Page 32 of WitchCurse
“They arefeedingon him,” Toby said in a half snarl. His eyes went wolf for a moment and the weight of Sebastian’s power blanketed the area until I felt like I needed a nap too.
“We’ll stop them,” Sebastian promised. His voice and power rolling over the wolf. Liam took a few more steps back, giving Toby space, and his wolf settled a little, though there was still hostility in his gaze.
“They are mine,” Toby whispered. He looked at me, the wolf staring back for a moment, and the visceral need to claim spiked through him. My body reacted to it, making me instantly hard, which I hadn’t been in ages. I clenched my fists and kept a few steps back, trying to control my reaction.
“It’s a wolf thing,” Liam said calmly, picking up a dozen things I likely had yet to learn about werewolves. “Probably from the bond. Sebastian, come here, please.”
Sebastian paused; his arms still wrapped around Toby. He slowly let go, and tried to take a step away, but Toby held tight. His wolf demanding the omega stay.
“He’s not yours,” Liam said, tone firm.
Toby snarled again. The wolf didn’t really see Sebastian as theirs. Sebastian was just the omega. The need to protect strong. But I didn’t want Toby to attack Liam either. This whole thing could go to shit fast.
“Hey,” I said as I reached out and put a hand on Toby’s face, echoing the touch through his mind as well, to find the human, who was afraid of the overwhelming flood of emotion. The divide inside his head was refilling with water, pieces of memories glowing. Pain, I realized.
The wolf had used the pain to separate them. Thinking it gave them more strength and control? Only to realize that without the human, the wolf would die too. Damage done, divide created, the only way across was to face the pain? It seemed a horrible way to live. Day in and day out constantly swimming through pain for a single moment of peace? Everything disjointed, like a broken puzzle, that even if he faced one memory, he’d have to find hundreds more to set it back into the right place. No wonder the human side slept. It had to be exhausting just to function each day.
“Let go,” I said and carefully extracted Sebastian from Toby’s embrace, shoving the omega toward Liam, and stepping in to wrap my arms around Toby. His wolf focused on me; his human side conflicted.
“Go,” I told Liam. “One of us will come and get food in a bit. Let me calm him first.”
Liam frowned, but nodded and dragged Sebastian away.
I waited until they vanished into the house before shoving Toby back into the side of the camper and smashing my mouth over his. He hesitated, shocked for a moment, as I swept my tongue in to explore his taste, and used my bulk to pin him there. He sighed, human relaxing into my touch, wolf seeming thrilled with the touch as well, though cautious.
Toby sank into the kiss, his hand going up to wrap in my hair, the other on my arm. He breathed, and didn’t pull away. I pressed my hips into his, my body hard and ready to go, though I had little experience over the years. Burying desire had been easy when the world was stripped of options, here it had become a learning experience as Sebastian’s desire for Liam often set the entire house off.
“Don’t stop,” Toby muttered, an edge of some pain pulsing nearby. As if his brain demanded he remember something, but he ignored it.
I pressed my cheek to his, holding him there. He was a werewolf, likely stronger than I would ever be without Kiran’s power. He could probably throw me across the clearing to the other side of the lavender field, but instead he seemed to bask in my warmth.
“I’m not sure either of us is ready,” I told him honestly.
“But we are bound.”
“Sure,” I agreed. “If you think that will work on Kiran, you’d be wrong. I’ve been trying to get into his pants for centuries.” Not because he was an aloof fae prince as he tried to come across, but because he was bound in spells, and stubborn as hell.
Toby frowned. “He’s not functional?”
“A curse. Probably dozens of them.”
Toby breathed out a long sigh. “I’m sort of cursed too.”
“You mean your separation from the wolf?”
“No. Before all that.” He hesitated, memories brightening where they swirled in the growing tide. “I always had bad luck.”
“Is that why you won’t face the memories?”
He sucked in a pained breath. “The wolf doesn’t want me to.”
“But you are the wolf,” I reminded him. I wrapped an arm around his waist, tugging him close and rubbing my groin against his. He groaned, sinking into my touch. The human side wanted to bask in the affection, the wolf wanted control and to make me submit. That wasn’t happening. “We need to work on your balance,” I said out loud, finding his lips again, tasting them with a gentle kiss instead of a fevered one. Demanding lust was what the wolf wanted. What did the human want? A little of both? Kiran would run from this sort of aggression while pretending to be uninterested.
Toby sighed, his hips gliding against mine, seeking touch, and comfort. It helped to pin him against the side of the camper. I kept my mind within his, holding the attention of the human side rather than focusing on the wolf.
“Is this what you want?” I asked and slid my hand down to cup his hard cock through his pants. “What both sides of you want? Can we find unity in this?” I stroked him through the layers, his eyes glazed, and partially glowing. Was that Kiran’s magic, or something else?
“I don’t want to be alone anymore,” he said quietly, unwilling to let go. His touch was bruising, but I didn’t pull away. “Everything has hurt for a long time.”