by C. Larsen
"Olivia wouldn't lie—I don't have time to stand here and argue!"
Dammit! I knew I should have left earlier today. If I had left when I planned, I'd already be in Haven Hollow. And now Sebastian might die because I put it off once again.
I need to find Nikolay then get the hell on the road.
As soon as I'm dressed I rush toward the door, but Gray steps into my path, blocking the way.
"What about Nikolay? If you leave without permission, he'll send a hunting party. Even if you do manage to make it to them and heal Sebastian, they'll catch you, and might even kill Sebastian and Olivia in the process. You can't leave without permission."
"Then I'll get some fucking permission!" I shove him away from the door and run down the hall, Gray close behind.
"Em, stop," he says, grabbing my upper arm, forcing me to face him. "Think this through—you're going to risk your life for some asshole ex-boyfriend?"
"This has nothing to do with him being my ex! He could be dying! Do you really think I care about werewolf politics or relationship drama right now? What is wrong with you?"
I continue running down the hall, Gray mumbling curses behind me. When I get to the other end of the house, I hear Nikolay and Ivan's voices coming from the study.
Good. I won't have to wake him. But Ivan's presence gives me pause. It's one thing for me to tell Nikolay I'm leaving, but Ivan scares the hell out of me. And what if they threaten to hurt Gray if I leave?
If I go in there with Gray, they'll blame him for what I'm about to do. I can't risk that. Turning to Gray, I say silently, *Wait here. I'll handle this on my own.*
Gray studies my eyes. *I'll go in with you. Back you up on this.*
His offer to go against them for me, even though he disagrees with my decision, gives me a warm, gushy feeling in my chest, but I can't let him do that.
*You going in there and defending me will only make things harder. I have to do this on my own.*
I can tell by his expression he's not happy about it, but he doesn't argue.
I march into Nikolay's study and meet their surprised looks with a determined one of my own.
"I need permission to leave Ashwood Creek."
They share a look.
"No," Nikolay says.
My eyebrows rise. No questions, no discussion, just 'no'? I try again. "A wolf from James' pack is injured. He needs a witch to heal him or he could die."
"That's James' problem. If he wants a witch on call, then he should negotiate a truce with the local coven, as we did."
I grind my teeth to keep from growling. "I need to help him."
"Not my problem."
I glare at him, hands fisting at my sides. Then I remember Margie's words: Just tell them you're leaving. You're the Chain Breaker. They need you.
"You're right; it's not your problem. It's mine. But it's going to be your problem if you prevent me from leaving."
Nikolay's brows lift. Behind him, Ivan shifts his weight forward, golden eyes watching.
"You believe that I'm this Chain Breaker from the prophecy? You're right. I am."
This gets their attention. "Caroline confirmed it,” I continue. “Before she tried to kill me, that is." I give Nikolay a pointed look. "I guess she didn't want me alive to fulfill the prophecy."
Nikolay cocks his head at me. "What's your point?"
"My point is that you need me. Not just me, here, locked up. You need my cooperation. I am the only one who can free you from this curse. If you want me to free the werewolves, then you have to let me go, or I swear to god, I will never free you."
Nikolay's face pulls into a scowl. Curiously, Ivan's lips quirk up in a small smile.
"What's to stop me from killing you right now?" Nikolay asks. "Or Gray?"
Hearing him threaten Gray sends a burning rage coursing through me. Before I can stop myself, I growl, "If you hurt Gray over this like you did the last time, I promise you will pay for it."
"Is that so?" The way Nikolay says this, his voice soft and crooning, sends a shiver through me, but I hold my ground.
"I'm your only chance. If I die, or I refuse to help, you lose any hope of ever being free."
"You've lived here with us. Ran with us. Trained with us. After all you took from us, this is how you repay us? With threats and demands? You can't get something for nothing."
How stupid of me not to realize the strings attached to my stay here. Caiden's words ring mockingly in my mind:
Even you can't be that naïve to think they saved you out of the kindness of their hearts. They're beasts. They don't have hearts.
"I'm going to free you. Isn't that repayment enough?"
"We don't take IOUs. You have no idea how to fulfill the prophecy. It may be that you'll never figure it out."
This brings me up short. He's right. There's no guarantee I'll ever break the curse. Then I'm struck with an idea.
"Caroline, the Night Hollow’s former High Priestess, was from the Messenger Class. She knew about the prophecy. She's been researching it. She still has friends in the coven. I can talk to them, find out more about it." This may be stretching the truth a bit, but it's the only card I have left.
Nikolay's eyes are still cold, but Ivan looks intrigued.
"The answer is—"
"Let her go," Ivan interrupts. "She's right. She is the Chain Breaker. How will she learn to fulfill the prophecy if she's caged here?"
Nikolay scowls, but after a moment he nods his head. "Fine. You can leave. Temporarily."
"And Gray," I demand. "I need him with me, to help protect me. As we've already agreed, I'm no good to you dead."
His eyes narrow. He's reaching the end of his patience. "Gray is my son, next in line to lead this pack. I need him here in case these witches attack us next."
"You have the rest of the pack to defend against them, not to mention Madelyn and her coven. You're one of the strongest packs in this part of the country. You'll be perfectly safe without Gray, but I won't. I need him with me, at least for a few weeks. Until I can get enough information about the prophecy," I press. I don't mention the truce, because I know Nikolay couldn't care less unless there's some benefit to him.
"Things aren't that simple. Gray can't enter another pack's territory without their Alpha's permission. It would require further negotiations with the Haven Pack and will complicate matters for us."
"But Gray's already been in their territory."
"Yes, and that privilege cost me a considerable amount of money. Yet another thing you have yet to repay me for."
"It's a Haven Pack werewolf I'm going there to heal. James will agree to allow Gray into his territory in exchange for my help." At least, he'd better...
"You can have Gray for two weeks," Ivan says before Nikolay can argue. "After that, you're on your own."
Chapter 35
My legs are shaking as I walk out of the room. I can't believe I stood up to them like that. I didn't think I had it in me. I don't know what possessed Ivan to agree to my conditions. I expected him to be the one to fight me the hardest.
Gray is waiting for me right outside the door.
"They agreed to let you come with me," I say, proud that my voice is steadier than I feel.
"I heard." He gazes at me with something akin to awe. He looks like he wants to say more, but with a glance at the study door, he simply says, "Come on, we need to hurry."
Back in my room, Gray packs our bags while I call Josh to tell him the conditions I want for allowing Gray into his territory.
"We don't have time for this shit. He's dying!" Josh snaps.
"This is the only way I come," I snap back. "I won't put Gray at risk. He needs immunity and guaranteed protection from your pack. Indefinitely."
"Fine." He growls, a low sound of frustration. "We'll agree to allow him into pack territory, but only when you're in town. You leave, he's fair game."
I glance at Gray, who's listening to both sides of the conversation with his werewolf hearing. He nods at me.
"Agreed," I say.
"We need confirmation from James," Gray says, raising his voice so Josh can hear him. "If he doesn't call to confirm by the time we get to you, we leave."
Josh growls and hangs up.
Grabbing our bags, Gray throws them into the Hummer and floors it.
A few minutes later, I get a call from James who confirms the conditions Josh laid out, but insists on a meeting with Gray and myself tomorrow night. Gray seems hesitant about it, but I agree without question. After all, I'm going to need to talk to James about a truce with the coven, and the sooner the better.
When we arrive at a truck stop halfway between Haven Hollow and Ashwood an hour and a half later, Olivia rushes up to us, face pale.
"Hurry, Em, I don't think he has much longer."
A gray wolf sprawls in the backseat of Josh's car, chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Sebastian. He must have been attacked in wolf form and hasn't been able to shift back.
I've been so focused on getting here that I forgot to worry about what'd I'd do once I'm here.
I glance around the darkened parking lot nervously.
"We'll keep a lookout, Ems. You just do your thing," Gray says from behind me.
I wish I had as much confidence in my abilities as he does, because right now I have no idea how to fix him. There aren't any visible marks that I can see, and I don't smell any fresh blood, but there is definitely something wrong with him.
He's shuddering, head lolling back and forth, eyes scrunched as if in pain. Not wasting a moment, I squeeze into the back seat of the car and lay a hand on his shoulder. Tentatively, I search for any internal injuries that may not be apparent on the outside, but I can't find anything out of the ordinary. Even though nothing seems to be wrong, his vitals are terrifyingly weak.
Pulling back, I glance over my shoulder at Olivia, who's peering at me through the door, eyes wide with fear.
"I don't know what's wrong with him. Everything seems fine; I don't know what's wrong."
"Well something's fucking wrong with him, so just figure it out!" Josh says from behind Olivia.
I hear a growl, then a thud as Gray throws Josh against the car.
"Watch your mouth when talking to her. She's risking a lot to be here and help, so you can damn well keep a civil tongue when talking to her."
Josh snarls and pushes Gray off him.
"Knock it off, both of you!" I say. "I have enough to deal with right now without having to patch both of you up when you're done beating on each other." To Olivia I say, “What happened to him?”
“He was hit with some kind of spell,” Olivia answers. “Then he just fell to the ground. We chased them away as soon as we could but he wouldn’t wake up…”
I study Sebastian a few more moments, panic overtaking me. "I should call Caiden—I don't know why you didn't bring him there instead; I don't know how to fix this!"
"Calm down, Em," Gray says. "Do what you can. No one will blame you if you can't figure it out. Just try. That's all you can do."
He means no one will blame me if Sebastian dies...
No. I won't let that happen.
Steeling my shoulders, I close my eyes and once again search through his vitals, trying to see if there's anything unusual, but if this is caused by a spell, then I'm not looking for a physical abnormality, but a magickal one.
Madelyn's training on hexes springs to mind and I immediately set out to search for any. Sending more of my energy into him, I feel around for anything wrong or out of place. Looking deeper, I call up his aura. Around the outside of his body, his aura is a dark forest green, throbbing low, flickering every now then as if fighting to stay lit. The closer to the center of his body, the darker the color gets, oily black colors swirling out from the center of his chest.
Oh shit... Black in an aura is bad, usually a warning of a serious or deadly sickness. The black in the center of Sebastian's seems to be spreading out from his chest, slowly overtaking the rest of his body, extinguishing his light.
Olivia is right; whatever this is, it's killing him.
I focus my energy on his chest, where the blackness is emanating from. His heart struggles to pump his blood through his veins, lungs fighting for air on each breath.
Allowing his aura to fade from my vision, I try looking at Sebastian's energy through a different lens, akin to the way my wolf's night vision kicks in when my own eyes struggle in the dark, but this time I use my own energy to probe Sebastian's looking for the disruption.
Little by little, I send more of my energy into him, searching, trying to ferret out the obstruction. Then I see what appears to be thin filaments of inky black energy crisscrossing over the top of him, like spider webs.
Oh my God. I've seen what hexes look like thanks to Madelyn, but this is beyond anything she's shown me. The black fibers have created a net, and inside is Sebastian's wolf, whimpering as the threads contract and squeeze.
Sebastian's wolf is slowly being strangled to death. And if his wolf dies, so will Sebastian.
Fear, cold and insidious, crashes into me. This isn't just a hex... I suddenly realize I've seen this particular pattern before. Even the energy pulsing from it feels familiar. This is like the energy I used when I stopped the rogue wolf. Like the mind control I've been practicing on Gray.
Whoever cast this also possesses the ability to enslave the werewolves.
But why kill Sebastian? Wouldn't he be more useful under their control?
Overhead, a raven caws, snapping me back to attention. I don't have time to puzzle over it. I have to free his wolf, and quickly. I can feel his life force fading, his wolf slowly dying.
In a panic, I grab the crisscrossing fibers and attempt to rip them apart, but a burning pain flashes through my palms and I flinch back. The pain is so intense it knocks me out of Sebastian's consciousness and back into my own body. Angry red welts appear all over my palms.
It burned me. Dammit. That was stupid, grabbing it. I need to calm down, think things through. Madelyn taught me several ways to break a hex. None of the methods I've practiced ever hurt me, but she did warn that some hexes shouldn't be touched. In that case, I'll have to try to untie the threads myself, but that will likely be tedious. It will take too long.
There is one other way, but I left before we had time to practice it. She mentioned once about cutting through the threads, but warned that it took more energy.
Diving back into Sebastian's consciousness, I study the black net, looking for any weak spots. The threads are woven tight, almost like bands of steel wire braided together. There's no way I'll be able to untangle the threads in time. I'll have to slice through them.
Though I've never practiced this, she did explain the basic concept. I call up as much energy as I can and mold it into a sharp blade. I extend it, being careful not to touch my skin to the fibers, and tentatively brush it across one of the threads. Bright sparks shoot out on contact and a sizzling runs through the blade, jolting my arm back.
What am I doing wrong? It's like the hex is defending itself. I examine the knife I created, trying to figure out how I can get past the curse's defenses.
But this isn't just any curse, it's an ancient power, the ability only passed down to Brannagh's ancestors. To witches like me. Maybe...
Sebastian breath stalls in his lungs for three heart-stopping seconds, then resumes, more unsteady than before.
Without giving myself too much time to think, I call up my new, terrifying ability and wrap the inky black threads around the blade of energy I created, making the golden blade appear to be encased in black netting. My only hope is that my own soul-binding ability will cancel out the energy in the hex surrounding Sebastian.
Lowering the blade once more, I prepare for a backlash of power like before. Instead, the blade warms, tingling slightly, but it still doesn’t cut the thread.
I press harder on the strand, angling the blade to avoid cutting into the wolf, but it's difficult considering how
tightly he's bound. Pouring all my energy into the blade, I focus on cutting through the netting, imagining it slicing through like butter.
Suddenly, the thread gives way, simply melting under the heat of my knife. I'm not prepared for it, so I don't pull back fast enough. I end up cutting into the wolf's thick pelt. He cries out in pain, but it's a weak cry, as if he doesn't have enough energy for even that.
I have only a moment to get myself back into gear before attacking the net again, working on the next thread.
This one takes just as long to melt as the first, so I press harder, gritting my teeth as the fiber disintegrates and the knife once again pierces Sebastian's wolf. I hate causing him pain, but I don't have time for hesitation. The harder I press, the faster the thread melts, but the deeper I cut into Sebastian’s wolf. I immediately move onto the next. I cut again, and again, accidentally slicing into Sebastian's wolf more times than I like, but I don't have time to be more careful. I can feel his life slipping away. I keep slicing away, not giving up. I know I'm pushing myself further than I should. I can feel my energy flagging, but I don't have any time to waste.
It's still not fast enough. There are too many threads. I'm not going to free him in time. Instead of focusing on one thread at a time, I make great big sweeping motions with the blade. I know I am slashing into the wolf's side. I can see the blood welling up, but I don't stop. I can't. If I do, he’ll die.
With one last frantic sweep of the knife, the net falls away, freeing him. I try to heal the cuts I caused, but, free from the net, he lunges at me, slashing with sharp claws. I raise my hands, blocking my face. Claws rake across my forearms, slicing deep. Pain rocks me, shattering my concentration and catapulting me back into my own body.
Gray's arms are there the moment I'm back and he pulls me away from Sebastian, whose golden gaze is pinned on me, preparing for another attack.
"Josh! Get him under control!"
Josh is there in a flash, forcing Sebastian's gaze onto him and using his wolf's dominance to calm Sebastian's.
Gray hugs me close for a minute before pulling away and wrapping a shirt around my bleeding arms.