Page 90 of From Frost to Flame

Maybe I am a curse after all.

A warm veil washed over him, calming his racing heart.Lex?

“You’re not a curse. And don’t tell me to let go because I’m going to ignore you.”

He smiled a little to himself. With Lex holding his hand from a distance, he pressed forward. The wind howled like an ominous warning, and whipped sharp rain across his cheeks as he sliced through Fae in his path.

His mother was the key to ending all of this. To Lex healing. To releasing the fae. To living his life without fearing she would take those he loved. Every time a corpse fell at his feet, he reminded himself it was to get to her, so it was worth the sacrifice.

Orion’s silver gates rose high into the sky and glinted under the flickers of lightning. He kicked them open and stared down the white path toward the thick magnolia forest outside of them that shook wildly as the storm churned.

The night Silas arrived in Orion, the magnolias sprung up outside the gates. All the elders said it was a good omen, but Silas knew the truth. They were a cruel gift from his mother. They were his favorite, and she wanted to please him, but she also wanted to remind him she could reach him no matter how far he ran.

He kicked open the gates and their bittersweet scent wrapped around him. Ink dripped from the branches and shadows of the leaves.

“I know you’re here,” he called up to the angry sky. “Come down and face me.”

Lex’s warm mental touch was ripped away from him and replaced with his mother’s frigid claws. He winced at the piercing pain, but he kept his head up, refusing to back down. “Let’s end this.”

Thunder boomed. There was a flash of lightning that left him blinded for a moment. His mother appeared, looking down at him with disgust. Her black dress undulated, moving with the fluidity of the sea. Ink dripped from its hemline and rain washed it down the path in veiny rivers.

“I am tired of your games,” she hissed. The gate to the city swung shut with a loud clang. Black roots sprung from the earth and tangled between the bars, sealing the two of them outside the kingdom. “Enough is enough.”

“Leave my people out of it,” he demanded as he held her gaze. “This is about us. You’re mad at me. Not them. Call off the fae and let the living go home.”

“My sweet little Silas. Always so noble. A flaw I should have accounted for when adding wolf blood to the mix.” Her tentacles descended on him like an angry octopus. In a flash, she took his sword and sent it flying out of reach.

He shifted into his wolf form and bit down on one of her inky, bitter limbs. The sharp scream she let out made guilt well in his throat. He attacked with ferocity, but it was futile. Her tentacles whisked and curled so fast he could hardly defend against them, let alone counter.

There was a loud bang and rattle as his pack rammed their collective strength against the sealed gate.

Castor’s voice rang out over the chaos. “Just hang on! We’re coming!”

“Aren’t you beloved?” his mother taunted as she sent her tentacles slicing through the air straight for his brother. “Perhaps Castor has taught you enough. He has served his purpose.”

“No! Get away!” he barked, racing for the gate.

The sound of his parents’ bones cracking as they hit the earth haunted him. He couldn’t watch Castor suffer the same fate. He wouldn’t.

She snatched him backward and his toga was ripped away, leaving his chest bare. Her damp tentacles wrapped around him like a boa constrictor as she hoisted him up to her face. He shifted into his human form and clawed at her grip, but electricity zapped through him. All his muscles clenched involuntarily, and he screamed through gritted teeth until she let up and his body fell slack.

“I said enough.” Wind and rain fell harder, matching her rage. “You see what trying to be one of them has done to you? Your loyalty to them, taking their form, spending your nights with that scavenger, it all makes you weak. Stop running from what you are.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I am.”

“Oh, but I do. I made you, after all.” Her lips curled into a smug smile. “What is a child but a part of their mother’s soul?”

The world went painfully still.

“What did you say?”

She sneered, amused, and let a curled tentacle tap his chest where the scar was. “Buried in your chest, right behind your heart, is a part of my soul. How do you think I always found you, my little wolf?”

The world spun.

“That’s not...I’m not...” His tongue was lead in his mouth.

Little signs surged to the surface.

---