Page 66 of WitchBorn

Snow fell from the sky in giant flakes, drifting down as light as feathers. I breathed deep, rolling onto my back to stare up at the beauty of the light catching the flakes, refracting in colors as they dropped. Each one landing on my skin in a gentle touch of cooling calm. Tears froze on my face and I sucked in air while the chill brought a shiver to my skin.

“Sorry, sorry,” the teen murmured and the snow stopped.

I lay unmoving, the ache radiating soul deep.

A coarse tongue licked the tears from my face, and a big furry body landed on top of me as my shivering got worse. The white leopard that had tried to protect Wesley before bathed my face. Was this the teen? I blinked at him, the sandpaper tongue on my face grounding me as his big furry body eased the chill.

“Did Wesley send you?” I asked.

The cat chuffed and continued to groom my hair. I reached up and ran my fingers through his soft fur, breathing deep as the pain slowly faded. It felt like hours passed, the big cat warming, me petting him to keep myself from falling into the dark oblivion of unconsciousness, and my gaze focused on the distant statue of Wesley, whose eyes were open and gazing my way.

The barrier around his tribute in this garden of nightmares wriggled with an oil-spill array of colorful magic. A dozen paths to other terrors lay in silent brooding, waiting for me to touch them and be dragged into each horror, a gauntlet to be passed.

It’s okay,a soft voice trickled through my mind. A ghost-like energy reminding me of Wesley’s kiss. We barely knew each other, was it too soon to feel like he was the raft in a storm of my chaotic past?

Wesley?I thought, heart pounding as I closed my eyes and prayed to sink into the sensation of him there with me.

It’s okay to rest.Wesley said.

It’s too much.I admitted, overwhelmed by the prospect of facing whatever trauma the wolf thought I needed to become stronger.

Not all bad,Wesley remarked.The boy from the last dream? I know him. He’s a good friend of yours.

What?The dark-skinned boy who could turn to a werewolf was still alive?

Yes.

I let that thought process for a few minutes as my kitty friend nuzzled my ear. The pain vanished, my body feeling overworked, rather than the throbbing wound it had been. Was there more to all this than just pain?

Can you find it?Wesley’s statue closed its eyes, expression turning serene as his presence vanished in my head.

I jolted up, unseating the cat who huffed at me, and shifted into a fluffy white kitten that padded his way over to a plate of macarons. The colorful array sitting on a plate in the middle of the overgrown path made me wonder if it was a way out. I reached for the plate as the kitten gave a pitiful meow.

“Want some?” I offered the cat, surprised when I could not only pick up the plate, but also a cookie. I brought one to my lips, the scent of it fruity. It tasted like a cookie, the melt in your mouth kind that people paid bakeries a lot of money for. “Do I have to eat them all to get out of here?”

I polished them off like the starving man I was, but the garden of memories remained. “Fuck.”

The kitten meowed again.

“I’m the Autumn king, right? Does that mean the Summer king’s magic doesn’t work on me? Double fuck.”

Forty-Four

WESLEY

Iwoke up to Sebastian sitting beside me on the bed, e-reader in hand. My gasp at being back alone brought his attention to me.

“We can’t pull him out like we did you,” Seb said. “It’s his realm.”

“But he’s split,” I said, heart pounding at the idea that Finn was trapped in a reality of his own making, or at least half of him. “The wolf has taken control.”

Seb sighed. The door opened and Liam came in with a tray. More food. Super. I groaned, wanting to curl up and sleep to find Finn again.

“You should eat,” Liam said, his gaze falling on the bottle of the sleeping potion Toby had given me. “Too much of that will make you sick.”

“You understand wolves. How can we convince Finn’s wolf… Xander’s other half, to not torture him?” I asked.

“Trauma sucks,” Liam said. “As much as I wish we could rip away the memories from those we love, it is part of what created them.” He said it as he sat down beside Seb, and slid the tray over my lap. He leaned over to kiss Seb’s cheek. The trauma he wanted to strip away, was Sebastian’s, and I wondered howangry at me he was for letting any of that happen. “We have to accept it as part of their past as much as they do. Burying it only causes everyone pain.”