by KT Strange
“I...” I hated to see how upset Eli was, because deep down under that anger? He was hurting. Hurting for the pack and for his twin. Still, I needed to protect them. How was I supposed to keep them safe if Creston was threatening to come back and kill them all if I didn’t go with him?
I looked over my shoulder at the woods, some burnt, some still green. Creston was out there, waiting for me.
“Well?” Eli demanded. I closed my eyes. If I went, I was in for the fight of my life. If I stayed, it would cost the pack their lives. I swallowed hard.
Nine
Darcy
He was like a lodestone, drawing me in. I could feel him, his presence curdling in the back of my mind, hanging like sour smoke on my tongue. Every breath should have been fresh and crisp, but it wasn’t. I stepped past the line of fire-lashed trees and into the greenery, trying not to hobble and show how bad my ankle was still hurting.
I thought he’d be there, at the edge of the clearing where his destruction had burned hottest, but something in me told me to keep walking. I could still remember the way Ace’s face fell as I turned from Eli, the cry of dismay coming from Charlie as I left the pack behind.
I wasn’t running this time though. I was fixing things. I’d fucked up, and Creston was going to pay. Just the thought of Finn lying slumped over on the couch, his face pinched in pain even as he rested, drove me forward. That could have been the whole pack. We’d left them alone for too long, and Creston had played with them like they were garbage.
Never again.
The trees formed a broad canopy overhead as I passed a crowd of mushrooms poking their creamy heads over the pine-needle littered ground. I froze in place as my eyes followed them. They formed a curving line, bending around trees, rolling back again to meet the ones I’d just stepped over, making a complete circle.
Fuck.
“Really, Darcy, you are too predictable,” Creston’s voice rang across the space. “Don’t you ever look where you’re walking?”
“I keep giving you the benefit of the doubt,” I said, wondering how powerful the ring would be at containing me. It was a sneaky trick, one I’d totally forgotten about. Being out of the magic world had really dulled my lore knowledge, but since I’d never seen a fairy ring in person, I couldn’t blame myself entirely. A witch crossing into a fairy ring would be trapped within it if an opposing witch of similar or even weaker powers cast the right spell. I’d heard murmurs that even a witch’s magic would be contained. If that was the case, I’d just jumped from the frying pan into the volcano. Even still, being powerless, trapped by another witch, wasn’t the worst of it. The fairy who’d planted the ring coming back to find you? That was the worst of it. I took a deep breath to calm my fizzing nerves.
“Give me the benefit of the doubt to your detriment.” Creston appeared from behind a tree, looking worse for wear from our earlier encounter. There were dark circles under his eyes, but he smirked at me. “Now you’ll stay here until I tell you that you can leave. Aren’t I lucky, finding this group of friendly fungi volunteers just when I needed them most.” His eyes dragged up my body, like I was naked, and he smirked. “I can smell them on you. It’s filthy, what you’ve done, really, shouldn’t we call it what it is? Beastiality? But I’m generous, Darcy, I’d overlook your gross lapses in judgement. All you have to do is come home with me, and my family will welcome you with open arms. I know your sister misses you dreadfully.”
The mention of my sister clicked a memory in my mind and I narrowed my eyes at him. The way he breathed the words ‘your sister,’ his pupils blowing so wide I could see them from across the clearing, brought up a question that had been bothering me since my sister had sat me down at and endlessly extolled Creston’s virtues.
“My sister? Yeah, I bet you just know all about her feelings, don’t you?” I watched him carefully. A smug grin spread across his face.
“Well, she isn’t you, but in a pinch… I have needs you know, Darcy, and if you had been around as my dutiful wife, I wouldn’t have had to be deceitful and go behind my brother’s back,” he said, confirming my suspicion.
“Oh my god, you’re fucking her,” I said. “She’s your brother’s wife. And you think I’m gross?”
He laughed for a moment before falling eerily silent, staring at me.
“I’m not the one betraying my bloodline, my species. What you’re doing is an abomination. My only comfort is that they have no way of getting you tied to them with their issue,” he said. I rolled my eyes.
“You were never this formal when we were kids. What, did you swallow a dictionary? You sound so pretentious.”
My words irritated him, and he glared at me.
“And you sound common, but that can be fixed.” He held out his hand, palm-up, and smoke curled up from it before bursting into flame, flaring off his skin and toward the sky. “I played with the wolf for fun, but you, no. You, I’ll play with to burn all those nasty habits right out of you.”
A ball of fear formed in my stomach and I took a nervous step back, my heel landing right next to a mushroom. Fighting off a shiver, I set my feet apart to brace myself for whatever he intended to throw at me. Looks like I was about to test out that whole can’t-cast-magic-in-a-fairy-circle theory.
When the fire came for me, my hands lifted on instinct with a crackle of electricity. The flames scorched the air, and I exhaled as my lightning flattened out, spreading to form a shield around me. The flames licked at the edges of it and burned into the open air.
Creston let out a roar of frustration, cursing and spitting as his torrent of fire broke off.
Guess you could cast a spell in a fairy ring after all.
“C’mon, Creston,” I said, stepping further into the ring, confidence surging through me. “What was that you were saying? You wanted to teach me a lesson? Burn the bad habits right out of me?”
His face twisted into a scowl and he raised his hands over his head. A blazing column erupted from them, leaping through the air straight for me.
I darted to the side, hitting the ground on my knees and rolling. My hand shot out in front of me, the lightning coming before I could even think. A hard bolt struck him, piercing the edge of the ring and knocking him flat on his back.
He coughed, the fire evaporating into thin air.
“You thought your little party tricks could contain me?” I asked. Energy, coming from somewhere deep inside me, expanded under my skin, filling out the spaces where my muscles were hurting and exhausted. Even my ankle felt better as I got to my feet.
Creston growled, pushing himself up on one hand, glaring at me.
Exhilaration hummed through me. I moved slowly, deliberately toward him, approaching the edge of the fairy ring. He tracked me with his eyes, which grew more apprehensive with each step I took.
“You thought you could really take me down? You’ve never been able to keep me down, Creston, not when we were younger, and sure as shit not now.” I glanced at my hand. Arcs of electricity snapped and crackled through my fingers. “I made a mistake not ending this with you earlier. You know what the difference is between you and me?” This was it. I inhaled, static popping down the back of my throat.
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
“I learn from my mistakes,” I said, and, pulled my hand back, the feeling inside me tightening like a twisted wire, power demanding to be let loose. He closed his eyes, a rueful smile on his lips, and he let out a hoarse laugh.
“Kill me now, and you’ll never know why the everyone around you will be consumed by fire, one by one,” he said, half-crouched on the ground, unmoving. “But by all means. Hit me with all you’ve got, Darcy.”
I couldn’t help it. I faltered before gritting my teeth.
“You’re not pulling out that last minute I know secrets bullshit, Creston, this ends —”
“Didn’t you ask yourself why you couldn’t be around a fire without it burning out of control?” he interrupted me. He was stalling. I gro
wled and lifted my hand, the power curling along my skin, tendrils and sparks lifting up into the air, a searing light beginning to glow. “Wasn’t it convenient that those hunters kept finding your pack, wherever they went, no matter how hard or far they ran? Your best friend, the little firebird, she was a harder nut to crack, but I pushed her along. Doesn’t take more than a knife to the ribs to get a phoenix’s fire started, you see.”
My heart stopped in my chest for a moment. I stared at him. He struggled to his knees.
“And you blamed the unicorn for fogging your mind so badly that you stumbled home, right into my waiting embrace.” His eyes were dark, glowing like coals again, and he smiled. “The best part of dying now is knowing that you will never escape the mark I put on you.”
“Haven’t you noticed something weird is going on with you and fire?” Charlie’s words ricocheted in my head and I stared at Creston. The energy glowing between my finger tips sizzled out with a pop.
“What did you do to me?” My voice was small, quavering. Creston laughed and staggered to his feet, to lean on a nearby tree.
“You think you could escape me? The prophecy? Your obligations? You were promised to me, Darcy. You’re mine. I let you have your fun, playing at being a mundane, but the clock was ticking. Your father won’t live forever, and someone needs to take his seat with the council.”
“What the fuck did you do to me?!” My skin was itching furiously, tingling racing up and down my limbs. He was sick. He’d twisted me. He said he’d marked me. How?
“It was so simple at first, a charm, a little curse, an attachment, calling you home to me. You always did like to run. It worked better than I had expected,” he said, pushing away from the tree to stand upright. He snapped his fingers and my skin lit up.
I stumbled back, staring at my bare arms. White, glowing sigils covered them, crosses that were hemmed in by circles. In places it looked like they were fading, the signs burnt out, dark lines in their place. The sudden urge to scratch my skin off consumed me. Dread ate at my stomach. It was the sigil for ‘home.’ He’d carved it into me, over and over, until I’d gone home, but not the home I’d built with Max in our dorm, but to my original home, to my parents. The signs started to fade, but I could still feel them there, invisible. How had I not sensed it? Because I hadn’t even thought to look for them?
“You’re sick.” It was the only thing I could say. Creston licked his chapped lower lip, rolling his eyes heavenward.
“The word you might have chosen would be ‘devoted,’” he said, taking an unsteady step into the fairy ring. I moved back, wanting to keep as much space between him and me as possible. “Or clever. Next I called the hunters down, etching it into your skin so they would always know where to find you.” He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers again. I flinched, but this time my skin was covered in dark, burnt out lines, like claw marks, sets of three short lines, patterned up and down my arms. Claws to grab and possess whatever they marked.
“Stop,” I said, bile rising at the back of my throat in horror at what he’d done.
“If you hadn’t run, I wouldn’t have needed to do it. So really, it’s your fault. And in truth, the next part I do feel badly about, but you were so good at evading all those pitiful hunters who chased down your pack…”
“Don’t!”
He snapped his fingers again before I could blink and another sigil flickered to life, fading in and out with my pulse: three parallel lines with another line struck through them. It represented the four elements, meant to unchain the power behind whatever — or whomever — it was etched into. He’d been the reason that my powers, dormant and weak for so long, had spun out of control.
“I nearly killed people because of you,” I snarled, shaking with rage and terror. I wanted to lunge at him. I wanted to hurt him, but I was stuck in place.
A grin twisted his lips.
“What a sight you are when you’re angry,” he murmured, “a queen fit to stand at my side.” His hand came up and I closed my eyes tight. Light penetrated my eyelids, nearly blinding me as heat raced along my skin. “Look at how beautiful you are,” his voice was so close. I stopped breathing, and opened my eyes. X’s marked me, up and down my arms, glowing white and fading into red. Fire. His fire.
It hadn’t been my lightning, the storm inside me, that had caused everything around me to go up in flames. He’d nearly killed Max, had set her powers off and robbed her of a normal, mundane life. He’d dragged me home, had nearly cost me my freedom. He’d sent cold-blooded murderers after the pack, had nearly wiped out the men I loved. It had been him all along, working my strings like a puppet master, carving his power into my skin. Everything that had happened, all of it, he’d orchestrated it.
I hadn’t known. There was no way I could have.
It was too much. He stepped once toward me, his arms outstretched, “Come to me, Darcy,” he said. The storm inside me broke.
I cried out. The clearing went white, power crackling along my skin, and I heard him scream in the distance, a guttural noise of fading rage before I fell backwards into the black.
Ten
Darcy
Water splashed on my face and I coughed, sitting bolt upright. Wolfe stared down at me, looking amused and unimpressed at the same time. I blinked at him and then gazed around me. The ground was powder-white, trees in every direction flattened.
“If you’d wanted a gardening space, you needed only to ask,” he said, offering me his hand.
“You’re back.”
“Yes, well, hello, it’s good to see you despite the landscaping job you’ve done. I must say that I’m less than thrilled with it.” He wrinkled his nose and helped me to my feet. I stared at him, trying to process his fast speech. My brain was foggy, and my legs didn’t feel like they would hold me up. I felt wrung out like a sponge.
Before I could talk back to him, two shapes emerged at the edge of the trees. Charlie and Cash ran toward me, Charlie sweeping me up in his arms. Cash crammed himself up against me from behind and both men embraced me. Their calming warmth was what I needed and I relaxed, sagging against them.
“Stupid idiot,” Cash said into my ear, but he was kissing my skin, rubbing his cheek into my neck. He took a deep lungful of air and sighed. Charlie pressed his forehead and nose to mine, his eyes closed tight. I shivered with relief, both of them bearing my weight so my ankle didn't need to anymore.
“Don't congratulate her too early. The cretin escaped just as I arrived back, in time to see Darcy level even more of my forest,” Wolfe didn’t sound all that upset about me laying waste to the woods, and I was grateful for that. All my emotions were backward and upside down, and there was no way I could add shame to the load of feelings I was already carrying.
“Stop giving her a hard time,” Cash growled at him, his fingers tight on my waist. “Where the fuck were you?” I peeked out at Wolfe from where my face was happily smushed into Charlie's muscled shoulders.
Guilt suffused Wolfe's features.
“There was an urgent matter —”
"Urgent enough you left us to deal with that bastard on our own?” Eli's voice rang across the clearing and Charlie sighed.
“Here comes the asshole to make everything ten times worse,” Charlie muttered into my ear. “How's your leg? Can you walk? Did he hurt you anywhere?"
“I...” How did I explain to him that Creston had hurt me in the most invisible way? I had no idea how to make the sigils light up like Creston had, or how to tell the guys that I was carrying hidden curses on my skin.
Wolfe interrupted my attempt to find the words, stalking up to meet Eli, almost nose-to-nose with him. Wolfe may not have had the thick muscles, but he was still built, and he radiated power that was so old you could almost see it hanging from his shoulders like a cloak.
“You see so very little of this battle, wolf,” he said, his eyes narrowed as he stared Eli down. “This fight was born before you, and hopefully it will end before you are dust,
but you are not to question your betters."
Eli reared back, face lighting up with fury.
“Eli, don't,” I said, pushing out from between where Cash and Charlie held me. Cash's fingers ghosted down my back as I stepped away from them. Eli didn't look at me, but I felt his attention shift from Wolfe to me. “We need to stop fighting. Creston, he — there was some stuff that happened, and what's done is done. Right now I know we're all tired and mad."
Eli snorted and crossed his arms over his chest, murderous intent in his eyes. I looked skyward and prayed for patience.
"Oh my god, stop posturing,” I snapped. “I am absolutely done. Just, stop. Right now. This fight? These bitchy histrionics you're engaging in? Can it. We have bigger problems right now. I know you're wrecked about Finn. I am too, but he's going to get better, and we are going to be okay. Fighting isn't going to make him heal faster."
Cash chuckled and then fell silent abruptly when Eli shifted hist murderous-stare over to his pack-mate.
“Well,” Wolfe drawled, “She's not wrong."
“That's right, I'm not.” I kept my gaze on Eli until he looked at the ground, his shoulders hunching ever so minutely. It was as much as a stand-down as I was going to get from him. "Let's go back to the house. We need to talk."
Charlie's fingers laced through mine, and he squeezed.
“Whatever princess wants, she gets,” he said, winking down at me. Well, at least he wasn't calling me 'kiddo' anymore. It was a slight improvement in terrible nicknames. I was glad he hadn't picked up Cash and Finn's habit of calling me 'doll' or 'sweetheart'. I didn't need to come over all swoony when I was trying to get idiot men to listen to me.
I squeezed Charlie's hand back, and ignoring Eli, started the slow hobble back to the house.
Frank's reunion with Wolfe wasn't as joyous as I thought it would be. He stopped talking to Ace and Finn, and glared at Wolfe before storming out of the living room. Wolfe tossed a wry look at Eli.