Page 4 of WitchBorn (Kitsune Chronicles #5)

Three

WESLEY

D ays of wandering and searching for a way out left me frustrated. The realm spread wide, but repeated. A new realm with an unestablished king. Not the little King and his sorcerer wolf mate with their growing Summer court as I had hoped, and not Spring with his sarcasm and wit, which drew the remaining fae to him, not because of his power, but because his servants helped him craft a welcoming home of wakening buds and wild energy storms to recharge their fading power.

After exploring in long circles led back to the stream, I wondered if any other beings existed in this realm. The dark beast hadn’t returned, nor had I glimpsed the dragon, though twice I’d been left fresh kills of small creatures, various offerings of fish or fowl, which I ignored in favor of clover and moss.

Often when I slept, I’d feel watched. Uneasy, but also protected.

The silence added to my loneliness. Long years of learning to be independent from other fae meant great survival skills, but survival didn’t equal joy or even peace. I’d rest a few hours, then get up to wander again, looking for a change, finding boundless forest and a stream that meandered in replicating bends, but never had a beginning or an end.

I followed the water, drenching my hooves in it as if defiant, petty and willing to ruin the pretty peace of the landscape. The evenings got cold enough to force me to seek shelter in a thicket of trees, which often magically appeared as though my wish were tied to the realm. During the day, the warmth of the sun on my back and cool touch of water at my feet kept me moving.

Circles, only never truly around. Fae realms were maddening places. I’d come to love the material comforts of the mortal world, wealth, shelter, and the fine couture. Fae simplicity, and how their magic warred with the mere idea of modern items, drove my irritation, much like the ever-flowing stream.

The water never got past my knees, and I longed to soak in the cool spread. I traveled the stream until the sky colored with the painted pink, orange, and gray of dusk.

A small pond emerged as I rounded a bend thinking I’d stop for the night to eat and rest. That pond had not been there, though I’d passed that annoying stretch of birch trees a dozen times, having nibbled at the moss near the roots.

With a heavy bit of apprehension, I approached the pond. The gurgle of water soft and soothing, still silent of bugs, birds, or frogs. I gazed into the pool from a respectable distance, waiting for movement, or a sign of danger. Fae traps and bodies of water went hand in hand. Even with Underhill destroyed, the last threads of power scattered among the mortal world as seeds to be gathered and grown within new realms, my anxiety over being eaten by some wild selkie or brazen water nymph kept me from moving closer.

I kicked a few stones into the water, watching them skip a time or two and sink, the water resettling, and looking… normal.

My Stag form could outrun anything that might pop up from the depths, though my human side begged for a soaking bath.

The sun vanished behind the trees, leaving the sky washed in pretty colors as the moon rose, the remix in the sky worthy of a painting. Was a bath worth death? An end was an end, wasn’t it?

I stepped into the pool, carefully letting my hooves find purchase in the sandy bottom. Nothing moved as I climbed deeper, soaking all the way over my back, and until I had to lift my head nothing moved beyond me in the small pool. Though I waited a long while before shifting into my human form and finding a spot to sit that left me neck deep.

I could wish for a heated spring, but the soothing chill of the water helped ease some of the ache of still healing flesh, my mortal body slower to repair itself than the Stag.

I washed, gaze half-blinded by the brightness of the moon, still a perfect orb of blazing brightness above after days inside the realm. I could feel my ribs, and the lack of muscle tone was concerning. How long had I been in locked in Winter? Sometimes the realms ate years, though it seemed less and less so as the modern world merged with the magic remains of Underhill.

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 to have 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 of prey as 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 had never been safe. That was the point, right? Whatever pocket realm I’d become trapped in was another cage of sorts.

Did it belong to the WitchBorn dragon 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 where here was, 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…”