Page 51 of WitchCurse
This glimpse into the past, long forgotten, made me wonder if it had been teaching me to lock away the dragon, though I couldn’t recall a concern or fear from any change. I’d been a growing thing, wild and curious, encouraged for those handful of years.
I was little more than a teen in the mortal sense when theHuntarrived the first time. Having never encountered them before, I didn’t know what they were. My years in the mortal realm had shown me nothing similar to these beasts of ice and darkness, and I admitted my wariness had faded with my youth. Nothing of this world matched my strength, speed, or stealth, and fear no longer rose to the forefront at the arrival of something previously unencountered. My curiosity, now a new bane. It happened often enough in the earthen realm. Landscapes varied, people varied, their beasts ranged from wandering foxes to giant cats. New things abounded, and I longed to see it all. We always traveled when spring began, and moved when summer stretched its paws.
That’s why the beasts were so unfamiliar. Ice dripped from these creatures, reforming in a haze of white, snow kicking up everywhere they stepped. Unlike anything I found in the mortal realm, they were creatures with many legs, eyes, and a strange hollow presence. Filled with wild magic which made my stomach growl with hunger, only everything else about them seemed empty? Dead? How could dead things move?
The beasts scented the air as though looking for something before narrowing glowing red eyes. Looking for me?
In this forest, on the edge of a desert, which I had yet to really explore, I found the icy chill fascinating, and took a step forward. Their attack, instant and unprovoked, left me stunned and bleeding at the feet of the creature who had become my mentor and friend. The creature, seemingly no match for monsters of Underhill, and they tore into it, chasing away its floating presence and leaving nothing but a tree behind, which began to wither and die beneath the cold, shadows converging as if to feed on its corpse.
I lay injured, blackness eclipsing my vision as the beasts approached, sunk fangs into my torso, and dragged me back into Underhill, while I struggled to hold onto my glamour, and my sanity as crossing into the realm of magic, my hunger erupted into a desperate need to devour. Two of the beasts died beneath my fangs, as I swallowed down their magic, but fullness didn’t last, and there were too many for the teen I’d been to take them all. They attacked, ripping me apart until the world went black.
When I woke it was in a puddle of gold, my own blood, with the red mess of my tainted birth plastered to my face, and my mother’s disdain. She locked me away in my rooms inside her palace, where I practiced what the spirit of the other world had taught me, and starved, the nibbles sent my way, not enough to feed any type of fae, and certainly not the growing furnace of hunger and need that had awakened inside of me. I used those transitory years to build the strength of my body and my shields, locked away the red of my hair and blaze of my skin until they never returned, and waited for a chance to break free.
The ever-growing hunger made me weak. I hadn’t understood the appearance of those first few marks, etched into my skin like a scar or a brand, and the drain on my strength as the fae fed on my magic. All but the wards holding back the darkness began to vanish beneath the suction. Those wards I held close, instinct mostly, but as the hunger grew, the more I longed to escape, even if it meant running to the mortal realm and forever vanishing within the vast forests.
Eventually they let me stretch my legs, putting a sword in my hand and pointing me at battles. I felt useful and could escape the solitary confines of the palace cage. Each time I returned victorious, holding my glamour, engraving my wards deep to keep all the earthen magic she despised so much, hidden. The whispers never stopped, others speaking of my origins and how I’d broken into another world. Prophecies that I was meant to be the downfall of everything. I won each battle trying to prove them wrong, and kept my silence at court.
I hoped that someday she would accept me, see how hard I worked to be what she wanted, only I returned from the latest battle to find Zephyr in my place beside her on the throne, a prince she’d chosen, and cast me into his bed as a toy and a snack, then she dismissed me as though I were nothing, sending me off to another battle.
It would still take years for me to understand my only value to her was either dead, or food. Each time I managed to escape into the earthen world, not long after, I’d be dragged back, usually bleeding, beneath the fangs of theHunt. Their rumors strange among the mortals, sent by the ice queen, yes, only the fae seemed to think otherwise. Not that I was ever allowed to voice my opinion at court. Until that battle that ended in Landon’s death, I’d been sent to a gilded cage of my handful of rooms, and few servants, never really free between battles, but not enclosed like the beast I would become. I learned to lock the darkest edges of my power away, erecting barriers, shields, wards, and glamour as layer over layer of protection. Part trying to retain some of my power and strength, the rest out of fear of what might be released if I let it all go.
Long lost to time and the endless suction of power, I’d forgotten those magical nights of racing through the sky to find a new part of the world to explore. I sank into the memories of those fading days, trying to recall the songs, the stories, and the teachings of my first real friend in life. Had it been my sire, that creature of the mortal realm? Rumors of my mother’s affair on the earthen plain spread far and wide, but I never asked for fear of retribution. Those wards, and that simple magic became a shield of its own, and I wrapped it around me as the pain began to fade, burrowing in deep to the many hidden places in my mind where I longed to someday remain.
CHAPTER18
Kiran
Eventually the darkness eased and I felt raw. Like one giant open wound. Breathing hurt. Even my hair hurt. Was that possible?
Magic trickled through me, pressing from all sides, again reminding me of buttered bread, something Nick had adored his first few years as my scion. Creating it for him had been easy, though now in the mortal world he didn’t need me to craft it for him anymore as the alpha baked the real thing.
“Liam’s bread is fantastic. Not as good as the cakes or cookies Seb makes, but the sweet bread is pretty close. Nothing competes with that sweet honey loaf warmed with fresh melted butter,” Nick said, his voice drifting out of the darkness of pain filled oversaturation of colors. “Try not to keep us out.”
I sucked in air, but even that hurt.
“Eating Sebastian’s cake for a cause,” Toby said from somewhere nearby. “I get the first slice. You can have the next.”
“As long as they are tempering it. He needs to heal. Not turn supernova.”
“Ari is not allowed to contribute,” Toby said. “I can go hunt, but we’ll have to have Liam’s wolves guarding the camper. The few that are still bound to us are too weak to be of much use. Do you think those shadows he was remembering, still exist?”
“There is always something preying on humans. Though more often in this world it seems to be other humans,” Nick said.
“Sometimes I see a shadow within a human and have wondered what it was. Maybe they migrated to using other humans to hide?” Toby asked.
I blinked back the colors, trying to clarify the space around me. Our little sanctuary, Nick’s room, fire blazing delicious heat, and my scions sitting beside me, eating what appeared to be a feast.
Magic?
“Part real food, part magic.” Nick tore into a piece of chicken. He sat beside me, nude from the waist up, his powerful chest and shoulders on display, and wearing only a loose pair of sleep pants. He had healed completely and all traces of blood were gone, not a single scar remained, for which I was grateful. I hated the idea of his skin being marred further by me. “Only you see the bonds as ugly. Is that because you feel like everything you touch is ugly? Does that make me ugly for wanting to touch you?”
I sucked in a deep breath, ready to defend his beauty, but choked on the weight of magic in the air. It coated everything, clinging to them, and me. Beneath the thick fur blanket, I was without apparel, the sensation of coarse texture on the underside made me push it down, and shock filled my gut. My skin was absent of the blight, though pale as it hadn’t been since my first change. Where had all the symbols gone? Had that been the terrible pain? All of them removed at once? How was it even possible? No wonder I ached like I’d been flayed alive.
“Healing for three takes a lot of work.” Nick’s gaze landed on Toby. “And we’ve already burned through the handful ofHuntToby had linked.”
Toby flinched. “Only the ones not from here. The wolf ones seem to still be moving a little.”
“Liam says he’s felt more moving close to the territory. They are triggering wards,” Nick said. “Testing for weaknesses probably. I guess they’ve decided diplomacy is no longer an option.”