Page 141 of Ascendant King

I let him, standing still and taking everything that he could give me. And maybe that was why we worked.

I might be willing to submit to him, to take his collar, but only because he let me take the weight of his own feelings, the weight that he had been carrying all by himself for eleven years.

When his shoulders shuddered, finally stilling, I continued to hold his weight, keeping both of us upright. My pack came close, nuzzling and licking, the inevitable puppy pile wanting to happen.

Cade pushed himself up, stroking along my back, dragging his fingers through my fur. I practically arched like a cat, enjoying the feel of his fingers on me.

Then he whispered, “Go.”

And I was off, sprinting into the group of wolves with me, all of us circling together, tongues and nuzzles and the press of bodies. How long had I been missing this? How long had I wanted this and been unable to have it?

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cade moving toward the card. He stood over it, hesitating, and a cold rush of fear washed over me.

Abruptly, I shifted, nudging myself out of the group of wolves, still reassuring each other of victory, still searching for wounds, checking attendance, making sure everyone was there. When I was free, I took some steps forward, hesitating a few feet away. Cade wasn’t even looking at Leon or Jesaiah.

Instead, he stared down at Summer’s art.

“Cade?” Whatever fear and uncertainty I felt must have been in my voice because I heard the pack behind me stop moving, turning toward us.

I hoped Cade didn’t turn and see me, framed by several dozen nervous wolves. He might have adapted to us, might even be one of us now, but this was the stuff his nightmares were born from.

“I need to cut the ley lines free from all of the houses. It’s the only way to wash out the poison.” Cade’s voice was low, and his eyes moved back and forth, as though searching the small piece of paper for answers.

“So we go to each house, we tell them, we show them,” I said.

“No. Summer told me there was an easier way. Summer showed me the easier way.” Cade’s voice was thoughtful, but he was a man standing at the edge of a cliff, watching rocks splash into the open ocean underneath his feet.

“I just watched Leon kill himself with that thing. I’m not going to watch you do the same.” I kept my voice even, clamping down on the fear I felt so I wouldn’t agitate the pack behind me.

“It’s not like that. You saw the magic of the world, didn’t you?” For the first time, he looked up at me, his blue eyes so clear. They were the cliff I wanted to jump off of willingly. I had to have faith in them because he had faith in me, and that was the only way this thing between us worked.

“Yes. Everything around us has magic. I saw it.” I wondered if I needed to explain to him the colors I saw, how even the things in our world that didn’t seem sentient had magic flowing from them.

“The things in this world that were not placed under a mage’s promise, weren’t bound by our kind, aren’t poisoned. I can fix it. I just need to break all of the promises.” Cade looked at the card again, and I felt the loss of his gaze like a tangible thing. He was going away from me, and after we had just found each other, it felt like a punch to the gut. “I can go into the ocean. I can find the connections and sever them. Then the ocean will take care of the rest, washing away the poison, clearing it.”

He breathed in and out, his face getting more certain with each exhalation. “I can do it.”

“Not without me.” I stepped forward, grabbing hold of him, lacing our fingers together. “If you’re going to do this ridiculous, dangerous thing, you’re taking me with you.”

Cade stared at me, and for a heartbeat, I thought he was going to push me away. I flashed back to our first days in House Bartlett, when I could barely get a straight answer out of him because he was so terrified of me, of what it meant to share his life and his trust with anyone.

Then his shoulders went down, and he leaned against me. The smile on his face crinkling his eyes. “All right.”

He exhaled long, and I felt the explosion of power again of the card activating. Suddenly, the ocean around us was visible. It was always there, we were all swimming in it, but I was aware of it. I could see it.

We were the snake eating and the tail being eaten. We were both and neither.

Cade’s eyes rolled back, and his body went slack. I caught him automatically, easing both of us down on the ground. I turned myself away from Jesaiah and Leon, focusing on the soft strands of Cade’s hair. I stroked my fingers through them, even as his body twitched in my arms, his jaw clacking together.

He let out a soft moan, and I grabbed him tighter, holding on with everything that I had. Wolves came around us, nuzzling close, pressing against us, my pack coming together for my mate.

I buried my face in his hair, sniffing, and suddenly, everything was different. We stood next to our own bodies, the world around us more clear than it had ever been.

It was as though I had been seeing a watercolor painting, showing me the barest hints of the magic around us, when the reality was that it was an oil painting, the lines of magic covering everything.

How had Leon consumed this? How had he thought he was up to absorbing this much magic?

Cade pointed, and in the riot of colors, I saw poisoned, sickly lines, obvious and grotesque. A mockery of the flow of magic around us.