I woke up dizzy, half-blind, and incredibly nauseous. I worried moving at all would make me hurl up an intestine or two. My chest ached, lungs feeling heavy. Something sounded liquid when I breathed, a nice accent to accompany the wheezing howl of a punctured lung.
The walls of my tiny home surrounded me with bright lights and silence. Living alone, and a healthy distance from civilization, had seemed like a good idea at the time. The vague sounds of voices and music floated from the Volkov’s home, beyond the garden and the forest. The annual festival in full swing meant no one would hear me even if I could scream. Sensitive werewolf ears or not.
Robin’s absence brought tears to my already blurred vision. He’d been limiting his visits because we’d argued one time too many about my choice of lovers. He’d been right. I choked back a sob of self-pity. No amount of wishing could change the past.
Dying alone had never crossed my mind before that moment. Apa often said I was young, and the young thought themselves invincible. I thought he was being overdramatic. Only it was true. If I had imagined for one second this was how it would end…
I swallowed back a mouthful of blood, not willing to let the memories of how I’d ended up here overwhelm me. I was dying. If I didn’t do something, I would die, and he would win. Months of fighting for freedom, and a few weeks of living the dream had left me here.
I hadn’t expected his attack, should have adjusted my wards. I’d never thought he’d attempt such a vile act with the Volkov was close by.
Was this another lesson? Was I once again being taught my place? Not a werewolf, so not worthy of protection? Perhaps this was to toughen me up. Could some of my wards have prevented all this pain?
Probably. Why hadn’t I thought ahead? Why had my brain refused to entertain the idea that he’d come after me? It wasn’t like he hadn’t before. This hadn’t even been the second time.
I’d expected Apa to keep him away. Who wouldn’t have faith in the Volkov, the king of werewolves, to protect them? He’d called me son my entire life, and I thought of him as my father, Apa. Yet, maybe the words weren’t enough. He was the Volkov’s son by blood. Maybe that meant more. Or maybe I just hadn’t been worth as much as I’d been led to believe.
Funny the things that seem to fall into place when you are dying. Apa never encouraged my independence. Although he’d given me access to the land and allowed me to make my own mistakes for years. He’d even supported my alchemy. Though I wondered now if that was only because it was useful to him. Maybe it hadn’t been enough and now I was expendable.
How many times in my research had I read about forbidden spells? Alchemy in general was the exchange of one equal thing for another. The concept of life for life had intrigued many an alchemist in history. The equivalent exchange to create some kind immortality. Never were the stories about people dying from cancer and trying to save themselves or a loved one. No, they always turned dark. Making the alchemists out to be villains.
I’d barely begun to scratch the surface with my investigations into past works, but I’d read enough to know the basics. The horrors. Perhaps the history was biased. Survival could lead anyone to desperate measures. I was no exception. Maybe it didn’t have to be the ultimate evil the books made it out to be. Life was everywhere, right? Humanity didn’t have a patent on it. There was a lot of philosophy about the value of higher life forms. I’d never been so rigid. Growing up in a werewolf pack proved to anyone just how little life of any kind meant. Wolves died every day. Especially the Volkov’s wolves.
A life for a life.
Ten feet from my doorstep I had a garden the size of a football field, filled with life. Would it be enough? My heart ached with the idea of the garden’s destruction. I’d started it from a tiny plot and a handful of seeds when I’d been no more than ten years old. But I could start over as long as I didn’t damage the earth too much.
What was my other choice? Take life from another person? Lie here and die?
I wasn’t sure I could move at all. Blood pooled around me, staining the pale wood floor, and looking like a murder scene from a movie. If it weren’t for the fact that all the lights were on, the blood might not have looked so fluorescent. Blood in general was more brown or dark red than anything as luminescent from the movies. I was losing blood fast, and had to get moving.
My whole body trembled as I reached down to slide myself across the floor. My legs wobbled like jelly, unable to support my weight, and my arms shook with the effort of dragging myself to the door. I inched like a worm, pressing into the floor with what little strength I had to move forward. The soaking wetness of my blood made the floor slippery. I strained to reach for the door, which was only a few feet away. Grabbing at anything for leverage, I hauled my battered body across the small space. Blood continued to pool up into my throat, choking me, even as I sputtered and spit it out.
I refused to contemplate why I was nude, and ignored the other fluids and pain that stained my skin with violence. Bad memories wouldn’t make me stronger. Fighting panic and rising death at the same time would not hasten my pace. Nor would it bolster my resolve to survive.
One eye went completely black like a switch had been flipped. I wasn’t sure if it was my vision or just blood covering it. Either way, my depth perception shifted, disorienting me further. Reaching for the edge of the doorway, I fell out the open door and down the two steps to the ground.
For a few heartbeats I just rested there, assuring myself that I just needed a minute. Only I didn’t really have a minute.
My head throbbed, and each breath bubbled with blood and hissed with air, a combination that just made me hurt even more. Why couldn’t he have just killed me with one blow? Why hadn’t I just died when he’d knocked me out? Or bled to death while unconscious? Why did I have to be awake for it? Was it some sort of cruel joke of the universe?
I swallowed more blood and spit out another mouthful, adding a horrible wet cough to the end. One more deep attempt for air, the tiny sips between the building fluid feeling like heavenly nectar, and I clawed at the earth to get a few feet further.
The garden was so close. The paving stones and fancy carved dirt path Oberon had laid two years’ prior kept the grass at bay, and me from my target. I stretched toward the green, heart slowing with the effort.
My vision fogged further, the pinpricks of starlight vanishing into a shady darkness. I wasn’t ready for this. Hadn’t planned any of this. But I’d been cocky. The wolves always thought me cocky. Who was I to play their games? Who was I to tell them no? Or demand respect? Who was I to think anyone would protect me from my own bad decisions?
I blinked furiously into the darkness. Tears trailing down my cheeks, or maybe the warmth was just blood. I never thought my life would end this way. Alone. Lying in the dirt, staring up into a blackened sky. The feeling of abandonment raged within my heart. I’d fought for so long to be seen and heard, to prove myself worthy, only to die alone and unwanted.
My soul screamed into the silence, longing for something. Calling for something even if my voice couldn’t release any sound. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a sense of unfairness that I reached for, or even anger. It was a desperate plea of not yet. There was something out there, close, so close…
Something I needed in a way so visceral that my gut nearly leapt toward it. If I could have moved another inch, I would have crawled toward it even if I’d been dragging organs and the last pieces of my battered body.
Please, I thought into the growing darkness I knew was death. I didn’t know what I was asking for. Please don’t let me die? Please let someone find me? Please let me die quickly?
My sluggish heart fought for each slowing beat. It echoed in my head, louder than I’d ever heard it before. I stared into the distance, vaguely able to make out some trees beyond the garden, and possibly the moon overhead in a giant crescent. A clear night to die. Might have even been beautiful if I could see the stars.
One of the trees moved. My whole body jerked involuntarily with fear. Was he returning? I accidentally sucked in a blood-soaked breath, leaving me sputtering and choking.
The shape glowed with the slight edge of white. The moon’s reflection perhaps? The scent of vanilla and man tickled my nose, faint beneath the metallic tang of blood. The shape dropped down beside me. Hands touched my face. Warmth spreading from his fingers into the very depths of my soul. His touch made me want like I’d never imagined wanting anything in my life.
I wanted to wrap myself around him, bathe in his essence, and beg him to never let me go. It didn’t matter that I couldn’t see his face and didn’t know his name. My soul told me he was mine. It sang of promise, as his warmth trickled through the shattered walls of my personal wards.
What sort of magic was this? Was he fae?
He lifted my head and shoulders into his lap, his words a rush of noise around me without coherent sound. Or perhaps that was just my brain. The night itself was silent and unmoving. No wind, birds or bugs. A bad omen? Or permanent brain damage?
The form that held me, stroked my hair. His embrace felt like kindness, love, and sadness.
“Are you a spirit of dark or light?” I asked, not sure if sound actually left my lips.
His face nestled close to mine, little more than just a shadow in the darkness. His hand was warm on my cheek when he said, “I will be your light or dark. Your strength and pain. I offer you all of me. My soul to yours.” Sweet words spoken with an unfamiliar voice. If I could have touched him then, I would have. I wanted to beg him to speak more, hold me tighter, and not leave me to die alone.
All I could think to say was, “Then kiss me and share your spirit.”
Odd that the words seemed to choose themselves. I had no thoughts of kisses or spells before that moment as I was too far gone. But the second his lips touched mine, everything became liquid fire. His heat poured into me, soothing the wounds, pressing into places that hurt—a deep, raging, flame. We both gasped for breath as the power flowed between us. Healing me like nothing I’d ever imagined possible before.
I had a moment of terror when his hold on me went slack. A fine tremor ran through him, but I couldn’t stop the flow of energy. Was I killing him? No! My heart screamed with the possibility of it. He couldn’t die. I needed him.
My lungs healed, and the throbbing behind my eyes faded. For a breath, my vision cleared enough that I could almost see him, make out pale eyes, and the outline of his lips. But I ripped myself out of his grasp, transforming as I did so. From human to fox in one breath to the next. He reached for me, the link still live between us.
His need echoed mine. The link between us carried the emotion to me in a wave of feeling. The way he reached for me made my heart ache to drop into his arms and beg for him to hold me.
Only the life I took from him was too much. His eyes drooped and his shoulders fell slack as he toppled backward.
I waited a few heartbeats in terror, watching for movement in his chest. Was I truly a monster? Had I destroyed someone so perfect for me? A moment passed into the next, and finally I saw it. The small rise and fall of his chest. He was breathing. The link between us was fading, but I could still see it stretching between us. His energy flowing into me. Still healing.
The boisterous sound of voices moved toward us from the distance. I trembled; fear renewed. What if he found out he failed to kill me? Would he try again? This night hadn’t been any sort of accident. I had to get away.
I took one last longing look at the man who’d saved my life, then turned to run away. Into the darkness of the forest I raced, leaving behind everything. My entire life had been in the camper, attached to a wolfpack who reviled me. Only now one small thing tugged at my heart, the mysterious stranger I’d left behind. The link between us thinned like over-stretched taffy. I thought it eventually would snap. But it just continued to stretch as I ran, connecting me forever to a man whose kiss I dreamt about nearly every night for the next year of my life.
