Rodney: Marshall’s Shadow – Jaguar Shapeshifter Romance by Kathi Barton (books for new readers TXT) 📕

have been awaiting someone like you to come along for a very long time.” She asked him if he was old. After laughing a little, he realized she was serious again. “Yes. I am. Very old. But because of my magical abilities rather than something like being given immortality. You, however, are immortal. A true one, if I don’t miss my bet. And if you have a mate, which I’m assuming you do, then he will be as well. Also, he’ll have a bit of your magic. By a bit, I’m thinking he’ll be as powerful, if not more so than the leader of the shadow he belongs to. I’m assuming that Grandpa Marshall is related to you in some way.”

“My mate’s grandfather.” She looked around the room the two of them were in. It wasn’t a real place, only an illusion he’d manufactured, so she’d not know where he lived if this didn’t go well. “We’re in the middle of an open field. I didn’t see that when I first got here. I did think it strange when a cow walked through here a few minutes into this, but not so much anymore.” She looked at him. “Something tells me you’re going to be very helpful to me.”

“I can. I would love to be your second in this. A person that can lead you, guide you through some of what is going on with you. However, I will tell you again, you only need someone to wake the magic in you, and you’ll know and understand everything. Including things that as only a warlock, I won’t know.” She told him not to do that. “It’s up to you, my lady.”

“No. I mean saying you’re only a warlock. You’re very powerful in your own right. You also are all white, with an occasional bit of dark when it’s necessary. Such as when it’s tossed at you.” He nodded, telling her that she was right. “I want you to wake this in me. If it happens the way I think it will, I’m sure I’ll have more questions than the million and one that are swimming around in my head right now.”

Now that she’d okayed him helping her, he wasn’t sure he wanted to be responsible for anything that might happen to her when he did this. However, she had told him to wake it, not asked, so Darin had no choice but to do just what she’d told him to do. Reaching out to touch her, he said a small spell that would protect him from whatever happened and touched his fingers to her chest. His entire world just blinked out.

“Wake up, damn it!” Darin looked at Rebel, realizing first of all that she was taller than he’d thought. Then he realized that he was laying on the ground and that he had been out for some time. “Are you going to sit up, or am I going to have to zap you again? You scared the living shit out of me. Why didn’t you tell me it would hurt you?”

“I didn’t think it would. I put a protection spell around me.” She asked him how he thought that worked for him. “You’re very snarky, aren’t you? I’m fine. Just a little off balance.”

Sitting up slowly, he did feel slightly off balance. Sitting there with his eyes closed, he took a quick inventory of his body. Nothing was broken or harmed, but he was a little more powerful than he’d been when he’d agreed to meet her here.

“You gave me a bit of your magic.” She said she’d zapped him. Darin looked at her. “I’m not at all sure what that means. You zapped me, how?”

“When you flipped backwards out of the chair, I had to revive you. You were dead when I touched my fingers to your pulse. I just thought of shocking you a little to get your heart beating again, and it worked. Don’t do that again. You hear me?” He nodded at her as he stood up, feeling better by the moment, his mind still stuck on the fact that he’d been dead. “I know a great deal now. It’s not as overwhelming as I thought it might be. I also know enough to tell you that you’re not magically immortal anymore. You’re as true to it as I am. I guess zapping you gave you that.”

Sitting down, hard enough to make his teeth snap together, he looked at the young witch. A great many things were going through his own head right now, and none of it was about teaching this woman about her newfound powers. She’d saved his life.

“Do you know that had you let me stay dead, you’d have gotten my magic as well as whatever came to you by your birthright, don’t you?” She said she did but didn’t want him dead. “For what reason would you not want to kill someone as powerful as I am? You will have to do that someday, my lady. There will be others that come for you, trying very hard to take your magic and powers from you.”

“For now, I’m not going to worry about that. I’m sure that when the time comes, I will not only have a better handle on things but what most don’t know is that I have my own familiar in the form of a very powerful jaguar. That will not only make me more powerful, which I don’t know how the hell that’s supposed to work, but with him at my side, I’m pretty much invincible.” Darin was beginning to really like this woman. She was far from what he thought she’d be when he’d been first approached by his good friend Grandda Marshall. “I do have a question I’d like for you to answer if you can. You’ll notice I’m careful not to demand anything of you. I wish I had known that before, but now that I do, I’m not going to treat you as a servant