Chapter 36 - Freya

Chapter 36

Freya

I felt like I was watching everything happen in slow motion as the blue flame encircled Rowan, my mate who'd been burned by witchfire before. He cowered away from the flames and then yelped when the circle closed, singeing his tail. As soon as the circle completed, the flames rose ever higher, blocking him from view.

Beside me, Flint shifted and charged toward the witches, while Gage dove for the sling bag that had fallen off when he saved me from my tumble. Inside me, my wolf went insane. Her mate was trapped and terrified, confronted with his worst fears.

"You'll never take Freya from us," Gage growled.

He stood naked and tall as he raised his weapon and fired.

A bolt of blue flame lanced out like lightning and exploded up his arm, burning as it went. Gage screamed in agony, his shot going wide as he stared in horror at his arm that continued to flicker and burn.

He dropped the gun and shifted, putting out the witchfire. Letting out a mournful howl, he limped toward the witches.

I couldn't let all my mates suffer the same fate Rowan once had, trying to save his wolf family.

"Let them go!" I yelled at my aunt.

And then I did what I had to do — I stepped away from my mates, leaving myself open and vulnerable in the clearing.

My aunt came toward me as her coven continued chanting, their arms rising together as they created another flame circle around Flint, trapping him just as his muscles bunched. The moonmarked wolf tried to leap over the flames, which knocked him back like a physical blow. He let out an animal scream of pain, and a sob tore free from my throat.

"Stop this!" I cried.

But they drew another circle around Gage, trapping the limping pack alpha not far from Flint's and Rowan's circles.

"Now, now, my dear, where is that other pesky packmate of yours?" Pandora said, looking around the clearing.

As though the thought of him had summoned him, Heath's breathless voice reached my mind.

"Freya, what's happening? Are you okay?"

"For now," I answered grimly. "Pandora brought her coven this time. They've trapped the others, but they say they'll spare them if—"

"Don't you dare even think about surrendering yourself. You're my little warrior wolf, Freya — fight!"

"He's not here," I told her honestly.

Heath's voice reached a level of panic I'd never heard from him before. "I should've come with you. I never should have—"

"If you were here, you'd be in as much trouble as the others. It's better that you're not."

"I'll get there as soon as I can, my love, I promise. But…"

"You're days away," I finished. "You'd have to cut through other pack's territories, which would slow you down for a different reason."

"If they take you—"

"I know you'll find me. For now, I'm a little busy."

And with that, I did my best to push him out of my mind.

I stooped and grabbed the blanket to wrap around myself. Then I squared my shoulders and walked toward my aunt. Behind me, I heard Gage call out to me, but I couldn't hear him over the roaring flames and the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears.

"How did you find me?" I demanded when I stood only a few feet away from her.

Brielle's words echoed in my mind. If I could just find the object my aunt used to bind my magic, maybe we stood a chance.

Behind Pandora, her five fellow witches were busy burning away a spot on the ground with their blue fire.

"With a little help from a scrying spell, of course," my aunt sniffed. "Plus, you've made some powerful enemies who happened to share your whereabouts, girl. I wanted you to destroy the Frost Fang / Ironwood alliance, but now you've gone and destroyed alliances that are far more important to the future of our kind." She crossed her arms. "However much I may disagree with them."

She'd expected Heath to be with me, and I suddenly put two and two together. "This is about Heath's broken engagement?"

Did that mean someone in Elder Forest had told them I'd come back to Moonblessed? But who had known we planned to return here except… Heath's father. Heath's words now haunted me: He can't use me as a pawn if I'm not in his grasp. I told him we're going to Moonblessed…

"That deal is over," Pandora smirked. "As long as we can keep the wolf packs fighting amongst themselves — as they often do anyway — our kind will rise in power and expand our influence."

Her words sounded like talking points, but I remembered the way she'd mentioned my father's love for my mother before. This wasn't really about doing what was best for her kind. This was personal.

"Why do you hate wolves so much?"

"Because you took my brother away from me!" she roared, throwing her arms wide and making me flinch with remembered pain from when she'd tried to steal my magic the last time I saw her.

"We may not have been twins, but we were as close as twins growing up."

"And I'm his daughter," I reminded her. "Your own blood." I waved at her coven, though I still wasn't exactly sure what they were doing. "Don't do this."

"The spell circle is almost done," one of the witches called to Pandora. She was about my same age, much younger than the other witches, who were all closer in age to my aunt.

"What is it for?" I asked the young witch.

She scoffed, then turned her back on me as she poured purple sand onto the ground in some kind of a pattern. At the center of the purple sand, she placed a small blue stone.

Something inside of me lurched as the blue stone came into contact with a cross-bar of purple sand. That must be the object keeping the curse active — keeping my magic locked away inside of me.

"It's to harvest your magic," Pandora said, her smile eerie in the witchfire's blue glow. "It was stupid of me not to remove your curses before I tried to take your magic." Pandora raised a finger as though explaining a point to someone who cared. "And it takes a coven to break a curse. So, they'll also share in the bounty."

I shook my head. "It didn't work out so well for you last time."

In truth, I was stalling for time, trying to figure out what to do. My packmates were injured and incapacitated, Heath was days away, no one from Moonblessed knew exactly where we were or shared a pack bond to help track us down. My magic remained locked up. Their coven would break the curse, but even if I managed to access to my magic before they stole it, I was untrained.

I tried to keep my voice steady and calm, despite my lack of options. "What makes you think this time will be different?"

"Well, last time I was trying not to kill you," Pandora admitted as if it pained her.

If they hadn't seen me shift, then that might be my only advantage. I could shift and take her down, but then her coven might just decide to burn all of us to death and be done.

"But after you pulled a gun on me last time, dear, well… I'm less concerned with the outcome now." She shrugged. "It's best to put you out of your misery anyway. Wolves and witches were never meant to mix."

"Spell circle complete," the young witch announced. "Let's break a curse!"

She sounded excited, like I was some kind of experiment for her to play with.

"Yes, please do," I said sardonically.

I'd wanted my magic, but not if it meant giving up my nascent powers.

"Don't worry, little mage," a male witch grinned. "This will only hurt a little. It's only temporary. After that, well… you won't feel a thing."

"My magic belongs to me," I growled.

"Not for much longer," my aunt promised, stepping closer to the spell circle.

I braced myself and looked back toward my packmates. Gage's desperation washed over me through the pack bond as he paced inside the magic circle, clearly favoring his front paw. I wished I'd gotten the chance to claim him — to claim them all.

Except then I realized how selfish that was. It was said that when one mate died, the mate bond's backlash could drive the other insane, leaving them to die shortly after.

"I'm sorry, Heath," I whispered inside my mind. "They're going to break the seal on my magic, and… it won't be gentle."

"Be strong, my warrior wolf. I love you. I'm here with you." His brave words couldn't mask the panic beneath them. He was trying to project confidence that he didn't feel.

"I think your father tipped them off," I said distantly as I watched the other witches begin drawing sigils in mid-air. It felt surreal to see, knowing that power should have belonged to me as well.

"I'll kill him," Heath swore. "Freya, do whatever you can to fight back. Don't make this easy on them."

"You're right." I straightened my shoulders, preparing to shift. "I'm a fighter. Always have been and always will be. I've survived worse before."

But just as I was about to shift, the spell circle lit up, and all the witches stepped outside of it, facing me. The circle's glow lit their faces in an unearthly, yellow-orange hue, and their feet rose off the ground. The blue stone containing my curse glowed bright blue, and pain slammed into me, bringing me to my knees.

Something inside of me cracked wide open. From that open space, I felt energy pouring from me like lifeblood… Like magic blood that the coven quickly sucked up.

I screamed and begged for it to end, clutching at my chest and letting the blanket fall around me. My ears filled with howls as my mates cried out for me. And I saw the blue stone begin to crumble.

As they broke the stone and lifted the curse, they also drained my magic from underneath the seal, taking it before I could even try to fight back with it. The crack inside of me grew wider, and it felt like it was splitting me into pieces with it.

Inside of me, my wolf whimpered, slamming into my inner walls. And that's when I remembered I wasn't just a mage.

I was a shifter. And shifters could heal in their other forms. Maybe I could repair this crack inside of me, even if it sealed off my magic again. The blue stone glowed so brightly now I couldn't even see its crumbling shape anymore. Each member of the coven seemed to grow in size as my magic seeped into them, but I'd remembered how to fight back.

Shift, the word echoed in my head, though I wasn't sure if it was me or my wolf who said it.

That crack inside me ruptured, exploding outward just as I fell to all fours. Before the coven could steal any more of my magic, my wolf took over.

I expected her to charge the coven, maybe bite my aunt or try to break the spell circle somehow. Instead, she lowered her head and growled. The lightning in my fur sounded angry in my ears, then its crackling crescendoed so loud I longed to cover my poor wolf's ears. My lightning expanded into a protective ball around me, shielding me from their magic.

"You didn't tell us she could shift!" the young witch yelled over the crackling of my lightning.

Somehow, the winds picked up, moving away from me and blowing away the witches' purple sand, taking blue dust along with it — all that was left of the cursed stone.

"That's… not a normal shifter." The fear in the male witch's voice made my wolf huff with bitter satisfaction.

"Is the curse gone?" my aunt yelled.

"Yes, but…"

"Then continue the spell!" she ordered.

But two of the witches had already backed off, leaving their positions near the now-ruined spell circle. The male witch backed away as well.

"Fine, I'll take the rest for myself," Pandora growled, reaching a clawed hand toward me while the other drew another sigil in the air.

Magic lanced toward my lightning shield, but instead of bouncing off or dissipating among the lightning, it rebounded directly at Pandora. And on its heels, my lightning shield exploded outward with so much energy that the ground shook and the trees bowed as if in gale-force winds.

The rapidly expanding ball of lightning caught up to the rebounding magic before it could reach Pandora. My aunt's magic collided with my wolf's power, turning an angry red. The other witches fell to the ground, covering their heads, but the front edge of the expanding explosion hit Pandora full-force. Her scream cut off in a cacophony of crackling lightning.

With a thunderous boom, I was blown tail over snout and landed on my back, but quickly righted myself. When I got to all four paws, everyone else slowly picked themselves up as well. Pandora's body remained unmoving as the young witch tentatively crawled toward her and nudged her.

The world fell silent, the trees returning back to their original positions. And in that silence, only my panting and the beat of my heart reminded me that I'd survived. Lightning no longer crackled along my fur, and I realized that another sound had also fallen silent. My packmates stood in blackened circles, no longer confined by flames.

Three nearly identical growls tore from their throats, breaking the spell that had fallen over us all. Gage had returned to human form, but as Flint and Rowan raced past him in their wolf forms, he growled and dropped into his wolf form with them. The witches cried out as three vengeful wolves descended upon them.

"Freya?" Heath's voice sounded hesitant, as though his hopes hung by a thread.

"We're alive," I said as I loped forward toward my aunt's body.

My keen wolf senses verified no life remained. And as the witches tried to defend themselves with more witchfire, the lightning in my coat sparked back to life, ready to defend me once more. Thank goodness it hadn't killed my packmates in the explosion.

"And the witches?" Heath's voice regained its strength, no longer thin and reedy in my mind.

Rowan tore the male witch's head from his body with one shake of his powerful jaws. The young witch tried to burn him while he was distracted, so Gage bowled her over. She barely got a scream out before he silenced it.

"My aunt is dead," I admitted distantly, watching the slaughter as if from afar.

It didn't feel real. My body felt tattered. Something in me felt broken, and I wasn't sure that even wolf shifter healing could fix it.

Was my magic gone before I'd ever gotten to use it?

"Your mates are probably all in a frenzy. If you don't stop them, they'll kill all the rest. But it might be better to save one for questioning…"

"Too late, they're dead," I sang in a singsong voice.

"Freya, stay with me," Heath growled in my mind. "Are you wounded?"

"They broke something, Heath."

"The seal," he soothed. "You said they were trying to unseal your magic. Are you in wolf form or human form?"

"Wolf."

Gage, Flint, and Rowan turned toward me with blood in their fur and victory in their eyes. When Gage howled, we answered.

No one hurt us and got away with it. Not even witches. The Howling Echo took care of its own.

"If you return to your human form, you might be able—"

"Your father owes us an explanation, Heath," I growled.

"As soon as I heard you were in danger, I got on the road as fast as I could. I'm already outside Elder Forest packlands," Heath said. "I can go back, but—"

"No," I decided. "I need all my mates with me. The Howling Echo should never be separated again."

"Then I'm on my way. I'll see you in a few days, after I make sure no one's on my tail. No one can keep me from you, Freya, I swear it."

"Are you okay, moonbeam?" Flint asked as my other three mates surrounded me, making me feel cared for and protected.

"I'm not sure," I admitted. I stared at Pandora's body, feeling nothing but numbness.

My own blood had tried to steal my magic, not caring if it killed me in the process. My parents had died trying to protect me, and she had thrown away her brother's sacrifice in vain. Her greed had cost her life.

But I didn't have it in me to mourn her. And for the first time, I wondered if trying to find my sister might not be a good idea after all. That hopeless thought broke the dam in me.

I fell to the ground, my head between my paws. What if I never found my sister? Or what if I did, and she hated me as much as my aunt did, for taking our parents from us? Sorrow washed over me — not sorrow for Pandora's selfish mistakes, but for the could-have-beens.

My mates settled in around me, guarding me, to wait out the night.