Page 4 of Courting the Tiger King

Wren smiled slightly. Skye may not have killed Sonnet on sight, but that didn’t mean he trusted her magic. “I’ve come this far.”

“The magic of the soul is dangerous?—”

“And so is my curse.” Wren raised a brow and Skye sighed as he rounded the table to fold himself into the chair at Wren’s right.

“For all you know, her line is responsible for the curse in the first place.”

Wren lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “That may be. But right now she’s the only chance I’ve got. Unless you’ve had any luck in finding a cure?”

The words hadn’t been a taunt, nor a reproach, but Skye frowned as if it had been meant as such. “Not yet. But?—”

“I’m running out of time, Skye.” The words were quiet, featherlight, and the pain on his friend’s face tightened the skin around his eyes and darkened his irises to cerulean.

“I know,” he said gruffly. “I just don’t like this. I don’t like that I can’tseethe outcome. Too many pieces are shifting, and altering the soul…”

They’d had this discussion before. Wren understood Skye’s beliefs, but he didn’t agree with them. “If the lunar witches weren’t supposed to exist, the Goddess wouldn’t have gifted them magic.”

Skye frowned, the expression darkening his face until he looked almost unrecognisable. Usually, his friend was one of the most easy-going people Wren knew—but maybe that had more to do with his ability to know what futures were in motion, the strands of fate visible to him in a way they weren’t for the rest ofthem. This loss of control had them all on edge. “You know my thoughts about that.”

He did. Skye, and the majority of all witches, believed the lunar witches were accidental magic, a perversion of the natural order. Wren couldn’t say either way for sure, but it seemed unlikely that Selene would bless this course of action if she disapproved.

“Will you be there?” It was the question Wren had been most anxious to ask his friend. Skye’s presence would be a balm, knowing there was someone there who would unfalteringly watch out for him, but tolerating the presence of Sonnet was a different matter to being present while she performed her magic.

Skye glanced at him, surprise flashing across his face. “Of course. I don’t like this path you have set us on, but I do understand it. And I wouldn’t leave you alone in the hands of that witch either.”

Wren refrained from reminding Skye that he wouldn’t be alone, his family would be there, but he knew that didn’t count as far as Skye was concerned. None of them were witches. If something went wrong, Skye would undoubtedly consider it his responsibility to right it.

“Thank you,” he said instead and Skye nodded.

“I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

His hands squeezed the wooden arms of the chair and made the structure creak. “So do I.”

The moon was full and bright the following evening, a beacon against the sky that spilled silver light onto the rounded balcony of the palace’s highest tower. A crisp chill made their breath fog,though nobody complained as adrenaline and anticipation kept their hearts pumping fast and their blood hot.

Sonnet had arranged them all into a circle with Wren standing in the centre as she walked the inside with burning incense. She spoke quietly under her breath and Wren didn’t try to listen for the words, instead keeping his eyes closed and his mind as clear as possible even when Sonnet approached and wafted the sweet smelling smoke over his form and made his skin tingle.

Her hands clapped together and Wren jumped, eyes flashing open as all of the candles set out at the edges of the circle flashed into life. The flames didn’t flicker despite the breeze and the fire beneath the bowl on the podium he stood in front of seemed to have a silver glow, like it was reflecting the moon itself.

Steam wafted from the silver bow atop the podium and curled into the night sky and the stars seemed to sway in response, like a reflection rippling in a lake and Wren could have sworn he heard the Goddess laugh.

Warm hands gripped his and Wren blinked, coming back to himself as he looked into the solid medallion gaze of Sonnet’s eyes.

She nodded and Wren breathed in the incense in three deep breaths, just like she’d told him, before flipping his hands to be palm up inside of the witch’s.

Chanting began, the words unfamiliar, but Sonnet had talked him through each step of the ritual before and so he knew that she was calling to Selene, asking for the Goddess’ attention, to grant them magic so that he might find his mate. In some ways, this ceremony was similar to that of the marriage and bonding rites, but when magic rose up in the air around them Wren knew it was an entirely more powerful ritual.

The energy raised the hair on his arms and he heard his mother gasp when his skin began to glow silver-white. Sonnet’shair lifted, drifting in a wind that nobody else could feel, and for a second Wren felt an overwhelming swell of peace fill his body.

Then the burning began.

His head fell back, a hoarse cry ripping from his throat as the magic plunged into him, coiling around his essence as it searched every inch of his mind, his soul. It wasn’t quite pain, but it wasn't pleasurable either. The magic delving inside every crevice of his being to find the small thread that would tie him to another.

Warm words brushed against his mind, the voice unfamiliar, unintelligible, a slow sweetness pushing through his veins like liquid caramel and in it he could feelher.

He had no name, no images, just the warmth at his centre that pulsed harder and harder until his eyes re-opened and a lance of silver light shot out from him, lighting up the clouds from within, as he slumped, falling to his knees.

“Don’t.” The words were harsh but Wren barely heard them, his body wrung out, sweat coating his skin, and an intense longing filling him in a way he’d never felt before. Like he’d been missing a part of himself and hadn’t realised it until that moment.

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