Page 15 of WitchCurse

“And that is why it’s only sometimes,” Nick said. “That you think of him at all. Or me.”

I thought of Nick most often. My failure to protect him, using him to survive, a necessary evil. Would I let him go if I could? That was a difficult question I didn’t want to face. I was selfish in that I didn’t want to be alone. That I needed him likely much more than he needed me. He squeezed my hand, letting me know he heard my thoughts, but not commenting. I looked away, staring out the window to the passing scenery. Not as interesting as Underhill, but soothing in its plainness. If there was a sting of tears in my gaze, I did not let anyone see them fall.

CHAPTER5

Toby

The fact that Dylan took Nick and Kiran into town without me made my wolf rage. It was a struggle to shower, get dressed, and act like a person when I wanted to change into my wolf and chase after them.

“You okay?” Sebastian asked, his fingers landing on my arm, his touch always kind when everyone else hesitated.

“As okay as I always am,” I replied.

He sighed, knowing only glimpses of the constant battle inside. It mellowed a lot in his presence, or when the duo was around, though the addition of Kiran, a fae prince, and Nick, a human scion, to our lives, meant an added mix of magic I had yet to understand, but I was working on it.

“Can I help?” Sebastian asked.

“I should have been their guard,” I said.

“Do you think Dylan isn’t strong enough to protect them?” Liam asked as he passed in the hall to head downstairs. Ari bounced beside him, always full of energy.

I followed at a slower pace, giving my body time to get used to the feeling of wearing clothes. It had been over a year since my change, and still, human skin felt…not unnatural exactly, but stiff? Confined? The clothing that went over the top for needed warmth and required modesty often made my skin twitch. Sometimes taking hours to settle. Oversensitivity was a sign of something wrong, or at least that’s what the other wolves led me to believe.

“Not that he isn’t strong,” I said after we reached the kitchen. The alpha’s daughter sat at the table with a sprawl of books around her.

“Sandwiches in the oven,” she said without looking our way.

How did I make the alpha understand that I was meant to be their guard? Dylan’s priority was to his mate, and while the duo weren’t mine yet—my wolf argued that fact—I knew they would be. Nick was strong, though seemed to have lost the bulk of his ability to sculpt magic in this world. Kiran was sick, fading in a way not unlike a wolf could, and that meant they needed protection. My wolf and I thought it would be best to be me.

I went to the oven to retrieve food for the omega, pleased to find eggs and bacon in fresh biscuits.

“They are just getting clothes,” Sebastian said as he accepted a plate and two sandwiches from me. The alpha watched me dole out food with a wary gaze, his wolf instinct likely growling that he should be feeding his mate, but we were not in competition. Sebastian was not mine, even if my wolf demanded we protect him.

“I would like to have helped with that,” I said, my human side picturing the men changing clothes, or things I’d prefer them to wear. More startling was the idea that I preferred them both without apparel. The wolf liked skin to skin, and the human wanted to explore the reawakening of a need for physical touch, though a lot of those memories were still buried. Was I willing to unearth them? Maybe.

“They should be back soon,” Liam said, pushing a plate my way, the weight of his alpha presence telling me to eat. I had not let myself fade in months. The wolf and I traded crossing over, and sleeping on each side of the divide, getting real rest and sharing some of the burden of existence. Food was a necessity, and I ate because it made me stronger and the omega happy.

Liam studied me, knowing only pieces of my connection to the duo, but he never tried to separate us. I didn’t know if other members of the pack got angry for having to do patrols that I never did. Or, if they accepted I didn’t do them because I was somehow broken as a wolf. Mostly I kept to the pack house, the den, and the camper.

“You can ask for a show,” the alpha teased.

Neither of them were ready for that. I was studying magic with Liam when I could, trying to perfect the mix that Kiran needed to survive, without taking too much from the omega. The varying magic was strange, with Underhill’s mess looking a lot like a chaos of colors, while the stuff from this world ran in more organized lines. Liam spoke of it aswildversusstructured, and that made sense. But while Kiran was a thing of wild magic, there were structured lines engraved into the very depths of his soul. Sebastian was more set lines with only a handful of the waves of chaos.

Liam said he could only see parts of the variations, and not with nearly the vibrancy that I could. Neither of us knew exactly what that meant. Only that maybe I had some sort of magic abilities I’d been born with?

We knew the magic had to be a balance. Too much would send Sebastian’s kitsune scrambling for food, yank energy from the pack, and spiral into another eruption of power, which had begat his illness and the subsequent creation of the child.

My gaze landed on Ari, who looked like all magic, and sometimes none. The swirls and lines overtook the child, constantly shifting, and sometimes vanishing completely. The ever-changing pulse of energy could make me dizzy if I watched too long. But I suspected Kiran’s need for magic was much the same as Sebastian’s; too much would be trouble, too little was what we were working with now, though their blends were different.

Nick had grown frustrated with his lack of magic in this world. Or at least his loss of the ability to control it. As a scion, as long as Kiran allowed it, Nick should have full access to Kiran’s power. In Underhill he’d been able to craft it with ease, using Kiran’s ability in much the same way Liam used Sebastian’s. He didn’t understand why it didn’t work here, even when we were feeding Kiran strength. It was like he’d become completely human again, and I knew Nick hated it. We studied the books together, trying to find a reason, but so far had been left with more questions than answers.

Korissa patted the table beside her, and I sat down with the food, not really caring what it was, since it wasn’t cake or tea, but I would eat it anyway. A box of cards sat beside my plate, and I frowned at them. I had been working through the emotions they stirred up, and even had laid them out several times, always coming back with the same card on top. Death.

I opened the cards, shuffling them in between bites, pulled a single card, flipped it to reveal it was Death.

“I’ve tried a dozen times, and I never get that card,” Korissa said. “Every pull is random for me. Am I doing it wrong?”

“It doesn’t actually mean death,” Sebastian said. “I looked it up. It means change.” He took the card and set it aside. “And there’s only one per deck.”