Page 39 of WitchCurse
“You could be declared a lone wolf,” Liam said after a moment.
“It would give others call to run him from their land. Absolutely not,” Sebastian said.
“Not if I give him immunity. Like what the Volkov did for you,” Liam said.
“They need to stay, and learn how to work this power. Ari can help. We can help.”
Liam’s lips tightened. “Ari began this. Intentions aside, they need space to expand, grow a realm, if that is the case,” he waved at Toby. “Unstifled by the aggression of our power.”
The door opened and Wesley entered, uninvited. I glared at him as he made his way around the desk to the other side. He glanced my way, gaze falling to Toby for a few seconds before looking at Liam. “Zephyr has gone to the Winter Court seeking help.”
Liam cursed. I sighed, none of this was unexpected. Sebastian had said he’d encountered her, my mother, once a queen of beauty and fae light, the dancing brightness of the first snow and rainbows cast in ice was now a dark blight existing on the remains of wild magic. There had once been balance in Underhill, before the veil had been opened, and long before I’d been born. I had heard stories of how the light and dark court had been one, functioning to create the normal cycles of the world, hot and cold, light and dark, death and life. No separation of courts, that had come later as the madness rose. I had never experienced anything otherwise, and it made me wonder if it was all a story, more fable than reality? Or had my mother always been a heartless witch who cursed all her children to suffer as long as she gained more power?
“You could give me to her and she would leave you alone. Her greatest wish was always to see me contained.” Never dead, else she’d have killed me long ago. No, she wanted to control me, and drain my power.
“We will deal with the ice queen when the time comes,” Liam said. He let out a long sigh and looked at Wesley. “Are you staying?”
“I have pledged to you,” Wesley said absently.
“But you want Zephyr,” Sebastian said.
“He’s pretty to look at,” Wesley said, his gaze falling on me, but his words absent of any real emotion. What was his end goal? He said he was not mine. Was he looking for the one who was? Did he think that was Zephyr? “But he will not be the king he wishes to be.”
“Kiran could use your energy to help stabilize his power,” Liam said. “We don’t need it here. Not with Ari.”
“Kitsunes are such wild and unstable magic,” Wesley muttered. “His curse will not be broken easily. Separating the strands is only part of it.”
“Can’t we feed him?” Toby asked. “Make him strong enough to break the curses? Fix this mess?”
“Kitsunes are meant to be the destruction and creation of worlds. Kiran spent centuries decimating fae courts,” Wesley said. “Devouring the fae. He is covered in death curses, and others that should have killed him a thousand times over.”
“Yet he still lives,” Nick added. “Kitsunes are meant to be kings. Gods almost in their own right.”
Sebastian shook his head. He had no desire for that kind of control, which was why the alpha suited him.
“I have no need to be king,” I said. “People wanting things from me, to take care of them. I’d rather the blight grows than live centuries listening to whining little ones.”
Everyone’s gaze turned my way.
“So many lies,” Toby muttered. “Does it not affect him because he believes they are truths, or because this world doesn’t care if they lie?”
“Some lies are truth until the light shines on them,” Wesley said absently.
“What happens if we move them to the edge of our territory?” Sebastian asked. “There’s a camping park out that way, hookups for the camper, and close enough to town that we can still claim immunity for them, right?”
“The fae will come, much as they did for you when your power began to awaken,” I told him. “It’s why Zephyr remains close, setting up a court on your doorstep, waiting for a chance to sweep you away and devour your power.”
“But it would be the wrong mix, right?” Sebastian looked at Nick and then Toby. “I’m from this world. More fae power was what created Ari. You need more fae energy than I do, but this world is magic too. It’s why Nick was the first to save you, and now Toby.”
I bristled. I had saved Nick, a starving child lost in a hostile world, and binding him had given me the leverage I needed to break the last of the bonds. Sebastian’s power had begun to unravel them, but my own had done the rest with the simple mortal ties to Nick. Nick had been too young to understand how to help me. And binding to me eventually would end him too. I saved no one, and no one saved me.
Nick breathed out a long sigh. “Are you feeling the strain of our presence? I had hoped to contain it to the camper for now. Until our bond is a bit more stable?”
Our bond wasn’t stable? I carefully tried to touch the tie between him and me, but found his walls firmly in place. I could bash through them, but had never forced my will on him that way. The bond to Toby was something wilder, and not at all closed, though there was a bit of a natural separation that kept me from advancing into his head, almost as if I could take that last jump and feel all he felt. Neither bond felt unstable, though they didn’t burn as brightly as they had when I’d been in Zephyr’s court.
“Centuries of experience doesn’t make it easy?” Sebastian asked.
“Kiran has always had a contrary nature,” Nick offered. “Not practicing anything in the same sort of way other fae might have. He could subjugate us, but prefers to let us run a bit wild.”