Page 71 of WitchCurse
“That I would be the death of millions? They told me over and over since the day I was born. I thought I could rise above, fate could be evaded, in truth, I sank far below and ate anyone in my path. The fae don’t hate me only because I am some half-blooded sidhe prince, but because I am the kitsune who devoured everything they were. Do you still see me the same? Can you really look at me and not see a monster? Death? Insanity? Would you like more faded memories of me stalking children, ripping apart fae, and destroying all that lived? Do you really think setting the darkness free will save anyone?” I would rather die than be lost in that darkness again, unable to stop the feasting on all life.
“I am the darkness. The cage within is the only thing keeping any of us alive. You adore the alpha’s child, but I’d devour that babe and become a million times worse than what I was. There would be no world remaining, no pack, no omega, no us, just death. It’s what I am, what I have always been, a curse, a blight on the fae. No glorious creation of turning the darkness to light is going to save us, all that remains is death.”
Nick held me for a long time, not speaking, nor meeting my eyes, his breath steady and warm even as I felt like something between us was dying. I’d never wanted to reveal the worst of myself to him. Never wanted him to hate me, or see the true evil I could be, but maybe now he’d stop wasting time trying so hard to save me, and simply enjoy what time he had left before I went supernova, as they called it, and took him with me. All I could hope was to keep myself weak enough that the little fox could destroy me and not implode himself.
I didn’t return Nick’s touch, and carefully eased my wards back into lockdown between our memories, feeling barriers in Nick’s thoughts that I’d never encountered before, him keeping me out, unusual and painful, though I built my own wards up to keep him from feeling my hurt over him discovering the truth and hating me for it.
I stepped away, out of his embrace, and he let me go, his gaze downcast, and I left him there in the woods, headed back to the camper, finding it grown again on the inside. I crafted myself a room this time, weaving the space like the memory of a room inside a faded old inn long lost in Underhill, but with firm locks on the doors. As long as my power held, mayhap I could hide away until the insanity took me again.
CHAPTER23
Toby
Nick shared the memories and the pain with me. Even as his brain was working through things like some sort of genius, he struggled with accepting what Kiran had become. I had no issues. The wolf and I understood that sometimes being a monster was necessary. It’s why when Nick left, I had stalked off in my wolf form, searching for clarification of a terrible memory of my own.
The wolf could cover a lot of ground fast, and I let him take me to the place where the memory that had broken me most deeply, hid. It was little more than a shell now. A fire taking part of it.
From the outside it seemed to be the charred remains of a cabin, nestled deep in the woods, and it was amazing that the fire hadn’t taken part of the forest too. Though the trees around it appeared to be dying, not touched by fire. Unusual. I snuffled my way through the area, searching for the scent of him, the monster of my past. The wolf wanted to go after him, tear him to shreds, but we’d given that to the puck. I hoped that meant that monster was suffering now. It’s why the wolf going after him wouldn’t have been enough. A quick death beneath my fangs might have soothed the other half of me, but that was what gave stark difference to my wolf and me. The wolf thought him dead would be enough to bury the pain. But, my human heart thought it better that monster live in agony, than rest after a short attack. I was okay with not being the bigger man and wanting him to hurt. Sometimes the things that broke us were less about a swollen tide, and more a single straw.
The area felt strange. Off? I shifted my gaze, letting the colors settle in lines, and finding everything black, and writhing. What the fuck?
Shadows. Everywhere. Were these the things Kiran remembered hunting as a child? They were huge. More like a giant squid with a thousand tentacles lashing out in the area than anything I’d ever encountered before. I couldn’t get close to the cabin without stepping on them. Would they attack? Or was this the answer to feeding Kiran? How much would it add to the darkness?
Destruction, Nick whispered through my mind. His mind sorting things so much faster than mine.Like the god. His wrath caused destruction. The darkness is wrath.
But that was part of the cycle of life, wasn’t it? Just as this little nightmare had been part of my change. I didn’t hate being the wolf, even if we argued. It brought me to Nick and Kiran. Would we have been a thing if I were a normal human? Somehow, I didn’t think so.
You were never exactly normal.Nick reminded me, giving me images of my card readings, and the way I had always seen lines of magic in things. Not as pronounced as I did now, but I’d always been a bit different.
I still pull the death card,I told him.
Change. We are creatures of change, all living things.
His past bothers you?I wondered what he would do if I hunted Isaac and ripped him to shreds. Or if he knew how deeply I wanted the man to suffer and hoped the puck would rain his worst nightmares down on him. Would Nick hate me? Would it break my bargain with Robin? What would happen then? Would I die, cursed by some fae magic?
Confusing,Nick said. He was at the pack house, digging through Sebastian’s ever-growing library looking for lore, not on kitsunes, but demi-gods.Wrath is almost always a god of destruction.
Weren’t all gods destructive?I thought back to a class I’d only attended a handful of times before growing bored. Mythology of the Greek variety. I read the book, but hated the professor who insisted that we be present for every class even if I could ace the test without it. Every story had been something about destruction. A spurned lover kills someone, or sends a plague on the land, or casts the city into the sea. At the time I had thought it all as nothing but a way for mortals to explain natural disasters. Was it more than that? Lifewasa balance of life and death. If we had nothing butlife, we’d overrun the earth. Any one species could unravel the balance of existence if it was nothing butlife.
The real question was what happened if Kiran could release the darkness in smaller bunches? Still natural disasters, or something else? And he had contained it for centuries before bursting and devouring the fae. An act required because the magic had been wrong, or simply because they bound him until he could no longer hold it back?
Where does the balance come from? Can we undo centuries of damage without fucking everything up like the fae did?Nick asked.
Had Nick caught all the memories I had? Kiran ate fae, and spit out new things in Underhill. The gnome trees, some of the monsters who ate everything, all of it came from Kiran, not Underhill. The excess energy that should have been rolled back into the earth had instead corrupted Underhill. And wasn’t that crazy to know? It was no wonder the fae feared him, but I also wondered, what if he’d never been taken from this world, fed Underhill’s magic, and drained until he was barely clinging to life?
He is a creature of this world,I told Nick. It was why he was bound to two of us. Anchors to help him find balance, and since I happened to believe fate put us on this path, that we were there for a reason,I want to try something.
Nick sent a question and I responded with a flurry of images as I made my way back toward the camper, racing on four legs instead of two.
It’s not me you have to convince.Nick said after running through my idea. But I had a thought about that too. Because Kiran, as much as he tried to play the wounded prince, or aloof lord to keep himself separated from everyone, was a fox. And I knew well what the fox enjoyed. It was a predator after all. One more thing we had in common.
* * *
Kiran
It was Toby who interrupted my self pity. He knocked on the door, a newly created barrier of heavy wood that led to a space of old with a roaring fire, a bed full of thick blankets, and a single window that blazed with light though I knew it was very late in this world.
I sensed him, and thought he’d go away if I ignored him long enough, but he knocked again. Since I didn’t feel Nick nearby, I opened the door with a thought, thrilled that enough power had returned to let me lay wrapped up in the blankets and still let the incessant wolf inside. He entered, carrying a tray, more food…I sighed. He closed the door and studied the room.