Page 70 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part Two

Katarina shot me a rueful smirk. “Come now. You’ve been so brave. Don’t ruin it by trying to weasel out at the end.”

“All the more reason for a little humor.”

“Fair enough. They say life is too short not to laugh. But for me, at least, so little brings me actual joy.”

What a statement. It almost made me feel bad for the witch, but it was hard to feel anything for her when she was about to kill me in a way more painful than I could ever imagine.

I walked up to the porch, and she stepped aside so I could enter. The room was about five times bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. Real police box vibes. But instead of being full of all sorts of technology and bits and bobs, it was quite organic. Everything was made out of trees, stone, and crystal, with wide open spaces and multiple gaps in the architecture so one could see out into the massive tree. Ven would love this place. Well, she’d love it if the plants weren’t so carnivorous.

“Right this way,” she said as if she were a receptionist showing me around an office, gesturing toward an actual waterfall tumbling down from floors high above my head. As beautiful as it was, the huge space had to be lonely. Especially for one woman. But then I remembered she used to have seven sons who’d lived here with her.

We stepped onto a crystal dais in front of the waterfall. The cascade didn’t slam into the floor and make a mess though. No, even with magic, that sounded awfully messy. Instead, there was a sizeable pond surrounding it, the center turbulent but the edges calm enough for me to see fish and other aquatic creatures moving through it.

A flurry of movement caught my eye. Snapping my head in that direction, I saw a bear idly ambling in from anotherentrance. His eyes had that glassy look that spoke of an enthralled shifter, and his thick hide was covered in battle scars. I couldn’t imagine what would leave such deep and obvious marks on a shifter given our healing ability, but it reminded me that the woman beside me was not as affable as she seemed. Sure, she was polite, but much like her sons, she wasn’t above enslaving shifters.

Abruptly, railings shot up from the floor around the crystal dais, then it smoothly moved up like the magical equivalent of an elevator. Why was Katarina showing off for me? She could have killed me in her yard. There was no reason to take me on a grand tour.

“I loved my sons, you know,” she mused as we went ever higher. “I know they had their flaws, but when I think about them, I still see those chubby cheeks from when they barely came up to my hip. I remember the gaps in their teeth, I remember holding them when they had nightmares at night. I suppose they were also old, at least to your perspective, but they were my little babies.”

Perhaps she was just musing to me, but I couldn’t help but feel a wave of irritation course through my system. Was this woman really trying to play the pity card to me when she was about to execute me?

“They were also trying to kill you.”

“Not actively. It was a lofty goal of theirs, and one they would never have reached. While they would never admit it to themselves, they were all mama’s boys. My little angels.”

I scoffed openly at that. I couldn’t help it. But honestly, why even hide my derision? I was going to die anyway. What was she going to do, make it extra super painful? She’d already made it clear she was going to do that.

“I know it’s hard for you to understand because of what they did to your people. But all of it, and I mean all of it, will end now.The violence will stop. My bloodline is wiped out, and your pack will be scattered to the winds. I will spend the rest of my years alone, as I can’t go through all of that again, and even if your love finds another, there will always be an empty space for you. Everyone has earned their fate, and our fate is tragedy fueled by revenge and loss.”

The sudden drop in her walls and admission of the bleak future we were facing surprised me. Once more, it seemed almost like she had no desire to kill me. Rather, she was doing it out of obligation.

But I also knew that was total horse shit. If she really wanted the violence to stop, all she had to do was let me go. That was it. But it was clear to me that while most of her battle-lust and evil desires had faded in her elder years, Katarina was still a cruel, prideful woman at heart. She knew her sons were murderers, and yet she wanted to punish their victims for standing up to them. She wanted to act like a victim herself.

It was insulting, really.

“What do you think of the house?” she asked, all smiles as I saw floor after floor. Some of them had closed rooms, which I guessed were where her children had spent their long childhoods, but most were open concept and a strange mix of old-fashioned and over-the-top luxury. The kitchen looked like it was straight out of the Middle Ages, complete with uneven stone brick built into the tree. It seemed oddly impossible to have a full firepit for roasting in a tree, but I supposed that was slightly more understandable than actual witches and people shifting into animals.

I didn’t answer, though. I was done with this pretending to play nice. It was another form of torture, and I wasn’t going to participate in my own torment any more than I had to. I had to say, my execution was going far differently than I’d imagined it. I had planned to go into it with my head held high, no begging,hardly any tears if I could help it, but I hadn’t anticipated that I would have to deal with idle chatter or discussions on interior decorating.

“What’s the matter?” Katarina said as if she was surprised by my silence. “Cat got your tongue?”

I cocked an eyebrow.

She sighed. “Right. I suppose it was foolish of me to expect good conversation. Years on my own have somewhat ebbed my ability to read the room. Perhaps I simply never had good social skills to begin with.”

“You managed to seduce all of your son’s fathers,” I said, surprising myself. Antagonizing the witch who was going to torture me didn’t exactly seem like a good idea.

Katarina merely smiled. “I really did, didn’t I? But you’d be amazed what a pretty face and untold power will do to cover for poor social skills.”

She had a point there.

The conversation stilled as the crystal dais finally stopped and the railings dropped back into the floor. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to be impressed with how smoothly the circle slid into the wood, leaving not even a crack to see down below, but then the witch ushered me forward.

“Stand here,” she said, pointing to a spot on the floor.

Although it grated at my nerves, I did as she said. I was not an alpha she could order around, but I was an alpha who was choosing to do what he had to for his people.

Katarina walked away from me without even a glance behind her, settling in a throne more than a dozen paces in front of me. Behind her, I saw the only window I’d spotted in the place—a giant, stained-glass mural of an angel descending from the clouds, laying a serpent on a baby’s crib that was surrounded by roses.

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