Master of Smoke

his mind, just as Belle had suspected.
    She reached into the pouch on her weapon’s belt and grabbed the pewter cat. Being a creation of Smoke’s, the cat was a direct link to his mind and magic. She pulled off one gauntlet and tucked it in her belt before curling her bare hand around the cat and reaching for her magic. The spell took hold with a snap, and she sent a message rolling along it. “Stop, attacking us, Smoke. We’re your friends. We’re trying to help you.”
    The cat froze with his jaws wrapped around Tristan’s gauntlet. He released his fanged grip, though he still held the knight down with massive clawed hands. Crystalline blue eyes flicked from Belle’s face to the fallen werewolf girl. Rage curled his lips into a savage snarl. “You hurt her. Get out of my mind.”
    He rose off Tristan with a rumble of rage. And sprang.
    Five hundred pounds of pissed-off werecat shot toward Belle like the space shuttle. She had only a fraction of a second to cast her power toward the great beast in a net of energy. Chains of force materialized around huge paws even as she spun aside like a bullfighter.
    The cat hit the ground hard, tumbling in a tangle of magical energy. It was such a near miss that the tip of his tail brushed Belle’s arm as he passed. Smoke roared, a deafening bellow of rage.
    Tristan raised his sword and raced toward them in a desperate sprint. “Belle!”
    She blinked at the note of fear in his voice. Fear for her? “It’s all under control, Tris.”
    He slammed to a stop, sucking in hard breaths as he watched the cat fighting the chains in a spitting, clawing fury. “I can tell. Offer him a blow job or something and get him to calm down.”
    Typical Tristan. Just when she thought he might have some glint of basic humanity, he turned back into a jackass. Belle flipped him off and moved cautiously closer to her prisoner.
    A glass door rolled open somewhere overhead. “What the fuck is going on!” someone roared. Other voices lifted in alarm.
    Damn. Bystanders. Belle inhaled and called her power from the Mageverse, breathing it out in a sleep spell that rolled over the complex in a wave of sedation. Silence fell as various innocents decided they’d dreamed the roaring tiger and wandered off to bed.
    “Somebody probably called 911,” Tristan pointed out, moving over beside her. He sheathed his sword with a scrape of steel on leather.
    “Let me know if you hear sirens.” Belle told him absently, fighting to keep the cat in his magical chains. He hissed and growled as he struggled just as hard to break them. “I’ll cast a nothing’s-wrong-here spell to send the cops away.”
    “Let. Me. Go!” the cat snarled. He stopped fighting the spell chains; either he’d decided he couldn’t break them or he was gathering strength for another attempt.
    Belle dropped to her knees, the better to meet his infuriated blue stare. “Look, Smoke, we have no intention of hurting you. I’ll be happy to release you as soon as you promise not to eat us.”
    “Because quite frankly,” Tristan muttered, crossing his muscular arms, “you’re not my type.”
    “Ignore him, he’s an asshole,” Belle told the cat.
    “Whereas you are the soul of charm.” The cat gave her a smile that showed far too many teeth. “I promise not to eat you. Now get the magic chains off.”
    “Somehow I’m not reassured.” Belle eyed him and sighed. “Look, I have no idea why you don’t seem to know this—but we’ve known each other for twenty years, ever since you rescued Arthur Pendragon’s son.”
    The cat went still, the rage draining from his eyes, leaving only bewilderment behind. “The boy. The one the dragons were trying to eat.”
    “That’s right.” Belle smiled at him, encouraged. “His name is Logan, and he’s a grown man now. He’s very worried about you. We were all afraid Warlock had killed you.”
    Smoke studied her for a long moment before he spoke. She could feel the cat deciding whether to trust her. “He almost did. He cast some kind of spell that stripped me of my powers and memories. It’s fragmented me. I have managed to get some of it back for short periods, but then he rips it all away again. If he holds true to form, he’s going to attack again very soon. And I won’t be able to resist.”
    “Can you help him?” Belle started as the voice spoke behind her. She whipped around to find the female werewolf towering over her, her eyes glowing with reflected