Page 42 of WitchCurse

Kiran

It took a few hours, and a lot of wolves to get the camper moving. I sat in one of the chairs, curled up in the quickly cooling warmth of the space as it was hooked to a truck, and removed from earthen power sources. The idea of moving a realm by mortal vehicle somewhat amusing, and the plan was for us to move inside of it? Could Nick hold that strength of power within?

I stared into the weave of magic, the structure strange and chaotic. Likely it made more sense to him. They talked, the wolf and Nick, but I tuned them out to study the lines of magic. The intricate details required in this world were like a dance of language, unfamiliar and intimidating. Nick seemed to be taking to learning it easily enough, but each attempt I’d made to manipulate the structured magic of this world had ended in failure. Not unlike when Sebastian had been in the sanctuary in Underhill, and he had needed Liam to help sort the magic.

There was a lot of noise from outside. Chatter about getting the camper moved, things called hookups, and a large noisy metal beast called atruckwith which they planned to physically move us. First, Sebastian had to unravel wards that bound us to the ground. Another mess of magic from this world. Imprecise at best, though Liam had a lot of ideas and thoughts about how to improve them now that his studies of arcane magic had intensified.

I got up, frustrated by my inability to determine the lines and structure of the spells Nick had created, and decided to explore the space he’d expanded. Doors hiding secrets. Like our old home? I went to the first new door, opening it to peer inside. The library, familiar, though smaller than I remembered it had first been. Nick’s gift of stored knowledge only retaining so much. He’d burned some of those memories deep within our bond, using up energy we hadn’t known we’d eventually need. Those shelves, far in the back, near the top of the second floor, seemed a bit transparent, and faded.

No map table here. We didn’t need to track the earthen realm, though there were plenty of fires burning here too. Maybe we would need to build something to indicate the placement of the courts hiding among the humans. How many had survived the fall of Underhill, all four? Enough to become a threat to humanity? Would they all come after me in this world?

I left the library to venture to the next door, a bedroom, and not one I’d ever had, as I’d spent most nights staring out into the dying depths of Underhill rather than sleeping. In Underhill I hadn’t needed sleep, not like I did here. The exhaustion had been bone deep as soon as I’d crossed the veil. Did the fae have bones like mortals? I’d read a handful of human health guides, wondering, but thought the mortal words fit what I felt well.

This room wasn’t large. Not like the spare space Nick had carved out when Sebastian and Liam had arrived in the sanctuary. There were windows, but the view showed nothing but color, a wash of greens and blues almost like an ocean, yet not defined enough for that. There was a bed in the center of the room, larger than the mortal king version. The bedding looked soft and soothing, the furniture plain and unassuming. Nick’s space?

He'd had a room in the sanctuary in which I’d never entered out of respect for his privacy. He’d been young when we were bound, and I hated the idea of forcing him to spend time with me. Giving him the leeway to be whatever he wanted had helped soothe my own disquiet at our original bond. Necessary as it might have been, it bordered on the edge of coercion. Bond or die, not unlike the new bond with the wolf. I turned and left the room, not wanting to invade Nick’s space. He should create one for Toby as well. It was not as though walls could ever really separate us. Sometimes it was delusion that helped soothe the old scars inside.

When I turned back into the main part of the camper, Nick and Toby were sitting on the floor, close enough to touch, staring at each other. Nick’s hand on Toby’s face, Toby gripping Nick’s shirt. I paused, feeling as if I’d intruded on something intimate. With the door to the camper open, noise still surrounding us, I thought it odd. If Nick had ever explored interest in others, it had never been where I could see. I suspected he’d taken a handful of the fae to his bed over the centuries, and never begrudged him the comfort, even if I couldn’t really feel those things anymore. The idea that he would choose Toby, now bound to us, shouldn’t unsettle me, but it did. Though they were beautiful together, something I’d have stopped to watch in my younger days, and once upon a time, might have wanted to join.

A long-faded warmth stirred in my gut for the first time in centuries. A mark of the blight receding, allowing my body to feel something other than cold and touch starved? But the emotional wound burned bright, too, with rejection, and loneliness. Those bits howled in the depths of my mind, forcing any physical feelings into oblivion.

I lowered my gaze and went to the next door, finding a garden not unlike the courtyard. The sun shone bright and warm, flowers stretching into the distance, though I knew like most of the spaces, it would have a limit, and that I’d walk and hit a barrier. It was a quiet space, no one around to judge, or look at me as the blighted monster waiting in the shadows to be unleashed.

I entered the room and shut the door, leaving Nick and Toby to whatever they would do, shoving down the hurt, and finding a spot among the flowers to lie down. The space was warm, as though Nick had shoved all the extra energy he had, into creating it, holding it, undefined as it was, but almost floating around me like fireflies or the tiny will-o’-the-wisp that long vanished from Underhill.

Closing my eyes, the warmth and brightness trickled through my eyelids. The ice had long etched space into my soul, forever chilling me in a way I had dreamt of shattering. The space echoed with the mildest of breezes, not enough to chill, only a gentle caress. Reminding me of long-lost rainbow curls and strong hands willing to touch without hesitation.

I let out a long sigh and sank into the memory. Faded and stuttering, some lost in ages of starvation, being drained of my magic, and abuse from the fae, I clung to the remaining edges. His lips on mine, his hand at my throat, stroking and holding me firmly in place. His body hot and willing against me. I’d thought the lines in his skin had been beautiful, intricate, alluring, coloring warm and yet cool and crisp like an autumn day.

His touch had lavished me long before my body had been cursed with the marks that changed me. Some spells etched by the sidhe to bind me, others part of my change to something dark, and the few I’d chosen now were ties to my scions.

Landon’s had been prettier, swirls dancing over his skin like art, ivy or vines. Had he hated them? I had never had the chance to ask. Didn’t know in those early days what I would become, and what would be done to me.

Lingering there on the edge of sleep, I could almost feel his touch again. Hand warm on my chest, his breath on my face. My body responding to him, slow and sleepy to awaken, but heating. The first time in ages that heat pooled in my groin. Long dead from starvation, I suspected I’d never reawaken that part of me again. My thoughts strayed briefly to Nick and his defined muscles, fit form and broad shoulders. The lines covering him weren’t as pretty. My bonds burned into him forever felt more like a brand than some art. I’d always been troubled by that, my mark marring his flesh.

“Only you see them as ugly. I like them,” Nick said, startling me out of the partial doze. I blinked into the brightness, surprised to find him sitting beside me, and the hand on my chest was Toby’s, his gaze curious, not disgusted. But the worst of my scars were hidden beneath the mortal clothing.

“You worry about the strangest things,” Toby said.

I moved to sit up, but he pressed his hand into my chest keeping me down. “I’m not done.”

I stared at him, unsure what to make of the moment. His gaze blazed gold, something I hadn’t known possible for a mortal wolf. Was he studying magic, the bond and its ties?

“I need your shirt off,” Toby said. “I’d honestly prefer you naked, but we’ll start with the shirt.”

“What?”

Nick moved beside me, tugging me up to sit and then yanking the shirt over my head. I thought to drape glamour around me, bury the dark flesh, scars, and bonds, but Nick shoved it all back. “Leave it, we need to examine the magic that binds you. It’s easier to trace them without trying to sort through your glamour too.” He wrapped a firm arm around my waist, body spooning mine, legs stretched out at my side, and nestling me into his chest. He was warm, and I flinched at the way my body suddenly responded to his touch.

“Why does it bother you?” Nick asked. “To respond to me?”

“I would never force you to…” I wouldn’t give him those memories. I clamped down hard on the pain that stirred, shoving them into the darkness and wishing I could hide there too.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Nick agreed. “But I never said I wasn’t willing. Why would you assume I’m not?”

I looked back at him, confused, and gaping at the idea of Nick willing in my arms. We’d never crossed that divide before as I was ever careful.

“Again, I ask why?” Nick prodded. “Have I ever expressed disgust at the thought of your touch? Anger at the bond? Or distaste by your presence? You forget that you are mine as much as I am yours. I respected your distance because I thought you didn’t want me, now I know that’s another bit of self-delusion. We just have to fix some things first.”