Tdeh Ch 18

"It's not working!" Finn screamed out in frustration. Her mate woke at the sound of her distress. Quickly, he pushed his tired bones from his cot and sprinted to the open front door. She was standing in front of her brothers, gesticulating wildly, though the other two seemed completely calm.

"Did she wake you, dear heart?" Eutus asked from behind him. Carter turned to look and saw the smaller enchanter as he scribbled madly on paper with a mountain of books open and surrounding him on the table and floor.

"Yeah," he said as he yawned. His head turned to see Finn stalk off angrily into the sparse woods. "Are they okay?" He scratched absentmindedly at the place under his chin where Finn's knee had met his skin the day prior. The swelling had disappeared, no discolouration remained. He was healed. All that remained was the small wound to his ego.

"Oh yes. They're attempting to teach her some basic spells, to get her more comfortable with her magic. She's a bit... stubborn." His eyes narrowed for a moment before he began to speak again, "they're all stubborn, actually."

"The Helmuts?" Carter inquired as his eyes continued to focus on the commotion outside.

"Oh yes. The lot of them. Well, those that have not shuffled their mortal coil."

"Still alive? Do you mean Obeus?"

"No, I meant Malus' other children."

"Aren't all eight of them still alive?" Carter asked.

Eutus looked up from his work again and stared at Carter for a moment evaluating him. "There are eight currently alive, yes. Do you think that Malus only had eight children? And that he started only three hundred years ago propagating his line? Malus may be calculating and creative but he has never been skilled at holding back his... impulses."

"Finn has more siblings?"

"Technically. Malus had many children over the years. The others died by his hands, long ago. They were more ruthless than his current batch. They tried to usurp his throne, his title. He wouldn't allow challengers to live. Much like a shark. Or a demon. I believe he had seventeen in total. Only eight are currently alive. Luckily, he is now sterile so we won't need to worry about another heir."

"She didn't mention them."

"I doubt she knows they existed. Finn spent her life with your pack and the council. Both would have avoided talking about her sire and his line. Izzy told me. As the eldest, he learned all their names and all of their mistakes. He had to be better."

"Do you know them all?"

"I know the living ones, yes. After Izzy is Ramsey. After Ramsey is Torrin, then Tristan, then Ernesh, Helios, and finally, talented little Toyot."

Carter looked again outside and saw that the men had moved off into the woods after their sister. He smiled to himself. He turned around to finally face Eutus. He walked slowly and came to a stop at the table. His hand reached down and grabbed the rough fabric of the camping chair and pulled it out to take a seat.

"Do you have any siblings?"

"Me?" Eutus asked, his eyebrow raised. "No, it was just me. My ma was a light enchanter. She used to work as a medicine woman in a small village in Romania. The locals all believed she was a witch and were scared of her but her healing magic and potions kept them alive so they allowed us to stay. She taught me everything she could before she died."

"How did she die?" Carter inquired quietly. A feeling of kinship grew within him; a warm, gentle spot.

"A wasting sickness. No matter what we tried, she just slipped away one night. I have studied and studied but I have never found the cause of it. I was initially drawn to Izadore because he was so educated on magics. I mean, yes, he's extremely handsome so that didn't hurt."

"I'm very sorry for your loss," Carter blurted out. His mind had frozen at his loss, it mimicked his own.

Eutus gave a small chuckle as he returned his gaze to his work. "Thank you, dear one, but that was many moons ago. I have grieved. Now, I carry her within me and my spells. A nod to her memory." A soft smile crossed his lips.

"I assume you know how my mother died," Carter said after a gap in the conversation.

"Oh... Yes, my darling. And I too am so sorry for your loss. Malus was very proud that he had bonded you to the woman who killed your mother. He informed all of his sons of his plan to use your family as a tether to get Finn to finally do his bidding. But I knew before. Obeus told me when Finn first moved into the council house."

"Do you spend a lot of time with Malus? If your mother was a good mage, why have you studied dark magic?"

The question caused Eutus to choke on his own spit, eventually the coughing turned into laughter. "Oh no, darling. Malus doesn't believe I am powerful enough for his oldest living child. I don't spend any time with him except in passing at the council. I've studied both dark and light spells. I did so initially as I wanted to win Helmut's favour, to be able to be with Izadore. Though that never materialized. But eventually it was just curiosity. Most spells can be accomplished with either dark or light magic, I found that interesting. My studies progressed from there."

"Finn mentioned you're a bit of... a ... " he trailed off.

"A whore?" Eutus giggled.

"Well, yes."

"I am sure you werewolves have met polyamorous individuals before? Or are you all that sheltered?" Eutus asked with a coy smile. Carter's face flushed, a pink hue crept up his neck.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize. You're right, we do have poly members of our pack. I have met other individuals who are as well. I didn't mean..."

Their conversation was interrupted by Ramsey and Izadore as they loudly entered the cabin. Both looked annoyed, their hair was messy and had the remains of twigs and leaves.

"What happened to you two?" Eutus asked curiously.

Both men frowned.

"Our little sister gets a little... testy when... academically pushed," Ramsey said as he tried to be generous with his words.

"She's an asshole who shoved us both down and stormed away when she couldn't cast the spell we asked her to," Izzy added with no kindness.

Izzy walked over to the table, grabbed an empty chair and pulled it to sit by Eutus. He sat down and let out a long sigh.

"She's not very good, I take it?" Eutus asked.

"Oh no, she sinks."

(2)

Carter left the others around the table with a pot of tea. The morning was crisp, dew still clung to the bits of grass that grew in the small patches scattered in the dirt. He followed his mate at a slow pace, her exasperated cries echoed in the empty forest like a bread crumb trail. After an hour of walking, he broke through the edge of the decimated tree line and saw her. Finn was sitting on a large stone overlooking a fjord, her legs crossed beneath her. He was surprised to see ice and snow on the rocky range of the other side of the water. He walked slowly and carefully to the edge to peer over. The steep drop down into the frigid water made his stomach jump once. He stepped back and walked over to his mate and took a seat on the ground beside her.

"I like the smell of the salt in the water," she said quietly as she rubbed her eyes.

He smiled and stared ahead at the other side of the fjord. He breathed in deeply, the air unfamiliar. He hadn't spent much time away from the pack, never travelled far. The Ironbloods were home bodies. They thrived in their forest. Over the last hundred years, the Alphas before Arthur had created different small businesses that kept the pack flush with income. Over time it became almost taboo to leave, even for short trips.

"Have you traveled much in your life?" He asked.

"Oh yes. I would go on political trips with the council. I liked Bulgaria best, I think. Their werewolf packs are generally made up of Romani. They traveled a lot and had such wonderful stories. Some of their packs were a blend of wolves and vampires. The wolves guard the vampires during the day and switch at night. They were very suspicious of the council but they welcomed me with open arms. They told me stories of their history and some of their hybrid members... I... I felt almost like I belonged."

She grew silent, a statue on her rock. Carter closed his eyes and listened to the waves as they broke over the rocks. It reminded him of thunder. He loved it. His new favourite sound. Well, excluding the sounds she made when they were alone together.

"I'm really sorry about yesterday," she said. "It was wrong to hurt you like I did. I wanted to see how good your reflexes were but I realize now that we've had very different lives. A bar brawl and a pack fight are much different than war."

"Is this really war?" He asked.

"Feels like it, sometimes..." She trailed off.

"I... I am so sorry I broke your nose."

"You don't need to be sorry. It was a good punch." She smiled genuinely at him and reached out to push his shoulder playfully. "I goaded you on. I'm at fault. I... I'm scared and I used you as an outlet." She cast her eyes down, ashamed. "If it makes you feel better, that was definitely not the first time my nose has been broken. That honour was your father."

"My dad broke your nose?" Carter asked, his surprise evident. It was enough of a shock to break the tension between them.

Finn chuckled as she got to her feet. She brushed off any dirt from her backside as she turned to look at her mate. She stuck out her hand and when his connected, she pulled him to his feet. "Yes. Alpha Amos thought it was important the pups knew how to fight so he trained us all himself. We were only ten. Art got off a good punch while I was distracted. He broke my nose but I'm pretty sure he cried more. I assume Art taught you boxing?"

"Yes, that's how I initially learned to fight."

"Well, let's start there."

(3)

Over the next week, the pair worked together to improve Carter's abilities. They worked on his boxing, outside in the dirt and grass. After two days, when he was finally able to overpower Finn enough for her to lose her footing, they moved onto more advanced forms of combat. They ran themselves to exhaustion, both in their human forms as well as their shifted selves. Finn made them spar, shift and run, spar again.

Every part of Carter was sore constantly. He had never practiced running and shifting or fighting and shifting. Finn's large shifted form easily overpowered him and she pushed them both to their near breaking points. Occasionally, tired and overwhelmed, the two would fight with their words rather than their physical forms. Eutus was the mediator who reminded them of their end goal.

Finn continued to practice her magic with her brothers. Over the days, the exhaustion from her physical training allowed her mind to catch up to her body. She was able to learn to do the smooth hand motion that the other Helmuts used for their magic; sliding her thumb over her index finger, using the nail to cut into her flesh and flick the blood into their air. Ramsey and Izadore continued to berate her pronunciation of the magical words, her tongue wouldn't slide over them in the graceful manner required. Carter would find her outside in the dead of night, under the stars on her back in the dirt. Her eyes affixed on the sky as she said the words to the air, over and over. By the end of the first seven days, she was able to cast the doorway spell without mutilating herself and on her first try.

Eutus continued to work to create the spell that would allow Finn to use their bond to help Carter transform into a hybrid. When not working with their little sister on magic, Ramsey and Izadore helped the younger magnus on research and wording.

Carter took over cooking for his new pack. There wasn't game to hunt for meat in the rotten woods, but the others had brought a stash of food to keep them going for months. He had watched the Helmut men with his mate over his first days with them and decided that they were his family now as well, inducting them into the Ironblood pack in his head and heart. Their ability to soothe Finn when she became sour at her slow pace of learning cemented that for him.

Carter noticed during his time with the others that they would occasionally stop what they were doing and become deathly quiet. The silence of the old wood would become so heavy that Carter feared to breathe. He strained to hear it, to hear anything. When he was training with Finn, she would bristle and shoot straight up to scan the tree line. She looked like a prey animal, popping up out of the grass to look for danger. It unnerved him, like they had a sense that he was missing. He had asked them each about it separately but they all played it off. Paranoia. Exhaustion. Nothing in the air indicated they weren't alone.

They never saw the clouded eyes that watched them.