Page 45 of Hexual Healing
Baz moved faster than anyone his size should be able to move.One moment, he was beside me; the next, he had his hand pressed against my chest, right where the curse lived.His magic, warm and steady and ancient, poured into me.
The curse fought him.Of course it did.But Baz's magic didn't try to break it or control it.It just held it.Like a parent holding a thrashing child caught up in a nightmare until they calmed themselves down.Just like he had held me this morning.
“Mine,” he said quietly, and the one word had weight.It had power.The kind of authority that came from being something very old, powerful, and wise beyond its years.
The curse sent waves of agony through me.I screamed so loud, my throat became raw.But something else happened too.Illanya screamed as well, clutching her chest.I felt a sense of freedom.Release.Don’t get me wrong, the curse was still mine, still painful, still very much active, but I somehow knew some vestige of Illanya that had been hidden, even to me, had been removed.
Illanya stared at him in horror.“Whatareyou?”
Baz smiled a smile full of very sharp, very pointy, very dangerous teeth.“I'm her fated mate.And I just severed your connection to her.You can't track her through the curse anymore.You can't feel her through it.She's free of you, even if she's not free of what you did to her.”
“This isn't possible,” Illanya whispered.“Bear shifters can't do that.”
“I'm not just a bear.”His form rippled slightly, and for just a moment, I saw something else.Something massive and terrifying.“I'm the last of the Berserker line.We used to hunt dragons for sport.”
Even I took a step back at that.
Illanya had gone pale.Well, paler.“You're all extinct.”
“Almost.But the Goddess has a sense of humor about second chances.”He removed his hand from my chest, and the curse settled into what felt like a cage made of his magic.Still there, still mine, but contained.“Leave.Now.Don't come back.”
“The town—” Illanya started.
“Is under my protection,” Zelda interrupted, and her magic flared bright enough to make everyone squint.“It’s mine.And theirs.”She gestured to the assembled crowd, whose medley of odd weapons, and several sets of claws and fangs, was still gleaming with murderous intent.“And hers,” she said, as she gave me a genuine smile that infected me with a mad case of the warm fuzzies.
But the real power move came from Gary.
He slithered forward, leaving a trail that glowed silver-white in the dying light.“Illanya Draconius, daughter of the Storm Line, cursed by your own hand and rejected by your own magic, I name you Outcast.”
The word hit like a physical blow.Illanya staggered.
“You can't do that!”
“I can.I have…certain authorities.Old ones.The kind that come with consequences I'd rather not discuss in front of these fine folks.”His form shimmered like a mirage in the distance, and for just a moment, I saw what he really was.Not a snail.Something else.Something with way too many eyes and wings made of starlight.“Let's just say I'm calling in a very old favor to make this declaration stick.”
Then he was just Gary again, looking smug.
“Off you go, then,” he said, “before I lose my bloody patience.”
Illanya looked around at us, at me with the curse now caged but not broken, at Baz, who was apparently some kind of ancient dragon-killer Berserker, at Gary, who was clearly not a mere fucking snail, at the town full of armed citizens who still stood at the ready to defend me as if I were one of their own.
“This isn't over,” she said, but it sounded hollow.
“Yes,” I said quietly, “it is.At least for now.”
She turned to her mercenaries, who were still trapped in Gary’s shame spiral.As soon as my benevolent not-actually-a-mollusk familiar freed them, the chicken-witch immediately started cursing in actual human words.Which was almost worse than the clucking.
They limped away into the forest, Illanya pausing at the tree line to look back once.Our eyes met, and I saw everything there.Hurt, betrayal, and underneath it all, a love so twisted, it had become hate.
And then she was gone.
The disco ball played “Another One Bites the Dust,” because…well, of course it did.
ChapterSix
“So let me get this straight,” I said, pacing the length of the destroyed living room while everyone gave me as much space as humanly possible.“My familiar’s some kind of ancient magical entity with a mysterious past and 'certain authorities.'My host, and fated mate, who I've known for all of eight days, is apparently the last of an extinct line of dragon-hunter Berserkers.And I'm supposed to just…be okay with this?”
Gary shifted uncomfortably on his perch on the windowsill.It had damned near become his second home, and it was pissing me off even more for some reason.