Page 6 of WitchCurse
“No,” Nick said, catching the thought. “I’ve read everything I can find, and there is no mention of removing the bond other than death itself. Not that it would be what I wanted anyway.”
“Death for both of us then.”
He shrugged. “I think we’re both long overdue?”
“That is my cynicism you speak.” Bound too long, and yet not long enough. I tried to keep all of me buried and shield him from the darkness. He would never tell the fox that we had been bound hundreds of years. Long stretches of time that mortals couldn’t fathom. The fox saw Nick as a child, but he was a man hardened by my ire, irritation, and time.
“Seems to be a trait of the kitsune,” Nick half joked. “Seb’s sarcasm is almost as biting as yours.”
“Almost?”
“He doesn’t have centuries of practice.”
“The wolf will keep him sane.” Alive. Then there was the child of power. Somehow, they had ripped that power from the kitsune and reshaped it. A strength of magic so immense it would have changed any other fae irreversibly. Created from it, a living thing, a child, though only sort of, as it was young and still learning. It pulsed with life and light, growing all the time, all encompassing, and yet…soothing. Strange.
“A new world of power. Isn’t that what the old prophecies stated? The old would die and the world be reborn?”
I sighed. “I’m still here. Many of the old court hide in this world.”
“And they were wrong, weren’t they? You were not the death of Underhill.” Nick looked up, staring into the distance, thoughtful. “I think they did that to themselves. Abandoning it to madness. Ari will grow in strength and power, guided and well loved. Not the power maddened thing Underhill was. Maybe we only need to wait?”
I reached out to touch his hand where it rested on my chest. Hope. He still had it in spades. But I knew the truth. I was old world, and on the verge of my end. Unlike the rest of the fae, I didn’t have a desperate need to cling to life. Most days, I wished death would take me already and sever the path of fate before it turned me into madness. There was no greater corruption than losing my mind and what came after.
There was a knock on the door. Nick stared at it for a moment, a small smile forming on his lips. “He worries too.”
I sighed, feeling the weight of the fox’s spirit lingering outside the camper. Nervous energy always sent his power a bit wild. The mate and the child helped quell it, but with time he would master it on his own.
“His concern is for you,” I said.
Nick snorted, patted me on the shoulder and rose to reach for the door. “If it eases your mind to think so.”
The fox was small in human form, skin dark like the unseelie, and hair red like mortal blood. If he knew how to use glamour, I had never seen him try. He had it, all fae did, but seemed unwilling to make himself look like the accepted part of the world. His contrary nature was not all that unlike mine.
He stood at the base of the steps, glancing around Nick to where I lay, lips tightening into a frown. He held a plate in his hands, and a bag flung over his shoulder.
A wolf sat off to the side of the stairs, guarding our space as usual, though he wasn’t the fox’s alpha but one of the pack who had taken to staying close to us. He pressed his head into Sebastian’s palm, looking for scratches before lying down beside the door. The wolf never asked to come inside, and I knew Sebastian wanted him to spend more time in his human form and the mortal dwelling of the pack house, but being close to us gave the wolf some peace. Maybe because I had helped heal some of the wolf’s internal chaos? It had been only a temporary fix, but seemed to give the wolf some stability. Either way, Nick seemed to enjoy the wolf’s company, often sitting on the steps or at the base of the stairs outside and talking.
“I brought food,” Sebastian offered. He glanced down at all of it. “Some of it Ari helpedmake.”
“Bad parenting,” I admonished. “Feeding me your child’s power.”
Seb’s shoulders stiffened. Nick took a step back to let him in while throwing a glare my way. “It sounds wonderful,” Nick said. He reached out and patted the wolf on the head before closing the door behind the fox.
I could feel the magic in the bag and turned my head away. They didn’t need to see the desire in my gaze. The hunger terrified me most days. How long before the fox and his mate found a new cage for me? I’d rather die in the quiet of freedom, fading away, than leashed in the dark of loneliness, eaten away by bitterness and rage. The tiny bits they’d been giving me staved off the worst of it, and I wondered if I should refuse them and let the final hammer swing. Before crossing the veil into this new world, I’d sat on the very edge of the end, craved it more than anything else. But then the door had opened and my scion had refused to cross without me. A scion to the fae was meant to be a tool. I had never been one to follow the rules.
There was a tinkle of glasses as they moved around the kitchen. “Does your mate know you’re here?” I asked the fox.
“He does. He’s napping with Ari right now,” Seb said. “I plan to join them.” He appeared beside the bed, and I couldn’t help my flinch. His energy a burning temptation that I knew would tear me apart. Too much, was the little fox. The last dredges of Underhill had been stupid to think it could survive that supernova of power, even without the babe building within him. A mixture of earthen gods and fae magic had given life to something beyond folklore. But I would never tell him that. He feared the monsters enough as it was. It would be cruel to remind him of the one he would eventually become, and likely get me outcast.
Seb set a tray on the edge of the bed, a feast, I was certain, as it pulsed with life and energy. “And it’s not from Ari,” Seb corrected. “I made it. Liam’s been helping of course, but we thought it would be less objectionable if you took from us. Ari just likes to help mix things…”
“Your lover is okay with me eating your magic?” I asked incredulously. Nick wasn’t even fate-bound to me and I’d never let another touch him.
“That sounds weirdly erotic and kind of gross.” Seb waved at the plate. “It’s food infused with magic. Why does it have to be more?”
Because we were monsters. Beyond what I had ever become, the little fox had devoured a world and spit out a baby universe. In the face of that, a touch of magic laced food seemed like nothing.
“Please eat,” Nick said as he sat down beside the tray. He held a plate in his hands, with a giant slice of chocolate cake on it. He didn’t take a bite, unwilling to eat until I did. He’d been doing that a lot since we’d been dragged out of Underhill by the fox’s mate. Manipulative bastard.
