Page 83 of WitchBorn
He wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t burden anyone else with it either.
A scream echoed through the woods. I jolted into a run toward the noise, which was where we’d left Cassa. Oberon raced behind me, but the smell of blood and death reached my nose before I could exit the trees to the riverside and discover what had gone wrong. My heart pounded in fear that Cassa was hurt. A wall of doom encapsulated the area with oppression, darkness, and pain. The dark taint of magic stronger than I’d ever felt. Even my sire’s cave before he died hadn’t been the abyss of rage and agony this was.
But it was Marina who lay in a bloodied heap with Cassa’s arms around her, protecting her with her body as the toddler Felix in a nightmare monster form snarled and clawed at her. I growled and launched myself at him, ready to kill the monster I should never have let be born.
Cassa threw herself between us, and I froze, unable to hurt her even while Felix tore into Marina’s broken body giggling a terrible sound as though seeing more blood and broken skin with bone protruding made him happy.
“Cassa,” I said. “Cassa, the boy is broken.”
“He’s mine,” Cassa said. She unleashed her omega strength in a wall of calm so heavy I dropped to my knees unable to lift my head. Oberon did the same behind me, breathing heavily as if keeping upright at all were near impossible.
Felix calmed and shifted back to his toddler form, covered in blood, wide eyes staring at his mother. The wolf inside him disoriented, and I could sense it floundering for control.
Cassa wrapped her arms around him and the oppressive levels of darkness vanished. The wolf regained control and he sighed, and snuggled into her with a sweet sound of the baby he should have been.
“Cassa,” I begged.
“No,” she said, lifting him and walking away from us, her omega strength keeping us pinned to the ground. She vanished intothe trees, leaving Marina’s lifeless body, and us unable to move until she’d gotten too far away to hold her magic over us.
I stared at the empty gaze of one of my pack, horrified that I’d been unable to protect her until the omega magic vanished, and I could rise to reach her. She didn’t deserve this. Marina had been one of our oldest female wolves. Never an alpha, but always protective and encouraging among the pack.
“I’ll get a pyre set up,” Oberon whispered.
“What do I tell the pack?”
“I don’t know.”
“I need to go after Cassa. Felix is dangerous.”
“Could you hurt him?” Oberon asked. “He’s your child, too. She’s kept him from you, but your wolf adores him.”
Marina’s blood was still warm as I held her broken body. It would be a lie to say I didn’t love Felix. He scared me, more than I scared myself, but I still loved him. He was mine as much as he was Cassa’s. Two years and I’d been trying to help teach him control, and failing miserably. The wolf in him would play with the other wolves for hours without incident, and something would shift, and he’d snap at someone, drawing blood. Accidents, I thought, and Cassa pulled him away to soothe him with her omega power.
She pulled away from me because she didn’t have the strength to soothe us both. Centuries I’d lived, and now relied on a single sweet omega to ensure my sanity. That said a lot of terrible things about me.
I lifted Marina and carried her toward our funeral spot, heart filled with grief. The beast wanted to break free, find Cassa and Felix, and end the nightmare. The wolf wanted to comfort his mate, and hold his pup. The human mourned. A war of three souls in one flimsy human skin.
Fifty-Five
FINN
Oberon built up the pyre. No one came. A dark wave of grief keeping them from leaving their homes. I didn’t realize it was me until Oberon stopped moving, dropping to his knees, gaze turning my way.
“Let me finish,” he said. “We need to set her free.”
I swallowed hard, and walked her to the bed of the pyre, setting her down and leaving. It took every bit of my strength to walk away. The pack could not mourn her until I eased the oppression of my grief, but no matter how my human heart tried, the pain welled up over and over. Marina had been not only a pack mate, but a mother figure to many. Me included.
How was I to let all this go?
I stalked away from the fire, letting myself wander aimlessly into the woods. The land welcomed the release of the emotions, absorbing the grief with a spit of fire and a fizzle that left everything scorched.
How many more would I fail? Why did I keep building a pack and a family, only to lose them all?
The beast overwhelmed me for a time, and I opened my eyes to find myself on the edge of the bridge near the deepest part of the river. Felix ran about in his wolf form, alone. Which I found strange. Where was Cassa?
Smoke spiraled through the trees, more than Marina’s funeral pyre. My pain having set the forest aflame, too. The beast slid away from my skin, leaving the mortal man, and Felix yipped at me, excited to see me. He raced around my feet, a rare glimpse of the child he could be when the wolf was in control. But my heart hammered as there was no sense of Cassa’s omega strength to help him.
“What happened?” I asked as if the toddler could answer. His skin glowed, a pulse of magic running beneath it I’d never seen on him before. He ran to the water’s edge and howled, gaze meeting mine. I dropped down at his side, running my hands over him, and finding his beast locked beneath a heavy layer of magic I couldn’t explain.