Page 76 of Curses and Casualties
Ryan is on his back now, Elder Gray’s massive wolf form looming over him, dripping blood and spit, jaws inches from Ryan’s throat. Ryan’s eyes glow with fury, but beneath I see panic. Elder Gray is toying with him. He wants Ryan to see death coming.
There’s no time for ceremony. I grab the bowl and drink half the mixture in one desperate gulp. It burns like swallowing stars—beautiful and agonizing, setting every cell on fire.
Then the world fractures.
Evanora’s warnings slam into me all at once. Pain rips through my body like lightning, each nerve ending screaming in protest. My vision blurs, doubles, splits into impossible kaleidoscope patterns. The cave walls seem to breathe, pulsing in and out like the chambers of a massive heart.
“You’re dying,”a voice whispers—not Luna’s, something else, something cold and ancient.
“No,”I gasp, but even my own voice sounds wrong, layered with echoes that bounce off dimensions I can’t see.
The hallucinations hit next. Elder Gray multiplies into a dozen snarling forms, each one tearing at Ryan from different angles. Ryan himself flickers between human and wolf and something in between, his teeth too long, eyes too bright, limbs that bend in ways that shouldn’t be possible.
Focus,Luna’s voice cuts through the chaos, stronger now, more present.Focus on me. On us. Let the pain pass through you.
I close my eyes, trying to center myself, but behind my lids I see impossible things—forests of crystalline trees, moons with faces that weep silver tears, wolves made of starlight running through endless corridors of bone.
“Georgia!”Ryan’s roar penetrates the madness. Real. That’s real.
My eyes snap open, and for a moment the world stabilizes. Elder Gray’s jaws are closing around Ryan’s throat, and there’s no time for the elixir to finish its work gently.
Now,I tell Luna, even as the pain still courses through me.We can’t wait.
The shift begins before the confusion fully clears. Bones crack and reshape while hallucinations still dance at the edges of my vision. Muscles tear and reweave as impossible colors bleed through my sight. But Luna’s will is stronger than the elixir’s chaos, and my desperation to save Ryan burns through the disorientation like a cleansing fire.
I don’t think. I act.
Elder Gray’s head snaps up as three hundred pounds of enraged silver wolf slams into his side. I hit him like a freight train, sending him flying off Ryan and into the cave wall with a satisfying crunch. Stone cracks under the impact.
He tries to recover, but I’m already on him, jaws locked around his throat—not to kill, but to hold. My teeth—Luna’s teeth—ourteeth pierce fur and skin just enough to make him freeze.
‘NOW!’I roar through the bond to Ryan. ‘Drink it NOW before the window closes!’
I see Ryan scramble to his feet, his human form emerging just enough to grab the bowl. He doesn’t hesitate, just throws back the remaining mixture.
The change is immediate and terrifying.
Ryan was already huge in wolf form, but this... The cave fills with the sound of bones extending, muscles expanding. His black fur ripples as he grows half again his usual massive size. Power radiates from him in waves that make the heartstones sing. When he throws back his head and howls, the sound shakes dust from the ceiling.
Elder Gray’s wolf whimpers beneath my jaws.
The witches, who’d been struggling against whatever invisible force held them, gape in shock. Even the fae looks mildly interested, which for them, is practically jumping up and down.
“Hurry!” one witch hisses to the other.
Green light flares. Before any of us can react, a portal tears open beneath them. But they’re not just escaping—tendrils of magic wrap around Elder Gray, yanking him from beneath my jaws.
He snarls as the magic pulls him through and the portal snaps shut.
For a half second, there’s true silence. The only sounds are my own ragged breathing, the rapid pulse of my heart, and the high, ringing note of power that’s not quite ready to die down. My body is enormous, every cell singing with new purpose, but instead of the madness I’d braced for, Luna feels... clear.Present, but not overwhelming. We are both here, perfectly awake and alert and, for the first time, not struggling with each other.
Ryan turns to me, his massive head dipping in something like awe.
“Luna,” Kane rumbles through our bond. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”
The urge to circle each other is overwhelming—not the dominance dance of enemy wolves, but the tentative, electrical orbit of long-separated kin. Our snouts touch, breath intermingling. Ryan’s tongue rasps a line from the base of my ear to my throat. Luna responds with a low, warbling whine, equal parts embarrassment and hunger. The scent of her mate is everything she remembers—musk, old pine and earth. We nuzzle, tails sweeping arcs through the dust, neither wanting to break contact long enough to be sure the other is real.
It’s almost funny, the way language abandons us in this form. There’s so much to say, but all of it rushes out in physical gestures. The slow entwine of massive bodies, the gentle press of forehead to shoulder, the long exhale of two wolves who’ve finally found each other without a wall of pain or magic or loss between them. We become a tangle of fur and memory, the past filling in with each breath, until it isn’t just our hearts beating in tandem, but our ghostly shadows too—every version of us that ever was, finally at peace. Finally together.
