Chapter 63

Sixty-Three

FINN

T he darkness gnawed at my resolve, trying to pull me back into its cold, merciless embrace. Each step toward Wesley felt like walking on broken glass, the light searing away the darkness that had embedded itself into my soul, blistering my skin and burning deep until my screams echoed from inside out.

The wolf and I fought our way forward together, the pain making us black out a handful of times and lose ground to the darkness. My heart stuttered, then raced, a maddening cycle that had me fearing it would burst. Wesley floated a half dozen yards away, the glow of light surrounding him like the final prize in a video game I’d been playing my entire life.

His chest rose slightly with labored breaths, his face pale and strained. The flavor of his power lingered on the back of my tongue as I unintentionally drained him to fuel the beast. I desperately reached for him even though it hurt.

But the darkness clawed at my mind, whispering insidious lies, trying to convince me that I wasn’t strong enough, that I would only hurt him if I got too close. The fear of losing control gripped me like a vise. The darkness fought to drag me back into the abyss where it thrived.

I suddenly understood my father’s hesitation to approach my mother’s light. Not that he feared her, rather he knew the pain of the darkness raking invisible claws over his soul to regain control.

Wesley reminded me the darkness had always been there, but it hadn’t always had control. My mother’s light kept me stable when I was young, but I’d crumbled from the weight of losing my family, setting free the monster. The wolf was right, I was weak.

Stronger together, the wolf told me as my human skin blistered from the touch of the light and his power healed it. The agonizing pain replaced by a warmth that I hadn’t felt in what seemed like an eternity.

I silently sank into the embrace of the wolf, his strength bolstering mine, and for the first time, I felt like I could finally shove back the darkness. We’d been fighting a long time, both believing we knew what was best. Both lacking the power necessary until we stood together united for one purpose:

Mate. The wolf said his tone filled with both possessiveness and affection.

Ours . I agreed. You can’t be an asshole to him .

The wolf thought Wesley was an asshole, which made me hesitate. Not because I worried my wolf would hurt him, but because I caught the hint of humor in his tone and his grudging respect for Wesley.

He is kind of an asshole. I thought, but knew it was armor and grateful he had something to protect himself with for all these years. But that was okay—Wesley was our asshole, and we would protect him with everything we had.

Wesley was on his side. Hand fallen away from him, limp but near the faint glow of the surrounding shield. His eyes closed, his breath a stuttering beat, and the flow of his energy between us faded to a trickle.

Drained.

Was hurting him all I could do?

Mate , the wolf reminded me. Ours .

I reached the edge of the wriggling barrier, and feared for a split second that I’d be rejected and blasted away from him. My heart raced with worry and need to hold him again as my fingers touched the magic, and the shield shattered. Magic blasted through the sanctuary, slicing away the shadows and giving definition and life to an early morning glow. I held my hand out in front of me, surprised to see it tinged with gold. The gold dragon like my mother, perhaps? But I wore my human form, the light casting dancing rainbows into the abyss around us.

The beast quieted. The magic sinking into it like a wave of soothing music lulled it into rest, but the melody came from the soft song of birds, bugs, and a gentle breeze. A thousand times I’d fought to shove it back into the dark, and this was the first time it went willingly as I gathered Wesley into my arms. Calm radiated from the beast, as if it were well fed, and finally under control. The light soaked into my skin, gentle and warm, the sense of home settling with the wolf inside my soul.

“Wesley?” I whispered, clutching him to my chest as panic clawed at my throat as he didn’t move. I couldn’t lose him. “Love?”

A sense of icy dread filling my gut with the realization that I couldn’t feel his magic anymore. His body was still, breathing shallow, and his golden aura flickered like a dying ember. I shook him gently, desperate to bring him back from the brink.

The wolf howled, a deep, resonant power unfurling in my core, setting the realm around us writhing with swells of magic. Electricity roared through my veins, pulsing at the tips of my fingers and adding waves of shadows to the darkest corners of the sanctuary.

My entire life I’d tried to suppress the dark monster inside, but within it, a massive charge of power that now, reunited with the wolf and calmed by the light, I understood. Everyone called me the Autumn king, and that strength pooled inside a well of endless depths, ready to be used. It could be destruction or creation, heat or cold, life or death. And if I couldn’t save Wesley with it, I didn’t want it at all.

I held him in my arms, cycling the darkness to warmth, and vibrance; a hot late summer breeze. It coursed through my veins, expanding to every corner of the area, blasting through the shadows to reform the sketchy edges of the realm. The wolf joined his strength with mine, shaping the fabric of reality and directing it to a balance of light and dark rather than the horror of monstrous night it longed to be.

Wesley was my light, and I held him tight, warming him with my touch and begging his soul to stay with me while I willed the magic to fill the void of his depleted power.

Nothing happened, Wesley remained limp, his aura dim and weak, cold in my arms. I screamed, heart breaking at the idea that he’d be stolen from me again. The darkness wove around him, knitting together the frayed edges of our soul bond, and allowing the heat of my heart to rekindle the spark of life that had been nearly extinguished. The golden waves of light began to fill his aura, snaking through him to his core and yanking a thousand micro drops of some unknown liquid from his body. I gathered them into a ball of floating fluid, studying it a moment to find someone else’s magic woven through alcohol. Some sort of sleeping potion? Was that why he wasn’t waking? I cast it away into the depths of the void.

The warmth continued to seep from my skin into him, and his breath deepened, chest rising and falling with renewed strength. The flickering glow of his aura steadied, growing brighter, until it shone with a golden light that encased our bond and filled my soul.

Tears pricked at my eyes as his magic returned, his blazing aura filling like a lightbulb turned to blinding. The wolf growled softly, flinching from the pain as he’d been in the dark a long time, but he approved and remained strong at my side.

The beast’s strength flickered through the sanctuary. A hint of shadows, darkness, and fear touching the edges of everything, and where the light touched it, a golden beauty rippled beneath. The Autumn realm was a battleground where the darkness would forever linger, and as much as it was now a part of me, I had to learn to better control it before Wesley would be safe.

I leaned in to kiss him, a gentle press of lips to lips, heart in my throat as he opened his eyes like I’d lifted some spell on Sleeping Beauty. “I love you, Wesley. Be safe, okay?”

He blinked sleepy, “Finn?” He asked, “You’re glowing gold. So beautiful,” he whispered while his confused eyes gazed at me as my power shifted. The realm responded to my will and crafted a portal to a place of hot summer days and the scent of sweet baked goods—Summer’s realm.

“Finn?” Wesley whispered, reaching up to run his fingertips over my cheek and capture the tears I didn’t realize I was crying until that moment.

“I’ll find you, love. I promise.”

“The monster…”

“He’s still here. Always,” I said, heart breaking that I’d never be all he deserved.

“But he’s you.”

“He’s me when I wallow in the pain, and I can’t always hold him back,” I said. He deserved so much better than the broken monster fate had tied him too.

“Wait…” Wesley said, but my power slid over him, carrying him out of the Autumn realm and into the safety of the Summer realm. He vanished from my arms, leaving me alone in the middle of the sanctuary which rippled with shadows of warning. I had two choices, learn to control the beast with the help of my wolf and bask in the light, or let it overwhelm me completely. The wolf and I agreed to face it, and prayed Wesley would be there on the other side.

The realm reformed around us, much as it had been when I’d first stumbled across thinking I was Finley, ghost hunting enthusiast, with no real purpose in life. The rainbow of changing colors and cool breeze settled something inside me, and the sun shifted overhead, from the pulsing heat of summer to a cool fall evening.

The wolf bumped my fingers with his head, and I scratched his ears as we watched the shadows slither around. They no longer frightened me. I knew they were a part of me and all the memories that wanted desperately to force me to sink into the dark. As I stepped closer, and the sun trickled through the trees to illuminate the path, they ceased to cut as deep. I absorbed the first handful, putting them back into place. The monster rippled through me, and the wolf beside me, neither of us acknowledging the flicker. But there were thousands more. How long would it take to tame them all, accept them for what they were, my past, and step forward into the future? Would Wesley still be waiting?