Page 93 of Wild Thorns

I didn't know. I didn't know anything anymore. I checked the locks twice before climbing in the shower.

Chapter twenty-five

The Darkness is Waking

Icould call Tara, but I could only imagine how that would go.

“Uh,huh, right. Are you trippin’ right now? Maybe you should get some sleep and call me back later”

I settled for slipping her charm under my pillow. I sat up for hours lost in my thoughts. I have no idea how late it was when sleep finally claimed me, but even in my sleep there was to be no rest.

The preserve called to me, as it had so many times before. I walked to the edge of the property, where the cultivated lawn gave way to wild forest, and I stood there in the moonlight, breathing in the scent of magnolia, pine and something wilder.

Three shapes emerged from the trees.

Wolves. Massive wolves, larger than any natural wolf, with intelligent eyes that caught the moonlight. One was dark gray, almost black, all muscle and presence; a presence that demanded attention and oozed power. One was warm brown, with a playful tilt to its head, and one was silver-gray, sleek and watchful..

They approached slowly, giving me time to adjust. When they reached me, they sat in a semicircle, waiting.

I reached out and touched the dark wolf, feeling the coarse fur beneath my fingers. He leaned into my touch, a rumble of contentment vibrating through his chest.

"This is real," I said softly. "All of this."

The wolves didn't answer. They didn't need to.

I sat down in the grass, and they arranged themselves around me morphing from wolf into men; Callum at my back wrapping his legs and arms around me, Jasper pressed against my side, Eli's head in my lap. Something hummed in my chest, warm and steady, connecting me to all three of them.

I'd spent years running. Years hiding. Years trying to be invisible.

But here, in this strange place with these impossible men, wolves? I was finally found.

And for the first time, that felt like freedom.

Shadow ran along my arm and wrapped itself around my hand. Then, like a vat of overturned ink, it poured off me, drowning Eli first, and then Jasper. The waves of ink rose higher, and I screamed.

Callum tried to hold me, but the darkness swallowed him too, pulling him under before his fingers could find mine. I thrashed against the tide, choking on something that tasted like blood and rot, and the last thing I saw was his golden eyes going dark.

I was drowning. I was drowning in myself.

Then the world lurched sideways.

Not like waking. Like being tugged through water by an invisible hand, yanked from one current into another. The darkness spat me out, and suddenly my feet were on solid ground, my lungs burning with air that smelled different. Strong. Like a cross between a café and a candle shop. Coffee, chicory, something green and herbal, familiar in a way that made no sense.

I was standing in a kitchen.

Old cypress floorboards creaked beneath my bare feet. The walls were painted a faded blue, the color of robin's eggs left too long in the sun, and morning light slanted through windows hung with faded lace curtains. Through the wavy glass, I could see Spanish moss draping from ancient oaks, the gnarled knees of cypress trees jutting up from dark water beyond the yard. Somewhere, a wind chime made of hollow woods sang a low, haunting tune.

I knew this place.

The certainty hit me like vertigo, a bone-deep recognition that had no source I could name. I had never been here. I had never seen these walls, this light, these windows looking out onto bayou water. And yet I had been here… something in me, some old memory, settled at the sight of it.

Home, something whispered.

Which was insane. I'd never been to a place like this in my life.

A heavy wooden table dominated the center of the room, scarred and scored by decades of use. Scattered across its surface were bundles of dried herbs tied with red thread, coils of rough twine, small pouches of something that smelled sharp and green. Wooden beads in colors I couldn't quite name caught the light. And bones. Actual bones, small ones, bird or rodent, maybe, arranged in patterns that tugged at the edge of my comprehension.

An elderly woman stood behind the table, her dark hands moving through the materials with practiced ease. Her skin was deep brown, lined with age but somehow ageless, and she wore a brightly colored wrap wound around her head. Blues, various shades of gold, and black, like a sunset on the bayou. Her eyes, when she lifted them to look at me, were dark, sharp, and utterly unsurprised.