Page 67 of Hunted By Wolves and Shadow
I missed Emi with everything I was. The only pull I felt anymore was toward her, but she was gone.
Letting Emi and the others go was right, but I couldn’t quite tear myself away from the enclave. It was like I was waiting for some indefinable sign to tell me where to go next, or maybe that was just the broken heart talking.
Before leaving, Robin had looked at my carefully expressionless face and begged me to come with them. She had grabbed me by both arms and made me look her in the eye.“You don’t have to protect anyone anymore, Wolf. You were our rock for so long, but you can relax now. You did it.”
“You make it sound like some noble or selfless sacrifice, but I was just scared. The whole time, I was just scared of losing more and this was the only way I could hang on.”
She had given me a long-suffering look.“The reasons don’t matter, halfwit. Of course you were scared. We all were. You still held us all together, and now you’ve set us all free. Being scared is a good thing. It means what you’re scared about matters. You’re only scared when something is important enough to you that you fear losing it.”
“Thanks, oh wise one. Maybe you should have been an owl.”
“Funny. But maybe you should think about why you sent Emi away. Were you just scared to lose her, too? Because you know what that means.”
I knew.
All too well, I knew, but I also knew it had been the right thing for her. She had a life, and I had nothing to my name. Actually, I didn’t even have my name, just the one the curse had given me. I needed to figure out how to pick up the pieces of me left scattered around this forest and decide where to go from here.
The dipping sunshine didn’t reach me in the enclave. I stuck to the shadows near the back wall waiting for dark. An abandoned blanket reminded me I should pack some things to take with me wherever I went. I was falling into the familiar spiral of where to go, what to do next, when a thump echoed across the enclave.
Acrash…followed by heartfelt cursing.
I was hearing things. I had to be. Because that voice was impossible.
Dropping the blanket, I stepped out from behind Raven’s privacy wall and blinked in the falling dusk. I was seeing things too. She had no reason to be here.
Tall and feisty, the figure punched her scarlet cloak back from her hip and kicked at the pot on the ground that had so offended her. She cursed again and hopped on one foot when the pot ricocheted off the stone fire pit and hit her toe again.
“Stupid, clouded pot.”
My heart tripped. She wouldn’t come back for me, would she?
No, you halfwit, she probably forgot something. Or you’ve gone completely clouded and this is a hallucination.That was probably it. The curse had claimed too much of my sanity.
“Witchling?” I called out anyway. If this was a dream, I didn’t mind losing myself to it.
Vision-Emi snapped upright.
“Wolf!” She flew into motion.
Red mane flying behind her, my vision dashed across the space, hurdling obstacles as she came. She looked solid. She looked warm and wild and achingly real.
She tripped over a lonely shoe, caught herself, and kept coming. Would a vision stumble or be so imperfectly perfect? My knees nearly buckled.
“Wolf,” she called again.
My heart threw itself against my ribs. It was too real, too familiar. Robin had only been halfway right. Scared didn’t begin to cover it.
Then my arms were full of her, and her sun-warmed hair was fragrant against my face, filling my nose with sweet honey and vanilla, her body warm and so,soalive against mine. She was really here. Our hearts thundered together. I couldn't hold her close enough.
“You came back,” I finally managed. I didn’t dare to hope. My brain was too overwhelmed. I didn’t care what she forgot, onlythat she was here. I would live in this heartbeat and cherish it until the next one brought it crashing down.
“Of course I came back.” Her breath was a ghost at my throat. “Shimmering sunbeams, I can’t breathe. I thought you were gone. I thought I’d missed you.”
If I could have nothing more than this, no matter how impossible, I’d be the luckiest man in the world. In all the worlds of this cursed globe.
I loved her. I was so in love with this woman, this witch, I never wanted to let her go.
My eyes closed to hold in the beautiful dream, like I could memorize these heartbeats to sustain me through long, lonely days ahead if she only wanted to say goodbye one more time. I had no idea how I was supposed to open my arms and let her fly away again if that’s what she wanted.
