Page 72 of WitchBorn

FINN

Igasped awake as a charge of energy circulated through me. “What the…” my question cut off as the world erupted in overwhelming power. A ribbon of energy spread outward, seeking a link. The first it touched was my wolf, who paced outside the sanctuary, close, but unwilling to enter.

He snapped at me, and I flinched away. His emotions and memories battered me in a chaotic mess of tangled thoughts. More human than I expected a wolf to be, but we’d run together as one for centuries. He snarled at the idea of letting our bond reunite, reminding me how weak he thought I was, and I recoiled away from him, following the magic instead.

The power dug deep, forming a link that flew beyond the sanctuary and even the realm, carrying my mind with it as though we’d flown the route a thousand times, and wrapped up each nearby wolf, one by one. As though, if I couldn’t have my wolf, all the rest would be mine. A connected weave of consciousness and power surged through the line, their packs filling a vacuum of unfamiliar silence inside my head with an overwhelming weight of emotion, magic, and noise.

I felt a sudden, overpowering kinship to the packs, their thoughts and feelings surging through me like a tidal wave.It was disorienting, the sheer volume of their collective consciousness threatening to crush my own. Each linked wolf reminded me of a name, a human face, their wolf presence and a dozen specific memories of them. The wave began as a trickle, but quickly became a screaming tsunami of too much power all at once.

A scream broke through my lips as the world flipped from bright waves to darkness and back, not a seizure of the body like before, but of the mind. I begged my wolf for help and he growled and snarled, slamming a barrier down between us.

Blood dripped from my nose and I dropped to my knees, my vision exploding in an array of lights and stars. I sought to escape the pain which verged on euphoria. The packs linking to me one by one across not only the continent, but the entire globe. I gasped for air, struggling with the sheer volume of the power. No single being could control this. No wonder the wolf had split me off. Was there a way to survive becoming supernova?

I latched on to the last thread of hope floating through my memory, and that was Wesley. He said we were linked, and I hoped my explosion wouldn’t drag him down with me. His bond floated above the rest in a delicate ribbon that anchored me to my soul. I reached out and grabbed the tie, fearing breaking it with my touch, but it pulsed warm and solid in my grasp.

I blinked and found myself standing in an unfamiliar room, heart slowing as the power continued to grow, but I’d distanced myself from it. Wesley lay on the bed, looking better, beautiful with his delicate expression of sleep. I crossed the room in a handful of strides, desperate to touch him, and shocked to find him solid and warm beneath my fingers.

He opened his eyes, confused for a half second then they went wide as he sat up and pressed his lips to mine. My heart racing as I silently begged him to help me, even while I wantedto bask in his lips forever and couldn’t find the words to voice my desperate need.

Forty-Eight

WESLEY

Iopened my eyes to Finn standing over me, my gasp cut off as I sat up and pressed my lips to his, desperate to feel him. His touch heated near burning with its intensity, I flinched but refused to let go. A vibration echoed beneath his skin, magic spreading outward too fast to pull back, and his lips on mine demanded more.

“Finn,” I whispered, unwilling to break away, though his touch hurt, first with a raging fire, then a crisp chill that sucked energy from me. For a half second, his lips to mine, tasting him, staring into those beautiful sorrow-filled eyes, I thought it was Finn feeding on my energy as he should as my mate. But my breath puffed between us a visible icy array and that wasn’t Autumn, it was Winter.

He swallowed hard, and I pressed my forehead to his to try to give him strength as the Winter queen sucked away his magic through the curse and bloomed in dark blotches like bruises across his skin. Finn trembled.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

I silenced him with another kiss, this one long and deep, as if to show him I wanted to taste his soul through his lips. He couldtake as much as he needed from me, and he did, feeding at my lips, and sucking down power like a starving man.

He gasped, stealing small breaths in our kiss, and half gasps that sounded near pain. Was I hurting him?

I pulled away and watched a charge of electricity jolt him.

“Finn?”

The room around us unraveled into a weave of finely tuned magic layered over the real world. The threads turned to wriggling snakes of magical energy to attack Finn.

“What the hell?”

Finn backed away, breaking our touch and the wavering of the room stopped, though I watched him wince in pain a dozen more times as the realm continued to attack. Winter’s curse climbed up his neck and spread from his feet in a crystalizing layer of ice.

The door to the room burst open and Seb filled the doorway, his mate behind him. I threw myself at Finn, afraid for him. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“He can’t stay here,” Seb said, his expression filled with tension. “Winter is using him to invade my realm.”

“Fuck,” I cursed and turned to face Finn. “Baby, you gotta break Winter’s curse.”

“How?” He asked his eyes filled with pain, and through our bond I could feel him attacked in three different ways, his realm pulling him back, Winter’s curse draining him, and Seb’s realm trying to push him out. The rise of energy inside him continued to grow until he smoldered with the heat, his tremor scaring me more than the battle of fae magic as I worried he’d have a seizure.

Ice spread from around where he touched the floor, while his skin raged with a burning heat that sizzled against my touch. I bit back pain, trying to hold onto him and give him comfort.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” Finn whispered, as the ooze of the curse climbed to cover half his face. “I feel wolves. So many wolves. Wesley?”

“I’m here,” I whispered, my skin burning against his, and tears leaking from my eyes.