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Chapter 2

Aunt Iris would be truly angry he’d used his power to transport himself like that.‘Such a use of power was only to be used in extremis.’Her words said to him on his eighteenth birthday as she’d taught him the spell that could save his life if anyone ever came after him.

Why they’d come after him, he had no idea. He was Pack McVale’s last Pack Warlock and his aunt the last Pack Witch now his mother was dead, but when he married a witch from another coven as she and their Alpha planned, and had all the babies they’d plotted for, that fact wouldn’t matter. Not that it mattered now. Nobody knew about the Were and their covens, and no other Were would come after him. The Were revered the witches and warlocks, even from rival packs.

They were all being ridiculously cautious. And if anyone would know, it was him. In all the years he’d been having visions, he’d seen no sign that anything was coming for him. Only the nightmare images of the future that made his life hell because he was somehow responsible for trying to figure out a way to avoid them.

Goddess, his head ached. Perhaps he shouldn’t have transported straight after a vision. It was too late to worry about it now. He was here and glad of it. At least here nobody would be nagging at him to tell them about what he’d seen and make him go back in to try to figure it all out so they could change it.

He took a deep breath and let his gaze wander across the view. There was a reason this was his favourite spot to come to when he was stressed and uncertain. It was one of the best views to be had at Pack McVale’s Red Hill base. Plus, nobody else ever came here.

This hill—his hill—rose above the undulating land of the grass and tree-covered hills, giving him a glimpse of the beach in the distance and the shining glimmer of blue water that spread out from the Peninsula to Tasmania. This part of packlands was given over to grazing cows and sheep, the vineyards and orchards on the inland side, and as a result was quieter and he could pretend he was on an island by himself, far from the hustle and bustle of pack life and the expectations placed on him.

But today, as he glanced around, as he breathed in the faint scent of salt and sun-warmed grass, the calm he needed seemed too far away.

He dropped his head into his hands and fought the need to cry. He couldn’t go back yet. He couldn’t go back into that vision like his aunt would require him to. He never wanted to see it again let alone furrow around in its dark depths trying to figure it out.

Hell. He wasn’t strong enough to carry everything the pack needed him to. He had no idea how he’d gotten away with them not noticing this serious flaw in their lone warlock. But they had to start seeing the cracks sometime soon. It was inevitable. And when they did, disaster would follow. Because how could he expect any witch from another pack, even a kind and thoughtful one like Mariella from the McClune Coven, to handfast with him and help rebuild their coven and the strength of their pack?

He would end up being as much of a disappointment as his mother.

He swallowed hard and looked up, staring at the water in the bay. Usually its sparkle and endless undulation made him feel better. Today, it did nothing but make him thirsty.

He wished he’d thought to bring a bottle of water. He could conjure one, but he really had used up too much of his powers already and he’d get even more of a tongue-lashing if he completely drained himself of power.

He could always tap into the pack bond to top up. But then Aunt Iris would know and come looking for him and he wasn’t up for one of her lectures. Especially given she would be even more angry that he’d tried to take power from the pack bond without asking permission to do so.‘There are consequences for everything we do. Taking power is an exchange, an agreement with the Goddess and the universe to allow us to change things from what is expected to what is not. There is punishment for taking that which we have not sought permission to use.’

He’d heard that over and over again in his twenty-two years. What he wanted to ask her was if permission was so important, then why had nobody ever sought his permission to thrust these visions in his head? It was one big cosmic suck for him. Or he was one big cosmic sucker.

Maybe he should run away like his mother had. She’d taken off when she was eighteen and he was four years older than that now. A year shy of his ‘wolf majority’ when he would be pulled into the pack hierarchy and included in all important discussions about his life.

He’d been holding onto reaching that all important age for years, but right now, it seemed an eternity away. He wasn’t sure how much more he could take of this.

He scrubbed at his face with the heel of his hand and sighing loudly, flopped back onto the soft grass behind him. It would all be far more bearable if he had happy visions as well as the dark ones. Or at least more visions he could do something about. Maybe then, he would be able to deal. Maybe he would be able to breathe. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel so weak. So useless. So hopeless.

A breeze tickled through the fronds of grass above him, making them bend and brush over his face like a caress. A sound like the sweetest humming, wound around him.

He knew that touch, that sound.

‘Goddess?’ The grass caressed him again. He sat up, a thrill in his chest. She was here. Arianrhod. She’d not visited him for a while. Perhaps he could ask her. Surely she would know.

He crossed his legs and placed his hands on his knees, palms up to the sun, then closing his eyes, he sank into his mind, into the place where his magic was seated, where his gift connected to the aether and allowed him to cross into that place that most could not visit.

There was a hiss and a click, a sense of swirling and falling and then a small pop. The scent of salt and seaweed greeted him, along with the rumble of waves crashing on the beach. He opened his eyes.

Sand stretched, golden and sparkling, on either side of him as far as he could see. Behind him dunes rose to caress the base of cliffs so high they sailed up to touch the sky. At the top of those cliffs was a forest, ancient and green filled with trees and flowers coloured across the spectrum with scents gentle and sweet, to spicy and bold. She’d taken him up there a few times to watch over the turquoise, green and purple sea that shifted and rose in frothy waves as it stretched out to the horizon. He’d asked if he could stay here forever. She’d simply smiled and told him it wasn’t his time. ‘But you can visit to settle yourself when things get too bad.’

‘Why will they get bad?’

‘This too you will see.’

He had known she wasn’t talking about getting older. She had meant that he would ‘see’. The knowledge of that made him want to shout and rage at the universe for doing this to him.

He didn’t want to see. He didn’t want to be strange. To be other. To never fit in. He wanted to truly belong and not just because his position as last Pack Warlock of Pack McVale made him wanted, needed. Their desperate hope in him was a crushing weight that was killing him.

‘Sulking again, Seer-boy?’

One of the waves had risen up in front of him, parted, and out of the green and purple water stepped his Goddess, Arianrhod.