Page 35 of Pack Witch
There.Touching it with my mind hurt, like I was pressing myself into a small fissure of the granite, my body breaking, being crushed, as I went deeper.
The earth’s magic there was vast as an ocean, but I reached into it, ignoring the pain of it, doing all I could to keep from being consumed by it. My purpose gave me strength.
Please. Please let me save the one I love.The pain sharpened, like a jagged sliver of stone being forced under my skin. I let it happen, picturing what I asked for. I would suffer whatever pain I needed to save him. He was solid, like the earth. A father to the fatherless, a pillar of strength to his pack, to his family.
To me.Please give me the strength to save him.
My answer came slowly, then all at once. Energy filled me in a way that felt both familiar and foreign, soothing and agonizing. Not the quick, soft move of soil and plant, the sturdy strength of the pines and aspen that slid like sap through me, but something far deeper.
The promise of permanence. Stone, bonding me to her, binding me. Demanding a sacrifice. I thought of Leroy and Bo and the love in their eyes as they gazed at him. Of his strength and integrity, and how much he gave of himself to the world.
Whatever I have is yours. Just let me save him.
For a moment, I felt another presence. The moon’s light fell on me as it rose, tugging at the last filament of connection I had to my wolf’s spirit. My chest burned again, more painfully than ithad when I’d stood on the mountain alone. That fire I’d felt, my heart seizing—that had been her, waking up. Or trying to.
She’d been asleep until he had come close enough to feel. But now… I saw her eyes, like twin harvest moons in the darkness of our shared consciousness. Those dark pools lifted to the moon above, her home.
Wolves didn’t belong to the earth, couldn’t survive, even asleep, in the depths.
I had to let her go. There was only space in my spirit for one type of magic, for one river to flow.
Whatever I have is yours,I whispered again, feeling the power of the deep earth sliding into my cells. I wasn’t certain if I was speaking to Julian, the earth, or the moon.
My eyes closed, I crooned a low note, the sound somewhere between a hum and a groan of anguish. The power overtook me, changing me, carving canyons in my innermost being. My wolf’s faint light grew even more diffuse as the scrap of her that had remained inside me all these years strained to go to the sky.
She longed to run with the moon. A sob worked its way out of my throat, a sound that might have been a howl once. The part of me that had been tied however tenuously to the moon sputtered like a candle.
I knew in my bones that I wouldn’t die with her. When that faint light went out, when that wisp of spirit that had slept inside me for so long finally drifted to the moon, I would be the earth’s, completely, down to the last fiber of my being. That was the only way I could truly tap into the power I needed to save Julian.
I hummed louder, the darker power beneath me promising healing.Goodbye, I hummed.Thank you for all you did to keep me alive. Rest now.
Julian’s groan forced my eyes to open. His amber eyes met mine, and I saw something in his gaze that might have been fear. “What have you done?”
Chapter 18
Julian
My wolf had always protected me, even when I hadn’t deserved it. It had healed my body hundreds of times. I knew now it had been forced to work harder over the years as my witch magic festered and pooled beneath the tattoos, as I struggled with my exposure to silver. As the mate sickness took its toll.
But now I was injured far past the healing my wolf could provide, even with the moon’s cool beams falling on me. I’d closed my eyes with nothing but regret that I hadn’t told my boys how much I loved them. That I hadn’t made certain my mate knew that finding her had been worth all the pain that came before.
At least I hadn’t bitten her, claimed her. She would live, and my boys would take care of her. We would run together under the moon someday, after she’d lived her full life, and…
A sharp jolt of alarm surged from my wolf, waking me.
What had happened? I could feel his panic. It was her; she was in danger. She was…
Here?I opened my eyes, fighting past the pain, to see what had happened. Zinnia sat beside me, one hand on my chest, the area there warm while all the rest of me was ice cold. Her facewas tear-streaked, though her body looked unharmed, and her eyes when they met mine frightened me.
They were darker than I’d ever seen, a deep gray—the color of the mountain stone—instead of the warm brown of before. And something else had changed, something that had my injured wolf whimpering silently. Her wolf, that ghostly presence I’d sensed before, was absent now.
“What have you done?” My voice was a death’s rattle, the words garbled. One of my lungs sounded and felt as if it was filling with fluid. My magic had far too much to heal and not enough blood left to do the work.
It didn’t matter.Ididn’t matter. Her eyes were bracketed with lines of pain, sweat running down her brow as she pressed on my chest, pushing energy into me.
“What I had to.” Her flint-gray eyes dropped to her hand, and I felt a surge of intense power move from her fingers into me. Or try to. “Your boys need you. Your pack needs you.” Another surge battered into me like a fist the size of a mountain.
It was the most powerful magic I’d ever felt, and I knew it might have saved me, if she’d used this before I’d fallen. But not now. I’d been dying already, and there was no way for my body to heal.
