Page 47 of Cursed Wolfsbane

I’m sorry, Dido.

“It is what it is, child. Perhaps you should focus on controlling your magic now?”

I snort.Yeah, probably. Thanks for all your help with everything.

She gives me a small nod in my mind before fading away. My heart hurts at the soul-deep pain coloring Dido’s words. I can’t imagine losing any of my mates, much less all of them, and continuing to exist for thousands of years more. Reincarnation sounds cool, but it seems like it’d be more of a curse than anything if I had to do it alone.

With my eyes still shut, I try to shake off my sadness for Dido and focus on wrangling my magic. My wolf feels like she lives behind my breastbone, so that’s where I look for my magic. In my mind’s eye, I wade through my body until I see a wolfcurling protectively around an ice-blue flame the same shade as my eyes. The wolf with matching icy eyes peeks one open as I approach her. When she sees it’s just me, she goes back to sleep.

Walking closer to the flame, I hesitantly hold my hand out to it, expecting to feel heat. Instead, I feel soothing cold emanating from it. Instead of being off-putting, the cold makes me want to curl up under a blanket and stay here forever. Staring at the flame, I feel a weird sense of peace that’s a bit too easy to get lost in.

Shaking myself from the trance I’m starting to fall into staring at what I hope is my magic, I feel momentary relief that I think I found it. Then I realize I have zero clue what to do. Do I ask my magic politely to stop turning my house into a ski resort? Threaten it? Offer it cookies?

Sighing deeply at the messes I always seem to find myself in, I look over at my wolf.You got any ideas?

My wolf lazily blinks at me before covering her face with her fluffy black tail. I’m going to take that as a no, then. Saint said to visualize pulling the magic back into myself. I picture tendrils of magic flowing back into the flame, but nothing happens. The flame doesn’t so much as flicker from my visualization.

Well, that didn’t work.

Awesome. Just what I wanted. Weird magic that doesn’t listen to anything I tell it to do.

Growling in frustration, I slam both of my hands on top of the flame. Instead of just going through it like I thought, my hands smother the flame. It winks out of existence as my hands hit the ground in my mind.

Oh shit.

I don’t think that’s supposed to happen.

Did I just get rid of my magic permanently?

It’d be just my luck to be the first wolf-mage hybrid in thousands of years and accidentally make myself just a wolf.

As I’m having an internal freakout, my wolf chuffs at me in amusement. I narrow my eyes on her, wondering what she finds so funny. She blows out a breath, and a tiny flame lights in front of her. After a few more exhales, the flame is the same size it was when I first saw it. My wolf stops what she was doing and promptly falls back asleep.

I’m kind of jealous how easily she falls asleep, which is weird because she’s me. Or am I her?

But that’s not really the most pressing issue right now. Mentally preparing myself for what I’ll find, I hesitantly open my eyes. When I don’t see any snow actively falling, I have to resist the urge to fist pump.

Locking eyes with Saint, I grin. “I did it!”

“You did, little shadow. You did an excellent job. Now you know how to pull your magic back in the future.”

I grimace slightly. While my magic isn’t going on a winter wonderland rampage anymore, I have no clue how to pull back anything. “Not exactly.” When Saint raises his eyebrows at me in a silent question, I sigh. “I kinda sorta almost killed my magic.” I give him a small shrug as he stares at me with utter confusion.

Same here, dude. Same fucking here.

I have, oh, about zero idea what I’m doing. The more I learn, the more questions I have. A scared, lost, out-of-her-depth part of me aches for my parents. I want someone to know what I’m supposed to do. I want someone to have answers. I want someone to be responsible for everything instead of me.

But no one else can do it. I just have to suck it up and do what needs to be done. That’s what I’ve been doing for years, so I can do it for a little longer. Maybe one day I’ll get to a point in my life where I can just live instead of struggling to put one foot in front of the other. To do that, I need to figure out the prophecy.

Saint tries to fight his grin, but a small smile tilts up the corners of his mouth. “I’m gonna need you to explain that one.”

“I honestly don’t really know what happened. When I found my magic and my wolf, the magic wouldn’t listen to me. So, I accidentally smothered the magic flame in frustration. My wolf brought it back to life, though.” I shrug and put my hands up in a what-can-you-do gesture.

Saint blinks at me in confusion a few times. “Huh. Well, I haven’t heard that one before.” Of course he hasn’t. My magic just has to be unique—and not in a good way. “Why don’t we go outside and practice a bit? Maybe that’ll help.”

Glancing around the room, I take in the tens of books lying carelessly on the ground and the few small piles of snow. The books must’ve dropped when my magic pulled back abruptly. “We should probably get this cleaned up first.”

“Before we do, what was in the letter?” Malachi asks, his warm hand still gripping mine. His mouth is turned down in a slight frown as he stares at me with concern.

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