His words hit like a gut punch. Humans extinct? My jaw tightens. “Cool,” I mutter. “Super comforting.”
“You’re telling me you’re fully human, and you still pulled the earth up like that?”
I raise my hands and look down at them as I shake my head in bewilderment. “I…don’t know? I’m human, yes. There’s no magic in my world. Just people trying to make it through the day.” I look up at him with an almost pleading expression.
Brannick looks rattled. “That’s not possible. Gifted magic is passed through bloodlines. It comes with training and trial. You don’t just wake up one day and move mountains.”
I rake a hand through my hair, tugging at the roots. “Well, according to you, I do.” I blow out an unsteady breath. “Just call me Harry fucking Potter, I guess.”
He squints at me. “Alright. Harry, I think your world’s changing. Or maybe it’s waking up something that was buried deep in your bones. Either way... this is new. And new is dangerous.”
I sit hard onto the ground and lean against the wall I apparently created, dragging both hands down my face. This is too much. Shifting wolves, plane crashes, other realms… fucking magic abilities? I’m out here just trying to get back to my friends. I can’t deal with the rest right now.
“I just want to find my people,” I tell him. “My girl, Luna, and my friends. I need to make sure they’re all safe.”
He hums. “A quest? That’s a good reason to live. Better than most.”
I glance up at him. “I have to go. I need to get out of these woods and find a way home.”
Brannick’s grin comes back. “Excellent! I will join you in your travels. I scent food on the wind. Yeast and spice. Something fried. Shifters like me have exceptional scenting. I can scent food a half day’s run away. I wish to eat soon and drink much mead.”
I blow out a breath and scan his massive body, stopping before my eyes land on his huge, hanging dick. “Can you, I don’t know… magic some clothes up to cover…” I wave vaguely at his dick.
He must find this hilarious because he starts to laugh and proceeds to swirl his hips, making his huge appendage slap at his thighs.
“No. But if it scares you, I’ll wear leaves to spare your feelings and preserve your human modesty.”
I groan. “This has got to be a fucking fever dream. No, I’m still concussed from the plane crash. That must be it. None of this can be real.”
Brannick shifts again with no warning back into the beast and shows me his teeth. When I flinch back, I swear the damn wolf snorts a laugh before he starts walking. I hesitate for a long second before I get up and follow, dry twigs crunching under my boots. Taking a quick look back at the smoke-filled sky behind us, I quicken my pace to catch up.
“Yeah, sure, just follow the giant naked fae wolf through the woods. That’s perfectly logical.”
I swear I hear him laugh again. Like this whole thing is one big joke to him.
Chapter 48 - Torrin
Lanny stares at me like I just grew horns. He takes two slow steps back, his expression caught between fear and disbelief.
“Lanny,” I say, hands up, palms out. “I don’t know what the fuck that was. I swear.”
His gaze flicks to where the strangers fled the parking lot, then back to me and my hands. “You told them to leave,” he says quietly. “And they just... did it.”
“I know. I was there.”
“They had weapons of some kind, man. We were fucked. And then you... said that shit and they walked away.”
“I know,” I repeat. My voice sounds strange, even to me.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, with a reluctant nod, he murmurs, “Maybe you were right earlier. About shit changing.”
Then he turns and walks off. Doesn’t say goodbye, just walks back toward the gym where the rest of the team is huddled. A few of them look back at me, eyes wide and nervous like I’m a ticking bomb now.
Fuck. No one has ever looked at me in fear before and it does something to my head. It makes me feel a little too much like my father and that thought devastates me.
The rest of the day passes in a haze. I don’t talk to anyone. I barely move. I sit on the stadium steps, watching the sky above the field I worked so long and hard to play on. I think that’s all over now. I watch the cracked moon crawl across it like a bad omen. I think about Luna. About Jules, Reid, and Gage. Are they okay? Are they hurt? Are they even alive?
When night falls, I find an unclaimed gym mat and lie down. It’s hard and smells like disinfectant. It takes me a long time to get to sleep when every time I close my eyes, I see Luna’s face. I hear her laugh. Then I hear her screams.
