and poured more of himself into his purpose.

"Alvarr," Barron cried. Human arms wrapped around his neck. "Please, take care for yourself."