Chapter 17

Seventeen

WESLEY

F inn climbed over me at some point, muttering something about having to go to the bathroom. But the rain had stopped and the sun returned, for which I was grateful. I nibbled on clover and stayed in my Stag form, ears focused on the sound of his movement and searching for the sound of anything else nearby.

When he returned it was only in the sweatpants. He crawled into the hole of the roots, pulled out our clothing, and spread them out in the sun to dry.

“I don’t suppose this weird magic world will spit new ones out for us?” he asked as he returned to my side, immediately tangling his fingers in my fur. His stomach growled. “Sorry.”

Was the spot on his back smaller? Maybe it had been a bruise. I nudged him with my nose. He looked up at me, a single brow raised, a hint of scruffiness coating his jawline. Okay, he was handsome, hair a mess of dark waves from sleep and the rain; Shirtless, and not sculpted like Henry Cavill from the Witcher , but fine. I’d have tapped that in my less troubled days.

I nudged him again, pressing my snout at his shoulder, careful of my antlers, to get him to turn. He stepped away and presented his back to me, looking over his shoulder.

The mark was smaller, only half the size of his back. I shifted to my human form thinking I’d glamour myself some clothes for modesty, but I wound up naked. Was the realm preventing that, too?

“Don’t look at me,” I instructed. He faced forward.

“Is it worse?”

I traced the edge of the mark from the chilling center around the edge where the skin looked fine, better, and naturally warm. He shivered under my touch, but focused his gaze forward.

“It’s smaller,” I told him. “Healing maybe?”

“Because we didn’t have the same dream again?”

I hadn’t slept. “I don’t know why you had that vision. I’ve been having it since I was a child and have never shared a vision with anyone. It wasn’t a dream, more a nightmare of the future to come.”

He swallowed and looked up the sky. “Pleasant. This world is filled with so many wonderful things.” His sarcasm biting deep. I pulled my hand away knowing I was one of the unpleasant things. “I didn’t mean you.”

“It’s fine. The fae are a special type of monster. I’m well aware of what I am.” I tried to change back to the Stag form, but couldn’t. What the hell?

He began to turn my way.

“Don’t,” I commanded. He stopped. “I was going to change back into the Stag.”

“Okay,” he said, waiting as if I needed to hide from him to do it.

“But I can’t.”

“Why?”

“If I knew fucking why, I wouldn’t be freaking out right now!” I shouted at him. Stupid fucking human. “Don’t turn around!”

He stopped. “Okay. I’m going to grab your hoodie and walk backward to hand it to you. Okay?”

“Stop saying okay.” I couldn’t breathe, what the hell was wrong with my power? I stared at my hands and legs, hoping I hadn’t completely lost my other form. Finn might think the Stag a majestic beast, but he’d laugh at my fawn side. Everyone did. I’d hate to have to kill him when I’d fought to keep him alive.

He bounded forward, picking up the hoodie and patting it, then setting it back down and grabbing the other, which had been his, and picking that one. I would have protested, but he slowly walked backward, holding the hoodie over his shoulder. “This one’s drier. They are both a little wet. Your pants are soaked.” His stomach grumbled again. How long could a mortal live without food and water? A few days? Months?

I snatched the hoodie out of his hand and tugged it over my head. At least it landed mid-thigh. The one I’d been wearing wouldn’t have covered much. Had he been thinking of that?

“I saw a bush with some berries when I was relieving myself,” Finn said. “Fae world and all that, I didn’t touch them, thinking they might eat me. But if you’re hungry I can show you where they are.”

How fair was that if he couldn’t eat them? “We need to focus on getting you out of here.”

“Can I look now?”

“There’s nothing worth looking at, but whatever.”

He turned, his gaze hesitant, but he didn’t stare or gloat. “Do you have a plan to get us out?”

“Do I look like a guy with a plan?”

“Yeah, actually. I mean you know more about all of this,” he waved his hand at the world. “More than I do. What can we do to get out? I know that dragon thing said it’s your mate, but I don’t buy the ‘no choice’ thing. Can’t you ask your Summer king to help?”

“If we could get word to him, maybe. But this world is blocking the outside from leeching in, and us from getting out. I wandered for days before running into you, finding only circles of sameness.”

Finn puffed out his cheeks as he blew a breath and put his hands in his hair as though that helped him think. He walked the clearing for a dozen or so paces, keeping his distance from any trees or brush. “You said something about wandering through a portal.”

“Yes. Most mortals are drawn that way. Portals can look like anything. The Summer king called them buttholes to other realms, but they can be the back of a closet or a ring of mushrooms, or a section of the forest filled with weird flowers.”

“Buttholes to other realms. I might like your Summer king.”

“Most people do,” I grumbled. “He can open doors. Summer always has that power.”

Finn paused to stare at me.

“We are in the Autumn realm. The dragon is the Autumn king. His realm, his rules. He doesn’t seem to want outside influence.” But kept Finn here for some reason.

Finn nodded and resumed his pacing. “Is there anything special about Autumn we should know? Weaknesses?”

“Me.”

“Mate, right. Is that a weakness? Like does he have to do what you say? If you walk up to him and say, ‘Let us go,’ what does he do?”

“Burn the cabin down.”

“Point.” He wandered in a careful line around the area, avoiding the thick lines of clover.

“The clover isn’t dangerous.”

“But your other form likes to eat it, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s rude to walk in it.” He continued his pacing while I pondered that he’d been thoughtful. “What power do the mates have to fae? You said the Summer king has a mate. Anything you know about them?”

“They are sickly sweet together. Chosen by the Elementals rather than the Weavers.”

“Capital E and Capital W? Titles instead of people?”

Observant little shit. “Yes.”

“What makes you think that the Weavers chose the Autumn king for you and the Elementals,” he wriggled his hands in the air like he knew what it all meant, “chose the Summer king and his mate?”

“Because the fae tried to choose a mate for Summer and he rejected them for the one the Elemental picked.”

“Are the Weavers fae?”

No one really knew. I suspected they were because they cursed so much of mortality with their tangled fates. “I don’t know.”

“Why do you think your mate was picked by the Weavers?”

“My Vision is a curse from the Weavers, and I’ve seen the Autumn king in my dreams for a long time.”

“The dragon?”

“He has a human form.”

“But you said you can’t see your future.”

“I didn’t know he was my mate. Only that his fate was tied to mine somehow.”

“Isn’t that literally the meaning of mate? Tied together by fate?”

“I saw a man trapped in stone. When he turned into a giant dragon and devoured half the Winter court, I thought he’d end me too. Deaths are fate, too.”

Finn froze, his expression a mask of confusion.

“What?”

“A man trapped in stone? Han Solo like? Sorry, don’t know if you get the Star Wars reference, but there is this movie…”

“I’ve seen the damn movie, and yes, sort of Han Solo like. Why?”

“Because I’ve been having a nightmare since I was a kid that I got stuck in stone and couldn’t breathe.”