Wildewood

Chapter 47

NICK

The forest called to Nick, desperately trying to pull him back to himself, but all he knew now was the hunt.

The rhythmic pulse of blood thrummed in his ears, and in the back of his throat, painting it with copper.

The blood he had spilled on the dirt floor of the cellar, unwittingly giving it to Crom.

It had woken the old god, and now he was lost. All the time that dreadful voice beat in his ears, a voice like a drum, telling him to run, to pursue, to hunt, to kill.

It was what he had been made to do. It was all he had been made to do.

And he had been made. He wasn’t a creature of flesh and blood. He knew that now. He was the wild, and the chase, he was all aching teeth and burning muscles, and the scent of prey enveloped him, driving all other thoughts out of him.

Behind him the huntsman cried out in delight, Chambers exhorting him to run her down, to bring her to heel, to pin her to the ground and—

No, that couldn’t be right.

He knew that couldn’t be right. Because he knew the scent he was following. He was covered in it, had breathed it in as part of him. He still yearned for it.

‘Don’t think,’ the dark god told him. ‘Just feel. Let the hunger take you. There is nothing else. Just live and breathe and hunt, that’s all there is.’

That blinding hunger surged up again, filling him as he reached the edge of the trees and felt their revulsion sweep through him.

They knew what he had become, the dread transformation that had come over him.

They knew he was lost and the horror of it all made the wild wood recoil from its creation.

Because he was its creation. He understood that now.

He wasn’t human. He had never been human.

It was a dream. A trick. A thing to keep him docile and under control.

Sally and Theo had lied. They had given him memories that were not his own.

They had made him a changeling creature without anything to replace.

They had given him a cuckoo to care for and they—

No. No, that wasn’t right. However he had come into being, whatever magic had been used to create him, it didn’t matter now. He was real. He knew he was.

They had given him Maeve. His Maeve. With all the love and joy in her heart, all the sweetness that she brought with her, his ray of sunshine, his Maeve…

‘They lied,’ Chambers told him in savage tones that tore all hope from his heart.

‘They lied and they used you. They said Sally was your wife but you were nothing to her. You were just a cuckold, a changeling they made to protect their child in case they failed. And they did fail. You are thing born from lies and you will crumble like the infirm ground on which you were made.’

But he hadn’t failed them. Maeve was safe. Patricia had her. And Alex had protected her, even when he could not. Alex had saved Sally from the house, and from Chambers. Theo had come to take Sally with him. He’d come with the wild wood.

Because Theo hadn’t died in the house. He’d died here among the trees on his own terms.

‘Think, my love,’ Sally seemed to whisper from the heart of the storm.

‘You are a rational being, not a beast. You can think and feel. You can love. I know you can. You love Maeve. And you love Alex. I know you do. Love transforms all things. It makes you real. You are not a monster. You are a man who loves so much. Please, think, Nick.’

How could he think with the wildness consuming him, with Crom burning inside him and Blaise Chambers, the bastard, screaming at him?

His veins were boiling and his breath was trapped in his throat.

His teeth cut into the sides of his cheeks and filled his mouth with blood.

His muscles burned as he flung himself through the woods and they rejected him at every turn.

Why were they rejecting him if he was part of them, made from them? He was the guardian…

Think.

How did a beast like him think? He was pure instinct and reaction, he was the hunter and he was in pursuit of his prey. And her scent…

Her scent.

Alex.

Nick fought for control, for rationality, for something, anything. And it slipped from his grasp. Because he had found her instead.

Just kneeling there, in the middle of the stone circle, while the rain slammed down around her and the wind tore at her.

‘But Nick is real,’ she shouted, her voice almost lost in the tempest around her. ‘He’s Maeve’s father. I think I – I love him. Please, you have to help me save him.’

The wind seemed to still and Nick froze with it. Listening, incredulously, to her words.

She loved him? How could she love him? He’d done nothing but hurt her. And they barely knew each other.

But…

But she said he was Maeve’s father.

‘But he is real.’ Alex sobbed out the words as if in denial, as if arguing with someone or something he couldn’t see.

Perhaps he’d never be able to see it. Not now. Not when he was lost. But he still knew what it was.

Alex was arguing with the wild wood itself, the thing that had made him, that would destroy him. She was trying to save him. Even now. Even after everything he had done…

Love transforms all things. It makes you real.

He came to a halt behind her and his hands moved in spite of himself, against his will. He didn’t have a will now. He never would again. He was Crom’s creature, Chambers’ host. He was nothing but a shell for their evil.

Accept that, and it was so easy. Just give in and stop fighting, and all the struggle would fall away, taking the pain and the misery with it. That was what they promised, the two of them. He tried to believe that.

If he just gave up the struggle, and joined them in an unholy trinity, he’d never want again. Never feel the pain and loss. Never be not-enough for anyone again.

But Sally said differently. So did Alex.

You are not a monster.

His hand grabbed Alex’s hair, fingers tangling in it, and he dragged her to her feet, pulling her back against his body so he could hold her struggling form still. But she didn’t struggle. All the fight seemed to have left her. Whether it was fear or defeat, he didn’t know.

His mouth moved, his voice used by the very thing he despised.

‘Oh, very real. More real than ever, thanks to you. And now he’s ours, so are you.

It’s over, Alexandra. You are the last of the de Wildes and you have the blood of the women of Kilfayne in you, however watered down.

You can still the wild wood and set us all free.

You can have him as your own if you want.

We can give you that. But you will submit to us. We have won.’

Wait.

Why was Chambers making bargains with her?

It was like a punch to the gut. He was real.

Alex said it and Alex made it so. She named him, called him Nick.

Here, in the heart of the wild wood. She was a de Wilde too but, by Chambers’ own admission, she had the blood of Kilfayne, a wise woman, like Sally.

Like Maeve would be one day. Like all the long line of them back to the beginning of all of this.

She called him back into being, just as Sally had.

She made him real. Now.

And they were not alone. They had the forest, the wild wood, the very thing that had trapped and contained Crom for millennia. They knew how to control it. To keep the bonds tight. Or to let them go entirely.

But he couldn’t let Alex give in to Crom and Chambers… He just couldn’t.

The things they would do to her. It was like he had a glimpse into their minds as well, as if he could see their intentions now. Every promise was a lie. They were cruel and vindictive. He couldn’t let Alex give herself up for him.

He would never be worth that. He was nothing. Just a creature of the forest, a memory, a ghost of someone long dead, a simulacrum made of magic and promises broken…

He knew that now.

Somehow he loosened his grip on Alex’s hair and ran his hand instead in the gentlest caress down the side of her face that he could manage.

Know me, he wanted to say, but his voice was not his own anymore. He couldn’t speak. So, this gesture would have to be enough.

Please, Alex, please know me. Trust me this one time. Even if I failed you before. Trust me now.

Old words came to him. Words he barely dared to think.

‘Mo stór, mo croi, mo mhuirnín dílis.’ Those words in the language that was written on his soul, expressing the only thing he wanted her to know. That he loved her. That he always would. The only words he would say if that was all he would ever be able to say again.

My darling, my heart, my own true love…

Alex shuddered in response, as if she heard them whispered on the wind, or in the beating of his heart, and she half turned to look up at him in wonder.

She knew. She had to know. She understood the words and their meaning, and she had heard him.

Part of him was still here. Still hers. She had to realise.

‘Nick?’ she whispered. She had heard. He saw that in the wonder filling her beautiful eyes. He had found his voice, in the wind and the storm, and now, when he tried again…

‘Call the wild woods,’ he told her on a stolen breath.

‘But it’ll kill you. It’ll probably kill us both, anything to stop Crom…’

He winced, thought of Maeve, of her having to face this one day, and he knew what he had to do. What they both had to do.

‘Please,’ he whispered, and buried his face in her hair.

While it was still possible, she had to do it now, because he felt the power that possessed him exerting its control again.

His grip on Alex’s body tightened and his free hand closed on her throat.

Even as he tried to stop it, Crom, or Chambers, or perhaps both of them, surged through him and grabbed at Alex, ready to crush the life from her before she could do what had to be done.

But they were too late. Far too late.

Alex, his Alex, was brave and valiant. She didn’t hesitate this time. She called the wild wood as if she had always been in communion with it. She reached out with all that she had in her, stretching up to the canopy and down to the mycelium and summoning it all to her.

The wild wood responded with a roar that drowned out the storm.

As it rushed in on them, Nick tried to shelter her, pulling her down and shielding her with his body. It was all he had left, this form that had been created through magic and hope and need. And now he used all that he was in an effort to save her.

Even if it meant his own destruction.

So be it, he told the woods he had loved so much. Take me back, but please, he begged, please, let her live. She’s everything. Please.

And he prayed those words over and over until his mind was torn to pieces and scattered like seeds on the wind, and he knew no more.