Page 44 of WitchBorn
“Never,” I said. “I’m never one of the participants in a vision, only an observer.” I had never been able to touch any of them before, and yet my arms around the Volkov had turned into arms around Finn. “You were the Volkov.”
“Who?”
“The Autumn king.”
“Me?” His gaze rested on Sebastian’s tree. “You said this one is the Summer king. Did I save him? As a child? Is that a memory from another life or something?”
“Sebastian is only a few years older than you.”
“But he’s the Summer king?”
“Newly anointed,” I said releasing Finn and taking a step back. I glared at the dark blotch that reappeared on his back. “I don’t suggest touching anymore of the statues.”
“The cold spot is back,” Finn said grimly.
“Yes.” My gaze found one particular statue in the distance which I knew would be disaster to touch. Felix’s nightmarish face nearly hidden in the overgrowth of wildflowers seeking their last gasp of warmth and rain.
Finn stared at Sebastian’s tree, the drops of rain growing in size as they sluiced down his bare shoulders. “I really am tied to the Autumn king somehow?” He turned to meet my gaze; eyes wide. Finn looked really young in that moment and I didn’t want to be the one to put more fear in his eyes by telling him what I suspected.
Torn, the shadow wolf had said. The human had been torn from the wolf. By memories or fate, I wasn’t certain it mattered.
“Wesley?”
“Don’t touch the trees,” I said. How long would it take for all the memories to reawaken who he was? Tales of the Volkov’s monster spread across the world, to the fae and beyond, leaving every supernatural being quaking with fear for centuries. The stories faded to a lull two decades ago, vanishing as the king ofwerewolves hid himself away in a compound raising a peculiar kitsune child.
Would the man Finn was, be lost beneath the weight of his past? I decided that we needed to get out of this creepy little garden.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Finn asked.
“We should go,” I said as the rain intensified, sky opening and dumping water on us as if a floodgate opened overhead. His lips moved, but the downpour made it impossible to hear him even though he was less than a step away. I reached for him, a distant rumble, a low, thunderous growl that seemed to rise from the depths of the ground itself.
The noise grew louder and more intense. A roar punctuated the deep, resonant boom of water slamming into solid surfaces. A wall of water slammed into the distant statues, swallowing them whole, splashing around them in a wave like an unleashed ocean. I gasped in horror, grabbed Finn’s arm to drag him to run, but the water crashed into us with no other warning.
Thirty
WESLEY
The swell of water ripped through the sanctuary like a tidal wave, engulfing us in half a heartbeat. I gripped Finn’s hand and sucked in a deep breath before the water and debris swirled around us, trying to tear us apart. The icy sea reminded me of the nightmares of the Winter court as it pounded against us, needles of cold inching itself beneath my skin as if shoving us deeper and deeper beneath the waves.
My lungs burned for air, and I gripped Finn’s hand hard enough I feared breaking it. The water smashed into the stone figures and swirled around the dense vegetation. The glowing mushrooms swayed, while the brush and grass became dark blotches of seaweed ready to tangle.
Finn wrapped his arms around me and launched us upward in a diver’s move, seeking the surface. I gasped as we found air, but sank again with a dozen waves smashing us back down like the worst game of Whac-A-Mole ever.
“Fuck,” Finn cursed and I agreed, swallowing water between broken breaths, limbs freezing from the icy water. He turned us as if to use himself as a shield, gaze upward, his added curses lost in the noise.
I followed his line of sight to see the shadow wolf/dragon hovering.
“Double fuck,” I shouted, the sound mostly lost beneath the roaring water.
The wolf lunged, dragging with it a tidal wave of water that soared into the sky. Jaws snapped as though to swallow us both whole as it dove toward the water in a graceful arch. The wave behind a menacing monster of strength.
We both sucked in a deep breath, and Finn yanked me beneath the surface as the wall of water smashed down with a stone mallet force. The current shoved us into a dizzying spin.
I scrabbled for a grip as the force of the water tore us apart. Finn vanished in a swirl of bubbles, his silhouette fading into the murky depths. The current caught me dead center and smashed into me. I slammed into a tree trunk with bone-jarring force, hitting mid-back. Pain exploded, vision darkening with pops of sparkles.
Disoriented, I struggled to stay conscious and hold my breath, the water pressing in from all sides. Where had Finn gone? The vegetation melded with shadows writhing like hands from a nightmare of the river Styx. I struggled to keep my eyes open, searching for the glowing mushrooms, Finn, or any way to escape.
Which way was up? Was there even an up?