Wolf Bound

by Leisl Leighton

  She frowned. Cordy was swaying on her feet. Nurse Shelley came to the fore, pushing ‘feeling sorry for herself Shelley’ to the side with a massive shove.

  ‘Okay, I think that’s enough for the day. Cordy has only just woken from a long coma. She needs her rest as much as Skye.’ She took Cordy’s arm, letting the other woman lean on her again.

  ‘Of course, you’re right. You mustn’t wear yourself out, Cordy, even for me and my twins.’

  ‘You and your twins are giving me a purpose to move forward.’ The smile she gave Skye was grateful, but endlessly sad.

  Skye squeezed her hand. ‘I know. And I’m glad for it on multiple levels. But now it’s time for both of us to rest.’

  ‘Yes. It is. But if you don’t mind, I’d like a shower and something to eat first.’

  Cordy leaned on Shelley and River as they took her down the hall to one of the other rooms where there was a bathroom and proper bed. Shelley helped her to shower while Bron sent River off to get Cordy something to eat and headed off to fetch her some fresh pyjamas. She was back just as Cordy was finishing her shower and then, despite Cordy’s protests, they made her get into the bed—Cordy wanted to go back to the hospital room, but Bron insisted she have a good night’s sleep in a proper bed for a change. ‘I’ll come and get you if there’s any issues with Skye and the babies. I promise.’

  ‘Can you go and check now?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll be right back.’

  She left, leaving Shelley alone in the room with Cordy.

  The other witch settled back on the pillows, her gaze on Shelley piercing. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Shelley, but you’re wrong. It was you, too.’

  ‘Me too what?’ Shelley pretended she didn’t know what the other woman was talking about.

  Cordy’s lips quirked into a patient smile. ‘When you allowed your powers to be joined with Skye’s to save her, you gave her and Bron everything they needed to get to this point.’ She reached out, grabbed Shelley’s hand. ‘It’s been more difficult on you than the others because your powers are so much more volatile. I know how hard this has been for you, how much it has hurt you. And it’s going to hurt more. I can feel that.’ She tipped her head on the side. ‘You know I can.’

  Yes, she did. She hadn’t known that Cordy was a midwife born, but she had known that Cordy’s powers included foresight.

  Cordy’s smile widened. ‘In some ways, my powers are not so different from yours.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute.’

  ‘Believe what you will, but I know it to be true. Just as I know you think things will only get worse for you. That all there will ever be is pain.’ Shelley didn’t move, could barely breathe as the other woman kept speaking. ‘But it will be all right in the end, you know. I can feel that too. For you. For Skye. For Bron. For Eloise. You are all going to be part of changing our world. I know it.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,’ Shelley managed.

  ‘It’s not just a good thing.’ Cordy’s eyes brightened, almost as with a fever, and her face seemed to glow. ‘You and your friends are going to be what saves us all from the Darkness. The Nexus working alongside an elemental, a healer and a medium-banshee, helped by the power of elemental energy from the unborn twin Witch-Weres and the Trickster who is spirit-bound.’ She gasped. ‘I can see it. Together you will unbind the Darkness from its heavenly plain and bring balance back to our world.’

  The hairs on Shelley’s arms stood up and she knew Cordy was seeing something in her mind that she couldn’t. Then suddenly, Cordy’s head jerked up and light glowed out of her face, her eyes swirling gold as words gushed out of her; words that seemed torn from her and carried on a fae wind, spoken with a voice that was hers and yet echoed with ancient weight.

  ‘Four with two and channelled through one will have the power to light the sun.

  The power of all will have its way to overcome the worst of Darkness’ sway.

  Together their Will will oversee, the coming of the new eternity

  Three times three times three times three

  So I say, so mote it be.’

  The last word ended on a high gasp and then Cordy fell forward into Shelley’s arms.

  Bron raced into the room, River behind her. ‘What happened? I felt magic swell.’

  Shelley looked down at Cordy and then back up at her friend. ‘She spoke a prophecy.’ She told them what the other witch had said.

  ‘What does it mean?’ River asked.

  ‘It means I’m going to have to head back to Melbourne tonight. I’ve got more research to do.’ If they were to do what Cordy had prophesied, then she needed to find more information and find it fast. And she was truly going to have to learn how to use her powers, something she preferred to do far from Skye and her babies.

  Leaving Cordy in Bron and River’s capable care, Shelley left and headed for the lift. Cordy said there was more pain to come and Shelley was horribly certain the other witch wasn’t wrong.

  Chapter 19

  ‘I’m done.’ Adam collapsed on his back, looking up at the pure blue of the sky in this place that wasn’t in any way natural or normal. It had no seasons. No wind. No rain. It wasn’t warm or cold. He didn’t feel hunger or thirst. And the smell of the place—it was all wrong. There were no bad smells, only lovely ones—it was doing his head in. Even his sweat—or whatever it was that covered his spirit body when he did the drills and exercises Morghanna insisted he do every day for hours and hours—smelled pretty. He wanted to go home. He wanted to feel hungry. He wanted to sink his teeth into a burger and breathe in the scents of greasy meat and cheese and tomato and beetroot as the sauce and egg yolk dripped down his chin and over his hands. He wanted to breathe in the soil and the fertiliser used in their farming, the sweet scent of the grapes growing on the vines, he wanted to nose a decent red and enjoy the crisp, thick, fruity taste of it on his tongue.

  But what he wanted the most was to see Shelley again. To hear her voice. To smell that scent unique to her, the one that reminded him of the warmth and rich fullness of chocolate and shiraz. To feel the silk of her golden hair twined around his hands as he tasted her mouth and pressed his body against the soft curves of hers. He wanted her to tell him off, to argue with him, to challenge him in the way only she could. He wanted to hear her laugh—be responsible for making her laugh that husky exasperated chuckle that lifted the hairs on his body and made his cock stand to attention.

  ‘You’re thinking of Shelley again.’

  ‘Of course I am. I miss her. I miss all of them.’

  ‘Then that should make you work twice as hard to get back to them sooner.’

  He opened his eyes and looked up at Morghanna as she stood over him, her lack of shadow irritating him. The light was so strange here, it came from everywhere at once so they didn’t even have a damned shadow! ‘Sorry I’m not a fast-enough learner for you, but you have kind of thrown me in the deep end here.’

  She sat down beside him, legs crossed. ‘You’re learning faster than I expected, actually.’ His brows rose at the unusual praise, but she forestalled any smartarse comment from him with a raised hand. ‘It’s just, we’re running out of time.’

  ‘And why is that? You’ve mentioned time before, but not what the deadline is.’

  ‘Samhain. The Darkness will make his final move on Samhain.’

  ‘Samhain?’ He sat up, draping his wrists over bent knees and looked around. ‘I’ve only been here for what? A week at most. Samhain’s still more than four months away.’

  She rose to her knees, brow furrowed—he’d discovered she hated having to look up at him. ‘Samhain is only two and a half months away.’

  ‘Two and a half months!’ He surged to his feet. ‘What the hell?’

  ‘Time moves differently here from back on earth. One day here is more than a week there, sometimes less, sometimes more. It’s not always consistent.’

  ‘I’ve been gone for two months
?’ He scrubbed his hand over barely-there bristles, pacing. ‘They must be frantic with worry. Is there some way we can give them an update on what’s going on?’

  ‘Not yet. It’s not time.’

  ‘But Shelley … the pack. They need me.’

  ‘They’ve got their own concerns to get on with.’

  ‘So they’re not missing me?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ She patted the place he’d been sitting on the stuff that was too green and perfect to be called grass. ‘Come. Sit down. There is something I need to tell you.’

  He glared at her for a moment. ‘I don’t particularly feel like listening to anything you’ve got to say right now.’ He raked his hands through his hair. ‘Jesus. When were you going to tell me about the time thing?’

  ‘It’s not important, other than impacting on the amount we’ve got to get through and the time we have to do it in.’

  ‘Not important? I don’t think you know the meaning of the concept. How can this not be important? Take me back. Take me back now.’

  ‘No. We have only covered the basics that will allow you to learn how to control your powers.’

  ‘You know, I’m sick and tired of hearing about these fucking mythical powers of mine. Were don’t have magical powers.’

  ‘You do. All Tricksters do. It’s a legacy from when your people were created, a way the Goddess had of working against the Darkness.’

  ‘Why would she do that—give Tricksters powers and not anyone else? That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Tricksters aren’t the only Were with powers. But that is another story for another time. The answer to your question is that my Goddess was following the trails of prophecy.’

  He blinked. ‘Prophecy? What the hell are you talking about?’

  She patted the ground beside her again. ‘If you sit down, I will tell you.’

  He scowled at her. ‘This isn’t one of those bullshit times where you say you’re going to tell me something and then talk in riddles so I can’t understand a thing?’ She’d done that plenty since he’d been here.

  ‘No. No bullshit. Just a story about how this all began. It’s essential you know this so you understand what’s at stake and why it is so necessary for you to learn to control your power and your abilities.’

  He flexed his fingers, still scowling at her, but when she did nothing but smile in that serene way that both calmed and annoyed the hell out of him, he folded himself onto the ground next to her. ‘I’m listening. Tell me your tale.’

  She looked down at her lap, picking at the soft material of her skirt. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. ‘What I tell you now is not spoken of, but I tell you because I think it will help you to understand the urgency of what we must do.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, the word drawn out. For the start of a story, it was a pretty good one.

  She nodded, picked at a thread that had come loose. ‘There was a prophecy, spoken at the birth of my Goddess when she sprang fully formed from her mother’s womb. The goddess of fertility and rebirth, the weaver of time and fate, known by many names but to herself as Arianrhod, will grow to betray the one she loves and he will become Darkness. Intent on seeking his revenge, he will work to take over the world her powers are most firmly tied to, and subvert it to his will. Arianrhod will battle the Darkness for millennia over the fate of this world, succeeding in keeping him at bay, until finally, a child is created with the help of light magic by those with power and the blackest of hearts. Through this child, the Darkness may be born into this world on the night where the veil between worlds is weakest. If the Darkness becomes this child, he will call all creatures of death and destruction to him and rule over them to wreak havoc on all, mortal and immortal alike, and the Goddess Arianrhod will be no more.’

  ‘Holy shit. That’s unbelievable.’

  Her violet gaze met his. ‘The Goddess thought so too. She laughed in the face of this prophecy, vowing to never love any man. For eons, she was successful in turning from any other, devoting her love and her light to the world she was given dominion over. She wove a life for herself, bore children, had myths told about her, all to belie this prophecy. But the prophecy proved stronger than her will. She came to fall in love with one who was a slave in her father’s temple. Their love was forbidden, not because of the prophecy, which only my Goddess and her mother knew of, but because this servant was not a god. He was part mortal, born of a goddess from another pantheon and a slave she had taken from a distant world. My Goddess and he met quite by chance and it was love at first sight for both of them. Even then, my Goddess thought nothing of the prophecy, because she could not think of any circumstance under which she would betray her beloved. She did not think of what her father or the other gods would do when they found out.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘As punishment, her father threatened to destroy the world that gave her power if she did not give up her love. Knowing she could not live without the power of the world that was hers, she turned from her love and did nothing when her father banished him from the temples of the gods and set him on the path between the voids to wander in hunger and thirst for an eternity for his hubris. Unable to stand the thought of him in such pain, the Goddess pushed him off the path and into the seething darkness that had always been kept at bay by the light of the stars. She had meant for him to die, but instead, he survived. When he crawled back onto the path, he was a changed being, no longer part mortal, but made of the dark stuff of the universe. He sought out the Goddess and her father, seeking revenge for all the pain they had brought to him. By the laws of her own people, they could not destroy him, as he was now a god-being like they were, his essential being a part of the tapestry that made up the universe. The only thing they could do was tear him into smaller pieces and scatter those pieces among the stars, hoping they would never come together again. But all the time my Goddess despaired, because so far that prophecy had proved correct, and she was afraid that unless she found some way to stop it, the rest would be proved too.

  ‘She was the weaver of fate, so surely she could weave herself a new one. She created magic users to worship her, to share in her power, and by doing so, to increase her power tenfold. She then created creatures who had magic threaded into the fibre of their beings, enabling them to change shape. These beings were stronger than the humans, rarely sickened, and were fierce fighters. She had meant them for her guard. She imbued others with a different kind of power—still able to change shape, these were also designed as the first defence, for their skill was in gauging changes in the emotions and thoughts of their people. She then turned her attention to creating more mythical stories about herself for those who worshipped her in the different lands, calling her by different names, laying out for her many different stories about her origins. She delighted in all of them, for it was a mark of her cleverness in subverting the will of the prophecy.

  ‘For a millennia, nothing happened and her world thrived. And then, one day, her Were empaths cried out in pain. She flew down to help, but it was too late. The Darkness had made its way to her world and had infiltrated the Were, using the power of change she had gifted them, subverting it, creating pain and misery out of what should have been joy. It did not stop there, reaching out to influence the humans and making them turn on the covens and the Were so they were forced into hiding. Unable to share their power with the world as they’d once done, the power she’d gifted them began to turn on her beloved witches and warlocks. Some turned to black magic to try to protect themselves, tipping the balance of power so that the ley lines of magic became further twisted and warped, making it impossible for her to ever return her world to the way it had once been.’

  Adam knew his mouth was open, but couldn’t seem to close it. What she was telling him was almost more than his brain could take in.

  ‘The gods forbade her to use her powers as weaver in such an open way again, binding her tighter to their laws. Unable to outwardly influence a
nything, my Goddess began to work in secret. She found those with incredible good in their hearts, who were filled with love and hope for a better future and whispered to them an idea. The pact between the Were and the covens was born from this. It banished the Darkness from the Were and returned some control over the balance of their power to the covens, but it was not enough to stop the final part of the prophecy from coming to pass.’

  ‘The child,’ Adam whispered.

  ‘Yes. The Darkness continued to work, twisting those like my sister to do its bidding, always aiming at gaining a final revenge against my Goddess.’

  ‘It knew about the prophecy?’

  ‘No. My Goddess and her mother managed to keep it secret. But they knew it would somehow find its way to this path, and when it did, it would be the end.’

  ‘Why on earth do you think that myself and the others can possibly make any difference when the Goddess herself is unable to stop it?’

  She regarded him for a long moment as he sat, fear for all he loved trembling through him. ‘I know it seems like an impossibility, but it is not. There is a way. A way my Goddess told me of when I was brought to this place.’

  ‘Which was?’ Adam said, hope growing in his chest once again and dispelling the fear and despair that had taken him over as she told her story.

  ‘The prophecy of the Goddess and the Darkness is not the only prophecy that was ever made. There are other prophecies that she has come to believe have bearing on her hope of success in defeating her love. An ancient prophecy about a fight over one called the Nexus, a singular being who has the power to tie death, life, animal and human, and the four main elements of earth, fire, wind and water together and use it as a weapon to defeat a great power. There was another of the healer who could turn the Beast from violence and bring life to barren wombs. Yet another spoke of the lost witch with the power of all the elements rising from denial and bringing life to the nearly dead. And finally, the one that made her believe there was an answer to her prayers to save herself and her world, the prophecy that spoke of the Trickster, spirit-bound, who would be mated to the banshee and could help her harness the power of the dead to save the living.’