Chapter 42

Forty-Two

FINN

“I wonder,” Wesley’s thought drifted through my mind.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing yet,” he said as we wandered along the creek deeper into the woods. Exhaustion led me to find a place to nap beneath the canopy of trees. The scent of the bread made my stomach growl to eat more, but I was determined to save some for Hector. The vision version of me closed his eyes and seconds later we reopened them to find the sun rising and Hector nibbling at my hair.

I laughed, the sound strange coming from my lips as I couldn’t recall the last time I’d let Hector’s silliness bring me joy. He tugged at my hair and nuzzled my cheek, his thoughts charging through my head in a confusing array of images. He’d met a few does, but had yet to catch their attention and wondered if he were strong enough to actually be of interest to them.

“You are,” I told him as I sat up and unwrapped the remaining bread to tear off a piece.

Hector eyed the bread warily as I held it out.

“It’s tasty,” I said, taking a small bite. “Like honey.”

Hector liked honey. He nibbled the edge of the bread, giving me images of an overripe mushroom doused in honey.

“I suppose to you, that’s about how it feels.”

“Rather eat clover,” Hector shared as he wandered a half dozen yards away to do exactly that.

I snorted at him and ate the bread, finding the pillowy freshness had hardened overnight. The array of colors painting the sky in grays and blues meant rain on the horizon, even if I couldn’t see it. I’d have to find shelter for the day, but hoped Hector would return to find the does he’d been interested in.

“Did any of the does in particular attract your attention?” I asked as I stood and took a step in his direction. He froze, head stretched up, gaze in the distance, and silence cascaded over the area, birds flying off with a flap of wings leaving us in an echo of faint wind. My heart leapt into my throat as I caught the slight movement of something in the bushes only a few steps from him.

I lunged, half flying to intercept, claws dug into me where they had been meant to latch onto Hector. I snarled and slammed a fist into the side of the beast’s head, catching a glimpse of a wolf’s muzzle, though the monster was easily three times the size of any other wolf I’d encountered.

“Run!” I screamed at Hector sensing a half dozen other wolves slinking through the brush. He jolted away, racing off in the opposite direction as I fought with the first wolf. The rest appeared a half breath later to give chase, but I rolled and flipped the first off me and into the rest, knocking them askew and into each other with a flail of claws.

They snarled, one continuing after Hector. I picked up a rock and chucked it, smashing the beast in the head hard enough to explode its skull. The wolves flinched and took a step back in surprise, like they hadn’t thought I could hurt their kind. I released the control on my magic, changing into the shadow monster that had created horrors to keep the humans out of the north. Two of the wolves backed away, the others snarled and growled, holding their ground, likely thinking their numbers would out rule my lone beast.

We all lunged at the same time, me leaping into the fray with talons swiping, them with fangs and claws. Blood and flesh sprayed, four of their number dead in a few heartbeats, but I bled too. The beasts who had been about to turn tail and run latching on to me to try to save their packmates. They ripped at me from two sides, and I howled as flesh gave way, strength waning as blood poured from me.

A small dark form dove from the canopy, another wolf. How had I missed that one? But the new wolf dropped on the back of one of the attacking wolves, jaw clamping around its neck and shaking until the beast’s bone broke with an audible snap. It fell away with dead eyes, landing beside its friends and I lashed out at the last attacking wolf, talons sliding through its belly, spilling its insides, and it breathed only twice more.

The small dark wolf backed away as I sank to the ground, my dark form slinking away with the loss of blood. Then the dead wolves began to change, from nightmare beasts to human men, all vaguely familiar. I’d seen them in the village where I’d gotten the bread. Had they followed me?

The little wolf shifted too. My gaze blurred as I laid my head down in the blood-smeared grass, thinking the tiny thing could probably end me right there. A heat erupted beneath my skin, as if the claws of the wolves contained some sort of venom. I gasped for air, the pain causing me to writhe as the little dark-skinned boy leaned in close. Tears dripped from his little face, and he said something, though I couldn’t understand the words. He bounded away for a half heartbeat, and the black void of unconsciousness threatened to take me, but he returned with water, and a thick piece of leather. He shoved the leather between my lips and doused my forehead in water, which cooled the heat enough to catch a breath.

I wanted to crawl toward the water and soak myself in the spring, but my limbs trembled and spasmed refusing to obey and leaving me little more than a fish on land dying a horribly slow death.

The boy continued to murmur, soft words, followed by a small drenching of cool water. He went to and from the creek a few dozen times, and I fought to keep from biting my own tongue off as the trembling worked its way through my entire body. That’s why he’d shoved the leather piece between my lips. I gnawed at the leather as control evaporated completely, only death could feel this awful, though the boy remained at my side, and I caught a brief glimpse of Hector near the creek, watching, careful, and worried.

Whatever my friend had to say, the fever and change stripped it all away as every bone in my body broke and reformed in a gut wrenchingly slow torture that wouldn’t let me drop into the forgiveness of unconsciousness. A garbled scream rose from my lips and birds squawked as they flew away in terror as I felt as though my soul itself ripped into two.