Page 65 of WitchCurse
“Do you want to hunt me, little wolf?” I asked, not at all afraid. I’d faced a lot of monsters in Underhill, most of which made him look like little more than a puppy playing than anything worth fearing.
He snarled, likely catching thelittleandpuppybits.
“Kiran eats fae, dreams of turning into a giant dragon, and I’ve been slicing up the monsters of Underhill for centuries, do you really think either of us would be cowed by your wolf?” I asked, not moving out of his embrace even though it hurt.
“I need to protect…” Toby muttered, his face still pressed against the back of my shoulder.
“Okay. What are you protecting me from in this moment? Are there monsters about?” I let my gaze shift to the edges of what I could borrow from Kiran and saw nothing unusual, the forest and living things, and in the distance the wards of the camper, we were close to home.
Toby trembled. Fighting for control of his wolf? I turned in his arms, making him snap at me because he thought I was pulling away, but wrapped him in my arms instead. It was a strange moment of added tension, but he finally sank into my embrace, and I realized he was fighting to not race off into the distance. Where Kiran and Sebastian were? Who did he want? Did he even know?
“Kiran,” Toby muttered. “The wolf says you both belong to us, but neither are claimed.”
“And does your wolf understand that the more he demands to claim us, the less willing we are?” I asked lightly, not letting him go. Neither Kiran nor I took well to being caged. For him it was from a thousand lifetimes of the fae binding him in every way they could. For me it narrowed to the years we’d spent locked in the sanctuary of my own creation, trying to survive as Underhill collapsed around us. I hated feeling powerless.
“We are almost back to the camper. Let’s go back inside where it’s warm. I want to make certain that power surge didn’t mess something up.” I waited a moment before easing my grip on him. He held tight to my jacket, but his shoulders were less tense. “Toby?” I lifted his chin, studying his eyes which were mostly his normal blue, then leaned in to kiss him lightly on the lips. “You can’t protect me from myself. My frustration, doubt and jealousy are because I feel powerless. Not because of anything you did. The best thing you can do is reason with your wolf. Help him understand that this trio of ours is not going to be easy. Two hearts are hard enough to manage, now add another who happens to be an ancient demi-god.”
He deflated, the fight leaving him like the air from a balloon, leaning into me as though he was tired and needed me to support his weight. “You don’t hate me?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Why would I?”
“Because the wolf…”
“He’s untamed. I get that. Wolves in general are. It sounds like the werewolves spend their lives bargaining for civility with their wolves. Learning not to give into instinct, but to think it through first. If you ever hurt Kiran…” Took him by force for example, I thought but didn’t add actual words as I knew Toby had similar trauma. “That would be a breaking point. Does your wolf understand? Can you help him understand?”
He looked away for a moment, and I waited, not trying to press into his mind or share the memories he was only barely finding homes for, even if they always cut or burned. “I think so?”
I stepped away, reaching back to grip his hand and pull him toward the camper.
“Shouldn’t we go make sure he’s okay?” Toby asked but didn’t fight as I dragged him through the woods.
“Demi-god,” I reminded him.
“Fuck, how does that even happen?”
“When a goddess and a god really like each other…” I began in a teasing tone.
“Asshole,” Toby muttered as we reached the camper.
I checked the wards and opened the door, dragging him inside and out of the wind. “What would help reassure your wolf? Other than claiming us both.”
He sucked in a deep breath. Eventually a real claim would happen, which I knew to mean a sort of mate bite and sex. I hadn’t asked a lot of questions, and Sebastian had gone pink and stuttered out some basics. Next time I’d ask Liam. I didn’t think he viewed me as that little boy Sebastian had lost in Underhill.
“I don’t know?”
I suspected that was a lie, much like Kiran lied to himself, and Toby’s wolf wanted specific things that he wasn’t willing to voice. But I dragged Toby into the sanctuary, the woodsy feel of everything alive and filled with warmth. Our private space hadn’t felt this substantial since the very beginning. Could we keep a hold of this? I hoped so.
Toby sighed, some of the fight going out of him. I tentatively touched the bond between us, and he let me in, where his inner world was blooming with flowers and the skies blue.
“It’s only that way when you or Kiran are close,” Toby said. Inside his own head he was no longer the shadow he’d been when we’d first met. He’d been fading a long time, barely clinging to life. Now, inside this world, he was solid, even when he perched on the shore opposite the wolf. Crossing wasn’t an ocean of rippling waves anymore, the divide little more than a creek. But many of the stones were sharp and biting.
“I’m sorry we traded your vengeance,” I said, worried that it would keep him from healing.
“What do you think Robin will do with it?” Toby wondered.
I tugged him down to lie in the grass of the sanctuary, grounding us both in the warmth and peacefulness of the space. “Pucks are strange creatures,” I said, thinking about what I knew of them. Their stories were filled with a lot of very nasty tricks. “Pucks have a lot of power. He could be torturing your target as we speak. Sending him nightmares, unraveling small pieces of his life by pretending to be him. I can think of a hundred stories of pucks messing with people.”
Toby let out a sigh and relaxed, putting his hands up and under his head. I nestled in beside him, resting a hand on his chest, needing a moment to breathe, and think through a thousand things. Was it strange that there was never enough time to think, even when that’s all I did?