Page 48 of WitchCurse
Us.Nick corrected. His will firm in the blaze of our bond. Toby sent back a dozen images, thoughts I could hardly decipher, but Nick stiffened beside me, the scent of his desire unmistakable. I hoped I wouldn’t get between them, as they could take comfort in each other, experience some of those moments of passion together.
Nick smiled. “We very much plan to have you between us,” he said.
CHAPTER17
Toby
The wolf had a lot of demands. But feeling the power of the hunt, lassoing actualHuntbeasts—with their strange dark energy—to me, made me feel powerful. And the wolf strutted, cocky and more than a little demanding. But I didn’t have to swim a divide anymore. The tear between us little more than a creek, the water shallow, memories still rolling in the waves, but none churning and demanding, as the worst of them had found their place. Sometimes shards, sharp as glass sprouted from those stones, other times the stones themselves seemed slippery or cutting, but I knew the pain was in the past and fleeting.
The idea that Kiran was wrapped up in Nick’s arms made me want to rush home. My body awake to human things I’d forgotten for a long time, but wanted badly. Like when Nick had made me come in my pants. The wolf had needs a thousand times that, but caution was necessary. It wasn’t a game of give and take, but desire and consent.
Having caught a glimpse of Kiran’s past, I understood his pain ran deep, and not all that different from my own. He’d been abused,raped,and fed on by the fae for centuries, after doing his best to serve them as a warrior to gain their approval. They rewarded him with pain, and chained him in the darkness.
I felt like there was more there to discover. The mix of magic within Kiran was strange, off-balance, and I sensed he wasn’t telling us, or at least me, something. Was it the curses, or something more?
Can you sense the dark like I can?Nick’s thoughts floated to mine, as I stalked in their direction slowly. I was trying to keep the wolf from rushing back and attacking them both with demands to claim them.
There were shards of black magic piercing bits of the lines of swirling colors, tiny, like pebbles. It was strange and sort of smoke-like, woven through the lines. Kiran seemed to naturally pull the pieces out, letting the lines of color smooth, and tucking the darkness away. Behind a barrier.
That’s it, Nick said.
I couldn’t tell what waited behind the barrier, only that it was a thick wall that kept me out. Kiran sent the dark magic there, but why? He couldn’t use it? But to keep it then, seemed odd. Maybe he didn’t know how to get rid of it?
I think that’s part of it.Nick said. I felt him snatch one of the dark bits away, holding it before crushing it in his palm. Something red stirred within him, briefly illuminating, but he squashed it as fast as it rose.
What did you just do?I asked, trying to understand. Feeling things through the bond was a lot less defined for me than seeing them in person.
Took a bit of the darkness.
After that. The red.I tried to clarify through images, though they were all vague as I got more the impression of color, rather than actually saw it.
Anger?
Was that what it was? I knew sometimes rage and anger was associated with the color red, but maybe my brain was putting that together?Did you feel mad?
For a few seconds, but I’m always angry.Nick said. He hid it well. Buried, he had said before. He needed to find a way to use the anger or let it go. I recalled that conversation. I realized I’d let the anger go a while back. At everything really, which was why I’d begun to fade, and the wolf had panicked. He wanted to kill Isaac, hunt him down and rip him apart, but that rage didn’t warm me, and would have left the scattered remains of my human will dying on the other side of the shore. There were a lot of other things I could have been angry with, but instead the wolf used them for determination, keeping us alive until I found something else to motivate me. That something right now, were the men currently waiting for me to return.
Did that mean Nick could use the anger for determination?
The shifting of magic continued, part coming from the ties I’d looped around theHunt.They generated magic, though it ran more dark than colorful. I plucked one of the dark bits out of the mess, pausing to stare at the wolves looking back at me. There was almost a sense of recognition in their eyes, like the wolf awakening within them. Was there a human side left?
I understood that one did not exist without the other. Had the human half died, leaving only the wolf and madness? It was hard to tell as the beasts were very muddled, wrapped in magic, but also running on magic.
Puppets, Nick agreed.Only you hold their strings now, do you see?
Of course, as soon as he pointed it out, I could see the woven lines of the ties, not all that unlike the bond with Kiran, but I could tug and they moved. Was this the sort of control Kiran could have over us? The wolf snarled at the idea, but I knew Kiran wouldn’t, even if he could, take that sort of control.
Was it because he stuffed away the black bits? Were they rage?
I held one in my hand for a while, feeling it like a chill on my skin, icy, but otherwise void of emotion.Does it always make you angry?I wondered to Nick, feeling him curled around Kiran and on the verge of sleep. I didn’t want to wake them when they both needed rest, and slowed my trek back.
The darkness? Yes.
Attached to memories, like the cookies made Nick remember his visit to the bakery with his mother, where he’d first met Sebastian, and had led to him being lost in Underhill after his parents were murdered?
No, Nick added after a long moment.Not really. I mean I’m angry about what they’ve done to Kiran, and about a thousand things in my past, but the rage is bigger than that.
His thoughts were a jumble as he tried to share a mess of images and emotion to explain, though it didn’t make sense to me. Much like my dual shores sundered by an ocean of memories hadn’t made sense to them. General ideas, but different brains ran in varied directions.