The Wolf King Read online

  “Who are you?” I whispered to it.

  It turned to look at me, but I wasn’t even sure how I knew that because it had no eyes, only burning fire, and yet I knew it looked at me.

  But just when I hoped it might speak to me, might finally recognize me in some way, the wolf and I were once again kicked out of the funnel. This time, our landing was better than the last. We weren’t sprawled out on the cold, hard ground. Instead, we both stood inside the night-darkened desert of another place, entirely different from where we’d just been. There were two moons glowing like lavender in the twilight sky before us, giant, alien orbs that immediately brought a name to mind—the Eastern Realms.

  I blinked, swallowing reflexively. I’d been here before. I was absolutely sure of it. In fact, I realized that every place the wolf and I had traveled to so far was a place we’d been once already. We weren’t just traveling through the past, we were traveling through our past, and with every place we landed, I was beginning to remember more and more.

  This place crawled with strange and wondrous sights. Scarabs glimmered iridescent green in the moonlight. Mounds of colorful, gem-like, sandy dunes glowed in shades of indigo and umber.

  There was a man in this memory, a tall, dark stranger with hair like ink in moonlight and eyes like fiery jewels. He was nude, his figure muscular and imposing. In his arms, he carried the female that had once been me in another life, but her eyes were closed, and her lips were stained the blue of death.

  Immediately, I knew who that man was. He was the wolf. Or maybe the wolf was him. I glanced to my left at the shaggy beast, who seethed with barely checked hatred beside me.

  Why were our lives so intertwined? What had caused us to suffer eternity together? Who was he to me? Or I to him?

  Sometimes I thought maybe I knew, but mostly, there was little but darkness in the vaults of my memory.

  The wolf beside me whined, and I wondered if he was remembering just the same as I was.

  It was as if I knew nothing until I saw it, and then every single detail came back with blinding, cutting intensity—the smell of the air, lush and humid with a tinge of jasmine on the breeze. The feel of his skin on mine, rough and hot and wickedly tempting. The sharp bitter tang of fear as the wolves had borne down on me coated the back of my tongue still.

  And with the images, I also recalled the hatred—the blinding, choking hatred that was the epicenter of my beating heart and my one constant companion.

  I was remembering who I was and who I’d been crafted to be. I was the Heartsong, a creation born not of love, but of evil. The runoff of darkness within the hearts of the fairy council themselves. I’d been crafted to hold their most terrifying and darkest thoughts and deeds.

  I understood, in that moment, why I couldn’t fight who I was. There was no good in me. I was destined to always hurt those around me. It was who I’d been designed to be.

  I frowned, hearing the echoes of a female voice scream it at me. “You’re the Heartsong! You’re the Heartsong! You have to remember…” The memory wasn’t coming from some distant past, but one fairly recent, one that had happened inside of purgatory.

  I blinked. That screaming female wasn’t traveling with the wolf and me in this place. Of that, I was certain. So where was she? Had she vanished entirely? Or had she never been? Oh gods, had she simply been a manifestation of a fractured and broken mind? Had she ever been real at all?

  My nostrils flared. My memories were brittle and incredibly frail, like if I poked at them too long, they would crumble to dust before me. That was, until I saw them, and then it was like looking at glass. The images were so clear, so focused.

  Not wanting to give in to the panic of questions I couldn’t possibly answer right now, I turned back to study the images of the past rolling by me.

  The beautiful, powerful man held the past me’s body tightly in his arms, but with such obvious tenderness too.

  He lowered his head, nuzzling his nose into her hair, and whispered low but loud enough for me to hear. “Red, wake my love. We’re here in Kingdom.”

  My insides fluttered, and the wolf beside me made a chuffing sound. I whirled on him, and though he would not look at me, I knew he was aware that I studied him. His ears were swiveled in my direction.

  “Why did you speak to her with such kindness?” I asked him, knowing he would not speak. Knowing that it was a fruitless question, but I was suddenly desperate to hear his voice. Feelings of great tenderness and warmth were flooding through me, and I knew that somehow those feelings were all connected to him. “Did you truly care for that monster? How could you possibly?”

  My fingers clenched, the need to know burning a hole right through my very soul. A glimmer of hate stared back at me when he thinned his lupine eyes. Whatever he’d once felt, it was not there now.

  And I felt… numb. Cold. Like I wanted to cry, but the tears simply did not exist in me. So I wrapped my arms around myself and just looked at him. He turned back to watch the past image of himself, but I could care less about the past version. I was far more interested in the present one.

  For a while, he pretended not to see me, but after several long, tense seconds, he began to growl from deep inside his belly, his muzzle pulled back, and his scruff standing on end. He looked like a wolf about to snap. I was smart enough to know he did not share in my curiosity.

  I stared down at my lap, full of so many questions, but there was no one who could answer them for me. I glanced to the side, toward where the mysteriously white-flamed shadow had been in the last vision, but it was not there now. I was all alone. The wolf did not want to be here with me, and I had no one else to open my thoughts to.

  I was alone and unsure of myself, of him, of our situation.

  So I looked back at his past self, and once more, time sped up, shifting the scene before us. I watched as the past version of himself covered an impossible distance on his bare feet, his heels growing bloodier and bloodier from the sand as the day wore on. But still, he would not stop, and he would not release his grip on the cargo he treated with such reverence.

  My lips parted, feeling the tide of memories swelling within me, threatening to overwhelm me. But just as before, they were as delicate as butterfly wings, and though I reached for them, I could not see ahead of what was being shown me.

  All I knew was that this was a study of my life.

  “Ye are so lovely, Vi,” the past male whispered heatedly to the still woman in his arms, “and I ken ye have no knowledge of me, but I promise ye this—none will ever hurt ye again.”

  I ran my fingers over my face, swearing I could feel the spicy wash of his breath on my cheeks, and this time, when I pulled my fingers away, the tears were there.

  Then that strange and terrible vacuum appeared once more, but I did not fight it like I had before. I sat right where I was, embracing its dark pull as I tumbled over and over and over, like a feather fluttering wildly about in a mad vortex of shrieking air.

  The wolf did not come to me, and I did not cry for him. But I watched him through new eyes.

  He’d loved her once. Could that mean that the wolf might yet love me? Was there hope of such a thing? And did I even want him to?

  The answer was an immediate “yes.” Yes, I did.

  Ewan

  * * *

  We crashed hard to the ground. I hit so hard that the air was knocked out of me. I whimpered as I felt the jagged edge of stone cut into my soft belly.

  Rain pounded down on me, drenching me. The scent of muck was all around.

  I whined, feeling desperate and panicked, because even before I looked around, I knew exactly where I was.

  I shot to all four feet and shook my head, denying that I was seeing what I was so clearly seeing.

  “No. No. Nooo,” the witch cried.

  I startled, having forgotten for just a moment that she’d been with me.

  We were back in purgatory, and the land was rumbling, crying out as the sky and the earth bene
ath my pads roiled with fury.

  Ancient, stately trees were bowing in the brutal winds tearing at it.

  “What? What is this? Oh goddess, no,” she moaned, clutching at her face with her hands.

  I hated her. Hated her so damned much.

  But when we’d been in that desert, when I’d seen the man who’d once been me holding her, all the feelings I’d had then came back to me, the overwhelming and choking sensation of drowning in her, literally drowning in her.

  She’d tried to kill me even then.

  My memories of that time were vague and blurry until I saw them. And then I remembered it all with startling clarity.

  She’d tried to kill me because I’d struck the first blow. I’d killed the green fairy. Had stood over her deceased corpse and had savaged her to near unrecognizability. I’d struck the first blow.

  But why? Why would I have done such a thing to her?

  She’d been so terrified in that time, a huddled mass of red plastered up against the wall as my companion had born down on her with deadly intent.

  I’d sprung between her and certain death, planting my body as a shield between her and my own cousin.

  The need to protect had been overwhelming, all-consuming. Like a fire, it’d raged through me. And all of it had been tied to her scent.

  My wolf had recognized her.

  I sat on my haunches, watching present time her as she wailed, hating her for every stabbing, every bit of agony and pain she’d forced me to endure night after deadly night. And yet… my wolf had recognized her.

  The beast in me stirred and whined hollowly, conflicted because it hadn’t just recognized her in that other life, that other time.

  Her scent of morning dew and fire called to me still. Beckoned to me. Made me want to act. Made me want to protect her and keep her safe.

  And yet, we were back in hell.

  We weren’t safe.

  It was like a nightmare that never ended.

  Her slight shoulders heaved violently as she sobbed, sitting miserably beneath the lashing rains, looking small and tiny and incredibly frail. She didn’t look like the killer I’d known since I’d arrived in this madness.

  A soft whine spilled off my tongue, so low it was impossible to hear over the hard, driving rain.

  But her head turned, and I felt her looking at me from the corner of her eye. She sobbed quietly to herself now, as though she tried to hide it, but I saw her shoulders heave every so often with shuddery breaths. Rain caused her blond hair to cling to her face, but even so, she was lovely, beauty incarnate. My nostrils flared. I was so damned confused by the sudden mess of emotions flooding me.

  I looked up at the sky, remembering so vividly the jagged vein of blue that had obliterated everything, sucked me and… someone else. I frowned. Why had I forgotten that someone?

  They’d been with me for days. Hadn’t they?

  But when I picked through my memory, all I saw was a hazy, dark shadow with no face or form. Had I gone mad then? Talked to myself? Imagined that there’d been someone with me? Someone who’d spoken to me with kindness and authority, who’d told me of a past life that had sounded so very wonderful?

  Had I imagined all of that?

  There was a thin streak of bluish-silver light along the horizon line, and I frowned. Had I even left this place at all?

  “Wolf, I—” The witch’s voice cut through my musings. “Am I mad?”

  Her voice was so soft, her skin so pale, her eyes so very blue. She looked small. Frail. So little.

  I closed my eyes, fighting with my nature and my own fears, and forced myself to shift. She crawled back on her hands and heels at the bright light of my shifting, looking dazed and startled by my form.

  I’d only ever appeared to her as my wolf in purgatory. I felt naked, and not just because I wore no clothes. It was the way she looked at me that made me feel so exposed and uncomfortable.

  She looked at me with awe in her shimmering blue eyes.

  “I knew that had been you.” She said it, not asked it. “The man carrying me in that other place. We were there, right? That did actually happen?”

  If I was going to speak, the time to do it was now. I had my own questions, and maybe if I asked them, she and I could piece together what had actually happened and what had only been in my thoughts.

  But I found that my tongue was locked to the roof of my very dry mouth.

  Lightning and thunder crashed all around us, but none of it touched us. The shelter of my cave was just a few yards behind me. And yet, I couldn’t seem to turn for that either.

  I’d never been this indecisive about anything in my life, and the mere fact that I knew that was both alarming and slightly reassuring. Something was definitely happening to me. And if it was happening to me, then it stood to reason that it was also happening to her.

  It was like I’d been asleep, and I was suddenly coming awake, coming out of the stupor that’d gripped me for goddess only knew how long.

  I wet my lips.

  She reached a hand out for me, her fingers so close, mere inches separating us. Close enough that I felt the phantom tingle of her touch. Again, that strange sensation of coming awake coiled through my very bones.

  I did not yet like her, but I could no longer honestly say I hated her either. She looked as confused by all of this as me.

  “Aye,” I said, voice deep and full of grit from long periods of disuse.

  She gasped, covering her mouth with those same long, delicate fingers she’d nearly touched me with. “You… you can talk?”

  I grunted, clearing out my throat. “Who are you? Why do I feel like… like I ken who ye are?”

  Her brows dipped sharply, gathering into a tight vee that caused deep furrows to cover her forehead. “I feel the same way. But you’re a ghost to me, aren’t you?”

  I shrugged. “What’s happening? Did we really travel through time? Did you see it all too?”

  I needed to see if it had only been me, or if this horrible place was starting to play tricks with my mind.

  She leaned forward on her hands and knees, looking wild and crazed with the way the red hood of hers flapped behind her and her sodden hair framed her freckled, paled face.

  “You saw it all too, right?” she asked, voice pitched high with hope and excitement. “The hut in the woods, and the trek through the desert?”

  I frowned. The memories freshest to me hadn’t been those at all. “I saw you kill the wolves. Saw your madness, your twisted, dark heart.”

  The excitement that had just been flashing through her eyes faded away, and she pulled back into herself, hugging her arms tight to her body, looking small and weak and vulnerable. Again, I damned myself every type of fool for the cruel words I’d uttered, but I could not take them back.

  With a sharp growl, I jerked to my feet and pointed to the cave. “Let’s get out of this terrible madness into shelter.”

  I didn’t look at her to see if she followed, I simply marched down the trail, feeling heartsick and so very confused.

  If that had really happened, if she and I both clearly remembered visiting other times in a dark funnel of clouds, then how in the bloody blazes did we find ourselves back here?

  As if to punctuate my dark thoughts a bolt of lightning crashed down at the puddle-soaked grass just inches from my feet. A broad stroke of lightning swept across the plain, lighting the world in shades of mystic blue.

  Her warm breath fanned along my spine, and I shivered. She was close on my heels. I hadn’t been certain she’d follow me at all. Stepping to the side, I allowed her to enter first.

  She nodded a soft thanks before stooping low and going inside.

  “It is… very pleasant here. Dry,” she said hopefully as I entered, as though trying to extend an olive branch.

  I stared at the cramped space and shrugged. “Two was a tight fit, but it keeps the rain off. Though I do wish I had hare to offer.”

  She frowned, pulling her lower lip in
to her mouth. “You had a visitor here?”

  I’d said the words carelessly, tossing them away without thought. But when she asked that, I paused. I’d begun kneeling to start my fire, a ritual I’d developed whenever I’d returned here from the void.

  As I sank slowly to my knees, I looked at her, but remembered what had been nagging at me. Though there was still nothing but shadow when I prodded at the memory, I clearly recalled that I had indeed had a visitor.

  “Perhaps I am the one losing my mind. There couldn’t be another here. There never has been,” I rumbled low, but not truly believing my words either.

  I gathered up twigs and bundles of dried moss. I never had to go searching for it, it was always here, waiting for me.

  As I worked, she watched me with her thin arms wrapped around her legs. Only once I’d created a small spark from a piece of flint did I hear her say, “I was visited too.”

  I jerked my eyes up from my task, holding my hands out before the infant flame that cast barely any heat. “What?”

  She smiled softly, looking confused and unsure herself. “What is happening in this place that we can remember so much and yet forget everything too?”

  I shook my head, not sure what to say because I felt the same way.

  Traveling through that funnel had made me feel like I’d come awake, but back in this place, I could feel the creeping hands of doubt drawing me back in, making me falter and forget, making me want to revert to the form I felt most safe in.

  And I wasn’t the only one. The witch was gripping tight to her blade, her thumb running in smooth circles over its hilt.

  I looked into her eyes, and she jerked, dropping the knife as though completely unaware that she’d even grabbed it.

  Her hands were up, her eyes full of disgust and glittering with pain. “I… I do not feel well,” she muttered. “This place is a darkness that calls to me. But, but…” Her lashes fluttered rapidly, and I could sense her sliding into the same paranoia that was even now trying to hook its own claws back into me.

  My fingernails had already grown longer, darker, thicker. The beast wanted back out. There was danger here. Madness. And it all centered on the woman who stared at me with huge, beautiful blue eyes.