Page 84 of Witchbane
All that remained was darkness, pain, terror, and oncoming death. I dropped to my belly, too terrified to do more than submit to my extinction. The high-pitched whimpering sound dripping from my throat sounded foreign even to me. If I could have dropped dead of fear alone right there, I would have.
A bright light surrounded us and the calm spread over everything like a blanket of snow. I could feel energy coursing through me, demanding release. It was hungry, I realized. So much power before us, and I was suddenly starving, an odd feeling beneath all the fear. Yet it knew what it wanted.
It was too much to hold on to, to keep it back when it demanded to be filled. I let go, not understanding at all what it meant to release that sort of power outward. And it became an explosion of something within me. A searing heat poured over me, making my fur light on fire. I screamed, a keening wail. Terror all around. Burning up from within. So much power, too much to control.
Apa’swill curled around me. Almost like it was trying to tie back the tidal wave of energy. His strength enveloped me, shoving back the power to keep me from burning up, even while I disintegrated beneath the raging fire.
No, no, no!I heard screamed inside my head.Accept the bond, let me cool the flames. You’re not strong enough yet.Apa’svoice.
I trembled, unable to really do anything as the edges of my world began to darken. Accept the bond. What bond? I searched for it inside me to find anything to cool the heat. And there it was, thin and almost invisible at first, a string of ice. When I grabbed hold and pulled, it became a blanket, weaving layer upon layer of itself to become stronger. I wrapped the threads of it around me, feeling the ice soothe the heat and quench the hunger.
Bits of darkness trickled through. Whatever that parasite was that had begun to dig its claws into Apa, crawled through the weave, lacing itself between strands. I snarled and batted at it, but the cooling touch ofApa’smagic began to ease the terror. As the fire dripped away, sleepiness began to overwhelm me. I barely kept my feet and yet Felix was back, diving for me, fangs ready for the kill.
A dark form leapt over me, shoved me away hard enough to send me rolling down the hillside and into the creek. The cold bite of water doused the last of the fire and snapped me free of the terror that had kept me immobile, and my body reacted, running as I’d never run before. With no thought to direction, other than away, I ran until there wasn’t an ounce of strength left in my body.
Oberon found me later, his wolf had interrupted Felix’s attack, saved me from that final blow whileApahad still been staggered by my power, trying to balance the awakening of my kitsune with his own very different magic. And fight whatever curse Felix had brought with him, as it had latched on to both of us that day, I realized. It had eaten away atApamuch faster than at me.
Felix hadn’t survived. That day his attack had been meant for me, a fae devisedaccident, turning the son of the most powerful of wolves into a beast of theWild Hunt. Using him to kill me, an orphan mutt of the fae left among the wolves. Sad that it would happen to kill an innocent child. Only the attack had failed.Apaexposed to the slow cancer of theWild Hunt, reached for me, bound me to try to keep his head above the icy grip of the fae. To not take down the entirety of wolves and to keep me hidden, he and his pack became more isolated, sick, and damaged as the cancer spread. The fae eating at him from one side and me draining him from the other. His life had become a slow death march. The pack tie to me, feeding the kitsune slowly, even while it churned in locked silence inside, waiting to be freed.
Had the fae knownApahad been part elemental magic, not all that unlike me? His power had been enormous, almost the star-eclipsing energy of the forest god. And I’d spent more than a decade slowly feeding on it after he’d bound us together to keep me from destroying myself.
Fuck.
The monster before me, that wolf half eaten by cold, it could have beenApa, Felix, or a dozen other wolves, it didn’t matter. It stared down at me like my death would end its suffering. But that wasn’t how it worked. I was death, the end of things. I’d killed Felix. I killed Underhill. Ate the last dredges of fae trapped in the dying throes of another world. Destruction and kitsune were synonymous. That was what the fae had been telling me. Why they’d been looking for me. Kill the destroyer, before I killed them. Made sense, in a twisted and narrowly focused sort of way.
A small hand gripped mine, a reminder I wasn’t alone, even though the child was transparent and maybe a figment of my imagination? I recalled a man holding all that power as it burned down his arms, trying to shape the corruption and magic of Underhill into something more benign.
I swallowed hard, suddenly seeing Liam, remembering his name and getting a crystal-clear picture of him in my head that first day I’d seen him in his bakery. Fitted black pants, a light blue button-up under the green apron with the Sweet Tooth’s logo on it.
My mate. That’s what was wrong this entire time. Someone was trying to sever the bond; the pain, excruciating, real enough they had to attribute it to something. And it wasn’t Liam this time, frantically trying to save me because he feared he was dying. No, something else was trying to rip us apart, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Chapter 23
The wolf snarled at me, a living recreation of monsters I’d run from my entire life. Memories half locked away by trauma, fae magic, and the bondApahad created to keep me from imploding. I’d been young, and not at all able to control the power. And there stood Ari, a thousand times stronger, yet in perfect control. Taught by Liam, the king of patience and control.
Fate had chosen Liam for me, finding me exactly what I needed. Not only a man who would love me unconditionally, but one who could understand and help me focus my power. I needed to get back to my mate, and out of this tilted world of broken memories. A dream. It had to be. Not a normal sort of one either.
The wolf lunged; giant jaws ready to snap me in half. But my baby was at my side, and I couldn’t let them be hurt, not even by some corrupted memory. My change flowed like water, pouring over me and making the shift as flawless and instant as a fresh spill over a spring fountain, only much sharper. As the monster leapt, my claws, the huge sharp talon-like nails more like a predatory bird’s than a fox’s, ripped through it with the ease of sliding through soft butter.
Someone gasped, and a gurgling sound of blood welling up into someone’s lungs began to chisel away at the vision. Vision, I realized. Not a dream. Dreams were more disjointed, pain more emotional and less physical. This nightmare I’d been dragged into was beyond that. A familiar control that enraged me. The last time I’d been here it had taken me weeks to understand what was happening. Living in aGroundhog Dayloop of positive memories keeping me calm. This time they’d needed a way to mask the pain of trying to fuck with my mate bond, and rather than giving me happy replays, I got fear. No more. And not in front of Ari, who didn’t deserve to be bogged down with my past. That had beenApa’s biggest mistake, placing his own problems on my shoulders rather than dealing with them himself. I’d never do that to anyone else, especially a child.
I opened my eyes, not realizing until that moment they’d been closed, and stared into a familiar face, with beautiful, long flowing blond hair and eyes a blue so pale, they looked like a frozen lake on an overcast day. He was handsome. Had used that to his advantage, wrapping me in his power and dragging me into memories I didn’t want, and then he could feed. He thought he could control me. He had in the past, but how he knew he could at all, was a mystery.
Had he been working with the fae the entire time? Was that why I’d been targeted? Because it felt that way now. Looking back at the little girl who’d lured me with her cries, and the handsome hero stepping up to save the day once the child had turned monstrous. Using my kindness to prey on my power.
The claws of my kitsune were buried deep within his gut as blood poured around my hand, stripping away his energy and the madness he’d wrapped me in. The pooling blood smelled like fae. Not mine, but fae, that weird silver magic scent that teetered on the edge of burnt ozone and cookies.
That was another puzzle piece in place. The vampires feeding on the fae. The fae were usually stronger. How had he captured fae at all to bleed them? Maybe he hadn’t at all, but instead someone had given fae to him. A partnership, beneficial in punishing the fae who refused to follow orders, and keeping the vampires on a short leash, while giving them tiny bits of power. All for what? Overall control? Or for the focused pursuit of my power?
“Hugo,” I said, staring up into the face that belonged on a romance novel even as he choked and struggled in my grasp. He’d never been a small man, having come from Viking stock. Not the sort of warrior of TV, but something more like a movie star. Tall yes, but not the muscled strength of a warrior like Liam was. Soft, I realized. How long had he been feeding on the fae for power? How many had died for him to build his empire?
Funny how jealous Liam got of Hugo because I mentioned he was good-looking. There was really no comparison. Liam’s face was that of legend, handsome, memorable, and the sort of pretty the world at large would find drawing. His body, more on the lean side than movie star superheroes, would have been fodder for critics.
Except he was perfect. Not with flawless abs and the bulging veins in his arms. No, those things came from forcing a body to eat itself to survive. A werewolf used too much energy with every shift. The ripped body of movies and media would have meant instant death to any werewolf with not enough body fat to sustain the change. Most wolves were strong. Often built solid as they had to pad their muscles a bit. Liam’s lean frame made others underestimate him. Carl had more the giant shithouse build that most expected from a werewolf alpha.
My mate’s strength came from his intelligence, speed, and control. His strength was the true sculpture of a man with the ability to put anyone down. He didn’t need to be hulking to keep the wolves in line or even make them want to follow him. Hugo had nothing on my mate. Part of his prettiness came from glamour that didn’t even belong to him, and the rest was a soft meat suit to cover the monster he was inside.
I remembered seeing the difference that first time I’d escaped him. Had thought the vampires little more than beautiful monsters until that moment when I’d run, fleeing through his Chicago mansion.