Page 14 of WitchCurse

“That’s not going to happen,” Nick said firmly in the fae language.

“There is no way to prevent it,” I reminded him. He had been searching for centuries. Digging through every scroll, tome, and bit of legend he’d been able to scrape together.

“There was no way for us out of Underhill either,” Nick said. He reached into the pocket of the overshirt I wore to take my hand into his warm grip again. “Liam and Ari pulled us out.”

“Ari is a babe. It will be a long time before they are powerful enough to even begin to understand my curse.” I hoped to be dead before then and end the suffering at the very least.

Nick didn’t reply for a while, his grip warming my hand, and his thoughts firmly closed to me. Not that I tried to invade his mind much. As scions we were intrinsically tied. Most fae used it to create a sort of powerful slave, sometimes burning through scions over and over. Nick could die without taking me with him, but it did not work in reverse. I tried not to use him too much as I had no desire to burn through him.

“He felt like your magic,” Nick said softly, his shoulders stiff with tension.

“That is because he fed on me for a very long time.” Most of the court had after they’d locked me in ice. It kept me weakened, unable to break free, until little remained of my power, and I’d been abandoned in favor of other prey.

“That’s what makes me angry.”

“I feed on you,” I whispered softly. It was not the intense roll of strength it would have been if I had been bonded to a fae like Sebastian, but it helped us survive this long. In this realm he could renew his strength with mortal food rather than simply my magic, less of a strain on both of us.

“You were never bonded to him.”

“I was never bonded to any before you,” I said.

“He used you.”

Well, of course. That was how the fae functioned. “That is what our bond does as well.”

“No,” Nick said. “The bond is a partnership.”

“Not for all fae.” What Nick saw in the bond between the wolf and the fox was not common at all. I attributed their behavior to the new world values. Most fae of Sebastian’s power would have subjugated the wolf, drawn energy from his pack and built an empire.

“Not you,” Nick added.

“I did build an empire.”

“You had a sanctuary in the middle of nowhere for fae to hide and nearly killed yourself with starvation to keep from harming them. I hardly call that an empire.”

I stared at him from beneath my hood. Did he still think there was a shred of goodness left in me? Bonded for nearly two centuries, had I kept him at such a length that he didn’t see me at all?

“Incorrect. I see you better than you see yourself,” Nick said.

I grunted at him, not wishing to argue, even if he was wrong.

“I’m not wrong. And I’m not the only one who sees it,” Nick said in English this time.

“Sees what?” Dylan asked from up front.

“That there is something worth saving in Kiran.”

Dylan threw a wolfish grin my way. “Oh, yeah. Seb and Liam are sort of bleeding hearts, but if they saw you as a liability, they’d do what they had to. Liam comes across as laid back, but he can be utterly ruthless.”

But they should see me as a liability. Eventually I would turn and there would be no end but death. I was a selfish and cruel male who had spent an entire existence destroying one court after another. What was good about that?

“You do see yourself more clearly than I thought you do,” Nick said.

I glanced his way. “A selfish monster?”

“A tool that helped end the tyranny of the sidhe, but selfish, yes, sometimes,” Nick agreed.

Only sometimes? As a half-breed mutt of the fae, survival had been about putting myself first. Learned that the hard way at a very young age. I’d have spared Sebastian that if I could have, and directed him to the wolf sooner had I been free and in this world.