Eldritch Sparks

Chapter 1

A howl echoed through the trees, and I ran faster, my feet kicking up dust from the moonlit trail, heart pounding, breath heaving. It was only Roman, but that didn't mean I wanted to be caught. My werewolf lover would be in wolfman form; his magic wasn't strong enough to go full wolf, but he'd be deadly all the same. He wouldn't hurt me, of course, but the game was "keep away," and grown Othersiders played a little differently than human children.

We were taking advantage of the full moon and the balmy spring evening. My evolving role in Otherside and my efforts to get the elves, vampires, weres, and djinn to finalize negotiations on our new alliance had me stressed to hell and back. Roman had suggested a run in the forest to get my body moving as much as my mind had been lately.

Eno River State Park was closed, of course. Nobody should have been in the woods after dusk. Budget cuts had trimmed the number of rangers available to keep people out, but even had there been a ranger, Roman and I could have slipped past. As a sylph⁠—an air elemental⁠—I couldn't move as quickly or hear as sharply as Roman, but I could still perform better than a human.

Not that that saved me.

A shift in the wind brought me the faintest whiff of cedar and musk from in front of me. In my rush to stop, I tripped over a raised root and went ass over tits down the path, landing with an undignified thump in front of two huge paws. The backpack I'd been wearing skidded past them. I winced at the bruises I'd have and the thud the pack made as it stopped against a rock then started laughing at my own clumsiness.

"Interesting tactic, babe," Roman said with a toothy smile, the words coming out a little mangled. Wolf snouts weren't meant for human speech, and being stuck halfway through the change didn't exactly help.

Breathless, I tried to scramble back. It wasn't over until he caught me.

With superhuman speed, he bent down, caught my ankle, and pulled. As he leaned over my body in a push-up, he sniffed along my neck and hummed with pleasure. "This has promise."

For all that I, and my body, agreed, I wasn't ready to let him win just yet. He was using his power, so I drew on mine.

"You little⁠—" He yelped as my eyes glowed gold in the dark and a gust of Air pummeled him in the side. Elemental powers and hapkido gave me enough of an edge to hold him off, but he had strength, weight, and reach on his side. Plus, he fought dirty.

"Okay, you win!" I cried, laughing as I tried to fend off tickling hands. He stopped immediately, nuzzling my neck, and I ran my fingers down his back. "If you want to change, we could continue this more comfortably."

Roman's howl of triumph rang through the woods—and was answered. His growl cut straight through to my gut as he looked up and toward the trailhead. "I know that voice."

It had sounded the same as his to me, but maybe that was the telling part. I stood and brushed myself off, tugging a twig free of my tight curls as Roman went behind a tree to shift back to human, still embarrassed by the process and his difficulty. A handicap or a disability, as he saw it, though I didn't.

I had his spare clothes ready when he stepped back out, naked and trying to hide his nerves more than his assets.

"Let's go," he said when he was dressed. We hustled back to the trailhead, the scent of rotted cedar growing and clashing with the piney scent of the night as we got closer to the parking lot and his anxiety climbed.

A single male figure, as dark-haired and light-skinned as Roman, leaned against a big, white SUV in the parking lot.

"Stay behind me," Roman murmured, one arm out to stop me from passing him. Energy crackled and the moon reflected from the stranger's retinas. Definitely an Othersider, likely the answering wolf we'd heard, and from the way Roman stiffened and rumbled deep in his chest, more than dangerous.