Verina’s wolves fanned out on either side of her, all of them large, dark, with glowing red eyes, crouching down, ready to hurl themselves at my pack. My wolves were equally prepared, stooping low, finding their centers of gravity so they could launch off of the ground and meet any attack midair. Or be the first to strike.
I expected Verina to make some sort of grand
It only took a few moments for me to regain my ability to move. Once my arms and legs were under my control again, I scrambled to my feet and took in the situation. It was Brice! He’d flung himself at Verina and knocked her down. Now, he was attacking her. She hadn’t seen him coming, so she was completely caught off-guard. But now that she had recovered from the shock of it, she was rearing back to strike. As I stood, pulling my staff to my hand, when sent him flying off of her.
The weather seemed perfect for a funeral this time. Unlike Grandma’s funeral, which had been during the summer, it was fall now, and a light breeze stirred the leaves as they dripped from the trees along with the falling rain. I stood there with my feet rooted in the ground, near the casket, listening to the pastor talk about eternity and all kinds of things that didn’t seem to apply under the circumstances, but my mind wasn’t focused on what he was saying. I was stuck in the past, in what had happened three days ago, that night when my pack had successfully eradicated Verina’s, pushing them out of our forest for good.
The representative from the council did not look intimidating by any standard measurement. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps if he had been some huge, hulking man, or some evil looking mage, I would’ve found his presence more worthy of concern. I did need to be concerned. Both Ben and Sam had taken me aside since Verina’s death and told me how serious something like this can be. When the council gets involved, especially in the New World, and yes, the body was old enough to think of it that way, there was a problem. They didn’t just come all th
“That cooky old man is here to train you?” Raven asked, stifling a laugh and covering her mouth with her hand.I nodded. My pack mates and I had gathered in the living room after Mr. Nuthatch had retired for an afternoon nap. He said he couldn’t quite get over the jetlag, and I didn’t blame him for being tired. It’s a long way from England to
Talking to the entire pack in public is much different than getting Ben’s personal opinion about something when we are alone together. He’d already told me how he felt about not only me training with The Nut, as I had taken to thinking about him, though I had yet to use that nickname aloud, but about going to Europe and trying to earn back my ancestral lands. Once the rest of the pack scattered to their rooms, to the kitchen, or outside, I pulled Ben aside, in the room that we were sharing for privacy’s sake and asked him, “Are you sure this is what I should be doing?”His blue eyes widened as he looked into mine. “Sure. Why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to train from a member of the council? I’m certain he’ll be able to instruct you, even though he doesn’t look like much of a master. I’m sure he’ll surprise you.”
“Take me to the scene,” Nuthatch said as we walked through the woods. I raised an eyebrow at him but continued in the direction of what had once been Verina’s home. I didn’t want to go back there at all, particularly not right now, not so soon, but he didn’t seem to be asking me whether or not I wanted to take him. So I kept walking.He had eyed my staff for a long moment when I’d first entered the woods where he was waiting for me in the back of the house, but he hadn’t said anything. I noticed he didn’t carry one, and I wasn’t sure what to think of it. Grandma didn’t most of the time either, but since the forest had gifted me this staff, I tended to think it was because she wanted me to use it. If Nuthatch thought otherwise, I supposed he’d tell me.We walked between trees and over the leaf-cov
“When you close your eyes and envision the forest, what do you see?’ Nuthatch asked me as we stood in the clearing. I wasn’t expecting that sort of a question before we began our training, but I supposed it was a legitimate inquiry.“What do I see?” I repeated, tapping my chin as I thought about it. “Well, it depends. Most of the time, I see a river of color flowing all around me. Other times, I see the animals that I can hear or the flowers that I can smell. Sometimes, I see the people who are connected to me through the forest.”He was shaking his head. Apparently, this is not what he wanted to hear. “All of those are images anyone would see through meditation. When you think about the forest herself, the entity behind the power that courses through you, what do you see, specifically?”
I couldn’t bring myself to do it. When I’d created the unicorn, just a few minutes prior, I figured I would simply turn her back into whatever she’d been before--energy, magic forest dust. But when she looked at me with her wide, dark eyes, I knew she had to stay. Granted, I might need to magic away her horn depending upon what Nuthatch found out from the council, but as I walked back toward the house, the unicorn came with me.“You need a name,” I said to her as she walked alongside me. “What’s a good name for a unicorn?” I didn’t want it to sound like something a little girl would name a pretend unicorn--Moonbeam or Starlight or anything like that. She’s not a My Little Pony, after all, but she needed a magical name.Nuthatch was already in the house when I arrived. The back door opened. I hoped it w