Page 3 of Witchbane

“Stay there,” Liam instructed, his voice half muffled in the rain. “I’ll find a way down.” Down the cliff edge he meant, near the river that ran beside the mountain close to his home. How was that possible? I’d been sleeping.

I looked at the severed head lying a few feet away. A chill rolling through me as my mind recalled the past. The wolf, the ghouls, that icy slug I could still feel nestled inside, and the portal? All real?

The lights above moved around, the group searching for a way down, Liam’s frustration at not finding an easy path tugging at me. Because he was close, I could feel him in my head. Worried. Needing to check that I was unhurt. He sensed the ache in my ribs and something more… the death at my feet.

It might be Apa, I thought again, not sure if I was really sharing the thought with him or not. But the idea that I might be standing among his remains, having unknowingly left him here to die, broke my heart. I backed away, careful to hug the cliff wall rather than fall back in the water. I curled up into a little ball to wait for my mate. The pain building inside me was like a living thing. I lifted my muzzle to the sky and wailed.

Chapter 1

Aweek passed after finding the portal. Liam’s pack had been hunting down the ghouls, finding them feeding on random animal remains scattered through a large section of the woods. Several dump sites even, not human, but too many to be natural.

As if portals had opened and the remains dumped outside them. If each spot had a portal, they were already gone. Even the one near the river had faded and closed. The idea that there were that many, and so close, was scary. I wondered if it was some reaction from Underhill, or if I was opening and closing them in my sleep. We argued about crossing a portal, going to search for Nicky andApa.

“Not without me.” Liam was adamant.

How I’d gotten from dreaming in the camper to running through the forest on the other side of the mountain? No one knew. The guards had been outside the trailer. If I’d left through the door, they would have followed me. Which meant I probably did some fae portal stuff again without trying. Liam reached out to the fae, Wesley in particular, and asked what might have happened.

He’d been rewarded with radio silence. Even Robin had been conspicuously absent. No sign of him in the house or the camper. The fae seemed to have gone from an obsession with us to complete disinterest. I wasn’t certain whether to be happy about that or irritated.

The wolf remains near the ridge didn’t appear to beApa, for which I was grateful. But I was still itching to cross over to see if I could find him and Nicky.

“Not without me,” Liam insisted again. It was a constant argument.

“We don’t even know if you can cross,” I reminded him. “Or if it will separate us if you do.”

“If I have to tie you to me and cross, then so be it.”

“Sounds kinky,” I teased, though I was still exhausted. I was sleeping in fits and starts with endless nightmares, but not well enough to feel rested. It was a lot like the kitsune inside used my unconscious hours to really batter at the box containing it, trying to rip its way free. If I knew how to let it out, I would, but the forest god had done something to stop me.

Liam leaned over and kissed me. “Kinky is fine. Whatever. Are you eating enough? You look like you’ve lost weight.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. I was actually preparing dinner, sitting at the kitchen table chopping up veggies because I was too tired to stand at the counter and do it. “You watch me eat.”

“I have,” he agreed. “Have you been throwing it up?”

“No.” I waved him away. “Stop mothering me. I’m fine. Tired.”

He sighed, and I could sense his frustration that obviously was strong since I rarely got glimpses of his emotions through our bond.

“Sorry,” I said. “I promise I’m eating and I’m fine. I don’t know how you can help when I don’t even know what’s wrong. I’m not trying to be contrary.”

“And that’s what worries me.”

It worried me too, to be honest, but since I didn’t really have anyone I could ask, we had to sort of fumble our way through this. “We should go findApaand Nicky.”

“Not until you’re feeling better.”

“I’m fine.”

“And you have control of the kitsune?”

Fuck. He knew I didn’t. “It’s napping,” I tried.

Liam wasn’t fooled. “Imprisoned. Do you know what happens when you cage an animal?”

“It gets pissed off and tears down the walls?” That’s certainly what it felt like it was trying to do.

“Or withers and dies,” Liam said softy, his gaze on me sad.