Summer's Gone

by Jen Talty

  “Witches and wolves have told stories around the campfire, but over the years, they became stories. Not everyone believed, and our pack was one that even though we could trace our lineage back to being the protectors of the Royals, we never really believed in the Legend of the Princess and the Wolf.” Cheryl took her reading glasses off and set them down. “I went to college and studied art history because I was fascinated by all this stuff, but to me and my family, it was all just a story.”

  Coral pointed to the babies now lying on their backs, heads turned facing each other as they blinked fairy dust and smiled as if they were talking to one another. Coral wanted to ask when they’d be able to shift to wolves but figured no one had the answer. “The coven that raised Isadore and I always planned for the coming of the Wolfairies and I’m sure others, and it’s not just about destroying them but destroying this pack.”

  “We heard of your vision, and we want to make sure it doesn’t come true,” Cheryl said, sitting back and crossing her arms as if in disgust.

  Out of the corner of Coral’s eye, she saw a painting of a large, black wolf with a beautiful white one, surrounded by what some would call lightning bugs, but were, in reality, fairies. She reached for it, setting it down next to the book.

  “Visions are pockets of possibilities,” Coral said as a wave of confidence rolled through her muscles. She’d never felt like she had much to offer, but now, looking at this book, a flash of knowledge exploded in her mind like a tornado. “Chaz and Daphne were never a possibility, that was always a reality. The magic created by the fairy visionary of the time built in a guarantee of their union.”

  “What do you mean, and how the hell do you know that?” Cheryl asked, leaning forward but still eyeing Coral suspiciously.

  “If something had happened to either Chaz or Daphne before they mated and conceived Finn and Ivy, their previous spirits would have found the next generation. No one could break that. But once that happened, until the final union is complete, we’re all in danger, especially if covens like mine figure this out first.”

  “I’m still not following,” Cheryl said.

  “Neither am I.” Isadore stood behind Coral with her hands gently resting on her shoulders.

  Coral tapped the image of the wolves. “I’ve seen this wolf in a vision, and he’s an empty shell in my visions. He’s also the wolf we all saw in the wedding video.”

  “And?” Cheryl asked.

  “His eyes in this image are different, and I honestly don’t know who this other wolf is, but they are part of all of us somehow.”

  “What other wolf?” Cheryl asked. “There is only the black one in this picture. And he shows up in a few other images.”

  Coral blinked a few times, lifting the picture. “You don’t see the white wolf?” She glanced around the room. All three girls looked at her like she was nuts. “It’s there, and both wolves are important.”

  “Maybe it’s a vision of some kind,” Daphne said, taking the picture. “Maybe only you can see it because you’re the visionary.”

  “That makes sense.” Coral turned her attention back to the book. “Let’s come back to that shortly. I want to read about Dayton.” How she loved that name and how she felt connected to it, more so than Norse. “I’ll read it out loud. I know you’ve all read it, but we might pick up something else.

  “His name is Dayton. He almost lived long ago in a faraway land. He could have been a happy boy, spreading joy and sunshine throughout the world. His spirit is kind and loving.

  But Dayton is the boy who will never exist. He won’t sprinkle his kind of magic on those in need. He won’t be able to heal the sick or make the sad laugh. Dayton, the boy who never existed, will have only one purpose now. Some might think it trickery. Others might think it innocent. And others will brush off the boy who never existed as exactly that.

  However, there will be one, and she’ll see the boy for what he really was and while she will only be able to unlock the man, she will spread the joy of the boy who never existed through a vessel so great, sealing the fate of all who helped bring the boy to a man. Dayton, the man, will live in this land, and he will seal our fate.”

  “Norse is the boy who never existed.” Coral closed the book. “He’s got to be the unborn son of Aria and King Lear. It’s the only thing that makes sense, especially since the woman in my vision said I had yet to take care of my brother.”

  “All the more reason to get him out and into that vase,” Isadore said.

  The room spun and nausea gripped Coral’s stomach. The sound of wolves howling and fairies screaming filled her mind. “They’re coming.”

  “Who?” Isadore said.

  “The ones from my visions. Witches, werewolves, and other creatures. They are headed here.” She waved her hands, and the room filled with dark fairy dust. “Isadore and Daphne, you have to stay in here with the babies. Cheryl, get out now. We’ll need you.” Coral shoved Cheryl toward the door and stopped in front of her sister.

  “I’m a warrior. You’re not going to stop me.”

  Coral filled the room with more dust. “You are pregnant with the future. You stay and protect those babies.” Coral stepped through the door, slamming it shut in her sister’s face. She coated the entrance with a thick layer of fire dust. “We need to get your brothers and father, and all other fighting wolves outside, and everyone else inside, so I can continue to coat the house.”

  “Why?” Cheryl stood in front of her with her hands on her hips, glaring.

  “The visionary cast the Royals out to protect them. Some were left behind to protect the Legend and those gathered in the vase. But one was not. He’s been working with the witches, and they have created a potion that could kill us all.”

  Chapter 12

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Drew stepped in front of Chaz, his Alpha. “She’s protecting this family.”

  A growl deep and menacing filled the air. “Move, brother. Or I will move you.”

  “You will not.” Coral waved her hand, sending her magical fairy dust all around Chaz. “Any of you try to stop me, I will do the same.”

  “She’s lost her fucking mind,” Chaz said as he tried to take a step forward, but the dust wouldn’t allow it. “Make her stop. My children are in there.”

  “My pregnant wife is in there.” Nico dropped the vase he’d been asked to bring and shoved Drew, taking one step forward before he too was bound by the dark powdery material.

  Quickly, Drew picked it up, thankful it hadn’t been broken. “She knows what she’s doing, and you just have to trust her.” Drew stepped closer to his fated mate. “Can you protect the house and tell everyone what is going on?”

  Coral flicked her finger toward the field. Orange dust flew from her hands like a fire hose. “Watch that.” She went back to coating the house with her dust, which was like nothing any of them had seen before. It was thicker and heavier. It also carried with it sensations, like the red could burn, the white cooled, the green tickled, and the blue felt as though it could mend anything.

  Drew inched toward what appeared now to be a movie screen. In the distance he saw a caravan of motorcycles, trucks, cars, and busses, all filled with weapons. “Who are they?” There had to be over a hundred people headed down Route 2, which is the road the farm was located on.

  “A Royal Fairy by the name of Misham, which can be translated to ‘their savior’ has brought together witches and werewolves who don’t want the Wolfairies to live in our world.”

  “Why would a Royal want to hurt its own kind? It’s not in their nature,” Chaz said behind a tight jaw.

  “He is not our savior. We would call him Apep, which is the enemy of the Sun God and his only purpose is to destroy Norse and the rest of the prophecy.”

  Drew’s heart dropped to his gut. “You need to be in that house to protect him, and you.” He reached out to touch her, but she flinched her shoulder and that created more dust which pushed him to t
he ground.

  “I can’t do this from the inside.” She glanced in his direction. Her sweet, thick eyelashes blinked over her ocean-colored eyes. A little bit of white fairy dust lifted in the air. “We must destroy Apep, and Drew and I are the only ones who can do that.”

  “Sounds like you’re going to walk my little brother right into a trap,” Nico said. “Or that thing inside you. I don’t believe any of this.” He shifted his body left and right, but he didn’t move an inch. “Drew. Make her stop. Only you can reach the real Coral.”

  “I am the real Coral,” she said with a long sigh. “You can either believe me and prepare to defend this farm, or you can stand here and argue with me, but understand this protective dust will only last a couple of hours and then Apep will destroy the babies, my sisters, and then me. I’m making the right choice, will you?”

  “Well, we can’t do anything if you don’t tell this dust to let us go,” Chaz said with a long breath.

  Coral waved her hand.

  “How are we supposed to capture Apep?” Drew asked.

  “By letting him take me.”

  “No fucking way. Not going to happen.” Drew planted his hands on his hips. “I won’t allow it.”

  Coral laughed as she clapped her hands together. The last of the dust covered the house. “My dear fated mate, you will learn that you won’t ever be able to forbid me from anything, much less my claiming my destiny. We all have our roles. This is mine.”

  Drew opened his mouth, but nothing came out. His heart swelled with an overwhelming sense of love and devotion. Coral waggled her finger, creating a small screen.

  “Only you can hear me now and only you can see this, but if we are successful in destroying Apep, this is our future.”

  In the distance, he saw his brothers playing with their children in a park lined with red, blue, yellow, and pink flowers. Lush greenery filled the park. The kids were all around two and three. His sister walked hand in hand with a tall man who pushed a double stroller. Next to his sister, he stood with a child in his arms, and not far away, Coral sat on a bench, a child in her arms. She smiled, blowing Drew a kiss.

  “If we fail, this is the future of the world.”

  The scenery changed to brown, brittle twigs. A dark cloud hung in the sky, and the bodies of dead wolves lined the ground with not a single fairy anywhere.

  “I am your fated mate. You claimed me. Now I do my duty to ensure we will have the kind of love we deserve, but I can’t do this alone.”

  “Just tell me what we need to do.” He took her in his arms, well aware that both his brothers, and now his father, stood only a few feet away, watching. As long as she didn’t care, then neither would he. “After I kiss you like you’ve never been kissed before.”

  She smiled. “I think it will be the other way around.”

  Coral wished she could reach her sisters, but the dust she’d wrapped the house in prevented communication from going in or coming out. That was to protect the Wolfairies, whose magic was strong and could be seen from miles away. Soon, too soon, they would figure out how to tear it down, and they would because no fairy liked to be trapped, and Wolfairies would be no different.

  “I don’t like this idea,” Chaz said as he paced along the fence by the field.

  Nico paced on the other side. Drew sat on a rock, but that only lasted a few seconds as he got up and paced, before sitting back down. He repeated this pattern every couple of minutes.

  Titus, their father, however, leaned against the fence, chewing on a piece of straw, relaxed like this was just another day in paradise.

  Wolves from the pack had flanked out across the farm. The closer the group got, the weaker Coral’s visions became.

  “We need to do this before they get too close. Apep will sense me and Norse, so it’s best we’re in the vase where he thinks we’re trapped.”

  “You could be trapped,” Drew said, rushing to her side. “Only Isadore could let out the other Royals. How do we know I’ll be the only one to let you out?”

  “Because I saw it, and I also know, being inside, will separate me from Norse, and he will be able to stay behind.” She rested her hands on Drew’s shoulders. “I don’t want to leave your side even for a short period of time. It physically hurts my heart, like someone is squeezing it until blood can no longer pump through it. Now that I know how much I love and need to be with you, I don’t want it to ever stop.”

  He dropped his forehead to hers. “I love you too. I mean that. I know it seems like it happened in a flash, but I can’t live without you.”

  “Nor me you.”

  “How is Norse doing? We thought us mating would destroy him.”

  She’d been worried about that and while they could barely speak anymore, Norse had made his presence clear. “He’s hanging tough. But the sooner I get in the vase, the sooner we can separate.”

  He brushed his warm, sweet lips against hers in a promise of a future so bright and happy, it could only happen in a fairy tale.

  She nearly cracked up at the thought.

  A long howl echoed across the farm.

  “That’s the signal,” Nico said, picking up the vase. “We can’t wait any longer to do this.”

  Fear gripped Coral’s soul. She’d seen two visions. Two realities. Two truths. The fate of the world was now in her and Drew’s hands.

  She closed her eyes as she swirled her forefinger in a circle. In a single snap, she transformed into a tiny-sized fairy and floated into the bottle. She glanced up just as Drew took it from his brother and sealed her in.

  “Norse?”

  “This might hurt,” he said.

  Heat filled her mind, searing her brain. She clutched at the side of her head, and her body convulsed. A sharp, stabbing pain glided in and out of her temple.

  She screamed out and collapsed at the bottom of the vase. She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t lift her lids.

  “Sleep. You need to rejuvenate.”

  Darkness filled the vase, and Coral drifted off, as if she’d gone back into the corner of her mind and didn’t really exist anymore.

  Chapter 13

  Drew sat on the porch of his cabin with the vase at his feet.

  “Five wolves and one fairy are headed your way,” his father projected. “How are you holding up?”

  “Not well,” he admitted. “I can’t sense her at all, and I can’t get a response from her or Norse.”

  “We know that vase is covered with some kind of protective barrier, so you might not be able to reach her,” Nico said. “Ralph said it was really hard to communicate with Isadore and myself when inside. So, give it some time. She’ll get to you if she needs to.”

  Time was not on their side. Tomorrow would be the third day, and they didn’t have a clear view what time tomorrow that their ticking clock would be up.

  “I’m flanking to the back of the cabin. Your brothers will be close by, and we’ll close them in. They won’t actually take her.”

  Drew noticed his father didn’t promise. He’d always been the kind of man that never liked to do that unless he knew without a doubt that he was right.

  There was a chance this plan could go sideways.

  Orange eyes appeared about fifty feet away. A tall man with long, dark hair strolled down the path. Five werewolves, in wolf form, walked with him, but four of them pushed out to the east and west, making a semicircle.

  “Hello, Drew,” the man called.

  Drew stood, taking three steps, leaving the vase on the top step behind him. “You must be Apep.”

  “If you want to call me that.” Apep stopped ten feet from the base of the cabin. “You have something I want.”

  “If you think I’m going to hand you my fated mate, you’ve got another thing coming.”

  “I don’t only expect it, but I demand it,” Apep said with a smirk. “You’re a smart wolf. You know that crap Coral has spewed all over the house will only last a few hours. At least if you give her to me, you
might stand a chance in saving her and the wolves. You wait, you know I’ll get those babies, both born and unborn, and kill them right in front of their mothers.”

  Drew swallowed the fear prickling the back of his throat. Nothing in their research said anything about his sister, so everyone hoped Cheryl would be an unexpected wrench in Apep’s plan. In her own right, Cheryl was a wolf that could hold her own, but she never wanted to be an officer, nor did she enjoy the same wilds her brother had with being a wolf. He worried she might not be up for the fight.

  However, she insisted on it.

  “Where are you?” he projected to his sister.

  “Close enough that I can tell you that fairy smells like shit that’s been sitting in a toilet for ten days.”

  “That’s just gross,” Nico said with a snicker. “And I can’t believe my sweet and innocent—”

  “Sweet. Yes. Innocent. No,” Cheryl said. “Now focus.”

  Drew reached behind him, picking up the vase and holding it in his hands. “How is me giving you Coral going to change you killing the Wolfairies?”

  “I don’t want to kill them,” Apep said, taking two steps closer. “I couldn’t really care less about them. The can exist on this farm, but what I don’t want is for them to be able to exist outside.”

  That was a twist Drew and his family hadn’t anticipated. “Why is Coral so important to you?”

  “For one, she’s a visionary. But she has a being living inside her that will change the world, and we don’t want that to happen.”

  “What change is that and why?” Drew held the vase close to his chest.

  “Coral? Please answer me. I’m about to give the vase to Apep. I need to know—”

  “She’s fine,” Norse’s voice rang out so strong it nearly knocked Drew over. “But I think between all the fairy magic she’s used and letting me out, it’s drained her.”

  “Are you whole now?”

  “Far from it. This half of me is protected in here, but the other half of me is out there and in worse shape than I was.”