Chapter 44

Forty-Four

WESLEY

I woke up to Sebastian sitting beside me on the bed, e-reader in hand. My gasp at being back alone brought his attention to me.

“We can’t pull him out like we did you,” Seb said. “It’s his realm.”

“But he’s split,” I said, heart pounding at the idea that Finn was trapped in a reality of his own making, or at least half of him. “The wolf has taken control.”

Seb sighed. The door opened and Liam came in with a tray. More food. Super. I groaned, wanting to curl up and sleep to find Finn again.

“You should eat,” Liam said, his gaze falling on the bottle of the sleeping potion Toby had given me. “Too much of that will make you sick.”

“You understand wolves. How can we convince Finn’s wolf… Xander’s other half, to not torture him?” I asked.

“Trauma sucks,” Liam said. “As much as I wish we could rip away the memories from those we love, it is part of what created them.” He said it as he sat down beside Seb, and slid the tray over my lap. He leaned over to kiss Seb’s cheek. The trauma he wanted to strip away, was Sebastian’s, and I wondered how angry at me he was for letting any of that happen. “We have to accept it as part of their past as much as they do. Burying it only causes everyone pain.”

“The wolf split his soul to give him a life without all that pain. Why drag him back now?” I demanded.

“Because in order to stabilize the realm, he needs to be whole,” Liam answered. “You have visions of the end of the realm, right?”

“Not only the realm, the world. Darkness overwhelming everything.”

“Winter’s curse,” Seb said. “Kiran and I have felt it trying to gain a hold in our realms. She’s devouring power. Draining anything she can get her grip into. If she has apa …”

Ice coated Finn’s wolf half, and it dripped ooze. What if Finn restored his soul only to suffocate in Winter’s curse? “I need to talk to Oberon,” I said.

Seb put the reader down. “He’s been managing all the packs, but couldn’t help locate apa when I asked.”

The dark-skinned boy Finn dreamt of I was certain was Oberon. Which meant Oberon had been a werewolf before Xander. Xander had been something else, and not immune to what made werewolves, werewolves. My knowledge spanned fae and the kitsune like Seb, not wolves. “Did you know Oberon has been a werewolf longer than Xander?”

“No,” Seb said.

“Yes,” Liam said.

Seb looked at his mate. “What?”

“Oberon is one of the oldest among all wolves,” Liam said. “Xander took the lead when colonialism spread across the globe to keep Oberon safe. But those of us who are older always knew Xander was something else, not all wolf, and not as old as Oberon.”

“Xander was witchborn,” I said.

“Yeah, yeah, you keep saying that. So far it seems a pretty broad phrase. Mixed with fae? Or what?”

I shrugged as that was what I’d always interpreted it to mean, but Finn’s memory had given it origin during the witch trials. Maybe I should have studied more of mortal history.

“Supernatural beings aren’t limited to the fae,” Liam said. “Elementals have been around a lot longer, spanning realms, and spreading power.” He squeezed Seb’s arm gently. “You are part elemental, as was Kiran, I can only assume the other kings will be as well.” Liam’s gaze fell on me. “Wesley is part elemental.”

“The cursed part,” I agreed. As my mix of Stag and Fawn came from my elemental sire.

“Is that why you claimed we are brothers?” Seb asked. “Do we have the same sire?”

“No.”

Seb stared at me, waiting for me to continue, but I didn’t want to talk about how the pretty little fox boy got to be king and a predator, and I got to be someone’s fuck bunny.

He sighed. “I really wish you’d let me in.”

“You don’t even like me,” I said.

“You make yourself hard to like,” Seb snapped back. Liam sighed, making Seb frown. “I don’t dislike you. I think you’re a shady bastard who makes it hard to trust you. I’m bitter that you’re mated to apa and that somehow you get to know him better than I ever did.”

“Someone’s been in therapy,” I grumbled.

“And someone should be in therapy,” Seb said.

“You realize the trauma you’re working through was caused by the very man I’m mated to?”

“The wolf,” Seb said.

“It doesn’t absolve him,” Liam added. “The wolf had centuries observing mortal lives tied to Xander. To say he did his best and that his best was terrible, is too kind. Forgiving him outright gives him too much power. He needs to understand his mistakes. And I think to do so, he needs the part of his soul that is Finn, returned.”

“And yet I’m mated to him,” I said.

“We all have a little bit of monster inside us,” Seb said softly, his gaze at the floor rather than his mate.

Liam hugged Seb. “It’s okay to love Xander. He was your father. You work hard to be a good father to Ari, but neither of us will ever be perfect.”

“Would Finn have made different choices?” Seb asked me.

“I barely know him.” But the little I knew; he’d have been a careful and loving father. Hell, the man had nearly unraveled himself waiting for my consent to fuck me while I was begging him in heat.

“Why don’t you walk away?” Seb asked.

“I know you understand fated mates,” I said. “You left Liam for a year after you met him. How’d that go for you?” The work tracking him and covering up his trail of misdeeds in that year had nearly undone my sanity. None ran faster toward disaster than kitsunes. I might be witchborn, but I wasn’t kitsune, chaos given form.

“I felt lost, but might have kept running.”

“Always pulled in my direction,” Liam reminded him.

Running is what the Stag did best. Could I outrun fate? I’d been trying my whole life and failed as something always dragged me back, usually a fae of incredible power. This time my heart ached at the idea of leaving Finn. Why did he have to be nice to me? Why couldn’t he just fuck me like the warm hole everyone else had and walked away? Would reuniting him with his wolf make him a monster? The memories Finn relived weren’t black and white. He could rip apart towns and slaughter people, or nurture a baby deer or feed a little boy he’d just met.

“I’d really like to speak to Oberon,” I said.

“He can be really scary,” Seb said.

“You’re the fucking Summer king, Sebastian,” I said. “You could crush Oberon with a breath.”

“Ha, sure,” Seb said, obviously not convinced. “Making plants grow is super powerful.”

“Or roasting someone like an oven set to broil,” I pointed out.

He blinked, a half dozen emotions crossing his face. “Can I do that?” He asked his mate.

“Probably,” Liam agreed. “Would you want to?”

“Carl…”

“No,” Liam said.

“But he gave Ari?—”

“A book on the birds and bees, I am aware,” Liam said.

“Ari’s just a baby.”

“Ari isn’t a baby. Ari is the rebirth of a chaotic world trying to fit everything they know and don’t know into something that makes sense for the mortal skin they wear to appease us,” Liam said.

Seb gaped like a fish.

“He’s not wrong,” I agreed with Liam. Was treating the witchchild like a child, good or bad?

“Protecting Ari, teaching them our values and critical thinking, is the best we can do to create something less…” Liam thought for a few seconds. “Traumatic and chaotic. Was Underhill crafted by someone, or did it grow wild on its own?” he asked me.

“I have no idea. Underhill outdated every fae I ever met.” I glanced around the room searching for a sign of Ari, Xiao, or even Robin. “Xiao got through.” A thought occurred to me. “That’s why Carl gave Ari a book about sex. He’s seen Ari and Xiao together.”

Seb’s cheeks turned red and he buried his face in his hands. “That’s my baby you’re talking about.”

Liam met my gaze, his slight nod answering my unasked question. He knew Xiao was meant to be Winter and mate to the witchchild. “They’ll always be our baby, even while they were never really our baby.” He got up. “Let me give Oberon a call. He could use an update on Xander anyway.” Liam pointed at the bottle of sleeping potion. “Do not take that again until you eat and go outside for a walk. You’re fae and an elemental of the earth variety, you need sunlight, grass, and food.” His no-nonsense alpha command made me sigh.

“Yes, sir. Your mate is bossy,” I scowled at Seb.

“I know, right? He’s so sexy.”

“Not what I meant, and gross.”