Page 5 of WitchBorn

Would there be anything to return to? Had the little King taken his throne? I would have liked to have been there to watch him finally ascend. He’d arrive in a mighty storm of winds, pelting rain, and dangerously green skies. I had seen it, long before my vision had been defined enough to know what the Fates showed.

I sighed and dove beneath the water to scrub at my hair, finding it too long, and instantly annoyed. The cut had been expensive in mortal terms, and time without maintenance left it a rat’s nest of tangled curls in need of a weedwacker.

The desire for air made me resurface, lungs still sensitive from the icy cold which had dug deep inside. I rose up to find myself face to face with the wolf of shadows. The true outline of his size was hard to define in the dark as he almost seemed tohave wings tucked to his side, and more than four legs, but even the bright glowing moon couldn’t pierce the ooze that coated him. The beast towered over me, easily three times the size of a normal beast and not the fluffy spread of fur I knew the little King’s mate to be. Rather this beast wriggled with dark slugs of magic.

Infected by Winter, perhaps?

I didn’t run. The shift and the chase could begin in a heartbeat, but once it started, it wouldn’t end until one of us was dead. Maybe even both.

It snarled at me, dripping viscous liquid from fetid breath while everything it touched died beneath the ooze of the dark shadows. The shore at its feet curdled and shrank away turning from sand to tar, and I couldn’t help my flinch as a few drops landed in the water like floating turds writhing with worms.

I slid back, scrambling for the opposite shore, expecting chase, but it didn’t leap for me. That showed resolve I had never met before. The human form didn’t produce the same impulse ofpreyas the Stag did, but I’d had more than my fair share of unwanted encounters due to the lingering tease of pheromones and cursed fae magic.

The beast slid back from the water’s edge, revealing a small shock of pure white fur. Had it killed another rabbit? I had yet to see a rabbit in the days of wandering, and he was somehow slaughtering them for me when I didn’t eat meat unless the Stag took control and we were desperate for food.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” I told it. “I’ll stick with clover. Some berries would be nice, but this dance of slaughter is not going to win me over.” I backed away slowly, finding myself near the trees I often rested, worried that the area wouldn’t be safe anymore. Which brought an uncomfortable chuckle to my lips. It hadneverbeen safe. That was the point, right? Whatever pocket realm I’d become trapped in was another cage of sorts.

Did it belong to theWitchBorndragon I’d witnessed rip itself from icy rock? Why send beasts to offer food? I had yet to encounter the dragon or the man I’d dreamt of a thousand times. Without another vision to tell me why I was here, or whereherewas, I was as blind as any other being.

Unsettling. I’d never loved my second sight, but a clue would have been nice.

I shifted to the Stag, needing the protection of speed, magic, and the lack of bare mortal flesh between us.

The beast inched away, sliding into the swelling darkness of the trees until nothing else moved again. The water burbled, spitting out the dark chunks. The ground regrew, overtaking the darkness with ease, burying it deep. Would it suffocate down there, or fester? I wasn’t going to dig to find out.

The white fluff lingered on my mind, too bright in the glowing moonlight to be natural. What had the beast found in the strange world?

I stalked closer, gaze constantly searching the deep shadows for movement, and crossed the steam to approach the white fluff. Was it moving?

Breathing?

I inched toward it, rack forward, ready for it to leap at me with fang or claw. It blinked tiny eyes at me, yawned, baring tiny teeth, little ears, and a fluffy snow-white body.

A kitten?

It left me a kitten?

I blinked, and shifted, fearing for a few seconds it was all some trick, but as I sank to my knees in quickly growing moss, the kitten stumbled to tiny legs, and wobbled its way over.

The soft mew begging for adoration as it scrambled around my knee. I picked it up carefully, examining it, finding a fluffy baby. Was it old enough to be without its mom? I cradled it to my chest, trying to warm it as it snuggled close.

Could it hear my heartbeat?

We sat waiting together, watching the shadows in the thick growing moss. The stillness only minimally comforting.

“Never felt like Alice before,” I said to the kitten. Though I had teased the little King with the remark. “Into a wonderland of clover, snow white kittens, and leering dark beasts.”

The kitten meowed, a breathy high-pitched cry as it licked my hand.

“Yes, yes, what am I to do with you? What do kittens eat? Not moss for certain. Be happy I’m not turning you into a handbag or something hideous like that. I know many a fae who would out of spite.”

I carried the kitten to the small nest of trees that had become my home, wishing for a cabin or a shelter of some kind if I was to be stuck in mortal flesh again. My Stag form might be safer for me, but what if it triggered the chase in the kitten? What if I accidentally stepped on it? Or it touched a tip on my rack and the poison made it wither and fade?

“Hardly a Hilton,” I told it as I laid down in the moss and clover bed, grateful for the soft pallet as I set it down. The critter curled up against me, face pressed to my chest, its soft purr giving me a soothing vibration that helped me settle to rest. “Never got a kitten from the Hilton…”

Four

WESLEY