CHAPTER TWENTY || HARRIS #2
“Lacey, Hunter, and Lee will accompany you into the woods in wolf form,” Emma continued. “But they will be unable to cross through with you. This is something only you can do.”
I nodded, ready to get this over with. Between the bonfire and the speech, the buildup seemed like it might be worse than the bite.
Then Emma’s expression turned sympathetic. “Unfortunately, this will hurt. There’s no way around that, I’m afraid.”
“Yeah,” I said stiffly. “I kind of figured.”
Lee and Hunter stood, stripping out of their shirts and shoes. Lacey did the same, her expression set and determined.
Then, one by one, they shifted.
The transformations were fast and, unlike the werewolf movies I’d seen, seemingly painless. Within seconds, three large wolves stood facing me.
Lacey stepped forward. She was pure gray and slightly smaller than the twins. Her eyes were locked on mine.
Taking a deep breath, holding it, and gritting my teeth, I held out my left arm.
She didn’t hesitate. Her jaws closed around my forearm and pain exploded through me as her teeth sank deep into my flesh.
My breath escaped in a strangled grunt of pain.
Lacey released me and stepped back.
I looked down at the wound. Blood dripped from my arm, soaking into the dirt. But even as I watched, it began to slow. Whatever magic the wolf bite possessed, it didn’t allow the recipient to bleed to death in the process.
A few moments later, a sensation like liquid fire began at the wound—as though the edges of the bite had become white-hot—and started seeping outward. It felt like heat burning every cell it touched to ash. That was probably the magic Emma had mentioned. And yeah, she hadn’t been wrong.
It hurt like hell.
The effect on the rest of my body was almost immediate. My vision blurred. My hands started trembling. Paradoxically, because my body felt like it was on fire, a chill ripped through me and I shuddered.
“I’m ready,” I said, my voice rough.
Daniel stepped forward, holding a torch. He spoke a spell under his breath and the flames flared bright gold. He handed it to me. “The flames won’t go out until sunrise. Use this to burn the Algea’s body.”
I took it, the heat from the fire almost soothing against the fever burning through me.
Then I turned to face the others, already feeling unsteady on my feet. “If Reed and I aren’t back by sunrise, we’re probably not coming back.”
Emma nodded, her expression solemn.
I turned and began walking toward the edge of the forest. Lacey, Hunter, and Lee fell into step around me, their paws silent on the ground.
I paused at the tree line and pulled out my gun. I blinked in surprise at the weight of it—my muscles felt weak and useless. But I managed to keep it at the ready.
Then we walked into the darkness together.
* * *
The forest was different now—or maybe the fever was distorting it.
The trees loomed taller, their branches reaching in all directions like skeletal fingers.
The underbrush was thick and tangled, catching at my boots with every step.
My vision swam, my legs felt like jelly, and every breath took more effort than the one before it.
But the mate bond was a thread pulling me forward the moment I focused on it.
I followed it deeper into the woods, letting it guide me to Reed. The wolves stayed close, a tight circle of protection around me. The golden glow of the torch cast enough light to see by, but barely. The shadows all around us seemed to shift whenever I focused on them.
Time lost meaning as we walked. Minutes or hours. I couldn’t tell.
The fever climbed higher, and my heart started behaving strangely—skipping beats, fluttering.
And that was when I started seeing things.
Reality itself seemed to shimmer around me, the air rippling like water. I could see threads of magic now, golden and silver, weaving between the trees, connecting this world to something else. The Otherworld.
Or maybe it was just the fever.
I stumbled and caught myself against a tree trunk. My vision doubled, then snapped back into focus.
I forced myself to keep moving.
At last, I stopped. The mate bond told me I was close.
I recognized this clearing. The same place I’d dragged Sally out of the night before. The same place Reed and I had been attacked.
And then I saw it up ahead. There was a wound in the fabric of reality itself, barely visible but unmistakable once I focused on it. Like someone had taken a knife to the flow of power between this world and the next and sliced it open, leaving a jagged, half-healed wound.
I stopped, swaying on my feet. The wolves circled me, their eyes bright and worried, gleaming in the golden firelight of my torch.
“This is the place,” I said, my voice sounding strange and faraway, like it didn’t quite belong to me anymore. “Reed’s close.”
Lee and Hunter both let out low, plaintive whines.
I looked at them, then at Lacey. “Thanks for coming with me.”
Lacey growled, low and unmistakable in its meaning.
I met her gaze and understood. She was telling me not to say goodbye. She was telling me to come back in one piece. Emotion, hot and painful, twisted in my chest.
“I misjudged you, too,” I told her.
She huffed in reply, her tail swishing once.
I turned back to the tear, the torch heavy in one hand and my gun in the other. My heart was beating too fast now, erratic and weak. The fever was burning through me, pulling me closer to the edge. I knew, instinctively, I didn’t have long left.
This was it. I was going to bring Reed back or die trying.
I took a breath. And then I stepped through the tear in reality.
The world fractured around me. Colors bled and blurred together. I let out a sharp gasp, the sound warping, becoming alien—like hearing the echo of an echo. My stomach lurched and my knees buckled. For an awful moment, I thought I’d fall and maybe keep on falling forever.
But I didn’t. Instead, abruptly, I stood in the Otherworld, gasping for breath, my vision blurring until there were two of everything.
Reed was through the trees ahead of me. I could sense his nearness. I just had to get to him.
I took two more steps before the fire burning through my veins ignited into an inferno and I doubled over in agony. I sank to my knees, my heart racing like it was attempting to break free of my rib cage.
A thrill of genuine fear cut through the pain and the disorientation.
My human self was about to die.
And then I would be reborn as something else.
“Reed,” I whispered, digging my palms into the earth and trying to drag myself forward. But my body wouldn’t obey me.
The fire became unbearable, then all at once it subsided, its work complete.
My heart pounded in my chest once more, decisively. A single note, summing up everything I had ever been before. Then it stopped.
Panic gripped me. What if this didn’t work? What if I didn’t wake back up and this was really the end? What if the Algea found me while I was transforming and destroyed my unconscious body?
What if I was too late to save Reed?
My vision went gray around the edges and the world dimmed.
Instinctively, I took a last, desperate breath as a human man, as though I might somehow stave off the inevitable.
All the feeling left my body in a rush, and I collapsed face-first onto the ground.
Please don’t let him die. Please don’t—
The darkness overtook me.