Page 22 of WitchCurse
My human side had no conflict in the fight, thinking that any who attacked us should die. It was instinct, and these beasts were technically dead. It made me a bit cocky. Which is when I missed the sideswipe of a beast I hadn’t seen because I’d been too busy ravaging another.
The claws ripped through me like razor blades, not hurting for the first half second, then stinging like acid had been laced on its claws. My vision sputtered to black, and body trembled as though I’d been poisoned, then a chill began to spread through the wound. I took a step and fell, unable to support my own weight as the pain brought stars to my vision.
I don’t remember crying out, but must have as Kiran returned with concern, ripping away the beast that had torn into me, and drinking down its magic like it was water. A handful more attacked him, and he fought them with ease, though the rot didn’t lessen no matter how many of them he devoured.
Kiran sniffed at the damage, swiping another beast away, but he yanked away the cold, like he was trying to pull the infection out of me. Another group of beasts attacked, forcing Kiran to fight them. He ripped them to shreds with ease. Even half eaten away by rot, his power was unimaginable. I watched the weave of magic shift and wriggle inside him, fascinated as the ice began to spread over the shores inside my mind, eating up the distance, and freezing everything it touched. Sebastian had once frozen the water of the divide between my wolf and I, but that hadn’t hurt like this. Rather it had bridged the distance, temporarily covering over broken memories. This was a stinging, biting pain, creeping over everything with a heavy hand and unbreakable ice racing to coat every inch, casting the world inside my head into immobility.
My wolf began to panic as the ice spread across its shore. Kiran returned and pulled out more ice, beating back the cold for a few moments. It was like that first time we’d met, and he’d appeared as nothing more than a shadow in my mind, gathering up the fae magic and stripping it away. This cold was less dark smoke and more pain, clinging harder, moving faster, swallowing up everything. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to find my feet again, and caught the scent of the other on the wind. The weight of power crashing into my senses telling me whatever was coming was trouble.
Then he appeared. The dark fae lord that had been skirting the edge of our territory for a while and had laid claim to Kiran. I snarled, and Kiran faced his way, preparing for battle. The ice within returned the moment Kiran stopped tugging on it, and Zephyr, the monster with a pretty face, squashed Kiran’s attack with ease.
I whimpered as I tried to rise and help, watching the woven ties etched into Kiran twist tight as his magic was stripped away. First, he became his normal kitsune, then he was human, laying in the mud of the early spring thaw, body completely bare of all but the blight. Not even a trace of glamour remaining.
We were nothing more than ants in that moment as Zephyr stomped a booted foot on Kiran’s head. I feared watching the man die, thinking that the fae lord would kill him for no other reason than that he could, but Kiran stopped moving, unconsciousness taking him, and Zephyr reached down to lift the prone man by his hair. The sneer on his face looking horrified at what he touched. While the beasts circled us, I huffed out a frozen breath, trying to find some semblance of strength. Some protector I was, taken out by a swipe, and useless against a fae like this. I snarled at him, shoving myself to my feet, even as my back legs wouldn’t work, the pain intense.
It didn’t matter that those memories hurt. I dragged myself forward and the fae’s gaze fell on me, indifferent. Yes, I was less than a bug to him, but I’d protect Kiran until this life was stripped of me. But Zephyr raised a hand and the world shifted. I fell into darkness, landing on hard stone, in a black void of nothing.
I howled. The wolf wrapped around me on my shore, as we watched the distant one vanish in a layer of ice. My heart skipped a beat at the idea that I’d failed at everything. Being a man, a wolf, or even a protector. Kiran would die, Nick would be dragged with him, and if fate was kind enough, I would have already passed before having to witness their end. But locked away in darkness and pain, it wasn’t all that different from the year I’d been swimming through nightmares to find some semblance of peace with my wolf. We weren’t giving up yet, and I hoped to have the chance to rip Zephyr limb from limb. The bloodlust was the only thing keeping my wolf and I together as the world around us turned to ice.
* * *
Kiran
The world came back in flickers and pops of pain. The swirling chaos of the earthen energy still rippled in my guts, but I found myself chained, dangling from iron and ice shackles in a gilded bedroom. Like something from a long-lost Underhill castle, walls of stone decorated in gems. Glamour? I sucked in air, the room around me sang with fae magic, a court of the fae, dripping with the very energy I craved and couldn’t touch due to strong wards.
I bled, gold seeping from wounds I didn’t have the strength to heal. My heart beat in sluggish whispers of strength. Fear nested deep within; would they cage me again? Keep me on the edge of death, drained constantly like some tea on tap?
“I missed how pretty you were chained to my bed,” Zephyr said as he rose from a chair beside a desk and stalked my way. The disdain on his face clear and his gaze roamed over me. “When you used to be pretty.”
He reached out as if to touch my face, but hesitated. The black dredges of the blight had spread. My flesh numb, and half burning with pain, all the way up the right side of my face. Not much time left now, was there? I craved that final blaze of glory. A shift to overcast all shifts and devour this monster of my past even if it meant my death. Would he keep me here, his court close to the fox’s realm, and lie about where I was?
“How much does the little fox care for you?” Zephyr asked.
I was a curse to them as much as to Nick. “Where is the wolf?” I asked. “The fox will not like it if you’ve taken one of his.”
“He is not mine yet, but will be soon. The infection of theHunt’sbite is lethal to those of this world.” Zephyr turned away as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. “Your mother’s gift to me, when she had thought I’d finally destroyed you.”
“She’ll be disappointed to find me alive then.”
“I hardly call this living,” he glanced my way. “The wolf will change, but you won’t. Not enough of Underhill’s wild magic left in you.”
“Sebastian fixed the wolves before.” Or Liam had. I had pulled the spell off the wolf, but the tie had already been broken.
“Not bitten by the actualHunt,” Zephyr corrected. He turned back, his gaze sweeping over me again, disgust clear on his face. “Bespelled by corrupt structured magic. One who sought his own court and failed miserably.”
I closed my eyes to not have to see that revulsion. The bonds ached, burning magic into me and sucking away the dredges of my fae power. The blight would get worse. It itched along my skin like bugs eating at my flesh. Would I die when all the fae magic was gone, or change? A chance to destroy them all would be ideal, but death was okay, too. Anything other than another lifetime of being sucked on like a piece of candy, bound and caged.
Kiran?I heard Nick’s tentative voice and prayed he wasn’t close.
Stay away,I told him.Not safe.I opened the link between us briefly, feeling a flood of fae magic for a few seconds before clamping back down on the shield between us. The fox and his mate were trying to keep me alive, but their gift would only be stolen by Zephyr. Weakening them would leave them in danger. I didn’t want to begin to imagine what Zephyr would do with the child if he managed to get through the fox and his alpha.
I opened my eyes to stare at him, giving myself over to a bit of the chaos of the earthen magic. It burned in an unfathomable way, hot and cold, wild and maddened, not unlike a spring day would blaze hot and cool overnight, but Zephyr’s suction on my magic snapped away. His lips tightened into a narrow line, brows furrowing. He put a hand to my chest, and his glamour poured over me, changing my image to meet his purpose.
“Much better. At least now you fit the décor.” He wove his hand in my hair, gripping it painfully and pressing his lips to mine. I kept my lips locked tight against him, not wanting the assault, though I knew there was little I could do to stop him. His other hand ran down my chest, cupping my groin as if he expected his glamour to fix the long-term damage he’d already done, but glamour was illusion, and I’d been broken a long time.
He sighed; his body pressed against me. “Worthless,” he said. “You know the queen placed this curse to keep you from breeding? I recommended other ways which would have kept you useful.” His will pulled power from me like taffy. I hoped to pass out before he used me again. It had been centuries, but some pain only barely faded.
Nick touched the barrier between us, not breaking it, but seeing beyond. He’d always been very astute with magic. I didn’t want him to endure what I had countless times, and tried to shoo him away. He snarled and slammed through the wall with a jolt of fae magic strong enough to make my teeth tingle.You are kitsune, Nick growled, feeding me Sebastian’s magic for strength.No one’s toy.