Master of Smoke

“And you have found a mate. Congratulations. I know you had grown lonely, even among your humans.”
    “Actually, she’s trying to decide if she’ll have me.” He pulled himself out of the pool and grinned as he swept his soaked and streaming hair out of his eyes. “How goes it with you?”
    “Well enough. The dragons have grown no more fleet of wing and claw, thank the gods. The hellhounds, too, chase me still, just enough to keep my horns sharp.” The stag eyed Eva as she cautiously climbed from the pool to stand just behind David. “And you, girl.” He extended his elegant head to give her a sniff. He smelled of forest shadows and magic so strong, she found herself taking a wary step back. From the glint in his intelligent gaze, she suspected she had amused him. “You are wolf.”
    “Umm, yeah. I guess,” Eva said out loud, having no idea how to project her thoughts as they were doing. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    “And you. He needs such a one as you to run with.”
    “And you do not?” David retorted. “You should seek some Sidhe warrior to bond with, that you may take a bride of your own among them.” He’d fallen back into more formal speech again.
    The stag looked away, off into the distance. Sadness darkened his great blue eyes. “It is too late for that, my friend.”
    David stiffened. “What do you mean? What have you seen?” He took a step closer and caught his friend by the horns, pulling the great head around to face him. “If you need help, you know I’ll fight for you. I always have. I drove that Dark One away, remember?”
    “I could not forget such courage, my friend. The demon would have devoured me had you not killed it first, at great cost to yourself.” Gently, the stag twisted his head, pulling his antlers from David’s light grip. “But everything has an end time. Even immortals. And I fear I have come to mine.”
    Before David could say anything more, the stag whirled away and leaped across the pool in one long, soaring bound. With the rapid thump of hooves on the loam, he vanished into the trees, leaving a trail of sparks in his wake.
    “Wow.” Eva scraped her dripping hair back and stared, but there was no sign of the stag. “He’s really ...” She searched for a word and had to settle for “Powerful.”
    “In many ways, yes.” David frowned after his friend as if troubled. “But remaining a deer has limited him. Even with Zephyr’s magic, that stag doesn’t have the brain power he needs.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “The host form contributes a great deal of will and intelligence to shape the elemental’s magic. Deer are not particularly bright to begin with, and they are prey animals. He needs a large predator at the very least.” He sighed heavily. “The warriors of my tribe would have fought for the honor of hosting him, but he’s always preferred to be as he is. I don’t think he wanted to share his mind the way I do.”
    “Why?” Eva wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. Something about the conversation chilled her.
    “He saw what happened to me when I lost my people. He said he did not want the grief.” David noticed her quiver and stepped closer, running one big hand down her back. Instantly a thick towel appeared around her shoulders. He picked it up and began to dry her off. “Unfortunately, I know him well enough to know he’s too damn stubborn to let me help him. Short of chasing him through the woods for the next year—assuming he’d even let me—there’s nothing I can do.”

    Warlock woke sprawled across the center of the spell circle, Kevin Wheeler’s cold body lying beside him. He was covered in the Dire Wolf’s dried blood, his white fur matted with great sticky brown smears and sprays of it. He felt sick and weak, scarcely able to think at all.
    Worst of all, he felt powerless. The cat had taken his stolen abilities back. True, Warlock had driven Smoke out before the creature could kill him, but that was all he’d accomplished.
    Still, he lived. One does not survive as long as Warlock had without tasting the occasional defeat, and he knew living meant he still had the opportunity to regain the power to avenge himself.
    Rolling onto his back, Warlock considered the ceiling through narrowed orange eyes. His first thought was to attack Smoke yet again, but that sounded far too much like the definition of madness: attempting the same thing over and over, expecting a different result.
    So no. He would not