Page 77 of WitchCurse
Toby smiled. “You like me. That’s okay for now. Trust growing, that’s important. I get that. We are bound and have time to work through the rest.” He sighed, “Don’t break Nick’s heart.”
“Everything I do is for Nick,” I said. Trying to keep him safe and alive, since the moment he’d been bound to me, he’d become my responsibility.
“But is that all he is? A responsibility?” Toby wondered. “What if he were freed from the bond and you could walk away from both of us. Is that a choice you’d make?”
“It would be safer for both of you.” I waved my hand at the cleared space, “this may only be temporary. The darkness inside remains strong. I cannot pretend not to fear its escape or the monster I know I will become.”
Toby grabbed his discarded clothing and tugged them back on. “Can you be real with us?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know, and that’s frustrating. A language barrier, or a barrier of worlds?” He finished dressing and zipped up his coat. “My wolf,” he paused, “and me, I guess, think of you and Nick as mates. Part of that is a pack bond, we just hunted together, you and I, and that felt…” he let out a long shaky breath, “amazing, arousing? Like I could have ended the hunt inside you until we were both screaming for more and that would have been perfect.”
The images he sent my way again made me wonder if the wolf had more experience than I did, despite our severe age difference. “Your imagination is deep,” I told him.
“Not imagination. Plans. But anyway, pack, mates, all of that,” he put his hand on his chest, “makes me more clearheaded. And there’s something buried in you specifically that I need. You bring me light, warmth, and hope. Like a warm spring day after a long winter?” He breathed out a long sigh. “But we also need Nick. He’s the rain that brings the flowers, but also the blazing heat that can rise to bake the sand dry. Does any of this make sense? We are part of a whole, and need all of us to function.”
“Did you not say before that it was I who had to bend?”
“Oh yes, very much, but it’s Nick you trust. He holds your heart even if you try to keep it bound up in ice. I wish you’d admit it already, save us all the trouble and tell him you love him. You think they are words, but you know better than most that words have power.”
I thought about that for a few minutes. What sort of power could love have? I’d never experienced it for myself before, but watching the alpha and the fox, I could see the draw. Though in those moments, when Zephyr had attacked and nearly made me kill Nick myself, I’d been terrified of losing Nick. All the small things in my life would make little sense if he was no longer at my side. My scion, my shield, my healer, my warrior, and my counsel, Nick was all I had, and I’d survived the past two centuries, existing only for him. One thing alone mattered to me. Nick.
In this new world, things had changed. Nick less reliant on me for everything, and he could exist without me. He didn’t need me, and if not for the bond, would he stay at all, or find his own way in this new reality?
“You say that Sebastian ties himself in knots over the kitsune thing, and magic in general, but you do it over emotions. Is that a fae thing, or a you thing?” Toby reached out and put his hand on my arm. “Let me guide you back to the camper. You can spend a bit of time with Nick while I talk to Liam.”
“Should I attend with you?” I wondered if his wolf would try to battle the alpha.
“No. I’m fine. As long as you and Nick aren’t nearby, I don’t feel Liam is a threat.”
“Not even to the omega?”
Toby shrugged. “The omega thing is complicated. I think it’s the need to protect, but I’ll probably ask to meet him without Seb around. You worry about Nick.”
I always worried about Nick.
“Good,” Toby said, catching my thoughts. “Maybe find a way to make him happy?”
“I’d set him free if I could.”
“But he doesn’t want that. Never really has. It’s why the books he burned into your bond are stories he loved, or history, not anything related to the bond. Funny how he didn’t care to save any of that from Underhill’s fall.”
I paused to stare at Toby forcing him to stop and look back at me. “I never realized…”
“That his ultimate goal was never about breaking the bond? Sounds like you’ve missed a lot of things about your original scion,” Toby said, tugging me into his arms. He traced my face with his fingertips. “What do you feel when you’re with me?”
“Warm, aroused, curious,” I admitted, “a little worried.”
“About what the wolf wants?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” He nuzzled my neck, breathing in the scent of my skin. “You smell like mine…” he sighed. “Mostly.” He huffed. “One step at a time. What do you feel when you’re with Nick?”
“Safe.”
A growl escaped Toby’s lips but neither of us pulled away. “In time,” he said more to himself than me. “He makes you feel safe. You seek him whenever you enter a room. You let him in your head with ease, and other than this darkness thing, you’ve never kept him out. If he were suddenly ripped from you, what would you do?”