Page 46 of My Hexed Honeymoon

Diego’s doing his job of distracting me from the level of magic I’m about to use; it’s my turn to stop hiding from what I am and give it a spin.

I widen my stance, planting my feet firmly on the lush carpet of vegetation.

My breaths slow, then deepen.

The wind rustling the leaves in the trees quiets; the birdsong overhead fades.

It’s as if every living thing senses I’m about to open a portal to somewhere nobody would want to go.

It’s also time to stop stalling, so I go ahead and give the threads a tug.

As they part, I stop being gentle and yank.

Like a sweater undone with the tug of the right strands of yarn, the air parts and peels away, revealing a soulless void I greet not with hesitation—but with the attitude oflet’s go ahead and play.

The Hollow beckons me in like it’s been waiting for me, and I let myself fall into it.

All the sights and sounds of the physical world get distorted as I’m sucked sideways through the veil.

The forest blurs, my ribs stretch apart like something inside me is expanding…

Then I’m standing on the dismal gray ground of the Hollow, slightly floaty from the shift in gravity.

Rather than fade away, the gold and iridescent threads I’ve used to open the rift weave a path beneath my feet, guiding my steps. They’re the only thing in the universe I’ve ever trusted, so I put my full trust in them now.

My steps are bouncy, like I’m on the moon. For a second I wonder wouldn’t that be weird if this realm was really just the moon the whole time?

I swear the darkness answers me back, angered at being compared to a hunk of rock in the sky. I’d apologize, but I have no idea who to address.

At my back I feel a tug, the tether Diego’s providing, the mate bond pulsing strong.

It makes it easier to keep walking in this place where time doesn’t move—it bleeds. My thoughts feel far away; my emotions thin out until they’re intangible threads in danger of fraying away completely.

Everything I felt so strongly this morning—affection, warmth, connection—drains like color from a washed-out memory.

Through the thick yet gravity-less air, I try to hold on. To Diego’s kiss, the strength in the arms that held me all night, the way he made me feel worshipped and wanted in ways nobody has ever done before.

I grit my teeth and push forward, wanting to find the Blood Loom and get out of here, never to return. The only positive in a sea of soul-sucking agony is the abundance of magic up here on the summit that sharpens my senses and allows me to feel every living thing.

Nothing inside the Hollow’s alive in the same way it is on our side, though.

Every root feels sick, as if the gnarled trees are only for show, not capable of growth.

I’m not sure why I squint, but it seems to work anyway. There in the distance, I feel the powerful thrum of a different lifeforce—a magical one, ancient and primordial.

Sentient and discerning and…almost human?

I glide toward the vital spark, navigating the tangled web of gray, sticky threads and hellish rock and gravel terrain. My body is weightless, but my soul is being pulled, drawn toward that flicker of life, while the tether at my back feels weaker and farther away.

It doesn’t make sense that a weapon or even a magical tool would have that kind of signature, but I know in my bones I’m going the right way.

Through a tangled thicket of bushes without leaves or berries but plenty of thorns to snag on my clothes and rip at my skin, I stumble into a clearing.

The air is denser, colder. Utterly devoid of joy or life or anything. It’s so close to the meadows back in pack territory—for instance, the one where they throw axes.

In fact, it’s eerily similar in a way that makes me question what I’m seeing and feeling; if there truly is anything that could live in this place.

A laugh echoes around me, and I spin in a circle. Figures take cloudy shape, faces obscured, and then I’m reliving one of my nightmares as the werewolves I was just beginning to know all go from laughing to gasping and backing away.

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