I shook myself out of my unusually morose thoughts. It would work out. It had to. I would make it so. Just like I would find the missing wolves.
I prayed to the Old Magic for patience, guidance, and strength and stopped where it felt right. The stream gurgled at my back, brambles bare of leaves in front of me. I tuned into the place I had been away from for so long. At least the land was healthy.
I shifted, uncaring that I stood naked in the cold, letting my wolf warm me from the inside. My eyes cast a frozen glow against the snow, the Old Magic filling me in the way it wanted to. My senses sharpened. The whisper of something archaic stirred in the back of my mind. Ididn’t relish what I was about to do, but if they had no resources, they would have to show themselves.
That ancient, slithering thing that lived in all wolves peered through my eyes and bled into the soil. That was why we feared going Ajax. We were literally a blight on the land.
“Life becomes death. Sweet water turned bitter.” My voice resounded like a clear bell across the stream that began to cloud. It wasn’t loud, but the power in it rippled through the wood. “Fall to sleep to reveal my enemy.”
Branches withered. Trees crashed in the forest, their roots gone dry. A ring of decay spread out around me and I wanted to howl at the waste of it.
“What are you doing, you mongrel!” Percy appeared with a pop, stepping out of his portal. Disappointment cut me deep to see him alone.
A spike of dread accompanied his snarl and I tumbled back into the graveyard that had been my dungeon in Vinguard. It might not have had bars or a cage, but it was a prison all the same. I made myself small enough to fit in it.
I had to remember I wasn’t there anymore.
“Just came to say hi, neighbor.” I mocked his words back at him. Starting this civil would have been smart but the past still rode me hard.
His face twisted with rage. “You can’t be so stupid as to kill the forest you live in.”
I would do anything to flush them out. Even wideningmy circle of destruction. Ash floated alongside snowflakes. Trees crumbled and plumed into the frosty breeze. Birds took to the skies and not all of them made it.
Percy’s ring glowed, then faltered, but he didn’t produce any magic to stop me. “Cease this immediately. You’re ruining everything.”
I put my hands behind my back so I wouldn’t sprout claws. He probably wouldn’t tell me, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. “Everything is a pretty big word. If I understand it, who knows, maybe I will help.”
Looking up at me, the shadows deepening his eye sockets only made him more sinister. “Do you want to join and find out? You seem to be a powerful shifter. We could use your wisdom, your strength. Every creature and each type we recruit only summons Him faster.”
My heart thumped. No one had ever said that to me before. Funny? Yes. Strong? No. The temptation surprised me. I knew the words were empty, but the truth tangled somewhere in there. Not even Fallon really saw the whole me. Part of that was my fault for keeping secrets.
Other than that. An ill-defined “Him” was always a bad sign.
“I don’t suppose I might meet Him beforehand? Get a feel if he’s second-date material or not?”
Percy’s lack of amusement was obvious as he called a portal, his ring glowing again.
“We knew Sombermane was different when we came here. Something elemental in the air, in the earth. Turnsout you’re the same non-believers as every other monster of the Harrowlands. Well, almost the same. If they knew the power you hid here, they would burn this place to ash.”
I startled back. He was right. The monsters of our land had grown used to paler magic, thinking us only wolves. Keeping Old Magic apart from the Harrowlands became a necessity. If the ancient enchantment turned the wolves that guarded it into death machines, then a dragon shifter like Evie would be a world-ender. And she was quite devastating already without it. In this monk’s hands, Old Magic would only do harm.
I attempted to cover my anxiety with a smile and a shrug.Look harmless and charming,I reminded myself.
“We’re just here because wolves tend to stick to their own and none of us are that strong. That’s why we have the pack.”
“Is that what you tell your pack? That you need them? We need you too.” The monk reached out a bony hand. “If he can do this trapped inside you.” Percy gestured to the dying forest around us. “Think what he could do should you let him out.”
That was the worst idea ever, but the beast inside me stirred anyway. Black edged my vision. Prowling the length of my soul, I shivered with fear. My smile turned into a grimace as I fought the legend of the wood. A mindless howl of death. I took a deep breath. Honey was here. My mate was here. Nothing bad was happening.The Old Magic didn’t need to call it forth to destroy the entire wood. I prayed as I had never pleaded before, sweat trickling down my spine.
I stepped back before he touched me. “Sorry, I’m taken.”
“Useless,” Percy said. The echo of those words through time made it hard to see straight.
“Not very nice,” I shifted to wolf to punctuate the last with a snap of my teeth and stuff down the need to release the monster he so desperately wanted.
Percy retreated into the red-rimmed portal that might have led anywhere. The temptation to tackle him through it itched in my fur, but I was just one wolf against many monks. Fighting them all could trigger the beast. If I were dead, I wouldn’t be able to rip that creepy smile off his face. I should have brought my pack. If for nothing else than to tame the beating heart of darkness too close to the surface already.
Frustration surged through me. I had messed this up and had no one to blame but myself. I latched onto his robe at the last second. Just to be petty, I shook him back and forth like I wanted to do to every single Brother of Zophiel that had ever hit me, yelled at me or starved me. His screams were immensely satisfying as I tossed him right through his own portal.
