Page 86 of WitchBorn
The child’s wail pierced the air, a sound so full of fear and heartbreak. My wolf shuddered, uncertain what to do, wolf cubs didn’t wail like this and my human half had always taken over before. Only now I couldn’t.
The wolf shifted into a human form, and lifted the child, cradling him to his chest, looking stiff and uncomfortable,and making small sounds he recalled from the human form. “Change back now, cub,” the wolf pleaded. It would be easier to raise a fox than a human. But the boy clung to the wolf, tiny fingers tangling in the hair of the wolf’s human form, unkempt as it was from locking the mortal half of his soul away.
“I feel a pull to the north,” Oberon said, “when I hold him. He has a mate. We need to find them.”
“No,” the wolf snapped.
Oberon sighed, the frustration heavy in his tone. “Xander, I can’t help you if you don’t let me. Don’t curse this child with your destruction.”
“I raised Felix,” I growled. “He’s fine.”
“He’s not.” Oberon’s words cut deep. “Cassa’s spell holds his dark side for now, but it’s weakening. Let me find a pack matriarch to care for Sebastian while we search for his mate.”
Sebastian. The name felt foreign on my tongue, but it belonged to the small child in my arms. The Summer king? My mind reeled, and I wondered if the wolf had known. If he had sensed the magic, the power coiled inside this tiny being. Power beyond comprehension, and yet the wolf cared only for the peace it brought—the calm that kept the darkness at bay. I dropped back down into the chair, clinging to the baby as if it were a life raft rather than a child. Before the fox child had been presented to us, the wolf rampaged through the camp twice, destroying any who got in his way.
Only Oberon still faced him. The wolf recognized his brother and fought his way free of the dark before he could destroy what was left of his family. And now there was this baby. Filled with magic and power beyond what we’d ever experienced.
“Can you tell me where your human half is?” Oberon asked carefully, voice barely above a whisper.
We glared at him, daring him to utter the words where others could hear and we’d be forced to end him. “You know not what you speak.”
But Oberon knew. “You are part of one soul. A sundered soul is unstable. You have buried the human part of your soul so deep he is suffocating. If he dies, you die. Don’t you understand?”
“Silence. He is weak.” The wolf snarled at him, causing the baby to cry again. “Shhh, cub, all is well,” Xander whispered to the baby.
Oberon remained frozen in the doorway, his knees buckling under the weight of the Alpha’s command as he sank to the ground. Sweat dripped down his brow, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white. He fought it—fought with everything he had—but the magic rooted him in place, rendering him silent.
The wolf rose from the chair, eyes cold and unreadable, and began packing a bag with methodical precision. Oberon’s glare could have killed him a thousand times over, but the wolf didn’t even flinch.
“I will leave the pack and train the cub.”
Oberon growled, unable to speak, the Alpha’s command locking his voice deep within his chest. The room thrummed with energy; the magic so thick it almost hummed in the air. The baby reached for it, as if he could still the storm with a mere touch, giggling and cooing at the waves of color he wrapped around his fingers.
The wolf stepped closer, eyes flashing. “You will not tell anyone what you know.” His voice was ice, the threat clear as he brushed past Oberon, the baby held protectively against him. “I will teach him to use his magic. I will master the darkness. And if you follow me, I swear by the blood we share, I will end our brotherhood with my claws.”
Oberon struggled, every muscle screaming against the magic that bound him. But the wolf didn’t wait. He slippedinto the shadows of the forest, disappearing into the night with the cub in his arms.
And with him, the last of his humanity vanished.
Fifty-Eight
FINN
“You’re the weak one,” I growled through clenched teeth, feeling the wolf thrash inside me, clawing against the magic that wanted to pull us back together. The bond frayed and snapped as we neared each other again, but I refused to let him in. “You couldn’t survive without the help of a child to suppress the dark, while I held it back for centuries—alone.”
He howled and the world around us blurred, hurling us into the memory—the fight. Felix’s curse shattered, unleashing the beast within him, twisted by the dark. The wolf’s plan had been madness—bind Sebastian to gain control of the darkness—and it backfired. The light had seared him, rejecting what he’d become without his human side.
Oberon had saved the boy, pulling him from the fight, but it wasn’t enough. I could still feel the wolf’s anger as he watched Oberon cradle the baby, stealing away what the wolf could never claim. Felix had fled, the spell meant to contain his madness shattered, leaving destruction in its wake.
“We should have killed him,” I said. Thinking of the nightmare Felix was. Nothing good could come from the darkness in human form. “How many terrible things could we have prevented?” Sometimes we had to be the bad guy. Hadn’t Wesley said something like that? “Sebastian wasn’t ours.”
“Protect omega,” the wolf demanded.
“You failed at that too,” I said. Was he hearing me at all, or still living in the past?
“That’s the plan. Follow or don’t,” Oberon had said, his grip on Sebastian tight. He hadn’t known the wolf had bound the child to save him from the consuming dark. Nor did he sense Winter’s claws, creeping deeper into his soul. But I could see both now, woven as intricate and ever-growing layers within the fabric of the living.
The wolf watched him go, brother of his heart, and the child he wished had been his. He turned and stalked off into the woods away from the pack, and the harm he would cause them all if he returned broken once again. And once they were out of sight, we ran. We ran north, far from Sebastian’s bonded mate, though deep down the wolf knew we should have found him. Coward.