Chapter 47

Forty-Seven

FINN

I gasped awake as a charge of energy circulated through me. “What the…” my question cut off as the world erupted in overwhelming power. A ribbon of energy spread outward, seeking a link. The first it touched was my wolf, who paced outside the sanctuary, close, but unwilling to enter.

He snapped at me, and I flinched away. His emotions and memories battered me in a chaotic mess of tangled thoughts. More human than I expected a wolf to be, but we’d run together as one for centuries. He snarled at the idea of letting our bond reunite, reminding me how weak he thought I was, and I recoiled away from him, following the magic instead.

The power dug deep, forming a link that flew beyond the sanctuary and even the realm, carrying my mind with it as though we’d flown the route a thousand times, and wrapped up each nearby wolf, one by one. As though, if I couldn’t have my wolf, all the rest would be mine. A connected weave of consciousness and power surged through the line, their packs filling a vacuum of unfamiliar silence inside my head with an overwhelming weight of emotion, magic, and noise.

I felt a sudden, overpowering kinship to the packs, their thoughts and feelings surging through me like a tidal wave. It was disorienting, the sheer volume of their collective consciousness threatening to crush my own. Each linked wolf reminded me of a name, a human face, their wolf presence and a dozen specific memories of them. The wave began as a trickle, but quickly became a screaming tsunami of too much power all at once.

A scream broke through my lips as the world flipped from bright waves to darkness and back, not a seizure of the body like before, but of the mind. I begged my wolf for help and he growled and snarled, slamming a barrier down between us.

Blood dripped from my nose and I dropped to my knees, my vision exploding in an array of lights and stars. I sought to escape the pain which verged on euphoria. The packs linking to me one by one across not only the continent, but the entire globe. I gasped for air, struggling with the sheer volume of the power. No single being could control this. No wonder the wolf had split me off. Was there a way to survive becoming supernova?

I latched on to the last thread of hope floating through my memory, and that was Wesley. He said we were linked, and I hoped my explosion wouldn’t drag him down with me. His bond floated above the rest in a delicate ribbon that anchored me to my soul. I reached out and grabbed the tie, fearing breaking it with my touch, but it pulsed warm and solid in my grasp.

I blinked and found myself standing in an unfamiliar room, heart slowing as the power continued to grow, but I’d distanced myself from it. Wesley lay on the bed, looking better, beautiful with his delicate expression of sleep. I crossed the room in a handful of strides, desperate to touch him, and shocked to find him solid and warm beneath my fingers.

He opened his eyes, confused for a half second then they went wide as he sat up and pressed his lips to mine. My heart racing as I silently begged him to help me, even while I wanted to bask in his lips forever and couldn’t find the words to voice my desperate need.