Caravan Witch (Questing Witch Book 2)

  Caravan Witch

  Questing Witch Series, Book 2

  Shannon Mayer

  Copyright © Shannon Mayer 2018

  All rights reserved

  HiJinks Ink Publishing

  www.shannonmayer.com

  .

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a database and retrieval system or transmitted in any form or any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the owner of the copyright and the above publishers.

  Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Original illustrations by Damonza

  Photography by With Love Photography

  Mayer, Shannon

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  2. Pamela

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  10. Alex

  11. Pamela

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  15. Alex

  16. Pamela

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  20. Alex

  21. Pamela

  Chapter 22

  23. Alex

  24. Pamela

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  27. Alex

  28. Pamela

  Afterword

  1

  Alex

  I lifted my nose into the wind, unable to believe what—no, who—I was smelling. I closed my eyes and held her scent in my lungs, afraid I would lose it, that this was some sort of mirage that had taken hold of my olfactory senses. Funny to think that everyone had their own smell, their own unique tag that made them who they were, and the girl I’d been trying to find for the last three years was no different.

  I didn’t even dare think her name. Because for the last three years, the hope that I’d find her in this broken world had faded with each day.

  A bump in my side turned my head to the wolf next to me. Jasmine had been with me for the last few months after she escaped a particularly nasty pack. She lifted her eyebrows. “It’s a caravan up ahead, I think.” The tips of her ears twitched as she zeroed in on the noises ahead of us.

  I nodded. That was my thought too. I drew another deep breath and picked up the other smells that lingered on the slowly moving wind. Men and women, humans, oil and some sort of fuel for vehicles, charred food, and stranger than all that, shifters. Shifters and humans didn’t generally mix. In my wolf form as I was, the smells were sharper, clearer, and there was no doubt that the two species were together.

  “We should go around them.” Jasmine snorted and shook her head.

  “No,” I said, thinking about just how I was going to handle this. Jasmine was . . . difficult, to say the least. Not a bad person, just a bit of a fool when it came to making decisions. My lips twitched but I clamped back the smile that wanted to emerge.

  “The last group tried to kill us,” she snapped, her teeth clicking. “How can you forget that?”

  The third part of our tiny pack came up on my right, quiet. She was the youngest by far, only thirteen or fourteen, even she wasn’t sure. She’d been nine or ten when the world had been broken and she’d been taken right away by a wolf pack. Her eyes were wide and full of curiosity. Her fur was a deep brown, rich with auburn undertones. Smaller than both me and Jasmine whether on two legs or four as she was now, she was strong beyond her years.

  “Whatever you think is best, Alex,” she said. “You’ve been a good leader.”

  I bobbed the top of her head with my chin. Like a little sister, Marley had bonded to me and vice versa. Jasmine gave a low growl.

  “You can’t just trust him.”

  “Then go your own way, Jay,” I said. “I’m not keeping you here.” I mean, I knew she wanted to stay, and I knew what she wanted from me, but . . . my heart was somewhere else.

  She shook her head once violently to the side and stalked away, her fur rippling in the wind that coursed toward us. We were upwind of the caravan and the smells were stronger with that last gust.

  “You think your friend might be there this time?” Marley asked.

  I nodded. “I know she is.” And that really was all I needed to make my decision. But I was no fool. Just because I believed Pamela was with the caravan ahead of us didn’t mean she was leading it. “Stay here with Jasmine. I’ll come back if it’s safe.”

  Marley sat, her dark brown bushy tail wagging across the dirt, her long tongue lolling out of her mouth. “Yuppy doody, boss.”

  I cringed. “I should never have told you that.”

  She giggled. “I love it.”

  “I’d never have guessed.” She’d asked for the story of my life and I’d given her the highlights. Being turned. Not being an Alpha. Being stuck between wolf and man for years before Pamela had helped me finish my shifting. About the lingo I’d used when I was stuck. Marley had loved every minute of the story. And had taken to using “yuppy doody” every damn place she could. I think she liked to see me cringe as much as she liked the way it rolled off her tongue.

  Mind you, I hadn’t told her about dying, then coming back to life. Or that I was the lynchpin that had been holding the world together, tearing the Veil between life and death as I’d come back. I sighed. No, that story was best not repeated. Bad enough we were being hunted by raiders. We didn’t need to add the “Alex broke the world, let’s string him up and skin him” mantra.

  And yes, I’d made that mistake once, early on.

  “I hope she remembers you,” Jasmine threw the words at me as I trotted away. “I hope she isn’t fucking someone else. But then again, she’s a witch, so we both know what that means.”

  I came to a dead stop, my hackles climbing up my back as I slowly turned to face a smirking Jasmine. I didn’t hate Jasmine, and I knew that she was threatened by how I felt about my Pam. “Are you calling Pamela a whore?”

  “If the broom fits, as the saying goes.” She sat and rolled her eyes like I was the fool. “All witches are whores, Alex. I’ve met enough to know just how that works.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You’re deluding yourself if you think she’s ‘saved’ herself for you.”

  I bared my teeth, a low growl snaking out through them. It took everything I had not to launch myself at her, to pin her to the ground and demand not only an apology but submission. But I wasn’t that kind of Alpha. I refused to be that kind of Alpha.

  “I’d suggest you keep your thoughts to yourself,” I said.

  “Or what?” She locked eyes with me. “You finally going to make me submit?” There was a whisper in her voice that had been there more than once. She wanted me to put her in her place, but she wanted it because she wanted me to make her my mate. And she had some weird ideas about mates and sex.

  I made myself smile. “No. But Pamela is the strongest witch this world has seen, so I suggest you not piss her off. She’s not nice when she’s angry.”

  If wolves could pale, Jasmine did. “You would let her hurt me?”

  I turned my b
ack on her. “Depends.”

  The wind washed over me again and I breathed it in. There it was, that hint of Pamela that I’d been chasing for weeks. Months. Years.

  She smelled of springtime, icy waters, and meadow flowers, all the things I couldn’t put my paw on but knew she was all the same. My heart picked up speed even though I was not moving that fast.

  What if this was another false end? The last time I’d picked up on Pamela so strongly was near a river with the biting fish. That had been nearly three years ago. I’d found her scent and then she was gone, washed away in the rain and the river waters.

  Since then, there had been hints here and there as I’d widened my search, sweeping in ever-widening circles.

  The pad of paws on the hard-packed dirt made me flick an ear back. “Marley, I told you to wait.”

  “I just want to see. I’ll stay on my belly, nice and flat when we get close.” She caught up to me, pressing her side to mine, then tucking her nose under my chin. Totally submissive, yet still able to shift all the way from wolf to human and back again. Tearing the Veil, the world coming to an end the way it had, changed the rules all over the place.

  I sighed. “Fine. But flat on your belly.”

  She wiggled, a pup still in mind and body. I’d done my best to protect her the last three years, to keep the horrors from her wherever possible. But this world . . . I glanced to my left, seeing the footprints of an oversized troll. Faded, old, but still there.

  I swallowed the tightness in my throat at the thought of the last trolls we’d faced. For some reason, they were the supernatural that had spawned effectively in this new world. Which meant the big stinking buggers were everywhere.

  “Like rats,” Marley muttered, her teeth chattering as she picked up on the smell of the trolls.

  “Worse,” I grumbled. “Rats taste better.”

  She laughed and bumped her head into my shoulder. A particularly strong gust of wind whipped past us and I drew it in, tasting it.

  Pamela was written all over the wind. Ahead of me was a small rise. “Marley, down,” I said. “You can peek over the top of that rise, but no more.”

  She gave me a quick nod and dropped to her belly, crawling up the slight incline as I trotted up the same slope.

  Pammy’s name thrummed through my head over and over. Would she look different? Taller, slimmer, would her hair still be that long platinum blond I remembered? More than how she looked, I worried about her heart. Pamela had always walked a fine line between light and dark . . . would she still be the Pamela I loved or some twisted witch who had learned to survive by doing . . . I shook my head.

  “Stop fussing, idiot,” I whispered to myself. “Rylee would kick you in the ass for that. She’d tell you just to get to Pamela, worry about what you have to worry about later.” I bobbed my head to myself. Yes, Rylee was my . . . well, sister maybe was the best word for her. I loved her fiercely and would give my life for her as I knew she would for me. Mentor, friend, family, protector. She’d been all of those to both Pamela and me.

  Her last words to me resonated through my mind.

  “Find her, Alex. Find her and bring her home.” Her words sent needed strength through me and I let out a long, low howl.

  I topped the rise, panting as if I’d been running. Spread out on the road below me was a caravan, but everything in it blurred as I saw her. Taller, she was taller and her hair was darker, a deeper gold than before, a dark green cloak swirling in the wind around her, wrists circled in glittering bracelets, a small orange cat beside her and a tall man to her other side. But it was Pamela. I couldn’t look away from her blue, blue eyes . . . and the tears in them.

  I breathed her name as my heart about burst with emotions.

  “Pammy.”

  2

  Pamela

  A long, low howl gave me a shiver I knew wasn’t from the chill in the air. I rubbed my arms. “It’s too early in the summer for it to be this cold,” I said more to myself than to Oka.

  The tiny orange cat lifted her nose to the air and sniffed.

  “A wolf pack?” Mac, my newest familiar, asked. He stood next to me, his body a solid wall of protection whenever I needed it. His blue eyes narrowed as he put both hands on his hips.

  But that sound of the howl echoed in my mind, making me shiver again. I knew it wasn’t a pack. That was one wolf, one lone wolf.

  “Impossible,” I whispered as if saying it out loud would make it true. Three years of surviving without him. Three years of wondering if he’d survived what I’d helped do to the world. Three years of asking why he hadn’t come for me, assuming it was because he was dead.

  I looked at Mac, my feelings for him new and complicated and completely tangled around my heart.

  I swallowed the uncomfortable lump forming in my throat. It couldn’t be him.

  Unease rippled through the caravan. They’d fought werewolves before. And lost lives to the big beasts.

  “Pamela?” Richard, the caravan’s leader, said my name as he walked up from behind me as a large, black, lone wolf crested the slight hill behind us.

  He stood watching us, golden eyes wide, body solid, strong. Not twisted like I’d last seen his wolf form.

  It just couldn’t be him; he looked all wrong. But that howl was embedded in my bones, and I knew it as I knew my own voice.

  We both stood frozen, staring at each other. He, no longer broken, a fully formed, huge wolf. Everything I’d always seen inside him was now outside for the whole world to see. What happened to him? How had he gone from twisted wolf form, to whole and unbroken?

  As I watched him, I wondered what he saw when he looked at me, at the cloak I’d made under my father’s tutoring billowing around me, my little orange cat on my shoulder, Mac at my side, and a caravan of humans and shifters at my back. Survival had made me hard around the edges, but I’d found my place among these humans . . . well, with most of them. Richard’s . . . companion didn’t think much of me, but that was another story. Frankly, she wasn’t really fond of Richard at the moment. He was definitely “Dick” to her right now.

  My thoughts jumped and scrambled around each other going in different directions because I just couldn’t believe what was in front of me. Maybe even part of me thought I was hallucinating.

  “Who is that?” Oka asked. “You stare at that wolf like you know him.”

  The memories tied to him swirled in my mind. Seeing him trapped in the Veil. The confusion on his face as I tried to bring him back to life. The things we’d been through. Battles we’d fought together at Rylee’s side. The moments of laughter we’d shared. The tears I’d cried into his thick fur coat. At times, I’d felt like he was my only friend in the world, the only friend who would love me no matter what I did or who I became.

  “Alex,” I breathed his name. It was all I could manage.

  The air around me whispered and beckoned, the very wind seeming to tug me forward, pulling me toward him.

  Oka leapt down from my shoulder. “It’s him?”

  “Who?” Mac asked. But my eyes and heart were all on the wolf. Alex’s body tensed as if he too wasn’t sure. Maybe he wondered if I’d changed too much.

  And then the tension snapped with a rumble of distant thunder.

  He broke the spell first and took off down the hill like a shot out of a gun. My first thought was that he was faster than before, now that his body wasn’t broken.

  For sure, I wouldn’t be winning any races against him any time soon.

  Behind me, a woman in the caravan let out a shriek, but I ignored her. I knew how it must have looked to the humans.

  A lone wolf running at them full speed, tongue hanging out. They didn’t see the grin on his face. Only the large white teeth.

  “Alex,” I said his name and then I was running toward him with every bit of myself I had. My cloak swirled out around me, and Oka yelled at me not to be a fool, but she didn’t understand. She would, I was sure of it, when she met him.

&n
bsp; More than that, the darkness of my mother’s blood and magic that had helped me survive, that had threatened to overtake me, was banished at the sight of him. There was nothing but love. Nothing but hope. Goddess knew it wouldn’t last, but for now, I would take it.

  The distance between us, even though we were both running, took far too long, and not nearly enough time to close. Enough time for the doubts to hit me square in the chest.

  After all this time, was I ready for this? What would I say to him? Where the hell had he been? What did he expect? Goddess, he looked good. Strong. Healthy. Whole.

  He slowed to a stop first, and my own legs followed his lead which left about three feet between us. My whole body shook, and it wasn’t just adrenaline. I wanted to hug him. I wanted him to hug me. But we just stood there and stared at each other.

  “I can’t believe you’re here,” I said. “I’d given up on you. On you being alive.”

  This moment was one I thought would never come. So much so, I’d opened my heart to Mac. I’d let the polar bear shifter, my new familiar, take hold in my heart. And now here was Alex, holding the other side of my heart.

  And I knew better than anyone I couldn’t have them both.

  Well, this was a giant pile of archie shit if I’d ever seen it.

  “Pammy?” Alex asked, tipping his head to one side and squinting an eye. “I’m not sure it’s you.”

  “What?” I whispered. “What do you mean? How can you not know it’s me?”