18. Wolf
Until I could speak to the Diamond Witch again, everything would go back to how it had always been. I would return to my family and the enclave, and we would do what we”d always done. Survive. Exist. Which didn”t explain why my paws carried me in the wrong direction.
I had no reason to return to the cottage. Not a good one, anyway.
Emi wasn’t there. She wouldn’t be back. I told myself it didn”t matter if Emi ever returned to these woods. I couldn’t care what happened to her. Our lives were never meant to intersect; she was never meant to be mine.
In fact, it would be best if she never returned. So why did that possibility make the unnamed ache in my chest start to throb and spread?
Nine days we’d spent together. We’d shared one kiss—and clouded hell what a kiss it had been—but it didn’t change the fundamental truth that gemstone witches were the cause of all our suffering. Knowing what Emi’s body felt like pressed against mine, or that her tongue peeked out the corner of her mouth when she was pouring measurements, or that she was apparently naive to the evil purveyed by her grandmother, changed nothing. I couldn’t keep feeling this way about a woman I’d likely never see again.
Which. Was. For. The. Best.
I knew better.
Emi came from a line of gemstone witches that included the likes of the Ruby Witch. She’d told me she loved her grandmother, and what did that say about her, huh?
That she’s naturally trusting and loving...
No. I had to stop thinking that way.
In her world, with her skewed understanding and twisted loyalties, I was the villain. Undeniably. I always would be.
So why was I returning to the place we’d been pitted against each other between shared meals and endlessly engaging conversations? Why would I go back to where I’d seen her soft moments of grief, her fierce heartbeats of unbridled vengeance, and the quiet times in between where she struggled to wrap her mind around the truths rearing their ugly heads?
Why did I miss her so much it hurt? Why did I crave a single whiff of her lingering vanilla scent so badly that I’d return to this painful place just to sleep with her pillow one more time?
The cottage came into view through the parting Mist, looking as cold as I”d ever seen it. Confirmation that Emi wasn’t there made all four paws feel like dead weights on my legs. Powerful muscles became stones across my shoulders.
Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be my own man again. Even if I knew it couldn”t last, the clearing beckoned to me and my jumbled emotions. I just wanted to feel like myself so I could sort through it all. Then I”d put Emi and all of this behind me and rejoin the enclave. Maybe soon, I’d get more answers and I”d have direction again, but for the next little while, I could stand in that clearing on two legs with a clear mind. The pull was overwhelming.
I wanted it enough to drag my heavy body toward the garden wall.
I craved it so badly I let myself be consumed.
Snarling from my side was the only warning before the bush beside me erupted with a massive dark form. Gnashing teeth filled my vision.
The scent was immediately recognizable, testament to my distraction that I hadn’t picked it up before.
Grey fur covering the vicious fenriswulf had been turned nearly black by filth. I knew a heartbeat’s pity for Fenrir before he was on me. He was entirely lost to his monster, nothing but predator and survival instincts remained of the man I’d known.
I barely darted to the side in time to avoid the full weight of his body, longer and bigger than mine, as he tumbled into me. Pain seared up my side, the flaming agony of his claws raking my ribs before I could twist out from under him. My teeth snapped at the air between us as I regained my feet.
We circled, low growls and sharp snarls bouncing off the trees. With him between me and the cottage, the clearing that had seemed so close now felt beyond my reach. If only I could beat him there, I could take on Fenrir the man. I had no chance against his fenriswulf. They were creatures of legend for a reason. Impossibly strong. Incredibly fast. And once their jaws locked on their prey, they didn”t let go.
Certain death loomed in front of me. I wondered who would find my body. I wouldn’t wish it on any of my family.
Brutal denial gave me a burst of energy, and I bounded to one side. Fenrir countered.
Who would seek me out first? Robin? Fox? Lynx? Would Amber go to the enclave when I didn”t show up? Would they find a way to break the curse after my failure, or would that hope die with me too? I could accept death for the murder I’d been forced to commit and for my failure at breaking the curse, but I couldn”t accept condemning the others to an unending purgatory.
Fenrir leaped, his jaw snapping at my front leg. I barely jumped back in time.
I might deserve this death, but the others didn”t.
They were innocent.
Even Emi. Why was I just seeing that now, at the end? She wasn”t her blood. She was so much more.
And Fenrir. Before Aglonbriar had claimed him, he’d been someone else. A brother, a son, maybe someone’s friend or lover. This cursed life had twisted and rotted him from the inside, never letting him get over the death of his brother, pulling him deeper with every beckoning white tendril. No matter if the curse ended right now, he was likely beyond saving, too lost to the grief and violence and the sheer pressures of survival.
It was too late to escape my guilt, but every nerve and fiber of my body fought to find a different ending. If it was too late for me and so many before me, I refused to let it be too late for the ones left to save. For the ones yet to be cursed.
But how could I hope to defeat a beast like this when the shadows snarling back at me were a part of me too? We were both monsters.
With a deafening growl, the fenriswulf lunged. I reared up to meet him, teeth bared, desperate and wild in the face of defeat. I would kill again, or fail again. There was nothing else left. Either one would spell my end, it was only a matter of time and inevitability.
Pain seared my neck with another slash of deadly claws. I twisted and snapped my teeth, closing on flesh and bone. It wouldn’t be enough.
The fenriswulf roared. It blazed in my ear, and I felt the agony of more than his physical pain behind it. He crashed into me, taking me to the ground with a bone-crunching slam.
My head went fuzzy. My thoughts detached. The trees blurred and lights dimmed.
If only I had one more chance to make it right. I’d been stupid. We all lived with this madness. Fenrir had been one of us, and now he was only more of the monster that lived inside each of us. I should have let them all fight with me. This was our fight—all of us—not just mine. If only I”d done things differently.
There was a justice to dying alone when hot breath hit my throat a split second before teeth tore into me. That powerful jaw clamped down like a bolt of white-hot lightning. Pain wracked me. I thrashed to free myself, feeling the flesh tear from my neck and shoulder with a flaming-hot agony. It blanked out my vision like the Mist had claimed my eyes.
Faces flashed by. My friends, my brothers, my sisters…Robin, Bear, Lynx, Fox, Hawk, more, and more, and more. The ones we’d lost. Leo, Fenrir, too many others. And Emi. Always Emi. Her face lingered.
I seized it. Held it in my mind. Reached for one last breath. One last drop of fight…