With yips and playful barks, the wolves dashed in and out of the trees. Nev, Mason, and Ansel tussled, jumping over each other and battling for lead of the group. Bryn stood a short distance apart, wagging her tail as she watched them roughhouse.
Instinctively, Ren rushed forward, barking to announce his arrival. But the wolves continued their play as though he’d made no sound at all. Ren halted and barked again. Then he noticed the movement of the pine trees and realized he was upwind of the pack. They should have caught his scent.
I am a ghost, Ren reminded himself, though accepting that made him feel like he’d died all over again.
That was when they emerged from the cave. A white wolf with golden eyes and a brown wolf with green eyes. Calla and Shay.
The pack rushed to greet their alphas, showing deference by staying low to the ground, licking at their muzzles. It was a scene of pure joy.
And Ren knew he would never be a part of it again. Lifting his muzzle, Ren let out a howl of rage. A howl that no one heard.
What had he done to deserve this kind of punishment? Trapped between worlds, he was alone. It made him furious.
Ren had avoided Haldis after that day. At first he’d stalked through the forests under the moonlight, trying to menace game and restore some sense of his former self. But like his packmates, the beasts of the forests paid Ren no attention.
So instead, he’d turned to shadowing his sister. Ren had thought seeing Adne, even if he couldn’t truly be in her life, would give him something of a chance to know her. He’d expected to find her happy. After all, she’d finally captured the game she’d been chasing for years: Connor—the Striker with a roguish manner and an inappropriate sense of humor. That last quality somehow made Connor both endearing and irritating; the former quality inspired Ren to track the Searcher’s movements along with Adne’s. Maybe animals couldn’t sense ghosts, but all the lore about spirits suggested that humans certainly could. The idea of haunting Connor appealed to Ren—it was certainly one way to keep his sister’s paramour in line.
But the solace Ren had sought vicariously in observing Adne’s new life proved elusive. Adne didn’t appear to be happy at all, and despite Ren’s best efforts, Connor didn’t notice he was being haunted by a wolf. Connor’s obliviousness didn’t trouble Ren, but Adne’s disconsolate mood did. A lot. Ren wasn’t sure what hindered his sister’s bliss, but she seemed . . . troubled. Deeply troubled.
Thereafter, the purpose of Ren’s watch over Adne shifted from the hope of knowing her better to the need to protect her. Something about Adne’s sorrow frightened Ren. In his disembodied state, Ren could see the emotion follow her, swarming about her like a plague of locusts. It wasn’t natural, and while Ren didn’t know what he could do to keep Adne from harm, he was determined to try.
And the pattern of Ren’s days and nights had formed. He followed Adne when she was at Rowan Estate and occasionally to the Roving Academy, though since she’d made a habit of passing her nights in Connor’s room, Ren decided against keeping an eye on her while she slept . . . or didn’t.
Ren supposed there were worse ways to spend one’s afterlife, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something more should have happened. He wasn’t the only Guardian to die in the last battle, but he seemed to be the only one still around.
There had to be a reason for that. There had to be.
Ghost or not, he was a Guardian alpha. No one could take that from him. Ren knew he’d lost his way between life and death, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find his way back. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t keep fighting.
MINUSCULE CLOUDS of white mist appeared as Logan’s breath mingled with the cold winter air.
“Can’t we do this closer to the house?” Audrey complained, twigs snapping under her boots as they trudged through the woods. “It’s freezing out here, and the farther we walk, the longer it’s going to take to get back.”
“We’re going to try to open a channel between our world and an alternate dimension,” Chase scoffed at his sister. “Do you really want to see our house get sucked into an evil vortex?”
Audrey’s eyes widened, then she glared at Logan. “You never said that could happen.”
Chase laughed and Logan shot Audrey a derisive glance. “It can’t. Chase is just winding you up.”
Logan squared his shoulders and pressed on through the tangle of brush and leafless trees. Truthfully, he didn’t know what unintended, possibly disastrous consequences could result if the spell the trio planned to cast proved successful. The young Keepers could claim no experience with the type of magic they were about to delve into.
Chase, Audrey, and Logan each had some familiarity with Nether magic, but the spells they’d used in their lives had been easy. They’d been taught at a young age to summon lesser Nether minions: imps, gargoyles, pixies, and as the Keepers grew older, incubi and succubi. The summoning and command of wraiths came later, only after one could demonstrate enough willpower to keep a wraith in check. Chase and Audrey confessed that they’d made games out of pitting various smaller creatures against one another in combat. Logan was relieved they’d had enough sense never to try such a foolish thing with wraiths.
There were other spells. Silly things that amounted to little more than parlor tricks: glamours and memory charms. Audrey, of course, had full command of this superficial magic. Logan wished she’d cared more about harnessing the power of the Nether than guaranteeing her hair maintained a diamond-like sheen.
But Logan knew all of their power, great and slight, derived from a single source: the Nether itself. The small damage they could do as petty warlocks was nothing without unlocking the gate to that ultimate darkness. And access to the Nether had been offered to the Keepers in exchange for their oath of fealty to Bosque Mar. When that fool Shay Doran had banished Bosque and sealed the Rift at Rowan Estate, the well of magic Logan and his peers had always taken for granted was suddenly dry.
Magic itself, however, remained in the world and what Logan deemed the best course required old-school spellwork. Once he’d gotten Chase and Audrey on board, his research time had doubled. It should have tripled but for the fact that Audrey spent half her “research” time complaining or offering disgusted commentary on the spells’ ingredients.
Logan didn’t disagree with Audrey’s reticence when it came to the grit and grime of real spellwork, but his impatience made him quickly irritable toward her. He was fairly certain she’d come around with time, just as Logan himself had.