Page 32 of His Whispered Witch (Witches and Shifters: Scott Pack #6)

F rom a long way away, Asher heard a sound. A voice was speaking. He didn’t understand the words, but he remembered the existence of words, and then of himself. He was a human being, not a wolf, not only a wolf.

The wolf stirred and headed for the entrance, seduced by a familiar, perfect scent.

Mate!

Sunshine shone in his eyes as they ducked outside. It was a scramble to get through the tiny hole. It didn’t use to be this small. Asher supposed he was the one who changed, not the rocks. He was bigger now, less skinny. The wolf blinked to see his alpha and his mate, and something in Asher quaked.

He had to stay away for their protection. He had to stay away, but here were the two people he could never stay away from.

Malcolm held up a bit of leather. The wolf didn’t understand at all, and Asher didn’t for one long minute until he remembered the spell. Cold panic surged through him. Did they have another collar for him?

He was grateful now that Malcolm did what he did to keep him human the first time, but that had been the worst day of his life by an order of magnitude, and he didn’t think he could stand it again. After a second, he realized the leather wasn’t pulsing; it was just a reminder.

Why wasn’t he running? He had to get away. There was something important they wanted to do. If it wasn’t another spell to keep him human, and Malcolm hadn’t even tried to order him to shift, what was it?

Was Malcolm finally here to kill him? That’s what Asher was waiting for, wasn’t it, but then why bring his mate? She didn’t have to witness that. She’d never recover.

“We’ve all agreed,” Malcolm said. “We want them to try. You’re the last holdout.”

Try what?

Penn crouched down, and Asher wanted to pull away.

Do not get closer. I could hurt you.

She didn’t hear him, or she ignored him. Some mates could hear their wolves, but he supposed since he couldn’t even hear his wolf, there was no hope for her.

“It’s as safe as possible,” Penn murmured, the alto tones of her voice soothing something ragged in him, but he still had no idea what she was talking about.

“Most of the pack wanted this even if you weren’t around, so no more of this martyr bullshit, okay?” Malcolm said. His voice was gruff, but there was real worry beneath it.

Asher’s wolf’s gaze darted between the two of them. It was thinking about running anyway without his input.

“Asher,” Malcolm said with more authority in his voice, sensing the direction of the wolf’s thoughts.

“Asher, please,” Penn echoed, applying her own kind of pressure.

What did they want from him?

Malcolm crouched down and held out a hand. Asher’s wolf didn’t move. “You came home. You can’t fly at the first bump in the road. We got you back, but we could never convince you to stay. You have to make that choice now.”

“He wanted to come,” Penn insisted, and a part of Asher broke to hear her defend him. He had no defense.

“Yeah, when he could slink off to a cabin and never bother anybody. The moment it was the slightest bit inconvenient or hard, he’s off again.”

Inconvenient? Hard? He threatened everything .

How though?

More of the past swam into his mind. There was another spell. Not for a collar, but for what?

He couldn’t remember, but it was dangerous as hell. He forced control until he could shake the wolf’s head, a move it was familiar with to get water off its snout, but not as a tool of communication.

Malcolm looked relieved, but Penn didn’t know enough to be relieved that his wolf was making human gestures.

“If you stay,” Malcolm said, “you stay when it’s hard, when it’s dangerous, when you’re a crazy, damaged mess, and when you can perfectly contribute.”

The snake spell. He remembered.

“Please come back,” Penn whispered.

We have to explain. He reached for the reins, and to his surprise, the wolf let him have them.

He stepped back into humanity with a slight shift of focus. After all, it was such an easy thing to do.

Penn’s face flushed with color as her eyes skittered over him, and he felt a small pulse of pride. Malcolm just held his gaze steady, an alpha anchor through the change. He hadn’t done that before Asher left. When had he learned it?

“No,” he whispered. He wanted to say more, to defend his choice and tell them they were all crazy, but he couldn’t get his throat working.

“Well, it’s a good thing I asked for you, and everybody said yes. So let’s get your butt down the mountain so we can do this.”

Asher gasped. “No!”

“Buddy, sometimes you get to be the conquering hero and sometimes you get to be the damsel in distress.”

“Hey,” Penn said. “I object on behalf of damsels.”

“No!” Asher insisted. That wasn’t the most important part of his objection. He had to talk. “Please.” His throat seized.

Malcolm shrugged. “So not only can we not help, somehow, you’re gonna prevent us from doing it for ourselves, and die up here ‘cause you’re so self-sacrificing and that’s automatically gonna be better, is that right?

” Some of the old impatience and fury was in his voice from when they were both young and powerless.

Asher played back his words in his head and could find no fault with them. “Yes?”

Malcolm threw up his hands and walked away.

“Why don’t you try?” he threw back at Penn, and Asher closed his eyes to fight down an urge to shift. He’d tried to explain.

When he opened them, he was alone with his mate, who spread her hands wide. “I don’t know what to say.”

He scrambled toward her, wanting to wrap her in his arms, but he’d been living as a wolf in a den, and he could feel the dirt sticking to his skin, so he just reached for her hand. He took a couple of deep breaths, swallowing convulsively. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

“I know. Honestly, I feel terrible for even suggesting it. I didn’t know how dangerous it would be. But we’ve fixed that. It’s not like it’s a coin toss. The risks are low.”

“But not zero. Not zero, that we would end up without wolves or even dead.”

“When I got back to the land,” Malcolm said quietly, and they both spun. He’d only gone as far as the edge of the clearing. His back was still turned to them, and it looked like he was talking to the trees. “I didn’t know what the hell an alpha was. We didn’t exactly have the best example.”

Asher shuddered, thinking of Malcolm’s father slowly losing his grip on reality and the pack.

“I thought it was about strength and top-down orders and keeping everybody safe.” He finally turned. “Of course, by my definition of safe, by my means.”

Asher took a deep breath and scraped the edges of himself together enough to joke, “Glad I missed that asshole.”

Malcolm’s shoulders hitched with a laugh.

“I didn’t realize the alpha was the most powerless position in the pack.

My role is really one of those air mattresses they put at the bottom of burning buildings in case somebody jumps.

I’m a few inches of fabric between everyone else and the ground.

So it’s not like I don’t get how much you don’t wanna do this, but from where I’m standing, all you’re trying to do is avoid living with the consequences if it goes wrong.

And yeah, they would suck. But I think that’s a better sacrifice than forcing us to do it instead—grieve you with all the guilt of knowing we could’ve helped. That shouldn’t be ours to carry.”

The words seared through Asher. He thought this was a noble thing to do: remove himself from the situation and spare them an impossible decision. They could die. Did they not understand they could die?

But they wanted to. Or at least, they wanted to risk it, if it helped him. They could live with that. Malcolm was absolutely right; he was taking that choice away because he didn’t want to live with it if they failed.

He turned back to Penn.

“I love you,” he said, and clicked his teeth together, shocked. It wasn’t at all what he meant to say.

She looked shocked, too.

“It’s too fast. I’m sorry. We don’t know each other.”

Shock transformed into laughter. “You’re funny. You’re beautiful. You sacrifice everything to keep your family safe. What the hell else do I need to know about you? I love you, too. And so does your entire pack. Don’t throw that away. You have no idea how rare and precious that is.”

He smiled ruefully. “I think I have a little bit of an idea.”

She threw her arms around him. He resisted for half a second until his hands wrapped around her back.

“Yes or no, dude,” Malcolm said slowly. “That’s all I need from you. Not a yes or no for the pack. Do you want them to try or not?”

Penn squeezed him even harder, as if she could force the word out of the depths of him.

“Yes,” he said, even as his heart cracked.

He wanted to give and give and give to Penn until she never felt alone again in the world. He wanted to come home fixed, happy, and needing nothing from anybody.

He hadn’t wanted to be a burden, the crazy wolf in the hills that everyone tiptoed around, that his cousin would eventually have to silence. He hadn’t wanted to take anything from anyone or let anyone risk anything for him, but if he could fix the world by wishing, it’d be a very different place.

He would not get anything of what he wanted, but if he just let them help, maybe he could get exactly what he needed: a pack, a family, a mate.

“And this is freely your choice?” Malcolm asked.

Asher glared at him over Penn’s shoulder. “After the damn strong-arm routine, you’re gonna ask me if I freely made this decision?”

“I’m talking about alpha whammy, not good old-fashioned cousinly manipulation.”

No, Malcolm hadn’t needed to whammy him with dominance; the truth was brutal enough.

“Yes,” Asher said.

Malcolm nodded once and walked back to them, hand outstretched. For a second, Asher thought he was asking for a handshake, but then he caught sight of the paperclip dangling from the leather between Malcolm’s fingers.

Carefully, Asher took it and slotted it back over his head, feeling the paperclip settle against his breastbone. Such a tiny, ridiculous thing, but somehow, he felt more firmly pinned in place with it than by any spell, this time by his own decisions.

He met Penn’s eyes, and it was like pulling teeth to ask, “Do you need any help?”

Joy lit her eyes, but she bit her lip, trying to contain it.

His heart squeezed. He had done this, made her careful of him. She was trying to shrink herself so he wouldn’t spook.

He leaned in and kissed her, drinking her happiness.

Finally, he let her breathe as he ran his hand over her hair, unable to keep from touching it. She shivered under his touch, and he asked again, “Do you need any help?”

“Not to build it, but to pull it off? Absolutely. We’re gonna put all the witches and all the wolves we have together. We’re gonna need more juice than anyone’s ever summoned in millennia.”

So not only did he have to say yes, he had to help make this happen. Because of course.

“I’ll be here,” he said, grinding out the words.

Malcolm clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Good.” He strode through the forest and away.

Asher gasped. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I ever left.”

“I mean, I was going to say it’s okay, but it really wasn’t, but I don’t blame you.”

“You should blame me.”

“Honestly, seeing you get all self-sacrificing was kind of hot. I mean heartbreaking and horrible and don’t ever do that again, but...”

“Kind of hot?” Asher echoed, bemused. He wanted her endlessly. He would be thrilled to spend the rest of his life with his hand on any part of her he could reach. Judging by the way she was petting his shoulders, she felt something similar for him, and the knowledge rocked him.

“I love you,” he said again, unable to keep the words behind his teeth.

“I love that you love me,” Penn said. “You promised me home.”

He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have. I was in no position?—”

“No! You didn’t guarantee me a home. I know that. Nobody can. Just like I can’t guarantee that this is going to work and you’re going to be safe, and I’m going to have to live with that, too.”

The guilt was strong today. He hadn’t even considered how hard that would be for her.

“Baby, you don’t have to?—”

“But I do! Because living without you is infinitely worse. I would take this risk a thousand times.”

She was so much better than him, and he should let her find somebody worthy and not a broken mess, but that would be making her damn choice for her, wouldn’t it? If she was stupid enough to choose him, he had to let her, didn’t he?

“But you promised me home,” she said, “and I would desperately like to see if we can build it.”

He pulled her toward him, off-balance until they were both sitting in the dirt with a pointed rock digging into his tailbone, but he couldn’t move.

They rocked together as Asher whispered, “Yes.”